"How do I know it--I mean daybreak?" I asked, with eagerness and hesitation both in my voice, as Pan started padding out through the monster-haunted darkness towards the square of silver light beyond the huge door. As I asked my question I followed close at his heels.
"I"ll be going through to Plunketts and I"ll call you, like this." As we came from the shadows into the moonlight beside the coach, Adam paused and gave three low weird notes, which were so lovely that they seemed the sounds from which the melody of all the world was sprung. "I"ll call twice, and then you answer if you are awake. If not, I"ll call again."
"I"ll be awake," I a.s.serted positively. "Won"t you--that is, must I fix--"
"That"s all for to-night, and good night," he answered me with a laugh that was as reedy as the brisk wind in the trees. In a second he was padding away from me into the trees beyond the garden as swiftly as I suppose jaguars and lithe lions travel.
"Oh, don"t you want some supper?" I called into the moonlight, even running a few steps after him.
"Parched corn in my pocket--lambs," came fluting back to me from the shadows.
"Supper am sarved, little Mis"," Rufus announced from the hack door, as I stood still looking and listening into the night.
"Uncle Cradd," I asked eagerly at the end of the food prayer that the old gentleman had offered after seating me with ceremony behind a steaming silver coffee urn of colonial pattern, of which I had heard all my life, "who is that remarkable man?"
CHAPTER III
"Si Beesley? Spare rib, dear?" was his disappointing but hospitable, answer in two return questions to my anxious inquiries about the Pan who had come out of the woods at my need.
"No; I mean--mean, didn"t you call him Adam?"
"n.o.body knows. Now, William, a spare rib and a m.u.f.fin is real nourishment after the nightingale"s tongues and snails you"ve been living on for twenty-odd years, isn"t it?" As he spoke Uncle Cradd beamed on father, who was eating with the first show of real pleasure in food since we had had to send Henri back to New York, after the crash, weeping with all his French-cook soul at leaving us after fifteen years" service.
"I have always enjoyed that essay of Charles Lamb"s on roast pig, Cradd,"
answered father as he took a second m.u.f.fin. "I know that Lamb used to bore you, Cradd, but honestly now, doesn"t his materialism seem--"
"Oh, Uncle Cradd, please tell me about that Adam man before you and father disappear into the eighteenth century," I pleaded, as I handed two cups of steaming coffee to Rufus to pa.s.s my two elderly savants.
"There is nothing to tell, Nancy child," answered Uncle Cradd, with an indulgent smile as he peered at me over his gla.s.ses. "Upon my word, William, Nancy is the living image of mother when we first remember her, isn"t she? You are very beautiful, my dear."
"I know it," I answered hurriedly and hardly aware of what I was saying; "but I want to know where he came from, please, Uncle Cradd."
"Well, as near as I can remember he came out of the woods a year ago and has been in and out helping about the farms here in Harpeth Valley ever since. He never eats or sleeps anywhere, and he"s a kind of wizard with animals, they say. And, William, he does know his Horace. Just last week he appeared with a little leather-covered volume, and for four mortal hours we--"
"They says dat red-haided p.e.c.k.e.rwoods goes to the devil on Fridays, and Mas" Adam he cured my hawgs with nothing but a sack full of green cabbage heads in January, he did," said Rufus, as he rolled his big black eyes and mysteriously shook his old head with its white kinks. "No physic a-tall, jest cabbage and a few turnips mixed in the mash. Yes, m"m, dey does go to the devil of a Friday, red-haided p.e.c.k.e.rwoods, dey does."
"By the way, Cradd, I want you to see a little volume of the Odes I picked up in London last year. The dealer was a robber, and my dealer didn"t want me to buy, but I thought of that time you and I--"
"Not one of the Cantridge edition?"
"Yes, and I want you--"
During all the rest of supper I sat and communed with my own self while father and Uncle Cradd banqueted with the Immortals.
