11 God’s fields
I don’t know how old I was that early morning when I awakened with a start, and knew at once that something was wrong in the house. It was so unearthly quiet. Ordinarily, at this hour, mamma would be banging about in the kitchen, scraping the breakfast pots, or rubbing away on the washboard. Then, too, little brother, who of late had cried so much in a thin wailing voice, wasn’t in his cradle, nor making the least sound, wherever he was. That was queer, I thought, staring at the empty cradle, and straining my ears for the familiar sound. Sitting there on the edge of the bed, it seemed to me that the silence thickened about me, pressed in on me like a September fog swirling in from damp brown marshes, and the chill of it raised sharp pinpricks on my bare arms and legs. I was being foolish, I knew. The makebelieve side of my mind was playing tricks on me. It was what I had been told would happen unless I mended my wool-gathering ways. With an effort of will I wriggled forward on the bed, reaching out for my clothes on a near-by chair. And then, more frightening than the silence, came a sound that almost stopped my heart.
It was a strangled cry, that hurt to hear because it was so quickly suppressed, smothered in painful, muffled weeping. Petrified, I sat there clutching my clothes, waiting the world’s end. For that was mamma weeping. My cheerful, energetic mamma, whose eyes had a way of twinkling at you even through the misty vapours of the washtub, and who always found a laugh to heal my childish tears. Then, in further confirmation that my small world was sorely amiss, I heard papa’s voice, low and indistinct, but with some quality so pitiful vibrating through it that my breath caught in my throat. Gathered in a lump that threatened to choke me. Oh, something was very, very wrong, since papa was home on this shiny summer morning, for I knew he was not sick. But now I must find out for myself, take my share in the terrifying mystery. Oh, hurry, hurry, I said to my fingers, which were suddenly all thumbs as they worked at buttonholes now too small for the buttons. I wanted to rush out to that grief-stricken room, to throw myself on mamma’s breast, to comfort and be comforted. That was what I wanted. Yet, when I had dressed at last, I dared not open the excluding door. No, I dared not. With my hand on the knob, and my heart beating in my throat, I somehow understood that those tears and hesitant commiserations were not for me to look upon. I would go, instead, to the front room, and wait for the melancholy sounds to subside.
When I slipped into the small parlour (which was, of course, no real parlour such as the minister had, but just the room where mamma’s chest of drawers, her black rocker, a braided mat, and a table with flowering plants gave an air of mild formality) and had shut the door behind me, I beheld a thing that made me rub my eyes. In the middle of the room, supported by two chairs, was the loveliest white bed. I assumed that it was a bed, although so tiny and narrow, for little brother was sleeping in it. He was sleeping so sweetly that I almost feared to breathe as I stole forward on tiptoe for a better look at this strange white resting-place.
Who shall say how knowledge comes to a child? There was nothing but innocent curiosity in my mind as I drew nearer on silent, cautious feet, and yet, all at once, I was filled with the startling consciousness that here was no ordinary sleep. Never before had little brother slept in such waxen quietude, his tiny hands utterly at rest on his small bosom. Strange, inviolate sleep! Strange, silent little face, that not even the weaving light from the window stirred from its graven peace. What was here I could not understand. I none the less comprehended it was not for me to spy upon. Little brother had acquired some special significance as remote as the stars and too deep for curiosity. He was so beautiful, lying there in his snowy bed, that my whole breast ached, and I envied him a little.
Quietly I crept to the window, and noted with astonishment that, just as on other days, the local boys were playing in the muddy pool by the corner pump. Nothing was changed in the street. There, every familiar activity proceeded as was usual. Like puppies at play, the boys pushed and pummelled each other, their bare feet splashing through the saffron water. A woman in a trailing black skirt hurried by, a wicker market basket on her stout red arm. The baker in his red cart rumbled through the ruts, and the postman, cheerily whistling, plodded on. Nothing at all in this outer shell of the world was the least affected, although the inner citadel trembled around me.
I don’t know how long I had hovered there, mutely miserable, when papa came in. ‘Come, child,’ he said, ‘you must dress.’ An odd command, surely, for had I not already accomplished that vexatious feat? Could he not see that even my dress was neatly buttoned, and my shoe-laces tied? The look on his face, grave and weary, held me silent. Meekly, I followed into the kitchen, where the smell of coffee enheartened me a little. Then, too, I saw that mamma was not crying now. She sat by the stove, her fine, restless hands for once idle in her lap. She did not look at me, however. Dressed in her dark green alpaca Sunday gown, she sat, straightly and still, with eyes fixed on some inner mystery that left me worlds apart.
We were going somewhere, it seemed. I dared not ask where. I dared not so much as wriggle when papa, unaccustomed to such a task, tried his best to comb my hair, and cruelly pulled the snarls. When he fetched the red cashmire dress from the closet I put it on without a murmur. I even ate a dish of hated porridge because he said I must. It was just as I finished that a knock on the door came as a welcome deliverance, and a big man in a frock coat entered with his hat in his hand. He nodded at papa, and, bowing a little, addressed mamma in a kind, solemn voice.
