CHAPTER XIV

THE SACRIFICE

Among the wide acres of the Atherton place was a certain field known since the memory of the grandfathers as “The Field of Arrows.” It was a level, sunny spot, surrounded by low hills. It backed, indeed, against a hill, and a little stream with mirror-like pools ran around it with scythe-like grace. The Field of Arrows was almost a semicircle, and it was as pleasant a spot as any around about Lee, beautiful though that region was.

It had taken its name from the great number of flint arrowheads, the handicraft of the Cherokees or of some earlier race, who had camped or fought in that spot. Perhaps they had raised their maize there too. At any rate, the good Indian corn was growing there now, putting up its blade-like leaves courageously to the young summer air. Midway of the field, that is to say, reaching from the center of its base and running to the highest point of its circle, a fine broad pathway stretched, and beside this path poppies and daisies, mint and mountain pinks had leave to grow when their hour should come. The path led from the stepping stones and the shady cove where the kettles and tubs stood for washing, to a cabin with two picturesque outside chimneys made of the field stone and the reliable red clay, which held them together with brave determination. A light gallery ran in front of the house, with benches made of stout ash, pushed back against the wall, and that best of drinking cups, a long-handled, polished gourd, hung on the wall above an old Indian water jar, hollowed from soapstone.

Within were four rooms of equal size, and back of the house was a summer kitchen. And everything about the place, from the latticed passageway that led to the kitchen, to the serviceable crane that swung in the chief fireplace, spoke of home and comfort. The little windows looked out on a prosperous scene; the mulberry tree, with its golden bark, had places of hiding and nestling for half a dozen children. The bowlders in the stream sheltered ideal swimming holes. The chestnut and butternut trees on the hill behind the house suggested happy autumn days.

“It will be a perfect place for children,” decided Mrs. Carson. “And that’s where Hi’s family shall live.”

She had taken him to see it, and he had looked at it with eyes which seemed to recognize it as a home returned to, rather than as one just found.

So, while he and Mr. Carson took their three days’ journey to Hi’s home, Mrs. Carson busied herself with the cabin. The lattice was freshly whitewashed; the fireplaces within the house and the chimneys that ran up visibly to the ceiling, were painted a dark red. The floors and walls were purified, and the whole place furnished with new, strong mountain furniture. Rag rugs were put on the floor, fresh curtains at the windows, a good stove set up in the kitchen, the comfortable beds were provided with new bedding, and a fine little old clock, taken from the attic of The Shoals, and a mirror from the same place, in its antique frame, were set in place.

“Tell your mother to come right along,” Mrs. Carson had warned Hi. “If she has any particular treasure she wishes to bring, well and good. But she’s not to bother about anything else. She’ll be glad to have new things to look at. Women get dreadfully tired looking at the same furniture day in and day out. I believe a new outfit for the house at the right time would have kept many a woman from going insane.”

“Yessum,” agreed Jim. “Going over and over a thing is what wears you out, ain’t it?”

Mrs. Carson had held some doubts as to the ability of her husband and Hi to persuade a woman to “pull up stakes” at an hour’s notice and to go to a place she perhaps had never heard of. But it appeared that Mrs. Kitchell, like her son, was ready for adventure. Asking no more time than it took to wash and iron the handful of clothes possessed by the family, she packed all her worldly goods—or at least, all she cared to retain—in an old haircloth trunk, and smiling and expectant, turned her face toward Lee. It was a little brown, nutlike face, much like Hi’s, and it was really carved in smiles in spite of all her troubles. There were worried marks between her brows, it is true, but the laughing marks about her eyes and the corners of her mouth, discounted them.

The democrat wagon from The Shoals was at the station to meet the party, and Mrs. Carson, who had driven down in her little pony cart, helped to get the family settled in it. The little hair trunk was put in behind, and the tribe of Kitchell, with a new light in their bright black eyes, turned to the future.

“A dear little strong, staunch woman, isn’t she?” said Lucy Carson to her husband as they drove toward their home. “And the two girls are as nice little daughters as anyone would care to have—much better looking than Hi. But the fourth child, the little boy, looks sickly. We’ll have to put him on special diet—plenty of milk and eggs.”

