The Second Chance

by Nellie L. McClung

  CHAPTER XXII

  AUTUMN DAYS

  There's a wonderful charm in the autumn days, When Earth to her rest is returning; When the hills are drowned in a purple haze, When the wild grape sweetens, and all in a blaze Of crimson the maples are turning.

  _----Helena Coleman._

  WHEN autumn came to the Souris valley and touched the trees withcrimson and gold, it found that some progress had been made on thefarm that was getting its second chance.

  Down on the river flat the hay had been cut and gathered into twostacks, which stood beside the stable, and the two Watson cows nowfattened on the rich growth of aftergrass.

  The grain, which had been an abundant crop, had been threshed anddrawn at once to the elevator, for there was no place to store it;but as the price was one dollar a bushel for the best, and seventycents for the poorest, John Watson had no cause for complaint. Thestable, which he had built of poles, was now roofed by a straw stackand was intended for a winter shelter for the two cows.

  In the early spring Pearl had planted a bed of Polly's poppies, andall summer long they had flamed red and brilliant against the poplargrove behind the house, which sheltered them from the winds. Theweeds around the buildings were all cut down and the scrub cleanedout for a garden the next year. In the holidays the boys had fencedthis with peeled poplar poles.

  A corner of the wheat-field before the house had already been usedfor a garden, and had been a great source of delight and also ofprofit to the family. The boys had complained a little at first abouthaving to pull mustard and shepherd's purse and french-weed, withwhich the farm was infested, but Pearl presented weed-pulling in anew light. She organized two foraging parties, who made raids uponthe fields and brought back the spoils of war. Patsey was RoderickDhu, who had a henchman bold, called Daniel the Redhanded. Bugseywas Alan-bane, and Tommy was to have been his henchman, ThomasTrueman, but Tommy had strong ideas about equal rights and wouldbe Alan-bane's twin brother, Tommy-bane, or nothing. They wereall dark-visaged, eagle-eyed Highlanders, who made raids upon theLowlands to avenge ancient wrongs.

  Pearl had learned about the weeds at school, and soon had her wholefamily, including Aunt Kate, organized into a weed-fighting brigade.Even the golden dandelion was ruthlessly cut down, and Mary, who wasstrong on experiments, found out that its roots were good to eat.After that any dandelion that showed its yellow face was simplyinviting destruction.

  In school Pearl was having a very happy time, and she and her teacherwere mutually helpful to each other. Pearl's compositions were Mr.Donald's delight. There was one that he carried with him and oftenfound inspiration in to meet the burdens of his own monotonous life.The subject was "True Greatness," and was suggested by a lesson ofthat name in the reader. Needless to say, Pearl's manner of treatingthe subject was different from the reading lesson.

  "A person can never get true greatness," she wrote, "by trying forit. You get it when you're not looking for it. It's nice to have goodclothes--it makes it a lot easier to act decent--but it is a sign oftrue greatness to act when you haven't got them just as good as ifyou had. One time when Ma was a little girl they had a bird at theirhouse, called Bill, that broke his leg. They thought they would haveto kill him, but next morning they found him propped up sort ofsideways on his good leg, singing! That was true greatness. One timethere was a woman that had done a big washing and hung it on theline. The line broke and let it all down in the mud, but she didn'tsay a word, only did it over again; and this time she spread it onthe grass, where it couldn't fall. But that night a dog with dirtyfeet ran over it. When she saw what was done, she sat down and didn'tcry a bit. All she said was: 'Ain't it queer that he didn't missnothing!' That was true greatness, but it's only people who havedone washings that know it! Once there was a woman that lived near apig-pen, and when the wind blew that way it was very smelly, indeed;and at first when she went there to live she couldn't smell anythingbut straight pig, but when she lived there a while she learned tosmell the clover blossoms through it. That was true greatness."

  * * *

  Camilla's wedding had been a great event in Pearl's life. It hadtaken place early one Wednesday morning in the church at Millford. Itwas a pretty wedding, the paper said. The altar of the church wasbanked high with wild roses, whose sweet perfume made Pearl think ofschool-books--she always kept her books full of rose petals, and toher it was a real geography smell.

  Mr. Burrell and Mr. Grantley both took part in the ceremony, to showthere was no hard feelings, Pearl thought, for Camilla was aPresbyterian and Jim was a Methodist.

  Mr. Francis brought Camilla in, and Pearl followed. Jim and thedoctor stood at the altar, while down from the choir-gallery, whichseemed to be overflowing with roses, came the strains of thewedding-march. Pearl had never heard it before, but it seemed to hernow as if she had always known it, for in it throbbed the very samejoy that was beating in her own heart. It was all over in a minuteand they were coming down the aisle, her hand on the doctor's arm.The carriage was waiting for them at the door, and they drove back tothe house, everybody talking and laughing and throwing rice.

