The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

by Gene Stratton-Porter

  She seemed engrossed in the music lessons, riding, dancing, pretty clothing, splendid balls, receptions, and parties of all kinds. The Harvester answered it with his heart full of love for her, and then waited. It was a long week before the reply came, and then it was short on account of so many things that must be done, but she insisted that she was well, happy, and having a fine time. After that the letters became less frequent and shorter. At times there would be stretches of almost two weeks with not a line, and then only short notes to explain that she was too busy to write.

  Through the dreary, cold days of January and February the Harvester invented work in the store-room, in the workshop, at the candlesticks, sat long over great books, and spent hours in the little laboratory preparing and compounding drugs. In the evenings he carved and read. First of all he scanned the society columns of the papers he was taking, and almost every day he found the name of Miss Ruth Jameson, often a paragraph describing her dress and her beauty of face and charm of manner; and constantly the name of Mr. Herbert Kennedy appeared as her escort. At first the Harvester ignored this, and said to himself that he was glad she could have enjoyable times and congenial friends, and he was. But as the letters became fewer, paper paragraphs more frequent, and approaching spring worked its old insanity in the blood, gradually an ache crept into his heart again, and there were days when he could not work it out.

  Every letter she wrote he answered just as warmly as he felt that he dared, but when they were so long coming and his heart was overflowing, he picked up a pen one night and wrote what he felt. He told her all about the ice-bound lake, the lonely crows in the big woods, the sap suckers’ cry, and the gay cardinals’ whistle. He told her about the cocoons dangling on bushes or rocking on twigs that he was cutting for her. He warned her that spring was coming, and soon she would begin to miss wonders for her pencil. Then he told her about the silent cabin, the empty rooms, and a lonely man. He begged her not to forget the kiss she had gone to find for him. He poured out his heart unrestrainedly, and then folded the letter, sealed and addressed it to her, in care of the fire fairies, and pitched it into the ashes of the living-room fire place. But expression made him feel better.

  There was another longer wait for the next letter, but he had written her so many in the meantime that a little heap of them had accumulated as he passed through the living-room on his way to bed. He had supposed she would be gone until after Christmas when she left, but he never had thought of harvesting sassafras and opening the sugar camp alone. In those days his face appeared weary, and white hairs came again on his temples. Carey met him on the street and told him that he was going to the National Convention of Surgeons at New York in March, and wanted him to go along and present his new medicine for consideration.

  “All right,” said the Harvester instantly, “I will go.”

  He went and interviewed Mrs. Carey, and then visited the doctor’s tailor, and a shoe store, and bought everything required to put him in condition for travelling in good style, and for the banquet he would be asked to attend. Then he got Mrs. Carey to coach him on spoons and forks, and declared he was ready. When the doctor saw that the Harvester really would go, he sat down and wrote the president of the association, telling him in brief outline of Medicine Woods and the man who had achieved a wonderful work there, and of the compounding of the new remedy.

  As he expected, return mail brought an invitation for the Harvester to address the association and describe his work and methods and present his medicine. The doctor went out in the car over sloppy roads with that letter, and located the Harvester in the sugar camp. He explained the situation and to his surprise found his man intensely interested. He asked many questions as to the length of time, and amount of detail required in a proper paper, and the doctor told him.

  “But if you want to make a clean sweep, David,” he said, “write your paper simply, and practise until it comes easy before you speak.”

  That night the Harvester left work long enough to get a notebook, and by the light of the camp fire, and in company with the owls and coons, he wrote his outline. One division described his geographical location, another traced his ancestry and education in wood lore. One was a tribute to the mother who moulded his character and ground into him stability for his work. The remainder described his methods in growing drugs, drying and packing them, and the end was a presentation for their examination of the remedy that had given life where a great surgeon had conceded death. Then he began amplification.

  When the sugar making was over the Harvester commenced his regular spring work, but his mind was so busy over his paper that he did not have much time to realize just how badly his heart was beginning to ache. Neither did he consign so many letters to the fire fairies, for now he was writing of the best way to dry hydrastis and preserve ginseng seed. The day before time to start he drove to Onabasha to try on his clothing and have Mrs. Carey see if he had been right in his selections.