Mr. Carson smiled happily to himself. The languor was going out of his wife’s voice; the pallor of her face was flushed with a lovely rose pink. As she sat beside him, in her soft cream-colored frock, with her lilac scarf drifting from her shoulders, her pale amethysts in their setting of old yellow gold clasping collar and belt, he thought her the sweetest woman he ever had seen. She was sweeter even than before sorrow had come to her. He had loved her then; but there was something very like worship in the feeling he had toward her now.

“We’ll drive on through the hills the short way,” she said, brimful and flowing over with the home-romance of the Kitchells, “and be at the door to welcome them.”

And so they were. As the democrat wagon drew up, filled with the wondering and somewhat awed Kitchells, their good “neighbors”—they would not have tolerated the word “benefactors”—stood at the door of the cabin to meet them. And tired little Anne Kitchell, her four children following her, stepped into the door of her new home. The old life with the shame of a drunken husband, killed in a shameful row, was left behind. She had the chance to begin a new life, and to this feeling the new furniture of the house contributed more than she could realize.

Hi ran from room to room, staring, his big mouth open, his heart swelling. Once he waved his long arms over his head, unable to contain himself, and not wanting to really whoop with delight. He listened while Mrs. Carson talked to his mother of this and that; showed her the kitchen and the store closets, with their supplies of food and of house linen, and the plain, good wardrobes she had prepared for the family.

“If I’ve made any mistakes, Mrs. Kitchell, the things can be changed. I worked according to Hi’s direction. No, you’re not to thank me. Not at all. This is a sort of bonus offered you for your being so obliging in coming to us in our need. We want to get our factory started as soon as possible, and we couldn’t spare you the time to sew for your family.”

She spoke in a brisk bright way new to her, and even Hi, boy that he was, could see that a great change was coming over her. She had reminded him of a tall white lily, drooping at the close of a hot day; but now she was like that same lily in the morning, and her petals were touched with pink.

So Anne Kitchell was not allowed to weep out her gratitude, though a dozen times she thought she was going to; she was filled, instead, with a new desire to work and to “be somebody.” There was no one here to saddle the old shameful stories on her—to refer to her as a drunkard’s wife. She would be taken at her own valuation, and in her keen, quick little brain she began to understand that the valuation might be a high one if she chose to make it so.

Mary McBirney gave her only a day or two to settle herself in her new home, and then, with a pail of mountain honey and a crock of cottage cheese by way of gifts, she came to see her. They liked each other at once, though the life of one had enabled her to make the best of herself, and the life of the other had kept her fighting like an angry rat. But the honesty that underlay the character of each, and the interest each had in Hi, and in Azalea—indeed, in children in general—helped them over the little strangeness they might have felt.

But Ma McBirney was restless. There was something on her conscience—something that had been there ever since her husband had told her that Azalea was the granddaughter of old Colonel Atherton, and that, if fortune had treated her kindly, The Shoals, and all the comforts and opportunities that went with the possession of the estate, would have been hers. True, the fine place had passed legitimately into the hands of the Carsons; yet knowing the generous and abounding nature of the Carsons as she did, she realized that were they to be told the truth about Azalea, they would at once offer her a home, and would give her an education such as their own daughter was receiving.

“I’m a wicked woman,” said Mary McBirney to herself. “I’m selfish and sinful. Just to give myself happiness, I’m keeping that dear child away from what belongs to her.”

The thought had goaded her for days. More, it had crept into the wakeful hours of the night. It had tortured her as she watched Azalea busy about the house, singing, or thinking in her intense, curious way. When the girl flung her arms about Ma McBirney’s neck, calling her the sweetest thing in the world, and saying how happy she was to be back with her again, it seemed as if Ma McBirney’s heart actually turned over in her side, with dread of losing her, and with shame at her own cowardice.

So, on the day she called on Mrs. Kitchell, she summoned her better angel—though it was difficult to imagine that Mary McBirney could be surrounded with anything but good angels—and made her way to The Shoals.

