The Golden Bird Part 9

"Ann, I do wish you could have seen her in that frilled white thing with the two huge blue bows at the ends of the long plaits at my dinner-dance the other night, standing and looking at everybody with all the fascination and coquetry of--of--well, that little Golden Bird peeping at us from the left-hand corner of Mrs. Red Ally's right wing. Where _did_ she get that frock?"

"Do you suppose that a woman who runs a farm dairy of fifty cows, while her husband banks and post-offices and groceries would be at all routed by a few yards of lace and muslin and a current copy of 'The Woman's Review'?

Aunt Mary made that dress between sun-up and -down and worked out fifty pounds of b.u.t.ter as well," I answered, with a glow of cla.s.s pride in my rustic breast.

"All of that is what is seething in my blood until I can't stand it," said Bess as we walked towards the barn-door. "The reason I just feel like devouring Polly Corn-ta.s.sel is that somehow she seems to taste like bread and b.u.t.ter to me; I'm tired of life served with mayonnaise dressing with tabasco and caviar in it.

"Yes, a Romney herb-pot is better," I said, as a strange chant began to play itself on my heartstrings with me alone for a breathless audience.

"And if you come in on Sat.u.r.day you can--" Bess was saying in a positive tone that admitted of no retreat, when Matthew's huge blue car came around the drive from the front of Elmnest and stopped by Bess's roadster. On the front seat sat Matthew, and Corn-ta.s.sel was beside him, but the rest of the car was piled high with huge sacks of grain, which looked extremely sensible and out of place in the handsomest car in the Harpeth Valley.

"Oh, Miss Ann, Mr. Matthew and I found the greatest bargain in winter wheat, and the man opened every sack and let me run my arm to the elbow in it. It is all hard and not short in a single grain. We are going to trade you half." And Polly's blue eyes, which still looked like the uncommercialized violet despite a six weeks' acquaintance with society in Hayesville, danced with true farmer delight.

"It's warranted to make 'em lay in night shifts, Ann," said Matthew as he beamed down upon me with a delight equal to Polly's, and somehow equally as young. "Where'll I put it? In the feed-room in the bins?"

"Yes, and they are almost empty. I was wondering what I would do next for food, because I owe Rufus and the hogs so much," I answered gratefully.

"What did you pay?" asked Bess, in a business-like tone of voice.

"Only a dollar and a quarter a bushel, all seed grade," answered Matthew, with the greatest nonchalance, as if he had known the grades of wheat from his earliest infancy.

"Why, Owen bought two bags of it for our joint family and paid such a fortune for it that I forgot the figures immediately; but I took up the rug and put it all in my dressing-room to watch over, lest thieves break into the garage and steal. Also I made him send me plebeian carnations instead of violets for Belle Proctor's dinner Tuesday," said Bess, with covetousness in her eyes as she watched Matthew begin to unload his wheat.

I wonder what Matthew's man, Hickson, at one twenty-five a month, thought of his master's coat when he began to brush the chaff out of its London nap.

"Oh, Owen Murray is just a town-bred duffer," said Matthew, as he shouldered his last sack of grain.

"Well, you are vastly mistaken if you think that--" Bess was beginning to say in a manner that I knew from long experience would bring on a war of words between her and Matthew when a large and cheerful interruption in the shape and person of Aunt Mary Corn-ta.s.sel came around the corner of the house.

"Well, well, what sort of city farming is going on to-day amongst all these stylish folks?" she asked as she skirted the two cars at what she considered a safe and respectful distance, and handed me a bunch of sweet clover-pinks with a spring perfume that made me think of the breath of Pan O'Woods as I buried my lips in them. "You, Polly, go right home and take off that linen dress, get into a gingham ap.r.o.n, and begin to help Bud milk.

I believe in gavots at parties only if they strengthen muscles for milking time."

"May I wait and ride down with Mr. Matthew and show him where to put our wheat, Mother?" asked Polly as she snuggled up to her mother, who was pinning a stray pink into Matthew's b.u.t.ton-hole per his request.

"Yes, if he'll put his legs under old Mrs. b.u.t.ter to help you get done before I am ready to strain up," answered Aunt Mary, with a merry twinkle in her eye as she regarded Matthew in his purple and fine linen. "Put an ap.r.o.n on him," she added.

