Dorothy at Skyrie Part 14

So they set forth, a worthy pair of white-haired "children," who could not grow old because they lived so very near that Heaven whence they had come to earth: and behind them fell into line all the motley a.s.sortment of carts and wagons, with the clattering mowing machine from the Towers bringing up the rear.

Mother Martha was in what purported to be a garden, trying to persuade Pa Babc.o.c.k to plant things that would yet have time to mature that season, and was at her wits' end to find arguments to stem his eloquent reasons why he should do otherwise. Quoth he:

"Now, of all the satisfactory vegetables grown, asparagus, or sparrowgra.s.s, as the unenlightened around here call it--asparagus contains more nourishment and the properties----"

"But, Mr. Babc.o.c.k, please don't dig any longer in that trench. It will have to be four or five feet deep and so much labor. My husband was reading all about it in one of his catalogues that he's just sent for, and it would take at least three years for asparagus to grow strong enough to begin cutting. Besides the roots are too expensive. And that terrible trench, so big, filled with stones----"

"Excuse me, ma'am, there's plenty of stone at Skyrie to fill the asparagus beds of the nation: or if not quite that----"

"But I must insist, since you've refused to listen to John about it, that you stop fooling with this trench and plant some late potatoes. We bought some seed ones from Mrs. Smith and my little girl is cutting them into pieces already. We were shown that by leaving one or two 'eyes' the pieces would grow just as well as whole tubers. Everybody needs potatoes and they can do without asparagus!" and too exasperated for further speech poor mother Martha folded her arms and brought her sternest glances to bear upon her hired man.

He had kept his word and appeared upon the morning following his engagement, and for a time he had been left to his own devices: his inexperienced employers judging that any man who had been brought up in the country must be wiser in farming matters than they. Besides, the storm that had threatened on the night of his first visit had proved a most disastrous one. The roof had "leaked like a sieve," as pessimistic Jim Barlow had declared it would, "give it storm enough to try it": rusty-hinged shutters had broken loose, stopped-up drains had overflowed, the cellar had become a pool of water, and the cherished furniture brought from the little home in Baltimore had, in several rooms, been ruined by the moisture. Moreover, father John had taken a severe cold and been kept in bed in his own more sheltered apartment; where he consoled himself with the gardening catalogues he had written for and whence he endeavored to direct their hired man.

"Did Pa Babc.o.c.k bring his dinner, Martha?" he had asked on that first morning, when she was running distractedly about, trying to dry the damaged furniture and undo the storm's havoc.

"No, dear. He said--just this once it didn't happen to be convenient.

His wife hadn't any cold meat on hand."

"Neither have you, I believe! Well, I will not board him. I will not!

The farm may go to rack and ruin first!" cried Mr. Chester, indignantly.

"The idea! Here are Dorothy and I trying to put our appet.i.tes into our pockets, just to save you labor, and this great, squeaking lout of a man----"

"John, John! Why, John, I never knew you to be so unjust! If I, with my quick temper, can have patience, you certainly should."

"But, mother, he's just been doing nothing at all, all this morning!"

cried Dorothy, seconding her beloved father's opinion. "Just 'sort of nudgin' 'round,' Jim used to call it when I worked that way to the truck-farm, and I only a little girl. Why, I know I could have pulled more weeds myself in this time if I hadn't had to help you indoors, even if I did take that long walk to Heartsease farm. The ground is soaking wet, weeds would pull just beautifully, I know, 'cause we used to love to work after a rain, in our little garden at home! Oh! dear! this is very pretty, but--I wish we hadn't come!"

Alas! This regret was in all their hearts, in that early time at Skyrie.

Views were beautiful but they didn't support life, and though they had secured a modest sum of ready money to tide them over these beginnings it had been at the cost of "debt," a burden which the Chesters hated to bear. But, fortunately, they had scant time for repining, and there is nothing like active occupation to banish useless brooding.

Hannah herself could well keep one person busy and, of course, her youth and fleetness ordained that this person should be Dorothy. Bill Barry's statement that the ecru-colored bovine was "lively" and could outrun his sorrel mare was, at least founded upon fact. Among cattlemen she was what is known as a "jumper"; and though her behavior upon her first day of residence at Skyrie was most exemplary her sedateness forsook her on the next and forever after.

