The Gay Cockade
until whispers of wind stirred the trees, and then we went away and left
our dear lady alone.
As the time went on we hated more and more to leave her, but she was
very brave about it. "I have my good man Friday," she told us, "to
protect me, and my grandfather's revolver."
So the summer passed, and the fall came, and the busy robin and all of
her red-breasted family started for the South, and there was rain and
more rain, so that when October rolled around the roads were perfect
rivers of red mud, and the swollen streams swept under the bridges in
raging torrents of terra-cotta, and the sheep on the hills were pinker
than ever. There was no lack of color in those gray days, for the trees
burst through the curtain of mist in great splashes of red and green and
gold. But now I did not go abroad with William Watters behind his old
gray mule, for things had happened which kept me at home.
It was on a rainy November night that I came down to the store to call
Billy to supper. I had brought a saucer for old Tid, the store cat, and
when he had finished Billy had cut him a bit of cheese and he was
begging for it. We had taught Tid to sit up and ask, and he looked so
funny, for he is fat and black and he hates to beg, but he loves cheese.
We were laughing at him when a great flash of light seemed to sweep
through the store, and a motor stopped.
Billy went forward at once. The front door opened, and a man in a
rain-coat was blown in by the storm.
"Jove, it's a wet night!" I heard him say, and I knew it wasn't any of
Billy's customers from around that part of the country. This was no
drawling Virginia voice. It was crisp and clear-cut and commanding.
He took off his hat, and even at that distance I could see his shining
blond head. He towered above Billy, and Billy isn't short. "I wonder if
you could help me," he began, and then he hesitated, "it is a rather
personal matter."
"If you'll come up-stairs," Billy told him, "there'll be only my wife
and me, and I can shut up the store for the night."
"Good!" he said, and I went ahead of them with old Tid following, and
presently the men arrived and Billy presented the stranger to me.
He told us at once what he wanted. "I thought that as you kept the
store, you might hear the neighborhood news. I have lost--my wife--"
"Dead?" Billy inquired solicitously.
"No. Several months ago we motored down into this part of the country.
Some miles from here I had trouble with my engine, and I had to walk to
town for help. When I came back my wife was gone--"
I pinched Billy under the table. "Gone?" I echoed.
"Yes. She left a note. She said that she could catch a train at the
station and that she would take it. Some one evidently gave her a lift,
for she had her traveling bag with her. She said that she would sail at
once for France, and that I must not try to follow her. Of course I did
follow her, and I searched through Europe, but I found no trace, and
then it occurred to me that after all she might still be in this part of
the country--"
I held on to Billy. "Had you quarreled or anything?"
He ran his fingers through his hair. "Things had gone wrong somehow,"
he said, uncertainly, "I don't know why. I love her."
If you could have heard him say it! If _she_ could have heard him! There
was a silence out of which I said: "Did you ask her to warm your
slippers?"
He stared at me, then he reached out his hands across the table and
caught hold of mine in such a strong grip that it hurt. "You've seen
her," he said, "_you've seen her_--?"
Then I remembered. "I can't say any more. You see--I've promised--"
"That you wouldn't tell me?"
"Yes."
He threw back his head and laughed. "If she's in this part of the
country, I'll find her." And I knew that he would. He was the kind of
man you felt wouldn't know there were obstacles in the way when he went
after the thing he wanted.
I made him stay to supper. It was a drizzly cold night and he looked
very tired.
"Jove," he said, "you're comfortable here, with your fire and your
pussy-cat, and your teakettle on the hearth! This is the sort of thing I
like--"
"You wouldn't like living over a grocery store," I told him.
"Why not?"
"Oh, nobody around here ever has, and they are all descended from
signers of the Declaration of Independence and back of that from William
the Conqueror, and they stick their noses in the air."
"Shades of Jefferson!--why should they?"
"They shouldn't. But they do--"
He came back to the subject of his wife. "I didn't want her to warm my
slippers. It was only that I wanted her to feel like warming them," he
appealed to Billy, and Billy nodded. Billy positively purrs when I make
him comfortable after his day's work. He says that it is the homing
instinct in men and that women ought to encourage it.
"Does she warm yours?" he asked Billy.
"Not now, she's too busy--" and then as if the stage were set for it,
there came from the next room a little, little cry.
I went in and brought out--Junior! He was only a month old, but you know
how heavenly sweet they are with their rose-leaf skins, and their little
crumpled hands and their downy heads--Junior's down was brown, for Billy
and I are both dark.
"You see he keeps me busy," I said.
I was so proud I am perfectly sure it stuck out all over me, and as for
Billy he beamed on us in a funny fatherly fashion that he had adopted
from the moment that he first called me "Little Mother."
"Do you wonder that she hasn't time to warm my slippers?" was his
question.
The stranger held out his arms--"Let me hold the little chap." And he
sat there, without a smile, looking down at my baby. When he raised his
head he said in a dry sort of fashion, "I thought the pussy-cat and the
teakettle were enough--but this seems almost too good to be true--"
I can't tell you how much I liked him. He seemed so big and fine--and
tender. I came across a poem the other day, and he made me think of it:
"... the strong"
The Master whispered, "are the tenderest!"
