Читать книгу Purple Springs - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 4

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“When time lets slip one little perfect day,

O take it—for it may not come again.”

When Pearl woke on the morning of March 1st, it was with a heart so light and happy it brought back the many Christmas mornings that lay scattered behind her like so many crimson roses, spilling their perfume on the shining road which led back to childhood. The sunshine that sifted through the white muslin curtains of the one small window, was rich and warm, as if summer had already come, and Pearl suddenly remembered that the sky had been overcast and heavy the day before, and the air stinging cold.

She went to the window, and looking out saw that that the clouds had all gone, leaving no trace in the unscarred sky. The sun was throwing long blue shadows over the fields, brightening the trees on the river bank, with a thin rinse of pale gold. Down in the ravine, the purple blue of the morning twilight was still hanging on the trees. The house was very quiet—there did not seem to be anyone stirring, either inside or out.

Pearl dressed herself hastily, humming a tune in happy excitement. Her whole being was charged with happiness—for the great day had come.

Coming down stairs on light feet, she threw a red sweater around her shoulders and went out the front door. In her great moments, Pearl craved the open sky and great blue distances, and on this day of all days, she wanted to breathe deep of its golden air. Somewhere she had read about air that tasted like old wine! And as she stood facing the early sun that had come up in a cloudless sky of deepest blue, she knew what was meant.

From the dull tomb of yesterday, with its cavern-like coldness and gloom, had come the resurrection of a new day, bright, blue, sparkling, cloudless, for March had slipped in quietly in the night, with a gentle breeze of wonderful softness, a quiet breeze, but one that knew its business, and long before daylight it had licked the hard edges of the drifts into icy blisters, and had purred its way into all sorts of forgotten corners where the snow lay thickest.

It went past Pearl’s face now with velvety smoothness—patting her cheeks with a careless hand, like a loving friend who hurries by with no time for anything but this swift re-assurance. But Pearl knew that the wind and the sun and the crisp white snow, on which the sunbeams danced and sparkled, were her friends, and were throbbing with joy this morning, because it was her great day.

She went in at last, remembering that the children must be washed and fed for school, and found Danny’s garter for him just in time to save him from the gulf of despair which threatened him. She made up the two tin pails of lunch with which her young brothers would beguile the noontide hour. She put a button on Mary’s spat, in response to her request of “Aw, say Pearl, you do this—I can’t eat and sew.” The sudden change in the weather forced a change in the boys’ foot-gear, and so there had to be a frenzied hunt for rubbers and boots to replace the frost-repelling but pervious moccasin.

One by one, as the boys were ready, fed, clothed and rubbered, they were started on their two-mile journey over the sunny, snowy road, Danny being the first to so emerge, for with his short, fat legs, he could not make the distance in as short a time as the others.

“Mr. Donald wants you to come over on Friday, Pearl—I almost forgot to tell you—he wants you to talk to us about the city, and the schools you were in—and all that. I told him you would!”

This was from Jimmy, the biggest of the Watson boys now attending school.

“All right,” said Pearl, “sure I will.”

There was more to the story, though, and Jimmy went on,—

“And the Tuckers said they bet you thought yourself pretty smart since you’d been to the city....

“And then what happened,” asked Pearl, when he paused;

“He went home—it wouldn’t stop bleedin’! but Mr. Donald says a good nose-bleed wouldn’t hurt him—though of course it was wrong to fight—but it was no fight—you know what they’re like—one good thump—and they’re done!”

“Good for you, Jimmy” said his sister approvingly, “never pick a quarrel or hit harder than you need, that’s all!—but if trouble comes—be facing the right way!”

“You bet,” said Jimmy, as he closed the door behind him and the stillness which comes after the children have gone fell on the Watson home.

“Sure and ain’t the house quiet when they’re gone,” said Mrs. Watson, looking out of the window across the gleaming landscape, dotted in six places by her generous contribution to the Chicken Hill school.

“And it won’t be long until they’re gone—for good.”

“Cheer up, honest woman,” cried Pearl gaily, “you havn’t even lost either Teddy or me, and we’re the eldest. It looks to me as if you will have a noisy house for quite a while yet, and I wouldn’t begin to worry over anything so far away—in fact, ma, it’s a good rule not to worry till you have to, and don’t do it then!”

Pearl was bringing back “the room” to the state of tidiness it enjoyed during school hours, moving about with joyous haste, yet with strict attention to every detail, which did not escape her mother’s eye.

