Thus it happened that Pearlie Watson, aged twelve, began her journey into the big unknown world, fully satisfied in body and soul, and with a great love for all the world.
At the corner of the street stood Mrs. McGuire, and at sight of her Pearl"s heart stopped beating.
"It"s bad luck," she said. "I"d as lief have a rabbit cross me path as her."
But she walked bravely forward with no outward sign of her inward trembling.
"Goin" to Sam Motherwell"s, are ye?" the old lady asked shrilly.
"Yes"m," Pearl said, trembling.
"She"s a tarter; she"s a skinner; she"s a d.a.m.ner; that"s what she is.
She"s my own first cousin and I know HER. Sa.s.s her; that"s the only way to get along with her. Tell her I said so. Here, child, rub yer j"ints with this when ye git stiff." She handed Pearl a black bottle of home-made liniment.
Pearl thanked her and hurried on, but at the next turn of the street she met Danny.
Danny was in tears; Danny wasn"t going to let Pearlie go away; Danny would run away and get lost and runned over and drownded, now! Pearl"s heart melted, and sitting on the sidewalk she took Danny in her arms, and they cried together. A whirr of wheels aroused Pearl and looking up she saw the kindly face of the young doctor.
"What is it, Pearl?" he asked kindly. "Surely that"s not Danny I see, spoiling his face that way!"
"It"s Danny," Pearl said unsteadily. "It"s hard enough to leave him widout him comin" afther me and breakin" me heart all over again."
"That"s what it is, Pearl," the doctor said, smiling. "I think it is mighty thoughtless of Danny the way he is acting."
Danny held obstinately to Pearl"s skirt, and cried harder than ever. He would not even listen when the doctor spoke of taking him for a drive.
"Listen to the doctor," Pearl commanded sternly, "or he"ll raise a gumboil on ye."
Thus admonished Danny ceased his sobs; but he showed no sign of interest when the doctor spoke of popcorn, and at the mention of ice-cream he looked simply bored.
"He"s awful fond of "hoo-hung" candy," Pearlie suggested in a whisper, holding her hand around her mouth so that Danny might not hear her.
"Ten cents" worth of "hoo-hung" candy to the boy that says good-bye to his sister like a gentleman and rides home with me."
Danny dried his eyes on Pearl"s skirt, kissed her gravely and climbed into the buggy beside the doctor. Waterloo was won!
Pearl did not trust herself to look back as she walked along the deeply beaten road.
The yellow cone-flowers raised their heads like golden stars along the roadside, and the golden glory of the approaching harvest lay upon everything. To the right the Tiger Hills lay on the horizon wrapped in a blue mist. Flocks of blackbirds swarmed over the ripening oats, and angrily fought with each other.
"And it not costin" them a cent!" Pearl said in disgust as she stopped to watch them.
The exhilaration of the air, the glory of the waving grain, the profusion of wild flowers that edged the fields with purple and yellow were like wine to her sympathetic Irish heart as she walked through the grain fields and drank in all the beauties that lay around, and it was not until she came in sight of the big stone house, gloomy and bare, that she realised with a start of homesickness that she was Pearl Watson, aged twelve, away from home for the first time, and bound to work three months for a woman of reputed ill-temper.
"But I"ll do it," Pearl said, swallowing the lump that gathered in her throat, "I can work. n.o.body never said that none of the Watsons couldn"t work. I"ll stay out me time if it kills me."
So saying, Pearl knocked timidly at the back door. Myriads of flies buzzed on the screen. From within a tired voice said, "Come in."
Pearl walked in and saw a large bare room, with a long table in the middle. A sewing machine littered with papers stood in front of one window.
The floor had been painted a dull drab, but the pa.s.sing of many feet had worn the paint away in places. A stove stood in one corner. Over the sink a tall, round-shouldered woman bent trying to get water from an asthmatic pump.
"Oh, it"s you, is it?" she said in a tone so very unpleasant that Pearl thought she must have expected someone else.
"Yes"m," Pearl said meekly. "Who were ye expectin"?"
Mrs. Motherwell stopped pumping for a minute and looked at Pearl.
"Why didn"t ye git here earlier?" she asked.
"Well," Pearl began, "I was late gettin" started by reason of the washin" and the ironin", and Jimmy not gettin" back wid the boots. He went drivin" cattle for Vale the butcher, and he had to have the boots for the poison ivy is that bad, and because the sugar o" lead is all done and anyway ma don"t like to keep it in the house, for wee Danny might eat it--he"s that stirrin" and me not there to watch him now."
"Lord! what a tongue you have! Put down your things and go out and pick up chips to light the fire with in the morning."
Pearl laid her bird-cage on a chair and was back so soon with the chips that Mrs. Motherwell could not think of anything to say.
"Now go for the cows," she said, "and don"t run them home!"
"Where will I run them to then, ma"am?" Pearl asked innocently.
"Good land, child, have I to tell you everything? Folks that can"t do without tellin" can"t do much with, I say. Bring the cows to the bars, and don"t stand there staring at me."
When Pearl dashed out of the door, she almost fell over the old dog who lay sleepily snapping at the flies which buzzed around his head. He sprang up with a growl which died away into an apologetic yawn as she stooped to pat his honest brown head.
A group of red calves stood at the bars of a small field plaintively calling for their supper. It was not just an ordinary bawl, but a double-jointed hyphenated appeal, indicating a very exhausted condition indeed.
Pearl looked at them in pity. The old dog, wrinkling his nose and turning away his head, did not give them a glance. He knew them. Noisy things! Let "em bawl. Come on!
Across the narrow creek they bounded, Pearl and old Nap, and up the other hill where the silver willows grew so tall they were hidden in them. The goldenrod nodded its plumy head in the breeze, and the tall Gaillardia, brown and yellow, flickered unsteadily on its stem.
The billows of shadow swept over the wheat on each side of the narrow pasture; the golden flowers, the golden fields, the warm golden sunshine intoxicated Pearl with their luxurious beauty, and in that hour of delight she realised more pleasure from them than Sam Motherwell and his wife had in all their long lives of barren selfishness. Their souls were of a dull drab dryness in which no flower took root, there was no gold to them but the gold of greed and gain, and with it they had never bought a smile or a gentle hand pressure or a fervid "G.o.d bless you!" and so it lost its golden colour, and turned to lead and ashes in their hands.
When Pearl and Nap got the cows turned homeward they had to slacken their pace.
"I don"t care how cross she is," Pearl said, "if I can come for the cows every night. Look at that fluffy white cloud! Say, wouldn"t that make a hat tr.i.m.m.i.n.g that would do your heart good. The body of the hat blue like that up there, edged "round with that cloud over there, then a blue cape with white fur on it just to match. I kin just feel that white stuff under my chin."
Then Pearl began to cake-walk and sing a song she had heard Camilla sing. She had forgotten some of the words, but Pearl never was at a loss for words:
The wild waves are singing to the sh.o.r.e As they were in the happy days of yore.
Pearl could not remember what the wild waves were singing, so she sang what was in her own heart:
She can"t take the ripple from the breeze, And she can"t take the rustle from the trees; And when I am out of the old girl"s sight I can-just-do-as-I-please.
"That"s right, I think the same way and try to act up to it," a man"s voice said slowly. "But don"t let her hear you say so."
Pearl started at the sound of the voice and found herself looking into such a good-natured face that she laughed too, with a feeling of good-fellowship.
The old dog ran to the stranger with every sign of delight at seeing him.