"Glad to meet you, Mr. Beesley," said Matthew, exerting more charm of manner than I had ever seen him use before. "My, but that is a gorgeous bird you have!"
"She"s a right good hen, but she"s a mongrel. There isn"t a single thoroughbred Rhode Island Red hereabouts. I aim to get a setting of pure eggs for Polly this spring if I sell my hawgs as good as Mr. Adam perd.i.c.ks I will. I brought her as a present to you, Miss Nancy, "cause she"s been a-brooding about two days, and if you get together a setting of eggs the last of next week she"ll hatch "em all. She carried three broods last year."
"Oh, Mr. Beesley, how lovely of you," I exclaimed, as I reached out my arms for the gorgeous old red ally. "I like her better than any present I ever had in all my life!" This I said before the face of Matthew Berry, with a complete loss of memory of all of the wonderful things he had been giving me from my debut bouquet of white orchids and violets to the tiny scarab from the robe of an Egyptian princess that I wore in the clasp of my platinum wrist-watch.
"Well, I should say!" Matthew exclaimed, with not a thought of the comparison in his generous mind. "Did you know that your sister, Miss Polly, and I are going into the Rhode Island Red business together? We were just deciding the details as you came around the house. What do you say to coming in? How many shall I buy? Say, about fifty hens and half a dozen c.o.c.ks? Let"s start big while we are about it. If Ann is going to make three thousand dollars a year off one rooster and ten hens, we can make fifteen off of five times as many."
"Yes, and we can bust the business all to pieces with too much stock,"
answered the brother Corn-ta.s.sel. "Miss Nancy has got real horse-sense starting small, and chicken-sense too."
"I stand corrected," answered Matthew. "I see that a flyer cannot be taken in chickens any higher than a hen can fly. I"m growing heady over this business and must go back to town to set the wheels in motion. All of you ride down to the gate with me and find out what the word jolt means."
Then after housing the Bird family in the feed-room with their guest, all happily at scratch in the hay for the wheat and corn thrown to them by the Corn-ta.s.sels while Matthew and I went in to bid the paternal twins good-by, we all rode merrily and joltily down the long avenue under the old elms to the big gate at the square in Riverfield. In front of the post-office-bank-grocery emporium we deposited the Corn-ta.s.sels, introduced Matthew to Aunt Mary and Uncle Silas, with the most cordial results on both sides, and then turned in the car out the Riverfield ribbon instead of in.
"Just a spin will do you good, sweet thing," said Matthew, as I settled down close enough to his shoulder to talk and not interrupt the powerful engine. "I want you to myself for a small moment away from your live stock, human and inhuman."
"Oh, Matt, there is n.o.body just like you and you have made this day--possible," I said as I snuggled down into the soft cushions.
"Honestly, Ann, do you mean positively that you don"t want me--now?" he asked me as he sent the car whirling into the sun setting over Old Harpeth.
"Not--now," I answered bravely, though I nestled a little closer to him. He seemed so good and strong and--certain.
"All right then, I"ll take the next best and I"ll come in to your farm circle as partner or compet.i.tor or any old thing that keeps me in your aura. I"ll grow chickens with the Corn-ta.s.sels or--here we turn back for I want to get out again over that bit of mountain-path that leads to your citadel before twilight."
"Put me out at the gate, Matt. I want to walk up," I said, and held to it against his protest. I finally made him see that I really was not equal to another "rocking" over the road, and I stood and watched him drive the huge car away from me down the Riverfield ribbon.
"I"m afraid I love him and just don"t know it," I said to myself, as I stood at the big gate and watched him going away from me into life as I had known it since birth until twenty-four hours past. And from that vision of my past I turned in the sunset light of the present and began to walk slowly up the long avenue into my future. "I"ve never known anything but dancing and motoring and being happy, and how could that teach any woman what love is?" I queried as I stopped and picked up a small yellow flower out of a nest of green leaves that some sort of ancestral influence must have introduced to me as dandelion, for I had never really met one before.
I felt a pale reflection of the glow I had experienced when I took the two warm pearls in my hands in the morning.
Then suddenly something happened that thrilled me first with interest and then with--I don"t know what to call it, but it was not fear. A fierce little wind, that was earthy and sweet, but strong, ruffled across my path and up into the tops of the elms, and with a bit of fury tore down an old bird"s-nest and flung it at my feet. It was soft and downy with bits of fur and hair and wool inside, but it was all rent in two.
"I wonder if I can hold my Elmnest steady on the limb when--" I was saying to myself unsteadily, with a mist in my eyes for the small wrecked home, when from somewhere over my left shoulder there came Pan"s reedy call, and it ended with the two Delilah notes that I had thought I heard in the early morning. It was with no will of my own that I answered with that coo which I had heard Mr. G. Bird singing on the stage of the Metropolitan in my dawn dream. Also I crashed rapidly through the bushes in the direction of the call that this time came imperatively and without the coo.
"To your left and then straight toward the oak-tree," came human words from Pan in quick command and direction. "Hurry!"
With a last struggle with the briars I broke out into a small open s.p.a.ce under the spreading branches of the old oak and upon a scene of tragedy, that is, it was almost tragedy, for the poor old sheep was lying flat with pathetic inertia while Adam stood over her with something in his arms.
"It"s the fine Southdown ewe I persuaded Rufus to trade for one of the precious hogs," he said, with not so much as a word of greeting or interest personal to me in his voice or glance, but with such wonderful tenderness that I came close to him because I couldn"t resist it. "She dropped twin lambs last night and she is down with exhaustion. They are getting cold, and I want to take her right up to the barn where I can bed her on hay and get something hot into all three. Can you cuddle the lambs and carry them while I shoulder her?" As he spoke he held out his armful to me without wounding me by waiting for my consent.
