“There is one thing I don’t understand,” said the Girl. “You wouldn’t risk breaking the wing of a moth by keeping it when you wanted a drawing very much; you don’t seem to kill birds and animals that other people do. You almost worship a tree; now how can you take a knife and peel the bark to sell or dig up beautiful bushes by the root.”
“Perhaps I’ve talked too much about the woods,” said the Harvester gently. “I’ve longed inexpressibly for sympathetic company here, because I feel rooted for life, so I am more than anxious that you should care for it. I may have made you feel that my greatest interest is in the woods, and that I am not consistent when I call on my trees and plants to yield of their store for my purposes. Above everything else, the human proposition comes first, Ruth. I do love my trees, bushes, and flowers, because they keep me at the fountain of life, and teach me lessons no book ever hints at; but above everything come my fellow men. All I do is for them. My heart is filled with feeling for the things you see around you here, but it would be joy to me to uproot the most beautiful plant I have if by so doing I could save you pain. Other men have wives they love as well, little children they have fathered, big bodies useful to the world, that are sometimes crippled with disease. There is nothing I would not give to allay the pain of humanity. It is not inconsistent to offer any growing thing you soon can replace, to cure suffering. Get that idea out of your head! You said you could worship at the shrine of the pokeberry bed, you feel holier before the arrowhead lilies, your face takes on an appearance of reverence when you see pink mallow blooms. Which of them would you have hesitated a second in uprooting if you could have offered it to subdue fever or pain in the body of the little mother you loved?”
“Oh I see!” cried the Girl. “Like everything else you make this different. You worship all this beauty and grace, wrought by your hands, but you carry your treasure to the market place for the good of suffering humanity. Oh Man! I love the work you do!”
“Good!” cried the Harvester. “Good! And Ruth-girl, while you are about it, see if you can’t combine the man and his occupation a little.”
Chapter 16
Granny Moreland’s Visit
The following morning the Girl was awakened by wheels on the gravel outside her window, and lifted her head to see Betsy passing with a load of lumber. Shortly afterward the sound of hammer and saw came to her, and she knew that Singing Water bridge was being roofed to provide shade for her. She dressed and went to the kitchen to find a dainty breakfast waiting, so she ate what she could, and then washed the dishes and swept. By that time she was so tired she dropped on a dining-room window seat, and lay looking toward the bridge. She could catch glimpses of the Harvester as he worked. She watched his deft ease in handling heavy timbers, and the assurance with which he builded. Sometimes he stood and with tilted head studied his work a minute, then swiftly proceeded. He placed three tree trunks on each side for pillars, laid joists across, formed his angle, and nailed boards as a foundation for shingling. Occasionally he glanced toward the cabin, and finally came swinging up the drive. He entered the kitchen softly, but when he saw the Girl in the window he sat at her feet.
“Oh but this is a morning, Ruth!” he said.
She looked at him closely. He radiated health and good cheer. His tanned cheeks were flushed red with exercise, and the hair on his temples was damp.
“You have been breaking the rules,” he said. “It is the law that I am to do the work until you are well and strong again. Why did you tire yourself?”
“I am so perfectly useless! I see so many things that I would enjoy doing. Oh you can do everything else, make me well! Make me strong!”
“How can I, when you won’t do as I tell you?”
“I will! Indeed I will!”
“Then no more attempts to stand over dishes and clean big floors. You mustn’t overwork yourself at anything. The instant you feel in the least tired you must lie down and rest.”
“But Man! I’m tired every minute, with a dead, dull ache, and I don’t feel as if I ever would be rested again in all the world.”
The Harvester took one of her hands, felt its fevered palm, fluttering wrist pulse, and noticed that the brilliant red of her lips had extended to spots on her cheeks. He formed his resolution.
“Can’t work on that bridge any more until I drive in for some big nails,” he said. “Do you mind being left alone for an hour?”
“Not at all, if Bel will stay with me. I’ll lie in the swing.”
