Part 7

_April 5th._ Caro is in the window-seat, feather-stitching the missionary petticoats, with one eye on the birds in the yard. The jays have always roused her special ire; and yesterday one flew to the hackberry, in plain sight, with a little naked nestling dead in his wicked bill, tucked it coolly under his toes against the bark, and devoured it before our eyes. This morning, in the intervals of courtship, they have diverted themselves with crumb-snatching. They sit on a limb above the scattered morsels where a dozen or more birds are feasting. There is bread in abundance for all, but the jays love hectoring even better than eating. One will watch till some bird picks up a crumb, and then drop like lead upon his astonished victim. The unfortunate drops the crumb, of course; and before he collects his scattered wits the jay is back aloft with the morsel safe under his toes, picking leisurely. Caro sat laughing and scolding till a little red-brown wren flew down and was pounced upon in a twinkling. The wren dropped his crumb, but turned upon the bully with lightning quickness and a volcanic explosion of wrath utterly out of proportion to his size. The big bird, amazed at the onset, flew up to his perch in a panic, and Caro clapped her hands.

“Oh, grand! grand!” she cried; “don’t I wish Milly Wood were here to see! I told her yesterday if she’d lay Cousin Jason out she could manage him: and just look at that blessed wren.”

“Milly isn’t a wren, though,” I said: “she hasn’t a glimmering of the wren’s gift of speaking his mind. Look at the wood-thrush, dear; you see the difference? When the wood-thrush turns on a jay, I’ll have hopes of Grace and Milly—and not before.”

The two wood-thrushes have been in the yard for days, the shyest, gentlest of creatures, ready to fly off at the flutter of a leaf. They have not touched the crumbs yet, but hop nearer every day. The jay watched one of them extract a worm from the soil, however, and lit upon him plummet-fashion. The wood-thrush dropped his half-swallowed morsel and fled in a panic to the black ash, where my glasses revealed him, his breast feathers bristling with terror, a mere puff-ball of fear.

“That’s Milly,” I said.

“But, Mammy Lil, anything can run a jay if it will only stand up to him,” persisted Caro; “I don’t see why Milly submits to it. She can’t ask Mr. Lincoln to a single meal. When he comes out in the afternoon he has to motor all the way to Chatterton for his supper and then go back; and Cousin Jay goes in the parlor when he does come, and glares at him and looks at his watch, and yawns—he’s simply insufferable. I’ve asked them both over here; Milly can stay all night, you know. But she says she won’t dare to come often, or Uncle Jason won’t like it. Not like it, indeed! I wish he belonged to me—I’d ‘uncle’ him!—There, that petticoat’s all ready to proclaim Cousin Jane’s thriftiness in clothing our dear missionaries on the frontier. I’ll make them for the sake of family peace: but I’m blessed if I’ll take them to church to be packed: she can escort her offering herself.”

* * * * *

_April 8th._

_COMPANIONSHIP_

_Afar in heaven is Love? Ah, no!_ _Follow the path where wild-flowers blow;_ _Store in thy heart the songs which swell_ _From wayside hedgerow, wood and fell;_ _Mark where the young year’s opening leaf_ _Answers the wail of doubt and grief,_ _And where, fresh burgeoning after rain,_ _Life learns the inner heart of pain._ _Let care and passion sink to rest,_ _Calmed ’neath wide skies on earth’s green breast;_ _And hearken while the steadfast hills_ _Breathe strength to fainting human wills._ _And through this changing, fair disguise_ _Know thou Love’s voice, and meet Love’s eyes!_

* * * * *

_April 10th._ Out on the porch again, in the warm, sweet air, with all birddom for company. Caro has gone driving with Bob White, after wheeling me here for my own pleasure and for the Peon’s astonishment when he comes home.

