Laddie Part 39

"I was watching if Leon went under. What if he had, mother?"

"They'd have taken him out, and brought him to me, and I'd have worked with all the strength and skill G.o.d has given me, and if it were possible to us, he would be saved, and if it were not, it would be a proud moment for a woman to offer a boy like that to the G.o.d who gave him. One would have nothing to be ashamed of!"

"Could you do it, like you are now, and not cry, mother?" I asked wonderingly.

"Patience no!" said she. "Before long you will find out, child, that the fountain head of tears and laughter lies in the same spot, deep in a woman's heart. Men were made for big things! They must brave the wild animals, the Indians, fight the battles, ride the races, till the fields, build the homes. In the making of a new country men must have the thing in their souls that carried Leon across the creek. If he had checked that horse and gone to the ford, I would have fallen where I stood!"

"Father crossed the ford!"

"True! But that's different. He never had a chance at a horse like that! He never had time for fancy practice, and his nose would have been between the pages of a book if he had. But remember this! Your father's hand has never faltered, and his aim has never failed. All of us are here, safe and comfortable, through him. It was your father who led us across the wilderness, and fended from us the wildcat, wolf, and Indian. He built this house, cleared this land, and gave to all of us the thing we love. Get this in your head straight. Your father rode a plow horse; he never tried flourishes in riding; but no man can stick in the saddle longer, ride harder, and face any danger with calmer front. If you think this is anything, you should have seen his face the day he stood between me and a band of Indians, we had every reason to think, I had angered to the fighting point."

"Tell me! Please tell me!" I begged.

All of us had been brought up on that story, but we were crazy to hear it, and mother loved to tell it, so she dropped on a chair and began:

"We were alone in a cabin in the backwoods of Ohio. Elizabeth was only nine months old, and father always said a mite the prettiest of any baby we ever had. Many of the others have looked quite as well to me, but she was the first, and he was so proud of her he always wanted me to wait in the wagon until he hitched the horses, so he would get to take and to carry her himself. Well, she was in the cradle, cooing and laughing, and I had my work all done, and cabin shining. I was heating a big poker red-hot, and burning holes into the four corners of a board so father could put legs in it to make me a bench. A greasy old squaw came to the door with her papoose on her back. She wanted to trade berries for bread. There were berries everywhere for the picking; I had more dried than I could use in two years. We planted only a little patch of wheat and father had to ride three days to carry to mill what he could take on a horse. I baked in an outoven and when it was done, a loaf of white bread was by far the most precious thing we had to eat.

Sometimes I was caught, and forced to let it go. Often I baked during the night and hid the bread in the wheat at the barn. There was none in the cabin that day and I said so. She didn't believe me. She set her papoose on the floor beside the fireplace, and went to the cupboard. There wasn't a crumb there except cornbread, and she didn't want that. She said: 'Brod! Brod!'

"She learned that from the Germans in the settlement. I shook my head.

Then she pulled out a big steel hunting knife, such as the whites traded to the Indians so they would have no trouble in scalping us neatly, and walked to the cradle. She took that knife loosely between her thumb and second finger and holding it directly above my baby's face, she swung it lightly back and forth and demanded: 'Brod! Brod!'

"If the knife fell, it would go straight through my baby's head, and Elizabeth was reaching her little hands and laughing. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I caught that red-hot poker from the fire, and stuck it so close her baby's face, that the papoose drew back and whimpered. I scarcely saw how she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and left. When your father came, I told him, and we didn't know what to do. We knew she would come back and bring her band. If we were not there, they would burn the cabin, ruin our crops, kill our stock, take everything we had, and we couldn't travel so far, or so fast, that on their ponies they couldn't overtake us. We endangered any one with whom we sought refuge, so we gripped hands, knelt down and told the Lord all about it, and we felt the answer was to stay. Father cleaned the gun, and hours and hours we waited.

