become so addicted to the freedom of outdoors that for the last few days
Bart has brought even the dinner up to camp, waiting upon me
beautifully, for now we have entirely outgrown the feeling of the first
few days that we were taking part in a comedy, and have found ourselves,
as it were--in some ways, I think, for the first time.
Anastasia seemed consumed with a desire for a dish of gossip, but was
not willing to take the initiative. She chuckled to herself and tried
several perfectly transparent ways of attracting my attention, until I
took pity on her, a very one-sided pity too, for, between ourselves,
Anastasia is the domestic salt and pepper that gives the Garden Vacation
a flavour that I should sadly miss.
"Miss Marie," she exclaimed, "do be the tastiest creaytur ever I set me
eyes on." (She refused absolutely to call her Maria; that name, she
holds, is only fit for a settled old maid, "and that same it's not sure
and fair to mark any woman wid being this side the grave.")
Then I knew that I only had to sit down and raise my eyes to Anastasia's
face in an attitude of attention, to open the word gates, and this I
did.
"Well, fust off win she got the invite ter sing at the swarry that tops
off the day's doings down to that Golf Club, she was that worried about
hats you never seen the like! She wus over ter Bridgeton, and Barney
swore he drove her ter every milliner in the place, and says she ter me,
pleasant like, that evenin', when returned, in excuse fer havin' nothin'
to show, 'Oh, Annie, Annie, it would break yer heart to see the little
whisp of flowers they ask five dollars for; to fix me hats a trifle
would part me from a tin-dollar bill!'"
(The sentiments I at once perceived might be Maria's, but their
translation Anastasia's.)
"Now Miss Marie, she's savin' like,--not through meanness, but because
she's got the good Irish heart that boils against payin' rint, and she's
hoardin' crown by shillin' till she kin buy her a cabin and to say a
pertaty patch for a garden, somewhere out where it's green! Faith! but
she'll do it too; she's a manager! Yez had orter see the illigant boned
turkey she made out o' veal, stuck through with shrivelled black ground
apples, she called 'puffles'! an glued it up foine wid jelly. Sez I,
'They'll never know the difference,' but off she goes and lets it out
and tells the makin' uv it ter every woman on the hill,--that's all I
hev agin her. She's got a disease o' truth-telling when there's no need
that would anguish the saints o' Hiven theirselves!
"'I kin make better 'n naturaler-lookin' hats fer nothin', here at home,
than they keep in N' York,' she says after looking out the back window a
piece. 'And who'll help yer?' says I, 'and where'll yer git the posies
and what all?'
"'I bought some bolts o' ribbon to-day,' says she, smilin'; 'and fer the
rest, the garden, you, and I will manage it together, if you'll lend me
a shelf all to meself in the cold closet whenever I need it!' Sure fer a
moment I wuz oneasy, fer I thought a wild streak run branchin' through
all the boss's family!"
(At the words Garden, You, and I, there flashed through me the thought
of some telepathic influence at work.)
"'The garden's full o' growin' posies that outshames the flower-makers;
watch out and see, Anastasia!'
"Well and I did!! This mornin' early she picks a lot o' them sticky pink
flowers by the stoop, the colour o' chiny shells, wid spokes in them
like umbrellas, and the thick green leaves, and after leavin' 'em in
water a spell, puts 'em in me cold closet, a small bit o' wet moss tied
to each stem end wid green sewin' silk! A piece after dinner out she
comes wid the hat that's covered with strong white lace, and she cocks
it this way and pinches it that and sews the flowers to it quick wid a
big thread and a great splashin' bow on behind, and into the cold box
agin!
"'That's fer this afternoon,' says she, and before she wore it off (a
hat that Eve, mother o' sin, and us all would envy), she'd another ready
for the night! 'Will it spoil now and give yer away, I wonder?' says I,
anxious like.
"'Not fer two hours, at least; and it'll keep me from stayin' too long;
if I do, it'll wither away and leave me all forlorn, like Cinderella and
her pumpkin coach!' she said a-smilin' kind uv to herself in me kitchen
mirror, when she put the hat on. 'But I'm not insultin' God's flowers
tryin' to pass them off for French ones, Annie,' says she. 'I'm settin'
a new garden fashion; let them follow who will!' and away wid her! That
same other is in here now, and it's no sin to let yer peep, gin it's ye
own posies and ye chest they're in." So, throwing open the door
Anastasia revealed the slate shelf covered by a sheet of white paper,
while resting on an empty pickle jar, for a support, was the second hat,
of loosely woven black straw braid, an ornamental wire edging the brim
that would allow it to take a dozen shapes at will. It was garlanded by
a close-set wreath of crimson peonies grading down to blush, all in half
bud except one full-blown beauty high in front and one under the brim
set well against the hair, while covering the wire, caught firm and
close, were glossy, fragrant leaves of the wild sweetbrier made into a
vine.