  While he was gone, Granny Moreland, wearing a clean calico dress and carrying a juicy apple pie, came to the stretch of flooded marsh land, and finding the path under water, followed the road and crossing a field reached the levee and came to the bridge of Singing Water where it entered the lake. She rested a few minutes there, and then went to the cabin shining between bare branches. She opened the front door, entered, and stood staring around her.

  “Why things is all tore up here,” she said. “Now ain’t that sensible of David to put everything away and save it nice and careful until his woman gets back. Seems as if she’s good and plenty long coming; seems as if her folks needs her mighty bad, or she’s having a better time than the boy is or something.”

  She set the pie on the table, went through the cabin and up the hill a little distance, calling the Harvester. When she passed the barn she missed Betsy and the wagon, and then she knew he was in town. She returned to the living-room and sat looking at the pie as she rested.

  “I’d best put you on the kitchen table,” she mused. “Likely he will see you there first and eat you while you are fresh. I’d hate mortal bad for him to overlook you, and let you get stale, after all the care I’ve took with your crust, and all the sugar, cinnamon, and butter that’s under your lid. You’re a mighty nice pie, and you ort to be et hot. Now why under the sun is all them clean letters pitched in the fireplace?”

  Granny knelt and selecting one, she blew off the ashes, wiped it with her apron and read: “To Ruth, in care of the fire fairies.”

  “What the Sam Hill is the idiot writin’ his woman like that for?” cried Granny, bristling instantly. “And why is he puttin’ pages and pages of good reading like this must have in it in care of the fire fairies? Too much alone, I guess! He’s going wrong in his head. Nobody at themselves would do sech a fool trick as this. I believe I had better do something. Of course I had! These is writ to Ruth; she ort to have them. Wish’t I knowed how she gets her mail, I’d send her some. Mebby three! I’d send a fat and a lean, and a middlin’ so’s that she’d have a sample of all the kinds they is. It’s no way to write letters and pitch them in the ashes. It means the poor boy is honin’ to say things he dassent and so he’s writin’ them out and never sendin’ them at all. What’s the little huzzy gone so long for, anyway? I’ll fix her!”

  Granny selected three letters, blew away the ashes, and tucked the envelopes inside her dress.

  “If I only knowed how to get at her,” she muttered. She stared at the pie. “I guess you got to go back,” she said, “and be et by me. Like as not I’ll stall myself, for I got one a-ready. But if David has got these fool things counted and misses any, and then finds that pie here, he’ll s’picion me. Yes, I got to take you back, and hurry my stumps at that.”

  Granny arose with the pie, cast a lingering and covetous glance at the fireplace, stooped and took another letter, and then started down the drive. Just as she reached the bridge she looked ahead and saw the Harvester coming up the levee. Instantly she shot the pie over the railing and
with a groan watched it strike the water and disappear.

  “Lord of love!” she gasped, sinking to the seat, “that was one of grandmother’s willer plates that I promised Ruth. ‘Tain’t likely I’ll ever see hide ner hair of it again. But they wa’ant no place to put it, and I dassent let him know I’d been up to the cabin. Mebby I can fetch a boy some day and hire him to dive for it. How long can a plate be in water and not get spiled anyway? Now what’ll I do? My head’s all in a whirl! I’ll bet my bosom is a sticking out with his letters ‘til he’ll notice and take them from me.”

  She gripped her hands across her chest and sat staring at the Harvester as he stopped on the bridge, and seeing her attitude and distressed face, he sprang from the wagon.

  “Why Granny, are you sick?” he cried anxiously.

  “Yes!” gasped Granny Moreland. “Yes, David, I am! I’m a miserable woman. I never was in sech a shape in all my days.”

  “Let me help you to the cabin, and I’ll see what I can do for you,” offered the Harvester.

  “No. This is jest out of your reach,” said the old lady. “I want—I want to see Doctor Carey bad.”

  “Are you strong enough to ride in or shall I bring him?”

  “I can go! I can go as well as not, David, if you’ll take me.”

