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Stanley Weyman - "The House of the Wolf"

Aristotle - "Poetics"

Christopher Marlowe - "Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1"

Thomas Wentworth Higginson - "Oldport Days"

Laddie, A True Blue Story

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




"I hope so," she answered, "but I can't help feeling dreadfully
nervous. If things go wrong with Laddie, it will spoil the day."

"I have much faith in the Princess' good common sense," replied
father, "and considering what it means to Laddie, it would hurt
me sore to lose it."

Mother sat still, but her lips moved so that I knew she was
making soft little whispered prayers for her best loved son. But
Laddie, plowing through the drift, never dreamed that all of us
were with him. He was always better looking than any other man I
ever had seen, but when, two hours later, he stamped into the
kitchen he was so much handsomer than usual, that I knew from the
flush on his cheek and the light in his eye, that the Princess
had been kind, and by the package in his hand, that she had made
him a present. He really had two, a beautiful book and a
necktie. I wondered to my soul if she gave him that, so she
could fix it! I didn't believe she had begun on his ties at that
time; but of course when he loved her as he did, he wished she
would.

It was the very jolliest Christmas we ever had, but the day
seemed long. When night came we were in a precious bustle. The
wagon bed on bobs, filled with hay and covers, drawn by Ned and
Jo, was brought up for the family, and the sleigh made spick-and-
span and drawn by Laddie's thoroughbred, stood beside it. Laddie
had filled the kitchen oven with bricks and hung up a comfort at
four o'clock to keep the Princess warm.

Because he had to drive out of the way to bring her, Laddie
wanted to start early; and when he came down dressed in his
college clothes, and looking the manliest of men, some of the
folks thought it funny to see him carefully rake his hot bricks
from the oven, and pin them in an old red breakfast shawl. I
thought it was fine, and I whispered to mother: "Do you suppose
that if Laddie ever marries the Princess he will be good to her
as he is to you?"

Mother nodded with tear-dimmed eyes, but Shelley said: "I'll
wager a strong young girl like the Princess will laugh at you for
babying over her."

"Why?" inquired Laddie. "It is a long drive and a bitter night,
and if you fancy the Princess will laugh at anything I do, when I
am doing the best I know for her comfort, you are mistaken. At
least, that is the impression she gave me this morning."

I saw the swift glance mother shot at father, and father laid
down his paper and said, while he pretended his glasses needed
polishing: "Now there is the right sort of a girl for you. No
foolishness about her, when she has every chance. Hurrah for the
Princess!"

It was easy to see that she wasn't going to have nearly so hard a
time changing father's opinion as she would mother's. It was not
nearly a year yet, and here he was changed already. Laddie said
good-bye to mother--he never forgot--gathered up his comfort and
bricks, and started for Pryors' downright happy. We went to the
schoolhouse a little later, all of us scoured, curled, starched,
and wearing our very best clothes. My! but it was fine. There
were many lights in the room and it was hung with greens. There
was a crowd even though it was early. On Miss Amelia's table was
a volume of history that was the prize, and every one was looking
and acting the very best he knew how, although there were cases
where they didn't know so very much.

Our Shelley was the handsomest girl there, until the Princess
came, and then they both were. Shelley wore one of her city
frocks and a quilted red silk hood that was one of her Christmas
gifts, and she looked just like a handsome doll. She made every
male creature in that room feel that she was pining for him
alone. May had a gay plaid frock and curls nearly a yard long,
and so had I, but both our frocks and curls were homemade; mother
would have them once in a while; father and I couldn't stop her.

But there was not a soul there who didn't have some sort of gift
to rejoice over, and laughter and shouts of "Merry Christmas!"
filled the room. It was growing late and there was some talk of
choosers, when the door opened and in a rush of frosty air the
Princess and Laddie entered. Every one stopped short and stared.

There was good reason. The Princess looked as if she had
accidentally stepped from a frame. She was always lovely and
beautifully dressed, but to-night she was prettier and finer than
ever before. You could fairly hear their teeth click as some of
the most envious of those girls caught sight of her, for she was
wearing a new hat!--a black velvet store hat, fitting closely
over her crown, with a rim of twisted velvet, a scarlet bird's
wing, and a big silver buckle. Her dress was of scarlet cloth
cut in forms, and it fitted as if she had been melted and poured
into it. It was edged around the throat, wrists, and skirt with
narrow bands of fur, and she wore a loose, long, silk-lined coat
of the same material, and worst of all, furs--furs such as we had
heard wealthy and stylish city ladies were wearing. A golden
brown cape that reached to her elbows, with ends falling to the
knees, finished in the tails of some animal, and for her hands a
muff as big as a nail keg.

