Maria Thompson Daviess - The Golden Bird

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"Oh, look, she's putting some out from under her and taking others in. Oh,
Ann!" exclaimed Bess as she dropped on her knees beside the long box.

"Yes; she changes them like that. I've seen her do it," I answered, with my
cheeks as pink with excitement as were those of my sympathetic friend,
Elizabeth Rutherford. "And you ought to see her take them all out for a
walk across the grass. They all peep and follow, and she clucks and
scratches impartially."

"Ann," said Bess, with a great solemnity in the dark eyes that she raised
to mine, "I suppose I ought to marry Owen _this_ June. I want to have
another winter of good times, but I--I'm ashamed to look this hen in the
face."

"Owen is perfectly lovely," I answered her, which was a very safely
noncommittal answer in the circumstances.

"He carries one of the chickens he bought from you in his pocket all the
time, with all necessary food, and it is much larger than any of mine or
his in my conservatory. Owen is the one who goes in to tend to them when
he brings me home from parties and things and--and--"

"Matthew took off all of his and Polly's little Reds yesterday, and I've
never seen him so--so--" I paused for a word to express the tenderness that
was in dear old Matt's face as he put the little tan fluff-balls one at a
time into Polly Corn-tassel's outstretched skirt.

"Matthew is a wonder, Ann, and you've got to come to this dance he is
giving Corn-tassel Saturday--all for love of you because you asked him to
look after her. He is the sweetest thing to her--just like old Mrs. Red
here, spreads his wings and fusses if any man who isn't a lineal descendant
of Sir Galahad comes near her. He's going to be awfully hurt if you don't
come."

"Then I'll tear myself away from my family and come, though I truly can't
see that I wished Polly Corn-tassel upon all of you. You are just as crazy
about the apple-blossom darling as I am, you specially, Bess Rutherford,"
I answered, with pleased indignation.

"Ann, I do wish you could have seen her in that frilled white thing with
the two huge blue bows at the ends of the long plaits at my dinner-dance
the other night, standing and looking at everybody with all the fascination
and coquetry of--of--well, that little Golden Bird peeping at us from the
left-hand corner of Mrs. Red Ally's right wing. Where _did_ she get that
frock?"

"Do you suppose that a woman who runs a farm dairy of fifty cows, while her
husband banks and post-offices and groceries would be at all routed by a
few yards of lace and muslin and a current copy of 'The Woman's Review'?
Aunt Mary made that dress between sun-up and -down and worked out fifty
pounds of butter as well," I answered, with a glow of class pride in my
rustic breast.

"All of that is what is seething in my blood until I can't stand it," said
Bess as we walked towards the barn-door. "The reason I just feel like
devouring Polly Corn-tassel is that somehow she seems to taste like bread
and butter to me; I'm tired of life served with mayonnaise dressing with
tabasco and caviar in it.

"Yes, a Romney herb-pot is better," I said, as a strange chant began to
play itself on my heartstrings with me alone for a breathless audience.

"And if you come in on Saturday you can--" Bess was saying in a positive
tone that admitted of no retreat, when Matthew's huge blue car came around
the drive from the front of Elmnest and stopped by Bess's roadster. On the
front seat sat Matthew, and Corn-tassel was beside him, but the rest of the
car was piled high with huge sacks of grain, which looked extremely
sensible and out of place in the handsomest car in the Harpeth Valley.

"Oh, Miss Ann, Mr. Matthew and I found the greatest bargain in winter
wheat, and the man opened every sack and let me run my arm to the elbow in
it. It is all hard and not short in a single grain. We are going to trade
you half." And Polly's blue eyes, which still looked like the
uncommercialized violet despite a six weeks' acquaintance with society in
Hayesville, danced with true farmer delight.

"It's warranted to make 'em lay in night shifts, Ann," said Matthew as he
beamed down upon me with a delight equal to Polly's, and somehow equally as
young. "Where'll I put it? In the feed-room in the bins?"

"Yes, and they are almost empty. I was wondering what I would do next for
food, because I owe Rufus and the hogs so much," I answered gratefully.

"What did you pay?" asked Bess, in a business-like tone of voice.

"Only a dollar and a quarter a bushel, all seed grade," answered Matthew,
with the greatest nonchalance, as if he had known the grades of wheat from
his earliest infancy.