Even after we went back into the low-ceilinged old living-room, which was now lighted by two candles placed close together on a wonderful old mahogany table before the fire, one of the dignified chairs drawn up on each side, with my low seat between, I was busily mapping out a course of action that was to begin with my dawn signal.
"I"d like to get into the--trunk as soon as possible. There is something I want to look up in my chicken book," I said before I seated myself in the midst of one of the battles that raged around Ilium.
"Nancy, my dear, you will find that Rufus has arranged your Grandmother Craddock"s room for you, and Mary Beesley came over to see that all was in order," said Uncle Cradd, coming and taking my face into his long, lean old hands. "G.o.d bless you, my dear, and keep you in His care here in the home of your forefathers. Good-night!" After an absent-minded kiss from father I was dismissed with a Sanskrit blessing from somewhere in the valley of the Euphrates up into my bedroom in the valley of Old Harpeth.
If I had discovered the shadow of tradition in the rest of the old house, I walked into the very depths of them as I entered the bedroom of my foremothers. Deep crimson coals of fire were in a squat fireplace, and a last smoldering log of some kind of fragrant wood broke into fragments and sent up a little gust of blue and gold flame as if in celebration of my arrival. There was the remnant of a candle burning on a small table beside a bed that was very near, if not quite, five feet high, beside which were steps for the purposes of ascension. All the rest of the room was in a blur of lavender-scented darkness, and I only saw that both side walls folded down and were lit with the deep old gables, through the open windows of which young moon rays were struggling to help light the situation for me.
As I looked at that wide, puffy old bed, with a blur of soft colors in its quilt and the valance around its posts and tester, I suddenly became as utterly weary as a child who sees its mother"s arms outstretched at retiring time. I don"t know how I got out of my clothes and into my lace and ribbons, with only the flickering candle and the dying log to see by, but in less time than I ever could have dreamed might be consumed in the processes of going to bed I climbed the little steps and dived into the soft bosom of the old four-poster.
"G.o.d bless me and keep me in His care here in my grandmother"s bed," I murmured after the invocation of Uncle Cradd, and that is all I knew after the first delicious sink and soft huddling of my body between sheets that felt as if they must be rich silk and smelled of old lavender.
And then came a dream--a most lovely dream. I was at the opera in Gale Beacon"s box, and Mr. G. Bird was out on the stage singing that glorious coo in the aria in Saint-Saens" "Samson and Delilah," and I was trying to answer him. Suddenly I was wide awake sitting up in a billowed softness, while moonlight of a different color was sifting in through the gable windows and the most lovely calling notes were coming in on its beams.
Without a moment"s hesitation I answered in about six notes of that Delilah song which was the only sound ready in my mind. Then I listened and I am not sure that I heard a reedy laugh under my window as just the two notes succeeding the ones I had given forth came in on the dawn beams. Then all was as still and quiet as the hush of midnight.
In about two seconds I had vaulted forth from between the high posts, splashed into a funny old wooden tub bound together with bra.s.s rims, whirled my black mop into a knot, slipped into the modish boots, corduroys, and a linen smock, and was running out into the peculiar moon-dawn with the swiftness of a boy.
But I was too late! The silver-moon sky was growing rosy over behind the barn as I peered about, and a mist was rolling away from between the trees, but not a soul in all the world was awake, and I was alone.
"Did he call me?" I asked of myself under my breath. And the answer I got was from the Golden Bird, who sent a long, triumphant, eager "salutation to the dawn" from out the shadows of the barn.
Eagerly I flew to him, and the minute I entered the apartment of the Bird family I discovered that I had been only half dreaming about my early morning opera. Pan had come and gone. Upon the door was pinned a piece of torn brown wrapping-paper upon which I found these penciled words:
Give them about two quarts of warm meal mash, into which you put some ground turnips at noon. Better build about four nests in the dark under the bin, and be sure to disinfect them by white-washing inside and out. Put in clean hay. Dust all the beauties on their heads and under their wings with wood ashes in which you put a little of the powder you"ll find in a piece of this paper in the right-hand corner of the bin. They"ll want a good feed of ground grain at three o"clock. Get copperas from Rufus to put in their water, and I"ll let you know later what else to do. Salutations!
