CHAPTER XXIITHE BEAUTIFUL DAY
“HEY there—look out for that boy!” roared the farmer.
It was all done in a minute. The mass of hay, with David in its center, slid neatly off the top of the cart to the ground. Bill, the hired man, pitchfork in hand, leaned over the edge in a state of great consternation, the rest of the laborers, the loading all completed, watching to see the cart start off for the barn.
“Jehoshaphat!” Mr. Brown pushed them all aside, and threw himself over the landslide of hay. “Get him out! Get th’ boy out!” he roared, pawing frantically to right and to left to reach David. The laborers fell to with such energy that hay flew in every direction, and at last David was pulled out white as a sheet, and gasping for breath.
“Land o’ Goshen!” Farmer Brown rose up tall and straight. “You dumb lummux, you!” and he shook his fist at Bill, “to let this happen!”
Bill cowered down on top of the hay out of sight. David tried his best to speak, but he hadn’t any breath to start the words.
“Ye ain’t hurt, be ye?” cried Farmer Brown, in an anguish. Then he felt David’s arms and made him take a step or two to try his legs.
Davie shook his head, and said, “No,”—while the men picked out the wisps of hay from his soft light hair, and dusted off his little calico blouse.
“Well, that’s a mercy,” breathed the farmer at last. “It’s th’ biggest luck I ever see in my life.”
“He didn’t make me fall,” said Davie, drawing the first long breath since the tumble, and pointing up where Bill’s head showed on the top of the load of hay, “I did it myself.”
“Well, never mind—you ain’t none th’ worse for it, I reckon. But you scaret me most out o’ my boots, Davie.” The farmer’s big black eyes began to settle back into theirnatural places. “Well, pitch back this hay, boys, and drive off.”
“Put me up,” cried Davie. “Oh, I want to get up there again. Do, Mr. Brown,” he begged.
“You sure you can stick on, Davie?”
“Oh, I will—I will stick on,” promised Davie, dreadfully excited, “if you’ll only let me get up there.”
“All right. H’ist him up, boys.”
So the hired men, two of them, seized David and swung him up to the shoulders of the third, and in “a shake of a lamb’s tail,” as the farmer said, there he was on the top of the load, and laughing with glee, and the men below were pitching up the hay that had taken a slide carrying him along with it.
“Keep away from th’ edge,” shouted the farmer after him, as the big horses began to pull the load off across the meadow.
“You mustn’t stand up when we get to th’ barn,” said Bill, not intending to take any risk with this visitor to the farm. “You’ve got to set, an’ duck your head, when Job drives in.”
“I’ll lie down,” said Davie.
“That’s a good idee,” said Bill approvingly. “Well, how’d you feel when you was a-goin’ off th’ load ker-slap?”
“I didn’t feel,” said Davie, “I just slid.”
“Warn’t you scared none?”
David longed to say, “No.” Instead, he hung his head, “Yes, I was,” he said.
“So sh’d I have ben,” said Bill, picking up a wisp of hay to chew it.
“Would you?” cried Davie eagerly, and lifting his head suddenly, while his blue eyes shone.
“Sure,” declared Bill, chewing his wisp. “I don’t like no sech sudden removals. ’Tain’t my style.”
“Oh, I’m so very glad that you’d have been scared,” said Davie, clasping his hands.
“Well, you better set, or you’ll go again,” said Bill, as the big wagon toiled over a lump, and then swayed on to level ground once more.
“I’m not going again!” said David, all in a glow to think that the big man would have been scared, just the same as a little boy. And he settled himself comfortably in a hollow in the middle of the hay load.
“Well, you’re goin’ to stay here a spell,ain’t you?” asked Bill, regarding the small figure curiously.
“Oh, no, no,” declared Davie in terror. All his glow was gone, and he looked so very miserable that Bill hastened to reassure him.
“We get awful good things to eat. Ever seen any o’ Mis Brown’s pies?” And he smacked his lips.
But David’s thoughts were away off from Mrs. Brown’s pies, or any other pies, and he shook all over and folded his hands tightly together.
“He’d set by you,” Bill pointed with his big thumb to Farmer Brown and the hired men following to help unload the hay, “he said you was a-comin’ an’ he meant to keep you.”
“I can’t stay—I can’t!” exclaimed Davie wildly, and springing up, he stood as straight as he could for the jolting cart.
“Take care!” Bill put out a big hand and grasped the little calico sleeve. “You better set,” and he put him back in the hollow of the hay. “Thunder! You needn’t feel so bad about stayin’ here,” he added in a dudgeon, “it’s a bang-up good farm,—’tain’t every boy would get a chance at it, I can tell you.”
