CHAPTER
XV
Laddie, the Princess, and the Pie
"O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad."
Candace was baking the very first batch of rhubarb pies for the
season and the odour was so tempting I couldn't keep away from the
kitchen door. Now Candace was a splendid cook about chicken gizzards--the
liver was always mother's--doughnuts and tarts, but I never really
did believe she would cut into a fresh rhubarb pie, even for me.
As I reached for the generous big piece I thought of Laddie poor
Laddie, plowing away at his Crusader fight, and not a hint of victory.
No one in the family liked rhubarb pie better than he did. I knew
there was no use to ask for a plate.
"Wait--oh wait!" I cried.
I ran to the woodshed, pulled a shining new shingle from a bale
stacked there, and held it for Candace. Then I slipped around the
house softly. I didn't want to run any one's errands that morning.
I laid the pie on the horseblock and climbed the catalpa carefully,
so as not to frighten my robins. They were part father's too, because
robins were his favourite birds; he said their song through and
after rain was the sweetest music on earth, and mostly he was right;
so they were not all my robins, but they were most mine after him;
and I owned the tree. I hunted the biggest leaf I could see, and
wiped it clean on my apron, although it was early for much dust.
It covered the pie nicely, because it was the proper shape, and
I held the stem with one hand to keep it in place.
If I had made that morning myself I couldn't have done better. It
was sunny, spring air, but it was that cool, spicy kind that keeps
you stopping every few minutes to see just how full you can suck
your lungs without bursting. It seemed to wash right through and
through and make you all over. The longer you breathed it the clearer
your head became, and the better you felt, until you would be possessed
to try and see if you really couldn't fly. I tried that last summer,
and knocked myself into jelly. You'd think once would have been
enough, but there I was going down the road with Laddie's pie, and
wanting with all my heart to try again.
Sometimes I raced, but I was a little afraid the pie would shoot
from the shingle and it was like pulling eye teeth to go fast that
morning. I loved the soft warm dust, that was working up on the
road. Spat! Spat! I brought down my bare feet, already scratched
and turning brown, and laughed to myself at the velvety feel of
it. There were little puddles yet, where May and I had "dipped
and faded" last fall, and it was fun to wade them. The roadsides
were covered with meadow grass and clover that had slipped through
the fence. On slender green blades, in spot after spot, twinkled
the delicate bloom of blue-eyed grass. Never in all this world was
our Big Creek lovelier. It went slipping, and whispering, and lipping,
and lapping over the stones, tugging at the rushes and grasses as
it washed their feet; everything beside it was in masses of bloom,
a blackbird was gleaming and preening on every stone, as it plumed
after its bath. Oh there's no use to try--it was just SPRING when
it couldn't possibly be any better.
But even spring couldn't hold me very long that morning, for you
see my heart was almost sick about Laddie; and if he couldn't have
the girl he wanted, at least I could do my best to comfort him with
the pie. I was going along being very careful the more I thought
about how he would like it, so I was not watching the road so far
ahead as I usually did. I always kept a lookout for Paddy Ryan,
Gypsies, or Whitmore's bull. When I came to an unusually level place,
and took a long glance ahead, my heart turned right over and stopped
still, and I looked long enough to be sure, and then right out loud
some one said, "I'll DO something!" and as usual, I was
the only one there.
For days I'd been in a ferment, like the vinegar barrel when the
cider boils, or the yeast jar when it sets too close to the stove.
To have Laddie and the Princess separated was dreadful, and knowing
him as I did, I knew he never really would get over it. I had tried
to help once, and what I had done started things going wrong; no
wonder I was slow about deciding what to try next. That I was going
to do something, I made up my mind the instant Laddie said he was
not mad at me; that I was his partner, and asked me to help; but
exactly WHAT would do any good, took careful thought.
Here was my chance coming right at me. She was far up the road,
riding Maud like racing. I began to breathe after a while, like
you always do, no matter how you are worked up, and with my brain
whirling, I went slowly toward her. How would I manage to stop her?
Or what could I say that would help Laddie? I was shaking, and that's
the truth; but through and over it all, I was watching her too.
