PURPLE SPRINGS
BY
NELLIE L. McCLUNG
1921
CONTENTS
I. THE DAY BEFORE
II. THE DAY
III. THE HOUSE OF CLAY
IV. TANGLED THREADS
V. WHERE MRS. CROCKS THREW THE SWITCH
VI. RED ROSES
VII. THE INNOCENT DISTURBER
VIII. THE POWER OF INK
IX. THE DOCTOR'S DECISION
X. THE WOMAN WITH A SORE THOUGHT
XI. ENGAGED
XII. THE MACHINE
XIII. THE STORM
XIV. THE SEVENTH WAVE
XV. THE COMING OF SPRING
XVI. PRINCE OF THE HOUSE OF CLAY
XVII. PETER'S REPORT
XVIII. THE WOMAN OF PURPLE SPRINGS
XIX. THE END OF A LONELY ROAD
XX. ANNIE GRAY'S STORY
XXI. THE OPENING OF THE WAY
XXII. THE PLAY
XXIII. COMPENSATION
XXIV. HOME AGAIN
XXV. THERE IS NOTHING TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
CHAPTER I
THE DAY BEFORE
It was the last day of February, the extra day, dead still, and biting
cold, with thick, lead-colored skies shading down to inky blue at the
western horizon. In the ravine below John Watson's house trees cracked
ominously in the frost, and not even a rabbit was stirring. The hens
had not come out, though an open door had extended an invitation, and
the tamworths had burrowed deeper into the stack of oat straw. The
cattle had taken refuge in the big shed, and even old Nap, in spite of
his thick Coat, had whimpered at the door to be let in.
Looking out of the western window, Pearl Watson, with a faint wrinkle
between her eyebrows, admitted to herself that it was not a cheerful
day. And Pearl had her own reasons for wanting fine weather, for
tomorrow was the first of March, and the day to which she had been
looking forward for three years to make a momentous decision.
The thought of this day had gone with her in the three years that had
passed, like a radiant gleam, a glorious presence that brightened and
idealized every experience of life, a rainbow that glorified every
black cloud, and there had been some clouds in her life black enough
to bring out the rainbows' colors too; as when her mother's serious
illness had called her back from the city, where she was attending
school. But each day had brought her one day nearer the great day,
which now she could call "Tomorrow."
It had never occurred to Pearl to doubt the young doctor's sincerity,
when, three years before, he had said he would wait until she was
eighteen years old before he asked her something.
"And it will depend on your answer," he had said, "what sort of a day
it is. It may be a dark, cold, horrible day, with cruel, biting wind,
or it may be a glorious day, all sunshine and blue sky--that will all
depend on your answer." And she had told him, honestly and truthfully,
not being skilled in the art of coquetry, that "it generally was fine
on the first of March."
That the young doctor might have forgotten all about the incident
never crossed her mind in the years that followed. She did not know
that there was witchery in her brown eyes and her radiant young beauty
that would stir any young man's heart and loosen his tongue, causing
him to say what in his sober moments he would regard as foolishness.
Pearl did not know this; she only knew that a great radiance had come
to her that day, three years before, a radiance whose glory had not
dimmed. Every thought and action of her life had been influenced by
it, and she had developed like a fine young tree on which the spring
sunshine had perpetually fallen, a fine young tree that had been
sheltered from every cold blast, watered by the rains and bathed in
perpetual sunshine, for Pearl's young heart was fed from the hidden
springs of love and romance. For her the darkest night was lighted by
stars; for her the birds sang of love and hope and happiness; for her
the commonest flower was rich in beauty and perfume; and so the end of
the three years found her a well developed, tall, boyishly athletic
girl, with a color in her cheeks like an Okanagon peach, hair of
richest brown, with little gleams of gold, waving back naturally from
a high forehead; a firm chin, with a dimple; and great brown eyes,
full of lights, and with a dazzling brilliance that registered every
thought of her brain and emotion of her heart.
From the time when she was twelve years old the young doctor, who had
then just come to Millford, had been her hero--worshipped afar, and in
great secrecy.
Many a time when the family lived in the village, and Pearl was left
to mind the swarm of boys while her mother was out working, she had
raced to the window just to see him drive by, and, having seen him and
perhaps caught a smile or nod, if he noticed her, she would go back to
her strenuous task of keeping her young brothers clothed and happy and
out of the wealth of a quickened imagination she would tell them more
and more wonderful tales of the glorious world into which their young
feet had strayed.
