15. The Coming of Spring
The Spring was late, cruelly late, so late indeed that if it had been anything else but a season, it would have found itself in serious trouble—with the door locked and a note pinned on the outside telling it if it could not come in time it need not come at all. But the Spring has to be taken in, whenever it comes—and be forgiven too, and even if there were no note on the door, there were other intimations of like effect, which no intelligent young Spring could fail to understand. Dead cattle lay on the river bank, looking sightlessly up to the sky. They had waited, and waited, and hung on to life just as long as they could, but they had to give in at last.
Spring came at last, brimful of excitement and apologies. It was a full-hearted, impulsive and repentant young Spring, and lavished all its gifts with a prodigal hand; its breezes were as coaxing as June; its head burned like the first of July; its sunshine was as rich and mellow as the sunshine of August. Spring had acknowledged its debt and the overdue interest, and hoped to prevent any unpleasantness by paying all arrears and a lump sum in advance; and doing it all with such a flourish of good fellowship that the memory of its past delinquency would be entirely swept away!
The old Earth, frozen-hearted and bleached by wind and cold, and saddened by many a blighted hope, lay still and unresponsive under the coaxing breezes and the sunshine's many promises. The Earth knew what it knew, and if it were likely to forget, the red and white cattle on the hillside would remind it. The Earth knew that these same warm breezes had coaxed it into life many times before, and it had burst into bud and flowers and fruit, forgetting and forgiving the past with its cold and darkness, and the earth remembered that the flowers had withered and the fruit had fallen, and dark days had come when it had no pleasure in them, and so although the sun was shining and the warm winds blowing—the earth lay as unresponsive as the pulseless cattle on its cold flat breast.
But the sun poured down its heat, and the warm breezes frolicked into the out-of-the-way places, where old snowdrifts were hiding their black faces, and gradually their hard hearts broke and ran away in creeping streams, and the earth returned to the earth that gave it; a mist too, arose from the earth, and softened its bare outlines, and soon the first anemone pushed its furry nose through the mat of gray grass, and scored another victory on the robin; the white poplar blushed green at its roots; the willows at the edge of the river reddened higher and higher, as the sap mounted; headings of mouse-ears soon began to show on their branches—a green, glow came over the prairie, and in the ponds, It millions of frogs, at the signal from an unknown conductor, burst into song.
Then it was that the tired old Earth stopped thinking and began to feel—a thrill—a throb—a pulsing of new life—the stirring of new hopes which mocked its fears of cold or frost or sorrow or death.
The Souris Valley opened forgiving arms to the repentant young Spring, and put forth leaves in gayest fashion. The white bones, fantastically sticking through faded red hides, were charitably hidden by the grass, so that the awakened conscience of the tender young Spring might not be unduly reminded of its cruelty and neglect.
The woman who lived alone at Purple Springs always expected great things of the Spring. She could not grow accustomed to the coldness of her neighbors, or believe that they had really cut her off from any communication, and all through the winter which had just gone she had kept on telling herself that everything would be different in the Spring. Looking day after day into the white valley, piled high with snow, she had said to herself over and over again: "There shall be no more snow—there shall be no more snow"—until the words began to mock her and taunt her, and at last lost their meaning altogether like an elastic band that has stretched too far. If she had been as close a student of the Bible as her mother, back in Argylshire, she would have known that her impatience with the snow, which all winter long had threatened and menaced her, and peered at her with its thousand eyes, was just the same feeling that prompted John on the Isle of Patmos, wearied by the eternal breaking of the waves on his island prison, to set down as the first condition in the heavenly city: "There shall be no sea."
Three years before, Mrs. Gray had come to the Souris Valley, and settled on the hill farm. It had been owned by a prospector, who once in a while lived on it, but went away for long periods, when it was believed he had gone north into that great unknown land of fabled riches. He had not been heard from for several years, and the people of the neighborhood had often wondered what would be done with the quarter-section, which was one of the best in the district, in case he never came back. The Cowan's, who lives nearest, had planted one of the fields, and used the land for the last two seasons. The Zinc's had run their cattle in the pasture, and two of the other neighbors were preparing to use the remaining portions of the farm, when there arrived Mrs. Gray and her seven-year-old son to take possession.
