He had a face so short it positively looked square, a long, rippling, silky red beard and an odd, spiky, truculent mustache that didn’t seem to belong to the beard at all. There was no doubt he was ugly, but Marigold had always thought it was a nice kind of ugliness. He had beautiful clear blue eyes that told he had kept the child-heart. The red squirrels would come to him in the woods and he called all the dogs in the country by their first name. When he came to Cloud of Spruce—which he did not always do, being “pernickety” in regard to his ports of call—he sat in his red wagon and talked with Lazarre and Salome and Mother and Grandmother by the hour, if they would linger to talk with him, though he would never enter the house. After he had gone Lazarre would shrug his shoulders and say contemptuously,
“Dat man, he’s crack.” Whereat Salome would inform Lazarre, by way of standing by her race, that Abel Derusha had forgotten more than he, the said Lazarre, ever knew. He had promised once to take Marigold for a drive with him and Marigold hankered after it, though she knew she would never be let go. And now here she and Gwennie were out to do as they liked for a whole day and here was the Weed Man offering them a drive.
“Sure,” said Gwennie promptly. But Marigold, in spite of her secret wishes, hung back.
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere—anywhere,” said Abel easily. “I’m just poking along today—just poking along, thinking how I’d have made the world if I had made it. And if you two small skeesicks want to come along why just come.”
“But they wouldn’t know what had happened to us at home,” said Marigold doubtfully.
“They’ll know what has happened to the dining-room,” giggled Gwen. “Come on now, Marigold. Be a sport.”
“Marigold’s right,” said the Weed Man. “Doesn’t do to worry folks who worry. I never worry myself. Here’s Jim Donkin coming along. I’ll ask him to drop over to Cloud of Spruce and tell the folks you’ve come for a day with me. We’ll get our dinners somewhere along the road and we’ll go home to my place for supper, and I’ll bring you back in the evening. How’s that?”
Nobody but the Weed Man would have proposed such a plan. But Abel didn’t see any reason if the girls wanted a drive why they shouldn’t have it on a day God had made specially for people who wanted to be out. Gwennie had quite made up her mind to go and Marigold couldn’t help thinking it would be very int’resting.
So Jim Donkin was asked to take the word to Cloud of Spruce, and Marigold and Gwennie were in the back seat of the red wagon, amid fragrant bundles of Abel’s harvest, bowling along the road, quite delighted with themselves. Marigold resolved to forget the catastrophe of the blueberry wine. It had been Gwen’s doings, anyway. They wouldn’t kill Gwen because she was a visitor and meanwhile here was a whole golden day, with the very air seeming alive, flung into their laps as a gift. Perhaps Marigold had a spice of Uncle Klon’s wanderlust in her. At any rate the prospect of driving about with the Weed Man filled her with secret delight. She had always known she would like the Weed Man.
“What road are you going to take?” demanded Gwen.
“Whatever road pleases me,” said the Weed Man, looking disdainfully at a car that passed. “Look at that critter insulting the daylight. I’ve no use at all for them. Nor your aeroplanes. If God had meant us to fly He’d have given us wings.”
“Did God mean you to drive this poor old horse when He gave you legs?” said Gwen pertly.
“Yes, when He gave him four legs to my two,” was the retort. Abel was so well pleased with himself that he chuckled for a mile. Then he turned into a red side road, narrow and woodsy, with daisies blowing by the longer fences, little pole-gates under the spruces, stone dykes overgrown with things he loved to rifle, looping brooks and grassy fields girdled by woods. It was all very dear and remote and lovely and the Weed Man told them tales of every kink and turn, talking sometimes like the educated man he really was and sometimes lapsing into the vernacular of his childhood.
There was one lovely, gruesome tale of a hollow where a murdered woman’s body had been found, and at a certain corner of the road a “ go-preacher” had been stoned.
“What did they stone him for?” asked Gwen.
“For preaching the truth—or what he believed the truth, anyhow. They always do that if you preach the truth—stone you or crucify you.”
“You meant to be a preacher once yourself, didn’t you?” Gwen was possessed of a questioning devil.
