Bird and Billy on the Fire-escape.
Bird and Billy on the Fire-escape.
Bird and Billy on the Fire-escape.
After the new room was arranged, and permission given to Bird to see that Billy had what the doctor ordered that he should eat, and to take him out whenever he wanted to go, everything began to move more regularly and in some respects more comfortably, then Bird, to her dismay, saw the city summer, like a longroadway without a tree or bit of shade, stretching out before her.
There was not a book in the house and no one to tell her of the free library where she might get them, and school, where she hoped to find a sympathetic teacher for a friend, belonged to September three months away. No one who has always lived in the city can possibly understand what this change, with its confinement and lack of refined surroundings, meant to this young soul. To be poor, in the sense of having little to spend and plain food, she was accustomed,—in fact, she had much more to eat now, and through her uncle’s careless kindness she was seldom without dimes for the trolley rides to Battery Park “where the fishes lived,” or Central Park with the swan-boats that were to “make a man” of Billy. But to be shut away from the woods, the sky, the beauty of the sunsets, to have no flowers to gather and love, and to be brought face to face daily with all the ugliness of the life that is merely of the body, was almost too much for her courage.
How could she keep her head above the street level, how remember what her father had taught her?—already the memory of the past was becoming confused. Sometimes she was on the verge of ceasing to try and settling down into a silentdrudge, content to take what came, and falling into the habits and commonplace pleasures of the girls of her cousins’ acquaintance with whom she was thrown in the parks and on the stoop and streets. It would have been much easier in some respects,—her aunt would have been better pleased to see her go off with the others, to some noisy if harmless excursion, arrayed in a cheap, flower-wreathed hat and gay waist, shrieking with laughter, and chewing gum, than to see her always neat amid disorderly surroundings and ever willing to do the endless little tasks that her own mismanagement piled up, and Ladybird—Jack’s name for her—strangely enough seemed a term of reproach, not compliment.
At first Bird had hoped that Sunday might bring better things; but no, Sunday in the quiet, peaceful, Protestant sense that Bird understood it,—there was none. The family straggled to early mass one by one, for Mrs. O’More and her sons were Romanists, though O’More was not, being from the north of Ireland, and the rest of the day was spent by the men either lying in bed and smoking, or standing in groups about the street.
In these hard days little Billy was Bird’s only ray of light. The two, being of equally sensitive natures, clung together, and the child was so happy in hisnew-found friend and ceased his incessant fretting whenever he was with her, that Mrs. O’More at last gave him completely to Bird’s charge with a sigh of relief, for her youngest child was as much a puzzle to her as her niece, and she felt that he also was of a different breed, as it were, and it annoyed her.
All the fierce scorching summer days Bird and Billy wandered about together, sometimes going over to Madison Square, sometimes riding in the trolley to Central Park, but more often down to the Battery where the air tasted salt and good, where the wonderful fishes lived in the round house and the big ships went past out to that unknown sea of which Bird was so fond of telling Billy stories.
Bird, too, soon learned to find her way about, for six-year-old Billy had all the New York gamin’s knowledge of his whereabouts coupled with a cripple’s acute senses. He hopped along with his crutch quite well, and many a lesson in human nature and life did Bird learn these days in the treeless streets of poorer New York.
After a time she found that her uncle had seemed to forget his hatred of anything like drawing or painting, so one day she ventured to buy a good-sized pad and pencil, and then watching Bird “make pictures” became Billy’s great joy, while she to hersurprise found that she could draw other things besides flowers.
Oftentimes the children would go down to sit on the steps and watch the horses from the great sales stable being exercised up and down the street. Bird tried to draw these too, and one day succeeded so well that her uncle, passing in at the door, stopped and looked down, and then said, “Bully! any one would know it for a horse, sure!” After that she worked at every odd minute.
She loved horses dearly, but she and Billy were forbidden to go into the stables, which were almost underneath the flat, and Bird really had no wish to, for the men there were so rough and there was so much noise and confusion; but a few doors away was a fire-engine house where lived three great, gentle, gray horses that ran abreast, and had soft noses that quivered responsively when they saw their driver even in the distance. Bird made friends with these, taking them bits of bread or green stuff, until the firemen came to expect the daily visit and “Bird” and “Billy” became familiar names in the engine-house; and there was a little dog there that ran with the engine and reminded her of Twinkle.
Dan was the heaviest of the three horses and Bird’s favourite, and one day, after many attempts,seated on the stoop of the next house, she succeeded in drawing a small head of him that was really a good likeness, at least so the firemen thought, for they put it in a frame and hung it in the engine-house, and the next day big Dave Murray, Dan’s driver, gave her a small box of paints “with the boys’ compliments.”
Ah, if the big, bluff fellow only knew what the gift meant to poor little Ladybird struggling not to forget and to still keep the heavenly vision in sight.
Bird had written a short note to Mrs. Lane telling of her safe arrival in the city, and giving her address, but more than that she could not say. If she said that she was happy and gilded the account of her surroundings, it would have been false. If she told the truth, her Laurelville friends would be distressed, and it would seem like begging them to take her back when it evidently was not convenient, for she did not know that her Uncle John had refused to let her stay with Mrs. Lane unless she was legally adopted.
Neither was Bird worldly wise enough to act a part and simply write of her visits to the park and the little excursions with Billy which in themselves were pleasant enough. She was crystal clear, andknew of but two ways, either to speak the whole truth or keep silent. She was too loyal to those whose bread she was eating to do the first, and so she did not write.
In due time a long letter came from Lammy written with great pains and all the copy-book flourishes he could master, telling of Aunt Jimmy’s strange will, of how he was going to work all summer at the fruit farm, and ended up by telling her of the preparations he had made for the Fourth, never dreaming it possible that, the matter of tickets disposed of, Bird should refuse his invitation.
At first the thought of getting away from the city, and being among friends again quite overcame her. She began to wonder if Twinkle would be glad to see her, and if the ferns met over the brook as they did last year, and if Mrs. Lane would have the white quilt on the best-room bed, or the blue-and-white patch with the rosebuds. Then she realized that if she met the Laurelville people face to face, she would surely break down, while the saying “good-by” again would be harder than not going. Then, too, there was little Billy. How could she leave him at the very time when, in spite of continued hot weather, he seemed to be gaining?
No—she sat down resolutely and wrote a shortnote that wrung her heart and kissed it passionately before she mailed it, for was it not going to the place that now seemed like heaven to her?
But the letter that arrived as the Lanes sat on porch after supper said no word of all this, and seemed but a stiff, offish little note to warm-hearted Mrs. Lane and Lammy who, having now quite earned the ticket money, was cut to the quick when he found that it was all in vain.
“She’s gone to the city and forgotten us,” he gulped in a quavering voice, as he read the letter, coming as near to letting a tear run down his nose as a sturdy New England boy of fourteen could without losing his self-respect.