But Davie shivered, and didn’t half hear while Bill rattled on about Mr. Brown, and Tom, Dick and Harry, Mr. Brown’s hired men, and how they all hoped to spend their days there. At last he got talked out, and stopped and looked at David.
“Say, youngster, where’d you come from, anyway?” he asked.
“The little brown house,” said David faintly, without looking up.
“Gosh!—I thought you’d say a palace, to the very least,” said Bill, “after turning up your nose at this place.”
David unfolded his hands, and put one up to feel of his nose. It never had been turned up at the end, and he was relieved to find it still the same.
Bill burst into such a guffaw that two old crows flying over the field, stopped their own hoarse croakings to listen in amazement.
“Got any more like you over there to the little brown house?” asked Bill, when he came out of his amusement. “Say, boy, I’d give a dollar ef you would stay here.”
This made David’s distress very dreadful.
“You can cry, ef you want to, though ’tain’tvery polite, after an invitation like you’ve got,” said Bill, “an’ not set there tying your face into knots. You ain’t a-goin’ to be kep here agin your will. Don’t get scared, youngster.”
“Won’tyoukeep me?” breathed David in a shaking voice.
“Me? My land o’ Goshen, I sh’d say not,” declared Bill, slapping his overalls with a red hand. “What do I want with a boy, pray tell?”
“I’m so glad,” exclaimed Davie in delight, “that you don’t want a boy, Mr. Bill,” and his face shone, as the cart rolled up to the barn door. David flung himself flat on his face, just in time before they bumped over the sill.
As “Mr. Bill” didn’t want a boy under any consideration, David reached the hay-loft in a comfortable condition, and by the time that Farmer Brown and Tom, Dick, and Harry came up, he was shouting and laughing at a great rate as he helped to pack the sweet-smelling hay on the big loft.
Meanwhile Phronsie was having her visit with good Mrs. Brown. Mother Pepper, seeing how things were, had begged to be leftin the big old kitchen to see to the dinner. There were a pair of ducks roasting away in the oven, and a big chicken pie, for the farmer’s wife was determined to do things up well, and there were potatoes and onions boiling away, with cranberry sauce and ever so many pies in the cupboard waiting their turn to be invited to the table. And Mrs. Pepper, with one of Mrs. Brown’s checked aprons tied over her neat calico gown, moving about, in all the mysteries of “seeing to dinner,” had such a happy smile on her face that the big kitchen, although it was just as different as a kitchen could be from the little-brown-house one, began to seem cheery and home-y at once.
“Phronsie,” said the farmer’s wife, “I tell you what let’s you an’ me do—we’ll go an’ see th’ chickens first—an’ get them off’n our minds.”
“We’ll go and see the chickies,” hummed Phronsie, and putting up her small hand for the farmer’s wife to take it, which so pleased Mrs. Brown that her head went quite high in the air as she picked up her black alpaca gown and stepped off.
“I see them,” cried Phronsie, on a high key,and she tried gently to pull Mrs. Brown along faster as they neared the chicken yard.
“Yes, yes, child,” said Mrs. Brown, who wasn’t accustomed to much walking out of doors, “you don’t need to hurry so.”
“They’re going off,” said Phronsie in a worried way.
“Oh, no, they ain’t. Hens always has to be steppin’ round important. They ain’t doin’ nothin’, only they like to be on the move all the while.”
“Will they wait for us?” asked Phronsie, anxiously watching the incessant movement in the chicken yard.
“My soul an’ body!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown, with a little laugh, “you’ll find ’em fast enough when we get there.” But she redoubled her pace, lumbering on till she was quite red in the face.
“Can we go in?” cried Phronsie, very much excited, as a whole bunch of fluffy little yellow chicks tumbled over each other to get away from the noise of their footsteps.
“Well, that’s what we’ve come for,” said the farmer’s wife, pushing up the hasp of the big gate.
“We’re going in!” cried Phronsie, clapping her hands and hopping up and down. This made the little fluffy chicks tumble over each other worse than ever, till they looked just like one big yellow ball.
“Can I take one—can I?” begged Phronsie, running after the big ball as Mrs. Brown pulled to the gate.
“You wait, little girl,” said the farmer’s wife, “an’ by’n’by, you’ll have your lap full.”
Phronsie stopped and regarded her pink calico gown. To have her lap full of chickens was something that had to be thought out carefully. And she was standing there quite still when Mrs. Brown, who had hurried into the shed, came out with a tin pan in her hand.
“There now, says I,” she took Phronsie’s hand. “You come along of me,” and she led her to the other end of the long chicken yard. “Now we can set, an’ I’m sure I’m glad to,” and down she went heavily on a low bench under some currant-bushes.