The robins have a secret in the seven-trunked maple. The leaves are so thick no one could guess it except by their vigilance in guarding the tree. They have made a law that no jay, of any age, sex, or size, shall alight in it, nor poke his bill among its branches, nor brush it with his wings in flight; and the law they have promulgated they are ready to enforce. Dark and bloody tales are told of jays—tales of cast-out eggs, of murdered babies, and stolen nests; wherefore no jay shall frequent that maple, “then, since nor henceforward.” Hence, wild curiosity among the jays, agitated caucuses in the pasture oak, and unanimous decision to visit that maple at all hazards, singly, and in groups. They watch till the robins are at some distance, and fly up to the tree on the far side, three or four strong, while the robins, their backs to their threatened castle, drag forth reluctant worms by the middle. They seem absorbed in their hunt, but they know! In the twinkling of an eye they are at the maple, and no jay may abide their coming.

Nor will the robins, after these aggressions, tolerate the jays elsewhere. They may be pecking at the foot of a tree when a jay alights noiselessly in its topmost branch. They see, apparently, through the top of their skulls; and one jay or six, it is all the same to them. They dash up with the _élan_ of a picked regiment, and again the jays shriek and fly. Not a jay has pecked on this lawn this whole afternoon, nor roosted while the robins pecked. Time and again they have sallied in from the pasture, and as often they have dashed squawking back. It is a strenuous life for the blue-coats: but it certainly keeps things peaceful for the rest. The wood-thrushes have ventured near today, and a pair of chippies have come up on the porch, almost to my chair.

Yesterday evening a dozen mocking-birds were here on the lawn, singing singly, answering one another, and joining again and again in choruses that whelmed the grove in melody.

I lay in the growing twilight listening to them and thinking once more of all that passes, and of all that can never pass, when suddenly through the closing dark came the wild, sweet song of the wood-thrush, the first I had heard this year: _U-o-lee! U-o-lee!_ The three notes form a perfect minor chord; and at their end a sudden spray of rapid tinkling notes, and the song again repeated, and again.

They say the thrushes have two sets of vocal chords, long and short, and the double vibration accounts for the splendid richness of their tones. But when those wild, appealing notes call through the gathering darkness one thinks, not of anatomy, but of the _Sursum Corda_ in a church, and of all the souls who shrink before some cup of suffering and yet accept it, not merely with courage, but with clear vision of the joy beyond.

Up from the brook the song came, and far out on the road it was answered: _U-o-lee! U-o-lee!_ What magic fills the haunting notes with subtle suggestions of human weakness, of trembling courage, of faith no suffering can slay? And when they ceased, the mocking-birds took up the theme and carried it, far into the moonlit night, to its inevitable and triumphant conclusion—the song of the victor on the heights who has conquered in the lowest depths.

* * * * *

_April 19th._ Cousin Jane insisted on Caro’s going to town with her yesterday, ostensibly to do some shopping, but really, I think, to give Bob White a chance to take them both to lunch. Bob comes out pretty often, and is as assiduous in his attentions as Caro will permit. I cannot see that she especially favors either him or David. She goes more with David, but her attitude toward him is so frankly affectionate that it is not as encouraging as it might be. He meets her quite on her own ground, and appears entirely satisfied. Everybody, in fact, seems contented except Bob White and Cousin Jane, to whom Bob pays strenuous court. Caro went with her to town with her usual light-hearted acquiescence in any plan proposed. She takes life as it comes, and makes a joyful occasion of the most commonplace happenings. But before she would agree to go she made Milly promise to come and spend the day with me: and this morning the two of them, with the Peon’s and David’s assistance, escorted me out to the maple tree in a triumphal procession, and established me on a cot in the real outdoors.

Milly scattered the crumbs for me, and sat by my cot with her embroidery. I thought the others were off for the station when Caro came flying back, pinning her hat on as she ran.

“Mammy Lil, Milly needs some lessons in ornithology. Prod some of the birds till they chase the jay: and be sure you tell her what turncoats the rice-birds are.” Her eyes danced.

“The rice-birds?” I inquired stupidly. “Why should I tell her about them? They’re not here anyway.”

“One of them’s here,” she said gravely; “I’ve seen him.

‘_Robert of Lincoln is gaily dressed_’—

“Beware of bobolinks, Milly: they’re worse than jabberwoks;” and she dabbed a little kiss on the end of my nose and was off.

Milly flushed to the roots of her hair, looking at me shyly.