“The preaching was Tabby’s idea. I never wanted to myself—not enough to tell lies for it anyhow. See that house in the hollow. There was a man lived there who used to say his prayers every morning and then get up and kick his wife.”
“Why did he kick her?”
“Ah, that’s the point, now. Nobody ever knew. Mebbe ’twas just his way of saying ‘amen.’”
“He wouldn’t have kicked me twice,” said Gwen.
“I believe you.” The Weed Man grinned at her over his shoulder. “Here’s the old Malloy place. Used to be a leprechaun living there—the Malloys brought him out from Ireland among their bits of furniture, ’twas said. Guess ’twas true. Never heard of any native leprechauns in Prince Edward Island.”
“What is a leprechaun?” asked Marigold who had a thrill at the name.
“A liddle dwarf fairy dressed in red with a peaky cap. If you could see him and keep on seeing him he’d lead you to a pot of buried gold. Jimmy Malloy saw him once but he tuk his eyes off him for a second and the liddle fellow vanished. Howsomever, Jimmy could always wiggle his ears after that. He got that much out of it.”
“What good did wiggling his ears do him?”
“Very few can do it. I can. Look.”
“Oh, will you show me how to do that?” cried Gwennie.
“Tisn’t an accomplishment—it’s a gift,” said the Weed Man solemnly. “Tom Squirely lives over there. Always bragging he doesn’t owe a cent. Good reason why. Nobody would lend him one.”
“I heard Lazarre say the same thing about you,” said Gwen impudently. “If you live in glass houses you shouldn’t throw stones.”
“Why not now? Somebody’ll be sure to throw a stone at your house whether or no, so you might as well have your fun, too. C. C. Vessey lives on that hill. Not a bad feller—not so mean as his dad. When old Vessey’s wife died she was buried with a little gold brooch unbeknown to him. When he found it out he went one night to the graveyard and opened up the grave and casket to get that brooch. Here, wait you a minute. I’ve got to run in and see Captain Simons for a second. He wanted me to bring him a south-west wind today. I have to tell him I couldn’t bring it today but I’ll send him one tomorrow.”
“Do you suppose he really sells the winds?” whispered Marigold.
“No,” scornfully. “I see through your Weed Man. His head isn’t screwed on very tight. But he’s good fun and his stories are great. I don’t believe that leprechaun yarn though.”
“Don’t you now?” said the Weed Man, returning creepily from behind, though they had never seen him leave the house, and looking at Gwennie compassionately. “What a lot you’re going to miss if you don’t believe things. Now, I just drive round believing everything and such fun as I have.”
“Lazarre says you’re lazy,” commented Gwen.
“No, no, not lazy. Just contented. I’m the biggest toad in my own puddle, so it don’t worry me none if there’s bigger toads in other puddles. I’m king of myself. Now look-a-here. Suppose we call and see old Granny Phin. I haven’t seen her for a long while. And maybe she’ll let Lily give us a bite of dinner.”
Gwen and Marigold surveyed rather dubiously the little house before which the Weed Man was stopping. It was a tumbledown little place with too many brown paper windowpanes. The gate hung by one hinge, the yard was overgrown with Scotch thistle and tansy, and even at a distance the old woman who sat on the crazy veranda did not seem attract
ive.
“I don’t like the look of the place much,” whispered Gwen. “Hope we don’t catch the itch.”
“What is that?”
“Marigold, don’t you know anything?”
Marigold thought gloatingly of certain things she did know—lovely things—things Gwennie never would or could know. But she only said,
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Then pray heaven you never do know,” said Gwen importantly. “I know. Caught it from a kid going to school who lived in just such a place as this. Ugh! Lard and sulphur till you could die.”
“Come on, now, and don’t you be whispering to each other,” said the Weed Man. “Granny Phin won’t like that. You don’t want to get on the rough side of her tongue. She’s eighty-seven years old, but she’s every inch alive.”
