The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  “I am not at all afraid on the rug and with my work,” she said. “If you want to hunt ginseng go by all means.”

  “I don’t want to hunt anything,” said the Harvester. “But if you are more comfortable with me away, I’ll be glad to go. I’ll leave the dog with you.”

  He gave a short whistle and Belshazzar came bounding to him. The Harvester stepped to the Girl’s side, and dropping on one knee, he drew his hand across the rug close to her skirts.

  “Right here, Belshazzar,” he said. “Watch! You are on guard, Bel.”

  “Well of all names for a dog!” exclaimed the Girl. “Why did you select that?”

  “My mother named my first dog Belshazzar, and taught me why; so each of the three I’ve owned since have been christened the same. It means ‘to protect’ and that is the office all of them perform; this one especially has filled it admirably. Once I failed him, but he never has gone back on me. You see he is not a particle afraid of me. Every step I take, he is at my heels.”

  “So was Bill Sikes’ dog, if I remember.”

  The Harvester laughed.

  “Bel,” he said, “if you could speak you’d say that was an ugly one, wouldn’t you?”

  The dog sprang up and kissed the face of the man and rubbed a loving head against his breast.

  “Thank you!” said the Harvester. “Now lie down and protect this woman as carefully as you ever watched in your life. And incidentally, Bel, tell her that she can’t exterminate me more than once a day, and the performance is accomplished for the present. I refuse to be a willing sacrifice. ‘So was Bill Sikes’ dog!’ What do you think of that, Bel?”

  The Harvester arose and turned to go.

  “What if this thing attempts to fly?” she asked.

  “Your pardon,” said the Harvester. “If the emperor moves, slide the lid over the box a few seconds, until he settles and clings quietly again, and then slowly draw it away. If you are careful not to jar the table heavily he will not go for hours yet.”

  Again he turned.

  “If there is no danger, why do you leave the dog?”

  “For company,” said the Harvester. “I thought you would prefer an animal you are not afraid of to a man you are. But let me tell you there is no necessity for either. I know a woman who goes alone and unafraid through every foot of woods in this part of the country. She has climbed, crept, and waded, and she tells me she never saw but two venomous snakes this side of Michigan. Nothing ever dropped on her or sprang at her. She feels as secure in the woods as she does at home.”

  “Isn’t she afraid of snakes?”

  “She dislikes snakes, but she is not afraid or she would not risk encountering them daily.”

  “Do you ever find any?”

  “Harmless little ones, often. That is, Bel does. He is always nosing for them, because he understands that I work in the earth. I think I have encountered three dangerous ones in my life. I will guarantee you will not find one in these woods. They are too open and too much cleared.”

  “Then why leave the dog?”

  “I thought,” said the Harvester patiently, “that your uncle might have turned in some of his cattle, or if pigs came here the dog could chase them away.”

  She looked at him with utter panic in her face.

  “I am far more afraid of a cow than a snake!” she cried. “It is so much bigger!”

  “How did you ever come into these woods alone far enough to find the ginseng?” asked the Harvester. “Answer me that!”

  “I wore Uncle Henry’s top boots and carried a rake, and I suffered tortures,” she replied.

  “But you hunted until you found what you wanted, and came again to keep watch on it?”

  “I was driven—simply forced. There’s no use to discuss it!”

  “Well thank the Lord for one thing,” said the Harvester. “You didn’t appear half so terrified at the sight of me as you did at the mere mention of a cow. I have risen inestimably in my own self-respect. Belshazzar, you may pursue the elusive chipmunk. I am going to guard this woman myself, and please, kind fates, send a ferocious cow this way, in order that I may prove my valour.”

  The Girl’s face flushed slightly, and she could not restrain a laugh. That was all the Harvester hoped for and more. He went beyond the edge of the rug and sat on the leaves under a tree. She bent over her work and only bird and insect notes and occasionally Belshazzar’s excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If a windfall came rattling down she appeared ready to fly in headlong terror in any direction. At last she dropped her pencil and looked at him helplessly.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “The silence and these awful crashes when one doesn’t know what is coming,” she said.

  “Will it bother you if I talk? Perhaps the sound of my voice will help?”

  “I am accustomed to working when people talk, and it will be a comfort. I may be able to follow you, and that will prevent me from thinking. There are dreadful things in my mind when they are not driven out. Please talk! Tell me about the herbs you gathered this morning.”

  The Harvester gave the Girl one long look as she bent over her work. He was vividly conscious of the graceful curves of her little figure, the coil of dark, silky hair, softly waving around her temples and neck, and when her eyes turned in his direction he knew that it was only the white, drawn face that restrained him. He was almost forced to tell her how he loved and longed for her; about the home he had prepared; of a thousand personal interests. Instead, he took a firm grip and said casually, “Foxglove harvest is over. This plant has to be taken when the leaves are in second year growth and at bloom time. I have stripped my mullein beds of both leaves and flowers. I finished a week ago. Beyond lies a stretch of Parnassus grass that made me think of you, it was so white and delicate. I want you to see it. It will be lovely in a few weeks more.”

  “You never had seen me a week ago.”

