MOTHER OUTDOORS DISTURBED
“Wait, Tildy!” called Bluebell, when she reached the foot-log and saw a
figure climbing the heights beyond.
The wind may have carried her voice away, for it almost blew her off
the log, and a trampling sound far off, like the rush of an army of
giants through the woods, filled one’s ears. The heavy basket caught on
bushes as Bluebell scrambled up the rocky path, and tired her hands,
while Tildy’s reticule sailed straight on.
“Oh, Tildy, wait!” panted the little girl. Among the windings, or in
some short cut, Tildy’s figure ever and anon appeared and disappeared,
and Bluebell faced the storm alone. How black its gloom was in the
woods! The very rocks and trees which had been smiling landmarks so
long, seemed strange and threatening. A quick patter caught her, and
then a deluge mixed with frightful glares and deafening roars burst
over the world. The trees rocked and twisted, and just ahead of her
she saw one tall chestnut bend as if swooning, and fall across the way
with a long, sublime, whistling crash. Even in her terror Bluebell
heard and felt that wonderful cry of the falling tree which cannot be
forgotten. The splinters of its broken trunk stood up like pale yellow
icicles in the air. She made a detour among hazel-bushes to pass it,
and ran along the path, trembling in every nerve, yet under her fear
delighting in this revolution which had overtaken Mother Outdoors. The
warm summer rain dripped from every thread of her clothing and soaked
her body in its delicious bath. The footway turned into a miniature
canal; and every tree-trunk stood in startling blackness against the
general gloom. Before the first dash had quite thinned its gray sheet
to sprinkles, that far-off tramping arrived in earnest; the storm
pelted and poured; the lightning flashed in her very eyes, and its
answering thunder was instantaneous; a tree swept down here carrying
others with it; and there two went down together, until the whole woods
seemed cracking and wailing around her.
With streaming garments, and shoes that spurted water at every step,
the little girl still ran ahead. She could scarcely see the downs when
she passed them, but they appeared dimly, like the desert islands in
Mr. Runnel’s maps. Again and again the lightning seemed barely to miss
her, and she jumped as the thunder crashed around her ears. She ran
until she was out of breath, and then panted along among the drenched
ferns. In spite of the confusion and loneliness and closing darkness,
there was exhilaration in the warm, soaking rain.
It ceased to pour as she passed down the slope; the wind lulled; and
through openings she could see distant long dark threads stretching
from cloud to earth, then suddenly disappearing. The confusion in the
woods died away. But there was no clearing up, no emerald flash of wet
grass in the setting sun; no rapid drying of branches and laugh of
leaves. The rank, fresh smell of wet earth was mingled with scents
from the peppermint that bordered the run below, but the faintest
suggestion of old dead leaves came with them. The lightning retired
toward the horizon and threw a silent or distantly answered dazzle
through the woods once in awhile. And night was coming early without
any sunset.
Bluebell saw a man advancing through the bushes, drawing showers upon
himself at every step. She reflected that it was not far to Banks’ now,
and if he tried to carry her off they could hear her scream; so she
trotted forward, a desirable object to kidnap, her shapeless bonnet
hanging around her neck, which it discolored with its strings, her
dress and pantalettes clinging to every line of her vigorous little
figure. Still the man paused to parley with her, and his parleying
consisted in offering her two fingers of his left hand and turning back.
“Oh, father, I’m ’most drowned! And the woods fell down!”
“It’s been a hard storm,” said father. He had a closed umbrella in his
right hand. Branches and underbrush would interfere with it if open
here. He paused, setting it against a tree, and reached down to his
little girl.
“Perhaps I’d better carry you.”
“Oh, father, I’m wet as sop.”
He lifted her up and took his umbrella. He had on his gum coat and
boots which he wore over ordinary clothing when riding in the teeth of
storms.
Bluebell threw one arm across his shoulder, from which dangled the big
basket.
“That might have been left at the school-house,” said father.
“It’s Liza’s,” said Bluebell, “and all the rain has rained through it
and through my dinner cloth.”
“I might have brought it in the buggy. Did you get across the Rocky
Fork before the rain?”
“Yes, sir. And Tildy ran on ahead.”
She was progressing royally down the slope, rained on by every branch,
but so comfortable right by father’s light, long locks. He moved
sure-footed from stone to stone. The dark was closing around them. The
cry of frogs and of the disconsolate cows came up from low places in
the valley. But Doctor Garde’s little girl had the task of telling her
father she had “been called up by the master” that day. His code was
stern. He had told her if she received punishment at school and came
home with complaints, she would be punished again. Bluebell was very
proud of her standing and integrity at school. The closing night seemed
so dismal. What would he say if he knew she was called up!
She cuddled her free hand under his ear to have some vantage ground,
and broke forth:
“I churned P’rinthy Pancost, father!”
“Did you? How do you play that?”
“We didn’t play, father. We did it a-purpose, Tildy and me. We had a
fallin’ out. And the master called me up after school!”
Father walked on with the low pine-like whistle under his breath.
