AUTUMN DAYS
There's a wonderful charm in the autumn days,
When Earth to her rest is returning;
When the hills are drowned in a purple haze,
When the wild grape sweetens, and all in a blaze
Of crimson the maples are turning.
_----Helena Coleman._
WHEN autumn came to the Souris valley and touched the trees with
crimson and gold, it found that some progress had been made on the
farm that was getting its second chance.
Down on the river flat the hay had been cut and gathered into two
stacks, which stood beside the stable, and the two Watson cows now
fattened on the rich growth of aftergrass.
The grain, which had been an abundant crop, had been threshed and
drawn at once to the elevator, for there was no place to store it;
but as the price was one dollar a bushel for the best, and seventy
cents for the poorest, John Watson had no cause for complaint. The
stable, which he had built of poles, was now roofed by a straw stack
and was intended for a winter shelter for the two cows.
In the early spring Pearl had planted a bed of Polly's poppies, and
all summer long they had flamed red and brilliant against the poplar
grove behind the house, which sheltered them from the winds. The
weeds around the buildings were all cut down and the scrub cleaned
out for a garden the next year. In the holidays the boys had fenced
this with peeled poplar poles.
A corner of the wheat-field before the house had already been used
for a garden, and had been a great source of delight and also of
profit to the family. The boys had complained a little at first about
having to pull mustard and shepherd's purse and french-weed, with
which the farm was infested, but Pearl presented weed-pulling in a
new light. She organized two foraging parties, who made raids upon
the fields and brought back the spoils of war. Patsey was Roderick
Dhu, who had a henchman bold, called Daniel the Redhanded. Bugsey
was Alan-bane, and Tommy was to have been his henchman, Thomas
Trueman, but Tommy had strong ideas about equal rights and would
be Alan-bane's twin brother, Tommy-bane, or nothing. They were
all dark-visaged, eagle-eyed Highlanders, who made raids upon the
Lowlands to avenge ancient wrongs.
Pearl had learned about the weeds at school, and soon had her whole
family, including Aunt Kate, organized into a weed-fighting brigade.
Even the golden dandelion was ruthlessly cut down, and Mary, who was
strong on experiments, found out that its roots were good to eat.
After that any dandelion that showed its yellow face was simply
inviting destruction.
In school Pearl was having a very happy time, and she and her teacher
were mutually helpful to each other. Pearl's compositions were Mr.
Donald's delight. There was one that he carried with him and often
found inspiration in to meet the burdens of his own monotonous life.
The subject was "True Greatness," and was suggested by a lesson of
that name in the reader. Needless to say, Pearl's manner of treating
the subject was different from the reading lesson.
"A person can never get true greatness," she wrote, "by trying for
it. You get it when you're not looking for it. It's nice to have good
clothes--it makes it a lot easier to act decent--but it is a sign of
true greatness to act when you haven't got them just as good as if
you had. One time when Ma was a little girl they had a bird at their
house, called Bill, that broke his leg. They thought they would have
to kill him, but next morning they found him propped up sort of
sideways on his good leg, singing! That was true greatness. One time
there was a woman that had done a big washing and hung it on the
line. The line broke and let it all down in the mud, but she didn't
say a word, only did it over again; and this time she spread it on
the grass, where it couldn't fall. But that night a dog with dirty
feet ran over it. When she saw what was done, she sat down and didn't
cry a bit. All she said was: 'Ain't it queer that he didn't miss
nothing!' That was true greatness, but it's only people who have
done washings that know it! Once there was a woman that lived near a
pig-pen, and when the wind blew that way it was very smelly, indeed;
and at first when she went there to live she couldn't smell anything
but straight pig, but when she lived there a while she learned to
smell the clover blossoms through it. That was true greatness."
* * *
Camilla's wedding had been a great event in Pearl's life. It had
taken place early one Wednesday morning in the church at Millford. It
was a pretty wedding, the paper said. The altar of the church was
banked high with wild roses, whose sweet perfume made Pearl think of
school-books--she always kept her books full of rose petals, and to
her it was a real geography smell.
Mr. Burrell and Mr. Grantley both took part in the ceremony, to show
there was no hard feelings, Pearl thought, for Camilla was a
Presbyterian and Jim was a Methodist.
Mr. Francis brought Camilla in, and Pearl followed. Jim and the
doctor stood at the altar, while down from the choir-gallery, which
seemed to be overflowing with roses, came the strains of the
wedding-march. Pearl had never heard it before, but it seemed to her
now as if she had always known it, for in it throbbed the very same
joy that was beating in her own heart. It was all over in a minute
and they were coming down the aisle, her hand on the doctor's arm.
The carriage was waiting for them at the door, and they drove back to
the house, everybody talking and laughing and throwing rice.
