Tom stopped and took the hat and turned it over slowly for a dreadful moment before he looked inside the crown, and then—oh, wonderful to relate—he saw that it was empty, and clean, and as if nothing had ever happened to it!
“Tom,” said Katie when they were almost to her door. “Do you believe in magic—really, I mean?”
Tom didn’t know what to say at first. Ever since the time when he had found that the hired men, instead of the dark powers, had hidden the magical melons under the straw in the hayloft, Tom had resolutely put the possibility of magic out of his life. But the wonder of the fried egg in the silk hat was still strong upon him.
“Well, Katie,” he said, drawing a deep breath, “sometimes, I guess, I do. Some of those tricks are mighty hard to explain.”
“I’m glad you do, Tom,” Katie said. “It’s more fun that way than trying to explain everything.”
Tom did not wait until morning to put Father’s hat carefully away in the corner of the attic where it belonged. He thought now that even if Father gave it to him someday he might decide he didn’t care to wear it. Still it had been a lovely evening, and first thing in the morning he meant to set about doing something nice for Warren and each of the girls to make up for Cousin Lucy’s keeping them at home.
When Mother was at home again, she said to Clara and Caddie, “You know there was one thing I meant to tell you before I went away. I hope you didn’t discover it and plague her about it.”
“What, Mother?”
“Well, you know, your Cousin Lucy wears a wig. Poor dear, when she was a girl some plaster fell on her head—and all the hair came out, never to return, But, I know, if you discovered it you were too well bred to let her see you knew.”
Caddie and Clara looked at each other and sighed.
“Mother, I don’t know why you think so well of us,” said Caddie.
They were a little more patient with Cousin Lucy after that, but never what you might call fond.
When she was leaving to return to Boston, Mother said, “Now, children, Cousin Lucy has been very good to stay here with you. I want you to show proper grief at her departure.”
They were so happy to have Father and Mother at home again that they wanted to please Mother in everything—even in the matter of showing grief for Cousin Lucy. So they took the matter into council, and when Cousin Lucy departed she was touched and possibly surprised by the red eyes of the six children and the genuine tears which coursed down their cheeks.
“Maybe I sometimes misjudged them,” she thought charitably as she kissed each one good-by.
There was the strangest smell of raw onions about them that day when she kissed them! It almost made Cousin Lucy’s eyes water. But she forgave them even the smell of onions because of their tears of grief.
FOURTEEN
Be Jubilant, My Feet!
THE WOODLAWN GIRLS were all getting new white dresses for the Independence Day celebration at Eau Galle.
“It really seems a waste of good material to make one for Caddie,” said Mother, with a sigh. “She’s ruined every white dress we ever made for her.”
“But she’s doing so much better now, Mother,” said Clara gently. “Ever since that time when Annabelle was here and she and Tom played all the tricks, Caddie’s been trying very hard to be a lady.”
“I know,” Mother said. “I’m proud of her, too. She’s come a long way. It’s only that there’s something fatal about the combination of Caddie and a white dress. Either she tears it, or she cuts her finger and stains it with blood, or she sits on the grass and gets grass stains, or she accidentally spills a bottle of ink. There’s no telling what will happen to this one.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Hyman, who, with Katie, had come to spend the week at the Woodlawns’ while the dresses were being made, “well, you’ve got plenty of extra material. I’d keep it if I was you; and later on I can always put in a new skirt breadth or a front to the bodice, if she spills or tears.”
“That’s true,” said Mother, “and we’ll just have to hope for the best, although all of my past experience tells me that the worst will happen.”
Caddie and Katie came in just too late to hear these dire predictions. They had been to the far field to take a bucket of spring water to the men and boys who were haying. Their cheeks were red and their eyes bright. Shy Katie, so timid and fearful at school and at home alone with her mother, blossomed like a rose in the midst of the hearty, happy-go-lucky Woodlawns.
“Come, now, Caddie,” said Mother. “You’re just in time to have a fit.”
The phrase delighted Caddie.
“Run away, now, children,” she called to Hetty and Minnie, who were trailing along behind her. “I’m going to have a fit.”
She slipped out of her old blue denim and into the yards and yards of white muslin, which Mrs. Hyman slid over her head.
“Mind the pins now, and the basting threads. Don’t pull and squirm too much.”
Caddie regarded herself in the mirror.
“Is that me?” she said. “My goodness! I won’t know how to act out of blue denim.”
“You act like a lady, that’s what you do,” advised Mother. “You take small steps and turn out your toes when you walk, and keep away from horses and the snags on rail fences, and don’t sit on the grass or climb the haymow or eat strawberries or write with ink.”
“I might as well be dead,” said Caddie, screwing up her nose. “Is a white dress worth it?”
“Oh, yes,” said Katie. “You look lovely, Caddie. Honest, you do.”
“Mother,” said Caddie, her eyes twinkling, “they’re going to have a log-rolling contest in the millpond at Eau Galle. I can walk logs just as well as the lumberjacks. Will you let me enter?”
“Now, Caddie,” cried Mother, vexed beyond measure, “don’t let me hear of such a thing! Don’t even let a thought like that enter your head. The idea!”