With the best intentions, after having tried her own hand at milking and succeeding better than she had expected, Mrs. Cheater kindly turned Hannah "out to gra.s.s"--with most unlooked-for results.

"All cattle graze, you know, John; and she really nibbled that bit of ground clean where she was tied yesterday. Dorothy and I--we won't hinder our 'man' for a trifle like that--Dolly and I will prop up that sagging gate, so Hannah won't be tempted to stray away, and give her the run of this first lot. She might almost mow it for us in time."

"Thus cutting short her winter supply of fodder. Let her have one day at the 'mowing,' if you choose, then she'd better be put into that old pasture and left there. I know a good farmer wouldn't let even a well-trained Quaker cow into his best meadow; even _I_ know that! As for the pig, since we can't possibly drink all that milk and, as yet, have no pans in which to store it, he may as well consume it sweet as wait for it to sour. That will keep him quiet, anyway, and a squealing pig--I shouldn't like one."

Martha was delighted to find even thus much farm knowledge on her husband's part, and exclaimed:

"However you guessed that much about things, that meadows are meant for hay and pigs are raised on sour milk, I don't see! Only, of course, it's as you often say to Dolly: 'Anybody can use his head for anything he chooses.' I suppose you've chosen to study farming and so I know we shall succeed. By the way, Mrs. Smith has sent word over by her little boy that she is going up to Newburgh this afternoon to do what she calls 'trading.' She sells poultry, and eggs, and b.u.t.ter, and such things, that she raises on her farm, and takes in exchange all sorts of staple goods. She said she'd be pleased to have me go along and learn how to 'trade,' 'cause if I was going to be a farmer I'd have to know. I shall have to take some of that money, too, and buy a churn, some milk pans, and--Well, so many things it doesn't seem as if we really had a single necessary article to start with! But it's all the same, of course, in the end. When we get the loan from Friend Oliver Sands it will be all right. You and Dorothy will be comfortable while I'm gone, I think, for our man is right on hand in the garden to----"

"Then, if you love me, keep him there!" pleaded father John, in his whimsical way. "If he forsakes the garden for the house--Well, _I_ shall be asleep! As for poor Dolly, if he catches her and tries to convert her to his ideas, the child has nimble feet and can run. I shall advise her so to do. But I'm glad you're to have that nice long ride, though I can't imagine you as ever becoming a good 'trader.'"

It was during this brief absence that the ecru-colored Hannah first returned to her natural ways, and that Dorothy had to prove herself "nimble," indeed. Despite the fact that she stood in the midst of the most luxurious vegetation the dissatisfied cow knew that there was better in the field beyond. Regardless of the appealing cries of Daisy-Jewel, this careless mother gave one airy flick to her heels and leaped the intervening wall; and though her child essayed to follow it could not, but set up such a bawling that Mr. Chester hobbled out to see what was amiss.

"Remarkable!" cried Pa Babc.o.c.k, improving this opportunity to rest from his not too arduous weeding. "Remarkable how the qualities of a race horse will sometimes inhabit the bosom of a creature----"

"Dorothy! Dorothy! I guess you'll have to put d.i.c.kens down and go get Hannah back out of that lot. She's made a--a little mistake! Your mother wants her to graze on the home-piece and mother's our farmer, you know.

Do run drive her back, but look out for her hoofs. She'd take a hurdle better than any horse I ever saw," called Mr. Chester, laughing; yet regretting to disturb Dorothy, who had worked industriously beside her mother to get things into good condition after the drenching of the rain. She had taken tacks from carpets, carried wet cushions and blankets out into the sunshine to dry and carried them back again when fit, and she wanted to rest and read.

"Oh, dear! I don't see anything to laugh at in this! Why couldn't Hannah stay where she belonged! And just hear that poor little calf! I--I wish it hadn't been given to me!" fretted the tired girl, yet obediently set off in pursuit.

Now the former master of Skyrie had divided it into many fields. He had called these "building lots," and had confidently expected to sell them at high prices to the rich people who had begun to settle on the mountain. These dividing walls were stone, like all the others, but sufficiently narrow to admit of Hannah's leaping them easily. She did leap them, running from one to another in a manner confusing to herself and doubly so to Dorothy, pursuing. Fortunately, the wide walls bordering the square outline of the farm were impa.s.sable even to her: and gradually, pursued and pursuer made their way back to that home-field whence the race had started.

