 CHAPTER III. MR. PRIOR'S DOOR Halfway across the east side was a golly where Leon and I found the underground station, and from any place along the north you looked, you saw the Little Creek and the March. At the same time the cowslips were most golden, the marsh was blue with flags, pink with smart weed, white in yellow with daughter, yellow with marsh butter-cups, having ragged frosty leaves, while the yellow and the red birds flashed above it, the red crying chip-chip and short sharp notes, the yellow spelling music all over the marsh while on wing. It would take a whole book to describe the butterflies. Once in a while you scared up a big wonderful moth, large as a sparrow, and the orchard was alive with doves, thrushes, catbirds, bluebirds, verios, and orioles. When you climbed the fence or a tree and kept quiet, and heard the music and studied the pictures, it made you feel as if you had to put it into words. I often had meeting all by myself, unless Bobby and Hezekiah were along, and I tried to tell God what I thought about things. Probably he was so busy making more birds and flowers for other worlds he never heard me, but I didn't say anything disrespectful at all, so it made no difference if he did listen. It just seemed as if I must tell what I thought, and I felt better, not so full and restless after I had finished. All of us were alike about that. At that minute I knew Mother was humming, as she did a dozen times a day. I think when I read that sweet story of old, when Jesus was here among men, how he called little children as lambs to his fold. I should like to have been with him then. Lucy would be rocking her baby, and singing, Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber. Candice's favorite she made up about her man, who had been killed in the war, when they had been married only six weeks, which hadn't given her time to grow tired of him, if he hadn't been all her fancy painted. She arranged the words, like Ben Battle was a soldier bold, and she sang them to suit herself, and cried every single minute. They wrapped him in his uniform, they laid him in the tomb, my aching heart I thought would break, but such was my sad doom. Candice just loved that song, she sang it all the time. Leon said our pie always tasted salty from her ears, and he'd take a bite, and smile at her sweetly, and say, How uniform you get your pie, Candice! May's favorite was Joy Bells. Peter would be whispering over to himself the speech he was preparing to make at the next prayer meeting. We never could learn his speeches, because he read and studied so much, it kept his head so full, he made a new one every time. You could hear Lattie's deep bass booming Bedouin love-song for a mile. This minute it came rolling across the corn. Open the door of thy heart, and open thy chamber door, and my kisses shall teach thy lips, the love that shall fade no more, till the sun grows cold and the stars are old, and the leaves of the judgment book unfold. I don't know how the Princess stood it. If he had been singing that song where I could hear it, and I had known it was about me, as she must have known he meant her, I couldn't have kept my arms from around his neck. Over in the barn Leon was singing. A life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep, where codfish waggle their tails, mid-tad falls two feet deep. The minute he finished, he would begin reciting Marko Bazzaris, and you could be sure that he would reach the last line, only to commence on the speech of Logan, chief of the mingos, or any one of the fifty others. He could make your hair stand a little straighter than anyone else. The best teachers we ever had, or even Lattie, couldn't make you shivery and creepy as he could. Because all of us kept going like that every day, people couldn't pass without hearing, so that was what Mr. Pryor meant. When I had a pulpit in the southeast corner of the orchard, I liked that place best of all, because from it you could see two sides at once. The very first little old log cabin that had been on our land, the one my father and mother moved into, had stood in that corner. It was all gone now, but a flower bed of tiny purple iris, not so tall as the grass, spread there, and some striped grass in the shadiest places, and among the flowers a lark brooded every spring. In the fence corner, mother's big white turkey hen always nested. To protect her from rain and too hot sun, father had slipped some boards between the rails about three feet from the ground. After the turkey left, that was my pulpit. I stood there and used the top of the fence for my railing. The little flags and all the orchard and birds were behind me. On one hand was the broad grassy meadow, with the creek running so swiftly I could hear it, and the breath of the cowslips came up the hill. The in-front was the lane running down from the barn, crossing the creek and spreading into the woods pasture, where the water ran wider and yet swifter. Big forest trees grew, and bushes of berries, pawpaws, willow, everything ever found in an Indiana thicket. Grass underfoot, and many wild flowers and ferns, wherever the cattle and horses didn't trample them. And bigger, wilder birds, many having names I didn't know. On the left across the lane was a large cornfield, with trees here and there, and down the valley I could see the big creek coming from the west, the big hill with the church on top, and always the white gravestones around it. Always too there was the sky overhead. Often with clouds banked, until you felt if you could only reach them you could climb straight to the gates that father was so fond of singing about sweeping through. Mostly there was a big hawk or a turkey buzzard hanging among them, just to show us that we were not so much, and that we couldn't shoot them, unless they chose to come down and give us a chance. I set Bobby and Hezekiah on the fence, and stood between them. We will open service this morning by singing the thirty-fifth hymn, I said. Sister Dover, will you pitch the tune? Then I made my voice high and squealy like hers, and sang, Come ye that love the Lord, and let your joys be known, join in a song of sweet accord, and thus surround the throne. I sang all of it, and then said, Brother Hastings, will you lead us in prayer? Then I knelt down, and prayed Brother Hastings' prayer. I could have repeated any one of a dozen of the prayers that men of our church prayed, but I liked Brother Hastings best, because I had the biggest words in it. I loved words that filled your mouth, and sounded as if you were used to books. It began sort of sing-songy, and measured in stops, like a poetry-piece. Our heavenly Father, we come before thee this morning, humble worms of the dust imploring thy blessing. We beseech thee to forgive our transgressions, heal our backsliding, and love us freely. Sometimes from thereon it changed a little, but it always began, and ended the same way. Father and Brother Hastings was powerful in prayer, but he did wish he'd leave out the worms of the dust. He said we were not worms of the dust, we were reasoning progressive, inventive men and women. He said a worm would never be anything except a worm, but we could study and improve ourselves, help others, make great machines, paint pictures, write books, and go to an extent that must almost amaze the Almighty Himself. He said that if Brother Hastings had done more plowing in his time, and had a little closer acquaintance with worms, he wouldn't be so ready to call himself and everyone else a worm. Now if you were talking about cutworms or fishworms, Father is right. But there is that place where Charles his heel had raised upon the humble worm to tread, and the worm lifted up its voice, and spake thus to Charles. I know I'm now among the things, uncomely to your sight. But by and by, on splendid wings, you'll see me high and bright. Now I'll bet a cent that is the kind of worm Brother Hastings said we were. I must speak to Father about it. I don't want him to be mistaken, and I really think he is about worms. Of course he knows the kind that have wings and fly. Brother Hastings mixed him up by saying worms of the dust, and he should have said worms of the leaves. Those that go into little round cases in earth, or spin cacoons on trees always live on leaves, and many of them rear the head, having large horns, and wave it in a manner far from humble. So Father and Brother Hastings were both partly right, and partly wrong. When the prayer came to a close, where everyone always said, Amen, I punched Bobby, and whispered, Crow, Bobby, Crow, and he stood up and brought it out strong, like he always did when I told him. I had to stop the service to feed him a little wheat, to pay him for crowing. But as no one was there except us, that didn't matter. Then Hezekiah crowded over for some, so I had to pretend I was Mrs. Daniels feeding her children caraway cake, like she always did in meeting. If I had been the mother of children who couldn't have gone without things to eat in church, I'd have kept them at home. Mrs. Daniels always had the carpet greasy with cake-crumbs, wherever she sat. And mother didn't think the Lord liked a dirty church, any more than we would have wanted a mussy house. When I had Bobby and Hezekiah settled, I took my text from my head, because I didn't know the meeting feeling was coming on me when I started, and I had brought no Bible along. Blessed are all men, but most blessed are they who hold their tempers. I had to stroke Bobby a little, and Pat Hezekiah once in a while, to keep them from flying down and fighting. But mostly I could give my attention to my sermon. We have only to look around us this morning to see that all men are blessed, I said. The sky is big enough to cover everyone. If the sun gets too hot, there are trees for shade, or the clouds come up for a while. If the earth becomes too dry, it always rains before it is everlastingly too late. There are birds enough to sing for everyone, butterflies enough to go around, and so many flowers we can't always keep the cattle and horses from tramping down and even devouring beautiful ones. Like Daniel thought the lions would devour him, but they didn't. Wouldn't it be a good idea, O Lord, for you to shut the cows' mouths and save the cowslips also? They may not be worth as much as a man, but they are lots better looking, and they make fine greens. It doesn't seem right for cows to eat flowers. But maybe it is as right for them as it is for us. The best way would be for our cattle to do like that piece about the cow in the meadow, exactly the same as ours. And through it ran a little brook, where oft the cows would drink, and then lie down among the flowers that grew among the brink. You notice, O Lord, the cows did not eat the flowers in this instance. They merely rested among them. And goodness knows that's enough for any cow. They had better done like the next verse, where it says, They like to lie beneath the trees, all shaded by the boughs. When air the noontide heat came on, sure, they were happy cows. Now, O Lord, this plainly teaches that if cows are happy, men should be much more so. For like the cows, they have all thou canst do for them, and all they can do for themselves besides. So every man is blessed, because thy bounty has provided all these things for him, without money and without price. If some men are not so blessed as others, it is their own fault and not yours. You made the earth, and all that is therein, and you made the men. Of course you had to make men different, so each woman can tell which one belongs to her. But I believe it would have been a good idea while you were at it, if you would have made all of them enough alike that they would all work. Perhaps it isn't polite of me to ask more of you than you saw fit to do. And then again, it may be that there are some things impossible, even to you. If there is anything at all, it seems as if making Isaac Thomas' work would be it. Father says that man would rather starve and see his wife and children hungry than to take off his coat, roll up his sleeves, and plow corn. So it was good enough for him, when Leon said, go to the aunt thou sluggard, right at him. So of course Isaac is not so blessed as some men, because he won't work, and thus he never knows whether he's going to have a big dinner on Sunday, until after someone asks him, because he looks so empty. Mother thinks it isn't fair to feed Isaac, and send him home with his stomach full, while Mandy and the babies are sick and hungry. But Isaac is some blessed, because he has religion, and gets real happy, and sings and shouts, and he's going to heaven when he dies. He must wish he'd go soon, especially in winter. There are men who do not have even this blessing, and to make things worse, O Lord, they get mad at his fire and hit their horses, and look like all possessed. The words of my text this morning apply especially to a man who has all the blessings thou hast showered and flowered upon men who work, or whose people worked, and left them so much money they don't need to, and yet a sadder face I never saw, or a crosser one. He looks like he was going to hit people, and he does hit his horse an awful crack. It's no way to hit a horse, not even if it box, because it can't hit back, and it's a cowardly thing to do. If you rub their ears and talk to them, they come quicker, O our heavenly Father, and if you hit them just because you are mad, it's a bigger sin yet. No man is nearly so blessed, as he who might be, who goes around looking killed with grief when he should cheer