  When the wedding breakfast was over, and Jim and Camilla had gone onthe train, Pearl and the doctor and Mr. and Mrs. Francis drove backto the house. Everything was just as they had left it--the flowerswere still on the table, and the big clock in the hall was stillgoing, though it seemed a long, long time that they had been away.Mrs. Francis was quite worn out by the efforts of the morning, andsaid she must go and rest. Would Pearl box up the wedding cake in thelittle white boxes? "It is a severe strain to lose Camilla," shesaid, "even for two weeks. Two weeks is fourteen days, and that meansforty-two meals without her."

  "We'll attend to the wedding-cake, and put away the presents and runthings generally," the doctor said.

  In the dining-room Dr. Clay cut up wedding-cake and packed it inboxes for mailing, while Pearl quickly cleared away the dishes. Shewas quite a pretty little girl in her white silk dress. She was talland slight, and lithe and graceful in her movements, with pansy-browneyes and a smooth, olive skin that neither sun nor wind couldroughen. But the beauty of her face was in the serene expressionwhich comes only to people whose hearts are brave and sweet andhonest.

  The doctor watched her with a great admiration in his face. "Pearl,how old are you?" he asked suddenly.

  "I am fifteen," she answered.

  He took one of her shapely little sunburnt hands and held it gentlyin his; then with his other hand he took a pearl ring from his pocketand was about to slip it on her finger, but, suddenly changing hismind, he laid it in her hand instead.

  Pearl gave an exclamation of delight.

  "It's yours, Pearl," he said. "Put it on."

  She put it on her finger, her eyes sparkling with pleasure.

  "Oh, Doctor Clay!" she said, breathlessly.

  He, smiling, watched her as she held her hand up to look at it. "Itis just a remembrance, dear," he said, "of some one who thinks thatthere is no little girl in the world like you."

  When Pearl went home, she gave an account of the wedding to herfamily.

  "Gettin' married ain't so much when you get right up to it," shesaid. "They had a terrible busy time getting ready for it thatmorning. Mrs. Francis was a long way more excited than Camilla, andbroke quite a few dishes, but they were all her own; she didn't getinto any of Camilla's. She set fire to her hair when she was curlingit, but after that she did fine. Camilla looked after everything andwrote down in a notebook all the things Mrs. Francis is to cook whileshe is away. Camilla's a little bit afraid that she'll burn the housedown, but the neighbours are all going to try to see after things forher. Camilla had her hair done the loveliest I ever saw, all wavy,but not frizzy. We went to the church and got that done before wecame back to the house to eat. Camilla had a big bunch of roses thatJim gave her, tied with white satin ribbon, and mind you, they didn'tcut off the ends, that's how free they were with the ribbon. I heldthem along with mine while Jim put on the ring--that's mos
tly anaccount of the what I was for--and Jim kissed her right before everyone, and so did Mrs. Francis, and so did I, and that was all until wecame to the house, and then Mrs. Francis kissed her again and did me,too, when she got started, and kissed Jim, too, and he kissed me, andwe had a great time. The meal was called a breakfast, but say, kids,there was _eating_ for you! Maybe you think a breakfast is mostlyporridge and toast and the like o' that. Well, now, there wasn't asign of porridge--oyster soup came first."

  "Wha's 'at?" Danny asked. The wedding details had reached the placewhere Danny's interest began.

  "They're the colour of gray stones, only they're soft, and if youshut your eyes they're fine, and while you're wondering whether ornot you'll swallow them, they slip down and you begin to look foranother; and then there was little dabs of fried fish laid on alettuce leaf, with a sprig of parsley beside it, and a round oflemon. They took the lemon in their fingers and squeezed it overtheir fish. It looked a little mussy to me, but I guess it's mannersall right; and then there was olives on a little glass dish, andevery one took one--they taste like willow bark in spring. Mrs.Burrell said she just loved them, and et a lot. I think that'scarryin' your manners too far. I et the one I took and thought I didwell. Mr. Burrell asked the blessin', and gave Jim and Camilla lotsof good advice. He said to be sure and get mad one at a time. Andthen we had lots of other stuff to eat, and we went to the train, andCamilla told me to watch that Mrs. Francis didn't let the tea-kettleboil dry while I was there, and I guess that was all."

  But of the incident of the pearl ring, strangely enough, she said nota word.

