THE FIRST LEMON PIE
Miss Goodwin was not there. She had gone for a walk. Disappointed, I
went back to my farm, and resolved to clean up the path through the
pines, to surprise her. The grove was dripping wet, the brook high,
and when I had stacked up the slash from as far as the tamarack swamp,
I brought down some old planks from the house and made a walk with them
over the wet corner. There was scarcely any slash in the open border
of pines along the south wall, so that I had time to smooth with a
rake the path on between the vegetables and the hayfield well back
toward the house, mow it out with a scythe across the little slope of
neglected grass just west of the house, where I was going some day to
plant more orchard and place my chicken houses, and finally bring it
down sharp through the group of pines by the road just northwest of the
woodshed (evidently planted there for a windbreak), ending it up at the
driveway which led in to the vegetable garden, around the end of the
shed. Then I put up my tools, and walked back proudly around the
circle. The path practically encompassed ten acres, so that it made
quite a respectable stroll. First, it led west through the small group
of pines, then south along the wall by the potato field, where I
glimpsed the rows of sprouting plants, and beyond them the lone pine and
the acres of Bert's farm and the far hills up the valley. Then it led by
the hayfield wall, on the right a tangle of wild roses and other wallside
flowers and weeds, on the left the neat rows of my vegetables, with the
peas already brushed. At the end of the farm it turned east, between
two rows of pine trunks like a natural cloister, and finally entered
the tamarack swamp, and then the hush and silence of the pine grove,
where the brook ran along in its mossy bed and you might have been
miles from any house. It emerged into the maples where Twin Fires was
visible, spick and span with new white paint and green shutters,
above its orchard. I was very proud of that path, of its length, its
charm, its variety, its spontaneous character. It seemed to me then,
and it has never ceased to seem, better than any extended acres of
formal garden planting, more truly representative of the natural
landscape of our country, and so in a truer sense a real garden.
There are spots along that brook now where I have sown ferns and wild
flowers from the deep woods, brought home, like the trilliums, in a
grapevine basket, spots which for sheer exquisiteness of shadowed
water and shy bloom and delicate green beat any formal bed you ever
dreamed. I have even cleared out three trees to let the morning sun fall
on a little pool by the brook, and into that place I have succeeded in
transplanting a cardinal flower, which looks at its own reflection
in the still water below, across the pool from a blue vervain. Just
one cardinal flower--that is all--under a shaft of sunlight in the
woods. But it is, I like to think, what Hiroshige would most enjoy.
However, I am running ahead of my story. Returning to the house, I went
up to my new chamber, where my striped Navajo blanket (a gift from a New
Mexican undergraduate who had been in one of my courses and entertained
an inexplicable regard for me, possibly because I persuaded him that
he was not destined for a literary career) was spread on the floor,
my old college bed was clean with fresh linen, and my college shingles
hung on the walls, a pleasant reminder of those strange social ambitions
which mean so much to youth. Through my west window streamed in the
sunset. I peeled off my clothes and dove into my brand new and quite too
expensive porcelain bath tub--a luxury Bert's house did not possess.
Then I got into my good clothes and a starched collar, more for the
now novel sensation than anything else, ate my supper, and in the warm
June evening walked up the road.
Bert and his wife were in the front sitting-room. I could see them
beneath the hanging lamp. The girl was walking idly up and down before
the house. Out of range of the open window I took her hand and gave it a
little pressure. "For the centrepiece," said I. "You sat opposite me
at my first meal, bless you!"
"Did I?" she answered. "What are you talking about?" She smiled it
off, but I knew that she was pleased at my pleasure.
Then I led the way into the parlour. "Hear, ye; hear, ye; hear, ye!"
I cried. "To-morrow night at seven a housewarming dinner-party will
be given at Twin Fires. The guests will be Mrs. Bert Temple, her lesser
fraction, and Miss Stella Goodwin."
"Land o' Goshen!" said Mrs. Bert. "I ain't got no fit clothes."
Bert and I roared. "They're all alike," cried Bert to me. "You ain't
got no fit clothes, neither, hev you, Miss Goodwin?"
"Of course not," she laughed. "But I expect to go."
"Well, I ain't got no swaller tail myself," said Bert. "But I expect
to go. We'll jest leave the old lady ter home."
"Will you, now?" said she. "Do you s'pose I'd lose a chance to see
how Mrs. Pillig's feedin' our friend? Not much!"
