THE SCARLET TANAGER
The days that followed were busy days at the gray farmhouse. Phœbe was soon deep in the preparations for her stay in the city. Her meagre wardrobe required replenishment; she wanted to go to Philadelphia with an outfit of which Miss Lee would not be ashamed. Much to her aunt's surprise the girl selected one-piece dresses of blue serge with sheer white collars for every-day wear in cold weather; a few white linens for warm days; and these, with her blue serge suit, her simple white graduation dress, and a plain dark silk dress, were the main articles of her outfit. Aunt Maria expressed her relief and wonder at the girl's choice—"Well, it wonders me that you don't want a lot of ugly fancy things to go to Phildelphy. Those dresses all made in one are sensible once. I guess the style makers tried all the outlandish styles they could think of and had to make a nice style once."
But when Phœbe purchased a piece of long-cloth and began to make undergarments, beautifying them by sprays of hand embroidery, Aunt Maria scoffed, "Umph, I'd be ashamed to put snake-doctors on my petticoats."
The girl laughed. "They aren't snake-doctors, they are butterflies," she said.
"Not much difference—both got wings. I don't see what for you want to waste time like that."
"It makes them prettier, and I like pretty things."
"Ach, you have dumb notions sometimes. I guess we better make your other dresses soon, then you won't have time for sewing snake-doctors or butterflies. You better get your silk dress made in Greenwald, it's so soft and slippery that I ain't going to bother my old fingers makin' it. Granny Hogendobler wants to come out and help to sew, and David's mom said she'll come down and help us cut and fit the serge dresses. She's real handy like that. If those dresses look as nice on you as they do on the pictures they will be all right. Granny and Barb dare just come and both help with your things—they both think it's so fine for you to go to the city! Granny Hogendobler spoiled her Nason by givin' him just what he wanted, and now what has she got for it? And I guess Barb is easy with that big boy of hers. Mebbe if she was a little stricter he'd be in the Church like Phares is, though David is a nice boy and I guess he don't give his mom any trouble."
"I just love Mother Bab; don't you say such things about her!" Phœbe exclaimed, her eyes flashing.
"Why, I like her too," the woman said. She looked at Phœbe in surprise. "You needn't be so touchy. For goodness' sake, don't take to gettin' touchy like some people are! Handling them's like tryin' to plane over a knot in wood; any way you push the plane is the wrong way. This here going to Philadelphy upsets you, I guess. You're gettin' as touchy as the little touch-me-nots we get on the hill; they all snap shut when you touch 'em—only you snap open."
Phœbe laughed. "I guess I am excited," she admitted. "I'm sewing too much for summer days and it makes me irritable. I think I'll let the butterflies wait and I'll go outdoors. Shall I weed the garden?"
"Weed the garden? Now you're talkin' dumb! Don't you know yet that abody don't weed a garden on Fridays? Ours always gets done on Monday. But if you want to get out you dare take some of the sand-tarts I baked yesterday up to David's mom, she likes them so much. And you ask her if she can come down next week to help with the dresses. But don't stay too long, for it's been so hot all day and I think it's goin' to storm yet."
"Don't worry about me if it rains. I won't start for home if it looks threatening. I'll wait till the storm is over."
Aunt Maria filled a basket with her delectable cookies and the girl started up the hill. It was, indeed, a hot day, even for August. Phœbe paused several times in the shelter of overhanging trees as she plodded up the steep road. On the summit she climbed the rail fence and perched in the cool shade for a little while and looked out over the valley where the town of Greenwald lay.
"It's lovely here, and I'm wondering how I can be happy when I know that I am going to leave it soon and go to the city for a long winter away from my home. But there's a voice calling to me from the great outside world and I won't be satisfied until I go and mingle with the multitude of a great city. It is life, life, that I want to see and know. And yet, I'm glad I'll have this to come back to! It gives me a comfortable feeling to know that this is waiting for me, no matter where I go—this is still my home. Sometimes I wonder if Aunt Maria could possibly be speaking wisely when she says it is all a waste of money to run off to the city and study music. But what is there on the farm to attract me? I don't want to marry yet"—the remembrance of Phares Eby's pleading came to her—"and if I do marry some time, it won't be Phares. No, never Phares! Ach, Phœbe Metz, you don't know what you want!" she said to herself as she jumped from the fence and ran down the road to the Eby farm.
