Laddie, A True Blue Story by Gene Stratton Porter

crest as you do. In the sum of human events, it is a big thing.
No one admires a Crusader more than I. No one likes a good fight
better. No Crusader ever put up a stiffer battle than I have in
the past week while working in these fields. Every inch of them
is battlefield, every furrow a separate conflict. Gaze upon the
scene of my Waterloo! When June covers it with green, it will
wave over the resting place of my slain heart!"
"Oh Laddie!" I sobbed. "There you go again! How can you?"
"Whoo-pee!" cried Laddie. "That's the question! How can I? Got
to, Little Sister! There's no other way."
"No," I was forced to admit, "there isn't. What are we going to
do now?"
"Life-saver, we'll now go to dinner," said Laddie. "Nothing
except the partnership implied in `we' sustains me now. YOU'LL
FIND A WAY TO HELP ME OUT, WON'T YOU, LITTLE SISTER?"
"OF COURSE I WILL!" I promised, without ever stopping a minute to
think what kind of a job that was going to be.
Did you ever wish with all your might that something would
happen, and wait for it, expect it, and long for it, and nothing
did, until it grew so bad, it seemed as if you had to go on
another minute you couldn't bear it? Now I thought when Mr.
Pryor talked to her, maybe she'd send for Laddie that very same
night; but send nothing! She didn't even ride on our road any
more. Of course her father had made a botch of it! Bet I could
have told her Laddie's message straighter than he did. I could
think it over, and see exactly how he'd do. He'd talk nicely
about one minute, and the first word she said, that he didn't
like, he'd be ranting, and using unsuitable words. Just as like
as not he told her that he'd lay his whip across her shoulders,
like he had Laddie. Any one could see that as long as she was
his daughter, she might be slightly handy with whips herself; at
least she wouldn't be likely to stand still and tell him to go
ahead and beat her.
Sunday Laddie went to Lucy's. He said he was having a family
reunion on the installment plan. Of course we laughed, but none
of us missed the long look he sent toward Pryors' as he mounted
to start in the opposite direction.
Everything went on. I didn't see how it could, but it did. It
even got worse, for another letter came from Shelley that made
matters concerning her no brighter, and while none of us talked
about Laddie, all of us knew mighty well how we felt; and what
was much worse, how he felt. Father and mother had quit worrying
about God; especially father. He seemed to think that God and
Laddie could be trusted to take care of the Princess, and I don't
know exactly what mother thought. No doubt she saw she couldn't
help herself, and so she decided it was useless to struggle.
The plowing on the west side was almost finished, and some of the
seed was in. Laddie went straight ahead flower-trimmed and
whistling until his face must have ached as badly as his heart.
In spite of how hard he tried to laugh, and keep going, all of us
could see that he fairly had to stick up his head and stretch his
neck like the blue goose, to make the bites go down. And you
couldn't help seeing the roundness and the colour go from his
face, a little more every day. My! but being in love, when you
couldn't have the one you loved, was the worst of all. I wore
myself almost as thin as Laddie, hunting a Fairy to ask if she'd
help me to make the Princess let Laddie go on and plow, when he
was so crazy about it. I prayed beside my bed every night, until
the Lord must have grown so tired He quit listening to me, for I
talked right up as impressively as I knew how, and it didn't do
the least bit of good. I hadn't tried the one big prayer toward
the east yet; but I was just about to the place where I intended
to do it soon.
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 whisperlike.
"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.
CHAPTER XVI
The Homing Pigeon
"A millstone and the human heart,
Are ever driven round,
And if they've nothing else to grind,
They must themselves be ground."
It seemed to me that my mother was the person who really could
have been excused for having heart trouble. The more I watched
her, the more I wondered that she didn't. There was her own
life, the one she and father led, where everything went exactly
as she wanted it to; and if there had been only themselves to
think of, no people on earth could have lived happier, unless the
pain she sometimes suffered made them trouble, and I don't think
it would, for neither of them were to blame for that. They
couldn't help it. They just had it to stand, and fight the
stiffest they could to cure it, and mother always said she was
better; every single time any one asked, she was better. I hoped
soon it would all be gone. Then they could have been happy for
sure, if some of us hadn't popped up and kept them in hot water
all the time.
I can't tell you about Laddie when he came back from Pryors'. He
tore down the house, then tore it up, and then threw around the
pieces, and none of us cared. Every one was just laughing,
shouting, and every bit as pleased as he was, while I was the
Queen Bee. Laddie said so, himself, and if he didn't know, no
one did. Pryors had been lovely to him. When mother asked him
how he made it, he answered: "I rode over, picked up the
Princess and helped myself. After I finished, I remembered the
little unnecessary formality of asking her to marry me; and she
said right out loud that she WOULD. When I had time for them, I
reached Father and Mother Pryor, and maybe it doesn't show, but
somewhere on my person I carry their blessing, genially and
heartily given, I am proud to state. Now, I'm only needing
yours, to make me a king among men."
They gave it quite as willingly, I am sure, although you could
see mother scringe when Laddie said "Father and Mother Pryor." I
knew why. She adored Laddie, like the Bible says you must adore
the Almighty. From a tiny baby Laddie had taken care of her. He
used to go back, take her hand, and try to help her over rough
places while he still wore dresses. Straight on, he had been
like that; always seeing when there was too much work and trying
to shield her; always knowing when a pain was coming and fighting
to head it off; always remembering the things the others forgot,
going to her last at night, and his face against hers on her
pillow the first in the morning, to learn how she was before he
left the house. If you were the mother of a man like that, how
would you like to hear him call some one else mother, and have
the word slip from his tongue so slick you could see he didn't
even realize that he had used it? The answer would be, if you
were honest, that you wouldn't have liked it any more than she
did. She knew he had to go. She wanted him to be happy. She
was as sure of the man he was going to be as she was sure of the
mercy of God. That is the strongest way I know to tell it. She
was unshakably sure of the mercy of God, but I wasn't. There
were times when it seemed as if He couldn't hear the most
powerful prayer you could pray, and when instead of mercy, you
seemed to get the last torment that could be piled on. Take
right now. Laddie was happy, and all of us were, in a way; and
in another we were almost stiff with misery.
I dreaded his leaving us so, I would slip to the hawk oak and cry
myself sick, more than once; whether any of the others were that
big babies I don't know; but anyway, THEY were not his Little
Sister. I was. I always had been. I always would be, for that
matter; but there was going to be a mighty big difference. I had
the poor comfort that I'd done the thing myself. Maybe if it
hadn't been for stopping the Princess when I took him that pie,
they never would have made up, and she might have gone across the
sea and stayed there. Maybe she'd go yet, as mysteriously as she
had come, and take him along. Sometimes I almost wished I hadn't
tried to help him; but of course I didn't really. Then, too, I
had sense enough to know that loving each other as they did, they
wouldn't live on that close together for years and years, and not
find a way to make up for themselves, like they had at the start.
I liked Laddie saying I had made his happiness for him; but I
wasn't such a fool that I didn't know he could have made it for
himself just as well, and no doubt better. So everything was all
right with Laddie; and what happened to us, the day he rode away
for the last time, when he went to stay--what happened to us,
then, was our affair. We had to take it, but every one of us
dreaded it, while mother didn't know how to bear it, and neither
did I. Once I said to her: "Mother, when Laddie goes we'll just
have to make it up to each other the best we can, won't we?"
"Oh my soul, child!" she cried, staring at me so surprised-like.
"Why, how unspeakably selfish I have been! No little lost sheep
ever ran this farm so desolate as you will be without your
brother. Forgive me baby, and come here!"
Gee, but we did cry it out together! The God she believed in has
wiped away her tears long ago; this minute I can scarcely see the
paper for mine. If you could call anything happiness, that was
mixed with feeling like that, why, then, we were happy about
Laddie. But from things I heard father and mother say, I knew
they could have borne his going away, and felt a trifle better
than they did. I was quite sure they had stopped thinking that
he was going to lose his soul, but they couldn't help feeling so
long as that old mystery hung over Pryors that he might get into
trouble through it. Father said if it hadn't been for Mr.
Pryor's stubborn and perverted notions about God, he would like
the man immensely, and love to be friends; and if Laddie married
into the family we would have to be as friendly as we could
anyway. He said he had such a high opinion of Mr. Pryor's
integrity that he didn't believe he'd encourage Laddie to enter
his family if it would involve the boy in serious trouble.
Mother didn't know. Anyway, the thing was done, and by fall, no
doubt, Laddie would leave us.
Just when we were trying to keep a stiff upper lip before him,
and whistling as hard as ever he had, to brace our courage, a
letter came for mother from the head of the music school Shelley
attended, saying she was no longer fit for work, so she was being
sent home at once, and they would advise us to consult a
specialist immediately. Mother sat and stared at father, and
father went to hitch the horses to drive to Groveville.
There's only one other day of my life that stands out as clearly
as that. The house was clean as we could make it. I finished
feeding early, and had most of the time to myself. I went down
to the Big Hill, and followed the top of it to our woods. Then I
turned around, and started toward the road, just idling. If I
saw a lovely spot I sat down and watched all around me to see if
a Fairy really would go slipping past, or lie asleep under a
leaf. I peeked and peered softly, going from spot to spot,
watching everything. Sometimes I hung over the water, and
studied tiny little fish with red, yellow, and blue on them,
bright as flowers. The dragonflies would alight right on me, and
some wore bright blue markings and some blood red. There was a
blue beetle, a beautiful green fly, and how the blue wasps did
flip, flirt and glint in the light. So did the blackbirds and
the redwings. That embankment was left especially to shade the
water, and to feed the birds. Every foot of it was covered with
alders, wild cherry, hazelbush, mulberries, everything having a
berry or nut. There were several scrub apple trees, many red
haws, the wild strawberries spread in big beds in places, and
some of them were colouring.
Wild flowers grew everywhere, great beds were blue with calamus,
and the birds flocked in companies to drive away the water
blacksnakes that often found nests, and liked eggs and bird
babies. When I came to the road at last, the sun was around so
the big oak on the top of the hill threw its shadow across the
bridge, and I lay along one edge and watched the creek bottom, or
else I sat up so the water flowed over my feet, and looked at the
embankment and the sky. In a way, it was the most peculiar day
of my life. I had plenty to think of, but I never thought at
all. I only lived. I sat watching the world go past through a
sort of golden haze the sun made. When a pair of kingbirds and
three crows chased one of my hawks pell-mell across the sky, I
looked on and didn't give a cent what happened. When a big
blacksnake darted its head through sweet grass and cattails, and
caught a frog that had climbed on a mossy stone in the shade to
dine on flies, I let it go. Any other time I would have hunted a
stick and made the snake let loose. To-day I just sat there and
let things happen as they did.
At last I wandered up the road, climbed the back garden fence,
and sat on the board at the edge of a flowerbed, and to-day, I
could tell to the last butterfly about that garden: what was in
bloom, how far things had grown, and what happened. Bobby flew
under the Bartlett pear tree and crowed for me, but I never
called him. I sat there and lived on, and mostly watched the
bees tumble over the bluebells. They were almost ready to be cut
to put in the buttered tumblers for perfume, like mother made for
us. Then I went into the house and looked at Grace Greenwood,
but I didn't take her along. Mother came past and gave me a
piece of stiff yellow brocaded silk as lovely as I ever had seen,
enough for a dress skirt; and a hand-embroidered chemise sleeve
that only needed a band and a button to make a petticoat for a
Queen doll, but I laid them away and wandered into the orchard.
I dragged my bare feet through the warm grass, and finally sat
under the beet red peach tree. If ever I seemed sort of lost and
sorry for myself, that was a good place to go; it was so easy to
feel abused there because you didn't dare touch those peaches.
Fluffy baby chickens were running around, but I didn't care;
there was more than a bird for every tree, bluebirds especially;
they just loved us and came early and stayed late, and grew so
friendly they nested all over the wood house, smoke house, and
any place we fixed for them, and in every hollow apple limb.
Bobby came again, but I didn't pay any attention to him.
Then I heard the carriage cross the bridge. I knew when it was
father, every single time his team touched the first plank. So I
ran like an Indian, and shinned up a cedar tree, scratching
myself until I bled. Away up I stood on a limb, held to the tree
and waited. Father drove to the gate, and mother came out, with
May, Candace, and Leon following. When Shelley touched the
ground and straightened, any other tree except a spruce having
limbs to hold me up, I would have fallen from it. She looked
exactly as if she had turned to tombstone with eyes and hair
alive. She stopped a second to brush a little kiss across
mother's lips, to the others she said without even glancing at
them: "Oh do let me lie down a minute! The motion of that train
made me sick."
Well, I should say it did! I quit living, and began thinking in
a hooray, and so did every one else at our house. Once I had
been sick and queened it over them for a while, now all of us
strained ourselves trying to wait on Shelley; but she wouldn't
have it. She only said she was tired to death, to let her rest,
and she turned her face to the wall and lay there. Once she said
she never wanted to see a city again so long as she lived. When
mother told her about Laddie and the Princess to try to interest
her, she never said a word; I doubted if she even listened.
Father and mother looked at each other, when they thought no one
would see, and their eyes sent big, anxious questions flashing
back and forth. I made up my mind I'd keep awake that night and
hear what they said, if I had to take pins to bed with me and
stick myself.
Once mother said to Shelley that she was going to send for Dr.
Fenner, and she answered: "All right, if you need him. Don't
you dare for me! I'll not see him. All I want is a little peace
and rest."
The idea! Not one of us ever had spoken to mother like that
before in all our born days. I held my breath to see what she
would do, but she didn't seem to have heard it, or to notice how
rude it had been. Well, THAT told about as plain as anything
what we had on our hands. I wandered around and NOW there was no
trouble about thinking things. They came in such a jumble I
could get no sense from them; but one big black thought came
over, and over, and over, and wouldn't be put away. It just
stood, stayed, forced you, and made you look it in the face. If
Shelley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with
the little fever and whooping cough sisters. There it was! You
could try to think other things, to play, to work, to talk it
down in the pulpit, to sing it out in a tree, to slide down the
haystack away from it--there it stayed! And every glimpse you
had of Shelley made it surer.
There was no trouble about keeping awake that night; I couldn't
sleep. I stood at the window and looked down the Big Hill
through the soft white moonlight, and thought about it, and then
I thought of mother. I guess NOW you see what kind of things
mothers have to face. All day she had gone around doing her
work, every few minutes suggesting some new thing for one of us
to try, or trying it herself; all day she had talked and laughed,
and when Sarah Hood came she told her she thought Shelley must be
bilious, that she had travelled all night and was sleeping: but
she would be up the first place she went, and then they talked
all over creation and Mrs. Hood went home and never remembered
that she hadn't seen Shelley. She worked Mrs. Freshett off the
same way, but you could see she was almost too tired to do it, so
by night she was nearly as white as Shelley, yet keeping things
going. When the house was still, she came into the room, and
stood at the window as I had, until father entered, then she
turned, and I could see they were staring at each other in the
moonlight, as they had all day.
"She's sick?" asked father, at last.
