Читать книгу The Measure of a Man. A Tale of the Big Woods - Duncan Norman - Страница 7
ОглавлениеPICK AND SHOVEL
Presently informed of his first ministerial office, and presented to the object of his consoling services, John Fairmeadow said, "All right, boys!" and his parishioners returned to the saloons with a relieved whoop, in which the concern of Gingerbread Jenkins vanished. The parson, you see, was "on the job," and it was purely a parson's employment; the mere mourners might indulge grief without any haunting sense of responsibility, and at once began to do so, with the eighteen hundred dollars. John Fairmeadow was precipitately abandoned. There remained the gray blanket—there remained Dennie the Hump, Pale Peter's sweeper—there remained the quaint, shy little figure in black, now blushing and dry-eyed, who presented her hand, with a grand air of fashion, and remarked that she was "pleased to make" John Fairmeadow's acquaintance. The gray blanket expressed no interest whatsoever in the affair; but Dennie the Hump volunteered to contrive a coffin of the shreds of packing-boxes, which, said he, if unsightly to the finical eye, would yet hold together until it should repose where no further disturbance could endanger it. This generous assistance John Fairmeadow promptly accepted, promising to look in upon the job, and complete it, and reverently fulfill its purpose, when he had finished with the pick and shovel. The tote-wagon was then driven to Pale Peter's barn; and there Dennie the Hump began industriously to ply his hammer and saw, in delight with his useful and conspicuous occupation.
Presently John Fairmeadow had obtained the implements required by this ministerial exigency. "Now, my dear," said he, resolutely, to Pattie Batch, "where shall we go?"
Pattie Batch stared horrified at the pick and shovel.
"You know what I mean, don't you?" Fairmeadow asked.
"There isn't no cem-e-tree," Pattie Batch replied.
"Choose, then," said Fairmeadow, "some pleasant place."
"There's a place for graves," Pattie volunteered, with interest.
Fairmeadow shouldered his pick and shovel. "The very spot!" said he.
"There isn't many graves, neither," Pattie went on; "there's jus' a few."
Fairmeadow reflected sadly that one would presently be added to the number.
"Jus' some girls," Pattie sighed.
Fairmeadow was not attending; he heard—but, unused to the ways of Swamp's End, did not comprehend. He was engaged in a tenderly sympathetic consideration of the odd little figure trotting beside him with awkwardly lifted skirt.
"You know," Pattie Batch continued, in the way of the wise to the wise.
It occurred to Fairmeadow that the child was complaining of the graveyard.
"No, no!" Pattie cried.
Fairmeadow wondered at her vehemence.
"No, no!" she repeated, in a passion of determination. "I want pop buried there!"
"Of course, you do," Fairmeadow soothed her.
"Near—me," she whispered.
"You mustn't think of that, my dear," Fairmeadow urged. "You're so young—to think of that."
"I got t'."
"Oh, no; not yet, surely."
"Yes, I have," Pattie replied; "it's got t' be thought of—now that pop's dead. I got t' be a li'l' man."
The graveyard lay in sunshine, a little breeze playing softly with the long grass, the whole freshly green and eager, after the warm rains, and brilliantly spread with flowers. It was at the edge of the clearing; the forest came close: Fairmeadow could peer into its dim, tangled recesses, and could hear the chirp and twitter and rustle of its busy little living things. Gray Billy Batch had been preceded in the eternal occupancy of this serene field. There were four graves. Three were unkempt and unloved—nameless, forgotten, fallen in, overgrown. But one small mound was newly trimmed; and wreaths of fresh-plucked wild blooms lay upon it, smiling to the blue sky.
"That's Mag's li'l' baby," Pattie explained.
"Mag's?" Fairmeadow absently asked.
"Yep," Pattie replied; "it's been dead a awful long time."
Fairmeadow wondered where Gray Billy Batch might most comfortably lie.
"Mag loves it yet," said Pattie; "an' she says she always will."
Fairmeadow struck his spade into the ground.
"She says," Pattie concluded, "that she jus' simply can't help it."
While Fairmeadow laboured—and until the last spading of cool red earth was cast up—Pattie Batch, squatting cross-legged in the grass, and much pleased with her companion, chattered amiably, between periods of gentle weeping. She seemed to cling to this companionship: there was no one else, you see, and there would presently be no one at all; and she was entertaining, of course—as well as one could be whose heart was breaking—to enlist sympathy and to prolong the interval of relief from loneliness. She would be alone, soon enough—alone in the cabin at the edge of the woods—quite alone—God knew! though John Fairmeadow was not aware of it. And the little thing, dabbing occasionally at her misty gray eyes with the sleeve of her mother's gown, chattered away, to chase off her grief and the besieging expectation of being alone. Mag's baby, it seemed, had come long ago, to surprise her; and Mag, it seemed, lived in the shuttered red house at the foot of the slope, and was Pattie Batch's friend. What would Pattie Batch do, now that her father was dead? Pattie Batch didn't know; but Pattie Batch knew what she could do, you bet! She hadn't made up her mind—not yet. She would think it over—by and by—after the fun'l, maybe. She was not afraid. Oh, my, no! And, anyhow, Mag was her friend.
"I know," said she, shrewdly, her great gray eyes wide in innocent regard of John Fairmeadow, "what I can do."
The grave was dug.
"Come, child," said Fairmeadow, oppressed; "there is no more to be done here."
"I ain't a child," she replied.
"No?" said he, absently.
She looked up shyly through her long lashes. "I'm almost nearly eighteen," said she, with satisfaction.
Fairmeadow had not attended to the chatter of Pattie Batch. But Fairmeadow is not to be blamed for this. Fairmeadow was not used to the ways of Swamp's End—not aware of the teaching of its accepted customs—not afraid for its innocents—not remotely acquainted with the deadly perils its way of living had created and clothed with an aspect of security and propriety—not yet apprised by experience of the nets which avarice had spread for unknowing youth. So Fairmeadow is not harshly to be judged for his stupidity: Fairmeadow had been preoccupied in melancholy musing upon this death. He had brooded sadly, through all Pattie Batch's chattering; and he had, but in no comprehending way, considered the forsaken little chatterer, whose words, inconsequent to his ear, had yet been great and solemn with the news he did not heed. Desolate little Pattie Batch! Gray-eyed, forsaken, quaint little Pattie Batch! Something must be done for the child. It would be his first ministerial concern, Fairmeadow determined, to inquire, to consider, to act in her behalf. After the funeral, perhaps: or to-morrow. To-morrow, of course: early to-morrow, so that her desolation in this inimical world might be eased as soon as might be. To-morrow: to-morrow, of course, would do. For Fairmeadow, you see, was new to Swamp's End, and was not at all aware, as yet, that instant action was necessary in some cases. But he was to learn it.
"There's jus' one thing," Pattie declared, with emphasis, when they came abreast of the first wretched shack of the town.
Fairmeadow yielded the attention demanded.
"Will you promise?"
"Maybe," Fairmeadow indulged her.
"You got t'."
Fairmeadow nodded.
"Don't you have Billy the Beast for no pallbearer," Pattie declared, her little teeth savagely bared; "he bit pop's ear off."
"Good Lord!" John Fairmeadow ejaculated.
It was a fine town! It was the worst town this side of hell, all right! It was just the lively little burg that John Fairmeadow had been looking for!
