AN ADVENTUROUS EXPEDITION
Sing a song of loving!
Let the seasons go;
Hearts can make their gardens
Under sun or snow;
Fear no fading blossom,
Nor the dying day;
Sing a song of loving
That will last for aye!
--ELIZABETH ROBERTS MACDONALD.
The village of Elmbrook had the finest situation for seeing what its
neighbors were about of any place in the Province of Ontario. It stood
on the crest of a high ridge, from which the whole earth fell away in
beautiful undulations. From almost any house in the village one could
see for miles down the four roads that wound up to it, and there was
always a brisk competition in progress as to who should be the first to
spy an approaching traveler.
Mrs. William Winters, who was the smartest woman in the township of
Oro, made it her boast that many a time she had sighted a buggyload of
her Highland relatives coming down from the MacDonald settlement above
Glenoro, when there wasn't a bite to eat in the house, and she had
fried the liveliest rooster in the barnyard and slapped up a couple of
pies before they drove up to the gate.
For many years she easily maintained first rank among the Elmbrook
sentinels, and might have done so to the end of her life had not one
family taken an unfair advantage by calling in the aid of machinery.
Silas Long, the postmaster, was a great student of astronomy, and could
talk like a book on comets and northern lights, and all other
incomprehensible things that sailed the heavens. So no one objected
when he bought a telescope--in fact, the minister had advised it; but
before long every one knew that while Si studied the celestial bodies
at night the female portion of his family kept the instrument turned on
objects terrestrial during the day. Old Granny Long, Silas' mother,
was the one who put Mrs. Winters in the background. She was a poor,
bedridden body, but lay there, day after day, happy as a queen, with
her bed pulled up to the window, and the telescope trained on the
surrounding country; and there was little went on between Lake Simcoe
and the northern boundary of the township that she did not see. She
knew the precise hour of a Monday morning at which the family washings
were hung out, and which was the cleanest. It was she who made truancy
an impossible risk, for no matter in what out-of-the-way place one
might go nutting or swimming, Granny Long was sure to see, and report
to the schoolmistress. It was from her, also, that her grandson
received the heart-breaking intelligence that young Malcolm Cameron had
kissed Marjorie Scott, the minister's oldest girl, at the jog in the
road, on the way to prayer-meeting one evening, and if it had not been
for her vigilance probably no one would have discovered that Sawed-off
Wilmott, who managed the cheese factory down on the Lake Simcoe road,
allowed his pigs to run in and out of the factory at will. Indeed, as
the deposed and indignant Mrs. Winters often declared, a body didn't
dast blow their nose inside the township without Granny Long hearing it
through that everlasting spyglass.
But on this particular early May morning a hostile army might have
marched up and seized Elmbrook unobserved. For there were great doings
inside the village that demanded concentrated attention. All the
bustle and activity of the place seemed to be gathered at one small
house. In the lane, by the side door, stood a team of farm horses
hitched to a large double buggy. A big, lumbering lad of about
fifteen, half asleep, on the front seat, was holding the reins in his
limp hands. But he was the only creature on the premises, except the
horses, that was not acutely awake and supremely busy. Even the hens
and geese, scratching and squawking about the garden, seemed to know
that something unusual was in progress, and gathered about the door in
excited groups. Inside the house there was a tremendous clatter;
dishes rattled, feet ran hither and thither, voices called frantically.
Every few moments a woman would dart out of the doorway, sending a
startled whirl of chickens before her, deposit something in the back of
the vehicle, and dash back again.
There seemed to be but one man on the premises, a big,
benevolent-looking fellow, whose placid face wore an unaccustomed
expression of nervous tension. He came stumbling out of the house, and
walked abstractedly around the horses. He was making strange motions
with his head, strongly indicative of a tendency to strangulation, and
ever and anon he clutched his white collar and looked toward the house
with an air of desperation. He made three aimless pilgrimages around
the equipage and then paused, and addressed the goose and gander that
had been following him: "We'll miss that train as sure as blazes," he
remarked, stonily.
A slim little woman, in a faded lilac gown that matched her fading
beauty, came staggering down the steps with a heavy basket. The big
man put out one brawny arm and lifted it, without an effort, into the
back of the vehicle. "We'll miss that train, Arabella, just as sure as
blazes," he repeated.
