THE DAY!
"When time lets slip one little perfect day,
O take it--for it may not come again."
When Pearl woke on the morning of March 1st, it was with a heart so
light and happy it brought back the many Christmas mornings that
lay scattered behind her like so many crimson roses, spilling their
perfume on the shining road which led back to childhood. The sunshine
that sifted through the white muslin curtains of the one small window,
was rich and warm, as if summer had already come, and Pearl suddenly
remembered that the sky had been overcast and heavy the day before,
and the air stinging cold.
She went to the window, and looking out saw that that the clouds had
all gone, leaving no trace in the unscarred sky. The sun was throwing
long blue shadows over the fields, brightening the trees on the river
bank, with a thin rinse of pale gold. Down in the ravine, the purple
blue of the morning twilight was still hanging on the trees. The house
was very quiet--there did not seem to be anyone stirring, either
inside or out.
Pearl dressed herself hastily, humming a tune in happy excitement. Her
whole being was charged with happiness--for the great day had come.
Coming down stairs on light feet, she threw a red sweater around her
shoulders and went out the front door. In her great moments, Pearl
craved the open sky and great blue distances, and on this day of all
days, she wanted to breathe deep of its golden air. Somewhere she had
read about air that tasted like old wine! And as she stood facing the
early sun that had come up in a cloudless sky of deepest blue, she
knew what was meant.
From the dull tomb of yesterday, with its cavern-like coldness
and gloom, had come the resurrection of a new day, bright, blue,
sparkling, cloudless, for March had slipped in quietly in the night,
with a gentle breeze of wonderful softness, a quiet breeze, but one
that knew its business, and long before daylight it had licked the
hard edges of the drifts into icy blisters, and had purred its way
into all sorts of forgotten corners where the snow lay thickest.
It went past Pearl's face now with velvety smoothness--patting her
cheeks with a careless hand, like a loving friend who hurries by with
no time for anything but this swift re-assurance. But Pearl knew that
the wind and the sun and the crisp white snow, on which the sunbeams
danced and sparkled, were her friends, and were throbbing with joy
this morning, because it was her great day.
She went in at last, remembering that the children must be washed and
fed for school, and found Danny's garter for him just in time to save
him from the gulf of despair which threatened him. She made up the two
tin pails of lunch with which her young brothers would beguile the
noontide hour. She put a button on Mary's spat, in response to her
request of "Aw, say Pearl, you do this--I can't eat and sew." The
sudden change in the weather forced a change in the boys' foot-gear,
and so there had to be a frenzied hunt for rubbers and boots to
replace the frost-repelling but pervious moccasin.
One by one, as the boys were ready, fed, clothed and rubbered, they
were started on their two-mile journey over the sunny, snowy road,
Danny being the first to so emerge, for with his short, fat legs, he
could not make the distance in as short a time as the others.
"Mr. Donald wants you to come over on Friday, Pearl--I almost forgot
to tell you--he wants you to talk to us about the city, and the
schools you were in--and all that. I told him you would!"
This was from Jimmy, the biggest of the Watson boys now attending
school.
"All right," said Pearl, "sure I will."
There was more to the story, though, and Jimmy went on,--
"And the Tuckers said they bet you thought yourself pretty smart since
you'd been to the city....
"And then what happened," asked Pearl, when he paused;
"He went home--it wouldn't stop bleedin'! but Mr. Donald says a
good nose-bleed wouldn't hurt him--though of course it was wrong to
fight--but it was no fight--you know what they're like--one good
thump--and they're done!"
"Good for you, Jimmy" said his sister approvingly, "never pick a
quarrel or hit harder than you need, that's all!--but if trouble
comes--be facing the right way!"
"You bet," said Jimmy, as he closed the door behind him and the
stillness which comes after the children have gone fell on the Watson
home.
"Sure and ain't the house quiet when they're gone," said Mrs. Watson,
looking out of the window across the gleaming landscape, dotted in six
places by her generous contribution to the Chicken Hill school.
"And it won't be long until they're gone--for good."
"Cheer up, honest woman," cried Pearl gaily, "you havn't even lost
either Teddy or me, and we're the eldest. It looks to me as if you
will have a noisy house for quite a while yet, and I wouldn't begin to
worry over anything so far away--in fact, ma, it's a good rule not to
worry till you have to, and don't do it then!"
Pearl was bringing back "the room" to the state of tidiness it enjoyed
during school hours, moving about with joyous haste, yet with strict
attention to every detail, which did not escape her mother's eye.