  “Oh hadn’t I?” said the Harvester. “Well maybe I dreamed about you then. I am a great dreamer. Once I had a dream that may interest you some day, after you’ve overcome your fear of me. Now this bed of which I was speaking is a picture in September. You must arrange to drive home with me and see it then.”

  “For what do you sell foxglove and mullein?”

  “Foxglove for heart trouble, and mullein for catarrh. I get ten cents a pound for foxglove leaves and five for mullein and from seventy-five to a dollar for flowers of the latter, depending on how well I preserve the colour in drying them. They must be sealed in bottles and handled with extreme care.”

  “Then if I wasn’t too childish to be out picking them, I could be earning seventy-five cents a pound for mullein blooms?”

  “Yes,” said the Harvester, “but until you learned the trick of stripping them rapidly you scarcely could gather what would weigh two pounds a day, when dried. Not to mention the fact that you would have to stand and work mostly in hot sunshine, because mullein likes open roads and fields and sunny hills. Now you can sit securely in the shade, and in two hours you can make me a pattern of that moth, for which I would pay a designer of the arts and crafts shop five dollars, so of course you shall have the same.”

  “Oh no!” she cried in swift panic. “You were charged too much! It isn’t worth a dollar, even!”

  “On the contrary the candlestick on which I shall use it will be invaluable when I finish it, and five is very little for the cream of my design. I paid just right. You can earn the same for all you can do. If you can embroider linen, they pay good prices for that, too and wood carving, metal work, or leather things. May I see how you are coming on?”

  “Please do,” she said.

  The Harvester sprang up and looked over the Girl’s shoulder. He could not suppress an exclamation of delight.

  “Perfect!” he cried. “You can
surpass their best drafting at the shop! Your fortune is made. Any time you want to go to Onabasha you can make enough to pay your board, dress you well, and save something every week. You must leave here as soon as you can manage it. When can you go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said wearily. “I’d hate to tell you how full of aches I am. I could not work much just now, if I had the best opportunities in the world. I must grow stronger.”

  “You should not work at anything until you are well,” he said. “It is a crime against nature to drive yourself. Why will you not allow—”

  “Do you really think, with a little practice, I can draw designs that will sell?”

  The Harvester picked up the sheet. The work was delicate and exact. He could see no way to improve it.

  “You know it will sell,” he said gently, “because you already have sold such work.”

  “But not for the prices you offer.”

  “The prices I name are going to be for new, original designs. I’ve got a thousand in my head, that old Mother Nature shows me in the woods and on the water every day.”

  “But those are yours; I can’t take them.”

  “You must,” said the Harvester. “I only see and recognize studies; I can’t materialize them, and until they are drawn, no one can profit by them. In this partnership we revolutionize decorative art. There are actually birds besides fat robins and nondescript swallows. The crane and heron do not monopolize the water. Wild rose and golden-rod are not the only flowers. The other day I was gathering lobelia. The seeds are used in tonic preparations. It has an upright stem with flowers scattered along it. In itself it is not much, but close beside it always grows its cousin, tall bell-flower. As the name indicates, the flowers are bell shape and I can’t begin to describe their grace, beauty, and delicate blue colour. They ring my strongest call to worship. My work keeps me in the woods so much I remain there for my religion also. Whenever I find these flowers I always pause for a little service of my own that begins by reciting these lines:

  “‘Neath cloistered boughs, each floral bell that swingeth

  And tolls its perfume on the passing air,

  Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth

  A call to prayer.”

  “Beautiful!” said the Girl.

  “It’s mighty convenient,” explained the Harvester. “By my method, you see, you don’t have to wait for your day and hour of worship. Anywhere the blue bell rings its call it is Sunday in the woods and in your heart. After I recite that, I pray my prayer.”

  “Go on!” said the Girl. “This is no place to stop.”

  “It is always one and the same prayer, and there are only two lines of it,” said the Harvester. “It runs this way—Let me take your pencil and I will write it for you.”

  He bent over her shoulder, and traced these lines on a scrap of the wrapping paper:

  “Almighty Evolver of the Universe:

  Help me to keep my soul and body clean,

  And at all times to do unto others as I would be done by.

  Amen.”

  The Girl took the slip and sat studying it; then she raised her eyes to his face curiously, but with a tinge of awe in them.

  “I can see you standing over a blue, bell-shaped flower reciting those exquisite lines and praying this wonderful prayer,” she said. “Yesterday you allowed the moth you were willing to pay five dollars for a drawing of, to go, because you wouldn’t risk breaking its wings. Why you are more like a woman!”

  A red stream crimsoned the Harvester’s face.

  “Well heretofore I have been considered strictly masculine,” he said. “To appreciate beauty or to try to be just commonly decent is not exclusively feminine. You must remember there are painters, poets, musicians, workers in art along almost any line you could mention, and no one calls them feminine, but there is one good thing if I am. You need no longer fear me. If you should see me, muck covered, grubbing in the earth or on a raft washing roots in the lake, you would not consider me like a woman.”

