Calico Bush

by Rachel Field

  “I count every drop as dear as silver,” he told Marguerite and the children, “but I don’t begrudge it to him. No, sir. Any dog that’s come through what he has deserves as much as a human.”

  Marguerite dressed his hurts as well as she could and made a warm bed for him by the fire. Jacob begged to sleep beside him, and it was only when Ira promised to come down in the night and administer more from the flask that the child was willing to turn in with the rest under the covers.

  Pumpkin recovered in time, though he always had a stiff hind leg to show for the experience. The scar was still plain on his side, and sometimes when he twitched or gave little barks in his sleep, Marguerite wondered if he might not be dreaming himself a captive once more.

  “If dogs could talk,” she would say to the children, “Pumpkin would have much to tell us.”

  Though the immediate danger of an Indian raid had waned, the whole household still kept sharp lookout, and Joel and Ira decided not to risk another search for the cave and its secret.

  “We’d gain nothin’ if we did find it,” they told each other. “Brindle an’ her calf are gone. Findin’ their bones somewhere won’t fetch ’em back.”

  Of their neighbors they saw little now that the cold had set in. Even Ira had small chance to go to see Abby Welles, though Joel and Dolly Sargent complained that he would leave them to do the chores alone any day the wind happened to be right for sailing up the eastern channel towards the Welleses’. That he and Abby were pledged to one another had been taken for granted by everyone since the day of the corn-shelling, but there seemed no likelihood of their marrying for a year at least. Ira had taken over a small part of his brother’s claim. He owned a hundred-acre strip beyond their eastern point, but not a tree had been felled as yet and no cellar or well dug.

  “It’s small wonder Hannah Welles hates the sight o’ me,” Ira said to Dolly once in Marguerite’s hearing. “She was set on Abby takin’ up with Ethan.”

  “There’s no denyin’ he’s got a lot to offer her,” she answered, “with the whole o’ Sunday Island comin’ to him an’ plenty o’ room for all under Seth’s roof.”

  “She’ll never regret lovin’ me,” Marguerite heard Ira reply as he took up his ax and went out to the pile of logs.

  It was a fairly warm day for December, and she went out with Debby to watch him split the wood. It was pleasant to see his ax come down so swift and sure each time, and sometimes when he paused to rest he would talk to her for a minute or two. The baby was so well wrapped in a woolen shawl that she looked like a brownish caterpillar with a pink nose and tufts of light hair showing at one end.

  “What time of year is it now?” Marguerite asked as Ira stopped to draw his sleeve across his streaming forehead.

  “Let’s see,” he answered going over to the post where he still made his daily notches, dividing the months by means of long horizontal strokes. “Well, I declare, if it ain’t got to be the middle o’ December! Yes, tomorrow’s the seventeenth, time I finished that beaver cap I promised Abby.”

  “Is it for Christmas?” asked Marguerite.

  But he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Our folks don’t hold with such foolishness. We went to meetin’ back in Marblehead on Christmas, I recollect, but there was a Dutch boy I knew told me how they had all kinds o’ doin’s where he come from.”

  “You mean, it will be no different from other days?” Marguerite’s eyes grew wide with disappointment. “No carols, and no cakes, and no gifts from one to another?”

  “I guess that’s about right,” he told her and went on with the chopping.

  If Ira gave her no encouragement in Christmas festivities she knew it would be useless to expect more of Dolly and Joel Sargent. She tried to put the thought from her mind, but as each day came bringing it nearer she found herself remembering more and more the happy preparations for it she had helped to make at home. She dreamed of the Christmas cakes Grand’mère had always baked with such pride, of the seeded raisins and the picked nutmeats stirred ceremoniously in the rich batter. And then there were the carols, with the Sisters in the convent beating time and making sure that not a single “Noël” was left out when all their pupils’ voices were lifted together. She tried to tell the children of the tiny carved statues of the Virgin and Joseph and the little Christ Child in the manger, with cattle and sheep and shepherds all painted as perfectly as life, that were brought out on Christmas Eve in the candlelit chapel. Unfortunately Dolly had overheard part of this recital and had chided her roundly.