When the doctor had time and inclination to talk to her, Pearl's
young heart swam in a crimson sea of delight, but if by any chance
he hurried by, his mind filled with other things, she suffered for
a brief season all the pangs of unrequited affection, and looked
anxiously in the glass many times to see if her face showed signs of
early decay.
But the mood soon passed and optimism again reigned. During the times
of depression many a sunflower had its yellow petals torn away, as she
sought to wring from it definite information regarding the state of
his affections. If the sunflower brought in an adverse decision,
without a moment's hesitation Pearl began upon another, and continued
until a real, honest, authentic flower declared in her favor. But that
she did not really trust the oracles was shown by the great frequency
with which she consulted them!
As she grew older, Pearl would have liked to talk to some one about
her dreams, but it was hard to begin. There was really nothing to
tell. She might as well try to explain the sparkle of the sunshine, or
the joyousness of the meadowlark's song in the spring, as to try to
analyze the luminous wonder that had come into her own heart that day
when the purple mist lay on the Tiger Hills, and the snowdrifts were
beginning to sink and sag and break into little streams. It could not
be done.
But still she wondered what experiences other people had had, and
wished that someone would talk to her about it. At the Normal the
girls had talked about "crushes" and "mashes" and people having a
"bad case," and she knew that the one qualification they demanded in
matters of the heart was that the young man should have the means
and inclination to "show a girl a good time." She could not talk to
them--there did not seem to be any point of contact. And when the
subject of love and marriage was discussed around the family circle,
her mother's dictum was always brief and concise:
"You'll get who's for ye--and you'll have your number. There's lots of
trouble for them that don't marry, and there's lots more for them that
do. But there's no use in advisin' or warnin'; it's like the pigs and
the hot swill--one will stick in his nose and run away squalin'; the
next one will do the same, and the next and the next. They never take
warnin's; it's the way of the world!"
But nothing dimmed the glory of Pearl's rainbow dream or stilled the
happy songs her heart sang day and night. She had often pictured the
day the Doctor would come and tell her that the three years were past.
He would drive out with his team, for the snow would be too deep for
his car, and she would first hear the sleigh-bells, even before old
Nap would begin to bark, and he would come in with his cheeks all red
and glowing, with snow on his beaver coat; and he would tell her it
was too fine to stay in, and wouldn't she come for a ride?
So sure was she that he would come that she had laid out on her bed,
in the little room under the rafters, her heavy coat, overshoes and
scarf, and had spent some time deciding whether her red tam or the
brown velvet hat was the most becoming, and finally favored the tam,
because she had once heard the Doctor say that red was the color for
winter, and besides, the brown hat had a sharp rim that might give a
person a nasty poke in the eye ... in case....
She made all her preparations on the day before, because, she told
herself, a doctor's time was so uncertain that he might, remembering
this, be afraid of being called away on The Day, and so come a day
sooner.
Pearl thought of all this as she stood at the window and looked out on
the bare farm yard, swept clean of beast or fowl by the bitter cold
which had driven them all indoors. A bright fire burned in the
Klondike heater, and from the kitchen came the cheerful song of a
canary. The house was in a state of great tidiness, with its home made
lounge in front of the fire, piled high with gaily flowered cushions,
and the brightly striped rag carpet which was the culmination of the
united efforts of the family the winter before, and before the fire a
tiger-striped cat with her paws stretched out to the heat.
Pearl was alone in the room, for all the children were at school, her
father and Teddy out, and her mother in the kitchen making the last of
the mincemeat into pies, which sent out a real baking odor of cinnamon
and cloves; a roast of pork that had been "doing too fast," was now
sitting on the top of the high oven, its angry, sparking, sizzling
trailing off into a throaty guttering. Some sound or smell of it
seemed to have penetrated Nap's dreams, for he wakened suddenly and
sat up, licking his lips and pounding the floor with his tail.
Suddenly the telephone rang, the three short and one long, which
indicated that it was the Watson family who were wanted. Pearl's heart
thrilled with expectation. Of course he would phone before he came to
make sure she was at home. The receiver was in her hands in a moment.
"Hello!" she called, almost choking with excitement.
