XXIX

"TH' ACTION FINE"

December, January, and February passed with a speed that had something

of magic in it. The Careys had known nothing heretofore of the rigors of

a State o' Maine winter, but as yet they counted it all joy. They were

young and hearty and merry, and the air seemed to give them all new

energy. Kathleen's delicate throat gave no trouble for the first time in

years; Nancy's cheeks bloomed more like roses than ever; Gilbert,

growing broader shouldered and deeper chested daily, simply revelled in

skating and coasting; even Julia was forced into an activity wholly

alien to her nature, because it was impossible for her to keep warm

unless she kept busy.

Mother Carey and Peter used to look from a bedroom window of a clear

cold morning and see the gay little procession start for the academy.

Over the dazzling snow crust Olive and Cyril Lord would be skimming to

meet the Careys, always at the same point at the same hour. There were

rough red coats and capes, red mittens, squirrel caps pulled well down

over curly and smooth heads; glimpses of red woolen stockings; thick

shoes with rubbers over them; great parcels of books in straps. They

looked like a flock of cardinal birds, Mother Carey thought, as the

upturned faces, all aglow with ruddy color, smiled their morning

good-bye. Gilbert had "stoked" the great stove in the cellar full of

hard wood logs before he left, and Mrs. Carey and Peter had a busy

morning before them with the housework. The family had risen at seven.

Julia had swept and dusted; Kathleen had opened the bedroom windows,

made the washstands tidy, filled the water pitchers, and changed the

towels. Gilbert had carried wood and Peter kindlings, for the fires that

had to be laid on the hearths here and there. Mother had cooked the

plain breakfast while Nancy put the dining room in order and set the

table, and at eight o'clock, when they sat down to plates piled high

with slices of brown and white bread, to dishes of eggs or picked-up cod

fish, or beans warmed over in the pot, with baked potatoes sometimes,

and sometimes milk toast, or Nancy's famous corn muffins, no family of

young bears ever displayed such appetites! On Saturday mornings there

were griddle cakes and maple syrup from their own trees; for Osh Popham

had shown them in the spring how to tap their maples, and collect the

great pails of sap to boil down into syrup. Mother Carey and Peter made

the beds after the departure of the others for school, and it was pretty

to see the sturdy Peter-bird, sometimes in his coat and mittens,

standing on the easiest side of the beds and helping his mother to

spread the blankets and comforters smooth. His fat legs carried him up

and downstairs a dozen times on errands, while his sweet piping voice

was lifted in a never ending stream of genial conversation, as he told

his mother what he had just done, what he was doing at the present

moment, how he was doing it, and what he proposed to do in a minute or

two. Then there was a lull from half past ten to half past eleven,

shortened sometimes on baking days, when the Peter-bird had his lessons.

The old-fashioned kitchen was clean and shining by that time. The stove

glistened and the fire snapped and crackled. The sun beamed in at the

sink window, doing all he could for the climate in the few hours he was

permitted to be on duty in a short New England winter day. Peter sat on

a cricket beside his mother's chair and clasped his "Reading without

Tears" earnestly and rigidly, believing it to be the key to the

universe. Oh! what an hour of happiness to Mother Carey when the boy

would lift the very copy of his father's face to her own; when the

well-remembered smile and the dear twinkle of the eyes in Peter's face

would give her heart a stab of pain that was half joy after all, it was

so full to the brim of sweet memories. In that warm still hour, when she

was filling the Peter-bird's mind and soul with heavenly learning, how

much she learned herself! Love poured from her, through voice and lips

and eyes, and in return she drank it in thirstily from the little

creature who sat there at her knee, a twig growing just as her bending

hand inclined it; all the buds of his nature opening out in the

mother-sunshine that surrounded him. Eleven thirty came all too soon.

Then before long the kettle would begin to sing, the potatoes to bubble

in the saucepan, and Mother Carey's spoon to stir the good things that

had long been sizzling quietly in an iron pot. Sometimes it was bits of

beef, sometimes mutton, but the result was mostly a toothsome mixture of

turnips and carrots and onions in a sea of delicious gravy, with

surprises of meat here and there to vary any possible monotony. Once or

twice a week dumplings appeared, giving an air of excitement to the

meal, and there was a delectable "poor man's stew" learned from Mrs.

Popham; the ingredients being strips of parsnip, potatoes cut in

quarters, a slice or two of sweet browned pork for a flavor, and a quart

of rich milk, mixed with the parsnip juices into an appetizing sauce.

The after part of the dinner would be a dish of baked apples with warm

gingerbread, or sometimes a deep apple pandowdy, or the baked Indian

pudding that was a syrupy, fragrant concoction made of corn meal and

butter and molasses baked patiently in the oven for hours.