"About ten o'clock the next day they came, forty braves in war paint and feathers. I counted until I was too sick to see, then I took the baby in my arms and climbed to the loft, with our big steel knife in one hand. If your father fell, I was to use it, first on Elizabeth, then on myself. The Indians stopped at the woodyard, and the chief of the band came to the door, alone. Your father met him with his gun in reach, and for a whole eternity they stood searching each other's eyes.

I was at the trapdoor where I could see both of them.

"To the depths of my soul I enjoyed seeing Leon take the fence and creek: but what was that, child, to compare with the timber that stood your father like a stone wall between me and forty half-naked, paint besmeared, maddened Indians? Don't let any showing the men of to-day can make set you to thinking that father isn't a king among men. Not once, but again and again in earlier days, he fended danger from me like that. I can shut my eyes and see his waving hair, his white brow, his steel blue eyes, his unfaltering hand. I don't remember that I had time or even thought to pray. I gripped the baby, and the knife, and waited for the thing I must do if an arrow or a shot sailed past the chief and felled father. They stood second after second, like two wooden men, and then slowly and deliberately the chief lighted his big pipe, drew a few puffs and handed it to father. He set down his gun, took the pipe and quite as slowly and deliberately he looked at the waiting band, at the chief, and then raised it to his lips.

"'White squaw brave! Heap much brave!' said the chief.

"'In the strength of the Lord. Amen!' said father.

"Then he reached his hand and the chief took it, so I came down the ladder and stood beside father, as the Indians began to file in the front door and out the back. As they pa.s.sed, every man of them made the peace sign and piled in a heap, venison, fish, and game, while each squaw played with the baby and gave me a gift of beads, a metal trinket, or a blanket she had woven. After that they came often, and brought gifts, and if prowling Gypsies were pilfering, I could look to see a big Indian loom up and seat himself at my fireside until any danger was past. I really got so I liked and depended on them, and father left me in their care when he went to mill, and I was safe as with him. You have heard the story over and over, but to-day is the time to impress on you that an exhibition like THIS is the veriest child's play compared with what I have seen your father do repeatedly!"

"But it was you, the chief said was brave!"

Mother laughed.

"I had to be, baby," she said. "Mother had no choice. There's only one way to deal with an Indian. I had lived among them all my life, and I knew what must be done."

"I think both of you were brave," I said, "you, the bravest!"

"Quite the contrary," laughed mother. "I shall have to confess that what I did happened so quickly I'd no time to think. I only realized the coal red iron was menacing the papoose when it drew back and whimpered. Father had all night to face what was coming to him, and it was not one to one, but one to forty, with as many more squaws, as good fighters as the braves, to back them. It was a terror but I never have been sorry we went through it together. I have rested so securely in your father ever since."

"And he is as safe in you," I insisted.

"As you will," said mother. "This world must have her women quite as much as her men. It is shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, business."

The clamour in the meadow arose above our voices and brought us back to the foxes.

"There goes another!" I said, the tears beginning to roll again.

"It is heathenish business," said mother. "I don't blame you! If people were not too shiftless to care for their stuff, the foxes wouldn't take their chickens and geese. They never get ours!"

"Hoods aren't shiftless!" I sobbed.

"There are always exceptions," said mother, "and they are the exception in this case."

The door flew open and Leon ran in. He was white with excitement, and trembling.

"Mother, come and see me take a fence on Pryor's Rocket!" he cried.

Mother had him in her arms.

"You little whiffet!" she said. "You little tow-haired whiffet!"

Both of them were laughing and crying at the same time, and so was I.

"I saw you take one fence and the creek, Weiscope!" she said, holding him tight, and stroking his hair. "That will do for to-day. Ride the horse home slowly, rub it down if they will allow you, and be sure to remember your manners when you leave. To trust such a child as you with so valuable a horse, and for Mr. Pryor to personally ride with you and help you, I think that was a big thing for a man like him to do."

"But, mother, he's been showing me for weeks, or I couldn't have done it to-day. It was our secret to surprise you. When I get my horse, I'll be able to ride a little, as well as Mr. Laddie."

"Leon, don't," said mother, gripping him tighter.

"You must bear in mind, word about that money may come any day."