At the gate she paused. Mother Bab stood among her flowers, her white-capped head bare of any other covering, the hot sunshine streaming upon her.
"Mother Bab," she cried, "you are simply baking in the sun!"
"No," the woman turned to Phœbe and smiled. "I'm forgetting it's hot while I look at the flowers. You see, Phœbe, I was in the house sewing and trying to keep cool and all of a sudden my eyes grew dim so I couldn't sew. The fear came to me, the fear that my sight is going, though I try not to strain them at all and never sew at night. Well, I just ran out here and began to look and look at my flowers—if I ever do go blind I'm going to have lots of memories of lovely things I've seen."
Phœbe drew Mother Bab's face to her and kissed it. "You just mustn't get blind! It would be too dreadful. There are many clever specialists in the city these days. Surely, there is some doctor who can help you."
"They all say there is little to be done in a case like mine. But, let's forget it; I can see and we'll keep on hoping it will last. I went to a doctor at Lancaster some time ago and I'm going to give him a fair trial. I guess it'll come out right."
Phœbe brightened again at the woman's words of contagious cheer and hope.
"Isn't the garden pretty?" asked Mother Bab as they looked about it.
"Perfect! Those zinnias are lovely."
"Yes, I like them. But I like their other name better—Youth and Old Age, my mother used to call them. She used to say that they are not like other flowers, more like people, for the buds open into tiny flowers and those tiny flowers grow and develop until they are large and perfect. I would think something fine were missing in my garden if I didn't have my Youth and Old Age every year. But you will be too hot in this sun; shall we go in?"
"No, please, not until I have seen the flowers. I need to gather precious memories, too, to take with me to Philadelphia. Oh, I like this"—she knelt in the narrow path and buried her face in fragrant lemon verbena plants.
"I like that, too. Mother used to call it Joy Everlasting. We always put it in our bureau drawers between the linens. David likes lavender better, so I use that now."
"How you spoil him," said Phœbe.
"You think so?" asked the mother gently.
Phœbe smiled in retraction of her statement. "We'll both be parboiled if we stay out here any longer," she said as she linked her arm into Mother Bab's. "Aunt Maria sent you some sand-tarts."
"Isn't she good!"
"Yes, but"—the blue eyes twinkled mischievously—"they are just a bribe. We want you to come down and help us with the dresses some day next week. You are not to sew, but if you are there to tell about the fit of them I'll feel better satisfied. Whew! If it's as hot as this I'll have a lovely time fitting woolen dresses!"
"You won't mind."
"I don't believe I shall, so long as the dresses are to be worn in Philadelphia. Granny Hogendobler is coming out, too. Will you come?"
"I'll be glad to. David can eat his dinner at his aunt's."
They entered the house and sat in the sitting-room, a room dear to both because of its association with many happy hours.
"I love this room," Phœbe said. "This must be one of my pleasant memories when I go."
"I like it better than any other room in the house," said Mother Bab. "I suppose it's because the old clock and the haircloth sofa are in it. Why, Davie used to slide down the ends of that sofa and call it his boat when he was just a little fellow. And that old clock"—her voice sank to the tenderness of musing retrospect—"why, Davie's father set it up the day we were married and came here and set up housekeeping and it's been ticking ever since. Davie used to say 'tick-tock' when he heard it, when he first learned to talk. I like that old clock most as much as if it were something alive. A man who comes around here to buy antique furniture came in one day and offered to buy it. I'll never forget how David told him it wasn't for sale. The very thought of selling the old clock made Davie cross."
"Davie cross! How could he keep the twinkle out of his eyes long enough to be cross?"