"Heartsick!" said mother bitterly.
"We'd better have Doc come?"
"She says she isn't sick, and she won't see him."
"She will if I put my foot down."
"Best not, Paul! She'll feel better soon. She's so young! She
must get over it."
They were silent for a long time and then father asked in a harsh
whisper: "Ruth, can she possibly have brought us to shame?"
"God forbid!" cried mother. "Let us pray."
Then those two people knelt on each side of that bed, and I could
hear half the words they muttered, until I was wild enough to
scream. I wished with all my heart that I hadn't listened. I
had always known it was no nice way. I must have gone to sleep
after a while, but when I woke up I was still thinking about it,
and to save me, I couldn't quit. All day, wherever I went, that
question of father's kept going over in my head. I thought about
it until I was almost crazy, and I just couldn't see where
anything about shame came in.
She was only mistaken. She THOUGHT he loved her, and he didn't.
She never could have been so bloomy, so filled with song,
laughter, and lovely like she was, if she hadn't truly believed
with all her heart that he loved her. Of course it would almost
finish her to give him up, when she felt like that; and maybe she
did wrong to let herself care so much, before she was sure about
him; but that would only be foolish, there wouldn't be even a
shadow of shame about it. Besides, Laddie had done exactly the
same thing. He loved the Princess until it nearly killed him
when he thought he had to give her up, and he loved her as hard
as ever he could, when he hadn't an idea whether she would love
him back, even a tiny speck; and the person who wasn't foolish,
and never would be, was Laddie.
The more I thought, the worse I got worked up, and I couldn't see
how Shelley was to blame for anything at all. Love just came to
her, like it came to Laddie. She would hardly have knelt down
and beseeched the Lord to make her fall in love with a man she
scarcely knew, and when she couldn't be sure what he was going to
do about it--not the Lord, the man, I mean. You could see for
yourself she wouldn't do that. I finished my work, and then I
tried to do things for her, and she wouldn't let me. Mother told
me to ask her to make Grace Greenwood the dress she had promised
when I was so sick; so I took the Scotch plaid to her and
reminded her, and she pushed me away and said: "Some time!"
I even got Grace, and showed Shelley the spills on her dress, and
how badly she needed a new one, but she never looked, she said:
"Oh bother! My head aches. Do let me be!"
Mother was listening. I could see her standing outside the door.
She motioned to me to come away, so I went to her and she was
white as Shelley. She was sick too, she couldn't say a word for
a minute, but after a while she kissed me, I could feel the
quivers in her lips, and she said stifflike: "Never mind, she'll
be better soon, then she will! Run play now!"
Sometimes I wandered around looking at things and living dully.
I didn't try to study out anything, but I must have watched
closer than I knew, for every single thing I saw then, over that
whole farm, I can shut my eyes and see to-day; everything, from
the old hawk tilting his tail to steer him in soaring, to a snake
catching field mice in the grass, lichens on the fence, flowers,
butterflies, every single thing. Mostly I sat to watch something
that promised to become interesting, and before I knew it, I was
back on the shame question. That's the most dreadful word in the
dictionary. There's something about it that makes your face
burn, only to have it in your mind.
Laddie said he never had met any man who knew the origin of more
words than father. He could even tell every clip what
nationality a man was from his name. Hundreds of time I have
heard him say to stranger people, "From your name you'd be of
Scotch extraction," or Irish, or whatever it was, and every time
the person he was talking with would say, "Yes." Some day away
out in the field, alone, I thought I would ask him what people
first used the word "shame," and just exactly what it did mean,
and what the things were that you could do that would make the
people who loved you until they would die for you, ashamed of
you.
Thinking about that and planning out what it was that I wanted to
know, gave me another idea. Why not ask her? She was the only
one who knew what she had done away there in the city, alone
among strangers; I wasn't sure whether all the music a girl could
learn was worth letting her take the chances she would have to in
a big city. From the way Laddie and father hated them, they were
a poor place for men, and they must have been much worse for
girls. Shelley knew, why not ask HER? Maybe I could coax her to
tell me, and it would make my life much easier to know; and only
think what was going on in father's and mother's heads and
hearts, when I felt that way, and didn't even know what there was
to be ashamed about. She wouldn't any more than slap me; and
sick as she was, I made up my mind not to get angry at her, or
ever to tell, if she did. I'd rather have her hit me when she
was so sick than to have Sally beat me until she couldn't strike
another lick, just because she was angry. But I forgave her
that, and I was never going to think of it again--only I did.
Mother kept sending Leon to the post-office, and she met him at
the gate half the time herself and fairly snatched the letters
from his hands. Hum! She couldn't pull the wool over my eyes.
I knew she hoped somehow, some way, there would be a big fat one
with Paget, Legal Adviser, or whatever a Chicago lawyer puts on
his envelopes. Jerry's just say: "Attorney at Law."
No letter ever came that had Paget in the corner, or anything
happened that did Shelley any good. Far otherwise! Just before
supper Leon came from Groveville one evening, and all of us could
see at a glance that he had been crying like a baby. He had
wiped up, and was trying to hold in, but he was killed, next. I
nearly said, "Well, for heaven's sake, another!" when I saw him.
He slammed down a big, long envelope, having printing on it,
before father, and glared at it as if he wanted to tear it to
smithereens, and he said: "If you want to know why it looks like
that, I buried it under a stone once; but I had to go back, and
then I threw it as far as I could send it, into Ditton's gully,
but after a while I hunted it up again!"
Then he keeled over on the couch mother keeps for her in the
dining-room, and sobbed until he looked like he'd come apart.
Of course all of us knew exactly what that letter was from the
way he acted. Mother had told him, time and again, not to set
his heart so; father had, too and Laddie, and every one of us,
but that little half-Arab, half-Kentucky mare was the worst
temptation a man who loved horses could possibly have; and while
father and mother stopped at good work horses, and matched
roadsters for the carriage, they managed to prize and tend them
so that every one of us had been born horse-crazy, and we had
been allowed to ride, care for, and taught to love horses all our
lives. Treat a horse ugly, and we'd have gone on the thrashing
floor ourselves.
Father laid the letter face down, his hand on it, and shook his
head. "This is too bad!" he said. "It's a burning shame, but
the money, the exact amount, was taken from a farmer in Medina
County, Ohio, by a traveller he sheltered a few days, because he
complained of a bad foot. The description of the man who robbed
us is perfect. The money was from the sale of some prize cattle.
It will have to be returned."
"Just let me see the letter a minute," said Laddie.
He read it over thoughtfully. He was long enough about it to
have gone over it three times; then he looked at Leon, and his
forehead creased in a deep frown. The tears slid down mother's
cheeks, but she didn't know it, or else she'd have wiped them
away. She was never mussy about the least little thing.
"Father!" she said. "Father----!"
That was as far as she could go.
"The man must have his money," said father, "but we'll look into
this----"
He pushed back the plates and tablecloth, and cleared his end of
the table. Mother never budged to stack the plates, or
straighten the cloth so it wouldn't be wrinkled. Then father
brought his big account book from the black walnut chest in our
room, some little books, and papers, sharpened a pencil and began
going up and down the columns and picking out figures here and
there that he set on a piece of paper. I never had seen him look
either old or tired before; but he did then. Mother noticed it
too, for her lips tightened, she lifted her head, wiped her eyes,
and pretended that she felt better. Laddie said something about
doing the feeding, and slipped out. Just then Shelley came into
the room, stopped, and looked questioningly at us. Her eyes
opened wide, and she stared hard at Leon.
"Why what ails him?" she asked mother.
"You remember what I wrote you about a man who robbed us, and the
money Leon was to have, provided no owner was found in a
reasonable time; and the horse the boy had planned to buy, and
how he had been going to Pryors'--Oh, I think he's slipped over
there once a day, and often three times, all this spring! Mr.
Pryor encouraged him, let him take his older horses to practise
on, even went out and taught him cross-country riding
himself----"
"I remember!" said Shelley.
Leon sobbed out loud. Shelley crossed the room swiftly, dropped
beside him and whispered something in his ear. Quick as a shot
his arm reached out and went around her. She hid her head deep
in the pillow beside him, and they went to pieces together.
Clear to pieces! Pretty soon father had to take off his glasses
and wipe them so he could see the figures. Mother took one long
look at him, a short one at Leon and Shelley, then she arose, her
voice as even and smooth, and she said: "While you figure,
father, I'll see about supper. I have tried to plan an extra
good one this evening."
She left the room. NOW, I guess you know about all I can tell
you of mother! I can't see that there's a thing left. That was
the kind of soldier she was. Talk about Crusaders, and a good
fight! All the blood of battle in our family wasn't on father's
side, not by any means! The Dutch could fight too!
Father's pencil scraped a little, a bee that had slipped in
buzzed over the apple butter, while the clock ticked as if it
used a hammer. It was so loud one wanted to pitch it from the
window. May and I sat still as mice when the cat is near.
Candace couldn't keep away from the kitchen door to save her, and
where mother went I hadn't an idea, but she wasn't getting an
extra good supper. Shelley and Leon were quieter now. May
nudged me, and I saw that his arm around her was gripping her
tight, while her hand on his head was patting him and fingering
his hair.
Ca-lumph! Ca-lumph! came the funniest sound right on the stone
walk leading to the east door, then a shrill whicker that made
father drop his pencil. Leon was on his feet, Shelley beside
him, while at the door stood Laddie grinning as if his face would
split, and with her forefeet on the step and her nose in the
room, stood the prettiest, the very prettiest horse I ever saw.
She was sticking her nose toward Leon, whinnying softly, as she
lifted one foot, and if Laddie hadn't backed her, she would have
walked right into the dining-room.
"Come on, Weiscope, she's yours!" said Laddie. "Take her to the
barn, and put her in one of the cow stalls, until we fix a place
for her."
Leon crossed the room, but he never touched the horse. He threw
his arms around Laddie's neck.
"Son! Son! Haven't you let your feelings run away with you?
What does this mean?" asked father sternly.
"There's nothing remarkable in a big six-footer like me buying a
horse," said Laddie. "I expect to purchase a number soon, and
without a cent to pay, in the bargain. I contracted to give five
hundred dollars for this mare. She is worth more; but that
should be satisfactory all around. I am going to earn it by
putting five of Mr. Pryor's fancy, pedigreed horses in shape for
market, taking them personally, and selling them to men fit to
own and handle real horses. I get one hundred each, and my
expenses for the job. I'll have as much fun doing it as I ever
had at anything. It suits me far better than plowing, even."
Mother entered the room at a sweep, and pushed Leon aside.
"Oh you man of my heart!" she cried. "You man after my own
heart!"
Laddie bent and kissed her, holding her tight as he looked over
her head at father.
"It's all right, of course?" he said.
"I never have known of anything quite so altogether right," said
father. "Thank you, lad, and God bless you!"
He took Laddie's hand, and almost lifted him from the floor, then
he wiped his glasses, gathered up his books with a big, deep
breath of relief, and went into his room. If the others had
looked to see why he was gone so long, they would have seen him
on his knees beside his bed thanking God, as usual. Leon
couldn't have come closer than when he said, "The same yesterday,
to-day, and forever," about father.
Leon had his arms around the neck of his horse now, and he was
kissing her, patting her, and explaining to Shelley just why no
other horse was like her. He was pouring out a jumble all about
the oasis of the desert, the tent dwellers, quoting lines from
"The Arab to His Horse," bluegrass, and gentleness combined with
spirit, while Shelley had its head between her hands, stroking it
and saying, "Yes," to every word Leon told her. Then he said:
"Just hop on her back from that top step and ride her to the
barn, if you want to see the motion she has."
Shelley said: "Has a woman ever been on her back? Won't she shy
at my skirts?"
"No," explained Leon. "I've been training her with a horse
blanket pinned around me, so Susie could ride her! She'll be all
right."
So Shelley mounted, and the horse turned her head, and tried to
rub against her, as she walked away, tame as a sheep. I wondered
if she could be too gentle. If she went "like the wind," as Leon
said, it didn't show then. I was almost crazy to go along, and
maybe Leon would let me ride a little while; but I had a question
that it would help me to know the answer and I wanted to ask
father before I forgot; so I waited until he came out. When he
sat down, smiled at me and said, "Well, is the girl happy for
brother?" I knew it was a good time, and I could ask anything I
chose, so I sat on his knee and said: "Father, when you pray for
anything that it's all perfectly right for you to have, does God
come down from heaven and do it Himself, or does He send a man
like Laddie to do it for him?"
Father hugged me tight, smiling the happiest.
"Why, you have the whole thing right there in a nutshell, Little
Sister," he said. "You see it's like this: the Book tells us
most distinctly that `God is love.' Now it was love that sent
Laddie to bind himself for a long, tedious job, to give Leon his
horse, wasn't it?"
"Of course!" I said. "He wouldn't have been likely to do it if
he hated him. It was love, of course!"
"Then it was God," said father, "because `God is love.' They are
one and the same thing."
Then he kissed me, and THAT was settled. So I wondered when you
longed for anything so hard you really felt it was worth
bothering God about, whether the quickest way to get it was to
ask Him for it, or to try to put a lot of love into the heart of
some person who could do what you wanted. I decided it all went
back to God though, for most of the time probably we wouldn't
know who the right one was to try to awaken love in. I was
mighty sure none of us ever dreamed Laddie could walk over to
Pryors', and come back with that horse, in a way perfectly
satisfactory to every one, slick as an eel.
You should have seen Leon following around after Laddie, trying
to do things for him, taking on his work to give him more time
with the horses, getting up early to finish his own stunts, so he
could go over to Pryors' and help. Mother said it had done more
to make a man of him than anything that ever happened. It helped
Shelley, too. Something seemed to break in her, when she cried
so with Leon, because he was in trouble. Then he was so crazy to
show off his horse he had Shelley ride up and down the lane,
while he ran along and led, so she got a lot of exercise, and it
made her good and hungry. If you don't think by this time that
my mother was the beatenest woman alive, I'll prove it to you.
When the supper bell rang there was strawberry preserves instead
of the apple butter, biscuit, fried chicken, and mashed potatoes.
She must have slapped those chickens into the skillet before they
knew their heads were off. When Shelley came to the table, for
the first time since she'd been home, had pink in her cheeks, and
talked some, and ate too, mother forgot her own supper. She
fumbled over her plate, but scarcely touched even the livers, and
those delicious little kidneys in the tailpiece like Leon and I
had at Sally's wedding. When we finished, and it was time for
her to give the signal to arise, no one had asked to be excused,
she said: "Let us have a word with the Most High." Then she
bowed her head, so all of us did too. "O Lord, we praise Thee
for all Thy tender mercies, and all Thy loving kindness. Amen!"
Of course father always asked the blessing to begin with, and
mostly it was the same one, and that was all at meal time, but
this was a little extra that mother couldn't even wait until
night to tell the Almighty, she was so pleased with Him. Maybe I
haven't told everything about her, after all. Father must have
thought that was lovely of her; he surely felt as happy as she
did, to see Shelley better, for he hugged and kissed her over and
over, finishing at her neck like he always did, and then I behanged,
if he didn't hug and kiss every last one of us--tight,
even the boys. Shelley he held long and close, and patted her a
little when he let her go. It made me wonder if the rest of us
didn't get ours, so he'd have a chance at her without her
noticing it. One thing was perfectly clear. If shame came to
us, they were going to love her, and stick tight to her right
straight through it.