"Will you tell your father," called back a man's voice at the end
of the wire, "that the cattle are coming home from the range. Last
night's snow was too much for them, and Jim Fidler has just phoned
through to warn us. They're comin' on mad for feed, tramplin' and
bawlin', and they'll hit your place first--mos' likely--tho' they may
turn south at Beckers--better phone Beckers and see."
"All right!" said Pearl, in a steady voice, "all right, and thank
you."
Pearl hastily put on a coat and went to the barn to give the unwelcome
news to her father and Teddy, who were busy fanning out the weed seeds
from the seed grain.
"They're comin' airly," said John Watson, slowly, as he shook down the
bag of seed wheat that he had just filled; "but I guess they are the
best judge of whether they can make a livin' outside any longer. Well,
what we have we'll share, anyway. There's no use in contradictin' a
bunch of hungry steers. Keep a watch on the phone, Pearlie dear, and
find out which way they turn at Beckers'. We'll open up an oat stack
for them, anyway--so if they come rampin' in in the middle of the
night there'll be something ready."
Pearl ran back across the wind-swept yard to the house, for the one
thought in her mind was that a message might come over the phone for
her! Ordinarily the home-coming of the hungry cattle would have been
an event of such importance that it would have driven out all others;
but there was only one consuming thought in her mind today.
When she came in the phone was ringing, and her mother, with her hands
in the pie-crust, said: "Pearlie, dear, run in to the phone--that's
twice it's rung since you were out, and sure I couldn't go--and me
this way."
Pearl took the receiver down and found a conversation in progress. She
had no thought of listening in--for at once she surmised it might be
a message regarding the cattle going to one of the other houses. The
first sentence, however, held her in its grip, and all thought of what
she was doing was driven from her mind.
"They are going to offer the doctor the nomination tomorrow--he'll
make the best run of any one in these parts."
It was a man's voice, far away and indistinct.
"That will please Miss Morrison--she always wanted to get into
politics;" it was a woman who replied--"but I'm not so sure she has
any chance, the doctor is a pretty cautious chap. I often think he has
a girl somewhere--he goes to Hampton pretty often."
"He's not worried over women, believe me," the man's voice cut in. "I
think he likes that young Watson girl as well as any one, and she has
them all skinned for looks--and brains too, I guess."
The woman's voice came perceptibly nearer, and seemed to almost hiss
in her ear--unconsciously she felt the antagonism. "That's absurd,"
she said, with sudden animation; "why, these people are nobody,
the mother used to wash for me a few years ago. They are the very
commonest sort--the father was only a section man. The doctor enjoys
her cute speeches, that's all, but there's absolutely nothing in
it--he as much as told me so."
Pearl hung up the receiver with a click, and, pressing her lips
together, walked over to the window with two crimson spots burning
like danger signals on her cheeks. When Pearl's soul was burdened she
always wanted to get outside, where the sky and the wind and the big
blue distance would help her to think. But the day was too cold for
that, so instinctively she walked to the window, where the short
afternoon sun was making a pale glow on the heavy clouds.
Old Nap came from his place behind the table and shoved his cold nose
into her hand, with a gentle wagging of his tail, reminding her that
all was not lost while she still had him.
Dropping down on her knees beside him, Pearl buried her face in his
glistening white collar, and for one perilous moment was threatened
with tears. But pride, which has so often come to our rescue just in
time, stepped into her quivering young heart, she stood up and shook
her head like an angry young heifer.
"'Common,' are they?" she said, with eyes that darted fire; "not half
common enough--decent people that do their work and mind their own
business,--helpin' a friend in need and hurtin' no wan--it would be a
better world if people like them were commoner! 'And the mother washed
for ye, did she, you dirty trollop? Well, it was a God's mercy that
some one washed for you, and it was good clane washin' she did, I'll
bet--and blamed little she got for it, too, while you lay in your bed
with your dandruffy hair in a greasy boudoir cap, and had her climb
the stairs with your breakfast. And you'd fault her for washin' for
you--and cleanin' your house--you'd fault her for it! I know the kind
of ye--you'd rather powder ye'r neck than wash it, any day!"
No one would recognize the young Normalite who two weeks before had
taken the highest marks in English, and had read her essay at the
closing exercises, and afterwards had it printed, at the editor's
request, in the _Evening Echo_, for Pearl's fierce anger had brought
her back again to the language of her childhood.
"And he as much as told you, did he?" she whispered, turning around
to glare in stormy wrath at the unoffending telephone--"he as much as
told you there was nothing in it?"