“He and Caro are great friends,” she said; “you know she’d never joke about him if she didn’t like him. She calls him Reedbird, Rice-bird, and Bobolink, and says that so many _aliases_ are sure proof of villainy. Sometimes when she begins to discourse on birds before Uncle Jason she scares me out of my wits. But luckily he doesn’t know one bird from another, except the ones that bother his crops. To think how he has lived in the country, all his life, and never seen anything in earth or sky except crops and money! I do feel sorry for him, Cousin Lil; but I can’t feel as sorry as mother does, because I get so angry with him. He’s—he’s insufferable sometimes.”

“Why don’t you make him behave?” I asked.

Her face paled.

“Make him?” she repeated wonderingly. “How on earth could anybody make Uncle Jason do anything? Caro calls him jay-bird, and that’s just what he is.—Look there!”

The thrushes were actually breaking bread with me this morning; and as Milly spoke a jay dropped from his hiding-place overhead, and managed to light on both of them at once as they pecked peacefully side by side. They dashed madly away and dropped under the beech, panting, their breast-feathers bristling with fear.

Milly was quite white.

“That is what he is like, even when you’re trying so hard to please him,” she said. “I can’t imagine what would happen if you opposed him.” Her underlip quivered a little, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I’ll show you what would happen if that jay will just hang around here till a catbird comes,” I said. “There are plenty of them about, and a catbird stands no nonsense from anybody.”

The jay elected to remain. He chased the cardinal, and tormented the thrushes till they flew away to the brook. Then he perched overhead, preened his feathers, and surveyed the world with an air of impeccable virtue,—tyrant and Pharisee in one. Presently, after the fashion of his kind, he began to peer and pry, leaning forward and thrusting his bill out with an evident intention to stick it into the business of the first neighbor who happened in reach.

It was just then that the catbird came for his lunch. The jay perked his head eagerly, thrust out his meddlesome beak, dropped to the innocent’s back, and lit there with vicious pecks. The catbird, panic-stricken, scrambled out and dashed to the hackberry, while the jay gobbled in true jay fashion, and I lay feeling that Providence had slapped me in the face—an overhasty conclusion, as our criticisms of Providence frequently are. The catbird, after due meditation, came back to the maple, and delivered his opinion of the jay in vitriolic language. The jay, scornfully unheeding, flew to a neighboring limb, tucked a big crumb under his toes, and proceeded to eat it. The catbird returned to his lunch; and when the jay dropped again, he hopped sideways, turned, and faced his tormentor. He spread out his wings and tail and began dancing furiously up and down, as if he were set on springs, not moving an inch from his place, and uttering discordant cries. The jay gave back amazedly. The catbird hopped a hop nearer, resumed his dance, and repeated his former remarks. The jay backed; the catbird hopped nearer, and danced. The jay dashed up against the maple trunk, where he clung to the bark like a woodpecker, looking down apprehensively, while the catbird continued his dance and his deliverance on jay manners. It was more than the bully’s nerves could stand. In another moment he was off to the pasture, and the catbird’s ruffled plumage lay sleek again as he turned back to the crumbs.

Milly was pale with excitement, her eyes wide.

“Do you think—” she breathed, and paused, afraid of her own question.

“I know it,” I said confidently. “Just try it awhile.”

“But mother,” objected Milly; “you know he’d take it out on her.”

“Isn’t your mother going to stay with your grandmother some time next month, while your uncle and aunt take that trip North they’re planning? Do it then.”

The child was absolutely white.

“I—oh, I couldn’t, Cousin Lil! If I began, I’d be afraid to go on. He’d make me give in.”

“Your mother won’t go for several weeks,” I said easily; “don’t look so frightened. There’s nothing to be done today.—What a pretty pattern that is you’re working; let me see.”

We sheered away from Cousin Jason, and took up the subject of Robert Lincoln’s perfections, which proved numerous. Then we had lunch under the maple; and when the Peon came home Milly went back.

