Wully slept the whole afternoon, and that evening the aunts and
uncles and cousins began coming to see him. He and Allen, being among
the oldest of the clan’s young fry, had been the first to enlist,
though since then two of the McNairs, a Stevenson, and a McElhiney
had grown old enough to fight. Allen’s death and Wully’s spectacular
career had endeared him to the neighbors. They had suffered with
him, they thought. Two years before, when they had gathered to offer
their consolation to the family because he was reported dead, they
had found his mother rejecting sympathy with as much decision as was
civil. The United States government might be a powerful organization,
but it could never make her believe that Wully had been shot in the
back, running away from duty. The Stowes doubtless did well to array
themselves in mourning for Harvey, but she knew her son was alive.
And sure enough, after three weeks a letter came, no larger than the
palm of her hand. She knew it had come when she saw a nephew running
towards the house to give it to her. On one side, the little paper
had said that Wully was alive and well in a prison in Texas, and on
the other, crowded together, were ten names of comrades imprisoned
with him, and Harvey Stowe’s name was written first and largest.
That minute she had buttoned the bit of paper into Andy’s shirt
pocket, and sent him fifteen miles down the creek to tell the Stowes
to take off their mourning, and the clan, hearing the news from the
mad-riding Andy had gathered to rejoice with her. And now that the
exciting Wully was home again, they brought him wild turkeys, and
the choice of the wild plums, an apple or two, first fruit of their
new orchards, and whatever else their poverty afforded. Mrs. Stowe
came to see him, bringing a package of sugar. But the Stowes were
well-to-do. The others were exclusively what Allen had dubbed “the
ragged lairds of the Waupsipinnikon.”
Not that their creek was really the Waupsipinnikon. Allen had only
crossed that chuckling stream on his first journey with his father,
but he had delighted in a name so whimsical, so rollicking, and
had used it largely. Pigs and chickens of his christening bore it
unharmed. And he put it into the song he used to sing sometimes, when
the prairie’s youth and beauty were tired of dancing to his fiddle.
All the neighbors were mentioned in it:
The McWhees, the McNabs, the McNorkels,
The Gillicuddies, the McElhineys, the McDowells,
The Whannels, the McTaggerts, the Strutheres,
The Stevensons, the McLaughlins, and the Sprouls.
In his pronunciation the meter was perfect, and Sprouls and McDowells
rhymed perfectly, both of them, with “holes.” For an encore he would
show his appreciative audience how the head of each family mentioned
“asked the blessing,” always politely and stubbornly refusing to
imitate the master of the house in which the fun was going on--at
least until the master had retired.
Between the visits of the ragged lairds and their offspring, Wully
got so much sleep that on the fourth day he announced himself able
to help with the fall plowing. His mother refused to have such a
suggestion considered, and they compromised on his digging carrots in
the garden. At that task she found him doggedly working away after
an hour, white and trembling. For a week he recovered from the fever
that came on, sleeping by day and by night. The twelfth day he was
so well that he rode to look over the “eighty” his father had bought
for him with the two hundred dollars that had accrued to him during
the fourteen months he lay in prison, trying to carve enough wooden
combs to earn what would keep him from starving. His father explained
that he might have brought land further on at a dollar and a half an
acre. But this was the choice bit of land, and, moreover, it joined
the home farm. And this bit of ground, rising just here was obviously
the place for the house to be built. Wully smiled indulgently at the
idea of his building a house. But he wasn’t to smile about it, his
father protested. Indeed, they would some way get an acre broken this
fall yet in time to plant maple seed, and poplar, for the first
windbreak, so that the little trees would be ready for their duty.
The elder McLaughlin sighed with satisfaction as he talked. Even yet
he had scarcely recovered from that shock of incredulous delight
at his first glimpse of the incredible prairies; acres from which
no frontiersman need ever cut a tree; acres in which a man might
plow a furrow of rich black earth a mile long without striking a
stump or a stone; a state how much larger than all of Scotland in
which there was no record of a battle ever having been fought--what
a home for a man who in his childhood had walked to school down a
path between the graves of his martyred ancestors--whose fathers
had farmed a rented sandpile enriched by the blood of battle among
the rock of the Bay of Luce. Even yet he could scarcely believe
that there existed such an expanse of eager virgin soil waiting for
whoever would husband it. Ten years of storm-bound winters, and
fever-shaken, marketless summers before the war, had not chilled
his passion for it--nor poverty so great that sometimes it took the
combined efforts of the clan to buy a twenty-five cent stamp to write
to Scotland of the measureless wealth upon which they had fallen.
