CHAPTER 7 PART 1 of LADDY Mid-pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, Be a ever-so-humble, there's no place like home. A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there. Which seek through the world is near met with elsewhere. When they began arranging the house for the wedding, it could be seen that they had been expecting it, and getting ready for a long time. From all the closets, shelves, and chests poured heaps of new things. First the walls were cleaned, and some of them freshly papered. Then the windows were all washed, longed before regular house cleaning time. The floors were scrubbed, and new carpet put down. Mother had some window blinds that Winfield had brought her from New York in the spring, and she had laid them away. No one knew why, then. We all knew now. When mother was ready to put them up, father had a busy day and couldn't help her. And she was really provoked. She almost cried about it, when Leon rode in bringing the mail, and said Hannah Dover had some exactly like ours at her windows that her son had sent from Illinois. Father felt badly enough then, for he always did everything he could to help mother to be first with everything. But so she wouldn't blame him. He said cross-like, that if she had let him put them up when they came, as he wanted to, she'd have been six months ahead. When they finally got ready to hang the blinds, no one knew how they went. They were a beautiful shiny green, plain on one side, and on the other there was a silver border across the bottom, and one pink rose, as big as a pie plate. Mother had neglected to ask Winfield on which side the rose belonged. Father said from the way the roll ran, it went inside. Mother said that they were rolled that way to protect the roses, and that didn't prove anything. Laddie said he would jump on a horse, and ride round the section, and see how Hannah Dover had hers, and exactly opposite would be right. Everyone laughed, but no one thought he meant it. Mother had father hold one against the window, and she stepped outside to see if she could tell from there. When she came in, she said the flower looked mighty pretty, and she guessed that was the way. So father started hanging them. He had only two up, when Laddie came racing down the hill bareback, calling for him to stop. I tell you that's not right, mother, he said, as he hurried in. But I went outside, and father held one, and it looked real pretty, said mother. One, yes, said Laddie, but have you stopped to consider how two rows across the house are going to look? Nine big pink roses, with the sun shining on them? Anything funnier than Dover's front I never saw. And look here! Laddie picked up a blind. See this plain back? It's double-coated, like a glaze. That is so the sun shining through glass won't fade it. The flowers would be gone in a week. They belong inside, mother, sure as you live. Then when the blinds are rolled to the middle sash in the daytime, no one can see them, wailed mother, who was wild about pink roses. But at night, when they are down, you can put the curtains back enough to let the roses show, and think how pretty they will look then. Laddie is right, said father, climbing on the barrel to take down the ones he had fixed. What do you think, girls? asked mother. I think the princess is coming down the little hill, said Shelly. Hurry, father, take them down before she sees. I'm sure they're wrong. Father got one all right, but tore the corner of the other. Mother scolded him dreadfully cross, and he was so flustered he forgot about being on the barrel. So he stepped back the same as on the floor, and fell crashing. He might have broken some of his bones, if Laddie hadn't seen and caught him. If you are sure the flowers go inside, fix one before she comes, cried mother. Father stepped too close to the edge of the chair, and by that time he didn't know how to hang anything, so Laddie climbed up and had one nailed before the princess stopped. She came to bring Sally the hinkerchief, and it was the loveliest one any of us ever had seen. There was a little patch in the middle, about four inches square, and around it a wide ruffle of dainty lace. It was made to carry in a hand covered with white lace mitts, when you were wearing a wedding gown of silver silk lined with white. Of course, it wouldn't have been the slightest use for a funeral or with a cold in your head, and it had come from across the sea. From the minute she took it by a pinch in the middle, Sally carried her head so much higher than she ever had before, that you could notice the difference. Laddie went straight on, nailing up the blinds, and every one he fixed he let down full length, so the princess could see the roses were inside. He was so sure he was right. After she had talked a few minutes, she noticed the blinds going up. Laddie, in a front window, waved to her from the barrel. She laughed, and answered with her whip, and then she laughed again. "'Do you know,' she said, "'there is the funniest thing at Dover's. I rode past on the way to Groveville this morning, and they have some blinds like those you are putting up.' "'Indeed,' inquired my mother. Winfield sent us these from New York in the spring, but I thought the hot summer sun would fade them, so I saved them until the fall cleaning. The wedding coming on makes us a little early, but—' "'Well, they may not be exactly the same,' said the princess. I only saw from the highway.' She meant road. There were many things,' she said differently.  The princess bubbled until it made you think one of those yellow-oreal birds had perched on her saddle. That poor woman has gone, and put hers up wrong side out. The effect of all those big pink roses on her white house-front is most amusing. It looks as if the house were covered with a particularly gaudy piece of comfort calico—only fancy.' She laughed again and rode away. Mother came in just gasping. "'Well, for all his mercies, large and small, the Lord be praised,' she cried piously, as she dropped into the big rocking chair. That is what I consider escaping by the skin of your teeth.' Then father and laddie laughed, and said they thought so too. When the blinds were up, the outside looked well, and you should have seen the inside. The woodwork was enameled white, and the wallpaper was striped in white and silver. Every so far on the silver there was a little pink moss rose having green leaves. The carpet was plum-red and green in wide stripes, and the lace curtains were freshly washed, snowy, and touched the floor. The big rocker, the straight-back chairs, and the sofa were beautiful red mahogany wood, and the seats shining haircloth.  The landing was much better. On the sofa you bounced two feet high the first time, one the second, and a little way the third. On the haystack maybe you hit a soft spot, and maybe you struck a rock.  Then if you struck a rock you were still, quite a while. I was once, but you never dared let mother see you. On the sofa I mean. She didn't care about the haystack. There were pictures in oval black frames having fancy edges, and a what-not where all our Christmas and birthday gifts, almost too dainty to handle, were kept.  Of course a dove's nest was never deep and round and green, and the bird didn't have red eyes and a black bill. I thought whoever could blow glass as beautifully as that might just as easy have made it right while he was at it. But anyway it was pretty. There were pictures, mugs, and vases, almost too delicate to touch, and the cloth covered box with braids of hair coiled in wreaths from the heads of the little fever and whooping cough sisters. Lady asked Sally if she and Peter were going to have the ceremony performed while they sat on the sofa. Seemed to the right place. They had done all their courting there, even on hot summer days. But I suppose that was because Sally didn't want to be seen fixing Peter's tie until she was ready. She made no bones about it then. She fixed it whenever she pleased. Likewise he held her hand. Sally said that was disgusting, and you wouldn't catch her. Leon said he bet a dollar he would, and I said if he knew he'd get beaten as I did, I bet two dollars he wouldn't tell what he saw. The mantle was white, with vases of the lovely grasses that grew beside the stream at the foot of the big hill. Mother gathered the fanciest every fall, dried them, and dipped them in melted alum, colored with copperus, aniline, and indigo. Then she took bunches of the colors that went together best, and made bouquets for the big vases. They were pretty in the daytime, but at night you could watch them sparkle and shimmer forever. I always thought the sitting-room was nicer than the parlor. The woodwork was white enamel there, too, but the bureau and chairs were just cherry and not too precious to use. They were every bit as pretty. The mantle was much larger. I could stand up in the fireplace, and it took two men to put on an everyday log, for the Christmas one. On each side were the bookshelves above, and the linen closets below. The mantle set between these, and Mother always used the biggest, most gorgeous bouquets there, because she had so much room. The hearth was a slab of stone that came far into the room. We could sit on it, and crack nuts, roast apples, chestnuts, and warm our cider. Then sweep all the must-we-made into the fire. The wallpaper was white and pale pink in stripes, and on the pink were little handled baskets, filled with tiny flowers of different colors. We sewed the rags for the carpet ourselves, and it was the prettiest thing. One stripe was white, all gray, brown, and dull colors, and the other was pink. There were green blinds and lace curtains here also, and nice braided rugs that all of us worked on winter evenings. Everything got spicker and spanner each day. Mother said there was no use in putting down a carpet in a dining-room where you constantly fed a host, and the boys didn't clean their feet as carefully as they should in winter. But there were useful rags where they belonged, and in our bedroom opening from it also. The dining-room wallpaper had a broad stripe of rich cream with pink cabbage roses scattered over it, and a narrow pink stripe, while the woodwork was something perfectly marvelous. I didn't know what kind of wood it was, but a man who could turn his hand to anything painted it. First he put on a pale yellow coat and let it dry. Then he added wood brown, and while it was wet, with a coarse tooth comb, a rag, and his fingers, he imitated the grain, the even wood, and knot holes of dressed lumber. Until many a time I found myself staring steadily at a knot to see if a worm wouldn't really come working out. You have to see a thing like that to understand how wonderful it is. You couldn't see why they washed the bedding and took the feathers from the pillows and steamed them in mosquito netting bags and dried them in the shade, when Sally's was to be a morning wedding, but they did. I even had to take a bucket and gather from around the walls all the little heaps of rocks and shells the Uncle Abraham had sent mother from California, take them out and wash and wipe them, and stack them back with the fanciest ones on top. He sent her a ring made of gold he dug himself. She always kept the ring in a bottle in her bureau, and she meant to wear it at the wedding with her new silk dress. I had a new dress, too. I don't know how they got everything done. All of them worked, until the last few days there were perfect cross patches. When they couldn't find another thing indoors to scour, they began on the yard, orchard, barn, and road. Mother even had Leanne stack the wood pile straighter. She said when corded wood leaned at an