Ah, well, this is an unexpected development born of our experiment and a
human sort of chronicle for The Garden, You, and I.
One of the most puzzling things in this living out-of-doors on our own
place is the reversal of our ordinary viewpoints. Never before did I
realize how we look at the outdoor world from inside the house, where
inanimate things force themselves into comparison. Now we are seeing
from outside and looking in at ourselves, so to speak, very much like
the robin, who has his third nest, lop-sided disaster having overtaken
the other two, in the old white lilac tree over my window.
Some of our doings, judged from the vantage point of the knoll, are very
inconsistent. The spot occupied by the drying yard is the most suitable
place for the new strawberry bed, and is in a direct line between the
fence gap, where my fragrant things are to be, and the Rose Garden.
Several of the walks that have been laid out according to the plan, when
seen from this height, curve around nothing and reach nowhere. We shall
presently satisfy their empty embraces with shrubs and locate various
other conspicuous objects at the terminals.
Also, the house is kept too much shut up; it looks inhospitable, seen
through the trees, with branches always tossing wide to the breeze and
sun. Even if a room is unoccupied by people, it is no reason why the sun
should be barred out, and at best we ourselves surely spend too much
time in our houses in the season when every tree is a roof. We have
decided not to move indoors again this summer, but to lodge here in the
time between vacations and to annex the Infant.
Oh, Mrs. Evan, dear! there is one thing in which _The Man from
Everywhere_ reckoned without his host! Stopping the clocks when we went
in camp did not dislodge Time from the premises; rather did it open the
door to his entrance hours earlier than usual, when one of the chiefest
luxuries we promised ourselves was late sleeping.
Stretched on our wire-springed, downy cots (there is positively no
virtue in sleeping on hard beds, and Bart considers it an absolute
vice), there is a delicious period before sleep comes. Bats flit about
the rafters, and an occasional swallow twitters and shifts among the
beams as the particular nest it guarded grew high and difficult to mount
from the growth of the lusty brood within. The scuffle of little feet
over the rough floor brings indolent, half-indifferent guessing as to
which of the lesser four-foots they belonged. The whippoorwills down in
the river woods call until they drop off, one by one, and the timid
ditty of a singing mouse that lives under the floor by my cot is the
last message the sandman sends to close our eyes before sleep. And such
sleep! That first steel-blue starlit night in the open we said that we
meant to sleep and sleep it out, even if we lost a whole day by it. It
seemed but a moment after sleep had claimed us, when, struggling through
the heavy darkness, came far-away light strands groping for our eyes,
and soft, half-uttered music questioning the ear. Returning I opened my
eyes, and there was the sun struggling slowly through the screen of
white birches in Opie's wood lot, and scattering the night mists that
bound down the Opal Farm with heavy strands; the air was tense with
flitting wings, bird music rose, fell, and drifted with the mist, and it
was only half-past four! You cannot kill time, you see, by stopping
clocks--with nature day _Is_, beyond all dispute. In two days, by
obeying instead of opposing natural sun time, we had swung half round
the clock, only now and then imitating the habits of our four-footed
brothers that steal abroad in the security of twilight.
[Illustration: THE SCREEN OF WHITE BIRCHES.
Copyright, 1901, H. Hendrickson.]
_June 24._ Amos Opie, the carpenter, owner of Opal Farm, is now keeping
widower's hall in the summer kitchen thereof. A thin thread of smoke
comes idly from the chimney of the lean-to in the early morning, and at
evening the old man sits in the well-house porch reading his paper so
long as the light lasts, a hound of the ancient blue-spotted variety,
with heavy black and tan markings, keeping him company.
