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Anna Katherine Green - "The Filigree Ball"

H. G. Wells - "The New Machiavelli"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - "Die Wahlverwandtschaften"

Richard Jefferies - "The Story of My Heart"

Laddie, A True Blue Story

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




He picked up the crock, carried it to the creek and dipped it
full of water.

"That's too much," I objected. "She'll know she never got a
crock full from a dry vine."

"She'll think the vine bled itself dry for her sake."

"She isn't that silly."

"Well then, how silly is she?" asked Leon, spilling out half.
"About so?"

"Not so bad as that. Less yet!"

"Anything to please the ladies," said Leon, pouring out more.
Then we sat and giggled a while.

"What are you going to do now?" asked Leon.

"Play in the creek," I answered.

"All right! I'll work near you."

He rolled his trousers above his knees and took the hoe, but he
was in the water most of the time. We had to climb on the bank
when we came to the deep curve, under the stump of the old oak
that father cut because Pete Billings would climb it and yowl
like a wildcat on cold winter nights. Pete was wrong in his head
like Paddy Ryan, only worse. As we passed we heard the faintest
sounds, so we lay and looked, and there in the dark place under
the roots, where the water was deepest, huddled some of the
cunningest little downy wild ducks you ever saw. We looked at
each other and never said a word. Leon chased them out with the
hoe and they swam down stream faster than old ones. I stood in
the shallow water behind them and kept them from going back to
the deep place, while Leon worked to catch them. Every time he
got one he brought it to me, and I made a bag of my apron front
to put them in. The supper bell rang before we caught all of
them. We were dripping wet with creek water and perspiration,
but we had the ducks, every one of them, and proudly started
home. I'll wager Leon was sorry he didn't wear aprons so he
could carry them. He did keep the last one in his hands, and
held its little fluffy body against his cheeks every few minutes.

"Couldn't anything be prettier than a young duck."

"Except a little guinea," I said.

"That's so!" said Leon. "They are most as pretty as quail. I
guess all young things that have down are about as cunning as
they can be. I don't believe I know which I like best, myself."

"Baby killdeers."

"I mean tame. Things we raise."

"I'll take guineas."

"I'll say white turkeys. They seem so innocent. Nothing of ours
is pretty as these."

"But these are wild."

"So they are," said Leon. "Twelve of them. Won't mother be
pleased?"

She was not in the least. She said we were a sight to behold;
that she was ashamed to be the mother of two children who didn't
know tame ducks from wild ones. She remembered instantly that
Amanda Deam had set a speckled Dorking hen on Mallard duck
eggs, where she got the eggs, and what she paid for them. She
said the ducks had found the creek that flowed beside Deams'
barnyard before it entered our land, and they had swum away from
the hen, and both the hen and Amanda would be frantic. She put
the ducks into a basket and said to take them back soon as ever
we got our suppers, and we must hurry because we had to bathe and
learn our texts for Sunday-school in the morning.

We went through the orchard, down the hill and across the meadow
until we came to the creek. By that time we were tired of the
basket. It was one father had woven himself of shaved and soaked
hickory strips, and it was heavy. The sight of water suggested
the proper place for ducks, anyway. We talked it over and
decided that they would be much more comfortable swimming than in
the basket, and it was more fun to wade than to walk, so we went
above the deep place, I stood in the creek to keep them from
going down, and Leon poured them on the water. Pigs couldn't
have acted more contrary. Those ducks LIKED us. They wouldn't
go to Deams'. They just fought to swim back to us. Anyway, we
had the worst time you ever saw. Leon cut long switches to herd
them with, and both of us waded and tried to drive them, but they
would dart under embankments and roots, and dive and hide.

Before we reached the Deams' I wished that we had carried them as
mother told us, for we had lost three, and if we stopped to hunt
them, more would hide. By the time we drove them under the
floodgate crossing the creek between our land and the Deams' four
were gone. Leon left me on the gate with both switches to keep
them from going back and he ran to call Mrs. Deam. She had red
hair and a hot temper, and we were not very anxious to see her,
but we had to do it. While Leon was gone I was thinking pretty
fast and I knew exactly how things would happen. First time
mother saw Mrs. Deam she would ask her if the ducks were all
right, and she would tell that four were gone. Mother would ask
how many she had, and she would say twelve, then mother would
remember that she started us with twelve in the basket--Oh what's
the use! Something had to be done. It had to be done quickly
too, for I could hear Amanda Deam, her boy Sammy and Leon coming
across the barnyard. I looked around in despair, but when things
are the very worst, there is almost always some way out.

