Green Valley Part 5

If Green Valley was astounded to hear that Cynthia's son was a minister it was too awed to speak in anything but an amazed whisper of that first sermon that the tall young man from India talked off so quietly from the pulpit of the old gray stone church.

To this day they tell how without a sc.r.a.p of paper to look at, without raising his voice in the slightest, this boy made Green Valley listen as it had never listened before. For an hour he talked and for that length of time Green Valley neighbored with India, saw it as plainly as if it was looking over an unmended, sagging old fence right into India's back yard.

With the simplicity of a child this boy with Cynthia Churchill's eyes and smile and voice told of Indian women and children and Indian homes.

The colors, the smells, the mystic beauty and the dark tragedy of it he painted and then very gently and easily he told of his trip back to his mother's home town and so without a jar he landed his listeners, wide-eyed, breathless and prayerfully thankful for their manifold blessings back in their own sunlit and tree-guarded streets.

For no reason at all seemingly Green Valley began to wipe its eyes and come out of its trance. Neighbor looked at neighbor and strange things were seen to have happened.

Old man Wiley, the aged and chronically sleepy janitor was actually sitting wide awake. Old Mrs. Vingie, who for years annoyed every Green Valley parson by holding her hand to her right ear and pretending to be deafer than she really was, was sitting bolt upright, both ears and hands forgotten. For once Dolly Beatty forgot to fuss with her hat or admire her hands in the new lavender gloves two sizes too small. The choir even forgot to flirt and yawn and never once looked bored or superior.

Jimmy Rand, after having carefully inserted in his hymn book a copy of Diamond d.i.c.k's latest exploits, forgot to read it. And the row of little boys whose mothers always made them sit in the very first pew never so much as thought of kicking each other's shins or pa.s.sing a hard pinch down the line or even quietly swapping lucky stones and fish hooks for a snake skin or a choice piece of colored gla.s.s.

Why, it was even reported that Mert Hagley so far forgot himself as to absent-mindedly drop a bill into the basket when it came by. Some said, of course, that Mert was after the repair work on the old Churchill homestead but those nearest Mert swore that this could not be, that Mert had looked as surprised as those around him when he saw what he had done. Green Valley laughed and said a miracle had happened. And even Seth Curtis got curious and remarked that he had half a mind to go and hear the boy himself, that anybody who could peel a bill off of Mert Hagley's roll was surely a curiosity.

Cynthia's son had walked with Roger Allan through the twilight of his first real day in Green Valley to Grandma Wentworth's cottage and the three had sat talking until the small hours. Then Grandma had taken Cynthia's tall son up-stairs into the large airy guest room. She came down a little later to find Roger gazing at a framed photograph of a long gone day.

She came and looked too at the group of young faces. At herself, then a girl of eighteen; at the boy beside her who later became her husband; and at Cynthia, lovely Cynthia Churchill, laughing out at life in her sweet yet serious way.

"Well, Roger," Grandma spoke softly with a hint of tears in her voice, "we have waited years, you and I, for a message from her, a heart message. And now it has come--it has come. She has sent us her boy."

"Yes," breathed Roger Allan, "she has sent us the message--she has sent me her son."

They knew, these two, why he had come. It may be that even the tall young man whose father and mother were sleeping the long sleep in far-off India may have guessed why in the end the frail but still lovely mother had begged him to go back to Green Valley, to its sweet old homes and warm-hearted folk. To bring comfort and find it--that had been the little mother's plan.

He believed he would find it. The loneliness that had tired him so ever since his mother slipped away was no longer a sharp, never silent pain, a great emptiness, but rather a sweet sorrow that was almost a friend.

He slept in the big airy room with its patchwork quilt of blue and white, its rugs and curtains to match, and looked at pictures of his mother. From the windows he watched the sun rise and shine on the merry little hills and the yellow road that wound up to his mother's old home. As he breathed in the wine of the spring mornings he comprehended the great hunger, the wild longing, that at times must have overwhelmed the little mother in those last days in India. And he thought he understood those last words of hers.

