Laddie: A True Blue Story

hire and t

ng the ri

and, and dec

r more gla

hearts, or ha

ad so many things to think about, and there had been such a dreadful amount of work for her and Candace, even after all the neighbours helped, that she was si

and mulled buttermilk; she kept trying for two days before she gave up. Candace thought of new things, and Mrs. Freshett came and made all the sick dishes she knew, but mother couldn't

than to bring a glass of water, or a late rose to lay on her pillow; it would be better than not being able to do anything at all. After

ied harder than ever to be cheerful and a

thing I can do for you, gue

hter and she seeme

n catch some of those fish like you do som

ly, and if ever I prayed! Sometimes it was hard to understand about this praying business. My mother was the best and most beautiful woman who ever lived. She was clean, and good, and always helped "the poor and needy who cluster round your door," like it says in the poetry piece, and there never could have been a reason why God would want a woman to suffer herself, when she went flying on horseback even dark nights through rain or snow, to doctor other people's pain, and when she gave away things l

the next worm in two, so if a crayfish took that, it wouldn't get but half. I lay down across the roo

ittle rings on

e merrily swi

left. I put on the other half and tried again. I prayed straight along, but the tears would come that time, and the prayer was no powerful effort like Brother Hastings would have made; it was little torn up pieces mostly: "O Lord, please do make only one fish bite!" At last one did bite good, so I swung carefully that time, and

st had to have a fish. There was no help from the Lord in that, so I quit praying, only what I said when I didn't know it. Father said man was born a praying animal,

t one in the family had to starve, we might as well all go together; but I wouldn't have known how hungry I was, if the bell hadn't rung and told me the others were eating. So I bent another pin and tried again. I lost the next worm without knowing how, and then I turned baby and cried right out loud. I was so thirsty, the salty tears running down my cheeks tasted good, and doing something besides fishing sort of rested me; so I looked arou

d a big fish flew over my head and hit the bank behind me with a thump. Of course by a big fish I don't mean a red horse so long as my arm, like the boys bring from the river; I mean the biggest fish I ever caught with a pin in our creek. It looked like the whale that swallowed Jonah, as it went over my head. I laid the pole across the roots, jumped up and turned, and I had to grab the stump to keep from falling in the water and dying. There lay the fish, the biggest one I ev

r dared enter a field any more if it were there, and now it was stamping up and down the bank, shaking its head, and trying to get me; with one flop the fish went ALMOST in the hole, and the next a little away from it. Everything put together, I thought

no cattle or pigs or chickens, only a little corn for meal, and some cabbage, and wild things they shot for meat, and coons to trade the skins for more powder and lead-bet they ate the coons-never any new clothes, never clean, they or their house. Once when father and mother were driving past, they saw Polly

at school; and if mother hadn't always put in enough so that we could divide, I bet they would. If Polly Martin had walked up as if she were alive, and had been washed and neat, and going somewhere to do some one good, Leon never would have dreamed of such a thing as training the Shropshire to bunt her. She was so long and skinny, always wore a ragged shawl over her head, a floppy old dress that the wind whipped out behind, and when she came to the creek, she

ould knock itself down, and if he dangled the hat again, get right up and do it over. Father never caught Leon, so he couldn't understand what made the sheep so dreadfully cross, because he had thought it was quite peaceable when he bought it. The first time it got after Pol

hat "Gentle Sheep, pray tell me why," piece ever had seen a sheep acting like that, it wouldn't have been in the books; at least I think it wouldn't, but one can't be sure. He proved th

I drew back the pole, and the sheep's forefeet slid over the edge, and it braced and began to work to keep from going in. The fish gave a big flop and went down the hole. Then I turned Crusader and began to fight, and I didn't care if I were whipped black and blue, I meant to finish that old black-faced Shropshire. I set the pole on the back of its neck a

that it was Laddie; I only knew that it was someone who was going to help out that mise

emon, stop!"

from my fingers, and I pushed him as hard as I could, but he was too strong. He lifted the sheep, pul

e killed it!"

. "Goody! Oh but I

to a fiend?" asked Laddie, beg

n, it's got me oftener than her. I can't go anywhere for it, and to-day it made

et I sounded lik

sheep and taking me in his wet arms.

in the hole, so the fish was all right, not even dead yet, and Laddie said it was the biggest one he ever had seen taken from the creek. Then he said if I'd forgive him and all our family, for spoiling the kind of a life I had a perfect right to lead, and if I'd run to the house and get a big bottle from the medicine case quick, he woul

didn't spill a drop. Mother never said a word; she just reached out and broke off a tiny speck and nibbled it, and it stayed; she tried a little bigger piece, and another, and she said: "Take out the bones, Candace!" She ate every scrap of that fish like the hungriest travell

hering me, and that he never would have had it on the place a day if he'd known. The next time he went to town he bought me a truly little cane rod, a real fishing line, several hooks, and a red bobbe

thank goodness! h

never, never did! I couldn't! Laddie, I

ver saw before, and she was in such trouble she didn't know WHAT she was doing. And I hope I'll never see her again," he ended, tw

nd father said he never could pay the bills. He had promised her to go, and he didn't know what in this world to do; because he never had borrowed money in his life, and he couldn't begin; for if he died suddenly, tha

es, and raspberries from last year. She got lots of money for barrels of feathers she'd saved to improve her feather beds and pillows; she said she would see to that later. Father was so tickled to get the money to help him out that he said he'd get her a pair of those wonderful new blue geese like Pryors had, that every one stopped t

erence what she wore, and mother said that was just like a man; it made all the difference in the world what a girl wore. Father said maybe it did to the girl, and other women; what he meant was that it made none to a man. Mother said the chief aim and end of a girl's life was not wrapped up in a man; and father said maybe not with so

e day and said: "Shelley, what about improving yo

ally married, and my clothes made, I forgot all about that. H

e when I went by," said Leon

after the cows this evening," said Shelle

rself for

plied quit

ttle Lord and the Farmer

s dirt if you don t br

e heard the nasty, teasing way

pride are b

ver catche

ou could see she wanted to. "I ca

it?" asked Leon, who never mis

re they not a proper r

you bring something pretty from Chica

her for him. So Shelley said she would get him something for Susie, and Leon brought the crock. Shelley looked at it sort of dubious-like, tipped it, and stared at the dirt settled in the bottom, and then stuck in her finger and tasted it. She looked at Leon with a queer grin and said: "Smarty, smarty, think you're smart!" She threw t