“It doosappearthat way,” said Mrs. Lane, who was gazing straight before her out of the window with an abstracted air; “but, after all, what’s in appearances, Lammy Lane? Don’t your copy-book say that they are deceitful? Well, that’s what I think of ’em. Likely ’nough it appears to Bird that I didn’t want to keep her, ’cause owing to this other mix-up, I couldn’t divide the share of you boys without thinking it over, and ’dopt her then and there. But my intentions and them appearances is teetotally different.
“No, Lammy, I’m goin’ straight on lovin’ Birdand trustin’ her and keepin’ a place in my heart for her, besides havin’ the best-room bed always aired and ready, and jest you keep on lovin’ and trustin’ her, too, and like as not the Lord will let her know it somehow, for I do believe kind feelings is as well able to travel without wires to slide on as this here telegram lightnin’ that hollers to the ships that’s passin’ by in the dark. ‘Think well and most things ’ll come well,’ say I.”
“How about Aunt Jimmy’s will? Yer always thought well enough o’ her,” said Joshua, who had laid down his paper and folded his spectacles to listen to the reading of the letter.
“An’ I do still,” Mrs. Lane averred stoutly; “it doosappeardisappointing, but I allers allowed that if we was only able to read her meanin’, ’twould be a fair and kindly one.”
Itwas the last day of June when one morning, before the sun had a chance to turn the pavements into ovens, Bird, having finished some marketing for her aunt, was leading Billy slowly in and out along the shady sides of the streets toward Madison Square, where they were watching the lotus plants in the fountain for the first sign of an open flower, for already buds were pushing their stately way through the great masses of leaves.
Chancing to glance at the window of a newly finished store that was not yet rented, Bird read the words, “Flower Mission.” As she paused to look at the sign, wondering what it might mean, an express wagon stopped at the curb and several slat boxes and baskets filled with flowers, for sprays peeped from the openings, were carried into the building, a wave of moist coolness and perfume following them.
Bird’s heart gave a bound of longing, for thefragrance of the flowers painted a picture of her little straggling garden and held it before her eyes for a brief moment.
“Oh, look, Bird, come quick and look; it’s all full of pretty flowers in there! Do you think they would let Billy go in and smell close?” Billy was standing by the open door, and, as Bird glanced over his shoulder, she saw that one side of the store was filled by a long counter, improvised by placing boards upon packing cases, which was already heaped with flowers of every description in addition to those that the expressman had just brought.
An elderly lady, with a big, white apron tied over a cool, gray, summer gown, was sorting the flowers from the mass, while a tall, slender young girl, of not more than sixteen, dressed all in white, was making them into small bouquets and laying them in neat rows in an empty hamper.
It was the young girl who overheard Billy’s question to Bird and answered it, saying, “Of course Billy may come in and smell the flowers as much as he pleases, and have as many as he can carry home.”
“Oh, can we?” said Bird, clasping her hands involuntarily with her old gesture that expressed more joy than she could speak.
At the sound of the second voice, the young girlpushed back the brim of her drooping, rose-trimmed hat and looked up with clear, gray eyes. As she did so Bird recognized her as Marion Clarke, the daughter of the man who spent his summers in the stone house on the hillside beyond Northboro, and it was she who had passed Bird and Lammy on the roadside the day when she had left her old home and, carrying Twinkle, was going to Mrs. Lane’s.
But if Bird recognized Marion, the memory was on one side, as it is apt to be where one sees but few faces and the other many. This however did not prevent Marion from holding out her free hand to the younger girl, as she made room for her to pass between the boxes, saying, in a charming voice, low-keyed and softly modulated, yet without a touch of affectation: “If you are fond of flowers and can spare the time, perhaps you would help us this morning; so many of our friends have left the city that we are short-handed. Here is a little box your brother can sit on if he is tired.” Oh, that welcome touch of companionship, and that voice,—it made Bird almost choke, as she said:—
“Billy is my cousin, and I should love to tie the flowers, for Aunt Rose does not expect us back until noon.”
It was one of Marion Clarke’s strong points, youngas she was, that she had insight as well as tact. She saw at a glance that these children were not of the ordinary class that play about the streets, interested in every passing novelty, merely because it is new, so she had given Bird a friendly greeting and asked her to help, instead of merely offering the children a bouquet and letting them pass on as objects of charity, no matter how light the gift.
When Bird replied in direct and courteous speech, Marion knew that she had read aright. An ordinary street child of that region would have said, “I dunno ’s I will,” or “What ’ll ye give me ’f I do?” or perhaps declined wholly to answer and bolted off after grabbing a handful of flowers.
“Aunt Laura, will you let us have some string? There, see, it is cut in lengths, so that you can twist it around twice and tie it so. I do wish people would tie up their flowers before they send them, they would keep so much better; but as they do not, we have to manage as best we may.
“Oh, how nicely you do it,” she continued, as Bird held up her first effort for approval,—a dainty bouquet of mignonette, a white rose, and some pink sweet-william, with a curved spray of honeysuckle to break the stiffness.
“So many people put the wrong colours together,and tie the flowers so tight that it seems as if it must choke the dear things,—see, like this,” and Marion held up a bunch in which scarlet poppies and crimson roses were packed closely together without a leaf of green.
“Yes, I understand; those colours—hurt,” Bird answered, groping for a word and finding exactly the right one.
“You must have lived in the country and been a great deal with flowers to touch them so deftly and know so well about the colours.”
“I always lived in the country until this summer, and Terry taught me all about the colours and how to mix them.”
“Who was Terry?” asked Marion, much interested, and not knowing that she was treading upon dangerous ground.
“He was father,” and Bird, remembering where she was, stopped abruptly, and Marion, who had noticed the rusty black gown, understood that there was a story in its shabby folds and forbore to intrude.
Miss Laura Clarke, who was the lady in gray, gave Billy a pasteboard box lid of short-stemmed blossoms to play with, and he sat quite content, while the others kept on tying the flowers until only one basketful was left.
“The flowers come in every Wednesday morning, and I ask people to send them in as early as possible, so that they may be sorted and tied up by ten o’clock when the ladies come to distribute them,” Marion explained as they worked. “They are Miss Vorse, the deaconess from the mission, beside two workers from the College Settlement, and half a dozen district visitors. Those two hampers go direct to hospitals, but the ladies take the flowers about to the sick in the tenements and to special cases.
“I have come here from the country place where I live every week all through May and June, but this is my last day this season, because I’m going to Europe next week with my aunt, and Miss Vorse will take my place.”
Another disappointment for Bird. At last she had met some one to whom she had felt drawn, and whom she thought she might see occasionally, and almost in the same breath learned that she was going away.
“Do you know of any children who would like some flowers, or any one who is ill?” she added, as she noticed that Bird was silent and loath to go, even though all the bouquets were ready and Miss Laura was packing them in the baskets and boxes for distribution.