up, no matter what ails him, and who shuts up his door and says his wife is sick when she isn't, and who scowls at everyone when he can be real pleasant if he likes, as some in divine presence can testify. So we are going to beseech thee, O Lord, to lay thy mighty hand upon the man who got mad this beautiful morning, and make him feel thy might, until he will know for himself, and not another, that you are not a myth. Teach him to have a pleasant countenance, an open door, and to hold his temper. Help him to come over to our house, and be friendly with all his neighbors, and get all the blessings you have provided for everyone. But please don't make him have any more trouble than he has now. For if you do, you'll surely kill him. Have patience with him, and have mercy on him, O Lord. Let us pray. This time I prayed myself. I looked into the sky just as straight and as far as I could see, and if I had any influence at all, I used it then. It out loud, I just begged the Lord to get after Mr. Pryor, and make him behave like other people, and let the princess come to our house, and for him to come too, because I liked him heaps when he was lion-hunting, and I wanted to go with him again the worst way. I had seen him sail right over the fences on his big black horse, and when he did it in England, wearing a red coat, and the dogs flew over thick around him, it must have looked grand, but it was mighty hard on the fox, I do hope it got away. Anyway, I prayed as hard as I could, and every time I said the strongest thing I knew, I punched Bobby to crow, and he never came out stronger. Then I was sistered over, and started, O come, let us gather at the fountain, the fountain that never goes dry. Just as I was going to pronounce the benediction like father, I heard something, so I looked around, and there went he and Dr. Fenner. They were going toward the house, and yet they hadn't passed me. I was not scared, because I knew no one was sick. Dr. Fenner always stopped when he passed, if he had a minute, and if he hadn't, mother sent someone to the gate with buttermilk and slices of bread and butter, and jelly and inch thick. When a meal was almost cooked, she heaped some on a plate, and he ate as he drove, and left the plate next time he passed. Often he was so dead tired, he was asleep in his buggy, and his old gray horse always stopped at our gate. I ended with, amen, because I wanted to know if they had been listening. So I climbed the fence, ran down the lane behind the bushes, and hid a minute. Sure enough they had. I suppose I had been so in earnest I hadn't heard a sound. But it's a wonder Hazakaya hadn't told me. He was always seeing something to make danger signals about. He never let me run on a snake, or a hawk get one of the chickens, or Patty Ryan come too close. I only wanted to know if they had gone and listened, and then I intended to run straight back to Bobby and Hazakaya. But they stopped under the greening apple-tree. And what they said was so interesting, I waited longer than I should, because it's about the worst thing you can do to listen when older people don't know. They were talking about me. I can't account for her, said Father. I can, said Dr. Fenner. She is the only child I ever had in my practice who managed to reach earth as all children should. During the impressionable stage, no one expected her, so there was no time spent in worrying, fretting, and discontent. I don't mean that these things were customary with Ruth, no woman ever accepted motherhood and a more beautiful spirit. But if she would have protested at any time, it would have been then. Instead, she lived happily, naturally, and enjoyed herself as she never had before. She was in the fields, the woods, and the garden constantly, which accounts for this child's outdoor tendencies. Then you must remember that both of you were at top notch intellectually and physically fully matured. She had the benefit of ripened minds, and at a time when every faculty recently had been stirred by the excitement and suffering of the war. Oh, you can account for her easily enough, but I don't know what on earth you are going to do with her. You'll have to go careful, Paul. I warn you, she will not be like the others. We realize that mother says she doubts if she can ever teach her to sew and become a housewife. She isn't cut out for a seamstress or a housewife, Paul. Tell Ruth not to try to force those things on her. Turn her loose out of doors, give her good books, and leave her alone. You won't be disappointed in the woman who evolves. Right there I realized what I was doing, and I turned and ran for the pulpit with all my might. I could always repeat things, but I couldn't see much sense to the first part of that. The last was as plain as the nose on your face. Dr. Fenner said they mustn't force me to sew and do housework, and mother didn't mind the almighty any better than she did the doctor. There was nothing in this world I disliked so much as being kept indoors, and made to hem cap and apron strings so particularly that I had to count the number of threads between every stitch and in each stitch so that I got all of them just exactly even. I liked carpet rags a little better, because I didn't have to be so particular about stitches, and I always picked out all the bright, pretty colors. Fenner said she could follow my work all over the floor by the bright spots. Perhaps if I were not to be kept in the house I wouldn't have to sew any more. That made me so happy, I wondered if I couldn't stretch out my arms and wave them and fly. I sat on the pulpit, wishing I had feathers. It made me pretty blue to have to stay on the ground all the time, one I wanted to be sailing up among the clouds with the turkey-buzzards. It called to my mind that place in MacGuffey's Fifth, where it says, Sweet bird, thy bower is ever green, thy sky is ever clear, thou hast no sorrow in thy song, nor winter in thy year. Of course I never heard a turkey-buzzard sing. Ladi said they couldn't, but that didn't prove it. He said half of the members of our church couldn't sing, but they did, and when all of them were going at the top of their voices, it was just grand. So maybe the turkey-buzzard could sing if it wanted to, seemed as if it should, if Isaac Thomas could. And anyway, it was the next verse I was thinking most about. Oh, could I fly? I'd fly with thee. We'd make with joyful wing, our annual visit over the globe, companions of the spring. That was so exciting, I thought I'd just try it. So I stood on the top rail, spread my arms, waved them, and started. I was bumped in fifty places when I rolled into the cowslip bed at the foot of the steep hill, for stone stuck out all over the side of it, and I felt pretty mean as I climbed back to the pulpit. The only consolation I had was what Dr. Fenner had said. That would be the greatest possible help in managing father or mother. I was undecided about whether I would go to school or not, must be perfectly dreadful to dress like for church, and sit still in a stuffy little room, and do your abs and bez and biz and baz all day long. I could spell quite well without looking at a schoolhouse, and read, too. I was wondering if I ever would go at all, when I thought of something else. Dr. Fenner had said to give me plenty of good books. I was wild for some that were already promised me. Well, what would they amount to if I couldn't understand them when I got them? That seemed to make it sure I would be compelled to go to school until I learned enough to understand what the books contained about birds, flowers, and moths, anyway, and perhaps there would be some having fairies in them. Of course, those would be interesting. I never hated doing anything so badly in all my life, but I could see, with no one to tell me, that I had put it off long as I dared. I would just have to start school when Leon and May went in September. Tilly Barre, who lived across the swamp near Sarah Hood, had gone two winters already, and she was only a year older and not half my size. I stood on the pulpit and looked a long time in every direction, into the sky the longest of all. It was settled. I must go. I might as well start and have it over. I couldn't look anywhere right there at home and not see more things I didn't know about than I did. When Mother showed me in the city, I wouldn't be snapped up like hotcakes. I'd be a blockhead no one would have. It made me so vexed to think I had to go. I set Hezekiah on my shoulder, took Bobby under my arm, and went to the house. On the way, I made up my mind that I would ask again, very politely, to hold the little baby. And if the rest of them went and pigted up straight along, I'd pinch it if I got a chance. End of chapter three. Chapter four of Laddie. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Laddie by Jean Stratton Porter. Chapter four, The Last Day in Eden. Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore and coming events cast their shadows before. Of course, the baby was asleep and couldn't be touched, but there was some excitement anyway. Father had come from town with a letter from the new school teacher that said she would expect him to meet her at the station next Saturday. Mother thought she might as well get the room ready and let her stay at our house because we were most convenient and it would be the best place for her. She said that every time and the teacher always stayed with us. Really, it was because Father and Mother wanted the teacher where they could know as much as possible about what was going on. Sally didn't like having her at all. She said with the wedding coming, the teacher would be a nuisance. Shelly had finished our school and the Groveville High School. And instead of attending college, she was going to Chicago to study music. She was so anxious over her dresses and getting started, she didn't seem to think much about what was going to happen to us at home. So she didn't care if Miss Amelia stated our house. May said it would be best to have the teacher with us because she could help us with our lessons at home and we could get ahead of the others. May already had decided that she would be at the head of her class when she finished school. And every time you wanted her and couldn't find her, if you would look across the foot of Mother's bed, May would be there with a spelling book. Once she had spelled down our school when Lady was not there. Father had met Peter Dover in town and he said that he was coming to see Sally because he had something of a special importance to tell her. Did he say what it was? Asked Sally. Only what I have told you, replied Father. Sally wanted to take the broom and sweep the parlor. It's as clean as a ribbon, said Mother. If you go in there, you'll wake the baby, said Lucy. Will it kill it if I do? Asked Sally. No, but it will make it cross as fire so it will cry all the time Peter is here, said Lucy. I'll be surprised if it doesn't scream every minute anyway, said Sally. I hope it will, said Lucy. That will make Peter think a while before he comes so often. That made Sally so angry she couldn't speak. So she went out and began killing chickens. I helped her catch them. They were so used to me they would come right to my feet when I shelled corn. I'm going to kill three, said Sally. I'm going to be sure we have enough. But don't you tell until their heads are off. Well, she was working on them. Mother came out and asked how many she had. So Sally said three. Mother counted us and said that wasn't enough. There would have to be four at least. After she was gone, Sally looked at me and said, well, for land's sake. It was so funny she had to laugh and by the time I caught the fourth one and began helping pick them, she was over being provoked and we had lots of fun. The minute I saw Peter Dover, he made me think of something. I rode his horse to the barn with Leanne leading it. There we saw Lattie. Guess what, I cried. Never could, laughed Lattie, giving Peter Dover's horse a slap as it passed him on the way to a stall. For chickens, ham, biscuit and cake, I announced. Is it a barbecue, asked Lattie. No, the extra one is for the baby, said Leanne. Squally little runt, I call it. It's a nice baby, said Lattie. What do you know about it? Demanded Leanne. Well, considering that I started with you and have brought up two others since, I am schooled and all there is to know, said Lattie. Guess what else, I cried. More, said Lattie, out with it. Don't kill me with suspense. Father is going to town Saturday to meet the new teacher and she will stay at our house as usual. Leanne yelled and fell back in the manger while Lattie held the harness oil to his nose. More, cried Leanne, grabbing the bottle. Are you sure, asked Lattie of me earnestly. It's decided, mother said so, I told him. Name of a black cat, why? Demanded Lattie. Mother said we were most convenient for the teacher. Aren't there enough of us, asked Leanne, straightening up sniffing harness oil as if his life depended on it. Any unprejudiced person would probably say so to look in, said Lattie. I'll bet she'll be 60 and a cat, said Leanne. Won't I have fun with her? Maybe so, maybe not, said Lattie. You can't always tell for sure. Remember your Alamo. You were going to have fun with the teacher last year but she had it with you. Leanne threw the oil bottle at him. Lattie caught it and set it on the shelf. I don't understand, said Leanne. I do, said Lattie. This is one reason. He hit Peter Dover's horse another slap. Maybe yes, said Leanne. Shelly to music school too. Yes, said Leanne. Peter