"Seven o'clock, then!" I called, as I went back down the road, to
light my old student's lamp again at last, and labour in my own house
in the quiet evening, the time of day the Lord appointed for mental
toil. As I drew near, the form of Buster emerged from the shed, barking
savagely, his bark changing to whimpers of joy as I spoke his name.
He pleaded to come into the house with me, so I let him come, and all
the evening he lay on the rug beside my chair, while I worked. Now and
then I leaned to stroke his head, whereupon he would roll over on his
back, raise his four paws into the air, and present his white belly to be
scratched. When I stopped, he would roll back with a grunt of profound
satisfaction, bat one eye at me affectionately, and go to sleep again.
"Buster," said I, "hanged if I don't like you."
His great tail spanked the rug.
The house seemed oddly more companionable for his presence. Yes, I did
like him--I who had thought I hated dogs! I put him to bed at eleven,
in the woodshed, and bade him good-night aloud.
The next day Mrs. Pillig was nervously busy with preparations for the
feast. The ice man came, and the butcher. I worked half the day at my
manuscripts, and half cleaning up the last of my orchard slash, mowing
the neglected grass with a scythe, and trimming the grass between the
house and the road with a lawn mower. I also edged the path to the
kitchen door. Every few moments I looked up the road toward Bert's,
but no figure drew near with saucily tilted nose. There was only
Buster, trotting hither and yon in every part of the landscape, and, at
half-past three, the chunky form of Peter coming home from the Slab
City school. I set Peter to work for an hour sawing wood.
"But I gotter study," he said.
"What?" said I.
"Spellin'," said Peter.
"All right," said I, "I'll ask you words while you saw."
He gave me his book which I held open on the lawnmower handle, and every
time the machine came to his end of the strip of lawn I asked him a new
word. Then I'd mow back again, and he'd make another cut of apple
bough, and then we'd have a fresh word.
"This lends an extremely educational aspect to agricultural toil,
Peter," said I.
"Yes, sir," said he.
Peter had his lesson learned and I had the lawn mowed by five o'clock.
I devoted the next hour to my correspondence, and then went up to make
myself ready for the feast. For some reason I went into the spare room
at the front of the house, and glancing from the window saw Miss Stella
stealing up through the orchard, her hands full of flowers. I watched
cautiously. She peeped into the east window, saw that the coast was
clear, and I heard the front door gently opened. I tiptoed to the head
of the stairs, and listened. She was in the south room. Presently I
heard voices.
"Sh," she was cautioning, evidently to Mrs. Pillig. A second later I
heard Buster bark his "stranger-coming!" bark by the kitchen door. When
I came downstairs, there were fresh flowers beneath the Hiroshiges, a
bowl of them on the piano, and a centrepiece in the dining-room. I smiled.
"That fairy's been here again," said Mrs. Pillig slyly. "Gave me
quite a start."
Promptly at seven my guests arrived, and I ushered them with great
ceremony into the south room, where Mrs. Bert gazed around with unfeigned
delight, and cried, "Well, land o' Goshen, to think this was them two
old stuffy rooms of Milt's, with nothin' in 'em but a bed and a
cracked pitcher! Hev you read all them books, young man?"
"Not quite all," I laughed, as I opened the chimney cupboard to the
left of my west fireplace.
"Lucky you read what you did before you began ter run a farm," said
Bert.
I now brought forth from the cupboard a bottle of my choicest Bourbon and
four glasses. The ladies consented to the tiniest sip, but, "There's
nothin' stingy about me!" said Bert. "Here's to yer, Mr. Upton, and
to yer house!"
We set our glasses down just as Mrs. Pillig announced dinner. On the way
across the hall I managed to touch the girl's hand once more. "For the
second centrepiece, dear fairy," I whispered.
Bert was in rare form that evening, and kept us in gales of merriment.
Mrs. Pillig brought the soup and meat with anxious gravity, set the
courses on the table, and then stopped to chat with Mrs. Temple, or to
listen to Bert's stories. She amused me almost as much as Bert did.
Bert and his wife weren't company to her, and the impersonal attitude
of a servant was quite impossible for her. It was a family party with the
waitress included. Miss Goodwin and I exchanged glances of amusement
across the table.
Then came the lemon pie.
"Now there's a pie!" said Mrs. Pillig, setting it proudly before me.