“There’s Tessie; oh, I know that Tessie would love to have some!” cried Bird, eagerly; “she has not waved to us for nearly a week, and I was going to see her this afternoon when Billy takes his nap, if Aunt Rose will let me,” and Bird told what she knew of the little cripple who “kept house” by herself while her mother and sister worked.
Then a happy idea came to Marion Clarke. Handing out a flat wicker basket, that held perhaps twenty-five bouquets, to Bird, she said: “Would you like to be one of the Flower Missionaries this summer and carry bouquets? Yes?” as she saw the glad look in her eyes; “then you may fill this basket, and here is a big bouquet for you and something extra sweet to add to the basket,—see, a bunch of real wallflowers, such as grow over seas, some foreign-born body will go wild with joy over it, and here is a fruit bouquet a youngster has evidently put together,—big strawberries on their stalks set in their own leaves.
“Miss Vorse is coming now. I will introduce you and tell her to give you the flowers. What is your name? Bird O’More. I’m glad of that; it seems to fit you. I should have been disappointed if it had been Jane Jones,” she continued, as a sweet-faced, tall young woman, dressed in a dark blue gown andbonnet, entered, saying: “I’m afraid that I am late, but there is so much illness among the little children in the district now that I could not get away. A new Flower Missionary! That is good; children can reach those whom we cannot.”
Presently Bird found herself walking along the street, Billy’s hand in one of hers, and the basket of flowers in the other. Billy was prattling happily, but for once she scarcely heard what he said, the flower voices were whispering so gently and saying such beautiful things.
“Take us to Tessie,” whispered one. “God lets us bring sunlight to dark places,” said another—“You can do the same.” “Be happy, you have something to give away,” breathed another, and this flower was a spray of cheerful honeysuckle that blooms freely for every one alike.
Yes, Bird was happy, for Marion Clarke had held her by the hand and called her a Flower Missionary; she had flowers to give away and flowers to take home. Oh, joy! she could try to paint them, and she pushed the bouquet that held the old garden flowers, the mignonette, sweet brier and honeysuckle under the others to keep for her own.
If she waited to go home first, the flowers might fade, so an impulse seized her to give Tessie herflowers first, and then turned into the street below their own, trying to remember Mattie’s directions—“Count six houses from the butcher’s, and then go through the arch, and up two pairs of stairs to the top.”
Before she had gone a block, two little girls had begged her for flowers, one rosy and sturdy chose red and yellow zenias; the other, who, like Billy, had a “bad leg” and hopped, chose delicate-hued sweet peas. Bird had never seen a lame child in Laurelville, but now she met them daily, for such little cripples are one of the frequent sights of poorer New York.
At the first corner a blind woman, selling the mats she herself crocheted, begged for “a posy that she could tell by the smell was passing.” To her Bird gave the bunch of mignonette. A burly truckman, who thought she was selling the flowers, threw her a dime and asked for a “good-smellin’ bokay for the missis who was done up with the heat,” so she tossed him back the coin and a bouquet of spicy garden pinks and roses together, while Billy called in his piping voice, “We’re a Flower Mission—we gives ’em away,” so that the man drove off laughing, his fat face buried in the flowers.
When Bird had counted the “six houses from thebutcher’s” and found the archway, which was really the entrance to a dismal alley, her basket was almost empty. She hesitated about taking Billy into such a place, and in fact but for her great desire to give Tessie the flowers, she would have turned back herself. As she looked up and down the street, a policeman passing noticed her hesitation and stopped.
“Sure it’s the plucky girl from Johnny O’More’s beyond that tried to catch the thief,—and what do you be wantin’ here?”
Bird recognized the policeman and explained, and he said, “Ye do right not to be pokin’ in back buildings heedless; it’s not fit fer girls like you, but this same is a dacent place, though poor, and as I’m not on me beat, only passin’ by chance, I’ll go through to the buildin’ with ye, and the kid can stay below with me while ye go up, for stairs isn’t the easiest fer the loikes av him.”
So through they went, the big policeman leading the way, and entering the back building Bird began to grope upward. When the house had stood by itself in the middle of an old garden, the sun had shone through and through it, but now the windows on two sides were closed, and the halls were dark, and the bannister rails half gone.
At the first floor landing she paused a moment.What was that tap, tapping? It came from a small room made by boarding off one end of the broad, old-fashioned hallway. The door was open and a single ray of sun shot across from an oval window that had originally lighted the stairs and was high in the wall.
In the streak of sun was a cobbler’s bench and on it sat a man busily at work fastening a sole to a shoe, so old that it scarcely seemed worth the mending.
Then she went on again and, after knocking at two wrong doors, finally found the right one.
“Come in,” piped a shrill, cheery voice; “I can’t come to open it,” and in Bird went.
“I hoped that you would come to-day,” said the small figure, sitting bolstered up in a wooden rocking-chair with her feet on a box covered with an end of rag carpet, by way of greeting. No introduction was necessary, for the two girls knew each other perfectly well, although their previous acquaintance had merely been by waving rags across the yards.
“My legs haven’t felt as if they had bones in ’em in a week,” Tessie continued, “so’s I couldn’t reach up high enough to wave, and it seemed real lonesome, but I’ve got a new pattern for lace, and there’s a man in the store where Mattie works who says he’ll give me half-a-dollar for every yard I make of it,—whatdo you think of that?” and she spread out proudly a handsome bit of Irish crocheted lace upon which she was working. It was four inches wide, a combination of clover leaves, and very elaborate, of the kind that is so much sought now and costs many dollars a yard in the shops.
“It is beautiful,” explained Bird; “how do you know how to do it?”
“My mother learned long ago in the Convent in the old country, but her hands are too stiff to make it now, and besides she says it wouldn’t pay her. So she showed me the stitch and some of the old patterns, and one night last week, when I couldn’t sleep very good, I was thinkin’ of the lace work, and I guess I must have dreamed the new pattern, for the next morning I worked it right out. Those leaves is like some that came in a pocketful of grass Mattie fetched me home; one day they were cutting it over in the square, and the man let her take it. I just love the smell o’ grass, don’t you? And now’s I can’t get out, Mattie brings me some in her pocket every time she can. I guess she will to-night if they’ve cut it to-day.”
All this time Bird held her basket behind her, but now she wheeled about and rested it on the arm of Tessie’s chair. The joy of the child was wonderful,almost startling. Her dark eyes dilated and she looked first at Bird and then at the flowers, as she almost whispered in the excitement of her surprise, “Ye ain’t got ’em to keep, have ye?” Then as Bird tipped them into her lap, “They ain’t fer me, fer sure?”
“‘They ain’t fer me, fer sure?’”
“‘They ain’t fer me, fer sure?’”
“‘They ain’t fer me, fer sure?’”
“Yes, they are, and I’m going to bring you some every Wednesday,” said Bird, joyfully, and then she told about Marion Clarke and the Flower Mission.
“Ain’t it jest heavenly to think of,—me with a whole winder to myself that opens out and the crochet to do and real flowers, new ones that ain’t been used at all,” and Tessie leaned back and closed her eyes in perfect content.