“We’ll keep her busy enough singing,” said Clara. “The girls are all to sing, in their white dresses with loops of red, white, and blue bunting over one shoulder and knotted at the waist. There won’t be time for walking logs.”
“Well, see that there isn’t!” said Mother tartly.
There never was such a celebration as they had at Eau Galle that year. The lumbering out had begun in the forests along the rivers and, from far-distant camps, men came down on log rafts to spend the holiday. The celebration centered about the mill. The loading platform at the back was turned for the day into a speaker’s rostrum and hung with flags and bunting, while the open ground beyond was reserved for people to sit with their campstools and their picnic baskets. The picnic itself was to take place a little farther up the river in the shady place overlooking the millpond, which was to be the scene of various water sports. There was a place for land sports, too, and a poplar tree, stripped of its bark and branches and greased to make climbing difficult, had already been set up with a ham tied to the top as a prize for the first man or boy who should successfully climb it.
Caddie cast a regretful glance at the pole. Well, that was no place for a white dress, at any rate, she thought.
Catching the greased pig would not be proper sport for her either, she decided regretfully. Mother never contrived fine clothes for the boys on the Fourth of July, because they were expected to get into everything; but the girls were dressed up like china dolls and expected to stay sweet and spotless.
“Oh, well,” Caddie told herself, “I will be clean and ladylike this year, no matter what. I’ll just surprise them all for once.”
Father had brought them all over early in the big hay wagon, together with Robert Ireton and Mrs. Conroy, Katie and her mother, and the McCantry family. It had been great fun—all riding together and talking and laughing, and practicing the songs which they were to sing later.
O hark! O hear! how soft and clear
The echo’s mellow strain!
O echo, hear! O echo, hear!
Reply again, again, again—aga
in!
The music floats in softest notes
Upon the zephyr’s wing;
O hear the song! O hear the song!
Again we sing, we sing, we sing—we sing!
The sunshine seemed more golden on a day like this, and the smell of new-cut hay and clover bloom far sweeter than it was on ordinary days. Their own singing and the singing of the meadowlarks and red-winged blackbirds along the wayside seemed to mingle in a perfect harmony.
To celebrate the Fourth of July meant something definite in those days. Beyond the picnic lunches, the spread-eagle speeches, the greased pole, the water sports, and the fireworks in the evening, there was the consciousness of happiness and good fortune. It was a day in praise of freedom. The Civil War was still close enough, and even the War of the Revolution, to make them thankful for peace and liberty. It was a kind of summer Thanksgiving Day when they could raise their voices in gratitude for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and dedicate themselves anew to the self-evident truth that all men are created equal.
Father’s voice, full of the fervor of the day, started them all to singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and Caddie’s heart swelled as she sang. Best of all she loved the fourth stanza.
He has sounded forth the trumpet
That shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men
Before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
Be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
She kept humming it to herself as she and Emma and Katie wandered about the picnic grounds at Eau Galle.
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him!
Be jubilant, my feet!
Today her feet, in neat white slippers with satin rosettes, were jubilant indeed. The sky was very blue, and the hot sweet smell of new-cut lumber filled the air with a perfume as pleasant as the smell of clover.
The three were early enough to greet the other girls as they arrived in their white dresses with red, white, and blue bunting looped over the shoulder and knotted at the waist. Maggie, Jane, Lida—all of them arrived in due time, with their hair unnaturally frizzed out, from an uncomfortable night in curl papers, and their eyes sparkling with anticipation. All the girls of Dunnville and Eau Galle were to sit on the loading platform behind the speakers, and sing before and after the speeches were delivered. But until the speaking began they were free to roam about as they wished.
Tom and Warren with a crowd of boys went past them toward the millpond, and Tom called back over his shoulder, “They’re starting to roll logs. You better come watch.”
“Let’s do,” said Caddie to Katie, and Katie said, “All right.”
“Just look out for your dress, that’s all,” warned Clara. “Mother will be wild if she sees you standing up to sing and the front of your dress all torn.”
“Oh, bother!” Caddie said. “They’re always plaguing me about my clothes. But nothing—nothing’s going to happen to this one!”
A good many children were crowded along the banks of the quiet millpond watching the preliminary log-rolling contests. Caddie saw Hetty and Minnie and Pearly and Ezra McCantry playing “I Spy” with some of the other little children higher up the bank.
Today her feet were jubilant indeed
In the millpond floated several large peeled logs, and men from the various logging camps up the river were trying their skill upon them. From a boat each man would carefully mount his log, and balance himself on it while he rolled it under his feet. He appeared to be running on top of the water, and it was exciting to see how long he could keep it up. Much skill was required to stay on the slippery logs at all, and sooner or later one of the men would lose his balance, slip off, and go down with a great splash—to emerge again almost immediately, grinning and ready to try once more. Walking logs in the river was part of the lumberjacks’ job, and they were surprisingly expert at the difficult feat of staying on top while the log rolled under them.
The children soon had their favorites among the contestants, and cheered or shouted praise or disapproval. When Robert Ireton came out in old blue jeans with his strong brown arms folded across his bare chest, waiting for someone to row him to a log, the Woodlawn children and all the children of their neighborhood went mad with glee.
