Old Farm Fairies Part 44

"Oho, oho! Did I surprise you, Mr. Ensign?" was the greeting which came to him as he awoke. It was daybreak. There sat Madam Breeze on the Virginia creeper above him, smiling good-humoredly, and shaking the vine gently. He hurried to her side, bade her good morning, and told her the news of Faith and Sophia's rescue. Madam shook with joyful excitement until the vine clattered against the wall.

"Hist!" she cried, "that will never do! Silence--do you hear?

Softly--hu-sh! We must keep cool a while longer--wheeze!" She choked off her cough as she spoke, and sat still, at least as still as she could sit.

Lawe looked out upon the lawn. There was Fairy Dew giving the finishing touch to her night's work. As she flew with quick wings above the gra.s.s, her arms played rapidly upon the sacs beneath them, and from the many tubes attached thereto the spray flew in all directions.

"Humph!" said the Ensign as he watched with curious interest this fairy spraying machine. "What a busy little body Fairy Dew must be! See what an immense work she has wrought during the night!"

"Aye, aye! That is what we want. Look how the dew brings out to view yonder Pixie tents on the lawn and in the bushes. Ha, ha! Good, indeed!--wheeze!" The Elf clapped her hands merrily at the sight. But Lawe could hardly enter into the pleasure of the view, for as he saw almost every square foot of his beloved homestead grounds covered with the tents of his foes, showing white and clear under their load of dew-drops, his heart beat tumultuously with grief, shame and anger. He therefore shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.

"Never mind," cried Madam Breeze, "we shall see presently. Aha! lookee yonder! There comes the sun! All is well! Hoogh!--hurrah!"

The first rays of the rising sun were beginning to peep between the Two Pines, touch the tip of the Giantstone's poll and shoot out across the river.

"Bless the kind Cloud Elves," exclaimed Madam, "they have served us truly, and left the Gate of the Sun open wide. Welcome, welcome, good Sol! Here, this way now, Fairy Sunbeam, follow me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 146.--Dew-Sprinkled Tents upon the Lawn.]

The Elf tossed herself off the vine and bustled away to the front window that looks toward the northeast, facing the great bend in the Ohio River. She shook the window shutter until the slats rattled and fell open.

"In with you now!" she cried to the Sunbeam. "Right in! Off the floor now, please. Up the white bed-spread. There--that is it; that's it!

Just the spot, full and fair in the Governor's face! Now--wheeze!--rest there a moment, will you? I'll finish up these shutters--hoogh, wheeze--_puff!_"

She laid hold of the green slats and shook them again and again. Harder, Madam, harder, if you would get them open! Once more the Elf threw herself against the barrier, until the window shook.

"Here, Whisk, Keener!" she called. "Come to my help. And you, Lawe, creep in here and pry up that catch with your spear. All together, now!--Whoo-ooo-_whooff!_"

One of the shutters flew back with a loud bang, and as good hap would have it, the hasp or catch on the end thereof struck the leaf on which Lacemaker the Pixinee was nested and broke it loose from the vine. It floated off upon the wind and Madam Lacemaker was sorely tossed about upon her aerial voyage. Seeing this, a Fairy Sunbeam seized the stem of the leaf and darted off westward with it. Thereat Elf Keener plunged away after careering leaf and flying Sunbeam, and with stout puffs of his breath drove the leaf before him, Madam Lacemaker all the while tumbling back and forth, holding on to the lines of her dainty web, and ever and anon from her kneeling or half-p.r.o.ne posture shaking her fists, and sputtering forth her helpless wrath.

Now through the open s.p.a.ce the sun sent in a broad sheet of golden light that fell full upon Wille's face. The Governor awoke, rubbed his eyes, grumbled at the wind, grumbled at somebody's carelessness, got out of bed and crossed the room to close the shutter. Madam Breeze threw around him the freshest and sweetest breath of the morning as he approached. He leaned out of the window to draw the truant shutter to its place. He was wide awake now. The soft sunbeams fell upon him. He drew a full breath, and sent it forth again with an "ah--aa-ah!" of hearty relish.

"Well, this is a glorious morning," he muttered. "Ah, Nature gives us our sweetest tastes of life, after all. How still it is here! A real relief from the excitement and clamor of my life." He stood and gazed quietly upon the lovely scene before him. His eyes were fixed upon the rising sun, the glowing hill top and golden zoned river. A feeling of sadness fell upon him. It deepened into regret, as he silently looked and mused. He was thinking,--and who has not so thought?--of the earlier, the purer, the happier morning of life, ere the ambitions and struggles of manhood had awakened within him to warm the heart to fever heat, and taint the freshness and purity of n.o.bler and holier desires and aims.

"Heigho!" he sighed, as he slowly drew the shutter to its place.

He felt a light touch upon his hand. A small, thin voice, but very sweet and familiar, fell upon his ear. It was the well-known greeting of his Brownie friends.

"G.o.d speed, Brother Wille; hail and good speed!"

He looked down, and saw standing upon the window-sill Ensign Lawe and his troopers.

"Welcome, brothers hail and good speed!" he answered. There was a heartiness in his tone and genuine pleasure in his face, which made the hearts of the fairies jump for joy. It was so like the tone and look of old time!

"What do you bring me, brothers?" continued Wille. "What can I do for you, or what will you do for me?"

"Look yonder, please," said Lawe, pointing toward the lawn.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 147.--Fairy Sunbeam and Elf Keener Banishing Madam Lacemaker Beyond the River.]

The Governor leaned over the window-sill and followed the direction of the Ensign's pointed spear. He started! The Pixie encampment covered the place! The dew drops on the tent-tops were glistening in the sunbeams like jewels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 148.--A Dew-Laden Web.]

