Sowing Seeds in Danny Part 14

In what seemed to him but a few minutes, he was awakened by a loud knocking on the door below, voices shouted, a dog barked, cow-bells jangled; he could hear doors banging everywhere, a faint streak of sunlight lay wan and pale on the mud-plastered walls.

"By Jove!" he said yawning, "I know now what Kipling meant when he said 'the dawn comes up like thunder.'"

A few weeks after Arthur's arrival, Mrs. Motherwell called him from the barn, where he sat industriously mending bags, to unhitch her horse from the buggy. She had just driven home from Millford. n.o.body had taken the trouble to show Arthur how it was done.

"Any fool ought to know," Mr. Motherwell said.

Arthur came running from the barn with his hat in his hand. He grasped the horse firmly by the bridle and led him toward the barn. As they came near the water trough the horse began to show signs of thirst.

Arthur led him to the trough, but the horse tossed his head and was unable to get it near the water on account of the check.

Arthur watched him a few moments with gathering perplexity.

"I can't lift this water vessel," he said, looking at the horse reproachfully. "It's too heavy, don't you know. Hold! I have it," he cried with exultation beaming in his face; and making a dash for the horse he unfastened the crupper.

But the exultation soon died from his face, for the horse still tossed his head in the vain endeavour to reach the water.

"My word!" he said, wrinkling his forehead, "I believe I shall have to lift the water-vessel yet, though it is hardly fit to lift, it is so wet and nasty." Arthur spoke with a deliciously soft Kentish accent, guiltless of r's and with a softening of the h's that was irresistible.

A light broke over his face again. He went behind the buggy and lifted the hind wheels. While he was holding up the wheels and craning his neck around the back of the buggy to see if his efforts were successful, Jim Russell came into the yard, riding his dun-coloured pony Chiniquy.

He stood still in astonishment. Then the meaning of it came to him and he rolled off Chiniquy's back, shaking with silent laughter.

"Come, come, Arthur," he said as soon as he could speak. "Stop trying to see how strong you are. Don't you see the horse wants a drink?"

With a perfectly serious face Jim unfastened the check, whereupon the horse's head was lowered at once, and he drank in long gulps the water that had so long mocked him with its nearness.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," the Englishman cried delightedly. "Thanks awfully, it is monstrously clever of you to know how to do everything.

I wish I could go and live with you. I believe I could learn to farm if I were with you."

Jim looked at his eager face so cruelly bitten by mosquitoes.

"I'll tell you, Arthur," he said smiling, "I haven't any need for a man to work, but I suppose I might hire you to keep the mosquitoes off the horses. They wouldn't look at Chiniquy, I am sure, if they could get a nip at you."

The Englishman looked perplexed.

"You are learning as well as any person could learn," Jim said kindly.

"I think you are doing famously. No person is particularly bright at work entirely new. Don't be a bit discouraged, old man, you'll be a rich land-owner some day, proprietor of the A. J. Wemyss Stock Farm, writing letters to the agricultural papers, judge of horses at the fairs, giving lectures at dairy inst.i.tutes--oh, I think I see you, Arthur!"

"You are chaffing me," Arthur said smiling.

"Indeed I am not. I am very much in earnest. I have seen more unlikely looking young fellows than you do wonderful things in a short time, and just to help along the good work I am going to show you a few things about taking off harness that may be useful to you when you are president of the Agricultural Society of South Cypress, or some other fortunate munic.i.p.ality."

Arthur's face brightened.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Russell," he said.

That night Arthur wrote home a letter that would have made an appropriate circular for the Immigration Department to send to prospective settlers.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FAITH THAT MOVETH MOUNTAINS

When supper was over and Pearl had washed the heavy white dishes Mrs.

Motherwell told her, not unkindly, that she could go to bed. She would sleep in the little room over the kitchen in Polly's old bed.

"You don't need no lamp," she said, "if you hurry. It is light up there."

Mrs. Motherwell was inclined to think well of Pearl. It was not her soft brown eyes, or her quaint speech that had won Mrs. Motherwell's heart. It was the way she sc.r.a.ped the frying-pan.

Pearl went up the ladder into the kitchen loft, and found herself in a low, long room, close and stifling, one little window shone light against the western sky and on it innumerable flies buzzed unceasingly.

Old boxes, old bags, old baskets looked strange and shadowy in the gathering gloom. The Motherwells did not believe in giving away anything. The Indians who went through the neighbourhood each fall looking for "old clo'" had long ago learned to pa.s.s by the big stone house. Indians do not appreciate a strong talk on shiftlessness the way they should, with a vision of a long cold winter ahead of them.

Pearl gazed around with a troubled look on her face. A large basket of old carpet rags stood near the little bed. She dragged it into the farthest corner. She tried to open the window, but it was nailed fast.

Then a determined look shone in her eyes. She went quickly down the little ladder.

"Please ma'am," she said going over to Mrs. Motherwell, "I can't sleep up there. It is full of diseases and microscopes."

"It's what?" Mrs. Motherwell almost screamed. She was in the pantry making pies.

"It has old air in it," Pearl said, "and it will give me the fever."

Mrs. Motherwell glared at the little girl. She forgot all about the frying pan.

"Good gracious!" she said. "It's a queer thing if hired help are going to dictate where they are going to sleep. Maybe you'd like a bed set up for you in the parlour!"

"Not if the windies ain't open," Pearl declared stoutly.

"Well they ain't; there hasn't been a window open in this house since it was built, and there isn't going to be, letting in dust and flies."

Pearl gasped. What would Mrs. Francis say to that?

"It's in yer graves ye ought to be then, ma'am," she said with honest conviction. "Mrs. Francis told me never to sleep in a room with the windies all down, and I as good as promised I wouldn't. Can't we open that wee windy, ma'am?"

Mrs. Motherwell was tired, unutterably tired, not with that day's work alone, but with the days and years that had pa.s.sed away in gray dreariness; the past barren and bleak, the future bringing only visions of heavier burdens. She was tired and perhaps that is why she became angry.

"You go straight to your bed," she said, with her mouth hard and her eyes glinting like cold flint, "and none of your nonsense, or you can go straight back to town."

When Pearl again reached the little stifling room, she fell on her knees and prayed.

"Dear G.o.d," she said, "there's gurms here as thick as hair on a dog's back, and You and me know it, even if she don't. I don't know what to do, dear Lord--the windy is nelt down. Keep the gurms from gittin' into me, dear Lord. Do ye mind how poor Jeremiah was let down into the mire and ye tuk care o' him, didn't ye? Take care o' me, dear Lord. Poor ma has enough to do widout me comin' home clutterin' up the house wid sickness. Keep yer eye on Danny if ye can at all, at all. He's awful stirrin'. I'll try to git the windy riz to-morrow by hook or crook, so mebbe it's only to-night ye'll have to watch the gurms. Amen."

Pearl braided her hair into two little pigtails, with her little dilapidated comb. When she brought out the contents of the bird-cage and opened it in search of her night-dress, the orange rolled out, almost frightening her. The purse, too, rattled on the bare floor as it fell.

She picked it up, and by going close to the fly-specked window she counted the ten ten-cent pieces, a whole dollar. Never was a little girl more happy.