"Son, you must stay with your father as long as he needs you. But when that duty is over you must go back to the little green town on the other side of the world. Your father and I brought a message to India.

You must take one back to my people. Oh, you will love it--you will love it--the little dear town full of friends and everywhere the fragrance of home. Oh, there are many there who will love you for my sake and who will make up to you for--me."

Her hand caressed his hair and her voice trailed off into a sigh for she knew what he didn't, wouldn't believe--that she was never to see that little green town across the gray-green ocean waves.

At the very last she had whispered:

"Oh, Boy of Mine, when you go home greet them all for me. And if ever you go to rummaging about in the attic remember you must never open the square trunk with the bra.s.s nail heads unless Mary Wentworth is there to explain. Tell Mary I love her and that I am not sorry. She will understand."

So as he looked out of Grandma Wentworth's upstairs windows he remembered those last talks and understood that yearning for home.

When he had been in Green Valley only a few weeks the old life began to grow vague and unreal. The mother was real and near. But the splendid figure of his father was fading into a strange memory. He was a father to be proud of, that strong, cool, selfless man who had asked nothing of life but to take what it would of him.

He had seemed so towering, so enduring, that preacher father. Yet when the frail mother went the strong man followed within a year. So then there was nothing to do but go home to Green Valley. He went. And the spirit of the vivid little mother seemed to have come with him. Every day that he spent in the town that had reared her seemed to bring her nearer. He could picture her going about the sunny roads and friendly streets and stopping to chat and neighbor with Green Valley folks.

So he too roamed over the town and chatted and neighbored as he felt she would have done. That was how he came to know every nook and cranny, every turn of the happily straying roads and all the lame, odd, damaged and droll characters that make a town home just as the broken-nosed pitcher, the cracked old mirror in an up-stairs bedroom, and the sagging old armchair in the shadowy corner of the sitting room make home.

Not only did he come to know these people but he understood them. For his was the quick eye and interpreting heart willed him by a great father and an equally great mother. And because he came into Green Valley with a fresh mind and a keen appet.i.te for life nothing escaped him, not even old Mrs. Rosenwinkle sitting in paralyzed patience beside the open window of her little blind house.

He was strolling one day up the little gra.s.sy lane, thinking that it led into the cool, thick grove back of the little house that stared so blindly out into the green world. He had been following a new bird and it had darted into the grove. So he came upon the little house and the still grim old soul who sat at the open window as if to guard that little end of the world.

It was a snug, still spot, that little green lane, and was so carpeted with thick gra.s.ses and screened with verdure that the harsh noises of a chattering, working world could not ruffle its peace and serenity.

Cynthia's son filled it and the still, lonely old woman was fascinated with his bigness, his merry gladness, but most of all with his understanding friendliness. She told him all her story, her past trials and present griefs. And he told her strange things about people he had seen in other parts of the world, blind people living in foul alleys instead of sunny lanes, crippled ones with neither home nor kin of any kind. He told her much but made no effort to convince her that the earth was round, and when he went he left with her the very fine pair of field gla.s.ses with which he had been tracking the wonderful song bird that had escaped him. He showed her how to use them and for the first time in fifteen years old Mrs. Rosenwinkle forgot that she was paralyzed.

When he came in to his supper that evening Cynthia's son wanted to know why old Mrs. Rosenwinkle couldn't have a wheel-chair, one of those that she could work with her hands. He said that he thought she must be pretty tired sitting beside that window even if it was open. And why couldn't she have a window on each of the other sides of her room?

Grandma stared.

"My stars--boy! There's no reason that I know of why that old body can't have a wheel chair or more windows. Only Green Valley hasn't ever thought of it. She's always been so set in her notions and so out of the way of things that I expect we have forgotten her."

The third time that Cynthia's son brought little Jim Tumley home because the little man's wandering feet could not find their way to shelter, he wanted to know why little Jim was not in the choir. So Grandma told him, and it was his turn to be puzzled.

