It was now clear day. The ample spaces of blue between the thin clouds
overhead grew pure, as if new bathed. The sun was not yet visible over
the woods, but sent level shafts of radiance through the sparser
leafage. Barbara's face was westward, and her prow, as the nervous
cunning of her paddle urged it forward, threw off the water on either
side in long, polished, fluted furrows, dazzlingly bright at the top of
the curve and steel-dark in the depression. Child as she was, and of a
fairy slightness, Barbara's wrists were strong and she was master of
her paddle. Her tears presently dried themselves as she noted with
exultation, by the growing depth and abruptness of these furrows from
her prow, that she was making a speed that did credit to her
canoe-craft. In a few minutes her parting pangs were all forgotten,
and she was absorbed in racing, as it were, against herself. She knelt
low, working her shoulders freely like a squaw, and bent every energy
to making the passage of the open before a wind out of the morning
should awake to hinder her progress.
A low, green point, deep-plumed with sedge, thrust out from the nearing
shore to meet her. At its tip, motionless, and eloquent of ancient
mystery, poised the dream-like shape of a blue heron. Nearer and
nearer slipped the canoe, till Barbara could discern the round,
unwinking jewel of the great bird's eye, watching her inscrutably.
Then, with leisurely spread of spacious wings, it rose and flapped
away, to renew its not wholly disinterested contemplations in a further
reed-bed.
Behind the point of sedges Barbara swept the canoe on a fine curve, and
into the channel of a little river, the quiet outlet of the lake.
Alders, osiers, and thick-starred draperies of clematis came down over
either bank. The stream was not twenty paces wide, and its deep
current was so gentle that the long weeds on the bottom were hardly
under compulsion to show which way it flowed.
The ancient wood at this place gave back several hundred yards from the
lake, save for scattered outposts and thickets. Rounding the first
curve of the stream,--which, indeed, seemed all curves in its
reluctance to forsake the parent water,--the canoe ran into a flock of
gray-and-white geese dabbling along the weedy margin. The birds were
not alarmed, but they lifted their heads and clamoured a sonorous
warning; and straightway from behind the screen of leafage came a
quacking of ducks, a cackling of hens, and the excited barking of a
puppy. Then a cock crowed shrilly. The stream rounded to a wider
stretch, and its western bank, flooded with sunshine, showed a grassy
clearing of perhaps two acres in extent, at the back of which, close
against the primeval trees, huddled a low, gray cabin, with wide eaves
and a red door. A hop-vine covered one end of the cabin and sprawled
over the roof. Along the base ran a "banking" about two feet high, of
rough boards with the bark on, supported by stakes and filled in with
earth--a protection to the cellar against winter frosts. Leaned up to
the sun, along the banking, stood wooden tubs and an iron pot; and on a
bench beside the door another tub. In front of the door was a space of
chips, littered with axe, buck-saw, feed-troughs, parts of a broken
hand-sled, a large wicker basket with the bottom gone, and
indeterminate waifs and strays of human use. From this space of débris
a foot-path ran down through short grass to the waterside, where a
clumsy punt was hauled up. The place was alive with ducks and
chickens; and as Barbara came in view a stately turkey-cock swelled,
strutted, and gobbled defiance to her intrusion.
Sitting on the door-step in the sun was a sturdy old woman in greenish
homespun petticoat and bodice, with a dull red kerchief crossed upon
her shoulders and a cap of greenish-yellow linen on her head,--the soft
dye of the "yaller-weed" juice. She was busy cutting coloured rags
into strips for mat-hooking. At her side sat a small yellow puppy,
with head cocked and one ear alertly lifted, curious but doubtful as to
the visitor.
Barbara turned her birchen prow to the landing-place, and ran it gently
ashore in the soft mud beside the punt. At the same moment Mrs.
Deborah Blue--known to Barbara and to all the village of Second
Westings as 'old Debby'--dropped her knitting on the stoop, snatched up
a stout stick that leaned against the door-post, and hobbled with a
heavy briskness down the path to meet the visitor. The yellow pup
frisked interestedly at her heels.
Barbara had indeed run her prow ashore, but that was for the sake of
stability merely. She was in haste, and had no idea of stopping now to
indulge her inclination for a gossip with old Debby. She rested in
silence, one brown hand on the gunwale of the punt, her full, young,
wilful lips very scarlet, her gray-green eyes asparkle with mystery and
excitement, as the old woman hobbled down to greet her.
