Maria Thompson Daviess - The Golden Bird
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Maria Thompson Daviess >> The Golden Bird
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"Take it away and let me drink my coffee," I said, and I could see
Annette's French eyes snap as she laid down the offering from Matthew and
went to attend upon Bess.
"Dear Matt," I murmured when I had consumed the coffee and discovered the
long string of gorgeous pearls in the white box. "Come on, Bess, let's
begin to get married and be done with it," I called to her as I wearily
arose. "What time did Polly say she and Matthew had decided to marry me?" I
asked as I went into my bath.
"Five o'clock, and it's almost twelve now," answered Bess in a voice of
panic as I heard things begin to fly into place in her room.
Despite the superhuman efforts and patience of Annette and two housemaids,
directed from below by Owen and Judge Rutherford, it was half-past two
o'clock before I was ready to descend to the car in which Matthew had been
sitting, patiently waiting in the sunshine of his wedding day for almost
two hours.
"Plenty of time," he said cheerily, as I sank into the seat beside him, and
Bess and Owen climbed in behind us. Owen's chauffeur took Judge Rutherford
in Owen's car, and Annette perched her prim self on the front seat beside
the wheel.
"Oh, Matt, there is nobody in the world like you," I said as I cast myself
on his patience and imperturbability and also the strength of his broad
shoulder next mine. I could positively hear Bess and Owen's joy over this
bride-like manifestation, which the wind took back to them as we went
sailing out of town towards the Riverfield ribbon.
And to their further joy I put my cheek down against Matthew's throttle arm
and closed my eyes so that I did not see anything of the twenty-mile
progression out to Elmnest. I only opened them when we arrived in
Riverfield at about half after three o'clock.
Was the village out to greet me? It was not. Every front door was closed,
and every front shutter shut, and I might have felt that some dire
disapproval was being expressed of me and my wedding if I had not seen
smoke fairly belching from every kitchen chimney, and if I hadn't known
that each house was filled with the splash of vigorous tubbing for which
the kitchen stoves and wash boilers were supplying the hot water.
"Bet at least ten pounds of soap has gone up in lather," said Matthew as he
turned and explained the situation to Bess and Owen after I had explained
it to him.
At the door of Elmnest stood Polly in a gingham dress, but with both ends
of her person in bridal array, from the white satin bows on the looped up
plats to the white silk stockings and satin slippers, greeting us with
relief and enthusiasm. Beside her stood Aunt Mary and the parent twins,
also Bud, in the gray suit with a rose in his button-hole.
Matthew handed me out and into their respective embraces, while he also
gave Polly a bundle of dry-goods from which I could see white satin ribbon
bursting.
"Everything is ready," she confided to him.
"I knew it would be, Corn-tassel," he answered, with an expression of
affectionate confidence and pride.
Then from the embrace of Uncle Cradd I walked straight through the back
door towards the barn, leaving both Bess and Annette in a state of wild
remonstrance, with the wedding paraphernalia all being carried up the
stairs by Bud and Rufus. Looking neither to the right nor to the left, I
made my way to the barn-door and then stopped still--dead still.
It was no longer my barn--it was merely the entrance to a model poultry
farm that spread out acres and acres of model houses and runs behind it.
Chickens, both white and red, were clucking and working in all the pens,
and nowhere among them could I see the Golden Bird.
"I hope he's dead, too," I said as I turned on my heel and, without a
word, walked back to the house and up to my room, past Polly and Matthew,
who stood at the barn-door, their faces pale with anxiety.
When I considered that I had been able for months to clothe myself with
decency and leave my room in less than fifteen minutes, I could not see why
time dragged so for me when being clothed by Annette and Aunt Mary. True,
Aunt Mary paused to sniff into her handkerchief every few minutes or to
listen to Annette's French raptures as she laid upon me each foolish
garment up unto the long swath of heathenish tulle she was beginning to
arrange when an interruption occurred in the shape of Rufus, who put his
head in the door and mysteriously summoned Polly, who had come in to
exhibit her silk muslin frills, in which she was the incarnation of young
love's dream.
