Part 42 (1/2)
Any time you want to branch out, your mother and I will stand back of you.”
”Thank you!” said Laddie. ”You backed none of the others. They would resent it. I'll make the best start I can myself, and as they did, stand alone.”
Father looked at him and smiled slowly.
”You are right, as always,” he said. ”I hadn't thought so far. It would make trouble. At any rate, let me inspect and help you select your land.”
”That of course!” said Laddie.
I suspect it's not a very nice thing for me to tell, but all of us were tickled silly the day Miss Amelia packed her trunk and left for sure.
Mother said she never tried harder in all her days, but Miss Amelia was the most distinctly unlovable person she ever had met. She sympathized with us so, she never said a word when Leon sang:
”Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly to-day, Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms, Like fairy-gifts fading away, Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will, And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still--”
while Miss Amelia drove from sight up the Groveville road.
As he sang Leon stretched out his arms after her vanis.h.i.+ng form. ”I hope,” he said, ”that you caught that touching reference to 'the dear ruin,' and could anything be expressed more beautifully and poetically than that 'verdantly still?'”
I feel sorry for a snake. I like hoptoads, owls, and s.h.i.+tepokes. I envy a buzzard the way it can fly, and polecats are beautiful; but I never could get up any sort of feeling at all for Miss Amelia, whether she was birdlike or her true self. So no one was any gladder than I when she was gone.
After that, spring came pus.h.i.+ng until you felt shoved. Our family needed me then. If they never had known it before, they found out there was none too many of us. Every day I had to watch the blue goose, and bring in her egg before it was chilled, carrying it carefully so it would not be jarred. I had to hunt the turkey nests and gather their eggs so they would be right for setting. There had to be straw carried from the stack for new nests, eggs marked, and hens set by the dozen. Garden time came, so leaves had to be raked from the beds and from the dooryard. No one was busier than I; but every little while I ran away, and spent some time all by myself in the pulpit, under the hawk oak, or on the roof.
Coming from church that Sunday, when we reached the top of the Big Hill, mother touched father's arm. ”Stop a minute,” she said, and he checked the horses, while we sat there and wondered why, as she looked and looked all over the farm, then, ”Now drive to the top of the Little Hill and turn, and stop exactly on the place from which we first viewed this land together,” she said. ”You know the spot, don't you?”
”You may well believe I know it,” said father. ”I can hit it to the inch. You see, children,” he went on, ”your mother and I arranged before the words were said over us”--he always put it that way--I never in my life heard him say, ”when we were married”; he read so many books he talked exactly like a book--”that we would be partners in everything, as long as we lived. When we decided the Ohio land was not quite what we wanted, she sent me farther west to prospect, while she stayed at home and kept the baby. When I reached this land, found it for sale, and within my means, I bought it, and started home happy.
Before I'd gone a mile, I turned to look back, and saw that it was hilly, mostly woods, and there was no computing the amount of work it would require to make it what I could see in it; so I began to think maybe she wouldn't like it, and to wish I had brought her, before I closed the deal. By the time I returned home, packed up, and travelled this far on the way back with her, there was considerable tension in my feelings--considerable tension,” repeated father as he turned the horses and began driving carefully, measuring the distance from Hoods'
and the bridge. At last he stopped, backed a step, and said: ”There, mommy, did I hit the spot?”
”You did!” said mother, stepping from the carriage and walking up beside him. She raised one hand and laid it on the lamp near him. He s.h.i.+fted the lines, picked up her hand, and held it tight. Mother stood there looking, just silently looking. May jabbed me in the side, leaned over and whispered:
”Could we but stand where Moses stood, And view the landscape o'er, Not our Little Creek, nor dinner getting cold, Could fright us from that sh.o.r.e.”
I couldn't help giggling, but I knew that was no proper time, so I hid my head in her lap and smothered the sound the best I could; but they were so busy soft-soddering each other they didn't pay a bit of attention to us.
It was May now, all the leaves were fresh and dustless, everything that flowered at that time was weighted with bloom, bees hummed past, b.u.t.terflies sailed through the carriage, while birds at the tops of their voices, all of them, every kind there was, sang fit to split; friendly, unafraid bluebirds darted around us, and talked a blue streak from every fence rider. Made you almost crazy to know what they said.
The Little Creek flowed at our feet across the road, through the blue-flag swamp, where the red and the yellow birds lived. You could see the sun flash on the water where it emptied into the stream that crossed Deams', and flowed through our pasture; and away beyond the Big Hill arose, with the new church on top, the graveyard around it, the Big Creek flas.h.i.+ng at its base. In the valley between lay our fields, meadows, the big red barn, the white house with the yard filled with trees and flowering shrubs, beyond it the garden, all made up, neat and growing; and back of it the orchard in full bloom.
Mother looked and looked. Suddenly she raised her face to father.
”Paul,” she said, ”that first day, did you ever dream it could be made to look like this?”
”No!” said father. ”I never did! I saw houses, barns, and cleared fields; I hoped for comfort and prosperity, but I didn't know any place could grow to be so beautiful, and there is something about it, even on a rainy November day, there is something that catches me in the breast, on the top of either of these hills, until it almost stifles me. What is it, Ruth?”
”The Home Feeling!” said mother. ”It is in my heart so big this morning I am filled with wors.h.i.+p. Just filled with the spirit of wors.h.i.+p.”
She was rocking on her toes like she does when she becomes too happy at the Meeting House to be quiet any longer, and cries, ”Glory!” right out loud. She pointed to the orchard, an immense orchard of big apple trees in full bloom, with two rows of peach trees around the sides. It looked like a great, soft, pinkish white blanket, with a deep pink border, spread lightly on the green earth.
”We planted that way because we thought it was best; how could we know how it would look in bloom time? It seems as if you came to these hilltops and figured on the picture you would make before you cleared, or fenced a field.”
”That's exactly what I did,” said father. ”Many's the hour, all told, that I have stopped my horse on one of these hilltops and studied how to make the place beautiful, as well as productive. That was a task you set me, my girl. You always considered BEAUTY as well as USE about the house and garden, and wherever you worked. I had to hold my part in line.”