“It’s grand to be as light of heart as you are, Pearlie child,” she said, “I’m often afraid for you—when I think of all the sad things in life and you so sure that everything will happen right. It is to them that the world is brightest that the darkest days can come, and the lightest heart sometimes has heaviest mournin’.”

A little wither of disappointment went over Pearl’s bright face, but she shook it off impatiently. She wished her mother would not talk like this on this day—of all days.

“Don’t spoil a good day, ma, with sad talk. Look out at the Spring sun there, and the cattle, even the wild ones from the range, with their sides steaming and then nosing around so happy now, for getting all about the bad times they had even as late as last evening. There’s no use telling them there’s cold days coming—they wouldn’t believe now—and anyway they’ll know soon enough. Isn’t it best to let every one have their sunny day—without a cloud on it.”

Before her mother could form an answer, the one long and two short rings came on the phone. Pearl’s heart turned over in its bounding joy. It had come—she knew it had come.

She took down the receiver:

“Hello,” she said, in a thin voice.

“Pearl,” said the voice, deep, mellow, eager. She thought she had remembered what his voice was like, but she hadn’t. It was a hundred times sweeter than it had been in her memory.

“Yes,” she said, holding the receiver so tightly her knuckles went white with the pressure.

“What day is it, Pearl,” he said, with the laugh in his voice, the bantering laugh that made his patients love him.

“O I know” she said—“I know.”

“You haven’t forgotten what we said?”

“Not a word of it.”

His voice came nearer, though he spoke lower.

“The train is not in yet, it is stuck out in the hills, but likely to get out any minute. Dr. Brander is on it, coming out from the city to operate for me in a very serious case, I’m not sure when I can get out—but you’ll wait for me—won’t you, Pearl?”

She put her red young lips close to the transmitter.

“For a thousand years!” she said.

“Well, it won’t be that long,” he said, with his happy laugh.

Pearl knew exactly how his brows were lifted, and his eyes wide opened.

“But it’s great to have as good a margin, Pearl—and listen—” his voice fell again until it seemed to whisper in her ear—“did you happen to notice what sort of a day it is?”

“Well,” said Pearl, “I am not surprised. Didn’t I tell you it would be?”

“You told me!” he said.

Then it was that from Pearlie Watson’s young heart there opened up a shining path straight up into heaven, and every inch of that radiant highway was bright with the gleam of angel’s wings, and as she stood there leaning against the wall, her eyes dazzled with the glory of it, it seemed as if all the sweet songs that lovers have ever sung, and all the tender words they have ever spoken came marching, gaily marching down the shining high way, right into her heart.

Outside the sun gleamed and beat on the melting snow, which sent back quivery vibrations that smote the eyeballs like fire. The cattle shook the water from their sun-dazzled eyes, and turned their heads away from it, but it climbed steadily higher until it stood right over them, and blazing down upon the snowy world, defied old man Winter to his face.

Pearl was never quite sure about it in after years. But that day she did not doubt her eyes, that star dust danced in the waves of sunshine; that the gray snow birds played crack the whip outside the window; that the willow hedge, palpitating in the sunshine, beat time with its silvery branches to the music that lilted through her heart; that the blue in the sky was bluer than it had been, and the sunshine more golden than it ever was in the highest noon in highest June.

She was quite sure it was so, for every spot of color within doors was glorified too. The roses in the cushions on the lounge glowed like a fire in the heart of a green wood; the cat’s eyes gleamed like olivines, but of course Pearl knew from the way he rubbed his head against her shoulder as she sat on the lounge beside him, and from the way he blinked at her—he knew, having no doubt in some occult cat-way, listened in on the phone! There was no mistaking his swaggering air of importance—he was in on it! and gave much credit to himself for having brought it all about.

The old dog, being just a plain, honest-hearted, loving dog, only knew that Pearl was very happy over something. He did not probe the cause—if it pleased her—it was enough.

At four o’clock there came another message—which set Pearl’s heart dancing, and spotted her cheeks with a glowing color—the operation was over—apparently successful—and they were driving back to town. The other train might be late too, so it would be impossible for him to come out—but would she still wait? Did the thousand year limit still hold?

There was just a hint of fatigue in his voice, which awakened all the maternal instincts in Pearl, and made her heart very tender to him.

“I will wait—forever,” said Pearl.

“Just until tomorrow,” came back the voice—“just till tomorrow—and it will be fine tomorrow—won’t it, Pearl! Say it will be fine.”