“Chick—chick,” called the farmer’s wife. “Set down, Phronsie. There, don’t you see ’em runnin’ fit to break their necks,” as she put her hand in the tin pan and brought itforth full of corn and fine grain to fling it far and wide.
“Oh, don’t let them break their necks—please,” begged Phronsie. She had sat down by Mrs. Brown’s side, but now hopped to her feet in distress.
Mrs. Brown gave a comfortable laugh. “They hain’t got any necks hardly to break—only a bunch o’ feathers. Set down, an’ you may fling some corn.”
So Phronsie, seeing that the chickens’ necks were to be perfectly safe, sat down on the bench and filled both small hands with the corn and grain.
Chickens of all sorts and sizes came sweeping down in flocks till the ground all around the bench was covered, and the first thing she knew, one or two hopped up on the end of the bench and jumped into Phronsie’s pink calico gown to get nearer to the old tin pan. When the other chickens saw that, a whole fluffy crowd followed.
Phronsie gave a little squeal and threw herself over into Mrs. Brown’s arms, thereby upsetting a couple of the more adventurous ones.
“There—there,” chuckled the farmer’s wife, “didn’t I tell you you’d have your lap full. Well, see here,” to the chickens, and she pushed off the biggest ones, “’tain’t polite to scrouge so—you’ll all get your turn. Now, Phronsie, let that littlest one eat out o’ your hand.”
Mrs. Brown shook some grain into the little calico gown. A small fluffy ball plumped right into the middle of it, holding on by its little claws to Phronsie’s small thumb.
Phronsie squealed in delight. And the little yellow chick, not caring in the least how much any one squealed as long as there was this sweet grain, hung on to Phronsie’s thumb and pecked away, the farmer’s wife scaring the other chickens off.
It seemed impossible for Phronsie to tear herself away from this enchanting party in the old chicken yard. The farmer’s wife might talk and talk over the charms of the pigs who were supposed to be waiting to be visited. Phronsie had no eyes nor ears for anything but the “chickies” and their soft little “peep—peep.”
At last Mrs. Brown said, “They’ll be sickif they eat any more,” and getting up from the bench, she went off, tin pan and all. And Phronsie, slipping down to the ground beneath, sat down in the by-no-means-clean spot, and put her arms around the fluffy bunch that swarmed into her lap.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Brown, coming back, having disposed of the tin pan. “I don’t know what your ma’ll think! My senses! just look at your dress, child!”
Phronsie huddled up two of the chickens in the front breadth of her pink calico gown, as Mrs. Brown got her up to her feet.
So they didn’t get to the pigs after all, Phronsie having to be led back to the farm house for the messy little back breadth of her gown to be washed clean. And of course, while that was being done, she must have on a calico wrapper of Mrs. Brown’s and sit in the rocking chair by the kitchen window. But she didn’t care, for the farmer’s wife let her bring in one of the little yellow fluffy chickens.
And then all the merry getting ready of the big dinner was going on, and the little pink calico gown had to have its back breadth smooth, so Mrs. Brown set a flat-iron onthe stove, and got out the ironing-board.
“It’s jest ’xactly as if I had got a little girl,” she kept saying to herself with happy throbs of the heart.
And then, Phronsie had to stumble to the door as well as she could for Mrs. Brown’s big wrapper catching her feet, and put the little chicken out.
“I’m afraid he won’t find his way home,” she grieved.
“I’ll carry him back,” said Mrs. Pepper.
So Phronsie put the little yellow fluffy chick into Mamsie’s hand, and went into the big bedroom. And when she came back, the little pink calico gown all clean and smooth, and buttoned on by Mrs. Brown, why, there was Mamsie back again, and the old clock in the corner said as plain as a clock could say, “Time for dinner!”
And then after that big splendid dinner was over, and the ducks’ backs didn’t have any covering on to speak of, Farmer Brown took Davie off to see the “bossies,” and Phronsie crooned a little song of delight—for wasn’t she going to help Mrs. Brown and Mamsie to wipe the dishes?
And then she never could remember what was done next. For the first thing she knew, somebody was saying over her head—and that was Mrs. Brown, “It’s a pity to wake her!” And Phronsie rolled over on Mrs. Brown’s big bed and opened her blue eyes, and there was Mother Pepper,—and she said, “But we really must start for home now.”
And then the pink sunbonnet was tied on, and Davie came running up, his hands full of treasures that Farmer Brown had given him. And there was the old wagon with the big white horse waiting by the porch. And then she was lifted in and put on Mrs. Brown’s lap, a basket of goodies on the floor, and the farmer took up the old leather reins.
“Let ’er go, Bill,” he said.
And the beautiful day was over.