Dovers are the greatest expense and Peter won't happen but once. Shelly will have at least two years in school before it is her turn and you come next anyway. Shut up, cried Lattie. Thank you, your orders shall be obeyed gladly. He laid down the pitchfork, went outside, closed the door and latched it. Lattie called to him but he ran to the house. When Lattie and I finished our work and his and wanted to go, we had to climb the stairs and leave through the front door on the embankment. The monkey, said Lattie, but he didn't get mad. He just laughed. The minute I stepped into the house and saw the parlor door closed, I thought of that something again. I walked past it but couldn't hear anything. Of course mother wanted to know and she would be very thankful to me if I could tell her. I went out the front door and thought deeply on the situation. The windows were wide open but I was far below them and I could only hear a sort of a murmur. Why can't people speak up loud and plain anyway? Of course they would sit on the big hair cloth sofa. Didn't Leon call it the sparking bench? The hemlock tree would be best. I climbed quieter than a cat for they break bark and make an awful scratching with their claws sometimes. My bare feet were soundless. Up and up I went slowly for it was dreadfully rough. They were not on the sofa. I could see plainly through the needles. Then I saw the spruce would have been better for they were standing in front of the parlor door and Peter had one hand on the knob. His other arm was around my sister Sally. Breathlessly I leaned as far as I could and watched. Father said he'd give me the money to buy a half interest and furnish a house nicely. If you said yes, Sally, said Peter. Sally leaned back all pinksome and blushful and while she laughed at him she carelessly tossed off a curl that played on her delicate brow. Exactly like Mary Dow in McGuffey's third. Well, what did I say? She asked. Come to think of it, you didn't say anything. Sally's face was all afire with dancing lights and she laughed the gayest little laugh. Are you so very sure of that, Peter? She said. I'm not sure of anything, said Peter, except that I am so happy I could fly. Try it, fool, I said to myself deep in my throat. Sally laughed again and Peter took his other hand from the door and put that arm around Sally too and he drew her to him and kissed her, the longest hardest kiss I ever saw. I let go and rolled, tumbled, slid and scratched down the hemlock tree, dropped from the last branch to the ground and scampered around the house. I reached the dining-room door when everyone was gathering for supper. Mother, I cried. Mother, yes, they're engaged. He's kissing her mother. Yes, Lucy, they're engaged. I rushed in to tell all of them what they would be glad to know and if there didn't stand Peter and Sally, how they ever got through that door and across the sitting-room before me, I don't understand. Sally made a dive at me and I was so astonished I forgot to run, so she caught me. She started for the woodhouse with me and Mother followed. Sally turned at the door and she was the whitest of anything you ever saw. This is my affair, she said, all attend to this young lady. Very well, said Mother, and as I live, she turned and left me to my sad fate, as it says in a story-book we have. I wish when people are going to punish me, they'd take a switch and strike respectively, like Mother does. This thing of having someone get all over me and not having an idea where I'm going to be hit is the worst punishment that I ever had. I'd been down the hill and up the hemlock that day anyway. I'd always been told Sally didn't want me. She proved it right then. Finally she quit, because she was too tired to strike again, so I crept among the shavings on the workbench and went to sleep. I thought they would like to know and that I was going to please them. Anyway, they found out, for by the time Sally got back, Peter had told them about the store and the furnished house and asked Father for Sally right before all of them, which Father said was pretty brave, but Peter knew it was all right or he couldn't have come like he'd been doing. After that you couldn't hear anything at our house but wedding. Sally's share of linen and bedding was all finished long ago. Father took her to Fort Wayne on the cars to buy her wedding, traveling and working dresses and her hat, cloak and linen, like you have when you marry. It was strange that Sally didn't want Mother to go, but she said the trip would tire her too much. Mother said it was because Sally could coax more dresses from Father. Anyway, Mother told him to set a limit and stick to it. She said she knew he hadn't done it as she got the first glimpse of Sally's face when they came back, but the child looked so beautiful and happy she headed in the heart to spoil her pleasure. The next day a sewing woman came and all of them were shot up in the sitting room while the sewing machine just whizzed down the working dresses. Sally said the wedding dress had to be made by hand. She kept the room locked and every new thing that they made was laid away on the bed in the parlor bedroom and none of us had a peep until everything was finished. It was awfully exciting, but I wouldn't pretend I cared because I was huffy at her. I told her I wouldn't kiss her goodbye and I'd be glad when she was gone. Sally said the school, ma'am, simply had to go to winters or someplace else, but Mother said possibly a stranger would have some ideas and know some new styles. So Sally then thought maybe they had better try it a few days and she could have her place and be company when she and Shelly left. Shelly was rather silent and blue and before long I found her crying because Mother had told her she couldn't start for Chicago until after the wedding and that would make her miss six weeks at the start. Next day word was sent around that school was to begin the coming Monday. So Saturday afternoon, the people who had children large enough to go sent the biggest of them to clean the school house. Mae, Leon and I went to do our share. Just when there were about a bushel of nut shells and withered apple cores and inky paper on the floor and blackboard half cleaned and ashes trailed deep between the stove and the window Billy Wilson was throwing them from. Someone shouted, there comes Mr. Stanton with her. All of us dropped everything and ran to the south windows. I tell you I was proud of our big white team as it came prancing down the hill and the gleaming patent leather trimmings and the brass side lamps shining in the sun. Father sat very straight, driving rather fast as if he would as leaf get it over with and instead of riding on the back seat where Mother always sat the teacher was in front beside him and she seemed to be talking constantly. We looked at each other and groaned when Father stopped at the hitching post and got out. If we had tried to see what a dreadful must we could make things could have looked no worse. I think Father told her to wait in the carriage but we heard her cry. Oh, Mr. Stanton, let me see the dear children I'm to teach and where I'm to work. Hopped is the word. She hopped from the carriage and came hopping after Father. She was as tall as a clothes prop and scarcely as fat. There were gray hairs coming on her temples, her face was salo and wrinkled and she had faded pale blue eyes. Her dress was like my mother had worn several years before in style and of stiff gray stuff. She made me feel that no one wanted her at home and probably that was the reason she had come so far away. Everyone stood dumb. Mother always went to meet people and May was old enough to know it. She went but she looked exactly as she does when the wafer burst and the queenine gets in her mouth and she doesn't dare spit it out because it costs five dollars a bottle and it's going to do her good. Father introduced May in some of the older children and May helped him with the others and then he told us to dig in and work like troopers and he would take Miss Pallard on home. Oh, do let me remain and help the dear children, she cried. We can finish, we answered in full chorus. How lovely of you, she chirped. The chirp makes you think of a bird and in speech and manner Miss Amelia Pallard was the most birdlike of any human being I ever have seen. She hopped from the step to the walk, turned to us, her head on one side, playfulness in the air around her and shook her finger at us. Be extremely particular that you leave things immaculate at the consummation of your labor, she said. Remember that cleanliness is next to godliness. Two terms of that, gasped Leon, sinking on the stove-hearth. Behold, Job mourning as close the ashes as he can. Billy Wilson had the top lit off, so he reached down and got a big handful of ashes and sifted them over Leon. But it's no fun to do anything like that to him. He only sank in a more dejected heap and moaned. Send for Bill dead and so far to comfort me and more ashes, please. Why does the little feathered deer touch earth at all? Why doesn't she fly? demanded Silas Shaw. I'm going to get a hundred wads ready for Monday, said Jimmy Hood. We can shoot them when we please. Bet ten cents you can't hit her, said Billy Wilson. There ain't enough of her for a decent mark. Let's quit and go home, proposed Leon. This will look worse than it does now by Monday night. Then everyone began talking at once. Suddenly May seized the poker and began pounding on the top of the stove for order. We must clean this up, she said. We might as well finish. Maybe you'll shoot wads and do what you please and maybe you won't. Her eyes went around like a cat that smells mice. If she can spell the language she uses, she is the best we've ever had. That made us blink and I never forgot it. Many times afterward while listening to people talk, I wondered if they could spell the words they used. Well, come on then, said Leon. He seized the broom and handed it to Billy Wilson, quoting as he did so. Work, work, my boy, be not afraid. And he told Silas Shaw, as he gave him the mop, to look labor boldly in the face. But he never did a thing himself except to keep everyone laughing. So we cleaned up as well as we could and Leon strutted like Bobby because he locked the door and carried the key. When we reached home, I was sorry I hadn't gone with father, so I could have seen mother, Sally, Candace, and Lattie when they first met the new teacher. The shock showed yet. Miss Amelia had taken off her smothery woolen dress and put on a black calico, but it wasn't any more cheerful. She didn't know what to do and you could see plainly that no one knew what to do with her. So they united in sending me to show her the place. I asked her what she would most like to see and she said everything was so charming she couldn't decide. I thought if she had no more choice than that, one place would do as well as another. So I started for the orchard. Quick as we got there, I knew what to do. I led her straight to our best cling peach tree, told her to climb on the fence so she could reach easily and eat all she chose. We didn't dare shake the tree because the pigs ran on the other side of the fence and they chanked up every peach that fell there. Those peaches were too good to feed even father's finest Berkshires. By the time Miss Amelia hid in nine or 10, she was so happy to think she was there she quit tilting her head and using big words. Of course she couldn't know how I loved to hear them and maybe she thought I wouldn't know what they meant and that they would be wasted on me. If she had understood how much spelling and defining I'd heard in my life, I guess she might have talked up as big as she could and still I'd have got most of it. When she reached the place where she ate more slowly she began to talk. She must have asked me most a hundred questions. What all their names were, how old we were, if our girls had lots of bows and if there were many men in the neighborhood and dozens of things my mother never asked anyone. She always inquired if people were well, if their crops were growing, how much fruit they had and how near their quilts were finished. I told her all about Sally and the wedding because no one cared who knew it after I had been pounded to mincemeat for telling. She asked if Shelly had any bows and I said there wasn't anyone who came like Peter but every man in the neighborhood wanted to be her bow. Then she asked about Lanny and I was taking no risks so I said, I only see him at home. I don't know where he goes when he's away. You'll have to ask him. Oh, I never would dare, she said, but he must. He is so handsome. The girls would just compel him to go to see them. Not if he didn't want to go, I said. You must never, never tell him I said so but I do think he is the handsomest man I ever saw. So do I, I said and it wouldn't make any difference if I told him. Then you do mean you're going to tell him my foolish remark, she giggled. No use, I said. He knows it now. Every time he parts his hair he sees how good looking he is. He doesn't care. He says the only thing that counts with a man is to be big, strong, manly and well-educated. Is he well-educated? Yes, I think, as far as he's gone, I answered. Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all wrought about finishing your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day and by the time you are old enough to die you have almost enough sense to know how to live comfortably. Pity, isn't it? Yes, said Miss Amelia. It's an awful pity, but it's the truth. Is your mother being educated too? Whole family, I said. We learn all the time. Mother most of any, because father always looks out for her. You see, it takes so much of her time to manage the house and so and knit and darn that she can't study so much as the others. So father reads all the books to her and tells her about everything he finds out. And so do all of us. Just ask her if you think she doesn't know things. I wouldn't know what to ask, said Miss Amelia. Ask how long it took to make this world, who invented printing, where English was first spoken, why really changed his politics, how to make bluebell perfumery, cut out a dress, or cure a baby of worms. Just ask her. Miss Amelia threw a peach stone through a fence crack and hit a pig. It was a pretty neat shot. I don't need to ask any of that, she said scornfully. I know all of it now. All right, what is best for worms, I asked. Jane's Verma Fuge, said Miss Amelia. Wrong, I cried. That's a patent medicine. Teammate from male fern root is best, because there's no morphine in it. The supper bell rang and I was glad of it. Peaches are not very filling after all, for I couldn't see but that Miss Amelia ate as much as any of us. For a few minutes, everyone was slow in speaking. Then mother asked about cleaning the schoolhouse. Ladi had something to explain to father about corn mold. Sally and the dressmaker talked about pipings, not a bird, a new way to fold goods to make trimmings. And soon everything was going on the same as if the new teacher were not there. I noticed that she kept her head straight and was not nearly so glib-tongued and bird-like before mother and Sally as she had been at the schoolhouse. Maybe that was why father told mother that night that the new teacher would bear acquaintance. Sunday was like every other Sabbath, except that I felt so sad all day I could have cried, but I was not going to do it. Seemed as if I never could put on shoes and so many clothes Monday morning, quite like church, and be shut in a room for hours to try to learn what was in books. When the world was running over with things to find out where you could have your feet in water, leaves in your hair, and little living creatures in your hands. In the afternoon Miss Amelia asked Ladi to take her for a walk to see the creek and the barn, and he couldn't escape. I suppose our barn was exactly like hundreds of others. It was built against an embankment so that on one side you could drive right on the threshing floor with big loads of grain. On the sunny side in the lower part were the sheep, pens, cattle stalls, and horse-mangers. It was always half-bursting with overflowing grain bins and haylofts in the fall. The swallows tittered under the roof until time to go south for winter, as they sailed from the ventilators to their nests plastered against the rafters or eaves. The big swinging doors front and back could be opened to let the wind blow through in a strong draft. From the east doors you could see for miles across the country. I thought our barn was like others, but it was not. There was not another like it in the whole world. Father, the boys, and the hired men always kept it cleaned and in proper shape every day. The upper floor was as neat as some women's houses. It was swept, the sun shone in, the winds drifted through. The odors of drying hay and grain were heavy. And from the top of the natural little hill against which it stood you could see for miles in all directions. The barn was our great playhouse on Sundays. It was clean there. We were where we could be called when wanted and we liked to climb the ladders to the top of the haymows, walk the beams to the granaries, and jump to the hay. One day May came down on a snake that had been brought in with a load. I can hear her yell now and it made her so frantic she's been killing them ever since. It was only a harmless little garter snake but she was so surprised. Miss Amelia held her had very much on one side all the time she walked with Letty. And she was so bird-like, Leanne slipped him a brick and told him to have her hold it to keep her down. Seemed as if she might fly any minute. She thought her barn was the nicest she ever had seen and the cleanest. When Letty opened the doors on the east side and she could see the big red, yellow and green apples thick as leaves on the trees in the orchard the lane, the woods pasture and the meadow with scattering trees. Two running springs and the meeting of the creeks. She said it was the loveliest site she ever saw. I mean beheld. Letty liked that so he told her about the beautiful town and the lake and the Wabash River that our creek emptied into and how people came from other states and big cities and stayed all summer to fish, row, swim and have good times. She asked him to take her to the meadow but he excused himself because he had an engagement. So she stood in the door and watched him saddle floss and start to the house to dress in his riding clothes. After that she didn't care a thing about the meadow so we went back. Our house looked as if we had a party. We were all dressed in our best and everyone was out in the yard, garden or orchard. Peter and Sally were under the big, paramane apple tree at the foot of the orchard. Shelly and a half dozen bows were everywhere. May had her spelling book in one hand and was in my big kelpapa talking to Billy Stevens who was going to be her bow as soon as mother said she was old enough. Father was reading a wonderful new book to mother and some of the neighbors. Leon was perfectly happy because no one wanted him so he could tease all of them by saying things they didn't like to hear. When Lattie came out and mounted Leon asked him where he was going and Lattie said he hadn't fully decided. He might ride to Elizabeth's and not come back until Monday morning. You think you're pretty slick, said Leon but if we could see north to the crossroad we could watch you turn west and go past priors to show yourself off or try to find the princess on the road walking or riding. I know something I'm saving to tell you next time you get smart, Mr. Lattie. Lattie seemed annoyed and no one was quicker to see it than Leon. Instantly he jumped on the horse block, pulled down his face long as he could, stretched his hands toward Lattie and making his voice all wavery and tremulous. He began reciting from Lachille's warning in tones of agonizing pleading. Lattie, Lattie, beware of the day for dark and despairing, my sight I may seal but man cannot cover what God would reveal. It is the sunset of life gives me mystical lore and coming events cast their shadows before. That scared me, I begged Leon to tell but he wouldn't say a word more. He went and talked to Miss Amelia as friendly as you please and asked her to take a walk in the orchard and get some peaches and she went flying. He got her all she could carry and guided her to Peter and Sally, introduced her to Peter and then slipped away and left her. Then he and Sally couldn't talk about their wedding and Peter couldn't squeeze her hand and she couldn't fix his tie and it was awful. Shelly and her boys almost left themselves sick over it and then she cried to the rescue and started so they followed. They captured Miss Amelia and brought her back and left her with father and the wonderful book but I'm sure she liked the orchard better. I took gray screenwood under my arm, Hezekiah on my shoulder and with Bobby at my heels went away. I didn't want my hair pulled or to be teased that day. There was such a hardness around my heart and such a lump in my throat that I didn't care what happened to me one minute. In the next I knew I'd slap anyone who teased me if I were sent to bed for it. As I went down the lane Peter called to me to come and see him but I knew exactly how he looked and didn't propose to make up. There was not any sense in Sally clawing me all over when I only tried to help mother and Lucy find out what they wanted to know so badly. I went down the hill, crossed the creek on the stepping stones and followed the cow path into the woods pasture. It ran beside the creek bank through the spice thicket and black berry patches under paw paw groves and beneath giant oaks and elms. Just where the creek turned at the open pasture below the church and cemetery right at the deep bend stood the biggest white oak father owned. It was about a tree exactly like this that an Englishman wrote a beautiful poem in McGuffey's sixth that begins, a song to the oak, the brave old oak who hath ruled in the Greenwood Long. Here's health and renown to his broad green crown and his fifty arms so strong. I knew it was the same because I counted the arms time and again and there were exactly fifty. There was a paw paw and spice hedge around three sides of this one and water on the other. Wild grapes climbed from the bushes to the lower branches and trailed back to earth again. Here I had two secrets I didn't propose to tell. One was that in the crotch of some tip-top branches the biggest chicken hawks you ever saw had their nest and if they took too many chickens father said they'd have to be frightened a little with a gun. I can't begin to tell how I love those hawks. They did the one thing I wanted to most and never could. When I saw them serenely sore above the lowest of the soft fleecy September clouds I was wild with envy. I would have gone without chicken myself rather than have seen one of those splendid big brown birds dropped from the skies. I was so careful to shield them that I selected this for my special retreat when I wanted most to be alone and I carefully gathered up any awful from the nest that might point out their location and throw it into the water where it ran the swiftest. I parted the vines and crept where the roots of the big oak stretched like bony fingers over the water that was slowly eating under it and bearing its roots. I sat on them above the water and thought I had decided the day before about my going to school and the day before that and many, many times before that and here I was having to settle it all over again. Doubled on the oak roots, a troubled little soul I settled at once more. No books or teachers were needed to tell me about flowing water and fish how hawks raised their broods and kept house about the softly cooing doves of the spice thickets the cuckoos slipping snake like in and out of the wild crab apple bushes were the brown thrush's weird call from the thornbush. I knew what they said and did but their names where they came from where they went when the wind blew and the snow fell how was I going to find out that? Worse yet were the flowers, butterflies and moths they were mysteries past learning alone and while the names I made up for them were pretty and suitable I knew in all reason they wouldn't be the same in the books I had to go but no one will ever know what it cost when the supper bell rang I sat still I'd have to wait until at least two tables had been served anyway so I sat there and nursed my misery looked and listened and by and by I felt better I couldn't see or hear a thing that was standing still father said even the rocks grew larger year by year the trees were getting bigger the birds were busy and the creek was in a dreadful hurry to reach the river it was like that poetry piece that says when a playful brook you gambled mostly that gambled word is said about lambs and the sunshine over you smiled on your banks did children loiter looking for the spring flowers wild the creek was more in earnest and working harder pushing steadily ahead without ever stopping than anything else and like the poetry piece again it really did seem to smile upon us as it quickly passed us by I had to quit playing and go to work sometime it made me sorry to think how behind I was because I had not started two years before when I should but that couldn't be helped now all there was left was to go this time for sure I got up heavily and slowly as an old person and then slipped out and ran down the path to the meadow because I could hear Leon whistle as he came to bring the cows by fast running I could start them home for him Rose, Brindle, Bess and Pike, Suki and Muley they had eaten all day but they still snatched bites as they went toward the gate I wanted to surprise Leon and I did getting good ain't you? he asked what do you want? nothing I said I just heard you coming and I thought I'd help you where were you? playing you don't look as if you'd been having much fun I don't expect ever to have any after I begin school oh said Leon it is kind of tough the first day or two but you'll soon get over it you should have behaved yourself and gone when they started you two years ago think I don't know it Leon stopped and looked at me sharply I'll help you nights if you want me to he offered can I ever learn? I asked almost ready to cry of course you can said Leon you're smart as the others I suppose the sevens and nines of the multiplication table are the stickers but you ought to do them if other girls can you needn't feel bad because you were behind a little to start on you were just that much better prepared to work and you can soon overtake them you know a lot none of the rest of us do and someday it will come your turn to show off cheer up you'll be all right men are such a comfort I pressed closer for more do you suppose I will? I asked of course said Leon any minute the woods or birds or flowers are mentioned your time will come and all of us will hear you read and help nights I just as soon as not that was the most surprising thing he never offered to help me before he never acted