Another cowardly note. Sam Slater was afraid to face her father. Should she tear it to bits like the former one? No, this time she did not dare. Sam Slater was really angry this time. He would not let things slide as he did before. Her father must know.
She folded the note carefully. She found her father at the pump on the back porch. She waited till he dried his face and hands on the roller towel. She studied his face while he read the note, and she saw it turn grave.
“Pa …” she began uncertainly, “do you jest love a ruckus, like Ma said?”
“Now, sugar,” he said, tipping up her chin, “don’t you get worried, a weensy gal like you, no bigger’n a hummin’ bird. Don’t you know your Pa can take care of this?”
“He’ll git his shotgun, Pa …”
Pa laughed. “Want to go to town with me today?” he asked. “We mustn’t forget our strawberries. And there’s two to three barrels of oranges Buzz picked. Got to ship ’em to them Yankees up north.”
“But you jest purely can’t go away and leave things today, Pa,” said Birdie. “Something might could happen.”
“No harm in broad daylight,” said Pa. “Cowards like him only work at night.”
Birdie tried to feel comforted, but she could not get over her uneasiness. She was glad to have the chance to go to town.
There were not many strawberries to pick that morning, as the end of the season was at hand. The oranges had been packed the day before. Pa was in a hurry to start, so Birdie went just as she was—with her feet bare, and her sunbonnet.
Pa said it was not worth taking half a crate of strawberries to the depot for shipping. So Birdie stood at the corner by the square and sold them to passers-by. When she saw Miss Liddy coming, she wished she had put on her shoes and stockings and worn her Sunday hat.
“Oh, here’s the Strawberry Girl!” said Miss Liddy. She bought two quarts. “Where’s your wagon and your bell? I thought you were going to ride around like old Janey Pokes!”
“Pa said standin’ at the corner was better, ma’am.” Birdie smiled. It was always nice to see Miss Liddy.
“Any more fence cutting out your way?” inquired Miss Liddy.
“No ma’am,” said Birdie.
“Fighting never settles anything,” said Miss Liddy.
“That’s what Ma always says.”
“I’m glad your father and Mr. Slater have come to their senses and are good friends again,” said Miss Liddy.
“Yes ma’am,” said Birdie.
“I felt sure a fine man like your father would be a good influence on poor Mr. Slater,” said Miss Liddy.
Birdie wondered what Miss Liddy would think if she knew that Pa had killed three of Slater’s hogs the night before. She wondered if Slater were in town, and if he and Pa would meet somewhere and fight again. She wondered if Slater would beat the starch out of Pa this time. No—Pa was bigger and stronger. But Miss Liddy was right—fighting never settled anything.
A woman stopped and Birdie had to think about strawberries again. Other people passed and most of them bought. They all called her Strawberry Girl and said the berries were extra good for so late in the season.
Pa came just as she was selling the last quart. She did not have to wait for him. He did not have a black eye, so she guessed he had not been fighting. Slater must have stayed at home today. Had he made trouble there?
When they got home, the first thing they saw was that Ma had not plowed up the strawberry rows after all. She had said she would do the plowing and keep an eye on the place.
They went in the kitchen and supper was not ready. Dixie was just peeling the potatoes. There sat Ma on a chair doing nothing. She had her apron lifted up to her face and she was crying in it. Dovey and Bunny were crying too.
Birdie had never seen Ma cry before, so she knew something dreadful had happened.
“What’s the matter, wife?” Pa put his hand on her shoulder and spoke kindly.
“Let’s go back home to Caroliny,” sobbed Ma. “We can’t never live peaceable here in Floridy, where there’s sich goin’s-on …”
“What happened?” asked Pa. “Has …”
“Semina’s dead!” announced Ma.
“Now we ain’t got nary mule,” said Dovey.
“I found her lyin’ dead out in the pasture,” said Dan, “I poked her with a stick but she wouldn’t move.”
“Poor Semina!” said Pa. “Her balkin’ days are over. Wal—she was bound to die sometime. Can’t expect a mule to live forever.”
