The Heart's Kingdom Part 20

"To-day has brought just what I have longed for, have worked for and waited for, the commission for the spending of millions of dollars to make a little corner of the earth beautiful. Not a bad religion, that,"

said Nickols, as he told me that Jeffries had spoken a few words of decided business to him as he had packed him into Mr. c.o.c.krell's car with father and Mr. Goodloe. "We'll take a honeymoon wander on the other side, as far from the machine guns as possible, and then I'll come home to begin my masterpiece." And as Nickols spoke his wonderful eyes glowed as he looked out at Paradise Ridge as if he were gazing into a radiant future--perhaps he saw a city not made with hands and did not--recognize it. "I see it all," he said, and put his arm around me while we started down the front walk as Jefferson pressed the horn to signal the readiness of the tire.

"I'm too busy to go with you, but I'll meet you at Mrs. Sproul's," a sudden impulse made me say, for I had intended until that instant to accompany him.

"A man can't eat his bride and have a trousseau, too," he laughed, as he drove off rapidly, leaving me standing by the old gate watching him.

Then I turned and slowly walked out into the garden and down to the old graybeards. And seated on one of the gra.s.s mats I found the reason I had unconsciously been drawn back. Martha was waiting for me there.

"Why, Martha," I exclaimed, startled without understanding just why. "I might have gone and not known you were waiting. Why didn't you come and tell me you were here?"

"I couldn't--I found I couldn't," she answered me, looking up into my face with her strange, sad eyes. "I--I suppose I just came to peep in on you like I did to the coming-out party." She laughed softly, with a note of self-scorn in her voice.

"Is anything the matter with--with Sonny?" I asked quickly, again unconsciously using the name for the Stray that her tenderness had given him. Her white face and desperate manner frightened me.

"No, he's dressed in one of Jimmy Morgan's old suits and he is going to be taken from me this afternoon forever," she answered with the note of bitterness deepening.

"But you want him to go to school, don't you, Martha?" I asked patiently, as I sat down on a mat beside her. I spoke to her as one speaks to the limited intelligence of a child and I was slightly impatient at her distress.

"He asked me yesterday why everybody called him Stray and if it did mean Stranger like Charlotte said, and if he would always be called that or have an everyday name like Jimmy. Soon he'll know and then I'll lose him as I'm losing everything else."

"Why won't you let me help you to--to begin over again?" I asked her, this time with less patience. "Why have you--you locked yourself away from me?"

"I can't--I won't ever tell you. I must go back, now I've seen you in--in your happiness. But I don't hate you--I never have." And as she spoke Martha rose and began to walk rapidly away from me.

"Oh, please don't go, Martha," I said. "In just three days I'll be going away for a long time, you know, and I want to help you in some way before I go. You ought to let me, and it worries me that you don't, now of all times," and as I put my selfish plea for ease to my conscience, something that was hot and rebellious made me want to stop the woman who was hurrying away from me.

"I won't, I won't make you unhappy--but I must go. I must! I'll--I'll be happy--and good now--if _you'll_ only be happy. Good-bye!" And as she called back at me over her shoulder, Martha ran from me down through the hedge and into the door of the chapel, which always, night and day, rain and storm, stood slightly ajar. A queer pain smote me to see that she had run from me into the only place in all the broad, smiling Harpeth Valley where I could not--or would not, follow her. And the sanctuary that she sought was for every man, woman or child who wanted it--only I could not and would not seek it.

"'The covert of wings,'" I whispered to myself, as I went down the street to Mrs. Sproul's as rapidly as possible to be rid of my own company. As I repeated the words that the parson had used to Mr.

