*CHAPTER XI*
*MA PARMELEE'S CHICKS*
"Oh, we're ever so glad to know you, Piney," Jean said at once."Honey's told us all about you until we felt that we really did knowyou."
Piney blushed deeper than ever, just as Honey did, and brushed a fly offher pony's neck. She rode across saddle, in a home-made corduroy skirt,with a boy's cap set back on her head, and a boyish waist with knottedtie. Altogether both Mrs. Robbins and Jean approved of her at sight,for she seemed like a girl edition of Honey himself.
Piney told them they were on the right road, and to keep to the leftafter they passed the burial ground.
"I'm going down the other way or I'd ride along and show you where itis."
"You must come down to see us girls when you can, please. We're ratherlonesome, not knowing anyone around here. Are there many girls?"
"Quite a few," said Piney. "There are the Swedish girls over on the oldAmes place, and there are two French girls near us. Their father's thecarpenter, Mr. Chapelle. Etoile's the older one and the little one theycall Tony. Her name's really Marie Antoinette. Mrs. Chapelle's awfullyfunny. She told me one day the reason they changed the little girl'sname to Tony was because if she ever should get on a railroad track oranywhere in danger, and they had to call her in a hurry, they wantedsomething short and quick to say. She talks broken English, and it wasso comical the way she said it." Piney's deep dimples were showing andher eyes were sparkling, as she imitated the voice of Mrs. Chapelle."How I say to her ver' fast Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette, MarieAntoinette! She can be dead four--five--time. I call her that way, Itink so. I yell Ton-ee! Right away she jump."
"Isn't she a darling, Mother?" Jean exclaimed when they drove on. "I dohope she'll come down. Kit would love her."
"Anybody would love her," agreed Mrs. Robbins, still smiling. "Youknow, Jean, I think that you girls are going to find a special work uphere that only you can do. A work among these girls of our ownneighborhood."
"But, Mother dear, our own neighborhood up here means a radius of aboutten miles."
"Even so. Cousin Roxana's old doctor covers twenty miles and has beendoing it for forty years; he knows all of the families as if he were acensus taker."
Jean thought for a minute. They were going up a long hill and Princesstook her time. Honey had fastened two bunches of ferns to her bridle tokeep away flies, and she looked as if she wore a Dutch bonnet.
"There seem to be so few real American girls up here, Mother," Jeanbegan slowly. "I thought we'd find ever so many, but while I lived upat Maple Lawn I rode around a good deal, and you'd be surprised how manyforeigners are up here. Cousin Roxy told me the reason. The oldfamilies die out, or the younger generation moves away to the towns, andthe foreigners buy up the old homesteads cheaply."
"Well, dear?"
"But, Mother, you don't understand. There are all sorts. FrenchCanadians, and a Swedish family, and a Polish family, and the old millerup the valley from us used to be a Prussian sailor. Then there are thereal old families, of course--"
"Do you think of confining your circle of acquaintances to the oldfamilies, Jeanie?"
Jean laughed at the amusement in her mother's voice.
"I know what you're thinking, Mother, dear. Still I suppose we must becareful just moving into a new place like this. We don't want to getintimate with everybody. You'll like some of the old families."
"I think I'll like some of the new ones too. Have you noticed, Jean, indriving around, that the houses which are mostly unpainted and ratherrun-down looking belong to the old timers, grandchildren andgreat-grandchildren, probably, of first settlers?"
"Oh, Mother, there are some of the most interesting stories about themtoo, how they came out--walked, actually walked most of them--from theMassachusetts Bay Colony when there was some sort of a break up, and afew dropped off here, and a few there, and they settled in hamletswherever they happened to stop. I found a burial ground in the woodsnear Cousin Roxy's, with old slate gravestones, and dates away back to1717."
"I'd like to see them, dear, but at the same time they were foreignerstoo, or children of foreigners, immigrants from a far land. Can't youunderstand what I mean? These newer families are like new blood to thecountry. It takes only a couple of generations to blend them in, Jean,and they bring new strength to us. Think what we get from the differentnations. I remember out in California I had a wonderful girl friendwhose people had been Polish exiles. That was a strange group of exileswho sought a haven in our land of flowers. There was Sienkiewicz thegreat novelist, and splendid Helena Modjeska, and many whose names Iforget. Wanda was my girl friend's name, and my Mother and aunts didnot like me to chum with her because she was a foreigner. I think thatyou children are very fortunate to be born in an age when these queerold earth lines, these race barriers, are falling down, and leaving theworld-brotherhood idea instead. Up here in our lonely old hills, we aregoing to face this same problem that all nations are coping with, and wein our small way can help open the gates of the future."