, while she had the chance. So one afternoon father took her trunk to the depot and bought the tickets and got the checks, and the next day Laddie drove to Groveville with father and Shelley, and she was gone. Right at the last, she didn't seem to want to leave s

ight as they had; mother said the only way she could get along was to keep right on working. She helped Candace all she could, but she couldn't be on her feet very much, so she sat all day long and peeled peaches to dry, showed Ca

For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist. My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces. I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them. I could do "Rie

e fruit. Laddie helped with everything through the day, worked at his books at night, and whenever he stepped outside he looked in the direction of Pryors'. He climbed to the topmost limbs of the trees with a big basket, picked it full and let it down w

e law, and they were wrong when they hanged him again. Laddie said it was a piece of bungling sure enough, but the law said a man must be "hanged by his neck until he was dead," and if he weren't dead, why, it was plain he hadn't fulfilled the requirements of the law, so they were forced to hang him again. Father said

e wouldn't want to die, and twice over at that, but I don't suppose the man he killed liked

rs or Lou Wicks, just awful, if you hit them too hard on some t

not going to kill any one. I've studied my physiology hard to find all the spots that will kill. I never hit them behind the

, and hit YOU in the wrong place, and kill you, would you want

die. Now THAT man knew. I'd like to be hanged enough to find out how it goes, and t

was too heavy-and falling that way. So he went to trying to fix some other plan, and I told him the sensible thing to do would be for him to hang me, because he'd be strong enough to hold me and I could tell him how it felt just as well. So we fixed me up like we had him, and when Leon got the rope stretched, he wrapped it twice around the apple tree so it wouldn't jerk him as it had me, and when he said "Ready," I stepped from the barrel. The last thing I heard was Leon telling me to say

ound in circles, clear crazy. I heard father tell him he'd give him a scutching he'd remember to the day of his death; but inasmuch as I had told Leon to do it

enough, when we needed money so badly, not to mention how mother would have felt to have two of us go at once, like she had before. And anyway, it didn't amount to so awful much. It was pretty bad at first, but it didn't last long, and the next day my neck was only a little blue and stiff, and in three days i

the field corn all husked, and the butchering done, father said the work was in such fine shape, with Laddie to help, and there was so much more corn than he n

for her to come so far for one day, but mother sent her a box with a whole turkey for herself and her friends; and cake, popcorn, nuts, and just everything that wa

at; she wrote mother not to worry about clothes, because most of the others were from the country, or small towns, and getting ready to teach, and lots of them didn't have NEARLY as many or as pretty dresses as she did. She told about the big building, the classes, the professors, and of going to public recitals where some of the pupils who knew enough played; and she was working her fingers almost to the bone, so she could next year. She told of people she met, and how one of the teachers took a number of girls in hi

pletely and she'd think all the time about the man, and never mention him again, so she wouldn't know what WAS going on. She said she was glad Shelley had found pleasing, refined friends, and she'd encourage her all she could in cultivating them; but of course she'd caution her to

fall that we could, and our coats from last winter to help out, but we didn't care. We had a lot of fun, and we wanted Sally and Shelley to have fine dresses, because they were in big cities where they needed them, and in due season, no doubt, we would have much more than they, because, as May figured it, there would be only a few of us by that time, so we could have more to spend. That looked sensible, and I though

and forth on his feet, and half sung it, and the rags waved too, but you just couldn't feel any thrills of earnestness about what he said, because he needed washing, and to go to work and get him some clothes and food to fill out his frame. He only looked funny, and made you want to laugh. It took Emanuel Ripley to raise your hair. I don't know why men like my father, and the minister, and John Dover stood it; they talked over asking Isaac to keep quiet numbers of times, but the minister

ring and s

heart-ah to g

y house of

sacred

d-ah te

all his ch

me exhort yo

hat love

good part, that

d kin neither give

t it was mighty seldom he failed to fool some one else into thinking so too, and if he could, he wouldn't have to walk four miles home on cold nights, with no overcoat. In summer, mostly, they let him go. Isaac always was fattest in winter, especially during revivals, but at any time mother said he looked like a sheep's carcass after the buzzards had picked

hildurn we k

harps in th

ns frum each s

weet, wile th

weet, wile th

t them agin

t them agin

face, un a

un ull welc

ourn when the

-bye at the

er feet in the

ay, like a

ay like a l

with us and warmed and fed him, and put him in the traveller's bed to sleep. The way we played it was this: we stood together at the edge of a roadside puddle and sang the first verse and the chorus exact

lly. Then we laughed like dunces, and then May began to sway and swing, and drone through her nose for me, and I was so excited I never looked. I just dipped and faded on the spot. I faded all right too, fo

went to bed scorched inside with red pepper tea, and never told a word about dipping and fading. Leon whispered and said he bet it was the last time I would play that, so as soon as my coat an