Laddie, A True Blue Story

G >> Gene Stratton Porter >> Laddie, A True Blue Story

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33

LADDIE
A TRUE BLUE STORY

To
LEANDER ELLIOT STRATTON
"The Way to Be Happy Is to Be Good"

Contents

CHAPTER
I. Little Sister
II. Our Angel Boy
III. Mr. Pryor's Door
IV. The Last Day in Eden
V. The First Day of School
VI. The Wedding Gown
VII. When Sally Married Peter
VIII. The Shropshire and the Crusader
IX. "Even So"
X. Laddie Takes the Plunge
XI. Keeping Christmas Our Way
XII. The Horn of the Hunter
XIII. The Garden of the Lord
XIV. The Crest of Eastbrooke
XV. Laddie, the Princess, and the Pie
XVI. The Homing Pigeon
XVII. In Faith Believing
XVIII. The Pryor Mystery

LADDIE

CHARACTERS

LADDIE, Who Loved and Asked No Questions.
THE PRINCESS, From the House of Mystery.
LEON, Our Angel Child.
LITTLE SISTER, Who Tells What Happened.
MR. and MRS. STANTON, Who Faced Life Shoulder to Shoulder.
SALLY and PETER, Who Married Each Other.
ELIZABETH, SHELLEY, MAY and Other Stanton Children.
MR. and MRS. PRYOR, Father and Mother of the Princess.
ROBERT PAGET, a Chicago Lawyer.
MRS. FRESHETT, Who Offered Her Life for Her Friend.
CANDACE, the Cook.
MISS AMELIA, the School Mistress.
Interested Relatives, Friends, and Neighbours.

CHAPTER I

Little Sister

"And could another child-world be my share,
I'd be a Little Sister there."

Have I got a Little Sister anywhere in this house?" inquired
Laddie at the door, in his most coaxing voice.

"Yes sir," I answered, dropping the trousers I was making for
Hezekiah, my pet bluejay, and running as fast as I could. There
was no telling what minute May might take it into her head that
she was a little sister and reach him first. Maybe he wanted me
to do something for him, and I loved to wait on Laddie.

"Ask mother if you may go with me a while."

"Mother doesn't care where I am, if I come when the supper bell
rings."

"All right!" said Laddie.

He led the way around the house, sat on the front step and took
me between his knees.

"Oh, is it going to be a secret?" I cried.

Secrets with Laddie were the greatest joy in life. He was so big
and so handsome. He was so much nicer than any one else in our
family, or among our friends, that to share his secrets, run his
errands, and love him blindly was the greatest happiness.
Sometimes I disobeyed father and mother; I minded Laddie like his
right hand.

"The biggest secret yet," he said gravely.

"Tell quick!" I begged, holding my ear to his lips.

"Not so fast!" said Laddie. "Not so fast! I have doubts about
this. I don't know that I should send you. Possibly you can't
find the way. You may be afraid. Above all, there is never to
be a whisper. Not to any one! Do you understand?"

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"Something serious," said Laddie. "You see, I expected to have
an hour or two for myself this afternoon, so I made an engagement
to spend the time with a Fairy Princess in our Big Woods. Father
and I broke the reaper taking it from the shed just now and you
know how he is about Fairies."

I did know how he was about Fairies. He hadn't a particle of
patience with them. A Princess would be the Queen's daughter.
My father's people were English, and I had heard enough talk to
understand that. I was almost wild with excitement.

"Tell me the secret, hurry!" I cried.

"It's just this," he said. "It took me a long time to coax the
Princess into our Big Woods. I had to fix a throne for her to
sit on; spread a Magic Carpet for her feet, and build a wall to
screen her. Now, what is she going to think if I'm not there to
welcome her when she comes? She promised to show me how to make
sunshine on dark days."

"Tell father and he can have Leon help him."

"But it is a secret with the Princess, and it's HERS as much as
mine. If I tell, she may not like it, and then she won't make me
her Prince and send me on her errands."

"Then you don't dare tell a breath," I said.

"Will you go in my place, and carry her a letter to explain why
I'm not coming, Little Sister?"