Then suddenly Bird’s sorrow seemed to grow lighter and life a little brighter, and the sunlight as it were crept in to sweeten them both—she had something to give away, and lo, it was good.
Tessie was down handling the blossoms again and discovered the berry bouquet beneath. “Oh, but here’s growing strawberries on a bush like! Well, I never, never! But they’re handsome! Maybe I could make a pattern from them, too. Oh, surely there’s angels about somewhere doin’ things. You know Father John, he says I’ve got a Guardian Angel looking out after me, and St. Theresa my name saintchose her, and that everybody has, though for a long spell I didn’t know it. You see it’s been easier for her to look after me since we’ve got a room with an opened-out winder. I reckon if I was an angel, I wouldn’t care to poke around air-shafts much. Oh, what’s these browny-yeller flowers that smell so elegant?” and Tessie held up the wallflowers.
When Bird told their name, Tessie gave a little cry and said, “They’re what mother talks about that grew up in the wall below the big house at home where her father was a keeper, and the smell of them came in the cottage windows in the night air right to her, and she’s often said she’d cross the sea again to smell them if she had the price, and now she won’t have to take that trouble. That angel has found our winder for sure. Would you get me the little pitcher and some water in it yonder?”
The larger of the two rooms, the one with the window, had two clean beds in it, over which a newspaper picture of the Madonna and Child was pinned to the wall, two chairs, and an old bureau, while the smaller room, little more than a closet, held a table, a few dishes, and an oil cooking-stove, all as neat as wax. A pail of water stood on the table, from which Bird filled the pitcher, and set it on a chair by Tessie that she might herself arrange the flowers.Then, remembering that the policeman and Billy were waiting, she picked up her basket and her own flowers, and, promising to come the next week, groped her way downstairs again.
Bird did not see the tired mother, when she returned from her day’s scrubbing, enter the dark room and drawing a quick breath say, in an awe-struck voice, “I smell them—I smell the wallflowers! Sure, am I dreaming or dying?” or see the way in which she buried her face in the mass, laughing and crying together, when the lamp was lit and Tessie had told her the how and why of it.
There were dreary days often after this, when her uncle was away on long trips and her aunt was cross, but though Bird did not yet give up all hope of going back some day among her friends, or studying, as she had promised her father, she was learning the lesson of patience, which, after all, is the first and last one to know by heart.
Now the morning-glories had reached the window tops, and in the little bower above the clothes-lines she and Billy often sat as she told him stories of the real country, of Lammy and Twinkle, the old white horse, and the red peonies, and flew there in imagination. Then the child’s big eyes would flash as he gazed at her, and healways ended by asking, “When we stop being birds in this cage, we’ll fly right up there to your country and be real birds and see Lammy and Twinkle, won’t we?” And Bird always answered, “Yes,” to please him, but it was a word that meant nothing to her. So the summer wore on, and Bird did not go back to Laurelville.
WhileBird was putting away from her all thought of going back to Laurelville for a summer visit, Lammy Lane was trying in every way to bring about her return.
His mother was the only person in the family or village who really read Lammy aright and valued him at his worth. She never laughed at his various contrivances and mechanical inventions, and when he appeared to be star-gazing, she firmly believed that it was not idleness, but that he was interested in things other than the mere jog-trot work on the farm.
His brothers had all taken up other occupations in factory and shop, and Joshua Lane had expected that easy-going Lammy, the youngest by several years, would naturally drift along into farm work; but the boy had said, when his father had spoken upon the subject, “Farming is all right, only this one isn’t big enough for mo’n two, and I like to livein the country for pleasure; but for a trade I’m going into making somethin’ that bugs can’t eat, and that won’t get dried up, nor drowned out neither.” To Joshua this remark savoured of feeble-mindedness; but when he repeated it to Dr. Jedd, that keen-eyed person laughed, saying they need not worry about Lammy, for that some day he might surprise them all.
All through June he worked diligently at strawberry picking; then currants and raspberries followed in quick succession, so that it was nearly August, when, with twenty dollars to his credit in the Northboro Savings Bank, he took a vacation and went to his old haunts with the other boys.
Lammy had been bitterly disappointed when he found that Bird could not return to spend the Fourth of July, but he was not in the least daunted; for, after all, what was a whole summer even, when some day Bird would come back for good? The boy firmly believed that something would turn up to enable his father to buy the fruit farm, or if that was impossible, he would try to coax his father and mother to get her back without. There was always plenty to eat, and his home seemed so pleasant to him that he did not realize how hard his parents had to struggle to make both endsmeet in the bad seasons when the bugs ate and the drought dried. He did not, of course, know of John O’More’s requirement that if Bird ever returned she must be legally adopted, and share and share alike with his brothers and himself; but if he had, it would have made no difference.
Lammy was very fond of prowling in the deep woods and along the river. He had intimate acquaintances among the gray squirrels, always knew where fox cubs could be found, and had once reared a litter of skunk pups under an abandoned barn. Their mother had evidently been trapped,—for he never saw her,—and he fed the young with milk and scraps, in the childish belief that they were some sort of half-wild kittens, and was very much disgusted, when they were old enough to follow him home, that his father declined to have them about, and that they disappeared the very same night.
But the river interested him the most, and he not only knew every swimming and pike hole, perch run and spawning shallow, along its ten-mile course from Northboro down to the Mill Farm at Milltown, and the windings of every trout brook that fed it, but he understood all that went on in the half dozen mills or shops along the route.He could explain exactly how the water was turned on and off and the gearing adjusted in the gristmill, the stamping and perforating done at the button factory, or the sand moulds prepared at the forge where scrap iron was turned into cheap ploughshares and other cast implements.
One very hot day the last part of July when Lammy, together with ’Ram Slocum and Bob Jedd, was going to the pet swimming-hole of the Laurelville boys, a clear pebble-lined pool with a shelving rock on one side that approached the water by easy steps, they heard voices in the woods and came suddenly upon a party of young fellows from the Engineers’ Summer School, which had its camp farther down the ridge of hills.
“Hullo!” shouted the foremost, addressing Lammy, who also chanced to be in the lead; “can you tell us if there is any decent place to swim hereabouts? The pond at the Mill Farm is posted ‘No Trespassing,’ most of the river bed is either too rocky or too shallow, and the only good place we’ve struck below here has a mud bottom, and looked too much like an eel hole to suit me.”
“Yes, ’tis an eel hole, this side of the course,” Lammy answered readily, “and t’other side there’s pickerel could bite yer toes if they was minded to.I’ll show yer a bully place. We’re going there now, and it isn’t much further up.”
“Charge him a quarter for the steer,” said ’Ram Slocum, in a loud whisper, kicking Lammy’s bare shins to stop him, for he had stepped forward eagerly to lead the way.
