Laddie Part 52

"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 shield 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 shinned 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 flashing 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.

It just stood, stayed, forced you, and made you look it in the face.

If Sh.e.l.ley weren't stopped quickly she was going up on the hill with the little fever and whooping cough sisters. There it was! You could try to think other things, to play, to work, to talk it down in the pulpit, to sing it out in a tree, to slide down the haystack away from it--there it stayed! And every glimpse you had of Sh.e.l.ley made it surer.

There was no trouble about keeping awake that night; I couldn't sleep.

I stood at the window and looked down the Big Hill through the soft white moonlight, and thought about it, and then I thought of mother. I guess NOW you see what kind of things mothers have to face. All day she had gone around doing her work, every few minutes suggesting some new thing for one of us to try, or trying it herself; all day she had talked and laughed, and when Sarah Hood came she told her she thought Sh.e.l.ley must be bilious, that she had travelled all night and was sleeping: but she would be up the first place she went, and then they talked all over creation and Mrs. Hood went home and never remembered that she hadn't seen Sh.e.l.ley. She worked Mrs. Freshett off the same way, but you could see she was almost too tired to do it, so by night she was nearly as white as Sh.e.l.ley, yet keeping things going. When the house was still, she came into the room, and stood at the window as I had, until father entered, then she turned, and I could see they were staring at each other in the moonlight, as they had all day.

"She's sick?" asked father, at last.

"Heartsick!" said mother bitterly.

"We'd better have Doc come?"

"She says she isn't sick, and she won't see him."

"She will if I put my foot down."

"Best not, Paul! She'll feel better soon. She's so young! She must get over it."

They were silent for a long time and then father asked in a harsh whisper: "Ruth, can she possibly have brought us to shame?"

"G.o.d forbid!" cried mother. "Let us pray."

Then those two people knelt on each side of that bed, and I could hear half the words they muttered, until I was wild enough to scream. I wished with all my heart that I hadn't listened. I had always known it was no nice way. I must have gone to sleep after a while, but when I woke up I was still thinking about it, and to save me, I couldn't quit.

All day, wherever I went, that question of father's kept going over in my head. I thought about it until I was almost crazy, and I just couldn't see where anything about shame came in.

She was only mistaken. She THOUGHT he loved her, and he didn't. She never could have been so bloomy, so filled with song, laughter, and lovely like she was, if she hadn't truly believed with all her heart that he loved her. Of course it would almost finish her to give him up, when she felt like that; and maybe she did wrong to let herself care so much, before she was sure about him; but that would only be foolish, there wouldn't be even a shadow of shame about it. Besides, Laddie had done exactly the same thing. He loved the Princess until it nearly killed him when he thought he had to give her up, and he loved her as hard as ever he could, when he hadn't an idea whether she would love him back, even a tiny speck; and the person who wasn't foolish, and never would be, was Laddie.

The more I thought, the worse I got worked up, and I couldn't see how Sh.e.l.ley was to blame for anything at all. Love just came to her, like it came to Laddie. She would hardly have knelt down and beseeched the Lord to make her fall in love with a man she scarcely knew, and when she couldn't be sure what he was going to do about it--not the Lord, the man, I mean. You could see for yourself she wouldn't do that. I finished my work, and then I tried to do things for her, and she wouldn't let me. Mother told me to ask her to make Grace Greenwood the dress she had promised when I was so sick; so I took the Scotch plaid to her and reminded her, and she pushed me away and said: "Some time!"

I even got Grace, and showed Sh.e.l.ley the spills on her dress, and how badly she needed a new one, but she never looked, she said: "Oh bother!

My head aches. Do let me be!"

Mother was listening. I could see her standing outside the door.

She motioned to me to come away, so I went to her and she was white as Sh.e.l.ley. She was sick too, she couldn't say a word for a minute, but after a while she kissed me, I could feel the quivers in her lips, and she said stifflike: "Never mind, she'll be better soon, then she will!

Run play now!"

Sometimes I wandered around looking at things and living dully. I didn't try to study out anything, but I must have watched closer than I knew, for every single thing I saw then, over that whole farm, I can shut my eyes and see to-day; everything, from the old hawk tilting his tail to steer him in soaring, to a snake catching field mice in the gra.s.s, lichens on the fence, flowers, b.u.t.terflies, every single thing.

Mostly I sat to watch something that promised to become interesting, and before I knew it, I was back on the shame question. That's the most dreadful word in the dictionary. There's something about it that makes your face burn, only to have it in your mind.

Laddie said he never had met any man who knew the origin of more words than father. He could even tell every clip what nationality a man was from his name. Hundreds of time I have heard him say to stranger people, "From your name you'd be of Scotch extraction," or Irish, or whatever it was, and every time the person he was talking with would say, "Yes." Some day away out in the field, alone, I thought I would ask him what people first used the word "shame," and just exactly what it did mean, and what the things were that you could do that would make the people who loved you until they would die for you, ashamed of you.

Thinking about that and planning out what it was that I wanted to know, gave me another idea. Why not ask her? She was the only one who knew what she had done away there in the city, alone among strangers; I wasn't sure whether all the music a girl could learn was worth letting her take the chances she would have to in a big city. From the way Laddie and father hated them, they were a poor place for men, and they must have been much worse for girls. Sh.e.l.ley knew, why not ask HER?

Maybe I could coax her to tell me, and it would make my life much easier to know; and only think what was going on in father's and mother's heads and hearts, when I felt that way, and didn't even know what there was to be ashamed about. She wouldn't any more than slap me; and sick as she was, I made up my mind not to get angry at her, or ever to tell, if she did. I'd rather have her hit me when she was so sick than to have Sally beat me until she couldn't strike another lick, just because she was angry. But I forgave her that, and I was never going to think of it again--only I did.

Mother kept sending Leon to the post-office, and she met him at the gate half the time herself and fairly s.n.a.t.c.hed the letters from his hands. Hum! She couldn't pull the wool over my eyes. I knew she hoped somehow, some way, there would be a big fat one with Paget, Legal Adviser, or whatever a Chicago lawyer puts on his envelopes. Jerry's just say: "Attorney at Law."