Ma dropped her apron and stood up. “Slater done it,” she said.
“You shore?” asked Pa, frowning.
“Dan and I went out to the pasture to git her for the plowin’,” explained Ma, “and I found little piles of feed out there, covered with Paris green. Semina et some of it and hit killed her. She was poisoned. I saw Slater hangin’ over the fence. He yelled out: ‘Poison.’ I thought he was talkin’ about the flour I put on the strawberry plants that time to scare off his cows. I didn’t know what he meant till I found Paris green all over pore Semina’s mouth.”
“In broad daylight!” exclaimed Pa. “He’s a worse skunk than I thought.”
“Oh, why did you kill them hogs?” cried Ma. “As long as you go on payin’ him back, we’ll never be able to live peaceable. It will jest be one ruckus after another. He can always think of somethin’ worse to do.”
“I purely can’t let him walk right over me,” said Pa. He put his arm around Ma’s shoulders. “One day, all this trouble will come to an end,” he assured her.
“Jest when we thought we was gittin’ ahead …” said Ma.
“We are gittin’ ahead,” said Pa. “We done well with our oranges, and if we fertilize ’em good, we’ll do better next year. We made more on our strawberries than ary person I met in town. Tomorrow we’ll plow up the field and get it ready to reset it with new plants. Next year we’ll make twice as much.”
“How can we plow without Semina?” wailed Birdie.
“We still got a horse,” said Pa. “Good thing I took Osceola to town today. It might could a been the horse got poisoned. I’ll git us a new mule next time I go to town—trade in a cow or two. There’s always a way to git ahead when you’ve got a mind to!”
They all went out to the pasture and looked at the white mule lying stretched out on the ground. Buzz and Pa dug a big hole to bury her.
“Pore ole Semina!” said Birdie.
CHAPTER XII
Grass Fire
“HER NAME’S SPECKLE,” SAID Birdie. “She comes when I call.” A speckled hen walked across the porch, followed by ten baby chicks. “Here, you come here, Speckle!”
The hen was quite tame. It jumped on Birdie’s knee, then climbed to her shoulder. She held some grains of corn in her hand and the hen gobbled them up. Then it began to peck her ear. “Hey! Don’t do that! Don’t hurt me!”
Essie and Zephy were friendly again. They had come to play with Dovey and Bunny.
“Once Speckle got a cold,” said Birdie. “So I rubbed her throat every day. I poured medicine down till she got well.”
“Speckle sleeps in Birdie’s room,” said Dovey.
“I leave the door open,” said Birdie, “so she can come in and go out when she wants to. I made her a nest on a pile of rags under my bed, and she laid an egg there every day.”
“And hatched ’em into biddies?” asked Zephy.
“Yes, she sot on ’em for three weeks,” said Birdie. “Now I got ten biddies. I’ll gentle ’em too, just like Speckle.”
Mrs. Boyer was starting a fire under the washpot in the yard.
“Birdie,” she called, “go help Buzz with that painting or he’ll never git done. You can work from the stepladder and do the low part.”
“Let’s git our play-dollies,” said Dovey. The children walked round the house, and the hen and chicks wandered off.
The time had come to paint the house, though Pa had bought the paint months before. Birdie climbed up on the
ladder and set to work. She slapped her paintbrush up and down noisily. It was good to see one plank after another change from its weathered gray to a pearly white. No one would recognize the old Roddenberry house when they got through. Soon it would be called the Boyers’ white house. How pretty the box-flowers would look on the porch all white and shiny!
“Gettin’ biggety, ain’t ye?”
It was Shoestring Slater who spoke. He stood at the foot of the ladder and gave it a shake.
“Go ’long!” cried Birdie. “Git away ’fore I drop a bucket of paint down your neck!”
“Think you’re better’n other people, don’t ye!” the boy went on.
But just then Buzz came round the house with the high ladder, so Shoestring disappeared.
In the middle of the morning, Buzz was called away to help his father. Birdie kept on painting. Her arms ached from lifting the heavy brush. Her legs ached from climbing, up and down the ladder. Her face, arms, legs and dress were spattered with white paint. The side of the house seemed endlessly large and the sun was hot.
