Part 49 (1/2)
”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 partners.h.i.+p 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 G.o.d; especially father. He seemed to think that G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ning new s.h.i.+ngle 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 s.h.i.+ngle 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 gra.s.s and clover that had slipped through the fence. On slender green blades, in spot after spot, twinkled the delicate bloom of blue-eyed gra.s.s. 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 gra.s.ses as it washed their feet; everything beside it was in ma.s.ses 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.