As we ambled towards the sun, which was setting over old Harpeth, the
tallest humpbacked hill on Paradise Ridge, the Greek battle raged on the
front seat and there was peace with anxiety in the back of the ancestral
coach.
As the wheels and the two old gentlemen rumbled and the Bird's family
clucked and crooned, with only an occasional irritated squawk, I, for the
first time since the landslide of our fortune, began to take real thought
of the morrow.
"Yes, landslide is a good name for what is happening to us, and I hope
we'll slide or land on the home base, whatever is the correct term in the
national game that Matthew has given up trying to teach me to enjoy," I
said to myself as I settled down to look into our situation.
I found that it was not at all astonishing that father had lost all the
fortune that my mother had left him and me when she died three years ago.
It was astonishing that the old dreamer had kept it as long as he had, and
it was only because most of it had been in land and he had from the first
lived serenely and comfortably on nice flat slices of town property cut off
whenever he needed it. He had been a dreamer when he came out of the
University of Virginia ten years after the war, and it had been the tragedy
of Uncle Cradd's life that he had not settled down with him on the very
broad, but very poor, ancestral acres of Elmnest, to slice away with him at
that wealth instead of letting himself be captured in all his poetic beauty
at a dance in Hayesville by a girl whose father had made her half a million
dollars in town land deals. Uncle Cradd's resentment had been bitter, and
as he was the senior of his twin brother by several hours, he demanded that
father sell him his half of Elmnest, and for it had paid his entire fortune
outside of the bare acres. In poetic pride father had acceded to his
demand, lent the money thrust upon him to the first speculator who got to
him, and the two brothers had settled themselves down twenty miles apart in
the depths of a feud, to eat their hearts out for each other. The rich man
sought a path to the heart of the poor man, but was repulsed until the day
after the spectacular failure of his phosphate company had penetrated into
the wilds of little Riverfield, and immediately Uncle Cradd had hitched up
the moth-eaten string in his old stables and come into town for us, and in
father's sweet old heart there was never an idea of not, as he put it,
"going home." I had never seen Elmnest, but I knew something of the
situation, and that is where the Golden Bird arrived on the situation. The
morning after our decision to return to the land--a decision in which I had
borne no part but a sympathetic one after I had listened half the night to
father's raptures over Uncle Cradd as a Greek scholar with whom one would
wish to spend one's last days--the February copy of "The Woman's Review"
arrived, and on the first page was an article from a woman who earns five
thousand dollars a year with the industrious hen on a little farm of ten
acres. There were lovely pictures of her with her feathered family, and I
decided that what a woman with the limited experience of a head
stenographer in a railroad office could do, I, with my wider scope of
travel and culture, could more than double on three hundred acres of land
in the Harpeth Valley. Some day I'm going to see that woman and I'm going
to stop by and speak sternly to the editor of "The Woman's Review" on my
way.
"Mr. G. Bird," I began as I reached this point and I saw that we were
arriving in the heart of civilization, which was the square of a quaint
little old town. From a motor-car acquaintance, I knew this to be
Riverfield, but I had never even stopped because of the family pride
involved in the feud now dead. "Mr. Bird," I repeated, "I am afraid I am
up against it, and I hope you'll stand by me." He answered me by preening a
breast feather and winking one of his bright eyes as Uncle Cradd stopped
the ancient steeds in the center of the square, before a little old brick
building that bore three signs over its tumble-down porch. They were:
"Silas Beesley, Grocer," "U.S. Post-Office," and "Riverfield Bank and Trust
Co."
"Hey, Si, here's William come home!" called Uncle Cradd, as a negro boy
with a broad grin stood at the heads of the slow old horses, who, I felt
sure, wouldn't have moved except under necessity before the judgment day.
In less time than I can take to tell it father descended literally into the
arms of his friends. About half a dozen old farmers, some in overalls and
some in rusty black broadcloth the color of Uncle Cradd's, poured out of
the wide door of the business building before described, and they acted
very much as I have seen the boys at Yale or Princeton act after a success
or defeat on the foot-ball field. They hugged father and they slapped him
on the back and they shook his hand as if it were not of human,
sixty-year-old flesh and blood. Then they introduced a lot of stalwart
young farmers to him, each of whom gave father hearty greetings, but
refrained from even a glance in my direction as I sat enthroned on high on
the faded old cushions and waited for an introduction, which at last Uncle
Cradd remembered to give me.
