The Greatest Works of Gene Stratton-Porter. Stratton-Porter Gene
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and he couldn't begin; for if he died suddenly, that would leave mother in debt, and they might take the land from her. That meant he'd spent what he had in the bank on Sally's wedding, and all that was in the Underground Station, or maybe the Station money wasn't his.
Just when he was awfully bothered, mother said to never mind, she believed she could fix it. She sent all of us into the orchard to pick the fine apples that didn't keep well, and father made three trips to town to sell them. She had big jars of lard she wouldn't need before butchering time came again, and she sold dried apples, peaches, 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 to look at. When there was not quite enough yet, from somewhere mother brought out money that she'd saved for a long time, from butter and eggs, and chickens, and turkeys, and fruit and lard, and things that belonged to her. Father hated to use it the worst way, but she said she'd saved it for an emergency, and now seemed to be the time.
She said if the child really had talent, she should be about developing it, and while there would be many who would have far finer things than Shelley, still she meant her to have enough that she wouldn't be the worst looking one, and so ashamed she couldn't keep her mind on her work. Father said, with her face it didn't make any difference 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 some girls, but it would be with Shelley: she was too pretty to escape. I do wonder if I'm going to be too pretty to escape, when I put on long dresses. Sometimes I look in the glass to see if it's coming, but I don't suppose it's any use. Mother says you can't tell a thing at the growing age about how a girl is going to look at eighteen.
When everything was almost ready, Leon came in one day and said: "Shelley, what about improving your hair? Have you tried your wild grape sap yet?"
Shelley said: "Why, goodness me! We've been so busy getting Sally married, and my clothes made, I forgot all about that. Have you noticed the crock in passing? Is there anything in it?"
"It was about half full, once when I went by," said Leon. "I haven't seen it lately."
"Do please be a dear and look, when you go after the cows this evening," said Shelley. "If there's anything in it, bring it up."
"Do it yourself for want of me,
The boy replied quite manfully,"
quoted Leon from "The Little Lord and the Farmer." He was always teasing.
"I think you're mean as dirt if you don t bring it," said Shelley.
Leon grinned and you should have heard the nasty, teasing way he said more of that same piece:
"Anger and pride are both unwise,
Vinegar never catches flies——"
I wondered she didn't slap him. You could see she wanted to. "I can get it myself," she said angrily.
"What will you give me to bring it?" asked Leon, who never missed a chance to make a bargain.
"My grateful thanks. Are they not a proper reward?" asked Shelley.
"Thanks your foot!" said Leon. "Will you bring something pretty from Chicago for Susie Fall's Christmas present?"
Every one laughed, but Leon never cared. He liked Susie best of any of the girls, and he wanted every one to know it. He went straight to her whenever he had a chance, and he'd already told her mother to keep all the other boys away, because he meant to marry her when he grew up, and Widow Fall said that was fair enough, and she'd save 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 the creek water into the swill bucket. No one said a word, but Leon looked much sillier than she did. After he was gone I asked her if she would bring him a Christmas present for Susie NOW, and she said she ought to bring him a pretty glass bottle labelled perfume, with hartshorn in it, and she would, if she thought he'd smell it first.
Shelley felt badly about leaving mother when she wasn't very well; but mother said it was all right, she had Candace to keep house and May and me, and father, and all of us to take care of her, and it would be best for Shelley to go now and work hard as she could, 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 so badly, but all of them said she must. Peter's cousin, who had gone last year, was to meet her, and have a room ready where she boarded if she could, and if she couldn't right away, then the first one who left, Shelley was to have the place, so they'd be together.
There were eight of us left, counting Candace and Miss Amelia, and you wouldn't think a house with eight people living in it would be empty, but ours was. Everything seemed to wilt. The roses on the window blinds didn't look so bright 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 Candace how to jelly, preserve, and spice them, and peeled apples for butter and to dry, quantities more than we could use, but she said she always could sell such things, and with the bunch of us to educate yet, we'd need the money.
When it grew cold enough to shut the doors, and have fire at night, first thing after supper all of us helped clear the table, then we took our slates and books and learned our lessons for the next day, and then father lined us against the wall, all in a row from Laddie down, and he pronounced words—easy ones that divided into syllables nicely, for me, harder for May, and so up until I might sit down. 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 "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs. Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.
Then they picked the apples. These had to be picked by hand, wrapped in soft paper, packed in barrels, and shipped to Fort Wayne. Where they couldn't reach by hand, they stood on barrels or ladders, and used a long handled picker, so as not to bruise the 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 with a long piece of clothesline. I loved to be in the orchard when they were working; there were plenty of summer apples to eat yet; it was fun to watch the men, and sometimes I could be useful by handing baskets or heaping up apples to be buried for us.
One night father read about a man who had been hanged for killing another man, and they cut him down too soon, so he came alive, and they had to hang him over; and father got all worked up about it. He said the man had suffered death the first time to "all intents and purposes," so that fulfilled the requirements of the 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 that law was wrong; the man never should have been hanged in the first place. They talked and argued until we were all excited about it, and the next evening after school Leon and I were helping pick apples,