* * * * *

_April 21st._ Caro telephoned me she would stay all night at Cousin Jane’s, and did not come home till yesterday noon. I was out under the maple again, and watched her through my glasses, as she drove in from the pike in Cousin Jane’s buggy, with a small darkey beside her to take the horse back. The buggy was loaded with bundles, which she toppled out on the grass beside me before jumping after them herself. She sat on the edge of the cot, and plunged into her tale and her packages together.

“Do you know what took Cousin Jane up to town, Mammy Lil? She’d seen an advertisement of one of those cheap stores down on Union Street about a sale of all-linen handkerchiefs for three-and-a-half cents, only twelve to a customer. And she traipsed all the way to town to invest forty-two cents in handkerchiefs for the missionary box—two for the mama missionary and two each for the five kids. Wouldn’t you just love, if you were a little kid missionary, to have two whole three-and-a-half-cent handkerchiefs of your very own—a fresh one every week of the world? Mammy Lil, sometimes I’m real fond of Cousin Jane, cranky as she is, and sometimes I want to slap her. But I didn’t: I just bought some decent handkerchiefs, so they can use Cousin Jane’s for window screens—they’re coarse enough. Then Bob White turned up and we went to lunch. They both pretended it was an accident, but I don’t believe it; and Cousin Jane frisked like a rhinocerous, and was so pleased ‘over our little tête-a-tête,’ as she was pleased to call our triangular lunch, that I nearly died. And Bob was—no, it wasn’t Bob; it was I. I was just cross. So I wasn’t a bit nice—you know I really can be horrid, Mammy Lil, when I put my mind to it. I’m sorry; I’ll make it up to Bob next time I see him; but Cousin Jane is such a donkey! Goodness knows, though, I paid for that in full!”

She broke into rippling laughter.

“What did you do?”

“Why, she was just huffy—awfully. She’d hardly speak to me; and I was in such a good humor again! We’d gone back to the stores, and I’d bought some lovely lawns—one for you, and one for me, and one for Mrs. Missionary. Let me show you.”

She jerked a bundle out of the pile and displayed her purchases, her head cocked meditatively on one side.

“Yours is lavender and mine pale green. They’ll have lots of lace on them, and we’ll both look ravishing. I got Mrs. Missionary a blue. My instinct is that she’s sallow and red-headed; so I resisted the blandishments of a pink one that was two cents a yard cheaper, and bought this. Cousin Jane says it will fade. But that was after I pacified her: she wouldn’t speak before.”

“How did you manage it?”

“Why, I told her I was sorry I was cross—I really was—and I said I’d go home with her and make Cousin Chad one of those frozen puddings. I didn’t dare offer to make it for her, but she eats as much of it as he does, which is saying a good deal. She softened visibly; so we hurried for the first train, and I worked like a black slave to get it done in time. They ate like anything, and I let them both give me good advice till bedtime; and this morning I made the butter for her, and we parted like twins.”

I laughed and patted her hand. She raised one eyebrow and looked thoughtful.

“Cousin Jane and Cousin Chad think it’s time I was married,” she observed.

“To whom?”

“That’s a secondary consideration, though important. But Cousin Jane was married at sixteen. I’m already an old maid of twenty—or will be next month; and if I go off in my looks, I won’t find it so easy to go off matrimonially. Besides, I’m flighty and bad tempered, and a husband will be good discipline. And Bob White is a very nice young man who would probably put up with my temper more than most. And he’s rich. And Cousin Jane thinks if I try hard enough maybe I can get him. What do you think of it, Mammy Lil?” She pursed her mouth and frowned judicially.

“I think Jane Grackle’s a goose—and you’re another,” I said, laughing. “There comes David. Call him to wheel me back to the porch.”

* * * * *

_April 29th._ Summer is coming everywhere. The pasture fence is a long wall of bloom, and the odor of honeysuckle fills the air. A wonderful place for bird-babies that will be soon! For ten days the roses have been blossoming, and Uncle Milton’s flower-beds are beautiful to see. And I—the earth isn’t the only dead thing that rises into life! There’s another miracle coming to pass: for I am getting well!