“All right!” answered the Harvester. “I’ll help you out and to get settled. Is there anything you want from town?”
“No, not a thing!”
“Oh but you are modest!” cried the Harvester. “I can sit here and name fifty things I want for you.”
“Oh but you are extravagant!” imitated the Girl. “Please, please, Man, don’t! Can’t you see I have so much now I don’t know what to do with it? Sometimes I almost forget the ache, just lying and looking at all the wonderful riches that have come to me so suddenly. I can’t believe they won’t vanish as they came. By the hour in the night I look at my lovely room, and I just fight my eyes to keep them from closing for fear they’ll open in that stifling garret to the heat of day and work I have not strength to do. I know yet all this will prove to be a dream and a wilder one than yours.”
The face of the Harvester was very anxious.
“Please to remember my dream came true,” he said, “and much sooner than I had the least hope that it would. I’m wide awake or I couldn’t be building bridges; and you are real, if I know flesh and blood when I touch it.”
“If I were well, strong, and attractive, I could understand,” she said. “Then I could work in the house, at the drawings, help with the herbs, and I’d feel as if I had some right to be here.”
“All that is coming,” said the Harvester. “Take a little more time. You can’t expect to sin steadily against the laws of health for years, and recover in a day. You will be all right much sooner than you think possible.”
“Oh I hope so!” said the Girl. “But sometimes I doubt it. How I could come here and put such a burden on a stranger, I can’t see. I scarcely can remember what awful stress drove me. I had no courage. I should have finished in my garret as my mother did. I must have some of my father’s coward blood in me. She never would have come. I never should!”
“If it didn’t make any real difference to you, and meant all the world to me, I don’t see why you shouldn’t humour me. I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to have you here. I could shout and sing all day.”
“It requires very little to make some people happy.”
“You are not much, but you are going to be more soon,” laughed the Harvester, as he gently picked up the Girl and carried her to the swing, where he covered her, kissed her hot hand, and whistled for Belshazzar. He pulled the table close and set a pitcher of iced fruit juice on it. Then he left her and she could hear the rattle of wheels as he crossed the bridge and drove away.
“Betsy, this is mighty serious business,” said the Harvester. “The Girl is scorching or I don’t know fever. I wonder—well, one thing is sure—she is bound to be better off in pure, cool air and with everything I can do to be kind, than in Henry Jameson’s attic with everything he could do to be mean. Pleasant men those Jamesons! Wonder if the Girl’s father was much like her Uncle Henry? I think not or her refined and lovely mother never would have married him. Come to think of it, that’s no law, Betsy. I’ve seen beautiful and delicate women fall under some mysterious spell, and yoke their lives with rank degenerates. Whatever he was, they have paid the price. Maybe the wife deserved it, and bore it in silence because she knew she did, but it’s bitter hard on Ruth. Girls should be taught to think at least one generation ahead when they marry. I wonder what Doc will say, Betsy? He will have to come and see for himself. I don’t know how she will feel about that. I had hoped I could pull her through with care, food, and tonics, but I don’t dare go any fart
her alone. Betsy, that’s a thin, hot, little hand to hold a man’s only chance for happiness.”
“Well, bridegroom! I’ve been counting the days!” said Doctor Carey. “The Missus and I made it up this morning that we had waited as long as we would. We are coming to-night. David.”
“It’s all right, Doc,” said the Harvester. “Don’t you dare think anything is wrong or that I am not the proudest, happiest man in this world, because I appear anxious. I am not trying to conceal it from you. You know we both agreed at first that Ruth should be in the hospital, Doc. Well, she should! She is what would be a lovely woman if she were not full of the poison of wrong food and air, overwork, and social conditions that have warped her. She is all I dreamed of and more, but I’ve come for you. She is too sick for me. I hoped she would begin to gain strength at once on changed conditions. As yet I can’t see any difference. She needs a doctor, but I hate for her to know it. Could you come out this afternoon, and pretend as if it were a visit? Bring Mrs. Carey and watch the Girl. If you need an examination, I think she will obey me. If you can avoid it, fix what she should have and send it back to me by a messenger. I don’t like to leave her when she is so ill.”
