CHAPTER XI
Wherein the Butterflies Go on a Spree and Freckles Informs the Bird
Woman
"I wish," said Freckles at breakfast one morning, "that
I had some way to be sending a message to the Bird Woman. I've something
at the swamp that I'm believing never happened before, and surely
she'll be wanting it."
"What now, Freckles?" asked Mrs. Duncan.
"Why, the oddest thing you ever heard of," said Freckles;
"the whole insect tribe gone on a spree. I'm supposing it's
my doings, but it all happened by accident, like. You see, on the
swale side of the line, right against me trail, there's one of these
scrub wild crabtrees. Where the grass grows thick around it, is
the finest place you ever conceived of for snakes. Having women
about has set me trying to clean out those fellows a bit, and yesterday
I noticed that tree in passing. It struck me that it would be a
good idea to be taking it out. First I thought I'd take me hatchet
and cut it down, for it ain't thicker than me upper arm. Then I
remembered how it was blooming in the spring and filling all the
air with sweetness. The coloring of the blossoms is beautiful, and
I hated to be killing it. I just cut the grass short all around
it. Then I started at the ground, trimmed up the trunk near the
height of me shoulder, and left the top spreading. That made it
look so truly ornamental that, idle like, I chips off the rough
places neat, and this morning, on me soul, it's a sight! You see,
cutting off the limbs and trimming up the trunk sets the sap running.
In this hot sun it ferments in a few hours. There isn't much room
for more things to crowd on that tree than there are, and to get
drunker isn't noways possible."
"Weel, I be drawed on!" exclaimed Mrs. Duncan. "What
kind of things do ye mean, Freckles?"
"Why, just an army of black ants. Some of them are sucking
away like old topers. Some of them are setting up on their tails
and hind legs, fiddling with their fore-feet and wiping their eyes.
Some are rolling around on the ground, contented. There are quantities
of big blue-bottle flies over the bark and hanging on the grasses
around, too drunk to steer a course flying; so they just buzz away
like flying, and all the time sitting still. The snake-feeders are
too full to feed anything--even more sap to themselves. There's
a lot of hard-backed bugs--beetles, I guess--colored like the brown,
blue, and black of a peacock's tail. They hang on until the legs
of them are so wake they can't stick a minute longer, and then they
break away and fall to the ground. They just lay there on their
backs, fably clawing air. When it wears off a bit, up they get,
and go crawling back for more, and they so full they bump into each
other and roll over. Sometimes they can't climb the tree until they
wait to sober up a little. There's a lot of big black-and-gold bumblebees,
done for entire, stumbling over the bark and rolling on the ground.
They just lay there on their backs, rocking from side to side, singing
to themselves like fat, happy babies. The wild bees keep up a steady
buzzing with the beating of their wings.
"The butterflies are the worst old topers of them all. They're
just a circus! You never saw the like of the beauties! They come
every color you could be naming, and every shape you could be thinking
up. They drink and drink until, if I'm driving them away, they stagger
as they fly and turn somersaults in the air. If I lave them alone,
they cling to the grasses, shivering happy like; and I'm blest,
Mother Duncan, if the best of them could be unlocking the front
door with a lead pencil, even."
"I never heard of anything sae surprising," said Mrs.
Duncan.
"It's a rare sight to watch them, and no one ever made a picture
of a thing like that before, I'm for thinking," said Freckles
earnestly.
"Na," said Mrs. Duncan. "Ye can be pretty sure there
didna. The Bird Woman must have word in some way, if ye walk the
line and I walk to town and tell her. If ye think ye can wait until
after supper, I am most sure ye can gang yoursel', for Duncan is
coming home and he'd be glad to watch for ye. If he does na come,
and na ane passes that I can send word with today, I really will
gang early in the morning and tell her mysel'."
Freckles took his lunch and went to the swamp. He walked and watched
eagerly. He could find no trace of anything, yet he felt a tense
nervousness, as if trouble might be brooding. He examined every
section of the wire, and kept watchful eyes on the grasses of the
swale, in an effort to discover if anyone had passed through them;
but he could discover no trace of anything to justify his fears.
He tilted his hat brim to shade his face and looked for his chickens.
They were hanging almost beyond sight in the sky.
"Gee!" he said. "If I only had your sharp eyes and
convenient location now, I wouldn't need be troubling so."
He reached his room and cautiously scanned the entrance before he
stepped in. Then he pushed the bushes apart with his right arm and
entered, his left hand on the butt of his favorite revolver. Instantly
he knew that someone had been there. He stepped to the center of
the room, closely scanning each wall and the floor. He could find
no trace of a clue to confirm his belief, yet so intimate was he
with the spirit of the place that he knew.