"Of course!" I said stoutly, and then my heart turned right over;
for I never had been in our Big Woods alone, and neither mother
nor father wanted me to go. Passing Gypsies sometimes laid down
the fence and went there to camp. Father thought all the wolves
and wildcats were gone, he hadn't seen any in years, but every
once in a while some one said they had, and he was not quite sure
yet. And that wasn't the beginning of it. Paddy Ryan had come
back from the war wrong in his head. He wore his old army
overcoat summer and winter, slept on the ground, and ate whatever
he could find. Once Laddie and Leon, hunting squirrels to make
broth for mother on one of her bad days, saw him in our Big Woods
and he was eating SNAKES. If I found Pat Ryan eating a snake, it

would frighten me so I would stand still and let him eat me, if
he wanted to, and perhaps he wasn't too crazy to see how plump I
was. I seemed to see swarthy, dark faces, big, sleek cats
dropping from limbs, and Paddy Ryan's matted gray hair, the
flying rags of the old blue coat, and a snake in his hands.
Laddie was slipping the letter into my apron pocket. My knees
threatened to let me down.

"Must I lift the leaves and hunt for her, or will she come to
me?" I wavered.

"That's the biggest secret of all," said Laddie. "Since the
Princess entered them, our woods are Enchanted, and there is no
telling what wonderful things may happen any minute. One of them
is this: whenever the Princess comes there, she grows in size
until she is as big as, say our Sally, and she fills all the
place with glory, until you are so blinded you scarcely can see
her face."

"What is she like, Laddie?" I questioned, so filled with awe and
interest, that fear was forgotten.

"She is taller than Sally," said Laddie. "Her face is oval, and
her cheeks are bright. Her eyes are big moonlit pools of
darkness, and silken curls fall over her shoulders. One hair is
strong enough for a lifeline that will draw a drowning man
ashore, or strangle an unhappy one. But you will not see her.
I'm purposely sending you early, so you can do what you are told
and come back to me before she even reaches the woods."

"What am I to do, Laddie?"

"You must put one hand in your apron pocket and take the letter
in it, and as long as you hold it tight, nothing in the world can
hurt you. Go out our lane to the Big Woods, climb the gate and
walk straight back the wagon road to the water. When you reach
that, you must turn to your right and go toward Hoods' until you
come to the pawpaw thicket. Go around that, look ahead, and
you'll see the biggest beech tree you ever saw. You know a
beech, don't you?"

"Of course I do," I said indignantly. "Father taught me beech
with the other trees."

"Well then," said Laddie, "straight before you will be a purple
beech, and under it is the throne of the Princess, the Magic
Carpet, and the walls I made. Among the beech roots there is a
stone hidden with moss. Roll the stone back and there will be a
piece of bark. Lift that, lay the letter in the box you'll find,
and scamper to me like flying. I'll be at the barn with father."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite," said Laddie. "It's possible that the Fairy Queen
may have set the Princess spinning silk for the caterpillars to
weave their little houses with this winter; and if she has, she
may have left a letter there to tell me. If there is one, put it
in your pocket, hold it close every step of the way, and you'll
be safe coming home as you were going. But you mustn't let a
soul see it; you must slip it into my pocket when I'm not
looking. If you let any one see, then the Magic will be spoiled,
and the Fairy won't come again."

"No one shall see," I promised.

"I knew you could be trusted," said Laddie, kissing and hugging
me hard. "Now go! If anything gets after you that such a big
girl as you really wouldn't be ashamed to be afraid of, climb on
a fence and call. I'll be listening, and I'll come flying. Now
I must hurry. Father will think it's going to take me the
remainder of the day to find the bolts he wants."

We went down the front walk between the rows of hollyhocks and
tasselled lady-slippers, out the gate, and followed the road.
Laddie held one of my hands tight, and in the other I gripped the
letter in my pocket. So long as Laddie could see me, and the
lane lay between open fields, I wasn't afraid. I was thinking so
deeply about our woods being Enchanted, and a tiny Fairy growing
big as our Sally, because she was in them, that I stepped out
bravely.

Every few days I followed the lane as far back as the Big Gate.
This stood where four fields cornered, and opened into the road
leading to the woods. Beyond it, I had walked on Sunday
afternoons with father while he taught me all the flowers, vines,
and bushes he knew, only he didn't know some of the prettiest
ones; I had to have books for them, and I was studying to learn
enough that I could find out. Or I had ridden on the wagon with
Laddie and Leon when they went to bring wood for the cookstove,
outoven, and big fireplace. But to walk! To go all alone! Not
that I didn't walk by myself over every other foot of the acres
and acres of beautiful land my father owned; but plowed fields,
grassy meadows, wood pasture, and the orchard were different. I
played in them without a thought of fear.