angle, it made people seem shiftless. And she never passed a place where it looked that way that her fingers didn't just itch to get at it. He had to pull every ragweed on each side of the road, as far as our land reached, and lay every rail straight in the fences. Father had to take spikes in our biggest mall and go to the bridges at the foot of the big and the little hill, and see that every plank was fast, so none of them would rattle when important guests drove across. She said she just simply wouldn't have them in such a condition that Judge Pettis couldn't hear himself think when he crossed. For you could tell from his looks that it was very important that none of the things he thought should be lost. There wasn't a single spot about the place, inside or out, that wasn't gone over. And to lots of it, you never would have known anything had been done if you hadn't seen, because the place was always in proper shape anyway. But Father said Mother acted just like that, even when her sons were married at other people's houses. And if she kept on getting worse, every girl she married off, by the time she reached me, we'd all be scoured with thread-bear, and she'd be on the verge of the grave. May and I weeded the flower beds, kicked all the ripe seed, and pulled up and burned all the stalks that were done blooming. Father and Laddie went over the garden carefully, they scraped the walks, and even shook the palings, to see if one were going to come loose right at the last minute, when everyone would be so frustrated there would be no time to fix it. Then they began to talk about arrangements for the ceremony, whether we should have our regular minister, or presiding elder Lemon, and what people they were going to invite. Just when we had planned to ask everyone, have the wedding in the church, and the breakfast at the house, and all drive in a joyous procession to Groveville to give them a good send-off, in walked Sally. She had been visiting Peter's people, and we planned a lot while she was away. What's going on here, she asked, standing in the doorway, dangling her bonnet by the ties.  Her cheeks were so pink, and her eyes so bright. We were talking about having the ceremony in the church, so everyone can be comfortably seated, and see and hear well. Answered mother. Sally straightened up, and began jerking the roses on her bonnet, far too roughly for artificial flowers. Perhaps I surprised you with that artificial word, but I can spell and define it. It's easy divided into syllables. Goodness knows, I have seen enough flowers made from the hair of the dead, wax and paper, where you get the shape, but the color never is right. These of Sally's were much too bright, but they were better than the ones made at our house. Hers were of cloth, and bought at a store. You couldn't tell why, but Sally jerked her roses. I wish she wouldn't, because I knew very well they would be used to trim my hat the next summer. And she said, well, people don't have to be comfortable during a wedding ceremony. They can stand up if I can. And as for seeing and hearing, I'm asking a good many that I don't intend to have see or hear either one. My soul, cried mother, and she dropped her hands and her mouth fell open, like she always told us we should never let ours, while she stared at Sally. I don't care, said Sally, straightening taller yet. Her eyes began to shine, and her lips to quiver, as if she would cry in a minute. I don't care. Which means, my child, that you do care very much, said mother. Suppose you see such reckless talk, and explain to us exactly what it is that you do want.  Those roses would look like sin before my turn to where them came. And she said, well, then I do care. I care with all my might. The church is all right, of course, but I want to be married in my very own home. Everyone can think whatever they please about their home, and so can I. And what I think is, that this is the nicest and the prettiest place in all the world. And I belong here.  She put out her hand, and held mother from her at arm's length, and she turned and looked behind her through the sitting-room and parlor. And then it us. And she talked so fast, you never could have understood what she said, if you hadn't known all of it anyway, and thought exactly the same thing yourself. I have just loved this house ever since it was built, she said, and I've had as good times here as any girl ever had. If anyone thinks I'm so very anxious to leave it, and you and mother, and all the others, why it's a big mistake, seems as if a girl is expected to marry and go to a home of her own. It's drummed into her, and things fixed for her from the day of her birth. And of course I do like Peter, but no home in the world, not even the one he provides for me, will ever be any dearer to me than my own home. And as I've always lived in it, I want to be married in it. I want to stay here until the very last second.   And as for having a crowd of men that father is planning to ask, staring at me, because he changes harvest help and woodchopping with them, or being criticized and clawed over by some woman, simply because they'll be angry if they don't get the chance, I just won't. So there, not if I have to stand the minister against the wall and turn our backs to everyone. I think. That will do, said father, wiping his eyes. That will do, Sally. Your mother and I have got a pretty clear understanding of how you feel now. Don't excite yourself.  You may ask exactly whom you please, want, and feel quite comfortable to have around you. Then Sally fell on mother's neck, and everyone cried a little. Then we wiped up. Leon gave Sally his slate, and she came and sat beside the table, and began to make out a list of those she really wanted to invite. First, she put down all of our family. Even many away in Ohio, and all of Peter's, and then his friends and hers. Once in the list of girls, she stopped and said, if I take that beautiful imported handkerchief from Pamela prior, I have just got to invite her. And she will outdress and outshine you at your own wedding, put in Shelly. Let her if she can, said Sally calmly. She'll have to hump herself if she beats that dress of mine. And as for looks, I know lots of people who think gray eyes, pink cheeks, and brown curls, far daintier and prettier than red cheeks and black eyes and curls. If she really is better looking than I am, it isn't her fault. God made her that way. And he wouldn't like us to punish her for it. And it would, because anyone can see she wants to be friends.  Mother nodded. And besides, I think she's better looking than I am myself. Sally said that, and wrote down the princess's name in big letters, and no one cheaped. Then she began on our neighborhood, thinking out loud and writing what she thought. So all of us were as still, and held our breath in softly and waited. And Sally said, slow and musing-like. Of course, we couldn't have anything at this house without Sarah Hood. She dressed most of us when we were born, nursed us when we were sick, helped with threshing, company, and parties, and she's just splendid anyway. We better ask all the hoods. So she wrote them down. And it will be lonely for widow Willis and the girls to see everyone else here. We must have them, and, of course, deems. Amanda is always such splendid help. And the widow Fall is so perfectly lovely. We want her for decorative purposes. And we could scarcely leave out shaws. They always have all of us everything they do. And Dr. Fenner, of course. And we'll want Flo and Agnes Kuntz to wait on table, so their folks might as well come too. So she went on taking up each family we knew, and telling what they had done for us, or what we had done for them. And she found some good reason for inviting them.  And then he began pulling his lower lip, like when it won't behave. And his eyes danced exactly as I've seen Leon's. I never had noticed that before. Sally went straight on, and at last she came to fresh it. I am going to have all of them, too, she said. The children are good children, and it will help them along to see how things are done when they are right. And I don't care what anyone says. I like Mrs. Fresh It. I'll ask her to help work, and that will keep her from talking, and give the other woman a chance to see that she's clean and human, and would be a good neighbor if they'd be friendly. If we ask her, then the others will.  But he always went, even with rags flying, and got his stomach full just by talking about how he loved the Lord. To me I couldn't see Isaac Thomas without beginning to myself. To his the voice of the sluggard I hear him complain, You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again. I passed by his garden, I saw the wild briar, the thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher. The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags, and his money he wastes till he starves or he begs. That described Isaac to the last tatter. Only he couldn't waste money. He never had any. Once I asked Father what he thought Isaac would do with it, if by some unforeseen working of divine providence he got ten dollars. Father said he could tell me exactly, because Isaac once sold some timber, and had a hundred all at once. He went straight to town, and bought Mandy a red silk dress, and a brass breastpin, when she had no shoes. He got the children an organ, when they were hungry, and himself a plug hat. Mandy and the children cried, because he forgot candy and oranges until the last scent was gone. Father said the only time Isaac ever worked, since he knew him, was when he saw how the hat looked with his rags. He actually helped the men fell the trees, until he got enough to buy a suit, the remains of which he still wore on Sunday. I asked Father why he didn't wear the hat, too. And Father said the loss of that hat was a blow, from which Isaac never had recovered. Once at camp meeting he laid it aside to pray his longest, most impressive prayer, and an affectionate cow strayed up, and licked the nap all off before Isaac finished, so he never could wear it again.  