CHAPTER
X
Laddie Takes the Plunge
"This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do."
Watch me take the plunge!" said Laddie.
"`Mad frenzy fires him now,'" quoted Leon.
It was Sunday after dinner. We had been to church and Sunday- school
in the forenoon, and we had a houseful of company for dinner. All
of them remained to spend the afternoon, because in our home it
was perfectly lovely. We had a big dinner with everything good to
start on, and then we talked and visited and told all the news.
The women exchanged new recipes for cooking, advised each other
about how to get more work done with less worry, to doctor their
sick folks, and to make their dresses. At last, when every thing
was talked over, and there began to be a quiet time, father would
reach across the table, pick up a paper and read all the interesting
things that had happened in the country during the past week; the
jokes too, and they made people think of funny stories to tell,
and we just laughed. In the Agriculturist there were new ways to
farm easier, to make land bear more crops; so he divided that with
the neighbours, also how to make gardens, and prune trees. Before
he finished, he always managed to work in a lot about being honest,
kind, and loving God.
He and mother felt so good over Leon, and by this time they were
beginning to see that they were mighty glad about the money too.
It wouldn't have been so easy to work, and earn, and pay back all
that for our school, roads, and the church; and every day you could
see plainer how happy they felt that they didn't have to do it.
Because they were so glad about these things, they invited every
one they met that day; but we knew Saturday mother felt that probably
she would ask a crowd, from the chickens, pie, and cake she got
ready. When the reading part was over, and the women were beginning
to look at the clock, and you knew they felt they should go home,
and didn't want to, Laddie arose and said that, and Leon piped up
like he always does and made every one laugh. Of course they looked
at Laddie, and no one knew what he meant, so all the women and a
few of the men asked him.
"Watch me, I said," laughed Laddie as he left the room.
Soon Mrs. Dover, sitting beside the front window, cried: "Here
he is at the gate!"
He was on his horse, but he hitched it and went around the house
and up the back way. Before long the stair door of the sitting-
room opened, and there he stood. We stared at him. Of course he
was bathed, and in clean clothing to start with, but he had washed
and brushed some more, until he shone. His cheeks were as smooth
and as clear pink as any girl's, his eyes blue-gray and big, with
long lashes and heavy brows. His hair was bright brown and wavy,
and he was so big and broad. He never had been sick a day in his
life, and he didn't look as if he ever would be.
And clothes DO make a difference. He would have had exactly the
same hair, face, and body, wearing a hickory shirt and denim trousers;
but he wouldn't have looked as he did in the clothes he wore at
college, when it was Sunday there, or he was invited to a party
at the President's. I don't see how any man could possibly be handsomer
or look finer. His shirt, collar, and cuffs were snow-white, like
everything had to be before mother got through with it; his big
loose tie almost reached his shoulders; and our men could do a thing
no other man in the neighbourhood did: they could appear easier
in the finest suit they could put on than in their working clothes.
Mother used to say one thing she dreaded about Sunday was the evident
tortures of the poor men squirming in boots she knew pinched them,
coats too tight, and collars too high. She said they acted like
half-broken colts fretting over restriction. Always she said to
father and the boys when they went to buy their new clothes: "Now,
DON'T join the harness fighters! Get your clothing big enough to
set your bodies with comfort and ease."
I suppose those other men would have looked like ours if their mothers
had told them. You can always see that a man needs a woman to help
him out awful bad.
Of course Laddie knew he was handsome; he had to know all of them
were looking at him curiously, but he stood there buttoning his
glove and laughing to himself until Sarah Hood asked: "Now
what are you up to?"
He took a step toward her, ran one hand under her lanternjawed chin,
pulled her head against his side and turned up her face.
"Sarah," he said, "'member the day we spoiled the
washing?"
Every one laughed. They had made jokes about it until our friends
knew what they meant.
"What are you going to spoil now?" asked Sarah.
"The Egyptians! The `furriners.' I'm going right after them!"
"Well, you could be in better business," said Sarah Hood
sharply.
Laddie laughed and squeezed her chin, and hugged her head against
him.
"Listen to that, now!" he cried. "My best friend
going back on me. Sarah, I thought you, of all people, would wish
me luck."
"I do !" she said instantly. "And that's the very
reason I don't want you mixed up with that mysterious, offish, stuck-up
mess."
"Bless your dear heart!" said Laddie, giving her a harder
squeeze than ever. "You got that all wrong, Sarah. You'll live
to see the day, very shortly, when you'll change every word of it."
"I haven't done anything but get surer about it every day for
two years, anyway," said Sarah Hood.
"Exactly!" said Laddie, "but wait until I have taken
the plunge! Let me tell you how the Pryor family strikes me. I think
he is a high-tempered, domineering man, proud as Lucifer! For some
cause, just or not, he is ruining his life and that of his family
because he so firmly believes it just; he is hiding here from his
home country, his relatives, and friends. I think she is, barring
you and mother, the handsomest woman of her age I ever saw----"
All of them laughed, because Sarah Hood was nearly as homely as
a woman could grow, and maybe other people didn't find our mother
so lovely as we thought her. I once heard one of her best friends
say she was "distinctly plain." I didn't see how she could;
but she said that.
"--and the most pitiful," Laddie went on. "Sarah,
what do you suppose sends a frail little woman pacing the yard,
and up and down the road, sometimes in storm and rain, gripping
both hands over her heart?"
"I suppose it's some shameful thing I don't want you mixed
up with!" said Sarah Hood promptly, and people just shouted.
"Sarah," said Laddie, "I've seen her closely, watched
her move, and studied her expression. There's not one grain of possibility
that you, or mother, or Mrs. Fall, or any woman here, could be any
closer connected with SHAME. Shame there is," said Laddie,
"and what a word! How it stings, burns, withers, and causes
heart trouble and hiding; but shame in connection with that woman,
more than shame thrust upon her, which might come to any of us,
at any time, shame that is her error, in the life of a woman having
a face like hers, Sarah, I am ashamed of you! Your only excuse is
that you haven't persisted as I have until you got to see for yourself."