The sound partially awoke the young man on the front seat. He turned
and contemplated the basket with an injured air. "What in thunder are
they taking a set of dishes for, Arabella?" he asked, wearily.
"It's jist a basket o' things Hannah put up. She's afraid the orphan
might get hungry on the road home; and besides, she wanted to take some
cookies an' cheese to Jake's folks in town."
The man was making another circuit of the buggy, followed closely by
Isaac and Rebekah, the pet goose and gander. They came to a standstill
in front of the steps, and he raised his face to the morning skies and
shouted, as though invoking some higher power, "Hannah! Hannah! Are
ye 'most ready?"
A woman's face shot out between the starched lace curtains of an
upstairs window. It was a perfectly circular face, framed in thin,
fair hair, which was parted in the middle, and brushed down so smooth
and shiny that it looked like a coat of dull yellow paint. The face
had the same good-humored, benevolent expression as the man's, mingled
with the same strained air of desperate resolve. "'Most ready, Jake!"
she mumbled through a mouthful of pins, "'most ready! Arabella!
Arabella! Did you put in the bottle of raspberry vinegar?"
"Yes, yes, Hannah! Don't you worry?" cried the little faded lilac
woman, reassuringly.
"An' the cookies, an' the pound cake, an' the home-made cheese?"
A third woman bounded down the steps, and charged through the chickens
with a bundle of wrappings. She was a smart, tidy little body, with a
sharp face and a determined manner. At the sight of her the big man's
gloomy face took on an expression of hope.
"Susan! Susan Winters! D'ye think you could get us off?" he implored.
"We'll miss that train as sure as blazes!"
She paid not the slightest attention. "Ras'berry vinegar!" she
shrieked. "Hannah Sawyer, don't you know that there orphant may be an
infant in arms, an' if it is, it'll die of colic on the road home if
you fill it up with such stuff!"
The face which had disappeared from between the curtains came into view
again, red and alarmed. "Mercy me, Susan! I didn't know. I'll give
it to Jake's cousin. Arabella, did you put in the pound cake and the
home----" The words died away amid the curtains.
"Couldn't you get us off somehow, Susan?" besought the big man again,
looking down, helplessly, at the small woman, much as a becalmed
frigate might at a noisy little tug.
"Well, Jake Sawyer, if half them trollops o' weemin in there would
clear out and leave me alone, I'd 'a' had you at the station by this
time. Hannah!" she addressed the window peremptorily, "you hurry up
there an' come down, whether you're ready or not! I never agreed to
this wild-goose chase after an orphant, but now that you're half ready
you've got to go!"
There was another fleeting vision of the face between the curtains, and
a choking voice gasped something about being "jist ready."
"What that orphant's got to have is a bottle o' fresh milk!" cried Mrs.
Winters, darting back into the kitchen. A tall young lady, with a high
pompadour, was striving to squeeze two large lemon pies into a small
basket. She glanced up half apologetically as the village martinet
entered.
"Hannah said last night she didn't know whatever she'd do if it cried
on the road home, so ma thought I'd better bring over these pies. They
keep awful well, and the basket'll easy slip under the seat in the
train. When our Wes was a baby there was nothing would quiet him like
a piece o' lemon pie."
"Well, Ella Anne Long, there won't be no orphant to bring home if you
folks has your way!"
The exasperated little woman darted down the cellar steps, her voice
coming up from the cool depths, indistinct, but plainly disapproving:
"Lemon pie an' ras'berry vinegar! If Providence hasn't given folks
children, it's a sign they didn't ought to have any! An' it's jist
goin' clean against nature for them to go an' adopt one, that's what
I'll always say!"
The young lady with the pies glanced irresolutely toward a stout woman
who had just entered the back door, carrying a crock of butter. "You
put them pies in, if Hannah wants them," whispered the newcomer,
looking apprehensively toward the cellar, "an' say no more about it.
Half the mischief in the world's done by talking about things." She
hurried out to the vehicle and planted her contribution beside the
bundle of wrappings.
"That there butter's for the children at the Home, Jake. Don't forget
to give it to them poor things. Like as not they give 'em lard or
someth'n'."
"Davy!" she called to the young man on the front seat.
"What, maw?"
"For pity's sake don't forget to call us when the train hoots for
Cameron's Crossin'. 'Cause they've jist got to start then."
