AUGUST—THE CORN MOON It all happened in August, the limp and lazy month of the year abhorred by Martha Saunders, born Corkle. It surely requires a certain amount of natural philosophy, adaptability to fruit and salad lunches, and an aptitude for lounging in shady places and watching the grass grow, or gazing through the trees skyward from the depth of a hammock, to make August even a mildly pleasurable month. Night is August’s strong point; her full moon sheds a placid coppery light, making the glistening green of the cornfields, heavy in ear, look wet and cool; but in the daytime, the Harvest Fly proclaims the heat insistently, mould born of heavy dew invades the pantry, and the milk is curdled by the shock of frequent thunder.
All the defects of the month sink into her soul, but for none of the assuasions does English-born Martha care. She would not effect even a temporary compromise with her sturdy red-meat diet; she considers lounging of any kind a sin, and the very sight of a hammock calls up most unpleasant memories.
The year that she married Timothy and left our house for the cottage at the poultry farm on the hill above, I gave her one of these offending articles to hang in the shade of some apple trees overlooking the coops, thinking it would be a point of vantage for her. But no, the thing was barely put in place and swaying in the breeze, when her substantial form came from the house and stood before us, arms folded, head erect, but eyes closed: “Mrs. Evan,” she said, moistening her lips conspicuously, “I thank you kindly for your wish, but if it please you, Timothy shall take it down again, for those things are more than I can stand for. Oh, yes, I’ve tried one, and when I was in it, I was minded of the ship the morn after the third night out, which being a storm, the ’atches were down and the smells not working out, took a good clutch on the stummick, so that a fine cup of tea couldn’t find lodging there, the ship still heaving short all the time; and no disrespect intended, Mrs. Evan.”
As Martha came from a county in old England of peculiarly equable climate, she lacked her usual energy in the New England August, and a sort of mental prickly heat usually settled upon her, more trying than the bodily variety. In fact, the most strenuous part of the season’s labour was over: the early chicks were already broilers; the next group were firm on their feet, and the late ones not yet to be set; while the old hens spent all their time kicking up the dust and moulting with a thoroughness sometimes embarrassing to the beholder.
By this time also the jam and jelly gamut had been run through strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, and the rest, leaving only peaches, the spicy beach plums, and quinces for the future, so that Martha’s capable hands were fairly empty, save for the bit of housework, and what was that with a husband as canty and well-drilled as Timothy? Thus it came about that, into what should have been Martha’s vacation time, unrest entered, and each year she managed to worry herself and prod Timothy into the pursuit of some new scheme which, fortunately, generally came to an end with the first cool day of autumn.
“The woman’s harvest spells” were what Timothy called this mild sort of summer madness, and in speaking of it to father, he once said: “Of coorse ye ken, Dochtor, that some weemen are mickle like their own settin’ hens: when busy season’s over, they’r nae content to scratch beetles in the bonny fresh grass in the pasture, and moult quiet like, but they must raise up dust and maak the feathers fly. Hecht! Dochtor, ye ken, ye ken, and naught said, I see it in yer eye!”
In one of these temporary summer periods, Martha had become a convert to Christian Science, but backslid before winter, because she continued to have the nosebleed, for which she had paid no small sum to be cured by absent treatment, and about the failure of this method she expressed her mind freely.
“Tush, tush, woman, and dinna fash yoursel,” said Timothy, with twinkling eyes. “Doubtless they meant ye weel, but their minds was na pooerful enoo to send the healin’ through sic braw oak trees as we hae hereaboot! Man has to stick up poles like birds’ twigs to catch this new no-wire telegraph, so mebbe had we a braw toor on the hoose to draw it down, yer nose might catch the benefit o’ their far-away healin’!”
Then Martha sniffed and eyed her spouse dubiously, for his Scotch birth should have made it impossible for him to joke, even though constant contact with father and Evan had inoculated him with the tendency.
The next August it was the Salvation Army that stirred Martha’s religious conscience, for she had two of these useful articles,—one that guided her actions as regards life in general, and another that was wholly devoted to the interests of her beloved Mr. Evan and his family.
