A MODERN KING ARTHUR.
“The ploughman he’s a bonny lad,
His mind is ever true, jo;
His garters knit below his knee,
His bonnet it is blue, jo.
Then up wi’ my ploughman lad,
And hey my merry ploughman!
Of all the trades that I do ken,
Commend me to the ploughman.”
Bonny brought her song to an end beside her brother at the door of the
little stable, whither, at the close of the afternoon, he had guided
his horse; and though her rich young voice was music in his ears,
Roland turned toward his sister a face which did not respond to the
mirth of hers.
“Hello, Bon! Back? Well, how does it seem to be a day-laborer?”
“Ah! my laddie, how does it seem to be a ploughman? Prettier in song
than reality, eh? Why, Roland!”
“Well, what?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Stuff!”
“I tell you there isn’t anything the matter with--me. I’m not
accountable for other people’s whims.”
The lad dropped the head-stall, and Nan, set free of her harness,
walked quietly into her own place; while Beatrice, perching herself
upon the manger’s front, threw her arms about her brother’s neck and
gave him a resounding smack.
“There! That’s for ‘my ploughman, my jo’! Say, my dear, you have the
heart-ache!”
“Don’t bother, Bon!”
“I’d rather bother Roland! What is it, Laureate? You will have to tell
me sometime, you know; you might as well now. Besides, I’m dying to
tell you something in return.”
“Well, tell. Then, maybe--”
“‘A swarm of bees in May is worth a load of hay!’ How did you guess?”
“Guess what? I wish you wouldn’t be silly, Bon. My head aches, I’m
awfully tired, and I’m crosser than cross.”
“That last is an axiom,--a self-evident fact, you know; and I’m sorry
for the head, but sorrier for the heart. Something has gone wrong,
ever so far wrong. What is it, Bubsey?”
“Beatrice, if you don’t stop using that ridiculous name for me, I’ll--”
“Kiss me, Roland, and make up. I declare it makes me feel as
down-spirited as Mr. Dolloway in a rheumatic attack to come home all
full of my scheme and have you throw cold water on me this way. Really,
dear, you must tell me. You know I always tease till I find out.”
Roland looked at her angrily; but there was something so genuinely
loving and sympathetic in the piquant face before him that he felt
moved to unburden his mind of the load it had carried. Not a very big
load, some lads might think, but, to a nature as earnest and chivalrous
as Roland Beckwith’s, quite bitter enough. “Well, then, I have behaved
outrageously to my mother.”
“Roland--Beckwith! You!”
In two minutes the little story had been told.
“What did Motherkin say?”
“Not one word. If she’d only scold!”
“No; that’s one disobliging thing about our mother. I ‘sym,’ dear; I’ve
been there myself. I’ve often felt as if a good, downright nagging
wouldn’t hurt one-thousandth part as much as one of those astonished
glances of hers. They cut like a knife just home from the sharpener’s.
Well, so you didn’t have any luncheon?”
“I didn’t want any; I couldn’t have eaten it, after that.”
“That accounts for the headache; so both head and heart pains are
settled for. Now, the cure. Come along with me.”
“No, I’d rather not. If Mother happened out here, I’d talk it over with
her. I’m a confounded idiot, Bon. I felt so big and manly, somehow,
thinking I had the whole ‘farm’ under my own control; and then I was
mad at that young one everlastingly getting into trouble for somebody
else to be plagued with; and I’d made up my mind to accomplish just so
much of the ploughing, no matter what happened. And it _is_ awful hard
work. I wouldn’t acknowledge it before; but it seems sometimes as if I
couldn’t drag one foot after the other. And look at my hands!”
The flood-gates of his pride and reserve opened at last, all the trials
and actual sufferings the untaught lad had experienced during his brief
experiment of farming tumbled over Roland’s lips in a torrent of words.