The boy in the buggy opened his eyes, stretched and yawned.
"I will, if it hoots good 'n' loud," he remarked, indifferently.
The maelstrom of hurry and bustle surged around Master David Munn,
leaving him placid and undisturbed, but to the rest of the gathering
the affair was of no small moment. Had the Sawyers been setting out on
a polar expedition it is doubtful if Elmbrook could have been more
exercised. For ten years, ever since their only baby had brightened
their home for one week, and then gone back to heaven, Jake and Hannah
Sawyer had wanted to adopt a child. That they had not done so long
before was not their fault, but because the village in general, and
Mrs. Winters in particular, who ruled the village, could never be
brought to consent. For already the Sawyers were about as great a
burden as Elmbrook could shoulder. They were the orphan children of
the village themselves, and needed to be perpetually adopted. They
were as good-hearted and lovable a pair as it was possible for man and
woman to be; all the stray dogs and hungry cats and needy tramps found
their way to the Sawyer house by unerring instinct, and Jake was never
to be seen on his way to or from his mill without a troop of children
climbing all over him. Nevertheless, he and his wife were a great care
to their neighbors. Not once had Hannah Sawyer got through her spring
house-cleaning or her fall pickling and preserving without help. Never
yet had the two arrived in time at church or prayer-meeting, and they
could not even go to town of a Saturday to do a half day's marketing
without Mrs. Winters' eye on them. As for Jake's flour mill, if his
partner, Spectacle John Cross, hadn't been a capable man, and an honest
one, every one declared it would have gone up in smoke long ago.
So, naturally, the village was reluctant about adopting a third orphan;
but Jake and Hannah had pleaded so, that the minister had advised Mrs.
Winters to yield. And so the day had arrived when they were to take
the train to a neighboring town, near which was an orphan home, and
there they were to secure their long-yearned-for prize.
Of course, it was out of the question to suppose that the Sawyers could
get up and catch the six-thirty train without assistance; so the
Camerons had loaned their team, and the Longs their buggy, to take them
to the station; Davy Munn was detailed to drive them, and all the rest
of the village to get them ready.
Jake had just returned from a despairing march to the gate. "We'll
miss that train, Harriet Munn, as sure as blazes!" he cried, with the
air of one who has a disagreeable formula to recite at stated
intervals, and is relieved to get it off his mind. He tramped back
again with an agonized glance at the upstairs window.
The boy in the buggy stirred to life once more.
"Say, maw!"
"What, Davy?"
"What on earth's Hannah scratching 'round upstairs so long for? That
orphant'll be growed up before they get it."
"She's jist ready," remarked his mother, hopefully, "an' there's no use
talkin' about it, either. It jist wastes time. Jake!" she called,
anxiously. "Are you sure you're all ready now?"
The man turned a desperate face toward her.
"I think so, Harriet. But if this collar don't bust soon an' give me a
breath, I'll choke."
"Did you find your pipe?"
Mr. Sawyer dived absently into his coat pockets. "We'll miss that
train as sure as---- Where in the nation's that pipe o' mine got to?"
He rummaged despairingly. "Oh, I forgot! Susan Winters said I wasn't
to take it, for fear the smoke might be bad for the orphant's eyes.
D'ye think it would, Harriet?" he inquired, wistfully.
"Tuts!" she cried, disdainfully, "not a bit. Davy, there, was brought
up on smoke. You go and get that pipe and put it in your pocket."
Mr. Sawyer started hopefully for the kitchen door. Davy Munn might not
be exactly a bright and shining example to set for the bringing up of
the orphan, but at least he looked healthy, and Jake was even more than
usually helpless when bereft of his pipe. He paused on the way indoors
to make one more despairing appeal to the power above. "Hannah!
Aren't you 'most ready?"
Hannah's face, round and red, like the full moon, appeared for an
instant from its cloudy curtain. "Harriet! Harriet Munn!" she called,
"and you, Arabella, could you run up here a minit an' pin on these blue
cuffs o' mine? An' I can't find my Sunday gloves, high nor low, nor
my----"
The rest was lost in the curtains, but the two friends had already
disappeared inside, and were charging up the stairs. Mrs. Winters, who
was emerging from the kitchen door with the bottle of milk, turned and
darted after them. "She ain't goin' to put them blue cuffs on that
black dress!" she screamed.