"I am not much on persistence in the face of a locked door,
a cast-iron man with a big cane, and two raving bulldogs,"
said Mrs. Hood. "Wait, young man! Just wait until he sets them
on you."
Laddie's head went back and how he laughed.
"Hist! A word with you, Sarah!" he said. "'Member
I have a sort of knack with animals. I never yet have failed with
one I undertook to win. Now those bulldogs of Pryors' are as mild
as kittens with a man who knows the right word. Reason I know, Sarah,
I've said the word to them, separately and collectively, and it
worked. There is a contrast, Sarah, between what I say and do to
those dogs, and the kicks and curses they get from their owner.
I'll wager you two to one that if you can get Mr. Pryor to go into
a `sic-ing' contest with me, I can have his own dogs at his throat,
when he can't make them do more than to lick my hands."
They laughed as if that were funny.
"Well, I didn't know about this," said Sarah. "How
long have you lived at Pryors'?"
You couldn't have heard what Laddie said if he'd spoken; so he waited
until he could be heard, and it never worried him a speck.
He only stood and laughed too; then, "Long enough," he
said, "to know that all of us are making a big and cruel mistake
in taking them at their word, and leaving them penned up there weltering
in misery. What we should do, is to go over there, one at a time,
or in a body, and batter at the door of their hearts, until we break
down the wall of pride they have built around them, ease their pain,
and bring them with us socially, if they are going to live among
us. You people who talk loudly and often about loving God, and `doing
unto others,' should have gone long ago, for Jesus' sake; I'm going
for the sake of a girl, with a face as sweet, and a heart as pure,
as any accepted angel at the foot of the throne. Mother, I want
a cup of peach jelly, and some of that exceptionally fine cake you
served at dinner, to take to our sick neighbour."
Mother left the room.
"Father, I want permission to cut and carry a generous chestnut
branch, burred, and full fruited, to the young woman. There is none
save ours in this part of the country, and she may never have seen
any, and be interested. And I want that article about foot disease
in horses, for Mr. Pryor. I'll bring it back when he finishes."
Father folded the paper and handed it to Laddie, who slipped it
in his pocket.
"Take the finest branch you can select," father said,
and I almost fell over.
He had carried those trees from Ohio, before I had been born, and
mother said for years he wrapped them in her shawl in winter and
held an umbrella over them in summer, and father always went red
and grinned when she told it. He was wild about trees, and bushes,
so he made up his mind he'd have chestnuts. He planted them one
place, and if they didn't like it, he dug them up and set them another
where he thought they could have what they needed and hadn't got
the last place. Finally, he put them, on the fourth move, on a little
sandy ridge across the road from the wood yard, and that was the
spot. They shot up, branched, spread, and one was a male and two
were females, so the pollen flew, the burrs filled right, and we
had a bag of chestnuts to send each child away from home, every
Christmas. The brown leaves and burrs were so lovely, mother cut
one of the finest branches she could select and hung it above the
steel engraving of "Lincoln Freeing the Slaves," in the
boys' room, and nothing in the house was looked at oftener, or thought
prettier. That must have been what was in the back of Laddie's head
when he wanted a branch for the Princess.
Mother came in with the cake and jelly in a little fancy basket,
and Laddie said: "Thank you! Now every one wish me luck! I'm
going to ride to Pryors', knock at the door, and present these offerings
with my compliments. If I'm invited in, I'm going to make the effort
of my life at driving the entering wedge toward social intercourse
between Pryors and their neighbours. If I'm not, I'll be back in
thirty minutes and tell you what happened to me. If they refuse
my gifts, you shall have the jelly, Sarah; I'll give Mrs. Fall the
olive branch, bring back the paper, and eat the cake to console
my wounded spirits."
Of course every one laughed; they couldn't help it. I watched father
and he laughed hardest of the men, but mother was more stiff-lipped
about it; she couldn't help a little, though. And I noticed some
of those women acted as if they had lost something. Maybe it was
a chance to gossip about Laddie, for he hadn't left them a thing
to guess at, and mother says the reason gossip is so dreadful is
because it is always GUESSWORK. Well, that was all fair and plain.
He had told those people, our very best friends, what he thought
about everything, the way they acted included. He was carrying something
to each member of the Pryor family, and he'd left a way to return
joking and unashamed, if they wouldn't let him in. He had fixed
things so no one had anything to guess at, and it would look much
worse for the Pryors than it would for him, if he did come back.
I wondered if he had been born that smart, or if he learned it in
college. If he did, no wonder Leon was bound to go. Come to think
of it, though, mother said Laddie was always like that. She said
he never bit her when he nursed; he never mauled her as if she couldn't
be hurt when he was little, he never tore his clothes and made extra
work as he grew, and never in his life gave her an hour's uneasiness.
But I guess she couldn't have said that about uneasiness lately,
for she couldn't keep from looking troubled as all of us followed
to the gate to see him start.
How they joked, and tried to tease him! But they couldn't get a
breath ahead. He shot back answers as fast as they could ask questions,
while he cut the branch and untied the horse. He gave the limb and
basket to mother to hold, kissed her good-bye, and me too, before
he mounted. With my arms around his neck--I never missed a chance
to try to squeeze into him how I loved him--I whispered: "Laddie,
is it a secret any more?"
He threw back his head and laughed the happiest.
"Not the ghost of a secret!" he said. "But you let
me do the talking, until I tell you." Then he went on right
out loud: "I'm riding up the road waving the banner of peace.
If I suffer repulse, the same thing has happened to better men before,
so I'll get a different banner and try again."
Laddie mounted, swept a circle in the road, dropped Flos on her
knees in a bow, and waved the branch. Leon began to sing at the
top of his voice, "Nothing but leaves, nothing but leaves,"
while Laddie went flashing up the road.