"Look out of the west window, now," said Lawe. The Governor threw back the shutter and saw the same dew-laden webs and silken tents stretching in close array up toward the orchard to the very bank of the lake and inlet.

"And has it come to this, my good friends?" cried Wille. His voice trembled, and a tear started upon his cheek. "Have your old foes driven you from your homestead, and shut you out from the mansion and from me?

I see, I see! Not another word! I know that it is my fault. Forgive me!

I will right the wrong without delay. I will, indeed! And Dido will do her best to help me. Depend on us. When the sun has dried the dew from the gra.s.s, meet us at our old trysting place by the Rose Bush, and you shall see us scatter the Pixies, and give back the Home Lawn to my Brownie brothers. Good-bye!"

He lay down again, but could not sleep. His thoughts were too busy with the past, and too sad, in sooth, to allow rest. He aroused Dido and told her all. Like a good wife she heartily sympathized with him in his new resolves, and agreed to join him in the crusade against the Pixies.

Breakfast over, the two went out to the lawn. "Let the gardener bring up the lawn mower," said Dido.

"Not I," answered Wille. "I shall do the work myself. It is quite as little atonement as I can make for neglecting my old, true Brownie friends."

He threw off his coat, donned his wide-brimmed hat, and brought the scythe from the tool house. The hone rung merrily upon the steel as the Governor sharpened the blade. He had not forgotten his skill of earlier days, and while he was bringing the scythe to a good edge his mind followed along the path of his life to the quiet village among the green hills on the banks of Little Beaver Creek, where his boyhood had been spent.

One spot very dear to memory came into view--Aunt f.a.n.n.y's farm! The good, strong face of dear old Aunt f.a.n.n.y arose before him. What happy days he had spent in her quiet country home! He felt again the thrill of holiday freedom that stirred his young heart on those summer days when he set out upon the four miles' walk to the farm. In imagination once more he pa.s.sed the old Factory Dam; he saw the water tumbling over its breast; he stood on the Sandy and Beaver Ca.n.a.l locks, and watched Sam Underwood and Ike Clunk pull up their dipnets from the bays. With what eagerness of interest did he gaze when the net was swung ash.o.r.e with a silvery sucker or a pink chub swaying down the centre!

On, on, along the Elkrun Valley. There is Orr's; and there is Meldrum's; and there is Charters' farm; and there is Kimball's mill; and there is Squire Clem Crow's cooper shop; and yonder is Elkton. One mile more! The road turns here to the left, winds down the deep cleft of Pine Hollow, shady the whole summer long between its sharp ridges crowned with hemlocks, and musical with the ripple of its clear mountain run.

There is the old District School house!--and many a l.u.s.ty conflict he recalls with the country lads who waged with him the traditional feud between "country haw-bucks" and "town boys." Now he climbs up the hill road; there to the right is the Crow place, and the Governor smiles as he recalls the easy boyish wit that dubbed it the "Crow's nest." At last through the trees comes the longed-for glimpse of the white house on the knoll, and Aunt f.a.n.n.y sitting on the porch!

"Hurrah! she rises; she has seen me!"

Up the lane on a run now, and soon at rest before a bowl of snowy bread and fresh milk.

What days those were! full of pleasure from early rising with the sun to twilight bed-going with the birds. The wanderings in wood and orchard; the expeditions after gay field lilies, aromatic calamus and sweet myrrh; the long hunts after hens' nests in the fence corners; the walks, musings and amusings among the sheep and their frisky lambs, the cows and calves, the colts and piggies, the hens and their yellow puffy broods of m.u.f.fies; the big roosters, the speckled guinea fowl,--how keen was the zest of these engagements and pursuits!

Then came the warm bright days of harvest, and the mowers came with their scythes. What fun to toss the fragrant hay! What glorious fun to see the mowers run from the stirred up b.u.mble-bees' nest! What fun, most glorious of all, to fight the insects with wisps of new mown hay! Ah!

the odor of the fresh mown meadow on dear Aunt f.a.n.n.y's farm! The Governor seemed to smell it again, as fresh as on those long past harvest days, while he stood there whetting his scythe and living over in memory the scenes of his bright, pure boyhood.

He drew a deep sigh; he dropped the whetstone into his hip-pocket; he threw back the scythe, then bent down to the gra.s.s which had so long marred the lawn by its overgrowth, and swept a broad clean swath up the hillside.

"You shall not do the work alone," cried Dido, and seizing her reaping hook began to trim away the struggling tufts along the border walk.

When Ensign Lawe had received Wille's promise to break up the Pixie camp and disperse and destroy the Pixies, he straightway sent messengers to Bruce and Rodney to follow up the proposed attack. Swiftly but silently the orders went forth. Fort Home, which commanded a point of the inlet nearest the Mansion, was strongly reinforced, and the big david, "Example," manned and made ready for use. The ships were cleared for action, the crews sent to quarters, and all things made ready for weighing anchor. Never did Soldiers and Natties await the command with a more cheerful, willing and confident courage. The rescue of the Nurses had given them new life; the good news of Governor Wille's conduct lifted them all into the height of hope. The battle cry was pa.s.sed: "Wille, Dido and Victory!" All was ready. All were waiting.

Now came a trooper dashing post haste into headquarters. "The Governor has prepared his scythe and is just advancing to work."

Then came a second courier: "The Governor has begun the attack; Dido joins him in it!"

A third came: "Wille is cutting a broad swath up the lawn; the Pixie tents are swept away before him, and our foes are fleeing in all directions."

Close upon this messenger came Lawe himself, spurring at topmost speed into the Brownie camp, swinging his sword around his head in high ecstasy, and crying, "Forward all! Forward at once! Fall upon the foe, and we are saved and safe forever!"

"Forward!" cried Bruce.