No one was around. The children had gone into the palmetto tunnel, where it was cool, to play.
Suddenly Birdie smelled smoke. At first she thought it was the fire under the washpot. Then, from the top of the ladder, she noticed the pine smell and saw a cloud of smoke rising in the flatwoods pasture. Was it a forest or a grass fire? Perhaps turpentine and lumbermen had set it to drive out snakes, so the Negro workers would not be afraid to slash the pine trees and set buckets for turpentine. Perhaps cattlemen had set it, to burn off the dead grass so the cattle could get at the new growth.
Birdie shaded her eyes with her hand and studied about it. She saw that the fire was between the Slaters’ and the Boyers’ places. The turpentine men worked farther to the north. Cattlemen—well, if it were set by cattlemen, it could be nobody but Sam Slater. He was the only real cattleman around. All the other neighbors were farmers. They had farms and a bunch of cattle too, but not a big herd like Slater’s.
Birdie’s face grew serious as she watched. Why should she think somebody had set the fire on purpose? Why was she always so suspicious? Fires often started by accident. Maybe somebody built a bonfire and forgot to put it out.
Anyhow it did not concern her. She turned her back and began to paint the house. She worked fast, thinking how pretty the house would look when it was done.
Then she smelled the smoke again. She dropped the paintbrush in the bucket, as she saw a billowy cloud of smoke sweeping through the piney woods and all through the pasture. It was a grass fire, but the pine trees were burning too. It was moving forward rapidly. She could hear it popping and crackling.
“Ma! Pa! Dixie, Buzz, Dan!” she called. She jumped off the ladder and raced round the house, shouting: “The piney woods is afire!”
Pa and Buzz were nowhere to be seen. Ma and Dixie were washing clothes in the backyard. Dixie stood over the wash-pot, stirring the boiling clothes with a long stick. Ma leaned over the block—a big stump about three feet high—where she had laid some of the dirtiest of the men’s clothes, wetted and soaped. She pounded them vigorously with the battling stick. Several tubs and a trough, made from a hollowed-out log, stood near by, filled with water.
Ma and Dixie did not need to be called twice. When they saw the cloud of smoke approaching the house, they seized buckets, dipped them in the tubs of water, and sped out to the pasture, running.
“Get sacks from the crib!” called Ma. “And wet ’em! You, Dan, pump more water and keep the tubs filled!”
“Where’s Pa? Where’s Buzz? Where they gone to?” wailed Birdie.
Nobody knew. They all ran out to fight the fire. It was close now and coming steadily closer. The grass was burning, setting fire to clumps of palmettos. A loud swoosh and noisy crackle burst out as each new clump of palmetto flared up in flames.
They poured water on the fire, but it did little or no good. The dampened sacks were better. They beat the burning grass with them and thought they were making headway, until they looked and saw that the line of fire was only moving off in other directions. It was about to encircle the house.
“The house!” cried Birdie. “The house will burn!”
All their work to make a new home would be lost if it went up in smoke. Birdie felt sick inside. Would it never get its coat of shiny white paint?
“Birdie!” gasped Ma. “We got to git help. Do it come closer to the house, we can’t save it. Get on the horse and ride to the Slaters’ and ask ’em all to come quick!”
Birdie flew. She threw herself on Osceola’s back and began pounding him on the rump. The horse, sensing danger, picked up his heels. But he would not ride through the smoke. He kept turning and backing. Birdie chose a roundabout course, skirting the flames, and rode as fast as she could to the Slater house.
She saw Sam and Gus and Joe sitting on the front porch. She began to yell, “Fire! Fire! Come and put out the fire!”
They could not help but hear her.
They could not help but see and smell the smoke. They must have done so before she came riding up.
But they did not move. They sat on their slat-backed chairs, tipped against the wall of the house, as if they had not a care in the world.
Birdie pulled up her horse at their front steps. “The piney woods is all afire!” she cried. “We need your help mighty bad! Do hit get any worse, our house will burn up!” In imagination she could see the Roddenberry house a heap of black and charred ashes.