But if you're not in bed when it's all over, Mother, I do wish you'd send Mandy and the children a basket. Father promised, and Father sat and looked on, and pulled his lower lip until his ears almost wiggled. Then Sally said she wanted Laddie and Shelley to stand at the parlor door, and keep it tight shut, and see everyone in the sitting-room, except a special list she had made out to send in there. She wanted all her family and Peters, and only a few very close friends, but it was enough to fill the room. She said when she and Peter came downstairs, everyone could see how they looked when they crossed the sitting-room. Before all the difference the door would make, it could be left open then. She would be walled in by people she wanted around her, and the others could have the fun of being there, seeing what they could, and getting all they wanted to eat. Father and Mother said that was all right, only to say nothing about the plan to shut the door, but when the time came just to close it, and everything would be satisfactory. Then Sally took the sleigh upstairs to copy the list with ink, so everyone went about something while Mother crossed a father, and he took her on his lap, and they looked at each other the longest and the hardest, and neither of them said a word. After a while they cried and laughed, and cried some more, and it was about as sensible as what a flock of geese say when they are let out of the barn and start for the meadow in the morning. Then Father, all laughy and cryy, said, Thank God, oh thank God, the girl loves the home we have made for her. Just said it over and over, and Mother kept putting in, it pays, Paul, it pays. Next day Sally put on her riding habit, and fixed herself as pretty as ever she could, and went around to have a last little visit with everyone, and invited them herself, and then she wrote letters to people away. Elizabeth and Lucy came home, and everyone began to work. Father and Mother went to the village in the carriage, and brought home the bed full of things to eat, and all we had was added, and Mother began to pack butter, and save eggs for cakes. In the day before, I thought there wouldn't be a chicken left on the place. They killed and killed, and Sarah Hood, Amanda Deem, and Mrs. Freshit, picked and picked. All but a dollar we get something this time, besides ribs and neck, said Leon. How do you suppose thigh and breast would taste? I was always crazy to try the tail, I said. Much chance you got, sniggered, Leon. Remember the time that Father asked the presiding elder? Father Lemon, what piece of the follow do you prefer? And he up and said, I'm partial to the rump, brother Stanton. There sat Father, bound he wouldn't give him Mother's peace, so he pretended he couldn't find it, and forked all over the platter, and then gave him the ribs and the thigh. Gee, how Mother scolded him after the preacher had gone. You notice Father hasn't asked that since. Now he always says, do you prefer light or dark meat? Much chance you have of ever tasting a tail, if Father won't even give one to the presiding elder. But as many as they are killing. Oh, this time, said Leon with a flourish, this time we are going to have livers and breast and thighs and tails, if you are beholden to tail. I'd like to know how we are. Well, since you have proved that you can keep your mouth shut, for a little while anyway, I'm going to take you in on this, said Leon. You keep your eyes on me. When the wedding gets going good, you watch me and slip out. That's all. I'll be fixed to do the rest. But mind this, get out when I do. All right, I promised. They must have wakened about four o'clock on the wedding day. It wasn't really light when I got up. I had some breakfast in my night-dress, and then I was all fixed up in my new clothes, and made to sit on a chair, and never move, for fear I would soil my dress, for no one had time to do me over, and there was only one dress anyway. There was so much to see, you could keep interested just watching, and I was so anxious to look nice before the boys and girls, and the big people, as anyone. Every mantel and table and bureau was covered with flowers, and you could have smelled the kitchen a mile away, I know. The dining table was set for the wedding party, our father and mother and Peters, and the others had to wait. You couldn't have laid the flat of your hand on that table anywhere. It was so covered with things to eat. Miss Amelia, in a dress none of us ever had seen before, a real nice white dress, pranced around it and smirked at everyone, and waved the peacock feather-brush to keep the flies from the jelly, preserves, jam, butter, and things that were not cooked. For hours Mrs. Freshett had stood in the kitchen on one side of the stove, frying chicken, and heaping it in baking pans in the oven, and Amanda Deem on the other, frying ham, while Sarah Hood cooked other things, and made a wash-boiler of coffee. Everything was ready by the time it should have been. I had watched them until I was tired, when Sally came through the room where I was, and she said I might come along upstairs and see her dressed. When we reached the door I wondered where she would put me, but she pushed clothing together on a bed and helped me up, and that was great fun.  When someone called out, the princess is coming. CHAPTER 7 PART 2 When Sally married Peter I jumped for the window, and all of them, even Sally, crowded behind. Well, talk about carriages. No one ever had seen that one before. It was a carriage. And such horses! The funny, orse-ouse man who made the prior garden was driving. He stopped at the gate, got out, and opened a door, and the princess's father stepped down, tall and straight, all in shiny black. He turned around and held out his hand, bowing double, and the princess laid her hand in his, and stepped out too. He walked with her to the gate, made another bow, kissed her hand, and stepped back, and she came down the walk alone. He got in the carriage, the man closed the door, and they drove away. Sally must have arranged before that the princess was to come early, for she came straight upstairs.  She was lovely, but she didn't outdress or outshine Sally one bit, and she never even glanced at the mirror to see how she looked. She began helping with Sally's hair, and to dress her. When best cunts prinked so long, she made everyone disgusted. The princess said, Oh, save your trouble. No one will look at you when there's a bride in the house. There was a roll almost as thick as your arm of garters that all the other girls wanted Sally to wear for them, so they would get a chance to marry that year. And Agnes Cunse's was so large it went twice around, and they just laughed about it. They put a blue ribbon on Sally's stays for luck, and she borrowed Peter's sister Mary's comb to hold her back hair. They had the most fun, and when she was already, except her dress, they went away, and Sally stood in the middle of the room, trembling a little. Outside you could hear carriage-wheels rolling, the beat of horses hooves, and voices crying greetings. There was a sound of revelry by day. Mother came in hurriedly. She wore her new brown silk with a lace collar pinned at the throat with the pin that had a brown goldstone setting in it, and her precious ring was on her finger. She was dainty and pretty enough to have been a bride herself.  Then she went to the closet, took out the wedding dress, put the skirt over Sally's head, and she came up through the whiteness, pink and glowing. She slipped her arms into the sleeves, and Mother fastened it. She got the skirt, saw that the bead fringe hung right, and the lace collar lay flat. Then she took Sally in her arms, held her tight, and said, Bless you, dear, and keep you always, Amen. Then she stepped to the door, and Peter, all shining and new, came in. He hugged Sally, and kissed her like it didn't make the least difference, whether she had on calico or a wedding dress, and he just stared, and stared at her, and never said a word. So at last she asked, Well, Peter, do you like my dress?  Then both of them laughed, and the presiding elder came. I never liked to look at him very well, because something had happened, and he had only one eye. I always wondered if he had plucked it out, because it had offended him. But if you could forget his eye, and just listen to his voice, it was like the sweetest music. He married those two people right there in the bedroom, all but about three words at the end. I heard and saw every bit of it. Then Sally said it was time for me to go to Mother.   Oh, I can if you want me to, I said, but I didn't look at her. I looked out of the window.  You didn't even want me to begin with, I reminded her. There isn't a doubt, but whoever told you that could have been in better business, said Sally, angry like, I was much younger then, and there were many things I didn't understand. And it wasn't you I didn't want, it was just no baby at all. I wouldn't have wanted a boy or any other girl a bit more. I foolishly thought we had children enough in this house. I see now very plainly that we didn't, for this family never could get along without you, and I'm sorry I ever thought so, and I'd give anything if I hadn't struck you, and— Oh, be still and go on and get married, I said. I could just feel a regular beller coming in my throat.  I meant all the time to kiss you good-bye when the others did. I'll nearly die being lonesome when you're gone. Then I ran for downstairs, and when I reached the door, where the steps went into the sitting-room, I stopped, scared at all the people. It was like camp-meeting. You could see the yard full through the windows. Just as I was thinking I'd go back to the boys' room, and from there into the garret, and down the back stairway, laddy went and saw me. He came over, led me to the parlor door, put me inside, and there mother took my hand and held me tight, and I couldn't see Leon anywhere. I was caught, but they didn't have him. Mother never hung on as she did that day. I tried and tried to pull away, and she held tight. It was only a minute until the door opened, people crowded back, and the presiding elder, followed by Sally and Peter, came into the room, and they began to be married all over again. If it hadn't grown so solemn, my mother sprung a tear, I never would have made it. She just had to let me go to sob her face, because tears are salty, and they would turn her new brown silk front yellow. The minute my hand was free, I slipped between the people, and looked at the parlor door. It was wedged full, and more standing on chairs behind them. No one could get out there. I thought I would fail Leon's shore, and then I remembered the parlor bedroom. I got through that door easy as anything, and it was no trick at all to slip behind the blind, raise the window, and drop into mother's room from the sill. From there I reached the back dining-room door easy enough, went around to the kitchen, and called Leon softly. He opened the door at once, and I slipped in. He had just got there. We looked all around, and couldn't see where to begin at first. There was enough cooked food there to load two wagons. An old pillow case that had dried sage in it was lying across a chair, and Leon picked it up, and poured the sage into the wood-box, and handed the case to me. He went over, and knelt before the oven, while I followed, and held open the case. Leon rolled his eyes to the ceiling, and said so exactly like father when he is serving company, that not one of us could have told the difference. Which part of the fowl do you prefer, Brother Lemon? It was so funny it made me snigger, but I straightened up, and answered as well as I could. I'm especially fond of the rump, Brother Stanton. Leon stirred the heap, and piled four or five tails in the case. I thought that was all I could manage before they would spoil, so I said. Do you prefer light or dark meat, Sister Abigail? I wish to choose breast, said Leon, simpering, just like that silly Abigail Webster. He put in six breasts. Then we found them hidden away back in the oven in a pie pan, for the bride's table, I bet, and we took two livers apiece. We didn't dare take more, for fear they had been counted. Then he threw in whatever he came to that was a first-choice big piece, until I was really scared, and begged him to stop. But he repeated what the fox said in the story of the quarrelsome cocks. Poco was very good, but I have not had enough yet. So he piled in pieces, until I ran away with the pillow case. Then he slid in a whole plate full of bread, another of cake, and put the plates in a tub of dishes under the table. Then we took some of everything that wasn't too runny. Just then the silence broke in the front part of the house, and we scooted from the back door, closing it behind us, ran to the woodhouse, and climbed the ladder to the loft over the front part. There we were safe as could be, we could see to the road, hear almost everything said in the kitchen, and eat our bites in peace, like Peter Justice told the presiding elder at the church trial that he wanted his wife to, the time he slapped her. Before very long they began calling us, and called and called. We hadn't an idea what they wanted, so we ate away. We heard them first while I was holding over a back to let Leon