AS THE CROW FLIES
Michael was trimming the grape vines, ably assisted by Dick, who sidled
along the trellis, keeping up a fluent stream of inarticulate advice and
trying, apparently, to get his horny toes or his long black bill cut off
by the snapping shears.
“Oh, get along with you,” cried Michael at last, stung to impatience by
having cut off the wrong twig in his effort to avoid injuring the
inquisitive bird. “Go on about your business and leave me be.”
He gave his black companion a friendly cuff that pushed him off the
trellis and launched him into flight. Dick swooped across the garden,
where Betsey stood laughing at him and at Michael’s irritation, and flew
to the top of the stone wall where he sat scolding with all his might.
“He is not wise to do that,” commented Miss Miranda. “When he caws so
loudly he is apt to bring the wild crows and they do not like him.”
Friendly as Dick was with all members of the human race, he was plainly
not on good terms with his own kind. Luxurious living had made him
larger and sleeker than they, but a less agile flier. He led a lazy life
and was not so practiced or swift on the wing as those hard, wiry birds
who gained their living by gleaning in the fields. Even as Betsey
watched, a rusty, wild crow flew up, attracted by his cawing, and
perched on the wall beside him, followed by another and another.
“Oh, look,” Betsey cried, “they are pecking him. And here come some
others!”
The wild crows had fallen on poor Dick with vicious, stabbing bills and
were being joined by a rapidly increasing crowd of comrades. The clamor
that arose was deafening, Dick’s pathetic caws being mixed with the
angry, harsh cries of his assailants, all of whom were jealous, it
seemed, of his plump sides and shining coat. He took flight finally and
sailed away toward the top of the hill, pursued by a trailing cloud of
chattering enemies.
“The wild crows have always hated him,” Miss Miranda said anxiously,
“and he will never learn not to provoke them. There are so many this
time that I am afraid they will peck him to death.”
Elizabeth set off in pursuit, hoping to find where they had alighted and
to drive off the attacking birds, but, although she ran with all speed
across the lawn and through the gate in the wall, she lost sight of the
flock over the crest of the hill. The continued uproar, however, of
angry crow voices guided her onward so that she followed farther and
farther, hoping every moment to come close enough to scatter the
struggling group with a stone. She found traces of the battle here and
there, in scattered black feathers that drifted over the grass. She
would not give up the chase so long as poor Dick, driven ever farther
from home, still called for help from his human friends with a voice
that grew continually weaker.
Past the ruined house she ran, and down the farther slope of the hill,
through unexplored country where thick hedges and overgrown flower beds
showed the traces of an abandoned formal garden. There was a sundial, so
covered with vines that no one, even at high noon, could have read the
hour on its mossy face, and a tumbledown arbor smothered in climbing
yellow roses. More and more she realized what a beautiful place this
must have been where Miss Miranda had once lived, but Dick’s unhappy
progress gave her little time for observation.
Over the lower wall swept the chase and over the wall went Betsey in
pursuit, clambering up one side by the aid of a leaning pear tree and
half sliding, half tumbling down on the other. She reached the ground
with rather of a thud, but she picked herself up and ran on, paying no
attention to the jarring fall. The way went across plowed fields now,
and through bramble hedges, past a stream or two and even into a swampy
meadow where the green sod sank under Elizabeth’s footsteps and left
muddy pools that sucked at her shoes. Finally a farmer’s cottage at the
edge of a river came in sight and, to her relief here, the running fight
seemed to have come to an end. She saw the wild crows perching and
rocking on the boughs of a big tree before the gate, cawing in such
shrill-voiced anger that she was certain they must have been somehow
robbed of their prey. As she came panting into the farmyard she observed
there was a pigeonhouse high up under the peak of the barn roof and it
was plain, from the way in which the astonished white birds were
bursting out of doors and windows, that it was in their dwelling that
the harassed and desperate Dick had taken refuge.
A surprised farmer, not knowing quite what to make of such a breathless
and disheveled stranger, led her up the narrow stairs that climbed to
the pigeon loft and opened the door upon the rows of perches and nests.
Dick came fluttering to her at once, a weary and bedraggled bird, with
his bright plumage torn and his head bleeding and plucked almost bare.
She held him carefully as she picked her way down the steep stairs
again, unable to help laughing at his croaking attempts to tell just
what had happened.
The farmer’s wife, a hearty, friendly woman, insisted that Elizabeth sit
down in the shade of the big tree and rest a little.
“I will bring you a drink of water; just wait a minute until I draw some
fresh from the well,” she said.
She went bustling away, leaving Betsey very glad to sit there quietly
and regain her breath. It was a pleasant place, with the grassy slope
before the house going down to the river, crossed, just here, by a
little bridge. She sat watching the smooth water with its swinging lily
pads and the quaint stone arch of the old bridge, thinking what a
peaceful and picturesque spot it was.
