Sowing Seeds in Danny Part 31

The grain had all been cut and gathered into stacks that had dotted the fields, two by two, like comfortable married couples, and these in turn had changed into billowy piles of yellow straw, through which herds of cattle foraged, giving a touch of life and colour to the unending colourless landscape. The trees stood naked and bare. The gardens where once the corn waved and the hollyhocks flaunted their brazen beauty, now lay a tangled litter of stalks, waiting the thrifty farmer's torch to clear them away before the snow came. The earth had yielded of her fruits and now rested from her labour, worn and spent, taking no thought of comeliness, but waiting in decrepit indifference for her friend, the North Wind, to bring down the swirling snow to hide her scars and heal her unloveliness with its kindly white mantle.

But although the earth lay sere and brown and dust-laden, the granaries and elevators were bursting with a rich abundance. Innumerable freight-trains loaded with wheat wound heavily up the long grade, carrying off all too slowly the produce of the plain, and still the loads of grain came pouring in from the farms. The cellars were full of the abundance of the gardens--golden turnips, rosy potatoes and rows of pale green cabbages hanging by their roots to the beams gave an air of security against the long, cold, hungry winter.

Inside of John Watson's home, in spite of November's dullness, joy and gladness reigned, for was not Pearl coming home? Pearl, her mother's helper and adviser; Pearl, her silent father's wonder and delight, the second mother of all the little Watsons! Pearl was coming home.

Events in the Watson family were reckoned from the time of Pearl's departure or the time of her expected home-coming. "Pa got raised from one dollar and a quarter to one dollar and a half just six weeks from the day Pearl left, lackin' two days," and Mrs. Evans gave Mary a new "stuff" dress, "on the Frida' as Pearl left or the Thursda' three weeks before," and, moreover, the latest McSorley baby was born "on the Wednesda' as Pearl was comin' home on the Sat.u.r.da' four weeks after."

Domestic affairs were influenced to some degree by Pearl's expected arrival. "Don't be wearin' yer sweater now, Tommy man, I'm feart the red strip'll run in it when its washed; save it clean till Pearlie comes, there's a man."

"Patsey, avick, wobble yer tooth now man alive. Don't be havin' that loose thing hangin' in yer jaw, and Pearlie comin' home so soon."

The younger children, whose appet.i.tes were out of all proportion to the supply, were often "tided over" what might have been a tearful time by a promise of the good time coming. When Danny cried because the bottom of his porridge plate was "always stickin' through," and later in the same day came home in the same unmanned condition because he had smelled chickens cooking down at the hotel when he and Jimmy went with the milk, Mary rose to the occasion and told him in a wild flight of unwarranted extravagance that they would have a turkey when Pearl came home. 'N cranberry sauce. 'N brown gravy. No-ow!

The house had undergone some preparations for the joyous event.

Everything was scrubbed that could be scrubbed. An elaborately scalloped newspaper drape ornamented the clock shelf; paper chains, made of blue and yellow sale-bills, were festooned from the elbow of the stove pipes to the window curtains; the wood box was freshly papered with newspaper; red flannel was put in the lamps.

The children were scrubbed until they shone. Bugsey's sweater had a hole in the "chist," but you would never know it the way he held his hand. Tommy's stocking had a hole in the knee, but he had artfully inserted a piece of black lining that by careful watching kept up appearances.

Mrs. Watson, instigated by Danny, had looked at the turkeys in the butcher shop that morning, asked the price and came away sorrowful.

Even Danny understood that a turkey was not to be thought of. They compromised on a pot-roast because it makes so much gravy, and with this and the prospect of potatoes and turnips and prune-pie, the family had to be content.

On the day that Pearlie was expected home, Mrs. Watson and Mary were busy preparing the evening meal, although it was still quite early in the afternoon. Wee Danny stood on a syrup keg in front of the window, determined to be the first to see Pearlie.

Mrs. Watson was peeling the potatoes and singing. Mrs. Watson sang because her heart was glad, for was not Pearlie coming home. She never allowed her singing to interfere with more urgent duties; the singing could always wait, and she never forgot just where she had left it, but would come back and pick up at the exact place she had discarded it.

"Sure ain't it great the way ma never drops a st.i.tch in her singin',"

her eldest son Teddy had said admiringly one day. "She can lave a note half turned up in the air, and go off and lave it, and ye'd think she'd forgot where she left it, but never a fear o' ma, two days afther she'll rache up for it and bring it down and slip off into the choon agin, nate as nate."

On this particular day Mrs. Watson sang because she couldn't help it, for Pearlie was coming home--

From Greenland's icy mountains, From India's coral strands,

she sang, as she peeled the potatoes--

Where Africa's sunny fount--

"Come, Mary alanna, and scour the knives, sure an' I forgot them at noon to-day.

-tains Flow down their crimson sands; From many an ancient river And many a sandy--

Put a dhrop more wather in the kittle Tommy--don't ye hear it spittin'?"

-plain They call us to deliver--

Here a shout sounded outside, and Bugsey came tumbling in and said he thought he had seen Pearlie coming away down the road across the track, whereupon Danny cried so uproariously that Bugsey, like the gentleman he was, withdrew his statement, or at least modified it by saying it might be Pearlie and it might not.