From every window of the great white house fluttered orange and white awnings. The lawn was trim and green; the flower beds aglow with lovely fresh blooms. Hammocks and couches swung on the wide gallery, and linen-covered chairs and great East Indian jugs filled with growing plants, stood about. Ma McBirney paused before the wide door with its fan-shaped transom and looked about her wistfully. By saying a word, Azalea could leave the humble little home which was now hers, and come down to enjoy the bright hospitality of this beautiful place. Music, books, travel—all of these things would come to her. Mary McBirney remembered how she herself had longed for opportunity in those early days when she first became aware of her ignorance, and how she had “given up” and gone her quiet way—the way to which she was born. But Azalea was not like that. She could not be happy in giving up an education and all that would go to make her capable and able to measure herself with the best. What had meant contentment for her, Mary McBirney, would mean failure for Azalea.

She turned these matters over in her large, kind mind, and—rang Mrs. Carson’s doorbell.

Mrs. Carson’s parlor maid, black, smiling, and chubby, answered the summons.

“Tulula Darthula,” said Mrs. McBirney in her soft voice, “might I see your mistress?”

“I’ll inquiah, ma’am,” replied Tulula in even softer tones. “Be pleased to enteh.”

Mrs. McBirney would have been quite content to sit on the porch, but the thoughts surging in her brain impelled her to accept Tulula’s invitation.

“Will you be seated in the mornin’ room, ma’am?”

Mrs. McBirney hesitated a moment. Then she said shyly:

“If you don’t think Mrs. Carson would mind, Tulula, I’d like to sit in the drawing room this time.”

“Why ce’t’ney, ma’am. Suit yo’sef.”

Tulula rustled away with her message, and Mary McBirney, who all her life had seen only the mountain or the village homes, entered the long shadowy drawing room, with its paintings, its occasional white statue, its shining floor and carved furniture, and sitting there, measuring all this meant of knowledge and delight, steeled her heart for the sacrifice.

Then Mr. and Mrs. Carson entered together, and upborn by love, Mrs. McBirney went to meet them, saying:

“I asked to come in here for—for a reason. I hope you don’t mind, ma’am.”

“Our home is for our friends,” answered Mrs. Carson gently. “I would like to see you here often, friend.”

She knew, somehow, that Mary McBirney had a great thing to say.

“This is the reason:” said Mrs. McBirney. And then she told them the whole story.

* * * * *

It had been rainy Sunday. The rain began before daylight; it wiped out the sunrise, and it turned what should have been a golden midsummer day into mere blankness and desolation. At least, a person could look at it that way if he wanted to.

Up at the McBirney house no one had thought of dressing for church.

“No one but a fish could get anywhere to-day,” said Jim.

“I feel just as if we were living under a waterfall,” declared Azalea. “What’ll we do to-day, Jim?”

“I don’t know—’less you tell me stories.”

“Piggy, I don’t want to do all the thinking. If I tell stories you’ve got to tell them too. It’s nice we’re going to have chicken for dinner, isn’t it?” She sniffed the air contentedly.

“You bet it is. And strawberries and ’lasses cake!”

“I wonder what Carin’s doing, Jim?”

“Fooling ’round in that there studio of hern. My, but she can paint, can’t she? Did you see that picture she done of me sitting up in the willer?”

“Jim McBirney, what makes you talk like that? You know better than to say ‘done’ for ‘did’ and you know willow isn’t pronounced ‘willer.’”

“Now, look here, Zalie, you leave me alone and let me talk like I want to. I ain’t got on my Sunday clothes, have I? Well then, I don’t have to put on Sunday talk. Just let me feel comfortable, can’t you?”

“I wish Carin were up here to-day.”

“And Hi. I’d rather have Hi. Carin makes me kind o’ squirm. She’s a mighty nice girl, but she don’t make me feel to home.”

“Oh, Jim, she’s lovely. And such fun too! She can get up the best plays you ever heard of.”

“Girl plays, I reckon. She couldn’t think of anything that would interest boys.”