Now, there was not a girl in that room, except the Princess, an
she had those clothes, who wouldn't have flirted like a peacock,
almost bursting with pride; but because the Princess had them,
and they didn't, they sat stolid and sullen, and cast glances at
each other as if they were saying: "The stuck-up thing!"
"Thinks she's smart, don't she?"

Many of them should have gone to meet her and made her welcome,
for she was not of our district and really their guest. Shelley
did go, but I noticed she didn't hurry.

The choosers began at once, and Laddie was the first person
called for our side, and the Princess for the visitors'. Every
one in the room was chosen on one side or the other; even my name
was called, but I only sat still and shook my head, for I very
well knew that no one except father would remember to pronounce
easy ones for me, and besides I was so bitterly disappointed I
could scarcely have stood up. They had put me in a seat near the
fire; the spellers lined either wall, and a goodly number that
refused to spell occupied the middle seats. I couldn't get a
glimpse of Laddie or the home folks, or worst of all, of my
idolized Princess.

I never could bear to find a fault with Laddie, but I sadly
reflected that he might as well have left me at home, if I were
to be buried where I could neither hear nor see a thing. I was
just wishing it was summer so I could steal out to the cemetery,
and have a good visit with the butterflies that always swarmed
around Georgiana Jane Titcomb's grave at the corner of the
church. I never knew Georgiana Jane, but her people must have
been very fond of her, for her grave was scarlet with geraniums,
and pink with roses from earliest spring until frost, and the
bright colours attracted swarms of butterflies. I had learned
that if I stuck a few blossoms in my hair, rubbed some sweet
smelling ones over my hands, and knelt and kept so quiet that I
fitted into the landscape, the butterflies would think me a
flower too, and alight on my hair, dress, and my hands, even.
God never made anything more beautiful than those butterflies,
with their wings of brightly painted velvet down, their bright
eyes, their curious antennae, and their queer, tickly feet.
Laddie had promised me a book telling all about every kind there
was, the first time he went to a city, so I was wishing I had it,
and was among my pet beauties with it, when I discovered him
bending over me.

He took my arm, and marching back to his place, helped me to the
deep window seat beside him, where with my head on a level, and
within a foot of his, I could see everything in the whole room.
I don't know why I ever spent any time pining for the beauties of
Georgiana Jane Titcomb's grave, even with its handsome headstone
on which was carved a lamb standing on three feet and holding a
banner over its shoulder with the fourth, and the geraniums,
roses, and the weeping willow that grew over it, thrown in. I
might have trusted Laddie. He never had forgotten me; until he
did, I should have kept unwavering faith.

Now, I had the best place of any one in the room, and I smoothed
my new plaid frock and shook my handmade curls just as near like
Shelley as ever I could. But it seems that most of the ointment
in this world has a fly in it, like in the Bible, for fine as my
location was, I soon knew that I should ask Laddie to put me
down, because the window behind me didn't fit its frame, and the
night was bitter. Before half an hour I was stiff with cold; but
I doubt if I would have given up that location if I had known I
would freeze, because this was the most fun I had ever seen.

Miss Amelia began with McGuffey's spelling book, and whenever
some poor unfortunate made a bad break the crowd roared with
laughter. Peter Justice stood up to spell and before three
rounds he was nodding on his feet, so she pronounced "sleepy" to
him. Some one nudged Pete and he waked up and spelled it, s-l-e,
sle, p-e, pe, and because he really was so sleepy it made every
one laugh. James Whittaker spelled compromise with a k, and
Isaac Thomas spelled soap, s-o-a-p-e, and it was all the funnier
that he couldn't spell it, for from his looks you could tell that
he had no acquaintance with it in any shape. Then Miss Amelia
gave out "marriage" to the spooniest young man in the district,
and "stepfather" to a man who was courting a widow with nine
children; and "coquette" to our Shelley, who had been making
sheep's eyes at Johnny Myers, so it took her by surprise and she
joined the majority, which by that time occupied seats.