“I’ll come at once, David.”
“Then she will know that I came for you, and that will frighten her. You can do more good to wait until afternoon, and pretend you are making a social call. I must go now. I’d have brought her in, but I have no proper conveyance yet. I’m promised something soon, perhaps it is ready now. Good-bye! Be sure to come!”
The Harvester drove to a livery barn and examined a little horse, a shining black creature that seemed gentle and spirited. He thought favourably of it. A few days before he had selected a smart carriage, and with this outfit tied behind the wagon he returned to Medicine Woods. He left the horse at the bridge, stabled Betsy, and then returned for the new conveyance, driving it to the hitching post. At the sound of unexpected wheels the Girl lifted her head and stared at the turnout.
“Come on!” cried the Harvester opening the screen. “We are going to the woods to initiate your carriage.”
She went with little cries of surprised wonder.
“This is how you travel to Onabasha to do your shopping, to call on Mrs. Carey and the friends you will make, and visit the library. When I’ve tried out Mr. Horse enough to prove him reliable as guaranteed, he is yours, for your purposes only, and when you grow wonderfully well and strong, we’ll sell him and buy you a real live horse and a stanhope, such as city ladies have; and there must be a saddle so that you can ride.”
“Oh I’d love that!” cried the Girl. “I always wanted to ride! Where are we going?”
“To show you Medicine Woods,” said the Harvester. “I’ve been waiting for this. You see there are several hundred acres of trees, thickets, shrubs, and herb beds up there, and if the wagon road that winds between them were stretched straight it would be many miles in length, so we have a cool, shaded, perfumed driveway all our own. Let me get you a drink before you start and the little shawl. It’s chilly there compared with here. Now are you comfortable and ready?”
“Yes,” said the Girl. “Hurry! I’ve just longed to go, but I didn’t like to ask.”
“I am sorry,” said the Harvester. “Living here for years alone and never having had a sister, how am I going to know what a girl would like if you don’t tell me? I knew it would be too tiresome for you to walk, and I was waiting to find a reliable horse and a suitable carriage.”
“You won’t scratch or spoil it up there?”
“I’ll lower the top. It is not as wide as the wagon, so nothing will touch it.”
“This is just so lovely, and such a wonderful treat, do you observe that I’m not saying a word about extravagance?” asked the Girl, as she leaned back in the carriage and inhaled the invigorating wood air.
The horse climbed the hill, and the Harvester guided him down long, dim roads through deep forest, while he explained what large thickets of bushes were, why he grew them, how he collected the roots or bark, for what each was used and its value. On and on they went, the way ahead always appearing as if it were too narrow to pass, yet proving amply wide when reached. Excited redbirds darted among the bushes, and the Harvester answered their cry. Blackbirds protested against the unusual intrusion of strange objects, and a brown thrush slipped from a late nest close the road wailing in anxiety.
One after another the Harvester introduced the Girl to the best trees, speculated on their age, previous history, and pointed out which brought large prices for lumber and which had medicinal bark and roots. On and on they slowly drove through the woods, past the big beds of cranesbill, violets, and lilies. He showed her where the mushrooms were most numerous, and for the first time told the story of how he had sold them and the violets from door to door in Onabasha in his search for her, and the amazed Girl sat staring at him. He told of Doctor Carey having seen her once, and inquired as they passed the bed if the yellow violets had revived. He stopped to search and found a few late ones, deep among the leaves.
“Oh if I only had known that!” cried the Girl, “I would have kept them forever.”
“No need,” said the Harvester. “Here and now I present you with the sole ownership of the entire white and yellow violet beds. Next spring you shall fill your room. Won’t that be a treat?”
“One money never could buy!” cried the Girl.