"Lead me to the ap.r.o.n," said Matthew, with real and not mock heroics.

"But before you go I want to tell all of you about an invitation that has come over the telephone in the bank to all of Riverfield, and make a consultation about it. Now who do you suppose gave it?"

"Who?" we all asked in chorus.

"n.o.body less than the governor of the State called up Silas, me answering for him on account of his deafness, and asked everybody to come in to town next Sat.u.r.day night to hear this new commissioner of agriculture that he is going to appoint make the opening address of his office, I reckon you could call it. You know Silas is the leading Democrat of this district, and the governor has opened riz biscuits with me many a time. I told him 'Thank you, sir,' we would all come and hear the young man talk about what he didn't know, and he laughed and rang off. Yes, we are all going in a kind of caravan of vehicles, and I want you to go, Nancy, in the family coach and take Mrs. Tillett with you on account of her having to take all the seven little Tilletts, because there won't be a minder woman left to look after 'em. Bud will drive so as not to disturb Cradd or William in their Heathen pursuits or discommode Rufus' disposition. Now, won't it be nice for the whole town to go junketing in like that?" As she spoke Aunt Mary beamed upon us all with pure delight.

"But Sat.u.r.day evening is the night that Mr. Matthew is going to have that dance for me, Mother," said Polly, with the violets becoming slightly sprinkled underneath the long black lashes.

"Well, dancing can wait a spell," answered Aunt Mary, comfortably. "The governor said that all the folks at Cloverbend and Providence and Hillsboro are going, and Riverfield has got to shake out a forefoot in the trip and not a hind one."

"Oh, we'll have the dance next week, Corn-ta.s.sel," promised Matthew, promptly enough to prevent the drenching of the violets. "It will be great to hear Baldwin accept his portfolio, as it were."

"And after his term begins I suppose he'll have offices at the capitol and will be in town most of the time. Then we can have him at all the dances.

Polly, he dances like nothing earthly. Still Matthew won't let him come near you; he's deadly to women. We are all positively drugged by him,"

exclaimed Bess, delighted at the idea of Hayesville society acquiring the new commissioner of agriculture for a permanent light.

"Then I can count on you to help Mrs. Tillett and the children in and out, Nancy?" continued Aunt Mary, with the light of such generalship in her eye that I was afraid even to mention my one-sided feud with the hero of the hour. "You can take Baby Tillett and sit a little way apart from her so she won't have to feed him all the time to keep him quiet."

"I can take eight people in my car, Mother Corn-ta.s.sel," said Matthew, with the most beautiful eagerness.

"I can get in five," added Bess, with an equal eagerness. "Can I have the Addc.o.c.ks?" Bess and the pessimistic Mrs. Addc.o.c.k had got together over some medicine to prevent pip in the conservatory young Leghorns.

"Yes, and Matthew can take all the eight Spains if I can sit down Mrs.

Spain to a bolt of gingham in time to get them all nicely covered for such a company," decreed the general, as she ran over in her mind's eye the rest of the population of Riverfield. "I'll make all the men hitch their best teams to the different rigs, and by starting early and taking both dinner and supper on the way we can get there in plenty of time. Twenty miles is not more than a half day's trip."

"I can sit by you and hold two Spains in my lap," I heard Polly plan with Matthew.

"Sure you can," he answered her. "I think the loveliest thing about Matthew Berry is the way he speaks to women and children." As he answered, he piled Aunt Mary and Polly in beside the rest of the wheat-bags and motored them away down the avenue.

"Ann, please come to town with me," pleaded Bess as she got into her car and prepared to follow in the wake of the wheat-bags. "I miss you so, and Belle weeps at the mention of you. She and I are having dinner at the Old Hickory Club with Houston Jeffries and Owen to-night. Matt will come, and let's have one good old time. I came all this way to get you."

"I honestly, honestly can't, Bess," I said as I took her hand stretched down from her seat behind the wheel to me, and put my cheek against it.

