Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard (35 page)

The silence of the Seven Sleepers hung over the Apple-Orchard.

Joscelyn: Then she would have proved herself a girl of sense, singer, and your tale would have gained in virtue. As it stands, I should not have grieved though the clouds had never been dispersed from so foolish a medley of magic and make-believe.

Martin: So be it, if it must be so. We will push back our lovers into their obscurities, and praise night for the round moon above us, who has pushed three parts of her circle clear of all obstacles, and awaits only some movement of heaven to blow the last remnant of cloud from her happy soul. And because more of her is now in the light than in the dark, she knows it is only a question of time. But the last hours of waiting are always the longest, and we like herself can do no better than spend them in dreams, where if we are lucky we shall catch a glimpse of the angels of truth.

Like the last five leaves blown from an autumn branch, the milkmaids fluttered from the apple-tree and couched their sleepy heads on their tired arms, and went each by herself into her particular dream; where if she found company or not she never told. But Jane sat prim and thoughtful with her elbow in her hand and her finger making a dimple in her cheek, considering deeply. And presently Martin began to cough a little, and then a little more, and finally so troublesomely that she was obliged to lay her profound thoughts aside, to attend to him with a little frown. Was even Euclid impervious to midges?

"Have you taken cold, Master Pippin?" said Jane.

"I'm afraid so," he confessed humbly; "for we all know that when we catch cold the grievance is not ours, but our nurse's."

"How did it happen?" demanded Jane, rightly affronted. "Have you been getting your feet wet in the duckpond again?"

"The trouble lies higher," murmured Martin, and held his shirt together at the throat.

Jane looked at him and colored and said, "That is the merest pretense. It was only one button and it is a very warm night. I think you must be mistaken about your cold."

"Perhaps I am," said Martin hopefully.

"And you only coughed and coughed and kept on coughing," continued Jane, "because I had forgotten all about you and was thinking of something quite different."

"It is almost impossible to deceive you," said Martin.

"Oh, Master Pippin," said Jane earnestly, "since I turned seventeen I have seen into people's motives so clearly that I often wish I did not; but I cannot help it."

Martin: You poor darling!

Jane: You must not say that word to me, Master Pippin.

Martin: It was very wrong of me. The word slipped out by mistake. I meant to say clever, not poor.

Jane: Did you? I see. Oh, but--

Martin: Please don't be modest. We must always stand by the truth, don't you think?

Jane: Above all things.

Martin: How long did it take you to discover my paltry ruse? How long did you hear me coughing?

Jane: From the very beginning.

Martin: And can you think of two things at once?

Jane: Of course not.

Martin: No? I wish two was the least number of things I ever think of at once. Mine's an untidy way of thinking. Still, now we know where we are. What were you thinking about me so earnestly when I was coughing and you had forgotten all about me?

Jane: I--I--I wasn't thinking about you at all.

And she got down from the swing and walked away.

Martin: Now we DON'T know where we are.

And he got down from the branch and walked after her.

Martin: Please, Mistress Jane, are you in a temper?

Jane: I am never in a temper.

Martin: Hurrah.

Jane: Being in a temper is silly. It isn't normal. And it clouds people's judgments.

Martin: So do lots of things, don't they? Like leapfrog, and mad bulls, and rum punch, and very full moons, and love--

Jane: All these things are, as you say, abnormal. And I have no more use for them than I have for tempers. But being disheartened isn't being in a temper; and I am always disheartened when people argue badly. And above all, men, who, I find, can never keep to the point. Although they say--

Martin: What do they say?

Jane: That girls can't.

Martin began to cough again, and Jane looked at him closely, and Martin apologized and said it was that tickle in his throat, and Jane said gravely, "Do you think I can't see through you? Come along, do!" and opened her housewife, and put on her thimble, and threaded her needle, and got out the button, and made Martin stand in a patch of moonlight, and stood herself in front of him, and took the neck of his shirt deftly between her left finger and thumb, and began to stitch. And Martin looking down on the top of her smooth little head, which was all he could see of her, said anxiously, "You won't prick me, will you?" and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but it is very awkward." Because to get behind the button she had to lean her right elbow on his shoulder and stand a little on tiptoe. So that Martin had good cause to be frightened; but after several stitches he realized that he was in safe hands, and drew a big breath of relief which made Jane look up rather too hastily, and down more hastily still; so that her hand shook, and the needle slipped, and Martin said "Ow!" and clutched the hand with the needle and held it tightly just where it was. And Jane got flustered and said, "I'm so sorry."