“It looks almost like one of Aunt Susan’s picture post cards,” she
reflected, “only I don’t think Aunt Susan would stop long at any such
quiet and out-of-the-way place as this.”
There had been a gay-colored shower of bright postals from Aunt Susan
lately, ships and hotels and panoramas of tropical scenes where the
inhabitants seemed to have nothing to do but sit about on banks of
flowers with brilliant green palms as a background. There were also bits
of scenes like this one, places of historic association, chosen, Betsey
knew, not because her aunt had spent much time viewing such spots, but
because that type of post-card gave more space for correspondence. Aunt
Susan never wrote letters. Each one of her pictured messages, however,
ended with the words, “You ought to be with me.” But they had ceased to
arouse any longings in Betsey’s heart.
The farmer’s wife presently returned with a glass of milk, some fresh
rolls she had just taken from the oven, and honey from the row of blue
beehives that stood at the foot of the garden.
“Joe tells me that you said the bird belongs to Miss Miranda Reynolds,”
she said, seating herself ponderously at the other end of the bench
while Elizabeth partook of the welcome refreshment, and scattered crumbs
for Dick. “I suppose it must have belonged to Mr. Ted Reynolds before he
went away. He was a great boy for pets always. I will never forget how
he brought home a young alligator and let it get lost in the house so
that the laundress finally found it at the bottom of her washtub of
clothes.”
“Oh, did you know them?” cried Elizabeth. “Did you know Miss Miranda’s
brother and her cousin and that big house on the hill?”
“I was housemaid there for seven years before I was married,” responded
the woman. “It was Miss Miranda herself arranged the flowers for my
wedding and gave me my wedding clothes. A dear beautiful place it was,
that house. I would never have come away from it except to marry Joe.”
She smoothed her white apron over her knees and went on in eager
reminiscence.
“I can remember every inch of it and am always telling the children
about what I saw there. One thing I can’t forget was a big desk with
glass doors and such strange ornaments on the shelves. There was a
little pine tree carved out of something that looked like green glass. I
used to stop and stare at it every time I dusted. Did they save that, do
you know, when the place was burned?”
“Yes,” Betsey replied to the other’s evident relief, “the toy-cupboard
is safe at the cottage.”
“I have always been waiting to hear that they were going to rebuild the
house,” the woman went on, “but year after year goes by and they keep on
living in the little cottage. Miss Miranda loved her home so, I know she
is sick at heart to go back to it. I don’t understand it.”
“Nor do I,” observed Betsey with a sigh.
“It may be because of that work her father is doing,” suggested the
other shrewdly. “Such things do take a power of money and I am certain
Miss Miranda would do without anything rather than have him give it up.
She would think that was her share of the success that she has always
felt certain was coming. He has worked at the thing ten years now, he
should be finishing it one of these days.” She dropped her voice to
question Betsey with the earnestness of real friendship and devotion. “I
don’t see her very often now, but I think of her all the time. Do you—do
you think she is happy?”
Betsey shook her head slowly.
“I am afraid not,” she replied.
“Her father was always so anxious that she should be, he was absorbed in
his work but he never would forget about that. He depended on her and
consulted with her even when she was not a great deal bigger than you,
yet was running the whole place and keeping the two boys in order. Mr.
Ted adored her and she him, he was a fine fellow. But that Cousin
Donald, we in the kitchen could never abide him with his sharp selfish
face and his overbearing ways. She could face him down, but at heart she
was afraid of him, I used to think. He could say such cruel, cutting
things to hurt her, although she would never show it. I have known Mr.
Ted to black his eye for him, for all he was so much younger, when he
thought his sister had been made unhappy. Proud they are, and sensitive
to the quick, father and daughter and son. That Donald Reynolds was an
alien amongst them.”
Her flood of recollection went on, but began to wander to such details
as Joe’s courting and how they were married, in which Betsey did not
feel quite so great an interest, so that at last she took advantage of a
slight pause in the talk to say that she must go. There was one more
question she wished to ask.
“That cousin, what did he look like?”
“Oh, insignificant like,” was the somewhat vague answer. “He had black
hair and eyes that were greenish, a little, they always put me in mind
of boiled gooseberries. He was the sort of person bound to prosper, and
after Miss Miranda helped to bring him up I wonder how he can see her
want for anything. There now, if you must go I have a setting of eggs
I’ve wanted to send over to her for her poultry yard, they’re the best
in the state.”
She brought Betsey the package, rather apologetic that it should prove
larger than she had intended.