He felt perfectly secure in making these confidences, for whatever her
faults might be, Beatrice “never blabbed,” and she loved him so dearly
that all he felt was shared by her in almost a stronger degree. When he
had finished there were tears in her bright eyes; and she forced Roland
to take a portion of the sharp-edged seat she occupied, so that she
might “cuddle to him” with her warm sympathy.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Laureate! Brother Dolloway is right! ‘Life
isn’t all catnip! They’s consid’able burdock an’ puss’ley mixed through
it.’ But we’ve got to get along with it the best we can; and all the
matter with us is we’re too ‘all-fired’ smart!”
“Bon! don’t laugh!”
“If I don’t I shall cry; and I’m only copying my respected mother
when I say I’d ‘ruther laugh.’ But I mean it. We’re smart. We’re
dangerously clever, and we know it; that’s all the trouble. You are
a seventeen-year-older and you’ve been attempting to do and to be a
grown-up man,--I mean, to do what a man long trained to hard work would
do; and that has made you feel as if you were a man in every respect.
If you can just get back to be Roland the lad, you’ll be all right. And
I’m not a-preachin’ no sermons what I isn’t willin’ ter take home to
myself. No, sir. I’ve been that conceited an’ ‘sot up’ that I actually
felt as if there could nobody take my place at home; yet at the same
time there was nobody could take my place abroad, so to speak, and
abroad being Mr. Brook’s study. But I’ve been a dunce. All I have to do
for Mr. Brook anybody with a reasonable amount of intelligence--not so
much as mine, of course! but an ordinary capacity, like anybody’s not a
Beckwith--could do. I made heaps of blunders when we really set to work
this afternoon, and my blessed old gentleman came mighty near losing
his temper. He didn’t quite lose it, however, though he danced around
on the edge of the precipice for a few minutes, and it would have gone
over, I think, if Miss Joanna hadn’t appeared. It all came from my
self-conceit, every bit of it. I read a few rules for the orthography
and then I thought I knew it all; and off I dashed, hot foot, and had
three whole pages to rewrite, besides the annoyance to my employer of
the wasted time. But _that_ won’t happen again. I’ve put on the brakes
and I mean to go slow next time, probably too slow; but--”
Roland knew that the only way to stem the current of Beatrice’s talk
was to interrupt, which he did without ceremony. “Do you suppose my
mother would come out here to me?”
“I suppose she would walk on her head if we asked her; but I shouldn’t
think it a manly thing to do.”
“Why not? I hate to make a talk before Belle and--everybody.”
“Roland, don’t think I’m hateful, but you didn’t hesitate to speak
horridly to Mother before ‘everybody,’ did you?”
“I was mad then.”
“And you’re sad now. No, a King Arthur kind of a fellow would go just
as manfully to make his apologies as he did to commit his error. It
will make Mother happy to hear your regret, no matter how you express
it; but it will make her proud as well if you do so openly. Besides,
what a shining example you will be to Bob-o’-Lincoln!”
“Dear little chap! I thought he was a goner, this morning. I tell you
he looked awful when we got him out of that mortar heap!”
“I should think he must! But if Nan has enough to eat, let’s go into
the peace-room and have a happy time. I do wonder, every time I’m bad,
why I can’t remember then how horrid it feels to be unhappy. I never
do, and good resolutions aren’t worth very much above par in my case.”
For a moment Roland did not answer, but went about putting his
little stable into order for the night, and finding in the sense of
proprietorship this gave him a slight solace for his wounded pride. For
it was that, rather than actual repentance, which had tortured him all
that afternoon. His nature, prone to idealize everything, had set up
a standard of perfect gentlemanliness to be achieved, and the thought
that he had been so petty as to lose temper with a woman, and that
woman his mother, whom he was most bound to protect, had mortified him
intolerably. It may not have been the highest sort of standard, but it
was ennobling as far as it went.
When he could find no further excuse for loitering, he went to the pump
and begged his sister to dash a stream of cold water over his aching
temples; then rising, shook himself like a young water dog, and strode
valiantly out of the building.
Bonny did not glance at him again, but taking up her Scottish melody
went carolling into the house as if to herald a coming joy.
“Well, darling! Home again! After a long day of work. It is sweet of
you to come so gayly, for you must be very tired.”
