To-day, the 7th of September, I made a discovery. The pair of
red-birds that built in my cedar-trees last winter got duly away
with the brood. Several times during summer rambles I cast my eye
about, but they were not to be seen. Early this afternoon I struck
out across the country towards a sinkhole in a field two miles away,
some fifty yards in diameter, very deep, and enclosed by a fence.
A series of these circular basins, at regular distances apart, runs
across the country over there, suggesting the remains of ancient
earth-works. The bottom had dropped out of this one, probably
communicating with the many caves that are characteristic of this
blue limestone.
Within the fence everything is an impenetrable thicket of weeds and
vines--blackberry, thistle, ironweed, pokeweed, elder, golden-rod.
As I drew near, I saw two or three birds dive down, with the shy way
they have at this season; and when I came to the edge, everything
was quiet. But I threw a stone at a point where the tangle was deep,
and there was a great fluttering and scattering of the pretenders.
And then occurred more than I had looked for. The stone had
hardly struck the brush when what looked like a tongue of vermilion
flame leaped forth near by, and, darting across, stuck itself out
of sight in the green vines on the opposite slope. A male and
a female cardinal flew up also, balancing themselves on sprays of
the blackberry, and uttering excitedly their quick call-notes. I
whistled to the male as I had been used, and he recognized me
by shooting up his crest and hopping to nearer twigs with louder
inquiry. All at once, as if an idea had struck him, he sprang
across to the spot where the first frightened male had disappeared.
I could still hear him under the vines, and presently he reappeared
and flew up into a locust-tree on the farther edge of the basin,
followed by the other. What had taken place or took place then I
do not know; but I wished he might be saying: "My son, that man
over there is the one who was very good to your mother and me last
winter, and who owns the tree you were born in. I have warned
you, of course, never to trust Man; but I would advise you, when
you have found your sweetheart, to give he a trial, and take her
to his cedar-trees."
If he said anything like this, it certainly had a terrible effect
of the son; for, having mounted rapidly to the tree-top, he clove
the blue with his scarlet wings as though he were flying from death.
I lost sight of him over a corn-field. One fact pleased me: the
father retuned to his partner under the briers, for he is not of
the lower sort who forget the mother when the children are reared.
They hold faithfully together during the ever more silent, ever more
shadowy autumn days; his warming breast is close to hers through
frozen winter nights; and if they both live to see another May she
is still all the world to him, and woe to any brilliant vagabond
who should warble a wanton love-song under her holy windows.
Georgiana returned the last of August. The nest morning she was
at her window, looking across into my yard. I was obliged to pass
that way, and welcomed her gayly, expressing my thanks for the
letter.
"I had to come back, you see," she said, with calm simplicity. I
lingered awkwardly, stripping upward the stalks of some weeds.
"Very few Kentucky birds are migratory," I replied at length, with
desperate brilliancy and an overwhelming grimace.
"I shall go back some time--to say," she said, and turned away with
a parting faintest smile.
I that West Point brother giving trouble? If so, the sooner a war
breaks out and he gets killed, the better. One thing is certain:
if, for the next month, fruit and flowers will give Georgiana any
pleasure, she shall have a good deal of pleasure. She is so changed!
But why need I take on about it?
They have been cleaning out a drain under the streets along the
Town Fork of Elkhorn, and several people are down with fever.
X
New-Year's night again, and bitter cold.
When I forced myself away from my fire before dark, and ran down to
the stable to see about feeding and bedding the horses and cows,
every beast had its head drawn in towards its shoulders, and
looked at me with the dismal air of saying, "Who is tempering the
wind now?" The dogs in the kennel, with their noses between their
hind-legs, were shivering under their blankets and straw like
a nest of chilled young birds. The fowls on the roost were mere
white and blue puffs of feathers. Nature alone has the making of
her creatures; why doesn't she make them comfortable?
After supper old Jack and Dilsy came in, and standing against the
wall with their arms folded, told me more of what happened after I
got sick. That was about the middle of September, and it is only
two weeks since I became well enough to go in and out through all
sorts of weather.
It was the middle of September then, my servants said, and as within
a week after taking the fever I was very ill, a great many people
came out to inquire for me. Some of these, walking around the
garden, declared it was a pity for such fruit and flowers to be
wasted, and so helped themselves freely every time. The old doctor,
who always fears for my health at this season, stopped by nearly
every day to repeat how he had warned me, and always walked back to
his gig in a round-about way, which required him to pass a favorite
tree; and once he was so indignant to find several other persons
gathered there, and mournfully enjoying the last of the fruit as
they predicted I would never get well, that he came back to the
house--with two pears in each duster pocket and one in his mouth--and
told Jack it was an outrage. The preacher, likewise, who appears
in the spring-time, one afternoon knocked reproachfully at the
front door and inquired whether I was in a condition to be reasoned
with. In his hand he carried a nice little work-basket, which may
have been brought along to catch his prayers; but he took it home
piled with grapes.
And then they told me, also, how many a good and kind soul came
with hushed footsteps and low inquires, turning away sometimes
with brightened faces, sometimes with rising tears--often people
to whom I had done no kindness or did not even know; how others,
whom I had quarrelled with or did not like, forgot the poor puny
quarrels and the dislike, and begged to do for me whatever they
could; how friends went softly around the garden, caring for a
flower, putting a prop under a too heavily-laden limb, or climbing
on step-ladders to tie sacks around the finest bunches of grapes,
with the hope that I might be well in time to eat them--touching
nothing themselves, having no heart to eat; how dear, dear ones
would never leave me day or night; how a good doctor wore himself
out with watching, and a good pastor sent up for me his spotless
prayers; and at last, when I began to mend, how from far and near
there poured in flowers and jellies and wines, until, had I been
the multitude by the Sea of Galilee, there must have been baskets
to spare. God bless them! God bless them all! And God forgive
us all the blindness, the weakness, and the cruelty with which we
judge each other when we are in health.
This and more my beloved old negroes told me a few hours ago, as
I sat in deep comfort and bright health again before my blazing
hickories; and one moment we were in laughter and the next in
tears--as is the strange life we live. This is a gay household now,
and Dilsy cannot face me without a fleshly earthquake of laughter
that I have become such a high-tempered tiger about punctual meals.
In particular, my two nearest neighbors were much at odds as to
which had better claim to nurse me; so that one day Mrs. Walters,
able to endure it no longer, thrust Mrs. Cobb out of the house by
the shoulder-blades, locked the door on her, and them opened the
shutters and scolded her out of the window.
One thing I miss. My servants have never called the name of
Georgiana. The omission is unnatural, and must be intentional.
Of course I have not asked whether she showed any care; but that
little spot of silence affects me as the sight of a tree remaining
leafless in the woods where everything else is turning green.