"Ach, it don't last long when he gets cross."
"Where is he now, Mother Bab?"
"Working in the tobacco field."
"In the hot sun!"
"He says he don't mind it. He's so pleased with the tobacco this summer. It looks fine. If the hail don't get in it now it'll bring about four hundred dollars, he thinks. That will be the most he has ever gotten out of it. But tobacco is an awful risk. If the weather is just so it pays about the best of anything around this part of the country, I guess, but so often the poor farmers work hard in the tobacco fields and then the hail comes along and all is spoiled. But ours is fine so far."
"I'm glad. David has been working hard all summer with it."
"Sometimes he gets discouraged; Phares's crops always seem to do better than David's, yet David works just as hard. But Phares plants no tobacco."
At that moment Phares Eby himself came into the room where the two sat. He appeared a trifle embarrassed when he saw Phœbe. Since the June meeting under the sycamore tree by the old stone quarry he had made no special effort to see her, and the several times they had met in that time he had greeted her with marked restraint.
"Good-afternoon," he murmured, looking from Phœbe to Mother Bab and back again to Phœbe. "I didn't know you were here, Phœbe. I—Aunt Barbara, I came in to tell you there's a bright red bird in the woods down by the cornfield."
"There is!" cried Phœbe with much interest. "Is it all red, or has it black wings and tail?"
"Why, I couldn't say. I know David and Aunt Barbara are always interested in birds and I heard David say the other day that he hadn't seen a red bird this summer, that they must be getting scarce around this section. So I thought I'd come up and tell you about it. I know it is bright red. Do you want to come out and try to find it again, Aunt Barbara?"
"Not now, Phares. I have been in the sun so much to-day that my head aches."
"Would you care to see it?" he asked Phœbe in visible hesitation.
She answered eagerly, her passionate love of birds mastering her embarrassment. "I'd love to, Phares! I am anxious to see whether it's a tanager or a cardinal. I have never seen a cardinal."
South of David Eby's cornfield stretched a strip of woodland. There blackberry brambles tangled about the bases of great oaks and the entire woods—trees and brambles—made an ideal nesting-place for birds.
"Perhaps it's gone," said the preacher as they went along to the woods.
"But it's worth trying for," she said.
They kept silent then; only the rustling of the corn was heard as the two went through the green aisle. When they reached the woodland a sudden burst of glorious melody came to them. Phœbe laid a hand impulsively upon the arm of the preacher, but she removed it quite as suddenly when he looked down at her and said, "Our bird!"
The bird, a scarlet tanager, aware of the presence of the intruders and eager to attract attention to himself and safeguard his hidden mate, flew to an exposed branch of an oak tree. There he displayed his gorgeous, flaming scarlet body with its touch of black in wings and tail.
"It's a tanager," said Phœbe. "Isn't he lovely!"
"Very fine," said the preacher. "What color is his mate? Is she red?"
"She's green, a lovely olive green. When she sits on the nest she's just the color of her surroundings. If she were red like her mate she'd be too easily destroyed."
"God's providence," said the preacher.
"It is wonderful—look, Phares, there he goes!"
The scarlet tanager made a streak of vivid color across the sky as he flew off over the corn.
"I wonder if he trusts us or if his mate is not about," Phœbe said. "He's a beauty, so is his mate in her green frock. A few minutes with the birds can teach us a great deal, can't it?"
"Yes, Phœbe, here, right near your home, are countless lessons to be learned and accomplishments to be acquired. Tell me, do you still wish to go away to the city?"
"Certainly. I am going in September."
"You remember the verse in the Third Reader we used to have at school:
"'Stay, stay at home, my heart and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest.
For those who wander, they know not where,
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.'"
"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I want to live, I want to learn to sing—I can't do any of these things here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love yours. I feel that I must get away!"
"But your voice, Phœbe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God made it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I was hoping you would change your mind—there is so much vanity and evil in the city."
"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better, meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about these days? I am too young."
She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield, her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
He looked at her—
"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.