How he knew he could not have told, yet he did know that someone
had entered his room, sat on his benches, and walked over his floor.
He was surest around the case. Nothing was disturbed, yet it seemed
to Freckles that he could see where prying fingers had tried the
lock. He stepped behind the case, carefully examining the ground
all around it, and close beside the tree to which it was nailed
he found a deep, fresh footprint in the spongy soil--a long, narrow
print, that was never made by the foot of Wessner. His heart tugged
in his breast as he mentally measured the print, but he did not
linger, for now the feeling arose that he was being watched. It
seemed to him that he could feel the eyes of some intruder at his
back. He knew he was examining things too closely: if anyone were
watching, he did not want him to know that he felt it.
He took the most open way, and carried water for his flowers and
moss as usual; but he put himself into no position in which he was
fully exposed, and his hand was close his revolver constantly. Growing
restive at last under the strain, he plunged boldly into the swamp
and searched minutely all around his room, but he could not discover
the least thing to give him further cause for alarm. He unlocked
his case, took out his wheel, and for the remainder of the day he
rode and watched as he never had before. Several times he locked
the wheel and crossed the swamp on foot, zigzagging to cover all
the space possible. Every rod he traveled he used the caution that
sprang from knowledge of danger and the direction from which it
probably would come. Several times he thought of sending for McLean,
but for his life he could not make up his mind to do it with nothing
more tangible than one footprint to justify him.
He waited until he was sure Duncan would be at home, if he were
coming for the night, before he went to supper. The first thing
he saw as he crossed the swale was the big bays in the yard.
There had been no one passing that day, and Duncan readily agreed
to watch until Freckles rode to town. He told Duncan of the footprint,
and urged him to guard closely. Duncan said he might rest easy,
and filling his pipe and taking a good revolver, the big man went
to the Limberlost.
Freckles made himself clean and neat, and raced to town, but it
was night and the stars were shining before he reached the home
of the Bird Woman. From afar he could see that the house was ablaze
with lights. The lawn and veranda were strung with fancy lanterns
and alive with people. He thought his errand important, so to turn
back never occurred to Freckles. This was all the time or opportunity
he would have. He must see the Bird Woman, and see her at once.
He leaned his wheel inside the fence and walked up the broad front
entrance. As he neared the steps, he saw that the place was swarming
with young people, and the Angel, with an excuse to a group that
surrounded her, came hurrying to him.
"Oh Freckles!" she cried delightedly. "So you could
come? We were so afraid you could not! I'm as glad as I can be!"
"I don't understand," said Freckles. "Were you expecting
me?"
"Why of course!" exclaimed the Angel. "Haven't you
come to my party? Didn't you get my invitation? I sent you one."
"By mail?" asked Freckles.
"Yes," said the Angel. "I had to help with the preparations,
and I couldn't find time to drive out; but I wrote you a letter,
and told you that the Bird Woman was giving a party for me, and
we wanted you to come, surely. I told them at the office to put
it with Mr. Duncan's mail."
"Then that's likely where it is at present," said Freckles.
"Duncan comes to town only once a week, and at times not that.
He's home tonight for the first in a week. He's watching an hour
for me until I come to the Bird Woman with a bit of work I thought
she'd be caring to hear about bad. Is she where I can see her?"
The Angel's face clouded.
"What a disappointment!" she cried. "I did so want
all my friends to know you. Can't you stay anyway?"
Freckles glanced from his wading-boots to the patent leathers of
some of the Angel's friends, and smiled whimsically, but there was
no danger of his ever misjudging her again.
"You know I cannot, Angel," he said.
"I am afraid I do," she said ruefully. "It's too
bad! But there is a thing I want for you more than to come to my
party, and that is to hang on and win with your work. I think of
you every day, and I just pray that those thieves are not getting
ahead of you. Oh, Freckles, do watch closely!"
She was so lovely a picture as she stood before him, ardent in his
cause, that Freckles could not take his eyes from her to notice
what her friends were thinking. If she did not mind, why should
he? Anyway, if they really were the Angel's friends, probably they
were better accustomed to her ways than he.
Her face and bared neck and arms were like the wild rose bloom.
Her soft frock of white tulle lifted and stirred around her with
the gentle evening air. The beautiful golden hair, that crept around
her temples and ears as if it loved to cling there, was caught back
and bound with broad blue satin ribbon. There was a sash of blue
at her waist, and knots of it catching up her draperies.
"Must I go after the Bird Woman?" she pleaded.
"Indade, you must," answered Freckles firmly.
The Angel went away, but returned to say that the Bird Woman was
telling a story to those inside and she could not come for a short
time.
"You won't come in?" she pleaded.
"I must not," said Freckles. "I am not dressed to
be among your friends, and I might be forgetting meself and stay
too long."
