Part 6 (1/2)
”What are you thinking about, Phebe? I have watched you ever since we turned the corner down by the big pine tree, and not a muscle of your face has moved, as far as I can discover. Tell Willie, won't you?”
Phebe, thus addressed, drew herself up with a long sigh, and pa.s.sing her hand mechanically across her forehead, replied, while her eyes remained seemingly fixed on some far-off object:
”I do not know. See how the suns.h.i.+ne falls in golden patches on the pond yonder, like what you read about this morning. Willie, I _don't_ want to be _Phebe_--nothing but little Phebe. I--I want to _fly_! See that bird going up, up. He will get away beyond the clouds--far above the top of the mountain yonder. _I_ want to be like him, or something, I do not know what; don't you, Willie?”
”Yes; though ambitions are not for one like me; but you will be something besides 'little Phebe,' by and by. I see it in your beaming face and deep dark eyes; while I must always be 'poor little Willie,'
nothing else. I have for a long time been watching you, and reading my destiny of loneliness and utter dreariness in your strange, mysterious words, and knew that they all came from a heart that would never be satisfied with the plodding life where _I_ must remain. Two paths are open to us, and I can even now see that they must branch off from each other. O Phebe, hard as it is to be as I am, I would not hold you, little bird, from your upward flight; but just think what a terrible night my future will be without my little Phebe! Then I shall have no sweet sister to comfort and cheer me when out of patience with myself and cross because of my infirmity. And I shall not be your own Willie as now. It is wrong, I know, to feel so, but I cannot help it! It is bitter enough to know that I must lose you, but your love, little sister, how can I live without that?”
Phebe was taking a seat beside him, where he had made room for her while speaking. And, without answering his moan of anguish, she clasped her arms about his neck and kissed his pale face over and over again.
”Love you?” she exclaimed. ”I shall always love you. I do not believe at all in those paths you have been telling about. What would I want to go off in another for if you could not follow me? No, no, Willie, I would not fly away up into the clouds without you; or be something that I so long to be, for I always want to be your little Phebe--nothing else. I was only thinking while I sat here and saw Rover draw you out of sight, how _I_ wanted to go off somewhere! and then I thought of the _waves_--how they used to talk to me--and just then, Willie, the patches fell down on the water, and a strange feeling came over me; but it is gone now, and I want to stay with you. Did not Mother give you to me and say that I must never leave you? You are my own Willie, just as you always will be.” And with one more kiss she took the reins from his hand and gave the order for Rover to proceed.
”Ha! ha! ha!” came to them from the thicket near where they had been sitting, and at the same time two large, wild eyes peered through the opening a pair of thin bony hands had made in the thick foliage.
”It is Crazy Dimis; don't be afraid,” said Willie, as his companion gave a startled look; ”she has been at our house many times when I was a little boy, and she will not hurt any one. She has escaped from her imprisonment as she used often to do, but they know she is harmless.”
The figure of a woman, tall and straight, but very plainly clad, now stood before them.
”It is wonderful sweet to love, isn't it silly children? Kisses are like honey--good on the lips; but they kill sometimes. Ha! ha! Waste them!
throw them away, silly children. They'll be bitter by and by. It's coming--coming! Don't I know it? Kisses are like candy, mustn't eat too much, little fools! Beware! the roses will fade and the thorns are sharp! They'll p.r.i.c.k you! Don't I know? Flowers are not for everybody--plant cabbage! Ha! ha! Crazy, am I? _He_ said so, too. But it was the adder's tongue that poisoned _my_ life. _His_ love--_his_ kiss.
Beware! Remember I tell you, _beware_!” and with a bound she darted again into the thicket and was lost from sight.
Willie had taken the reins from his companion as this unwelcome apparition appeared, but as she vanished Phebe exclaimed:
”What a horrid creature! What makes her talk so strangely? _Who_ is the one she spoke of? Do you know her?”