These two figures give the finishing touch to the picture that lies
beyond us as we look from the sheltered corner of the camp, and
strangely enough, though old Opie is not of the direct line and has
never lived in this part of New England before, he goes about with a
sort of half-reminiscent air, as if picking up a clew long lost, while
Dave, the hound, at once assumed proprietary rights and shows an uncanny
wisdom about the well-nigh fenceless boundaries. After his master has
gone to bed, Dave will often come over to visit us, after the calm
fashion of a neighbour who esteems it a duty. At least that was his
attitude at first; but after a while, when I had told him what a fine,
melancholy face he had, that it was a mistake not to have christened him
Hamlet, and that altogether he was a good fellow, following up the
conversation with a comforting plate of meat scraps (Opie being
evidently a vegetarian), Dave began to develop a more youthful
disposition. A week ago Bart's long-promised, red setter pup arrived, a
spirit of mischief on four clumsy legs. Hardly had I taken him from his
box (I wished to be the one to "first foot" him from captivity into the
family, for that is a courtesy a dog never forgets) when we saw that
Dave was sitting just outside the doorless threshold watching solemnly.
The puppy, with a gleeful bark, licked the veteran on the nose, whereat
the expression of his face changed from one of uncertainty to a smile of
indulgent if mature pleasure, and now he takes his young friend on a
daily ramble down the pasture through the bit of marshy ground to the
river, always bringing him back within a reasonable length of time, with
an air of pride. Evidently the hound was lonely.
_The Man from Everywhere_, who prowls about even more than usual, using
Bart's den for his own meanwhile, says that the setter will be ruined,
for the hound will be sure to trail him on fox and rabbit, and that in
consequence he will never after keep true to birds, but somehow we do
not care, this dog-friendship between the stranger and the pup is so
interesting.
By the way, we have financially persuaded Opie to leave his straggling
meadow, that carpets our vista to the river, for a wild garden this
summer, instead of selling it as "standing grass," which the purchasers
had usually mown carelessly and tossed into poor-grade hay, giving a
pittance in exchange that went for taxes.
So many flowers and vines have sprung up under shelter of the
tumble-down fences that I was very anxious to see what pictures would
paint themselves if the canvas, colour, and brushes were left free for
the season through. Already we have had our money's worth, so that
everything beyond will be an extra dividend. The bit of marshy ground
has been for weeks a lake of iris, its curving brink foamed with meadow
rue and Osmundas that have all the dignity of palms.
Now all the pasture edge is set with wild roses and wax-white blueberry
flowers. Sundrops are grouped here and there, with yellow thistles; the
native sweetbrier arches over gray boulders that are tumbled together
like the relic of some old dwelling; and the purple red calopogon of the
orchid tribe adds a new colour to the tapestry, the cross-stitch filling
being all of field daisies. Truly this old farm is a well-nigh perfect
wild garden, the strawberries dyeing the undergrass red, and the hedges
bound together with grape-vines. It does not need rescuing, but letting
alone, to be the delight of every one who wishes to enjoy.
On being approached as to his future plans, Amos Opie merely sets his
lips, brings his finger-tips together, and says, "I'm open to offers,
but I'm not bound to set a price or hurry my decisions."
Meanwhile I am living in a double tremor, of delight at the present and
fear lest some one may snap up the place and give us what the comic
paper called a Queen Mary Anne cottage and a stiff lawn surrounded by a
gas-pipe fence to gaze upon. O for a pair of neighbours who would join
us in comfortable vagabondage, leave the white birches to frame the
meadows and the wild flowers in the grass!
_June 25._ We have been having some astonishing thunder-storms of nights
lately, and I must say that upon one occasion I fled to the house. Two
nights ago, however, the sun set in an even sky of lead, there was no
wind, no grumblings of thunder. We had passed a very active day and
finished placing the stakes on the knoll in the locations to be occupied
by shrubs and trees, all numbered according to the tagged specimens over
in the reservoir woods.
_The Man from Everywhere_ suggested this system, an adaptation, he says,
from the usual one of numbering stones for a bit of masonry. It will
prevent confusion, for the perspective will be different when the leaves
have fallen, and as we lift the bushes, each one will go to its place,
and we shall not lose a year's growth, or perhaps the shrub itself, by a
second moving. Our one serious handicap is the lack of a pair of extra
hands, in this work as in the making of the rose bed, for our
transplanting has developed upon a wholesale plan. Barney does not
approve of our passion for the wild; besides, between potatoes and corn
to hoe, celery seedlings to have their first transplanting, vegetables
to pick, turf grass to mow, and edges to keep trim, with a horse and
cow to tend in addition, nothing more can be expected of him.
