Patchwork Part 27

"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 embarra.s.sed when he saw Phbe. 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 Phbe to Mother Bab and back again to Phbe. "I didn't know you were here, Phbe. 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 Phbe 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 Phbe in visible hesitation.

She answered eagerly, her pa.s.sionate love of birds mastering her embarra.s.sment. "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. Phbe 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 Phbe. "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."

"G.o.d'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," Phbe 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, Phbe, 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 pa.s.sed 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, Phbe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as G.o.d 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.

Phbe'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 Phbe'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 a.s.sured David that he had stumbled through the field in an awkward moment, that his presence was unwelcome. He turned to go back, but Phbe 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," Phbe begged, "come back! Why, I was just wis.h.i.+ng 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"--Phbe stood still and looked at him--"not hail on your tobacco!"

He took her arm. "Come on, Phbe, it's coming fast. We must get in. Come to our house, Phares, that's the nearest."