The women went back to the house; the men stood around the gate,
watched him from sight, talked about his horse, how he rode, and
made wagers that he'd get shut out, like every one did, but they
said if that happened he wouldn't come back. Father was annoyed.
"You heard Laddie say he'd return immediately if they wouldn't
let him in," he said. "He's a man of his word. He will
either enter or come home at once."
It was pitch dark and we had supper before some of them left; they
never stayed so late. After we came from church, father read the
chapter and we were ready for bed; still Laddie hadn't come back.
And father liked it! He just plain liked it! He chuckled behind
the Advocate until you could see it shake; but mother had very little
to say, and her lips closed tight.
At bedtime he said to mother: "Well, they don't seem in a hurry
about sending the boy back."
"Did you really think he WOULD be sent back?" asked mother.
"Not ordinarily," said father, "no! If he had no
brain, no wit, no culture, on an animal basis, a woman would look
twice before she'd send him away; but with such fanatics as Pryors,
one can't always tell what will happen."
"In a case like this, one can be reasonably certain,"
said mother.
"You don't know what social position they occupied at home.
Their earmarks are all good. We've no such notions here as they
have."
"Thank God for so much, at any rate," said mother. "How
old England would rise up and exult if she had a man in line with
Laddie's body, blood and brain, to set on her throne. This talk
about class and social position makes me sick. Men are men, and
Laddie is as much above the customary timber found in kings and
princes, physically and mentally, as the sky is above the earth.
Talk me no talk about class! If I catch it coming from any of mine,
save you, I will beat it out of them. He has admitted he's in love
with the girl; the real question is, whether she's fit to be his
wife."
"I should say she appears so," said father.
"Drat appearances!" cried mother. "When it's a question
of lifetime misery, and the soul's salvation of my son, if things
go wrong, I've no time for appearances. I want to know!"
He might have known he would make her angry when he laughed. She
punched the pillow, and wouldn't say another word; so I went to
sleep, and didn't miss anything that time.
Next morning at breakfast Laddie was beaming, and father hardly
waited to ask the blessing before he inquired: "Well, how did
you make it, son?"
Laddie laughed and answered: "Altogether, it might have been
much worse."
That was all he would say until Miss Amelia started to school, then
he took me on his lap and talked as he buttoned my coat.
"Thomas met me at the gate," he said, "and held my
horse while I went to the door. One of their women opened it, and
I inquired for Mr. Pryor. She said he was in the field looking at
the horses, so I asked for Miss Pryor. She came in a minute, so
I gave her the branch, told her about it, and offered the jelly
and cake for her mother. The Princess invited me to enter. I told
her I couldn't without her father's permission, so I went to the
field to see him. The dogs were with him and he had the surprise
of his life when his man-eaters rolled at my feet, and licked my
hands."
"What did he say?" chuckled father.
"Told Thomas they'd been overfed and didn't amount to a brass
farthing; to take them to the woods and shoot them. Thomas said
he'd see to it the very first thing in the morning, and then Mr.
Pryor told him he would shoot him if he did."
"Charming man to work for," said mother.
"Then I told him I'd been at the house to carry a little gift
to his wife and daughter, and to inquire if I might visit an hour,
and as he was not there, I had come to the field to ask him. Then
I looked him in the eye and said: `May I?'
"`I'll warrant the women asked you to come in,' he said.
"`Miss Pryor was so kind,' I answered, `but I enter no man's
house without his permission. May I talk with your daughter an hour,
and your wife, if she cares to see me?'
"`It makes no earthly difference to me,' he said, which was
not gracious, but might have been worse, so I thanked him, and went
back to the house. When I knocked the second time, the Princess
came, and I told her the word was that it made `no difference to
her father' if I came in, so she opened the door widely, took my
hat and offered me a seat. Then she went to the next room and said:
`Mother, father has given Mr. Stanton permission to pay us a call.
Do you feel able to meet him?' She came at once, offering her hand
and saying: `I have already met Mr. Stanton so often, really, we
should have the privilege of speaking.'"
"What did she mean by that?" asked mother.
"She meant that I have haunted the road passing their place
for two years, and she'd seen me so frequently that she came to
recognize me."
"Umph!" said mother.
"Laddie tell on!" I begged.
"Well, I sharpened all the wits I had and went to work. I never
tried so hard in my life to be entertaining. Of course I had to
feel my way. I'd no idea what would interest a delicate, high- bred
lady"--mother sniffed again--"so I had to search and probe,
and go by guess until I saw a shade of interest, then I worked in
more of the same. It was easy enough to talk to the Princess-- all
young folks have a lot in common, we could get along on fifty topics;
it was different with the housebound mother. I did my best, and
after a while Mr. Pryor came in. I asked him if any of his horses
had been attacked with the trouble some of the neighbours were having,
and told him what it was. He had the grace to thank me. He said
he would tell Thomas not to tie his horse at the public hitching
rack when he went to town, and once he got started, he was wild
to talk with a man, and I'd no chance to say a word to the women.
He was interested in our colleges, state, and national laws, in
land development, and everything that all live men are. When a maid
announced dinner I apologized for having stayed so long, and excused
myself, because I had been so interested, but Mrs. Pryor merely
said: `I'm waiting to be offered your arm.'
"Well, you should have seen me drop my hat and step up. I did
my best, and while I talked to him a little, I made it most to the
women. Any one could see they were starved for company, so I took
the job of entertaining them. I told some college jokes, funny things
that had happened in the neighbourhood, and everything of interest
I could think up. I know we were at the table for two hours with
things coming and going on silver platters."
Mother sat straight suddenly.
"Just what did they have to eat, and how did they serve it?"
she asked.
"Couldn't tell if I were to be shot for it, mummy," said
Laddie. "Forgive me! Next time I'll take notes for you. This
first plunge, I had to use all my brains, not to be a bore to them;
and to handle food and cutlery as the women did. It's quite a process,
but as they were served first, I could do right by waiting. I never
was where things were done quite so elaborately before."