as if he cared what became of me maybe it was because laddie always had taken such good care of me Leon had no chance he seemed willing enough now I looked at him closely you'll find out all learn things if I try I boasted and you will find out I don't tell secrets either I've been waiting for you to pipe up about well I haven't piped have I not yet I'm not going to either I almost believe you a girl you could trust would be a funny thing to see tell me what you know about laddie and see if I'm funny you'd tell tale sure as life well if you know it he knows it anyway he doesn't know what I know well be careful and don't worry mother you know how she is since the fever and father says all of us must think of her if it's anything that would bother her don't tell before her say looky here said Leon turning on me sharply is all this sudden consideration for mother or are you legging for laddie for both I answered stoutly mostly for laddie just the same you can't fool me missy I won't tell you one word you needn't I answered I don't care yes you do he said you'd give anything to find out what I know and then run to laddie with it but you can't fool me I'm too smart for you all right I said you go and tell anything on laddie and I'll watch you and first trick I catch you at I'll do some telling myself smarty that's a game more than one can play at said Leon go ahead and if chapter four chapter five of laddie this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Bridget Gage laddie by Jean Stratton Porter chapter five the first day of school birds in their little nests agree and why can't we b-i-r-d-s birds i-n in t-h-e-i-r there l-i-t-t-l-e little n-e-s-t-s nests a-g-r-e-e agree my feet burned in my new shoes but most of my body was chilling as I stood beside Miss Amelia on the platform before the whole school and followed to the point of her pencil while a letter at a time I spelled aloud my first sentence nothing ever had happened to me as bad as that I was not used to so much clothing it was like taking a colt from the woods pasture and putting it into harness for the first time that lovely September morning I followed Leanne and May down the dusty road my heart sick with dread May was so much smaller that I could have picked her up and carried her she was a gentle loving little thing until someone went too far and then they got what they deserved all at once and right away many of the pupils were waiting before the church Leanne climbed the steps made a deep bow waved toward the school building across the way and what he intended to say was still sits the schoolhouse by the road but he was a little excited and the S's doubled his tongue so that we heard she'll sits the schoolhouse by the road we just yelled and I forgot a little about myself when Miss Amelia came to the door and rang the bell May must have remembered something of how her first day felt for as we reached the steps she waited for me took me in with her and found me a seat if she had not I'm quite sure I'd have run away and fought until they left me in freedom as I had two years before all four noon I had shivered in my seat while classes were arranged and the elder pupils were started on their work then Miss Amelia called me to her on the platform and tried to find out how much schooling I had I was ashamed that I knew so little but there was no sense in her making me spell after a pencil like a baby I'd never seen the book she picked up I could read the line she pointed to and I told her so but she said to spell the words so I thought she had to be obeyed for one poetry piece I know says quickly speed your steps to school and their mind your teacher's rule I can see Miss Amelia today her pale face was lined deeper than ever her drab hair was dragged back tighter she wore a black calico dress with white huckleberries and a white calico apron figured in large black apples each having a stem and two leaves in dress she was a fruitful person she had been a surprise to all of us Chipper as a sparrow she had hopped and chattered and darted here and there until the hour of opening then in the stress of arranging classes and getting started all her bird-like ways slipped from her stern and bony she stood before us and with a cold light in her pale eyes she began business in a manner that made Johnny Hood forget all about his paper wads and Leanne commenced studying like a good boy and never even tried to have fun with her everyone was so surprised you could notice it except May and she looked I told you so even in the back she had a way of doing that very thing as I never saw anyone else from the set of her head how she carried her shoulders the stiffness of her spine and her manner of walking if you knew her well you could tell what she thought the same as if you saw her face I followed that pencil point and in a husky voice repeated the letters I could see Tillie Barr laughing at me from behind her geography and everyone else had stopped what they were doing to watch and listen so I forgot to be thankful that I even knew my ABCs I spelled through the sentence pronounced the words and repeated them without much thought as to the meaning at that moment it didn't occur to me that she had chosen a lesson because father had told her how I made friends with the birds the night before he had been putting me through memory tests and I had recited poem after poem even long ones in the sixth reader and never made one mistake when the piece was about birds at our house we heard next day's lessons for all ages gone over every night so often that we couldn't help knowing them by heart if we had any brains at all and I just loved to get the big folks readers and learn the bird pieces father had been telling her about it so for that reason she thought she would start me on the birds but I'm sure she made me spell after a pencil point like a baby on purpose to shame me because I was two years behind the others who were near my age as I repeated the line Miss Amelia thought she saw her chance she sprang to her feet tripped a few steps towards the center of the platform and cried classes attention our youngest pupil has just completed her first sentence this sentence contains a thought it is a wonderfully beautiful thought a thought that suggests a great moral lesson for each of us birds in their little nests agree never have I heard cooing sweetness to equal the melting tones in which Miss Amelia drawled those words then she continued after a good long pause in order to give us time to allow the thought to sink in there is a lesson in this for all of us we are here in our school room like little birds in their nest now how charming it would be if all of us would follow the example of the birds and at our work and in our play agree be kind loving and considerate of each other let us all remember always this wonderful truth birds in their little nests agree in three steps I laid hold of her apron only last night Leanne had said it would come yet whoever would have thought that I'd get a chance like this so soon oh but they don't I cried they fight like anything every day they make the feathers fly in a backward stroke Miss Amelia's fingers big and bony struck my cheek a blow that nearly upset me a red wave crossed her face and her eyes snapped I never had been so surprised in all my life I was only going to tell her the truth what she had said was altogether false ever since I could remember I had watched courting male birds fight all over the farm after a couple had paired and her nest building the father always drove every other bird from his location in building I had seen him pecked for trying to place a twig I had seen that happen again for merely offering food to the mother if she didn't happen to be hungry or for trying to make love to her when she was brooding if a young bird failed to get the bite it wanted it sometimes grabbed one of its nest mates by the bill or the eye even and tried to swallow it whole always the oldest and strongest climbed on top of the youngest and fooled his mammy into feeding him most by having his head highest his mouth widest and begging loudest there could be no mistake I was so amazed I forgot the blow as I stared at the fool woman I don't see why you slap me I cried it's the truth lots of times old birds pull up bunches of feathers fighting and young ones in the nest bite each other until they squeal Miss Amelia caught my shoulders and shook me as hard as she could and she proved to be stronger than you ever would have thought to look at her take your seat she cried you are a rude untrained child they do fight I insisted as I held my head high and walk to my desk Leon laughed out loud and that made everyone else Miss Amelia had so much to do for a few minutes that she forgot me and I know now why Leon started it at least partly he said afterward it was the funniest sight he ever saw my cheeks murdered and burned I could scarcely keep from feeling to learn whether it were swelling but I wouldn't have shed a tear or raised my hand for anything you could offer recess was coming and I didn't know what to do if I went to the playground all of them would tease me and if I sat at my desk Miss Amelia would have another chance at me that was too much to risk so I followed the others outdoors and oh joy there came laddie down the road he sent me on one of the posts of the hitching rack before the church and with my arms around his neck I sobbed out the whole story she didn't understand said laddie quietly you stay here until I come back I'll go explain to her about the birds perhaps she hasn't watched them as closely as you have recess was over before he returned he had wet his handkerchief at the water bucket and now he bathed my face and eyes straightened my hair with his pocket comb and began unlacing my shoes what are you going to do I asked I must wear them all the girls do only the boys are barefoot you were excused said laddie three-fourths of the days enough to begin on Miss Amelia says you may come with me where are you going laddie was stripping off my stockings as he looked into my eyes and smiled a peculiar little smile oh laddie I cried will you take me honest he laughed again and then he rubbed my feet poor abused feet he said sometimes I wish shoes had never been invented they feel pretty good when there's ice so they do said laddie he swung me to the ground and we crossed the road climbed the fence and in a minute our redbird swamp shut the schoolhouse and cross old Miss Amelia from sight then we turned and started straight towards our big woods I could scarcely keep on the ground how are the others getting along asked laddie she's cross is two sticks I told him Johnny Hood hasn't shot one paper wad and Leon hadn't done a thing until he laughed about the birds and I guess he did that to make her forget me good cried laddie I didn't suppose the boy thought that far oh you never can tell by looking at him how far Leon is thinking I said that's so too said laddie are your feet comfortable now yes but laddie isn't my face marked I'm afraid it is a little said laddie we'll bathe it again at the creek we must get it fixed so mother won't notice what will the princess think that you fell perhaps said laddie do the tears show not at all we washed them all away did I do wrong gladdie yes I think you did but it wasn't true what she said that's not the point we had reached the fence of the big woods he lifted me to the top rail and explain while I combed his waving hair with my fingers she didn't strike you because what you said was not so for it was she knew instantly you were right if she knows anything at all about outdoors this is what made her angry it is her first day she wanted to make a good impression on her pupils to arouse their interest and awaken their respect when you spoke all of them knew you were right and she was wrong that made her ridiculous can't you see how it made her look and feel I didn't notice how she looked but from the way she hit me you could tell she felt bad enough she surely did said laddie kissing my cheek softly poor little woman what a world of things you have to learn shouldn't I have told her how mistaken she was if you had gone to her alone at recess or noon or tonight probably she would have thanked you then she could have corrected herself at some convenient time and kept her dignity must I ask her pardon what you should do is put yourself in miss Amelia's place and try to understand how she felt then if you think you wouldn't have liked anyone to do to you what you did to her you'll know I hugged laddie tight and thought fast there was no need to think long to see how it was I got to tell her I was wrong I said now let's go to the enchanted wood and see if we can find the queen's daughter all right said laddie he leaped the fence swung me over and started toward the paw-paw-thicket he didn't do much going around he crashed through and over and soon he began whistling the loveliest little dancey tune it made your head whirl and your toes tingle and you knew it was singing that way in his heart and he was just letting out the music that was why it made you want to dance in whirl it was so alive but that wasn't the way in an enchanted wood I pulled his hand laddie, I cautioned keep in the path you'll step on the fairies and crush a whole band with one foot no wonder the queen makes her daughter grow big when she sends her to you if you make so much noise someone will hear you then this won't be a secret anymore laddie laughed but he stepped carefully in the path after that and he said there are times little