Jeffries I noticed one great white cloud with a dark center flash fire into another, to a great crashing and rumbling. "I wonder if it is really going to storm," I speculated gloomily, as I turned into the Sproul gate, but the brilliant sunshine seemed to fling me a dazzling denial from every petal of the white clematis that wreathed itself across the front porch, under which Mrs. Sproul, arrayed in all the midday magnificence of good form, sat and waited for her guests. Mrs.

c.o.c.krell sat beside her and they were delighted to see me and demanded happiness from me which it was hard for me to give from the depths that had been stirred by my strange interview with Martha, to which I felt I ought to have a key, but could not find it anywhere.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PAGEANT

"We were just saying, Charlotte dear, that this absurd school affair has completely overshadowed your wedding day," said Mrs. c.o.c.krell, as she rocked back and forth in tune with her Irish point rose she was constructing. "It seems to me a wedding ought to come before a school festivity."

"Social law requires that marriage take precedence of schooling," said Mrs. Sproul, as her mischievous old eyes snapped at Mrs. c.o.c.krell's placid conventionality. "The correct order is for women to take husbands and then school children should be the inevitable outcome. They are not, however, in this day and generation, which is about to be the last, I'm thinking."

"There will be thirty-nine kiddies from the Settlement and eleven from the Town to feast on reason and flow soul together in the new school," I laughed, as I sat down between them. "Also I'm thinking that a lot more will be forthcoming from the Settlement by next week. Young Charlotte and Mother Spurlock clothed as far as they could, but they will keep at it, I feel sure. I feel guilty at the idea of taking three trunks of clothes away from the watchful eye of Mother Elsie, only I'm leaving the acc.u.mulation of years for her distribution."

"The pa.s.sport to Elsie Spurlock's heart is a condition composed of rags, hunger and unhappiness. She has no sympathy or time for a sanitary and contented friend," said Mrs. Sproul with a decided tartness that was only a reflex of the deep affection she bore the mistress of the Little House, which had existed since childhood and would endure.

"I hear some of the cars coming," announced Mrs. c.o.c.krell, as she began to crochet furiously at the last petal of a rose. "Is my cap straight? I do so want to finish this row and can't go in to look."

"You'll put out St. Peter's eye with a crochet needle while he's unlocking the pearly gates for you, Lettie c.o.c.krell," said Mrs. Sproul, as she rose and stood with ceremony at the head of the steps to meet the Governor and Mr. Jeffries and father as they came up her front walk.

Mrs. Sproul always has the most delightful old world sort of midday dinners and it was two o'clock before we all arose from her long table, at one end of which had been demolished a spiced ham and from the other end had disappeared two fat summer turkeys. A saddle of lamb had been pa.s.sed in between and we had wound up with sweet potato custards, apple float and ice cream.

"I understand now," said Mr. Jeffries, as his keen old eyes twinkled down the table at Nickols. "This food should produce geniuses. The South feeds for it."

"Yes, we eat, drink, are merry and do it all over again to-morrow," said Mark, as he walked beside Mrs. Sproul from the devastated dining room.

"And we must all hurry if we are to see your young ideas begin to shoot.

This day isn't really hot, but just thinks it is. Look at those clouds boiling up back of Old Harpeth as if wanting to storm, but afraid to begin it. There's not a breath of air stirring. Wish it _would_ shower, for I believe the colors of Goodloe's pageant would run and I'd like to see the true hue of this melee of his come out in the wash. It would do Charlotte good to fade a bit. She has been hectic since daylight and the rest of my juvenile family with her. Jimmy is S and Z in the alphabet and Sue has got a huge A sewed on her back. Goodloe intends that education shall be nailed to 'em."

And at his admonition to hurry and the alluring description of the entertainment to come, we all betook ourselves on foot toward the schoolhouse down the street a few blocks, halfway between the Town and the Settlement.

And as we went all the rest of the Town hurried out of wide, high, vine-covered doors, down broad, flower-lined walks, and joined us from under bowers of blooming roses, honeysuckle and clematis. We actually approached the schoolhouse in the form of quite a large procession, and as we wound our way down the hill we met a like procession winding itself up the hill from the Settlement, a procession arrayed in its best bib, tucker and boiled shirt, just as we were adorned in silk, lace, fine muslin and linen.