"Ella Anne," whispered Jake, sidling up to the young lady with the high
pompadour, "could you take a look 'round, and see if you can find my
pipe? I can't seem to think where I've laid it."
Miss Long strolled around the kitchen, casting an absent eye here and
there.
"Davy!" called a sharp voice from the upstairs window. "Davy Munn!
Don't you dast to forget to call when the train hoots for Cameron's
Crossing!"
The only calm person on the premises glanced up with half-closed eyes.
"Hoh!" he ejaculated, planting his feet upon the dashboard and
expectorating disdainfully in the direction of Rebekah's head,
"Gabriel's trump'll hoot 'fore this shootin' match goes off! Gosh
blame, if here ain't another one!"
A tall woman was coming up the lane. She was a stately, severe person,
with iron-gray hair and a stern gray eye, behind which a kindly twinkle
hid itself carefully from view. She had a commanding way, which,
combined with the fact that she had taught the Elmbrook school for
twenty years, and was the only woman in the village who neither feared
Mrs. Winters nor regarded Granny Long's telescope, had earned her the
title of the Duke of Wellington.
"Are you not away yet, David?" she demanded; and the boy sat up as
though he had received an electric shock.
"N-no, but we're jist startin'," he said, apologetically. She passed
him to where Mr. Sawyer stood in the doorway wrestling with his collar.
"Do you remember this, Jake?" she asked, holding up a baby's rattle.
"I bought it for your little Joey, and put it away in my desk till he
would be big enough to use it, and it's been there ever since. Maybe
the new baby'll like it."
The man's eyes grew misty as he took the little toy and gazed at it
tenderly. The woman's face had lost all its sternness; her gray eyes
were very kind.
"Well, well, well," he stammered, with masculine dread of giving
expression to anything like sentiment. "It--it looks quite--new." He
hesitated, then his face brightened as he found himself once more on
familiar ground. "Say, d'ye think you could help them weemin folks in
there to find my pipe? It seems to have got laid away somewheres, an'
I'm afraid we're goin' to miss that train as sure as--anything." He
ended up lamely, making the polite alteration out of respect for the
Duke's dignity.
Miss Weir marched into the kitchen. It was a scene of wild disorder.
"Hello!" giggled Miss Long. "We're having an awful time. Hannah ain't
ready, of course."
"_Isn't_ ready, Ella Anne."
"Well, isn't or ain't, it's all the same; she's not started yet. An'
mind you, Mrs. Munn's upstairs helping, too, and her expecting the new
doctor any minit. Say, Miss Weir, when she comes down, ask her whether
he's married or not, aw, do. She's the closest creature. I can't get
anything out of her."
Before the schoolmistress could rebuke Miss Long's undue curiosity
regarding the young doctor Mrs. Winters came flying down the stairs,
having successfully routed the blue cuffs.
"Good-morning, Miss Weir. We're here yet, you see. If these folks
ain't a caution, and no mistake! Davy! Davy Munn! Are you listening
for that there train?"
"Did ye look on the pantry shelf?" whispered Jake, cautiously, putting
his head in at the door, and avoiding Mrs. Winters' eye. "Sometimes I
leave it there."
"Just like you," grumbled the tidy schoolmistress, rummaging among the
cans of spice and pickle bottles.
"Perhaps it's in the sewing-machine drawer," suggested Mrs. Munn, who
had come panting down the stairs. "Hannah's jist ready, Jake," she
added, hopefully.
"What'll you do if the new doctor comes on this train?" asked Miss
Long, peeping at her pompadour in the little mirror above the sink.
"I dunno," answered the new doctor's housekeeper. "It's no use talkin'
about it, anyhow. There's more harm done by talkin' over things than
anything else in the world."
Miss Long shrugged her shoulders impatiently. That was Mrs. Munn's
invariable answer. She had been old Dr. Williams' housekeeper for ten
years, and had met all questions regarding his private affairs by the
vague formula, "I dunno." A close woman was Mrs. Mum, as the village
called her; a treasure of a woman, old Dr. Williams had said, when he
recommended her to his young successor.
Ella Anne sighed. "That pipe must 'a' fell down the well," she
remarked, with an accent of despair that was not all caused by the
supposed catastrophe.
"Is he going to have them three downstairs rooms for his offices, or
only two?" she ventured again.
