Green Valley Part 17

"But ever since I've married Jennie I've lived. Jennie never talks much about what she's cooking. But she'll let you come in the kitchen and lift the kettle lids if you want to and poke around and never once let on that you're a nuisance. And she never gets angry if you dig into the fresh bread or crack the frosting on the new cake. So take it all in all I've always considered all this talk about married life being nothing but self-sacrifice just so much rot--why--h.e.l.lo, Sammy!"

This to a little overall-clad figure that was pressing itself insinuatingly against the back gate.

"Want to come in and help with the tools?" called Frank, well knowing that that jar of Jennie's preserves was perfectly visible from that back gate.

Sammy said h.e.l.lo and sure he'd come in and help, and did with remarkable speed. When he came up to the two men he looked shyly at Frank's a.s.sistant and said, "h.e.l.lo! What are _you_ doing around here?"

And the tall stranger laughed and said he was helping with the tools too.

And then Frank asked Sammy if his mother allowed him to eat between meals and Sammy said, "Oh, sure--I kin eat any time at all--it never hurts me." So Frank got him nicely started.

In no time at all however two other figures appeared and swung themselves up on the back fence. They sat quietly, at first waiting for some one to discover them. Both men had their backs to the fence now and Sammy, though perfectly aware of the new arrivals, was selfishly busy.

So presently two pair of bare feet began to swing harder and harder and a careless but piercing whistle began to challenge a selfish world's attention.

Frank winked at his helper and said nothing nor moved.

The whistle became shriller. And then came a sudden suspicious silence that evidently made Sammy a little uncomfortable. He knew just about what was coming.

"h.e.l.lo--Pieface," came one gentle greeting.

"h.e.l.lo--Dearie," chirped the owner of the second pair of bare feet.

"Look at Mother's Darling feeding his face!"

"Isn't he cunning! Isn't he cute!"

A third figure swung itself to the top of the fence.

"Don't fill your little tummy too full, Sammy dear," it contributed dutifully.

At the malice and scorn that fairly dripped from the words Sammy raised resentful eyes from his slice of bread and jam. Frank smiled hopefully.

"Oh, Frank, Sammy goes to Sunday-school he does."

"Every Sunday--don't ya, Sammy?"

"Bet he goes to Sunday-school just to sponge. Bet he's a grafter--bet he--"

But at this point Frank's helper turned about and faced the fence. And a strange thing happened. The three little figures sitting in a row gave one look, one shout of, "Holy gee--it's _him_!" and vanished as suddenly as they had come.

Frank laughed and then grew puzzled.

"Some friends of mine and Sammy's. I wonder what made the little imps bolt like that. They usually sit on that back fence till every bit of language is used up. Why, they hadn't got more than started and Sammy here hadn't even begun. What ailed you, Sammy?"

"Oh, I rather think I frightened them," said Frank's a.s.sistant. "But I think that before long they will feel enough at home with me to come and sit on my back fence."

Sammy was left to clear up while the men went back to work. Both hammers were merrily ringing when old man Vingie strolled by and stopped to visit. He went on presently but before he was out of sight Bill Trumbull and Old Peter Endby came up.

There was a worried look in Bill's large florid face and the light of utter unbelief in Peter's eye. They both laid their arms neighbor fas.h.i.+on along the fence and watched the toilers silently for a few seconds. Then Peter spoke up in grieved tones:

"Seems like you might have asked old neighbors to give you a hand, Frank. I had no notion you was in any such turrible hurry to start this here new chicken house of yourn. It don't look respectable or kindly, you acting that way, neglecting to tell old neighbors--"

"It's a slander on this here neighborhood, that's whot it is, Frank,"

Bill Trumbull complained. "Here's Peter and me both old-time carpenters, full of energy and advice and ripe years and experience, and you don't drop so much as a hint. Why, I remember the time when we put up barns with wooden pegs and durn good barns they were and are, for there's some of them still standing as strong as the day they were built. There's the Churchill barn. That's our work, Peter's and mine.

Seems you've forgotten considerable, Frank. Why, your father wouldn't have thought of starting a chicken house without first talking it over with us."

When they had pa.s.sed on, Bill supporting Peter's left elbow so's to case the rheumatism in his partner's left knee, Frank turned amazed eyes to his a.s.sistant.