"Why, Owen bought two bags of it for our joint family and paid such a
fortune for it that I forgot the figures immediately; but I took up the
rug and put it all in my dressing-room to watch over, lest thieves break
into the garage and steal. Also I made him send me plebeian carnations
instead of violets for Belle Proctor's dinner Tuesday," said Bess, with
covetousness in her eyes as she watched Matthew begin to unload his wheat.
I wonder what Matthew's man, Hickson, at one twenty-five a month, thought
of his master's coat when he began to brush the chaff out of its London
nap.

"Oh, Owen Murray is just a town-bred duffer," said Matthew, as he
shouldered his last sack of grain.

"Well, you are vastly mistaken if you think that--" Bess was beginning to
say in a manner that I knew from long experience would bring on a war of
words between her and Matthew when a large and cheerful interruption in the
shape and person of Aunt Mary Corn-tassel came around the corner of the
house.

"Well, well, what sort of city farming is going on to-day amongst all
these stylish folks?" she asked as she skirted the two cars at what she
considered a safe and respectful distance, and handed me a bunch of sweet
clover-pinks with a spring perfume that made me think of the breath of Pan
O'Woods as I buried my lips in them. "You, Polly, go right home and take
off that linen dress, get into a gingham apron, and begin to help Bud milk.
I believe in gavots at parties only if they strengthen muscles for milking
time."

"May I wait and ride down with Mr. Matthew and show him where to put our
wheat, Mother?" asked Polly as she snuggled up to her mother, who was
pinning a stray pink into Matthew's button-hole per his request.

"Yes, if he'll put his legs under old Mrs. Butter to help you get done
before I am ready to strain up," answered Aunt Mary, with a merry twinkle
in her eye as she regarded Matthew in his purple and fine linen. "Put an
apron on him," she added.

"Lead me to the apron," said Matthew, with real and not mock heroics.

"But before you go I want to tell all of you about an invitation that has
come over the telephone in the bank to all of Riverfield, and make a
consultation about it. Now who do you suppose gave it?"

"Who?" we all asked in chorus.

"Nobody less than the governor of the State called up Silas, me answering
for him on account of his deafness, and asked everybody to come in to town
next Saturday night to hear this new commissioner of agriculture that he is
going to appoint make the opening address of his office, I reckon you could
call it. You know Silas is the leading Democrat of this district, and the
governor has opened riz biscuits with me many a time. I told him 'Thank
you, sir,' we would all come and hear the young man talk about what he
didn't know, and he laughed and rang off. Yes, we are all going in a kind
of caravan of vehicles, and I want you to go, Nancy, in the family coach
and take Mrs. Tillett with you on account of her having to take all the
seven little Tilletts, because there won't be a minder woman left to look
after 'em. Bud will drive so as not to disturb Cradd or William in their
Heathen pursuits or discommode Rufus' disposition. Now, won't it be nice
for the whole town to go junketing in like that?" As she spoke Aunt Mary
beamed upon us all with pure delight.

"But Saturday evening is the night that Mr. Matthew is going to have that
dance for me, Mother," said Polly, with the violets becoming slightly
sprinkled underneath the long black lashes.

"Well, dancing can wait a spell," answered Aunt Mary, comfortably. "The
governor said that all the folks at Cloverbend and Providence and Hillsboro
are going, and Riverfield has got to shake out a forefoot in the trip and
not a hind one."

"Oh, we'll have the dance next week, Corn-tassel," promised Matthew,
promptly enough to prevent the drenching of the violets. "It will be great
to hear Baldwin accept his portfolio, as it were."

"And after his term begins I suppose he'll have offices at the capitol and
will be in town most of the time. Then we can have him at all the dances.
Polly, he dances like nothing earthly. Still Matthew won't let him come
near you; he's deadly to women. We are all positively drugged by him,"
exclaimed Bess, delighted at the idea of Hayesville society acquiring the
new commissioner of agriculture for a permanent light.

"Then I can count on you to help Mrs. Tillett and the children in and out,
Nancy?" continued Aunt Mary, with the light of such generalship in her eye
that I was afraid even to mention my one-sided feud with the hero of the
hour. "You can take Baby Tillett and sit a little way apart from her so she
won't have to feed him all the time to keep him quiet."

"I can take eight people in my car, Mother Corn-tassel," said Matthew,
with the most beautiful eagerness.

"I can get in five," added Bess, with an equal eagerness. "Can I have the
Addcocks?" Bess and the pessimistic Mrs. Addcock had got together over some
medicine to prevent pip in the conservatory young Leghorns.

