Purple Springs. Nellie L. McClung
being just a plain, honest-hearted, loving dog, only knew that Pearl was very happy over something. He did not probe the cause—if it pleased her—it was enough.
At four o'clock there came another message—which set Pearl's heart dancing, and spotted her cheeks with a glowing color—the operation was over—apparently successful—and they were driving back to town. The other train might be late too, so it would be impossible for him to come out—but would she still wait? Did the thousand year limit still hold?
There was just a hint of fatigue in his voice, which awakened all the maternal instincts in Pearl, and made her heart very tender to him.
"I will wait—forever," said Pearl.
"Just until tomorrow," came back the voice—"just till tomorrow—and it will be fine tomorrow—won't it, Pearl! Say it will be fine."
"Finer still," she replied, with her cheeks like the early roses in
June.
The day went by on satin wings—with each minute so charged with happiness that Pearl could well believe that heaven had slipped down to earth, and that she was walking the streets of the new Jerusalem. She sang as she worked in the house, her sweet, ribbony voice filling the room with a gladness and rapture that made her mother, with her mystical Celtic temperament almost apprehensive.
"She's a queer girl, is Pearlie," she said that night, when Pearl had gone upstairs to arbitrate a quarrel which had broken out between Bugsey and Danny as to whose turn it was to split the kindling wood. "Day about" it had been until Bugsey had urged that it be changed to "week about," and the delicate matter in dispute now was as to the day on which the week expired. Danny, who had been doing the kindling, was certain that the date of expiry had arrived, but Bugsey's calendar set the day one day later, and the battle raged, with both sides ably argued, but unfortunately not listened to by the opposing forces.
"She's a queer child, is Pearlie," said Mrs. Watson, as she beat up the bread-batter downstairs, "she's that light-hearted and free from care, and her eighteen years old. She's like somethin' that don't belong on earth, with her two big eyes shinin' like lamps, and the way she sings through the house, settin' the table or scourin' the milk pails or mendin' a coat for the boys—it don't seem natural. She's too happy, whatever its' about, and it makes me afraid for her. She's the kind that sees nothin' wrong, and won't see trouble comin' till its too late. I often feel afraid she's too good and happy for this world. She's always been the same, liltin' and singin' and makin' everyone happy around her."
Jimmy was washing his face in the enamel basin which stood on a box below the mirror, and looking around with a dripping wet face, felt with a wildy swinging motion of his arms for the towel. When he had secured it, and all danger of soapsuds getting into his eyes was removed, he joined the conversation.
"Gosh, Ma!" he said, "you don't know Pearl, she's not the saint you take her for. I'll bet the Tucker kids don't think she's too good to live. Not much! They know she can hold up her end of a row as well as any one. When she found out they had killed the cat they got from us, and tanned the skin to make a rim on a cap, you should have seen Pearl. She just cut loose on the two of them, and chased them through the sloughs and up the road clear home—larrupin' them with a binder whip, as fast as she could swing it—the yowls out of them would have done your heart good!"
Mrs. Watson stopped her work, with her floury hands raised in consternation.
"God's mercy," she cried, "did Pearl do that—and both of them bigger'n her. Ain't it a wonder they did not turn on her?"
"Turn"—Jimmy cried scornfully, "Turn—is it? They were too busy runnin'. Gosh—they would'a flew if they knew how. Served them right—they knew blame well they deserved it, for Pearl would never have given them the cat if they hadn't worked it so smooth. They told her they wanted a strain of Tiger in their cats, for all of theirs were black—and Pearl, gave them our fine young Tom—and they promised all sorts to be good to him—and when Pearl saw his skin on their caps, and put it to them, they said they hadn't said it was a 'strain of tiger for their cats' they wanted, but a 'strand of tiger for their caps'—that's what made Pearl so mad." Mr. Donald said Pearl did quite right, and he told the Tuckers they were the making of great politicians—they were so smart at getting out of things. But Gosh, you should have seen Pearl! She finished the job off right, too, you bet, and made them put up slab at the school and did the printin' on it in red ink. You can see it there—they have had to print it over once or twice. We all know the words off by heart:
Young Tom,
Tiger cat,
Owned by P. Watson,
Given away in good faith April 1st,
Wickedly killed to make a cap, April 15th,
Avenged by former owner, May 1st.
T. Tucker. S. Tucker.
People all look at it when they come to the church, and I guess the Tuckers feel pretty small. Pearl says if they are really sorry, it is all right, and young Tom has not died in vain. Every cat has to die sometime, and if he had softened the Tucker's hearts—it is all right. Pearl said she wasn't real sure about them, and I guess if they kill another cat, she'll kill them sure—she said that's the way to do with people like them. Make them repentant—or dead!"
"God save us all," cried Mrs. Watson, in real distress, "whatever will happen to her when she goes out into the world. That's awful talk for a girl especially. Whatever will become of her when she leaves home. She'll be in hot water all the time."
"No fear of Pearlie!" said her father proudly—as he opened the end door of the stove and picked up a coal for his pipe, placing it without undue haste in the bowl, and carefully pressing it down with his thumb. Leaning back in the chintz-covered rocking chair, he spread his feet out to the heat which came from the oven door, and repeated, "No fear of Pearlie—there ain't a girl in the country better able to do for herself. Faith—and she's no fool—and never was—I ain't worrying about Pearlie wherever she goes—or whatever she meets—I ain't worrying."
"You don't worry about anything, John," said Mrs. Watson, in reproof, as she covered the bread with many wrappings and fixed two chairs to hold it behind the stove for the night; "you didn't even worry the night the crop froze, sleepin' and snorin' the whole night through, with me up every half hour watching the thermometer, and it slippin' lower and lower, and the pan o' water on the woodpile gettin' its little slivers of ice around the edge, and when the thermometer went to thirty, I knew it was all up with the wheat, but do you think I could wake you—you rolled over with a grunt, leavin' me alone to think of the two hundred acres gone in the night, after all our hard work … and then to have you come down in the mornin', stretchin' and yawnin', after a good night's sleep, and says you, as cheerful as could be, 'Cold mornin', Ma!'"
John Watson took his pipe from his mouth, and laughed quietly.
"And what was wrong with that, Ma—sure now it was cold—you said yourself it was," he said gently.
The boys joined in the laugh, but Mrs. Watson repeated her point.
"Cold it was, sure enough, but think o' me up frettin' and fumin', and you come down as cheerful as if starvation wasn't starin' us in the face."
"But we didn't starve, Ma," said Billy, coming to his father's defense, "the crop was all right for feed, and we did well after all. You had all your frettin' for nothing."
"It's that way mostly," said John Watson, "I never saw any good yet in frettin'. Anyway, Ma does enough of it for all of us, so that lets me out. There's the two kinds of Irish—them that don't fret over anything—and them that frets over every thing—that's me and you, Ma—and it works out fine—it runs about even. You've always been so sure that things were goin' wrong, I've just had to be a little surer that they wern't. And then of course I knew that night that you would watch the frost—if there was any watchin' to it."
"John, it is well for you that you have some one to do your watchin'," said Mrs. Watson. "You're an easy goin' man, John, but I'll say this for you, that a better natured man never lived."