When the wedding breakfast was over, and Jim and Camilla had gone on
the train, Pearl and the doctor and Mr. and Mrs. Francis drove back
to the house. Everything was just as they had left it--the flowers
were still on the table, and the big clock in the hall was still
going, though it seemed a long, long time that they had been away.
Mrs. Francis was quite worn out by the efforts of the morning, and
said she must go and rest. Would Pearl box up the wedding cake in the
little white boxes? "It is a severe strain to lose Camilla," she
said, "even for two weeks. Two weeks is fourteen days, and that means
forty-two meals without her."
"We'll attend to the wedding-cake, and put away the presents and run
things generally," the doctor said.
In the dining-room Dr. Clay cut up wedding-cake and packed it in
boxes for mailing, while Pearl quickly cleared away the dishes. She
was quite a pretty little girl in her white silk dress. She was tall
and slight, and lithe and graceful in her movements, with pansy-brown
eyes and a smooth, olive skin that neither sun nor wind could
roughen. But the beauty of her face was in the serene expression
which comes only to people whose hearts are brave and sweet and
honest.
The doctor watched her with a great admiration in his face. "Pearl,
how old are you?" he asked suddenly.
"I am fifteen," she answered.
He took one of her shapely little sunburnt hands and held it gently
in his; then with his other hand he took a pearl ring from his pocket
and was about to slip it on her finger, but, suddenly changing his
mind, he laid it in her hand instead.
Pearl gave an exclamation of delight.
"It's yours, Pearl," he said. "Put it on."
She put it on her finger, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.
"Oh, Doctor Clay!" she said, breathlessly.
He, smiling, watched her as she held her hand up to look at it. "It
is just a remembrance, dear," he said, "of some one who thinks that
there is no little girl in the world like you."
When Pearl went home, she gave an account of the wedding to her
family.
"Gettin' married ain't so much when you get right up to it," she
said. "They had a terrible busy time getting ready for it that
morning. Mrs. Francis was a long way more excited than Camilla, and
broke quite a few dishes, but they were all her own; she didn't get
into any of Camilla's. She set fire to her hair when she was curling
it, but after that she did fine. Camilla looked after everything and
wrote down in a notebook all the things Mrs. Francis is to cook while
she is away. Camilla's a little bit afraid that she'll burn the house
down, but the neighbours are all going to try to see after things for
her. Camilla had her hair done the loveliest I ever saw, all wavy,
but not frizzy. We went to the church and got that done before we
came back to the house to eat. Camilla had a big bunch of roses that
Jim gave her, tied with white satin ribbon, and mind you, they didn't
cut off the ends, that's how free they were with the ribbon. I held
them along with mine while Jim put on the ring--that's mostly an
account of the what I was for--and Jim kissed her right before every
one, and so did Mrs. Francis, and so did I, and that was all until we
came to the house, and then Mrs. Francis kissed her again and did me,
too, when she got started, and kissed Jim, too, and he kissed me, and
we had a great time. The meal was called a breakfast, but say, kids,
there was _eating_ for you! Maybe you think a breakfast is mostly
porridge and toast and the like o' that. Well, now, there wasn't a
sign of porridge--oyster soup came first."
"Wha's 'at?" Danny asked. The wedding details had reached the place
where Danny's interest began.
"They're the colour of gray stones, only they're soft, and if you
shut your eyes they're fine, and while you're wondering whether or
not you'll swallow them, they slip down and you begin to look for
another; and then there was little dabs of fried fish laid on a
lettuce leaf, with a sprig of parsley beside it, and a round of
lemon. They took the lemon in their fingers and squeezed it over
their fish. It looked a little mussy to me, but I guess it's manners
all right; and then there was olives on a little glass dish, and
every one took one--they taste like willow bark in spring. Mrs.
Burrell said she just loved them, and et a lot. I think that's
carryin' your manners too far. I et the one I took and thought I did
well. Mr. Burrell asked the blessin', and gave Jim and Camilla lots
of good advice. He said to be sure and get mad one at a time. And
then we had lots of other stuff to eat, and we went to the train, and
Camilla told me to watch that Mrs. Francis didn't let the tea-kettle
boil dry while I was there, and I guess that was all."
But of the incident of the pearl ring, strangely enough, she said not
a word.
