THE LAST TIME
When everything was settled, the Rocky Forkers said they were not
surprised that Doctor Garde was going to move. A man always ought to
better himself; but they hoped he _would_ better himself. The Rocky
Fork was rough and hilly, but some towns might be worse.
Miss Calder was to take the children home with her; but the doctor,
able to ride about with his arm in a sling, had to collect fees and
settle his business before departing to a new field.
So Bluebell came the last time to the log school-house. She might not
see it again.
“The children shall visit you every summer, Liza,” said the young man.
“And you must come to see them,” urged Miss Melissa. But Liza knew the
old time was forever broken up. And Bluebell knew that when she came
back the school-house would not be her school-house, nor Mr. Pitzer,
if he still reigned, her master; yet in her bustle and anticipation,
regrets were crowded to a corner of her mind, and she felt important
on this last day. Mr. Pitzer had written a beautiful parting address
to her on half a tall foolscap sheet, in his fairest hand, upstrokes
light and downstrokes artistically shaded, with such wonderful turning
W’s and other capitals, throwing fantastic vines all around. He had
ornamented the top with a bird and a fish in red and green inks, each
being deftly finished by a continuous flourish without the pen having
been lifted from the paper. The address began, “Dear Youth;” and went
on to describe life as a stream, and a child as a young voyager who was
bidden to beware of quicksands, whose sky your old friend hoped might
be ever free from storms. In concluding he said, “How touching is a
young and interesting mind just unfolding its petals to the sunlight!
Whoever shall bring it to perfect flower, it will always be a source of
pleasure to your old friend to remember that he was the first to lead
it in the ways of knowledge. May heaven bless and richly endow my young
friend!
“Your schoolmaster,
“THOMAS PITZER.”
Bluebell folded the paper reverently. She could not read many of the
words; it was necessary to add more years to her life before this
production could be appreciated in its magnitude. But she was very
grateful for such a testimonial, and some odd tender string began
vibrating in her little heart. Oh, dear Mr. Pitzer! and dear old
benches that smelled like the chest carved by Antony of Trent! The
very dunce-cap was a thing of joy when she thought of it! How funny it
looked on a blubbering little boy who would not repent of his misdeeds
until he was stood in the middle of the floor with that paper cone on
his head! Should she ever know again the hungry smell of a reticule
that has a few stale crumbs in it? She had her way all day. She
visited, and when she and Tildy asked to go after the water, not a soul
in school would have been a rival candidate for the same office.
They brought back bunches of honeysuckle from Langley’s well, and the
smell of that flower became forever associated in Bluebell’s mind with
worm-eaten benches, clay-chinked walls and the stirring air of the
hills. She wore her best blue calico, and felt so dressed up as to
have lost part of her identity. So Tildy rested the pail-handle on a
stick, and silently carried the short end herself. And when they put
the water-pail on its bench in the corner, Joe Hall got permission to
pass it around (another fat office in primitive school-life), and not
one mouth within those walls could refuse to press the dripping gourd
when it presented itself, splashing cold drops on bare feet, or sending
delicious shudders through thinly covered limbs. When Joe Hall reached
Bluebell, he dropped in her lap not only a thumb-paper bearing her
name, but a lot of birds ingeniously folded in the pattern generally
accepted by the school.
Perintha Pancost had her pocket so bulging full of new apples that
it weighed her down, and all the scholars on her bench swallowed
expectantly. But, one after the other, they were passed to Bluebell,
through hands which only stopped them on the way for a smell; so
Bluebell’s pocket bulged, and she and Perintha exchanged the most
amiable and confiding smiles. Mr. Pitzer was so busy mending pens that
he perhaps saw no occasion for bringing out and reading that article of
the rules which forbade eating “_apples, condiments, and nuts, or going
to dinner-bags in school hours_.”
How kind all those boys and girls were! John Tegarden showed her the
“Death of the Flowers,” in the Fourth Reader, which he was learning
to speak before summer school was out, for the “last day;” and, as it
had a melancholy tone, Bluebell felt vaguely complimented. She would
be away off in Sharon on that day; she would not even see the prizes
distributed, to say nothing of missing that spelling-prize herself.