”Mother said she was once the brightest, prettiest girl anywhere around; but her husband disappointed her, and was unkind. It was this, I believe, that made her what she is. There used to be much good sense in what she said--shrewd, cunning, and not wholly gibberish. But let us hurry home; f.a.n.n.y may want you.”
”Flowers are not for everybody. Did she mean me, Willie? Her words make me s.h.i.+ver!”
While yet speaking they came round to the kitchen door, where f.a.n.n.y met them. Something had evidently gone wrong, for she was flushed, and her step was quick and prophetic. She had many cares, and her temper had not grown sweeter by their constant pressure.
”You might as well have staid out the rest of the morning, and let me do everything,” was her first exclamation. She was hurrying past, and did not, therefore, wait for a reply.
”Never mind,” said Willie, in a low voice, as he saw the flash of anger dart up in his companion's eyes. ”Take off Rover's harness and hasten around to help her about the dinner, will you? I will go and read, and perhaps think over what poor old Dimis said until you have got through.
But promise me,” he continued, playfully; ”don't you think of her or a word she said, for it is not true.”
”Perhaps we may better do as f.a.n.n.y suggested, and go out for the rest of the morning. I wish we could.” Willie smiled and wheeled himself into the house.
There were busy hands in the kitchen until after the dinner hour that day, but no cheerful word or kindly act were thrown in to lessen its tediousness or lighten the irksome burdens of the unwilling Phebe. The face upon which she looked was cold and hard, and a sort of oppressive bustle seemed to fill the very atmosphere. The knives were to be scoured and the potatoes washed for the noon meal, and her old dislike of this work had in no degree left her since she was the ”good-for-nothing child” away in the fisherman's cot by the sea. The departed mother had often laughed at her aversion, and s.h.i.+elded her from its performance, but not so with the thrifty f.a.n.n.y. Indeed, Phebe imagined that these were reserved for her for the reason that she ”hated” to do them, and this morning they seemed more distasteful than ever before. It was with no very good grace, therefore, that she went about her task, and as she stood by the window with the unpolished knives beside her, she thought of her who was sleeping below the garden wall, and wondered if ”she knew what she was doing, of her impatience and anger.” And then the crazy woman's gibberings came back, ”Flowers are not for everybody”; and ”the thorns are sharp, little fools.”
”I hope you will get them done in time to set the table,” were the quick, sharp words that broke in upon her reverie, and brought in her gaze from the far-off to the labor before her. The door was open into the sitting room, where Willie was amusing himself with a book, and Phebe called out, ”I don't like to scour knives and wash potatoes, and I _won't_, either. Do you remember it, Willie?” she laughed.
”Well, I guess you _will_,” retorted f.a.n.n.y. ”I'd just like to know how you expect to get a living if you are going to do nothing except what you want to do. You are no better than I am, and I want you to do this every day; so keep to work at it, and not be looking out of the window.”
Phebe turned, but caught sight of Willie's uplifted hand of warning just as a bitter retort darted to her lips, and for his sake she smothered her rage and resumed her hated labor. She did not enjoy any kind of work, and never hesitated to express her dislike for it. Perhaps, had circ.u.mstances altogether different from those that had surrounded her brightened up each compulsory service; or a word of love or praise been dropped now and then over the little burdens, it would have been otherwise. But she was a dreamer, a child with inborn fancies, possessing a soul where poetry and beauty reigned as twin sisters, growing and thriving upon each other's life, but she knew it not. She was only sure that her heart bounded in the suns.h.i.+ne of genial a.s.sociations, and sank with equal velocity beneath the clouds of depressing influences. A cold word, a frown, would fill her soul with gloomy shadows for many hours, unless a warm sunbeam from some loving heart came to drive it away. Kind and cheerful as our little heroine usually was, there lay coiled up in her nature a demon of anger which sprang forth at every provocation with the fury of ungoverned pa.s.sion.
Poor child! It had goaded her long for one so young, and many times she had struggled to resist its power, but it proved stronger than her will.