“Seems to be my strong point,” commented the Harvester. “The most I have to offer worth while is something you can’t buy. There is a fine fairy platform. They can spare you one. I’ll get it.”
The Harvester broke from a tree a large fan-shaped fungus, the surface satin fine, the base mossy, and explained to the Girl that these were the ballrooms of the woods, the floors on which the little people dance in the moonlight at their great celebrations. Then he added a piece of woolly dog moss, and showed her how each separate spine was like a perfect little evergreen tree.
“That is where the fairies get their Christmas pines,” he explained.
“Do you honestly believe in fairies?”
“Surely!” exclaimed the Harvester. “Who would tell me when the maples are dripping sap, and the mushrooms springing up, if the fairies didn’t whisper in the night? Who paints the flower faces, colours the leaves, enamels the ripening fruit with bloom, and frosts the window pane to let me know that it is time to prepare for winter? Of course! They are my friends and everyday helpers. And the winds are good to me. They carry down news when tree bloom is out, when the pollen sifts gold from the bushes, and it’s time to collect spring roots. The first bluebird always brings me a message. Sometimes he comes by the middle of February, again not until late March. Always on his day, Belshazzar decides my fate for a year. Six years we’ve played that game; now it is ended in blessed reality. In the woods and at my work I remain until I die, with a few outside tries at medicine making. I am putting up some compounds in which I really have faith. Of course they have got to await their time to be tested, but I believe in them. I have grown stuff so carefully, gathered it according to rules, washed it decently, and dried and mixed it with such scrupulous care. Night after night I’ve sat over the books until midnight and later, studying combinations; and day after day I’ve stood in the laboratory testing and trying, and two or three will prove effective, or I’ve a disappointment coming.”
“You haven’t wasted time! I’d much rather take medicines you make than any at the pharmacies. Several times I’ve thought I’d ask you if you wouldn’t give me some of yours. The prescription Doctor Carey sent does no good. I’ve almost drunk it, and I am constantly tired, just the same. You make me something from these tonics and stimulants you’ve been telling me about. Surely you can help me!”
“I’ve got one combination that’s going to save life, in my expectations. But Ruth, it never has been tried, and I couldn’t experiment on the very light of my eyes with it. If I should give you something and you’d grow worse as a result—I am a strong
man, my girl, but I couldn’t endure that. I’d never dare. But dear, I am expecting Carey and his wife out any time; probably they will come to-day, it’s so beautiful; and when they do, for my sake, won’t you talk with him, tell him exactly what made you ill, and take what he gives you? He’s a great man. He was recently President of the National Association of Surgeons. Long ago he abandoned general practice, but he will prescribe for you; all his art is at your command. It’s quite an honour, Ruth. He performs all kinds of miracles, and saves life every day. He had not seen you, and what he gave me was only by guess. He may not think it is the right thing at all after he meets you.”
“Then I am really ill?”
“No. You only have the germs of illness in your blood, and if you will help me that much we can eliminate them; and then it is you for housekeeper, with first assistant in me, the drawing tools, paint box, and all the woods for subjects. So, as I was going to tell you, Belshazzar and I have played our game for the last time. That decision was ultimate. Here I will work, live, and die. Here, please God, strong and happy, you shall live with me. Ruth, you have got to recover quickly. You will consult the doctor?”
“Yes, and I wish he would hurry,” said the Girl. “He can’t make me new too soon to suit me. If I had a strong body, oh Man, I just feel as if you could find a soul somewhere in it that would respond to all these wonders you have brought me among. Oh! make me well, and I’ll try as woman never did before to bring you happiness to pay for it.”
“Careful now,” warned the Harvester. “There is to be no talk of obligations between you and me. Your presence here and your growing trust in me are all I ask at the hands of fate at present. Long ago I learned to ‘labour and to wait.’ By the way—here’s my most difficult labour and my longest wait. This is the precious gingseng bed.”
The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter Page 86