"Yes, and Matthew can take all the eight Spains if I can sit down Mrs.
Spain to a bolt of gingham in time to get them all nicely covered for such
a company," decreed the general, as she ran over in her mind's eye the rest
of the population of Riverfield. "I'll make all the men hitch their best
teams to the different rigs, and by starting early and taking both dinner
and supper on the way we can get there in plenty of time. Twenty miles is
not more than a half day's trip."

"I can sit by you and hold two Spains in my lap," I heard Polly plan with
Matthew.

"Sure you can," he answered her. "I think the loveliest thing about
Matthew Berry is the way he speaks to women and children." As he answered,
he piled Aunt Mary and Polly in beside the rest of the wheat-bags and
motored them away down the avenue.

"Ann, please come to town with me," pleaded Bess as she got into her car
and prepared to follow in the wake of the wheat-bags. "I miss you so, and
Belle weeps at the mention of you. She and I are having dinner at the Old
Hickory Club with Houston Jeffries and Owen to-night. Matt will come, and
let's have one good old time. I came all this way to get you."

"I honestly, honestly can't, Bess," I said as I took her hand stretched
down from her seat behind the wheel to me, and put my cheek against it.
"I've got this whole farm to feed between now and night. Both incubators
must have their supper of oil or _you_ know what'll happen. Mrs. Ewe and
family must be fed, or rather she must be fed so as to pass it along at
about breakfast time, I should say, not being wise in biology or natural
history; the entire Bird family are invited to supper with me, and I even
have to carry a repast of corn over the meadows to my pet abhorrences,
Rufus' swine, because he has retired to the hay-loft with a flannel rag
around his head, which means I have offended him or that father has given
him an extra absent-minded drink from the decanter that Matthew brought
him. Peckerwood Pup is at this moment, you see, chewing the strings out of
my shoes as an appetizer for her supper. How could I eat sweetbreads and
truffle, which I know Owen has already ordered, when I knew that more than
a hundred small children were at home crying for bread?"

"Ann, what is it that makes you so perfectly radiantly beautiful in that
faded linen smock and old corduroy skirt? Of course, you always were
beautiful, but now you look like--like--well, I don't know whether it is a
song I have heard or a picture I have seen." Bess leaned down and laid her
cheek against mine for a second.

"I'm going to tell you some day before long," I whispered as I kissed the
corner of her lips. "Now do take the twin fathers for a little spin up the
road and make them walk back from the gate. They have been suffering with
the Trojan warriors all day, and I know they must have exercise. Uncle
Cradd walks down for the mail each day, but father remains stationary. Your
method with them is perfect. Go take them while I supper and bed down the
farm."

"I know now the picture is by Tintoretto, and it's some place in Rome,"
Bess called back over her shoulder as she drove her car slowly around to
the front door to begin her conquest and deportation of my precious
ancients.

"Not painted by Tintoretto, but by the pagan Pan," I said to myself as I
turned into the barn door.

CHAPTER IX

When I came out with a bucket of the new wheat in my hand, I heard Bess and
her car departing, with Uncle Cradd's sonorous speech mingling with the
puff of the engine.

"We are all alone, Mr. G. Bird, and we love it, because then we can talk
comfortably about our Mr. Adam," I said to the Golden Bird as he followed
me around the side of the barn where a door had been cut by Pan himself to
make an entry into my improvised chicken-house.

Suddenly I was answered by a very interesting chuckling and clucking, and I
turned to see what had disengaged the attention of Mr. G. Bird from me and
my feed-bucket. The sight that met my eyes lifted the shadow that had lain
between the Golden Bird and me since the morning I had taken him in to see
his newly arrived progeny and had not been able to make him notice their
existence. Stretching out behind me was a trail of wheat that had dripped
from a hole in the side of the bucket, and along the sides of it the
paternal Bird was marshaling his reliable foster-mother, Mrs. Red Ally's
and all his own fluffy white progeny. With exceeding generosity he was not
eating a grain himself, but scratching and chortling encouragingly.

"I knew you were not like other chicken men, Mr. G. Bird, 'male indifferent
to hatches,' as the book said," I exclaimed as he caught up with me and
began to peck the grains I offered from my hand. "You are just like Owen
and Matthew and Mr. Tillett and--and--" but I didn't continue the
conversation because the chant began rending my heartstrings again. "Oh,
Mr. G. Bird, it is an awful thing for a woman to have an apple orchard and
lilac bushes in bloom when she is alone," I sighed instead, as I went on
to my round of feeding, very hungry myself for--a pot of herbs. Later I,
too, was fed.

