With fear of neighbours, Pearl hurried on breathlessly--on towards the
dark place, beyond the lights, where her father was. Mutely she knew
that some penalty was attached to being the Sun Chaser’s child. She
trembled a little at the thought of the bars. She struggled on through
the tempest--that storm in which hundreds of lives were lost upon the
great lakes and scores of ships went down and which smothered all the
northland in many feet of snow, for this was that autumnal equinox when
Saturn hung low in the east with its malefic influences of storm,
sickness and suffering.
Deeper and deeper grew the way Pearl had to travel. She passed many
places where the house lights shone in warm chinks through the drawn
shades, or shades were snapped up for an instant so that the family
might look out upon the storm. Each house that she passed was a
mile-stone in the battle she fought without a fear except that of
neighbors.
Her fingers were so cold that she could no longer move them easily about
the bread. Her lips were blue and her teeth chattered.
But the paper-hanger’s was reached and passed, and the child, undaunted,
struggled on. The snow fell thick and heavily, mounted in a drift here,
was tunneled out by the raging wind there. It was not possible to see
five feet ahead of her own two feet. The paper-hanger’s light, not more
than twenty feet behind her, gleamed like a mist-shrouded lantern at
sea.
Pearl felt for the walk that would lead in to the place where her father
was. With one stubbed-out boot toe she scuffed along the edge, found the
walk and turned in. The wind was at the child’s side, now, hurling
itself against her, but she bent sideways and struggled on. In the white
battle that raged all about her, she stubbed her boot against the first
step, stumbled a little, righted herself, and climbed the five steps to
the lock-up door.
She was glad now, and, clasping the loaves with one arm, she felt for
the bars.
It was dark inside and Pearl called, “Father, Father, you in there?”
No answer came and she cried again.
This time it was, “Father, Father, I’m here!”
Still there was silence. She tried to see in, but her forehead only
reached to the top of the grating and she could not. The wind whistled
and cried about the bars and the snow lashed the old clapboards. Once
she thought she heard her father moan and the beat of his feet on the
floor: clip-clop, clip-clop. Then out of the darkness of the place into
which she could not see, came the words, “The Sun--plenty of joy, plenty
of joy for all!”
With one hand Pearl pounded on the door. “Father, Father,” she cried,
her voice whipped off by the storm, “I’m here, I’ve brought you
something to eat!”
There was no answer, only the audible mumble, turning over and over
heavily, like a cartwheel of words, “Plenty of joy--plenty of joy for
all--plenty of joy--plenty of joy for all!”
One of the loaves of bread was continually slipping from Pearl’s clasp,
and she had to fumble around for it in the drifting snow. Once more she
pounded on the door, then she took a loaf, set the other two down,
divided the loaf up and pushed it through the bars in pieces, except the
crust which would not go through.
Pearl began to feel numb. She reached up, clutched the bars with her
stiffening fingers, drew herself up and clung there, like some
storm-frightened bird, toes thrust between bars and hands clinging to
the grating. She was terrified, and her words beat wing-like and frantic
upon the lock-up.
She clung as long as she could, clung till the little fingers had shaped
themselves about the bars. Then from the old ragged shoes that could not
bear the strain, her feet slipped, jerked her frozen fingers loose, and
she fell backwards, rolled off the edge of the steps and lay, whimpering
a little, in the snow. One tiny boot had remained fast between the bars,
but the other had tumbled in on the Sun Chaser.
But for the tigerish leaps of the storm, all within and without grew
swiftly silent. Within, dreams came of realized fleet steps, like warm
wind rushing over hill and mountain: clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop,
faster and faster. Dreams came without, too, of a little hand laid in a
warm big hand, of a swift step, clip-clop, clippity-clop, clip-clop,
clippity-clop, bearing her along the bright edges of sun-chased shadows,
over ice-bound roads grown warm and smiling, of food a-plenty and lamps
which shone gloriously, of a warm bosom which was not the snow’s, and a
mother’s arms.
