The Energy of Judith
"Mother, Cousin Ann Peyton is at Buck Hill. I saw her old carriage on
the road when I went in for my express parcels."
"Why will you insist upon saying Cousin Ann, Judith?" drawled Mrs.
Buck. "I'd take my time about calling anybody cousin who scorned to do
the same by me."
As Judith's mother took her time about everything, the girl smiled
indulgently, and proceeded in the unpacking of the express packages.
"I'm so glad I am selling for this company that sends all goods
directly to me instead of having me take orders the way the other one
did. I'm just a born peddler and I know I make more when I can deliver
the goods the minute they are bought and paid for. I'm going to take
Buck Hill in on my rounds this year and see if all of my dear cousins
won't lay in a stock of sweet soap and cold cream."
"There you are, calling those Buck Hill folks cousin again. Here
child, don't waste that string. I can't see what makes you so
wasteful. You should untie each package, carefully pick out the knots,
and then roll it up in a ball. I wonder how many times I've told you
that."
"So do I, Mother, and how many times I have told you that my time is
too precious to be picking out hard knots. I bet this minute you've
got a ball of string as big as your head, and please tell me how many
packages you send out in a year."
The girl's manner was gay and bantering. She stopped untying parcels
long enough to kiss her mother, who was laboriously picking the knots
from the cut twine.
Mrs. Buck continued, "Wasting all of that good paper too! Here, let me
fold it up. My mother and father taught me to be very particular about
such things and goodness knows I've tried to teach you. I don't know
where we'd be if I didn't save and if my folks before me hadn't done
so."
It was a well-known fact that Judith's maternal grandparents, Mr. and
Mrs. Ezra Knight, had been forced to abandon their ancestral farm in
Connecticut and had started to California on a hazard of new fortunes
but had fallen by the wayside, landing in Kentucky where their habits
of saving string and paper certainly had not enriched them. Such
being the case a whimsical smile from the granddaughter was
pardonable.
"There is no telling," she laughed, "but you go on saving, Mother
dear, and I'll try to do some making and between us we'll be as rich
as our cousins at Buck Hill."
"There you are again! I'd feel ashamed to go claiming relations with
folks that didn't even know I existed. I can't see what makes you do
it."
"Oh, just for fun! You see we really and truly are kin. We are just as
close kin as some of the people Cousin Ann Peyton visits, because you
see she takes in anybody and everybody from the third and fourth
generation of them that hate to see her coming. Yesterday in
Louisville I looked up the family in some old books on the early
history of Kentucky at the Carnegie Library and I found out a lot of
things. In the first place the Bucks weren't named for Buck Hill."
The land owned by Mrs. Buck had at one time been as rich as any in
Kentucky, but it had been overworked until it was almost as poor as
the deserted farm in Connecticut. As Judge Middleton had said, the
price of the right-of-way through the place sought by the trolley
company had enabled her to lift the long-standing mortgage. She had
inherited the farm, mortgage and all, from her father, who had bought
it from old Dick Buck. The house was a pleasant cottage of New England
architecture, built closer to the road than is usual on Kentucky
farms. Old Mr. Knight had also followed the traditions of his native
state by building his barn with doors opening on the road. The barn
was larger than the house, but at the present time Judith's little
blue car and an old red cow were its sole inhabitants. The hay loft,
which was designed to hold many tons of hay, was empty. Sometimes an
errant hen would find her way up there and start a nest in vain hopes
of being allowed to lay her quota and begin the business of hatching
her own offspring in her own way, but Judith would rout her out and
force her to comply to community housekeeping in the poultry-house.
The Knights' motto might have been: "Lazy Faire" and the Buck's "'Nuff
Said," as a wag at Ryeville had declared, but such mottoes did not fit
Miss Judith. Nothing must be left as it was unless it was already
exactly right and enough was not said until she had spoken her mind
freely and fearlessly. Everything about this girl was free and
fearless--her walk, the way she held her head, her unflinching hazel
eyes and ready, ringing laugh. Even her red gold hair demanded freedom
and refused to stay confined in coil, braid or net.
"I'm sure I don't know where you came from," Mrs. Buck drawled.
"You're so energetic and wasteful like. Of course my folks were never
ones to sit still and be taken care of like the Bucks," and then her
mild eyes would snap a bit, "but the Knights believed in saving."
"Even energy?" asked Judith saucily.
"Well, there isn't any use in wasting even energy. My father used to
say that saving was the keynote of life as well as religion. I reckon
you must be a throw back to my mother's grandfather, who was a Norse
sailor, and reckless and wasteful and red-headed."
