the seatagain.
I daresay we would still be there had not a young man with a gun runsuddenly around the haystack. He had a frightened look, but when he sawus all alive he relaxed. Unfortunately, however, Aggie still had thebottle of blackberry cordial in the air. His expression altered when hesaw her, and he said, in a disgusted voice:
"Well, I be damned!"
Tish had not seen Aggie, and merely observed that she felt like that andeven more. She then remarked that I had broken her other arm, and hernose, which had struck the wind shield. But the young man merely gaveher a scornful glance, and leaning his gun against the haystack, cameover to the car and inspected us all with a most scornful expression.
"I thought so!" he said. "When I saw you leaping that fence and jumpingthe creek, I knew what was wrong. Only I thought it was a party of men.In my wildest dreams--give me that bottle," he ordered Aggie, holdingout his hand.
Now it is Aggie's misfortune to have lost her own teeth some years ago,owing to a country dentist who did not know his business. And whenexcited she has a way of losing her hold, as one may say, on her upperset. She then speaks in a thick tone, with a lisp.
"Thertainly not!" said Aggie.
To my horror, the young man then stepped on the running board of the carand snatched the bottle out of her hand.
"I must say," he said, glaring at us each in turn, "that it is the mostdisgraceful thing I have ever seen." His eyes stopped at Tish, andtraveled over her. "Where is your clothing?" he demanded, fiercely.
It was then that Tish rose and fixed him with a glittering eye.
"Young man," she said, "where my dress skirt is does not concern you.Nor why we are here as we are. Give Miss Pilkington that bottle ofblackberry cordial."
"Blackberry cordial!" jeered the young man.
"As for what you evidently surmise, you are a young idiot. I am thePresident of the local branch of the W. C. T. U."
"Of course you are," said the young man. "I'm Carrie Nation myself. Nowwatch."
He then selected a large stone and smashed the bottle on it.
"Now," he observed, "come over with the rest of it, and be quick." Buthere he seemed to realize that Tish's face was rather awful, for hestopped bullying and began to coax. "Now see here," he said. "I'm goingto help you out of this if I can, because I rather think it is anaccident. You've all had something on an empty stomach. Go down to thecreek and get some cold water, and then walk about a bit. I'll see whatI can do with the car."
Aggie was weeping in the rear seat by that time, and I shall neverforget Tish's face. Suddenly she got out of the car and before herealized what was happening, she had his gun in her good hand.
"Now," she said, waving it about recklessly, "I'll teach you to insultsober and God-fearing women whose only fault is that one of them hasn'tall the wit she should have and let a car run away with her. Lizzie, getout of that seat."
It was the young man's turn to look strange.
"Be careful!" he cried. "_Be careful!_ It's loaded, and the safetycatch----"
"Get out, Aggie."
Aggie crawled out, still holding the rug around where she had sat downin the creek.
"Now," Tish said, addressing the stranger, "you back that car out andget it to the road. And close your mouth. Something is likely to flyinto it."
"I beg of you!" said the young man. "Of course I'll do what I can,but--please don't wave that gun around."
"Just a moment," said Tish. "That blackberry cordial was worth about adollar. Just give a dollar to the lady near you. Aggie, take thatdollar. Lizzie, come here and let me rest this gun on your shoulder."
She did, keeping it pointed at the young man, and I could hear herbehind me, breathing in short gasps of fury. Nothing could so haveenraged Tish as the thing which had happened, and for a time I fearedthat she would actually do the young man some serious harm.
He sat there looking at us, and he saw, of course, that he had beenmistaken. He grew very red, and said:
"I've been an idiot, of course. If you will allow me to apologize----"
"Don't talk," Tish snapped. "You have all you can do without anyconversation. Did you ever drive a car before?"
"Not through a haystack," he said in a sulky voice.
But Tish fixed him with a glittering eye, and he started the engine.
Well, he got the car backed and turned around, and we followed himthrough the stubble as the car bumped and rocked along. But at the edgeof the creek he stopped and turned around.
"Look here," he said. "This is suicide. This car will never do it."
"It has just done it," Tish replied, inexorably. "Go on."
"I might get down, but I'll never get up the other side."
"Go on."
"Tish!" Aggie cried, anguished. "He may be killed, and you'll beresponsible."
Aggie is a sentimental creature, and the young man was verygood-looking. Indeed, arriving at the brink, I myself had qualms. ButTish has a will of iron, and was, besides, still rankling with insult.She merely glued her eye again to the sight of the gun on my shoulder,and said:
"_Go on!_"
Well, he got the car down somehow or other, but nothing would make itclimb the other side. It would go up a few feet and then slide back. Andat last Tish herself saw that it was hopeless, and told him to turn andgo down the creek bed.
It was a very rough creek bed, and one of the springs broke almost atonce. We followed along the bank, and I think Tish found a sort of grimhumor in seeing the young man bouncing up into the air and coming downon the wheel, for I turned once and found her smiling faintly. However,she merely called to him to be careful of the other springs or she wouldhave to ask him to pay for them.
He stopped then, in a pool about two feet deep, and glared up at her.