  “Let me run Betsy to the barn and get the Girl’s phaeton. The wagon is too rough for you. Are the pains in your chest dreadful?”

  “I don’t know how to describe them,” said Granny with perfect truth.

  The Harvester leaped into the wagon and caught up the lines. As he disappeared around the curve of the driveway Granny snatched the letters from her dress front and thrust them deep into one of her stockings.

  “Now, drat you!” she cried. “Stick out all you please. Nobody will see you there.”

  In a few minutes the Harvester helped her into the carriage and drove rapidly toward the city.

  “You needn’t strain your critter,” said Granny. “It’s not so bad as that, David.”

  “Is your chest any better?”

  “A sight better,” said Granny. “Shakin’ up a little ’pears to do me good.”

  “You never should have tried to walk. Suppose I hadn’t been here. And you came the long way, too! I’ll have a telephone run to your house so you can call me after this.”

  Granny sat very straight suddenly.

  “My! wouldn’t that get away with some of my foxy neighbours,” she said. “Me to have a ’phone like they do, an’ be conversin’ at all hours of the day with my son’s folks and everybody. I’d be tickled to pieces, David.”

  “Then I’ll never dare do it,” said the Harvester, “because I can’t keep house without you.”

  “Where’s your own woman?” promptly inquired Granny.

  “She can’t leave her people. Her grandmother is sick.”

  “Grandmother your foot!” cried the old woman. “I’ve been hearing that song and dance from the neighbours, but you got to fool younger people than me on it, David. When did any grandmother ever part a pair of youngsters jest married, for months at a clip? I’d like to cast my eyes on that grandmother. She’s a new breed! I was as good a mother as ’twas in my skin to be, and I’d like to see a child of mine do it for me; and as for my grandchildren, it hustles some of them to re-cog-nize me passing on the big road, ’specially if it’s Peter’s girl with a town beau.”

  The Harvester laughed. The old lady leaned toward him with a mist in her eyes and a quaver in her voice, and asked softly, “Got ary friend that could help you, David?”

  The man looked straight ahead in silence.

  “Bamfoozle all the rest of them as much as you please, lad, but I stand to you in the place of your ma, and so I ast you plainly—got ary friend that could help?”

  “I can think of no way in which any one possibly could help me, dear,” said the Harvester gently. “It is a matter I can’t explain, but I know of nothing that any one could do.”

  “You mean you’re tight-mouthed! You could tell me just like you would your ma, if she was up and comin’; but you can’t quite put me in her place, and spit it out plain. Now mebby I can help you! Is it her fault or yourn?”

  “Mine! Mine entirely!”

  “Hum! What a fool question! I might a knowed it! I never saw a lovinger, sweeter girl in these parts. I jest worship the ground she treads on; and you, lad you hain’t had a heart in your body sence first you saw her face. If I had the stren’th, I’d haul you out of this keeridge and I’d hammer you meller, David Langston. What in the name of sense have you gone and done to the purty, lovin’ child?”

  The Harvester’s face flushed, but a line around his mouth whitened.

  “Loosen up!” commanded Granny. “I got some rights in this case that mebby you don’t remember. You asked me to help you get ready for her, and I done what you wanted. You invited me to visit her, and I jest loved her sweet, purty ways. You wanted me to shet up my house and come over for weeks to help take keer of her, and I done it gladly, for her pain and your sufferin’ cut me as if ’twas my livin’ flesh and blood; so you can’t shet me out now. I’m in with you and her to the end. What a blame fool thing have you gone and done to drive away for months a girl that fair worshipped you?”

  “That’s exactly the trouble, Granny,” said the Harvester. “She didn’t! She merely respected and was grateful to me, and she loved me as a friend; but I never was any nearer her husband than I am yours.”

  “I’ve always knowed they was a screw loose somewhere,” commented Granny. “And so you’ve sent her off to her worldly folks in a big, wicked city to get weaned away from you complete?”

  “I sent her to let her see if absence would teach her anything. I had months with her here, and I lay awake at nights thinking up new plans to win her. I worked for her love as I never worked for bread, but I couldn’t make it. So I let her go to see if separation would teach her anything.”