"Maybe so! At any rate I'm going to plough some guano into these
acres, even though I can't plough the seas like my worthy grandpap,
Sven Thorwald Woden, or whatever his name was. Just look at our wheat,
Mother! It isn't fit to feed chickens with because our land is so
poor. I'm tired of this eternal saving and no making. There is no
reason why our yield shouldn't be as great per acre as Buck Hill, but
we don't get half as much as they do. I've got to make a lot of money
this summer so as to buy bags and bags of fertilizer. I've got a new
scheme."
"I'll be bound you have," sighed Mrs. Buck.
"But you'll have to help me by making cakes and pies and things and
peeling potatoes."
"All right, just so you don't hurry me! I can't be hurried."
"What a nice mother you are to say all right without even asking what
it is."
"There wasn't any use in wasting my breath asking, because I knew
you'd tell me without asking."
"Well, this is it: I'm going to feed the motormen and conductors. I
got the idea yesterday when I was coming up from Louisville by
trolley, when I saw the poor fellows eating such miserable lunches out
of tin buckets with everything hot that ought to be cold and cold that
ought to be hot. I heard them talking about it and complaining and the
notion struck me. I went up and sat by the men and asked them how they
would like to have a supper handed them every evening, because it
seems it is the night meal they miss most, and they nearly threw a fit
with joy. I'm to begin this very day."
Mrs. Buck threw up her hands in despair. "Judy, you just shan't do any
such thing."
"Now, Mother, honey, you said you'd help and the men are not bringing
any supper from home and you surely wouldn't have them go hungry."
"But you said I would not have to hurry."
"And neither will you. You can take your own time and I'll do the
hurrying. I only have two suppers to hand out this evening, but I bet
you in a week I'll be feeding a dozen men and they'll like it and pay
me well and before you know it we'll be rich and we can have lots
better food ourselves and even keep a servant."
"A servant! Heavens, Judith, not a wasteful servant!"
"No indeed, Mother, a saving one--one who will save us many steps and
give me time to make more money than you can save. I'll give them
fried chicken this evening and hashed brown potatoes and hot rolls and
plum jam and buttermilk. The radishes are up and big enough to eat and
so are the young onions. All conductors eat onions. They do it to keep
people from standing on the back platform. I am certainly glad the
line came through our place and we have a stop so near us. I'll have
to order a dozen baskets with nice, neat covers and big enough to hold
plates and cups and saucers. Thank goodness we have enough china to go
around what with the Buck leavings and the Knight savings. I'm going
to get some five and ten cent store silver and a great gross of paper
napkins. I tell you, Mother, I'm going to do this up in style."
Mrs. Buck groaned out something about waste and sadly began paring
potatoes, although it was then quite early in the forenoon and the
trolleymen's supper was not to be served until six-thirty.
"That child'll wear herself out," she said, not to herself but to an
old blue hen who was scratching around the hollyhocks, clucking
loudly. The hen had a motherly air, having launched so many families,
and Mrs. Buck felt instinctively she might sympathize with her.
"Thank goodness I ain't got but one to worry about," she continued as
the repeated clucks brought Old Blue's brood around her. "Now just
look at that poor old hen! I wonder if she'd rather be a hen and have
so many large families to raise or if she wishes she'd been a rooster
and maybe been fried in her youth."
Deep thinking was too much for Mrs. Buck. She stopped peeling potatoes
and fell into a brown study. The side porch was a pleasant place to
sit and dream. Judith had sorted out her wares and stored them in the
back of her blue car. She had caught two chickens and dressed them
and set a sponge for the hot rolls. She had promised herself the
pleasure of serving the motorman and conductor a trial supper whose
excellence she was sure would bring in dozens of orders.
A whirr from the barn and in a moment Judith was off and away, leaving
a cloud of dust behind her.
"No hurry about the potatoes!" she called as she passed the house, and
then her voice trailed off with, "I'll be back by and by."
"Just like the old woman on a broomstick in Mother Goose," Mrs. Buck
informed the hen and then since there was no hurry about the potatoes
she fell to dreaming again. It was very peaceful on the shady porch
with that whirlwind of a Judy gone for several hours on one of her
crazy peddling jaunts. What a girl she was for plunging! Again the
mother wondered where she came from and for the ten thousandth time
agreed with herself that it must be the blood of the Norse sailor
cropping out in her energetic daughter.
"It might have been the Bucks way back yonder somewhere. Certainly she
didn't get any up-and-doing from old Dick Buck or my poor husband."