"It looks like two armies approaching each other--Greek is going to meet Greek," said Billy.

"Rather Greek meets Vandal, and there stands Goodloe to do the interpreting," Nickols jeered in answer.

And as we all flocked into the wide gate of the school yard I was again struck with the great beauty of the tall, broad, lithe, free man who stood in the middle of the walk just inside, welcoming Town and Settlement alike. And while he greeted us, his enthusiastic flock of older children seated the groups of guests on the long rough benches which were placed facing the door of the schoolhouse, leaving a wide s.p.a.ce at the foot of the steps, which was roped off with golden chains of black-eyed daisies and which was evidently to be used as a stage for the pageant.

"Just look how Goodloe is failing to mix his oil and water," Nickols whispered to me, as we observed all of the Settlement groups gravely gravitate to the left side of the walk while all the Town in chattering parties took seats on the right. "That's right, Burns, take off my last summer coat," he added, still in a whisper to me as the Burns parent struggled out of the unendurable gift garment and thus gave a signal that whipped off every coat on the left side of the walk in the twinkling of an eye, to the evident distress of the tightly girted and uncomfortable but more formal feminine members of the Settlement contingent. Conjugal strife was about to make its appearance when Mother Spurlock, who was seated beside poor little Hettie Garrett, holding the Mother Only in her arms with never a glance for Mrs. Sproul, who had beckoned her to a seat next to her own beruffled silk skirts, pa.s.sed the word around that such comfort was to be accorded the masculine guests.

Even with such sanction, however, Luella May Spain looked pained at her father's gay new red suspenders, and I could see that Mr. Todd's striped shirt was hurting the feelings of Sadie Todd dreadfully, and she and Luella May returned Billy's gallant salute with the greatest embarra.s.sment. And in all the buzz I found myself looking anxiously for Martha Ensley's pale face and dark eyes, but failed to find them.

"This is one place she ought not to have to peep into; here she has the rights of her citizenship and her motherhood," I said to myself.

But if the Town and the Settlement sat in the seats of the audience, divided by the walk as were the walls of waters by the dry path along which Moses led his chosen people out of the darkness of Egypt, such a division was not noticeable among the performers of the pageant who were supposed to be in hiding with their costumes behind a tall screen of shrubs at one side of the schoolhouse, but who bubbled out on all sides.

Charlotte appeared once holding small Maudie Burns in a comforting embrace and guided her to her mother for some sort of attention to the very short skirts of blue gingham which were draped with about ten yards of green crepe paper, while both Harriet and I gasped as we saw Mikey jauntily hand the Suckling, tightly wrapped in brown swaddlings, into the rapturous and tender embrace of Katie Moore, who had blue wings sewed to her small gingham shoulders.

"Great Guns! They've got Sucks in it, too!" gasped Billy. "That child is too young to educate and Goodloe ought to be restrained from cradle-s.n.a.t.c.hing like--"

But just here Billy was interrupted and the audience all quieted down as Mr. Goodloe, in his white flannels and with his gold head ablaze in the sun, which suddenly shone out fiercely from behind a white cloud which was sheeting internally with electricity, mounted two of the front steps of the schoolhouse and held up his hand for silence.

"Mr. Todd," he said with beautiful deference, "will you lead us in prayer?" There was a perceptible rustle of feeling on the Settlement side of the walk, for Mr. Todd was one of the parson's deacons, but he had also been the master workman in the building of the schoolhouse, and his neighbors were quick to respond to the tribute offered him before the distinguished men present. He rose, gaunt and grizzled in his shirt sleeves, but what he said was brief and as square-cut and to the point as any nail he had ever driven. I saw the Governor and father exchange glances and I noticed when the Governor responded to his call he was much less ornate of speech than usual and much more universal. They all spoke, from Nickols along the line to father, and after repeated urgings Mother Spurlock rose to the occasion, and by way of making the Town and Settlement at home in its new joint quarters announced that the tea canister with its slit would hereafter be nailed just inside the schoolhouse door.