* * *
When Thomas Perkins found out that Bud had really gone he was plunged
in deepest grief. He came over to where John Watson was ploughing
stubble, the very picture of self-pity. "Pretty hard on a man, John,
pretty hard," he began as soon as he came within hearing distance,
"to lose his only boy and have to hire help; after losin' the twins,
too, the year of the frozen wheat--fine little fellows they was, too,
supple as a string of suckers. And now, by golly, Bud's gone, John,
with the good new eighteen-dollar suit--that's what I paid for it in
cold cash in Brandon last winter--and I'll have to keep my hired man
on if he don't come back, and this beggar I have, he can eat like a
flock of grasshoppers--he just chunks the butter on his bread and
makes syrup of his tea. Oh, yes, John, it's rough on a man when he
begins to go down the other side of the hill and the bastin' threads
are showin' in his hair. It's pretty hard to have to do with hired
help. I understand now better'n ever why Billy Winter was cryin' so
hard when his third wife died. Billy was whoopin' it up somethin'
awful when Mr. Grantley went out to bury the woman, and Mr. Grantley
said somethin' to comfort Billy about her bein' in a better
place--that was a dead sure bet, anyway--but Billy went right on
bawlin'--he didn't seem to take no notice of this better place
idea--and after a while he says right out, says he: 'She could do
more work than three hired girls, and she was the savin'est one I've
had yet.'"
"Bud'll come back," said John Watson, soothingly. "The poor lad is
feeling hurt about it--he don't like to have people thinkin' hard of
him."
"Wasn't ten dollars a ter'ble fine, John, only eighteen?" Mr. Perkins
said.
"It isn't the money I'm thinkin' of, it's feelin's; poor Bud, and him
as honest a lad as ever drew breath." John Watson had a shrewd
suspicion of who had "plugged" the grain.
"Well, I don't see why he need feel so bad," the other man said.
"Nobody minds stealin' from the railways or the elevator men. They'd
steal the coppers off a dead man's eyes--eh, what? But where Bud ever
got such notions of honesty, I don't know--search me. It's a fine
thing to be honest, but it's well to have it under control. Now,
there's some kind of sharp tricks I don't hold with. They say that
Mrs. George Steadman sold a seven-pound stone in the middle of a
crock of butter to Mason here some years ago. She thought he'd ship
it away to Winnipeg and nobody'd ever know; but as sure as you're
born, when she got home she found it in the middle of her box of tea.
He paid her twenty-five cents a pound for it, but, by golly! she paid
him fifty cents a pound for it back. Now, I don't hold with that--it
was too risky a deal for me. This Mason's a sharp one, I tell
you--you'll get up early if you ever get ahead of him. In the airly
days, when we all had to go on tick for everything we got at his
store--they do say that every time one of us farmers went to town
that Mason, as soon as he saw us, would say to his bookkeeper: 'Tom
Perkins is in town; put him down for a dollar's worth of sugar and a
quarter of chewin' tobacco.'"
Pearl came out with a pail to dig some potatoes in the garden.
"Well, my pretty dear," Mr. Perkins said amiably, "how are you
feeling this evening?"
"I am real well, thank you," Pearl said, "and I hope you are, too."
"Well now, my dear, I am not," he said. "You know, of course, that
Buddie's gone."
"Yes, I know," said Pearl, "but I know Bud didn't do it. Bud is a
good boy, and too honest to do any thing like that. Bud wouldn't plug
grain. What does Bud care for a few cents more on every bushel if he
has to lie to get it?"
"Look at that now, John!" Mr. Perkins cried, nudging Mr. Watson
gaily. "Isn't that a woman for you all over, young and all as she is?
They never think how the money comes, the lovely critturs."
"Money isn't everything, Mr. Perkins," said Pearl earnestly.
"Well, my little dear, most of us think it is pretty nearly
everything."
"God doesn't care very much about money," she answered. "Look at the
sort of people he gives it to."
Mr. Perkins looked at her in surprise. "Upon my word, that's true,"
he said. "Say, Pearlie, you'll be taking away the preachers' job from
them when you get a little bigger, if they're not careful."
Pearl laughed good-humouredly and went on with her potato-digging.
Thomas Perkins went home soon after, and even to him the quiet glory
of the autumn evening came with a sense of beauty and of God's
overshadowing care. "I kinda wish now," he said to himself, "that I
had gone and cleared up the boy's name at first. I can hardly do it
now. They would think I hadn't had the nerve to do it at first. Say,
what that kid said is pretty near right. Money ain't everything." He
was looking at the bars of amethyst cloud that streaked the west, and
at the lemon-coloured sky below them. Prairie chickens whirred
through the air on their way to a straw pile near by. From the Souris
valley behind him came the strident whistle of the evening train as
it thundered over the long wooden bridge. A sudden love of his home
and family came to Thomas Perkins as he looked over at his
comfortable buildings and his broad fields. "If Bud were only over
there," he thought, "how good it would be! Poor Bud, wandering
to-night without a home, and through no fault of his own."
Just for the moment Mr. Perkins was honestly repentant; then the
other side of his nature came back. "I do hope that boy will think to
grease' his boots--they'll go like paper if he doesn't," he said.