sister when I don't care whether the secret is secret another minute or not secrets don't agree with me I'm too big and broad and too much of a man to go creeping through the woods with a secret I prefer to print it on a banner and ride up the road waving it like a youth who bore mid-snow and ice a banner with a strange device I said that would be a banner with a strange device left laddie but yes something like have you told the princess I have laddie fairly shouted it does she like secrets no more than I do then why there you go said laddie zeus but the woman is beginning to measle out all over you you know as well as anyone that there's something wrong at her house I don't know what it is I can't even make a sensible guess as yet but it's worse than the neighbors think it's a thing that has driven a family from their home country under a name that I have doubts about being theirs and sent them across an ocean strangers in a strange land as it says in the bible it's something that keeps a cultured gentleman and scholar raging up and on the roads and over the country like a madman it shuts a white-faced lovely little woman from her neighbors but I have passed her walking the road at night with both hands pressed against her heart sometimes it tries the princess past endurance and control and it has her so worn and tired struggling with it that she is willing to carry another secret rather than try to find strength to do anything that would make more trouble for her father and mother would it trouble them for her to know you laddie so long as they don't and won't become acquainted with me or anyone of course it would can't you force them to know you that I can said laddie but you see I only met the princess a short time ago and there would be no use in raising trouble unless she will make me her night but hasn't she laddie not in the very littlest lease said laddie for all I know she is merely using me to help pass a lonely hour you see people reared in England have ideas of class that two or three generations spent here wash out the princess and her family are of the unwashed British father's people have been here long enough to judge a man on his own merits you mean the princess's family would think you're not good enough to be her night exactly and we know that our family thinks they're infidels and wicked people and that if she would have you mother would be sick in bed over it oh laddie precisely what are you going to do that I must find out when it will make so much trouble why not forget her and go on like you did before she came then all of us were happy now what makes me shiver to think what will happen me too said laddie but look here little sister right in my face will you ever forget the princess never then how can you ask me to I don't mean forget her exactly I mean not come here and do things that will make everyone unhappy one minute chickabitty said laddie sometimes he called me that when he loved me the very most of all I don't believe anyone except me ever heard him do it let me ask you this does our father love our mother love her I cried while he just loves her to death he turns so white and he suffers so when her pain is the worst love her and she him why don't you remember the other day when he tipped her head against him and kissed her throat as he left the table that he asked her if she loved him yet and she said right before all of us why paul I love you until I scarcely can keep my fingers off you laddie is it like that with you and the princess it is with me said laddie not with the princess now can I forget her can I keep away from even the chance to pass her on the road no I said no you can't laddie but can you ever make her love you it takes time to find that out said laddie I have got to try so you be a woman and keep my secret a little while longer until I find a way out but don't bother your head about it I can't help bothering my head laddie can't you make her understand that God is not a myth I'm not too sure what I believe myself said laddie not that there is no God I don't mean that but I surely don't believe all father's teachings if you believe God do other little things matter laddie I think not said laddie else heaven would be all methodists as for the princess all she has heard in her life has been against their being a God now she's learning something on the other side after a while she can judge for herself it is for us who profess to be a Christian family to prove to her why we believe in God and what he does for us well she would think he could do a good deal if she knew how mother hated asking her to come to our house and yet she did it beautifully too just to give her a chance to see that very thing but I almost made her do it I don't believe she ever would alone laddie or at least not for a long time yet I saw that and understood it perfectly said laddie thank you little sister he picked me up and hugged me tight if I could only make you see but laddie I do I'm not a baby I know how people love and make homes for themselves like Sally and Peter are going to if it is with you about the princess as it is with father and mother why I do know all right here we are said laddie he parted the willows and we stepped on the magic carpet and that minute the magic worked I forgot every awful solemn troubulous thing we had been talking about and looked around while laddie knelt and hunted for a letter and there was none that meant the princess was coming so we sat on the throne to wait we hadn't remembered to bathe my cheek we had been so busy when we passed the water and I doubt if we were thinking much then we just waited the willow walls waved gently the moss carpet was spotted with little gold patches of sunlight and the shade a few of the red flowers still bloomed and big lazy bumblebees hummed around them or hummingbirds stood on air before them a sort of golden throbbing filled the woods and my heart began to leap why I don't know but I'm sure laddies did too for I looked at him and his eyes were shining as I never had seen them before while his cheeks were a little red and he was breathing like when you've been running then suddenly his body grew tense against mine and that meant she was coming like that first day she came slowly through the woods stopping here and there to touch the trunk of a tree put back a branch or bend over a flower face brown as the wood floor was her dress and cardinal flowers blazed on her breast and the same color showed on her cheeks and lips her eyes were like laddies for brightness and she was breathing the same way I thought sure there was going to be something to remember a lifetime I was so excited I couldn't stand still before it could happen laddie went and said it was a beautiful day and she said it didn't show in the woods but the pastures needed rain then she kissed me well if I ever I sank on the throne and sat there they went on talking like that until it was too dull to bear so I slipped out and wandered away to see what I could find when I grew tired and went back laddie was sitting on the magic carpet with his back against the beach and the princess was on the throne reading from a little book reading such interesting things that I decided to listen after a while she came to this thou art mated with a clown and the grossness of his nature will have weight to bear thee down laddie threw back his head and how he laughed the princess put down the book and looked at him so surprised are you reading that to me because you think it appropriate? asked laddie I am reading it because it is conceited to be one of the most beautiful poems ever written said the princess you knew when you began that you would come to those lines I never even thought of such a thing but you knew that is how your father would regard any relationship friendly or deeper with me I cannot possibly be held responsible for what my father thinks it is natural that you should think alike not necessarily you told me recently that you didn't agree with your father on many subjects kindly answer me this said laddie do you feel that I'm a clown because I'm not schooled to the point on all questions of good manners do you find me gross because I plow and sow? you surprise me said the princess my consenting to know and to spend a friendly hour with you here is sufficient answer I have not found the slightest fault with your manners I have seen no suspicion of grossness about you will you tell me frankly exactly what you do think of me? surely I think you are a clean decent man who occasionally kindly consents to put a touch of human interest into an hour for a very lonely girl what has happened laddie this is not like you laddie sat straight and studied the beach branches father said beach trees didn't amount to much but I first learned all about them from that one and what it taught me made me almost worship them always there were in the big trunk with great rough spreading roots the bark and little ridges in places smooth purple gray between big leakens for ornament the low flat branches the waxy wavy edged leaves with clear veins and the delicious nuts in their little brown burrs the princess and I both stared at the branches and waited while a little breath of air stirred the leaves the sunshine flickered and a cricket sang a sort of lonesome song laddie leaned against the tree again and he was thinking so hard to look at him made me begin to repeat to myself the beach part of that beautiful churchyard poem our big folks recite there at the foot of yonder nodding beach that reads its old fantastic roots so high his listless length that noontide he would stretch and pour upon the brook that babbles by only he was studying so deeply you could almost feel what was in his mind and it was not about the brook at all even if one ran close soon he began talking not so bad he said you might think worse I admit the cleanliness I strive for decency I delay in being humanely interesting even for an hour you might think worse much worse you might consider me a clown a country clad rather a lowdown common thing a clad don't you think and a clown and gross on top of that what can you mean asked the princess since you don't seem to share the estimate of me I believe I'll tell you said laddie the other day I was driving from the gravel pit with a very heavy load the road was wide and level on either side a man came toward man horseback now the law of the road is to give half to a vehicle similar to the one you were driving but to keep all of it when you were heavily loaded if you are passing people a foot or horseback the man took half the road and kept it until the nose of his horse touched one of the team I was driving I stopped and said good morning sir do you wish to speak with me he called angrily get out of my way you clad sorry sir but I can't I said the law gives me this road when I am heavily loaded and you are on foot or horseback what did he do asked the princess and from the way she looked I just knew she guessed the man was the same one I thought of he raised his whip to strike my horse said laddie ah surely said the princess always an arm raised to strike and you man what did you do she cried eagerly I stood on my load suddenly said laddie and I called hold one minute and he breathed the princess something made him pause with his arms still raised I said to him you must not strike my horse it never has been struck and it can't defend itself if you want to come a few steps farther and tackle me come ahead I can take it or return it as I choose go on said the princess that's all said lady or at least almost all did he strike he did not he stared at me a second and then he wrote around me but he was making forceful remarks as he passed about country clods and there was an interesting one about a gross clown what you read made me think of it that is all the princess stared into the beach branches for a time and then she said I will ask your pardon for him he always had a domineering temper and trouble he had lately has almost driven him mad he is scarcely responsible at times I hesitate about making him angry I think perhaps said lady I would have done myself credit if I had recognized that and given him the road when he made a point of claiming it indeed no cried the princess to be beaten at the game he started was exactly what he needed if you had turned from his way he would have considered you a cloud all his life since you made him go around it may possibly done on him that you are a man you did the very best thing then she began to laugh and how she did that I would give my allowance for a quarter to have seen it she cried I must hurry home and tell mother does your mother know about me he demanded does she know that you come here the princess arose and stood very tall and straight you may beg my pardon or cease to know me she said whatever led you to suppose that I would know or meet you without my mother's knowledge then she started toward the entrance one minute cried lady a leap carried him to her side he caught her hands and held them tight and look straight into her eyes then he kissed her hands over and over I thought from the look on her face he might have kissed her cheek if he had dared risk it but he didn't seem to notice then she stooped and kissed me and turned toward home while laddie and I crossed the woods to the west end and went back past the schoolhouse I was so tired laddie tied the strings together and hung my shoes across his shoulders and took me by the arm the last mile all of them were at home when we got there and miss Amelia came to the gate to meet us