“But we made up,” his little girl went on, unwilling to enter into the
enormity of Perintha’s sin against Aunt Melissa; “and she’s going to
bring apples to-morrow.”
“That’s right,” said father. “Always treat your little mates kindly,
and obey the master.”
“Yes, sir,” assented Bluebell, giving his neck a little squeeze. “I do
like the master, father. I guess I’m going to take the prize in our
class in spelling!”
Father delivered a short whistle, and looked around into her face,
smiling. This signified that he was pleased. It was his note of
acclamation over his daughter’s achievements.
“I don’t _think_ anybody else has near as many head-marks as I have.
Father, won’t it be polite for me to go to school while Aunt Melissa’s
here? Can’t I go in the _afternoons_, anyhow?” coaxingly.
“Do you like to go so well?”
“Oh, yes, sir! We have such fun noons. And somebody else would get my
head-marks!”
He did not reply at once, and they came by Banks’s house. The candle
was lighted, a smell of supper came forth; and Tildy in dry clothes was
standing at the door.
“Why didn’t you wait?” called Bluebell.
“I couldn’t,” said Tildy, tartly.
“P’rinthy’s goin’ to bring some apples to-morrow,” assured Bluebell.
But Tildy sniffed. “Some folks is awful thick, all at once,” she
commented.
Bluebell looked down at her father’s ear, and wondered why it was mean
to make up with folks.
Tildy’s mother came to the door, drawn by the sound of voices, and
looked out anxiously. She was a very tall, ungainly woman, bent in the
shoulders, with gray, black-lashed eyes which Tildy’s were like. She
wore a clinging black calico. Her face was care-worn but very motherly.
Bluebell knew that her husband was dead, that he had worked at the
Furnace in the winter, and in the summer farmed his own land, which
lay along the valley between the hills and the run. He must have been
a pleasant man, for he was cousin to Liza at home. Mrs. Banks’s name
was also Eliza; and the neighbors to distinguish them called this one
“Robert’s Liza.”
“Did she get hurt?” cried Robert’s Liza, when she made out the doctor’s
armload.
“Not a bit,” he replied, facing around and smiling.
“Come in and have some tea or something before you go on, do! Tildy was
a sop, and I expect Bluebell’s wetter yet. Teeny got home before the
trees began to fall, but I’ve been that frightened about the children!”
“We can’t stop,” said the doctor. “I have to start out when I get back
with this soaked pappoose. The run’s rising, Liza. You’d do well to
take your crocks out of the milk-house to-night.”
“I’ll do that,” said Liza; “but do _you_ mind the Rocky Fork, Doc--it’s
dreadful when it gets up.”
“Oh, never mind me,” replied Bluebell’s father. He plashed on down
the slope with her; and through the humid dusk Bluebell heard the run
boiling, along with a sound of the Rocky Fork itself, which was quite
outside its banks, muddy and angry; and she could not be sure that
certain eddies did not swirl above the buried stepping-stones. But
father seemed sure of it, for he put his feet through the eddies, and
then the water reached the ankles of his gum boots. He stepped firmly
up on the meadow green, and during that short interval between the run
and the bars, condensed all that he had meant to say to his little girl
during the walk.
“Put me down now, father,” she said. “Ain’t you tired?”
He put her down and gave her two of his fingers again, while he took
the basket. Two fingers just filled her grasp.
“How do you like to live at the Rocky Fork?”
This question surprised her so she looked up at him; but his face was a
white blur in the general dimness.
“Would you rather live in the town where your Aunt Melissa does, and go
to a fine school?”
The prospect was like a dazzling flash to Doctor Garde’s little girl,
through even this gloomy weather.
“Oh, yes, sir! I’d like to live there! But”--with a rising pang--“Mr.
Pitzer is so good, and he let us have spelling-school this very
afternoon. Do they have mountain-tea there?”
“Probably not. So you’ve been happy up here in the hills, have you,
Bluebell?”
“Yes, sir.” She could barely remember a home in a city, and one
pillared church where music was made by unseen people. She had been
happy, and the Rocky Fork was the only place she had lived in.
“Miss Melissa has been speaking to me,” said the doctor. “I can’t
attend to Rocco and you as your mother would have done. I want to be a
good father.” There was an unusually tender tone in his voice.
“Why, father,” exclaimed Bluebell, climbing up the bars, so she could
take him around the neck when he lifted her over, “you’re such a nice,
nice man! I don’t think anybody could be gooder; I would be so sorry if
you was anybody else! I like you, father!”
He laughed half under his breath, and got over the bars with her.
“My daughter flatters me.”
“’Deed, father, I’m in such earnest! ’Deed and double-deed!”
“Ah? Well! Miss Melissa was a great friend of your mother’s, and I
think she has some right to advise about the future of you children.
You must be educated.”
Bluebell imagined herself an educated, faultless woman like Aunt
Melissa!
While she was imagining, her father lifted her up again and kissed
her, saying as he set her down, “Run right in now to Liza. She has dry
clothes and a nice supper ready for you.”