“Robert! Robert!” they shouted. “We’re on your side, Robert! Beat the lumber camps, Robert! Show ‘em Dunnville’s got the champion log roller of the world!”
None of them had known that Robert was going to enter the contest; and Caddie went as wild as the boys, shouting, “Robert! Robert! Lick the old tar out of ‘em, Robert!”
The little children left their game of “I Spy” and came crowding down to the water’s edge between the legs of taller people, echoing, “Robert! Robert! Beat ‘em, Robert!”
Near the shore floated a number of smaller, unpeeled logs, left no doubt from one of the large log rafts which were floated down the river to the mill for sawing. Hetty and Minnie and the two little McCantrys came to stand in front of Caddie and Katie, and Caddie saw Ezra’s toe go out experimentally to one of the floating logs.
“I c’n walk ‘em, too,” he said, “as good as Robert Ireton.”
“Well, don’t you try it, mister,” Caddie advised.
Now Robert had reached his log and mounted it. His feet were light and quick on the rolling log. He might have been dancing one of his Irish jigs on the threshing floor of the barn at home, to see him lift his feet. The water flashed and sparkled over the rolling log. Everybody was looking at him. He was better, more light and graceful, than the lumbermen from up the river.
But suddenly, in the midst of her pleasure and excitement at Robert’s success, Caddie saw out of the tail of her eye that another log walker was performing near at hand. Ezra McCantry was stepping gingerly from log to log, and running the length of them and back with arms outstretched to keep his balance.
“Come back here, Ezra!” Caddie cried.
But Ezra only ran a little farther out and called back mockingly, “Look at me! Look at me! I c’n walk ‘em, too I”
“Oh, dear!” Caddie said to Katie. “I just wish Emma had come down with us. She’d make him come back in pretty smart, I guess!”
Katie raised her gentle voice and called him, too; but Ezra was puffed up by the importance of the moment to even greater feats of daring. It seemed to him that everybody was looking at him now instead of Robert Ireton.
“Look-it me now! Look-it—”
Even as he uttered his howl of triumph, the log he was on began to roll. Slowly and gently it rolled, but it took Ezra by surprise and he rolled with it. He made a wonderful, big splash for such a very small boy.
“Oh, dear!” cried Caddie. “Oh, dear!”—and all sorts of disconnected things went like a panic through her mind. “Be swift, my soul. Be jubilant, my feet.… But, oh, my dress! Whatever happens, it must not get wet.”
And then she saw Ezra coming up to the surface and clawing the air an instant, trying to catch the log—and going down again without having succeeded. She knew that the millpond was deep, and that Ezra couldn’t swim—and neither could she. She heard people behind her beginning to shout, and Katie bursting into tears. Then, before she knew it, her clean white slippers were stepping out on the first logs and then the next ones, and she was frantically untying the long piece of bunting which had been over her shoulder.
She heard her own voice calling, “Ezra! Ezra!”
When he came up again she was still calling, and somehow she got his attention and flung one end of the bunting near enough to his clutching hands so that he could grasp it.
As he went down again, clutching the bunting, it snapped out tight, like a kite string in the wind, and Caddie, holding the other end, felt the log she was on beginning to roll. She tried to make her feet go fast, like Robert’s feet, in order to keep her balance; but still her log kept rolling, rolling—and the clean white slippers with th
e satin rosettes could not go fast enough. There was a second wonderful splash—and it was Caddie Woodlawn!
But she never let go of the bunting; and Ezra was holding on to his end, too. There was a log between them, and with the bunting over it neither one of them could go down too far. Caddie struggled desperately up until she could cling to the log with one hand and pull in the bunting with the other; and presently Ezra was clinging to the other side of the log, coughing and blowing water. With one on each side of it the log had stopped rolling, and they could hold to it and catch their breath for a moment until help came.
Robert was the first to reach them, swimming from his log in mid-pond with long, sure strokes.
“Oh, Robert I” Caddie cried, between gulps and coughs. “You had to get off your log! We made you lose the contest, Robert.”
“Eh, divil take the contest,” Robert roared, “and my Caddie drowning! What do you think, lass? What do you think!”
When they were safe on shore again, with the water running from them in streams and an anxious crowd surging around them, Caddie looked down and saw that she was still clutching the Fourth of July bunting against her breast. The red and blue dye was running in gaudy little streams all down the front of her lovely new white dress. As she stood there speechless with this new calamity which topped all the others, she heard the first notes of the fife and drum calling the people to the speaking and the singing.
The crowd began to drift away, now that they saw Caddie and Ezra safe.
“Oh, come along now, Caddie,” Katie said. “You’ll dry out on the speakers’ stand, with all the hot sun blazing in there. It’s time we went to sing.”
“But I can’t! I can’t—like this” wailed Caddie.
Tom and Katie, Warren and Hetty and little Minnie, were all around her, helping her wring out the yards of white—and blue and red—muslin.
“Sure you can, Caddie,” they were saying. “They need your high voice on the choruses.”
“You can sit in the back,” said Katie, “and I’ll spread my skirts out over yours.”
Caddie Woodlawn's Family Page 14