"I guess she is too young," he thought as he saw how quickly she turned from the question of marriage to watch the red bird.
Phœbe's lips parted in pleasure as she saw the tanager again take up his place on the oak and burst into song. So absorbed were man and maid that neither heard the rustle of parted corn nor were aware of the presence of a third person until a voice exclaimed, "Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn't know you were here."
As they turned David Eby stood before them, his expression a mingling of surprise and wonder. The flush on Phœbe's face, the awakened look in her eyes, troubled the man who had come through the corn and found the girl he loved standing with the preacher. The self-conscious look on the preacher's face assured David that he had stumbled through the field in an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go back, but Phœbe stepped quickly to him and took his hand.
"Ah," thought Phares with a twinge of jealousy, "she wouldn't do that to me. How quickly she dropped her hand a while ago. They are such good friends, she and David. It's wrong to be envious; I must fight against it—and yet—I want her just as much as David does!"
"David," Phœbe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wishing you were here! There's a scarlet tanager—see!" She pointed to the brilliant songster.
"I thought he was coming to this woods so I came to hunt him," said David, his irritation gone. "I saw that fellow over by the tobacco field and followed him here. I bet they have their nest in this very woods. We'll look better next spring and try to find it and see the little ones. Tut, tut," he whistled to the bird, "don't sing your pretty head off." His eyes turned to the sky and the smile left his face. "It looks threatening," he said. "I thought I heard thunder as I came through the corn."
"That so?" said Phares. "Then we better move in."
Even as they turned and started through the field the thunder came again—distant—nearer, rolling in ominous rumbles.
"Look at the sky," said David. "Clear yellow—that means hail!"
"Oh, David"—Phœbe stood still and looked at him—"not hail on your tobacco!"
He took her arm. "Come on, Phœbe, it's coming fast. We must get in. Come to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."
Just as they reached the kitchen door, where Mother Bab was looking for them, the hail came.
"It's hail, Mommie," David said. The three words held all the worry and pain of his heart.
"Never mind"—the little mother patted his shoulder. "It's hail for more people than we know, perhaps for some who are much poorer than we are."
"But the tobacco——" He stood by the window, impotent and weak, while the devastating hail pounded and rattled and smote the broad leaves of his tobacco and rendered it almost worthless.
"Won't new leaves grow again?" Phœbe tried to cheer him.
"Not this late in the summer. My tobacco was almost ready to be cut; it was unusually early this year."
"Well," spoke up the preacher, "I can't see why you always plant tobacco. Smoking and chewing tobacco are filthy habits. I can't see why so many people of this section plant the weed when the soil could be used to produce some useful grain or vegetable."
"Yes"—David turned and addressed his cousin fiercely—"it's easy enough for you to talk! You with your big farm and orchards and every crop a success! Your bank account is so fat that you don't need to care whether your acres bring in a big return or a lean one. But when you have just a few acres you plant the thing that will be likely to bring in the most money. You know many poor people plant tobacco for that reason, and that is why I plant it."
"Davie," the mother said, "Davie!"
"I know," he said bitterly. "I'm a beast when my temper gets beyond control, but Phares can be so confounded irritating, he rubs salt in your cuts every time."
"Just for healing," the mother said gently.
"David," said Phœbe, "I guess the temper is a little bit of that Irish showing up."
At that David smiled, then laughed.
"Phœbe," he said, "you know how to rub people the right way. If ever I have the blues you are just the right medicine."
"I don't want to be called medicine," she said with a shake of her head.
"Not even a sugar pill?" asked Mother Bab.
"No. I don't like the sound of pill."
David looked across at the preacher, who stood silent and helpless in the swift tide of conversation. "You may be right, Phares. It may be the wrath of Providence upon the tobacco. I'll try alfalfa in that field next and then I'll rub Aladdin's lamp. I'll make some money then!"
"Where do you find Aladdin's lamp?" asked Phœbe.
"I can't tell you now. But I know I'm tired of slaving and having nothing for my work, so I am going after the magic lamp."
