“Bring her back,” yelled Tom, and Caddie and Warren raced along with him to catch her.
They weren’t long in overtaking her, and Tom said fiercely: “You hold your tongue, Hetty. Don’t you go telling anyone we’re English until you’re good and sure.”
“English?” said Hetty. “But we aren’t English, Tom!”
“We will be if we go back there. Didn’t you know that, you little silly?”
Hetty stopped struggling to be free, and looked earnestly from one face to another. “Will we? I thought we’d always be Americans. Then, I guess, I don’t want to tell after all,” she said, and the four of them went silently back to the house together.
That evening at supper Annabelle, Clara, and Mother did most of the talking. Annabelle, particularly, was full of most delightful plans for their life in England.
“Of course, you shall be presented to the Queen,” she said, “and there will be balls and concerts and all manner of elegant things. Just think of the splendid clothes you can wear! The very latest fashions and more buttons than anyone else in London if you like, and no sheep to eat them off, and all the handsome noblemen simply languishing for dances with you. Oh, I do so envy you, you lucky girls! I do hope you will have me to visit you in England! Perhaps I shall change my mind about the Boston clergyman, after all, and have the English lord for first choice. Wasn’t it funny that I should have said that this very afternoon, and all the time Uncle John already knew he was to be one? Fancy an English lord coming from Dunnville! Was ever anything more absurd?”
Father said very little, and once, when Caddie glanced at him, she caught a troubled look in his eyes. It made the uncomfortable little ache in her own heart sharper.
After supper Caddie and the boys slipped out to the
barn. Robert Ireton sat on a milking stool, tilted back against the barn, and strummed his banjo. His voice was plaintive tonight. He was singing about a beautiful maiden who had died of a broken heart and been buried under a weeping willow tree. Caddie sat on a loose pile of hay, her arms clasped around her knees. Above her the dark sky glittered and sparkled with thousands of stars. The Milky Way was a broad, white path across the sky. There was the North Star and another star which she loved because it was so bright. She did not know its name, but she had always called it hers. There would be stars in England, but would they be so bright, so beautiful? The smell of clover and new hay tugged at her heart. Would anything in England smell as sweet? And, when Indian John came back to find the treasures he had left with her, would she be gone?
Here under the bright stars, while Robert strummed and sang, Caddie knew that her old, wild past was ended. But suddenly she knew, too, that she wanted the future, whatever it might hold, to be here in the country that she loved, and not among strangers in a strange land.
23. Pigeons or Peacocks?
The members of the family appeared on time for breakfast the next morning, and everyone wore an air of strangeness and expectancy. They knew that today Father would make his decision about going back to England, and until the decision was made they felt ill at ease and somehow like a group of strangers sitting together at the familiar breakfast table. Only Annabelle was perfectly at ease.
“Tom,” she said, looking at him with a new interest in her bright eyes, “when you are an English lord, you must not forget your little cousin Annabelle.”
“If you mean that you’ve given up your Boston clergyman,” said Tom bluntly, “you needn’t count on me, Annabelle. I’ve got my girl all picked.”
“Tom! What nonsense!” said Mother. “Go on and eat your porridge.”
“I know! I know! I know!” buzzed Hetty. “Tom loves Ka—” Tom reached hastily for the bread and, by some mysterious accident, upset Hetty’s glass of milk into her lap, so that the object of Tom’s affections was never publicly revealed.
During the confusion of mopping up Hetty, Caddie sat silent. She had dreamed last night about England. There had been peacocks and towers and moats, and it had seemed that the Woodlawn children were to be presented to the Queen, but then all of the others had vanished and only Caddie had gone on alone, and then she had found herself holding the hand of a little boy—such a funny little boy with a sailor suit and a wide hat and red hair, and the little boy had been crying because he was hungry. And, when they had reached the Queen’s palace, there had been a great barred gate, and through the gate they could see that the Queen had peacocks, too, but they could not get through the gate, and then soldiers had come and driven them away, and Caddie had wakened up and found that it was morning.