Mrs. Buck always thought and spoke of her husband as her poor
husband. That was because he had died in the first year of their
marriage. Perhaps a merciful Providence had taken him off before he
had time to develop to any great extent the traits that made his
father, old Dick Buck, a by-word in the county as being the laziest
and most altogether no-account white man in Kentucky.
Her thoughts drifted back to her childhood in New England. She could
barely remember the old white farmhouse with its faded green shutters
that rattled so dismally in the piercing winds that seemed to single
out the Knight house as it swept down between the hills. She recalled
vividly the discussion carried on between her parents in regard to
their mode of moving West--whether by wagon or rail--and the final
decision to go by wagon because in that way they might save not only
railroad fare but the bony team. Furniture was packed ready for
shipment and stored in a neighbor's barn until they were sure in just
what part of the West they would settle. California had been their
goal, but Kentucky seemed far enough. They had stopped for a while in
Ryeville with an old neighbor from New England and, hearing of a farm
owned by one Dick Buck that was to be sold for taxes, they determined
to abandon the journey to California and put what savings they had on
this farm.
The mortgage went with the farm. That Ezra Knight bargained for, but
what he had not bargained for was that old Dick Buck and his son,
young Dick, also were included in the purchase. They lived in a
two-room log house, a little behind the site Ezra had selected for his
own domicile. This was the natural place to build, since the land
sloped gently from it, giving a proper drainage, and then the well was
already there and a wonderfully good well it was.
The new house was built, the plan following the old house they had
left in Connecticut as closely as possible, but still old Dick Buck
stayed on in his log cabin. Every day he told Ezra Knight he was
planning to move, but always some unforeseen event would arise to make
it necessary for him to postpone his departure. The houses were not
fifty feet apart, the back yard of the New England cottage serving as
a front yard to the cabin. The days stretched into weeks, the weeks
into months. Ezra grew impatient and the old Dick took to his bed with
a mysterious malady that defied the skill of the country doctor. Mrs.
Knight, a kindly soul, ministered to his wants, saying she couldn't
let a dog suffer if he was a neighbor. The months stretched into
years. Every time Ezra approached the one time owner of the farm on
the subject of his finding some other place of abode, old Dick had an
attack of his mysterious malady and Ezra would have to give up for the
time being.
In the meantime young Dick was growing into a likely lad and little
Prudence Knight had let down her skirts and put up her hair. Dick was
employed on the Knight farm, and what was more natural than he should
take his meals with them? Old Dick found it equally natural that he
should also make one at the frugal board. When Ezra died, which he did
ten years after he moved to Kentucky, old Dick and young Dick kindly
offered to sit up with the corpse. The bereaved wife made the bed in
the low-ceilinged attic room for them and what more natural than they
should stay on? Stay on they did until young Dick and Prudence were
married; until young Dick died. Then old Dick stayed on and Mrs.
Knight died and his daughter-in-law and the little flame-haired Judith
were left to fend for themselves.
After the death of Mrs. Knight of course leaving was impossible. Old
Dick even spoke of himself as the sole support of his daughter-in-law
and her little Judith. He began to look upon hunting and fishing as a
duty and seemed to feel that they would have been destitute without
his occasional donation of a small string of perch or a rabbit. Mrs.
Knight tolerated him because she was used to him. Judith had a real
affection for the old man and, when he died, mourned for him
sincerely. To be sure he had been a very untidy old person who had
never done a day's work in all his life but at least he had a nimble
wit which had appealed to the child.
After his death Judith trapped rabbits and caught fish. She did many
things besides, however, as by that time family funds were so low and
the farm so unproductive it was necessary for some member of the
family to begin to make money. She was fourteen at the time her
grandfather died--a slim long-legged girl giving promise of the beauty
that the old soldiers and the drummer on the Rye House porch
acknowledged later on. Even then the wire-spring energy was hers that
still puzzled her mother--energy and an ever-present determination to
get ahead. Sometimes she caught enough fish to sell a few. Sometimes
she carried rabbits into the town for sale. In blackberry season she
was an indefatigable picker. She went in for chickens and had steady
customers in Louisville for her guaranteed eggs. School was looked
upon as part of the business of getting ahead. Nothing in the way of
weather daunted her. She went through the high school with flying
colors and got a medal for not having missed a single day in four
years.
At nineteen she was teaching school for eight months of the year and
the other four peddling toilet articles and a few side lines and now
planning to feed the motormen on the interurban trolleys.
"Well, well! I guess she got it from the Norse sailor," sighed Mrs.
Buck picking up another potato.