"Every one of you go and look for them and leave me here quiet if you don"t want me to have a brain storm," I said positively. "They have probably gone to feed the chickens."
Not risking me to make good my threat, Bess and Annette and Aunt Mary and Owen and Bud disappeared in as many different directions. They left me standing alone out on the old porch, along the eaves of which rioted a rose, literally covered with small pink blossoms that kept throwing generous gusts of rosy petals down upon my tulle and lace and the bouquet of exotics I held in my hand. Across the valley the skyline of Paradise Ridge seemed to be holding down huge rosy clouds that were trying to bubble up beyond it.
Suddenly I drew aside the tulle from my face, dropped my bouquet, and stretched out my arms to the sunset.
"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills--Oh, Pan!" I said in a soft agony of supplication as I felt the crust around me begin a cosmic upheaval.
"Well, this looks like a Romney bundle and my woman to follow into the woods. You know I won"t have this kind of a wedding," suddenly fluted a stormy voice from the other side of the rose vine as Pan came up to the bottom of the steps.
"Why--why," I began to say, and then stopped, because the storm was still bursting over my head from Pan, who was attired in his usual Roycroft costume and had in one hand the Romney bundle and in the other the usual white bundle of herbs. Also as usual he was guiltless of a hat, and the crests were unusually long and ruffled.
"You look foolish, and I won"t marry you that way. Go straight up-stairs and put on real clothes, get your bundle, and come on. I want to eat supper over on Sky Rock, and it is seven miles, and you"ll have to cook it. I"m hungry," he stormed still more furiously.
"Everybody is inside waiting, and it"s not your--"
"Well, tell "em all to come out in the open. I won"t take a mate in a house, even if it has to be done with this foolish paper," he continued to rage as he sought in the bandana bundle and produced an official doc.u.ment with a red tape on it. "You go and put on your clothes, and I"ll break up this foolishness and get "em in the yard."
"But wait--you don"t understand. You--"
"You"ve got all the rest of your life to explain disobeying me like this when I expressly wrote you just what I wanted you to--" Pan went on with his raging. At this juncture Uncle Cradd appeared at the back door in mild excitement.
"Nancy, my child, our friends are growing impatient, and is there anything the--"
But here he was interrupted by a clamor of voices that fairly poured its volume around the corner of the house. In two seconds it explained itself by its very appearance. First came Matthew, walking slowly, and in his arms he carried a soaked bundle which he held to his breast as tenderly, I was sure, as young Mrs. Buford was holding the blue bundle in the parlor, and two long plaits hung down over his arm. From between him and the bundle there came a feeble squawking and fluttering of wings. From them all poured rivulets of water, and mingled with the squawks were weak gurgles. As I looked, Matthew stopped and lifted the bundle closer on his breast, disclosing its ident.i.ty as that of Polly, and buried his face in the soaked hair while they all stood dripping together as the rest of us stood perfectly silent and still.
"That fool Henri let the Golden Bird get away, and he flew across the river and fell in a tangle of undergrowth. Rufus called Polly, and she plunged right in after him. Her dress caught on the same snag and G.o.d, Ann, they were being sucked under just as I got to them. She"s still unconscious." In some ways as unconscious as was the Corn-ta.s.sel, Matthew began to press hot kisses on the face under his chin which brought forth a feeble choke.
"Lay her down on the porch, and I"ll show you how to empty her lungs, Berry," said Adam, laying down his bundle and taking charge of the situation, as all the rest, even capable Aunt Mary, still stood helpless before the catastrophe. Reluctantly, Matthew obeyed.
"Uncle Cradd, go in the house and tell them all what has happened, and ask them all to come out on the cool of the lawn until we can have the wedding. It will be in just a few minutes, tell them," I said, with the brain that had taken the incubator eggs to bed with Bess and me beginning to act rapidly. "Let me speak to you just a second, Matt," I said, and drew the dazed and dripping bridegroom to one side.
"Matthew," I said very quietly and slowly so that I would not have to repeat the words, "I"m not going to marry you at all, but I"m going to marry Evan Baldwin. I"ll tell you all about it when I come back from my honeymoon with him. You help me put it through and then stay right here and look after Polly. She may suffer terribly from shock."