  * * *

  When Thomas Perkins found out that Bud had really gone he was plungedin deepest grief. He came over to where John Watson was ploughingstubble, the very picture of self-pity. "Pretty hard on a man, John,pretty hard," he began as soon as he came within hearing distance,"to lose his only boy and have to hire help; after losin' the twins,too, the year of the frozen wheat--fine little fellows they was, too,supple as a string of suckers. And now, by golly, Bud's gone, John,with the good new eighteen-dollar suit--that's what I paid for it incold cash in Brandon last winter--and I'll have to keep my hired manon if he don't come back, and this beggar I have, he can eat like aflock of grasshoppers--he just chunks the butter on his bread andmakes syrup of his tea. Oh, yes, John, it's rough on a man when hebegins to go down the other side of the hill and the bastin' threadsare showin' in his hair. It's pretty hard to have to do with hiredhelp. I understand now better'n ever why Billy Winter was cryin' sohard when his third wife died. Billy was whoopin' it up somethin'awful when Mr. Grantley went out to bury the woman, and Mr. Grantleysaid somethin' to comfort Billy about her bein' in a betterplace--that was a dead sure bet, anyway--but Billy went right onbawlin'--he didn't seem to take no notice of this better placeidea--and after a while he says right out, says he: 'She could domore work than three hired girls, and she was the savin'est one I'vehad yet.'"

  "Bud'll come back," said John Watson, soothingly. "The poor lad isfeeling hurt about it--he don't like to have people thinkin' hard ofhim."

  "Wasn't ten dollars a ter'ble fine, John, only eighteen?" Mr. Perkinssaid.

  "It isn't the money I'm thinkin' of, it's feelin's; poor Bud, and himas honest a lad as ever drew breath." John Watson had a shrewdsuspicion of who had "plugged" the grain.

  "Well, I don't see why he need feel so bad," the other man said."Nobody minds stealin' from the railways or the elevator men. They'dsteal the coppers off a dead man's eyes--eh, what? But where Bud evergot such notions of honesty, I don't know--search me. It's a finething to be honest, but it's well to have it under control. Now,there's some kind of sharp tricks I don't hold with. They say thatMrs. George Steadman sold a seven-pound stone in the middle of acrock of butter to Mason here some years ago. She thought he'd shipit away to Winnipeg and nobody'd ever know; but as sure as you'reborn, when she got home she found it in the middle of her box of tea.He paid her twenty-five cents a pound for it, but, by golly! she paidhim fifty cents a pound for it back. Now, I don't hold with that--itwas too risky a deal for me. This Mason's a sharp one, I tellyou--you'll get up early if you ever get ahead of him. In the airlydays, when we all had to go on tick for everything we got at hisstore--they do say that every time one of us farmers went to townthat Mason, as soon as he saw us, would say to his bookkeeper: 'TomPerkins is in town; put him down for a dollar's worth of sugar and aquarter of chewin' tobacco.'"

  Pearl came out with a pail to dig some potatoes in the garden.

  "Well, my pretty dear," Mr. Perkins said amiably, "how are youfeeling this evening?"

  "I am real well, thank you," Pearl said, "and I hope you are, too."

  "Well now, my dear, I am not," he said. "You know, of course, thatBuddie's gone."

  "Yes, I know," said Pearl, "but I know Bud didn't do it. Bud is agood boy, and too honest to do any thing like that. Bud wouldn't pluggrain. What does Bud care for a few cents more on every bushel if hehas to lie to get it?"

  "Look at that now, John!" Mr. Perkins cried, nudging Mr. Watsongaily. "Isn't that a woman for you all over, young and all as she is?They never think how the money comes, the lovely critturs."

  "Money isn't everything, Mr. Perkins," said Pearl earnestly.

  "Well, my little dear, most of us think it is pretty nearlyeverything."

  "God doesn't care very much about money," she answered. "Look at thesort of people he gives it to."

  Mr. Perkins looked at her in surprise. "Upon my word, that's true,"he said. "Say, Pearlie, you'll be taking away the preachers' job fromthem when you get a little bigger, if they're not careful."

  Pearl laughed good-humouredly and went on with her potato-digging.

  Thomas Perkins went home soon after, and even to him the quiet gloryof the autumn evening came with a sense of beauty and of God'sovershadowing care. "I kinda wish now," he said to himself, "that Ihad gone and cleared up the boy's name at first. I can hardly do itnow. They would think I hadn't had the nerve to do it at first. Say,what that kid said is pretty near right. Money ain't everything." Hewas looking at the bars of amethyst cloud that streaked the west, andat the lemon-coloured sky below them. Prairie chickens whirredthrough the air on their way to a straw pile near by. From the Sourisvalley behind him came the strident whistle of the evening train asit thundered over the long wooden bridge. A sudden love of his homeand family came to Thomas Perkins as he looked over at hiscomfortable buildings and his broad fields. "If Bud were only overthere," he thought, "how good it would be! Poor Bud, wanderingto-night without a home, and through no fault of his own."

  Just for the moment Mr. Perkins was honestly repentant; then theother side of his nature came back. "I do hope that boy will think togrease' his boots--they'll go like paper if he doesn't," he said.