Before he went away, he took my hand in his. "I want you to play a game
with me. Do you remember when we were children that we used to hide
things, and then guide the ones who hunted by saying 'warmer' when we
were near them, and 'colder' when they wandered away? Will you say
'warm' and 'cold' to me? That won't be breaking your promise, will it?"
"No."
"Then let's begin now. To-morrow morning I shall go to the north and
east--"
"Cold!"
"To the south and west--"
"Warmer."
"Up a hill?"
"Very warm. But you mustn't ask me any more."
"All right. But I am coming again, and we will play the game."
Billy went down with him, and when he came back we stood looking into
the fire, and he said, "You didn't tell him?"
"Of course not. That's the lovely, lovely thing that he must find out
for himself--"
The next day I went to see Lady Crusoe. William Watters took me. "They's
a man been hangin' round this mawnin'," he complained, "an' a dawg--"
"What kind of man, William?"
"He's huntin', and Miss Lily she doan' like things killed--"
Half-way up, we passed the man. His hat came off when he saw me. "It's
cold weather we're having," he said pleasantly.
"It's getting warmer," I flung back at him, and William drove on with a
grunt.
I had Junior with me, and when I reached the house I went straight
up-stairs. In the very center of the room in the hooded mahogany cradle
was another crumpled rose-leaf of a child. But this was not a "Junior."
"Robin-son," Lady Crusoe had whispered, when I had first bent over her
and had asked the baby's name.
"Because of the robins?" I had asked.
She shook her head. "I couldn't call him Crusoe, could I?"
So there he lay, little Robinson Crusoe, in a desert expanse of polished
floor, and there he crowed a welcome to my own beautiful baby!
Lady Crusoe was in a big chair. She was not strong, and William Watters
had brought his sister Mandy to wait on her. She was very pale, this
lovely lady, and there were shadows under her eyes. As I sat down beside
her, she said: "I shall have to have your Billy sell some more things
for me. You see the servants must be paid, and my Robin must be comfy.
There's a console-table that ought to bring a lot from a city dealer."
"I wish that you needn't be worried," I said. "I wish--I wish--that
you'd let me send for Robin's father--"
"Robin's father!" she drew a quick breath, "how funny it
sounds!--_Robin's father_--"
I waited for that to sink in, and then I said: "I know how you feel.
When I think of Billy as Junior's father it is different from thinking
of him as my husband, and it makes a funny sensation in my throat as if
I wanted to cry--"
"You've nothing to cry about," she told me fiercely, "nothing, but I
sometimes feel as if I could weep rivers of tears!"
I realized that I must be careful, so I changed the subject. "William,"
I said after a pause, "is worrying about a man who is hunting over the
grounds."
"He told me. I can't understand why any one should trespass when the
place is posted. I sent William to tell him, but it didn't seem to have
any effect. I haven't heard him shoot. When I do, I shall go out and
speak to him myself."
I wondered if Fate were going to settle it in that way, and I wondered
too if it would be breaking my promise to tell him to shoot! We sewed in
silence for a while, but Lady Crusoe was restless. At last she wandered
to the window. It was a long French window which opened on a balcony.
She parted the velvet curtains and looked out. "There he is again," she
said, with irritation, "by the gate with his gun and dog--"
I rose and joined her. The man stood by the gate-post, and the dog sat
at his feet. They might have been a pair of statues planted on the round
top of the hill, with the valleys rolling away beneath them and the
mountain peaks and the golden sky beyond. Lady Crusoe was much stirred
up over it.
"I'll send William again, when he comes with our tea. I won't have my
wild things shot. There was a covey of partridges on the lawn this
morning, and my squirrels come up to the porch to be fed. Men are cruel
creatures with their guns and their traps."
"Women are cruel, too," I told her, and now I took my courage in my
hands. "Suppose, oh, suppose, that the mother robin had stolen her nest
and had never let the father robin share her happiness, wouldn't you
call that cruel?"
"What do you mean?" her voice shook.
"You have stolen your--nest--"
"Why shouldn't I steal it? I had always felt that when I wanted a real
home it would be here. And the time had come when I wanted a--home. So I
planned to come--with him. It was to be my surprise--he doesn't even
know that the old place belongs to me. He thought it was just another of
my restless demands, but he let me have my way. We had friends with us
when we started; they left us at Washington. It was after we were alone
that--we quarreled--and I ran away. I left a note and told him that I
had gone to France. I suppose he followed and didn't find me. I am not
even sure that he wants to find me."
"Do you want to be found?"
"I don't know. I'd rather not talk about it."
William came in with the tea and was told to send the intruder off.
"I done sent him, Miss Lily," he said, with dignity, "but he ain't gwine
to go. He say he ain't, and I kain't make him."
She went again to the window, and this time she drew back the faded
hangings and stepped out on the balcony.
I heard her utter a cry; then the whole room seemed to whirl about me as
she came in, dragging the curtains together behind her. Every drop of
blood was drained from her face.
"William," she said, sharply, "that man--is coming toward the house! If
he asks for me--I am not--at home."