| THERE
had been a great deal of trouble in the Norris family,
and for weeks old Bill Norris had gone about scowling
as blackly as a thundercloud, speaking to no one but
his wife and daughter, and oftentimes muttering inaudible
things that, however, had the tone of invective; and
accompanied, as these mutterings were, with a menacing
shake of his burly head, old Billy finally grew to be
an acquaintance few desired.
Mrs. Norris showed equal, though
not similar, signs of mental disturbance; for, womanlike,
she clothed her worry in placidity and silence. Her
kindly face became drawn and lined; she laughed less
frequently. She never went “neighboring”
or “buggy-riding” with old Bill now. But
the trim farmhouse was just as spotless, just as beautifully
kept, the cooking just as wholesome and homelike, the
linen as white, the garden as green, the chickens as
fat, the geese as noisy, as in the days when her eyes
were less grave and her lips unknown to sighs. And what
was it all about but the simple matter of a marriage—Sam’s
marriage? Sam, the big, genial, curly-headed only [Page
144] son of the house of Norris, who saw fit
to take unto himself as a life partner tiny, delicate,
college-bred Della Kennedy, who taught school over on
the Sixth Concession, and knew more about making muslin
shirtwaists than cooking for the threshers, could quote
from all the mental and moral philosophers, could wrestle
with French and Latin verbs, and had memorized half
the things Tennyson and Emerson had ever written, but
could not milk a cow or churn up a week’s supply
of butter if the executioner stood ready with his axe
to chop off her pretty yellow mop of a head in case
she failed. How old Billy stormed when Sam started “keeping
company” with her!
“Nice young goslin’
fer you to be a-goin’ with!” he scowled
when Sam would betake himself towards the red gate every
evening after chores were done. “Nice gal fer
you to bring home to help yer mother; all she’ll
do is to play May Queen and have the hull lot of us
a-trottin’ to wait on her. You’ll marry
a farmer’s gal, I say, one that’s brung
up like yerself and yer mother and me, or I tell yer
yer shan’t have one consarned acre of this place.
I’ll leave the hull farm to yer sister Jane’s
man. She married somethin’ like—decent,
stiddy, hard-working man is Sid Sampson, and he’ll
git what land I have to leave.”
“I quite know that, dad,”
Sam blazed forth, irritably; “so does he. That’s
what he married [Page 145] Janie for—the
whole township knows that. He’s never given her
a kind word, or a holiday, or a new dress, since they
were married—eight years. She slaves and toils,
and he rich as any man need be; owns three farms already,
money in the bank, cattle, horses—everything.
But look at Janie; she looks as old as mother. I pity
his son, if he ever has one. Thank heaven,
Janie has no children!”
“Come, come, father—Sam!”
a patient voice would interrupt, and Mrs. Norris would
appear at the door, vainly endeavoring to make peace.
“I’ll own up to both of you I’d sooner
have a farmer’s daughter for mine-in-law than
Della Kennedy. But, father, he ain’t married yet,
and—”
“Ain’t married,
eh?” blurted in old Bill. “But he’s
a-goin’ to marry her. But I’ll tell you
both right here, she’ll never set foot in my house,
ner I in her’n. Sam ken keep her, but what on,
I don’t know. He gits right out of this here farm
the day her marries her, and he don’t come back,
not while I’m a-livin’.”
It was all this that made old
Billy Norris morose, and Mrs. Norris silent and patient
and laughless, for Sam married the despised “gosling”
right at harvest time, when hands were so scarce that
farmers wrangled and fought, day in and day out, to
get one single man to go into the field. [Page
146]
This was Sam’s golden
opportunity. His father’s fields stood yellow
with ripening grain to be cut on the morrow, but he
deliberately hired himself out to a neighbor, where
he would get good wages to start a little home with;
for, farmer-like, old Billy Norris never paid his son
wages. Sam was supposed to work for nothing but his
clothes and board as reward, and a possible slice of
the farm when the old man died, while a good harvest
hand gets board and high wages, to boot. This then was
the hour to strike, and the morning the grain stood
ready for the reaper Sam paused at the outside kitchen
door at sunrise.
“Mother,” he said,
“I’ve got to have her. I’m going to
marry her to-day, and to-morrow start working for Mr.