  “I’ll thank you to keep your Popishness to yourself,” she had told her. “We may be in too godforsaken a spot for a meetin’ house, but that’s no reason to put ideas in the children’s heads.”

  And so it came to be Christmas Eve in the log cabin on Sargents’ point with no smell of spice cakes, or incense, or candles, and none to feel the lack of them but Marguerite Ledoux.

  She had been out to the post herself that noon, counting the month’s notchings to be sure. There could be no doubt—tomorrow would make twenty-five. She would not have missed the holiday preparations so much, she thought, if she might have gone over to see Aunt Hepsa; but she knew there was no chance of this with such a high sea running and snow left in patches from last week’s fall. It was rare, Joel had said, to have much fall near the sea. A bad winter ahead, Seth Jordan had predicted, and it looked as if he was right. Frost had covered the little square panes of glass with such feathery patternings, it required much breathing and scratching to make even a little hole to see out. Marguerite was tired of doing this. The room was almost dark, but she knew that outside there was still half an hour or so left of twilight. She went over to the pegs behind the door and took down the brown cloak and hood.

  “What are you doin’?” Dolly asked her as she had her hand on the door.

  “I’m—I want to bring more cones,” she hazarded, grasping at the first idea that came into her head. “There are not so many left in the basket.”

  “Well, all right, then,” Dolly told her, “only don’t fetch in the wet ones that make the fire smoke. Pick ’em from underneath. No, Jacob,” she added at a question from the child, “you can’t go along—it’s too cold.

  Marguerite buckled on the shoes Aunt Hepsa had given her, tied on her cloak, and went out, basket in hand. Once she shut the door behind her some of the depression which had weighed upon her spirit all day left her. It was impossible to feel so sad out in the snow with the pointed trees and all their shiny dark-green needles. They smelled of Christmas to her. There had been branches of evergreen in the chapel sometimes. Perhaps if she hunted at the edge of the tall woods behind the spring she might find some red partridge berries to bring back to the children. It was bad luck if you gave nothing on Christmas, and they need not know the reason for such a gift.

  As she turned into the wood path behind the house she looked across the water to Sunday Island. White places showed on the cleared field round the Jordan house where the snow remained, and the trees above it on the upper pasture where she and Aunt Hepsa had gathered bayberry looked more dark and bristling than ever in the winter twilight. She was glad that a curl of smoke rose from the chimney. Aunt Hepsa must be cooking supper, she told herself, and she paused to send her a Christmas wish across the water.

  “I wonder if she’s begun her new quilt yet?” she thought as she struck into the wood path. “She had the indigo dye Ethan brought her all ready to make a blue pot.”

  There were no red berries under the snow in the clearing by the spring where she had hoped to find them, so she went on farther along the blazed trail. It was very still there, with only a light wind stirring the spruce and fir boughs overhead. The light stayed longer there than she had expected, for the snow helped prolong the winter afternoon. Sometimes she stooped to gather cones, taking care to shake off the snow as Dolly Sargent had bidden her. The cold was intense, but her blood was quick and the old homespun cloak and hood enveloped her warmly. There was no sound
except her footfalls in the snow. A sudden impulse came upon her to sing one of the carols which she knew the Sisters in the convent must even then be teaching other voices to raise.

  She set down the half-filled basket of cones, folded her hands piously under the cloak, and began the first simple little chant that she had ever learned.

  “Noël—Noël—Noël!”

  Her own voice startled her in the stillness. Then at the sound of the familiar words she grew confident and began the one that had been Grand’mère’s favorite because she also had sung it when she was a girl in the little village where she had lived.

  J’entends le ciel retentir

  Des cantiques des Saints Anges,

  Et la terre tressaillir

  Des transports de leurs louanges.

  C’est l’Oinct qui devoit venir,

  II est déjà dans ses langes.

  Miracle! prodige nouveau,

  Le fils de Dieu dans le berceau!

  Mais plus grand prodige encore,

  Ce grand Roi, que le ciel adore

  Doit expirer sur un poteau.