The laugh and delighted applause that was given her seemed to have been the last straw to the actors behind the shrubbery, restrained by their young preceptress, for the pageant broke upon us.

First Mikey, with huge white cambric stork wings, hopped upon the stage of sward and deposited the brown-wrapped Suckling in a hollow log in the center, and departed flapping. After that the ceremonial developed itself into the education that was to flow down upon her defenseless head at the waving of the wand of Minerva, who was Charlotte with a tinsel star of wisdom resting rampantly upon her brow. And it came down upon the Suckling with a vengeance. A whole troop of young letters of the alphabet, led by small Susan with the large red A upon her fat back, danced around the Suckling's helplessness and finally backed up to the audience to spell the word "Reading." Next in hopped a flock of numerals led by the indefatigable Mikey, which backed up and presented themselves from one to ten to thus imply the hated science of "Arithmetic."

The Suckling slept on amid delighted gurgles from her mother and Harriet. She slept through a presentation of the script letters of "Writing" and was still unconscious when "Geography" in crepe paper, with flags of all nations, grouped around her. She only awoke when, all by himself, st.u.r.dily, with his head in the air and fairly radiant with beauty and courage, the Stray marched upon the scene, rolled into a white roll of paper and girt about with a broad red ribbon sealed upon his back to represent "Diploma." Silently and intent upon his duty he walked straight to the Suckling in her log crib, bent over her, crooned to her rea.s.suringly a second, lifted her in his white arms and backed off behind a tall laurel bush with her nodding in delight over his shoulder. The boy was so beautiful and the little scene so tender that the entire audience caught its breath at its--audacity. A gauntlet had been thrown into the faces of both the Town and Settlement and they both understood.

They sat perfectly still with astonishment while the performers were being ma.s.sed in the schoolhouse by the young teacher for their final march out to the steps for the hymn singing with the beloved "Minister,"

which was to conclude the ceremonials.

And while the audience sat awaiting the further presentations to be made them by their offspring, Mr. Goodloe came out the door and halfway down the steps. Then suddenly he stopped and looked out over the valley with such an expression on his face that with one accord his audience rose and looked with him. And as it looked a groan came that was a chorus melted into one voice of terror, while all of them stood helpless with amazement. While we had all been sitting in the curious sweltering heat, watching with pride a future for our children being foretold for them by themselves, death had reared itself behind Old Harpeth, coiled itself into a huge black spiral of thunder and lightning and was driving down the valley upon Goodloets with a velocity that defied the eyes to follow. For a long second every man and woman stood rooted to his foothold on the earth and watched the tornado strike the edge of the Settlement, smash down the saddlery as if it were a house of cards, and churn the little tannery into the river. Then as it grasped the roof of the Last Chance and began twisting it with a roar that grew in volume every instant, Gregory Goodloe suddenly raised his hand and spoke in a perfectly calm voice that rang out above the groan of the tortured shanties of the Settlement which were crashing down against each other.

"Oh, G.o.d, we trust in the covert of thy wings," he prayed for a second and then commanded: "Fall to the earth, all of you, and let it pa.s.s over you!"

"The children!" came a cry that was a wail of parenthood, as we all sank to the ground just as the terrible black monster tore the roof from the Little House and hurled it toward us across the street. I saw a huge rafter hurtle through the air and strike down Mark Morgan as he started toward the steps of the schoolhouse, and by not a half inch did it miss drunken, useless Mike Burns as it fell beside him. Then I covered my eyes as the cloud and the wind pa.s.sed over me and I only heard it strike and rend and crash and tear the schoolhouse, beam from beam and stone from stone. An eerie wail of the voices of little children was mixed with the roar of the monster which crashed on up through the Town, laying low the homes of our pride and prosperity, leaving us with our faces to the ground while upon us began to pour a deluge of cold rain.