"Oh, G.o.d, Ann, my heart turned over in my breast and kicked when I saw her sink, and for a minute I couldn"t find her," Matthew said as he gave a dripping shudder that shook some of the water off him and on my tulle. To the announcement of the loss of a bride he gave no heed at all, for at that moment, as Pan lifted the drenched bundle across his knees and patted it, a faint voice moaned out Matthew"s name, and he flew to receive the revived Polly in his arms.
"Now, hold her that way until I am sure I have established complete respiration," commanded Pan. "You women begin to take these wet rags off of her. Get two blankets." At which command the rest of the bridal party flew to work in different directions and I with them. Bess and I arrived in my room at the same moment, and she seized the two blankets I drew from the chest and departed without waiting for words. As I drew out the blankets, something else rolled to the floor, and I saw it was my Romney bundle, packed weeks before my death.
Its suggestion was not to be denied. I stopped just where I was, and in two minutes my strong hands ripped that tulle and lace and chiffon from my back without waiting to undo hooks and eyes. In another three minutes I was into a pair of the tan cotton stockings and the flat shoes, which Pan had made me that rainy day in the barn, had on my corduroys and a linen smock, and was running down to my wedding with wings of the wind.
When I reached the back porch I found Polly sitting up on the floor, with Matthew"s arms around her, and the entire wedding-party standing beside the back steps, looking on and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. with thankfulness. Old Parson Henderson stood near, beaming down benedictions for the rescue, and I decided that they were all in a daze in which anything could be put over on them.
"Here"s my bundle and me," I whispered to Pan, as he stood regarding the young recovered squaw proudly. "Hand the license to Parson Hendricks. I"ll make him go on and marry us and get away before anybody puts me back into tulle."
"As Polly is all right now we"ll have the wedding, for it"s getting late, and we want to get across to the Paradise Ridge to camp," said Adam, with the fluty command in his voice which always gets attention and obedience.
As he spoke he put down his bundle, gave Parson Hendricks the doc.u.ment, and drew me beside him. I kept my bundle in my hand and stood with my other in his.
"Why, I didn"t know that--" the old parson began to splutter while a murmur of surprise and question began to arise among the hitherto hypnotized wedding-guests. Judge Rutherford stood apart with the twin parents showing them some book treasure he had unearthed for father, and I don"t think that either one of my natural guardians was at my wedding except in body.
At the critical moment dear old Matt did rise to the occasion, as did Polly also, with a crimson glow coming into her drenched cheeks, pallid only a second before, and a light like sunrise on a violet bank coming into her eyes.
"She"s always intended to marry Baldwin. I knew all about it. Go on!"
Matthew commanded, as he supported Polly in her blankets on wobbly bare feet.
During the resuscitation of Polly, Owen Murray, true to his new pa.s.sion for the Leghorn family, had been reviving Mr. G. Bird and now with regard for decorum, he set him quietly upon his feet. Did the Golden Bird run like a coward from the scene of the catastrophe of his making? He did not. He deliberately stretched his wings, gave a mighty crow, and walked over and began to peck in my smock-pockets at corn that had lain there many long weeks for him.
"Go on, Parson," commanded Pan again, impatiently, and then standing together in the fading sunlight, Pan, Mr. G. Bird, and I were married.
Did Pan allow me to stay and make satisfactory explanations of my conduct to my friends and enjoy the wedding festivities so carefully copied out of the "Review" by Polly and Matthew? He did not. Immediately after the ceremony he picked up his two bundles and turned to all of our a.s.sembled friends.
"We"ll be back in a few weeks, and then I"ll show you what I learned in Argentina. We have to hurry now to get across the valley. Some of the fine sheep over at Plunkett"s are down with foot rash, and I want to be there by noon. Luck to you all." With these words Pan led me around the corner of the house, through the old garden, and out into the woods, Mr. G. Bird still following at the smock-pocket.
"We"ll have to go back and lock him up; he"ll follow me," I said, as I paused and took the Golden Bird"s proud head in my hand and let him peck at a dull gold circle on my third finger, which, I am sure, Pan himself had hammered out of a nugget for me.