“Maybe boys wouldn’t have the sense to be interested, smarty.”

“Children,” broke in the soft voice of Ma McBirney, “I’ve got the dinner in the oven and there ain’t nothing occupying me just at present. Wouldn’t one of you read me a story from them _Youth’s Companions_ Carin sent home by pa last night? Seems as if it would pass the time.”

The children flushed a little. They knew when ma disliked their way of talking. She had her own particular fashion of correcting them.

“You read, Azalea,” said Jim, sinking into a chair and staring out of the rain-beaten window. “And you’ll have to read good and loud to get ahead of this bellering and roaring.”

And, indeed, the wind shook the cabin, and the rain fluttered down the chimney; the stream that tumbled down the mountain side was fairly shouting and the trees were beating their drenched branches together with a sound like the rushing of great birds. But high above the elemental din, Azalea’s clear voice arose. And peace dwelt within the cabin. It dwelt there while the children set the table for the good dinner that Mrs. McBirney had cooked, and while they devoured that dinner with perfect concentration of purpose. And afterward, when ma had read a psalm to them, and pa had told a story about something that happened to him when he was a boy and the fires were raging over the mountains, they settled down to a quiet game of jack straws on the deal table.

And then, just as they were on the point of being bored again, the storm cleared. Above them the deep blue sky shone through the fleecy whiteness of the clouds, and beneath them torn fragments of cloud swam along like floating islands over the purple valley. The sunset came in rose and gold, and in the east a proud young moon, bright as a happy bride, swam up into the heavens.

The McBirneys, silent and happy, cloaked against the dampness, sat at “Outlook Point” and looked about them at the beautiful world.

“This is as good as church, to my way of thinking,” remarked Thomas McBirney. “If you can’t worship the Almighty when you see a thing like this, then there ain’t no manner of worship in you.”

“What’s that, Thomas? Singing?” asked his wife.

Something sweet and clear troubled the silence, and as the four harkened it swelled.

“Singing!” decided Thomas. “Who can it be?”

They listened.

“I know,” cried Azalea gayly. “It’s the Carsons! Oh, ma, it’s Carin and her father and mother.”

Something gripped Mary McBirney’s loving, jealous heart. She knew why they were coming. She had asked them to come for this very thing, but when the rain had set in, it had seemed like an answer to her secret prayers—those prayers which she would not admit to herself that she prayed, and which were no more than her “heart’s sincere desire.”

The horses drew nearer; the words of the song could be heard.

“Now the day is over, Night is drawing nigh—”

The three voices, softly blended, sang the familiar lines to the slow motion of their horses.

Azalea ran to the edge of the “Outlook” and sent her clear voice, rested and refreshed from the strain it had undergone in the days of her enforced singing of noisy songs, ringing down the mountain side.

“Shadows of the evening, Steal across the sky.”

The tightness at Ma McBirney’s heart increased. How like her Azalea was to these others—like them in voice and manner, and unafraid of them! They had heard her, for Mr. Carson interrupted himself to call out to her. Then the song went on, and there were four singing it.

“Jesus give the weary Calm and sweet repose; With Thy tenderest blessing, May our eyelids close.”

Now the sounds grew fainter as the windings of the road took them away; then they swelled again, as the horses returned on the winding road. But Azalea sang on, delighting in the song her mother had taught her—the song that had comforted her when she had grown sick at heart at all the silly things she had been obliged to sing when she was “the show girl.”

“Grant to little children, Visions bright of Thee; Guard the sailors tossing On the deep, blue sea.”

“They are here,” said Ma McBirney in so solemn a voice that Jim and Azalea stared at her, wondering.

And so they were. They dismounted easily, threw their bridles, Western fashion, over the heads of their horses, and walked forward with pleasant greetings. But even their voices were different. They too seemed solemn.

“It must be the night,” thought Azalea. She took Carin’s hand, and they all walked back to the Point, and sat there watching the little islands of cloud as they floated across the path of the moon and turned from cloud into something precious and radiant, not quite so pale as silver nor as bright as gold.