"It's grand to be as light of heart as you are, Pearlie child," she
said, "I'm often afraid for you--when I think of all the sad things in
life and you so sure that everything will happen right. It is to them
that the world is brightest that the darkest days can come, and the
lightest heart sometimes has heaviest mournin'."
A little wither of disappointment went over Pearl's bright face, but
she shook it off impatiently. She wished her mother would not talk
like this on this day--of all days.
"Don't spoil a good day, ma, with sad talk. Look out at the Spring sun
there, and the cattle, even the wild ones from the range, with their
sides steaming and then nosing around so happy now, for getting all
about the bad times they had even as late as last evening. There's
no use telling them there's cold days coming--they wouldn't believe
now--and anyway they'll know soon enough. Isn't it best to let every
one have their sunny day--without a cloud on it."
Before her mother could form an answer, the one long and two short
rings came on the phone. Pearl's heart turned over in its bounding
joy. It had come--she knew it had come.
She took down the receiver:
"Hello," she said, in a thin voice.
"Pearl," said the voice, deep, mellow, eager. She thought she had
remembered what his voice was like, but she hadn't. It was a hundred
times sweeter than it had been in her memory.
"Yes," she said, holding the receiver so tightly her knuckles went
white with the pressure.
"What day is it, Pearl," he said, with the laugh in his voice, the
bantering laugh that made his patients love him.
"O I know" she said--"I know."
"You haven't forgotten what we said?"
"Not a word of it."
His voice came nearer, though he spoke lower.
"The train is not in yet, it is stuck out in the hills, but likely to
get out any minute. Dr. Brander is on it, coming out from the city to
operate for me in a very serious case, I'm not sure when I can get
out--but you'll wait for me--won't you, Pearl?"
She put her red young lips close to the transmitter.
"For a thousand years!" she said.
"Well, it won't be that long," he said, with his happy laugh.
Pearl knew exactly how his brows were lifted, and his eyes wide
opened.
"But it's great to have as good a margin, Pearl--and listen--" his
voice fell again until it seemed to whisper in her ear--"did you
happen to notice what sort of a day it is?"
"Well," said Pearl, "I am not surprised. Didn't I tell you it would
be?"
"You told me!" he said.
Then it was that from Pearlie Watson's young heart there opened up a
shining path straight up into heaven, and every inch of that radiant
highway was bright with the gleam of angel's wings, and as she stood
there leaning against the wall, her eyes dazzled with the glory of it,
it seemed as if all the sweet songs that lovers have ever sung, and
all the tender words they have ever spoken came marching, gaily
marching down the shining high way, right into her heart.
Outside the sun gleamed and beat on the melting snow, which sent back
quivery vibrations that smote the eyeballs like fire. The cattle shook
the water from their sun-dazzled eyes, and turned their heads away
from it, but it climbed steadily higher until it stood right over
them, and blazing down upon the snowy world, defied old man Winter to
his face.
Pearl was never quite sure about it in after years. But that day
she did not doubt her eyes, that star dust danced in the waves of
sunshine; that the gray snow birds played crack the whip outside the
window; that the willow hedge, palpitating in the sunshine, beat time
with its silvery branches to the music that lilted through her heart;
that the blue in the sky was bluer than it had been, and the sunshine
more golden than it ever was in the highest noon in highest June.
She was quite sure it was so, for every spot of color within doors was
glorified too. The roses in the cushions on the lounge glowed like
a fire in the heart of a green wood; the cat's eyes gleamed like
olivines, but of course Pearl knew from the way he rubbed his head
against her shoulder as she sat on the lounge beside him, and from
the way he blinked at her--he knew, having no doubt in some occult
cat-way, listened in on the phone! There was no mistaking his
swaggering air of importance--he was in on it! and gave much credit to
himself for having brought it all about.
The old dog, being just a plain, honest-hearted, loving dog, only
knew that Pearl was very happy over something. He did not probe the
cause--if it pleased her--it was enough.
At four o'clock there came another message--which set Pearl's heart
dancing, and spotted her cheeks with a glowing color--the operation
was over--apparently successful--and they were driving back to town.
The other train might be late too, so it would be impossible for him
to come out--but would she still wait? Did the thousand year limit
still hold?
There was just a hint of fatigue in his voice, which awakened all the
maternal instincts in Pearl, and made her heart very tender to him.
"I will wait--forever," said Pearl.
"Just until tomorrow," came back the voice--"just till tomorrow--and
it will be fine tomorrow--won't it, Pearl! Say it will be fine."