I was half dozing, half listening, as usual, to the various little night
sounds that constantly pique my curiosity, for no matter how long you
may have lived in the country you are not wholly in touch with it until
you have slept at least a few nights in the open,--when rain began to
fall softly, an even, persevering, growing rain, entirely different from
the lashing thunder-showers, and though making but half the fuss, was
doubly penetrating. Thinking how good it was for the ferns, and
venturing remarks to Bart about them, which, however, fell on sleep-deaf
ears, I made sure that the pup was in his chosen place by my cot and
drifted away to shadow land, glad that something more substantial than
boughs covered me!
I do not know how long it was before I wakened, but the first sound that
formulated itself was the baying of Dave, the hound, from the well-house
porch, where he slept when his evening rambles kept him out until after
Amos Opie had gone to bed. Having freed his mind, Dave presently
stopped, but other nearer-by sounds made me again on the alert.
The rain, that was falling with increasing power, held one key; the drip
from the eaves and the irregular gush from a broken waterspout played
separate tunes. I am well used to the night-time bravado of mice, who
fight duels and sometimes pull shoes about, of the pranks of squirrels
and other little wood beasts about the floor, but the noise that made me
sit up in the cot and reach over until I could clutch Bart by the arm
belonged to neither of these. There was a swishing sound, as of water
being wrung from something and dropping on the floor, and then a human
exclamation, blended of a sigh, a wheeze, and a cough, at which the pup
wakened with a growl entirely out of proportion to his age and
inexperience.
"I wonder, now, is that a dog or only uts growl ter sind me back in the
wet fer luv av the laugh at me?" chirped a voice as hoarse as a buttery
brogue would allow it to be.
My clutch had brought Bart to himself instantly, and at the words he
turned the electric flashlight, that lodged under his pillow, full in
the direction of the sound, where it developed a strange picture and
printed it clearly on the opposite wall.
In the middle of the circle of light was a little barefoot man, in
trousers and shirt; a pair of sodden shoes lay at different angles where
they had been kicked off, probably making the sound that had wakened me,
and at the moment of the flash he was occupied in the wringing out of a
coat that seemed strangely long for the short frame upon which it had
hung. The face turned toward us was unmistakably Irish, comical even,
entirely unalarming, and with the expression, blended of terror and
doubt, that it now wore, he might have slipped from the pages of a
volume of Lever that lay face down on the table. The nose turned up at
the tip, as if asking questions of the eyes, that hid themselves between
the half-shut lids in order to avoid answering. The skin was tanned, and
yet you had a certain conviction that minus the tan the man would be
very pale, while the iron-gray hair that topped the head crept down to
form small mutton-chop whiskers and an Old Country throat thatch that
was barely half an inch long.
Bart touched me to caution silence, and I, seeing at once that there was
nothing to fear, waited developments.
As soon as he could keep his eyes open against the sudden glare, the
little man tried to grasp the column of light in his fingers, then
darted out of it, and I thought he had bolted from the barn; but no, he
was instantly back again, and dilapidated as he was, he did not look
like a professional tramp.
"No, yez don't fool Larry McManus agin! Yez are a mane, cold light with
all yer blinkin', and no fire beneath to give 'im the good uv a cup o'
tay or put a warm heart in 'im! Two nights agone 'twas suspicion o' rats
kep' me from shlapin', yesternight 'twas thought o' what wud become of
poor Oireland (Mary rest her) had we schnakes there ter fill the drames
o' nights loike they do here whin a man's a drap o'er full o' comfort.
'Tis a good roof above! Heth, thin, had I a whisp o' straw and a bite,
wid this moonlight fer company, I'd not shog from out this the night to
be King!
"Saints! but there's a dog beyant the bark!" he cried a minute after, as
the pup crept over to him and began to be friendly,--"I wonder is a mon
sinsible to go to trustin' the loight o' any moon that shines full on a
pitch-black noight whin 'tis rainin'? Och hone! but me stomach's that
empty, gin I don't put on me shoes me lungs'll lake trou the soles o' me
fate, and gin I do, me shoes they're that sopped, I'll cough them
up--o-whurra-r-a! whurra-a! but will I iver see Old Oireland agin,--I
don't know!"
Bart shut off the light, slipped on his shoes, and drawing a coat over
his pajamas lighted the oil stable lantern, hung it with its back toward
me, on a long hook that reached down from one of the rafters, and bore
down upon Larry, whose face was instantly wreathed in puckered smiles
at the sight of a fellow-human who, though big, evidently had no
intention of being aggressive.
"Well, Larry McManus," said Bart, cheerfully, "how came you in this barn
so far away from Oireland a night like this?"