"Ain't ye comin' in to set awhile, an' eat a cooky, Miss Barby?"
inquired Mrs. Blue, wondering at the child's inscrutable look. The old
dame's face was red and harsh and strongly lined. Her chin was square
and thrust forward aggressively, with a gray-bristled wart at one side
of its obtrusive vigour. A lean and iron-gray wisp of hair, escaped
from under her hat, straggled down upon her red neck. But her shrewd,
hard, pale-blue, dauntless old eyes beamed upon the child with
unfeigned welcome. She spoke a little wheezingly, being out of breath
from haste; and Barbara was the only soul in all the township of Second
Westings for whom old Debby would condescend to hasten.
"No, Debby dear, I can't stop one minute. I'm not coming ashore. I'm
running away from Aunt Hitty, and I'm going down the river to Uncle
Bob. I just stopped to say good-bye to you, you old dear, and to ask
you to take this letter for me to Aunt Hitty. I didn't dare to leave
it in my room, for fear she'd find it and know where I'd gone, and send
after me before I'd got a good start. I don't like Aunt Hitty, you
know, Debby, but she's been good to me in her way, and I don't want her
to be worrying!" She held out a folded paper for the old dame to take;
but she held it tentatively, as if she did not want to surrender it at
once.
Knowing Barbara as no one else in the township of Second Westings knew
her, old Debby betrayed neither surprise nor disapproval. She nodded
several times, as if running away were the most reasonable, and indeed
the most ordinary, thing in the world for a little girl of fourteen
years to do when she found aunts and environments uncongenial. Old
Debby's smile, at this moment, had just the right degree of sympathy.
Had ever so little of amusement glimmered through its weather-beaten
creases, she knew that the sensitive and wilful girl before her would
have been off in a second with her venture all unexplained.
"I'd take it fer ye, my sweeting, ef I'd got to crawl on my knees all
the way 'round the lake," the old dame answered promptly; but at the
same time, scheming to prolong the interview, and knowing that if once
Barbara started off again there would be no such thing as luring her
back, she kept both hands clasped on top of her stick and made no move
to accept the missive.
"Ain't ye goin' to read it to me?" she went on, coaxingly. "I'd give a
sight to hear what ye're sayin' to yer Aunt Hitty."
Now this was just what Barbara wanted, in spite of her haste. She
wanted to hear how her letter would sound. She wanted to try it on old
Debby, in whom she felt sure of a eulogistic critic. Without a word
she untied the yellow ribbon, opened the packet, and began to read,
with a weighty impressiveness in her childish voice:
"MY DEAR AUNT HITTY:--This is to say farewell for ever, for I have run
away. I do not think it would be good for me to live with you any
longer, so I am going to Uncle Bob. He loves me, and does not think I
am bad. And I think he needs me, too, because I understand him. I
know I have often been bad, and have made you unhappy very often, Aunt
Hitty. But I don't think you ever understand me--and I don't
understand you--and so we cannot be happy together. But don't be
worried about me, for I will be all right. And I thank you for all the
trouble you have taken about me. I don't want any of my old clothes
except what I have brought with me, so please give them to Mercy
Chapman, because she is poor and just about my size, and always kind to
animals, and I like her. I have taken your nice basket you got from
the squaw last Saturday, to carry my kittens in; but I know you won't
mind, because you offered to give it to me when I did not know I was
going to need it. I have taken the canoe, too, but I want to pay for
it, of course, Aunt Hitty. Please keep enough to get a new one, and
paddles, out of the money you are taking care of for me, and send the
rest right away to Uncle Bob, because I'll need some new frocks when I
get to the city, and I don't know whether Uncle Bob has any money or
not. Good-bye, Aunt Hitty, and I am so sorry that we could not
understand each other.
"Your niece,
"BARBARA LADD."
She looked up, proud, but a little anxious, and eager for commendation.
Old Debby rose to the circumstances.
"Law, how you kin write, Miss Barby," she said, with a nod and chuckle.
"The parson nor Doctor Jim couldn't 'a' done no better. I reckon Aunt
Hitty'll understand ye now, a sight better'n she's given to understand
folks as don't jest think as she do. Give me the letter!"
Barbara's face flashed radiantly. With a sudden impulse she sprang up,
skipped ashore, thrust the letter into the old woman's hand, and cried
in a high key:
"Oh, I'm so hungry, Debby! I can't stop a minute, but do give me some
breakfast, there's a dear. I was too excited to eat before I left.
And do give my kittens a drop of milk. I've got nothing but cold meat
for them to eat on the journey, poor babies!"