"Aw, it won't either," said Leon, pulling away. "And say, mother, that dumb-bell was like country boys make in England. He helped me hunt the wood and showed me, and I couldn't ride and manage it, so he had it all day, and you should have heard him make it rip. Say, mother, take my word, he was some pumpkins in England. I bet he ordered the Queen around, when he was there!"

"No doubt!" laughed mother, kissing him and pushing him from the door.

Some people are never satisfied. After that splendid riding and the perfect day, father, Leon, and Laddie came home blaming every one, and finding fault, and trying to explain how it happened, that the people from the east side claimed two foxes, and there was only one left for the west side, when they had seen and knew they had driven three for miles. They said they lost them in our Big Woods.

I didn't care one speck. I would as lief wear a calico dress, and let the little foxes have their mammies to feed them; and I was willing to bet all my money that we would have as much ham, and as many greens next summer as we ever had. And if the foxes took Hoods' Dorkings again, let them build a coop with safe foundations. The way was to use stone and heap up dirt around it in the fall, to be perfectly sure, and make it warmer.

We took care of our chickens because we had to have them. All the year we needed them, but most especially for Easter. Mother said that was ordained chicken time. Turkeys for Thanksgiving, sucking pigs for Christmas, chickens for Easter, goose, she couldn't abide. She thought it was too strong. She said the egg was a symbol of life; of awakening, of birth, and the chickens came from the eggs, first ones about Easter, so that proved it was chicken time.

I am going to quit praying about little things I can manage myself.

Father said no prayer would bring an answer unless you took hold and pulled with all your being for what you wanted. I had been intending for days to ask the Lord to help me find where Leon hid his Easter eggs. It had been the law at our house from the very first, that for the last month before Easter, aside from what mother had to have for the house, all of us might gather every egg we could find and keep them until Easter. If we could locate the hiding place of any one else, we might take all theirs. The day before Easter they were brought in, mother put aside what she required, and the one who had the most got to sell all of them and take the money. Sometimes there were two washtubs full, and what they brought was worth having, for sure. So we watched all year for safe places, and when the time came we almost ran after the hens with a basket. Because Laddie and Leon were bigger they could outrun us, and lots of hens laid in the barn, so there the boys always had first chance. Often during the month we would find and take each other's eggs a dozen times.

We divided them, and hid part in different places, so that if either were found there would still be some left.

Laddie had his in the hopper of the cider press right on the threshing floor, and as he was sure to get more than I had anyway, I usually put mine with his. May had hers some place, and where Leon had his, none of us could find or imagine. I almost lay awake of nights trying to think, and every time I thought of a new place, the next day I would look, and they wouldn't be there. Three days before Easter, mother began to cook and get the big dinner ready, and she ran short of eggs.

She told me to go to the barn and tell the boys that each of them must send her a dozen as quickly as they could. Of course that was fair, if she made both give up the same number. So I went to the barn.

The lane was muddy, and as I had been sick, I wore my rubbers that spring. I thought to keep out of the deep mud, where horses and cattle trampled, I'd go up the front embankment, and enter the little door.

My feet made no sound, and it so happened that the door didn't either, and as I started to open it. I saw Leon disappearing down the stairway, with a big sack on his back. I thought it was corn for the horses, and followed him, but he went to the cow stable door and started toward the lane, and then I thought it was for the pigs, so I called Laddie and told him about the eggs. He said he'd give me two dozen of his, and Leon could pay him back. We went together to get them, and there was only one there.

Wasn't that exactly like Leon? Leave ONE for the nest egg! If he were dying and saw a joke or a trick, he'd stop to play it before he finished, if he possibly could. If he had no time at all, then he'd go with his eyes twinkling over the thoughts of the fun it would have been if he possibly could have managed it. Of course when we saw that one lonely egg in the cider hopper, just exactly like the "Last Rose of Summer, left to pine on the stem," I thought of the sack Leon carried, and knew what had been in it. We hurried out and tried to find him, but he was swallowed up. You couldn't see him or hear a sound of him anywhere.