On the dry straw worked between and pushing against the panels of
the floodgate, not far from me, I saw a big black water snake. I
took one good look at it: no coppery head, no geometry patterns,
no rattlebox, so I knew it wasn't poisonous and wouldn't bite
until it was hurt, and if it did, all you had to do was to suck
the place, and it wouldn't amount to more than two little pricks
as if pins had stuck you; but a big snake was a good excuse. I
rolled from the floodgate among the ducks, and cried, "Snake!"
They scattered everywhere. The snake lazily uncoiled and slid
across the straw so slowly that--thank goodness! Amanda Deam got
a fair look at it. She immediately began to jump up and down and
scream. Leon grabbed a stick and came running to the water. I
cried so he had to help me out first.

"Don't let her count them!" I whispered.

Leon gave me one swift look and all the mischief in his blue eyes
peeped out. He was the funniest boy you ever knew, anyway.
Mostly he looked scowly and abused. He had a grievance against
everybody and everything. He said none of us liked him, and we
imposed on him. Father said that if he tanned Leon's jacket for
anything, and set him down to think it over, he would pout a
while, then he would look thoughtful, suddenly his face would
light up and he would go away sparkling; and you could depend
upon it he would do the same thing over, or something worse,
inside an hour. When he wanted to, he could smile the most
winning smile, and he could coax you into anything. Mother said
she dreaded to have to borrow a dime from him, if a peddler
caught her without change, because she knew she'd be kept paying
it back for the next six months. Right now he was the busiest
kind of a boy.

"Where is it? Let me get a good lick at it! Don't scare the
ducks!" he would cry, and chase them from one bank to the other,
while Amanda danced and fought imaginary snakes. For a woman who
had seen as many as she must have in her life, it was too funny.
I don't think I could laugh harder, or Leon and Sammy. We
enjoyed ourselves so much that at last she began to be angry.
She quit dancing, and commenced hunting ducks, for sure. She
held her skirts high, poked along the banks, jumped the creek and
didn't always get clear across. Her hair shook down, she lost a
sidecomb, and she couldn't find half the ducks.

"You younguns pack right out of here," she said. "Me and Sammy
can get them better ourselves, and if we don't find all of them,
we'll know where they are."

"We haven't got any of your ducks," I said angrily, but Leon
smiled his most angelic smile, and it seemed as if he were going
to cry.

"Of course, if you want to accuse mother of stealing your ducks,
you can," he said plaintively, "but I should think you'd be
ashamed to do it, after all the trouble we took to catch them
before they swam to the river, where you never would have found
one of them. Come on, Little Sister, let's go home."

He started and I followed. As soon as we got around the bend we
sat on the bank, hung our feet in the water, leaned against each
other and laughed. We just laughed ourselves almost sick. When
Amanda's face got fire red, and her hair came down, and she
jumped and didn't go quite over, she looked a perfect fright.

"Will she ever find all of them?" I asked at last.

"Of course," said Leon. "She will comb the grass and strain the
water until she gets every one."

"Hoo-hoo!"

I looked at Leon. He was so intently watching an old turkey
buzzard hanging in the air, he never heard the call that meant it
was time for us to be home and cleaning up for Sunday. It was
difficult to hurry, for after we had been soaped and scoured, we
had to sit on the back steps and commit to memory verses from the
Bible. At last we waded toward home. Two of the ducks we had
lost swam before us all the way, so we knew they were alive, and
all they needed was finding.

"If she hadn't accused mother of stealing her old ducks, I'd
catch those and carry them back to her," said Leon. "But since
she thinks we are so mean, I'll just let her and little Sammy
find them."

Then we heard their voices as they came down the creek, so Leon
reached me his hand and we scampered across the water and meadow,
never stopping until we sat on the top rail of our back orchard
fence. There we heard another call, but that was only two. We
sat there, rested and looked at the green apples above our heads,
wishing they were ripe, and talking about the ducks. We could
see Mrs. Deam and Sammy coming down the creek, one on each side.
We slid from the fence and ran into a queer hollow that was cut
into the hill between the never-fail and the Baldwin apple trees.

That hollow was overgrown with weeds, and full of trimmings from
trees, stumps, everything that no one wanted any place else in
the orchard. It was the only unkept spot on our land, and I
always wondered why father didn't clean it out and make it look
respectable. I said so to Leon as we crouched there watching
down the hill where Mrs. Deam and Sammy hunted ducks with not
such very grand success. They seemed to have so many they
couldn't decide whether to go back or go on, so they must have
found most of them.