Now that everything was cleared up so, Shelley seemed a little
more like herself every day, although it was bad enough yet; I
thought I might as well hurry up the end a little, and stop the
trouble completely, so I began watching for a chance to ask her.
But I wanted to get her away off alone, so no one would see if
she slapped me. I didn't know how long I'd have to wait. I
tried coaxing her to the orchard to see a bluebird's nest, but
she asked if bluebirds were building any different that year, and
I had to admit they were not. Then I tried the blue-eyed Mary
bed, but she said she supposed it was still under the cling peach
tree, and the flower, two white petals up, two blue down, and so
it was. Just as I was beginning to think I'd have to take that
to the Lord in prayer, I got my chance by accident.
May and Candace were forever going snake hunting. You would
think any one with common sense would leave them alone and be
glad of the chance, but no indeed! They went nearly every day as
soon as the noon work was finished, and stayed until time to get
supper. They did have heaps of fun and wild excitement. May was
gentle, and tender with everything else on earth; so I 'spose she
had a right to bruise the serpent with her heel--really she used
sticks and stones--if she wanted to. I asked her how she COULD,
and she said there was a place in the Bible that told how a snake
coaxed Eve to eat an apple, that the Lord had told her she
mustn't touch; and so she got us into most of the trouble there
was in the world. May said it was all the fault of the SNAKE to
begin with, and she meant to pay up every one she could find,
because she had none of the apple, and lots of the trouble.
Candace cried so much because Frederick Swartz had been laid in
the tomb, that mother was pleased to have her cheer up, even
enough to go snake hunting.
That afternoon Mehitabel Heasty had come to visit May, so she
went along, and I followed. They poked around the driftwood at
the floodgate behind the barn, and were giving up the place.
Candace had crossed the creek and was coming back, and May had
started, when she saw a tiny little one and chased it. We didn't
know then that it was a good thing to have snakes to eat moles,
field mice, and other pests that bother your crops; the Bible had
no mercy on them at all, so we were not saving our snakes; and
anyway we had more than we needed, while some of them were too
big to be safe to keep, and a few poison as could be. May began
to bruise the serpent, when out of the driftwood where they
hadn't found anything came its mammy, a great big blacksnake,
maddest you ever saw, with its pappy right after her, mad as ever
too. Candace screamed at May to look behind her, but May was
busy with the snake and didn't look quick enough, so the old
mammy struck right in her back. She just caught in the hem of
May's skirt, and her teeth stuck in the goods--you know how a
snake's teeth turn back--so she couldn't let go. May took one
look and raced down the bank to the crossing, through the water,
and toward us, with the snake dragging and twisting, and trying
her best to get away. May was screaming at every jump for
Candace, and Mehitabel was flying up and down crying: "Oh
there's snakes in my shoes! There's snakes in my shoes!"
That was a fair sample of how much sense a Heasty ever had. It
took all Mehitabel's shoes could do to hold her feet, for after
one went barefoot all week, and never put on shoes except on
Sunday or for a visit, the feet became so spread out, shoes had
all they could do to manage them, and then mostly they pinched
until they made one squirm. But she jumped and said that, while
May ran and screamed, and Candace gripped her big hickory stick
and told May to stand still. Then she bruised that serpent with
her whole foot, for she stood on it, and swatted it until she
broke its neck. Then she turned ready for the other one, but
when it saw what happened to its mate, it decided to go back.
Even snakes, it doesn't seem right to break up families like
that; so by the time Candace got the mammy killed, loose from
May's hem, and stretched out with the back up, so she wouldn't
make it rain, when Candace wasn't sure that father wanted rain, I
had enough. I went down the creek until I was below the orchard,
then I crossed, passed the cowslip bed, climbed the hill and
fence, and stopped to think what I would do first; and there only
a few feet away was Shelley. She was sitting in the shade, her
knees drawn up, her hands clasped around them, staring straight
before her across the meadow at nothing in particular, that I
could see. She jumped as if I had been a snake when she saw me,
then she said, "Oh, is it you?" like she was half glad of it. My
chance had come.
I went to her, sat close beside her and tried snuggling up a
little. It worked. She put her arm around me, drew me tight,
rubbed her cheek against my head and we sat there. I was
wondering how in the world I could ask her, and not get slapped.
I was growing most too big for that slapping business, anyway.
We sat there; I was looking across the meadow as she did, only I
was watching everything that went on, so when I saw a grosbeak
fly from the wild grape where Shelley had put the crock for sap,
it made me think of her hair. She used to like to have me play
with it so well, she'd give me pennies if I did. I got up, and
began pulling out her pins carefully. I knew I was getting a
start because right away she put up her hand to help me.
"I can get them," I said just as flannel-mouthed as ever I could,
like all of us talked to her now, so I got every one and never
pulled a mite. When I reached over her shoulder to drop them in
her lap, being so close I kissed her cheek. Then I shook down
her hair, spread it out, lifted it, parted it, and held up
strands to let the air on her scalp. She shivered and said:
"Mercy child, how good that does feel! My head has ached lately
until it's a wonder there's a hair left on it."
So I was pleasing her. I never did handle hair so carefully. I
tried every single thing it feels good to you to have done with
your hair, rubbed her head gently, and to cheer her up I told her
about May and the snake, and what fool Mehitabel had said, and
she couldn't help laughing; so I had her feeling about as good as
she could, for the way she actually felt, but still I didn't
really get ahead. Come right to the place to do it, that was no
very easy question to ask a person, when you wouldn't hurt their
feelings for anything; I was beginning to wonder if I would lose
my chance, when all at once a way I could manage popped into my
mind.
"Shelley," I said, "they told you about Laddie and the Princess,
didn't they?"
I knew they had, but I had to make a beginning some way.
"Yes," she said. "I'm glad of it! I think she's pretty as a
picture, and nice as she looks. Laddie may have to hump himself
to support her, but if he can't get her as fine clothes as she
has, her folks can help him. They seem to have plenty, and she's
their only child."
"They're going to. I heard Mr. Pryor ask Laddie if he'd be so
unkind as to object to them having the pleasure of giving her
things."
"Well, the greenhorn didn't say he would!"
"No. He didn't want to put his nose to the grindstone quite that
close. He said it was between them."
"I should think so!"
"Shelley, there's a question I've been wanting to ask some one
for quite a while."
"What?"
"Why, this! You know, Laddie was in love with the Princess, like
you are when you want to marry folks, for a long, long time,
before he could be sure whether she loved him back."
"Yes."
"Well, now, 'spose she never had loved him, would he have had
anything to be ashamed of?"
"I can't see that he would. Some one must start a courtship, or
there would be no marrying, and it's conceded to be the place of
the man. No. He might be disappointed, or dreadfully hurt, but
there would be no shame about it."
"Well, then, suppose she loved him, and wanted to marry him, and
he hadn't loved her, or wanted her, would SHE have had anything
to be ashamed of?"
"I don't think so! If she was attracted by him, and thought she
would like him, she would have a right to go to a certain extent,
to find out if he cared for her, and if he didn't, why, she'd
just have to give him up. But any sensible girl waits for a man
to make the advances, and plenty of them, before she allows
herself even to dream of loving him, or at least, I would."
Now I was getting somewhere!
"Of course you would!" I said. "That would be the WAY mother
would, wouldn't it?"
"Surely!"
"If that Paget man you used to write about had seemed to be just
what you liked, you'd have waited to know if he wanted you,
before you loved him, wouldn't you?"
"I certainly would!" answered Shelley. "Or at least, I'd have
waited until I THOUGHT sure as death, I knew. It seems that
sometimes you can be fooled about those things."
"But if you thought sure you knew, and then found out you had
been mistaken, you wouldn't have anything to be ASHAMED of, would
you?"
"Not-on-your-life-I-wouldn't!" cried Shelley, hammering each word
into her right knee with her doubled fist. "What are you driving
at, Blatherskite? What have you got into your head?"
"Oh just studying about things," I said, which was exactly the
truth. "Sally getting married last fall, and Laddie going to
this, just started me to wondering."
Fooled her, too!
"Oh well, there's no harm done," she said. "The sooner you get
these matters straightened out, the better able you will be to
take care of yourself. If you ever go to a city, you'll find out
that a girl needs considerable care taken of her."
"You could look out for yourself, Shelley?"
"Well, I don't know as I made such a glorious fist of it," she
said, "but at least, as you say, I've nothing to be ashamed of!"
I almost hugged her head off.
"Of course you haven't!" I cried. "Of course you wouldn't have!"
I just kissed her over and over for joy; I was so glad my heart
hurt for father and mother. Shame had not come to them!
"Now, I guess I'll run to the house and get a comb," I told her.
"Go on," said Shelley. "I know you are tired."
"I'm not in the least," I said. "Don't you remember I always use
a comb when I fuss with your hair?"
"It is better," said Shelley. "Go get one."
As I got up to start I took a last look at her, and there was
something in her face that I couldn't bear. I knelt beside her,
and put both arms around her neck.
"Shelley, it's a secret," I said in a breathless half whisper.
"It's a great, big secret, but I'm going to tell you. Twice now
I've had a powerful prayer all ready to try. It's the kind where
you go to the barn, all alone, stand on that top beam below the
highest window and look toward the east. You keep perfectly
still, and just think with all your might, and you look away over
where Jesus used to be, and when the right feeling comes, you
pray that prayer as if He stood before you, and it will come
true. I KNOW it will come true. The reason I know is because
twice now I've been almost ready to try it, and what I intended
to ask for happened before I had time; so I've saved that prayer;
but Shelley, shall I pray it about the Paget man, for you?"
She gripped me, and she shook until she was all twisted up; you
could hear her teeth click, she chilled so. The tears just
gushed, and she pulled me up close and whispered right in my ear:
"Yes!"
It was only pretend about the comb; what I really wanted was to
get to father and mother quick. I knew he was at the barn and he
was going to be too happy for words in a minute. But as I went
up the lane, I wasn't sure whether I'd rather pray about that
Paget man or bruise him with my heel like a serpent. The only
way I could fix it was to remember if Shelley loved him so, he
must be mighty nice. Father was in the wagon shovelling corn
from it to a platform where it would be handy to feed the pigs,
so I ran and called him, and put one foot on a hub and raised my
hands. He pulled me up and when he saw how important it was, he
sat on the edge of the bed, so I told him: "Father, you haven't
got a thing in the world to be ashamed of about Shelley."
"Praise the Lord!" said father like I knew he would, but you
should have seen his face. "Tell me about it!"
I told him and he said: "Well, I don't know but this is the
gladdest hour of my life. Go straight and repeat to your mother
exactly what you've said to me. Take her away all alone, and
then forget about it, you little blessing."
"Father, have you got too many children?"
"No!" he said. "I wish I had a dozen more, if they'd be like
you."
When I went up the lane I was so puffed up with importance I felt
too dignified to run. I strutted like our biggest turkey
gobbler. The only reason you couldn't hear my wings scrape, was
because through mistake they grew on the turkey. If I'd had
them, I would have dragged them sure, and cried "Ge-hobblehobble!"
at every step.
I took mother away alone and told her, and she asked many more
questions than father, but she was even gladder than he. She
almost hugged the breath out of me. Sometimes I get things
RIGHT, anyway! Then I took the comb and ran back to Shelley.
"I thought you'd forgotten me," she said.
She had wiped up and was looking better. If ever I combed
carefully I did then. Just when I had all the tangles out, there
came mother. She had not walked that far in a long time. I
thought maybe she could comfort Shelley, so I laid the comb in
her lap and went to see how the snake hunters were coming on. It
must be all right, when the Bible says so, but the African Jungle
will do for me, and a popgun is not going to scatter families. I
never felt so strongly about breaking home ties in my life as I
did then. There was nothing worse. It was not where I wanted to
be, so I thought I'd go back to the barn, and hang around father,
hoping maybe he'd brag on me some more. Going up the lane I saw
a wagon passing with the biggest box I ever had seen, and I ran
to the gate to watch where it went. It stopped at our house and
Frank came toward me as I hurried up the road.
"Where are the folks?" he asked, without paying the least
attention to my asking him over and over what was in the box.
"May and Candace are killing every snake in the driftwood behind
the barn, Shelley and mother are down in the orchard, and father
and the boys are hauling corn."
"Go tell the boys to come quickly and keep quiet," he said. "But
don't let any one else know I'm here."
That was so exciting I almost fell over my feet running, and all
three of them came quite as fast. I stood back and watched, and
I just danced a steady hop from one foot to the other while those
men got the big box off the wagon and opened it. On the side I
spelled Piano, so of course it was for Shelley. It was so heavy
it took all six of them, father and the three boys, the driver
and another very stylish looking man to carry it. They put it in
the parlour, screwed a leg on each corner, and a queer harp in
the middle, then they lifted it up and set it on its feet, under
the whatnot, and it seemed as if it filled half the room. Then
Frank spread a beauteous wine coloured cover all embroidered in
pink roses with green leaves over it, and the stylish man opened
a lid, sat down and spread out his hands. Frank said: "Soft
pedal! Mighty soft!" So he smothered it down, and tried only
enough to find that it had not been hurt coming, and then he went
away on the wagon. Father and the boys gathered up every scrap,
swept the walk, and put all the things they had used back where
they got them, like we always did.
Then Frank took a card from his pocket and tied it to the music
rack, and it read: "For Shelley, from her brothers in fact, and
in law." To a corner of the cover he pinned another card that
read: "From Peter."
"What is that?" asked father.
"That's from Peter," said Frank. "Peter is great on finishing
touches. He had to outdo the rest of us that much or bust. Fact
is, none of us thought of a cover except him."
"How about this?" asked father, staring at it as if it were an
animal that would bite.
"Well," said Frank, "it was apparent that practising her fingers
to the bone wouldn't do Shelley much good unless she could keep
it up in summer, and you and mother always have done so much for
the rest of us, and now mother isn't so strong and the expenses
go on the same with these youngsters; we know you were figuring
on it, but we beat you. Put yours in the bank, and try the feel
of a surplus once more. Haven't had much lately, have you,
father?"
"Well, not to speak of," said father.
"Now let's shut everything up, ring the bell to call them, and
get Shelley in here and surprise her."
"She's not very well," said father. "Mother thinks she worked
too hard."
"She's all right now, father," I said. "She is getting pink
again and rounder, and this will fix her grand."
Wouldn't it though! There wasn't one anywhere, short of the
city. Even the Princess had none. Father hunted up a song book,
opened it and set it on the rack. Then all of us went out.
"We'll write to the boys, mother and I, and Shelley also," said
father. "I can't express myself just now. This is a fine thing
for all of you to do."