  Noël! Noël! Noël!*

  As she sang there in the deepening twilight, she felt strangely comforted. The French words that had lain so long forgotten welled up out of her mind as easily as if she had been with the Sisters in the candlelit chapel and not alone these thousands of miles away in a snowy wood.

  “Noël! Noël!” she cried once more to the ranks of spruces, and then as she turned to retrace her steps something dark and swift moved toward her from behind a tree trunk.

  There was not time enough to run away. The words were hardly cool on her lips before he stood beside her—a tall Indian in skins, with a musket that went oddly with his fringes and bright feathers. So silently did he come that not a twig snapped under his foot. He seemed not to dent the snow as he moved over it. His eyes showed bright in the copper of his skin, and a deep scar ran crookedly across one cheek. He came so close that she saw it plainly, and yet she could not move so much as an inch. Her feet seemed rooted in the snow, and if her heart continued to beat, she could not feel it. For what seemed like ages he continued to regard her fixedly with his black, unblinking eyes, while she waited for him to seize the tomahawk from his belt and make an end of her. But he did not move to do so. Instead, his lips parted in a queer smile.

  “Noël!” he said, pronouncing the word carefully in a deep, gutteral voice. “Noël!”

  Marguerite felt her heart begin to beat again, though her knees were still numb and she continued to stare at him incredulously. Surely this must be a miracle, more extra-ordinary than any bestowed on Saint Catherine or Saint Elizabeth! A savage had come out of the woods to greet her in her own tongue on Christmas Eve! She forced herself to smile back and answer him.

  His words were meager and hard to catch, but she made out from them and his signs that he had lived with the French in Quebec. He was bound there now, or so she guessed from his pointing finger. She could not tell how many of her words he understood, but whenever she said “Noël” his eyes would brighten with recognition and he would repeat it after her. “Les Pères Gris,” he told her, had cured him. He touched the scar as he spoke and crossed his two lean forefingers to make a cross.

  It was almost dark now; only a faint light lingered between the spruces. Pumpkin barked in the distance, and Marguerite knew she must hurry back lest they grow alarmed. What would they think, Joel and Dolly Sargent and the rest, if they should come upon her there in the woods holding converse with an Indian? Prompted by an impulse she pulled the cord out from under her dress and jerked off Oncle Pierre’s gilt button. It glittered in her hand as she held it out to the tall figure before her.

  “Pour un souvenir de Noël,” she said as she laid it in his hand before she turned and sped off toward the clearing.

  Her heart was still pounding as she came out of the woods and in sight of the log house. Pumpkin bounded to meet her as she paused to put back the cord and its only remaining treasure. She had not thought to make such a Christmas gift, but surely she could not have done less. She could not but feel that somehow it was a fortunate sign, this strange meeting. Perhaps Le Bon Dieu had Himself arranged it that she might be less lonely on Christmas Eve. But she knew there must not be a word of it to the rest. She would never be able to make them understand what she scarcely understood herself. As for Caleb, she could well guess what he would say and that he would think ill of her ever after.

  Dolly Sargent scolded her roundly for staying away so long.

  “I declare you deserve a beatin’,” she told her hotly, “strayin’ so far at this time o’ night. I vow Debhy’s got more sense ’n you show sometimes.”

  There was no mention made of Christmas next day save that Joel asked a lengthier blessing over their breakfast cornmeal than was usual with him. But Marguerite no longer minded. Had she not had her miracle the night before?

  Seth Jordan’s predictions for the winter were more than surpassed. It is still remembered in those parts by old men and women who recall tales their grandparents and greatgrandparents told of its bitterness. Snow fell as it had not in many seasons before, and no sooner would the sun appear and a slight thaw set in than this would be followed by spells of cold which made a crust heavy enough to bear a man’s weight. Northeast winds blew continuously, with sleet that cut like fine wires. It was impossible to put out in the boats in such weather; and then in February the channel froze over solid. This happened after a week of such bitter cold that during those seven days the Sargent family had burned up more than half their winter’s supply of firewood. Joel and Ira would be up every other hour of the night throwing on more logs, and it was only by placing quilts and featherbeds on the floor nearby that the family were able to sleep in comfort.