It was Mr. Cowan who demanded to know by what right she came, and when she had convinced him by showing him the deed of the farm, she came back at him by demanding that he pay her the rent for the acres he had used, which he did with a bad grace.
She had not been long in the neighborhood when there came to demonstrate a new sewing machine a drooping-eyed, be-whiskered man, in a slim buggy, drawn by a team of sorrel ponies. He claimed to have known Mrs. Gray in that delightfully vague spot known as "down East," and when he found how eagerly any information regarding her was received, he grew eloquent.
Mrs. Cowan departed from her hard and fast rule, and the rule of her mother before her, and asked him to stay for dinner, and being an honest man, in small matters at least, the agent did his best to pay for his victuals. He told her all he knew—and then some, prefacing and footnoting his story with the saving clause "Now this may be only talk—but, anyway, it is what they said about her." He was not a malicious man—he bore the woman, who was a stranger to him, no grudge; but that day as he sat at dinner in the Cowan's big, bare kitchen, he sent out the words which made life hard for the woman at Purple Springs.
So much for the chivalry of the world and the kindly protection it extends to women.
Vague rumors were circulated about her, veiled, indefinite insinuations. The Ladies' Aid decided they would not ask her to join, at least not until they saw how things were going. She might be all right, but they said a church society must be careful.
The women watched each other to see who would go to see her first. She came to church with her boy, to the little church on the river flat, and the minister shook hands with her and told her he was glad to see her. But the next week his wife, spending the afternoon at Mrs. Cowan's, "heard something," and the next Sunday, although he shook hands with her and began to say he was glad to see her, catching Mrs. Cowan's eye on him, he changed his sentence and said he was glad to see so many out.
All summer long the women at Purple Springs held to the hope that someone would come to see her. At first she could not believe they were wilfully slighting her. It was just their way, she thought. They were busy women; she often saw them out in their gardens, and at such times it was hard for her to keep from waving to them.
The woman who lived the nearest to her, geographically, was Mrs. Cowan, and one day—the first summer—she saw Mrs. Cowan beating rugs on the line, and as the day was breezy, it seemed as if she waved her apron. Mrs. Gray waved back, in an ecstacy of joy and expectation—but there came no response from her neighbor—no answering signal, and as the lonely woman watched, hoping, looking, praying—there rolled over her with crushing sadness the conviction that all her hopes of friendliness were in vain. The neighborhood would not receive her—she was an outcast. They were condemning her without a hearing—they were hurling against her the thunders of silence! The injustice of it ate deeply into her soul.
Then it was that she began to make the name "Purple Springs" out of the willow withes which grew below the house. She made the letters large, and with a flourish, and dyed them the most brilliant purple they would take, and set them on a wire foundation above her gate. The work of doing it gave solace to her heart, and when the words were set in place—it seemed to her that she had declared her independence, and besides, they reminded her of something very sweet and reassuring—something which helped her to hold her head up against the current of ill thoughts her neighbors were directing toward her.
That was the year the school was built, and no other name for it but "Purple Springs" was even mentioned, and when the track was extended from Millford west, and a mahogany-red station built, with a tiny freight shed of the same color, the name of Purple Springs in white letters was put on each end of the station. So, although the neighbors would not receive the woman, they took the name she brought.
Her son Jim, a handsome lad of seven, went to school the first day it was opened. Her mother heart was fearful for the reception he might get, and yet she tried to tell herself that children were more just than their elders. They would surely be fair to Jim, and when she had him ready, with his leather book-bag, his neat blue serge knickerbocker suit, his white collar and well-polished boots, she thought, with a swelling of pride, that there would not be a handsomer child in the school, nor one that was better cared for.