  “Would it be any discredit if I did? I think not. I merely meant that most men would not see or hear the blue bell at all—and as for the poem and prayer! If the woods make a man with such fibre in his soul, I must learn them if they half kill me.”

  “You harp on death. Try to forget the word.”

  “I have faced it for months, and seen it do its grinding worst very recently to the only thing on earth I loved or that loved me. I have no desire to forget! Tell me more about the plants.”

  “Forgive me,” said the Harvester gently. “Just now I am collecting catnip for the infant and nervous people, hoarhound for colds and dyspepsia, boneset heads and flowers for the same purpose. There is a heavy head of white bloom with wonderful lacy leaves, called yarrow. I take the entire plant for a tonic and blessed thistle leaves and flowers for the same purpose.”

  “That must be what I need,” interrupted the Girl. “Half the time I believe I have a little fever, but I couldn’t have dyspepsia, because I never want anything to eat; perhaps the tonic would make me hungry.”

  “Promise me you will tell that to the doctor who comes to see your aunt, and take what he gives you.”

  “No doctor comes to see my aunt. She is merely playing lazy to get out of work. There is nothing the matter with her.”

  “Then why—”

  “My uncle says that. Really, she could not stand and walk across a room alone. She is simply worn out.”

  “I shall report the case,” said the Harvester instantly.

  “You better not!” said the Girl. “There must be a mistake about you knowing my uncle. Tell me more of the flowers.”

  The Harvester drew a deep breath and continued:

  “These I just have named I take at bloom time; next month come purple thorn apple, jimson weed, and hemlock.”

  “Isn’t that poison?”

  “Half the stuff I handle is.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Terribly,” said the Harvester in laughing voice. “But I want the money, the sick folk need the medicine, and I drink water.”

  The Girl laughed also.

  “Look here!” said the Harvester. “Why not tell me just as closely as you can about your aunt, and let me fix something for her; or if you are afraid to trust me, let me have my friend of whom I spoke yesterday.”

  “Perhaps I am not so much afraid as I was,” said the Girl. “I wish I could! How could I explain where I got it and I wonder if she would take it.”

  “Give it to her without any explanation,” said the Harvester. “Tell her it will make her stronger and she must use it. Tell me exactly how she is, and I will fix up some harmless remedies that may help, and can do no harm.”

  “She simply has been neglected, overworked, and abused until she has lain down, turned her face to the wall, and given up hope. I think it is too late. I think the end will come soon. But I wish you would try. I’ll gladly pay—”

  “Don’t!” said the Harvester. “Not for things that grow in the woods and that I prepare. Don’t think of money every minute.”

  “I must,” she said with forced restraint. “It is the price of life. Without it one suffers—horribly—as I know. What other plants do you gather?”

  “Saffron,” answered the Harvester. “A beautiful thing! You must see it. Tall, round stems, lacy, delicate leaves, big heads of bright yellow bloom, touched with colour so dark it appears black—one of the loveliest plants that grows. You should see my big bed of it in a week or two more. It makes a picture.”

  The words recalled him to the Girl. He turned to study her. He forgot his commission and chafed at conventions that prevented his doing what he saw was required so urgently. Fearing she would notice, he gazed away through the forest and tried to think, to plan.

  “You are not making noise enough,” she said.

  So absorbed was the Harvester he scarcely heard her. In an attempt to obey he began to whistle softly. A tiny goldfinch in a nest of
thistle down and plant fibre in the branching of a bush ten feet above him stuck her head over the brim and inquired, “P’tseet?” “Pt’see!” answer the Harvester. That began the duet. Before the question had been asked and answered a half dozen times a catbird intruded its voice and hearing a reply came through the bushes to investigate. A wren followed and became very saucy. From—one could not see where, came a vireo, and almost at the same time a chewink had something to say.

  Instantly the Harvester answered. Then a blue jay came chattering to ascertain what all the fuss was about, and the Harvester carried on a conversation that called up the remainder of the feathered tribe. A brilliant cardinal came tearing through the thicket, his beady black eyes snapping, and demanded to know if any one were harming his mate, brooding under a wild grape leaf in a scrub elm on the river embankment. A brown thrush silently slipped like a snake between shrubs and trees, and catching the universal excitement, began to flirt his tail and utter a weird, whistling cry.

  With one eye on the bird, and the other on the Girl sitting in amazed silence, the Harvester began working for effect. He lay quietly, but in turn he answered a dozen birds so accurately they thought their mates were calling, and closer and closer they came. An oriole in orange and black heard his challenge, and flew up the river bank, answering at steady intervals for quite a time before it was visible, and in resorting to the last notes he could think of a quail whistled “Bob White” and a shitepoke, skulking along the river bank, stopped and cried, “Cowk, cowk!”

  At his limit of calls the Harvester changed his notes and whistled and cried bits of bird talk in tone with every mellow accent and inflection he could manage. Gradually the excitement subsided, the birds flew and tilted closer, turned their sleek heads, peered with bright eyes, and ventured on and on until the very bravest, the wren and the jay, were almost in touch. Then, tired of hunting, Belshazzar came racing and the little feathered people scattered in precipitate flight.

  “How do you like that kind of a noise?” inquired the Harvester.