"You know I've always had my suspicions about this place," said
Leon. "There is somewhere on our land that people can be hidden
for a long time. I can remember well enough before the war ever
so long, and while it was going worst, we would find the wagon
covered with more mud in the morning than had been on it at
night; and the horses would be splashed and tired. Once I was
awake in the night and heard voices. It made me want a drink, so
I went downstairs for it, and ran right into the biggest,
blackest man who ever grew. If father and mother hadn't been
there I'd have been scared into fits. Next morning he was gone
and there wasn't a whisper. Father said I'd had bad dreams.
That night the horses made another mysterious trip. Now where
did they keep the black man all that day?"

"What did they have a black man for?"

"They were helping him run away from slavery to be free in
Canada. It was all right. I'd have done the same thing. They
helped a lot. Father was a friend of the Governor. There were
letters from him, and there was some good reason why father
stayed at home, when he was crazy about the war. I think this
farm was what they called an Underground Station. What I want to
know is where the station was."

"Maybe it's here. Let's hunt," I said. "If the black men were
here some time, they would have to be fed, and this is not far
from the house."

So we took long sticks and began poking into the weeds. Then we
moved the brush, and sure as you live, we found an old door with
a big stone against it. I looked at Leon and he looked at me.

"Hoo-hoo!" came mother's voice, and that was the third call.

"Hum! Must be for us," said Leon. "We better go as soon as we
get a little dryer."

He slid down the bank on one side, and I on the other, and we
pushed at the stone. I thought we never would get it rolled away
so we could open the door a crack, but when we did what we saw
was most surprising. There was a little room, dreadfully small.
but a room. There was straw scattered over the floor, very deep
on one side, where an old blanket showed that it had been a bed.
Across the end there was a shelf. On it was a candlestick, with
a half-burned candle in it, a pie pan with some mouldy crumbs,
crusts, bones in it, and a tin can. Leon picked up the can and
looked in. I could see too.

It had been used for water or coffee, as the plate had for food,
once, but now it was stuffed full of money. I saw Leon pull some
out and then shove it back, and he came to the door white as
could be, shut it behind him and began to push at the stone.
When we got it in place we put the brush over it, and fixed
everything like it had been.

At last Leon said: "That's the time we got into something not
intended for us, and if father finds it out, we are in for a good
thrashing. Are you just a blubbering baby, or are you big enough
to keep still?"

"I am old enough that I could have gone to school two years ago,
and I won't tell!" I said stoutly.

"All right! Come on then," said Leon. "I don't know but mother
has been calling us."

We started up the orchard path at the fourth call.

"Hoo-hoo!" answered Leon in a sick little voice to make it sound
far away. Must have made mother think we were on Deams' hill.
Then we went on side by side.

"Say Leon, you found the Station, didn't you?"

"Don't talk about it!" snapped Leon.

I changed the subject

"Whose money do you suppose that is?"

"Oh crackey! You can depend on a girl to see everything,"
groaned Leon. "Do you think you'll be able to stand the
switching that job will bring you, without getting sick in bed?"

Now I never had been sick in bed, and from what I had seen of
other people who were, I never wanted to be. The idea of being
switched until it made me sick was too much for me. I shut my
mouth tight and I never opened it about the Station place. As we
reached the maiden's-blush apple tree came another call, and it
sounded pretty cross, I can tell you. Leon reached his hand.

"Now, it's time to run. Let me do the talking."

We were out of breath when we reached the back door. There stood
the tub on the kitchen floor, the boiler on the stove, soap,
towels, and clean clothing on chairs. Leon had his turn at
having his ears washed first, because he could bathe himself
while mother did my hair.

"Was Mrs. Deam glad to get her ducks back?" she asked as she
fine-combed Leon.

"Aw, you never can tell whether she's glad about anything or
not," growled Leon. "You'd have thought from the way she acted,
that we'd been trying to steal her ducks. She said if she missed
any she'd know where to find them."

"Well as I live!" cried mother. "Why I wouldn't have believed
that of Amanda Deam. You told her you thought they were wild, of
course."

"I didn't have a chance to tell her anything. The minute the
ducks struck the water they started right back down stream, and
there was a big snake, and we had an awful time. We got wet
trying to head them back, and then we didn't find all of them."

"They are like little eels. You should have helped Amanda."

"Well, you called so cross we thought you would come after us, so
we had to run."