“Finer still,” she replied, with her cheeks like the early roses in June.

The day went by on satin wings—with each minute so charged with happiness that Pearl could well believe that heaven had slipped down to earth, and that she was walking the streets of the new Jerusalem. She sang as she worked in the house, her sweet, ribbony voice filling the room with a gladness and rapture that made her mother, with her mystical Celtic temperament almost apprehensive.

“She’s a queer girl, is Pearlie,” she said that night, when Pearl had gone upstairs to arbitrate a quarrel which had broken out between Bugsey and Danny as to whose turn it was to split the kindling wood. “Day about” it had been until Bugsey had urged that it be changed to “week about,” and the delicate matter in dispute now was as to the day on which the week expired. Danny, who had been doing the kindling, was certain that the date of expiry had arrived, but Bugsey’s calendar set the day one day later, and the battle raged, with both sides ably argued, but unfortunately not listened to by the opposing forces.

“She’s a queer child, is Pearlie,” said Mrs. Watson, as she beat up the bread-batter downstairs, “she’s that light-hearted and free from care, and her eighteen years old. She’s like somethin’ that don’t belong on earth, with her two big eyes shinin’ like lamps, and the way she sings through the house, settin’ the table or scourin’ the milk pails or mendin’ a coat for the boys—it don’t seem natural. She’s too happy, whatever it’s about, and it makes me afraid for her. She’s the kind that sees nothin’ wrong, and won’t see trouble comin’ till its too late. I often feel afraid she’s too good and happy for this world. She’s always been the same, liltin’ and singin’ and makin’ everyone happy around her.”

Jimmy was washing his face in the enamel basin which stood on a box below the mirror, and looking around with a dripping wet face, felt with a wildy swinging motion of his arms for the towel. When he had secured it, and all danger of soapsuds getting into his eyes was removed, he joined the conversation.

“Gosh, Ma!” he said, “you don’t know Pearl, she’s not the saint you take her for. I’ll bet the Tucker kids don’t think she’s too good to live. Not much! They know she can hold up her end of a row as well as any one. When she found out they had killed the cat they got from us, and tanned the skin to make a rim on a cap, you should have seen Pearl. She just cut loose on the two of them, and chased them through the sloughs and up the road clear home—larrupin’ them with a binder whip, as fast as she could swing it—the yowls out of them would have done your heart good!”

Mrs. Watson stopped her work, with her floury hands raised in consternation.

“God’s mercy,” she cried, “did Pearl do that—and both of them bigger’n her. Ain’t it a wonder they did not turn on her?”

“Turn”—Jimmy cried scornfully, “Turn—is it? They were too busy runnin’. Gosh—they would’a flew if they knew how. Served them right—they knew blame well they deserved it, for Pearl would never have given them the cat if they hadn’t worked it so smooth. They told her they wanted a strain of Tiger in their cats, for all of theirs were black—and Pearl gave them our fine young Tom—and they promised all sorts to be good to him—and when Pearl saw his skin on their caps, and put it to them, they said they hadn’t said it was a ‘strain of tiger for their cats’ they wanted, but a ‘strand of tiger for their caps’—that’s what made Pearl so mad.” Mr. Donald said Pearl did quite right, and he told the Tuckers they were the making of great politicians—they were so smart at getting out of things. But Gosh, you should have seen Pearl! She finished the job off right, too, you bet, and made them put up slab at the school and did the printin’ on it in red ink. You can see it there,—they have had to print it over once or twice. We all know the words off by heart:

Young Tom,

Tiger cat,

Owned by P. Watson,

Given away in good faith April 1st,

Wickedly killed to make a cap, April 15th,

Avenged by former owner, May 1st.

T. Tucker.S. Tucker.

People all look at it when they come to the church, and I guess the Tuckers feel pretty small. Pearl says if they are really sorry, it is all right, and young Tom has not died in vain. Every cat has to die sometime, and if he had softened the Tuckers’ hearts—it is all right. Pearl said she wasn’t real sure about them, and I guess if they kill another cat, she’ll kill them sure—she said that’s the way to do with people like them. Make them repentant—or dead!”

“God save us all,” cried Mrs. Watson, in real distress, “whatever will happen to her when she goes out into the world. That’s awful talk for a girl especially. Whatever will become of her when she leaves home. She’ll be in hot water all the time.”