But it was Pearl, sure enough, and Danny had the pleasure of giving the alarm, beating on the window, maudlin with happiness, while Pearl said good-bye to Tom Motherwell, who had brought her home. Tommy and Bugsey and Patsey waited giggling just inside the door, while Mary and Mrs.

Watson went out to greet her.

Pearl was in at last, kissing every little last Watson, forgetting she had done Tommy and doing him over again; with Danny holding tightly to her skirt through it all, everybody talking at once.

Then the excitement calmed down somewhat, but only to break right out again, for Jimmy who had been downtown came home and found the box which Tom Motherwell had left on the step after Pearl had gone in. They carried it in excitedly and eager little hands raised the lid, eager little voices shouted with delight.

"Didn't I tell ye we'd have a turkey when Pearlie came home," Mary shouted triumphantly.

Pearlie rose at once to her old position of director-in-chief.

"The turkey'll be enough for us, and it'll be done in time yet, and we'll send the chicken to Mrs. McGuire, poor owld lady, she wuz good to me the day I left. Now ma, you sit down, me and Mary'll git along. Here Bugsey and Tommy and Patsey and Danny, here's five cents a piece for ye to go and buy what ye like, but don't ye buy anything to ate, for ye'll not need it, but yez can buy hankies, any kind ye like, ye'll need them now the winter's comin' on, and yez'll be havin' the snuffles."

When the boys came back with their purchases they were put in a row upon their mother's bed to be out of the way while the supper was being prepared, all except wee Bugsey, who went, from choice, down to the tracks to see the cars getting loaded--the sizzle of the turkey in the oven made the tears come.

Two hours later the Watson family sat down to supper, not in sections, but the whole family. The table had long since been inadequate to the family's needs, but two boards, with a flour-sack on them, from the end of it to the washing machine overcame the difficulty.

Was there ever such a turkey as that one? Mrs. Watson carved it herself on the back of the stove.

"Sure yer poor father can't be bothered with it, and it's a thing he ain't handy at, mirover, no more'n meself; but the atin' is on it, praise G.o.d, and we'll git at it someway."

Ten plates were heaped full of potatoes and turnips, turkey, brown gravy, and "stuffin"; and still that mammoth turkey had layers of meat upon his giant sides. What did it matter if there were not enough plates to go around, and Tommy had to eat his supper out of the saucepan; and even if there were no cups for the boys, was not the pail with the dipper in it just behind them on the old high-chair.

When the plates had all been cleaned the second time, and the turkey began to look as if something had happened to it, Mary brought in the surprise of the evening--it was the jelly Mrs. Evans had sent them when she let Mary come home early in the afternoon, a present from Algernon, she said, and the whipped cream that Camilla had given Jimmy when he ran over to tell her and Mrs. Francis that Pearlie had really come.

Then everyone saw the advantage of having their plates licked clean, and not having more turkey than they knew what to do with. Danny was inarticulate with happiness.

"Lift me down, Pearlie," he murmured sleepily as he poked down the last spoonful, "and do not jiggle me."

When Patsey and Bugsey and Tommy and Danny had gone to bed, and Mary and Mrs. Watson were washing the dishes (Pearlie was not allowed to help, being the guest of honour), John Watson sat silently smoking his pipe, listening with delight while Pearl related her experiences of the last three months.

She was telling about the night that she had watched for the doctor.

Not a word did she tell about, her friend, the doctor's agitation, nor what had caused it on that occasion, and she was very much relieved to find that her listeners did not seem to have heard about the circ.u.mstances of Ab Cowan's death.

"Oh, I tell ye, Doctor Clay's the fellow," she said, her eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. "He knew what was wrong wid Arthur the minute he clapped his eyes on him--tore open his little satchel, slapped the chloroform into his face, whisked out his knives and slashed into him as aisy as ma wud into a pair of pants for Jimmie there, and him waitin' for them."

"Look at that now!" her father exclaimed, pulling out the damper of the stove and spitting in the ashes. "Yon's a man'll make his mark wherever he goes."

A knock sounded on the door. Teddy opened it and admitted Camilla and Jim Russell.

"I've got a letter for you Pearl," Jim said when the greetings were over. "When Tom brought the mail this evening this letter for you was in with the others, and Arthur brought it over to see if I would bring it in. I didn't really want to come, but seeing as it was for you, Pearl, I came."

Camilla was not listening to him at all.

Pearl took the letter wonderingly. "Read it Camilla," she said, handing it to her friend.

Camilla broke the seal and read it. It was from Alfred Austin Wemyss, Rector of St. Agnes, Tillbury Road, County of Kent, England.

It was a stately letter, becoming a rector, dignified and chaste in its language. It was the letter of a dignitary of the Church to an unknown and obscure child in a distant land, but it told of a father and mother's grat.i.tude for a son's life saved, it breathed an admiration for the little girl's devotion and heroism, and a love for her that would last as long as life itself.

Pearl sat in mute wonder, as Camilla read--that could not mean her!

We do not mean to offer money as a payment for what you have done, dear child (Camilla read on), for such a service of love can only be paid in love; but we ask you to accept from us this gift as our own daughter would accept it if we had had one, and we will be glad to think that it has been a help to you in the securing of an education. Our brother, the bishop, wishes you to take from him a gift of 20 pounds, and it is his desire that you should spend it in whatever way will give you the most pleasure. We are, dear Pearl,