Читать книгу The Adventures of a Woman Hobo - Ethel Lynn - Страница 12

Table of Contents

May 7th. At Crab-Apple Hedge.

We are in a new world. All day long we press forward, sometimes riding and again on foot, for the roads are rough and often muddy; and on every hand the beauties of an Illinois spring unfold before our enraptured gaze.

With the western spring I am familiar. In March and April acres on acres of greasewood blossoms and wild lilacs were all swaying in the ocean breeze that sweeps the wide reaches of our Southern California valleys each afternoon. A wild spirit of freedom, an almost Pagan joyousness and gaiety is manifest, which speaks of primitive things and appeals to the elemental essence of the soul. But here Nature approaches in more tender intimacy. Little love flowers snuggle on her breast. The whole earth palpitates with a sweet warmth and promise of beauties to follow.

On our right stretches a crab-apple hedge in full bloom, a veritable glory of beauty and fragrance, which crowns a ridge whence rolling acres fall gradually away, revealing, here and there, farmhouses surrounded by kitchen gardens and groups of fruit trees, billowy plumes of soft colour, some outlined by the tender green of spring. The smoke of noontime fires lazily ascends from the chimneys, the cackle of hens and other barnyard sounds come faintly on the breeze. My heart aches with the homing impulse. My mind turns to the experiences of the past few days.

Wednesday the air was clear and balmy, and as night approached we stopped beneath a bridge where thick trees screened our camp from view. The wires were driven in the ground, the modest campfire lighted, and soon the delicious aroma of boiling cocoa and grilled steak whetted appetites already ravenous.

Our hunger appeased, we were settling for the night, when I was seized with foreboding of a coming storm. Dan laughed and called it a crazy notion and beyond all reason. But the feeling increased in intensity until I insisted on seeking the shelter of some building. Dan acquiesced reluctantly, but by the time we had repacked and loaded the wheel, night had fallen.

At the nearest farm we asked permission to sleep in the barn, but were abruptly denied. At the next house the inmates refused to answer our knock.

“Well, what are you going to do now? Walk all night?” expostulated Dan.

On our left a dark mass appeared in the darkness and proved to be the ruins of a race track grandstand. As I stumbled beneath the tiers of seats, hoping for some promise of protection, a man leaped up almost at my feet.

I sprang back, startled.

“Come,” said the stranger, “I know the way.”

As though in a trance I followed him, my hand guiding the wheel, while Dan pushed behind. We immediately came on a narrow board walk at right angles to the road. The man led on into the thick darkness, the two of us following blindly after. On and on we travelled as though impelled by some force outside our own volition. A huge building loomed on our right. Silently we skirted it, the clop, clop of our feet on the boards giving way to noiseless progress over grassy turf.

Suddenly the front wheel of the tandem struck some obstacle, and in the deepened gloom I could faintly discern the outlines of another building, the steps of which were before me. These I mounted, preceded by our strange guide, who said not a word, but rapped loudly on the door.

From some remote region came a scuffling, then the bang of an inner door, and down a long hall shuffled a tall, lean figure wrapped in a trailing dressing gown. An oil lamp in its hand gave forth a yellow gleam, which lighted up the old-fashioned interior and shone through the glass panelled door. The old man, for such it was, peered through the glass at our mysterious attendant, and then, after prolonged fumbling with lock and bolts and chain, slowly swung open the door.

“And who might yez be?” he inquired in a rich brogue, directing a keen Irish eye on Dan and me.

We explained our situation as briefly as possible and asked for the shelter of some outbuilding for the night.

“Faith, and ye’re wilcome to the house. Sure and it’s large enough for tin and but three av us to fill it.”

As he spoke there came a tapping and a little old woman with snapping black eyes skipped like a bird to his side.

“An’ indade they shall not come inside this house the night. Murdthered in me bed I will not be.”

“Hush, Katie,” querulously chided the ancient. “This is no time for to be exercisin’ yer conthrary timper.”

But the little old woman braced herself in the doorway as though to defy the world, and I hastened to state that we only wanted to sleep in the barn.

“Well, if so ye will. Arrah, the house is open save for this old spalpeen.” With that he shuffled off to fetch a lantern.

I turned to thank our guide, but he had disappeared.

Soon we were inside the big barn that we had passed coming in. The wavering rays of the lantern disclosed huge, cob-webbed recesses, rows of empty stalls, a tumble-down carriage, and near the sliding door, a small hillock of well packed hay. Otherwise the place was empty. On this hay we made our bed and were soon asleep.

I was awakened by the drumming of rain on the roof. Another wet morning was upon us. I leaned over to ask Dan what he thought of my “crazy notion” now. But he was sound asleep, so I conquered my feminine impulse and decided to get up and scout a dry place to cook breakfast.

“Ow-wow!” My bare foot splashed into a lake of cold water which, concealed by a layer of floating straw and chaff, covered the floor of the old barn to a depth of eighteen inches.

My startled howl brought Dan up with a jerk. Hastily we dressed and moved our footgear and bedding to the top of a grain bin. As we perched forlornly on this refuge in a watery waste, the door opened and the little old lady of the night before came in.

Perhaps we appeared less murderous by the light of day, or what is more likely, her “conthrary timper” was less in evidence when acting on her own initiative; at any rate, after a short chat, she cordially invited us in to breakfast.

Then followed a most interesting day. Jim, her husband, who was unusually well read, struck up an immediate friendship with Dan, and while waiting for the rain to cease, Katie and I visited in the kitchen.

There were but three in the family: the old man, his wife and the feeble-minded chore man who had brought us to their dwelling the previous night. Outside of an acre of orchard, a chicken run and a small garden, their great holdings of hundreds of acres were rented to tenants, one of whom supplied them with milk and butter.

The couple had emigrated from the old country when very young; had met and loved on the long voyage, and were married soon after their arrival.

James Grogan was a remarkable man. Keen, shrewd, ambitious, he worked and saved and invested with all the energy and acumen that has enabled so many of his race to rise in the world. He homesteaded the original Illinois farm and to these hundred and sixty acres he constantly added. His passion was to leave his children educated and rich. He himself had learned to read and write when past the age of thirty; the struggle upward had been a hard one; his children should be spared all this.

And eleven babies were born to them. With bitter words old Katie painted pictures of the heartbreaking toil; the lack of ordinary conveniences; the goading tongue of her lord and master driving her on through the years while acre was added to acre, and the herds increased, and no barn was large enough to hold the abundant crops. Modern farm implements were purchased in plenty, but there was no money for the simplest household conveniences; outbuildings were snug and well built; but the home itself was ramshackle and poor.

It has been said that in earlier days the size of a man’s farm could often be estimated by the number of wives’ tombstones in his lot in the cemetery. But it was not true in this case. Katie had lived, but her babies died.

Her love for her husband turned to a cold hate, but still the babies came. Ten had been born and ten had died before Jim realised that Katie needed as good care as his animals—that she was more than any animal—that she was, in truth, the mother of those children—his children—whom he worshipped—and lost.

So the youngest boy was born and grew—a slender, delicate, brilliant lad—and all the facilities for education, and all the riches of cattle and horses and broad acres were his to command.

He was educated for the Bar. And while he was in college and while he studied law, his father and he built up a wonderful library and still more wonderful plans for the future, when James Grogan, Junior, should be a great jurist and statesman with a reputation nation wide.

Abruptly his health failed. Lack of vitality, his inheritance from his mother, made itself felt. He went to California and there died.

James Grogan, Senior, brought home that library and installed it in the old ramshackle house with its addition here and lean-to there. And here, alone, he read each volume.