Sowing Seeds in Danny Part 22

August 9th.--Mrs. Motherwell is gittin' kinder, I think. When I was gittin' the tub for Arthur yesterday, and gittin' water het, she said, "What are you doin', Pearl?" I says, "gittin' Arthur a bath." She says, "Dear me, it's a pity about him." I says, "Yes'm, but he'll feel better now." She says, "Duz he want anyone to wash his back?"--I says, "I don't know, but I'll ask him," and I did, too; but he says, "No, thanks awfully."

August 10th.--The English Church minister called one day to see Arthur.

He read some of the Bible to us and then he gave us a dandy prayer. He didn't make it--it was a bot one.

There's wild parsley down on the crik. Mrs. M. sed't wuz poison, but I wanted to be sure, so I et it, and it isn't. There's wild sage all over, purple an lovely. I pickt a big lot ov it, to taik home--we mite have a turkey this winter.

August 11th.--I hope tom's happy; it's offel to be in love. I hope I'll never be.

My hands are pretty sore pullin' weeds, but I like it; I pertend it's bad habits I'm rootin' out.

Arthur's offel good: he duz all the work he can for me, and he sings for me and tells me about his uncle the Bishop. His uncle's got servants and leggin's and lots of things. Arthur's been kind of sick lately.

I made verses one day, there not very nice, but there true--I saw it:

The little lams are beautiful, There cotes are soft and nice, The little calves have ringworm, And the 2-year olds have lice!

Now I'm going' to make more; it seems to bad to leve it like that.

It must be very nasty, But to worrie, what's the use; Better be cam and cheerfull, And appli tobaka jooce.

Sometimes I feal like gittin' lonesum but I jist keep puttin' it of. I say to myself I won't git lonesum till I git this cow milked, and then I say o shaw I might as well do another, and then I say I won't git lonesum till I git the pails washed and the flore scrubbed, and I keep settin' it of and settin' it of till I forgit I was goin' to be.

One day I wuz jist gittin' reddy to cry. I could feel tears startin' in my hart, and my throte all hot and lumpy, thinkin' of ma and Danny an'

all of them, and I noticed the teakettle just in time--it neaded skourin'. You bet I put a s.h.i.+ne on it, and, of course, I couldn't dab tears on it and muss it up, so I had to wait. Mrs. M. duzn't talk to me. She has a morgage or a cancer I think botherin' her. Ma knowed a woman once, and everybuddy thot she was terrible cross cos she wouldn't talk at all hardly and when she died, they found she'd a tumult in her insides, and then you bet they felt good and sorry, when we're cross at home ma says it's not the strap we need, but a good dose of kastor oil or Seany and we git it too.

I gess I got Bugsey's and Patsey's bed paid fer now. Now I'll do Teddy's and Jimmy's. This ain't a blot it's the liniment Mrs. McGuire gave me. I have it on me hands.

I'm gittin on to be therteen soon. 13 is pretty old I gess. I'll soon turn the corner now and be lookin' 20 square in the face--I'll never be homesick then. I ain't lonesome now either--it's just sleep that's in my eyes smuggin them up.

Jim Russell is offel good to go to town he doesn't seem to mind it a bit. Once I said I wisht I'd told Camilla to remind Jimmy to spit on his warts every day--he's offell careless, and Jim said he'd tell Camilla, and he often asks me if I want to tell Camilla anything, and it's away out of his rode to go round to Mrs. Francis house too. I like Jim you bet.

CHAPTER XX

TOM'S NEW VIEWPOINT

Pearl was quite disappointed in Tom's appearance the morning after the party. Egbert always wore a glorified countenance after he had seen Edythe; but Tom looked sleepy and somewhat cross.

He went to his work discontentedly. His mother's moroseness annoyed him. His father's hard face had never looked so forbidding to him as it did that morning. Mrs. Slater's hearty welcome, her good-natured motherly smiles, Mr. Slater's genial and kindly ways, contrasted sharply with his own home life, and it rankled in him.

"It's dead easy for them Slater boys to be smart and good, too," he thought bitterly; "they are brought right up to it. They may not have much money, but look at the fun they have. George and Fred will be off to college soon, and it must be fun in the city,--they're dressed up all the time, ridin' round on street cars, and with no ch.o.r.es to do."

The trees on the poplar bluff where he had made his toilet the evening before were beginning to show the approach of autumn, although there had been no frost. Pale yellow and rust coloured against the green of their hardier neighbours, they rippled their coin-like leaves in glad good-will as he drove past them on his way to the hayfield.

The sun had risen red and angry, giving to every cloud in the sky a facing of gold, and long streamers shot up into the blue of the mid-heaven.