"One never knows," sighed mother. "I thought you were loitering.

Of course if I had known you were having trouble with the ducks!
I think you had better go back and help them."

"Didn't I do enough to take them home? Can't Sammy Deam catch
ducks as fast as I can?"

"I suppose so," said mother. "And I must get your bathing out of
the way of supper. You use the tub while I do Little Sister's
hair."

I almost hated Sunday, because of what had to be done to my hair
on Saturday, to get ready for it. All week it hung in two long
braids that were brushed and arranged each morning. But on
Saturday it had to be combed with a fine comb, oiled and rolled
around strips of tin until Sunday morning. Mother did everything
thoroughly. She raked that fine comb over our scalps until she
almost raised the blood. She hadn't time to fool with tangles,
and we had so much hair she didn't know what to do with all of
it, anyway. When she was busy talking she reached around too far
and combed across our foreheads or raked the tip of an ear.

But on Sunday morning we forgot all that, when we walked down the
aisle with shining curls hanging below our waists. Mother was
using the fine comb, when she looked up, and there stood Mrs.
Freshett. We could see at a glance that she was out of breath.

"Have I beat them?" she cried.

"Whom are you trying to beat?" asked mother as she told May to
set a chair for Mrs. Freshett and bring her a drink.

"The grave-kiver men," she said. "I wanted to get to you first."

"Well, you have," said mother. "Rest a while and then tell me."

But Mrs. Freshett was so excited she couldn't rest.

"I thought they were coming straight on down," she said, "but
they must have turned off at the cross roads. I want to do
what's right by my children here or there," panted Mrs. Freshett,
"and these men seemed to think the contrivance they was sellin'
perfectly grand, an' like to be an aid to the soul's salvation.
Nice as it seemed, an' convincin' as they talked, I couldn't get
the consent of my mind to order, until I knowed if you was goin'
to kiver your dead with the contraption. None of the rest of the
neighbours seem over friendly to me, an' I've told Josiah many's
the time, that I didn't care a rap if they wa'n't, so long as I
had you. Says I, `Josiah, to my way of thinkin', she is top
crust in this neighbourhood, and I'm on the safe side apin' her
ways clost as possible.'"

"I'll gladly help you all I can," said my mother.

"Thanky!" said Mrs. Freshett. "I knowed you would. Josiah he
says to me, `Don't you be apin' nobody.' `Josiah,' says I, `it
takes a pretty smart woman in this world to realize what she
doesn't know. Now I know what I know, well enough, but all I
know is like to keep me an' my children in a log cabin an' on log
cabin ways to the end of our time. You ain't even got the
remains of the cabin you started in for a cow shed.' Says I,
`Josiah, Miss Stanton knows how to get out of a cabin an' into a
grand big palace, fit fur a queen woman. She's a ridin' in a
shinin' kerridge, 'stid of a spring wagon. She goes abroad
dressed so's you men all stand starin' like cabbage heads. All
hern go to church, an' Sunday-school, an' college, an' come out
on the top of the heap. She does jest what I'd like to if I
knowed how. An' she ain't come-uppety one morsel.' If I was to
strike acrost fields to them stuck-up Pryors, I'd get the door
slammed in my face if 'twas the missus, a sneer if 'twas the man,
an' at best a nod cold as an iceberg if 'twas the girl. Them as
want to call her kind `Princess,' and encourage her in being more
stuck up 'an she was born to be, can, but to my mind a Princess
is a person who thinks of some one besides herself once in a
while."

"I don't find the Pryors easy to become acquainted with," said
mother. "I have never met the woman; I know the man very
slightly; he has been here on business once or twice, but the
girl seems as if she would be nice, if one knew her."

"Well, I wouldn't have s'posed she was your kind," said Mrs.
Freshett. "If she is, I won't open my head against her any more.

Anyway, it was the grave-kivers I come about."

"Just what is it, Mrs. Freshett?" asked mother.

"It's two men sellin' a patent iron kiver for to protect the
graves of your dead from the sun an' the rain."

"Who wants the graves of their dead protected from the sun and
the rain?" demanded my mother sharply.

"I said to Josiah, `I don't know how she'll feel about it, but I
can't do more than ask.'"

"Do they carry a sample? What is it like?"