taste kidney, and it made him blink when he got it good. Well, my soul, he said, no wonder father didn't want to feed that to another man when mother isn't very well and likes it. No wonder. Then he gave me a big bite of breast. It was sort of dry and tasteless. I didn't like it. Why, I think neck or back beats that all to pieces, I said in surprise. Fact is, they do, said Leon, I guess the people who wish to choose breast do it to get the biggest piece. I never had thought of it before, but of course that would be the reason. Allow me, sister Stanton, said Leon, holding out a piece of thigh. It was really chicken. Then we went over the backs, and picked out all the kidneys, and ate the little crusty places, and all the cake we could swallow. Then Leon fixed up the bag the best he could, and set it inside an old cracked churn and put on a lid. He said that would do almost as well as the cellar, and the food would keep until tomorrow. I wanted to slip down and put it in the underground station, but Leon said father must be spending a lot of money right now, and he might go there to get some, so that wouldn't be safe. Then he cleaned my face, and I told him when he got his right, and we slipped from the back door, crossed the Lawton Blackberry patch, and went to the house from the orchard. Leon took an apple and broke it in two, and we went in eating as if we were starving. When father asked us where in this world we had been, Leon told him we thought it would be so awful long before the fourth or fifth table, and we hadn't had much breakfast, and we were so hungry we went and hunted something to eat. If you'd only held your horses a minute, said father, they were calling you to take places at the brides' table. Well, for land's sake, our mouths dropped open until it's a wonder the cake and chicken didn't show. And we never said a word. There didn't seem to be anything to say, for Leon loved to be with grown folks, and to have eaten at the brides' table would have been the biggest thing that ever happened to me. At last, when I could speak, I asked who had taken our places, and bless your heart if it wasn't that mealy-faced little sister of Peter's, and one of the aunts from Ohio. They had finished, and Sally was upstairs putting on her traveling dress while the guests were eating. When I heard Lattie ask the princess to ride with him and Sally's other friends, who were going to escort her to the depot. You'll want all your horses. What could I ride? If I find you a good horse and saddle, will you go? I will. I think it would be fine sport. Lattie turned and went from sight that minute. The princess laughed and kept on making friends with everyone, helping way on people, thinking of nice things to do, and just as the carriage was at the gate for father and mother and Sally and Peter, and everyone else was untying their horses to ride in the procession to the village. From where I was standing on the mounting block, I saw something coming down the little hill. I took one look, ran to the princess, and almost dragged her.  He rode floss, was leading the princess's horse mod, and carrying a big bundle under his arm. He leaped from the saddle, and fastened both horses. Gracious heaven, what have you done? gasped the princess. Brought your mount, said Lattie, quite as if he were used to going to priors after the sausage grinder or the grain sacks. But the princess was pale and trembling. She stepped so close she touched him, and he immediately got a little closer. You couldn't get ahead of Lattie, and he didn't seem to care who saw, and neither did she. Tell me exactly what occurred, she said, just as father does when he means to wail us completely. I rapped at the front door, said Lattie. And who opened it? cried the princess. Your father? My father? Yes, your father, said Lattie, and because I was in such a hurry, I didn't wait for him to speak. I said, Good morning, Mr. Pryor, I'm one of the Stanton boys, and I came for Miss Pryor's mountain habit. All the young people who are on horseback are going to ride an escort to the village, around my sister's bridal carriage, and Miss Pryor thinks she would enjoy going. Please excuse such haste, but we only this minute made the plan, and the train won't wait. And he? He said, surely, hold one minute. I stood on the step and waited, and I could hear him give the order to someone to get your riding habit quickly, and then he blew a shrill whistle, and your horse was at the gate the fastest of anything I ever saw. Did he do or say? Nothing about clods and clowns and grossness. Every other word he spoke was when I said, Thank you, and good morning, and was turning away. He asked, Did Miss Pryor say whether she preferred to ride home, or shall I escort her in the carriage? She did not, I answered. The plan was so sudden she had no time to think that far. But since she will have her horse in habit, why not allow my father to escort her? So you see, I'm going to take you home, exalted Lattie. But you told him your father, said the princess. And thereby created the urgent necessity, said Lattie, with a flourish, for speaking to him again, and telling him that my father had visitors from Ohio, and couldn't leave them. We will get all the fun from the day that we can, but before dusk, too early for them to have any cause for cavill, the gross country clod is going to take you home. One at a time Lattie pounded those last words into the hitching post, with his doubled fist. Suppose he sets the dogs on you. You know he keeps two dreadful ones. Lattie just roared. He leaned closer. Beauteous lady, he said, I have fed those same dogs, and rubbed their ears so many nights lately, he'll get the surprise of his life if he tries that. The princess drew away, and stared at Lattie the funniest. On my life, she said at last. Well, for a country clod. Then she turned with a habit bundle, and ran into the house. Father and mother came from the front door, arm in arm, and walked to the carriage. And Sally and Peter followed. My, but they looked fine. The princess had gone to the garden, and gathered flowers, and lined all the children in rows down each side of the walk. They were loaded with blooms to throw at Sally.  Every single child watched her open mouth, gripped its flowers, and forgot to throw them at all.  Sally just swept along, smiling at everyone, and calling good-bye to those who had no way to ride to the village, as if leaving didn't amount too much. At the carriage, a little white, but still smiling, she turned and took one long look at everything. And then she got in, and called for me, right out loud before everyone. So I got to hold up my head as high as it would go, and step in, too, and ride all the way to Groville between her and Peter. And instead of holding his hand, she held mine, just gripped it tight. She gripped so hard she squeezed all the soreness at her from my heart, and when she kissed me good-bye the very last of all, I whispered in her ear that I wouldn't ever be angry any more. And I wasn't, because after she had explained I saw how it had been. It wasn't me she didn't want, it was just no baby. After our carriage came Peter's people. Then one father borrowed for the Ohio relatives, then the other children, and all the neighbors followed. And when we reached the high hill where you turned beside the woods, I saw father gather up the lines and brace himself, for Ned and Joe were what he called meddlesome. Then came a burst of thunder sound, as it says in Casablanca, and the horseback riders came sweeping around us, laddy and the princess leading. These two rode ahead of us, and the others lined three deep on either side, and the next carriage dropped back and let them close in behind. So Sally and Peter were in the midst thereof. Instead of throwing old shoes, as always had been done, the princess coaxed them to throw rice and roses, and every other flower pulled from the bouquets at home and from the gardens we had passed. Everyone was out watching us go by. And when William Justice rode beside the fences, crying, flowers for the bride, give us flowers for the bride, some of the women were so excited they pulled things up by the roots and gave him arm loads. And he rode ahead and supplied laddy and the princess, and they kept scattering them in the road until every foe of the way to Groveville was covered with flowers, the fair young flowers that lately sprang instead. He even made side cuts into swampy places, and gathered arm loads of those perfectly lovely fringy blue junctions, caught up and filled the carriage and scattered them in a wicked way, because you should only take a few of those rare, late flowers that only grow from seed. Sally looked just as if she had come into her own and was made for it. I never did see her look so pretty. But Peter sweated and acted awful silly. Father had a time with the team. Ned and Joe became excited and just ranted. They simply danced. Laddy had braided their mains and hails, and they waved like silk and floss in the sunshine. And the carriage was freshly washed, and the patent leather and brass shone, and we rode flower covered. Ahead, Laddy and the princess fairly tried themselves. She hadn't put on her hat or habit after all. When Laddy told her they were going to lead, she said, very well, then I shall go as I am. The dress makes no difference. It's the first time I've had a chance to spoil one since I left England. When the other girls saw what she was going to do, nearly every one of them left off their hats and riding skirts. Every family had saddle horses those days, and when the riders came racing up they looked like flying flowers. They were all laughing, bloom laden, singing and calling jokes. Ahead, Laddy and the princess just plain showed off. Her horse came from England with them, and Laddy said it had Arab blood in it, like the one in the fourth reader poem, fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed. And the princess loved her horse more than that man did his. She said she'd starve before she'd sell it, and if her family were starving she'd go to work and earn food for them and keep her horse. The piece was a Kentucky thoroughbred he'd saved money for years to buy, and he took a young one and trained it himself, almost like a circus horse. Both of them could ride, so that day they did. They ran those horses neck and neck, right up the hill approaching Groveville, until they were almost from sight. Then they whirled and came sweeping back fast as the wind.  Laddy's hair was blowing, his cheeks and eyes were bright, and with one eye on the princess, she didn't need it, and one on the road. He cut curves, turned, wheeled, and raced, and as he rode, so did she. Will they break their foolish necks, wild mother? They are the handsomest couple I ever have seen in my life, said father. Yes, and you two watch out, or you'll strike trouble right there, said Sally, leaning forward. I gave her an awful nudge. It made me so happy I could have screamed to see them flying away together like that. Well, if that girl represents trouble, said father, God knows it never before came in such charming guise. You can trust a man to forget his god and his immortal soul if a sufficiently beautiful woman comes along, said my mother dryly, and all of them laughed. She didn't mean that to be funny, though. You could always tell by the sight of her lips and the light in her eyes. Just this side of Groveville we passed a man on horseback. He took off his hat and drew his horse to one side when Laddie and the princess rode toward him. He had a big roll of papers under his arm to show that he had been for his mail. But I knew, so did Laddie and the princess, that he had been compelled to saddle and ride like mad, to reach town and come that far back in time to watch us pass. Where it was the princess's father, and watch, was exactly what he was doing. He wanted to see for himself. Laddie and the princess rode straight at him, neck and neck, and then both of them made their horses drop on their knees, and they waved a salute, and then they were up and away. Of course, father and mother saw, so mother bowed, and father waved his whip as we passed. He sat there like he'd turned the same on horseback as Sebethany had in her coffin. But he had to see almost a mile of us, driving our best horses and carriages, wearing our wedding garments and fine rain-ment, and all that calvacade, father called it, of young reckless riders. You'd have thought if there were a hint of a smile in his whole being, it would have shown when Sally leaned from the carriage to let him see that her face and clothes were as good as need be, and smiled a lovely smile on him and threw him a rose.  