Father’s voice broke through the memory of her dream. Caddie turned and looked at him, and she thought that he was nicer sitting thus at the head of his simple table than he could ever be in any other place.
“I have been thinking,” he said, “that you children are old enough to have some part in the decision which we must make today. It would hardly be fair for me alone, or for Mother and me, to say, without consulting you, either that you must give up your American citizenship and return to England or that you should remain here, giving up a good deal of money and a high position in England. After all, Mother and I have already lived a half of our lives, and they’ve been worth the living, haven’t they, Harriet?”
Mother smiled tremulously and nodded at him.
“But you young ones have all of your lives before you, and you already have some ideas of what you wish to make of them. It would be a pity for someone else to make a wrong decision for you. So I think it best that we should take a family vote. Since we are still on American soil and have always considered ourselves good Americans, we shall vote in the American way by written ballot. That is, each child shall decide for himself what he wishes to do. Then, without telling anyone else what he has decided, he shall write ‘Go’ or ‘Stay’ on a piece of paper which he shall then fold and place between the leaves of the family Bible in the parlor. We shall vote this afternoon at four o’clock, and, in the meantime, I want you to discuss it among yourselves and to ask Mother and me as many questions as you like, and, above all, I want you to think each for yourself: ‘What will be best for my future? Where shall I be most useful and happy?’ ”
“Shall I vote, too, Papa?” asked little Minnie, climbing onto Mr. Woodlawn’s knee and looking earnestly into his face.
“Yes, you, too, little Minnie. Every Woodlawn shall vote except baby Joe, and his future we others must decide among us.”
At mention of his name the baby bounced in his high chair and banged his spoon upon his tray.
“You and I shall not be allowed to vote, baby Joe,” said Annabelle, “but never you mind, you’ll be a little English gentleman before the day is over, I’ll be bound.”
“Goo! goo!” said baby Joe and showed his two new teeth in a pink smile.
Then for a long time Father spoke to them quietly and earnestly, like an impartial judge, setting forth the advantages and the disadvantages of this move. He spoke of England more warmly than they had ever heard him speak before, picturing its beauties and the high place which they would be called to fill there. Then he spoke of America, and he did not say as many fine things of it as he had often said in the past, and Caddie knew why. It was because his heart belonged here in Wisconsin and he did not wish to let his own preference prejudice his children. But he did speak briefly of the freedom which belonged to them in a new country, and he said that, although they might never be rich or famous in America, they would have the satisfaction of knowing that what they had they had made for themselves.
“An inherited fortune is never quite one’s own,” said Father slowly, “and yet I want you to understand that money and power are also great things, and that great good may come of them, if they are wisely handled.”
Then he pushed back his chair from the table and took his hat and went out to see that the horses had a measure of oats.
“Do you think that Father wants to go back and be a lord?” asked Tom, as he and Caddie and W
arren walked away to the lake.
“I guess he doesn’t want us to know what he wants,” said Caddie in a low voice. “He’d rather we made up our own minds.”
“I can’t see Father going back there where they treated him so badly once,” said Tom. “Father’s the kind of man who likes to do things for himself. I don’t s’pose that English lords mend clocks and feed horses and put locks on guns for Indians, do you?”
“They don’t have to!” shouted Warren.
“Well, Father doesn’t have to either, but I think he’d miss it if he didn’t do it.”
“I think that Father likes to be at the front of things,” said Caddie. “He likes to be free and help build new places. I think he’d rather go on west than go back to an old country where everything is finished.”
“I would, too,” said Tom. “I’d rather build a new mill in America than live in a castle in England that somebody who’d died hundreds of years ago had had the fun of building. That’s how I feel.”
“Me, too,” said Warren.
“I guess we three’ll vote the same,” said Caddie, “but Mother and Clara and Hetty and Minnie will all be on the other side, and I don’t know about Father. What he wants won’t matter so much as what he thinks would be best for us. And, you know, he likes to make Mother happy.”