"But I don't understand. The church is for the weak, the needy, the blind, maimed and foolish who don't know how to seek happiness wisely.

The happy, strong, sensible people don't, as a matter of fact, need looking after," said Cynthia's son.

"My!" laughed Grandma, "I believe I've heard that or read that somewhere. Do they really practice that kind of religion in aged India? In these parts the churches are still built by the good for the good and the unfit have to shift for themselves."

But when he asked why Jim Tumley didn't have a piano to take up his spare time and keep him out of harm's way, Grandma was a bit scandalized.

"Why, people in Jim Tumley's circ.u.mstances don't own pianos. It wouldn't be proper. A second-hand organ is all they have any right to be ambitious for. Why, Mary Tumley would no more think of touching her savings, of buying a piano, than I would think of buying a second black silk or a diamond ring. So much style would be wicked."

"But if it would help to save the little man--if--"

"Well," smiled Grandma, "I'll mention it to Mary the very next time I see her."

"Do. And while you are about it you might ask Jim to sing a solo for us both Sunday morning and evening. If little Jim Tumley doesn't sing I won't talk," said the Reverend John Roger Churchill Knight.

So Joshua Churchill's rich grandson, Cynthia's son, traveled the high roads and low roads and had all manner of experiences and adventures and he discovered many stray, odd facts which later came in mighty handy.

He rode out into the country districts with Hank Lolly, sitting beside that worthy on the high wagon seat and listening most carefully to the description of every farm, its inmates, the barn dimensions and contents, the depth of the well, cost of the silo, number of pigs, sheep, the amount of tiling, and the make of the family graphophone.

Sometimes busy farm wives came hurrying out from the back or side doors, wiping their hands on their ap.r.o.ns, to ask Hank to take a mess of peas or beans to a less fortunate neighbor or to carry a basket of dishes over to the next farm where the thrashers were going to be for supper; and "Hank, just bring me a setting of turkey eggs from Emily Elby's. I've 'phoned and she has them all ready."

Mrs. Tooley, up the Elmwood road, entrusted the obliging Hank with the following message:

"Tell Doc Mitch.e.l.l that if he don't get my new set of teeth ready for the thrashing I'll hev the law on him for breaking up my happy home.

Two of my old beaux're coming to the thrashing and if they was to see me without my teeth they'd jest naturally make Jim miserable and me a divorcee."

Mrs. Bodin was sending her daughter, Stella, some little overalls made over for the twins from their grandpa's and a bottle of home made cough medicine "and one of my first squash pies for Al. And here's a pie for your trouble, Hank, and a few of these cookies you said you like."

Hank stowed everything carefully away, with no show of nervous haste, and when they were well started remarked to John Churchill Knight:

"You know the best part of staying sober is that you get taken in on so many things and almost you might say into so many families. People tell you things and ask your help and advice and by gum after awhile you get to feeling that maybe you're somebody too instead of jest a mess of miserableness. Why, I've got friends jest about everywhere, I guess.

"There's them as asks me sarcastic like if I don't find this kind of work dry and lonesome but I jest ask them to come along and see. Why, do you see that there house yonder? Those folks are relatives of Billy Evans' and as soon as ever I turn this corner, Mollie, that's the youngest girl, will start the graphophone going with my favorite piece.

The last time I come by I found a box of candy on the mail box for me.

That was from Winnie, the oldest, for bringing home her new dress from the dressmaker's.

"Yes, sir, it's jest wonderful how human and pleasant everybody is.

Why, if I jest keep on a-being sober and a.s.sociating with folks like this--why--I'm jest naturally bound to be kind of decent myself. And when you think of what I was--well--there's no use in talking--I was low--jest low. Ask anybody but Billy Evans and they'll tell you fast enough. Of course Billy's naturally prejudiced and his word ain't hardly to be credited.

"And here I am on a nice summer morning riding with the minister and with the whole country acting as if I'd always been decent."