"This is Miss Nancy Craddock, gentlemen, named after my mother, and she's
going to beat out the Bend in her chicken raising, which she's brought
along with her. Come over, youngsters, and look her over. The fire in the
parlor don't burn more than a half cord of wood on a Sunday, and you can
come over Saturday afternoon and cut it against the Sabbath, with a welcome
to any one of the spare rooms and a slab of Rufus's spare rib and a couple
of both breakfast and supper muffins." All of the older men laughed at this
sweeping invitation, and all the younger greeted it with ears that became
instantly crimson. I verily believe they would one and all have fled and
left me sitting there yet if a diversion had not arrived in the person of
Mrs. Silas, who came bustling out of the door of the grocery or post-office
or bank; whichever it is called, is according to your errand there. Mrs. Si
was tall, and almost as broad as the door itself, with the rosiest cheeks
and the bluest eyes I had ever beheld, and they crinkled with loveliness
around their corners. She had white water-waves that escaped their decorous
plastering into waving little tendril curls, and her mouth was as curled
and red-lipped and dimpled as a girl's. In a twinkling of those blue eyes I
fell out of the carriage into a pair of strong, soft, tender arms covered
with stiff gray percale, and received two hearty kisses, one on each cheek.
"God bless you, honeybunch, and I'm glad William has brought you home at
last, the rascal." As she hugged me she reached out a strong hand and gave
father first a good shake by his shoulder and then by his hand.
"Fine girl, eh, Mary?" answered father as he returned the shoulder shake
with a pat on the broad gray percale back, and retained the strong hand in
his, with a frank clinging.
I wondered if--
"She's her Aunt Mary's blessed child, and I will have her making riz
biscuits like old Madam Craddock's black Sue for you two boys in less than
a week," she answered him, with a laugh that somehow sounded a bit dewy.
"Oh, do you know about chickens, Mrs.--I mean, Aunt Mary?" I asked as I
clung to the hand to which father was not clinging.
"Bless my heart, what's that I see setting up on old Madam Craddock's
cushions? Is it a rooster or a dream bird?" she answered me by exclaiming
as she caught sight of Mr. G. Bird sitting in lonely state, but as good as
gold, upon the rose-leather cushions. "I thought I feathered out the finest
chickens in the Harpeth Valley, but this one isn't human, you might say,"
and as she spoke she shook off father and me, and approached the carriage
and peered in with the reverence of a real poultry artist. "Bless my
heart!" she again exclaimed.
"Those are just Miss Nancy's whims to take the place of her card-routs and
sinful dancing habits," said Uncle Cradd, with a great and indulgent
amusement as all the little crowd of native friends gathered around to look
at the Bird family.
"Say, that rooster ought to have been met with a brass band like they did
Mr. Cummins' horse, Lightheels, after he won all those cups up in the races
at Cincinnati," said the tallest of the young farmers, whose ears had begun
to assume their normal color.
"And a sight more right he has to such a honor, Bud Beesley," replied Aunt
Mary, with spirit, as she stroked the proud head of the Golden Bird. "It
takes hens and women all their days to collect the money men spend on
race-horses sometimes, my son."
"Well, Mary, I reckon you aren't alluding to this pair of spanking grays
I've got; but in case you are getting personal to them, I think we had
better begin to go. Come, get in with the Whim family, Nancy, and let's be
traveling. It's near on to a mile over a mighty rough road to the house
from the gate here. Everybody come and see us." As he spoke Uncle Cradd
assisted me with ceremony into the chariot beside the Golden hero of the
hour, and started the ancient steeds into a tall old gate right opposite
the bank-store-post-office. As he drove away something like warm tears
misted across my eyes as I looked back and saw all the goodwill and
friendliness in the eye of the farmer friends who watched our departure.
"That, Ann, is the salt of the earth, and I don't see how I consumed life
so long without it," said father as he turned, and looked at me with a
sparkle in his mystic gray eyes that I had never seen there when we were
seated at table with the mighty or making our bow in broadcloth and fine
linen in some of the palaces of the world. I didn't know what it was then,
but I do now; it is a land-love that lies deep in the heart of every man
who is born out in meadows and fields. They never get over it and sometimes
transmit it even to the second generation. I felt it stir and run in my
blood as we rumbled and bumped up the long avenue of tall old elm-trees
that led through deep fields which were even then greening with blue-grass
and from which arose a rich loamy fragrance, and finally arrived at the
most wonderful old brick house that I had ever seen in all of my life; it
seemed to even my much traveled eyes in some ways the most wonderful abode
for human beings I had ever beheld. It was not the traditional
white-pillared mansion. It was more wonderful. The bricks had aged a rich,
red purple, and were rimmed and splotched with soft green and gray moss
under traceries of vines that were beginning to put out rich russet buds.
The windows were filled with tiny diamond panes of glass, which glittered
in the gables from the last rays of the sun setting over Old Harpeth, and
the broad, gray shingled roof hovered down over the wide porch which would
have sheltered fifty people safely. A flagstone walk and stone steps led up
from the drive, seemingly right into the wide front door, which had small,
diamond-paned, heavily shuttered windows in it, and queer holes on each
side.