"Then," said the Angel, "we mustn't go through the
house, because it would disturb the story; but I want you to come
the outside way to the conservatory and have some of my birthday
lunch and some cake to take to Mrs. Duncan and the babies. Won't
that be fun?"
Freckles thought that it would be more than fun, and followed delightedly.
The Angel gave him a big glass, brimming with some icy, sparkling
liquid that struck his palate as it never had been touched before,
because a combination of frosty fruit juices had not been a frequent
beverage with him. The night was warm, and the Angel most beautiful
and kind. A triple delirium of spirit, mind, and body seized upon
him and developed a boldness all unnatural. He slightly parted the
heavy curtains that separated the conservatory from the company
and looked between. He almost stopped breathing. He had read of
things like that, but he never had seen them.
The open space seemed to stretch through half a dozen rooms, all
ablaze with lights, perfumed with flowers, and filled with elegantly
dressed people. There were glimpses of polished floors, sparkling
glass, and fine furnishings. From somewhere, the voice of his beloved
Bird Woman arose and fell.
The Angel crowded beside him and was watching also.
"Doesn't it look pretty?" she whispered.
"Do you suppose Heaven is any finer than that?" asked
Freckles.
The Angel began to laugh.
"Do you want to be laughing harder than that?" queried
Freckles.
"A laugh is always good," said the Angel. "A little
more avoirdupois won't hurt me. Go ahead."
"Well then," said Freckles, "it's only that I feel
all over as if I belonged there. I could wear fine clothes, and
move over those floors, and hold me own against the best of them."
"But where does my laugh come in?" demanded the Angel,
as if she had been defrauded.
"And you ask me where the laugh comes in, looking me in the
face after that," marveled Freckles.
"I wouldn't be so foolish as to laugh at such a manifest truth
as that," said the Angel. "Anyone who knows you even half
as well as I do, knows that you are never guilty of a discourtesy,
and you move with twice the grace of any man here. Why shouldn't
you feel as if you belonged where people are graceful and courteous?"
"On me soul!" said Freckles, "you are kind to be
thinking it. You are doubly kind to be saying it."
The curtains parted and a woman came toward them. Her silks and
laces trailed across the polished floors. The lights gleamed on
her neck and arms, and flashed from rare jewels. She was smiling
brightly; and until she spoke, Freckles had not realized fully that
it was his loved Bird Woman.
Noticing his bewilderment, she cried: "Why, Freckles! Don't
you know me in my war clothes?"
"I do in the uniform in which you fight the Limberlost,"
said Freckles.
The Bird Woman laughed. Then he told her why he had come, but she
scarcely could believe him. She could not say exactly when she would
go, but she would make it as soon as possible, for she was most
anxious for the study.
While they talked, the Angel was busy packing a box of sandwiches,
cake, fruit, and flowers. She gave him a last frosty glass, thanked
him repeatedly for bringing news of new material; then Freckles
went into the night. He rode toward the Limberlost with his eyes
on the stars. Presently he removed his hat, hung it to his belt,
and ruffled his hair to the sweep of the night wind. He filled the
air all the way with snatches of oratorios, gospel hymns, and dialect
and coon songs, in a startlingly varied programme. The one thing
Freckles knew that he could do was to sing. The Duncans heard him
coming a mile up the corduroy and could not believe their senses.
Freckles unfastened the box from his belt, and gave Mrs. Duncan
and the children all the eatables it contained, except one big piece
of cake that he carried to the sweet-loving Duncan. He put the flowers
back in the box and set it among his books. He did not say anything,
but they understood it was not to be touched.
"Thae's Freckles' flow'rs," said a tiny Scotsman, "but,"
he added cheerfully, "it's oor sweeties!"
Freckles' face slowly flushed as he took Duncan's cake and started
toward the swamp. While Duncan ate, Freckles told him something
about the evening, as well as he could find words to express himself,
and the big man was so amazed he kept forgetting the treat in his
hands.
Then Freckles mounted his wheel and began a spin that terminated
only when the biggest Plymouth Rock in Duncan's coop saluted a new
day, and long lines of light reddened the east. As he rode he sang,
while he sang he worshiped, but the god he tried to glorify was
a dim and faraway mystery. The Angel was warm flesh and blood.
Every time he passed the little bark-covered imprint on the trail
he dismounted, removed his hat, solemnly knelt and laid his lips
on the impression. Because he kept no account himself, only the
laughing-faced old man of the moon knew how often it happened; and
as from the beginning, to the follies of earth that gentleman has
ever been kind.
With the near approach of dawn Freckles tuned his last note. Wearied
almost to falling, he turned from the trail into the path leading
to the cabin for a few hours' rest.