"Oh, certainly," he said. "I suppose the fact that I have permanentlybent in my floating ribs on this infernal wheel doesn't matter."
At last he came to a shelving bank, and got the car out. I think hecontemplated making a run for it then and getting away, but Tishobserved that she would shoot into the rear tires if he did so. So hewent back to the road, slowly, and there stopped the car.
However, Tish was not through with him. She made him climb the chestnuttree and bring down her dress skirt, and then turn his back while sheput it on. By that time, the young man was in a chastened mood, and heapologized handsomely.
"But I think I have made amends, ladies," he said. "I feel that I shallnever be the same again. When I started out today I was a blithe youngthing, feeling life in every limb, as the poet says. Now what I feel inevery limb does not belong in verse. May I have the shotgun, please?"
But Tish had no confidence in him, and we took the gun with us,arranging to leave it at the first signpost, about a mile away. We lefthim there, and Aggie reported that he stood in the road staring after usas long as we were in sight.
Tish drove the car home after all, steering with one hand and taking thewheel off a buggy on the way. I sat beside her and changed the gears,and she blamed the buggy wheel on me, owing to my going into reversewhen I meant to go ahead slowly. The result was that we began to backunexpectedly, and the man only saved his horse by jumping him over awatering trough.
I have gone into this incident with some care, because the presentnarrative concerns itself with the young man we met, and with thesecret in Tish's barn. At the time, of course, it seemed merely one ofthe unpleasant things one wishes to forget quickly. Tish's arm was onlysprained, and although Aggie wore adhesive plaster around her ribsalmost all winter, because she was afraid to have it pulled off, therewere no permanent ill effects.
The winter passed quietly enough. Aggie and I made Red Cross dressingsfor Europe, and Tish, tiring of knitting, made pajamas. She had turnedagainst the government, and almost left the church when she learned thatMr. Ostermaier had voted the Democratic ticket. Then in January, withouttelling any one, she went away for four days, and Sarah Willoughby wroteme later that the Honorable J. C., her husband, said that a wo
manresembling Tish had demanded from the gallery of the Senate that wedeclare war against Germany and had been put out by theSergeant-at-arms.
I do not know that this was Tish. She returned as unannounced as she hadgone, and went back to her pajamas, but she was more quiet than usual,and sometimes, when she was sewing, her lips moved as though she wasrehearsing a speech. She observed once or twice that she wanted to doher bit, but that she considered digging trenches considerably easierthan driving a sewing machine twelve miles a day.
I remember, in this connection, a conversation I had with Mrs.Ostermaier some time in January. She asked me to wait after the RedCross meeting, and I saw trouble in her eye.
"Miss Lizzie," she said, "do you think Miss Tish really enjoys sewing?"
"Not particularly," I admitted. "But it is better than knitting, shesays, because it is faster. She likes to get results."
"Exactly," Mrs. Ostermaier observed. "I'll just ask you to look at thispajama coat she has turned in."
Well, there was no getting away from it. It was wrong. Dear Tish hadsewed one of the sleeves in the neck opening, and had opened the sleevehole and faced back the opening and put buttons and buttonholes on it.
"Not only that," said Mrs. Ostermaier, "but she has made the trousers ofseveral suits wrong side before and opened them up the back, and men aresuch creatures of habit. They like things the way they are used tothem."
Well, I had to tell Tish, and she flew into a temper and said Mrs.Ostermaier never could cut things out properly, and she would leave thesociety. Which she did. But she was very unhappy over it, for Tish ispatriotic to her finger tips.
All the spring, until war was declared, she was restless anddiscontented, and she took to long trips in the car, by herself,returning moodier than ever. But with the announcement of war she foundwork to do. She made enlisting speeches everywhere, and was verysuccessful, because Tish has a magnetic and compelling eye, and shewould fix on one man in the crowd and talk at him and to him until allthe men around were watching him. Generally, with every one looking hewas ashamed not to come forward, and Tish would take him by the arm andlead him in to the recruiting station.
It was on one of these occasions that we saw the young man of theblackberry cordial again.
Tish saw him first, from the tail of the wagon she was standing in. Shefixed him with her eye at once, and a man standing near him, said:
"Go on in, boy. You're as good as in the trenches already. She landed meyesterday, but I've got six toes on one foot. Blessed if she didn't tryto take me to a hospital to have one cut off."
"Now," said Tish, "does any one wish to ask any questions?"
I saw the blackberry cordial person take a step forward.
"I would like to ask you one," he said. "How do you reconcile blackberrycordial with the W. C. T. U.?"
Tish went white with anger, and would no doubt have flayed him withwords, as our blackberry cordial is made from her own grandmother'srecipe, and a higher principled woman never lived. But unluckily thedriver of the furniture wagon we were standing in had returned withoutour noticing it, and drove off at that moment, taking us with him.
It was about this time that Charlie Sands came to see me one day,looking worried.
"Look here," he said, "what's this about my having appendicitis?"
"Well, you ought to know," I replied rather tartly. "Don't ask me if youhave a pain."
"But I haven't," he said, looking aggrieved. "I'm all right. I neverfelt better."