“I just tucked some duck eggs into the box, too. This is an uncommon
breed that Joe got me, and splendid for market. I’m sorry it’s such a
big bundle and the way home so long. I do wish the horses weren’t all in
the field or Joe could take you home in the cart. You tell Miss Reynolds
that those are with Clara Bassett’s love and that she will never forget
her. I will be over to see her myself, first chance I get.”
Her kind hostess stood watching her from the gate as Elizabeth set off
homeward. She had been directed to take the path along the river bank
and then turn into a cart track that went over the hill and she had been
warned that it was “quite a ways.” She discovered herself to be more
tired after her long chase than she had thought, and beginning to feel a
few aches due to her jarring tumble over the wall. She tramped steadily
onward, nevertheless, Dick riding on her shoulder and the bundle of eggs
tucked under her arm. It was of awkward shape and size, and would slip
no matter how she held it.
The path along the river did not seem to be taking her in the direction
of home and it was discouragingly rough and stony. She sat down to rest,
with her feet dangling over the bank above the water and began to think
over what she had been hearing.
“Everybody who knows Miss Miranda seems to want to make her happy,” she
reflected, “and the strange thing is that nobody can!”
She sat for some time listening to the cool splashing water slip away
below her feet, then with a sigh got up to go onward.
“I think I’d better take a short cut across the fields,” she decided.
“It won’t be half so far and I’m sure I can find the way. If only I
don’t drop the eggs.”
The flight of a crow is supposed to be a direct route, but not the way
of a crow pursued by a flock of his jealous kin. The chase that Dick had
led her had been so crooked and confused that it was difficult indeed to
find which was the shortest way home. She pushed through hedges, hurried
down by-paths, stumbled into tangles of wild blackberry vines, but was
not at all sure that she was making any real progress.
The round wooded hills and squares of well-kept field and meadow all
looked much alike to her. A big house among the trees, showing tall
stacks of brick chimneys and a tiled roof was, moreover, so completely
unfamiliar that she became still more perplexed. The afternoon was
coming to an end, she grew wearier and wearier and the box in her arms
seemed continually heavier and more awkward. At last she stood still,
having completely lost her bearings.
“Oh, Dick,” she said forlornly, “can’t you show me the way home?”
Dick, however, quite unabashed by the trouble he had caused, flew from
her shoulder and began gravely hopping about the grass at the side of
the way. Betsey looked about her desperately and saw a half-plowed field
at some distance, bordered by a hedge.
“There may be some one at work there,” she thought, “and I can ask the
way.”
But it seemed far indeed to drag her heavy feet up the hill, through a
spur of woodland and along a rough lane between two hedges. She could
hear the soft trampling of a horse’s hoofs on the loose earth and a
cheerful whistling that told her that some sort of help must be at hand.
Scrambling up the bank, she found a gap in the bushes, thrust her head
through and began—
“If you please, will you tell me—oh!”
For the horse standing in the furrow, just unharnessed from the plow,
was the big white Dobbin and the plowman was David Warren.
He came pushing through the hedge at once and, before a word was said,
took the heavy parcel from her.
“You and Dick seem to be rather far from home,” he observed cheerfully.
“Be careful, it’s eggs!” she warned as he thrust the bundle under his
arm.
“Dobbin and I were just going home,” he said. “Wait until I can drive
him around by the gate and he’ll be proud to carry you. He’s not much of
a saddle horse. His back is more like a seat in a Pullman car.”
He was quite right, for weary Betsey, once perched on the wide back,
thought it the most luxurious spot on earth. The gentle old horse seemed
entirely willing and, even when Dick came fluttering up to perch on one
of the brass knobs of the heavy harness, he merely looked around with an
expression of mild wonder to see what new sort of rider this might be.
While they moved slowly up the lane, Elizabeth gave an account of the
crow’s misadventures.
“Dick, you old rascal, if you ever give so much trouble again I will
wring your neck,” the boy said severely, whereat the black bird cocked
his eye and seemed to chuckle silently over the manifest untruth of such
a threat.
There followed a little pause in their talk as they moved onward up the
slope with Dobbin’s great feet rustling in the high weeds and his long
shadow slipping so quietly ahead of them across the grass. The dropping
sunlight was falling on David’s uncovered head and turning it from
red-brown to coppery gold. They reached the crest of the slope where an
opening in the trees afforded a wide view of that same stretch of valley
across which Betsey had sat gazing that day she was caught by the shower
before her first visit to Miss Miranda. Here, without a word of bidding
the big horse came to a stop. David laughed, and laid an affectionate
hand on his neck.
“Dobbin always knows where I like to stand and look over the valley,” he
said. “We stop here so often that now he never goes by. I like to look
at those college towers and wonder how I can go there some day.”
“Oh, are you going there?” cried Betsey with an excited wriggle that
nearly unseated her; “so am I—if nothing happens.”