“Shan’t either,” Lammy replied spicily, to ’Ram’s astonishment; “water’s free up here, even if your pop won’t let us swim in the mill-pond, and does charge folks three cents a barrel for taking water when their wells are dry.”
’Ram, a strong boy of sixteen, with bright red hair, who usually domineered over all the boys of his age and under,—particularly under,—had never before been so answered by any of his companions, much less Lammy, to whom he often referred as “softy,” and his temper rose accordingly. His nickname “’Ram,” short for Abiram, referred to his fighting proclivities and the way in which he frequently used his bullet head to knock out an antagonist instead of his fists; and though he did not see fit to follow the matter then and there, in his mind he put down Lammy for punishment when he should next catch him alone.
Meanwhile Lammy, silently threading through the dense underbrush, followed by Bob Jedd, reachedthe swimming-hole, while ’Ram slowly brought up the rear, crashing along sullenly, kicking the dead branches right and left so that the little ground beasts fled before him, now and then pausing either to pound a luckless land turtle with a stone, or shake from its perch some bird who, silent and dejected, had sought deep cover for its moulting time.
When he reached the others, he found not only that Lammy had made friends with the students, who, by the way, were a new lot who had recently come to camp, but that they were asking him all sorts of questions to draw out his knowledge of the neighbourhood, and were actually making Lammy a good offer if he would come to the camp daily during their stay, be “chainboy” on their surveying expeditions, and show them many things about the country that it would be a waste of time for them to search out for themselves.
Now Mr. and Mrs. Slocum had been very much stirred up by these same surveyors, and being suspicious, as shifty people usually are, wondered very much if the men were only practising as they claimed, or if they were in the pay of some land company, and prospecting, that they might see where land could be bought in large blocks. They hadtried all summer to have ’Ram employed about the camp, that he might keep his eyes and ears open, but so far to no avail. Consequently, when the boy heard the coveted position offered to Lammy, his rage and disappointment got the better of his usually shrewd discretion, and pushing into the group, he almost shouted, his voice pitched high with eagerness:—
“Lammy ain’t the one you want; he ain’t strong, and he’s got no go. I’m two years older and worth twice as much, but I’ll take the job at the same price and get pop to let you swim in the mill-pond if you’ll hire me.”
“I rather think not,” said the spokesman, a bronzed, broad-shouldered young fellow of about nineteen. “I’m afraid you might charge us for the air we breathed while we were in swimming; besides, I never employ a sneak if I know it.”
Then ’Ram knew that he had been overheard, and he slunk away toward home, owing Lammy a double grudge, and the sounds of shouts of merriment and the splashing of water did not tend to cool his wrath.
As for Lammy, he sat on the edge of the rock, trailing his brown toes in the water in the seventh heaven of content; for he was to help carry those mysterious instruments about for a whole month,and go in and out of the Summer School camp, knowing what was said and done there, instead of gazing at it across the fields. Then, too, perhaps he might some day meet Mr. Clarke, and possibly, though it was a daring thought, get leave to go into the mysterious building in his locomotive works at Northboro that bore the sign “Strictly Private—No Admittance.”
Bird and he had often talked of such a possibility. How glad she would be to know! He would write to her all about it.
He did, but had no reply; for the letter reached Bird at one of the times when her uncle was away. Billy had been suffering more than usual, and his mother was consequently very cross and difficult to bear with. Bird put the letter by to answer “to-morrow”; but every day bore its own burden, and the days piled up into weeks.
******
Joshua worked steadily on the fruit farm all the season, preparing for future crops as conscientiously as if he himself was to be the owner. Of this, however, he had no hope; it was impossible for him to bid on the place, as he had little or no ready money, and the only way to raise this would be to mortgage his own little farm.
This several of his neighbours had suggested, offering to loan him the money; but Joshua had struggled along some fifteen years under the weight of a mortgage, and now that he was freed he did not wish to pick up the burden again. Then, too, his farm with its old ramshackle outbuildings was not worth more than three thousand dollars, while the fruit farm with its rich land, good barn, poultry house, and newly shingled dwelling was valued by good judges at any figure from five to six thousand dollars. For though Aunt Jimmy had scrimped herself in many ways, she was too good a business woman to let her property get out of repair.
Neither of the Lane brothers were as well off as Joshua, so by the last of October the community had decided that the fruit farm must go out of the family, and attention was divided between who would buy it and what Joshua would do with his third of the proceeds,—better his house, or buy more land.
The Slocums were considered to be the most likely purchasers; for Abiram Slocum was known to have much money stored away in various paying farms as well as in the Northboro bank, though the way in which he came by it was not approved, even by the most close-fisted of his neighbours, for ’Biramwas what was called a “land shark.” He sold worthless parcels of land that would grow nothing but docks and mullein to the hard-working Poles and Hungarians who were fast colonizing the outskirts of Northboro, taking part cash payment, the rest on mortgage, and encouraging them to build. Then when the interest became overdue, owing to inevitable poor crops, he foreclosed, put out the family, and sold the place anew.
So sure did Mrs. Slocum appear to be that she would own the fruit farm, that she took it upon herself to watch the place to see, as she explained when caught by Joshua Lane peeking in at the kitchen window, “that nothing properly belonging to it was took off.” He told her in very plain language that whoever bought the farm would buy what there was on it at the time, and no more, as his aunt had trusted him with the management until the final settlement, and that what he did was no man’s business save that of the heirs.
In the interval, before it was time to tie up vines and bed the various berries with their winter covering of manure, he turned his attention to Aunt Jimmy’s flower garden, a strip of ground enclosed by a neat picket fence, where a box-edged path starting under a rose trellis ran down the middleand disappeared in a grape arbour at the farther end, and everything that was fragrant and hardy and worth growing flanked the walk, while behind, the sweet peas and nasturtiums climbed up to the very fence top in their effort to see and be seen.
This garden had been the apple of Aunt Jimmy’s eye, and in spite of all “spells” and oddities, she had tended it wholly herself, her one gentle feminine impulse, as far as the outside world knew, having been giving nosegays to the children that passed the house on their way home from school. If they handled the flowers carelessly, they never received a second bunch, but if they cherished them, slips, seeds, and bulbs were sure to follow, so that Aunt Jimmy’s flowers lived long after her in childish garden plots.
Prompted by Lauretta Ann,—for Joshua was too hard-headed and practical to have learned anything about flowers, except that they must be fed and watered like other stock, whether animal or vegetable,—he regulated the various borders, dividing and resetting the roots of hardy plants under his wife’s direction, as Aunt Jimmy had done each autumn, while Lammy stood by, eagerly waiting for the “weedings,” which he carried home with greatcare and set out in a corner south of the barn, “to make,” as he said, “a little garden for Bird, in case we don’t get the fruit farm.” His mother encouraged him in this and praised his efforts, giving him some strips of chicken wire to make a trellis, so that his vines might in time cover the end of the old, gray-shingled barn. Even she, however, did not know of another little garden strip on a far-away hillside that he had tended all summer for the sake of his little friend.
