CHAPTER VI. THE BOYS IN THE OLD HOME ON BEAN BLOSSOM CREEK.
THE Deacon had been afraid to telegraph directly to his wife that he wasbringing the boys home. He knew the deadly alarm that would seizemother and daughters at the very sight of the yellow telegraph envelopedirected to them. They would interpret it to mean that Si was dead, andprobably in their grief fail to open the envelope and read the message.So at Jeffersonville he sent a message to Sol Pringle, the agent andoperator at the station. The Deacon remembered the strain the formermessage had been on the young operator's intelligence, besides hehimself was not used to writing messages, and so, regardless of expense,he conveyed his thoughts to Sol in this wise:
Deer Sol: put yore thinkin' cap on, and understand just what Ime sayin'. I want you to send word out to the house at once that Ime comin' home this evenin' on the accommodation train, and bringing the boys. Be keerful and doant make a fool of yourself and skeer the wimmin fokes.
Respectfully yores, Josiah Klegg.
Sol had plenty of time to study that dispatch out, and he not only sentword as desired, but he communicated the news to all who came to thestation. The result was there was quite a crowd of friends there togreet the home-comers.
The reception of the message had thrown the household into a flurry ofjoyful expectancy. It was far better news than the Deacon's last letterhad led them to anticipate. After a few moments of tearful ejaculationand mutual kissing over it, mother and daughters began to get everythingin readiness to give the returning ones the warmest, most cheerfulwelcome. Abraham Lincoln was summoned in from his rail-splitting, whichhe had been pursuing quite leisurely during the Deacon's absence, andstirred to spasmodic energy under Maria's driving to cut an additionalsupply of dry wood, and carry it into every room in the house, wherelittle Sammy Woggles, the orphan whom the Deacon and Mrs. Klegg werebringing up, built cheer-shedding fires. Mrs. Klegg had her choicestyoung chickens killed, and after she and Amanda had robbed every otherroom of whatever they thought would add to the comfort of Si's, she setherself to work preparing a supper which would outdo all her previousefforts.
Hours before the train was due Maria had Abraham Lincoln bring out thespring-wagon and hitch the horses to it. Then he had to lay in a bed ofclean straw, and upon this was placed a soft feather bed, blankets andpillows. Maria decided that she would drive to the station herself.
"Never do in the world," said she, "to trust them skittish young horses,what hain't done a lick o' work since Pap went away, to that stoopiddarky. They'd surely run away and break his neck, which 'd be no greatloss, and save lots o' provisions, but they'd smash that new wagon andbreak their own necks, which are worth more'n $200 apiece."
"Maria, how can you talk so?" said the gentle Mrs. Klegg reprovingly."It's a sin to speak so lightly o' death o' a feller-creature."
"Well, if he's a feller-creature o' mine," returned the sprightlyMaria, "the Lord made a slack-twisted job of him some dark night out o'remnants, and couldn't find no gumption to put in him. He gave himan alligator's appetite instid. And ain't I tryin' to save his life?Besides, I'm nearly dead to see Si. I want to be the first to see him."
This aroused Amanda, but Maria stood on her rights as the elder sister,had her way, as she usually did, and drove away triumphantly fully twohours before train-time.
Upon her arrival at the station she quickly recognized that she was thecentral figure in the gathering crowd, and she would have been more thana young woman if she had not made the most of her prominence.
Other girls were there with their fathers and mothers who had brotherswho had been in the three months' service, or were now in three yearsregiments, or who had been discharged on account of disability, or whohad been in this battle or that, but none of them a brother who haddistinguished himself in the terrible battle about which everybody wasnow talking, who had helped capture a rebel flag, who had been woundedalmost to death, who had been reported dead, and who was now cominghome, a still living evidence of all this. No boy who had gone from BeanBlossom Creek neighborhood had made the figure in the public eye thatSi had, and Maria was not the girl to hide the light of his achievementsunder a bushel. She was genially fraternal with those girls who hadbrothers still in the service, affable to those whose brothers had beenin, but were now, for any reason, out, but only distantly civil to thosewhose brothers had not enlisted. Of these last was Arabella Widgeon,whose father had been one of the earliest immigrants to the Wabash, andwas somewhat inclined to boast of his Old Virginia family. He owneda larger farm than the Deacon's, and Arabella, who was a large, showygirl, a year or two older than Maria, had been her schoolmate, and,Maria thought, disposed to "put on airs" over her. Arabella's brotherRandolph was older than Si, but had chosen to continue his studies atIndianapolis rather than engage in "a war to free the niggers." ButArabella had developed an interest in the war since she had met someengaging young gentlemen who had come through the neighborhood onrecruiting duty, and was keeping up a fitful correspondence with two orthree of them.