"And they didn't know they would have company until you went
to the table?"
"Well, they must have thought likely, there was a place for
me."
"Umph!" said mother. "Fine idea! Then any one who
drops in can be served, and see that they are not a mite of trouble.
Candace, always an extra place after this!"
Father just shouted.
"I thought you'd get something out of it!" he said.
"Happy to have justified your faith!" replied mother calmly.
"Go on, son!"
"That's all!" said Laddie. "We left the table and
talked an hour more. The women asked me to come again; he didn't
say anything on that subject; but when he ordered my horse, he asked
the Princess if she would enjoy a little exercise, and she said
she would, so he told Thomas to bring their horses, and we rode
around the section, the Princess and I ahead, Mr. Pryor following.
Where the road was good and the light fine enough that there was
no danger of laming a horse, we dropped back, one on either side
of him, so we could talk. Mrs. Pryor ate the cake and said it was
fine; and the `conserve,' she called it, delicious as she ever had
tasted. She said all our fruits here had much more flavour than
at home; she thought it was the dryer climate and more sunshine.
She sent her grateful thanks, and she wants your recipe before next
preserving time."
Mother just beamed. My! but she did love to have the things she
cooked, bragged on.
"Possibly she'd like my strawberries?" she said.
"There isn't a doubt about it," said Laddie. "I've
yet to see the first person who doesn't."
"Is that all?" asked mother.
"I can think of nothing more at this minute," answered
Laddie. "If anything comes to my mind later, I won't forget
to tell you. Oh yes, there was one thing: You couldn't keep Mr.
Pryor from talking about Leon. He must have taken a great fancy
to him. He talked until he worried the Princess, and she tried to
keep him away from the subject, but his mind seemed to run on it
constantly. When we were riding she talked quite as much as he,
and it will hustle us to think what the little scamp did, any bigger
than they do. Of course, father, you understood the price Mr. Pryor
made on one of his very finest colts was a joke. There's a strain
of Arab in the father--he showed me the record-- and the mother
is bluegrass. There you get gentleness and endurance combined with
speed and nerve. I'd trade Flos for that colt as it stands to-day.
There's nothing better on earth in the way of horse. His offer is
practically giving it away. I know, with the records to prove its
pedigree, what that colt would bring him in any city market."
"I don't like it," said mother. "I want Leon to have
a horse, but a boy in a first experience, and reckless as he is,
doesn't need a horse like that, for one thing, and what is more
important, I refuse to be put under any obligations to Pryors."
"That's the reason Mr. Pryor asked anything at all for the
horse.
It is my opinion that he would be greatly pleased to give it to
Leon, if he could do what he liked."
"Well, that's precisely the thing he can't do in this family,"
said mother sternly.
"What do you think, father?" asked Laddie.
"I think Amen! to that proposition," said father; "but
I would have to take time to thresh it out completely. It appeals
to me that Leon is old enough to recognize the value of the animal;
and that the care of it would develop and strengthen his character.
It would be a responsibility that would steady him. You could teach
him to tend and break it."
"Break it!" cried Laddie. "Break it! Why father,
he's riding it bareback all over the Pryor meadow now, and jumping
it over logs. Whenever he leaves, it follows him to the fence, and
the Princess says almost any hour of the day you look out you can
see it pacing up and down watching this way and whinnying for him
to come."
"And your best judgment is----?"
Laddie laughed as he tied my hood strings. "Well I don't feel
about the Pryors as the rest of you do," he said. "If
the money isn't claimed inside the time you specified, I would let
Leon and Mr. Pryor make their own bargain. The boy won't know for
years that it is practically a gift, and it would please Mr. Pryor
immensely. Now run, or you'll be late!"
I had to go, so I didn't know how they settled it, but if they wouldn't
let Leon have that horse, it was downright mean. What if we were
under obligations to Mr. Pryor? We were to Sarah Hood, and half
the people we knew, and what was more, we LIKED to be.
When I came from school that night father had been to town. He had
an ax and was opening a big crate, containing two of the largest,
bluest geese you ever saw. Laddie said being boxed that way and
seeing them so close made them look so big; really, they were no
finer than Pryors', where he had got the address of the place that
sold them. Mother was so pleased. She said she had needed a new
strain, for a long time, to improve her feathers; now she would
have pillows worth while, in a few years. They put them in the barn
where our geese stayed over night, and how they did scream. That
is, one of them did; the other acted queerly and father said to
Laddie that he was afraid the trip was hard on it. Laddie said it
might have been hurt, and mother was worried too. Before she had
them an hour, she had sold all our ganders; spring had come, she
had saved the blue goose eggs, set them under a hen, raised the
goslings with the little chickens, never lost one, picked them and
made a new pair of pillows too fine for any one less important than
a bishop, or a judge, or Dr. Fenner to sleep on. Then she began
saving for a featherbed. And still the goose didn't act as spry
or feel as good as the gander. He stuck up his head, screamed, spread
his wings and waved them, and the butts looked so big and hard,
I was not right certain whether it would be safe to tease him or
not.
The first person who came to see them was Sarah Hood, and she left
with the promise of a pair as soon as mother could raise them. Father
said the only reason mother didn't divide her hair with Sarah Hood
was because it was fast, and she couldn't. Mother said gracious
goodness! she'd be glad to get rid of some of it if she could, and
of course Sarah should have first chance at it. Hadn't she kept
her over night so she could see her new home when she was rested,
and didn't she come with her, and help her get settled, and had
she ever failed when we had a baby, or sickness, or trouble, or
thrashers, or a party? Of course she'd gladly divide, even the hair
of her head, with Sarah Hood. And father said, "Yes, he guessed
she would, and come to think of it, he'd just as soon spare Sarah
part of his," and then they both laughed, when it was nothing
so very funny that I could see.