And then Shelly, always the very dickens for daring, rode right up to him, and laughed in his face, and she leaned and thrust a flower into his bony hands. You would have thought he would have been simply forced to smile then, but he looked far more as if he would tumble over and roll from the saddle. My heart ached for a man in trouble like that. I asked the Lord to preserve us from secrets we couldn't tell the neighbors. At the station there wasn't a thing those young people didn't do. They tied flowers and ribbons all over Sally's satchel and trunk. They sewed rice, as if it were seeding time in a wheat field. They formed a circle around Sally and Peter, and as mushy as ever they could, they sang, As sure as the grass grows round the stump, You are my darling sugar-lump, while they dance. They just smiled all the time, no matter what was done to them. Some of it made me angry, but I supposed to be pleasant was the right way. Sally was strong and always doing the right thing, so she just laughed, and so did all of us. Having home it was wilder yet, for all of them raced and showed how they could ride. At the house people were hungry again, so the table was set, and they ate up every scrap in sight, and Leon and I ate with them that time and saved ours. Then one by one the carriages, spring wagons, and horse-back riders went away. All the people saying Sally was the loveliest bride, and hers had been the prettiest wedding they'd ever seen, and the most good things to eat, and Lattie and the Princess went with them. Then the last one was gone, and only the relatives from Ohio were left. Mother pitched on the bed, gripped her hands, and cried as if she'd go to pieces. And father cried, too, and all of us, even Mrs. Freshett, who stayed to wash up the dishes. She was so tickled to be there, and see and help, that mother had hard work to keep her from washing the linen that same night.  Mother said it was a burning shame for any neighborhood to let a woman get so starved out and lonesome she'd act that way. She said enough was enough, and when Mrs. Freshett had cooked all day, and washed dishes until the last skillet was in place, she had done as much as any neighbor ought to do, and the other things she went on and did were a rebuke to us. I felt sore, weepy, and tired out. It made me sick to think of the sage-bag in the cracked churn, so I climbed my very own cul-tapa tree in the corner, watched up the road for Laddie, and thought things over. If I ever get married I want a dress, and a wedding exactly like that, but I would like a man quite different from Peter, like Laddie would suit me better. When he rode under the tree I dropped from a limb into his arms, and went with him to the barn. He asked me what was going on at the house, and I told him about Mrs. Freshett being a rebuke to us, and Laddie said she was, and he didn't believe one word against her. When I told him mother was in bed crying like anything, he said, I knew that had to come when she kept up so bravely at the station. Thank the Lord, she showed her breeding by holding in until she got where she had a right to cry if she pleased. Then I whispered for fear Leon might be around. Did he set the dogs on you? He did not, said Laddie, laughing softly. Did he call you names again? He did, said Laddie, but I started it. You see, when we got there, Thomas was raking the grass, and he came to take the princess's horse. Her father was reading on a bench under a tree. I helped her down, and walked with her to the door, and said good-bye, and thanked her for the pleasure she had added to the day for us, loudly enough that he could hear. Then I went over to him, and said, Good evening, Mr. Pryor. If my father knew anything about it, he would very much regret that company from Ohio detained him, and compelled me to a squirt your daughter home. He would greatly have enjoyed the privilege, but I honestly believed that I appreciated it far more than he could. Oh, Laddie, what did he say? He arose and glared at me, and choked on it, and he tried several times, until I thought the clods were going to fly again. But at last he just spluttered.  That was such a compliment compared with what I thought he was going to say, that I had to laugh. He tried, but he couldn't keep from smiling himself. And then I said, Please think it over, Mr. Pryor, and if you find that Miss Pryor has had an agreeable, entertaining day, won't you give your consent for her to come among us again? Won't you allow me to come here, if it can be arranged in such a way that I intrude on no one? Oh, Laddie! He exploded in a kind of a snarl that meant, I'll see you in the bad place first. So I said to him, Thank you very much for today, anyway.  Of course I won't come here if I am unwelcome, but I am in honor bound to tell you that I intend to meet your daughter elsewhere, whenever I possibly can. I thought it would be a better way for you to know, and have us where you could see what was going on, if you chose, then for us to meet without your knowledge. Oh, Laddie! I wailed. Now you've gone and ruined everything. Not so bad as that, little sister, laughed, Laddie. Not half so bad. He exploded in another growl, and he shook his walking-stick at me. And he said, Guess what he said?  Right, said Laddie, you have it exactly. He said, Young man, I'll bring you with my walking-stick if ever I meet you anywhere with my daughter, when you have not come to her home and taken her with my permission. What? I stammered. What? Oh, Laddie, say it over. Does it mean? It means, said Laddie, squeezing me until I was near losing my breath. It means, little sister, that I shall march to his door and ask him squarely, and if it is anywhere the princess wants to go, I shall take her. Like, see the conquering hero comes. Exactly, laughed Laddie. What will mother say? She hasn't made up her mind yet, answered Laddie. Do you mean? I gasped again. Of course, said Laddie. I wasn't going to let a girl get far ahead of me. The minute I knew she had told her mother, I told mine the very first chance. Mother knows that you feel about the princess as father does about her. Mother knows, answered Laddie, and so does father. I told both of them. Both of them knew, and it hadn't made enough difference that anyone living right with them every day could have told it. Command work will be needed to understand grown people. None appear more glad than they, with happier hearts or happier faces. Everyone told mother, for a week before the wedding, that she would be sick when it was over, and sure enough she was. She had been on her feet too much, and had so many things to think about, and there had been such a dreadful amount of work for her and Candace, even after all the neighbors helped, that she was sick in bed, and we couldn't find a thing she could eat, until she was almost wild with hunger, and father seemed as if he couldn't possibly bear it a day longer. After Candace had tried everything she could think of, I went up and talked it over with Sarah Hood, and she came down, pretending she happened in, and she tried thickened milk, toast, and mold buttermilk. She kept trying for two days before she gave up. Candace thought of new things, and Mrs. Freshit came, and made all the sick dishes she knew. But mother couldn't even taste them, so we were pretty blue, and we nearly starved ourselves. For how could we sit and eat everything you could mention, and mother lying there, almost crying with hunger? Saturday morning I was hanging around her room, hoping maybe she could think of some least little thing I could do for her, even if no more than to bring a glass of water, or a late rose to lay on her pillow. It would be better than not being able to do anything at all. After a while she opened her eyes and looked at me, and I scarcely knew her. She smiled the bravest she could, and said, Sorry for mother, dear? I nodded. I couldn't say much, and she tried harder than ever to be cheerful, and asked, What are you planning to do today? If you can't think of one thing I can do for you, guess I'll go fishing, I said. Her eyes grew brighter, and she seemed half interested. Why, little sister, she said, If you can catch some of those fish like you do sometimes, I believe I could eat one of them. I never had such a behanged time getting started. I slipped from the room, and never told a soul even where I was going. I fell over the shovel, and couldn't find anything quick enough but my pocket to put the worms in, and I forgot my stringer. At last, when I raced down the hill to the creek, and climbed over the water of the deep place, on the roots of the peat-billings yowling tree, I had only six worms, my apple-sucker pole, my cotton-cord line, and bent pin-hook. I put the first worm on carefully, and if ever I prayed. Sometimes it was hard to understand about this praying business. My mother was the best and most beautiful woman who ever lived. She was clean and good, and always helped the poor and needy who cluster round your door, like it says in the poetry piece. And there never could have been a reason why God would want a woman to suffer herself when she went flying on horseback, even dark nights through rain or snow, to doctor other people's pain, and when she gave away things like she did. Why, I've seen her take a big piece of meat from the barrel, and a sack of meal, and heaps of apples and potatoes to carry to Mandy Thomas. When she gave away food by the wagon load at a time, God couldn't have wanted her to be hungry, and yet she was that very minute, almost crying for food. And I prayed, oh, how I did pray. And a sneaking old back-ended crayfish took my very first worm. I just looked at the sky and said, well, when it's for a sick woman, can't you do any better than that? I suppose I shouldn't have said it, but if it had been your mother, how would you have felt? I pinched the next worm in two, so if a crayfish took that, it wouldn't get but half. I lay down across the roots, and pulled my bonnet far over my face, and tried to see the bottom. I read in school the other day, and by those little rings on the water I know, the fishes are merrily swimming below. There were no rings on the water, but after a while I saw some fish darting around. Only they didn't seem to be hungry, for they would come right up and nibble a tiny bit at my worm. But they wouldn't swallow it. Then one did, so I jerked with all my might. Jerked so hard the fish and worm both flew off, and I had only the hook left. I put on the other half and tried again. I prayed straight along, but the tears would come that time, and the prayer was no powerful effort like brother Hastings would have made. It was little torn up pieces mostly. Oh, Lord, please