Willson, who will pay me enough to keep a wife. I’m
sorry, mother, but—well, I’ve got to have
her. Some day you’ll know her, and you’ll
love her, I know you will; and if there’s ever
any children—”
But Mrs. Norris had clutched
him by the arm. “Sammy,” she whispered,
“your father will be raging mad at your going,
and harvest hands so scarce. I know he’ll
never let me go near you, never. But if there’s
ever any children, Sammy, you just come for your mother,
and I’ll go to you and her without his
letting.”
Then with one of the all too
few kisses that are ever given or received in a farmhouse
life, [Page 147] she let him go. The
storm burst at breakfast time when Sam did not appear,
and the poor mother tried to explain his absence, as
only a mother will. Old Billy waxed suspicious, then
jumped at facts. The marriage was bad enough, but this
being left in the lurch at the eleventh hour, his son’s
valuable help transferred from the home farm to Mr.
Willson’s, with whom he always quarreled in church,
road, and political matters, was too much.
“But, father, you never
paid him wages,” ventured the mother.
“Wages? Wages to one’s
own son, that one has raised and fed and shod from the
cradle? Wages, when he knowed he’d come in fer
part of the farm when I’d done with it? Who in
consarnation ever gives their son wages?”
“But, father, you told
him if he married her he was never to have the farm—that
you’d leave it to Sid, that he was to get right
off the day he married her.”
“An’ Sid’ll
get it—bet yer life he will—fer I ain’t
got no son no more. A sneakin’ hulk that leaves
me with my wheat standin’ an’ goes over
to help that Methodist of a Willson is no son of mine.
I ain’t never had a son, and you ain’t,
neither; remember that, Marthy—don’t you
ever let me ketch you goin’ a-near them. We’re
done with Sam an’ his missus. You jes’ make
a note of that.” And old Billy flung out to his
fields like a general whose forces had fled. [Page
148]
It was but a tiny, two-room
shack, away up in the back lots, that Sam was able to
get for Della, but no wayfarer ever passed up the side
road but they heard her clear, young voice singing like
a thrush; no one ever met Sam but he ceased whistling
only to greet them. He proved invaluable to Mr. Willson,
for after the harvest was in and the threshing over,
there was the root crop and the apple crop, and eventually
Mr. Willson hired him for the entire year. Della, to
the surprise of the neighborhood, kept on with her school
until Christmas.
“She’s teachin’
instid of keepin’ Sam’s house, jes’
to git money fer finery, you bet!” sneered old
Billy. But he never knew that every copper for the extra
term was put carefully away, and was paid out for a
whole year’s rent in advance on a gray little
two-room house, and paid by a very proud little yellow-haired
bride. She had insisted upon this before her marriage,
for she laughingly said, “No wife ever gets her
way afterwards.”
“I’m not good at
butter-making, Sam,” she said, “but I can
make money teaching, and for this first year I
pay the rent.” And she did.
And the sweet, brief year swung
on through its seasons, until one brown September morning
the faint cry of a little human lamb floated through
the open window of the small gray house on the back
lots. Sam did not go to Willson’s to work that
day, but stayed at home, playing the part of [Page
149] a big, joyful, clumsy nurse, his roughened
hands gentle and loving, his big rugged heart bursting
with happiness. It was twilight, and the gray shadows
were creeping into the bare little room, touching with
feathery fingers a tangled mop of yellow curls that
aureoled a pillowed head that was not now filled with
thoughts of Tennyson and Emerson and frilly muslin shirtwaists.
That pretty head held but two realities—Sammy,
whistling robin-like as he made tea in the kitchen,
and the little human lamb hugged up on her arm.
But suddenly the whistling ceased,
and Sammy’s voice, thrilling with joy, exclaimed:
“Oh, mother!”
“Mrs. Willson sent word
to me. Your father’s gone to the village, and
I ran away, Sammy boy,” whispered Mrs. Norris,
eagerly. “I just ran away. Where’s Della
and—the baby?”
“In here, mother, and—bless
you for coming!” said the big fellow, stepping
softly towards the bedroom. But his mother was there
before him, her arms slipping tenderly about the two
small beings on the bed.
“It wasn’t my fault,
daughter,” she said, tremulously.