"To shoot through in case of marauding Indians," answered Uncle Cradd to my
startled question, which had sprung from a suspicion that must have been
dictated by prenatal knowledge. As I entered the homestead of my fathers I
felt that I had slipped back into the colonial age of America, and I found
myself almost in a state of terror. The wide old hall, the heavy-beamed
ceiling of which was so low that you felt again hovered, was lighted by
only one candle, though a broad path of firelight lay across the dark
polished floor from the room on the left, where appeared old Rufus
enveloped in a large apron no whiter than the snowy kinks on his old head.
"Time you has worship, Mas' Cradd, my muffins and spare ribs will be done,"
he said after he had bestowed a grand bow first upon father and then upon
me, with a soft-voiced greeting of "sarvant, little Mis', and sarvant, Mas'
William."
"It is fitting that we render unto the Lord thankfulness for your return
home with Nancy, your child, William, in the first moments of your arrival.
Come!" commanded Uncle Cradd, and he led us into a huge room as low
ceilinged and dark-toned as the hall. In it there was only the firelight
and another dim candle placed on a small table beside a huge old book. With
the surety of long habit father walked straight to a large chair that was
drawn close to the hearth on the side opposite the table, behind which was
another large chair of exactly the same pattern of high-backed dignity, and
seated himself. Then he drew me down into a low chair beside him, and I
lifted up my hands, removed my hat, and was at last come home from a huge
and unreal world outside.
As I sat and gazed from the dark room through a large old window, which was
swung open on heavy hinges to allow the sap-scented breeze to drift in and
fan the fire of lingering winter, out into an old garden with
brick-outlined walks and climbing bare rose vines upon which was beginning
to be poured the silver enchantment of a young moon, Uncle Cradd, in his
deep old voice, which was like the notes given out by an ancient violin,
began to read a chapter from his old Book which began with the exhortation,
"Let brotherly love continue," and laid down a course of moral conduct that
seemed so impossible that I sat spellbound to the last words, "Grace be
with you all. Ahmen."
Then I knelt beside father, with old Rufus close behind our chairs, and was
for the first time in my life lifted on the wings of prayer and carried off
up somewhere I hadn't been before. As Uncle Cradd's sonorous words of love
and rejoicing over our return rolled forth in the twilight, I crouched
against father's shoulder, and I think the spirit of my Grandmother
Craddock, whom I had heard indulging in a Methodist form of vocal rejoicing
which is called a shout, was about to manifest itself through me when I was
brought to earth and to my feet by a long, protracted, and alarmed appeal
sent forth in the voice of the Golden Bird.
"Keep us and protect us through the night with Your grace. Ahmen! Why
didn't you put those chickens out of the way of skunks and weasels, Rufus,
you old scoundrel," rolled out Uncle Cradd's deep voice, dropping with
great harmony from the sublime to the domestic.
Then, with Rufus at my heels, I literally flew through the back door of the
house towards the sound of distress that had come from that direction. In
front of a rambling old barn, which was silvered by the crescent that hung
over its ridge-pole, stood the chariot, and at its door, with Mr. G. Bird
in his arms, I saw that man Adam.
"He didn't recognize my first touch," came across the moonbeams in a voice
as fluty as the original Pan's, and mingled with friendly chuckles and
clucks from the entire Bird family as they felt the caress of long hands
among them. I was so ruffled myself that I felt in need of soothing; so I
came across the light and into the black shadow of the old coach.
"Oh, I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't come!" I exclaimed.
After my ardent exclamation of welcome to Pan I stood still for fear he
would vanish into the moonlight, because with his litheness and the eerie
locks of hair that even in the silvering radiance showed a note of crimson
cresting over his ears, he looked exactly as if he had come out of the
hollow in some oak-tree.
"I thought you might feel that way about it," he answered me, or rather I
think that is what he said, because he was crooning to me and the Ladies
Bird at the same time, and with a mixture of epitaphs and endearments that
I didn't care to untangle. "There, there, lovely lady, don't be scared; it
is going to be all right," he soothed, as he lifted one of the fluffy
biddies and tucked her under his arm.
"Oh, I am so glad you think so," I claimed the remark by exclaiming, while
she made her claim by a contented little cluck.
"Now don't be bothered, sweetheart," he again said, as he picked up another
of the Ladies Bird and turned towards the huge old tumble-down barn that
was yawning a black midnight out into the gray moonlight. "Let's all go
into the barn and settle down to live happily together ever after."
"I think that will be lovely," I answered, while beautiful Mrs. Bird made
her reply with a consenting cluck. I never supposed I would make an
affirmative answer to a domestic proposal that was at least uncertain of
intent, but then I also never dreamed of being in the position of guardian
to eleven head of prize live stock, and I think anything I did or said
under the circumstances was excusable.