do make only one fish bite. At last one did bite good, so I swung carefully that time, and landed it on the grass. But it was so little, and it hit a stone and was killed. I had no stringer to put it back in the water to keep cool, and the sun was hot that day, like times in the fall. Stretched on the roots, with it shining on my back, and striking the water, and coming up from below. I dripped with heat and excitement. I threw that one away, put on another worm, and a big turtle took it, the hook, and broke my line, and almost pulled me in. I wouldn't have let go if it had, for I just had to have a fish. There was no help from the Lord in that, so I quit praying, only what I said when I didn't know it. Father said man was born a praying animal, and no matter how wicked he was, if he had an accident, or saw he had just got to die, he cried aloud to the Lord for help and mercy before he knew what he was doing. I could hear the roosters in the barnyard, the turkey gobbler, and the old gander screamed once in a while, and sometimes a bird sang a skimpy little fallsong, nothing like spring, except the kill deers and larks. They were always good to hear. And then the dinner bell rang. I wished I had been where I couldn't have heard that, because I didn't intend going home until I had a fish that would do for mother, if I stayed until night. If the best one in the family had to starve, we might as well all go together. But I wouldn't have known how hungry I was, if the bell hadn't rung, and told me the others were eating. So I bent another pin and tried again. I lost the next worm without knowing how. And then I turned baby, and cried right out loud. I was so thirsty, the salty tears running down my cheeks tasted good, and doing something besides fishing sort of rested me. So I looked around, and up at the sky, wiped my face on the skirt of my son Bonnet, and put on another worm. I had only one more left, and I began to wonder if I could wade in and catch a fish by hand. I did teeny one sometimes. But I knew the water there was far above my head, for I had measured it often with the pole.  So I fell back on the crusaders, and tried again. Strange how thinking about them helped. I pretended I was fighting my way to the holy city, and this was the Jordan just where it met the sea. And I had to catch enough fish to last be during the pilgrimage west, or I'd never reached Jerusalem to bring home a shell for the Stanton Crest. I pretended so hard that I got braver and stronger, and asked the Lord more like there was some chance of being heard. All at once there was a jerk that almost pulled me in, so I jerked, too, and a big fish flew over my head and hit the bank behind me with a thump. Of course, by a big fish I don't mean a red horse so long as my arm, like the boys bring from the river. I mean the biggest fish I ever caught with a pin in our creek. It looked like the whale that swallowed Jonah as it went over my head. I laid the pole across the roots, jumped up and turned, and I had to grab the stump to keep from falling in the water and dying. There lay the fish, the biggest one I ever had seen. But it was flopping wildly, and it wasn't a foot from a hole in the grass where a muskrat had burrowed through. If it gave one flop that way, it would slide down the hole straight back into the water. And between me and the fish stood our cross old Shropshire ram. I always looked to see if the sheep were in the meadow before I went to the creek.  I never once thought of them, and there it stood. That ram hadn't been cross at first, and father said it never would be if treated right and not teased, and if it were, there would be trouble for all of us. I was having more than my share that minute, and it bothered me a lot almost every day. I never dared enter a field any more if it were there, and now it was stamping up and down the bank, shaking its head, and trying to get me. With one flop the fish went almost in the hole, and the next a little away from it. Everything put together I thought I couldn't stand it. I never wanted anything as I wanted that fish, and I never hated anything as I hated that sheep. It wasn't the sheep's fault either, Leon teased it on purpose, just to see it chase Polly Martin. But that was more her doings than his. She was a widow, and she crossed her front meadow going to her sisters. She had two boys big as laddie and three girls, and the father said they lived like the lilies of the field. They toiled not, neither did they spin. They never looked really hungry or freezing, but they never plowed or planted. They had no cattle or pigs or chickens, only a little corn for meal, and some cabbage, and wild things they shot for meat, and coons to trade the skins for more powder and lead. Bet they ate the coons. Never any new clothes, never clean, they or their house. Once when father and mother were driving past, they saw Polly at the well, and they stopped for politeness's sake to ask how she was, like they always did with everyone. Polly had a tin cup of water, and was sopping at her neck with a carpet rag, and when mother asked, How are you, Mrs. Martin? she answered, Oh, I ain't very well this spring. I guessed I got the go-backs. Mother said Polly looked as if she'd been born with the go-backs, and had given them to all her children, her home, garden, fields, and even the fences. We hadn't a particle of patience with such people. When you are lazy like that, it is very probable that you'll live to see the day when your children will peep through fence-cracks and cry for bread. I have seen those Martin children come mighty near doing it when the rest of us opened our dinner baskets at school, and if mother hadn't always put in enough so that we could divide, I bet they would. If Polly Martin had walked up as if she were alive, and had been washed and neat, and going somewhere to do someone good, Leon never would have dreamed of such a thing as training the Shropshire to bunter. She was so long and skinny, always wore a ragged shawl over her head, a floppy old dress that the wind whipped out behind, and when she came to the creek she sat astride the footlog, and hunched along with her hands. That tickled the boys so, Leon began teasing the sheep on purpose to make it get her. But inasmuch as she saw fit to go abroad looking so funny, that anyone could see she'd be a perfect circus if she were chased, I didn't feel that it was Leon's fault. If, like the little busy bee, she had improved each shining hour, he never would have done it. Seems to me she brought the trouble on her own head. First, Leon ran at the Shropshire, and then jumped aside. But soon it grew so strong and quick he couldn't manage that, so he put his hat on a stick, and poked it back and forth through a fence crack, and that made the ram raving mad. At last it would butt the fence until it would knock itself down. And if he dangled the hat again, get right up and do it over. Father never caught Leon, so he couldn't understand what made the sheep so dreadfully cross, because he had thought it was quite peaceable when he bought it. The first time it got after Polly, she threw her shawl over its head, pulled up her skirts, and Leon said she hit just eleven high places crossing an eighty-acre field. She came to the house crying, and father had to go after her shawl, and mother gave her a roll of butter and a cherry pie to comfort her. The Shropshire never really got Polly, but anyone could easily see what it would do to me if I dared step around that stump, and it was dancing and panting to begin.  It wouldn't have been in the books. At least I think it wouldn't, but one can't be sure. He proved that he didn't know much about anything outdoors, or he wouldn't have said that sheep were eating grass and daisies white from the morning till the night, when daisies are bitter as gull. Flop went the fish, and its tail touched the edge of the hole. Then I turned around and picked up the pole. I put my sun-bonnet over the big end of it, and poked it at the ram, and drew it back as Leon did his hat. One more jump and mother's fish would be gone. I stood on the roots and waved my bonnet. The sheep lowered its head, and came at it with a rush. I drew back the pole, and the sheep's forefeet slid over the edge, and it braced, and began to work to keep from going in. The fish gave a big flop, and went down the hole.  I meant to finish that old black-faced shropshire. I set the pole on the back of its neck, and pushed with all my might, and I got it in too. My, but it made a splash. It wasn't much good at swimming, either, and it had no chance, for I stood on the roots and pushed it down, and hid it over the nose with all my might, and I didn't care how far it came on the cars, or how much money it cost. It never would chase me, and make me lose my fish again. I didn't hear him until he splashed under the roots, and then I was so mad I didn't see that it was laddy. I only knew that it was someone who was going to help out that miserable ram. So I struck with all my might. The sheep when I could hit it, if not the man. You little demon, stop, cried laddy. I got in a good one right on the ram's nose. Then laddy dropped the sheep and twisted the fish pole from my fingers, and I pushed him as hard as I could, but he was too strong. He lifted the sheep, pulled it to the bank, and rolled it, worked its jaws, and squeezed water from it, and worked and worked. I guess you've killed it, he said at last. Goodie, I shouted. Goodie, oh, but I am glad it's dead. What on earth has turned you to a fiend? Asked laddy, beginning to work on the sheep again. That ram, I said, ever since Leon made it cross, so it would chase Polly Martin. It's got me oftener than her. I can't go anywhere for it. And today it made me lose a big fish, and mother is waiting. She thought maybe she could eat some. Then I roared, bet I sounded like Bastion's bull. Dear Lord, said laddy, dropping the sheep and taking me in his wet arms. Tell me, Bitty, tell me how it is. Then I forgot I was a crusader, and told him all about it, as well as I could for choking. And when I finished, he bathed my hot face and helped me from the roots. Then he went and looked down the hole I showed him, and he cried out quick like, and threw himself on the grass, and in a second up came the fish. Someone had rolled a big stone in the hole, so the fish was all right, not even dead yet. And laddy said it was the biggest one he ever had seen taken from the creek. Then he said, if I'd forgive him and all our family, for spoiling the kind of a life I had a perfect right to lead, and if I'd run to the house and get a big bottle from the medicine case quick, he would see to it that some place was fixed for that sheep where it would never bother me again. So I took the fish and ran as fast as I could. But I sent me back with the bottle, and did the scaling myself. No one at our house could do it better, for laddy taught me the right way long ago, when I was small, and I'd done it hundreds of times. Then I went to Candace, and she put a little bit of butter and a speck of lard in a skillet, and cooked the fish brown. She made a slice of toast, and boiled a cup of water, and carried it to the door. Then she went in and set the table beside the bed, and I took in the tray and didn't spill a drop. Mother never said a word, she just reached out and broke off a tiny speck and nibbled it, and it stayed. She tried a little bigger piece, and another, and she said, take out the bones, Candace. She ate every scrap of that fish, like the hungriest traveler who ever came to our door, and the toast, and drank the hot water. Then she went into a long sleep, and all of us walked tiptoe, and when she waked up she was better, and in a few days she could sit in her chair again, and she began getting shelly ready to go to music school. I have to tell you the rest too. Ladi made the ram come alive, and father sold it the next day for more than he paid for it. He said he hoped I'd forgive him for not having seen how it had been bothering me, and that he never would have had it on the place a day if he'd known. The next time he went to town, he bought me a truly little cane rod, a real fishing line, several hooks, and a red bobber too lovely to put into the water. I thought I was a great person from the fuss all of them made over me, until I noticed Ladi shrug his shoulders, and reach back and rub one, and then I remembered. I went flying, and thank goodness, he held out his arms. Oh, Ladi, I never did it, I cried. I never, never did, I couldn't. Ladi, I love you best of anyone. You know I do. Of course you didn't, said Ladi. My little sister wasn't anywhere around when that happened. That was a poor little girl I never saw before, and she was in such trouble she didn't know what she was doing. And I hope I'll never see her again, he ended, twisting his shoulder. But he kissed me and made it all right, and really I didn't do that, I just simply couldn't have struck Ladi.  