She took this second conversion in a very matter-of-fact way, but insisted that Timothy should go with her to some round-up meetings over in Bridgeton. For a few weeks matters went well; Martha sewed violently all through the sweltering days on shirts for reformed convicts, until one evening a pretty lassie, young enough twice over to be his daughter, had innocently asked Timothy to take part in a street service, at the same time showing him how to pound and twirl a tambourine.
“I’ll not have my man made a monkey of, hussy! He’s as knowin’ as any of your officers, if his figure is a bit warped,” she proclaimed, and straightway left for home, declaring, as she crossed the threshold, “Them as can’t hold to and be content with the Established Church of England had better do without benefit of Gospel;” and Timothy, Dissenter as he was, had cautiously responded “Amen!”
But this particular and unforgettable August, a far more serious distemper had fallen upon Martha Corkle Saunders: the race suicide idea had not only penetrated her brain, but had therein incubated to such an extent that not only was Timothy’s peace of mind destroyed, but the unrest of the situation enveloped us as well.
All normal women are more or less fond of children; and Martha, being no exception to the rule, had alternately spoiled and ruled my Ian and Richard until they had escaped from her as full-fledged schoolboys, it being shortly after this time that the hysterical screed appeared.
Suddenly Martha fell into an attitude of melancholy self-reproach; she was childless; and so was Timothy, and she immediately saw, as mirrored in themselves, the extinction of the English race. In vain did I remind her that as her first husband, “not being durable,” as she expressed it, had lived but a short time, while she was well faced toward sixty when she married Timothy, no reproach could be attached either to her maternal instinct or to her race loyalty. My words fell unheeded. “Our Queen,”[1] she replied, “had nine all by one marriage; she would expect something of me,” and straightway fell to crying, a thing that Martha had never been known to do before under any stress, either of joy or grief.
“But what can you do?” I gasped; then an idea struck me; “it isn’t possible that you are thinking of adopting a child at your age?”
“That’s my very mind, Mrs. Evan, that is, leastways, children, young children, two at the very least, following out your own idea that an only child is quite unfortunate, and no disrespect intended.”
“But do you realize what it means?” I pursued relentlessly; “your whole life changed, broken rest, no more quiet meals for Timothy, sickness and teething, amusements to be supplied as well as schooling. When children are born to us we are always, at least, comparatively young, and everything seems natural and a matter of course; but you and dear old rheumatic, set-in-his-ways Tim! I think it would be cruel. The sun must be affecting your brain.”
“Cruel it may be, Mrs. Evan; duty is cruel, and so is death itself, but my mind is made up.”
“And, pray, how will adopting some one else’s children prevent race suicide in your particular case?”
“It won’t be my family, to be sure, Mrs. Evan, but they must be English children, and no other; that is the race part of it. I’ve spoken to Dr. Russell, Mrs. Evan, to see what he can do about it, mayhap in Bridgeton or at the hospital.”
“What did Timothy say when you told him?” I ventured weakly, after the long pause had become awkward, Martha standing, as she was, erect yet respectful, the drops of sweat upon her forehead, above which the pink bow of her cap quivered, it seemed, with imparted nervousness.
“Timothy Saunders quoted Scripture, Mrs. Evan, as a right-minded man should in solemn moments; he says, humble like, ‘The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord!’ I’m not quite minded what he fits the words to, but the spirit o’ resignment is right and dutiful.” So saying, Martha dropped a melancholy courtesy and left me under cover of rescuing a very fat and apoplectic Plymouth Rock hen, who, having worked her way partly through a hole in the fence, was trying to back out against the grain of the feathers that securely anchored her.
“Poor Timothy!” I said to myself; “I wonder what you meant; is it your comfortable home, won so late in life, that you fear you are in danger of losing, or were your remarks merely spoken on general principles?”
That night I talked the matter over with father. Yes, Martha had spoken to him, and all he could do was to postpone the event as long as possible by failing to find suitable children. He had tried to compromise the matter by suggesting a pretty little orphan girl of ten, who came of good American people, but was homeless. No, this would not do. Two children of English parentage, if English birth was impossible, not necessarily babies, but young enough to have no recollections—this was what Martha demanded.