I only wish you might have seen her that morning. Of course the
morning was part of it. A morning like that would make a fence post
better looking. Half a mile away you could see she was tipsy with
spring as I was, or the song sparrows, or the crazy babbling old
bobolinks on the stakes and riders. She made such a bright splash
against the pink fence row, with her dark hair, flushed cheeks,
and red lips, she took my breath. Father said she was the loveliest
girl in three counties, and Laddie stretched that to the whole world.
As she came closer, smash! through me went the thought that she
looked precisely as Shelley had at Christmas time; and Shelley had
been that way because she was in love with the Paget man. Now if
the Princess was gleaming and flashing like that, for the same reason,
there wasn't any one for her to love so far as I knew, except Laddie.
Then smash! came another thought. She HAD to love him! She couldn't
help herself. She had all winter, all last summer, and no one but
themselves knew how long before that, and where was there any other
man like Laddie? Of course she loved him! Who so deserving of love?
Who else had his dancing eyes of deep tender blue, cheeks so pink,
teeth so white, such waving chestnut hair, and his height and breadth?
There was no other man who could ride, swim, leap, and wrestle as
he could. None who could sing the notes, do the queer sums with
letters having little figures at the corners in the college books,
read Latin as fast as English, and even the Greek Bible. Of course
she loved him! Every one did! Others might plod and meander, Laddie
walked the tired, old road that went out of sight over the hill,
with as prideful a step as any king; his laugh was as merry as the
song of the gladdest thrush, while his touch was so gentle that
when mother was in dreadful pain I sometimes thought she would a
little rather have him hold her than father.
Now, he was in this fearful trouble, the colour was going from his
face, his laugh was a little strained, and the heartache almost
more than he could endure--and there she came! I stepped squarely
in the middle of the road so she would have to stop or ride over
me, and when she was close, I stood quite still. I was watching
with my eyes, heart, and brain, and I couldn't see that she was
provoked, as she drew rein and cried: "Good morning, Little
Queer Person!"
I had supposed she would say Little Sister, she had for ages, just
like Laddie, but she must have thought it was queer for me to stop
her that way, so she changed. I was in for it. I had her now, so
I smiled the very sweetest smile that I could think up in such a
hurry, and said, "Good morning," the very politest I ever
did in all my life. Then I didn't know what to do next, but she
helped me out.
"What have you there?" she asked.
"It's a piece of the very first rhubarb pie for this spring,
and I'm carrying it to Laddie," I said, as I lifted the catalpa
leaf and let her peep, just to show her how pie looked when it was
right. I bet she never saw a nicer piece.
The Princess slid her hand down Maud's neck to quiet her prancing,
and leaned in the saddle, her face full of interest. I couldn't
see a trace of anything to discourage me; her being on our road
again looked favourable. She seemed to think quite as much of that
pie as I did. She was the finest little thoroughbred. She understood
so well, I was sorry I couldn't give it to her. It made her mouth
water all right, for she drew a deep breath that sort of quivered;
but it was no use, she didn't get that pie.
"I think it looks delicious," she said. "Are you
carrying it for Candace?"
"No! She gave it to me. It's my very own."
"And you're doing without it yourself to carry it to Laddie,
I'll be bound!" cried the Princess.
"I'd much rather," I said.
"Do you love Laddie so dearly?" she asked.
My heart was full of him right then; I forgot all about when I had
the fever, and as I never had been taught to lie, I told her what
I thought was the truth, and I guess it WAS: "Best of any one
in all this world!"
The Princess looked across the field, where she must have seen him
finishing the plowing, and thought that over, and I waited, sure
in my mind, for some reason, that she would not go for a little
while longer.
"I have been wanting to see you," she said at last. "In
fact I think I came this way hoping I'd meet you. Do you know the
words to a tune that goes like this?"
Then she began to whistle "The Merry Farmer Boy." I wish
you might have heard the flourishes she put to it.
"Of course I do," I answered. "All of us were brought
up on it."
"Well, I have some slight curiosity to learn what they are,"
she said. "Would you kindly repeat them for me?"