"No, let"s take him. I want to show him over at Plunkett"s and then in Providence and Hillsboro, to grade up their poultry. I doubt if there"s his equal in America," answered Pan as he went on ahead of me to break the undergrowth into which he was leading me underneath the huge old trees.
"I didn"t write you to let that fool Belgian prune the whole place like that," Pan remarked as we paused at old Tilting Rock and looked down upon the orderly and repaired Elmnest in the sunset glow.
"Write?" I murmured weakly, while my mind accused Uncle Cradd, and rightly too, as I learned later after a search in his pockets.
"Wasn"t any use sending any letter after that New Orleans one, because I traveled on the return trip all the way myself. Still you did pretty well to get the wedding and all ready at the hour I set, even if you did make that awful flummery mistake. I"ll forgive you even that after I get over the shock of seeing you look that way."
"The hour you set?" I again murmured a weak question.
"I thought of writing you to get ready by nine o"clock in the morning, but I knew I"d have to stop in Hayesville for that bit of red tape, so I said five o"clock and had to hustle to make it. I knew you"d be ready. Now you"ll have to travel, for we have five miles to go and it takes the pot two hours to simmer. Are you hungry?"
I hadn"t the strength to answer. I had just enough to pad along behind at his heels with Mr. G. Bird at mine. However, as I padded, I suddenly felt return that strength of ten women which I had put from me the morning I fled from the empty Elmnest, and I knew that it had come upon me to abide.
I needed every bit of the energy of ten ordinary women to keep up with Pan"s commands, as I helped him make camp beside a cool spring that bubbled out of a rock in a little cove that was swung high up on the side of Paradise Ridge. I washed the bundle of greens he had brought to the wedding and set them to simmer with the inevitable black walnut kernels in a pot that he produced from under a log in the edge of the woods, along with a couple of earthen bowls like the ones he kept secreted in the spring-house at Elmnest.
"Got "em all over ten States," he answered, as I questioned him with delight at the presence of our old friends. Then while I crouched and stirred, he took his long knife out, cut great armfuls of cedar boughs, threw them in a shadow at the foot of a tall old oak, and with a bundle of sticks swept upon them a great pile of dry leaves into the form of a huge nest. The golden glow was just fading as I lifted the pot and poured his portion in his bowl, then mine in the other, while he cut the black loaf he had taken from his bundle into hunks with his knife. It was after seven o"clock, and the crescent moon hung low by the ridge, waiting for the sun to take its complete departure before setting in for its night"s joy-ride up the sky. It was eight before Pan finished his slow browsing in his bowl and came over to crouch with me out on the ledge of rock that overlooked the world below us. Cl.u.s.ters of lights in nests of gray smoke were dotted around over the valley, and I knew the nearest one was Riverfield; indeed I could see a bunch of lights a little way apart from the rest, and I felt sure that they were lighting the remaining revelers at my wedding-feast at Elmnest. The Golden Bird had gone sensibly to roost on one of the low limits of the old oak, and he reminded me of the white blur of Polly"s wedding bell, which I had caught a glimpse of as I ran through the hall at Elmnest.
"_I am thy child_," crooned Pan, with a new note to his chant that immediately started on my heartstrings. "And I"m tired," he added as he stretched himself on the rock beside me, laid his head on my breast, and nuzzled his lips into my bare throat.
"I"m going to lift the crests and look at the tips of your ears, Pan," I said as I held him tight.
"Better not," he mocked me.
I did, and the tips were--I never intend to tell.
The lights were twinkling out in the valley one by one, and the young moon made the purple blackness below us only faintly luminous when Pan drew me closer and then into the very edge of the world itself, and pointed down into the soft darkness.
"We are all like that, we natives of this great land--asleep in the midst of a silvery mist, while the rest of the world is in the blaze of h.e.l.l.
We"ve got to wake up and take them to our breast, to nourish and warm and save them. There"ll be just you and I and a few others to call the rest of our people until they hear and value and work," he said as he settled me against him so that the twain chants of our heartstrings became one.
"I"ll follow you through the woods and help you call, Adam," I said softly, with my lips under the red crest nearest to me.
"And I"ll bring you back here to nest and stay with you until your young are on their feet, with their eyes open," Pan crooned against my lips.
"Dear G.o.d, what a force unit one woman and one man can create!"