“I know it,” faintly
smiled Della. “Just these last few hours I know
I’d stand by this baby boy of mine here until
the Judgment Day, and so I now know it must have nearly
broken your heart not to stand by Sammy.” [Page
150]
“Well, grandmother!”
laughed Sam, “what do you think of the new Norris?”
“Grandmother?” gasped
Mrs. Norris. “Why, Sammy, am I a grandmother?
Grandmother to this little sweetheart?” And the
proud old arms lifted the wee “new Norris”
right up from its mother’s arms, and every tiny
toe and finger was kissed and crooned over, while Sam
shyly winked at Della and managed to whisper, “You’ll
see, girl, that dad will come around now; but he can
just keep out of our house. There are two of
us that can be harsh. I’m not going to come at
his first whistle.”
Della smiled to herself, but
said nothing. Much wisdom had come to her within the
last year, within the last day—wisdom not acquired
within the covers of books, nor yet beneath college
roofs, and one truth she had mastered long ago—that
“To
help and to heal a sorrow
Love and silence are always best.”
But
late that night, when Martha Norris returned home, another
storm broke above her hapless head. Old Billy sat on
the kitchen steps waiting for her, frowning, scowling,
muttering. “Where have you been?” he demanded,
glaring at her, although some inner instinct told him
what her answer would be.
“I’ve
been to Sammy’s,” she said, in a peculiarly
still voice, “and I’m going again to-morrow.”
Then with shoulders more erect and eyes [Page
151] calmer than they had been for many months,
she continued: “And I’m going again the
next day, and the next. Billy, you and I’ve got
a grandson—a splendid, fair, strong boy, and—”
“What!” snapped
old Billy. “A grandson! I got a grandson, an’
no person told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam,
cuss him! He always was too consarned mean to live.
A grand-son? I’m a-goin’ over termorrer,
sure’s I’m alive.”
“No use for you to go,
Billy,” said Mrs. Norris, with marvellous diplomacy
for such a simple, unworldly farmer’s wife to
suddenly acquire. “Sammy wouldn’t let you
set foot on his place. He wouldn’t let you put
an eye or a finger on that precious baby—not for
the whole earth.”
“What! Not me,
the little chap’s grandfather?”
blurted old Billy in a rage. “I’m a-goin’
to see that baby, that’s all there is to it. I
tell yer, I’m a-goin’.”
“No use, father; you’ll
only make things worse,” sighed Sam’s mother,
plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like
a spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast
adding the art of being an actress. “If you go
there Sam’ll set the dog on you. I know
he will, from the way he was talking,” she concluded.
“Oh! got a dog,
have they? Well, I bet they’ve got no cow,”
sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: “I
say, Marthy, have they got a cow?” [Page
152]
“No,” replied Mrs.
Norris, shortly.
“No cow, an’
a sick woman and a baby—my grandchild—in
the house? Now ain’t that jes’ like that
sneak Sam? They’ll jes’ kill that baby atween
them, they’re that igner’nt. Hev they got
enny milk fer them two babbling kids, Della an’
the baby—my grandchild?”
“No!” snapped Mrs.
Norris, while through her mind echoed some terrifying
lines she had heard as a child:
“All
liars dwell with him in hell,
And many more who cursed and swore.”
“An
there’s that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy.
Couldn’t we spare her?” he asked with a
pathetic eagerness. “We’ve got eight other
cows to milk. Can’t we spare her? If you think
Sam’ll set the dog on me, I’ll
have her driv over in the mornin’. Jim’ll
take her.”
“I
don’t think it’s any use, Bill; but you
can try it,” remarked Mrs. Norris, her soul singing
within her like a celestial choir.
*
*
* *
*
*
“Where
are you driving that cow to?” yelled Sam from
the kitchen door, at sunrise the following morning.
“Take her out of there! You’re driving her
into my yard, right over my cabbages.”
But
Jim, the Norris’ hired man, only grinned, and
proceeding with his driving, yelled back: [Page
153]
“Cow’s yourn, Sam.
Yer old man sent it—a present to yer missus and
the babby.”
“You take and drive that
cow back again!” roared Sam. “And tell my
dad I won’t have hide nor hair of her on my place.”