Mrs. Munn stared vacantly. "I dunno," she said. "Mebby he is."
"There! If there isn't that troublesome pipe right under your nose,
Ella Anne!" cried Miss Weir, pouncing upon it where it lay on the
window-sill. "Your head is so full of the new doctor you can't see
straight. Here, Jake!"
She started for the door, but before she reached it a great many things
happened. First, Mrs. Sawyer, gowned, bonneted and shawled, though the
sun promised to be blazing hot before it set, came down the stairs at a
reckless pace. She was followed by Miss Arabella Winters, half hidden
beneath a bundle of coats and wraps suited for children of all ages.
As the two ran for the door, Mrs. Winters with a bottle of milk, Miss
Long with a forgotten pie, and Mrs. Munn, who had snatched up a basket
of newly laundered clothes, under the mistaken idea that they, too,
were for the orphan, all rushed at the same instant for the same
portal, and jammed together between the door-posts. The Duke of
Wellington, still grasping the rescued pipe, threw herself upon the
human wedge and drove it, helter-skelter, down the steps; and
simultaneously there arose, loud and clear, not from Cameron's
Crossing, some miles distant, but just from the ravine bridge, scarcely
a quarter of a mile away, the shrill whistle of the train.
The six women turned and looked at each other in an instant's paralyzed
dismay. Jake Sawyer opened his mouth and gave forth a slight variation
of his despairing motto, "We've missed that train, as sure as blazes!"
No one had courage to deny the assertion. When the Lakeview & Simcoe
Railroad Company laid a line across the township of Oro they had
treated Elmbrook in a shabby fashion by placing the station a mile from
the village. The inconvenience of this arrangement was largely
obviated, however, by the obliging ways of Conductor Lauchie
McKitterick. For if any one in the village was late in starting for
the station, all one had to do was to wave a towel at the back door as
the train slowed up over the ravine bridge, and Lauchie would wait at
the station. Of course, it was understood that the belated traveler
was already on the way thither, taking the path across McQuarry's
fields. But of what use to wave all the bed-sheets in Elmbrook this
morning? For though a delay of half an hour or so was neither here nor
there to the Lakeview & Simcoe Limited Express, it was impossible to
expect even so neighborly a body as Lauchie to wait until the big,
heavy buggy and Cameron's farm team should be driven along the
cross-road and down the concession. And as for Hannah Sawyer's 185
pounds being transported across the fields and over the fences in less
time--not to speak of all the orphan's clothes and the pies and the
pound cake and the crock of butter--well, there was no use thinking
about it!
But Mrs. Winters, the indomitable, rose to even this emergency. She
sprang to the buggy and began dragging out the baskets. "We'll stop
him at the bridge!" she screamed. "We can run down the back lane!
Davy Munn, you jump out of that rig an' run ahead! No--Miss Weir, you
go! Lauchie'll have to stop if you tell him!"
It was the first time in her life Mrs. Winters had ever paid a tribute
to the Duke of Wellington's power. Though it was wrung from her by the
exigencies of the case, the schoolmistress accepted it. She snatched a
white garment off the clothes-line, darted through the barnyard, and
ran at top speed down the back lane toward the track, waving it on
high, all unconscious that it was Jake's white mill overalls. Close
upon her flying footsteps came the orphan-adopting expedition: Mrs.
Winters, the bottle of milk leaving a white-sprinkled trail behind her;
Jake, dragging the heaps of wraps and the basket of provisions, with
which little Miss Arabella was vainly trying to assist him; Ella Anne
Long, the basket of pies on her arm, the forgotten one in her other
hand; Mrs. Munn, with the crock of butter; poor Hannah herself far
behind; and lastly, Isaac and Rebekah, their necks outthrust, their
wings wide, streaming along like a pair of comets, with a long,
spreading tail of hens, all noisily hopeful that this unusual commotion
meant an unusual meal.
Down the lane zigzagged the swift procession, Hannah floundering
farther and farther in the rear. She raised her voice once in a
despairing protest: "Oh, Jake! Jake!" she wailed, "I've forgot my
false teeth!"
Her husband, desperately intent on his destination, did not hear the
appeal, but the little woman who was generaling the flying column did,
and realized that this sign of giving way must be peremptorily crushed.