"Jest the len'th an' width of a grave. They got from baby to
six-footer sizes. They are cast iron like the bottom of a cook
stove on the under side, but atop they are polished so they shine
somethin' beautiful. You can get them in a solid piece, or with
a hole in the centre about the size of a milk crock to set
flowers through. They come ten to the grave, an' they are mighty
stylish lookin' things. I have been savin' all I could skimp
from butter, an' eggs, to get Samantha a organ; but says I to
her: `You are gettin' all I can do for you every day; there lays
your poor brother 'at ain't had a finger lifted for him since he
was took so sudden he was gone before I knowed he was goin'.' I
never can get over Henry bein' took the way he was, so I says:
`If this would be a nice thing to have for Henry's grave, and the
neighbours are goin' to have them for theirn, looks to me like
some of the organ money will have to go, an' we'll make it up
later.' I don't 'low for Henry to be slighted bekase he rid
himself to death trying to make a president out of his pa's
gin'ral."

"You never told me how you lost your son," said mother, feeling
so badly she wiped one of my eyes full of oil.

"Law now, didn't I?" inquired Mrs. Freshett. "Well mebby that is
bekase I ain't had a chance to tell you much of anythin', your
bein' always so busy like, an' me not wantin' to wear out my
welcome. It was like this: All endurin' the war Henry an' me
did the best we could without pa at home, but by the time it was
over, Henry was most a man. Seemed as if when he got home, his
pa was all tired out and glad to set down an' rest, but Henry was
afire to be up an' goin'. His pa filled him so full o' Grant, it
was runnin' out of his ears. Come the second run the Gin'ral
made, peered like Henry set out to 'lect him all by hisself. He
wore every horse on the place out, ridin' to rallies. Sometimes
he was gone three days at a stretch. He'd git one place an' hear
of a rally on ten miles or so furder, an' blest if he didn't ride
plum acrost the state 'fore he got through with one trip. He set
out in July, and he rid right straight through to November, nigh
onto every day of his life. He got white, an' thin, an' narvous,
from loss of sleep an' lack of food, an' his pa got restless,
said Henry was takin' the 'lection more serious 'an he ever took
the war. Last few days before votin' was cold an' raw an' Henry
rid constant. 'Lection day he couldn't vote, for he lacked a
year of bein' o' age, an' he rid in with a hard chill, an' white
as a ghost, an' he says: `Ma,' says he, `I've 'lected Grant, but
I'm all tuckered out. Put me to bed an' kiver me warm.'"

I forgot the sting in my eyes watching Mrs. Freshett. She was
the largest woman I knew, and strong as most men. Her hair was
black and glisteny, her eyes black, her cheeks red, her skin a
clear, even dark tint. She was handsome, she was honest, and she
was in earnest over everything. There was something about her,
or her family, that had to be told in whispers, and some of the
neighbours would have nothing to do with her. But mother said
Mrs. Freshett was doing the very best she knew, and for the sake
of that, and of her children, anyone who wouldn't help her was
not a Christian, and not to be a Christian was the very worst
thing that could happen to you. I stared at her steadily. She
talked straight along, so rapidly you scarcely could keep up with
the words; you couldn't if you wanted to think about them any
between. There was not a quiver in her voice, but from her eyes
there rolled, steadily, the biggest, roundest tears I ever saw.
They ran down her cheeks, formed a stream in the first groove of
her double chin, overflowed it, and dripped drop, drop, a drop at
a time, on the breast of her stiffly starched calico dress, and
from there shot to her knees.

"'Twa'n't no time at all 'til he was chokin' an' burnin' red with
fever, an' his pa and me, stout as we be, couldn't hold him down
nor keep him kivered. He was speechifyin' to beat anythin' you
ever heard. His pa said he was repeatin' what he'd heard said by
every big stump speaker from Greeley to Logan. When he got so
hoarse we couldn't tell what he said any more, he jest mouthed
it, an' at last he dropped back and laid like he was pinned to
the sheets, an' I thought he was restin', but 'twa'n't an hour
'til he was gone."

Suddenly Mrs. Freshett lifted her apron, covered her face and
sobbed until her broad shoulders shook.

"Oh you poor soul!" said my mother. "I'm so sorry for you!"

"I never knowed he was a-goin' until he was gone," she said. "He
was the only one of mine I ever lost, an' I thought it would jest
lay me out. I couldn't 'a' stood it at all if I hadn't 'a'
knowed he was saved. I well know my Henry went straight to
Heaven. Why Miss Stanton, he riz right up in bed at the last,
and clear and strong he jest yelled it: `Hurrah fur Grant!'"

My mother's fingers tightened in my hair until I thought she
would pull out a lot, and I could feel her knees stiffen. Leon
just whooped. Mother sprang up and ran to the door.

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