From the time he was ten years old, he had dreamed of America. He
had had to wait to realize his dream till his landlord had sold
him out for rent overdue. What Wully remembered gallingly about
that sale was that his grandmother had been present at it, and her
neighbors, thinking she bought the poor household stuff to give
back to her son, refused to bid for it against her. Then, having got
it all cheap, she sold it at considerable profit, and pocketed the
money. That was why, taught by his father, he despised everything
that suggested Scottish stinginess. Nor had he wept a tear when the
old woman died, soon after, and his father, taking his share of her
hoardings, had departed for his Utopia. Some of the immigrants had
long since lost their illusions. But not John McLaughlin. He loved
his land like a blind and passionate lover. Really there was nothing
glorious that one was not justified in imagining about a nation to
be born to such an inheritance. And he told Wully that he might at
least console himself with the thought that those months in prison
had made him possessor of such land, that with the possible exception
of the fabled Nile valley, there was probably in the world no
richer. And the McLaughlins prided themselves on the fact that they
were no American “soil-scratchers,” exhausting debauchers of virgin
possibilities. Their rich soil, they promised themselves, was to be
richer by far for every crop it yielded.
The next day Wully felt so well that he must have something to do.
On the morrow the bi-weekly mail would be in, and if it brought
orders for him, he would be returning to his regiment. He stood in
the doorway looking toward his father’s very young orchard, and
considering the possibilities of the afternoon. Of course, he might
ride over and see Stowe’s sweetheart, who had come to see him the
other time he was home ill. But he dreaded talking to a strange
woman. She was pretty, certainly. That was why he was afraid of her.
If he had been Allen, now, with an excuse for going to see a pretty
girl, his horse would have been in a lather before he arrived. Wully
had envied Stowe, sometimes, his eagerness for just a certain letter.
It must, he thought in certain moods, after all be rather pleasant to
have someone so dear that a man like Stowe would endanger his honor,
and life itself by stealing away to see her. Stowe was to be married
as soon as he got home. He was so close a friend that he talked to
Wully about that. If Stowe had had a site for a house waiting him, as
Wully had, he would have talked his friend deaf. But just the same,
Wully wasn’t going to see his sweetheart. He would do anything for
Stowe but that. Easing his conscience by that assurance, he heard his
mother speaking to him.
If he wanted something to do, would he ride over to Jeannie McNair’s
for her? She wanted to know if Jeannie had any news yet from Alex.
When would that man be back, she wondered indignantly. Who ever heard
of a man harvesting a wheat crop, and starting back to Scotland,
leaving his family alone with the snakes--she always added the snakes
because the McNair cabin was on low land which those reptiles rather
affected--and all to prevent his half brothers from getting a bit
more of a poor inheritance than they were entitled to! If Wully went
on her errand, he was to take poor Jeannie a few prairie chickens,
and those three young ducks she had raised for her, alone there with
her bairns!
And if he was going, he must put on his uniform. He demurred. She
insisted. Why, Jeannie had never seen him in his uniform! He smiled
to hear her imply that not to have seen him so arrayed was the
greatest of her deplorable privations. Yet he went and put it on,
nevertheless, for it was the most handsome suit he had ever had,
always before having been clothed in the handiwork of his mother and
sisters. When he was ready to go, the ducks caught and tied, a bit of
jelly safely wrapped, as he stood by the horse, in his mother’s sight
the most beautiful soldier in the American armies, she said:
“Jeannie’s Jimmie was just your age, you mind, Wully.”
She watched him riding away, the fondness of her face ministering to
the joyous sense of well-being that swept over him. How unspeakably
lovely the country was! How magnificent its richness! He had never
felt it so keenly before. He must be getting like his father. Or
perhaps it looked so much more impressive because he had seen so
much swampy desolation in the South. The grass he rode through
seemed to bend under the sparkling of the golden sunshine. He came
to the creek, and as he crossed it he remembered with a pang the
time his companions had staggered thankfully and hastily to drink
out of a pool covered with green slime. He turned with disgust from
the memory. He wouldn’t even think of those things to spoil his few
days at home. He gave himself up to the persuasive peace around him.
He rode along, completely, unreasonably happy. He began to sing.
Singing, he remembered Allen. How was it that he was here singing,
and Allen, the singer, was dead! But the afternoon’s glow took away
soon even the bitterness of that question.
He came presently in sight of the McNairs’ cabin. Though every other
man of the neighborhood had been able, thanks to the wartime price of
wheat, to build for his family a more decent shelter than the first
one, that Alex McNair, fairly crazy with land-hunger, added acre to
acre, regardless of his family’s needs. Such a man Wully scorned with
all the arrogance of youth. He had, moreover, understood and shared
something of his mother’s pity for her beloved friend, McNair’s wife.