The only things to be careful about were a little, shiny, slender
snake, with a head as bright as mother's copper kettle, and a big
thick one with patterns on its back like those in Laddie's
geometry books, and a whole rattlebox on its tail; not to eat any
berry or fruit I didn't know without first asking father; and
always to be sure to measure how deep the water was before I
waded in alone.

But our Big Woods! Leon said the wildcats would get me there. I
sat in our catalpa and watched the Gypsies drive past every
summer. Mother hated them as hard as ever she could hate any
one, because once they had stolen some fine shirts, with linen
bosoms, that she had made by hand for father, and was bleaching
on the grass. If Gypsies should be in our west woods to-day and
steal me, she would hate them worse than ever; because my mother
loved me now, even if she didn't want me when I was born.

But you could excuse her for that. She had already bathed,
spanked, sewed for, and reared eleven babies so big and strong
not one of them ever even threatened to die. When you thought of
that, you could see she wouldn't be likely to implore the
Almighty to send her another, just to make her family even
numbers. I never felt much hurt at her, but some of the others I
never have forgiven and maybe I never will. As long as there had
been eleven babies, they should have been so accustomed to
children that they needn't all of them have objected to me, all
except Laddie, of course. That was the reason I loved him so and
tried to do every single thing he wanted me to, just the way he
liked it done. That was why I was facing the only spot on our
land where I was in the slightest afraid; because he asked me to.

If he had told me to dance a jig on the ridgepole of our barn, I
would have tried it.

So I clasped the note, set my teeth, and climbed over the gate.
I walked fast and kept my eyes straight before me. If I looked
on either side, sure as life I would see something I never had
before, and be down digging up a strange flower, chasing a
butterfly, or watching a bird. Besides, if I didn't look in the
fence corners that I passed, maybe I wouldn't see anything to
scare me. I was going along finely, and feeling better every
minute as I went down the bank of an old creek that had gone dry,
and started up the other side toward the sugar camp not far from
the Big Woods. The bed was full of weeds and as I passed
through, away! went Something among them.

Beside the camp shed there was corded wood, and the first thing I
knew, I was on top of it. The next, my hand was on the note in
my pocket. My heart jumped until I could see my apron move, and
my throat went all stiff and dry. I gripped the note and waited.

Father believed God would take care of him. I was only a little
girl and needed help much more than a man; maybe God would take
care of me. There was nothing wrong in carrying a letter to the
Fairy Princess. I thought perhaps it would help if I should
kneel on the top of the woodpile and ask God to not let anything
get me.

The more I thought about it, the less I felt like doing it,
though, because really you have no business to ask God to take
care of you, unless you KNOW you are doing right. This was
right, but in my heart I also knew that if Laddie had asked me, I
would be shivering on top of that cordwood on a hot August day,
when it was wrong. On the whole, I thought it would be more
honest to leave God out of it, and take the risk myself. That
made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold trinket in
father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each one
stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you
had to fight almost every step of the way. Those shells meant
that my father's people had gone four times, so he said; that,
although it was away far back, still each of us had a tiny share
of the blood of the Crusaders in our veins, and that it would
make us brave and strong, and whenever we were afraid, if we
would think of them, we never could do a cowardly thing or let
any one else do one before us. He said any one with Crusader
blood had to be brave as Richard the Lion-hearted. Thinking
about that helped ever so much, so I gripped the note and turned
to take one last look at the house before I made a dash for the
gate that led into the Big Woods.

Beyond our land lay the farm of Jacob Hood, and Mrs. Hood always
teased me because Laddie had gone racing after her when I was
born. She was in the middle of Monday's washing, and the bluing
settled in the rinse water and stained her white clothes in
streaks it took months to bleach out. I always liked Sarah Hood
for coming and dressing me, though, because our Sally, who was
big enough to have done it, was upstairs crying and wouldn't come
down. I liked Laddie too, because he was the only one of our
family who went to my mother and kissed her, said he was glad,
and offered to help her. Maybe the reason he went was because he
had an awful scare, but anyway he WENT, and that was enough for
me.

You see it was this way: no one wanted me; as there had been
eleven of us, every one felt that was enough. May was six years
old and in school, and my mother thought there never would be any
more babies. She had given away the cradle and divided the baby
clothes among my big married sisters and brothers, and was having
a fine time and enjoying herself the most she ever had in her
life. The land was paid for long ago; the house she had planned,
builded as she wanted it; she had a big team of matched grays and
a carriage with side lamps and patent leather trimmings; and
sometimes there was money in the bank. I do not know that there
was very much, but any at all was a marvel, considering how many
of us there were to feed, clothe, and send to college. Mother
was forty-six and father was fifty; so they felt young enough yet
to have a fine time and enjoy life, and just when things were
going best, I announced that I was halfway over my journey to
earth.