"Yes," I said. "This is the first verse:
"`See the merry farmer boy tramp the meadows through,
Swing his hoe in careless joy while dashing off the dew.
Bobolink in maple high----'
"Of course you can see for yourself that they're not. There
isn't a single one of them higher than a fence post. The person
who wrote the piece had to put it that way so high would rhyme with
reply, which is coming in the next line."
"I see!" said the Princess.
"`Bobolink in maple high, trills a note of glee
Farmer boy a gay reply now whistles cheerily.'
"Then you whistle the chorus like you did it."
"You do indeed!" said the Princess. "Proceed!"
"`Then the farmer boy at noon, rests beneath the shade,
Listening to the ceaseless tune that's thrilling through the glade.
Long and loud the harvest fly winds his bugle round,
Long, and loud, and shrill, and high, he whistles back the sound.'"
"He does! He does indeed! I haven't a doubt about that!"
cried the Princess. "`Long, and loud, and shrill, and high,'
he whistles over and over the sound, until it becomes maddening.
Is that all of that melodious, entrancing production?"
"No, evening comes yet. The last verse goes this way:
"`When the busy day's employ, ends at dewy eve,
Then the happy farmer boy, doth haste his work to leave,
Trudging down the quiet lane, climbing o'er the hill,
Whistling back the changeless wail, of plaintive
whip-poor-will,'--
and then you do the chorus again, and if you know how well enough
you whistle in, `whip-poor-will,' 'til the birds will answer you.
Laddie often makes them."
"My life!" cried the Princess. "Was that he doing
those bird cries? Why, I hunted, and hunted, and so did father.
We'd never seen a whip-poor-will. Just fancy us!"
"If you'd only looked at Laddie," I said.
"My patience!" cried the Princess. "Looked at him!
There was no place to look without seeing him. And that ear-splitting
thing will ring in my head forever, I know."
"Did he whistle it too high to suit you, Princess?"
"He was perfectly welcome to whistle as he chose," she
said, "and also to plow with the carriage horses, and to bedeck
them and himself with the modest, shrinking red tulip and yellow
daffodil."
Now any one knows that tulips and daffodils are NOT modest and shrinking.
If any flowers just blaze and scream colour clear across a garden,
they do. She was provoked, you could see that.
"Well, he only did it to please you," I said. "He
didn't care anything about it. He never plowed that way before.
But you said he mustn't plow at all, and he just had to plow, there
was no escaping that, so he made it as fine and happy as possible
to show you how nicely it could be done."
"Greatly obliged, I'm sure!" cried the Princess. "He
showed me! He certainly did! And so he feels that there's `no escaping'
plowing, does he?"
Then I knew where I was. I'd have given every cent of mine in father's
chest till, if mother had been in my place. Once, for a second,
I thought I'd ask the Princess to go with me to the house, and let
mother tell her how it was; but if she wouldn't go, and rode away,
I felt I couldn't endure it, and anyway, she had said she was looking
for me; so I gripped the shingle, dug in my toes and went at her
just as nearly like mother talked to her father as I could remember,
and I'd been put through memory tests, and descriptive tests, nearly
every night of my life, so I had most of it as straight as a string.
"Well, you see, he CAN'T escape it," I said. "He'd
do anything in all this world for you that he possibly could; but
there are some things no man CAN do."
"I didn't suppose there was anything you thought Laddie couldn't
do," she said.
"A little time back, I didn't," I answered. "But
since he took the carriage horses, trimmed up in flowers, and sang
and whistled so bravely, day after day, when his heart was full
of tears, why I learned that there was something he just COULDN'T
DO; NOT TO SAVE HIS LIFE, OR HIS LOVE, OR EVEN TO SAVE YOU."
"And of course you don't mind telling me what that is?"
coaxed the Princess in her most wheedling tones.
"Not at all! He told our family, and I heard him tell your
father. The thing he can't do, not even to win you, is to be shut
up in a little office, in a city, where things roar, and smell,
and nothing is like this----"
I pointed out the orchard, hill, and meadow, so she looked where
I showed her--looked a long time.