Early one morning, of the second week of August, Effie, Timothy’s niece, who had been our waitress for some years, came knocking at our bedroom door long before the usual hour, at the same time saying something that I did not understand. I answered that I was awake, thinking that she had merely mistaken the time; but the knocking and talking continued, and I went to the door with a feeling of apprehension lest father might be ill, or something have happened to the boys, who were spending a few days up at the Bradfords’.
There stood the usually reticent Effie, hands clasping and unclasping nervously with half-suppressed excitement, while her tongue flew so fast that I had to listen keenly to catch even an idea of her meaning.
“Nobody’s ill, ma’am, only there’s twins left up at Uncle Timothy’s, fine big ones, a boy and a girl, ma’am.”
“What?” I managed to say, going into the hall and closing the door behind me.
“It came about this way: Aunt Martha didn’t rest well last night, as I make out, and she went into the sitting-room and lay on the lounge. Just as it was coming light, she was minded to get up and turn off some work before the sun heated her head, as it’s been doing lately, but somehow she dozed off again. Then wagon wheels going up the Bluffs road stirred her, and she says to herself, ‘Those lazy Polack milk pedlers above are late this morning,’ three o’clock being their time of starting for Bridgeton.
“Howsomever, the next minute she thought she heard a step on the porch, and then, raising the blind, she saw a man hurry out of the yard.
“Going back to the bedroom to call Uncle Timothy, she heard and saw that which made her stand still and let out a yell that uncle said nigh stopped his heart, for on the floor right under the open window was two babies sprawlin’ about as if just waked, and when they set their eyes on her, they began to cry both together (which was small wonder, ma’am, seeing the figger aunty is in her nightcap), until she fell back quite weak in her chair.
“Uncle Timothy shook on some clothes, and came over for me to stay with aunty while he hitched up.
“?‘Where are you going?’ says I, thinking the doctor had an early call out.
“?‘To take the brats down to the constable on their road to the Orphan House at Bridgeton,’ he growled, ‘Timothy Saunders’ hoose being no dump for gypsy strays.’
“But when I gets over to aunty’s, she’d picked herself together, and the two babies were sitting up among the pillows, crumbing crackers into the bed, she chirping to ’em, looking at ’em as if she couldn’t unglue her eyes from theirs.”
“Sitting up! How old are these babies, pray?” I asked.
“Oh, a matter of a year or more, I’m thinking, ma’am, reading by the teeth and the way they can pull to their feet,” said Effie, catching her breath in the short interval.
“Then aunty turns to me and fairly wizzles my stummick with her next words. ‘Look, Effie,’ says she, ‘see the doings of the Lord, a boy and a girl, and English-born, no doubt, if but from the red of their cheeks and their noses, shaped strong and high like our blessed Queen’s, and no disrespect intended.
“?‘Come next Sunday, moreover, I’ll have them baptized Albert and Victoria to give them a fair start, even if their poor dead parents as is dead and gone did see to it, as most like they did, being English; twice will only set the colour better.’
“?‘Are their parents dead? Did they fetch a note?’ said I.
“?‘Are ye a silly,’ snapped aunty; ‘would living parents spill such angel hinfants into strangers’ windows, think ’ee? Don’t stand there gapin’ at me, but trot down and ask Mrs. Evan for the kindness of a few of her lads’ old slips if she’s any laid by, for I mistrust from the smell of those they’ve on that they’ve been a long journey from soap, and when I’ve had the bonnies in a tub, I’ll trim them up fresh. Why don’t ye budge, lass? Are ye rooted?’
“For, ma’am, I couldn’t stir, thinking aunty had gone clean daft, and while I was sort of getting wind to start, Uncle Timothy came in with a straw clothes-basket.
“?‘Here, woman, put a quilt in this; it will make a good coop for yon strays,’ he said, reaching over to the peg where hung his top-coat.
“?‘They’re well enough where they be until I can get a proper cradle rigged,’ said aunty, trying to make friendly with them, which they mistrusted.