There was much laughing and clapping of hands for a time, but
when Miss Amelia had let them have their fun and thinned the
lines to half a dozen on each side who could really spell, she
began business, and pronounced the hardest words she could find
in the book, and the spellers caught them up and rattled them off
like machines.

"Incompatibility," she gave out, and before the sound of her
voice died away the Princess was spelling: "I-n, in, c-o-m, com,
in com, p-a-t, pat, incompat, i, incompati, b-i-l, bil,
incompatibil, i, incompatibili, t-y, ty, incompatibility."

Then Laddie spelled "incomprehensibility," and they finished up
the "bilities" and the "alities" with a rush and changed
McGuffey's for Webster, with five on Laddie's side and three on
the Princess', and when they quit with it, the Princess was
alone, and Laddie and our little May facing her.

From that on you could call it real spelling. They spelled from
the grammars, hyperbole, synecdoche, and epizeuxis. They spelled
from the physiology, chlorophyll, coccyx, arytenoid, and the
names of the bones and nerves, and all the hard words inside you.

They tried the diseases and spelled jaundice, neurasthenia, and
tongue-tied. They tried all the occupations and professions, and
went through the stores and spelled all sorts of hardware, china
and dry goods. Each side kept cheering its own and urging them
to do their best, and every few minutes some man in the back of
the house said something that was too funny. When Miss Amelia
pronounced "bombazine" to Laddie our side cried, "Careful,
Laddie, careful! you're out of your element!"

And when she gave "swivel-tree" to the Princess, her side
whispered, "Go easy! Do you know what it is? Make her define
it."

They branched over the country. May met her Jonah on the
mountains. Katahdin was too much for her, and Laddie and the
Princess were left to fight it out alone. I didn't think Laddie
liked it. I'm sure he never expected it to turn out that way.
He must have been certain he could beat her, for after he
finished English there were two or three other languages he knew,
and every one in the district felt that he could win, and
expected him to do it. It was an awful place to put him in, I
could see that. He stood a little more erect than usual, with
his eyes toward the Princess, and when his side kept crying,
"Keep the prize, Laddie! Hold up the glory of the district!" he
ground out the words as if he had a spite at them for not being
so hard that he would have an excuse for going down.

The Princess was poised lightly on her feet, her thick curls,
just touching her shoulders, shining in the light; her eyes like
stars, her perfect, dark oval face flushed a rich red, and her
deep bosom rising and falling with excitement. Many times in
later years I have tried to remember when the Princess was
loveliest of all, and that night always stands first.

I was thinking fast. Laddie was a big man. Men were strong on
purpose so they could bear things. He loved the Princess so, and
he didn't know whether she loved him or not; and every
marriageable man in three counties was just aching for the chance
to court her, and I didn't feel that he dared risk hurting her
feelings.

Laddie said, to be the man who conquered the Princess and to whom
she lifted her lips for a first kiss was worth life itself. I
made up my mind that night that he knew just exactly what he was
talking about. I thought so too. And I seemed to understand why
Laddie--Laddie in his youth, strength, and manly beauty, Laddie,
who boasted that there was not a nerve in his body--trembled
before the Princess.

It looked as if she had set herself against him and was working
for the honours, and if she wanted them, I didn't feel that he
should chance beating her, and then, too, it was beginning to be
plain that it was none too sure he could. Laddie didn't seem to
be the only one who had been well drilled in spelling.

I held my jaws set a minute, so that I could speak without Laddie
knowing how I was shivering, and then I whispered: "Except her
eyes are softer, she looks just like a cardinal."

Laddie nodded emphatically and moving a step nearer laid his
elbow across my knees. Heavens, how they spelled! They finished
all the words I ever heard and spelled like lightning through a
lot of others the meaning of which I couldn't imagine. Father
never gave them out at home. They spelled epiphany, gaberdine,
ichthyology, gewgaw, kaleidoscope, and troubadour. Then Laddie
spelled one word two different ways; and the Princess went him
one better, for she spelled another three.

They spelled from the Bible, Nebuchadnezzar, Potiphar, Peleg,
Belshazzar, Abimelech, and a host of others I never heard the
minister preach about. Then they did the most dreadful thing of
all. "Broom," pronounced the teacher, and I began mentally, b-r-
o-o-m, but Laddie spelled "b-r-o-u-g-h-a-m," and I stared at him
in a daze. A second later Miss Amelia gave out "Beecham" to the
Princess, and again I tried it, b-e-e-c-h, but the Princess was
spelling "B-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p," and I almost fell from the window.