"I've got this whole farm to feed between now and night. Both incubators must have their supper of oil or _you_ know what'll happen. Mrs. Ewe and family must be fed, or rather she must be fed so as to pa.s.s it along at about breakfast time, I should say, not being wise in biology or natural history; the entire Bird family are invited to supper with me, and I even have to carry a repast of corn over the meadows to my pet abhorrences, Rufus' swine, because he has retired to the hay-loft with a flannel rag around his head, which means I have offended him or that father has given him an extra absent-minded drink from the decanter that Matthew brought him. p.e.c.k.e.rwood Pup is at this moment, you see, chewing the strings out of my shoes as an appetizer for her supper. How could I eat sweetbreads and truffle, which I know Owen has already ordered, when I knew that more than a hundred small children were at home crying for bread?"

"Ann, what is it that makes you so perfectly radiantly beautiful in that faded linen smock and old corduroy skirt? Of course, you always were beautiful, but now you look like--like--well, I don't know whether it is a song I have heard or a picture I have seen." Bess leaned down and laid her cheek against mine for a second.

"I'm going to tell you some day before long," I whispered as I kissed the corner of her lips. "Now do take the twin fathers for a little spin up the road and make them walk back from the gate. They have been suffering with the Trojan warriors all day, and I know they must have exercise. Uncle Cradd walks down for the mail each day, but father remains stationary. Your method with them is perfect. Go take them while I supper and bed down the farm."

"I know now the picture is by Tintoretto, and it's some place in Rome,"

Bess called back over her shoulder as she drove her car slowly around to the front door to begin her conquest and deportation of my precious ancients.

"Not painted by Tintoretto, but by the pagan Pan," I said to myself as I turned into the barn door.

CHAPTER IX

When I came out with a bucket of the new wheat in my hand, I heard Bess and her car departing, with Uncle Cradd's sonorous speech mingling with the puff of the engine.

"We are all alone, Mr. G. Bird, and we love it, because then we can talk comfortably about our Mr. Adam," I said to the Golden Bird as he followed me around the side of the barn where a door had been cut by Pan himself to make an entry into my improvised chicken-house.

Suddenly I was answered by a very interesting chuckling and clucking, and I turned to see what had disengaged the attention of Mr. G. Bird from me and my feed-bucket. The sight that met my eyes lifted the shadow that had lain between the Golden Bird and me since the morning I had taken him in to see his newly arrived progeny and had not been able to make him notice their existence. Stretching out behind me was a trail of wheat that had dripped from a hole in the side of the bucket, and along the sides of it the paternal Bird was marshaling his reliable foster-mother, Mrs. Red Ally's and all his own fluffy white progeny. With exceeding generosity he was not eating a grain himself, but scratching and chortling encouragingly.

"I knew you were not like other chicken men, Mr. G. Bird, 'male indifferent to hatches,' as the book said," I exclaimed as he caught up with me and began to peck the grains I offered from my hand. "You are just like Owen and Matthew and Mr. Tillett and--and--" but I didn't continue the conversation because the chant began rending my heartstrings again. "Oh, Mr. G. Bird, it is an awful thing for a woman to have an apple orchard and lilac bushes in bloom when she is alone," I sighed instead, as I went on to my round of feeding, very hungry myself for--a pot of herbs. Later I, too, was fed.

Long after the twin fathers had had supper and were settled safely by their candles, which were beacons that led them back into past ages, I sat by myself on the front doorstep in the perfumed darkness that was only faintly lit by stars that seemed so near the earth that they were like flowers of light blossoming on the twigs of the roof elms. In a lovely dream I had just gone into the arms of Pan when I heard out beyond the orchard a soft moo of a cow, and with it came a weak little calf echo.

"Somebody's cow has strayed--I wish she belonged to me and could help me with this nutrition job," I said to myself as I rose and ran down under the branches of the gnarled old apple-trees, which sifted down perfumed blow upon my head as I ran. Then I stopped and listened again. Over the old stone wall that separated the orchard from the pasture I heard footsteps and soft panting, also a weak little cow-baby protest of fatigue.

"I'll get over the wall and see if there is any trouble with them," I said and I suited my actions to my words. I suppose in the dark I forgot that cows have horns and that I had never even been introduced to one before, for with the greatest confidence and sympathy I walked up near the large black ma.s.s that was the cow mother, with a very small and wavering body pressed close at her side.