Mother had the dishes to wash after she had tucked the Peter-bird under

the afghan on the sitting room sofa for his daily nap, but there was

never any grumbling in her heart over the weary days and the

unaccustomed tasks; she was too busy "making things make themselves." If

only there were a little more money! That was her chief anxiety; for the

unexpected, the outside sources of income were growing fewer, and in a

year's time the little hoard would be woefully small. Was she doing all

that she could, she wondered, as her steps flew over the Yellow House

from attic to cellar. She could play the piano and sing; she could speak

three languages and read four; she had made her curtsy at two foreign

courts; admiration and love had followed her ever since she could

remember, and here she was, a widow at forty, living in a half-deserted

New England village, making parsnip stews for her children's dinner.

Well, it was a time of preparation, and its rigors and self-denials must

be cheerfully faced. She ought to be thankful that she was able to get

a simple dinner that her children could eat; she ought to be thankful

that her beef and parsnip stews and cracker puddings and corn bread were

being transmuted into blood and brawn and brain-tissue, to help the

world along somewhere a little later! She ought to be grateful that it

was her blessed fortune to be sending four rosy, laughing, vigorous

young people down the snowy street to the white-painted academy; that it

was her good luck to see four heads bending eagerly over their books

around the evening lamp, and have them all turn to her for help and

encouragement in the hard places. Why should she complain, so long as

the stormy petrels were all working and playing in Mother Carey's water

garden where they ought to be; gathering strength to fly over or dive

under the ice-pack and climb Shiny Wall? There is never any gate in the

wall; Tom the Water Baby had found that out for himself; so it is only

the plucky ones who are able to surmount the thousand difficulties they

encounter on their hazardous journey to Peacepool. How else, if they had

not learned themselves, could Mother Carey's chickens go out over the

seas and show good birds the way home? At such moments Mrs. Carey would

look at her image in the glass and say, "No whimpering, madam! You can't

have the joys of motherhood without some of its pangs! Think of your

blessings, and don't be a coward!--

"Who sweeps a room as by God's laws

Makes that and th' action fine."

Then her eyes would turn from blue velvet to blue steel, and strength

would flow into her from some divine, benignant source and transmute her

into father as well as mother!

Was the hearth fire kindled in the Yellow House sending its glow through

the village as well as warming those who sat beside it? There were

Christmas and New Year's and St. Valentine parties, and by that time

Bill Harmon saw the woodpile in the Carey shed grow beautifully less. He

knew the price per cord,--no man better; but he and Osh Popham winked at

each other one windy February day and delivered three cords for two,

knowing that measurement of wood had not been included in Mother Carey's

education. Natty Harmon and Digby Popham, following examples a million

per cent better than parental lectures, asked one afternoon if they

shouldn't saw and chop some big logs for the fireplaces.

Mrs. Carey looked at them searchingly, wondering if they could possibly

guess the state of her finances, concluded they couldn't and said

smilingly: "Indeed I will gladly let you saw for an hour or two if

you'll come and sit by the fire on Saturday night, when we are going to

play spelling games and have doughnuts and root beer."

The Widow Berry, who kept academy boarders, sent in a luscious mince pie

now and then, and Mrs. Popham and Mrs. Harmon brought dried apples or

pumpkins, winter beets and Baldwin apples. It was little enough, they

thought, when the Yellow House, so long vacant, was like a beacon light

to the dull village; sending out its beams on every side.

"She ain't no kind of a manager, I'm 'fraid!" said Bill Harmon. "I give

her 'bout four quarts and a half of kerosene for a gallon every time she

sends her can to be filled, but bless you, she ain't any the wiser! I

try to give her as good measure in everything as she gives my children,

but you can't keep up with her! She's like the sun, that shines on the

just 'n' on the unjust. Hen Lord's young ones eat their lunch or their

supper there once or twice a week, though the old skinflint's got fifty

thousand dollars in the bank."

"Never mind, Bill." said Osh Popham; "there's goin' to be an everlastin'

evenupness somewheres! Probably God A'mighty hez his eye on that woman,

and He'll see her through. The young ones are growin' up, and the

teacher at the academy says they beat the devil on book learnin'! The

boy'll make a smart man, pretty soon, and bring good wages home to his

mother. The girls are handsome enough to pick up husbands as soon as

they've fully feathered out, so it won't be long afore they're all on

the up grade. I've set great store by that family from the outset, and

I'm turrible glad they're goin' to fix up the house some more when it

comes spring. I'm willin' to work cheap for such folks as them."

"You owe 'em somethin' for listenin' to you, Osh! Seems if they moved

here jest in time to hear your stories when you'd 'bout tuckered out the

rest o' the village!"

"It's a pity you didn't know a few more stories yourself, Bill,"

retorted Mr. Popham; "then you'd be asked up oftener to put on the

back-log for 'em, and pop corn and roast apples and pass the evenin'. I

ain't hed sech a gay winter sence I begun settin' up with Maria, twenty

years ago."

"She's kept you settin' up ever since, Osh!" chuckled Bill Harmon.