Down the hill went Jim Gray, without a shadow on his young heart. So long as he had his mother, and his mother smiled at him, life was all sunshine.
He gave his name to the teacher, and answered all her questions readily, and was duly enrolled as a pupil in Grade I, along with Bennie Cowan, Edgar Zinc and Bessie Brownlees, and set at work to make figures. He wondered what the teacher wanted with so many figures, but decided he would humor her, and made page after page of them for her. By noon the teacher decided, on further investigation, to put Master James Gray in Grade II, and by four o'clock he was a member in good standing of Grade III.
That night there was much talk of James Gray, his good clothes, and his general proficiency, around the firesides of the Purple Springs district.
The next day Bennie Cowan, who was left behind in Grade I, although a year older than Jim Gray, made the startling announcement:
"Jim Gray has no father."
He sang the words, gently intoning, as if he took no responsibility of them any more than if they were the words of a song, for Bennie was a cautious child, and while he did not see that the absence of a father was anything to worry over, still, from the general context of the conversation he had heard, he believed it was something of a handicap.
The person concerned in his announcement, being busy with a game of marbles, did not notice. So quite emboldened, Bennie sang again, "Jim Gray has no father—and never had one."
The marble game came to an end.
"Do you mean me?" asked Jim, with a puzzled look.
The others stopped playing, too. It was a fearsome moment. Jim Gray was the most unconcerned of the group.
"That's all you know about it," he said carelessly, as he shut one eye and took steady aim at the "dib" in the ring, "I've had two."
"Nobody can have two fathers—on earth," said Bessie Brownlees piously—"we have one father on earth and one in heaven."
"Mine ain't on earth," said Jimmy, "mine are both in heaven."
That was a poser.
"I'll bet they're not," said Bennie, feeling emboldened by Jim's admission of a slight irregularity in his paternal arrangements.
"How do you know?" asked Jim, still puzzled. It did not occur to him that there was anything unfriendly in the conversation—"You never saw them!"
"Well," said Bennie, crowded now to play his highest card, "anyway, your mother is a bad woman."
Jim looked at him in blank astonishment. His mother a bad woman, his dear mother! The whole world turned suddenly red to Jim Gray—he did not need any one to tell him that the time had come to fight.
The cries of Bennie Cowan brought the teacher flying. Bennie, with bleeding lip and blackened eyes, was rescued, and a tribunal sat forthwith on the case.
James Gray refused to tell what Bennie Cowan had said. His tongue could not form the words of blasphemy. The other children, all of whom had heard his history unfavorably discussed at home, did not help him, and the case went against the boy who had no friends. Exaggerated tales were told of his violence. By the end of the week he had struck Bennie Cowan with a knife. A few days later it was told that he had kicked the teacher. Nervous mothers were afraid to have their children exposed to the danger of playing with such a vicious child.
One day a note was given to him to take home. It was from the trustees, asking Mrs. Gray if she would kindly keep her son James at home, for his ungovernable temper made it unsafe for other children to play with him.
That was three years ago. Annie Gray and her son were as much a mystery as ever. She looked well, dressed well, rode astride, wore bloomers, and used a rifle, and seemed able to live without either the consent or good-will of the neighborhood.
In harvest time she still further outraged public opinion by keeping a hired man, who, being a virtuous man, who had respect for public opinion, even if she hadn't, claimed fifteen dollars a month extra for a sort of moral insurance against loss of reputation. She paid the money so cheerfully that the virtuous man was sorry he had not made it twenty!
It was to this district, with its under-current of human passions, mystery and misunderstanding, that Pearl Watson came. The miracle of Spring was going on—bare trees budding, dead flowers springing; the river which had been a prisoner all winter, running brimming full, its ice all gone, and only little white cakes of foam riding on its current. Over all was the pervading Spring smell of fresh earth, and the distant smoulder of prairie fires.