She thought of the geometrical and historical difficulties in the way
and sighed.
“A great deal will have to happen before I get there,” David remarked
light-heartedly, “but I mean to manage it somehow. Perhaps only Dobbin
knows how much I think about it while I work here in my uncle’s fields.”
“Is that your uncle’s house?” questioned Betsey, looking up at the big
chimneys above the trees.
“Yes, and all this land is his, up to Somerset Lane. He is away a great
deal and expects me rather to keep an eye on things, but of course I
work on the farm too. There is really almost no one else to do it with
all the labor crowding into the cities. I try to study by myself at
night but—I don’t get very far. There are some places where I think I
will stick forever.”
“Oh,” exclaimed Betsey, suddenly seeing the explanation of that puzzling
page that had fallen into her hands the night David’s papers blew away,
“do you find it hard to prove what is the volume of the frustum of a
pyramid?”
“Do I?” returned David from the bottom of his heart. His freckled face
crinkled into a delighted grin as he looked up at her. “Don’t tell me
that there is some one else who finds it as mysterious as I do! ‘The
frustum of a pyramid is equal to three other pyramids,’ I can get that
far and I can even understand the first one, but the second is almost
too much for me, and the third is quite impossible.”
“And I,” returned Betsey gravely, “if I can once get the first one, I
can go on to the end. It is just at the beginning that I always come to
grief.”
“Perhaps you could help me and I could help you,” David suggested
excitedly. “I would sleep easier at night if I could once get those
three pyramids into my head. I have my book in that corner up at the
ruined house. I believe we have time to look it up before you must go
home. Come up, Dobbin!”
The willing old horse strode forward again.
“It’s not just geometry that bothers me,” Elizabeth confessed. “We had
some questions in history to-day and it frightened me to have them show
how little I knew. We were asked who were the Barbary pirates and what
was the greatest time of America’s merchant marine. Those are just the
things I never can remember.”
“History doesn’t seem so hard,” returned David, “except that, if you
study it without a teacher, you get so interested in some parts that you
forget to pay any attention to the others. You say that they asked you
about the merchant marine and America’s ships? Now I never thought of
paying any attention to that. Hurry, Dobbin. I begin to think that we
have no time to lose.”
They turned into Somerset Lane, hastened up the final slope and left the
white horse tied to the cottage gate. Miss Miranda seemed to be still at
work in the garden, so they deposited Dick and the package of eggs in
the kitchen and went scurrying across the lawn to the gate in the wall.
If they were to vanquish their common enemy before dark it was necessary
to make some speed.
The key of the gate stood in the lock, but was stiff and rusty and
creaked as David forced its turning. They hurried along the grassy path,
stooping under the low-hanging branches and brushing aside the unpruned
shrubs. For some reason they trod more quietly and spoke more softly
when they came within the circle of the open lawn. It seemed very
breathless and silent in the late afternoon sunlight, this beautiful
place with its black, motionless pine trees, its gleaming pool and its
empty, ruined house open to the sky.
“I wish I understood about all this,” said Betsey, almost under her
breath as they stood a moment by the still pool, “why the house was
never rebuilt, why Miss Miranda works so hard and looks so worried and
so sad.”
“There’s something strange about the place,” David agreed, “and Miss
Miranda and her father are not like other people. Sometimes she seems to
me like a person who sees a great trouble coming nearer and nearer and
doesn’t know what to do.”
“I wish,” Betsey said with a deep wistful sigh, “oh, how I wish we could
help her!”
“Perhaps we can,” returned David. He was looking about him intently, as
though already deciding what could be done.
“I think,” Betsey went on, “that nothing could please me more in the
world than to see Miss Miranda lose that worried, frightened look, and
to know that she is comfortable and happy again.”
David shook his head.
“I want more than that,” he declared. “I’m not going to be satisfied
until everything is as it was, until this house is rebuilt and they are
living here again, safe and peaceful and at home. If we are to help at
all, we should work for that. Shall we try?”
The ambition seemed to be rather an overwhelming one. To Elizabeth, as
she looked about the still garden, sleeping in the level sunshine, it
appeared that only something miraculous could awake it into stirring
life again. But how much happiness it would bring! She often wondered
what that strained look in Miss Miranda’s eyes could mean; she
understood now, it was the look of some one who wants to go home.
“Yes,” she answered bravely, “we will try.”
It was a great undertaking and they shook hands upon it. They did not
look very large, those two, under the shadow of the tall pines and of
the vast, broken walls, as they stood beside the pool. They seemed,
indeed, to be pledging themselves to the following of an impossible
purpose. Yet, as Betsey’s firm vigorous hand met David’s hard brown one,
suddenly it became a plan that might come true.