"She has so!" agreed Osh cheerfully, "but you ain't hardly the one to

twit me of it; bein' as how you've never took a long breath yourself

sence you was married! But you don't ketch me complainin'! It's a poor

rule that won't work both ways! Maria hurried me into poppin' the

question, and hurried me into marryin' her, an' she ain't let up on me a

minute sence then; but she'll railroad me into heaven the same way, you

see if she don't. She'll arrive 'head o' time as usual and stan' right

there at the bars till she gits Dig 'n' Lallie Joy 'n' me under cover!"

"She's a good woman, an' so's my wife," remarked Bill sententiously;

"an' Colonel Wheeler says good women are so rigged inside that they

can't be agreeable all the time. The couple of 'em are workin' their

fingers to the bone for the school teacher to-day; fixin' him up for all

the world as if he was a bride. He's got the women folks o' this village

kind o' mesmerized, Thurston has."

"He's a first-rate teacher; nobody that ain't hed experience in the

school room is fitted to jedge jest how good a teacher Ralph Thurston

is, but I have, an' I know what I 'm talkin' about."

"I never heard nothin' about your teachin' school, Osh."

"There's a good deal about me you never heard; specially about the time

afore I come to Beulah, 'cause you ain't a good hearer, Bill! I taught

the most notorious school in Digby once, and taught it to a finish; I

named my boy Digby after that school! You see my father an' mother was

determined to give me an education, an' I wa'n't intended for it. I was

a great big, strong, clumsy lunkhead, an' the only thing I could do,

even in a one-horse college, was to play base ball, so they kep' me

along jest for that. I never got further than the second class, an' I

wouldn't 'a' got there if the Faculty hadn't 'a' promoted me jest for

the looks o' the thing. Well Prof. Millard was off in the country

lecturin' somewheres near Bangor an' he met a school superintendent who

told him they was awful hard up for a teacher in Digby. He said they'd

hed three in three weeks an' had lost two stoves besides; for the boys

had fired out the teachers and broke up the stoves an' pitched 'em out

the door after 'em. When Prof. Millard heard the story he says, 'I've

got a young man that could teach that school; a feller named Ossian

Popham.' The superintendent hed an interview with me, an' I says: 'I'll

agree to teach out your nine weeks o' school for a hundred dollars, an'

if I leave afore the last day I won't claim a cent!' 'That's the right

sperit,' says the Supe, an' we struck a bargain then an' there. I was

glad it was Saturday, so 't I could start right off while my blood was

up. I got to Digby on Sunday an' found a good boardin' place. The

trustees didn't examine me, an' 't was lucky for me they didn't. The

last three teachers hed been splendid scholars, but that didn't save the

stoves any, so they just looked at my six feet o' height, an' the muscle

in my arms, an' said they'd drop in sometime durin' the month. 'Look in

any time you like after the first day,' I says. 'I shall be turrible

busy the first day!'

"I went into the school house early Monday mornin' an' built a good fire

in the new stove. When it was safe to leave it I went into the next

house an' watched the scholars arrive. The lady was a widder with one

great unruly boy in the school, an' she was glad to give me a winder to

look out of. It was a turrible cold day, an' when 't was ten minutes to

nine an' the school room was full I walked in as big as Cuffy. There was

five rows of big boys an' girls in the back, all lookin' as if they was

loaded for bear, an' they graded down to little ones down in front, all

of 'em hitchin' to an' fro in their seats an' snickerin'. I give 'em a

surprise to begin with, for I locked the door when I come in, an' put

the key in my pocket, cool as a cucumber.

"I never said a word, an' they never moved their eyes away from me. I

took off my fur cap, then my mittens, then my overcoat, an' laid 'em in

the chair behind my desk. Then my undercoat come off, then my necktie

an' collar, an' by that time the big girls begun to look nervous; they

'd been used to addressin', but not undressin', in the school room. Then

I wound my galluses round my waist an' tied 'em; then I says, clear an'

loud:' I'm your new teacher! I'm goin' to have a hundred dollars for

teachin' out this school, an' I intend to teach it out an' git my money.

It's five minutes to nine. I give you just that long to tell me what

you're goin' to do about it. Come on now!' I says, 'all o' you big boys,

if you're comin', an' we'll settle this thing here an' now. We can't hev

fights an' lessons mixed up together every day, more 'n 's necessary;

better decide right now who's boss o' this school. The stove's new an'

I'm new, an' we call'ate to stay here till the end o' the term!'

"Well, sir, not one o' that gang stirred in their seats, an' not one of

'em yipped! I taught school in my shirt sleeves consid'able the first

week, but I never hed to afterwards. I was a little mite weak on

mathematics, an' the older boys an' girls hed to depend on their study

books for their information,--they never got any from me,--but every

scholar in that Digby school got a hundred per cent in deportment the

nine weeks I taught there!"