He remembered distinctly that when his parents had been leaving the
Ayrshire home for America, Jeannie had put into his hand a poke of
sweeties to be divided by him among the other children during the
journey. That had been a happy farewell, because Jeannie and her five
were soon to follow. But when the ten flourishing McLaughlins again
saw Jeannie on this side of the water, of her five there remained
only her little Chirstie, and a baby boy. The bodies of the other
three she had seen thrown out of the smallpox-smitten ship which the
feasting sharks were following. Since then she had been a silent
woman, though Wully’s mother spoke of her sometimes, sighing, as a
girl of high spirits and wit. Now, however much other Ayrshire women
might rejoice in a dawning nation, the memory of those bloody mouths
stood always between her and hope. She endured the new solitude
without comment or complaint. Homesick for a hint of old-country
decency, she hung the walls of her cabin with the linen sheets of her
dowry, sheets that must have come out of the poisonous ship. Wully’s
mother admired that immaculate room without one sigh of envy. White
sheets would keep clean a long time in that cabin, with only the two
bairns. But she thanked God that in her crowded cabin there was not
room for one sheet on the wall. Moreover, in the new land, Jeannie
had lost two babies, so that now for her labor and travail, she had
only the Scottish two, and a baby girl. With another baby imminent,
her husband had “trapassed” away to Scotland! He was too “close” to
have taken her with him. But not for the wealth of Iowa would she
have exposed her children again to sea. She would stay and save them
on dry land. She wouldn’t be left altogether alone. Her brother’s
family lived but two miles away.
Wully rode up to the house unperceived, though not one tree, not one
kindly bush protected it against the immensity of the solitude around
it. He tied his horse, and was at the door before Jeannie saw him.
Then she exclaimed:
“If it is’na Isobel’s Wully!” She shook his hand, and patted him on
his shoulder, and reached up and kissed him. He didn’t mind that. She
was practically an aunt, so intimate were the families. In her silent
excitement she brought him into her wretched little cabin.
And there stood another woman. By the window--a young woman--turning
towards him with sunshine on her white arms--and on the dough she was
kneading--sunshine on her white throat--and on the little waves of
brown hair about her face--sunshine making her fingertips transparent
pink--a woman like a strong angel--beautiful in light!
Wully just stared.
“It’s only Chirstie.” Jeannie was surprised at his surprise.
Only Chirstie!
“She was just a wee’un when I saw her,” he stammered. “I did’na ken
she was so bonny!” Fool that he was! Idiot! Yammering away in bits of
a forsaken dialect! What would the girl think of him!
“It’s more than four years you’ve been away,” Jeannie reminded
him kindly. She began plying him with questions. He answered them
realizing that the girl was covering her bread with a white cloth
freshly shaken from its folds--that she was washing her hands, and
pulling down her sleeves--and seating herself near him composedly
enough. His mother was well, he said. They were all well. It was
twelve days now since he had come home. Yes, he was tired of the
war. The more he saw of the girl, the tireder he got. The other boys
from the neighborhood were all alive and well as far as he knew. He
looked at that girl as much as he dared. He could think of nothing to
say--that is, of nothing he dared yet to say. He was most stupidly
embarrassed, trying not to appear foolish. He stammered out that his
mother had sent over some things, some squashes--he would go and
bring them in. He went out to get them. Oh, it wasn’t squashes! It
was ducks! The girl giggled deliciously. Her mother smiled. Wully was
more at his ease. Now where should they put the ducks? They were all
standing together now in the dooryard, the three ducks, the three
humans. There was no place ready for the gifts. Well, Wully would
make a coop for them. Just give him a few sticks. But there were no
sticks. Then Chirstie thought of some bits of wood behind the barn.
They went and got them. She stood, shy because of the ardor of his
eyes, by her mother, watching his skill in making duck shelters. He
could have gone on making them forever. But the work was done. He
grew embarrassed again.
He must be going. Not before he had had tea! He didn’t really care
for tea. He would have--just a drink of water. No sooner had he said
that word than he regretted it painfully. There was no fresh water.
But Chirstie would go get some. He knew that one of the things that
annoyed his mother most about the McNair place was that Alex had
never even dug a second well. The water was all still carried a
quarter of a mile from the old well in the slough. Chirstie was ready
to start for his drink at once. Was he not a soldier, and a fine
looking one, her eyes inquired demurely, whom she would be honored to
serve? No, he would get it himself.
“Go along, the two of you!” said Jeannie. And as they started, she
stood in the door looking after them, and on her face there grew a
sore and tender smile.
He took the pail. She reached for the big stick. That was to kill
rattlesnakes. He took that, too, shocked by the thought of death near
her feet. They walked silently together, in a path just wide enough
for one. Their hands touched at times. He grew bold to turn and study
her beauty. Their eyes met, but she said never a word. On they went,
silently. He could hear his heart beating presently. He forgot that
his feet had ever been sore. He could have walked on that way with
her to Ayrshire. They came to the well. His hand trembled as he let
the pail down into it. That may have been the ague. He filled the
cup, and gave it to her to drink, looking straight at her. She put it
to her lovely lips and drank, looking across the prairie. She handed
it back to him, and he took it, and her hand. The grass about the
well was very high. Some way--he put out his arms, and she was in
them.