Frank seemed to think so too, and looked rather puffed up, until
Leon began telling about his horse. When Frank found out that
Laddie, who had not yet branched out for himself, had given Leon
much more than any one of them had Shelley, he looked a little
disappointed. He explained how the piano cost eight hundred
dollars, but by paying cash all at once, the man took seven
hundred and fifty, so it only cost them one hundred and fifty a
piece, and none of them felt it at all.
"Sometimes the clouds loom up pretty black, and mother and I
scarcely know how to go on, save for the help of the Lord, but we
certainly are blest with good children, children we can be proud
of. Your mother will like that instrument as well as Shelley,
son," said father.
Frank went out and rang the bell, tolled it, and made a big noise
like he always did when he came unexpectedly, and then sat on the
back fence until he saw them coming, and went to meet them. He
walked between mother and Shelley, with an arm around each one.
If he thought Shelley looked badly, he didn't mention it. What
he did say was that he was starved, and to fly around and get
supper. I thought I'd burst. They began to cook, and the boys
went to feed and see Leon's horse, and then we had supper. I
just sat and stared at Frank and grinned. I couldn't eat.
"Do finish your supper," said mother. "I never saw anything take
your appetite like seeing your brother. You'll be wanting a
piece before bedtime."
I didn't say a word, because I was afraid to, but I kept looking
at Leon and he smiled back, and we had great fun. Secrets are
lovely. Mother couldn't have eaten a bite if she'd known about
that great shining thing, all full of wonderful sound, standing
in our parlour. When the last slow person had finished, father
said: "Shelley, won't you step into the front room and bring me
that book I borrowed from Frank on `Taxation.' I want to talk
over a few points."
All of us heard her little breathless cry, and mother said,
"There!" as if she'd been listening for something, and she beat
all of us to the door. Then she cried out too, and such a time
as we did have. At last after all of us had grown sensible
enough to behave, Shelley sat on the stool, spread her fingers
over the keys and played at the place father had selected, and
all of us sang as hard as we could: "Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home;" and there WAS no place like ours, of
THAT I'm quite sure.
CHAPTER XVII
In Faith Believing
"Nor could the bright green world around
A joy to her impart,
For still she missed the eyes that made
The summer of her heart."
Soon as she had the piano, Shelley needed only the Paget man to
make her happy as a girl could be; and having faith in that
prayer, I decided to try it right away. So I got Laddie to
promise surely that he'd wake me when he got up the next morning.
I laid my clothes out all ready; he merely touched my foot, and I
came to, slipped out with him, and he helped me dress. We went
to the barn when the morning was all gray.
"What the dickens have you got in your head now, Chicken?" he
asked. "Is it business with the Fairies?"
"No, this is with the Most High," I said solemnly, like father.
"Go away and leave me alone."
"Well of all the queer chickens!" he said, but he kissed me and
went.
I climbed the stairs to the threshing floor, then the ladder to
the mow, walked a beam to the wall, there followed one to the
east end, and another to the little, high-up ventilator window.
There I stood looking at the top of the world. A gray mist was
rising like steam from the earth, there was a curious colour in
the east, stripes of orange and flames of red, where the sun was
coming. I folded my hands on the sill, faced the sky, and stood
staring. Just stood, and stood, never moving a muscle. By and
by I began to think how much we loved Shelley, how happy she had
been at Christmas the way she was now, and how much all of us
would give in money, or time, or love, to make her sparkling,
bubbling, happy again; so I thought and thought, gazing at the
sky, which every second became a grander sight. Little cold
chills began going up my back, and soon I was talking to the Lord
exactly as if He stood before me on the reddest ray that topped
our apple trees.
I don't know all I said. That's funny, for I usually remember to
the last word; but this time it was so important, I wanted it so
badly, and I was so in earnest that words poured in a stream. I
began by reminding Him that He knew everything, and so He'd
understand if what I asked was for the best. Then I told Him how
it looked to us, who knew only a part; and then I went at Him and
implored and beseeched, if it would be best for Shelley, and
would make her happy, to send her the Paget man, and to be quick
about it. When I had said the last word that came to me, and
begged all I thought becoming--I don't think with His face, that
Jesus wants us to grovel to Him, at least He looks too dignified
to do it Himself--I just stood there, still staring.
I didn't expect to see a burning bush, or a pillar of fire, or a
cloud of flame, or even to hear a small, still voice; but I
watched, so I wouldn't miss it if there should be anything
different in that sunrise from any other I ever had seen, and
there was not. Not one thing! It was so beautiful, and I was so
in earnest my heart hurt; but that was like any other sunrise on
a fine July morning. There wasn't the least sign that Jesus had
heard me, and would send the man; yet before I knew it, I was
amazed to find the feeling creeping over me that he was coming.
If I had held the letter in my hand saying he would arrive on the
noon train, I couldn't have grown surer. Why, I even looked down
the first time I moved, to see if I had it; but I was certain
anyway. So I looked steadily toward the east once more and said,
"Thank you, with all my heart, Lord Jesus," then I slowly made my
way down and back to the house.
Shelley was at the orchard gate, waiting; so I knew they had
missed me, and Laddie had told them where I was and not to call.
She had the strangest look on her face, as she asked: "Where
have you been?"
I looked straight and hard at her and said, "It's all right,
Shelley. He's going to come soon"; but I didn't think it was a
thing to mouth over, so I twisted away from her, and ran to the
kitchen to see if breakfast had all been eaten. I left Shelley
standing there with her eyes wide, also her mouth. She looked
about as intelligent as Mehitabel Heasty, and it wouldn't have
surprised me if she had begun to jump up and down and say there
were snakes in HER shoes. No doubt you have heard of people
having been knocked silly; I knew she was, and so she had a
perfect right to look that way, until she could remember what she
was doing, and come back to herself. Maybe it took her longer,
because mother wasn't there, to remind her about her mouth, and I
didn't propose to mention it.
At breakfast, mother said father was going to drive Frank home in
the carriage, and if I would like, I might go along. I would
have to sit on the back seat alone, going; but coming home I
could ride beside and visit with father. I loved that, for you
could see more from the front seat, and father would stop to
explain every single thing. He always gave me the money and let
me pay the toll. He would get me a drink at the spring, let me
wade a few minutes at Enyard's riffles, where their creek, with
the loveliest gravel bed, ran beside the road; and he always
raced like wildfire at the narrows, where for a mile the railroad
ran along the turnpike.
We took Frank to his office, stopped a little while to visit
Lucy, and give her the butter and cream mother sent, went to the
store to see Peter, and then to the post-office. From there we
could see that the veranda of the hotel across the street was
filled with gayly dressed people, and father said that the summer
boarders from big cities around must be pouring in fast. When he
came out with the mail he said he better ask if the landlord did
not want some of mother's corn and milk fed spring chickens,
because last year he had paid her more than the grocer. So he
drove across the street, stopped at the curb, and left me to hold
the team.
Maybe you think I wasn't proud! I've told you about Ned and Jo,
with their sharp ears, dappled sides, and silky tails, and the
carriage almost new, with leather seats, patent leather
trimmings, and side lamps, so shiny you could see yourself in the
brass. We never drove into the barn with one speck of mud or
dust on it. That was how particular mother was.
I watched the team carefully; I had to if I didn't want my neck
broken; but I also kept an eye on that veranda. You could see at
a glance that those were stylish women. Now my mother liked to
be in fashion as well as any one could; so I knew she'd be
mightily pleased if I could tell her a new place to set her comb,
a different way to fasten her collar, or about an unusual pattern
for a frock.
I got my drink at the spring, father offered to stop at the
riffle, but I was enjoying the ride so much, and I could always
wade at home, although our creek was not so beautiful as
Enyard's, but for common wading it would do; we went through the
narrows, like two shakes of a sheep's tail, then we settled down
to a slow trot, and were having the loveliest visit possible,
when in the bundle on my lap, I saw the end of something that
interested me. Mr. Agnew always made our mail into a roll with
the Advocate and the Agriculturist on the outside, and because
every one was so anxious about their letters, and some of them
meant so much, I felt grown and important while holding the
package.
I was gripping it tight when I noticed the end of one letter much
wider and fatter than any I ever had seen, so when father was not
looking I began pushing it a little at one end, and pulling it at
the other, to work it up, until I could read the address. I got
it out so far I thought every minute he'd notice, and tell me not
to do that, but I could only see Stanton. All of us were
Stanton, so it might be for me, for that matter. Jerry might be
sending me pictures, or a book, he did sometimes, but there was
an exciting thing about it. Besides being fatter than it looked
right at the end, it was plastered with stamps--lots of them,
enough to have brought it clear around the world. I pushed that
end back, pulled out the other, and took one good look. I almost
fell from the carriage. I grabbed father's arm and cried:
"Stop! Stop this team quick. Stop them and see if I can read."
"Are you crazy, child?" asked father, but he checked the horses.
"No, but you are going to be in a minute," I said. "Look at
that!"
I yanked the letter from the bundle, and held it over. I THOUGHT
I could read, but I was too scared to be sure. I thought it said
in big, strong, upstanding letters, Miss Shelley Stanton,
Groveville, Indiana. And in the upper corner, Blackburn, Yeats
and PAGET, Counsellors of Law, 37 to 39 State St., Chicago. I
put my finger on the Paget, and looked into father's face. I was
no fool after all. He was not a bit surer that HE could read
than I was, from the dazed way he stared.
"You see!" I said.
"It says Paget!" he said, like he would come nearer believing; it
if he heard himself pronounce the word.
"I THOUGHT it said `Paget,'" I gasped, "but I wanted to know if
you thought so too."
"Yes, it's Paget plain enough," said father, but he acted like
there was every possibility that it might change to Jones any
minute. "It says `Paget,' plain as print."
"Father!" I cried, clutching his arm, "father, see how fat it is!
There must be pages and pages! Father, it wouldn't take all that
to tell her he didn't like her, and he never wanted to see her
again. Would it, father?"
"It doesn't seem probable," said father.
"Father don't you think it means there's been some big mistake,
and it takes so much to tell how it can be fixed?"
"It seems reasonable."
I gripped him tighter, and maybe shook him a little.
"Father!" I cried. "Father, doesn't it just look HURRY, all
over? Can't you speed up a little? They have all day to cool
off. Oh father, won't you speed a little?"
"That I will!" said father. "Get a tight hold, and pray God it
is good word we carry."
"But I prayed the one big prayer to get this," I said. "It
wouldn't be sent if it wasn't good. The thing to do now is to
thank the Lord for `all his loving kindnesses,' like mother said.
Drive father! Make them go!"
At first he only touched them up; I couldn't see that we were
getting home so fast; but in a minute a cornfield passed like a
streak, a piece of woods flew by a dark blur, a bridge never had
time to rattle, and we began to rock from side to side a little.
Then I gripped the top supports with one hand, the mail with the
other, and hung on for dear life. I took one good look at
father.
His feet were on the brace, his face was clear, even white, his
eyes steely, and he never moved a muscle. When Jo thought it was
funny, that he was loose in the pasture, and kicked up a little
behind, father gave him a sharp cut with the whip and said:
"Steady boy! Get along there!"
Sometimes he said, "Aye, aye! Easy!" but he never stopped a
mite. We whizzed past the church and cemetery, and scarcely
touched the Big Hill. People ran to their doors, even to the
yards, and I was sure they thought we were having a runaway, but
we were not. Father began to stop at the lane gate, he pulled
all the way past the garden, and it was as much as he could do to
get them slowed down so that I could jump out by the time we
reached the hitching rack. He tied them, and followed me into
the house instead of going to the barn. I ran ahead calling:
"Shelley! Where is Shelley?"
"What in this world has happened, child?" asked mother, catching
my arm.
"Her letter has come! Her Paget letter! The one you looked for
until you gave up. It's come at last! Oh, where is she?"
"Be calmer, child, you'll frighten her," said mother.
May snatched the letter from my fingers and began to read all
that was on it aloud. I burst out crying.
"Make her give that back!" I sobbed to father. "It's mine! I
found it. Father, make her let me take it!"
"Give it to her!" said father. "I rather feel that it is her
right to deliver it."
May passed it back, but she looked so disappointed, that by how
she felt I knew how much I wanted to take it myself; so I reached
my hand to her and said: "You can come along! We'll both take
it! Oh where is she?"
"She went down in the orchard," said mother. "I think probably
she's gone back where she was the other day."
Gee, but we ran! And there she was! As we came up, she heard us
and turned.
"Shelley!" I cried. "Here's your letter! Everything is all
right! He's coming, Shelley! Look quick, and see when! Mother
will want to begin baking right away!"
Shelley looked at me, and said coolly: "Paddy Ryan! What's the
matter?"
"Your letter!" I cried, shoving it right against her hands.
"Your letter from Robert! From the Paget man, you know! I told
you he was coming! Hurry, and see when!"
She took it, and sat there staring at it, so much like father,
that it made me think of him, so I saw that she was going to have
to come around to it as we did, and that one couldn't hurry her.
She just had to take her time to sense it.
"Shall I open it for you?" I asked, merely to make her see that
it was time she was doing it herself.
Blest if she didn't reach it toward me!--sort of woodenlike. I
stuck my finger under the flap, gave it a rip across and emptied
what was inside into her lap. Bet there were six or seven
letters in queer yellow envelopes I never before had seen any
like, and on them was the name, Robert Paget, while in one corner
it said, "Returned Dead Letter"; also there was a loose folded
white sheet. She sat staring at the heap, touching one, another,
and repeating "Robert Paget?" as she picked each up in turn.
"What do you suppose it means?" she asked May. May examined
them.
"You must read the loose sheet," she advised. "No doubt that
will explain."
But Shelley never touched it. She handled those letters and
stared at them. Father and mother came through the orchard and
stood together behind us, so father knelt down at last, reached
across Shelley's shoulder, picked one up and looked at it.
"Have you good word, dear?" asked mother of Shelley.
"Why, I don't understand at all," said Shelley. "Just look at
all these queer letters, addressed to Mr. Paget. Why should they
be sent to me? I mustn't open them. They're not mine. There
must be some mistake."
"These are DEAD LETTERS," said father. "They've been written to
you, couldn't be delivered, and so were sent to the Dead Letter
Office at Washington, which returned them to the writer, and
unopened he has forwarded them once more to you. You've heard of
dead letters, haven't you?"
"I suppose so," said Shelley. "I don't remember just now; but
there couldn't be a better name. They've come mighty near
killing me."
"If you'd only read that note!" urged May, putting it right into
her fingers.
Shelley still sat there.
"I'm afraid of it," she said exactly like I'd have spoken if
there had been a big rattlesnake coming right at me, when I'd
nothing at hand to bruise it.
Laddie and Leon came from the barn. They had heard me calling,
seen May and me run, and then father and mother coming down, so
they walked over.
"What's up?" asked Leon. "Has Uncle Levi's will been discovered,
and does mother get his Mexican mines?"
"What have you got, Shelley?" asked Laddie, kneeling beside her,
and picking up one of the yellow letters.
"I hardly know," said Shelley.
"I brought her a big letter with all those little ones and a note
in it, and they are from the Paget man," I explained to him.