"Why, Mother, I never heard you talk this way before," Jean exclaimed."You always seemed just dear and sweet, don't you know. I--why, somehowI never felt you were interested in such things."
Unconsciously, she moved a little nearer to this new kind of Mother, andMrs. Robbins' hand closed over hers.
"If we mothers are not interested in them, who should be?" she asked,her eyes full of a beautiful tenderness and compassion. "Some one hascalled us the torch bearers, the light bringers, but I like to think ofwomen best as the tenders of the ever-burning temple lamps."
"You mean love and truth and--"
"I mean everything, dear, that tends for world betterment. And yougirls are going to do your little share right here in Gilead Center,making a circle that shall join together the hands of all these girlsfrom different races. We'll give a party soon and get acquainted withthem all. Now let's pay attention to chickens, for I think this must bethe house."
Princess turned into a side drive leading around to a house that stoodwell back from the road. As Jean said afterwards, the house looked asif it had been outdoors all its life, it was so weather-beaten and gray."Ma" Parmelee bustled out to meet them, plump and busy as one of her ownPlymouth Rocks.
"Twelve pullets and one rooster you want?" she said. "Well, I guess Ican fix you up. I heard you folks had moved in down yonder. Thought I'dsee you at meeting Sunday but I didn't."
Mrs. Robbins explained that they were Episcopalians and the nearestparish was nine miles away.
"So it is, over at Riverview, but we're all bound for the same place, soyou might as well come up and help fill the pews. Land knows they needit." She led the way out to the big barn, followed by the chickens.The great doors were wide open, and the barn floor was covered lightlywith wisps of hay. "Ma" scattered a measure of grain over this, and letthe hens scratch for it.
"I have to work hard for what I get, and they ought to too," she saidpleasantly. "Now, we'll take any that you like and put them into bags.I'm going to sell you my very best rooster. His name's Jim Dandy andhe's all of that. He's pure Rhode Island Red, and two years old. Youdon't have to worry about hawks when he's around."
After the chickens were all safely in the bags and put in back of thewagon seat, "Ma" waved good-bye and told them not to forget the Finnishfamily that was moving into her house.
"I'm going to live with my married daughter, and these poor things don'tknow a living soul up here. Do drive over and speak to them asneighbors. There's a man and his widowed sister and her children. AllGod's folks, you know."
"Finns," murmured Jean speculatively, as they drove away. "There's anew blend to our Gilead sisterhood, Motherie."
Mrs. Robbins laughed at the puzzled expression on her eldest daughter'sface.
"We'll let Kit drive over and see them," she promised.
Spring seemed to descend on the land all at once in t
he next few days,as if she had quite made up her mind to come and sit a while, CousinRoxy said. One day the earth still looked wind-swept and bare, and thenext there seemed to be a green sheen over the land and the woods lookedhazy and lacy with the delicate budding leaves.
One night as Doris was out shutting up the hen houses and filling thepigeons' pan with water, she stopped short, her head upraised eagerlylike a fawn, listening to a new sound away off along the edges of thewoods, and deep down in the lower meadow where the brook flowed.Keenest and sweetest it sounded over where the waters of the lake abovethe old dam moved with soft low lapping among the reeds and watergrasses. Here it became a curiously shrill trilling noise, subdued andyet insistent like the strumming of muffled strings on a million tinyharps.
"It's the peep frogs," called Honey, coming up from the barn withButtercup's creamy contribution to the family commonwealth. "They'rejust waking up. That means it's spring for sure."
"Isn't it dear of them to try and tell us all about it," Doris crieddelightedly, and away she ran to the house to insist that Kit and Jeanand Helen come straight out-of-doors and listen too. In the twilightthey walked around the terraces below the veranda, two by two. OnceHelen stopped below their father's window to call up to him in the long"Coo-ee!" their mother had taught them from her own girlhood days out inCalifornia on her grandfather's ranch.
