Part 52 (1/2)
”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 G.o.d, 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 s.h.i.+eld 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 G.o.d. That is the strongest way I know to tell it. She was unshakably sure of the mercy of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 gra.s.s 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 b.u.t.tered 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 b.u.t.ton 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 gra.s.s, 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 s.h.i.+nned 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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 Sh.e.l.ley; 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 Sh.e.l.ley 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.