she was mealy-mouthed and good as pie not at all as I had supposed she would be I wonder what laddie said to her but then he always could manage things for everyone that sent me to wondering if by any possible means he could fix them for himself I climbed to the katlapa to think and the more I thought the more I feared he couldn't but still mother always says one never can tell until they try and I knew he would try with every ounce of brain and muscle in him I sat there until the supper bell rang and then I washed and reached the table last the very first thing mother asked how I bruised my face and before I could think what to tell her Leigh Ann said just as carouselike oh she must have run against something hard playing tag at recess laddie began talking about Peter coming that night and everyone forgot me but pretty soon I slipped a glance at miss Amelia and saw that her face was redder than mine end of chapter five chapter six of laddie this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Bridget Gage laddie by Jean Stratton Porter chapter six the wedding gown the gay bells of fashion may boast of excelling and waltz or coutillion at whisked or quadrille and seek admiration by vauntingly telling of drawing and painting and musical skill but give me the fair one in country or city whose home and its duties are dear to her heart who cheerfully warbles some rustical diddy while plying the needle with exquisite art the bright little needle the swift flying needle the needle directed by beauty and art the next morning miss Amelia finished the chapter that made two for our family father always read one before breakfast no wonder I knew the bible quite well then we sang a song and she made a stiff little prayer I had my doubts about her prayers she was on no such terms with the lord as my father he got right at him and talked like a doctor and you felt he had some influence and there was at least a possibility that he might get what he asked for but miss Amelia prayed as if the lord were ten million miles away and she would be surprised to pieces if she got anything she wanted when she asked the almighty to make us good obedient children there was not a word she said that showed she trusted either the lord or us or thought there was anything between us and heaven that might make us good because we wanted to be you couldn't keep your eyes from the big gad and ruler on her desk she often fingered them as she prayed and you knew from her stiff little sought out petition that her faith was in implements and she'd hit you a crack the minute she was the least angry same as she had me the day before I didn't feel any too good toward her but when the blood of the crusaders was in the veins right must be done even if it took a struggle I had to live up to those little gold shells on the trinket father said they knew I was coming down the line so they put on a bird for me but I told him I would be worthy of the shells too this took about as hard a fight for me as any crusade would for a big train soldier I had been wrong laddie had made me see that so I held up my hand and miss Amelia saw me as she picked up raise arithmetic what is it I held to the desk to brace myself and tried twice before I could raise my voice so that she heard please miss Amelia I said I was wrong about the birds yesterday not that they don't fight they do but I was wrong to contradict you before everyone and on your first day and if you only excuse me the next time you make a mistake I'll tell you after school or at recess the room was so still you could hear the others breathing miss Amelia picked up the ruler and started toward me possibly I raised my hands that would be no crusader way but you might do it before you had time to think when the ruler was big and your head was the only place that would be hit the last glimpse I had of her in the midst of all my trouble made me think of so Bethany Perkins so Bethany died and they buried her at the foot of the hill in our graveyard before I could remember but her people thought heaps of her and spent much money on the biggest tombstone in the cemetery and planted piney's and purple flocks on her and went every Sunday to visit her when they moved away they missed her so they decided to come back and take her along the men were at work and Leanne and I went to see what was going on they told us and said we had better go away because possibly things might happen that children would sleep better not to see strange how a thing like that makes you bound you will see we went and sat on the fence and waited soon they reached so Bethany but they cannot seem to get her out they tried and tried and at last they sent for more men it took nine of them to bring her to the surface what little wood was left they laid back to see what made her so fearfully heavy and there she was turned to solid stone they couldn't ship a piece off her with the shovel mother always said for goodness sake don't let your mouth hang open and as a rule we kept our shut but you should have seen Leanne's when he saw so Bethany wouldn't ship off and no doubt mine was as bad when Gabriel blows his trumpet and the dead arise and come forth what on earth will they do with so Bethany I gasped why she couldn't fly to heaven with wings a mile wide and what use could they make of her if she got there I can't see a thing she'd be good for except a hitching post said Leanne and I guess they don't let horses in let's go home he acted sick and I felt that way so we went but the last glimpse of so Bethany remained with me as my head went down that day I saw that Miss Amelia looked exactly like her you would have needed a pickaxe or a crowbar to flake off even a tiny speck of her when I had waited for my head to be cracked until I had time to remember that a crusader didn't dodge and hide I looked up and there she stood with the ruler lifted but now she had turned just the shade of the waddles on her fightingest turkey gobbler won't you please forgive me I never knew I had said it until I heard it and then the only way to be sure was because no one else would have been likely to speak at that time Miss Amelia's arm dropped and she glared at me I wondered whether I ever would understand grown people I doubted if they understood themselves for after turning to stone in a second father said it had taken so Bethany seven years and changing to gobbler red Miss Amelia suddenly began to laugh to laugh of all things and then of course everyone else just yelled I was so mortified I dropped my head again and began to cry as I never would if she'd hit me don't feel badly said Miss Amelia certainly I'll forgive you I see you had no intention of giving offense so none is taken get out your book and study hard on another lesson that was surprising I suppose I'd have to do the same one over but I might take a new one I was either getting along fast or Miss Amelia had her fill of birds I wiped my eyes as straight in front of me as I could slip up a handkerchief and began studying the first lesson in my reader pretty bee pray tell me why thus from flower to flower you fly calling sweets the live long day never leaving off to play that was a poetry piece and it was quite cheery although it was all strung together like prose but you couldn't fool me on poetry I knew it every time as I studied I felt better and when Miss Amelia came to hear me she was good as gold she asked if I liked honey and I started to tell her about the queen bee but she had no time to listen so she said I should wait until after school then we both forgot it for when we reached home the princess's horse was hitched to our rack and I fairly ran in I was so anxious to know what was happening I was just perfectly amazed at grown people after all the things our folks had said you'd have supposed that laddie would have been locked in the barn father reading the thirty-second psalm to the princess and mother on her knees asking God to open her eyes like souls when he tried to kick against the pricks and make her see as he did that God was not a myth well there was no one in the sitting-room or the parlor but there were voices further on so I slipped in I really had to slip for there was no other place they could be except the parlor bedroom in Sally's wedding things were locked up there and we were not to see until everything was finished like I told you well this was what I saw our bedroom had been a porch once and when we had been crowded on account of all of us coming father enclosed and made a room but he never had taken out the window in the wall so all I had to do when I wanted to know how fast the dresses were being made was to shove up the window above my bed push back the blind and look in I didn't care what she had I just wanted to get ahead of her and see before she was ready to pay her for beating me I knew what she had and I meant to tell her and walk away with my nose in the air when she offered to show me but this was different I was wild to see what was going on because the princess was there the room was small and the big cherry fore-poster was very large and all of them were talking so no one paid the slightest attention to me mother sat in the big rocking chair with Sally on one of its arms leaning against her shoulder Shelly and May and the sewing woman were crowded between the wall and the footboard and the others lined against the wall the bed was heaped in a tumble of everything a woman ever wore seemed to me there was more stuff there than all the rest of us had put together the working dresses and aprons had been made on the machine but there were heaps and stacks of handmade underclothes I could see the lovely chemise, mother embroidered lying on top of a pile of bedding and over and over Sally had said that every stitch in the wedding gown must be taken by hand the princess stood beside the chair a funny little tight hat like a man's and a riding whip lay on a chair close by I couldn't see what she wore her usual riding clothes probably for she had a nick in each shoulder of a dress she was holding to her chin and looking down at after all I hadn't seen everything never before or since have I seen a lovelier dress than that it was what always had been wrapped in the sheet on the foot of the bed and I hadn't got a peep at it the pale green silk with tiny pink moss roses in it that I had been thinking was the wedding dress looked about right to wash the dishes in compared with this this was a wedding dress you didn't need anyone to tell you the princess had as much red as I ever had seen in her cheeks her eyes were bright and she was half laughing and half crying oh you lucky lucky girl she was saying what a perfectly beautiful bride you will be never have I seen a more wonderful dress where did you get the material now we had been trained always to wait for mother to answer a visitor as she thought suitable or at least to speak one at a time and not interrupt but about six of those grown-up people told the princess all at the same time how our oldest sister Elizabeth was married to a merchant who had a store at Westchester and how he got the dress in New York and give it to Sally for her wedding present or she never could have had it the princess lifted it and set it down softly oh look she cried look it will stand alone there it stood silk stiff enough to stand by itself made into a little round waist cut with a round neck and sleeves elbow length and flowing almost to where Sally's knees would come it was a pale pearl gray silk crossed in bars four inches square made up of a dim yellow line almost as wide as a wheat straw with a thread of black on each side of it and all over very wide apart were little faint splashes of black as if they had been lightly painted on the skirt was so wide it almost filled the room every inch of that dress was lined with soft white silk there was exquisite lace made into a flat collar around the neck and ruffled from sight up the inside of the wide sleeves that was the beginning the finish was something you never saw anything like before it was a trimming made of white and yellow beads there was a little heading of white beads sewn into a pattern then a lacy fringe that was pale yellow beads white inside each an inch long that dangled and every bead ended with three tiny white ones that went around the neck the outside of the sleeves and in a pattern like a big letter V all the way around the skirt and there it stood alone the princess graceful as a bird and glowing like fire danced around it and touched it and lifted the sleeves and made the bead fringe swing and laughed and talked every second Sally and mother and all of them had smiled such wide smiles for so long their faces looked almost as set as sebethanese but of course far different being dead was one thing getting ready for a wedding another and it looked too as if God might be a myth for all they cared so long as the princess could make the wedding dress stand alone and talk a blue streak of things that pleased them it was not put on either for there stood the dress shimmering like the inside of a pearl lined shell white as a lily and the tinkly gold fringe no one could have said enough about it so no matter what the princess said it had to be all right she kept straight on showing all of them how lovely it was exactly as if they hadn't seen it before and she had to make them understand about it as if she felt afraid they might have missed some elegant touch she had seen do look how the lace falls when I raised the sleeve oh how will you wear this and think of a man enough to say the right words in