She had to have three suits of everything, and a new dress of each kind, and three hats. Her trunk wouldn't hold all there was to put in it, and father said he never could pay the bills. He had promised her to go, and he didn't know what in this world to do, because he never had borrowed money in his life, and he couldn't begin, for if he died suddenly, that would leave mother in debt, and they might take the land from her. That meant he'd spent what he had in the bank on Sally's wedding, and all that was in the underground station, or maybe the station money wasn't his. Just when he was awfully bothered, mother said to never mind, she believed she could fix it. She sent all of us into the orchard to pick the finest apples that didn't keep well, and father made three trips to town to sell them. She had big jars of lard she wouldn't need before butchering time came again, and she sold dried apples, peaches, and raspberries from last year. She got lots of money for barrels of feathers she'd saved to improve her feather beds and pillows. She said she would see to that later. Father was so tickled to get the money to help him out that he said he'd get her a pair of those wonderful new blue geese like priors had that everyone stopped to look at. When there was not quite enough yet, from somewhere mother brought out money that she'd saved for a long time, from butter and eggs and chickens and turkeys and fruit and lard and things that belonged to her. Father hated to use it in the worst way, but she said she'd saved it for an emergency and now seemed to be the time. She said if the child really had talent, she should be about developing it. And while there would be many who would have far finer things than Shelly, still she meant her to have enough that she wouldn't be the worst-looking one, and so ashamed she couldn't keep her mind on her work. Father said, with her face, it didn't make any difference what she wore. And mother said that was just like a man. It made all the difference in the world what a girl wore. Father said maybe it did to the girl and to other woman. What he meant was that it made none to a man. Mother said the chief aim and end of a girl's life was not wrapped up in a man. And father said maybe not with some girls, but it would be with Shelly. She was too pretty to escape. I do wonder if I'm going to be too pretty to escape when I put on long dresses. Sometimes I look in the glass to see if it's coming. But I don't suppose it's any use. Mother says you can't tell a thing at the growing age about how a girl is going to look at 18. End of chapter eight, part one. Chapter eight, part two of Laddie. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Bridget Gage. Laddie by Gene Stratt and Porter. Chapter eight, part two. The Shropshire and the Crusader. When everything was almost ready, Leon came in one day and said, Shelly, what about improving your hair? Have you tried your wild grape sap yet? Shelly said, why goodness me, we've been so busy getting Sally married and my clothes made. I forgot all about that. Have you noticed the crock in passing? Is there anything in it? It was about half full once when I went by, said Leon. I haven't seen it lately. Do please be a deer and look when you go after the cows this evening, said Shelly. If there's anything in it, bring it up. Do it yourself, for want of me, the boy replied quite manfully, quoted Leon from the little lord in the farmer. He was always teasing. I think you're mean as dirt if you don't bring it, said Shelly. Leon grinned and you should have heard the nasty teasing way he said more of that same piece. Anger and pride are both unwise. Vinegar never catches flies. I wondered she didn't slap him. You could see she wanted to. I can get it myself, she said angrily. What will you give me to bring it? Asked Leon, who never missed a chance to make a bargain. My grateful thanks. Are they not a proper reward? Asked Shelly. Thanks your foot, said Leon. Will you bring something pretty from Chicago for Susie's fall Christmas present? Everyone laughed, but Leon never cared. He liked Susie best of any of the girls and he wanted everyone to know it. He went straight to her whenever he had a chance and he'd already told her mother to keep all the other boys away because he meant to marry her when she grew up and Widowfall said that was fair enough and she'd save her for him. So Shelly said she would get him something for Susie and Leon brought the crock. Shelly looked at it sort of dubious like, tipped it and stared at the dirt settled in the bottom and then stuck in her finger and tasted it. She looked at Leon with a queer grin and said, smarty, smarty, think you're smart. She threw the creek water into the swill bucket. No one said a word, but Leon looked much sillier than she did. After he was gone, I asked her if she would bring him a Christmas present for Susie now and she said she ought to bring him a pretty glass bottle labeled perfume with heartsworn in it and she would if she thought he'd smell it first. Shelly felt badly about leaving mother when she wasn't very well, but mother said it was all right. She had Candice to keep house and May and me and father and all of us to take care of her and it would be best for Shelly to go now and work as hard as she could while she had the chance. So one afternoon father took her trunk to the depot and bought the tickets and got the checks and the next day, Laddie drove to Groveville with father and Shelly and she was gone. Right at the last, she didn't seem to want to leave so badly but all of them said she must. Peter's cousin who had gone last year was to meet her and have a room ready where she boarded if she could and if she couldn't right away then the first one who left Shelly was to have the place so they'd be together. There were eight of us left, counting Candice and Miss Amelia and you wouldn't think a house with eight people living in it would be empty but ours was. Everything seemed to wilt. The roses on the window blinds didn't look so bright as they had. Mother said the only way she could get along was to keep right on working. She helped Candice all she could but she couldn't be on her feet very much. So she sat all day long and peeled peaches to dry, showed Candice how to jelly, preserve and spice them and peeled apples for butter and to dry. Quantities more than we could use but she said she always could sell such things and with a bunch of us to educate yet we'd need the money. When it grew cold enough to shut the doors and have fire at night first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day and then father lined us against the wall all in a row from Lattie down and he pronounced words easy ones that divided into syllables nicely for me harder for May and sew up until I might sit down. For Lattie, May and Leon he used the geography the Bible, Roland's history the Christian advocate and the agriculturist. My but he had them so they could spell. After that as memory tests all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practice the proper way to read them. I could do Rienzi's address to the Romans, Casablanca, Grey's Elegy or Mark Antony's speech but best of all I liked lines to a waterfowl. When he was tired if it were not bedtime yet all of us boys too sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Lattie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside doormats and they were pretty and very useful too like the dog they got his head padded in McGuffie's second. Then they picked the apples these had to be picked by hand wrapped in soft paper packed in barrels and shipped to Fort Wayne where they couldn't reach by hand they stood on barrels or ladders and used a long handled picker so as not to bruise the fruit. Lattie helped with everything through the day worked at his books at night and whenever he stepped outside he looked in the direction of priors. He climbed to the topmost limbs of the trees with a big basket picked it full and let it down with a long piece of clothesline. I loved to be in the orchard when they were working there were plenty of summer apples to eat yet it was fun to watch the men and sometimes I could be useful by handing baskets or heaping up apples to be buried for us. One night father read about a man who had been hanged for killing another man and they caught him down too soon so he came alive and they had to hang him over and father got all worked up about it he said the man had suffered death the first time to all intents and purposes so that fulfilled the requirements of the law and they were wrong when they hanged him again. Lattie said it was a piece of bungling sure enough but the law said a man must be hanged by his neck until he was dead and if he weren't dead why it was plain he hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the law so they were forced to hang him again. Father said that law was wrong the man never should have been hanged in the first place. They talked and argued until we were all excited about it and the next evening after school Leanne and I were helping pick apples and when father and Lattie went to the barn with a load we sat down to rest and we thought about what they said. Gee that was tough on the man said Leanne but I guess the law is all right of course he wouldn't want to die and twice over at that but I don't suppose the man he killed likes to die either I think if you take a life it's all right to give your own to pay for it.   