Day by day they would assure each other of his returning strength andhealth. The country air and utter restfulness of life as it ran here inchannels of peace were surely giving him back at least the power torelax and rest. He slept as soundly as Doris herself, all night long,something he had not been able to do in months, and his appetite wasreally getting to be quite encouraging. The little nurse had leftGreenacres the fifteenth of April both because of his gain in health andalso to decrease expenses.
"And you needn't worry about anything at all, Mother darling," Kit hadassured her. "Just keep right upstairs with Dad and let us girls runthe kitchen, and we'll feed you on beautiful surprises."
Mr. Robbins smiled over at them, and quoted teasingly:
"The Chameleon's food I eat; Look you, the air, promise crammed."
Piney paid her promised visit within a few days, and from her the girlsreceived their first real information about the other girl neighborsaround Gilead Center.
Honey was ploughing up the kitchen garden behind the house and Jean,with Piney at her side, sat on the low stone wall that separated it fromthe orchard, studying a seed catalogue diligently.
"I'd love some elephant ears and castor beans and scarlet lichens in bigbeds along the terraces," she said. "Think of the splashes of red upagainst those pines, girls. Remember the Jefferies' place back at theCove. Mrs. Jefferies paid her gardener a hundred dollars a month."
"You'll like the rare, rich red of radishes and beets and scarlet runnerbeans better," Piney declared merrily. "We always lay out money on thefood seeds first and then what is left can go for flowers. Anyhow, whenyou've got heaps of roses and snowballs and syringas and lilacs andthings that keep coming up by themselves every year, you don't need tobuy very much. Did you find the lilies of the valley down along thenorth wall? Mother says they used to be beautiful when she was a girl."
The girls were silent, remembering what Cousin Roxana had told them ofthe romance of Luella Trowbridge. But Doris's curiosity got the betterof her caution, and she coaxed Piney away to hunt for the delicate palegreen spear points with their white lilybells hidden away under thehazel bushes.
It was Piney, too, who took them up the hill to the rocky sheep pastureand showed them where arbutus bloomed around the edges of the gray,mossy rocks. And it was Piney who pointed out to them the wintergreen,or checkerberry, as she called it, with its tiny pungent berries.
"She's perfectly wonderful," Kit declared that day at the noon dinner."She knows the exact spot in this entire township where every singleflower bobs up in its season. We found saxifrage at the base of an oldoak, and white trilium and blood root, and perfect fields of bluets.And she wouldn't let us pick many either, only a few. She says it's justas cruel to rob a patch of wild flowers of all chance of blooming againnext year as it is to rob birds' nests."
Here Helen chimed in.
"And she's going to teach me how to start a flower calendar. Not in abook, Motherie. We're going to take some of that dull castor-brownburlap that was left from the library and mount specimens on it, thenmake a folio with leather covers of dyed sheepskin."
"Piney seems to be a regular dynamo for starting activities," said Mrs.Robbins amusedly.
"She is, just exactly that," Kit answered earnestly. "I never met agirl with so many ideas up her sleeve. And they're as poor as Job'sturkey, too. Piney told us so herself. And here she is, cooped up inGilead Center without any outlet at all. She knows what she wants todo, but we girls can tell her how to do it."
"I wonder what her real name is," Helen pondered. "Maybe it's Peony.Cousin Roxy calls peonies 'pinies."
"It's much nicer than that," Jean said. "I can't think of any othername that would suit her. It's Proserpine. The minute she told me I sawher wandering along the seashore with the winds of the isles of Greeceblowing back her funny short curls, and her hands up to her lips callingto the sea maids to come and play with her while her mother was away."
"That's all very pretty and poetical, Sister Mine, but Piney's going topeddle our rhubarb for us," Kit remarked. "I think that rhubarb is oneof the most grateful plants we have. It seems to spring up everywhereand pay compound interest on itself every year. I found a lot of itgrowing and thought it was peonies or dahlias, but Piney told me it wasrhubarb, and we're going to market it. She says there's a big cranberrybog on this place too, away off in some sunken meadows above the dam,and we must look out because somebody comes and picks them withoutasking anything at all about it. So we're going to watch the old woodroad that turns into the sunken meadows. We can see it, Mother dear,from the eyrie outlook, and heaven help any miscreant who takes ourcranberries!"