Martin: Why should you be? You've proved your point. If I knew any man that could stick to his so well and drive it home so truly, I would excuse him for ever from politics and the law, and bid him sit at home with his work-basket minding the world's business in its cradle. It is only because men cannot stick to the point that life puts them off with the little jobs which shift and change color with every generation. But the great point of life which never changes was given from the first into woman's keeping because, as all the divine powers of reason knew, only she could be trusted to stick to it. I should be glad to have your opinion, Jane, as to whether this is true or not.

Jane: Yes, Martin, I am convinced it is true.

Martin: Then let the men shilly-shally as much as they like. And so, as long as the cradle is there to be minded, we shall have proved that out of two differences unions can spring. My buttonhole feels empty. What about my button?

Jane: I was just about to break off the thread when you--

Martin: When I what?

Jane: Sighed.

Martin: Was it a sigh? Did I sigh? How unreasonable of me. What was I sighing for? Do you know?

Jane: Of course I know.

Martin: Will you tell me?

Jane: That's enough. (And she tried to break off the thread.)

Martin: Ah, but you mustn't keep your wisdom to yourself. Give me the key, dear Jane.

Jane: The key?

Martin: Because how else can the clouds which overshadow our stories be cleared away? How else can we allay our doubts and our confusions and our sorrows if you who are wise, and see motives so clearly, will not give us the key? Why did I sigh, Jane? And why does Gillian sigh? And, oh, Jane, why are you sighing? Do you know?

Jane: Of course I know.

Martin: And won't you give me the key?

Jane: That's quite enough.

And this time she broke off the thread. And she put the needle in and out of the pinked flannel in her housewife, and she tucked the thimble in its place. And then she felt in a little pocket where something clinked against her scissors, and Martin watched her. And she took it out and put it in his hand. And his hand tightened again over hers and he said gravely, "Is it a needle?"

"No, it is not," said Jane primly, "but it's very much to the point."

"Oh, you wise woman!" whispered Martin (and Jane colored with satisfaction, because she was turned seventeen). "What would poor men do without your help?"

Then he kissed very respectfully the hand that had pricked him: on the back and on the palm and on the four fingers and thumb and on the wrist. And then he began looking for a new place, but before he could make up his mind Jane had taken her hand and herself away, saying "Good night" very politely as she went. So he lay down to dream that for the first time in his life he had made up his mind. But Jane, whose mind was always made up, for the first time in her life dreamed otherwise.

It happened that by some imprudence Martin had laid himself down exactly under the gap in the hedge, and when Old Gillman came along the other side crying "Maids!" in the morning, the careless fellow had no time to retreat across the open to safe cover; so there was nothing for it but to conceal himself under the very nose of danger and roll into the ditch. Which he hurriedly did, while the milkmaids ran here and there like yellow chickens frightened by a hawk. Not knowing what else to do, they at last clustered above him about the gap, filling it so with their pretty faces that the farmer found room for not so much as an eyelash when he arrived with his bread. And it was for all the world as though the hedge, forgetting it was autumn, had broken out at that particular spot into pink-and-white may. So that even Old Gillman had no fault to find with the arrangement.

"All astir, my maids?" said he.

"Yes, master, yes!" they answered breathlessly; all but Joscelyn, who cried, "Oh! oh! oh!" and bit her lip hard, and stood suddenly on one foot.

"What's amiss with ye?" asked Gillman.

"Nothing, master," said she, very red in the face. "A nettle stung my ankle."

"Well, I'd not weep for t," said Gillman.

"Indeed I'm not weeping!" cried Joscelyn loudly.

"Then it did but tickle ye, I doubt," said Gillman slyly, "to blushing-point."