They kept that up until I was nearly crazy with nervousness; I
forgot I was half frozen. I pulled Laddie's sleeve and whispered
in his ear: "Do you think she'll cry if you beat her?"

I was half crying myself, the strain had been awful. I was torn
between these dearest loves of mine.

"Seen me have any chance to beat her?" retorted Laddie.

Miss Amelia seemed to have used most of her books, and at last
picked up an old geography and began giving out points around the
coast, while Laddie and the Princess took turns snatching the
words from her mouth and spelling them. Father often did that,
so Laddie was safe there. They were just going it when Miss
Amelia pronounced, "Terra del Fuego," to the Princess. "T-e-r-r-
a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-i-e-u-g-o," spelled the Princess, and sat
down suddenly in the midst of a mighty groan from her side,
swelled by a wail from one little home district deserter.

"Next!" called Miss Amelia.

"T-e-r-r-a, Terra, d-e-l, del, F-e-u-g-o," spelled Laddie.

"Wrong!" wailed Miss Amelia, and our side breathed one big groan
in concert, and I lifted up my voice in that also. Then every
one laughed and pretended they didn't care, and the Princess came
over and shook hands with Laddie, and Laddie said to Miss Amelia:

"Just let me take that book a minute until I see how the thing
really does go." It was well done and satisfied the crowd, which
clapped and cheered; but as I had heard him spell it many, many
times for father, he didn't fool me.

Laddie and the Princess drew slips for the book and it fell to
her. He was so pleased he kissed me as he lifted me down and
never noticed I was so stiff I could scarcely stand--and I did
fall twice going to the sleigh. My bed was warm and my room was
warm, but I chilled the night through and until the next
afternoon, when I grew so faint and sleepy I crept to Miss
Amelia's desk, half dead with fright--it was my first trip to ask
an excuse--and begged: "Oh teacher, I'm so sick. Please let me
go home."

I think one glance must have satisfied her that it was true, for
she said very kindly that I might, and she would send Leon along
to take care of me. But my troubles were only half over when I
had her consent. It was very probable I would be called a baby
and sent back when I reached home, so I refused company and
started alone. It seemed a mile past the cemetery. I was so
tired I stopped, and leaning against the fence, peeped through at
the white stones and the whiter mounds they covered, and wondered
how my mother would feel if she were compelled to lay me beside
the two little whooping cough and fever sisters already sleeping
there. I decided that it would be so very dreadful, that the
tears began to roll down my cheeks and freeze before they fell.

Down the Big Hill slowly I went. How bare it looked then! Only
leafless trees and dried seed pods rattling on the bushes, the
sand frozen, and not a rush to be seen for the thick blanket of
snow. A few rods above the bridge was a footpath, smooth and
well worn, that led down to the creek, beaten by the feet of
children who raced it every day and took a running slide across
the ice. I struck into the path as always; but I was too stiff
to run, for I tried. I walked on the ice, and being almost worn
out, sat on the bridge and fell to watching the water bubbling
under the glassy crust. I was so dull a horse's feet struck the
bridge before I heard the bells--for I had bells in my ears that
day--and when I looked up it was the Princess--the Princess in
her red dress and furs, with a silk hood instead of her hat, her
sleigh like a picture, with a buffalo robe, that it was whispered
about the country, cost over a hundred dollars, and her
thoroughbred mare Maud dancing and prancing. "Bless me! Is it
you, Little Sister?" she asked. "Shall I give you a ride home?"

Before I could scarcely realize she was there, I was beside her
and she was tucking the fine warm robe over me. I lifted a pair
of dull eyes to her face.

"Oh Princess, I am so glad you came," I said. "I don't think I
could have gone another step if I had frozen on the bridge."

The Princess bent to look in my face. "Why, you poor child!" She
exclaimed, "you're white as death! Where are you ill?"

I leaned on her shoulder, though ordinarily I would not have
offered to touch her first, and murmured: "I am not ill,
outdoors, only dull, sleepy, and freezing with the cold."

"It was that window!" she exclaimed. "I thought of it, but I
trusted Laddie."

That roused me a little.

"Oh Princess," I cried, "you mustn't blame Laddie! I knew it was
too cold, but I wouldn't tell him, because if he put me down I
couldn't see you, and we thought, but for your eyes being softer,
you looked just like a cardinal."