3
Physically, Granny Phin was hardly every inch alive, for she could not walk alone, having, as she told her visitors later, “paralattics of the hips.” But, mentally, her strength had not abated. She was of striking appearance, with snow-white hair in elf-locks around her dead-white face and flashing greenish-blue eyes. She still possessed all her teeth, but they were discolored and fang-like and when she drew back her lips in a smile she was certainly a rather wolf-like old dame. She wore a frilled widow’s cap tied tightly under her chin, a red calico blouse, and a voluminous skirt of red-and-black checked homespun, and was evidently addicted to bare feet. She liked to sit on the veranda, where she could scream maledictions and shake her long black stick at any persons or objects that incurred her dislike or displeasure. Marigold had heard of Granny Phin, but she had never expected to see her. Curiosity mingled with her trepidation as she followed the Weed Man up the path. What a difference there was in old women, she thought, comparing Old Grandmother and Grandmother to this crone.
“Well, this is a treat,” said Granny Phin.
“It’s a warm day, Mistress Phin,” said the Weed Man.
“Ye’ll be in a warmer place ere long, no doubt,” retorted Granny, “and I’ll sit in my high seat in heaven and laugh at yez. Hev ye forgot the last time ye was here that dog o’ yourn bit me?”
“Yes, and the poor liddle brute has been ill almost ever since,” said the Weed Man rather sternly. “He’s only just got well. Don’t let me see you letting him bite you again.”
“The devil himself can’t get the better of yer tongue,” chuckled Granny admiringly. “Well, come up, come up. Lucky for you I’m in a good humor today. I’ve had such fun watching old Poc Ramsay’s funeral go past. Ten years ago today he told me I’d only a year to live. Interduce yer family, please.”
“Miss Marigold Lesley of Cloud of Spruce—Miss Gwennie Lesley of Rush Hill.”
“Cloud o’ Spruce folk, eh? I worked at Cloud o’ Spruce in my young days. The old lady was a bigotty one. Yer Aunt Adela was there that summer. She looked like an angel, but they do be saying she p’isened her man.”
“She isn’t our Aunt Adela. She’s only a third cousin,” said Gwen. “And she didn’t poison her husband.”
“Well, well, take it easy. Half the husbands in the world ought to be p’isened, anyhow. I had four so I ought to know something of the breed. Sit down all of yez on the floor of the veranda and let yer feet hang down, till dinner’s ready. That’s what ye’ve come for, I reckon. Lily—Lily.”
In response to Granny’s yells a tall, thin, slatternly woman with a sullen face showed herself for a moment in the doorway.
“Company for dinner, Lily—quality folks from Cloud o’ Spruce. Put on a tablecloth and bring out the frog pie. And mind ye brew some skeewiddle tea. And send T. B. out to talk to the girls.”
“Lily’s peeved today,” grinned Granny as Lily disappeared without a word. “I boxed her ears this morning ’cause she left the soap in the water.”
“And her past sixty. Come, come,” protested the Weed Man.
“I believe ye. Ye’d think she could have larned sense in sixty years,” said Granny, choosing to misunderstand him. “But some folks never larn sense. Yerself now—ye was a young fool once and now ye’re an old one. Sad that. T. B., come here and entertain the young ladies.”
T. B. came rather sulkily and squatted down by Gwennie. He was a shock-headed urchin with his Grandmother’s wicked green eyes. Marigold took little notice of him. She was absorbed in awful visions of frog pie. And what was skeewiddle tea? It sounded worse than frog pie because she hadn’t the least idea what it was. But Gwennie, who had a flair for all kinds of boys, was soon quite at home, bandying slang with Timothy Benjamin Phin—T. B. for short. T. B. soon learned that there were “no flies on her,” even if she were one of those “bigotty Lesleys,” and also no great need to be overfussy as to what he said. When a plain “damn” slipped out Gwen only giggled.
“Oh, T. B., aren’t you afraid you’ll go to the bad place if you say such words?”
“Nix on that,” contemptuously. “I don’t believe there’s any heaven or hell. When you die there’s an end of you.”
“Wouldn’t you like to go on living?”
“Nope. There’s no fun in it,” said the youthful misanthrope. “And heaven’s a dull place from all the accounts I’ve heard.”
“You’ve never been there or you wouldn’t call it dull,” said Marigold suddenly.
“Have you been there?”
Marigold thought of the Hidden Land and the spruce hill and Sylvia.