"Now what in time," he wanted to know, "is the matter with those two precious old lunatics? Why, Pap Trumbull and Dad Endby are both over eighty. Dad's so twisted with rheumatism that he couldn't bend to pick up his pipe if he dropped it. And Pap's got asthma so bad that it's all he can do to draw his breath on the installment plan. Why, I've never consulted them in all my born days though I always let them come over and criticize my work to their heart's content. But something's eating them to-day."

"Perhaps they're surprised at seeing me, a comparative stranger here, helping you. They may even be a bit jealous, you know."

Frank's a.s.sistant volunteered this explanation wonderingly as if he too were puzzled about something.

"Well--it gets me," murmured Frank, then added under his breath, "well, by jinks--if here ain't old Knock-kneed Bailey and Shorty Collins going by. And they're looking this way. And by the Lord Harry--there's Curley Anderson. Why, Curley hasn't been over on this side of town since he sold that little house of his that he built all by himself, working nights, with nothing but an old saw and a second-hand hammer.

His wife was left a fortune right after and made Curley sell and build her a cement block villa over on Broadway. She won't even let Curley walk down this way, though they say he hates her villa and just hankers for this little bit of a home he built himself here ten years ago.

"Well--by the holy smoke--look yonder! I'm seeing things to-day. Why there's Dudley Rivers and James D. Austin, that holy man, and he's actually bowing to me. Now what do you know about that? What's going on in this town to-day, anyhow? It must be something unusual to bring out a crowd like that."

Frank's lower jaw suddenly dropped. Sudden suspicion leaped into his gray-blue eyes. He turned to the man who all afternoon had been helping him build his chicken house.

"Say--who in h.e.l.l--are you anyhow?"

And Cynthia's son mopped his thick hair and looked as suddenly dumfounded. After that he grinned.

"For pity sakes--don't you know me? Why, you were pointed out to me the very second week I came as the town atheist. I supposed of course I had been pointed out to you. I'm Cynthia Churchill's son. I buried father and mother in India and then came home, as they wanted me to.

And I'm glad I came. It's home and these Green Valley folks are my people. They have made me feel welcome. I supposed everybody knew me from seeing me about town."

For a long while Frank said nothing. With the explanation his momentary anger and amazement died away. He was remembering, remembering Cynthia Churchill. Why, he remembered as though it was yesterday that when she was twenty he was ten. And he had loved her because she had once helped him to tie up his pet chicken's broken leg.

And so this tall big chap with the glad eyes was Cynthia's son! Years ago the mother had tied up his pet hen's leg. And to-day her son had helped him build his most pretentious hen house.

"No," said Frank at last, "I didn't know you were the chap from India.

I thought you belonged up in one of those new bungalows. Of course, that accounts for the crowd. Why, we've been making history here in this back yard this afternoon. The atheist and the preacher building a chicken coop! Oh, say, John, Green Valley will be talking about this fifty years from now. Let's have some b.u.t.termilk. This thing has just about knocked me over."

When they had had two gla.s.ses apiece Frank again inspected his a.s.sistant.

"But say--do ministers in India do such darn common things as building chicken houses? I can't remember ever seeing a minister mixing so carelessly with us low-down sinners or standing around in public with his sleeves rolled up and his frock coat off. Aren't you a queer breed of parson?"

"Maybe," Cynthia's son admitted, "but so was father. He could help bring a baby into the world, could wash and dress it, cure it if it was sick, bury it if it died. He could teach a woman how to cook a meal and cut out a dress. He knew how to heal a horse's sore back and how to help a man get over needing whisky. He used to brush my mother's hair nights when her head ached and make whistles for me and tell the little brown children stories, study the stars with the old men and coax the women into using his medicines instead of their charms."

"For heaven's sake! When did your father get time to talk religion?"

wondered Frank.

"Oh, he never talked religion much. He just sort of lived and neighbored with his people and just laughed most of the time at mother and me. He was always busy and never took care of himself. Just before he died he explained things to me. He said:

"'Son, I came out of the West to bring a message to the East. You go back to the West with a message from the Orient. Tell them back home there that hearts are all alike the world over. And that we all, white men, black men, yellow men and brown men, are playing the very same game for the very same stakes and that somehow, through ways devious and incomprehensible, through honesty and faith, failure and perseverance, we find at last the great content, the peace that pa.s.seth understanding.'