“Chirstie!” he whispered. “I didn’t know that you were here!
I didn’t know that you were the lassie for me!” He kissed her
fearfully. He kissed her without fear, many times. She said only
“Oh!” He held her close.
After a time--how long a time it must have been to have worked so
mightily!--she sighed and said:
“We must go back.”
Hand in hand they went back, until they came to the edge of the tall
grass. They couldn’t miss the last of that opportunity. Out in the
short grass she pulled her hand away. No one must see yet, she said.
Of course not. Not yet.
No, he said to Jeannie, he couldn’t stay for tea. He had had his
drink. He had indeed drunk deep.
He rode out into the loveliness of the distances, unconscious of
everything but that girl in the sunlight. He was shaken through
with the excitement of her lips. Her name sang itself riotously
through his brain. Perhaps in a thousand miles there was not a man
so surprised as that one. But he was not thinking of his emotions.
He was thinking of what he had found. He was looking through vistas
opened suddenly into the meaning of life. He was seeing glimpses of
its space and graciousness. He laughed aloud abruptly remembering
the site his father had chosen for his house. And yesterday a house
had meant nothing to him! He was getting too near home. He had come
to the creek. He stopped his horse, and sat still, going over again
and again that supreme moment. He had never kissed a girl before
in his life. Allen had kissed them whenever he had gotten a good
chance--or any chance at all. Now, to-day, with Chirstie, it had been
just simply the only thing to do. She was already by the significance
of that caress a part of him. Oh, no wonder Stowe had come home four
times! And now his holiday was all but over. He vowed rashly he would
not go back! Never! If only he had come and found her the first of
his twelve days! He wondered why he had left her. He might have
stayed for supper. But no, not with her mother there! He was glad
he had come away. To think of him, who had marched through states
and territories, finding a girl like that, the very queen of beauty,
right there on the prairie! He could scarcely remember how she had
looked when he had seen her last. Just some kind of a little girl--no
stunning queen like this. The song of her name rose and fell in his
mind rhythmically. The sun grew low while he sat exulting. A chill
came into the air. He couldn’t endure to take his excitement home to
the light. He would wait till they would all be at supper. How glad
his mother would be when sometime she heard of his love! He knew it
was the very thing she would have chosen for him.
When he came into the kitchen she said, with relief:
“You’re a long time away, Wully!”
He replied without a waver:
“I stopped for a swim in the creek.”
She sat looking at him, wondering why he was pale again, and silent.
He was far from well, she was thinking. And before the meal was
over, he was wondering why the children’s chatter was so strangely
tiresome. Wouldn’t they ever get away to bed, and leave him to his
memories? Even with that babbling about, he could feel her face
against his....
His Uncle Peter’s Davie came in with the mail after supper, bringing
a paper with a notice for the scattered men of his regiment,
and paroled prisoners. They were to have reported yesterday to
headquarters. He tried to appear eager to go. His mother lifted the
Psalm, when the visitors were gone, and left the children to quaver
through it. And when he was lying in his bed, vowing desperately he
would not go back, she came to him.
“I canna’ thole your going, Wully!” she cried to him, and her cry
braced him. He remembered with shame how she had made him go back
after Allen’s death, how she had signaled fiercely to him to keep the
mention of anything else from the children. As if he, her son, could
not do whatever he must do, and do it well! She had been ashamed of
him before the children, then. He remembered that, and grew brave
now. He hated to remember what a baby he had been. As if, however
terrible the war might be, it hadn’t to be fought out, some way, by
men! As if he must escape from the hell other men must endure! He was
glad now he had occasion to strengthen the strengthener.
“It’s almost over now, mother!” he kept saying. Almost over, indeed,
and a bullet the death of a second! What was the use of saying that
when an hour could kill thousands? She sat stroking his hair, her
face turned away from him, so that he suspected tears. She felt like
an old broken woman, worn out not by years and childbearing, but by
this war. All that night she lay sleepless, praying for her son. He
lay sleepless in the room next to her, never giving her a thought. He
gave all his thoughts, he gave all he had, to the girl of the slough
well.
The dream of the night wore away, and the nightmare of the morning
was upon him. His father was calling him long before daybreak. He
was starting away, in the darkness, in the cold, away from Chirstie,
towards his duty. His feet ached. His back ached. His head ached. His
heart ached. He was one new great pain. It didn’t seem possible that
life could be so hard. But on his father drove, through the first
shivering glimpses of dawn, towards the train.