I picked up my mother's old silver pie knife and carefully sank it
down through the two-inch mass of puffy brown meringue spangled with
golden drops, the under layer of lemon-yellow body, and finally the
flaky, marvellously dry and tender bottom crust.
"Mrs. Pillig," said I, "pie is right!"
"Marthy," said Bert, smacking his lips over the first mouthful, "if
you could make a pie like this, you'd be perfect."
"The creation of a pie like this," said I, "transcends the
achievements of Praxiteles."
"If I could make a pie like this," said Miss Goodwin, "I should resign
from the dictionary and open a bakeshop."
Mrs. Pillig stood in the doorway, her thin, worried face wreathed in
smiles. Under her elbow I saw Peter peeping through, less curious
concerning us, I fancied, than the fate of the pie.
"You lose, Peter," I called. "There ain't going to be no core."
At the sound of my voice Buster came squeezing into the room, and put his
forepaws in my lap. Then he went around the table greeting everybody,
and ended by nestling his nose against Miss Goodwin's knee. I slid back
my chair, supremely content. Bert slid back his. I reached to the mantel
for a box of cigars and passed one to Bert, along with a candle, for
I had no lamp in the dining-room as yet, nor any candles for the table.
That was a little detail we had forgotten. Bert bit off the end, and
puffed contentedly.
"That's some seegar," he said. "Better'n I'm used ter. Speakin'
o' seegars, though, reminds me o' old Jedge Perkins, when he went
to Williams College. They used ter what yer call haze in them days,
an' the soph'mores, they come into the young Jedge's room to smoke
him out, an' they give him a dollar an' told him to go buy pipes an'
terbacker; so he went out an' come back with ninety-nine clay pipes
an' a penny's worth o' terbacker, an' it pleased the soph'mores
so they let him off. 'Least, that's what the Jedge said."
We rose and went back into the south room, followed by Buster. Bert was
puffing his cigar with deep delight, and sank into the depths of a Morris
chair, stretching out his feet. "Say, Marthy, why don't we hev a chair
like this?" he said.
"'Cause you can't stay awake in a straight one," she replied.
Mrs. Bert wandered about the room inspecting my books and pictures like
a curious child. Miss Stella and I watched them both for a moment,
exchanging a happy smile that meant volumes.
"I'm so glad you invited them," she whispered.
"I'm so glad you are here, too, though," I whispered back. "I can't
think of my housewarming now, without you."
She coloured rosily, and moved to the piano, where, by some right
instinct, she began to play Stephen Foster.
"'Old Kentucky Home!' By jinks, Marthy, do yer hear thet? Remember
how I courted you, with the Salem Cadet Band a-playin' thet tune out on
the bandstand, an' us in the shadder of a lilac bush?"
Martha Temple blushed like a girl. "Hush up, Bert," she laughed. But
she went over and sat on the arm of the Morris chair beside him, and I
saw his big, brown, calloused hand steal about her waist. My own instinct
was to go to the piano, and I followed it, bending over the player and
whispering close to her ear:
"You've touched a chord in their hearts," I said, "that you couldn't
have reached with Bach or Mozart. Don't stop."
"The old dears," she whispered back. "I'll give them 'The Old Folks
at Home.'"
She did, holding the last chord open till the sound died away in the
heart of the piano, and the room was still. Then suddenly she slipped
into "The Camptown Races," and Bert, with a loud shout of delight,
began to beat out the rhythm on Martha's ample hip, for his arm was
still about her.
"By cricky," he cried. "I bet thet tune beats any o' these
new-fangled turkey trots! Speakin' o' turkey trots, Marthy, you and me
ain't been to a dance in a year. We mus' go ter the next one."
"Do you like to dance?" asked Miss Goodwin, coming over to the settle.
"Wal, now, when I was young, I was some hand at the lancers," he
laughed. "Used ter drive over ter Orville in a big sleigh full o' hay,
an' hev a dance an' oyster stew to the hotel thar. Sarah Pillig wuz
some tripper in them days, too."
"Ah, ha!" said I, "now I see why Mrs. Temple was so anxious to come
to-night!"
"Stuff!" said that amiable woman.
The girl was looking into the ashes on the hearth. "Sleigh rides!" she
said. "I suppose you all go jingling about the lovely country in sleighs
all winter! Do you know, I never had a sleigh ride in my life?"