  “Beats any cold I ever knew,” Ira said as he reported on the frozen channel. “I lay by another day we could drive a team across to Sunday Island.”

  “’Twould be pretty hard goin’ with the twelve-foot tide hereabouts,” his brother told him. “Still, even if the ice was pretty rough I s’pose a body could do it safely.”

  The children were all eagerness to try. It would be fine, they thought, to surprise Aunt Hepsa by making a visit to her on foot. But their mother would not hear of such a thing, and even Ira said he would let someone else cross it first.

  Food was none too plenty on the Sargent table in those days. They were down to dried fish and scrapings of cornmeal from the bottom of the barrel, with a few of their own turnips. It was poor fare with no more molasses to sweeten it.

  “Maybe it’s as well we lost Brindle and her calf,” sighed Dolly. “They’d never have lasted through such a spell, an’ I couldn’t bear to see ’em starvin’. It’s hard enough with the children gettin’ puny right under my eyes.”

  Marguerite had not noticed this before, but now that it was pointed out to her she realized that they all looked pale and spindling. They had lost their freckles and summer sunburn during the weeks indoors, and their eyes showed bigger and rounder than before. Jacob in particular appeared scrawny and pinched. He looked like a wizened little old man in the baggy jacket and breeches of gray wool.

  “He’s been limsy ever since that hammer hit him,” his mother told Joel. “I declare I don’t know what to dose him with.”

  “He’ll pick up come spring,” he had assured her.

  “If it ever does come spring,” Ira had put in from the corner.

  Marguerite, dandling Debby on her lap, could not help agreeing with Ira. A thin patch of winter sunshine came through the frosted panes of the narrow window, and the child reached out her hands as if she would hold it close. She was growing into a little girl now that she was past a year, with a number of small white teeth and fair rings of hair. Already the twins were concerned that she had not begun to talk, but their mother said she could do with less noise about the house for a good while to come.

  “Wonder what she’ll say first?” Becky questioned.

&n
bsp; “‘Ma’, most likely,” Susan told her, “or ‘baby,’ perhaps. See, ‘baby,’” and she held up the corncob doll as she spoke.

  But Debby had notions of her own when it came to talking.

  “Maggie,” she said quite slowly and distinctly that afternoon as they sat together by the window.

  “Well, I never!” exclaimed Dolly Sargent when she heard. “I’ll let her have the molasses spoon to suck, just for that!”

  Years afterwards Marguerite could not recall Debby’s little voice saying her name without wanting to cry, for that very night as they lay sleeping her cries and Pumpkin’s barks were to rouse them. A strong northeast wind had risen with evening and that, added to the intense cold, had driven them to spreading their bedding around the fire. They slept in a half-circle about it, the two men and Caleb at either end; Dolly, Marguerite, and the children in the middle. She had Patty and Jacob beside her under the Rose of Sharon quilt, with the twins huddled between her and their mother and Debby. Already Joel and Ira had been up replenishing the fire by turns. Marguerite had half-wakened at the thud of the logs being thrown on. She had peered out sleepily once to see Ira pushing them far back against the chimney to safeguard against sparks.

  And then there came that terrible crying. She started up from sleep to see Debby crawling on the hearthstone, her dress a mass of flames, and Pumpkin leaping frantically in circles about her, tearing at the burning stuff with his teeth. Marguerite could not move nor utter a sound. She saw Dolly catch up the blazing bundle and beat the flames fiercely with her bare hands before Joel seized the nearest bed cover to smother the fire. Ira had run for the water bucket. He was dousing the child with it, cursing the dog who still leaped under foot. Between them they had it out in a few minutes, but the harm was done.

  They gathered in a frightened group about the child. Dolly held her close, trying as gently as possible to peel off the charred cloth of the dress and old shawl.

  “Don’t seem as if she could’ve slipped out without I felt her,” she kept repeating, “but she must ‘a’ done it somehow an’ crawled right into the fire. I’d wrapped her up in the shawl for warmth. I never thought how easy the fringes could catch. Oh, Joel, what’ll we do for her?”