"No, a city wouldn't be like this," she said slowly.
"And that isn't even the beginning," I said. "Maybe
he could bear that, men have been put in prison and lived through
years and years of it, perhaps Laddie could too; I doubt it! but
anyway the worst of it is that he just couldn't, not even to save
you, spend all the rest of his life trying to settle other people's
old fusses. He despises a fuss. Not one of us ever in our lives
have been able to make him quarrel, even one word. He simply won't.
And if he possibly could be made to by any one on earth, Leon would
have done it long ago, for he can start a fuss with the side of
a barn. But he can't make Laddie fuss, and nobody can. He NEVER
would at school, or anywhere. Once in a while if a man gets so overbearing
that Laddie simply can't stand it, he says: `Now, you'll take your
medicine!' Then he pulls off his coat, and carefully, choosing the
right spots, he just pounds the breath out of that man, but he never
stops smiling, and when he helps him up he always says: `Sorry!
hope you'll excuse me, but you WOULD have it.' That's what he said
about you, that you had to take your medicine----"
I made a mistake there. That made her too mad for any use.
"Oh," she cried, "I do? I'll jolly well show the
gentleman!"
"Oh, you needn't take the trouble," I cried. "He's
showing you!"
She just blazed like she'd break into flame. Any one could fuss
with her all right; but that was the last thing on earth I wanted
to do.
"You see he already knows about you," I explained as fast
as I could talk, for I was getting into an awful mess. "You
see he knows that you want him to be a lawyer, and that he must
quit plowing before he can be more than friends with you. That's
what he's plowing for! If it wasn't for that, probably he wouldn't;
be plowing at all. He asked father to let him, and he borrowed mother's
horses, and he hooked the flowers through the fence. Every night
when he comes home, he kneels beside mother and asks her if he is
`repulsive,' and she takes him in her arms and the tears roll down
her cheeks and she says: `Father has farmed all his life, and you
know how repulsive he is.'"
I ventured an upward peep. I was doing better. Her temper seemed
to be cooling, but her face was a jumble. I couldn't find any one
thing on it that would help me, so I just stumbled ahead guessing
at what to say.
"He didn't WANT to do it. He perfectly HATED it. Those fields
were his Waterloo. Every furrow was a FIGHT, but he was FORCED to
show you."
"Exactly WHAT was he trying to show me?"
"I can think of three things he told me," I answered.
"That plowing could be so managed as not to disfigure the landscape----"
"The dunce!" she said.
"That he could plow or do dirtier work, and not be repulsive----"
"The idiot!" she said.
"That if he came over there, and plowed right under your nose,
when you'd told him he mustn't, or he couldn't be more than friends;
and when you knew that he'd much rather die and be laid beside the
little sisters up there in the cemetery than to NOT be more than
friends, why, you'd see, if he did THAT, he couldn't help it, that
he just MUST. That he was FORCED----"
"The soldier!" she said.
"Oh Princess, he didn't want to!" I cried. "He tells
me secrets he doesn't any one else, unless you. He told me how he
hated it; but he just had to do it."
"Do you know WHY?"
"Of course! It's the way he's MADE! Father is like that! He
has chances to live in cities, make big business deals, and go to
the legislature at Indianapolis; I've seen his letters from his
friend Oliver P. Morton, our Governor, you know; they're in his
chest till now; but father can't do it, because he is made so he
stays at home and works for us, and this farm, and township, and
county where he belongs. He says if all men will do that the millennium
will come to-morrow. I 'spose you know what the millennium is?"
"I do!" said the Princess. "But I don't know what
your father and his friend Oliver P. Morton have to do with Laddie."
"Why, everything on earth! Laddie is father's son, you see,
and he is made like father. None of our other boys is. Not one of
them loves land. Leon is going away as quick as ever he finishes
college; but the more you educate Laddie, the better he likes to
make things grow, the more he loves to make the world beautiful,
to be kind to every one, to gentle animals--why, the biggest fight
he ever had, the man he whipped 'til he most couldn't bring him
back again, was one who kicked his horse in the stomach. Gee, I
thought he'd killed him! Laddie did too for a while, but he only
said the man deserved it."