“And it is perfectly lovely of you, Motherkin, to take each little
bit of decency in your offspring and magnify it into a virtue. But
you’ll have your reward, my Madonna! You’re going to have part of
it--instantly!” cried the girl, nodding her head sagely, and crossing
immediately to Robert’s lounge, where she dropped down and fell to
caressing that imprisoned piece of activity.
Roland did nothing by halves. He walked directly toward his mother,
and said in a clear voice, so that the dreaded “everybody” might hear:
“Mother, I beg your pardon. I behaved like a ruffian.”
The ready tears sprung to the mother’s eyes as her tall son bent to
kiss her, but she answered as she would have answered any other who had
trespassed upon good manners: “Don’t mention it, dear. And I’m glad you
are both in together, for Isabelle and I have been experimenting in the
kitchen, and by the odor from thence I think our chicken-patties are
done and ripe for eating!” Then she rose, took the arm of her “knight,”
and led the way to the table.
“Wull, wull, ain’t I a-goin’ ter have nothin’?” demanded the “invalid,”
indignantly, as Bonny rose also, and he was threatened with apparent
neglect.
“Mother, don’t you think it’s about time for Sunday clothes?” asked
that young person, coaxingly.
“Ye-s; if Robert will be--”
“I’ll be as good as a gold boy, Motherkin! I’ll be as good as Roland,
if I can!”
A general laugh greeted this promise, and under cover of it, Bonny
lifted her little brother from his couch of punishment and bore him
aloft, to return in about five minutes looking perfectly cherubic in a
clean face and the aforementioned holiday attire.
“Now,” said Bonny, after the supper things had been cleared away and
the little household had gathered before the blaze upon the hearth,
which partly Mrs. Beckwith’s fondness for it and partly the still
chilly evenings rendered a nightly affair,--“now have I at last the
permission of the household to relieve my mind of its terrible tension?
I have been keeping a secret for--six--mortal--hours and if I can’t
tell it soon I shall be ill, maybe.”
“The Secretary has the floor!” responded the now joyful mother.
“Then, it has been proposed to me-- No, that isn’t the best, the most
mysterious way of beginning. Ahem! Has anybody found out the hidden
source of my promised wealth? Has anybody learned the secret of The
Lindens?”
“Yep,” answered Robert, promptly, “skunks.”
“Oh, you horrid youngster! Say ‘Mephitis’ whenever you have occasion to
mention so inodorous a subject. No, you are not right. Next?”
“Knowledge under difficulties,” volunteered Belle.
“You’re away off--a thousand miles, though it _will_ be knowledge under
difficulties--exceedingly painful ones, too, probably. I’ll explain
that ambiguity later. Now, next?”
“Contentment, which is better than any riches,” suggested Mrs.
Beckwith, quietly.
“No, Motherkin. Sorry to send you ‘down foot,’ but obliged to do it,
you know. Roland? Have you no ideas to be ventilated?”
“They are quite like Mother’s. Health, independence, and happiness will
come to us here under a lot of hard toil. And, yes, my ‘express wagon.’”
“What? What is that? Have you a secret too?”
“Of course I have.”
“Tell it.”
“Ladies first.”
“You’re too gallant!”
“You were ‘dying to explain’ a moment since!”
“All right. My secret is--a bee, _Apis mellifica_,--a most lively
little fellow with a saw in his latter end.”
“Beatrice!”
“Beg pardon. But I’m so excited! Mr. ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ and I are almost
immediately to become apiarists!”
“Child, what has put such a notion as that into your head?”
“Our beloved Mr. Brook, and Miss Joanna also. They saw a chance for
us to make some money, which we all agree we need, and suggested that
method. They have explained the whole transaction to me, as well as
anybody can explain by just talking, and to-morrow, if you approve, we
are to drive a few miles into the country and visit a famous apiary of
which Mr. Brook knows. There I can see the practical working of the
thing, and I am assured that we can find a market for our honey--when
we get it! What do you say, Motherkin?”
“What can I say, dearie, with so little knowledge of the subject as I
possess?”