The next caller the geese had was Mrs. Freshett. My! she thought
they were big and fine. Mother promised her a couple of eggs to
set under a hen. Father said she was gradually coming down the scale
of her feelings, and before two weeks she'd give Isaac Thomas, at
least, a quill for a pen. Almost no one wrote with them any more,
but often father made a few, and showed us how to use them. He said
they were gone with candles, sand boxes, and snuff. Mother said
she had no use for snuff, but candles were not gone, she'd make
and use them to the day of her death, as they were the nicest light
ever invented to carry from room to room, or when you only wanted
to sit and think. Father said there was really no good pen except
the quill you sharpened yourself; and while he often used steel
ones like we children had at school to write to the brothers and
sisters away, and his family, he always kept a few choice quills
in the till of his chest, and when he wrote a deed, or any valuable
paper, where there was a deal with money, he used them. He said
it lent the dignity of a past day to an important occasion.
After mother and Mrs. Freshett had talked over every single thing
about the geese, and that they were like Pryors' had been settled,
Mrs. Freshett said: "Since he told about it before all of us,
and started out the way he did, would it be amiss to ask how Laddie
got on at Pryors'?"
"Just the way I thought he would," said mother. "He
stayed until all of us were in bed, and I'd never have known when
he came in, if it were not a habit of his always to come to my door
to see if I'm sleeping. Sometimes I'm wakeful, and if he pommels
my pillow good, brings me a drink, and rubs my head a few strokes
with his strong, cool hands, I can settle down and have a good night's
rest. I was awake when he came, or I'd never have known. It was
almost midnight; but they sat two hours at the table, and then all
of them rode." "Not the Missus?"
"Oh no! She's not strong enough. She really has incurable heart
trouble, the worst kind there is; her daughter told me so."
"Then they better look out," said Mrs. Freshett. "She
is likely to keel over at a breath."
"They must know it. That's why she keeps so quiet."
"And they had him to supper?"
"It was a dinner served at night. Yes. He took Mrs. Pryor in
on his arm, and it was like a grand party, just as they fixed for
themselves, alone. Waiters, and silver trays, and things carried
in and out in courses."
"My land! Well, I s'pose he had enough schoolin' to get him
through it all right!"
My mother's face grew red. She never left any one in doubt as to
what she meant. Father said that "was the Dutch of it."
And mother always answered that if any one living could put things
plainer than the English, she would like to hear them do it.
"He certainly had," said mother, "or they wouldn't
have invited him to come again. And all mine, Mrs. Freshett, knew
how to sit properly at the table, and manage a knife, fork and napkin,
before they ever took a meal away from home."
"No 'fence," laughed Mrs. Freshett. "I meant that
maybe his years of college schoolin' had give him ways more like
theirs than most of us have. For all the money it takes to send
a boy to college, he ought to get somethin' out of it more than
jest fillin' his head with figgers, an' stars, an' oratin'; an'
most always you can see that he does."
"It is contact with cultivated people," said mother. "You
are always influenced by it, without knowing it often."
"Maybe you are, bein' so fine yourself," said Mrs. Freshett.
"An' me too, I never get among my betters that I don't carry
home a lot I put right into daily use, an' nobody knows it plainer.
I come here expectin' to learn things that help me, an' when I go
home I know I have."
"Why, thank you," said mother. "I'm sure that is
a very nice compliment, and I wish I really could feel that it is
well deserved."
"Oh I guess you do!" said Mrs. Freshett laughing. "I
often noticed you makin' a special effort to teach puddin' heads
like me somethin', an' I always thank you for it. There's a world
in right teachin'. I never had any. So all I can pick up an' hammer
into mine is a gain for me an' them. If my Henry had lived, an'
come out anything like that boy o' yourn an' the show he made last
Sunday, I'd do well if I didn't swell up an' bust with pride. An'
the little tow-haired strip, takin' the gun an' startin' out alone
after a robber, even if he wa'n't much of a man, that was downright
spunky. If my boys will come out anywhere near like yourn, I'll
be glad."
"I don't know how my boys will come out," said mother.
"But I work, pray, hope, and hang to them; that's all I know
to do."
"Well, if they don't come out right, they ought to be bumped!"
said Mrs. Freshett. "After all the chances they've had! I don'
know jest how Freshett was brung up, but I'd no chance at all. My
folks--well, I guess the less said--little pitchers, you know! I
can't see as I was to blame. I was the youngest, an' I knew things
was wrong. I fought to go to school, an' pap let me enough that
I saw how other people lived. Come night I'd go to the garret, an'
bar the trapdoor; but there would be times when I couldn't help
seein' what was goin' on. How'd you like chances such as that for
a girl of yourn?"
"Dreadful!" said mother. "Mrs. Freshett, please do
be careful!"
"Sure!" laughed Mrs. Freshett. "I was jest goin'
to tell you about me an' Josiah. He come to our house one night,
a stranger off the road. He said he was sick, an' tired, an' could
he have a bed. Mother said, `No, for him to move on.' He tried an'
he couldn't. They was somethin' about him--well, you know how them
things go! I wa'n't only sixteen, but I felt so sorry for him, all
fever burned and mumblin', I helped pap put him to bed, an' doctored
him all I could. Come mornin' he was a sick man. Pap went for the
county doctor, an' he took jest one look an' says: `Small pox! All
of ye git!'
"I was bound I wouldn't go, but pap made me, an' the doctor
said he'd send a man who'd had it; so I started, but I felt so bad,
come a chanct when they got to Groveville, I slipped out an' went
back. The man hadn't come, so I set to work the best I knowed. 'Fore
long Josiah was a little better an' he asked who I was, an' where
my folks went, an' I told him, an' he asked WHY I came back an'
I didn't know what to say, so I jest hung my head an' couldn't face
him. After a while he says, `All right! I guess I got this sized
up. If you'll stay an' nuss me through, I'll be well enough to pull
you out, by the time you get it, an' soon as you're able we'll splice,
if you say so.'