"Finer still," she replied, with her cheeks like the early roses in
June.
The day went by on satin wings--with each minute so charged with
happiness that Pearl could well believe that heaven had slipped down
to earth, and that she was walking the streets of the new Jerusalem.
She sang as she worked in the house, her sweet, ribbony voice filling
the room with a gladness and rapture that made her mother, with her
mystical Celtic temperament almost apprehensive.
"She's a queer girl, is Pearlie," she said that night, when Pearl had
gone upstairs to arbitrate a quarrel which had broken out between
Bugsey and Danny as to whose turn it was to split the kindling wood.
"Day about" it had been until Bugsey had urged that it be changed to
"week about," and the delicate matter in dispute now was as to the day
on which the week expired. Danny, who had been doing the kindling, was
certain that the date of expiry had arrived, but Bugsey's calendar
set the day one day later, and the battle raged, with both sides ably
argued, but unfortunately not listened to by the opposing forces.
"She's a queer child, is Pearlie," said Mrs. Watson, as she beat up
the bread-batter downstairs, "she's that light-hearted and free from
care, and her eighteen years old. She's like somethin' that don't
belong on earth, with her two big eyes shinin' like lamps, and the way
she sings through the house, settin' the table or scourin' the milk
pails or mendin' a coat for the boys--it don't seem natural. She's too
happy, whatever its' about, and it makes me afraid for her. She's the
kind that sees nothin' wrong, and won't see trouble comin' till its
too late. I often feel afraid she's too good and happy for this world.
She's always been the same, liltin' and singin' and makin' everyone
happy around her."
Jimmy was washing his face in the enamel basin which stood on a box
below the mirror, and looking around with a dripping wet face, felt
with a wildy swinging motion of his arms for the towel. When he had
secured it, and all danger of soapsuds getting into his eyes was
removed, he joined the conversation.
"Gosh, Ma!" he said, "you don't know Pearl, she's not the saint you
take her for. I'll bet the Tucker kids don't think she's too good to
live. Not much! They know she can hold up her end of a row as well as
any one. When she found out they had killed the cat they got from
us, and tanned the skin to make a rim on a cap, you should have seen
Pearl. She just cut loose on the two of them, and chased them through
the sloughs and up the road clear home--larrupin' them with a binder
whip, as fast as she could swing it--the yowls out of them would have
done your heart good!"
Mrs. Watson stopped her work, with her floury hands raised in
consternation.
"God's mercy," she cried, "did Pearl do that--and both of them
bigger'n her. Ain't it a wonder they did not turn on her?"
"Turn"---Jimmy cried scornfully, "Turn--is it? They were too busy
runnin'. Gosh--they would'a flew if they knew how. Served them
right--they knew blame well they deserved it, for Pearl would never
have given them the cat if they hadn't worked it so smooth. They told
her they wanted a strain of Tiger in their cats, for all of theirs
were black--and Pearl, gave them our fine young Tom--and they promised
all sorts to be good to him--and when Pearl saw his skin on their
caps, and put it to them, they said they hadn't said it was a 'strain
of tiger for their cats' they wanted, but a 'strand of tiger for their
caps'--that's what made Pearl so mad." Mr. Donald said Pearl did
quite right, and he told the Tuckers they were the making of great
politicians--they were so smart at getting out of things. But Gosh,
you should have seen Pearl! She finished the job off right, too, you
bet, and made them put up slab at the school and did the printin' on
it in red ink. You can see it there,--they have had to print it over
once or twice. We all know the words off by heart:
Young Tom,
Tiger cat,
Owned by P. Watson,
Given away in good faith April 1st,
Wickedly killed to make a cap, April 15th,
Avenged by former owner, May 1st.
T. Tucker. S. Tucker.
People all look at it when they come to the church, and I guess the
Tuckers feel pretty small. Pearl says if they are really sorry, it is
all right, and young Tom has not died in vain. Every cat has to die
sometime, and if he had softened the Tucker's hearts--it is all right.
Pearl said she wasn't real sure about them, and I guess if they kill
another cat, she'll kill them sure--she said that's the way to do with
people like them. Make them repentant--or dead!"
"God save us all," cried Mrs. Watson, in real distress, "whatever will
happen to her when she goes out into the world. That's awful talk for
a girl especially. Whatever will become of her when she leaves home.
She'll be in hot water all the time."