All this month I’ve held my breath like a coward, and turned my head, afraid to look joy in the face. It has come near so often before; and each time the pain has snatched me back and bound me hand and foot. So I said I would never inflict on myself the agony of disappointment again. But I just can’t live up to that foolishness, and I’m so glad I can’t. If this isn’t the ending, but just a blossoming oasis in a desert way, shall I miss the joy of that? It’s nearer the end than the last one was, anyway, and better and brighter and bigger. If it isn’t fulfillment, it is prophecy, and that’s the next best thing. Some day it will come—the Head said so. I am to be part of life again—I! I! Some day I shall go in and out again among my kind, with power enough of living in me to make hours atone for days, and months for years. Nothing shall pass me that is mine! It is human life I want, not birds and trees and flowers: they’re beautiful, but they aren’t enough—I can afford to let myself say it now, because the other is so near, so near! I used to be part of life here, long, long after I was sick: there was nothing I couldn’t help about, nobody who didn’t smile at me as I passed: in every face I saw a memory of kindness given and received. And I’m going back to it, to my real life.—Ah, soon or late, what matter? _I’m going back!_ Though a thousand downfalls be in the way, I’ll make it yet: and be this fulfilment, or only prophecy, I open my heart to joy!

VIII BLACKBIRD DIPLOMACY

_May 9th._ Something is dreadfully wrong with Caro, and for once she does not give me her confidence. She went to Milly’s night before last quite her own bright self, and came back to lunch yesterday another creature. A shower came up just after lunch, so I lay on my porch sofa until it passed, with David and Caro for company. I imagine things had gone wrong at the table. I saw, by Caro’s bright color and the high way she carried her pretty head when she came home, that trouble was brewing for somebody, and she probably found David’s sunny and unsuspicious good humor the negative complement of her own surcharged spirit. There had been at least a minor explosion; for when they came out to me they were both making an effort to appear quite like themselves. But Caro’s eyes were danger-signals; and, though David smiled and his voice had its usual deep evenness, his eyes kept a furtive and brooding watch on hers. She seemed in the gayest of spirits, yet there was some jangle in the mirth which had always rung sweet and true before.

The thunder was rattling overhead, and the wind-blown curtains of the rain shut out the hills beyond. David walked to the end of the porch and studied the clouds for a little before he came back.

“I was afraid this storm would spoil the drive you promised me yesterday,—” he began.

Caro’s eyes sparkled.

“You need not resort to the weather as an excuse,” she said, “I don’t want to go at all.”

David stared, and a slow color burned under his tanned skin. Then he looked half-amused.

“Caro must have been having some kind of an extra tilt with Cousin Jason, Mammy Lil,” he said, “and she thinks I’m an old jay, too, and keeps ruffling her feathers at me.—I was about to say that the sun would be out inside of an hour, and by five o’clock the roads will be in the pink of condition. I’ll show you what Peggy can really do in the way of speed.”

“I told you I don’t want to go,” said Caro, angrily.

“I beg pardon,” said David easily; “you told me you would go. I couldn’t possibly be mistaken.”

I was looking at Caro in open-eyed amazement. She had never spoken to David that way in her life—nor to any one since she had ceased to be a child. She caught my look, and colored deeply. Then she cuddled her face against mine so that neither David nor I could see it.

“Dear Mammy Lil, don’t look as if you didn’t know me,” she said, with a sudden little catch in her voice; “I’ve always told you I’m hateful, and you won’t believe it; when I convince you, don’t quit loving me.”

“You silly child,” I answered, patting the red-brown coil of curls; “I’ll never quit loving you, whether I’m dead or alive. But I was afraid you weren’t well.”

She laughed and pecked my cheek.

“I’m well as ever was.—Have Peggy ready, David: I’d like to go sixty miles an hour.—Oh, dear, I’m losing all my hairpins!”

She wasn’t at all. But she caught her hair with both hands, and vanished through one of the long windows. David looked after her with the set look which I had learned to know when he was little more than a baby. Then he, too, kissed me, and walked away, after putting the stand with my bell and a plate of biscuits on it close beside me.

I lay there puzzled and troubled. The rain stopped presently, and I crumbled the biscuits and flung them out on the grass, watching the birds idly.