"Oh, the poor, cold babies!" I exclaimed, as I lifted the skirt of my long, fashionable, heavy linen smock and wrapped them in it and my arms, close against my warm solar plexus, which glowed at their soft huddling. One tiny thing reached out a little red tongue and feebly licked my bare wrist, and I returned the caress of introduction with a kiss on its little snowy, woolly head.
"You"ve the lovesome hand with the beasties," said Pan as he smiled down on the lambs and me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A poor old sheep was lying flat with pathetic inertia while Adam stood over her with something in his arms]
"I like "em because they make me sorter grow inside some place, I don"t know exactly where," I answered as I adjusted my woolly burden for what I knew would seem a long march. "I"ll get "em to the barn all right," I a.s.sured their first friend, who was now bending over the poor mother. "This is what I took Russian ballet dancing and played golf for, only I didn"t know it."
"You"d have executed more Baskt twists and done more holes a day if you had known," said Adam, with beautiful unbounded faith in me, as he braced his legs far apart and lifted the limp mother sheep up across his back and shoulder. It seemed positively weird to be standing there acting a scene out of Genesis and mentioning Baskt, and I was about to say so when Pan started on ahead through the bushes and commanded me briefly to: "Come on!"
At his heels I toiled along with the sheep babies hugged close to my breast until at last we deposited all three on a bed of fragrant hay in a corner of the barn.
"What"ll I feed "em?" I questioned anxiously. "There isn"t a bit of any kind of food on this place but the ribs of a hog and a m.u.f.fin and a cup of coffee."
"We"ll give her a quart of hot water with a few drops of this heart stimulant I have in my pocket, and she"ll do the rest for the family as soon as she warms up. She"s got plenty of milk and needs to have it drawn badly. There you are--go to it, youngsters. She is revived by just being out of the wind and in the warmth, and I don"t believe she needs any medicine. She wouldn"t let them to her udder if she wasn"t all right. Now we can leave them alone for a time, and I"ll give her a warm mash in a little while." As he spoke Adam calmly walked away from the interesting small family, which was just beginning a repast with great vigor, and paused at the feed-room door. With more pride than I had ever felt when entering a ball-room with a Voudaine gown upon me and a bunch of orchids, I followed and stood at his side.
"Well, how do you do, sweeties, and where did you get this model hen-house?
Trap nests! I wouldn"t have believed it of you!" said Adam to the Leghorn family and me inclusive.
"I didn"t do it all," I faltered as I experienced a terrific temptation to lie silently and claim all of the affectionate praise that was beaming from Pan"s eyes upon all of us, but I fought and conquered it with n.o.bility.
"Matthew Berry came out and did about--no, a little more than half of it.
But I did all I could," I added, with a pathetic appeal for his approbation.
"Well, half of the job is more than the world could expect of the beautiful Ann Craddock, who sits in the front of Gale Beacon"s box at the Metropolitan," answered Pan, with a little flute of laughter in his voice that matched the crimson crests which stood more rampant than ever across the tips of his ears.
"Why, where--who are you and--" I asked in astonishment as I followed him into the last of the sunset glow coming across the front of the barn.
CHAPTER VI
"I"m just Adam and I go many places," he answered with more of the intoxicating crooning laughter.
"Rufus says that red-headed p.e.c.k.e.rwoods go to the devil on Fridays," I retorted to the raillery of the Pan laugh.
"It _was_ Friday and she didn"t sing Delilah to my notion. Did she to yours?" he asked, this time with a smile that was even more interesting than the laugh. "Come over and sit with me by the spring-house and let"s discuss grand opera while I eat my supper and wait until I think it is safe to give the ewe some mash.
"I will if you"ll invite me to the supper; I can"t face another swine and m.u.f.fin meal," I answered as I followed him down a path that led west from the barn-door.
"I"ve got two apples and a double handful of black walnut kernels. The drinks from the spring are on you," he answered as he led me down through a thicket of slim trees that were sending out a queer fragrance to a huge old stone spring-house from which gushed a stream of water. "Just these two spring days are bringing out the locust buds almost before time. Smell "em!" he said as he looked up into the tops of the slim trees, which were showing a pink-green tinge of color in the red sunset rays.
"Oh," I said softly as I clasped my hands to my breast and breathed in deep, "I"m glad, glad I didn"t have to let them sell it. I love it. I love it!"
"Sell it?" asked Adam as he brushed a rug of dry leaves from under the bushes upon one of the huge slabs of rock before the door of the spring-house for me to sit on, and took two apples from his pocket.
"Yes, and I"ll work both my fingers and toes to the bone before I"ll give it up," I answered as I crouched down beside him on the leaves and began to munch at the apple, which he had polished on the sleeve of his soft, gray, flannel shirt before he handed it to me.
While we dined on the two red apples, the tangy nuts, and a few hard crackers that, I think, were dog-biscuits, I told him all about it, up to my defiance and a.s.sumption of the management of Elmnest in the library after dinner.
"I _can_ keep us from starving until I learn chickens, can"t I?" I asked after the recital, and I crouched a little closer to him on the rock, for black shadows were coming in between the trees and into my consciousness, and all the pink moonlight had faded as a rosy dream, leaving the world about us silver gray.
"I wonder just how much genuine land pa.s.sion there is in the hearts of women?" said Adam, softly answering my question with another. "The duration of race life depends upon it really."
"I don"t know what you are talking about, but I understand you," I answered him hotly. "Also I know that I love that old sheep more than you do, and I"m going to get in line with my egg-basket when the United States begins mustering in forces to fight, no matter what it is to be. I wish I could say it like I feel it to that Mr. Secretary Evan Baldwin, who forgets that women are the natural--the nutritive s.e.x."
"I wish you could," said kind Adam, with one of Pan"s railing laughs.