Back went the cow.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
mourned Mrs. Norris. “Sam’s that stubborn
and contrary. It’s no use Billy; he just doesn’t
care for his poor old father nor mother any more.”
“By the jumping Jiminy
Christmas! I’ll make him care!”
thundered old Billy. “I’m a-goin’
ter see that grandchild of mine.” Then followed
a long silence.
“I say, Marthy, how are
they fixed in the house?” he questioned, after
many moments of apparently brown study.
“Pretty poor,” answered
Sam’s mother, truthfully this time.
“Got a decent stove, an’
bed, an’ the like?” he finally asked.
“Stove seems to cook all
right, but the bed looks just like straw tick—not
much good, I’d say,” responded Mrs. Norris,
drearily.
“A straw tick!”
fairly yelled old Billy. “A straw tick fer my
grandson ter sleep on? Jim, you fetch that there cow
here, right ter the side door.”
“What are you going to
do?” asked Martha, anxiously. [Page 154]
“I’ll show yer!”
blurted old Billy. And going to his own room, he dragged
off all the pretty patchwork quilts above his neatly-made
bed, grabbed up the voluminous feather-bed, staggered
with it in his arms down the hall, through the side
door, and flung it on the back of the astonished cow.
“Now you, Jim, drive that
there cow over to Sam’s, and if you dare bring
her back agin, I’ll hide yer with the flail till
yer can’t stand up.”
“Me drive that lookin’
circus over to Sam’s?” sneered Jim. “I’ll
quit yer place first. Yer kin do it yerself;”
and the hired man turned on his lordly heel and slouched
over to the barn.
“That’ll be the
best way, Billy,” urged Sam’s mother. “Do
it yourself.”
“I’ll do it, too,”
old Billy growled. “I ain’t afraid of no
dog on four legs. Git on there, bossy! Git on, I say!”
and the ridiculous cavalcade started forth.
For a moment Martha Norris watched
the receding figure through blinding tears. “Oh,
Sammy, I’m going to have you back again! I’m
going to have my boy once more!” she half sobbed.
Then sitting down on the doorsill, she laughed like
a schoolgirl until the cow with her extraordinary burden,
and old Billy in her wake, disappeared up the road.*
[Page 155]
From the pillow, pretty Della
could just see out of the low window, and her wide young
eyes grew wider with amazement as the gate swung open
and the “circus,” as Jim called it, entered.
“Sammy!” she called,
“Sammy! For goodness sake, what’s that coming
into our yard?”
Instantly Sam was at the door.
“Well, if that don’t
beat anything I ever saw!” he exclaimed. Then
“like mother, like son,” he, too, sat down
on the doorsill and laughed as only youth and health
and joy can laugh, for, heading straight for the door
was the fat young Shorthorn, saddled with an enormous
featherbed, and plodding at her heels was old Billy
Norris, grinning sheepishly.
It took just three seconds for
the hands of father and son to meet. “How’s
my gal an’ my grandson?” asked the old farmer,
excitedly.
“Bully, just bully, both
of them!” smiled Sam, proudly. Then more seriously,
“Ah, dad, you old tornado, you! Here you fired
thunder at us for a whole year, pretty near broke my
mother’s heart, and made my boy’s little
mother old before she ought to be. But you’ve
quit storming now, dad. I know it from the look of you.”
“Quit forever, Sam,”
replied old Billy, “fer these mother-wimmen don’t
never thrive where there’s rough weather, somehow.
They’re all fer peace. They’re worse than
King Edward an’ Teddy Roosevelt fer patchin’
up rows, an’ if they can’t do it no other
way, they jes’ hike along with [Page 156] a baby,
sort o’ treaty of peace like. Yes, I guess I thundered
some; but, Sam, boy, there ain’t a deal of harm
in thunder—but lightnin’, now that’s
the worst, but I once heard a feller say that feathers
was non-conductive.” Then with a sly smile, “An’
Sam, you’d better hustle an’ git the gal
an’ the baby on ter this here feather-bed, or
they may be in danger of gittin’ struck, fer there’s
no tellin’ but I may jes’ start an’
storm thunder an’ lightnin’ this
time.” [Page 157]
*
This incident actually occurred on an Ontario farm within
the circle of the author’s acquaintance. [back]
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