Part 2 (2/2)
If I had discovered the shadow of tradition in the rest of the old house, I walked into the very depths of them as I entered the bedroom of my foremothers. Deep crimson coals of fire were in a squat fireplace, and a last smoldering log of some kind of fragrant wood broke into fragments and sent up a little gust of blue and gold flame as if in celebration of my arrival. There was the remnant of a candle burning on a small table beside a bed that was very near, if not quite, five feet high, beside which were steps for the purposes of ascension. All the rest of the room was in a blur of lavender-scented darkness, and I only saw that both side walls folded down and were lit with the deep old gables, through the open windows of which young moon rays were struggling to help light the situation for me.
As I looked at that wide, puffy old bed, with a blur of soft colors in its quilt and the valance around its posts and tester, I suddenly became as utterly weary as a child who sees its mother's arms outstretched at retiring time. I don't know how I got out of my clothes and into my lace and ribbons, with only the flickering candle and the dying log to see by, but in less time than I ever could have dreamed might be consumed in the processes of going to bed I climbed the little steps and dived into the soft bosom of the old four-poster.
”G.o.d bless me and keep me in His care here in my grandmother's bed,” I murmured after the invocation of Uncle Cradd, and that is all I knew after the first delicious sink and soft huddling of my body between sheets that felt as if they must be rich silk and smelled of old lavender.
And then came a dream--a most lovely dream. I was at the opera in Gale Beacon's box, and Mr. G. Bird was out on the stage singing that glorious coo in the aria in Saint-Saens' ”Samson and Delilah,” and I was trying to answer him. Suddenly I was wide awake sitting up in a billowed softness, while moonlight of a different color was sifting in through the gable windows and the most lovely calling notes were coming in on its beams.
Without a moment's hesitation I answered in about six notes of that Delilah song which was the only sound ready in my mind. Then I listened and I am not sure that I heard a reedy laugh under my window as just the two notes succeeding the ones I had given forth came in on the dawn beams. Then all was as still and quiet as the hush of midnight.
In about two seconds I had vaulted forth from between the high posts, splashed into a funny old wooden tub bound together with bra.s.s rims, whirled my black mop into a knot, slipped into the modish boots, corduroys, and a linen smock, and was running out into the peculiar moon-dawn with the swiftness of a boy.
But I was too late! The silver-moon sky was growing rosy over behind the barn as I peered about, and a mist was rolling away from between the trees, but not a soul in all the world was awake, and I was alone.
”Did he call me?” I asked of myself under my breath. And the answer I got was from the Golden Bird, who sent a long, triumphant, eager ”salutation to the dawn” from out the shadows of the barn.
Eagerly I flew to him, and the minute I entered the apartment of the Bird family I discovered that I had been only half dreaming about my early morning opera. Pan had come and gone. Upon the door was pinned a piece of torn brown wrapping-paper upon which I found these penciled words:
Give them about two quarts of warm meal mash, into which you put some ground turnips at noon. Better build about four nests in the dark under the bin, and be sure to disinfect them by white-was.h.i.+ng inside and out. Put in clean hay. Dust all the beauties on their heads and under their wings with wood ashes in which you put a little of the powder you'll find in a piece of this paper in the right-hand corner of the bin. They'll want a good feed of ground grain at three o'clock. Get copperas from Rufus to put in their water, and I'll let you know later what else to do. Salutations!
ADAM
”I'm glad I got up so early if that's the day's program,” I gasped to myself as I leaned against the bin from which the Golden Bird had already alighted and was commanding the Ladies Leghorn to descend--a command which they were obeying one at a time with outspread white wings that were handled with the height of awkwardness. ”But I'll do it all if it kills me,” I added, with my head up, as I began to scatter some of the big white grains that I knew to be corn and which, by lifting lids and peering into huge slanting top boxes set against the wall, I discovered along with a lot of other small brown seed stuff that I knew must be wheat. I was glad that I had remembered that Adam had called the room the feed-room so I had known where to look.
It was so perfectly exciting to see all those fluffy white members of my family fortune scratching and clucking about my feet that I prolonged the process of the feeding by scattering only a few grains at a time until great shafts of golden morning sun were thrusting themselves in through the dim dusk and cobweb-veiled windows.
”Morning, little Mis'! I axes yo' parding fer not having breakfast 'fore sun-up fer you, but they didn't never any Craddock ladies want theirn before nine o'clock before, they didn't,” came Rufus's voice in solemn words of apology uttered in tones of serious reproof. As he spoke he stood as far from the door of the feed-room as possible and eyed the scratching Bird family with the deepest disapproval. ”Feed-room ain't no place fer chickens; they oughter make they living on bugs and worms and sich.”
”These chickens are--are different, Rufus, and--and so am I,” I answered him with dignity. ”Call me when the gentlemen are ready to breakfast with me.”
”They talked until most daylight, and I knows 'em well enough to not cook fer 'em until after ten o'clock. They's gentlemen, they is.” The tones of his voice were perfectly servile, though it was plain to see that his mental processes were not.
”All right, I'll eat mine now, Rufus, and then I want you to get me a--a hammer and some nails. Also a bucket of whitewash,” I said as I closed the door upon the Birds and preceded him to the house.
”Oh, my Lawd-a-mussy!” he exclaimed as he dived into the refuge of the kitchen, completely routed, to appear with my breakfast upon his tray and with such dignity in his mien that it was pathetic. I was merciful while I consumed the meal which was an exact repet.i.tion of the supper of the ribs of the hog and m.u.f.fins and coffee; then I threw another fit into him, to quote from Matthew at his worst in the way of diction.
”Please set a bucket of the wood ashes from the living-room fire out at the barn for me, Rufus,” I commanded him with pleasant firmness.
”Yes, Madam,” was the answer I got in a tone of cold despair. It was thus that the feud with my family traditions was established.
”Also, Rufus, please bring the saw with the hammer and the nails,” was my last hand-grenade as I departed out the back door to the barn. From the old clock standing against the wall in the back hall I discovered the hour to be exactly seven-thirty, and I felt that I had what would seem like a week ahead of me before the setting of the sun. However, I was wrong in my judgment, for time fairly fled from me, and it was nine o'clock by my platinum wrist-watch before I had more than got one very wobbly-looking box nailed together on the floor of the barn, and I was deep in both pride and exhaustion.
”I knew I could do it, but I didn't believe it,” I was remarking to myself in great congratulations when a shadow fell across the light from the door.
I looked up and, behold, Mrs. Silas Beesley loomed up against the sun and seemed to s.h.i.+ne with equal refulgence to my delighted eyes! In her hand she held a plate covered with a snowy napkin, and her blue eyes danced with delighted astonishment.
”Well, well, Nancy!” she exclaimed, as she seated herself upon a bench by the door and began to fan herself with a corner of a snowy kerchief that crossed her ample bosom. ”Looks like you have begun sawing and nailing at the Craddock family estate pretty early in the action though it's none too soon, and mighty glad I am to see you do it while there is still a little odd lumber left. I've always said that it's women folks that prop a family and it will soon tumble without 'em. I am so glad you've come, honeybunch, that tears are laughing themselves out of the corner of my eyes.” This time the white kerchief was dabbed over the keen blue eyes.
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