Sowing Seeds in Danny Part 16

"Her!" his father said contemptuously. "She'll never hear it." The wind suddenly ceased. Not a breath stirred, only a continuous glare of lightning. Then crack! crack! crack! on the roof, on the windows, everywhere, like bad boys throwing stones, heavier, harder, faster, until it was one beating, thundering roar.

It lasted but a few minutes, though it seemed longer to those who listened in terror in the kitchen.

The roar grew less and less and at last ceased altogether, and only a gentle rain was falling.

Sam Motherwell sat without speaking, "You have cheated the Lord all these years, and He has borne with you, trying to make you pay up without harsh proceedings"--he found himself repeating the minister's words. Could this be what he meant by harsh proceedings? Certainly it was harsh enough taking away a man's crop after all his hard work.

Sam was full of self-pity. There were very few men who had ever been treated as badly as he felt himself to be.

"Maybe there'll only be a streak of it hailed out," Tom said, breaking in on his father's dismal thoughts.

"You'll see in the mornin'," his father growled, and Tom went back to bed.

When Pearl woke it was with the wind blowing in upon her; the morning breeze fragrant with the sweetness of the flowers and the ripening grain. The musty odours had all gone, and she felt life and health in every breath. The blackbirds were twittering in the oats behind the house, and the rising sun was throwing long shadows over the field.

Scattered gla.s.s lay on the floor.

"I knew the dear Lord would fix the gurms," Pearl said as she dressed, laughing to herself. But her face clouded in a moment. What about the poppies?

Then she laughed again. "There I go frettin' again. I guess the Lord knows they're, there and He isn't going to smash them if Polly really needs them."

She dressed herself hastily and ran down the ladder and around behind the cookhouse, where a strange sight met her eyes. The cookhouse roof had been blown off and placed over the poppies, where it had sheltered them from every hailstone.

Pearl looked under the roof. The poppies stood there straight and beautiful, no doubt wondering what big thing it was that hid them from the sun.

When Tom and his father went out in the early dawn to investigate the damage done by the storm, they found that only a narrow strip through the field in front of the house had been touched.

The hail had played a strange trick; beating down the grain along this narrow path, just as if a mighty roller had come through it, until it reached the house, on the other side of which not one trace of damage could be found.

"Didn't we get off lucky?" Tom exclaimed "and the rest of the grain is not even lodged. Why, twenty-five dollars would cover the whole loss, cookhouse roof and all."

His father was looking over the rippling field, green-gold in the rosy dawn. He started uncomfortably at Tom's words.

Twenty-five dollars!

CHAPTER XV

INASMUCH

After sundown one night Pearl's resolve was carried into action. She picked a shoe-box full of poppies, wrapping the stems carefully in wet newspaper. She put the cover on, and wrapped the box neatly.

Then she wrote the address. She wrote it painfully, laboriously, in round blocky letters. Pearl always put her tongue out when she was doing anything that required minute attention. She was so anxious to have the address just right that her tongue was almost around to her ear. The address read:

Miss Polly Bragg, english gurl and sick with fever Brandon Hospittle Brandon.

Then she drew a design around it. Jimmy's teacher had made them once in Jimmy's scribbler, just beautiful. She was sorry she could not do a bird with a long strip of tape in his mouth with "Think of Me" or "From a Friend" or "Love the Giver" on it. Ma knew a man once who could do them, quick as wink. He died a drunkard with delirium tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, but was terrible smart.

Then she stuck, under the string, a letter she had written to Camilla.

Camilla would get them sent to Polly.

"I know how to get them sent to Camilla too, you bet," she murmured.

"There are two ways, both good ones, too. Jim Russell is one way. Jim knows what flowers are to folks."

She crept softly down the stairs. Mrs Motherwell had left the kitchen and no one was about. The men were all down at the barn.

She turned around the cookhouse where the poppies stood straight and strong against the glowing sky. A little single red one with white edges swayed gently on its slender stem and seemed to beckon to her with pleading insistence. She hurried past them, fearing that she would be seen, but looking back the little poppy was still nodding and pleading.

"And so ye can go, ye sweetheart," she whispered. "I know what ye want." She came back for it.

"Just like Danny would be honin' to come, if it was me," she murmured with a sudden blur of homesickness.

Through the pasture she flew with the speed of a deer. The tall sunflowers along the fence seemed to throw a light in the gathering gloom.

A night hawk circled in the air above her, and a clumsy bat came b.u.mping through the dusk as she crossed the creek just below Jim's shanty.

Bottles, Jim's dog, jumped up and barked, at which Jim himself came to the door.

"Come back, Bottles," he called to the dog. "How will I ever get into society if you treat callers that way, and a lady, too! Dear, dear, is my tie on straight? Oh, is that you Pearl? Come right in, I am glad to see you."

Over the door of Jim's little house the words "Happy Home" were printed in large letters and just above the one little window another sign boldly and hospitably announced "Hot Meals at all Hours."

Pearl stopped at the door. "No, Jim," she said, "it's not visitin' I am, but I will go in for a minute, for I must put this flower in the box. Can ye go to town, Jim, in a hurry?"

"I can," Jim replied.

"I mean now, this very minute, slappet-bang!"

Jim started for the door.

"Howld on, Jim!" Pearl cried, "don't you want to hear what ye'r goin'

for? Take this box to Camilla--Camilla E. Rose at Mrs. Francis's--and she'll do the rest. It's flowers for poor Polly, sick and dyin' maybe with the fever. But dead or alive, flowers are all right for folks, ain't they, Jim? The train goes at ten o'clock. Can ye do it, Jim?"

Jim was brus.h.i.+ng his hair with one hand and reaching for his coat with the other.

"Here's the money to pay for the ride on the cars," Pearl said, reaching out five of her coins.

Jim waved his hand.

"That's my share of it," he said, pulling his cap down on his head.

"You see, you do the first part, then me, then Camilla--just like the fiery cross." He was half way to the stable as he spoke.

He threw the saddle on Chiniquy and was soon galloping down the road with the box under his arm.

Camilla came to the door in answer to Jim's ring.

He handed her the box, and lifting his hat was about to leave without a word, when Camilla noticed the writing.

"From Pearl," she said eagerly. "How is Pearl? Come in, please, while I read the letter--it may require an answer."