"But she won't even read the note, and see what he writes. She
says she's afraid."
"Poor child! No wonder!" said Laddie, sitting beside her and
putting his arm around her. "Suppose I read it for you. May I?"
"Yes," said Shelley. "You read it. Read it out loud. I don't
care."
She leaned against him, while he unfolded the white sheet.
"Umph!" he said. "This DOES look bad for you. It begins: `My
own darling Girl.'"
"Let me see!" cried Shelley, suddenly straightening, and reaching
her hand.
Laddie held the page toward her, but she only looked, she didn't
offer to touch it.
"`My own darling Girl:'" repeated Laddie tenderly, making it mean
just all he possibly could, because he felt so dreadfully sorry
for her--" `On my return to Chicago, from the trip to England I
have so often told you I intended to make some time soon----'"
"Did he?" asked mother.
"Yes," answered Shelley. "He couldn't talk about much else. It
was his first case. It was for a friend of his who had been
robbed of everything in the world; honour, relatives, home, and
money. If Robert won it, he got all that back for his friend and
enough for himself--that he could--a home of his own, you know!
Read on, Laddie!"
"`I was horrified to find on my desk every letter I had written
you during my absence returned to me from the Dead Letter Office,
as you see.'"
"Good gracious!" cried mother, picking up one and clutching it
tight as if she meant to see that it didn't get away again.
"Go on!" cried Shelley.
"`I am enclosing some of them as they came back to me, in proof
of my statement. I drove at once to your boarding place and
found you had not been there for weeks, and your landlady was
distinctly crabbed. Then I went to the college, only to find
that you had fallen ill and gone to your home. That threw me
into torments, and all that keeps me from taking the first train
is the thought that perhaps you refused to accept these letters,
for some reason. Shelley, you did not, did you? There is some
mistake somewhere, is there not----'"
"One would be led to think so," said father sternly. "Seems as
if he might have managed some way----"
"Don't you blame him!" cried Shelley. "Can't you see it's all my
fault? He'd been coming regularly, and the other girls envied
me; then he just disappeared, and there was no word or anything,
and they laughed and whispered until I couldn't endure it; so I
moved in with Peter's cousin, as I wrote you; but that left Mrs.
Fleet with an empty room in the middle of the term, and it made
her hopping mad. I bet anything she wouldn't give the postman my
new address, to pay me back. I left it, of course. But if I'd
been half a woman, and had the confidence I should have had in
myself and in him---- Oh how I've suffered, and punished all of
you----!"
"Never you mind about that," said mother, stroking Shelley's
hair. "Likely there isn't much in Chicago to give a girl who
never had been away from her family before, `confidence' in
herself or any one else. As for him--just disappearing like
that, without a word or even a line---- Go on Laddie!"
"`Surely, you knew that I was only waiting the outcome of this
trip to tell you how dearly I love you. Surely, you encouraged
me in thinking you cared for me a little, Shelley. Only a little
will do to begin with----'"
"You see, I DID have something to go on!" cried Shelley, wiping
her eyes and straightening up.
"`No doubt you misunderstood and resented my going without coming
to explain, and bid you good-bye in person, but Shelley, _I_
SIMPLY DARED NOT. You see, it was this way: I got a cable about
the case I was always talking of, and the only man who could give
the testimony I MUST HAVE was dying!'"
"For land's sake! The poor boy!" cried mother, patting Shelley's
shoulder.
"`An hour's delay might mean the loss of everything in the world
to me, even you. For if I lost any time, and the man escaped me,
there was no hope of winning my case, and everything, even you,
as I said before, depended on him----'"
"Good Lord! I mean land!" cried Leon.
"`If I could catch the train in an hour, I could take a boat at
New York, and go straight through with no loss of time. So I
wrote you a note that probably said more than I would have
ventured in person, and paid a boy to deliver it.'"
"Kept the money and tore up the note, I bet!" said May.
"`I wrote on the train, but found after sailing that I had rushed
so I had failed to post it in New York. I kept on writing every
day on the boat, and mailed you six at Liverpool. All the time I
have written frequently; there are many more here that this
envelope will not hold, that I shall save until I hear from
you.'"
"Well, well!" said father.
"`Shelley, I beat death, reached my man, got the testimony I had
to have, and won my case.'"
"Glory!" cried mother. "Praise the Lord!"
"`Then I scoured England, and part of the continent, hunting some
interested parties; and when I was so long finding them, and
still no word came from you, I decided to come back and get you,
if you would come with me, and go on with the work together.'"
"Listen to that! More weddings!" cried Leon. He dropped on his
knees before Shelley. "Will you marry me, my pretty maid?" he
begged.
"Young man, if you cut any capers right now, I'll cuff your
ears!" cried father. "This is no proper time for your
foolishness!"
"`Shelley, I beg that you will believe me, and if you care for me
in the very least, telegraph if I may come. Quick! I'm half
insane to see you. I have many things to tell you, first of all
how dear you are to me. Please telegraph. Robert.'"
"Saddle a horse, Leon!" father cried as he unstrapped his wallet.
"Laddie, take down her message."
"Can you put it into ten words?" asked Laddie.
"Mother, what would you say?" questioned Shelley.
Leon held up his fingers and curled down one with each word.
"Say, `Dear Robert. Well and happy. Come when you get ready.'"
"But then I won't know when he's coming," objected Shelley. "You
don't need to," said Leon. "You can take it for granted from
that epistolary effusion that he won't let the grass grow under
his feet while coming here. That's a bully message! It sounds
as if you weren't crazy over him, and it's a big compliment to
mother. Looks as if she didn't have to know when people are
coming--like she's ready all the time."
"Write it out and let me see," said Shelley.
So Laddie wrote it, and she looked at it a long time, it seemed
to me, at last she said: "I don't like that `get.' It doesn't
sound right. Wouldn't `are' be better?"
"Come when you are ready," repeated Laddie. "Yes, that's better.
`Get' sounds rather saucy."
"Why not put it, `Come when you choose?'" suggested mother.
"That will leave a word to spare, so it won't look as if you had
counted them and used exactly ten on purpose, and it doesn't
sound as if you expected him to make long preparations, like the
other. That will leave it with him to start whenever he likes."
"Yes! yes!" cried Shelley. "That's much better! Say, `Come when
you choose!'"
"Right!" said Laddie as he wrote it. "Now I'll take this!"
"Oh no you won't!" cried Leon. "Father told me to saddle my
horse. She's got enough speed in her to beat yours a mile. I
take that! Didn't you say for me to saddle, father?"
"Such important business, I think I better," said Laddie, and
Leon began to cry.
"I think you should both go," said Shelley. "It is so important,
and if one goes to make a mistake, maybe the other will notice
it."
"Yes, that's the best way," said mother.
"Yes, both go," said father.
It was like one streak when they went up the Big Hill. Father
shook his head. "Poor judgment--that," he said. "Never run a
horse up hill!"
"But they're in such a hurry," Shelley reminded him.
"So they are," said father. "In this case I might have broken
the rule myself. Now come all of you, and let the child get at
her mail."
"But I want you to stay," said Shelley. "I'm so addle-pated this
morning. I need my family to help me."
"Of course you do, child," said mother. "Families were made to
cling together, and stand by each other in every circumstance of
life--joy or sorrow. Of course you need your family."
May began sorting the letters by dates so Shelley could start on
the one that had been written first. Father ran his knife across
the top of each, and cut all the envelopes, and Shelley took out
the first and read it; that was the train one. In it he told her
about sending the boy with the note again, and explained more
about how it was so very important for him to hurry, because the
only man who could help him was so sick. We talked it over, and
all of us thought the boy had kept the money and torn up the
note. Father said the way would have been to send the note and
pay the boy when he came back; but Shelley said Mr. Paget would
have been gone before the boy got back, so father saw that
wouldn't have been the way, in such a case.
Next she read one written on the boat. He told more about
sending the boy; how he loved her, what it would mean to both of
them if he got the evidence he wanted and won his first case; and
how much it would bring his friend. The next one told it all
over again, and more. In that he wrote a little about the ocean,
the people on board the ship, and he gave Shelley the name of the
place where he was going and begged her to write to him. He told
her if the ship he was on passed another, they were going to stop
and send back the mail. He begged her to write often, and to say
she forgave him for starting away without seeing her, as he had
been forced to.
The next one was the same thing over, only a little more yet. In
the last he had reached England, the important man was still
living, but he was almost gone, and Mr. Paget took two good
witnesses, all the evidence he had, and went to see him; and the
man saw it was no use, so he made a statement, and Robert had it
all written out, signed and witnessed. For the real straight
sense there was in that letter, I could have done as well myself.
It was a wild jumble, because Robert was so crazy over having the
evidence that would win his case; and he told Shelley that now he
was perfectly free to love her all she would allow him. He said
he had to stay a while longer to find his friend's people so they
would get back their share of the money, but it was not going to
be easy to locate them. You wouldn't think the world so big, but
maybe it seemed smaller to me because as far as I could see from
the top of our house, was all I knew about it. After Shelley had
read the letters, and the note again, father heaved a big sigh
that seemed to come clear from his boot soles and he said: "Well
Shelley, it looks to me as if you had found a MAN. Seems to me
that's a mighty important case for a young lawyer to be trusted
with, in a first effort."
"Yes, but it was for Robert's best friend, and only think, he has
won!"
"I don't see how he could have done better if he'd been old as
Methuselah, and wise as Solomon," boasted mother.
"But he hasn't found the people who must have back their money,"
said May. "He will have to go to England again. And he wants to
take you, Shelley. My! You'll get to sail on a big steamer,
cross the Atlantic Ocean, and see London. Maybe you'll even get
a peep at the Queen!"
Shelley was busy making a little heap of her letters; when the
top one slid off I reached over and put it back for her. She
looked straight at me, and smiled the most wonderful and the most
beautiful smile I ever saw on any one's face, so I said to her:
"You see! I TOLD you he was coming!"
"I can't understand it!" said Shelley.
"YOU KNOW I told you."
"Of course I do! But what made you think so?"
"That was the answer. Just that he was coming."
"What are you two talking about?" asked mother.
Shelley looked at me, and waited for me to tell mother as much as
I wanted to, of what had happened. But I didn't think things
like that were to be talked about before every one, so I just
said:
"Oh nothing! Only, I told Shelley this very morning that the
Paget man was coming soon, and that everything was going to be
all right."
"You did? Well of all the world! I can't see why."
"Oh something told me! I just FELT that way."
"More of that Fairy nonsense?" asked father sharply.
"No. I didn't get that from the Fairies."
"Well, never mind!" said Shelley, rising, because she saw that I
had told all I wanted to. "Little Sister DID tell me this
morning that he was coming, that everything would be made right,
and it's the queerest thing, but instantly I believed her.
Didn't I sing all morning, mother? The first note since Robert
didn't come when I expected him in Chicago, weeks ago."
"Yes," said mother. "That's a wonderfully strange thing. I
can't see what made you think so."
"Anyway, I did!" I said. "Now let's go have dinner. I'm
starving."
I caught May's hand, and ran to get away from them. Father and
mother walked one on each side of Shelley, while with both hands
she held her letters before her. When we reached the house we
just talked about them all the time. Pretty soon the boys were
back, and then they told about sending the telegram. Leon vowed
he gave the operator a dime extra to start that message with a
shove, so it would go faster.
"It will go all right," said Laddie, "and how it will go won't be
a circumstance to the way he'll come. If there's anything we
ought to do, before he gets here, we should hustle. Chicago
isn't a thousand miles away. That message can reach him by two
o'clock, it's probable he has got ready while he was waiting, so
he will start on the first train our way. He could reach
Groveville on the ten, to-morrow. We better meet it."
"Yes, we'll meet it," said mother. "Is the carriage perfectly
clean?"
Father said: "It must be gone over. Our general manager here
ordered me to speed up, and we drove a little coming from town."
Mother went to planning what else should be done.
"Don't do anything!" cried Shelley. "The house is all right.
There's no need to work and worry into a sweat. He won't notice
or care how things look."
"I miss my guess if he doesn't notice and care very much indeed,"
said mother emphatically. "Men are not blind. No one need think
they don't see when things are not as they should be, just
because they're not cattish enough to let you know it, like a
woman always does. Shelley, wouldn't you like to ride over and
spend the afternoon with the Princess?"
"Nope!" said Shelley. "It's her turn to come to see me.
Besides, you don't get me out of the way like that. I know what
you'll do here, and I intend to help."
"Do you need one of the boys at the house?" asked father, and if
you'll believe it, both of them wanted to stay.
Father said he must have one to help wash the carriage and do a
little fixing around the barn; so he took Leon, but he didn't
like to go. He said: "I don't see what all this fuss is about,
anyway. Probably he'll be another Peter."
Shelley looked at him: "Oh Mr. Paget isn't nearly so large as
Peter," she said, "and his hair is whiter than yours, while his
eyes are not so blue."
"Saints preserve us!" cried Leon. "Come on, father, let's only
dust the carriage! He's not worth washing it for."
"Is he like that?" asked mother anxiously.
"Wait and see!" said Shelley. "Looks don't make a man. He has
proved what he can do."
Then all of us went to work. Before night we were hunting over
the yard, and beside the road, to see if we could find anything
to pick up. Six chickens were in the cellar, father was to bring
meat and a long list of groceries from town in the morning. He
was to start early, get them before train time, put them under
the back seat, and take them out after he drove into the lane,
when he came back. That made a little more trouble for father,
but there was not the slightest necessity for making Mr. Paget
feel that he had ridden in a delivery wagon.
Next morning I wakened laughing softly, because some one was
fussing with my hair, patting my face, and kissing me, so I put
up my arms and pulled that loving person down on my pillow, and
gave back little half-asleep kisses, and slept on; but it was
Shelley, and she gently shook me and began repeating that fool
old thing I have been waked up with half the mornings of my life:
"Get up, Little Sister, the morning is bright,
The birds are all singing to welcome the light,
Get up; for when all things are merry and glad,
Good children should never be lazy and sad;
For God gives us daylight, dear sister, that we
May rejoice like the lark and work like the bee."
Usually I'd have gone on sleeping, but Shelley was so sweet and
lovely, and she kissed me so hard, that I remembered it was going
to be a most exciting day, so I came to quick as snap and jumped
right up, for I didn't want to miss a single thing that might
happen.
The carriage was shining when it came to the gate, so was father.
I thought there was going to be a vacant seat beside him, and I
asked if I might go along. He said: "Yes, if mother says so."
He always would stick that in. So I ran to ask her, and she
didn't care, if Shelley made no objections. I was just starting
to find her, when here she came, all shining too, but Laddie was
with her. I hadn't known that he was going, and I was so
disappointed I couldn't help crying.
"What's the matter?" asked Shelley.
"Father and mother both said I might go, if you didn't care."
"Why, I'm dreadfully sorry," said Shelley, "but I have several
things I want Laddie to do for me."
Laddie stooped down to kiss me good-bye and he said: "Don't cry,
Little Sister. The way to be happy is to be good."