"No!" cried Bert. "Don't seem possible. Speakin' o' sleighs, did I
ever tell you about old Deacon Temple, my great uncle? He used ter hev
a story he sprung on anybody who'd listen. Cricky, how he did welcome
a stranger ter town! 'Cordin' ter this story, he wuz once drivin'
along on a fine crust, when his old hoss run away, an' run, an' run,
an' finally upset the sleigh over a wall into a hayfield whar they
was mowin', an' he fell in a haycock an' didn't hurt himself at
all. Then the stranger would say: 'But how could they be mowin' in
Massachusetts in sleighin' time?' and the Deacon would answer: 'They
wa'n't. The old mare run so far she run into Rhode Island.'"
Mrs. Temple rose. "Bert, you come home," she said, "before you think
of any more o' them old ones."
"Oh, jest the woodchuck," Bert pleaded.
Miss Stella and I insisted on the woodchuck, so Bert sank back
luxuriously, and narrated the tale. It had happened, it seems, to his
grandfather and this same brother, the Deacon, when they were boys.
"The old place wuz down by the river," said Bert, "an' there was
a pesky 'chuck they couldn't shoot ner trap, he wuz so smart, who
hed a burrow near the bank. So one day grandad seen him go in, an'
he called the Deacon, an' the two of 'em sot out ter drown the critter.
They lugged water in pails, takin' turns watchin' and luggin', for
two hours, dumpin' it into the hole till she was nigh full up. Then
they got too tuckered ter tote any more, an' sat down behind a bush ter
rest. Pretty soon they seen the old woodchuck's head poke up. He
looked around, careful like, but didn't see the boys behind the bush,
so he come all the way out and what do you think he done?"
"Tell us!" cried Miss Stella, leaning forward, her eyes twinkling.
"He went down ter the river an' took a drink," said Bert.
"Won't you copy the wisdom of the woodchuck?" I asked, when the laugh
had subsided.
Bert nodded slyly and I opened my chimney cupboard again.
"It's agin all laws," said Bert, pointing a thumb toward his wife,
"but it ain't every day we hev a noo neighbour in these parts. Here's
to yer, once more!"
The four of us walked up the road in merry mood, and the older folk left
the girl and me on the porch. She held the door open, as if to go in
after them, but I pleaded that the lovely June night was young. "And
so are we," I added.
She looked at me a moment, through the dusk, and then came out on the
stoop. We moved across the dewy lawn to a bench beneath the sycamore
that guarded the house, and sat down. Neither of us spoke for a long
moment. Then I said abruptly: "You've only come to my house wearing a
fairy cap of invisibility, since I moved in--till to-night. Won't you
come to-morrow and walk through the pines? I've cleared all the slash
out for you, and put planks in the swamp. The thrush won't sing for me
alone."
"Yes, I'll come--for the last time," she said softly.
"Why for the last time?" I cried.
"Because I'm going back to the I's, or the J's, on the day after,"
she answered.
"Oh, no, no, you mustn't!" I exclaimed. "You must stay here with
the jays. Why, you're not strong enough, and New York will be horribly
hot, and you haven't seen the phlox in bloom yet round the sundial,
and you've got to tell me where to plant the perennials, when I sow
them, and--and--well, you just mustn't go."
She smiled wistfully. "Pronunciation is more important for me than
perennials, if not so pleasant," she said. "I shall think of Twin
Fires often, though, in--in the heat."
"They'll arrest you if you try to wade in Central Park," said I.
She laughed softly, lifting the corners of her eyes to mine.
"Anyhow," I maintained, "you are not well enough to go back. You are
just beginning to get strong again. It's folly, that's what it is!"
"Strong! Why, my hands are as calloused as yours," she laughed, "and
about as tanned."
"Let me feel," I demanded.
She hesitated a second, and then put out her hand. I took it in mine,
and touched the palm. Then my fingers closed over it, and I held it in
silence, while through the soft June night the music of far frogs came
to us, and the song of crickets in the grass. She did not attempt to
withdraw it for a long moment. The night noises, the night odours in the
warm dark, wrapped us about, as we sat close together on the bench. I
turned my face to hers, and saw that she was softly weeping. Strange
tears were very close to my own eyes. But I did not speak. The hand
slipped out of mine. She rose, and we moved to the door.
"The path to-morrow, at twilight," I whispered.
She nodded, not trusting to speech, and suddenly she was gone.
I walked down the road to Twin Fires in a dream, yet curiously aware of
the rhythmic throb, the swell and diminuendo, of the crickets' elfin
chime.