“No fear of Pearlie!” said her father proudly—as he opened the end door of the stove and picked up a coal for his pipe, placing it without undue haste in the bowl, and carefully pressing it down with his thumb. Leaning back in the chintz-covered rocking chair, he spread his feet out to the heat which came from the oven door, and repeated, “No fear of Pearlie—there ain’t a girl in the country better able to do for herself. Faith—and she’s no fool—and never was—I ain’t worrying about Pearlie wherever she goes—or whatever she meets—I ain’t worrying.”

“You don’t worry about anything, John,” said Mrs. Watson, in reproof, as she covered the bread with many wrappings and fixed two chairs to hold it behind the stove for the night; “you didn’t even worry the night the crop froze, sleepin’ and snorin’ the whole night through, with me up every half hour watching the thermometer, and it slippin’ lower and lower, and the pan o’ water on the woodpile gettin’ its little slivers of ice around the edge, and when the thermometer went to thirty, I knew it was all up with the wheat, but do you think I could wake you—you rolled over with a grunt, leavin’ me alone to think of the two hundred acres gone in the night, after all our hard work ... and then to have you come down in the mornin’, stretchin’ and yawnin’, after a good night’s sleep, and says you, as cheerful as could be, ‘Cold mornin’, Ma!’ ”

John Watson took his pipe from his mouth, and laughed quietly.

“And what was wrong with that, Ma—sure now it was cold—you said yourself it was,” he said gently.

The boys joined in the laugh, but Mrs. Watson repeated her point.

“Cold it was, sure enough, but think o’ me up frettin’ and fumin’, and you come down as cheerful as if starvation wasn’t starin’ us in the face.”

“But we didn’t starve, Ma,” said Billy, coming to his father’s defense, “the crop was all right for feed, and we did well after all. You had all your frettin’ for nothing.”

“It’s that way mostly,” said John Watson, “I never saw any good yet in frettin’. Anyway, Ma does enough of it for all of us, so that lets me out. There’s the two kinds of Irish—them that don’t fret over anything—and them that frets over every thing—that’s me and you, Ma—and it works out fine—it runs about even. You’ve always been so sure that things were goin’ wrong, I’ve just had to be a little surer that they wern’t. And then of course I knew that night that you would watch the frost—if there was any watchin’ to it.”

“John, it is well for you that you have some one to do your watchin’,” said Mrs. Watson. “You’re an easy goin’ man, John, but I’ll say this for you, that a better natured man never lived.”

When all the family had gone to bed, and the last sound had died out in the house, Pearl stood long at the window and looked out at the moonlit valley. The warm day had melted the frost from the window, and when she put out the lamp, the moonlight seemed almost as clear as day. Silvery-mauve and blue it lay on the quiet, snowy fields, with a deeper color on the trees, as if they had wound yards and yards of the gauzy stuff around their bare shoulders, for the night was chilly. To Pearl it was even more beautiful than the sunshine of the day, for in its silvery stillness, she could think and dream without interruption.

The night was too beautiful to sleep, and the riot of joy in her heart made her forget that anyone ever grew weary or tired. She was part of the moonlight, with its glistening witchery, part of the overarching sky, with its wealth of glittering stars, part of the velvety night wind that caressed the trees in its gentle passing. Her young soul was in tune with them all! For the greatest thing in life had come to her in those few common-place words that had come to her over the telephone. He had not forgotten—he was coming tomorrow!

The tired note in his voice had awakened an entirely new chord in the song her heart sang. He needed her. He needed some one to look after him, care for him, watch him, save him from the hundred little worrying things that were sapping his energy. People did not understand that he ever got tired—he was so strong, so buoyant, so ready to do things for them. Well, there will be someone now, thought Pearl, with a glow that surged through her veins and made her cheeks flame, to take care of him.

“Is the doctor in, Mrs. Clay?”

“He is—but he’s sleeping—maybe I can tell you what you want to know—step in here—so he won’t hear us—he was out all night—and he must not be wakened....”

And when he had to go—she would harness the team and drive him, so he could sleep all the way, and when the roads were fit for it, she would drive the car—and soon she would be able to set bones and do common things like that. He would show her—and then they would go to New York—in two or three years maybe—he had told her once he wanted to do this—for a post-graduate course—and they would have a little suite, and she would study, too.

And always, always, always they would be together—and no matter how many people there were praising him and wanting him—he would just be her man—and at night, when he was tired—and all the noise of the day was over and everyone was gone, she would have him all to herself.

Pearl’s head sank on the window sill, while an ecstacy of joy swept over her—happy tears filled her eyes—life was so sweet—so rich—so full....