Then they drove to Groveville, and we had to wait. But there was
so much to do, it made us fly to get all of it finished. So
mother sent Leon after Mrs. Freshett to help in the kitchen,
while Candace wore her white dress, and waited on the table.
Mother cut flowers for the dining table, and all through the
house. She left the blinds down to keep the rooms cool, chilled
buttermilk to drink, and if she didn't think of every single,
least little thing, I couldn't see what it was. Then all of us
put on our best dresses. Mother looked as glad and sweet as any
girl, when she sat to rest a little while. I didn't dare climb
the catalpa in my white dress, so I watched from the horse block,
and when I saw the grays come over the top of the hill, I ran to
tell. As mother went to the gate, she told May and me to walk
behind, to stay back until we were spoken to, and then to keep
our heads level, and remember our manners. I don't know where
Leon went. He said he lost all interest when he found there was
to be another weak-eyed towhead in the family, and I guess he was
in earnest about it, because he wasn't even curious enough to be
at the gate when Mr. Paget came.
Father stopped with a flourish, Laddie hurried around and helped
Shelley, and then Mr. Paget stepped down. Goodness, gracious,
sakes alive! Little? Towhead? He was taller than Laddie. His
hair was most as black as ink, and wavy. His eyes were big and
dark; he was broad and strong and there was the cleanest,
freshest look about him. He put his arm spang around Shelley,
right there in the road, and mother said: "Hold there! Not so
fast, young man! I haven't given my consent to that."
He laughed, and he said: "Yes, but you'ah going to!" And he put
his other arm around mother, so May and I crowded up, and we had
a family reunion right between the day lilies and the snowball
bush. We went into the house, and he LIKED us, his room, and
everything went exactly right. He was crazy about the cold
buttermilk, and while he was drinking it Leon walked into the
dining-room, because he thought of course Mr. Paget and Shelley
would be on the davenport in the parlour. When he saw Robert he
said lowlike to Shelley: "Didn't Mr. Paget come? Who's that?"
Shelley looked so funny for a minute, then she remembered what
she had told him and she just laughed as she said: "Mr. Paget,
this is my brother."
Robert went to shake hands, and Leon said right to his teeth:
"Well a divil of a towhead you are!"
"Towhead?" said Robert, bewildered-like.
"Shelley said you were a little bit of a man, with watery blue
eyes, and whiter hair than mine."
"Oh I say!" cried Robert. "She must have been stringin' you!"
Leon just whooped; because while Mr. Paget didn't talk like the
'orse, 'ouse people, he made you think of them in the way he said
things, and the sound of his voice. Then we had dinner, and I
don't remember that we ever had quite such a feast before.
Mother had put on every single flourish she knew. She used her
very best dishes, and linen, and no cook anywhere could beat
Candace alone; now she had Mrs. Freshett to help her, and mother
also. If she tried to show Mr. Paget, she did it! No visitor
was there except him, but we must have been at the table two
hours talking, and eating from one dish after another. Candace
LIKED to wear her white dress, and carry things around, and they
certainly were good.
And talk! Father, Laddie, and Robert talked over all creation.
Every once in a while when mother saw an opening, she put in her
paddle, and no one could be quicker, when she watched sharp and
was trying to make a good impression. Shelley was very quiet;
she scarcely spoke or touched that delicious food. Once the
Paget man turned to her, looking at her so fondlike, as he picked
up one of her sauce dishes and her spoon and wanted to feed her.
And he said: "Heah child, eat your dinnah! You have nawthing to
be fussed ovah! I mean to propose to you, and your parents
befowr night. That is what I am heah for."
Every one laughed so, Shelley never got the bite; but after that
she perked up more and ate a little by herself.
At last father couldn't stand it any longer, so he began asking
Robert about his trip to England, and the case he had won. When
the table was cleared for dessert, Mr. Paget asked mother to have
Candace to bring his satchel. He opened it and spread papers all
over, so that father and Laddie could see the evidence, while he
told them how it was.
It seemed there was a law in England, all of us knew about it,
because father often had explained it. This law said that a man
who had lots of money and land must leave almost all of it to his
eldest son; and the younger ones must go into law, the army, be
clergymen, or enter trade and earn a living, while the eldest
kept up the home place. Then he left it to his eldest son, and
his other boys had to work for a living. It kept the big estates
together; but my! it was hard on the younger sons, and no one
seemed even to think about the daughters. I never heard them
mentioned.
Now there was a very rich man; he had only two sons, and each of
them married, and had one son. The younger son died, and sent
his boy for his elder brother to take care of. He pretended to
be good, but for sure, he was bad as ever he could be. He knew
that if his cousin were out of the way, all that land and money
would be his when his uncle died. So he went to work and he
tried for years, and a lawyer man who had no conscience at all,
helped him. At last when they had done everything they could
think of, they took a lot of money and put it in the pocket of
the son they wanted to ruin; then when his father missed the
money, and the house was filled with policemen, detectives, and
neighbours, the bad man said he'd feel more comfortable to have
the family searched too, merely as a formality, so he stepped out
and was gone over, and when the son's turn came, there was the
money on him! That made him a public disgrace to his family, and
a criminal who couldn't inherit the estate, and his father went
raving mad and tried to kill him, so he had to run away. At
first he didn't care what he did, so he came over here. Robert
said that man was his best friend, and as men went, he was a
decent fellow, so he cheered him up all he could, and went to
work with all his might to prove he was innocent, and to get back
his family, and his money for him.
When Robert had enough evidence that he was almost ready to start
to England, his man got a cable from an old friend of his
father's, who always had believed in him, and it said that the
bad man was dying--to come quick. So Robert went all of a
sudden, like the Dead Letters told about. Now, he described how
he reached there, took the old friend of the father of his friend
with him, and other witnesses, and all the evidence he had, and
went to see the sick man. When Robert showed him what he could
prove, the bad man said it was no use, he had to die in a few
days, so he might as well go with a clean conscience, and he told
about everything he had done. Robert had it all written out,
signed and sworn to. He told about all of it, and then he said
to father: "Have I made it clear to you?"
Leon was so excited he forgot all the manners he ever had, for he
popped up before father could open his head, and cried: "Clear as
mud! I got that son business so plain in my mind, I'd know the
party of the first part, from the party of the second part, if I
met him promenading on the Stone Wall of China!"
Father and Laddie knew so much law they asked dozens of
questions; but that Robert man wasn't a smidgin behind, for every
clip he had the answer ready, and then he could go on and tell
much more than he had been asked. He said as a Case, it was a
pretty thing to work on; but it was much more than a case to him,
because he always had known that his friend was not guilty; that
he was separated from his family, suffering terribly under the
disgrace, and they must be also. He had worked for life for his
friend, because the whole thing meant so much to both of them.
He said he must go back soon and finish up a little more that he
should have done while he was there, if it hadn't been that he
received no word from Shelley.
"When I didn't heah from heh for so long, and wrote so many
letters, and had no reply, I thought possibly some gay `young
Lochinvah had come out from the west,' and taken my sweet 'eart,"
he said, "and while I had my armour on, I made up my mind that
I'd give him a fight too. I didn't propose to lose Shelley, if
it were in my powah to win heh. I hadn't been able to say to heh
exactly what I desiahed, on account of getting a start alone in
this country; but if I won this case, I would have ample means.
When I secuahed the requiahed evidence, I couldn't wait to
finish, so I came straight ovah, to make sure of heh."
He arose and handed the satchel to father.
"I notice you have a very good looking gun convenient," he said.
"Would you put these papahs where you consider them safe until
I'm ready to return? Our home, our living, and the honah of a
man are there, and we are mighty particular about that bag, are
we not, Shelley?"
"Well I should think we are!" cried Shelley. "For goodness sake,
father, hang to it! Is the man still living? Could you get that
evidence over again?"
"He was alive when I left, but the doctors said ten days would be
his limit, so he may be gone befowr this."
Father picked up the satchel, set it on his knees, and stroked it
as if it were alive.
"Well! Well!" he said. "Now would any one think such a little
thing could contain so much?"
Shelley leaned toward Robert.
"Your friend!" she cried, "Your friend! What DID he say to you?
What did he DO?"
"Well, for a time he was wildly happy ovah having the stain
removed from his honah, and knowing that he would have his family
and faw'tn back; but there is an extremely sad feature to his
case that is not yet settled, so he must keep his head level
until we work that out. Now about that hoss you wanted to show
me----" he turned to Leon.
Mother gave the signal, and we left the table. Father carried
the satchel to his chest, made room for it, locked it in and put
the key in his pocket. Then our men started to the barn to show
the Arab-Kentucky horse. Mr. Paget went to Shelley and took her
in his arms exactly like Peter did Sally before the parlour door
that time when I got into trouble, and he looked at mother and
laughed as he said: "I hope you will excuse me, but I"e been
having a very nawsty, anxious time, and I cawn't conform to the
rules for a few days, until I become accustomed to the fawct that
Shelley is not lost to me. It was beastly when I reached
Chicago, had back all my letters, and found she had gone home
ill. I've much suffering to recompense. I'll atone for a small
portion immediately."
He lifted Shelley right off the floor--that's how big and strong
he was--he hugged her tight, and kissed her forehead, cheeks, and
eyes.
"When I've gone through the fahmality of asking your parents for
you, and they have said a gracious `yes,' I'll put the fust one
on your lips," he said, setting her down carefully. "In the
meantime, you be fixing your mouth to say, `yes,' also, when I
propose to you, because it's coming befowr you sleep."
Shelley was like a peach blossom. She reached up and touched his
cheek, while she looked at mother all smiling, and sparkling, as
she said: "You see!"
Mother smiled back.
"I do, indeed!" she answered.
Leon pulled Mr. Paget's sleeve.
"Aw quit lally-gaggin' and come see a real horse," he said.
Robert put his other arm around Leon, drew him to his side and
hugged him as if he were a girl. "I'm so glad Shelley has a
lawge family," he said. "Big families are jolly. I'm so proud
of all the brothers I'm going to have. I was the only boy at
home."
"You haven't told us about your family," said mother.
"No," said Robert, "but I intend to. I have a family! One of
the finest on uth. We'll talk about them after this hoss is
inspected."
He let Shelley go and walked away, his arm still around Leon.
Shelley ran to mother and both of them sobbed out loud.
"NOW YOU SEE HOW IT WAS!" she said.
"You poor child!" cried mother. "Indeed I DO see how it was.
You've been a brave girl. A good, brave girl! Father and I are
mighty proud of you!"
"Oh mother! I thought you were ashamed of me!" sobbed Shelley.
"Oh my child!" said mother quavery-like. "Oh my child! You
surely see that none of us could understand, as we do now."
She patted Shelley, and told her to run upstairs and lie down for
a while, because she was afraid she would be sick.
"We mustn't have a pale, tired girl right now," said mother.
Well!" said Shelley, but she just stood there holding mother.
"Well?" said mother gripping her.
"You see!" said Shelley.
"Child," said mother, "I DO see! I see six feet of as handsome
manhood as I ever have seen anywhere. His manner is perfect, and
I find his speech most attractive. I am delighted with him. I
do see indeed! Your father is quite as proud and pleased as I
am. Now go to bed."
Shelley held up her lips, and then went. I ran to the barn,
where the men were standing in the shade, while Leon led his
horse up and down before them, told about its pedigree, its
record, how he came to have it. The Paget man stood there
looking and listening gravely, as he studied the horse. At last
he went over her, and gee! but he knew horse! Then Laddie
brought out Flos and they talked all about her, and then went
into the barn. Father opened the east doors to show how much
land he had, which were his lines; and while the world didn't
look quite so pretty as it had in May, still it was good enough.
Then they went into the orchard, sat under the trees and began
talking about business conditions. That was so dry I went back
to the house. And maybe I didn't strike something interesting
there!
As I came up the orchard path to a back yard gate, I saw a
carriage at the hitching rack in front of the house, so I took a
peep and almost fell over. It was the one the Princess had come
to Sally's wedding in; so I knew she was in the house visiting
Shelley. I went to the parlour and there I had another shock;
for lo and behold! in our big rocking chair, and looking as well
as any one, so far as you could see--of course you can't see
heart trouble, though--sat Mrs. Pryor. The Princess and mother
were there, all of them talking, laughing and having the best
time, while on the davenport enjoying himself as much as any one,
was Mr. Pryor. They talked about everything, and it was easy to
see that the Pryor door was OPEN so far as we were concerned,
anyway. Mrs. Pryor was just as nice and friendly as she could
be, and so was he. Shelley sat beside him, and he pinched her
cheek and said: "Something seems to make you especially
brilliant today, young woman!"
Shelley flushed redder, laughed, and glanced at mother, so she
said: "Shelley is having a plain old-fashioned case of beau.
She met a young man in Chicago last fall and he's here now to ask
our consent. All of us are quite charmed with him. That's why
she's so happy."
Then the Princess sprang up and kissed Shelley, so did Mrs.
Pryor, while such a chatter you never heard. No one could repeat
what they said, for as many as three talked at the same time.
"Oh do let's have a double wedding!" cried the Princess when the
excitement was over a little. "I think it would be great fun; do
let's! When are you planning for?"
"Nothing is settled yet," said Shelley. "We've had no time to
talk!"
"Mercy!" cried the Princess. "Go make your arrangements quickly!
Hurry up, then come over, and we'll plan for the same time. It
will be splendid! Don't you think that would be fine, Mrs.
Stanton?"
"I can't see any objections to it," said mother.
"Where is your young man? I'm crazy to see him," cried the
Princess. "If you have gone and found a better looking one than
mine, I'll never speak to you again."
"She hasn't!" cried Mrs. Pryor calmly, like that settled it. I
like her. "They're not made!"
"I am not so sure of that," said Shelley proudly. "Mother, isn't
my man quite as good looking, and as nice in every way, as
Laddie?"
"Fully as handsome, and so far as can be seen in such a short
time, quite as fine," said mother.
I was perfectly amazed at her; as if any man could be!
"I don't believe it, I won't stand it, and I shan't go home until
I have seen for myself!" cried the Princess, laughing, and yet it
sounded as if she were half-provoked, and I knew I was. The
Paget man was all right, but I wasn't going to lose my head over
him. Laddie was the finest, of course!
"Well, he's somewhere on the place with our men, this minute,"
said Shelley, "but you stay for supper, and meet him."
"When you haven't your arrangements made yet! You surely are
unselfish! Of course I won't do that, but I'd love to have one
little peep, then you bring him and come over to-morrow, so all
of us can become acquainted, and indeed, I'm really in earnest
about a double wedding."
"Go see where the men are," said Shelley to me.
I went to the back door, and their heads were bobbing far down in
the orchard.
"They're under the greening apple tree," I reported.
"If you will excuse us," said Shelley to Mr. and Mrs. Pryor,
"we'll walk down a few minutes and prove that I'm right."
"Don't stay," said Mrs. Pryor. "This trip is so unusual for me
that I'm quite tired. For a first venture, in such a long time,
I think I've done well. But now I'm beginning to feel I should
go home."
"Go straight along," said the Princess. "I'll walk across the
fields, or Thomas can come back after me."