"And so he did!" cried the Princess angrily. "How
beastly!"
"That's one reason Laddie sticks so close to land. He says
he doesn't meet nearly so many two-legged beasts in the country.
Almost every time he goes to town he either gets into a fight or
he sees something that makes him fighting mad. Princess, you think
this beautiful, don't you?"
I just pointed anywhere. All the world was in it that morning. You
couldn't look right or left and not see lovely places, hear music,
and smell flowers.
"Yes! It is altogether wonderful!" she said.
"Would you like to live among this all your life, and have
your plans made to fix you a place even nicer, and then be forced
to leave it and go to a little room in the city, and make all the
money you earned off of how much other men fight over business,
and land and such perfectly awful things, that they always have
to be whispered when Jerry tells about them? Would you?"
"You little dunce!" she cried.
"I know I'm a fool. I know I'm not telling you a single thing
I should! Maybe I'm hurting Laddie far more than I'm helping him,
and if I am, I wish I would die before I see him; but oh! Princess,
I'm trying with all my might to make you understand how he feels.
He WANTS to do every least thing you'd like him to. He will, almost
any thing else in the world, he would this-- he would in a minute,
but he just CAN'T. All of us know he can't! If you'd lived with
him since he was little and always had known him, you wouldn't ask
him to; you wouldn't want him to! You don't know what you're doing!
Mother says you don't! You'll kill him if you send him to the city
to live, you just will! You are doing it now! He's getting thinner
and whiter every day. Don't! Oh please don't do it!"
The Princess was looking at the world. She was gazing at it so dazed-like
she seemed to be surprised at what she saw. She acted as if she'd
never really seen it before. She looked and she looked. She even
turned her horse a full circle to see all of it, and she went around
slowly. I stepped from one foot to the other and sweat; but I kept
quiet and let her look. At last when she came around, she glanced
down at me, and she was all melted, and lovely as any one you ever
saw, exactly like Shelley at Christmas, and she said: "I don't
think I ever saw the world before. I don't know that I'm so crazy
about a city myself, and I perfectly hate lawyers. Come to thing
of it, a lawyer helped work ruin in our family, and I never have
believed, I never will believe----"
She stopped talking and began looking again. I gave her all the
time she needed. I was just straining to be wise, for mother says
it takes the very wisest person there is to know when to talk, and
when to keep still. As I figured it, now was the time not to say
another word until she made up her mind about what I had told her
already. If Pryors didn't know what we thought of them by that time,
it wasn't mother's fault or mine. As she studied things over she
kept on looking. What she saw seemed to be doing her a world of
good. Her face showed it every second plainer and plainer. Pretty
soon it began to look like she was going to come through as Amos
Hurd did when he was redeemed. Then, before my very eyes, it happened!
I don't know how I ever held on to the pie or kept from shouting,
"Praise the Lord!" as father does at the Meeting House
when he is happiest. Then she leaned toward me all wavery, and shining
eyed, and bloomful, and said: "Did you ever hurt Laddie's feelings,
and make him angry and sad?"
"I'm sure I never did," I answered.
"But suppose you had! What would you do?"
"Do? Why, I'd go to him on the run, and I'd tell him I never
intended to hurt his feelings, and how sorry I was, and I'd give
him the very best kiss I could."
The Princess stroked Maud's neck a long time and thought while she
studied our farm, theirs beyond it, and at the last, the far field
where Laddie was plowing. She thought, and thought, and afraid to
cheep, I stood gripping the shingle and waited. Finally she said:
"The last time Laddie was at our house, I said to him those
things he repeated to you. He went away at once, hurt and disappointed.
Now, if you like, along with your precious pie, you may carry him
this message from me. You may tell him that I said I am sorry!"
I could have cried "Glory!" and danced and shouted there
in the road, but I didn't. It was no time to lose my head. That
was all so fine and splendid, as far as it went, but it didn't quite
cover the case. I never could have done it for myself; but for Laddie
I would venture anything, so I looked her in the eyes, straight
as a dart, and said: "He'd want the kiss too, Princess!"