I don't think I'd want anything if I were dead he said I wonder how it feels to die now that man knew I'd like to be hanged enough to find out how it goes and then come back and brag about it I don't think it hurts much I believe I'll try it so Leanne took the rope Laddie lowered the baskets with and threw it over a big limb then he rolled up a barrel and stood on it and put my sunbana on with the crown over his face for a black cap and made the rope into a slip noose over his head and told me to stand back by the apple tree and hold the rope tight until he said he was hanged enough then he stepped from the barrel it jerked me toward him about a yard and he came down smash on his feet I held with all my might but he was too heavy and falling that way so he went to trying to fix some other plan and I told him the sensible thing to do would be for him to hang me because he'd be strong enough to hold me and I could tell him how it felt just as well so we fixed me up like we had him and when Leanne got the rope stretched he wrapped it twice around the apple tree so it wouldn't jerk him as it had me and when he said ready I stepped from the barrel the last thing I heard was Leanne telling me to say when I was hanged enough I was so heavy the rope stretched and I went down until I almost tore off my head and I couldn't get a single breath so of course I didn't tell him and I couldn't get on the barrel and my tongue went out and my chest swelled up and my ears roared and I kicked and struggled and all the time I could hear Leanne laughing and shouting to keep it up that I was dying fine only he didn't know that I really was and at last I didn't feel or know anything more when I came to I was lying on the grass while father was pumping my arms and Ladi was pouring creek water on my face from his hat and Leanne was running around in circles clear crazy I heard father tell him he'd give him a scutching he'd remember to the day of his death but in as much as I had told Leanne to do it I had to grab father and hold to him tight as I could until I got breath enough to explain how it happened even then I wasn't sure what he was going to do after all that when I tried to tell Leanne how it felt he just cried like a baby and he wouldn't listen to a word even when he'd wanted to know so badly he said if I hadn't come back he'd have gone to the barn and used to the swing rope on himself so it was a good thing I did for one funeral would have cost enough when we needed money so badly not to mention how mother would have felt to have two of us go at once like she had before and anyway it didn't amount to so awful much it was pretty bad at first but it didn't last long in the next day my neck was only a little blue and stiff and in three days it was all over only a rough place where the rope grained the skin as I went down but I never got to tell Leanne how it felt I just couldn't talk him into hearing and it was quite interesting too but still I easily saw why the man in the paper would object to dying twice to pay for killing another man once when the apples were picked and the cabbage beets turnips and potatoes were buried some corn dried in the garret for new meal pumpkins put in the cellar the field corn all husked and the butchering done father said the work was in such fine shape with laddie to help and there was so much more corn than he needed for us and the price was so high and the turkeys did so well and everything that he could pay back what mother helped him and have quite a sum over it was thanksgiving by that time and all of windfields lucies salie and peter and our boys came home we had a big time all but shelly it was too expensive for her to come so far for one day but mother sent her a box with a whole turkey for herself and her friends and cake popcorn nuts and just everything that wasn't too drippy shelly wrote such lovely letters that mother saved them and after we had eaten as much dinner as we could she read them before we left the table I had heard most of them but I liked to listen again because they sounded so happy you could hear shelly laugh on every page she told about how peter's cousin was waiting when the train stopped they couldn't run together right away but they were going to the first chance they had shelly felt badly because they were so far apart but she was in a nice place where she could go with the other girls of the school until she learned the way she told about her rum and the woman she boarded with and what she had to eat she wrote mother not to worry about clothes because most of the others were from the country or small towns and getting ready to teach and lots of them didn't have nearly as many or as pretty dresses as she did she told about the big building the classes the professors and of going to public recitals where some of the pupils who knew enough played and she was working her fingers almost to the bone so she could next year she told of people she met and how one of the teachers took a number of girls in his class to see a great picture gallery she wrote pages about a young chicago lawyer she met there and only a few lines about the pictures so father said as that was the best collection of artwork in chicago it was easy enough to see that shelly had been far more impressed with a man than she had been with the pictures mother said she didn't see how he could say such a thing like that about the child of course she couldn't tell in a letter about hundreds of pictures but it was easy enough to tell all about a man father got sort of spunky at that and he said that it was mighty little that mattered most that could be told about a chicago lawyer and mother had better caution shelly to think more about her work and write less of the man mother said that would stop the child's confidences completely and she'd think all the time about the man and never mention him again so she wouldn't know what was going on she said she was glad shelly had found pleasing refined friends and she'd encourage her all she could in cultivating them but of course she'd caution her to be careful and she'd tell her what the danger was and after that shelly wrote and wrote mother didn't always read the letters to us but she answered everyone she got that same night sometimes she pushed the pen so she jabbed the paper and often she smiled or laughed softly i liked thanksgiving we always had a house full of company and they didn't stay until we were tired of them as they did at christmas and there was as much to eat the only difference was that there were no presents it wasn't nearly so much work to fix for one day as it was for a week so it wasn't so hard on mother and kandice and father didn't have to spend much money we were wearing all our clothes from last fall that we could and our coats from last winter to help out but we didn't care we had a lot of fun and we wanted sally and shelly to have fine dresses because they were in big cities where they needed them and in due season no doubt we would have much more than they because as may figured it there would be only a few of us by that time so we could have more to spend that looked sensible and i thought it would be that way too we were talking it over coming from school one evening and when we had settled it we began to play dip and fade that was a game we made up from being at church and fall and spring were the only times we could play it because then the rains filled all the ditches beside the road where the dirt was plowed up to make the bed higher and we had to have the water to dip in and fade over we played it like that because it was as near as we could come to working at a song isaac thomas sing every time he got happy he had a lot of children at home and more who had died from being half fed and frozen mother thought and he was always talking about meeting the poor innocence in heaven and singing that one song every time he made exactly the same speech in meeting it began like resetting poetry only it didn't rhyme but it sort of cut off in lines and isaac waved back and forth on his feet and half sung it and the rags waved too but you just couldn't feel any thrills of earnestness about what he said because he needed washing and to go to work and get him some clothes and food to fill out his frame he only looked funny and made you want to laugh it took Emmanuel Ripley to raise your hair I don't know why men like my father and the minister and John Dover stood it they talked over asking Isaac to keep quiet numbers of times but the minister said there were people like that in every church they always came among the Lord's anointed and it was better to pluck out your right eye than to offend one of them and he was doubtful about doing it so we children all knew that the grown people scarcely could stand Isaac's speech and prayer and song and that they were afraid to tell him plain out that he did more harm than good every meeting about the third man up was Isaac and we had to watch him wave and rant and go sing songy oh brothering and sistering uh it delights my heart uh to gather with you in this holy house of worship uh in his sacred word uh the Lord uh tells us that we are all his children uh and now let me exhort you tonight uh as one that loves you uh to choose that good part that Mary chose uh that the world can neither give nor take away uh that went on until he was horse then he prayed and arose and sang his song other men spoke where they stood Isaac always walked to the altar faced the people and he was tired out when he finished but so proud of himself so happy and he felt so sure that his efforts were worth a warm bed sausage pancakes maple syrup and coffee for breakfast that it was mighty seldom he failed to fool someone else into thinking so too and if he could he wouldn't have to walk four miles home on cold nights with no overcoat in summer mostly they let him go Isaac always was fattest in winter especially during revivals but at any time mother said he looked like a sheep's carcass after the buzzards had picked it it could be seen that he was perfectly strong and could have fed and clothed himself and Mandy and the children quite as well as our father did us if he had wanted to work for we had the biggest family of the neighborhood so we children made fun of him and we had to hold our mouth shut when he got up all tired and teary-like and began to quiver many dear children we know do stand untune their harps in the better land their little hands from each sound and string bring music sweet while the angels sing bring music sweet while the angels sing we shall meet them again on that shore we shall meet them again on that shore with fairer face an angel grace each loved an old welcome us there they used to mourn when the children died unsaid goodbye at the riverside they dipped their feet in the gliding stream unfaded away like a lovely dream unfaded away like a lovely dream then the chorus again and then Isaac dropped on the front seat exhausted and stayed there until some good-hearted woman mostly my mother felt so sorry about his shiftlessness she asked him to go home with us and warmed and fed him and put him in the traveler's bed to sleep the way we played it was this we stood together at the edge of a roadside puddle and sang the first verse and the chorus exactly as Isaac did then I sang the second verse and May was one of the many dear children and as I came to the lines she dipped her feet in the glide and stream and for fading away she jumped across now May was a careful little soul and always watched what she was doing so she walked up a short way chose a good place and when I sang the line she was almost birdlike she dipped and faded so gracefully then we laughed like dunces and then May began to sway and swing and drone through her nose for me and I was so excited I never looked I just dipped and faded on the spot I faded all right too for I couldn't jump nearly across and when I landed in pure clay that had been covered with water for three weeks I went down to my knees in mud to my waist in water and lost my balance and fell backward a man passing on horseback pried me out with the rail and helped me home of course he didn't know how I happened to fall in and I was too chilled to talk I noticed May only said I fell so I went to bed scorched inside with red pepper and never told a word about dipping and fading Leon whispered and said he bet it was the last time I would play that so as soon as my coat and dress were washed and dried and I could go back to school I did it again just to show him I was no cowardly calf but I had learned from May to choose a puddle I could manage before I faded end of chapter eight