"You are beautiful, darling," I had just said, with the first warmth in my
voice I had felt for many days, when Rufus appeared and Polly departed to
leave Annette and Aunt Mary to the task of the tulle and orange-blossoms.
They took their time, and it was only five minutes to five when Bess came
in to get her procession all marshalled.
"Come down the back steps, darling, and let's all cool off on the back
porch," she advised. "It is terribly hot up here under the roof, and Polly
and Matthew say they have decided to come in from the back door so
everybody will have a better view of you. How beautiful you are!"
As directed, I descended and stood spread out like a white peacock on the
back porch.
"Now call Matthew and Polly," Bess directed Annette.
For several minutes we waited.
"Monsieur Berry is not here," finally reported Annette, with fine dramatic
effect of her outspread hands.
"Tell Owen to find him," commanded Bess. "It is five minutes late now, and
they must make that seven-twenty New York train. Hurry!"
Annette departed while Aunt Mary came to the back door and looked out
questioningly.
"Great guns, Bess, where is Matt?" demanded Owen as he came around the
house with his eyes and hair wild.
"Where is Polly? she'll know!" I answered tranquilly.
"I searched Mademoiselle Polly, and she is also not here," answered
Annette, again running down the back stairs. From the long parlor and hall
came an excited buzz, and Aunt Mary came out upon the back porch entirely
this time.
"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 document
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 identity 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 God, 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-tassel, 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, God, 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 ejaculating 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 document, 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 passion 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 assembled
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. Clusters 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 hell.
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 God, what a force unit one woman and one man can create!"
THE END
* * * * *
THE FIREFLY OF FRANCE
_By_ MARION POLK ANGELLOTTI
This is not a story of laughter or tears, of shock or depression. It has no
manufactured gloom. It preaches no reform. It has not a single social
problem around which the characters move and argue and agonize. No reader
need lie awake at night wondering what the author meant; all she intends to
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story invites the reader to be thrilled, and dares him (or her) to weep.
Briefly, "The Firefly of France" is in the manner of the romance--in the
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behind the Allied lines in France. The story gets on its way on the first
page, and the interest is continuous and increasing until the last page.
And it is all beautifully done.
The Philadelphia Record says: "No more absorbing romance of the war has
been written than 'The Firefly of France.' In a sprightly, spontaneous way
the author tells a story that is pregnant with the heroic spirit of the
day. There is a blending of mystery, adventure, love and high endeavor that
will charm every reader."
_12mo, 363 pages_
_Illustrated by Grant T. Reynard_
_Price $1.40_
At All Bookstores
Published by
THE NEW CENTURY CO.
353 Fourth Avenue
New York City
* * * * *
FILM FOLK
"Close-ups" of the Men, Women and Children who make the "Movies."
_By_ ROB WAGNER
A book of humor and entertaining facts. It is a sort of Los Angeles
Canterbury Tales wherein appears the stories, told in the first person, of
the handsome film actor whose beauty is fatal to his comfort; of the child
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All the stories are located in or near Los Angeles, a section more densely
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author lives there, he has been in sympathetic contact with these votaries
of this new art since its beginning, and his statements are entirely
trustworthy.
"Film Folk" is not a series of actual biographies of individuals; the
author in each case presents an actor, a director or one of the other
characters for the sake of concreteness and to carry out the story-form,
and he contrives to set forth in the course of the book the entire
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customs of the inhabitants of the vast movie villages--manners and customs
unique in many respects.
The stories are told in a style as easy to read as the author is
good-humored.
_8vo, 356 pages_
_Illustrated from photographs_
_Price $2.00_
At All Bookstores
Published by
THE CENTURY CO.
353 Fourth Avenue
New York City
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