Some of the parents who were not too busy harvesting, would be there in
their Sunday clothes; the children themselves would appear in different
character, all shod in stiff shoes or jaunty slippers; the fortunate
girls in white dotted swiss, or book muslin, with rosettes of ribbon
in their tightly braided hair, the poorer ones in starched calico; the
boys dressed exactly like their fathers, and looking like little old
men, very much subdued by the calamity of clothes.
But still there probably were grander gala days in Sharon.
Amanda Willey would have Bluebell stand next to her in the ring at
noon when they played “_I lost my glove yesterday, found it to-day_.”
Of course Tildy stood on the other side, and Perintha, who went
around with the glove--which was simply and solely an empty reticule,
there being no glove in the entire school wardrobe--dropped it behind
Bluebell. They abstained from “_Drown the Duck_,” because she hated the
tiresome ins and outs, and was sure to be drowned by dashing straight
at the leader.
Even the boys left “_Bull in the Pen_,” and “_Mad Dog_,” to say nothing
of “_Base_” and “_Three Old Cat_,” and condescended to play for once
with the girls, if the girls would play that variation of “_Hide and
Seek_” known to them as “_Hickamy-dickamy_;” and to Bluebell was
reserved the right of repeating the cabalistic formula by which the
panting and eager crowd was narrowed down to the one party who had to
hide his eyes. With dipping forefinger she went the rounds, rejoicing
in the liquid roll of the words:
“Hickamy-dickamy, aliga-mo;
Dick slew, aligo-slum;
Hulkum, pulkum, peeler’s gum:
France--you’re out!”
The lot fell on Minerva Ridenour, that little baby-faced thing who was
always standing about with her mouth open, as if perpetually astonished
at the world, and who could not even eat an apple without showing how
her white first-teeth made cider of the fruit. There were plenty of
places to hide: behind logs and trees, behind the school-house and the
school-house door. Before she had counted a hundred, with her eyes
hid against the base, not a bobbing head or glint of calico could be
seen in the landscape; and when, rubbing the smear which darkness had
made, off her sight, she wandered cautiously a few yards from the base,
lo! there were a half a dozen long-legged fellows patting it, having
swooped from overhanging branches or from behind logs. Forms appeared
everywhere, and the little Black Man ran valiantly, but overtook
only one or two at the base, where she patted excitedly, calling the
individual names of the entire school, until she was checked, and
reminded if she called anybody’s name before he appeared, that party
could “come in free.” Joe Hall and John Tegarden remained out when all
the rest stood in a scarlet and perspiring group! and it was ludicrous
to see Minerva fly back to the base as if drawn by an elastic rope
which she had stretched, every time an alarm rose behind her or she
saw a suspicious spot. On the other hand, the found majority shouted
warning or encouragement to the invisibles:
“Lay low, Joe!”
“Run, John, now’s your time! Run! run! run!”
John had hid in the hollow towards the Rocky Fork, and his long legs
at his distance were pretty equally matched against Minerva’s tardier
feet at her distance. It was an exciting moment, in which the majority
patted its hands and knees and shouted with all its might. Minerva came
in gallantly, but John reached over her at the last instant and patted
the base: “One, two, three!” And then his impetus carried him sprawling
on the ground. It was John’s nature to throw his entire sensitive soul
into what he undertook, and he did not enjoy the girls’ laughing and
the boys’ hooting as he scrambled upon “all-fours.” He did not know
he was to do martial service for his country and to die the death
of a soldier. The noble possibilities of the boy were at that time
only apparent in his tenderness of heart. It was an aggravation to an
awkward fellow like John to see Joe Hall sail in and encircle the base
while Minerva was farthest from it, as if Mercury’s wings grew on his
neatly moving heels; pat it triumphantly, and step back with his head
up, as if graceful success was a matter of course for him.
Oh, they had so much fun! If there was anything in the world more
exhilarating than running right through when the Black Man calls,
Doctor Garde’s little girl had yet to encounter it. Then there was
that similar play, with a shiver in it:
“How many miles to Barley-bright?”
“Three score and ten.”
“Can I get there by candle-light?”
“Yes, if the witches don’t catch you!”