“But if Miss Brook and Mr. Brook and even Mr. Dolloway approve, you’ll
say yes, won’t you?”
“I will always say yes to reasonable things. I foresee that I shall yet
do so to this new scheme. But what is the connection between bees and
lindens?”
“The same that there was between your hungry girl and Isabelle’s
chicken-patties. The trees furnish the bees a favorite food in great
abundance. Then, to supplement them, Roland will plant some crops which
will be useful to Mr. Apis or Mrs. Apis, and that will also be good
for us. The honey they take away will not hurt any crop he can raise.
Robert is to be the one to help swarm the bees and to look after them
while I am away. He is to share in the business.”
“If he makes it such a success as the hen affair, I am sure we shall be
millionaires eventually!” laughed the elder sister, teasingly.
“Give the youngster time, Madam Housekeeper! His hens are going to come
out all right; aren’t they, ‘Humpty-Dump’?”
“Course. Belle doesn’t know, does she?”
“Belle never kept any hens, did she? and Robert did!” returned Bonny,
gayly. Whatever the others might think, she never lost faith in either
brother.
“But will it not cost a great deal to begin the business, much more
than we ought to spare at present?” asked Mrs. Beckwith.
“No, I think not. Mr. Brook suggests that I use my own earnings for
the purpose, if you will allow me. He is confident I shall get back
more than a fair interest upon the investment. You see, he isn’t
telling anything he has not already verified. He’s a wonderful man, is
Mr Brook!” responded Beatrice, falling into a reverie, which lasted so
long that Roland interrupted.
“We’ve all acknowledged that long since. What now has roused your
admiration?”
“Why, everything he thinks will be a help to somebody he experiments
with himself first. It was so with bee-keeping. There was a crippled
man with a delicate wife and lots of children, in whom our patron was
interested. The man was hurt in a railway accident, or something like
that, and could never afterward do any hard work. Mr. Brook’s study of
bees and their habits made him think that an apiary would be just the
thing for this family, who had a bit of a place a few miles from here,
the same place he wishes me to visit to-morrow. So he tried the thing
himself, and demonstrated that it was a paying thing; then he handed
his bee outfit over to those people, and they are now living very
comfortably, besides being able to educate their children.”
“Just from bees?”
“Just from bees. And it is not a business so overstocked that others
need fear to enter it. If Mother is willing, I shall be so glad to try
it.”
“It will need a great deal of patience, and you will get terribly
stung.”
“Everything needs patience, seems to me! The very quality of which
I have the smallest stock is continually in demand. And as for the
stinging, some people scarcely feel the stings, others have been killed
by them.”
“Beatrice! you are not using a good argument in favor of your scheme,”
remonstrated the careful mother.
“Wull, wull, if I’m goin’ ter be stung ter death, I’d ruther stick to
hens,” remarked Robert, sagely.
“That was only to put the very worst foot forward, my dearie. The
persons stung to death may have been one out of a million. Besides, you
have already been stung a dozen times since we came here, by one bug or
other, and you are still very much alive, as witness your escapade of
this morning.”
“Mother, can I have a drink of milk?” asked “Humpty-Dumpty,” desiring
to change the subject.
“If Beatrice will get it for you.”
“Of course I’ll do anything for my partner!” replied the girl, gayly.
“But, just by way of getting down to facts, how many drinks of milk
have you already had since you left your bed this day--this morning, I
mean?”
“It’s good for him, dear,” commented Mrs. Beckwith, pleasantly; “and
such a luxury that we have a cow, and milk of our own to drink.”
Bonny danced out of the room, and down the stairs cellarward, either
not hearing or not obeying her mother’s suggestion that she would
better take a candle with her. The others, left before the cheerful
firelight, sat idly musing over the bee project or some other hopeful
plan, even the milk-hungry boy was silent, when there came the sound of
a heavy fall, the crashing of china, and the shrill shriek of Beatrice,
in a mingled confusion that sent every person to a standing posture and
chilled every heart with fear.
“She’s fallen downstairs! She must have broken her bones!”
“My custard! my custard!” cried Belle.