The Princess hugged me close and laughed merrily. "You darling!"
she cried.

Then she shook me up sharply: "Don't you dare go to sleep!" she
said. "I must take you home first."

Once there she quieted my mother's alarm, put me to bed, drove
three miles for Dr. Fenner and had me started nicely on the road
to a month of lung fever, before she left. In my delirium I
spelled volumes; and the miracle of it was I never missed a word
until I came to "Terra del Fuego," and there I covered my lips
and stoutly insisted that it was the Princess' secret.

To keep me from that danger sleep on the road, she shook me up
and asked about the spelling bee. I thought it was the grandest
thing I had ever seen in my life, and I told her so. She
gathered me close and whispered: "Tell me something, Little
Sister, please."

The minx! She knew I thought that a far finer title than hers.

"Would Laddie care?" I questioned.

"Not in the least!"

"Well then, I will."

"Can Laddie spell `Terra del Fuego?'" she whispered.

I nodded.

"Are you sure?"

"I have heard him do it over and over for father."

The Princess forgot I was so sick, forgot her horse, forgot
everything. She threw her head back and her hands up, until her
horse stopped in answer to the loosened line, and she laughed and
laughed. She laughed until peal on peal re-echoed from our Big
Woods clear across the west eighty. She laughed until her
ringing notes set my slow pulses on fire, and started my numbed
brain in one last effort. I stood up and took her lovely face
between my palms, turning it until I could see whether the
thought that had come to me showed in her eyes, and it did.

"Oh you darling, splendid Princess!" I cried. "You missed it on
purpose to let Laddie beat! You can spell it too!"



CHAPTER XII

The Horn of the Hunter

"The dusky night rides down the sky,
And ushers in the morn:
The hounds all join in glorious cry,
The huntsman winds his horn."

Leon said our house reminded him of the mourners' bench before
any one had "come through." He said it was so deadly with Sally
and Shelley away, that he had a big notion to marry Susie Fall
and bring her over to liven things up a little. Mother said she
thought that would be a good idea, and Leon started in the
direction of Falls', but he only went as far as Deams'. When he
came back he had a great story to tell about dogs chasing their
sheep, and foxes taking their geese. Father said sheep were only
safe behind securely closed doors, especially in winter, and
geese also. Leon said every one hadn't as big a barn as ours,
and father said there was nothing to prevent any man from
building the sized barn he needed to shelter his creatures in
safety and comfort, if he wanted to dig in and earn the money to
put it up. There was no answer to that, and Mr. Leon didn't try
to make any. Mostly, he said something to keep on talking, but
sometimes he saw when he had better quit.

I was having a good time, myself. Of course when the fever was
the worst, and when I never had been sick before, it was pretty
bad, but as soon as I could breathe all right, there was no pain
to speak of, and every one was so good to me. I could have Bobby
on the footboard of my bed as long as I wanted him, and he would
crow whenever I told him to. I kept Grace Greenwood beside me,
and spoiled her dress making her take some of each dose of
medicine I did, but Shelley wrote that she was saving goods and
she would make her another as soon as she came home. I made
mother put red flannel on Grace's chest and around her neck,
until I could hardly find her mouth when she had to take her
medicine, but she swallowed it down all right, or she got her
nose held, until she did. She was not nearly so sick as I was,
though. We both grew better together, and, when Dr. Fenner
brought me candy, she had her share.

When I began to get well it was lovely. Such toast, chicken
broth, and squirrels, as mother always had. I even got the
chicken liver, oranges, and all of them gave me everything they
had that I wanted--I must almost have died to make them act like
that!

Laddie and father would take me up wrapped in blankets and hold
me to rest my back. Father would rock me and sing about "Young
Johnny," just as he had when I was little. We always laughed at
it, we knew it was a fool song, but we liked it. The tune was
smooth and sleepy-like and the words went:

"One day young Johnny, he did go,
Way down in the meadow for to mow.
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

He scarce had mowed twice round the field,
When a pesky sarpent bit him on the heel,
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

He threw the scythe upon the ground,
An' shut his eyes, and looked all round,
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

He took the sarpent in his hand,
And then ran home to Molly Bland,
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

O Molly dear, and don't you see,
This pesky sarpent that bit me?
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

O Johnny dear, why did you go,
Way down in the meadow fot to mow?
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!

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