So Mr. and Mrs. Pryor went away, while the Princess, Shelley,
May, and I walked through the orchard toward the men. They were
standing on the top of the hill looking over the meadow, and
talking with such interest they didn't hear us or turn until
Shelley said: "Mr. Paget, I want to present you to Laddie's
betrothed--Miss Pamela Pryor."
He swung around, finishing what he was saying as he turned, the
Princess took a swift step toward him, then, at the same time,
both of them changed to solid tombstone, and stood staring, and
so did all of us, while no one made a sound. At last the Paget
man drew a deep, quivery breath and sort of shook himself as he
gazed at her.
"Why, Pam!" he cried. "Darling Pam, cawn it possibly be you?"
If you ever heard the scream of a rabbit when the knives of a
reaper cut it to death, why that's exactly the way she cried out.
She covered her eyes with her hands. He drew back and smiled,
the red rushed into his face, and he began to be alive again.
Laddie went to the Princess and took her hands.
"What does this mean?" he begged.
She pulled away from him, and went to the Paget man slowly, her
big eyes wild and strained.
"Robert!" she cried. "Robert! how did you get here? Were you
hunting us?"
"All ovah England, yes," he said. "Not heah! I came heah to see
Shelley. But you? How do you happen to be in this country?"
"We've lived on adjoining land for two years!"
"You moved heah! To escape the pity of our friends?"
"Father moved! Mother and I had no means, and no refuge. We
were forced. We never believed it! Oh Robert, we never--not for
a minute! Oh Robert, say you never did it!"
"Try our chawming cousin Emmet your next guess!"
"That devil! Oh that devil!"
She cried out that hurt way again, so he took her tight in his
arms; but sure as ever Laddie was my brother, he was hers, so
that was all right. When they were together you wondered why in
this world you hadn't thought of it the instant you saw him
alone. They were like as two peas. They talked exactly the
same, only he sounded much more so, probably from having just
been in England for weeks, while in two years she had grown a
little as we were. We gazed at them, open-mouthed, like as not,
and no one said a word.
At last Mr. Paget looked over the Princess' shoulder at father
and said: "I can explain this, Mr. Stanton, in a very few wuds.
I am my friend. The case was my own. The evidence I secuahed
was for myself. This is my only sisteh. Heh people are
mine----"
"The relationship is apparent," said father. "There is a
striking likeness between you and your sister, and I can discern
traces of your parents in your face, speech and manner."
"If you know my father," said Robert, "then you undehstand what
happened to me when I was found with his money on my pehson, in
the presence of our best friends and the police. He went raving
insane on the instant, and he would have killed me if he hadn't
been prevented; he tried to; has he changed any since, Pam?"
The Princess was clinging to him with both hands, staring at him,
wonder, joy, and fear all on her lovely face.
"Worse!" she cried. "He's much worse! The longer he broods, the
more mother grieves, the bitterer he becomes. Mr. Stanton, he is
always armed. He'll shoot on sight. Oh what shall we do?"
"Miss Pamela," said Leon, "did your man Thomas know your brother
in England?"
"All his life."
"Well, then, we'd better be doing something quick. He tied the
horses and was walking up and down the road while he waited, and
he saw us plainly when we crossed the wood yard a while ago. He
followed us and stared so, I couldn't help noticing him."
"Jove!" cried Robert. "I must have seen him in the village this
morning. A man reminded me of him, then I remembered how like
people of his type are, and concluded I was mistaken. Mr.
Stanton, you have agreed that the evidence I hold is sufficient.
Pam cawn tell you that while I don't deny being full of tricks as
a boy, they weh not dirty, not low, and while father always
taking Emmet's paht against me drove me to recklessness
sometimes, I nevah did anything underhand or disgraceful. She
knows what provocation I had, and exactly what happened. Let heh
tell you!"
"I don't feel that I require any further information," said
father. "You see, I happen to be fairly well acquainted with Mr.
Pryor."
"Pryor?"
"He made us use that name here," explained the Princess.
"WELL, HIS NAME IS PAGET!" said Robert angrily.
Laddie told me long ago he didn't believe it was Pryor.
"Then, if you are acquainted with my father, what would you
counsel? Unless I'm prepahed to furnish the central figyah of
interest in a funeral, I dare not meet him, until he has seen
this evidence, had time to digest it, and calm himself."
Shelley caught him by the arm. No wonder! She hadn't been
proposed to, or even had a kiss on her lips. She pulled him.
"You come straight to the house," she said. "Thomas may tell
your father he thought he saw you."
That was about as serious as anything could be, but nothing ever
stopped Leon. He sidled away from father, repeating in a low
voice:
"`For sore dismayed, through storm and shade
His child he did discover;
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover--'"
Shelley just looked daggers at him, but she was too anxious to
waste any time.
"Would Thomas tell your father?" she asked the Princess.
"The instant he saw him alone, yes. He wouldn't before mother."
"Hold one minute!" cried father. "We must think of our mother,
just a little. Shelley, you and the girls run up and explain how
this is. Better all of you go to the house, except Mr. Paget.
He'll be safe here as anywhere. Mr. Pryor will stop there, if he
comes. So it would be best for you to keep out of sight, Robert,
until I have had a little talk with him."
"I'll stay here," I offered. "We'll talk until you get Mr. Pryor
cooled off. He can be awful ragesome when he's excited, and it
doesn't take much to start him."
"You're right about that!" agreed Robert.
So we sat under the greening and were having a fine visit while
the others went to break the news gently to mother that the Pryor
mystery had gone up higher than Gilderoy's kite. My! but she'd
be glad! It would save her many a powerful prayer. I was
telling Robert all about the time his father visited us, and what
my mother said to him, and he said: "She'd be the one to talk
with him now. Possibly he'd listen to her, until he got it
through his head that his own son is not a common thief."
"Maybe he'll have to be held, like taking quinine, and made to
listen," I said.
"That would be easy, if he were not a walking ahsenal," said
Robert. "You have small chance to reason with a half-crazy man
while he is handling a pistol."
He meant revolver.
"But he'll shoot!" I cried. "The Princess said he'd shoot!"
"So he will!" said Robert. "Shoot first, then find out how
things are, and kill himself and every one else with remorse,
afterward. He is made that way."
"Then he doesn't dare see you until he finds out how mistaken he
has been," I said, for I was growing to like Robert better every
minute longer I knew him. Besides, there was the Princess,
looking like him as possible, and loving him of course, like I
did Laddie, maybe. And if anything could cure Mrs. Pryor's heart
trouble, having her son back would, because that was what made it
in the first place, and even before them, there was Shelley to be
thought of, and cared for.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Pryor Mystery
"And now old Dodson, turning pale,
Yields to his fate--so ends my tale."
It didn't take me long to see why Shelley liked Robert Paget. He
was one of the very most likeable persons I ever had seen. We
were sitting under the apple tree, growing better friends every
minute, when we heard a smash, so we looked up, and it was the
sound made by Ranger as Mr. Pryor landed from taking our meadow
fence. He had ridden through the pasture, and was coming down
the creek bank. He was a spectacle to behold. A mile away you
could see that Thomas had told him he had seen Robert, and where
he was. Father had been mistaken in thinking Mr. Pryor would go
to the house. He had lost his hat, his white hair was flying,
his horse was in a lather, and he seemed to be talking to
himself. Robert took one good look. "Ye Gods!" he cried.
"There he comes now, a chattering madman!"
"The Station," I panted. "Up that ravine! Roll back the stone
and pull the door shut after you. Quick!"
He never could have been inside, before Mr. Pryor's horse was
raving along the embankment beside the fence.
"Where is he?" he cried. "Thomas saw him here!"
I didn't think his horse could take the fence at the top of the
hill, but it looked as if he intended trying to make it, and I
had to stop him if I could.
"Saw who?" I asked with clicking teeth.
"A tall, slender man, with a handsome face, and the heart of a
devil."
"Yes, there was a man here like that in the face. I didn't see
his heart," I said.
"Which way?" raved Mr. Pryor. "Which way? Is he at your house?"
Then I saw that he had the reins in his left hand, and a big
revolver in his right. So there was no mistake about whether
he'd really shoot. But that gun provoked me. People have no
business to be careless with those things. They're dangerous!
"He didn't do what you think he did," I cried, "and he can prove
he didn't, if you'll stop cavorting, and listen to reason."
Mr. Pryor leaned over the fence, dark purple like a beet now.
"You tell me where he is, or I'll choke it out of you," he said.
I guess he meant it. I took one long look at his lean, clawlike
fingers, and put both hands around my neck.
"He knew Thomas saw him. He went that way," I said, waving off
toward the north.
"Hah! striking for petticoats, as usual!" he cried, and away he
went in the direction of his house. Then I flew for the Station.
"Come from there, quick!" I cried. "I've sent him back to his
house, but when he finds you're not there, he will come here
again. Hurry, and I'll put you in the woodshed loft. He'd never
think of looking there."
He came out and we started toward the house, going pretty fast.
Almost to the back gate we met Shelley.
"Does mother know?" I asked.
"I just told her," she said.
"Father," I cried, going in the back dining-room door. "Mr.
Pryor was down in the meadow on Ranger. Thomas did see Robert,
and his father is hunting him with a gun. We saw him coming, so
I hid Robert in the Station and sent Mr. Pryor back home--I guess
I told him a lie, father, or at least part of one, I said he went
`that way,' and he did, but not so far as I made his father
think; so he started back home, but when he gets there and
doesn't find Robert he'll come here again, madder than ever. Oh
father, he'll come again, and he's crazy, father! Clear, raving
crazy! I know he'll come again!"
"Yes," said father calmly. "I think it very probable that he
will come again."
Then he started around shutting and latching windows, closing and
locking the doors, and he carefully loaded his gun, and leaned it
against the front casing. Then he put on his glasses, and began
examining the papers they had brought out again. Robert stood
beside him, and explained and showed him.
"You see with me out of the way, the English law would give
everything to my cousin," he said, and he explained it all over
again.
"And to think how he always posed for a perfect saint!" cried the
Princess. "Oh I hope the devil knows how to make him pay for
what all of us have suffered!"
"Child! Child!" cried mother.
"I can't help it!" said the Princess. "Let me tell you, Mr.
Stanton."
Then SHE told everything all over again, but it was even more
interesting than the way Robert explained it, because what she
said was about how it had been with her and her mother.
"It made father what he is," she said. "He would have killed
Robert, if our friends hadn't helped him away. He will now, if
he isn't stopped. I tell you he will! He sold everything he
could legally control, for what any one chose to give him, and
fled here stricken in pride, heartbroken, insane with anger, the
creature you know. In a minute he'll be back again. Oh what are
we going to do?"
Father was laying out the papers that he wanted to use very
carefully.
"These constitute all the proof any court would require," he said
to Robert. "If he returns, all of you keep from sight. This is
my house; I'll manage who comes here, in my own way."
"But you must be allowed to take no risk!" cried Robert. "I
cawn't consent to youah facing danger for me."
"There will be no risk," said father. "There is no reason why he
should want to injure me. As the master of this house, I am
accustomed to being obeyed. If he comes, step into the parlour
there, until I call you."
He was busy with the papers when he saw Mr. Pryor coming. I
wondered if he would jump the yard fence and ride down mother's
flowers, but he left his horse at the hitching rack, and pounded
on the front door.
"Did any of you notice whether he was displaying a revolver?"
asked father.
"Yes father! Yes!" I cried. "And he's shaking so I'm afraid
he'll make it go, when he doesn't intend to."
Father picked up and levelled his rifle on the front door.
"Leon," he said, "you're pretty agile. Open this door, keep
yourself behind it, and step around in the parlour. The rest of
you get out, and stay out of range."
Those nearest hurried into the parlour. Candace, May, and I
crouched in the front stairway, but things were so exciting we
just had to keep the door open a tiny crack so we could see plain
as anything. There had been nothing for Mrs. Freshett to do all
afternoon, so she had gone over to visit an hour with Amanda
Deam. Now Mr. Pryor probably thought father would meet him with
the Bible in his hand, and read a passage about loving your
neighbour as yourself. I'll bet anything you can mention that he
never expected to find himself looking straight down the barrel
of a shining big rifle when that door swung open. It surprised
him so, he staggered, and his arm wavered. If he had shot and
hit anything then, it would have been an accident.
"Got you over the heart," said father, in precisely the same
voice he always said, "This is a fine day we are having." "Now
why are you coming here in such a shape?" This was a little
cross. "I'm not the man to cringe before you!" This was quite
boastful. "You'll get bullet for bullet, if you attempt to
invade my house with a gun." This pinged as if father shot words
instead of bullets.
"I want my daughter to come home," said Mr. Pryor. "And if
you're sheltering the thief she is trying to hide, yield him up,
if you would save yourself."
"Well, I'm not anxious about dying, with the family I have on my
hands, neighbour," said father, his rifle holding without a
waver, "but unless you put away that weapon, and listen to
reason, you cannot enter my house. Calm yourself, man, and hear
what there is to be said! Examine the proof, that is here
waiting to be offered to you."
"Once and but once, send them out, or I'll enter over you!" cried
Mr. Pryor.
"Sorry," said father, "but if only a muscle of your trigger
finger moves, you fall before I do. I've the best range, and the
most suitable implement for the work."
"Implement for the work!" Well, what do you think of father?
Any one who could not see, to have heard him, would have thought
he was talking about a hoe. We saw a shadow before we knew what
made it; then, a little at a time, wonderingly, her jolly face a
bewildered daze, her mouth slowly opening, Mrs. Freshett, halfbent
and peering, stooped under Mr. Pryor's arm and looked in our
door. She had come back to help get supper, and because the
kitchen was locked, she had gone around the house to see if she
could get in at the front. What she saw closed her mouth, and
straightened her back.
"WHY, YOU TWO OLD FOOLS!" she cried. "IF YE AIN'T DRAWED A BEAD
ON EACH OTHER!"
None of us saw her do it. We only knew after it was over what
must have happened. She had said she'd risk her life for mother.
She never stopped an instant when her chance came. She must have
turned, and thrown her big body against Mr. Pryor. He was tired,
old, and shaking with anger. They went down together, she
gripping his right wrist with both hands, and she was strong as
most men. Father set the gun beside the door, and bent over
them. A minute more and he handed the revolver to Leon, and
helped Mrs. Freshett to her feet. Mr. Pryor lay all twisted on
the walk, his face was working, and what he said was a stiff
jabber no one could understand. He had broken into the pieces we
often feared he would.
Robert and Laddie came running to help father carry him in, and
lay him on the couch.
"I hope, Miss Stanton," said Mrs. Freshett, "that I wa'n't too
rough with him. He was so shaky-like, I was 'feered that thing
would go off without his really makin' it, and of course I
couldn't see none of yourn threatened with a deadly weepon,
'thout buttin' in and doin' the best I could."
Mother put her arms around her as far as they would reach. She
would have had to take her a side at a time to really hug all of
her, and she said: "Mrs. Freshett, you are an instrument in the
hands of the Lord this day. Undoubtedly you have kept us from a
fearful tragedy; possibly you have saved my husband for me. None
of us ever can thank you enough."