You can't blame my mother so much. She must have been tired of
babies and disliked to go back and begin all over after resting
six years. And you mustn't be too hard on my father if he was
not just overjoyed. He felt sure the cook would leave, and she
did. He knew Sally would object to a baby, when she wanted to
begin having beaus, so he and mother talked it over and sent her
away for a long visit to Ohio with father's people, and never
told her. They intended to leave her there until I was over the
colic, at least. They knew the big married brothers and sisters
would object, and they did. They said it would be embarrassing
for their children to be the nieces and nephews of an aunt or
uncle younger than themselves. They said it so often and so
emphatically that father was provoked and mother cried. Shelley
didn't like it because she was going to school in Groveville,
where Lucy, one of our married sisters, lived, and she was afraid
I would make so much work she would have to give up her books and
friends and remain at home. There never was a baby born who was
any less wanted than I was. I knew as much about it as any one
else, because from the day I could understand, all of them,
father, mother, Shelley, Sarah Hood, every one who knew, took
turns telling me how badly I was not wanted, how much trouble I
made, and how Laddie was the only one who loved me at first.
Because of that I was on the cordwood trying to find courage to
go farther. Over and over Laddie had told me himself. He had
been to visit our big sister Elizabeth over Sunday and about
eight o'clock Monday morning he came riding down the road, and
saw the most dreadful thing. There was not a curl of smoke from
the chimneys, not a tablecloth or pillowslip on the line, not a
blind raised. Laddie said his heart went--just like mine did
when the Something jumped in the creek bed, no doubt. Then he
laid on the whip and rode.

He flung the rein over the hitching post, leaped the fence and
reached the back door. The young green girl, who was all father
could get when the cook left, was crying. So were Shelley and
little May, although she said afterward she had a boil on her
heel and there was no one to poultice it. Laddie leaned against
the door casing, and it is easy enough to understand what he
thought. He told me he had to try twice before he could speak,
and then he could only ask: "What's the matter?"

Probably May never thought she would have the chance, but the
others were so busy crying harder, now that they had an audience,
that she was first to tell him: "We have got a little sister."

"Great Day!" cried Laddie. "You made me think we had a funeral!
Where is mother, and where is my Little Sister?"

He went bolting right into mother's room and kissed her like the
gladdest boy alive; because he was only a boy then, and he told
her how happy he was that she was safe, and then he ASKED for me.

He said I was the only living creature in that house who was not
shedding tears, and I didn't begin for about six months
afterward. In fact, not until Shelley taught me by pinching me
if she had to rock the cradle; then I would cry so hard mother
would have to take me. He said he didn't believe I'd ever have
learned by myself.

He took a pillow from the bed, fixed it in the rocking chair and
laid me on it. When he found that father was hitching the horses
to send Leon for Doctor Fenner, Laddie rode back after Sarah Hood
and spoiled her washing. It may be that the interest he always
took in me had its beginning in all of them scaring him with
their weeping; even Sally, whom father had to telegraph to come
home, was upstairs crying, and she was almost a woman. It may be
that all the tears they shed over not wanting me so scared Laddie
that he went farther in his welcome than he ever would have
thought of going if he hadn't done it for joy when he learned his
mother was safe. I don't care about the reason. It is enough
for me that from the hour of my birth Laddie named me Little
Sister, seldom called me anything else, and cared for me all he
possibly could to rest mother. He took me to the fields with him
in the morning and brought me back on the horse before him at
noon. He could plow with me riding the horse, drive a reaper
with me on his knees, and hoe corn while I slept on his coat in a
fence corner. The winters he was away at college left me lonely,
and when he came back for a vacation I was too happy for words.
Maybe it was wrong to love him most. I knew my mother cared for
and wanted me now. And all my secrets were not with Laddie. I
had one with father that I was never to tell so long as he lived,
but it was about the one he loved best, next after mother.
Perhaps I should never tell it, but I wouldn't be surprised if
the family knew. I followed Laddie like a faithful dog, when I
was not gripping his waving hair and riding in triumph on his
shoulders. He never had to go so fast he couldn't take me on his
back. He never was in too big a hurry to be kind. He always had
patience to explain every shell, leaf, bird, and flower I asked
about. I was just as much his when pretty young girls were
around, and the house full of company, as when we were alone.
That was the reason I was shivering on the cordwood, gripping his
letter and thinking of all these things in order to force myself
to go farther.