"`Marry me, you mean?' says I. They wa'n't ever any talk about
marryin' at our house. `Sure!' says he. `You're a mighty likely
lookin' girl! I'll do fair by ye.' An' he always has, too! But I
didn't feel right to let him go it blind, so I jest up and says.
`You wouldn't if you knowed my folks!' `You look as decent as I
do,' says he; `I'll chance it!' Then I tole him I was as good as
I was born, an' he believed me, an' he always has, an' I was too!
So I nussed him, but I didn't make the job of it he did. You 'member
he is pitted considerable. He was so strong I jest couldn't keep
him from disfigerin' himself, but he tied me. I begged to be loose,
an' he wouldn't listen, so I got a clean face, only three little
scars, an' they ain't deep to speak of. He says he looks like a
piece of side meat, but say! they ain't nothin' the matter with
his looks to me!
"The nuss man never did come, but the county doctor passed
things in the winder, till I was over the worst, an' Josiah sent
for a preacher an' he married us through the winder--I got the writin's
to show, all framed an' proper. Josiah said he'd see I got all they
was in it long that line, anyway. When I was well, hanged if he
didn't perdooce a wad from his clothes before they burnt 'em, an'
he got us new things to wear, an' a horse, an' wagon, an' we driv
away here where we thought we could start right, an' after we had
the land, an' built the cabin, an' jest as happy as heart could
wish, long come a man I'd made mad once, an' he tole everythin'
up and down. Josiah was good about it. He offered to sell the land,
an' pull up an' go furder. `What's the use?' says I. `Hundreds know
it. We can't go so far it won't be like to follow us; le's stay
here an' fight it.' `All right,' says Josiah, but time an' ag'in
he has offered to go, if I couldn't make it. `Hang on a little longer,'
says I, every time he knew I was snubbed an' slighted. I never tole
what he didn't notice. I tried church, when my children began to
git a size I wanted 'em to have right teachin', an' you come an'
welcomed me an' you been my friend, an' now the others is comin'
over at last, an' visitin' me, an' they ain't a thing more I want
in life."
"I am so glad!" said mother. "Oh my dear, I am so
glad!"
"Goin' right home an' tell that to Josiah," said Mrs.
Freshett, jumping up laughing and crying like, "an' mebby I'll
jest spread wings and fly! I never was so happy in all my life as
I was Sunday, when you ast me before all of them, so cordial like,
an' says I to Josiah, `We'll go an' try it once,' an' we come an'
nobody turned a cold shoulder on us, an' I wa'n't wearin' specks
to see if they did, for I never knowed him so happy in all his days.
Orter heard him whistle goin' home, an' he's tryin' all them things
he learned, on our place, an' you can see it looks a heap better
a'ready, an' now he's talkin' about buildin' in the spring. I knowed
he had money, but he never mentioned buildin' before, an' I always
thought it was bekase he 'sposed likely we'd have to move on, some
time. 'Pears now as if we can settle, an' live like other folks,
after all these years. I knowed ye didn't want me to talk, but I
had to tell you! When you ast us to the weddin', and others began
comin' round, says I to Josiah, `Won't she be glad to know that
my skirts is clear, an' I did as well as I could?' An' he says,
`That she will! An' more am I,' says he.
`I mighty proud of you,' says he. Proud! Think of that! Miss Stanton,
I'd jest wade fire and blood for you!"
"Oh my dear !" said mother. "What a dreadful thing
to say!"
"Gimme the chanct, an' watch if I don't," said Mrs. Freshett.
"Now, Josiah is proud I stuck it out! Now, I can have a house!
Now, my children can have all the show we can raise to give 'em!
I'm done cringin' an' dodgin'! I've always done my best; henceforth
I mean to hold up my head an' say so. I sure can't be held for what
was done 'fore I was on earth, or since neither. You've given me
my show, I'm goin' to take it, but if you want to know what's in
my heart about you, gimme any kind of a chanct to prove, an' see
if I don't pony right up to it!"
Mother laughed until the tears rolled, she couldn't help it. She
took Mrs. Freshett in her arms and hugged her tight, and kissed
her mighty near like she does Sarah Hood. Mrs. Freshett threw her
arms around mother, and looked over her shoulder, and said to me,
"Sis, when you grow up, always take a chanct on welcomin' the
stranger, like your maw does, an' heaven's bound to be your home!
My, but your maw is a woman to be proud of!" she said, hugging
mother and patting her on the back.
"All of us are proud of her!" I boasted.
"I doubt if you are proud enough!" cried Mrs. Freshett.
"I have my doubts! I don't see how people livin' with her,
an' seein' her every day, are in a shape to know jest what she can
do for a person in the place I was in. I have my doubts!"
That night when I went home from school mother was worrying over
the blue goose. When we went to feed, she told Leon that she was
afraid it was weak, and not getting enough to eat when it fed with
the others. She said after the work was finished, to take it out
alone, and give it all it would eat; so when the horses were tended,
the cows milked, everything watered, and the barn ready to close
for the night, Laddie took the milk to the house, while Leon and
I caught the blue goose, carried her to the well, and began to shell
corn. She was starved to death, almost. She ate a whole ear in no
time and looked for more, so Leon sent me after another. By the
time that was most gone she began to eat slower, and stick her bill
in the air to help the grains slip down, so I told Leon I thought
she had enough.
"No such thing!" said Leon. "You distinctly heard
mother tell me to give her `all she would eat.' She's eating, isn't
she? Go bring another ear!"
So she was, but I was doubtful about more.
Leon said I better mind or he would tell mother, so I got it. She
didn't begin on it with any enthusiasm. She stuck her bill higher,
stretched her neck longer, and she looked so funny when she did
it, that we just shrieked. Then Leon reached over, took her by the
bill, and stripped her neck to help her swallow, and as soon as
he let go, she began to eat again.
"You see!" said Leon, "she's been starved. She can't
get enough. I must help her!"
So he did help her every little bit. By that time we were interested
in seeing how much she could hold; and she looked so funny that
Leon sent me for more corn; but I told him I thought what she needed
now was water, so we held her to the trough, and she tried to drink,
but she couldn't swallow much. We set her down beside the corn,
and she went to eating again.