After all it was the voice of nature conquered, not Dorothy's fleetness.

Daisy-Jewel's bleating and bawling accomplished the return of the runaway; though not till that too active creature had blundered into the wrong fields so many times that Dorothy was in despair.

Thereafter, Hannah was always most securely tethered or kept shut up in her stall within the barn; her mistress finding it easier to cut the gra.s.s and feed her there than to allow her to do it for herself. But these performances did not endear the creature to anybody: nor was it comforting to have Pa Babc.o.c.k--who took no part in any of these "chasings"--inform them that:

"Of course, that was the reason my friend Oliver sold her to you so cheap. At ordinary rating that fine blooded cow would have brought at least a hundred dollars. Of course, too, there had to be some consideration to offset the price;" and again when, on the morning of that gathering at Seth Winters's smithy, Hannah had gnawed her fastening rope in two and started on a tour of the farm, he began to explain: "There is a way to prevent such----" But had paused abruptly, his attention attracted to the road below, and finished his possible advice by the pointing of his grimy finger and the exclamation: "Tiberius Caesar! Look a-there!"

Mrs. Chester did look and instinctively sought the society of John and Dorothy, as a protection against the invasion that threatened them.

"Oh! what can it mean? They are all looking this way as if they were bound for Skyrie! Wagons, people, such a crowd--tell me, John Chester, _have you advertised again_? Is it another 'sale'?"

But he shook his head, as much surprised and alarmed as she: till Seth Winters, the foremost of this invading army, came up to them, and courteously doffing his hat, explained, with a gay:

"Good-morning, neighbors! Don't be frightened! We are nothing but a well-meaning _bee_!"

CHAPTER XIII

A BENEFICENT BEE

If to be busy is a synonym for "bee" this one was well named. As the blacksmith further explained, while Dorothy hastened to fetch a chair for Mrs. Calvert, who stood beside him, merrily smiling:

"It's a way country folks have of giving a neighbor a lift. We get up 'bees' to raise a barn, help in somebody's belated haying or harvesting, and we've arranged one now to get Skyrie into a little better shape. Too much of a job for one man to undertake alone, and with your permission, we'll begin. Each man knows his part and your near neighbor, John Smith, is boss of the whole. His farm is next to this, he knows most about Skyrie. 'One year's seeding makes seven years' weeding,' you know, and poor Skyrie has been running to weed-seeds far too long. _May_ we begin?"

Mother Martha could not speak, and Dorothy seemed all eyes and mouth, so widely they stared and gaped in her surprise; but father John found voice to falter:

"We are almost overcome. I shall never be able to return this kindness, and I don't, I can't quite understand----"

"No need you should, and as for returning kindnesses, all can find some way to do that if they watch out. I take it you are willing we should go ahead. Therefore, John Smith! do your duty! and let every man hustle as he never did before. By sunset and milking-time Skyrie must be the best-ordered farm on the mountain! Hip, hip, hooray!"

What a cheer went up! With what honest pride did John Smith, the best farmer of them all, step to the fore and a.s.sign to each man his place!

and with what scant loss of time did the fun begin!

Fun they made of it, in truth, though long untilled fields were stubborn in their yielding to plow or harrow, and unmown meadows were such a tangle as tried the mettle of mowing machine and scythe.

Into the garden rushed a half-dozen workers, with plow, spade, rake, and seed bags, coolly forcing the staring Pa Babc.o.c.k aside, at the risk of being trampled in his own asparagus ditch. Also he, with equal coolness, resigned himself to having his task taken out of hand and repaired to the side of his employers to rest. Was he not, also, one of the family?

Such a "bee" as that was had never before buzzed on that mountain, even though this was by no means the first one known there. It was of greater proportions and more full of energy than could possibly have been brought to the mere raising of a barn or the gathering of a single crop.

Dorothy's romantic history, added to the ex-postman's own pitiful story, would have been sufficient to win those warm-hearted country folk to the rescue, even without the example of Seth Winters to rouse them everywhere.