"Seein' as yer another gintleman o' the road in the same ploice, what
more loike than the misfortune's the same?" replied he, lengthening his
lower lip and stretching his stubby chin, which he scratched cautiously.
Then, as he raised his eyes to Bart's, he evidently read something in
his general air, touselled and tanned as he was, that shifted his
opinion at least one notch.
"Maybe, sor, you're an actor mon, sor, that didn't suit the folks in the
town beyant, sor, but I'd take it as praise, so I would, for shure
they're but pigs there,--I couldn't stop wid thim meself! Thin agin,
mayhap yer jest a plain gintleman, a bit belated, as it were,--a little
belated on the way home, sor,--loike me, sor, that wus moinded to be in
Kildare, sor, come May-day, and blessed Peter's day's nigh come about
an' I'm here yit!"
"You are getting on the right scent, Larry," said Bart, struggling with
laughter, and yet, as he said after, not wishing possibly to huff this
curious person. "I hope I'm a gentleman, but I'm not tramping about;
this is my barn, in which my wife and I are sleeping, so if I were you,
I wouldn't take off that shirt until I can find you a dry one!"
The change that came over the man was comical. In a lightning flash he
had fastened the few buttons in his blouse that it had taken his
fumbling fingers several moments to unloose, and dropping one hand to
his side, he held it there rigid as he saluted with two fingers at the
brim of an imaginary hat; while his roving eye quickly took in the
various motley articles of furniture of our camp,--a small kitchen table
with oil-stove and tea outfit of plain white ware, some plates and
bowls, a few saucepans, half a dozen chairs, no two alike, and the two
cots huddled in the shadows,--his voice, that had been pitched in a
confidential key, arose to a wail:--
"The Saints luv yer honor, but do they be afther havin' bad landlords in
Meriky too, that evicted yer honor from yer house, sor? I thought here
nigh every poor body owned their own bit, ground and roof, sor, let
alone a foine man loike yerself that shows the breedin' down to his tin
toes, sor. Oi feel fer yer honor, fer there wuz I meself set out wid pig
and cow both, sor (for thim bein' given Kathy by her aunt fer her
fortin could not be took), six years ago Patrick's tide, sor, and hadn't
she married Mulqueen that same week, sor (he bein' gardener a long time
to his Riverence over in England, sor, and meetin' Kathy only at his
mother's wakin'), I'd maybe been lodged in a barn meself, sor! Sure, hev
ye the cow below ud let me down a drap o' milk?"
Then did Bart laugh long and heartily, for this new point of view in
regard to our doings amused him immensely. Of all the local motives
attributed to our garden vacation, none had been quite so naïve and
unexpected as this!
"But we haven't been evicted," said Bart, unconsciously beginning to
apologize to an unknown straggler. "I own this place and my home is
yonder; we are camping here for our health and pleasure. Come, it's time
you gave an account of yourself, as you are trespassing." That the
situation suddenly began to annoy Bart was plain.
Ignoring the tail of the speech, Larry saluted anew: "Sure, sor, I knew
ye at first fer gintleman and leddy, which this same last proves; a rale
gintleman and his leddy can cut about doin' the loikes of which poor
folks ud be damned fer! I mind well how Lord Kilmartin's youngest--she
wid the wild red hair an' eyes that wud shame a doe--used to go
barefoot through the dew down to Biddie Macks's cabin to drink fresh
buttermilk, whin they turned gallons o' it from their own dairy. Some
said, underbreath, she was touched, and some wild loike, but none spoke
loud but to wish her speed, fer that's what it is to be a leddy!
"Meself, is it? Och, it's soon told. Six years lived I there wid Kathy
and Mulqueen, workin' in the garden, he keepin' before me, until one day
his Riverence come face agin me thruble. Oh, yis, sor, that same, that
bit sup that's too much for the stomick, sor, and so gets into the toes
and tongue, sor! Four times a year the spell's put on me, sor, and gin I
shlape it over, I'm a good man in between, sor, but that one time, sor,
Mulqueen was sint to Lunnon, sor, and I missed me shlape fer mischief.
"Well, thinks I, I'll go to Meriky and see me Johnny, me youngest; most
loike they're more used to the shlapin' spells out there where all is
free; but they wasn't! Johnny's a sheriff and got money wid his woman,
and she's no place in her house fit fer the old man resting the drap
off. So he gives me money to go home first class, and says he'll sind
another bit along to Kathy fer me keepin'.