******
In spite of Joshua Lane’s rebuke to Mrs. Slocum, she continued spying and insinuating, and not many days later, chancing to drive by the fruit farm half an hour after school was out, and seeing Lammy going up the road, carrying a basket, spade, and water can, followed by faithful Twinkle, she hurried home and bade ’Ram “step lively and follow that Lane boy up, an’ see where he’s goin’, and what he’s got, and what he’s agoin’ to do with it.”
Mrs. Slocum was more than usually determined upon annoying the Lanes, since Joshua, as administrator for Terence O’More, had refused payment of the rent owed for the little cottage, until the insurance company had satisfied themselves as to the cause of the fire and paid Abiram’s claim. The furnituredestroyed, at the lowest estimate, would have been more than enough to cancel the debt.
’Ram, only too glad to do his mother’s errand, after the manner of all bullies, waited until Lammy was out of reach of protection and well up on the sheltered “hill road” before he overtook him, asking in a “you’ve-got-to-tell” tone what he had in the basket and where he was going. Upon Lammy’s declining to tell, he announced his intention of following until he found out for himself.
Now it must be remembered that Lammy had the name of being girlish, if not exactly cowardly, that he was only fourteen, and though tall, was of a slender build; while ’Ram was not only broad-shouldered and sixteen, but the village braggart to boot, so that it really took some pluck for Lammy to continue up that houseless road with ’Ram muttering threats and marching close behind. Still Lammy walked straight on past all the farms, to where the runaway Christmas trees stood sentinels around the hillside graveyard. There is no denying that his hand shook as he unlatched the gate, but he did not falter or look back, but went to the corner where were the mounds that marked the graves of Bird O’More’s father and mother.
Why the turf was so much greener and smootherthan anywhere else in the enclosure no one but Lammy knew, and for a moment ’Ram paused outside the fence in sheer surprise; but as Lammy, kneeling down, took a couple of roots of the red peony from his basket, and prepared to plant one at the top of each flowery mound, his surprise vanished in derision.
“Ain’t you a fool for sure!” he shouted, not coming in the enclosure, for, stupid and superstitious like all real cowards, he thought it bad luck to cross a graveyard,—“a fool for sure, planting posies yer stole; top of paupers, too, when even that stuck-up girl that was yer sweetheart’s gone off to live with rich folks and has clean forgotten them and you!”
Lammy’s trembling fingers fumbled with the earth and his head swam. The first part of ’Ram’s jeer made his blood boil, but after all it was a lie, and lies do not sting for long; for poor though O’More was, his debts would be paid to a penny, and Lammy hadboughtthe peony roots from his father as executor by doing extra weeding on the fruit farm.
The last sentence, however, hurt cruelly; for though Lammy did not believe it, he had no way of disproving it even to himself, and so could not say a word to ’Ram in reply; for during the five monthssince Bird went away only two brief notes had come from her, and these told about city streets and sights, and little or nothing of herself. While, to make it the more strange, when, in the hot August weather, Mrs. Lane had sent her an invitation to come up for the promised visit, enclosing the tickets, which represented some weeks of egg money, and offered herself to go down to New Haven to meet the child, a stiff little note returning the tickets had come by way of reply, and though it was grateful in wording and said something vague about going with Billy for sea air, etc., he could not guess the disappointment that it covered, and that the sea air was merely a chance ferry ride, or the breeze that blew over Battery Park, where they herded daily with hundreds of other children of poorer New York. Lammy had been cut to the heart, and ’Ram’s taunt rankled indeed.
Mrs. Lane, however, had read between the lines, her keen insight, confidence in Bird, and motherly love serving as spectacles. She still felt, as she always had done, that Bird was unhappy, and yet too proud to confess it, and that she did not dare write often or come among them, for fear that they should discover what they could not as yet better. For Mrs. Lane remembered O’More’s conditionalpromise only too well, and the possibility of fulfilling her part of adopting the little girl within the year seemed to grow more and more remote.
Silently Lammy finished his work, picking up every dead leaf that lay on the mounds, and then taking his spade and basket, turned to go home, but there stood his tormentor by the gate.
If anything angers a bully, it is silence. If Lammy had engaged in a war of words, the chances are that ’Ram would have gone away, having had, as he considered it, his fun out. As it was, he really felt that he had been neglected and affronted, so, making believe open the gate as Lammy closed it, he said, “I can dig up them posies twict as quick as you planted ’em.”
“Maybe you can, but you won’t,” cried Lammy, suddenly growing pale and rigid, while he stood outside the gate, but square in front of it.
“Oh, ho, and who ’ll stop me?” sneered ’Ram, in amused surprise, standing with his arms akimbo.
Without saying another word, Lammy, the meek, the boy-girl in name, flew at ’Ram with such suddenness, beating and buffetting him, that the big boy was knocked down before he knew it. Recovering his feet quickly, he tried to grapple with the lanky little lad, but Lammy twisted and turned with thelitheness of a cat, landing rapid if rather wild blows at each plunge, while Twinkle nipped at ’Ram’s heels, until finally ’Ram, seeing that he was outmatched in agility, and determined to conquer without more ado, lowered his head for the celebrated “butt” that generally winded his antagonist.
Lammy’s fighting Yankee ancestors must have left the lower end of the graveyard and marched up to encourage him on this occasion; for he was nearly spent and was pausing to get breath when the lunge came, so that his final effort was to give a side twist, and the blow of the red bullet head was received square and full by the locust gate post instead of by Lammy’s stomach.
’Ram dropped to the ground, where he lay for several minutes seeing stars, planets, and comets, while a bump as big as an apple appeared in the middle of his forehead and the cords of his neck ached like teeth. Meanwhile Lammy, his nervous strength gone, ran all the way home, and throwing himself on his bed, whither he was followed by his mother, who saw his livid face as he dashed through the kitchen, sobbed as if his heart would break, not from fear, but because in the reaction he remembered what Bird had said of people who fought either with their tongues or fists.
It was not until long afterward that he thought it strange, and wondered why his mother had not scolded him, only hugged him to her comfortable, pillowy breast, when he told his story, and put nearly all of her precious bottle of Northboro cologne on his head to soothe it, and gave him buttered toast, when, after having his cry out, he came down to supper, which dainty was generally regarded as only for the minister or else a “sick-a-bed” luxury. His father meanwhile actually broke into a laugh and said, “Hear yer’ve been doin’ a leetle Declaration o’ Independencing on yer own account. Wal, it’s sometimes a necessary act fer folks same as countries; Lauretta Ann, I reckon Lammy and me could relish a pot of coffee to-night”—coffee being a Sunday-morning treat.
When it came to the part of his story concerning ’Ram’s taunt and his fear that Bird had forgotten them, his mother reassured him for the hundredth time with her own ample faith, but he quite startled her by saying emphatically:—
“That is all right, mother, as far as it goes, but we’ve justgotto buy that fruit farm somehow.” And he fell asleep that night, happy in making impossible plans for the purchase.