But the school-day ended. Bluebell put her reader and spelling-book
into her reticule. She got one last head-mark. And the lessons the
higher classes had read that afternoon, made a background of thought
in her mind--the magnificently worded “Con-fla-gra-tion of an
Am-phi-theatre,” and that rousing story of a son’s return, beginning,
“It was night. The widow of the Pine Cottage had laid on her last
fagot.”
One by one the boys and girls went out, bowing or curtsying to the
master, and he laid special emphasis on the “_Good_-evening” which he
gave Bluebell.
How soon it was all over! And how soon the very evening before her
departure had come! The clothes she was to wear on the journey were
laid out on a chair, and her mother’s trunk brought down from the
garret, repaired and packed. After all, it was decided to let Roxana
stay with Liza until her father was ready to depart. In her own
flutter, Bluebell scarcely anticipated missing the baby.
Tildy came over to stay all night, and they played until late. She
brought her John Rogers’ Primer as a parting gift for Bluebell to
“remember her by.” Its frontispiece represented the martyr, John
Rogers, burning at the stake, surrounded by soldiers with axes, and his
numerous family, in very short-waisted gowns or mature-looking coats.
The delightful rhymes within its covers almost repeated themselves:
“Time cuts down all,
Both great and small.”
“In Adam’s fall
We sin-ned all.”
“Zaccheus he
Did climb a tree,
His lord and master
For to see;”
and many others with an old-fashioned tang like that of a winter apple
kept far into the spring. And there was, besides, John Rogers’s
address to his children. On receiving this precious pamphlet, Bluebell
drew from her own stores her oldest and dearest book, the “_Hymns
for Infant Minds_,” in pink pasteboard covers. There was this prime
favorite:
“My father, my mother, I know,
I cannot your kindness repay;
But I hope as the older I grow,
I shall learn your commands to obey.
You loved me before I could tell
Who it was that so tenderly smiled;
But now that I know it so well,
I should be a dutiful child.”
And there, too, was Mr. Pitzer’s battle piece:
“Let dogs delight,” &c.,
And,
“I thank the goodness and the grace
Which on my birth has smiled;”
with dozens of other gently stimulating hymns which Bluebell had long
known by heart. In giving this book to Tildy, she gave as nearly a part
of her identity as could be separated from herself.
Morning came--early, but moist and shady among the hills. The girls
were up before anybody else in the house. Tildy hooked Bluebell up with
maternal care, and combed the tangles out of her hair with an energy
which came near straining their friendship at that last moment.
Then Liza bustled about breakfast, and the baby waked in the unusual
stir. Miss Melissa moved out of her chamber in the dignified habit
which she had laid aside after her arrival at the Rocky Fork. Father
did not ride away until the party was ready to start. Abram with his
spring-wagon was to drive them to the station: father was still a
left-handed horseman.
The last, and almost the very best, breakfast of Rocky Fork life was
just over, when Robert’s Liza and Teeny came trailing up the meadow,
their dresses deeply touched with dew. Teeny brought her rough-coated
china lamb as a parting gift; she had outgrown such toys; but Bluebell
could only give her a kiss in return, for all her treasures were under
lock and key.
Then a rattling was heard along the lane, and Abram appeared with his
horse and spring-wagon. He had two split-bottomed chairs for his
travellers, but for himself, a board across the wagon was good enough.
He let down the bars, and drove in to take on the trunks. And then
Bluebell realized that she was going away from home!
Does the child leave you so lightly, old weather-beaten house! Never
mind. Years will bring you your revenge: you will live in her mind
forever, a symbol of joy which does not come when we are older.
She is squeezing the little sister, responding to Tildy’s stoical
hug--and Tildy starts straight to the lower bars, her brimming eyes
turned from the company. Liza-Robert is caressing her with some pious
words, and now she is tight in Liza’s arms, just realizing how soft
and comfortable and dear they have been. She hangs to Liza while Miss
Melissa makes her adieux, and Teeny gives her another pat as Abram
hoists her into the vehicle.
Father is ready on his Arabian to ride beside them as far as Mary Ann
post-office. They will take the long way around the hills.
The bars are put up behind them. Bluebell looks back and sees her
group of friends moving into the house, and hears Rocco’s voice--like
the voice of the old house--calling persistently:
“Good-by, B’uebell, good-by! Good-by, B’uebell!”