Weeds

by Edith Summers Kelley

The very ugliness of the little thing endeared it to her; for it was a pitiable ugliness, an ugliness born of hunger and ill-treatment. Tenderly she stroked its mangy little head and vowed that she would take care of it and stand between it and the cruel world all the days of its life.

In the morning as soon as she awoke her thoughts flew to the kitten. She scrambled into her clothes and ran out into the yard, glancing about the empty kitchen as she passed through. For a long time she searched in vain and was beginning to think that the kitten had wandered away when of a sudden down at the foot of the hill she stopped in amazement and horror. Here in the heavy clay land beside the creek was a little pool that she had hollowed out the day before and into which she had put four live minnows. The flowers that she had planted around it had all wilted and fallen over. Some were lying flat on the muddy ground, some trailing lifeless in the water. Their bright yellows and purples and pinks had all faded into a common drab. On the edge of the water sat the white kitten. And even as she gazed with horror-dilated eyes it fished up a live minnow with its paw and crunched it mercilessly between its small, strong jaws. In a dazed, half-hearted way Judith looked down into the water of the pond and saw that there was now nothing there—nothing alive—only the pebbles and mosses and half dead water plants.

Silently she turned and ran away, far, far away from the unspeakable kitten and the dead flowers and the empty pool and all the hideous horror of it.

From that day she never again felt the same poignancy of distress at the sight of suffering and death among animals. As she grew more intimately into the life of the woods and the fields and the barnyard she learned to take for granted certain laws of nature which at first had seemed distressingly harsh and cruel. She became resigned to the knowledge that the big fishes eat the little ones, that the chickens devour the grasshoppers, that Bounce, the gentle and affectionate, would kill rabbits and groundhogs whenever he could get hold of them: that in all the bird and animal and insect world the strong prey continually upon the weak. It was hard at first to see Minnie's whole litter of kittens but one dropped into a bucket of water and drowned and to watch her father lead off to the butcher the calf that for two months she had been feeding and petting. But these things happened so often, and the law of the survival of the fittest was so firmly established a part of the life of the farm that she soon learned to accept it with equanimity. She might have been slower in learning this lesson if she had been given to self-deception. But she could never lull her sensibilities with this so commonly used opiate. She insisted upon standing over the bucket in which the kittens were drowned and upon knowing exactly what was going to happen to the calf. Soon she discovered that however many little fishes were eaten there were always plenty more; that an endless number of birds and butterflies and grasshoppers sang and fluttered and jumped through the summer days regardless of the depredations of their enemies; that there were always more kittens and calves being born. Without putting the thought into words or even thinking it, but merely sensing it physically, she knew that in the life of nature death and suffering are merely incidentals; that the message that nature gives to her children is "Live, grow, be happy, and obey my promptings." The birds and chickens and grasshoppers all heard it and Judith knew they heard it. Judith heard it too. As she trotted to school in the clear, sun-vibrant air of the early morning, or brought up the cows through the sweet-smelling twilight, or picked blackberries on the edge of the sunny pasture, nature kept whispering these words in her ear. It is given to few civilized human beings to ever hear this message. Perhaps in that generation Bill Pippinger's girl was the only human being in the whole of Scott County who heard and heeded these words: "Live, grow, be happy, and obey my promptings."

For a number of reasons religion never became a part of Judith's life. The Pippingers were not a church-going family nor were many of their neighbors. The consolations of religion were sought more by the village people who had no morning and evening chores to do and were handy to the churches. A deep-seated, if rather vague respect remained, however, in the mental make-up of these country folk for the religion of their fathers. An ill-defined fear, a dim hope, and a few inhibitions remained of the once more vigorous religious life. Judith sensed these things as she grew into girlhood; but they could find no foothold in the healthy vigor of her spirit.

Once when she was ten years old, she went with the rest of the family to a camp revival meeting where the preaching evangelist described with lurid language and fear-compelling inflections the last judgment day and the tortures of an eternal damnation in a hell burning forever with fire and brimstone. The task of browbeating an ignorant audience was apparently one that the preacher enjoyed mightily; for he went at it with tremendous vigor and zest. At times his voice sank to an awe-inspiring whisper, then rose to a demoniac shriek as he sought to bully and terrify his hearers into a state of nerve collapse. Judith listened with eyes that showed more and more of the whites. The lurid pictures were printed instantly on the sensitive plate of her keen imagination. She took the preacher seriously, literally, which fortunately few in the audience appeared to do. She looked around at their stolid, peaceful faces and felt somewhat reassured. Perhaps it wasn't true after all.

On the way home she asked her father if what the preacher had said was true.

"Waal, I reckon it is an' it ain't," answered Bill, spitting over the side of the wagon. "Mebbe Uncle Ezra Pettit is a-goin' to the hot place. An' I kinder hope he is—not wishin' 'im no bad luck. An' Sam Whitmarsh'll like enough pull up there too. Lord knows he's done enough dirty tricks to deserve to fry good, an' on both sides. An' Uncle Ezry'll be mad whichever place he goes, 'cause he'll have to leave his money an' his land behind. But anyhow me ner mine hain't a-goin' to no hot place, ner nobody else that tends their own business. Git up, Bob! Lord love them mules, they're a-comin' to be slower'n the seven year itch."

Her father's unconcern greatly allayed Judith's apprehensions; but the picture drawn by the evangelist was too fresh and vivid to be forgotten at once. That night Judith dreamed that the end of the world had come. Portentous curtains of black, like a hundred thunder storms in one, hung from the sky. Stabbing the blackness came one sharp arrow of crimson light, glowing, intense, and awe-inspiring. Slowly and dreadfully the arrow lengthened, widened, gathered blinding light and burning heat. The judge of the world was coming in his majesty to sit upon the judgment seat. People rushed from their houses and tried to hide in haystacks, under piles of old lumber or in the rooted-out holes beneath hogpens. Judith herself, with a despairing realization that the worst had really happened and that the world would never again be peaceful and sunshiny, ran out into the dooryard. At that moment the air was split by a terrible blast from Gabriel's trumpet. The blast woke Judith and turned out to be only her father passing the window and blowing his nose onto the ground between his thumb and forefinger.