Caddie Woodlawn (11 page)

The ever-increasing trial that the little Woodlawns had to endure this winter was turkey. How far away now seemed that autumn day when they had capered and danced, shouting: “Turkey every day! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!”

When the school lunches were being packed, one of the boys was sure to appear and say: “Ma, I mean Mother, what're we going to have in our bread today?”

Sometimes Mrs. Woodlawn said brown sugar or jelly, but usually the answer was: “Cold turkey, dear.”

“Oh, that!”

“There's nothing nicer than turkey on bread, my child. Think of all the poor children who would be glad of a nice turkey sandwich!”

Tom and Caddie and Warren had often thought of these poor children who had no turkey. Secretly they envied them. One can endure beef every day, or even
salt pork. One eats it mechanically, without thinking, but
not
turkey. No matter how disguised with onions or cabbage, or sage dressing, turkey is always turkey.

One day Tom made a valuable discovery. The little half-breed Hankinsons brought buckets of parched corn to school for lunch. Now that they were tired of turkey, there was nothing the Woodlawns liked better than parched corn. Undoubtedly, Tom said, the Hankinsons were the poor children Mother meant, who would be glad of a nice turkey sandwich. The little Hankinsons looked hungrily at the beautiful slices of white bread which were the pride of Mother and Mrs. Conroy. They sniffed the delicate aroma of roast turkey.

Upon Tom's advice, Caddie made the first advances.

“How would you like a piece of white bread and some turkey, Gussie?” she said to the eldest boy, holding out a sandwich temptingly. Gussie's black eyes sparkled in his brown face. In all his nine years, he had never been offered a piece of white bread with turkey in it. Jerked venison, they had at home, and salt pork, but his mother cooked as the Indians did, and his father was too indolent to try to teach her the white man's way of preparing food. The two little brothers crowded close to Gussie, and the youngest one held out his hand.

“You give us parched corn,” said Caddie, “we give you turkey bread.”

“We do,” said Gussie, and the three little Hankinsons ran to get their pails of parched corn. After that it was easily arranged. Whenever the Woodlawns had turkey in their lunch, they traded buckets with the Hankinsons, and everyone was happy.

Caddie's birthday was on February 22, the same as George Washington's. There were too many of the young Woodlawns for anyone to make a fuss over their birthdays. It was pleasant enough to be alive, without thinking to celebrate the day on which one had begun to be so. But with Caddie it was a little different—not at home, of course. But at school, Teacher hung up a flag and there were songs and speeches.

“I know they're not for me, exactly,” Caddie confided to Tom, “and yet I guess I enjoy them more than George Washington does.”

Teacher said that President Lincoln had his birthday in February, too, and Caddie wished more than ever that she had been a boy. Perhaps she could have grown up to be a president then, but now she would have to leave that to Tom or Warren.

This year Miss Parker let Caddie hold the flag while the others sang. She stood straight and proud at the front of the room beside Miss Parker's desk, her eyes
on the lovely stars and stripes—Mr. Lincoln's flag, the flag of the North, Caddie Woodlawn's flag.

“Oh, say, can you see,

By the dawn's early light . . .”

Her heart always soared with the familiar words and seemed to break in a shower of delight on “How
proud
-ly we hailed.” All about her she saw the sparkle of “bombs bursting in air,” beautiful bombs that would not hurt anyone. She thought of Father, looking through the barred gate at peacocks on an English lawn, and she lifted her head, saying fiercely to herself:

“I love America more than Maggie Bunn or Lida or Jane! I'm more American than all of them, because—because they were unkind to Father in England.”

That afternoon, when they came home from school, the snow was melting in a sudden thaw, and the sky was blue above the bare branches of the trees. Caddie skipped as she walked, still feeling the high elation she had felt as she held the flag. Twelve years old she was. Time to begin to be a young lady, Mother said. But Caddie did not think so, and Father's smiling eyes were still on her side.

“Give the child time, Harriet. Give the child time,” he had said at breakfast. “We are long enough grown up, my dear, when the time comes. Let the child get her health.”

“Health!” sniffed Mother. “She's simply bursting
with it! When I was her age, I could make bread and jelly and six kinds of cakes, including plum, not to mention all the samplers I had stitched which anyone may see if they care to look in my marriage chest. And what does Caddie know how to do?”

“I can plow,” said Caddie with a twinkle in her eye, for she knew that her mother was not as indignant as she sounded.

“Plow!” exclaimed Mrs. Woodlawn, rolling her eyes and holding up her hands. “Yes, my daughter knows how to plow!”

“Let her have a little more time, Mother,” said Mr. Woodlawn quietly. “She'll see her way soon.”

But, when they reached home, the conversation of the morning had been entirely forgotten. Mrs. Woodlawn stood by the kitchen window with an abstracted look on her face. Her sleeves were rolled up as if she had been about to make biscuits, and in her hand she held an open letter. As the children entered, Mrs. Conroy was wiping a tear from the corner of her eye with her apron.

“ 'Tis too bad, Mum,” she was saying, “and him so good and faithful, too, and never would touch pork, neither, but looked at me so reproachful-like whiniver I offered it to him. Poor love!” Mrs. Woodlawn turned at the sound of the children's entrance. There was
something tender and sad in her face for them, and she went up and kissed each one on the forehead. Most often she was too busy about her household to greet them with kisses when they came in from school.