"Loosen his collar and give him air," said Mrs. Freshett pushing
mother away. "I think likely he has bust a blood vessel."
Father sent Leon flying to bring Dr. Fenner. Laddie took the
carriage and he and Robert went after Mrs. Pryor, while father,
mother, Mrs. Freshett, the Princess, May, and I, every last one,
worked over Mr. Pryor. We poured hot stuff down his throat, put
warm things around him, and rubbed him until the sweat ran on us,
trying to get his knotted muscles straightened out. When Dr.
Fenner came he said we were doing all he could; MAYBE Mr. Pryor
would come to and be all right, and maybe his left side would be
helpless forever; it was a stroke. Seemed to me having Mrs.
Freshett come against you like that, could be called a good deal
more than a stroke, but I couldn't think of the right word then.
And after all, perhaps stroke was enough. He couldn't have been
much worse off if the barn had fallen on him. I didn't think
there was quite so much of Mrs. Freshett; but then she was
scared, and angry; and he was about ready to burst, all by
himself, if no one had touched him. He had much better have
stayed at home and listened to what was to be said, reasonably,
like father would; and then if he really had to shoot, he would
have been in some kind of condition to take aim.
After a long hard fight we got him limber, straightened out, and
warm, it didn't rip so when he breathed, then they put him in the
parlour on the big davenport. Leon said if the sparkin' bench
didn't bring him to, nothing would. Laddie sat beside him and
mother kept peeping. She wouldn't let Dr. Fenner go, because she
said Mr. Pryor just must come out of it right, and have a few
years of peace and happiness.
Mrs. Pryor came back with Laddie and Robert. He carried her in,
put her in the big rocking chair again, and he sat beside her,
stroking and kissing her, while she held him with both hands.
You could see NOW why his mother couldn't sleep, walked the road,
and held her hands over her heart. She was a brave woman, and
she had done well to keep alive and going in any shape at all.
You see we knew. There had been only the few hours when it
seemed possible that one of our boys had taken father's money and
was gone. I well remembered what happened to our mother then.
And if she had been disgraced before every one, dragged from her
home away across a big sea to live among strangers, and not known
where her boy was for years, I'm not a bit sure that she'd have
done better than Mrs. Pryor. Yes, she would too; come to think
it out--she'd have kept on believing the Lord had something to do
with it, and that He'd fix it some way; and I know she and father
would have held hands no matter what happened or where they went.
I guess the biggest thing the matter with Pryors was that they
didn't know how to go about loving each other right; maybe it was
because they didn't love God, so they couldn't know exactly what
PROPER LOVE was; because God is love, like father said.
Mrs. Pryor didn't want to see Mr. Pryor--I can't get used to
calling them Paget--and she didn't ask anything about him. I
guess she was pretty mad at him. She never had liked the Emmet
cousin, and she'd had nothing but trouble with him all the time
he had been in her family, and then that awful disgrace, that she
always THOUGHT was all him, but she couldn't prove it, and she
had no money.
That's a very bad thing. A woman should always have some money.
She works as hard as any one, and usually she has more that
worries her, so it's only fair for her to have part of what the
work and worry bring. Mother always has money. Why, she has so
much, she can help father out when he is pushed with bills, as
she did last fall, to start Shelley to music school. It's no way
to be forced to live with a man, just to get a home, food, and
clothing. I don't believe mother ever would do it in all this
world. But then mother has worked all her life, and so if father
doesn't do as she wants him to, she'd know exactly how to go
about taking care of herself.
After all Mrs. Pryor didn't need to sit back on her dignity and
look so abused. He couldn't knock her down, and drag her clear
here. Why didn't she say right out, in the beginning, that her
son COULDN'T be a thief, that she knew it, and she'd stay at home
and wait for him to come back? She could have put a piece in the
paper saying she knew her boy was all right, and for him to come
back, so they could go to work and PROVE it. I bet if she'd had
one tenth of the ginger mother has, she'd have stopped the whole
fuss in the start. I looked at her almost steadily, trying to
figure out just what mother would have done in her place. Maybe
I'm mistaken about exactly how she would have set to work, but
this I KNOW: she'd have stuck to the Lord; she'd have loved
father, so dearly, he just COULDN'T have wanted her to do things
that hurt her until it gave her heart trouble; and she never,
never would have given up one of us, and sat holding her heart
for months, refusing to see or to speak to any one, while she
waited for some one else to do something. Mother never waits.
She always thinks a minute, if she's in doubt she asks father; if
he can't decide, both of them ask God; and then you ought to see
things begin to fly.
The more I watched Mrs. Pryor, the more I began to think she was
a lady; and just about when I was sure that was what ailed her, I
heard father say: "Perhaps the lady would like a cup of tea." I
had a big notion to tell her to come on, and I would show her
where the cannister was, but I thought I better not. I wanted
to, though. She'd have felt much better if she had got up and
worked like the rest of us. With all the excitement, and
everything happening at once, you'd have thought mother would be
flat on her back, but flat nothing! Everything was picked up and
slid back, fast as it was torn down; she found time to flannel
her nose and brush her hair, her collar was straight, and the
goldstone pin shone in the light, while her starched white apron
fluttered as she went through the doors. She said a few words to
Candace and Mrs. Freshett, May took out a linen cloth and began
to set places for all the grown people, so I knew there'd be
strawberry preserves and fried ham, but in all that, would you
ever have thought that she'd find a second to make biscuit, and
tea cakes herself? Plain as preaching I heard her say to Mrs.
Freshett: "I do hope and pray that Mr. Pryor will come out of it
right, so we can take him home, and teach him to behave himself;
but if he's gone this minute, I intend to have another decent
meal for Shelley to offer her young man; and I don't care if I
show Mrs. Pryor that we're not hungry over here, if we do lack
servants to carry in food on silver platters."
"That I jest would!" said Mrs. Freshett. "Even if he turns up
his toes, 'tain't YOUR funeral, thank the Lord! an' looky here,
I'd jest as soon set things in a bake pan an' pass 'em for you,
myself. I'll do it, if you say the word."
Mother bit her lip, and fought her face to keep it straight, as
she said confidential-like: "No, I'm not going to toady to her.
I only want her to see that a meal really consists of food after
all; I don't mind putting my best foot foremost, but I won't ape
her."
"Huccome they to fuss like this, peaceable as Mr. Stanton be, an'
what's Shelley's beau to them?"
"I should think you could tell by looking at Pryors," said
mother. "He's their mystery, and also their son. Shelley met
him in Chicago, he came here to see her, and ran right into them.
I'll tell you about it before you go. Now, I must keep these
applications hot, for I've set my head on pulling Mr. Pryor out
so that he can speak, and have a few decent years of life yet."
"But why did the old devil--EX-cuse me, I mean the old GENTLEMAN,
want to shoot your man?"
"He didn't! I'll tell you all about it after they're gone."
"I bet you don't get shet of them the night," said Mrs. Freshett.
"All right!" said mother. "Whatever Dr. Fenner thinks. I won't
have Mr. Pryor moved until it can't hurt him, if he stays a week.
I blame her quite as much as I do him; from what I know. If a
woman is going to live with a man, there are times when she's got
to put her foot down--flat--most unmercifully flat!"
"Ain't she though!" said Mrs. Freshett; then she and mother just
laughed.
There! What did I tell you? I feel as good as if father had
patted me on the head and bragged on me a lot. I THOUGHT mother
wouldn't think that Mr. Pryor was ALL to blame, and she didn't.
I figured that out by myself, too.
Every minute Mr. Pryor grew better. He breathed easier, and
mother tilted on her toes and waved her hands, when he moved his
feet, threw back his head, lifted his hand to it, and acted like
he was almost over it, and still in shape to manage himself. She
hurried to tell Mrs. Pryor, and I know mother didn't like it when
she never even said she was glad, or went to see for herself.
Laddie and the Princess watched him, while every one else went to
supper. Laddie picked up Mrs. Pryor's chair, carried her to the
dining-room, and set her in my place beside father. He placed
Dr. Fenner next her, and left Robert to sit with Shelley. I
don't think Mrs. Pryor quite liked that, but no one asked her.
I watched and listened until everything seemed to be going right
there, and then I slipped into the parlour, where Laddie and the
Princess were caring for Mr. Pryor. With one hand Laddie held
hers, the other grasped Mr. Pryor's wrist. Laddie never took his
eyes from that white, drawn face, except to smile at her, and
squeeze her hand every little while. At last Mr. Pryor turned
over and sighed, pretty soon he opened his eyes, and looked at
Laddie, then at the Princess, and it was nothing new to see them,
so he smiled and dozed again. After a while he opened them
wider, then he saw the piano--that was an eye-opener for any
one--and the strange room, so he asked, most as plain as he ever
talked, why he was at our house again, and then he began to
remember. He struggled to sit up and the colour came into his
face. So Laddie let go the Princess, and held him down while he
said: "Mr. Pryor, answer me this. Do you want to spend the
remainder of your life in an invalid's chair, or would you like
to walk abroad and sit a horse again?"
He glared at Laddie, but he heard how things were plainly enough.
Laddie held him, while he explained what a fight we had to unlock
his muscles, and start him going again, and how, if we hadn't
loved him, and wanted him so, and had left him untouched until
the Doctor came, very likely he'd have been paralyzed all the
rest of his life, if he hadn't died; and he said he wished he
HAD, and he didn't THANK any one for saving him.
"Oh yes you do!" said Laddie, the same as he'd have talked to
Leon. "You can't stuff me on that, and you needn't try. Being
dead is a cold, clammy proposition, that all of us put off as
long as we can. You know you want to see Pamela in her own home.
You know you are interested in how I come out with those horses.
You know you want the little people you spoke of, around you.
You know the pain and suspense you have borne have almost driven
you insane, and it was because you cared so deeply. Now lie
still, and keep quiet! All of us are tired and there's no sense
in making us go through this again, besides the risk of crippling
yourself that you run. Right here in this house are the papers
to prove that your nephew took your money, and hid it in your
son's clothing, as he already had done a hundred lesser things,
before, purposely to estrange you. Hold steady! You must hear
this! The sooner you know it, the better you'll feel. You
remember, don't you, that before your nephew entered your home,
you idolized your son. You thought the things he did were
amusing. A boy is a boy, and if he's alive, he's very apt to be
lively. Mother could tell you a few pranks that Leon has put us
through; but they're only a boy's foolishness, they are not
unusual or unforgivable. I've gone over the evidence your son
brings, with extreme care, so has father. Both of us are quite
familiar with common law. He has every proof you can possibly
desire. You can't get around it, even if your heart wasn't worn
out with rebellion, and you were not crazy to have the loving
sympathy of your family again."
"I don't believe a word of it!"
"You have got to! I tell you it is PROOF, man! The documents
are in this house now."
"He forged them, or stole them, as he took the money!"
Laddie just laughed.
"How you do long, and fight, to be convinced!" he said. "I don't
blame you! When anything means this much, of course you must be
sure. But you'll know your nephew's signature; also your
lawyer's. You'll know letters from old friends who are above
question. Sandy McSheel has written you that he was with Robert
through all of it, and he gives you his word that everything is
all right. You will believe him, won't you?"
Big tears began to squeeze from under Mr. Pryor's lids, until
Laddie and the Princess each tried to see how much of him they
could hold to keep him together-like.
"Tell me!" he said at last, so they took turns explaining
everything plain as day, and soon he listened without being held.
When they had told him everything they could think of, he asked:
"Did Robert kill Emmet?"
"I am very happy to be able to tell you that he did not. It
would have been painful, and not helped a bad matter a particle.
Your nephew had dissipated until he was only a skeleton just
breathing his last. It's probable that his fear of death helped
your son out, so that he got the evidence he wanted easier than
he hoped to in the beginning. I don't mean that he is dead now;
but he is passing slowly, and loathsomely. Robert thinks word
that he has gone will come any hour. Think how pleasant it will
be to have your son! Think how happy your home will be now!
Think how you will love to see Sandy, and all your old friends!
Think how glad you'll be to go home, and take charge of your
estate!"
"Think!" cried Mr. Pryor, pushing Laddie away and sitting up:
"Think how I shall enjoy wringing the last drop of blood from
that craven's body with these old hands!"
What a sight he did look to be sure! Sick, half-crazy, on the
very verge of the grave himself, and wanting to kill a poor man
already dying. Aren't some people too curious?
Laddie carefully laid him down, straightened him out and held him
again. Mother always said he was "patient as Job," and that day
it proved to be a good thing.
"You're determined to keep yourself well supplied with trouble,"
laughed Laddie. I don't believe any one else would have dared.
"Now to an unbiased observer, it would seem that you'd be ready
to let well enough alone. You have your son back, you have him
fully exonerated, you have much of your property, you are now
ready for freedom, life, and love, with the best of us; you have
also two weddings on your hands in the near future. Why in the
name of sense are you anxious for more?"
"I should have thought that Sandy McSheel, if he's a real friend
of mine----"
"Sandy tells you all about it in the letter he has sent. He went
with Robert fully intending to do that very thing for you, but
the poor creature was too loathsome. The sight of him made Sandy
sick. He writes you that when he saw the horrible spectacle, all
he could think of was to secure the evidence needed and get
away."
Suddenly the Princess arose and knelt beside the davenport. She
put her arms around her father's neck and drew his wrinkled,
white old face up against her lovely one.
"Daddy! Dear old Daddy!" she cried. "I've had such a hard spot
in my heart against you for so long. Oh do let's forget
everything, and begin all over again; begin away back where we
were before Emmet ever came. Oh Daddy, do let's forget, and
begin all over new, like other people!"
He held her tight a minute, then his lips began whispering
against her ear. Finally he said: "Take yourselves off, and
send Robert here. I want my son. Oh I want my boy!"
It was a long time before Robert came from the parlour; when he
did, it was only to get his mother and take her back with him;
then it was a still longer time before the door opened; but when
it did, it was perfectly sure that they were all friends again.
Then Leon went to tell Thomas, and he came with the big carriage.
White and shaking, Mr. Pryor was lifted into it and they went
home together, taking Shelley with them to stay that night; so no
doubt she was proposed to and got her kiss before she slept.
That fall there were two weddings at our church at the same time.
Sally's had been fine; but it wasn't worth mentioning beside
Laddie and the Princess, and Robert and Shelley. You should have
seen my mother! She rocked like a kingbird on the top twig of
the winesap, which was the tallest tree in our orchard, and for
once there wasn't a single fly in her ointment, not one, she said
so herself, and so did father. As we watched the big ve-hiackle,
as Leon called it, creep slowly down the Little Hill, it
made me think of that pathetic poem, "The Three Warnings," in
McGuffey's Sixth. I guess I gave Mr. Pryor the first, that time
he got so angry he hit his horse until it almost ran away.
Mother delivered the second when she curry-combed him about the
taxes, and Mrs. Freshett finished the job. The last two lines
read as if they had been especially written about him:
"And now old Dodson, turning pale,
Yields to his fate--so ends my tale."