"It must be very nice, Maria," said Arabella, with a show of cordiality,but which Maria interpreted as an attempt to patronize, "to have yourbrother back home with you again."
"It certainly will be. Miss Widgeon," answered Maria, with strictly"company manners." "One who has never had a brother exposed to theconstant dangers of army life can hardly understand how glad we all feelto have Si snatched from the very jaws of death and brung back to us."
"That's a little love-tap that'll settle several scores with MissFrills," Maria chuckled to herself. "Partickerly the airs she put onover all us girls when she was running around to singing-school andchurch with that Second Lieutenant, who ain't got across the Ohio Riveryet, and I don't believe he intends to. Sol Pringle tells me all hisletters to her are postmarked Jeffersonville."
Arabella took no seeming notice of the shot, but came back sweetly:
"I am awfully glad that your brother was not hurt so badly as at firstreported. He couldn't be, and be able to come home now. These papersdo magnify everything so, and make no end of fuss over little things aswell as big ones, I was very much alarmed at first, for fear Si might bereally badly hurt."
This was too much for Maria. Her company manners slid off like a drop ofwater from a cabbage leaf, and she answered hotly:
"I'd have you know. Miss Widgeon, the papers don't magnify the matter.They don't make a fuss over nothing. They don't begin to tell all thetruth. None o' them can. My brother was nearer dead than any man whoever lived. Nothing but the favor of God and Klegg grit pulled himthrough. It'd killed a whole house full o' Randy Widgeons or that SecondLieutenant. I remember Randy Widgeon turning pale and a'most faintingwhen he run a fish-hook in his finger. If it ain't nothing, why don'tRandy Widgeon go down there a little while, with the rest o' the boys,and do his share?"
"My brother disbelieves in the constitutionality of this war, anddenies that we have any right to take away other people's slaves," saidArabella loftily. "I s'pose he's a right to his opinions."
"A poor excuse's better'n none," retorted Maria. "I noticed that hedidn't turn out last Summer to keep John Morgan from stealing ourpeople's horses, and robbing their stores and houses. S'pose he thoughtit unconstitutional to let a nasty rebel gorilla shoot at him. It'svery convenient to have opinions to keep you from doin' things thatyou're afraid to do."
The dialog was approaching the volcanic stage, when a poorly-dressed,sad-faced woman, with a babe in her arms, edged through the crowd toMaria, and said timidly, for she had never been accounted by the Kleggsas in their set:
"Miss Maria, I don't s'pose you know me, but I do so want to git achance to speak to your pap as soon as he gets here, and before allthese people gits hold of him. Mebbe he's found out something about poorJim. I can't believe that Jim was killed, and I keep hopin' that he gotaway somehow, and is in one o' them hospitals. Mebbe your pap knows. Iknow you think Jim was bad and rough, but he was mighty good to me,and he's all that I had. I'm nea
rly dead to hear about him, but I can'twrite, nor kin Jim. I've bin tryin' to make up my mind to come over toyour house, and ax you to write for me."
"Of course, you can, you poor, dear woman," said Maria, her moodchanging at once from fierceness to loving pity. "You shall be the firstone to speak to Pap and Si after me. Why didn't you come over to seeus long ago. We'd only bin too glad to see you, and do all we could foryou. Yes, I know you.
"You're Polly Blagdon, and live down by the sawmill, where your husbandused to work. You look tired and weak carrying that big baby. Let mehold him awhile and rest you. Sit down there on that box. I'll make SolPringle clear it off for you."
"ARABELLA CURLED HER LIP AT SEEING MARIA TAKE THE BABY."87]
Arabella curled her nose, at seeing Maria take the unwashed baby in herarms, to the imminent danger of her best gown, but Maria did not noticethis, and was all loving attention to the baby and its mother.
It seemed an age until the whistle of the locomotive was heard. Theengine had to stop to take water at the creek, several hundred yardsfrom the station, and Maria's impatience to see Si and be the first tospeak to him could not brook the delay.
"Come along, Mrs. Blagdon," she called, and with the baby still in herarms, she sped down the cinder track to the pumping station, and thenalong the line of freight cars until she recognized her father's facelooking from the caboose, which was still beyond the bridge. She shoutedjoyously at him.