Long after the twin fathers had had supper and were settled safely by their
candles, which were beacons that led them back into past ages, I sat by
myself on the front doorstep in the perfumed darkness that was only faintly
lit by stars that seemed so near the earth that they were like flowers of
light blossoming on the twigs of the roof elms. In a lovely dream I had
just gone into the arms of Pan when I heard out beyond the orchard a soft
moo of a cow, and with it came a weak little calf echo.

"Somebody's cow has strayed--I wish she belonged to me and could help me
with this nutrition job," I said to myself as I rose and ran down under the
branches of the gnarled old apple-trees, which sifted down perfumed blow
upon my head as I ran. Then I stopped and listened again. Over the old
stone wall that separated the orchard from the pasture I heard footsteps
and soft panting, also a weak little cow-baby protest of fatigue.

"I'll get over the wall and see if there is any trouble with them," I said
and I suited my actions to my words. I suppose in the dark I forgot that
cows have horns and that I had never even been introduced to one before,
for with the greatest confidence and sympathy I walked up near the large
black mass that was the cow mother, with a very small and wavering body
pressed close at her side.

"Did you call me, Mother Cow?" I asked softly.

The question was taken from my lips as Pan came out of the darkness behind
her and took me into his arms.

"Yes, she called you. I didn't think I'd see you. I was just going to leave
her for you and go my way; but trust women for secret communication," he
said as my arm slipped around his bare throat.

"Not see me?" I questioned.

"I never wanted to see you again until I came for you, Woman. I didn't
think I could stand it--to put you out of my arms again. I can't take you
with me to-night. I came miles out of my way to bring her to you, and I've
hurried them both cruelly. The calf is only two days old, but you do need
her badly to feed the chickens. Milk-fed chickens show a gain of thirty per
cent. over others. You can churn and get all the butter you need and feed
them the buttermilk."

"Do you suppose I can learn to milk and churn her?" I asked as I shrank a
bit closer in his arms from this new responsibility.

"Milk her and churn the milk," laughed Pan as he bent my head forward on
his arm, set his teeth in the back of my neck, and shook me like Peckerwood
Pup shakes the gray kitten when I'm not looking.

"Will you show me in the morning?"

"Woman, I have to run ten miles through the forest before daybreak, and I
don't know when I can come back to you. I know I ought to tell you things,
but I--I just can't. I demand of life that I be allowed to come for you and
take you into the woods with only your Romney bundle. Will you be here
ready for me when I come, and keep the bundle tied up?"

"Yes," I answered as I drew his head down and pressed it to my breast,
hoping that he might hear the chant on my heartstrings. I think he did
hear.

"I am thy child.
I am thy mate.
Come!"

he made response, as he slipped from my arms and away into the darkness,
leaving me alone with only the mother now for company. She licked my arm
with a warm, rough tongue, and I came back into my own body and led her to
the barn and supper.

There are two kinds of love, the cultivated kind that bores into a woman's
heart through silk and laces in a hot-house atmosphere and brings about
all kinds of enervating reactions until operated upon by marriage; the
other kind a field woman breathes into her lungs and it gets into her
circulation and starts up the most awful and productive activity. I've had
both kinds. I moped for months over Gale Beacon, and made him and Matthew
and father completely unhappy, lost ten pounds, and was sent to a rest-cure
for temper. The next morning after Adam gave me the cow and calf and
passionate embraces out in the orchard I began to work like six women, and
what I did to Elmnest not ten women could have accomplished in as many
days.

I weeded the whole garden and I picked three bushels of our first peas,
tied up sixty bunches of very young beets with long, tough orchard grass,
treated fifty bunches of slender onions the same way, half a dozen of each
to the bunch, and helped Bud Corn-tassel load a two-horse wagon with them
and everything eatable he could get out of Aunt Mary's garden. Then I got
up at two o'clock in the night and fed the mules so Bud could start at
half-past two in order to be in the market at Hayesville long before the
break of day, so as to sell the truck at the very top of the market to the
earliest greengrocers. I gave Bud coffee and bread and butter and drove the
team down to the gate while he went ahead to open it. I stood up while I
drove, too, because Bud had not had room to put a seat in for himself and
expected to stand up all the way to town. Talk about Mordkin and Pavlova!
To stand up and drive a team hitched to a jolt-wagon over boulders and
roots requires leg muscles! I hope I will be able to restrain myself from
driving the team into market some day, but I am not sure I can. With the
eggs and the "truck" Bud brought back sixteen dollars, eleven of which were
mine. I bought a peck of green peas for myself from myself and ate most of
them for dinner by way of blowing in some of the money. Then the chant on
my heartstrings speeded me up to white-washing all the chicken
paraphernalia on the place, and I dropped corn behind Rufus' plow for a
whole day, even if it was to produce food for the swine. I went to bed at
night literally on time with the chickens. I could only stay awake to kneel
and reach out the arms of prayer and enfold Pan to my heart for a very few
seconds before I vaulted into the four-poster and tumbled into the depths
of sleep.