It was perhaps as well for Lammy’s self-conceitthat he did not hear his mother talk with Mrs. Slocum, who came in about nine o’clock, tearful, yet at the same time in a threatening rage, demanding that he be “whipped thoro’ for half murdering her harmless boy when he was taking an innercent walk, and that if he didn’t get the whippin’, she’d get a warrant immedjet.”
Mrs. Lane waited until she had finished her tirade, and then calling Joshua, who had retreated to the wood-shed, said: “Mis’ Slocum here needs a warrant writ hasty; jest you escort her down to the Squire’s, as her husband don’t seem intrested to go with her. I hate to see a neighbour obleeged to play the man and risk goin’ out in the dark alone.”
Then as her adversary, seeing herself outflanked, rose to go, she added with apparent sympathy: “Of course I know it’s hard for you to feel ’Ram’s beat by one half his size, even if the gate post did help Lammy, and folks ’ll be surprised to hear it, but you mustn’t blame him too much; it was maybe me, his mother, in him worked Lammy’s fists so good.” And Lauretta Ann looked her visitor straight in the eyes. Some weeks later Mrs. Slocum had reason to remember that look.
WhenNovember came, Joshua Lane had completed his work of preparing the fruit farm for the auction, according to Aunt Jimmy’s wish that it should be in full running order when sold.
The old fowls were mostly sold off, and the henhouse was full of the vigorous laying pullets that mean so much in early winter. The fall cow had calved, and the two or three yearlings were as sleek as does.
When the time came for the division of the furniture between the wives of the three Lane brothers by drawing lots, public interest again awakened, and Mrs. Slocum expressed great anxiety lest it should not be done fairly, saying to her husband: “It’s a fussy, mixed-up business anyway. Why didn’t they auction off the stuff and let folks in to see it done fair? They do say, for all Miss Jemima lived so plain, she had stores of good stuff shut up in those top rooms that even Dinah Luckynever’s had a peek at when she went to houseclean. Those old mahogany pieces are worth money at Northboro, and Lauretta Ann’s cute enough to know it, but I don’t believe those other slab-sided Lane women do; so do you watch your chance and make them an offer so soon as it’s divided. There’s a wardrobe there, solid mahogany, twice as big as one they ask fifty dollars for in the ’curious’ shop. Most likely they’d value cheap, new stuff better.”
If it had not been rather pathetic to Mrs. Lane, this breaking up of a house where she had been so much at home, the day of the division would have been one of unalloyed merriment.
In the first place, owing to the way in which Aunt Jimmy had directed the drawing should be managed, the articles were not valued in the usual way and divided so that each of the three women shared alike, but merely numbered, the duplicate slips being shaken up in a basket and drawn by Probate Judge Ricker for Lauretta Ann, the others drawing for themselves, as Joshua preferred that there should be no possible chance of his wife being criticised. While she, cheerful and thoughtful as ever of the comfort of others, prepared a nice lunch on the afternoon appointed, which she and Lammy carried to the fruit farm, and hada cheerful fire in the kitchen stove, with a big pot of fragrant coffee purring away on top of it, when Jason and Henry Lane, the younger brothers, following each other closely, drove into the yard with their wives.
Mrs. Henry Lane was a delicate, sad-looking little woman, quite above the average. She had been one of the teachers in the Milltown public school at the time of her marriage, but the struggle to wrest a living from a small hillside farm, coupled with ill health, had broken her spirit, and she sank into a rocking-chair and began to jiggle the baby that she carried to and fro.
Mrs. Jason, on the contrary, was tall and gaunt, with high cheek-bones. Life had not been very kind to her either, but still she looked as if she could hold her own; and her husband, who only reached her shoulder, fairly quaked and fell away before her like ill-made jelly.
“Do draw up to the table, sisters-in-law both,” cried Lauretta Ann, after greeting each heartily. “You must have hurried dinner to get down here by now, and I always do feel hungrier the first cool days than when winter has set square in.”
“Ishouldfeel better for a cup of coffee,” said Mrs. Henry, in a plaintive voice; “we haven’t had any for more than two weeks. Henry forgot itwhen he went to the store, and he doesn’t get there as often as he used, now that the mail is delivered around the country by wagon. I’ve been using tea right along, and I think it’s made me nervous; besides, the last I bought from the travelling spice-and-sugar man tasted more like buckwheat shucks and musty hay than anything else.”
At this Henry Lane’s head sank still farther into the collar of his coat, which was three sizes too big anyway, and he began whittling recklessly at a hard-wood clothespin with a broken knife, which quickly caused a deeply cut finger and much consternation, as the sight of blood always made his wife faint away, and the present occasion was no exception to the rule.
After Lauretta Ann had bathed and bound up the finger, and sent Lammy home for a little of the cherry cordial for which she was famous, she made another effort to serve the lunch, and finally succeeded in cheering the mournful company by sheer force of good temper.
“I do hope you’ll draw Grandma Lane’s canopy-top cradle and the big rocker that matches, they’d be such comforts to you as you are fixed,” Mrs. Joshua said to Mrs. Henry, as putting a friendly arm about her, they went into the sitting room,where Judge Ricker was busy kneading up the numbered papers in the basket as carefully as if he was working lard into flour for tea biscuits, and seated themselves in a semicircle.
“Do you begin, sister-in-law Jason, and you follow next, sister-in-law Henry,” said Mrs. Joshua, laying her hand, which would tremble in spite of herself, on Lammy’s shoulder. Lammy, by the way, had grown broader and stronger and lost much of his timidity of manner during the two months past. Whether it was the sense of responsibility that working with the college men had given him, or his determination to have Bird come back, his mother could not decide, while his father chuckled whenever the matter was referred to, saying, “’Tain’t neither; it was squarin’ up at ’Ram Slocum that made a man of him;” and though Lauretta always said, “Sho, pa! ain’t you ashamed of aidin’ and abettin’ a fight?” her smiling expression belied her words.
Mrs. Jason stepped forward and drew—the canopy cradle! A roar of laughter greeted her venture, in which she joined grimly, for her youngest offspring was a six-foot youth of seventeen, while Mrs. Henry sighed and felt secretly injured, though she said nothing.
Next came her turn, and she drew a worked motto in a gilt frame, which read, “The Lord Will Provide,” whereat she smiled feebly and whimpered, “I’ve tried to think so, but I do wish Henry Lane would help Him out better.” Mrs. Joshua drew the best china, Mrs. Henry the tall clock, which she straightway declared to be a foot higher than any of her rooms,—she finally traded it with Mrs. Jason for the cradle and rocking-chair,—until at the end of two hours the last number left the basket and three tired and confused women wandered about trying to collect their property.