"Maria's out there, waitin' for us, and she's got a baby in her arms.What do you suppose she thinks we want a baby for?"
"'Spect she's been practicin' on it, so's to take care o' us, Si," saidShorty. "I believe we've been more trouble to your father than we wuz toour mothers when we wuz teethin'."
"I've bin repaid for all, more'n repaid for all," said the Deacon;"especially since I'm once more back home, and out o' the reach o' theSheriffs o' Tennessee. I'll stay away from Chattanoogy till after theGrand Jury meets down there. If it does its dooty there'll be severalbills with Josiah Klegg's name entirely too conspicuous."
"I want to be able to git out to the next covenant meetin', Pap," saidSi with a grin, "and hear you confess to the brethren and sisters allthat you've bin up to down at Chattanoogy."
"Well, you won't git there," said the Deacon decisively. "We don't allownobody in there who hain't arrived at the years o' discreetion, which'llkeep you out for a long time yit."
The train pulled over across the bridge, and handing the baby to itsmother, Maria sprang in, to recoil in astonishment at the sight ofAnnabel's blushing face.
"You mean thing," said Maria, "to steal a march on me this way, when Iwanted to be the first to see Si. Where in the world did you come from,and how did you find out he was comin' home on this train? Si, youdidn't let her know before you did us, did you?"
She was rent by the first spasm of womanly jealousy that any other womanshould come between her brother and his mother and sisters.
"Don't be cross, Maria," pleaded Annabel. "I didn't know nothin' of it.You know I've been down to see the Robinses, and intended to stay tilltomorrer, but something moved me to come home today, and I just happenedto take this train. I really didn't know. Yet," and the instinctiverights of her womanhood and her future relations with Si assertedthemselves to her own wonderment, "I had what the preachers call aninward promptin', which I felt it my dooty to obey, and I now think itcame from God. You know I ought to be with Si as soon as anybody," andshe hid her face in her hands in maidenly confusion.
"Of course you ought, you dear thing," said Maria, her own womanhoodovercoming her momentary pique. "It was hateful o' me to speak that wayto you."
And she kissed Annabel effusively, though a little deadness stillweighed at her heart over being supplanted, even by the girl she likedbest in all the world after her own sister.
If the young folks had not been so engaged in their own affairs theywould have seen the Deacon furtively undoing his leathern pocket-bookand slipping a greenback into the weeping Mrs. Blagdon's hand, as theonly consolation he was able to give her.
There were plenty of strong, willing hands to help carry Si from thecaboose to the wagon. It was strange how tender and gentle those strong,rough farmers could be in handling a boy who had been stricken down indefense of his country. Annabel's face was as red as a hollyhock overthe way that everybody assumed her right to be next to Si, and those whocould not get a chance at helping him helped her to a seat in thewagon alongside of him, while the dethroned Maria took her place by herfather, as he gathered the reins in his sure hands and started home.Maria had to expend some of the attentions she meant for Si upon Shorty,who received them with awkward confusion.
"Now, don't make no great shakes out o' me, Miss Maria," he pleaded. "Ididn't do nothin' partickler, I tell you. I was only along o' Si whenhe snatched that rebel flag, and I got a little crack on the head, whichwouldn't 've amounted to nothin', if I hadn't ketched the fever atChattanoogy. I'm a'most well, and only come back home to please theSurgeon, who was tired seein' me around."
They found the house a blaze of light, shining kindly from the momentit came in sight, and there was a welcome in Towser's bark which touchedSi's heart.
"Even the dogs bark differently up here. Shorty," he said. "It's fulland honest, and don't mean no harm. You know that old Towser ain'tbarkin' to signal some bushwhackers that the Yankees 's comin'. Itsounds like real music."
It was Mrs. Klegg's turn to receive a shock when she rushed out to greether son, and found Annabel by his side. It went deeper to her heart thanit had to Maria's; but, then, she had more philosophy, and had foreseenit longer.
After everything had been done, after she had fed them hercarefully-prepared dishes, after the boys had been put to bed in thewarmed room, and she knew they were sleeping the sound sleep of deepfatigue, she went to her own room to sit down and think it all over.There Maria found her, wiping away her tears, and took her in her arms,and kissed her.
"It's right. It's all right. It's God's ways," said the mother.
"A son's a son till he gets a wife; But a daughter's a daughter all her life."