‘I wish I were here on a brighter errand,’ he said, ‘that there was something I could say—but what are words? It is hard—hard.’
‘Thank you, Mr. Bardal,’ mother answered, in a cold small voice. ‘We are ready, as you see.’
We went out and there at the door stood a hack with two black horses switching their gleaming tails. ‘Papa—papa,’ I whispered in rising elation that instantly died when he touched his lips for silence. It was all beyond comprehension. Here were we, who never went abroad in style, about to ride forth in a fine carriage such as the rich folk used for pleasure, and not one word of joy to be said. One by one, we climbed in and took our places, and then—astonishingly true—the tall stranger brought out little brother’s bed, now completely covered with a crinkly velvet lid, and set it between us. Then the horses were off, stepping daintily as ladies over the rutted road.
There was so much I wanted to ask, so many confusing thoughts crowding my troubled mind, but as neither parent seemed even remotely aware of my presence I fell to watching the streets. Strange streets, full of sound and movement, interesting enough in their fashion, for even then the panorama of human beings pouring from an unknown past to an unguessed future intrigued me. Yet all this was quickly forgotten when the noisy streets gave way to an open road. No more ugly houses; no more cluttered shops; no more hasting, harried people. As far as the eye could travel, green fields flowed on and on under a cloudless sky toward a far, blue horizon.
It was the prairie in its sweetest dress, the tall grasses stirring in a little wind, with yellow daisies and shy blue flowers nodding as we passed. It was the prairie as I was always to love it, breathing something fine and free that stole into my heart. It lay there under the amber summer sun, so big and so beautiful that I thought God must have made it in some gentle moment for His own White Company—for the angels that walked the earth by night.
The fancy so pleased me that I could hardly believe my eyes when this broidered carpet of green was rudely broken by a high iron fence. An ugly, chilling enclosure, wherein lay rows and rows of wooden crosses and cold white stones. And here the horses stopped. The tall man, more grave than ever, lifted out the little bed, and mamma and papa stepped down from the carriage. For the first time that morning mamma took note of me.
‘Stay where you are, child,’ she said. ‘Your shoes are thin, and the ground is damp.’
I did not want to enter that place of stones, yet the tears leaped to my eyes. I wanted to run into those wide, green fields, where the variegated flowers waved in the sunlight. I wanted so passionately to set my feet on that soft, sun-drenched carpet rolling away to the blue, that, when I was left, I buried my face in my hands to shut out the beauty I might not share.
I think the tall, grave stranger must have dearly loved children, and read their hearts aright. I think he understood my infant misery, and quickly guessed the source of its hurt. I like so to believe, for after a little he returned to the carriage with a handful of prairie flowers.
‘There you are, little one,’ he smiled, slipping into my hands the first bit of loveliness for which my soul thirsted. Dear, thoughtful heart! What, to him, was a simple, kindly gesture, soon forgotten, was to me a precious gift, treasured throughout the years.
All the way home I hugged those lowly flowers to my breast—more sweet by far than any garden blooms, for the dreams of the great green fields enveloped them. In their little faces I read a thousand star-born mysteries, and in their faint perfume found something exquisite and fairy fashioned. They so absorbed me that I scarcely wondered why little brother had been left behind. It was not until we were home again, and mamma, grey and tired, had set the table for coffee, that the old anxiety returned to vex me. Dark questions flocked to my mind, a dozen unanswered mysteries. Something restrained me. I could only stand like a stick, clutching my flowers, ignored and forgotten, so it seemed.
Papa, rousing from his own painful musings, noticed me. He tried to smile, and the effort hurt me—as the sight of the sharp cold fence in that lovely green waste had hurt me.
‘Poor little Lalla. Give me the flowers,’ he said. ‘We must put them in water, or they will die.’
They will die! They will die! The words shot through my child consciousness, tipped with terrible meaning. They will die! The words had been meaningless heretofore. Now I understood. Oh yes, I understood, and with a little cry I thrust my treasure into papa’s hands and fled into a corner. I could not have said what hurt me so deeply, nor explained that the feeling in my heart was a darker sister of the odd pain that always assailed me when I watched the sun go down on golden wings in the west. I just knew that, whereas a moment ago I wanted to be remembered, to be asked to fetch a cup, or the spoons, or the bread from the pantry, I now wished to be left in my corner to face alone this strange new understanding.
But when I had gone to bed, and my prayers were ended, I pulled the sheet up over my face, and cried in the silent way l had. I cried for the flowers that were already dying when I hugged them to my breast. And I cried that little brother and I had not been left together in the beautiful quiet of God’s fields. I cried until my old grey cat, being cold, came stepping softly over the bed, and nestled in my bosom.