They climbed onto the raft and Tom pushed off from shore. John’s dog rode with them, his head on Caddie’s knee.
“Poor fellow!” said Caddie. “I don’t know what John’ll think if I can’t look after you till he gets back.”
A cloud of gloom floated along with them as they went down the lake on that bright August morning.
It was almost four o’clock, and the Woodlawn children had washed their hands and faces and smoothed their hair as if they were getting ready for a party.
“Just practicing up to be little lords and ladies,” said Annabelle, who was as much excited as the rest of them, and even Tom was too distraught to answer her.
Caddie had gone off by herself to sit under a tree until Father should call her in to vote. She had closed her eyes, because the bees and birds and crickets sounded so much louder when she did, and it was fun to listen to them and try to tell from which direction each sound came. Soon, perhaps, she would be hearing English sounds. Suddenly a hot little hand was thrust into hers and she opened her eyes in surprise to see Hetty gazing earnestly into her face.
“Caddie, I’m going to vote like you do, did you know that?”
“How do you know how I’m going to vote?” asked Caddie. “We’re not supposed to tell.”
“Oh, I could guess that,” said Hetty gravely. “You like it here better than any place, and so do I. I want to be an American.”
Suddenly Caddie gave the round cheek a kiss. She had not remembered to kiss Hetty for a long time.
“Hetty,” she said, “no matter whether we go to England or stay in Wisconsin, let’s be better chums, shall we?”
At four o’clock they went into the parlor and Father gave them all slips of paper exactly alike. There were pen and ink on the table beside the big Bible, and each member of the family wrote something on his or her slip, dried it, folded it, and placed it somewhere in the Bible. Father and Mother had slips of paper like the children, and they did the same. Minnie took longest, because she had only just learned how to print and it had taken Hetty most of the morning to teach her how to print “Go” and “Stay.” But everyone waited quietly until she had finished.
“She must be writing ‘Stay,’ ” whispered Hetty into Caddie’s ear. “She can’t do s and y very fast. ‘Go’ wouldn’t take her half so long, unless she’s forgotten how.”
Caddie’s heart began to beat more quickly. What if Minnie did vote ‘Stay”? Hetty had voted to stay. That would make five on their side! Of course Clara and Mother would be on the other side, and no one knew what Father would vote. Caddie knew that Mother’s and Father’s and even Clara’s vote would count for more than theirs, because they were only the “young ones.” Nevertheless for the first time today she began to hope. She found herself shivering with excitement.
Father took up the big Bible and looked through it until he had found eight slips of paper. He unfolded the first paper and in a low, clear voice read: “Stay.”
One by one three more slips were unfolded and each one said “Stay.”
“Those are ours, I guess,” whispered Hetty, but Caddie squeezed her hand and said “Hush!” for Father was unfolding the fifth slip of paper.
“Go,” read Father in the same steady voice.
Tom and Warren shuffled their feet restlessly. Tom seemed to hear Annabelle’s sweet voice saying: “Practicing up to be little lords and ladies,” and he kicked out viciously at a rag rug which his restless feet had scuffed into a roll.
Father unfolded the last three papers quickly and looked at them. Then he read them out: “Stay—stay—stay.”
“Hooray!” yelled Warren.
But nobody else spoke for a moment. The solemnity of the occasion still held them spellbound.
“There is only one vote to go,” said Father slowly.
“That one’s mine!” cried Clara. “Give it here and I’ll tear it up. I don’t want to go to England either!”
“But, Harriet,” said Father gravely, taking Mother’s hand, “you wanted to go, my dear. Are you doing this for my sake?”
“No, Johnny, I did it all for myself. We’re all so happy here, and we might be wretched there. I never knew how much I loved it here until I had to choose—better than England. . . better than Boston! Home is where you are, Johnny!” Suddenly she burst into tears and flung herself into Mr. Woodlawn’s arms.