"You'll jist have to gum it, Hannah!" she shrieked relentlessly over
her shoulder. "Come on, come on!"
Master Davy Munn, still enthroned calmly upon the front seat of the
useless vehicle, contemplated the tumultuous line with supreme
contempt. Mr. Munn never hurried. Should all Elmbrook have risen up
one morning and gone hurtling down to Lake Simcoe, it would have left
him seated alone, undisturbed, on its vacated ridge.
He turned leisurely and chirped to the horses. "Jim Cameron lent yous
to haul that outfit to the station," he complained, as they lumbered
out through the gateway, "but I'll be darned if I promised to run 'em
there, so yous kin git home."
Meantime, the vanguard of the Orphan Rescue Expedition had reached the
railroad track. Just on the outskirts of the village lay a deep
ravine, spanned by a bridge. Over this the train moved slowly, and
here, with his eye on the lookout for white signals, the conductor
spied the Duke of Wellington in the middle of the track, waving a white
banner. Being an Elmbrook man, Lauchie took in the situation at once.
Jake and Hannah were late, of course; too late even to run across the
fields while he waited at the station. He gave the signal, and the
train slowed down, the snorting engine coming to a standstill within a
foot of the flaunting garment.
Engine Driver Nick Boyle, who would have willingly stopped at Elmbrook
every day in the week, to talk over the back fences with the pretty
girls, but who objected on principle to all that his chief did, poked
his head out of his black box, grimy and disapproving. "What in
thunder's Brass Buttons up to now?" he demanded. Miss Weir, who had
thrashed Nick times without number in his youth, fixed him with her
steady gray eye.
"He stopped because I signaled him to, Nicholas Boyle," she said tartly.
The Duke was still standing in the middle of the track, waving the
overalls, as though the train were a wild animal to be kept quiet by
having its attention diverted. The sight tickled the engineer.
"Golly, it must be a weddin'," he remarked, facetiously. "Who's
gettin' hitched? You, Miss Weir?"
"Hold your tongue!" she commanded, and the abashed young man collapsed
into his box.
By this time Hannah had arrived, and was being helped aboard. The
wraps, the pies, the bottle of milk, the crock of butter, the basket of
provisions, and her husband, were bundled after her. The group of
friends stood waving good-by with sunbonnets and aprons, the
schoolmistress, still holding Jake's forgotten pipe, and still
faithfully brandishing the overalls, stepped off the track to let the
train start, and the expedition was just drawing a breath of relief,
when they were suddenly thrown back into their former state of
consternation. Conductor Lauchie leaned down from the platform, and,
with his thumb pointing over his shoulder, announced in a loud whisper,
"Losh keep us, I would be forgetting! He'll be aboard, Harriet Munn!
Your new pill-mixer'll be aboard!"
Mrs. Munn stared at him in dismay. "Not him! Not the new doctor!"
The conductor looked abashed, as though he had brought the wrong parcel
from town. "Och, he would be as fine a lookin' young man as you'll see
in Oro!" he whispered, apologetically. "Will I jist be puttin' him off
here?"
"Don't you dast to do such a trick, Lauchie McKitterick!" cried Mrs.
Winters, shaking her fist in his face. "Harriet's been up helpin'
Hannah all mornin', an' she ain't ready for him. Take him on to the
station, an' we'll run up an' help her red up before he comes. An'
mind you go slow!"
The conductor hastily acquiesced. He was a native of Elmbrook, and
knew his place when Susan Winters was giving orders. "Awl aboard!" he
shouted.
The group gave one final, farewell flourish toward the train, and then
turned and sped up the lane to meet the new emergency. Jake and
Hannah, their faces settled once more into their accustomed expressions
of good-humored placidity, leaned from their windows and waved their
hands. Hannah smiled a toothless but happy smile, and Jake's eyes
beamed a great content as he sat back in his seat, and, holding the
rattle between his teeth, fumbled happily for a match. He looked
across at his wife, and their eyes met in a rapturous smile; for at
last, after years of striving and longing, they were on their way to
the fulfilment of their great ambition; they were to have a child of
their very own!
And so, as the train sped in one direction, and the group of women in
another, no one noticed the stooped, gaunt man who dropped from the
rear end of the baggage car, and, creeping down the bank of the ravine,
disappeared into the green tangle of underbrush.