“What is it, Mother?” asked Caddie, sensing something wrong.

“It's a letter from Uncle Edmund, Caddie,” replied her mother slowly. “I must tell you children that I was wrong to let Edmund take Nero. I knew it at the time, but I let him persuade me.”

“Mother!”

“Uncle Edmund says that Nero is lost, that he was very unhappy in the city, that he has run away.” There was a little catch in her usually calm, crisp voice. She held out the letter.

“Nero won't come back next fall with Uncle Edmund?” cried Tom, unable to accept this news.

“No, Tom, Nero is lost,” repeated Mother.

Caddie snatched the letter and read. It was all as Mother said.

Terribly sorry, Harriet
[the letter ran],
I shouldn't have taken him, I suppose, but one doesn't foresee such things. He was most unhappy here in the city. Missed the sheep and the children probably. I kept him tied, but one day he got away and was gone like
a streak. I assure you that I have done everything in my power to find him. It is several weeks now since he left and I have only now given up hope of finding him. I write all this with the greatest regret, for I know how fond you all were of Nero. When I come in the fall, I shall try to bring a puppy with me to take his place.

“A
puppy!”
cried Caddie, flinging the letter down and setting her muddy foot upon it. “A
puppy
—any old puppy—to take the place of Nero!” She burst into tears and rushed upstairs to throw herself onto her bed and bury her head in her pillow, where her sobs could not be heard by the others. All the loneliness she had felt for Nero since he had gone away overwhelmed her now in a great flood. Nero, whose eyes full of sympathy, whose wagging tail and warm tongue had always sustained her in her moments of unhappiness and doubt, Nero was gone, and now she would never see him again. Worst of all, Nero had been lonely for her. He had been unhappy and frightened in the city. The thought of that hurt Caddie more than her own loneliness.

Mrs. Woodlawn came up and sat on the foot of her bed. “I am sure, Caddie,” she said softly, “that he will find a good home. Anybody would like Nero, and he could soon find his way to a farm where there are sheep and children.”

But Caddie was inconsolable.

When they came up again to fetch Caddie down to supper, she was sound asleep, worn out with crying. Mother thought it best to let her sleep as long as she would.

It was only when Hetty and Minnie came to bed that Caddie roused herself. She felt stiff and cold and a little dazed. But she was extremely hungry. She went downstairs and stood by the dining-room fire, warming her back and rubbing her hands together. On a corner of the table nearest the fire Mother had spread a napkin over the red and white checked homespun cloth. A place for one was neatly laid, and there was a bowl of warm milk, a plate of bread, a nicely polished red apple, and a plate of cold meat. It was
not
turkey. All of the children had gone to bed, only Father and Mother sat on beside the fire, each busy with some evening occupation.

“Sit down, dear, and eat,” said Mother quietly.

Caddie obeyed, and there was no other sound in the room but the ticking of clocks and the occasional crackling of the fire. But something warm and peaceful and comforting seemed to flow through the quiet room and make everything right again.

Caddie had just finished eating and was about to place one of the silver spoons which Mother had brought with her from Boston on the plate beside her

bowl. Instead, she held it suspended a moment in the air while she listened. There was another sound in the quiet room. It was the distant sound of hoofbeats on the road. Father and Mother had heard it, too. Father went to the window and looked out. Mother sat still, listening, her face turned toward the road from Dunnville, her knitting needles idle in her lap. People did not ride abroad at night in February without some good reason in those days. The sound of hoofs came more distinctly now. Someone was riding rapidly in spite of the darkness.

“They're coming here,” said Mrs. Woodlawn, jumping up. “One of the neighbors is sick, perhaps. I must get my shawl and bonnet.”

The hoofs sounded to the very door, then stopped. Then someone was knocking, loudly and urgently, on the door. Father went and opened it. A cold wind blew in and Caddie could see the pale face of a man beyond Father's shoulder. She brought the lamp to light them. The man was Melvin Kent from the other side of Dunnville.

“I don't want to alarm you, Woodlawn,” he said, “but there's a serious rumor going around. The Indians—”

“Just a moment, Kent,” said Father, and he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

Caddie set the lamp again on the table. Mother had come back with her shawl and bonnet. She and Caddie looked at each other silently, their eyes frightened and questioning. They stood together near the table, listening to the rumble of men's voices outside. All the peace and friendly security of the quiet room had flown out into the February darkness when Father had opened the door.

It seemed a very long time before Father came back. His face was grave, but outwardly he was as calm as usual.

“What is it, Johnny? What is it?” cried Mrs. Woodlawn, unable to bear the suspense any longer.

“Nothing serious, I hope,” said her husband, laying his hand absently along Caddie's shoulder as he spoke. “A man from the country west of here came into the tavern tonight and told the men that the Indians are gathering for an uprising against us.”

“Massacre!”
breathed Mother, laying her hands against her heart. Her face had gone quite white.

“No, Harriet, not that word,” said Father quietly. “Not yet. I hope that this is only a tavern rumor and nothing more. Many a fool who has had too much to drink will start a rumor. I am willing to stake my farm, and a good deal that I hold dear besides, on the honor and friendliness of the Indians hereabouts. Still, we
must keep clear heads and be ready for emergencies. Whatever happens, the white settlers must stand together. I have told Kent that the neighbors may gather here.”