  “Mercy me! Why you crazy critter! The child did love you! She loved you ’nough an’ plenty! She loved you faithful and true! You was jest the light of her eyes. I don’t see how a girl could think more of a man. What in the name of sense are you expecting months of separation to teach her, but to forget you, and mebby turn her to some one else?”

  “I hoped it would teach her what I call love, means,” explained the Harvester.

  “Why you dratted popinjay! If ever in all my born days I wanted to take a man and jest lit’rally mop up the airth with him, it’s right here and now. ‘Absence teach her what you call love.’ Idiot! That’s your job!”

  “But, Granny, I couldn’t!”

  “Wouldn’t, you mean, no doubt! I hain’t no manner of a notion in my head but that child, depending on you, and grateful as she was, and tender and loving, and all sech as that I hain’t a doubt but she come to you plain and told you she loved you with all her heart. What more could you ast?”

  “That she understand what love means before I can accept what she offers.”

  “You puddin’ head! You blunderbuss!” cried Granny. “Understand what you mean by love. If you’re going to bar a woman from being a wife ’til she knows what you mean by love, you’ll stop about nine tenths of the weddings in the world, and t’other tenth will be women that no decent-minded man would jine with.”

  “Granny, are you sure?”

  “Well livin’ through it, and up’ard of seventy years with other women, ort to teach me something. The Girl offered you all any man needs to ast or git. Her foundations was laid in faith and trust. Her affections was caught by every loving, tender, thoughtful thing you did for her; and everybody knows you did a-plenty, David. I never see sech a master hand at courtin’ as you be. You had her lovin’ you all any good woman knows how to love a man. All you needed to a-done was to take her in your arms, and make her your wife, and she’d ’a’ waked up to what you meant by love.”

  “But suppose she never awakened?”

  “Aw, bosh! S’pose water won’t wet! S’pos
e fire won’t burn! S’pose the sun won’t shine! That’s the law of nature, man! If you think I hain’t got no sense at all I jest dare you to ask Doctor Carey. ’Twouldn’t take him long to comb the kinks out of you.”

  “I don’t think you have left any, Granny,” said the Harvester. “I see what you mean, and in all probability you are right, but I can’t send for the Girl.”

  “Name o’ goodness why?”

  “Because I sent her away against her will, and now she is remaining so long that there is every probability she prefers the life she is living and the friends she has made there, to Medicine Woods and to me. The only thing I can do now is to await her decision.”

  “Oh, good Lord!” groaned Granny. “You make me sick enough to kill. Touch up your nag and hustle me to Doc. You can’t get me there quick enough to suit me.”

  At the hospital she faced Doctor Carey. “I think likely some of my innards has got to be cut out and mended,” she said. “I’ll jest take a few minutes of your time to examination me, and see what you can do.”

  In the private office she held the letters toward the doctor. “They hain’t no manner of sickness ailin’ me, Doc. The boy out there is in deep water, and I knowed how much you thought of him, and I hoped you’d give me a lift. I went over to his place this mornin’ to take him a pie, and I found his settin’ room fireplace heapin’ with letters he’d writ to Ruth about things his heart was jest so bustin’ full of it eased him to write them down, and then he hadn’t the horse sense and trust in her jedgment to send them on to her. I picked two fats, a lean, and a middlin’ for samples, and I thought I’d send them some way, and I struck for home with them an’ he ketched me plumb on the bridge. I had to throw my pie overboard, willer plate and all, and as God is my witness, I was so flustered the boy had good reason to think I was sick a-plenty; and soon as he noticed it, I thought of you spang off, and I knowed you’d know her whereabouts, and I made him fetch me to you. On the way I jest dragged it from him that he’d sent her away his fool self, because she didn’t sense what he meant by love, and she wa’ant beholden to him same degree and manner he was to her. Great day, Doc! Did you ever hear a piece of foolishness to come up with that? I told him to ast you! I told him you’d tell him that no clean, sweet-minded girl ever had known nor ever would know what love means to a man ‘til he marries her and teaches her. Ain’t it so, Doc?”