"Go it, old mill-hopper!" cried Leon.
Right then there was an awful commotion in the barn, and from the
squealing we knew one of the horses was loose, and fighting the
others. We ran to fix them, and had a time to get Jo back into his
stall, and tied. Before we had everything safe, the supper bell
rang, and I bet Leon a penny I could reach the house while he shut
the door and got there. We forgot every single thing about the goose.
At supper mother asked Leon if he fed the goose all she would eat,
and I looked at him guilty-like, for I remembered we hadn't put
her back. He frowned at me cross as a bear, and I knew that meant
he had remembered, and would slip back and put her inside when he
finished his supper, so I didn't say anything.
"I didn't feed her ALL she would eat!" said Leon. "If
I had, she'd be at it yet. She was starved sure enough! You never
saw anything like the corn she downed."
"Well I declare!" said mother. "Now after this, take
her out alone, for a few days, and give her as much as she wants."
"All right!" chuckled Leon, because it was a lot of fun
to see her run her bill around, and gobble up the corn, and stick
up her head.
The next day was Saturday, so after breakfast I went with Leon to
drive the sheep and geese to the creek to water; the trough was
so high it was only for the horses and cattle; when we let out the
geese, the blue one wasn't there.
"Oh Leon, did you forget to come back and put her in?"
"Yes I did!" he said. "I meant to when I looked at
you to keep still, and I started to do it, but Sammy Deam whistled,
so I went down in the orchard to see what he wanted, and we got
to planning how to get up a fox chase, and I stayed until father
called for night, and then I ran and forgot all about the blame
old goose."
"Oh Leon! Where is she? What will mother say? 'Spose a fox
got her!"
"It wouldn't help me any if it had, after I was to blame for
leaving her outside. Blast a girl! If you ever amounted to anything,
you could have put her in while I fixed the horses. At least you
could have told me to."
I stood there dumblike and stared at him. He has got the awfulest
way of telling the truth when he is scared or provoked. Of course
I should have thought of the goose when he was having such a hard
fight with the horses. If I'd been like he was, I'd have told him
that he was older, mother told HIM to do it, and it wasn't my fault;
but in my heart I knew he did have his hands full, and if you're
your brother's keeper, you ought to HELP your brother remember.
So I stood gawking, while Leon slowly turned whiter and whiter.
"We might as well see if we can find her," he said at
last, so slow and hopeless like it made my heart ache. So he started
around the straw stack one way, and I the other, looking into all
the holes, and before I had gone far I had a glimpse of her, and
it scared me so I screamed, for her head was down, and she didn't
look right. Leon came running and pulled her out. The swelled corn
rolled in a little trail after her, and the pigs ran up and began
to eat it. Pigs are named righter than anything else I know.
"Busted!" cried Leon in tones of awe; about the worst
awe you ever heard, and the worst bust you ever saw.
From bill to breast she was wide open, and the hominy spilling.
We just stood staring at her, and then Leon began to kick the pigs;
because it would be no use to kick the goose; she would never know.
Then he took her up, carried her into the barn, and put her on the
floor where the other geese had stayed all night. We stood and looked
at her some more, as if looking and hoping would make her get up
and be alive again. But there's nothing in all this world so useless
as wishing dead things would come alive; we had to do something.
"What are you going to tell mother?"
"Shut up!" said Leon. "I'm trying to think."
"I'll say it was as much my fault as yours. I'll go with you.
I'll take half whatever they do to you."
"Little fool!" said Leon. "What good would that do
me?"
"Do you know what they cost? Could you get another with some
of your horse money?"
I saw it coming and dodged again, before I remembered the Crusaders.
"All right!" I said. "If that's the way you are going
to act, Smarty, I'll lay all the blame on you; I won't help you
a bit, and I don't care if you are whipped until the blood runs."
Then I went out of the barn and slammed the door. For a minute I
felt better; but it was a short time. I SAID that to be mean, but
I did care. I cared dreadfully; I was partly to blame, and I knew
it. Coming around the barn, I met Laddie, and he saw in a flash
I was in trouble, so he stopped and asked: "What now, Chicken?"
"Come into the barn where no one will hear us," I said.
So we went around the outside, entered at the door on the embankment,
and he sat in the wheelbarrow on the threshing floor while I told
him. I thought I felt badly enough, but after I saw Laddie, it grew
worse, for I remembered we were short of money that fall, that the
goose was a fine, expensive one, and how proud mother was of her,
and how she'd be grieved, and that was trouble for sure.
"Run along and play!" said Laddie, "and don't tell
any one else if you can help it. I'll hide the goose, and see if
I can get another in time to take the place of this one, so mother
won't be worried."
I walked to the house slowly, but I was afraid to enter. When you
are all choked up, people are sure to see it, and ask fool questions.
So I went around to the gate and stood there looking up and down
the road, and over the meadow toward the Big Woods; and all at once,
in one of those high, regular bugle calls, like they mostly scream
in spring, one of Pryors' ganders split the echoes for a mile; maybe
farther.
I was across the road and slinking down inside the meadow fence
before I knew it. There was no thought or plan. I started for Pryors'
and went straight ahead, only I kept out of line with our kitchen
windows. I tramped through the slush, ice, and crossed fields where
I was afraid of horses; but when I got to the top of the Pryor backyard
fence, I stuck there, for the bulldogs were loose, and came raving
at me. I was going to be eaten alive, for I didn't know the word
Laddie did; and those dogs climbed a fence like a person; I saw
them the time Leon brought back Even So. I was thinking what a pity
it was, after every one had grown accustomed to me, and had begun
loving me, that I should be wasted for dog feed, when Mr. Pryor
came to the door, and called them; they didn't mind, so he came
to the fence, and crossest you ever heard, every bit as bad as the
dogs, he cried: "Whose brat are you, and what are you doing
here?"