"Don't you want to come with me and bring the cock with you. Old Rufus
wouldn't touch one of them for a gold rock," he asked, and I felt slightly
aggrieved when I discovered that I was to know when I was being addressed
by a lack of any term of endearment, though the caressing flutiness of
Adam's voice was the same to me as to any one of the Ladies Leghorn.
"Naw, Marster, chickens am my hoodoo. To tetch one makes my flesh crawl
like they was walking on my grave, and if little Mis' will permit of me, I
wanter git back to see to the browning of my muffins ginst the time Mas'
Cradd rars at me fer his supper," and without waiting for the consent he
had asked, old Rufus shuffled hurriedly back into the house.
"I'll bring Mr. Golden Bird. I adore the creeps his feathers give me," I
said as I reached in the coach and took the Sultan in my arms. He gave not
a single note of remonstrance, but I suppose it was imagination that made
me think that he fluffed himself into my embrace with friendly joy.
"Come on, let's put them for to-night over in the feed-room. There, ladies,
did you ever see a greater old barn than this?" As he spoke to us he led
the way with four of the admiring and obedient Ladies, in his arms, while
the fifth, who was I, followed him into the deep, purple, hay-scented
darkness.
"I never did see anything like it," I answered, while only one of the
Leghorn ladies gave a sleepy cluck of assent to their part of the question.
I really did have a thrill of pure joy in that old barn. It wasn't like
anything I had ever seen before, and was as far removed from a garage as is
a brown-hearted chestnut burr from a soufflé of maroons served on a silver
dish. I could hear the moth-eaten string of steeds munching noisily over at
one end of the huge darkness, and the odor that arose from their repast was
of corn and not of suffocating gasoline. Tall weeds and long frames with
teeth in them, which gave them the appearance of huge alligator mouths
yawning from the dusk to snap me, pressed close on each side. Straps and
ropes and harness were draped from the beams and along the walls, and the
combined aroma of corn and hay and leather and horses seemed an inspiration
to a lusty breath.
"There, sweeties, is a nice smooth bin for you to go to bed on," said Adam
as he set the Ladies Leghorn one by one from his arms on the edge of a long
narrow box that was piled high with corn. "Now you stay here with them
until I bring the rest. Put your Golden Bird down beside the biddies, and
I'll bring the others to put on the other side of him to roost, and in the
morning he can begin scratching for a happy and united family." With which
command Pan disappeared into the purple darkness and left me alone in the
snapping monster shadows with only the sleepy Golden Bird for company. The
Bird shook himself after being deposited beside the half-portion of his
family, puffed himself up, sank his long neck into his shoulders, and
evidently went to sleep. I shivered up close to him and looked over my
shoulder into the blackness behind the teeth and then didn't look again
until I heard the soft pad of the weird leather shoes behind me.
"Now all's shipshape for the night," said Pan as he spread out his armful
of feathers into a bunchy line on the edge of the bin. "Just throw them
about two double handfulls of mixed corn and wheat down in the hay litter
on the floor at daybreak and keep them shut up and scratching until you are
sure none of them are going to lay. From the red of their combs I judge
they will all be laying in a few days."
"At daybreak?" I faltered.
"Yes; they ought to be got to work as soon as they hop off the roost,"
answered Pan, as he spread a little more of the hay on the floor in front
of the perch of the Bird family.
"How do I know it--I mean daybreak?" I asked, with eagerness and
hesitation both in my voice, as Pan started padding out through the
monster-haunted darkness towards the square of silver light beyond the huge
door. As I asked my question I followed close at his heels.
"I'll be going through to Plunketts and I'll call you, like this." As we
came from the shadows into the moonlight beside the coach, Adam paused and
gave three low weird notes, which were so lovely that they seemed the
sounds from which the melody of all the world was sprung. "I'll call twice,
and then you answer if you are awake. If not, I'll call again."
"I'll be awake," I asserted positively. "Won't you--that is, must I fix--"
"That's all for to-night, and good night," he answered me with a laugh that
was as reedy as the brisk wind in the trees. In a second he was padding
away from me into the trees beyond the garden as swiftly as I suppose
jaguars and lithe lions travel.
"Oh, don't you want some supper?" I called into the moonlight, even
running a few steps after him.
"Parched corn in my pocket--lambs," came fluting back to me from the
shadows.
"Supper am sarved, little Mis'," Rufus announced from the hack door, as I
stood still looking and listening into the night.
"Uncle Cradd," I asked eagerly at the end of the food prayer that the old
gentleman had offered after seating me with ceremony behind a steaming
silver coffee urn of colonial pattern, of which I had heard all my life,
"who is that remarkable man?"