"No fear of Pearlie!" said her father proudly--as he opened the end
door of the stove and picked up a coal for his pipe, placing it
without undue haste in the bowl, and carefully pressing it down with
his thumb. Leaning back in the chintz-covered rocking chair, he spread
his feet out to the heat which came from the oven door, and repeated,
"No fear of Pearlie--there ain't a girl in the country better able
to do for herself. Faith--and she's no fool--and never was--I ain't
worrying about Pearlie wherever she goes--or whatever she meets--I
ain't worrying."
"You don't worry about anything, John," said Mrs. Watson, in reproof,
as she covered the bread with many wrappings and fixed two chairs to
hold it behind the stove for the night; "you didn't even worry the
night the crop froze, sleepin' and snorin' the whole night through,
with me up every half hour watching the thermometer, and it slippin'
lower and lower, and the pan o' water on the woodpile gettin' its
little slivers of ice around the edge, and when the thermometer went
to thirty, I knew it was all up with the wheat, but do you think I
could wake you--you rolled over with a grunt, leavin' me alone to
think of the two hundred acres gone in the night, after all our hard
work ... and then to have you come down in the mornin', stretchin'
and yawnin', after a good night's sleep, and says you, as cheerful as
could be, 'Cold mornin', Ma!'"
John Watson took his pipe from his mouth, and laughed quietly.
"And what was wrong with that, Ma--sure now it was cold--you said
yourself it was," he said gently.
The boys joined in the laugh, but Mrs. Watson repeated her point.
"Cold it was, sure enough, but think o' me up frettin' and fumin', and
you come down as cheerful as if starvation wasn't starin' us in the
face."
"But we didn't starve, Ma," said Billy, coming to his father's
defense, "the crop was all right for feed, and we did well after all.
You had all your frettin' for nothing."
"It's that way mostly," said John Watson, "I never saw any good yet in
frettin'. Anyway, Ma does enough of it for all of us, so that lets
me out. There's the two kinds of Irish--them that don't fret over
anything--and them that frets over every thing--that's me and you,
Ma--and it works out fine--it runs about even. You've always been so
sure that things were goin' wrong, I've just had to be a little surer
that they wern't. And then of course I knew that night that you would
watch the frost--if there was any watchin' to it."
"John, it is well for you that you have some one to do your watchin',"
said Mrs. Watson. "You're an easy goin' man, John, but I'll say this
for you, that a better natured man never lived."
When all the family had gone to bed, and the last sound had died out
in the house, Pearl stood long at the window and looked out at the
moonlit valley. The warm day had melted the frost from the window, and
when she put out the lamp, the moonlight seemed almost as clear as
day. Silvery-mauve and blue it lay on the quiet, snowy fields, with a
deeper color on the trees, as if they had wound yards and yards of the
gauzy stuff around their bare shoulders, for the night was chilly. To
Pearl it was even more beautiful than the sunshine of the day, for in
its silvery stillness, she could think and dream without interruption.
The night was too beautiful to sleep, and the riot of joy in her heart
made her forget that anyone ever grew weary or tired. She was part of
the moonlight, with its glistening witchery, part of the overarching
sky, with its wealth of glittering stars, part of the velvety night
wind that caressed the trees in its gentle passing. Her young soul was
in tune with them all! For the greatest thing in life had come to
her in those few common-place words that had come to her over the
telephone. He had not forgotten--he was coming tomorrow!
The tired note in his voice had awakened an entirely new chord in the
song her heart sang. He needed her. He needed some one to look after
him, care for him, watch him, save him from the hundred little
worrying things that were sapping his energy. People did not
understand that he ever got tired--he was so strong, so buoyant, so
ready to do things for them. Well, there will be someone now, thought
Pearl, with a glow that surged through her veins and made her cheeks
flame, to take care of him.
"Is the doctor in, Mrs. Clay?"
"He is--but he's sleeping--maybe I can tell you what you want to
know--step in here--so he won't hear us--he was out all night--and he
must not be wakened...."
And when he had to go--she would harness the team and drive him, so he
could sleep all the way, and when the roads were fit for it, she would
drive the car--and soon she would be able to set bones and do common
things like that. He would show her--and then they would go to New
York--in two or three years maybe--he had told her once he wanted to
do this--for a post-graduate course--and they would have a little
suite, and she would study, too.
And always, always, always they would be together--and no matter how
many people there were praising him and wanting him--he would just be
her man--and at night, when he was tired--and all the noise of the day
was over and everyone was gone, she would have him all to herself.
Pearl's head sank on the window sill, while an ecstacy of joy swept
over her--happy tears filled her eyes--life was so sweet--so rich--so
full....