Without waiting for a reply, she skipped back to the canoe, grabbed up
the covered basket, and flew up the path to the cottage; while the old
woman limped after her with astonishing speed, chuckling and wheezing
out a disjointed invitation. She followed Barbara into the cabin,
shutting the door to keep out the puppy, who whined in an injured voice
upon the stoop. Then, thinking of the kittens first,--and thereby
showing her deep knowledge of the kittens' mistress,--she set down a
bowl of milk in the middle of the floor; and Barbara, uncovering the
basket, lovingly lifted out three plump, moon-faced little cats, a
yellow-and-white, a black-and-white, and a gray-and-white. While the
three, with happy tails erect, lapped at the milk, Barbara made haste
to devour thick slices of brown bread and butter, spread to a luscious
depth with moist, sweet-scented maple sugar. She had no time to talk.
She sat on the edge of the big four-post bed, swinging her slim legs,
and kicking her heels against the dingy, gay patchwork quilt whose
ample folds hung to the floor. The hidden space under the bed was a
place of piquant mystery to Barbara, containing, as it did, boxes on
boxes of many-coloured rags, out of which, earlier in the season, old
Debby would bring forth precious goose-eggs, duck-eggs, turkey-eggs,
and the specially prized eggs of certain pet and prolific hens,
gathered against the time of setting. While Barbara broke her fast,
old Debby refrained from questions, having shrewdly grasped the whole
situation. She knew that Mr. Robert Glenowen, Barbara's uncle, had
lately come north on an errand which nobody seemed to understand, and
had taken a house at Stratford. Of a nomadic spirit in her younger
days, Debby had moved much here and there throughout her native
Connecticut, and over the bordering counties of New York and
Massachusetts; and she had not only a rough idea of the distance from
Second Westings to Stratford, but a very vivid realisation of the
perils of the journey which Barbara, in her innocence, had so
confidently undertaken. Till she saw that the appetites of Barbara and
the kittens were nearing satisfaction, she talked with a sort of casual
enthusiasm of her luck with the chickens, the goslings, the young
turkeys, and depicted the prowess of an old speckled hen which had
engaged and defeated a marauding hawk. Then, when at last Barbara
sprang up, bundled the satiated kittens into the basket, and turned to
her for a fond and final good-bye, the crafty old dame broke into
passionate farewells. She kissed the child, and even wept over her,
till Barbara's self-centred exaltation was very near collapse.
"_You_ love me, don't you, Debby dear?" she exclaimed, with a
wistfulness in her voice, searching the old woman's face with her
great, eager, strangely alien eyes. Barbara was one of those who
colour the moods of others by their own, and who are therefore apt to
be at fault in their interpretation of another's motives. This gave
her, even in childhood, a strangeness, an aloneness of personality,
which she, as well as those who loved her, could seldom break down. It
was with a kind of heart-break that she now and again, for an instant,
became dimly aware of this alien fibre in her temperament. It made her
both misunderstanding and misunderstood.
"I can trust you, can't I?" she went on, leaning childishly for a
moment upon the old woman's comfortable breast.
"Trust old Debby, my sweeting!" cried the old dame, in tones which
carried conviction. "Ye hain't got no lovinger nor faithfuller friend
alive than me. Don't ye never forgit that, Miss Barby."
For answer Barbara clutched her fiercely around the neck, sobbed and
clung to her for a moment, cried extravagantly, "Yes, you are the best
friend I've got in all the world!" then gathered up her basket of
kittens and fled wildly down the path to the canoe. Impetuously she
pushed off, the world a golden blur before her eyes; and without once
looking back, she disappeared around the next winding of the stream.
Old Debby stood for some minutes gazing after this meteor-like--and
very Barbara-like--exit. There was amusement now, unhindered, on her
hard old face, but a kind of fierce devotion withal. When the stern of
the canoe had vanished behind the leafage, she muttered to herself:
"Well! Well! Well! was ever sech a child! When ye set yer finger
onto her, she ain't there! I reckon that mincing-mouthed Aunt Kitty's
hed her bad times, too. But the sooner I git 'round to see Doctor Jim
the better it's goin' to be fer the little wild witch. Land's sakes
alive! But 'twon't be 'Debby dear' to me agin fer awhile. How them
eyes'll blaze! I'll not go nigh her till she's hed time to git over it
an' to know who's really her friends. No, Pippin, ye can't come with
me! Go 'way!"
Turning into the long lean-to of a shed which stretched behind the
cabin, she brought out two stumpy oars. These under her left arm, her
stalwart stick in her right hand, she limped with massive alertness
down to the waterside, shoved off the punt, climbed into it with a
nicety of balance remarkable in one of her weight, clicked the oars
into the rowlocks, and pulled up-stream toward the lake whence Barbara
had come.