_May 6th, 1908._
Dan found work! Only a day and a half, but a few hours were better than
nothing, and gave us hope.
The sun was setting as a wagon rattled up the road with Dan dangling his
feet over the endgate.
“Come on, Ethel,” he cried, “our friend here has offered us a place in
his barn and plenty of dry corn cobs for the fire.”
I sprang up and we loaded the wheel into the wagon. Soon the driver
entered a lane which ended in a large barnyard, and as Dan began to help
with the team, I unloaded the cooking outfit.
The farmer was pulling some grain sacks from a large tub in the wagon
bed.
“Here’s plenty of fish,” he said. “Just pitch in and help yourselves.”
Our eyes bulged in astonishment at sight of the silvery heaps that
filled the tub.
“Where on earth did you get so many?” gasped Dan.
“South o’ the road where the river has overflowed its banks. The boys
are heaving them out with pitchforks and spears and even bare handed.
Take all you want. I’ve three times as many as Sarah Jane and I can
eat.”
Nothing loath, I lifted out sufficient for our needs, and as Dan set to
cleaning the fish, I collected corn cobs and kindled a tiny fire beneath
the rack.
A short, roly-poly woman bustled out of the back door of the small but
comfortable farmhouse and approached us.
“Dear me, dear me, a lady tramp!” she exclaimed. “Bless us, if they
haven’t gone to running in pairs like animals entering the ark.”
Catching sight of the tandem still loaded with part of our equipment,
she paused in amazement, pushing back her red calico sunbonnet and
revealing wonderful masses of snow-white curls.
“But you’re not a tramp after all, are you? Tramps don’t ride bicycles.
What a disappointment! I’ve always wanted to meet a lady tramp. But what
are you up to anyway? Must be something interesting. You look
interesting.”
I assured her that we were, indeed, up to something interesting, just
how interesting we would probably fully realise later on.
“So you’re really going back to that strange California where it is
always summer? What awful monotony. Come fall, I’m always glad, for I
feel that summer has been here plenty long enough.”
She seated herself on the wagon tongue.
The barnyard world was settling for the night with much cackling,
grunting, lowing and stamping. Under a near-by shed a flock of fowls was
clucking and fussing as they sought the highest perches.
“Look at those chickens, now. Aren’t they just like humans?” demanded
our visitor. “I sit out here and watch them by the hour.”
“Caw, caw-rr,” croaked a haughty grenadier of a hen, taking a sharp peck
at a handsome young pullet who had endeavoured to perch on the topmost
roost.
“Hear what she says? I’ll tell you,” the little woman interpreted
eagerly.
“‘Get right away from here, you impudent, upstart dominick. Go back with
the lower clawsses where you belong and don’t try to crowd in here with
your betters.’
“Do you know, we got a woman living on the other side of town who’s the
perfect spit and image of that old hen. There, hear her talking?
“‘These nobodies try to push in everywhere.’
“Now the old rooster is a cuttering.... ‘She seems rather a nice little
thing, but of course, as you say, she’ll never be able to attain to any
position in life, but really for one of her social standing, she’s quite
chick.’
“Now the old hen’s talking again. ‘Fowls of quality can’t be too careful
nowadays. These plebeian climbers are everywhere.’”
The haughty Plymouth Rock settled herself and preened her feathers with
the conscious air of duty well performed, while the little woman laughed
gaily.
“Now she feels that she has maintained all the traditions of her class.
Oh, yes, they have classes in the chicken yard just as in the American
nation. I was thinking of getting a good likeness of that hen and
sending it to the _Chicago American_ so’s they could print her picture
on the society page.
“You know, I find lots of interesting characters out here. There’s a hog
over yonder. He’s stuffed so full he can’t swallow another mouthful, yet
he keeps wallowing over the food so the shoats can’t get any, and they
stand back and first one tries to get a bite and then another, when if
they’d all rush him at once they’d get aplenty. When he grunts like that
he’s telling them to be contented and industrious little pigs and that
if they just start rooting early every morning, after a while they’ll be
eminent and respected like he is and able to wallow in the feed trough.
“And Father’s got the big kettle all ready, and Saturday he’s going to
butcher him.”
“Hi, Serjane, I’ve got the fish ready for the pan and there you set on
the wagon tongue aletting the fire go out.” It was the querulous voice
of the old man.
Sarah Jane hurried into the kitchen as Dan placed a fine mess of fish
over the coals. We had just gotten well started to eating when the back
door flew open with a bang and the little woman scudded toward us.
“Oh, I’m too late,” she cried breathlessly. “You’re already eating. Now
why didn’t I ask you to eat with us before? Why? Why? Why?”
Each word was a tiny explosion.
“Just because I didn’t think! Didn’t think! That’s what ails the world.
We don’t think, won’t think and can’t think. Now, which do you consider
is the worst?”
“The _won’t thinks_ are the worst to my mind,” I assured her gravely,
“because the _don’t thinks_ get waked up now and then, and after a while
the _can’t thinks_ will grow some more brains, so that there is a chance
of them getting started right, but as for the fellow who just naturally
refuses to think at all, there is not much hope for him.”
“Dear me, dear me. I would just love to talk to you. You must come into
the sitting room as soon as you are done eating and spend the evening
with me. I’ll hurry and wash the dishes.”
She spun around and scurried into the house. We hastily finished our
meal and prepared sleeping quarters in the hay mow.
Then, as darkness fell, the old man ushered us into the neat living
room. The soft rays from a large lamp glimmered on the walnut furniture
and illumined the family groups upon the walls. Braided rugs, round and
oval, were scattered about the floor and a cheerful blaze in an
open-front stove radiated a pleasant welcome in the chill of evening. In
a few moments our hostess was extracting all the details of our journey
with the neatness and skill of long experience.
After a while Dan rose with a sigh of weariness. “Come, Ethel, we’d
better hit the hay. I’ve got to work to-morrow, you know.”
“Hay—hit the hay! No such a thing. Go right into the spare room and make
yourselves uncomfortable.” Sarah Jane rushed to open the bedroom door.
I explained our plans for roughing it and said we should rest very
comfortably in the hay mow.
“Dear me, dear me, you should always put off till to-morrow what you can
get out of doing to-day. You can do aplenty of roughing it when you get
to Wyoming. Go on to bed now and enjoy a good spring mattress while you
have the chance.”
Daylight came all too soon, with Sarah Jane summoning us to a breakfast
of cornmeal mush and cream, fried perch, buckwheat cakes with maple
syrup and cups of amber coffee.
“Let me know if you find anything that I can do to help along. I’d like
to be of more use in the world than I can be hibernating here,” she
called after us as we pedalled down the lane.
I can still see her merry smile as she leaned over the gate, vigorously
waving her sunbonnet in farewell.