You could see her stiffen in the saddle and her fingers grip the
reins, but I kept on staring right into her eyes.
"I could come up, you know," I offered.
A dull red flamed in her cheeks and her lips closed tight. One second
she sat very still, then a dancing light leaped sparkling into her
eyes; a flock of dimples chased each other around her lips like
swallows circling their homing place at twilight.
"What about that wonderful pie?" she asked me.
I ran to the nearest fence corner, and laid the shingle on the gnarled
roots of a Johnny Appleseed apple tree. Then I set one foot on the
arch of the Princess' instep and held up my hands. One second I
thought she would not lift me, the next I was on her level and her
lips met mine in a touch like velvet woven from threads of flame.
Then with a turn of her stout little wrist, she dropped me, and
a streak went up our road. Nothing so amazing and so important ever
had happened to me. It was an occasion that demanded something unusual.
To cry, "Praise the Lord!" was only to repeat an hourly
phrase at our house; this demanded something out of the ordinary,
so I said just exactly as father did the day the brown mare balked
with the last load of seed clover, when a big storm was breaking--"Jupiter
Ammon!"
When I had calmed down so I could, I climbed the fence, and reached
through a crack for the pie. As I followed the cool, damp furrow,
and Laddie's whistle, clear as the lark's above the wheat, thrilled
me, I was almost insane with joy. Just joy! Pure joy! Oh what a
good world it was!--most of the time! Most of the time! Of course,
there WERE Paget men in it. But anyway, THIS couldn't be beaten.
I had a message for Laddie from the Princess that would send him
to the seventh heaven, wherever that was; no one at our house spent
any time thinking farther than the first one. I had her kiss, that
I didn't know what would do to him, and I also had a big piece of
juicy rhubarb pie not yet entirely cold. If that didn't wipe out
the trouble I had made showing the old crest thing, nothing ever
could. I knew even then, that men were pretty hard to satisfy, but
I was quite certain that Laddie would be satisfied that morning.
As I hurried along I wondered whether it would be better to give
him my gift first, or the Princess'. I decided that joy would keep,
while the pie was cold enough, with all the time I had stopped;
and if I told him about her first, maybe he wouldn't touch it at
all, and it wasn't so easy as it looked to carry it to him and never
even once stick in my finger for the tiniest lick--joy would keep;
but I was going to feed him; so with shining face, I offered the
pie and stood back to see just how happy I could get.
"Mother send it?" asked Laddie.
People were curious that morning, as if I had a habit of stealing
pie. I only took pieces of cut ones from the cellar when mother
didn't care. So I explained again that Candace gave it to me, and
I was free to bring it.
"Oh I see!" said Laddie.
After nearly two weeks of work, the grays had sobered down enough
to stand without tying; so he wound the lines around the plow handle,
sat on the beam, and laid aside his hat, having a fresh flower in
the band. Once he started a thing, he just simply wouldn't give
up. He unbuttoned his neckband until I could see his throat where
it was white like a woman's, took out his knife and ate that pie.
Of course we knew better than to use a knife at the table, but there
was no other way in the field. He ate that pie, slowly and deliberately,
and between bites he talked. I watched him with a wide grin, wondering
what in this world he WOULD say, in a minute. I don't think I ever
had quite such a good time in all my life before, and I never expect
to again. He was saying: "Talk about nectar and ambrosia! Talk
about the feasts of Lucullus! Talk about food for the Gods!"
I put on his hat, sat on the ground in front of him, and was the
happiest girl in the world, of that I am quite sure. When the last
morsel was finished, Laddie looked at me steadily.
"I wonder," he said, "I wonder if there's another
man in the world who is blest with quite such a loving, unselfish
little sister as mine?" Then he answered himself: "No!
By all the Gods, ant half-Gods, I swear it--No!"
It was grand as a Fourth of July oration or the most exciting part
when the Bishop dedicated our church. I couldn't hold in another
second, I could hear my heart beat.