I was excited about the Fairies too. I often had close chances
of seeing them, but I always just missed. Now here was Laddie
writing letters and expecting answers; our Big Woods Enchanted, a
Magic Carpet and the Queen's daughter becoming our size so she
could speak with him. No doubt the Queen had her grow big as
Shelley, when she sent her on an errand to tell Laddie about how
to make sunshine; because she was afraid if she went her real
size he would accidentally step on her, he was so dreadfully big.

Or maybe her voice was so fine he could not hear what she said.
He had told me I was to hurry, and I had gone as fast as I could
until Something jumped; since, I had been settled on that
cordwood like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. I had to get
down some time; I might as well start.

I gripped the letter, slid to the ground, and ran toward the big
gate straight before me. I climbed it, clutched the note again,
and ran blindly down the road through the forest toward the
creek. I could hurry there. On either side of it I could not
have run ten steps at a time. The big trees reached so high
above me it seemed as if they would push through the floor of
Heaven. I tried to shut my ears and run so fast I couldn't hear
a sound, and so going, I soon came to the creek bank. There I
turned to my right and went slower, watching for the pawpaw
thicket. On leaving the road I thought I would have to crawl
over logs and make my way; but there seemed to be kind of a path
not very plain, but travelled enough to follow. It led straight
to the thicket. At the edge I stopped to look for the beech. It
could be reached in one breathless dash, but there seemed to be a
green enclosure, so I walked around until I found an entrance.
Once there I was so amazed I stood and stared. I was half
indignant too.

Laddie hadn't done a thing but make an exact copy of my playhouse
under the biggest maiden's-blush in our orchard. He used the
immense beech for one corner, where I had the apple tree. His
Magic Carpet was woolly-dog moss, and all the magic about it, was
that on the damp woods floor, in the deep shade, the moss had
taken root and was growing as if it always had been there. He
had been able to cut and stick much larger willow sprouts for his
walls than I could, and in the wet black mould they didn't look
as if they ever had wilted. They were so fresh and green, no
doubt they had taken root and were growing. Where I had a low
bench under my tree, he had used a log; but he had hewed the top
flat, and made a moss cover. In each corner he had set a fern as
high as my head. On either side of the entrance he had planted a
cluster of cardinal flower that was in full bloom, and around the
walls in a few places thrifty bunches of Oswego tea and foxfire,
that I would have walked miles to secure for my wild garden under
the Bartlett pear tree. It was so beautiful it took my breath
away.

"If the Queen's daughter doesn't like this," I said softly,
"she'll have to go to Heaven before she finds anything better,
for there can't be another place on earth so pretty."

It was wonderful how the sound of my own voice gave me courage,
even if it did seem a little strange. So I hurried to the beech,
knelt and slipped the letter in the box, and put back the bark
and stone. Laddie had said that nothing could hurt me while I
had the letter, so my protection was gone as soon as it left my
hands.

There was nothing but my feet to save me now. I thanked goodness
I was a fine runner, and started for the pawpaw thicket. Once
there, I paused only one minute to see whether the way to the
stream was clear, and while standing tense and gazing, I heard
something. For an instant it was every bit as bad as at the dry
creek. Then I realized that this was a soft voice singing, and I
forgot everything else in a glow of delight. The Princess was
coming!

Never in all my life was I so surprised, and astonished, and
bewildered. She was even larger than our Sally; her dress was
pale green, like I thought a Fairy's should be; her eyes were
deep and dark as Laddie had said, her hair hung from a part in
the middle of her forehead over her shoulders, and if she had
been in the sun, it would have gleamed like a blackbird's wing.
She was just as Laddie said she would be; she was so much more
beautiful than you would suppose any woman could be, I stood
there dumbly staring. I wouldn't have asked for any one more
perfectly beautiful or more like Laddie had said the Princess
would be; but she was no more the daughter of the Fairy Queen
than I was. She was not any more of a Princess. If father ever
would tell all about the little bauble he kept in the till of his
big chest, maybe she was not as near! She was no one on earth
but one of those new English people who had moved on the land
that cornered with ours on the northwest. She had ridden over
the roads, and been at our meeting house. There could be no
mistake.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33