I meant to tell him; but you must have a minute after a thing like
that.
"God of my life!" he fairly frothed. "What did anybody
send a dumb child here for?"
"Dumb child!" I didn't care if Mr. Pryor did wear a Crown
of Glory. It wasn't going to do him one particle of good, unless
he was found in the way of the Lord. "Dumb child!" I was
no more dumb than he was, until his bulldogs scared me so my heart
got all tangled up with my stomach, my lungs, and my liver. That
made me mad, and there was nothing that would help me to loosen
up and talk fast, like losing my temper. I wondered what kind of
a father he had. If he'd been stood against the wall and made to
recite, "Speak gently," as often as all of us, perhaps
he'd have remembered the verse that says:
"Speak gently to the little child;
Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild;
It may not long remain."
I should think not, if it had any chance at all to get away! I was
so angry by that time I meant to tell him what I thought. Polite
or not polite, I'd take a switching if I had to, but I wasn't going
to stand that.
"You haven't got any God in your life," I reminded him,
"and no one sent me here. I came to see the Princess, because
I'm in awful trouble and I hoped maybe she could fix up a way to
help me."
"Ye Gods!" he cried. He would stick to calling on God,
whether he believed in Him or not. "If it isn't Nimrod! I didn't
recognize you in all that bundling."
Probably he didn't know it, but Nimrod was from the Bible too! By
bundling, he meant my hood and coat. He helped me from the fence,
sent the bulldogs rolling--sure enough he did kick them, and they
didn't like it either--took my hand and led me straight into the
house, and the Princess was there, and a woman who was her mother
no doubt, and he said: "Pamela, here is our little neighbour,
and she says she's in trouble, and she thinks you may be of some
assistance to her. Of course you will be glad if you can."
"Surely!" said the Princess, and she introduced me to
her mother, so I bowed the best I knew, and took off my wet mitten,
dirty with climbing fences, to shake hands with her. She was so
gracious and lovely I forgot what I went after. The Princess brought
a cloth and wiped the wet from my shoes and stockings, and asked
me if I wouldn't like a cup of hot tea to keep me from taking a
chill.
"I've been much wetter than this," I told her, "and
I never have taken a chill, and anyway my throat's too full of trouble
to drink."
"Why, you poor child!" said the Princess. "Tell me
quickly! Is your mother ill again?"
"Not now, but she's going to be as soon as she finds out,"
I said, and then I told them.
They all listened without a sound until I got where Leon helped
the goose eat, and from that on Mr. Pryor laughed until you could
easily see that he had very little feeling for suffering humanity.
It was funny enough when we fed her, but now that she was bursted
wide open there was nothing amusing about it; and to roar when a
visitor plainly told you she was in awful trouble, didn't seem very
good manners to me. The Princess and her mother never even smiled;
and before I had told nearly all of it, Thomas was called to hitch
the Princess' driving cart, and she took me to their barnyard to
choose the goose that looked most like mother's, and all of them
seemed like hers, so we took the first one Thomas could catch, put
it into a bag in the back of the cart, and then we got in and started
for our barn. As we reached the road, I said to her: "You'd
better go past Dovers', for if we come down our Little Hill they
will see us sure; it's baking day."
"All right!" said the Princess, so we went the long way
round the section, but goodness me! when she drove no way was far.
When we were opposite our barn she stopped, hitched her horse to
the fence, and we climbed over, and slipping behind the barn, carried
the goose around to the pen and put it in with ours. She said she
wanted the broken one, because her father would enjoy seeing it.
I didn't see how he could! We were ready to slip out, when our geese
began to run at the new one, hiss and scream, and make such a racket
that Laddie and Leon both caught us. They looked at the goose, at
me, the Princess, and each other, and neither said a word. She looked
back a little bit, and then she laughed as hard as she could. Leon
grew red, and he grinned ashamed-like, so she laughed worse than
ever. Laddie spoke to me: "You went to Mr. Pryor's and asked
for that goose?"
"She did not!" said the Princess before I could answer.
"She never asked for anything. She was making a friendly morning
call and in the course of her visit she told about the pathetic
end of the goose that was expected to lay the golden egg--I mean
stuff the Bishop's pillow--and as we have a large flock of blue
geese, father gave her one, and he had the best time he's had in
years doing it. I wouldn't have had him miss the fun he got from
it for any money. He laughed like home again. Now I must slip away
before any one sees me, and spoils our secret. Leon, lad, you can
go to the house and tell your little mother that the feeding stopped
every pain her goose had, and hereafter it looks to you as if she'd
be all right."
"Miss Pryor," said Leon, "did you care about what
I said at you in church that day?"
"`Thou art all fair, my love. There is no spot in thee.' Well,
it was a little pointed, but since you ask a plain question, I have
survived it."
"I'm awfully sorry," said Leon. "Of course I never
would, if I'd known you could be this nice."
The Princess looked at Laddie and almost gasped, and then both of
them laughed. Leon saw that he had told her he was sorry he said
she was "fair, and no spot in her."
"Oh I don't mean that!" he said. "What I do mean
is that I thank you awful much for the goose, and helping me out
like such a brick of a good fellow, and what I wish is, that I was
as old as Laddie, and he'd hump himself if he got to be your beau."
The Princess almost ran. Laddie and I followed to the road, where
he unhitched the horse and helped her in. Then he stood stroking
its neck, as he held the bridle.
"I don't know what to say!" said Laddie.
"In such case, I would counsel silence," advised the Princess.
"I hope you understand how I thank you."
"I fail to see what for. Father gave the goose to Little Sister.
Her thanks and Leon's are more than enough for him. We had great
sport."
"I insist on adding mine. Deep and fervent!"
"You take everything so serious. Can't you see the fun of this?"
"No," said Laddie. "But if you can, I am glad, and
I'm thankful for anything that gives me a glimpse of you."
"Bye, Little Sister," said the Princess, and when she
loosened the lines the mud flew a rod high.