"Oh Laddie!" I shouted, jumping up, "that pie is
only the beginning of the good things I have brought you. I have
a message, and a gift besides, Laddie!"
"A message and a gift?" Laddie repeated. "What! More?"
"Truly I have a message and a gift for you," I cried,
"and Laddie--they are from the Princess!"
His eyes raised to mine now, and slowly he turned Sabethany-like.
"From the Princess!" he exclaimed. "A message and
a gift for me, Little Sister? You never would let Leon put you up
to serve me a trick?"
That hurt. He should have KNOWN I wouldn't, and besides, "Leon
feels just as badly about this as any of us," I said. "Have
you forgotten he offered to plow, and let you do the clean, easy
work?"
"Forgive me! I'm overanxious," said Laddie, his arms reaching
for me. "Go on and tell carefully, and if you truly love me,
don't make a mistake!"
Crowding close, my arms around his neck, his crisp hair against
my lips, I whispered my story softly, for this was such a fine and
splendid secret, that not even the shining blackbirds, and the pert
robins in the furrows were going to get to hear a word of it. Before
I had finished Laddie was breathing as Flos does when he races her
the limit. He sat motionless for a long time, while over his face
slowly crept a beauty that surpassed that of Apollo in his Greek
book.
"And her gift?"
It was only a breath.
"She helped me up, and she sent you this," I answered.
Then I set my lips on his, and held them there a second, trying
my level best to give him her very kiss, but of course I could only
try.
"Oh, Laddie," I cried. "Her eyes were like when stars
shine down in our well! Her cheeks were like mother's damask roses!
She smelled like flowers, and when her lips touched mine little
stickers went all over me!"
Then Laddie's arms closed around me and I thought sure every bone
in my body was going to be broken; when he finished there wasn't
a trace of that kiss left for me. Remembering it would be all I'd
ever have. It made me see what would have happened to the Princess
if she had been there; and it was an awful pity for her to miss
it, because he'd sober down a lot before he reached her, but I was
sure as shooting that he wouldn't be so crazy as to kiss her hands
again. Peter wasn't a patching to him!
That night Laddie rode to Pryors'. When he brought Flos to the gate
you could see the shadow of your face on her shining flank; her
mane and tail were like ravelled silk, her hoofs bright as polished
horn, and her muzzle was clean as a ribbon. I broke one of those
rank green sprouts from the snowball bush and brushed away the flies,
so she wouldn't fret, stamp, and throw dust on herself. Then Laddie
came, fresh from a tubbing, starched linen, dressed in his new riding
suit, and wearing top hat and gauntlets. He looked the very handsomest
I ever had seen him; and at the same time, he seemed trembling with
tenderness, and bursting with power. Goodness sake! I bet the Princess
took one good look and "came down" like Davy Crockett's
coon. Mother was on his arm and she walked clear to the gate with
him.
"LADDIE, ARE YOU SURE ENOUGH TO GO?" I heard her ask him
whisper- like.
"SURE AS DEATH!" Laddie answered.
Mother looked, and she had to see how it was with him; no doubt
she saw more than I did from having been through it herself, so
she smiled kind of a half-sad, half-glad smile. Then she turned
to her damask rose bush, the one Lucy brought her from the city,
and that she was so precious about, that none of us dared touch
it, and she searched all over it and carefully selected the most
perfect rose. When she borrowed Laddie's knife and cut the stem
as long as my arm, I knew exactly how great and solemn the occasion
was; for always before about six inches had been her limit. She
held it toward him, smiling bravely and beautifully, but the tears
were running straight down her cheeks.
"Take it to her," she said. "I think, my son, it
is very like."
Laddie took her in his arms and wiped away the tears; he told her
everything would come out all right about God, and the mystery,
even. Then he picked me clear off the ground, and he tried to see
how near he could come to cracking every bone in my body without
really doing it, and he kissed me over and over. It hadn't been
so easy, but I guess you'll admit that paid. Then he rode away with
the damask rose waving over his heart. Mother and I stood beside
the hitching rack and looked after him, with our arms tight around
each other while we tried to see which one could bawl the hardest.