“Hattie! Hattie! My little Harriet!” cried Father, holding her close and kissing her.
The children stood around with gaping eyes and mouths. Stranger even than an inheritance from England it was, to see Mother crying and Father kissing her.
24. Travelers Return
It seemed to Caddie Woodlawn that she had never known a more beautiful autumn than the one which followed. Goldenrod and asters bloomed yellow and purple and lavender along the side of every road, and swept in bright waves across the fields to the woods. In the woods the oaks put on their gayest colors. Every shade of red they flung against the clear blue sky, from a soft pinkish lavender to deepest crimson, and the silver birches trembled and shivered in their thinning gold.
Perhaps it was not really a more beautiful autumn than many others had been. Perhaps the difference was in Caddie herself. Certainly she saw things now with wide-open eyes, and Wisconsin had never seemed so sweet to her as now, since she had been in danger of losing it.
One day the Indians came back, and John rode in at the gate and left his pony in the barnyard. Mother had just baked apple pie again, and John came in and sat at the kitchen table and ate. He had no words to tell them of the strange, far wilderness where he had been, what game he had caught, what leafy trails mottled with sunshine he had traveled, what portages and shining lakes he had seen. All he said was “John him back,” and ate his pie in silence. But something of the beauty and mystery of far-off places hung about him, and Caddie was glad that she was there to greet him.
His dog sniffed curiously about his legs and moved uneasily back and forth between his master and Caddie. To whom did he belong? To the little girl who had nursed his lame foot and fed and petted him? Or to the tall, brown man who smelled of buckskin and birch smoke and all the strange, wild things that crept and scampered in the woods?
When John had eaten, he took from his bag a pair of moccasins, decorated with the brightly dyed quills of porcupine, and held them out to Caddie. They were just her size and very beautiful.
“Oh, John!” she cried. “Thank you! Thank you!” But John had nothing more to say. He spoke in deeds. He took his scalp belt, grunted to his dog, and mounted his pony.
But now John’s dog was confronted with a problem. He ran a little way with his master, then he came back and gazed,
whining, into Caddie’s face. Caddie was irresolute, too. If she put her arms around him and patted him, she knew that he would stay. She summoned up her courage.
“Go!” she cried, pointing to John. “Go with your master!” The dog gave her a long, questioning look, and then he turned and trotted away behind the Indian pony.
“And so that’s that,” said Caddie softly to herself, and she was a little sad and a little glad.
But there were other travelers making their way through the wilderness to the Woodlawn farm. The circuit rider had turned his horse that way again, and he was thinking: “Baked beans and brown bread on Saturday night, and news of Boston again. Soon I’ll be at the Woodlawns’!”
Still another traveler had been on his way for months now. He had no steamboat tickets; he could not ask nor understand directions. He only knew that his nose and his heart were keeping him headed in the right direction. He was footsore and muddy and full of burrs. Sometimes he was hungry and heartsick and filled with despair, but he knew that he must get home. Sometimes he begged rides on boats similar to the boat which had carried him away. Sometimes people fed him, and he licked their hands, but he would never stay. Sometimes he caught rabbits or game birds for his food, and trotted through a tangled wilderness, lying at night beneath the stars to lick his weary feet and sleep. One day he trotted into the farmyard—so thin, so dirty, so footsore, and covered with burrs!
But Caddie Woodlawn knew him.
“Nero!” she cried. “Nero! Our own dog!” and she sat right down where she was and took him in her arms and rocked him back and forth, her bright head pressed against the dog’s rough coat. Nero yelped with joy and cried and licked her hands. Everybody ran out to see them, and it was the eighth wonder of the world that Nero had come home. They fed and washed and combed him, and in a week or so he looked very much like the dog which Uncle Edmund had taken away with him so long ago. To the end of his days Nero was a sheepdog, for never again did anyone try to educate him.