"Master, I AM not blushing!" protested Joscelyn. "The sun's on my face and in my eyes, don't you see?"

"I would he were on my daughter's, then," said Gillman. "Does Gillian still sit in her own shadow?"

"Yes, master," answered Jane, "but I think she will be in the light very shortly."

"If she be not," groaned Gillman, "it's a shadow she'll find instead of a father when she comes back to the farmstead; for who can sow wild oats at my time o' life, and not show it at last in his frame? Yet I was a stout man once."

"Take heart, master," urged Joyce eyeing his waistcoat. But he shook his head.

"Don't be deceived, maid. Drink makes neither flesh nor gristle; only inflation. Gillian!" he shouted, "when will ye make the best of a bad job and a solid man of your dad again?"

But the donkey braying in its paddock got as much answer as he.

"Well, it's lean days for all, maids," said Gillman, and doled out the loaves from his basket, "and you must suffer even as I. Yet another day may see us grow fat." And he turned his basket upside down on his head and moved away.

"Excuse me, master," said Jane, "but is Nellie, my little Dexter Kerry, doing nicely?"

"As nicely as she ever does with any man," said Gillman, "which is to kick John twice a day, mornings and evenings. He say he's getting used to it, and will miss it when you come back to manage her. But before that happens I misdoubt we'll all be plunged in rack and ruin."

And he departed, making his usual parrot-cry.

"I'm getting fond of old Gillman," said Martin sitting up and picking dead leaves out of his hair; "I like his hawker's cry of Maids, maids, maids!' for all the world as though he had pretty girls to sell, and I like the way he groans regrets over his empty basket as he goes away. But if I had those wares for market I'd ask such unfair prices for them that I'd never be out of stock."

"What's an unfair price for a pretty girl, Master Pippin?" asked Jessica.

"It varies," said Martin. "Joan I'd not sell for less than an apple, or Joyce for a gold-brown hair. I might accept a blade of grass for Jennifer and be tempted by a button for Jane. You, Jessica, I rate as high as a saucy answer."

"Simple fees all," laughed Joyce.

"Not so simple," said Martin, "for it must be the right apple and the particular hair; only one of all the grass-blades in the world will do, and it must be a certain button or none. Also there are answers and answers."

"In that case," said Jessica, "I'm afraid you've got us all on your hands for ever. But at what price would you sell Joscelyn?"

"At nothing less," said Martin, "than a yellow shoe-string."

Joscelyn stamped her left foot so furiously that her shoe came off. And little Joan, anxious to restore peace, ran and picked it up for her and said, "Why, Joscelyn, you've lost your lace! Where can it be?" But Joscelyn only looked angrier still, and went without answering to set Gillian's bread by the Well-House; where she found nothing whatever but a little crust of yesterday's loaf. And surprised out of her vexation she ran back again exclaiming, "Look, look! as surely as Gillian is finding her appetite I think she is losing her grief."

"The argument is as absolute," said Martin, "as that if we do not soon breakfast my appetite will become my grief. But those miserable ducks!"

And he snatched the crust from Joscelyn's hand and flung it mightily into the pond; where the drake gobbled it whole and the ducks got nothing.

And the girls cried "What a shame!" and burst out laughing, all but Joscelyn who said under her breath to Martin, "Give it back at once!" But he didn't seem to hear her, and raced the others gayly to the tree where they always picnicked; and they all fell to in such good spirits that Joscelyn looked from one to another very doubtfully, and suddenly felt left out in the cold. And she came slowly and sat down not quite in the circle, and kept her left foot under her all the time.

As soon as breakfast was over Jennifer sighed, "I wish it were dinner-time."

"What a greedy wish," said Martin.

"And then," said she, "I wish it were supper-time."

"Why?" said he.

"Because it would be nearer to-morrow," said Jennifer pensively.

"Do you want it to be to-morrow so much?" asked Martin. And five of the milkmaids cried, "oh, yes!"

"That's better than wanting it to be yesterday," said Martin, "yet I'm always so pleased with to-day that I never want it to be either. And as for old time, I read him by a dial which makes it any hour I choose."