the right place mother laughed and so did all of them do please show me the rest beg the princess I know there are slippers and a bonnet Sally just oozed pride she untied the strings and push the prettiest stripe bag from a lovely pink bandbox and took out a dear little gray bonnet with white ribbons and the yellow bead fringe and a bunch of white roses with a few green leaves these she touched softly I'm not quite sure about the leaves she said the princess had the bonnet turning and tilting it perfect she cried quite perfect you need that touch of color and it blends with everything how I envy you oh why doesn't someone ask me so I can have things like these I think your brother is a genius I'm going to ride to Westchester tomorrow and give him an order to fill for me the next time he goes to the city no one shows me such fabrics when I go and Aunt Beatrice sends nothing from London I like nearly so well oh oh she was on her knees now lifting the skirt to set under little white satin slippers with gold buckles and white bead buttons when she had them arranged to suit her she sat on the floor and kept straight on saying the things my mother and sisters seemed crazy to hear when Sally showed her the long white silk mitts that went with the bonnet the princess cried oh do ride home with me and let me give you a handkerchief Aunt Beatrice sent me to carry in your hand then her face flushed and she added without giving Sally time to say what she would do or I can bring it the next time I come past it belongs with these things and I have no use for it may I please do I'll use it for the thing I borrow but I mean it to be a gift said the princess it was made to go with these lace mitts and satin slippers you must take it thank you very much said Sally if you really want me to have it of course I'd love to I'll bring it tomorrow promise the princess and I wish you'd let me try away I know to dress hair for a wedding yours is so beautiful you're kind I'm sure said Sally I had intended to wear it as I always do so I would appear perfectly natural to the folks but if you know a more becoming way I could begin it now and they would be familiar with it by that time I shan't touch it said the princess studying Sally's face your idea is right you don't want to commence any new unfamiliar style that would make you seem different just at a time when everyone should see how lovely you are as you always have been but don't forget to wear something blue and something borrowed for luck and oh do please put on one of my garters well for mercy's sake cried my mother why so someone will propose to me before the year is out left the princess I think it must be the most fun of all to make beautiful things for your very own home and lovely dresses and be surrounded by friends all eager to help you and to arrange a house and live with a man you love well enough to marry and fix for little people who might come you know perfectly well there isn't a single man in the county who wouldn't propose to you if you'd let him come within a mile of you said shelly when the right men comes I'll go half the mile to meet him you may be sure of that won't I miss a stanton the princess turned to mother I have known girls who went even farther said my mother rather dryly I draw the line at half left the princess now I must go I have been so long my people will be wondering what I'm doing standing in the middle of the room she put on her hat picked up her whip and gloves and led the way to the hitching rack while all of us followed at the gate stood laddie as he had come from the field his old hat was on the back of his head his face flushed his collar loosened so that his strong white neck showed and his sleeves were rolled to the elbow as they had been all summer and his arms were burned almost to blisters when he heard us coming he opened the gate went to the rack untied the princess's horse and let it be side the mounting block as she came toward him he took off his hat and pitched it over the fence on the grass miss prior allow me to make you acquainted with my son said mother I felt as if I would blow up I couldn't keep my eyes from turning toward the princess gee I could have saved my feelings she made mother the prettiest little curtsy I ever set eyes on and then turned and made a deeper one to laddie I met your son in one of the village stores some time ago she said back her one step farther please laddie back to the horse and quicker than you could see how it was done she flashed up the steps and sat on the saddle but as she leaned over the horse's neck to take the rain from laddie he got one level look straight in the eyes that I was sure none of the others saw because they were not watching for it and I was laddie bowed from the waist and put the reins in her fingers all in one movement he caught the glance she gave him to I could almost feel it like a band passing between them then she called a laughing goodbye to all of us at once and showed us how to ride right as she flashed toward the little hill that was riding you may believe and mother sighed as she watched her if I were a girl again she said I would ride as well as that or I'd never mount a horse she's been trained from her cradle and her father deals in horses half the battle in riding is a thoroughbred said laddie no such horses that ever stepped these roads before and no such girl ever traveled them said my mother folding her hands one over the other on top of a post of the hitching rack I must say I don't know how this is coming out and it troubles me why what's up asked laddie covering her hands with his and looking her in the eyes just this said my mother she's more beautiful of face and form than God ought to allow any woman to be and mercy to the men who will be forced to meet her her speech is highly cultured her manners are perfect and that is a big and unusual thing and a girl of her age every word she said every move she made today was exactly as I would have been proud to hear and to see a daughter of mine speak and move if I had only myself to consider I would make her my friend because I'm seasoned in the ways of the world and she could influence me only as I chose to allow her with you youngsters it is different you'll find her captivating and you may let her waste sway you without even knowing it all these outward things are not essential they are pleasing I grant but they have nothing to do with the one big elemental fact that a godless life is not even half a life I never yet have known any man or woman who attempted it who did not waste the life's grandest opportunities and then come crawling and defeated to the foot of the cross in the end asking God's mercy where none was deserved or earned it seems to me a craven way I know all about the forgiveness on the cross I know God is big enough and merciful enough to accept even deathbed repentance but what is that to compare with laying out your course and running it a lifetime without swerving I detest and distrust this infidel business I want no child of mine under its influence or in contact with it but when your time comes if you said just those things to hers and won her what a triumph little mother if answered mother that's always the trouble one can't be sure if I knew I could accomplish that I would get on my knees and wrestle with the Lord for the salvation of the soul of a girl like that not to mention her poor housebound mother and that man with the unhappiest face I ever have seen her father it's worth trying but suppose I try and fail and at the same time find that in bringing her among us she has influenced some of mine to the loss of their immortal souls then what will I have done mother said lady mother have you such a poor opinion of the things you and father have taught us and the lives you've lived before us that you're really afraid of a slip of a girl almost a stranger the most attractive girl I ever have seen and mighty willing to be no longer a stranger lad well I can't promise for the others said lady but for myself I will give you my word of honor that I won't be influenced to the breath of one hair by her in a doctrinal way hump said my mother and it is for you I fear if a young man is given the slightest encouragement by a girl like that even his god can't always hold him and you never have made a confession of faith lady it is you she will be most likely to captivate if you think I have any chance I'll go straight over and ask her father for her this very evening said lady and even mother laughed then all of us started to the house for it was almost supper time I get ready and thought I'd take one more peep at the dress before Sally pinned it in the sheet again and when I went back there all huddled in a bunch before it stood Miss Amelia the tears running down her cheeks did Sally say you might come here I asked no said Miss Amelia but I've been so crazy to see I just slipped in to take a peep when I noticed the open door I'll go this minute please don't tell her I didn't say what I would do but I didn't intend to what are you crying about I inquired ah I too have known love sobbed Miss Amelia once I made a wedding dress and expected to be a happy bride well wasn't you I asked and knew it once it was a silly question for of course she would not be a miss if she had not missed marrying he died sobbed Miss Amelia if he could have seen her then I believe he'd have been glad of it but maybe he looked as bony and dejected as she did before he went and he may have turned to stone afterward as sometimes happens right then I heard Sally coming so I grabbed Miss Amelia and dragged her under the fore-poster where I always hid when caught doing something I shouldn't but Sally had so much stuff she couldn't keep all of it on the bed and when she stooped and lifted the ruffle to shove a box underneath she pushed it right against us and knelt to look and there we were well upon my soul she cried and sat flat on the floor holding the ruffle peering Miss Amelia and in tears whatever is the trouble Miss Amelia's face was redder than any crying ever made it and I saw she wanted to kill me for getting her into such a fix and if she became too angry probably she'd take it out on me and squill the next day so I thought I'd better keep her at work shutting tears he died I told Sally as pathetically as ever I could Sally dropped the ruffle instantly but I saw her knees shake against the floor after a while she lifted the curtain and offered Miss Amelia her hand I was leaving my dress to show you before putting it away she said I didn't believe it but that was what she said maybe it wasn't impulse mother always said Sally was a creature of impulse when she took off her flannel petticoat and gave it to poor little half frozen Annie hasty that was a good impulse but it sent Sally to bed for a week and when she threw a shovel of coals on Bill Ramsdale's dog because Bill was a shiftless lout and the dog was so starved it all the time came over and sucked our eggs that was a bad impulse because it didn't do Bill a particle of good and it hurt the dog which would have been glad to suck eggs at home no doubt if Bill hadn't been too worthless to keep pens that was a good impulse she had then for she asked Miss Amelia to help her straighten the room and of course that meant to fold and put away wedding things any woman would have been wild to do that then she told Miss Amelia that she was going to ask father to dismiss school for half a day and allow her to see the wedding and she asked her if she would help serve the breakfast Miss Amelia wiped her eyes and soon left and was just beaming I would have been willing to bet my three cents for lead pencils the next time the huckster came that Sally never thought of wanting her until that minute and then she arranged for her to wait on table to keep her from trying to eat with the wedding party because Miss Amelia had no pretty clothes for one thing and for another you shouldn't act as if you were hungry out in company and she ate every meal as if she were breaking a 40 days fast I wondered what her folks cooked at home after supper Peter came and the instant I saw him I thought of something and it was such a teasing thought I followed around and watched him harder every minute at last he noticed me and put his arms around me well what is it little sister he asked I did wish he would quit that no one really had a right to call me that except laddie maybe I had to put up with Peter doing it when I was his sister by law but before the old name the preacher baptized on me was good enough for Peter I was thinking about that so hard I didn't answer and he asked again I have seen Sally's wedding dress I told him but that's no reason why you should stare at me that's just exactly the reason I answered I was trying to see what in the world there is about you to be worth a dress like that Peter laughed and laughed at last he said that he was not really worth even a calico dress and he was so little worthy of Sally that he would button her shoes if she would let him he got that mixed the buttons were on her slippers her shoes laced but it showed a humble spirit in Peter not that I care for humble spirits I am sure the crusaders didn't have them I don't believe laddie would lace even the princess's shoes at least not to make a steady business of it but maybe Peter and Sally had an agreement to help each other she was always fixing his tie and straightening his hair maybe that was an impulse though and mother said Sally would get over being so impulsive when she caught her eye teeth end of chapter six