There is no hour of the day so hushed and beautiful as the early morning, when the day is young, fresh from the hand of G.o.d. It is a new page, clean and white and pure, and the angel is saying unto us "Write!" and none there be who may refuse to obey. It may be gracious deeds and kindly words that we write upon it in letters of gold, or it may be that we blot and blur it with evil thoughts and stain it with unworthy actions, but write we must!

The demon of discontent laid hold on Tom that morning as he worked in the hayfield. New forces were at work in the boy's heart, forces mighty for good or evil.

A great disgust for his surrounding filled him. He could see from where he worked the big stone house, bare and gray. It was a place to eat in, a place to sleep in, the same as a prison. He had never known any real enjoyment there. He knew it would all be his some day, and he tried to feel the pride of possession, but he could not--he hated it.

He saw around him everywhere the abundance of harvest--the grain that meant money. Money! It was the greatest thing in the world. He had been taught to chase after it--to grasp it--then hide it, and chase again after more. His father put money in the bank every year, and never saw it again. When money was banked it had fulfilled its highest mission.

Then they drew that wonderful thing called interest, money without work--and banked it--Oh, it was a great game!

It was the first glimmerings of manhood that was stirring in Tom's heart that morning, the new independence, the new individualism.

Before this he had accepted everything his father and mother had said or done without question. Only once before had he doubted them. It was several years before. A man named Skinner had bought from Tom's father the quarter section that Jim Russell now farmed, paying down a considerable sum of money, but evil days fell upon the man and his wife; sickness, discouragement, and then, the man began to drink. He was unable to keep up his payments and Tom's father had foreclosed the mortgage. Tom remembered the day the Skinners had left their farm, the woman was packing their goods into a box. She was a faded woman in a faded wrapper, and her tears were falling as she worked. Tom saw her tears falling, and he had told her with the awful cruelty of a child that it was their own fault that they had lost the farm. The woman had shrunk back as if he had struck her and cried "Oh, no! No! Tom, don't say that, child, you don't know what you say," then putting her hands on his shoulders she had looked straight into his face--he remembered that she had lost some teeth in front, and that her eyes were sweet and kind. "Some day, dear," she said, "when you are a man, you will remember with shame and sorrow that you once spoke hard to a broken-hearted, homeless woman." Tom had gone home wondering and vaguely unhappy, and could not eat his supper that night.

He remembered it all now, remembered it with a start, and with a sudden tightening of his heart that burned and chilled him. The hot blood rushed into his head and throbbed painfully.

He looked at the young Englishman who was loading the hay on the rack, with a sudden impulse. But Arthur was wrapped in his own mask of insular reserve, and so saw nothing of the storm that was sweeping over the boy's soul.

Then the very spirit of evil laid hold on Tom. When the powers of good are present in the heart, and can find no outlet in action, they turn to evil. Tom had the desire to be kind and generous; ambition was stirring in him. His sullenness and discontent were but the outward signs of the inward ferment. He could not put into action the powers for good without breaking away, in a measure at least, from his father and mother.

He felt that he had to do something. He was hungry for the society of other young people like himself. He wanted life and action and excitement.

There is one place where a young man can always go and find life and gaiety and good-fellows.h.i.+p. One door stands invitingly open to all.

When the church of G.o.d is cold and dark and silent, and the homes of Christ's followers are closed except to the chosen few, the bar-room throws out its evil welcome to the young man on the street.

Tom had never heard any argument against intemperance, only that it was expensive. Now he hated all the petty meanness that he had been so carefully taught.

The first evening that Tom went into the bar-room of the Millford hotel he was given a royal welcome. They were a jolly crowd! They knew how to enjoy life, Tom told himself. What's the good of money if you can't have a little fun with it?

Tom had never had much money of his own, he had never needed it or thought anything about it. Now the injustice of it rankled in him. He had to have money. It was his. He worked for it. He would just take it, and then if it was missed he would tell his father and mother that he had taken it--taking your own is not stealing--and he would tell them so and have it out with them.

Thus the enemy sowed the tares.

CHAPTER XXI

A CRACK IN THE GRANITE

While Pearl was writing her experiences in her little red book, Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell were in the kitchen below reading a letter which Mr.

Motherwell had just brought from the post office. It read as follows:

BRANDON HOSPITAL, August 10th.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell: I know it will be at least some slight comfort for you to know that the poppies you sent Polly reached her in time to be the very greatest comfort to her. Her joy at seeing them and holding them in her hands would have been your reward if you could have seen it, and although she had been delirious up to that time for several days, the sight of the poppies seemed to call her mind back.

She died very peacefully and happily at daybreak this morning. She was a sweet and lovable girl and we had all grown very fond of her, as I am sure you did, too.

May G.o.d abundantly bless you, dear Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell, for your kind thoughtfulness to this poor lonely girl. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me."

Yours cordially,