Pearl puckered her lips and shut one eye in a mighty mental effort to
imagine what he would say, but in trying to hear his words she could
only see his glowing face, the rumpled hair she loved so well, and
then her voice came back like a perfect phonograph record, that
strong, mellow, big voice which had always set her heart tingling and
drove away every fear. She couldn't make him say anything else but the
old sweet words that had lived with her for the last three years.
The storm faded from her eyes in a moment, and in the rush of joy that
broke over her, she threw herself down beside old Nap and kissed the
shiny top of his smooth black head. Then going over to the telephone,
she shook her fist at it:
"Did my mother wash for you, ma'am? She did--and you never had better
washin' done! Are we common people?--we are, and we're not ashamed.
We're doin' fine, thank you--all the children are at school but me,
and I've gone thro' the public school and Normal too. The crops are
good--we have thirty head of cattle and six horses, sound in wind and
limb. Some day we'll have a fine new house, and we'll live all over it
too. John Watson did work on the section, and they'd be fine and glad
to get him back. He owes no man a dollar, and bears no man a grudge.
I wouldn't change him for the Governor-General for me dad--and now
listen--I'm tellin' ye something, I'm goin' to marry the doctor--if he
wants me--and if you don't like it there's a place you can go to.
I'll not be namin' it in the presence of Nap here, for he's a good
Christian."
"And you, sir,"--she addressed the telephone again,--"I thank you for
your kind words regarding brains and looks. I hope it is a true word
you speak, for I may need both before I'm done."
The home-coming of the cows at eventime has been sung about, written
about, talked about, painted, and always it has had in it the
restfulness of evening,--the drowsy whirr of insects' wings, the
benediction of the sunset, the welcoming gladness of a happy family.
But these pictures have not been painted by those of us who have seen
the hungry cattle come in from the range when the snow covers the
grass, or the springs dry up, and under the influence of fear they
drive madly on.
All day long the range cattle, about three hundred in number had
searched the river bottom for the grass which the heavy snowfall of
the night before had covered; searched eagerly, nervously all the
while, bawling, ill-naturedly pushing and horning, blaming each other
in a perfectly human way. Disconsolately they wandered over the river
to the other bank feeling sure they would find grass there, only to
find the snow over everything, and not even a little rosebush showing
its head.
Then it was that the old cow, an acknowledged leader of the herd,
who bore the name of the "Broncho," on account of her wildness, her
glaring red eyes and her branching horns, with an angry toss of her
head to shake the water from her eyes, lifted her voice in one long,
angry, rolling bellow that seemed to startle the whole herd. It had
in it defiance, and determination. Like the leading spirit among the
leprous men who sat at the gate of Samaria, the "Broncho" gathered up
the feeling of the meeting in one long soul-stirring, racuous bawl,
which, interpreted, meant, "Why sit we here until we die?"
The primitive law of self-preservation was at work--even a cow will
not starve quietly. The grass had been scarce for days, and she had
lain down hungry each night for a week; and now, when the grass had
gone entirely, the old cow had taken her determination; she would go
home and demand her right to live. This thought surging through her
soul, gave decision to her movements. Whether the other cattle came or
not did not matter in the least--she knew what she was going to do.
The strong northwest wind which began to whip the fresh snow into
loose waves, turned the cattle to face the south east, in which
direction the settlement lay. Miserable cattle, like miserable people,
are easily led. It is only the well-fed and comfortable who are not
willing to change their condition, and so when the others saw the
"Broncho" forging up the hill, the whole herd, as if at a word of
command, lurched forward up the bank.
They surged onward, bawling, crowding, trampling, hooking without
mercy. Companions they had been for months before, eating together,
sleeping together, warming each other, playing together sometimes when
the sun was bright. That was all forgotten now, for the hunger-rage
was on them, and they were brutes, plain brutes, with every kind
instinct dead in their shivering breasts. They knew but one law, the
law of the strongest, as they drove onward, stumbling and crowding,
with the cold wind stinging them like a lash.
The night closed in, dark and cheerless, closed in early, under
the dull gray, unrelenting skies, and although lights blinked out
cheerfully from uncurtained windows, and willow plumes of smoke spread
themselves on the cold night air above all the farm-houses, the hearts
of the people were apprehensive.
It was the last day of February--green grass was still far away--and
the cattle, hungry, red-eyed and clamorous, were coming home!