"I wouldn't start looking for him yet awhile, dear. Cranberries won'tbe along until frost," laughed Mrs. Robbins.
Doris, with Honey's help, was devoting herself to the hens. Althoughthey had come rather late, still quite a few were setting, and Doris hadseveral almanacs and calendars marked with the dates of the "comingoffs," as Honey put it. Then there were about twenty tiny balls of fluffin the brooder from Cousin Roxana's incubator, and over these Doriscrooned and fussed and wasted more sentiment than any chickens deserved.
"But they're motherless. Think of being born motherless and helpless--"
"Don't be ridiculous, Dorrie," Kit said crossly. "You can't be bornmotherless. You're hatched."
"And if they don't know any better, what's the difference?" added Jean.
"I don't see that at all," Doris insisted plaintively. "Every time I gothere and they call to me, I just want to take them in my lap, and cryand cry over them."
One of "Ma" Parmelee's pullets had turned out to be a vagrant. Neverwould she stay with the rest of the chickens in the hen house or yard,or even around the barnyard. She was jet black and very peculiar. Atfeeding time she would show up, but hover around the outskirts of theflock and nibble at kernels of corn anxiously.
Jean named her "Hamlet" in fun, because she said she was always lookingfor "rats in the arras." But her real name was Gypsy. It was agreedthat Gypsy had no idea of her natural obligation to society at all, thatshe didn't have the slightest intention of setting on any eggs, in factthat she didn't even have the gratitude to lay any eggs. All she did wasappear promptly at meal time and eat her share.
"There'll be Gypsy a la Reine one of these fine Sundays," Kit prophesieddarkly, but Doris begged for her life. In fact, whenever chicken was onthe bill-of-fare Doris always begged off any of her flock fromexecution, and Honey had to go to one of the neighboring farms andpurchase a fowl.
"It seems so awful to eat a chicken that you're well acquainted with,"
Doris explained. "And another thing, Motherie, did you know that theboys set traps around? Not now, but in the fall. At least, I think it'sin the fall. I had Honey paint me some signs on shingles and I'm goingto put them all over the place."
"What do they say, dear?"
"They say just this," Doris's tone was full of firmness and decision.
"_Any traps set on this-property will be sprung by ME._"
"Do they state who 'Me' is?"
"I signed it with Dad's name, and put underneath 'Per D.'"
Jean wrapped loving arms around the youngest robin.
"Dorrie, you're a sweety," she said. "We don't appreciate you. Youadopt everything in sight, but we have to look out for most of yourorphans and semi-orphans. Never mind, Dorrie. I'm for you anyway."
"We're such a devoted and loyal family tree, I think," sighed Doris."Don't you, Motherie? I'm so glad I'm a branch."
"You're not, dear, yet. You're just a twig," Kit teased. "And Motheris the beautiful dryad who lives in her very own family tree. Isn'tthat interesting, though? One thing about us, girls, is this, and it isvery consoling. Scrap as we may, we turn right around and become amutual admiration society at the slightest excuse. Good-night,everybody. The night is yet young, but I've promised Honey,--or rather,Honey and I have a bet that I couldn't get up at five and help weed thegarden. And we bet my three foot rule against Honey's two petturtles--"
"Are they trained?" asked Doris eagerly.
"They will be if they're not already. Don't anyone call me, becauseit's got to be fair running. Good-night."
Helen and Doris decided that they were sleepy too, and the three wentupstairs together, leaving Jean and her mother to read in the bigliving-room. Presently Mrs. Robbins glanced up and saw that the book layidle on Jean's lap, and she was looking down at the wood fire thatburned on the old rock fireplace.
"What is it, dear?" she asked. "Tired?"
Jean shook her head, and smiled half-heartedly.
"I'm awfully ashamed of it, Mother, but I do get so lonesome now andthen, for everything, don't you know? All the people that we knew andthe things that we used to do. Nothing happens up here."
"Well, cheer up," said the Motherbird happily. "I am lonely toosometimes, but there is so much to compensate for what we have lost thatI feel we must not dare be unhappy. And Father grows better every day."
Jean dropped on her knees beside her mother's chair, arms folded closearound her.
"You dear, precious, most wonderful person that ever was," she cried."Don't even _think_ of what I said! I'm not a bit lonely, and tomorrowI'm going to see Piney and make calls."