“We’ve taken off one biler, an’ I put a few ’lasses for you in that
jug. Reenie, git the jug!”
“I don’t want them,” I said, near to tears, and trapped in the
vernacular.
Len was puzzled.
“But you’re welcome to the ’lasses. I’ll bring ’em up to you.”
“Not a spoonful, thank you, Len,” I called, already vanishing and
hastening my steps unconsciously until I found myself running--running
up-hill. I did not turn on the trail toward home, but went out to
Three Pine Point, where one could see the river miles away, smooth,
effortless, winding to some hidden land, safe and far from the malefic
spirit of industry. I dropped to the brown pine-needles. Quickly the
woods set their magical currents flowing, and that sensation as of
smiling veins crept over me.
Then I saw Nellie Ludd, or part of her. One could get only partial
glimpses of Nellie in the woods--an upreaching arm, a strip of
skirt, the sheen of her head. No, she was not golden-haired, or
green-kirtled, and she did not lead the fancy back to Tempe and the
vales of Arcady. Her dress was dingy brown in hue, and of cloth woven
on her mother’s loom, but fashioned by herself as fittingly to her
grace as fur to the marten or feathers to the swallow. Her eyes, if
ever you met them, you would find to be honey-brown, like the first
falling leaves. Her hair was the color of darkly shining smoke, and
seemingly as loath to stay put. And the world she led the fancy to was
a world which none of us have seen, but to which all secretly intend to
go; a world whose picture every man holds in his heart, but will not
look at in the light lest his neighbor come upon him suddenly. For,
though we may have learned to love our neighbor as ourself, we have not
yet learned to trust him.
It was a gracious chance that brought me to the Point just as Nellie
was leaving it. “Breaking off” was no longer difficult. That sputtering
kettle--how remote and absurd it seemed!
Descending late in the afternoon, my hills seemed to shine upon me,
reflecting happy restoration. I passed by the pasture ridge where the
silence was tapped by the falling chestnuts, and felt no impulse to
defeat the squirrels and gophers of their prize. A bellwood crowned
with purple bushels of grapes stirred no acquisitive instinct. I went
calmly through the orchard, picking my way over the fallen fruit that
no hand would rescue from decay; looked unwistfully at the pumpkins,
cushaws, and “candy-roasters” that would feed nothing but the frost;
and from my cabin step smiled at the flaming wing of a young maple that
was like a vivid aspiration airily detaching itself from the clutch of
utility and the lures of bounty.
When I went in, Serena herself could not have cast a more contented eye
about my kitchen, turbulent with unfinished tasks. The autumnal spirit
had effectually bathed my lacerations. The box on which conveniently
rested my little typewriter was invitingly near. I sank, a willing
non-resistant, into a chair, and my hands mechanically sought the keys
of the machine. For a few minutes I seemed to be having a pleasant
time, with consciousness unaroused to the issue. Then I took out the
sheet and read:
“Goodly Autumn comes again;
Fills my cupboard, fills my bin;
Piles the leaves beneath my shed
For my pony’s winter bed.
Goodly Autumn comes again;
Mellows apples, mellows sin;
Drops the bars in every place;
All the world is out to gaze.
Goodly Autumn with her bread!
Surely now the poor are fed;
And in peace I may sit down
To my fill of white or brown.
Autumn is so good to me;
I will walk abroad and see
If the earth and if the sun
Sup as well as I have done.”
“This is how they feel,” thought I, as I drowned in placidity without a
bubble struggling overhead. “This is why protracted meetings are held
in autumn. Ah, I will call my poem ‘The Season of Piety.’”
I began to feel like the good wife of a deacon. Nay, I was the deacon
himself, and blushed in his elderly trousers.
With her usual ghostly suddenness, Katy appeared.
“Mommy’s got the milkweed in her breast agin, an’ the baby’s all broke
out; she’s afraid it’s the measles an’ we’ll all take ’em.”
I rose. Certainly they would all take them. The season of piety was
ended.
Both cases were happily light, and when Coretta looked up from her
pillow and said, “We ain’t goin’ away. I’ve been thinkin’ what it ud be
like to git sick away from home an’ everybody,” I did not feel that a
slight reproof would be cruel.
“Stay? With nothing laid in for the winter?”
“But you’ve put up such a lot.”
My heart, which had softened at sight of her young cheek tracked red
with the whimsical fever, felt a stony relapse.
“You know, Coretta, I have had to consider other plans.”
She was terrified, but unbelieving. The heavens could not really fall.
“_You wouldn’t let us stay?_”
“On one condition, perhaps.”
Her face shone with relief. She had met conditions before, and melted
through them.
“What’s that, Mis’ Dolly?”
“You’ll never wake me up again to borrow something for breakfast?”
“No, I shore won’t.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Swear to God?”
“Swear to God.”
I looked down at the lovely face, contented with the thought of being
sick and _at home_, and my smile undid me.
“Swear to God,” she repeated feebly, “unless, o’ course, we’re jest
smack out o’ stuff.”