X
Sybil Clark came out into the storm, her basket refilled. In the
whirling snow through which she plunged, now ankle deep, now knee deep,
life seemed, like the rage of the tempest, a sort of madness. The storm
roared, howled, shrieked its derision about her. The blackness had shut
down on her in walls, with once in a while a ghostly white birch flung
into relief by a dash of light cast from the hurtling flood of cloud
overhead. The storm laughed--she heard Ambrose laughing. Bough struck on
bough--she heard the wild clip-clop, clip-clop of his step. He was the
storm and the storm was Ambrose and the storm was life.
It was all clear to her and all worthless now except to get to Pearl and
care for her, feed her, warm her, protect her.
Suddenly she heard a summoning cry not unlike the cry of her heart. Once
again it came almost from under her feet. She looked down into the
gleaming, jewelled eyes of a sheep huddled against the stone wall of the
home pasture. She was bleating for her lamb. Sybil fought her way back
from the pasture onto the road. Only half a dozen rods more and she
would be home.
When she was within a few feet of the house its windows became distinct
to her. Alternately they flared and grew dim. She entered and beat the
snow from her feet and dropped the basket from her stiff hand. She saw
that the candle had burned down to the socket of the candlestick, and
was sputtering in a pool of thin grease. The fire, too, was almost out.
After the blast of the storm the chilled room felt warm to her. She
worked for a few seconds over the stove, pulling off her cotton,
sleet-crusted gloves. Then she rubbed her hands dazedly over her face.
The warmth of the stove glowed on her. Interest in life, that had ebbed
so far away, trembled an instant, and ebbed back to her again. The storm
was outside. Inside she had Pearl, she had food for the child, there was
a fire, there was shelter. This was one of the times when she did not
choose to think of Ambrose. She had learned long ago that there were
times when she had no choice but to forget him. She lifted her hat from
her head, set a new candle in the stick and went towards the bedroom
door.
“Pearl,” she called lightly, “Mother’s come!”
There was no answer.
“Pearl,” she called again. “Mother’s here! I’ve something for you to
eat.”
Over her came the emptiness of the room into which she spoke. She felt
that there was nothing there. She took one quick step in, saw the vacant
bed, turned and hurried into the kitchen. The child might have fallen
asleep on a chair. She looked at the chairs, she looked at the floor,
she called, she went upstairs, she went through the shed to the barn,
she came hurrying and stumbling back.
Her call grew louder and louder, “Pearl! Pearl! Mother is here! Mother
has come!”
She looked into closets, she pulled things hither and yon wildly and
left them heaped and disordered in the rooms. The candle tilted and
swayed in her trembling hand; the grease dripped on the floor.
Then came the moment when, with a cry, she stood stock still in the
middle of the kitchen. _Pearl was gone!_ With another cry, hatless,
coatless, Sybil Clark turned, flung open the kitchen door, hurled
herself into the tempest and, two rods from the house door, was
engulfed in the storm.
Out upon the hillside, against the stone wall of the pasture was huddled
the sheep still bleating for her lamb. She knew that it was there
somewhere in the white, battle-filled vastness. And to the ewe, out of
that vastness, had come one cry, one and then another and another, all
growing fainter. Above the storm the bleating of the ewe rose and fell,
calling, pleading with the furious elements to give her back her little
one--that little one the impatient stirring of whose feet she had felt
in her womb in the early spring, whose moist, cool mouth had tugged at
her udder the summer long.
Frantic, the sheep ran forward a little into the drifts that heaped up
before her, and then, chest-deep, backed up to the stone wall again,
bleating incessantly. Even crowded against the sheltering wall, the snow
almost covered her forequarters. She lurched forward, then back again
and stood there quivering, her eyes big with fear. After that she began
alternately backing and filling between the stone wall and the whirling
snow drifts in front.
Suddenly she stood still and listened. On the white, furious wing of the
tempest there came to her some intelligence of her lamb, and she
answered with a maddened cry and a plunge out into the drifts. For a few
seconds, now here, now there, beyond the stone wall, the whirling snow
seemed to boil. There were muffled cries and then there was silence.