“A grass fire’s a mighty good thing in the spring,” said Sam Slater slowly. “Hit’s good for greenin’ up the woods for the cattle!”
“But our house is burnin' up!” cried Birdie in distress.
The men did not move. They looked at each other and smiled. Then Joe Slater said in a drawling voice, “We’ll be over later!’.’
Birdie knew they would never come.
“Where’s Shoestring?” she asked. She had a vague hope that he might help her, if she begged him hard enough.
“Dunno,” said Joe.
“Somewheres around,” said Gus.
Sam did not speak. He just smiled.
“You’re the meanest man in the world, Sam Slater!” burst out Birdie. Her anger was a flaming thing as hot as the fire itself.
“Shet your mouth, gal young un!” muttered Slater. “Speak mannerly to your elders!”
“Anybody that won’t help, but leaves fire fightin’ to womenfolks …” Birdie went on.
“I’ll go help!” Mrs. Slater rushed out from the door. “I’ll go help my neighbors when they’re in trouble!”
“Woman, you come right back here!” ordered Sam Slater. His wife turned and went obediently back into the house.
Birdie slapped her horse and rode off. “The meanest man in the world!” she kept saying. “He jest wants to burn us out!” Then she remembered the note. Of course that was it. “Will git you yet iffen we got to burn you out!” it had said. She understood now. Slater had been determined ever since the first, to drive them back to the place they had come from. He was trying to burn them out, like he said.
It was while she was galloping home that Birdie remembered the little girls. They were playing in the palmetto tunnel.
The palmetto clumps were so large and dense, they completely shut out the sun, and the children had made rooms under them. They liked to play house there, it was so shady and cozy. They had found old boards to make seats and tables, and beds for their play-dollies. They had places to keep all their treasures—old bottles and scraps of broken glass and dishes.
Essie and Zephy Slater were there now with Dovey and Bunny.
They would not be able to see the fire or smell the smoke. The fire would trap them. The dry bristling palmetto leaves would burn like lightwood. Birdie’s heart quaked. No one would think of the children. They would all be so busy fighting fire, even Buzz and Pa, when they came.
Birdie pounded Osceola and rode faster. When she reached home, she pulled up the h
orse and stared. The house was still standing, unharmed. The stepladder still stood by the outer wall, half of which shone pearly white in the midday sun. Pa and Buzz had come back and she saw with relief that they had the fire under control. It had moved far over to the right, beyond the farm buildings, into the scrub.
“The Slaters purely won’t come, Pa!” cried Birdie. “He set the fire hisself and was tryin’ to burn us out!” Then Birdie saw that the fire was burning hot and crackling furiously round the dump of palmettos, the beginning of the tunnel.
“Pa!” she screamed hoarsely. “The children! They’re playin’ in the palmettos!”
They all ran. Pa brought an armful of wet sacks. Buzz carried the children out of the tunnel one at a time, wet sacks thrown over them. Ma poured water on the burning roots.
Dovey and Bunny were scared but unharmed. Essie and Zephy cried from fright. They were very dirty and black from the smoke. Birdie took them all out on the back porch and washed them clean. The fire moved on and the danger was over, though many pine trees kept burning for days and the smell of pine filled the air.
Ma sent Birdie to take the Slater girls home.
“I’ll look see can I find Speckle and her biddies first,” said Birdie. When she could not find them in the house or the yard, she decided to hunt for them in the woods on her way to the Slaters.
It was an impossible task to try and locate a hen and her chicks in the burned-off woods. Birdie watched until Essie and Zephy reached their front porch safely. She had no wish to go nearer their house. She never wanted to see any of the Slaters again.
She followed a pig trail, looking for Speckle. Through the woods she came upon dead snake’s, small animals and ground-nesting birds that had been burned in the fire. She walked on awhile and then heard voices. A crowd of people had gathered and were talking. She hurried through the blackened grass to the place where they were. It looked familiar and yet she scarcely recognized it.