ADAM
"I"m glad I got up so early if that"s the day"s program," I gasped to myself as I leaned against the bin from which the Golden Bird had already alighted and was commanding the Ladies Leghorn to descend--a command which they were obeying one at a time with outspread white wings that were handled with the height of awkwardness. "But I"ll do it all if it kills me," I added, with my head up, as I began to scatter some of the big white grains that I knew to be corn and which, by lifting lids and peering into huge slanting top boxes set against the wall, I discovered along with a lot of other small brown seed stuff that I knew must be wheat. I was glad that I had remembered that Adam had called the room the feed-room so I had known where to look.
It was so perfectly exciting to see all those fluffy white members of my family fortune scratching and clucking about my feet that I prolonged the process of the feeding by scattering only a few grains at a time until great shafts of golden morning sun were thrusting themselves in through the dim dusk and cobweb-veiled windows.
"Morning, little Mis"! I axes yo" parding fer not having breakfast "fore sun-up fer you, but they didn"t never any Craddock ladies want theirn before nine o"clock before, they didn"t," came Rufus"s voice in solemn words of apology uttered in tones of serious reproof. As he spoke he stood as far from the door of the feed-room as possible and eyed the scratching Bird family with the deepest disapproval. "Feed-room ain"t no place fer chickens; they oughter make they living on bugs and worms and sich."
"These chickens are--are different, Rufus, and--and so am I," I answered him with dignity. "Call me when the gentlemen are ready to breakfast with me."
"They talked until most daylight, and I knows "em well enough to not cook fer "em until after ten o"clock. They"s gentlemen, they is." The tones of his voice were perfectly servile, though it was plain to see that his mental processes were not.
"All right, I"ll eat mine now, Rufus, and then I want you to get me a--a hammer and some nails. Also a bucket of whitewash," I said as I closed the door upon the Birds and preceded him to the house.
"Oh, my Lawd-a-mussy!" he exclaimed as he dived into the refuge of the kitchen, completely routed, to appear with my breakfast upon his tray and with such dignity in his mien that it was pathetic. I was merciful while I consumed the meal which was an exact repet.i.tion of the supper of the ribs of the hog and m.u.f.fins and coffee; then I threw another fit into him, to quote from Matthew at his worst in the way of diction.
"Please set a bucket of the wood ashes from the living-room fire out at the barn for me, Rufus," I commanded him with pleasant firmness.
"Yes, Madam," was the answer I got in a tone of cold despair. It was thus that the feud with my family traditions was established.
"Also, Rufus, please bring the saw with the hammer and the nails," was my last hand-grenade as I departed out the back door to the barn. From the old clock standing against the wall in the back hall I discovered the hour to be exactly seven-thirty, and I felt that I had what would seem like a week ahead of me before the setting of the sun. However, I was wrong in my judgment, for time fairly fled from me, and it was nine o"clock by my platinum wrist-watch before I had more than got one very wobbly-looking box nailed together on the floor of the barn, and I was deep in both pride and exhaustion.
"I knew I could do it, but I didn"t believe it," I was remarking to myself in great congratulations when a shadow fell across the light from the door.
I looked up and, behold, Mrs. Silas Beesley loomed up against the sun and seemed to shine with equal refulgence to my delighted eyes! In her hand she held a plate covered with a snowy napkin, and her blue eyes danced with delighted astonishment.
"Well, well, Nancy!" she exclaimed, as she seated herself upon a bench by the door and began to fan herself with a corner of a snowy kerchief that crossed her ample bosom. "Looks like you have begun sawing and nailing at the Craddock family estate pretty early in the action though it"s none too soon, and mighty glad I am to see you do it while there is still a little odd lumber left. I"ve always said that it"s women folks that prop a family and it will soon tumble without "em. I am so glad you"ve come, honeybunch, that tears are laughing themselves out of the corner of my eyes." This time the white kerchief was dabbed over the keen blue eyes.