“?‘Cradle! They’ll need no cradle!’ said uncle. ‘I’m harnessed now to take them to the Orphan House. Come ye along wi’ me, Effie; they may be awkward freight; ye’ll be back again before your leddy’s up.’
“?‘Orphan House! Bridgeton! and that’s where they’ll not go. Don’t ye sense, man, that the Lord has sent them to us to teach us our bounden duty? They’ll be our children by adoption quick as the law allows it, man. Orphan House, Bridgeton, indeed!’
“I got a swift squint at Uncle Timothy’s face then, ma’am, and I’ve never seen him look so dour since the day he married and I helped him into his tight new boots; it was juist awful!
“?‘Dinna ye heap disrespect upon the Lord, woman,’ he said at last; ‘?’twas not he put them in here; he doesn’t sneak babes in windows of the aged; his work is seen of men and in the open. Some rogue has put upon us for a pair of old fules, and I’ll not have it.’
“?‘But ye know, Timothy, I’ve spoken lately to the doctor about a pair of bairns, and ye never gainsaid me,’ said aunty, beginning to cry, and a bit overcome for the time by his flow o’ words, for uncle never speaks much.
“?‘Taking the known born with our eyes open is one thing, but a grab in the dark, pushed into the hand by others, is another. Ha’ ye looked in their bundle?’ said he, rolling over with his foot a paper parcel that had fallen under a chair. ‘Open it, Effie, lass.’
“My fingers could scarce untie the string for hurry, but all there was within was a few ragged bits of coarse clothes and some biscuits like the ones that they were crumbing.
“?‘Dry food for bairns,’ said Uncle Timothy, picking up one and twirling it between his fingers. ‘It’s time for the milking now. I’ll speak to the dochtor and question around a bit before I take the youngsters over; that’ll be after deenner, gin I find no trace of those that brought them. A small, dark man, say you, but you saw naught of his face? It’s going to be michty hot this forenoon,’ continued uncle, weakening, when he saw how Aunt Martha was taking on. Then I slipped out and ran down to tell you, ma’am, and ask for the clothes.”
Promising to hunt up some garments, I returned to Evan, considerably dazed by Effie’s recital. We had all hoped that Martha’s “Harvest spell” would vanish before the infants filling her numerous requirements should appear, but we had foolishly reckoned without considering the unexpected, which is always quite sure to happen.
“Don’t worry,” said Evan the cheerful; “the town authorities will be only too glad to be relieved of the charge of the waifs, as a matter of course, but at least an attempt will be made to find where they came from; and though there’s nothing to prevent Martha’s having them christened, the matter of legal adoption will require more time, and something may turn up. Don’t you realize, Barbara, that it is a most unusual thing for children a year old or more to be abandoned? Foundlings are usually a few hours, or at most a few weeks, old. It’s to the credit of human nature that few of even the lowest people will give up their cubs when once they’ve learned to know them.”
“Perhaps, however, these are orphans, and it is the people who have them second-hand that wish to get rid of them,” I said.
“That may be; but there was a certain method in the place chosen for leaving them that makes me think near-by people, possibly in Bridgeton, had a hand in it; if so, it will leak out.”
So, angry as I was at Martha’s total lack of common sense, but remembering all she had been to me and my boys in the past dozen years, I made up a bundle of such things as the needy hospital had not claimed, and after breakfast took it up to the chicken farm, where I found that father had preceded me.
It is useless to tell a woman over thirty that men are lacking in curiosity! Father asked two questions to my one. However, he pronounced Albert and Victoria sound of limb and lungs, but seemed to regard the whole matter as a joke, even going so far as to admire their pronounced Guelph noses, and was not as judicious as I had expected in the advice he gave to Martha.
The doings of the next three weeks I will give as recorded in my Experience Book. It had been a long time since anything had occurred worthy of record, so I resorted to it to relieve my feelings.
August 9. The investigation as to the origin of Albert and Victoria has proved a complete failure; no one can be found who saw a horse and wagon driven by a strange, small, dark man on the day of their arrival or the night before. Already Martha’s neat cottage has suffered a change, and the sitti............