My activities were not in any way limited by the stone walls that surround
Elmnest, but they spread over entire Riverfield, which had very nearly quit
the pursuit of agriculture and gone madly into a social adventure.
Everybody was getting ready for the trip into the capital city to answer
the governor's invitation, and clothing of every color, texture, and sex
was being manufactured by the bolt. For every garment manufactured I was
sponsor.

"I sure am glad you have come down, Nancy," said Mrs. Addcock, with almost
a moan; "that Mamie there won't let me turn up the hem of her dress without
you, though I say what is a hem to a woman who has set in six pairs of
sleeves since day before yesterday!"

"I want shoe-tops and Ma wants ankles," sniffed Mamie Addcock. "Polly
Beesley wears shoe-tops and she's seventeen and goes to the city to dance.
And Miss Bess' and yours are shoe-tops, too."

"Now you see what it is to raise a child to be led into sin and vanity,"
said Mrs. Addcock, looking at me reproachfully from her seat upon the floor
at the feet of the worldly Mamie.

"I'll turn up the hem just right, Mrs. Addcock, while you get the collars
on little Sammie's and Willie's shirts," I said soothingly as I sank down
beside her at Mamie's feet.

"I had to cut Sammie's shirt with a tail to tuck in, all on account of that
Mr. Matthew Berry's telling him that shirt and pants ought to do business
together. And there's Willie's jeans pants got to have pockets for the
knife that Mr. Owen gave him. I just can't keep up with these city notions
of my children with five of 'em and a weak back." As she grumbled Mrs.
Addcock rose slowly from her lowly position to her feet.

"I'll make Willie's trousers, Mrs. Addcock, this afternoon, if he'll come
and help me feed and bed everything at Elmnest," I offered, with my mouth
full of pins.

"No, child, but thank you for your willing heart. Mrs. Spain told me how
you made Ezra's pants so one leg of him came while the other went, and I
guess a mother is the only one to get the legs of her own offspring to
match. I'll work it out myself now that Miss Mamie is attended to."

"But now I know how to trouser boys normally. I turned Joe Tillett out in
perfect proportion as well as in strong jeans," I answered, without the
least offense at finding my first efforts as a tailor thus becoming the
subject of kindly village gossip.

"Well, I hope this junket will turn out as Mary Beesley expects, with
enjoyment for everybody. However, I'm going to risk my back with Mr.
Silas' mules rather than with that Bessie Rutherford's wheels that are not
critter-drawn. I only hope she don't spill all my children, that I've had
such a time getting here on earth, back into Kingdom Come."

"Would you rather go in my carriage with Mrs. Tillett, and let me go with
Bess to hold in the children?" I asked with unconcealed eagerness.

"No, I don't believe so," answered Mrs. Addcock, cannily. "Sallie Tillett
is having her dress made buttoned up in the back, and she has been in the
habit of feeding the baby whenever he cries for it, though he can 'most
stand alone. She is going to depend on you and a bag of biscuit to manage
him through the show, and I'd rather not take your place."

"No; perhaps you would enjoy it more behind Uncle Silas and the mules," I
answered cheerily, feeling perfectly capable of handling Baby Tillett and
his bag of biscuits, because the memory of the times his little head with
its tow fuzz had cuddled down on my linen smock, when I had carried him
back and forth for long visits in the barn to the Peckerwood Pup so his
mother could have a little vacation from his society, accelerated the
movement of the chant on the cardiac instrument in my breast. "He stays
hours and hours with me in a basket in the barn and is perfectly satisfied
with the biscuits."

"All the same I told Sallie I could make that dress by another pattern, and
you'd better sit with him a good distance during the show," said Mrs.
Addcock, as I finished shoe-topping Mamie and picked up my pink-lined white
sunbonnet, which had been a present from Mrs. Addcock herself and was
astonishingly frilly and coquettish emanating from such a source, and began
to depart.

"I'll take him on the other side of the auditorium," I answered, with
respect for advice that I knew must be good through experience.

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