“Yes,” she said.
T. B. looked at her. This Marigold-girl was not as pretty as the Gwen one and there wasn’t as much “go” in her; but there was something that made T. B. rather cautious, so instead of saying what he would have said to Gwen, he merely remarked politely,
“You’re lying.”
“Mind yer manners,” Granny suddenly shot at T. B. from her conversation with the Weed Man. “Don’t ye let me catch ye calling ladies liars.”
“Oh, give your face a rest,” retorted T. B.
“No shrimp sauce if ye please,” said Granny.
T. B. shrugged his shoulders and turned to Gwen.
“She was picking on Aunt Lily all day ’cause Aunt Lily left the soap in the wash-pan. She used to smack her, but I stopped that. I wasn’t going to have Granny abuse Aunt Lily.”
“How did you stop her?” queried Gwen.
“The last time she smacked Aunt Lily I went up to her and bit her,” said T. B. coolly.
“You ought to bite her oftener, if that will stop her,” giggled Gwen.
“There ain’t nothing else worth standing up to her for,” grinned T. B. “Granny’s tough biting. No, I let her alone and she lets me alone—mostly. She gave me a jaw last week when I got drunk.”
“Apple-sauce. You never,” scoffed Gwen.
T. B. had—as a sort of experiment, it appeared.
“Jest wanted to see what it was like. And it was awful disppointing. I jest went to sleep. Could do that without getting drunk. No fear of my getting jagged again. No kick in it. Nothing is ever like what you expect it to be in this world. It’s a dull old hole.”
“Tisn’t,” interjected Granny again. “It’s an int’resting world. Vi’lent int’resting.”
Marigold felt there was one thing she had in common with Granny at least. In a sense Marigold was enjoying herself. All this was a glimpse into a kind of life she had never known existed, but it was int’resting—vi’lent int’resting, as Granny said.
Granny and the Weed Man appeared to be enjoying themselves, too, in spite of an occasional passage-at-arms.
“Going to the Baptist church, are yez?” snarled Granny. “Well, if ye do yer dog’ll go to heaven afore ye do. Catch me going to a Baptist church. I’m a Episcopalian—always was and always will be, world without end, amen.”
“I don’t believe you ever saw the inside of an Episcopalian church in your life,” taunted t
he Weed Man.
“Yah, I’d tweak yer nose for that if I could reach it,” retorted Granny. “Go to yer Baptist church—go to yer Baptist church. Ye son of a monkey-faced rabbit. And I’ll sit here and imagine yez all being fried.”
She suddenly turned to Marigold.
“If this Weed Man was as rich as he’s poor he’d be riding over the heads of all of us. I tell you the real pride of this man is rildic’lous.”
“Dinner’s ready,” Aunt Lily called sulkily from inside.
“Come and help me in,” said Granny, reaching briskly for her black stick. “All that keeps me alive is the little bit I eat.”
Before the Weed Man could go gallantly to her assistance a shining new car, filled with gaily dressed people, suddenly swung in at the gate and stopped in front of the veranda. The driver bent from the car to make some request, but Granny, crouched like an old tigress, did not allow him to utter a word. She caught up the nearest missile—which happened to be a plate filled with gravy and bacon scraps—from the bench beside her and hurled it at him. It missed his face by a hair’s breadth and landed squarely, gravy and all, in a fashionable lady’s silken lap. Granny Phin followed this up by a series of fearsome yells and maledictions of which the mildest were, “May all yer pittaties be rotten” and “May ye always be looking for something and never finding it” and—finally, “May ye all have the seven-year itch. I’ll pray for it, that I will.”
The half-dazed driver backed his car out of the gate and broke all speed-limits down the road. Gwen was squealing with delight, the Weed Man was grinning and Marigold was trying hard to feel shocked.
Granny was in high good humor.
“My, but that did me good. I kin hold up my end of a row yit. Ye could tell by the look of that fellow his grandfather hanged himself in the horse-stable. Come to dinner, all of yez. If we’d known ye were comin’ we’d a killed the old rooster. It’s time he was used anyway. But there’s always frog pie, hey? Now for the frog pie.”