He then said that once, when a small boy, he had been taken with asevere attack of pain, following a picnic when he had taken considerablelemonade and pickles, followed by ice cream.
"I had forgotten it entirely," he went on. "But the other day Aunt Tishrecalled the incident, and suggested that I get my appendix out. Itwouldn't matter if she had let it go at that. But she's set on it. I maywaken up any morning and find it gone."
I could only stare at him, for he is her favorite nephew, and I couldnot believe that she would forcibly immolate him on a bed of suffering.
"I used to think she was fond of me," he continued. "But she's--well,she's positively grewsome about the thing. She's talked so much about itthat I begin to think I _have_ got a pain there. I'm not sure I haven'tgot it now."
Well, I couldn't understand it. I knew what she thought of him. Had shenot, when she fell out of the tree, immediately left him all herproperty? I told him about that, and indeed about the entire incident,except the secret in the barn. He grew very excited toward the end,however, where we met the blackberry-cordial person, and interrupted me.
"I know it from there on," he said. "Only I thought Culver had made itup, especially about the gun being levelled at him, and the machine inthe creek bed. He's on my paper; nice boy, too. Do you mean to say--butI might have known, of course."
He then laughed for a considerable time, although I do not consider theincident funny. But when I told him about Mr. Culver's impertinentquestion at the recruiting station, he sobered.
"You tell her to keep her hands off him," he said. "I need him in mybusiness. And it won't take much to send him off to war, because he'shad a disappointment in love and I'm told that he walks out in front ofautomobiles daily, hoping to be struck down and make the girl sorry."
"I consider her a very sensible young woman," I observed. But he wasalready back to his appendix.
"You see," he said, "my Aunt Letitia has a positively uncanny influenceover me, and if I have it out I can't enlist. No scars taken."
I put down my knitting.
"Perhaps that is the reason she wants it done," I suggested.
"By George!" he exclaimed.
Well, that _was_ the reason. I may as well admit it now. Tish is a fineand spirited woman, and as brave as a lion. But it was soon evident toall of us that she was going to keep Charlie Sands safe if she could.She was continually referring to his having been a sickly baby, and I amquite sure she convinced herself that he had been. She spoke, too, of asmall cough he had as indicating weak lungs, and was almost indecentlyirritated when the chest specialist said that it was from smoking, andthat if he had any more lung space the rest of his organs would have hadto move out.
One way and another, she kept him from enlisting for quite a time,maintaining that to run a newspaper and keep people properly informedwas as patriotic as carrying a gun.
I remember that on one occasion, when he had at last decided to join thenavy and was going to Washington, Tish took a very bad attack ofindigestion, and nothing quieted her until after train time but to haveCharlie Sands beside her, feeding her peppermint and hot water.
Then, at last, the draft bill was passed, and she persuaded him to waitand take his chance.
We were at a Red Cross class, being taught how to take foreign bodiesout of the ear, when the news came. Tish was not paying much attention,because she considered that if a soldier got a bullet or shrapnel in hisear, a syringe would not help him much. She had gone out of the room,therefore, and Aggie had just had a bean put in her auditory canal, andwas sure it would swell before they got it again, when Tish returned.She said the bill had passed, and that the age limit was thirty-one.
Mrs. Ostermaier, who was using the syringe, let it slip and shot astream of water into Aggie's right eye.
"Thirty-one!" she said. "Well, I suppose that includes your nephew, MissTish."
"Not at all," said Tish. "He will have his thirty-second birthday on thefifth of June, and he probably won't have to register at all. It'slikely to be July before they're ready."
"Oh, the fifth of June!" said Mrs. Ostermaier, and gave Aggie anothersquirt.
Now Tish and I have talked this over since, and it may only be acoincidence. But Mrs. Ostermaier's cousin is married to a Congressmanfrom the west, and she sends the Ostermaiers all his speeches. Mr.Ostermaier sends on his sermon, too, in exchange, and every now and thenMrs. Ostermaier comes running in to Tish with something delivered in ournational legislature which she claims was conceived in ou
r pulpit.
Anyhow, when the draft day was set, _it was the fifth of June_!
Aggie and I went to Tish at once, and found her sitting very quietlywith the blinds down, and Hannah snivelling in the kitchen.
"It's that woman," Tish said. "When I think of the things I've done forthem, and the way I've headed lists and served church suppers and madepotato salad and packed barrels, it makes me sick."
Aggie sat down beside her and put a hand on her knee.
"I know, Tish," she said. "Mr. Wiggins was set on going to the Spanishwar. He said that he could not shoot, but that he would be valuable asan observer, from church towers and things, because he was used to beingin the air. He would have gone, too, but----"
"If he goes," Tish said, "he will never come back. I know it. I've knownit ever since I ran over that black cat the other day."
Well, we had to leave her, as Aggie was buying wool for the Army andNavy League. We went out, very low in our minds. What was our surprise,therefore, on returning late that afternoon, to find Tish cheerfullyhoeing in the garden she had planted in the vacant lot next door, whileHannah followed her and gathered up in a basket the pieces of brick,broken bottles and buried bones that Tish unearthed.
"You poor dear!" Aggie said, going toward her. "I know just