The great wardrobe had fallen to Mrs. Jason’s share, but upon close inspection it proved to be merely stained cherry and not mahogany at all, and its owner remarked that she wished some one would take it off her hands, as it was too big to go in her door, and more than it was worth to truck it home, much less get it in to Northboro, where it would be possible to sell it. Her husband, however, ventured to say it would make a good harness closet for the barn and keep the rats from gnawing the leather; and so with much stretching of muscles and groans of “now heave together” it was loaded with the other articles upon the wagon.
There was quite a lively interchange of articles between the women before the rooms were finally cleared, but in the end, owing to Mrs. Joshua’s good sense, they all declared themselves well satisfied. Mrs. Jason had secured a good sewing-machine, and Mrs. Henry a parlour organ for which her melancholy spirit pined; while Mrs. Joshua, who had a machine and inwardly detested parlour organs, saying that when needful she could do her own groaning, was made happy by the best parlour set, her own chairs and lounge having been fatally collapsed by her family of men folks of assorted ages.
One thing they all regretted, which was that Aunt Jimmy had ordered all articles of every kind not mentioned in her list should be either burned or buried, according to their kind, and there were many things dear to their feminine hearts in the mass of rubbish that had been accumulating in garret and cellar, barn and loft, these many years as well as much that was salable as junk. It was of no use to object; for Joshua was determined to carry out the will in both spirit and letter, and though it had amused the eccentric old lady to collect and hoard the stuff, she was equally determined that it should never be exposed to the gaze of the curious. Joshua knew that though shethought him slow and without ambition, she trusted him, and he was not going to disappoint her.
******
As the loaded wagons filed out of the yard, a lean figure might have been seen peering through the branches of a small maple tree in the wood lot just above. It was Abiram Slocum, who, goaded by his wife, was trying to see which cart contained the wardrobe; for she had come back from Northboro the day before all eagerness to get possession of it, for the owner of the “curious shop” had said if the wardrobe was of the size and quality she described, he would pay her fifty dollars for it. Now if the owner would let it go for fifteen or even twenty-five dollars, the profit would give her new paper and a carpet for her best room; for rich as Slocum was reputed to be, he was close-fisted with his wife, and she was obliged to pick up her own pin money like her poorer neighbours, with the exception that she had not succeeded in the egg business, owing to her tendency, whenever possible, to give eleven to the dozen, and sell limed eggs at a high price to ignorant people who desired them for setting.
Abiram presently spied the wardrobe on Jason Lane’s load. He was sorry for this, for Mrs. Jasonwas one of the few people who had ever got the better of him in trade, and a horse trade at that, so he feared she would never sell the furniture, or if she did, would extort full value.
Nevertheless, he slipped hastily from the tree, cut across lots toward the road they must take on their way home, and fifteen minutes later met them when they stopped to rest the horse, as if he was merely sauntering toward the pasture for his cows, and was soon engaged in general conversation upon farm topics that gradually led up toward the furniture.
“Heavy load you’ve got there,” he remarked; “ain’t that there closet big for your haouse?”
Jason was about to say that it was, and that they were going to put it in the barn, when he felt his wife looking daggers, and refrained.
“’Tis big, but we can use it,” she answered dryly, starting up the horse.
“How about selling it and buying somethin’ handier?”
“I ain’t anxious. Get along, Whiteface,” she said, touching the horse with the whip.
“I’ll give yer fifteen dollars for it, here and now, if you’ll leave it to my house,” Abiram shouted as the wagon began to move away.
“’Twouldn’t pay me to turn back.”
“Twenty dollars then.”
“Nope, I’m in a hurry, and there’s a pile of good seasoned wood in the thing.”
“She knows its value, sure enough,” he said to himself, as the wagon began to climb the hill.
“Give yer twenty-five, and yer can leave it here by the road.”
“I reckon you might unpack, pa,” the gaunt woman said, a smile hovering about her mouth, adding to Abiram, “Hand up the money, and down she goes.”
In five seconds two ten-dollar bills and a five, after a searching scrutiny, found their way into Mrs. Jason’s pocket, and the clumsy piece of furniture leaned tipsily against the pasture fence exposed to the full glare of the sun.
Just as Jason Lane had remounted the seat and the wagon had begun to move again, a shout made them look round. There stood Abiram in the middle of the road, stamping and choking with rage so that he could barely speak.
“Stop! hey, stop!” he yelled; “it ain’t mahogany; it’s only stained wood. Hey, give me my money back or I’ll hev ye arrested.”
“Who said it was mahogany?” called Mrs.Jason, stopping the horse and fairly beaming with the pleasure of the contention.
Abiram hesitated a moment, felt himself caught, stammered, and said, “Mis’ Slocum did.”
“Well, go ahead and arrest Mrs. Slocum, then,” chimed in Jason, his speech for once meeting his wife’s approval.
“Oh, Lordy, Lordy, what ’ll she say, ’n’ what ’ll I do with it?” he moaned to himself, completely caught in the trap set by his own greed.
“I dunno,” shouted Mrs. Jason as she moved away, “’nless you put wheels on it to make a wagon and hitch that sorrel mare I sold you to it.”
******
The day of the sale drew near. All that remained to be done was the destroying of the rubbish, and this was no small task.
One entire day a bonfire had raged in the back lot, and what would not burn was the next day taken in the ox-cart thrice filled by Joshua himself and dumped carefully in the great bog-hole.
This quaking bog was one of the wonders of the neighbourhood and its common dumping ground, even though it could only be reached by fording the river above the mill-pond. To the eye it wasmerely an oozy-looking swamp tract, such as are plentiful near the back-water of rivers, but this particular bit was an ogre that swallowed up everything that was cast in it, only a few hours being necessary to engulf, without leaving a sign, an unlucky cow that had once strayed into it. So that now it was securely fenced about except at one spot, used for dumping, which was protected with logs secured to driven piles.
Mrs. Lane watched the loading of the wagon very ruefully, for she now fully realized that all her hopes concerning the fruit farm had come to as complete an end as the load of broken china and rusty tinware. When she saw the old pewter tea-pot, the dents supplemented by a crack, go by on top of a basket of broken flower pots, she begged her husband to let her keep it, saying:—
“Even if it’s worth nothin’ now, even for drawin’ tea, Aunt Jimmy must hev meant somethin’ kind when she left it to me, and I’d like it to mind me of the idea, only she got fogged up some way and didn’t plan right; fer if she set store by anything, it was by that pot on account of its bein’ buried half of the Revolution with great-grandmother Cuddy’s best teaspoons and twenty gold guineas all safe inside.”
“Lauretta Ann,” said Joshua, pausing to rest the heavy basket on the tail-board of the cart, “’tain’t often I put my foot down, but now they’ve set, heel and toe, sock and leather, both of ’em. I’m goin’ to do my work legal, but you’ve been treated shabby, and I ain’t a-goin’ to hev that tea-pot set up on a shelf for a moniment to that same. If you’re too Christian to resent, I’m goin’ to do it for yer, which she, bein’ my aunt, the quarrel is for me to take upon me, so there!”