Sallow

“ Before the bright catkins can be seen the locality of the tree may be known by the loud hum produced by hundreds of pairs of wings. The all but invariable rule among the Willows—as among Oaks, Beech, Birch, Hazel, and Pines—is to depend upon the wind for the transfer of pollen from one tree to the stigmas of another of the same species, but in the Sallow we find a breaking away from what was doubtless the primitive arrangement in all flowering plants, by the bribing with honey of more reliable and less wasteful winged carriers. ”

“ Beyond them, and beyond the amber satin curtains at the long window, I saw the elm boughs arching against a pale gold sunset into which a single swallow was flying. And I remember that swallow as I remember the look, swift, expectant, as if it, also, were flying, that trembled, for an instant, on Sally's face.
"It is George," she said, turning to me with radiant eyes; "George has done this. These are the things he bought, and I wondered so what he would do with them." Then before something in my face, the radiance died out of her eyes. "Would you rather he didn't do it? ”

“ Miles from a railway, miles from the nearest town, only to be reached, unless one went to it by sea, along a most difficult and tortuous road that ended by throwing one down a precipice on to a ferry-boat which took one across the Fal and shot one out at the foot of another precipice,—or so the two hills seemed to Jocelyn and his mother, who had to push their bicycles up them—he considered it the place of places to hide his honeymoon in; to hide, that is, the precious and conspicuous Sally. ”

“ If only the big brown-and-gold bumble bee, humming over the roses, could [67] have droned, ‘Sally, keep away from those mud pies.’ If only the birds, flying high in the sky, could have chirped, ‘Sally, keep away from those mud pies.’ If only Snow White, Sally’s little wooden dove, could have warned her away. But Snow White was fastened to Sally’s window-sill in the front of the house, so of course he couldn’t know what Sally was about. And Buff was asleep on the window-sill, and Tippy was tied in Aunt Bee’s cellar. There was really no one to keep Sally away from those mud pies. ”

“ That’s right, Sally; that is spoken like a child of mine, and a good, thoughtful girl. If the Lord had told you, two years ago, that he would give you all he has sent you in that time, by the way of the Ark, if you would give a couple of skeins [88] of yarn to a fish-hawk, you would have been very glad to have done it. These are all his creatures, and he careth for them, and feeds them all. The robins, in their nests, open their little mouths for God to feed them. ”

“ Sally knows that this is expressed in him, and that he is bent on destruction, although her back is towards him. She feels his hot breath on her neck; she hears a hissing sound from remorseless lips; closer and closer he comes, and his arms are about to close around her, when she falls over a precipice, down, down, into the spreading branches of a tree, where she places her baby safely in a cradle of flowers, and watches the form of their enemy flash, like a glance of light, into the abyss, the yawning mouth of which closes upon him with a snap. ”

“ But he was neither unseen nor unheard, as you will know if we [Pg 528] have not failed in showing the succession of events. Sally never hesitated an instant as she caught sight of the delirious man's involuntary plunge into the green waves that had no terrors for her. She threw off as she ran, fast, fast down the wooden stairway, the only clothes she could get rid of—her hat and light summer cloak—and went straight, with a well-calculated dive, to follow him and catch him as he rose. ”

“ I've been thinking that if that wood was from an old, wrecked vessel, we might perhaps find something on it somewhere that would give us a clue."
"That's so," said Sally. "I hadn't thought of that before."
With this in mind, they entered the cave, lit the candle, seated Genevieve on the chair with a bag of candy in her lap for solace, and proceeded to their task.
"The only way to find anything is just to scrape off all we can of this mold," announced Sally. "You take one side, and I'll take the other and we'll use these sticks. It won't be an easy job." ”

“ When I forget all else in my life, I shall still see Sally sitting motionless, like a painted figure, in the faint, reddish glow of the night-lamp, while above her, and above the little waxen face on her knee, the shadow, of the palm-leaf fan, waved by Aunt Euphronasia, flitted to and fro like the wing of a bat. ”

“ He bent for an instant over the smoking ashes. A great cloud of sweet-smelling smoke rose suddenly; and when it drifted and cleared away, Siddereticus was gone and the Book of the King with him.
"You look as if you'd just waked up," said Sally, coming round the end of the deck-house. "Were you asleep? What a funny smell!" ”

“ On this one point she was like a rock; a polite rock, against which persuasions, though received sweetly and amiably, should beat in vain. So the Duke had the little house fitted up with every known labour-saving appliance, none of which Sally would use because of having been brought up to believe only in elbow-grease, and two bathrooms, one for her and one for Jocelyn; and he attached such importance to these bathrooms, and he insisted so obstinately on their being built, that Sally could only conclude the picks must need a terrible lot of washing. ”

“ They emerged into the sunlight, and Sally carefully closed and concealed the entrance to their secret lair. After the chill of the underground, the warm sunlight was very welcome and they lay lazily basking in its heat and inhaling the odor of the pine-needles. Far above their heads the fish-hawks swooped with their high-pitched piping cry, and two wrens scolded each other in the branches above their heads. Sally sat tailor-fashion, her chin cupped in her two hands, thinking in silence, while Doris, propped against a tree, was explaining the pictures in her new book to Genevieve. ”

“ But where in the world can that place be? 'Right-hand side from the house behind twenty-seven' means nothing at all—to me!"
"Well, it does to me!" suddenly exclaimed Sally, the natural-born treasure-hunter of them all. "Where else could they hide anything so safely as in that cave or tunnel? Nobody would ever suspect in the world! And I somehow don't think it meant the cave. I believe,"—and Sally's voice trembled with eagerness, "—I believe it means somewhere in the tunnel, on the right-hand side as you enter it from the cellar."
"But what about twenty-seven?" demanded Miss Camilla. ”

“ What would her father have said if he had seen her in the night in Laura’s bedroom, among all that lot of silver bottles and brushes{307} and laces and silks, and herself in a thin silk nightgown the colour of skin, making her look stark naked? What would he have said if he had seen her having her breakfast up there as though she were ill,—and such a breakfast, too! Fleshpots, he’d have said; fleshpots. And he would have said, Sally, strong if inaccurate in her Bible, was sure, that she had sold her husband for a mess of fleshpots. ”

“ So Sally disappeared down the companionway, and entered her cabin. Through the porthole she tossed a kiss towards that gleaming strip of sand, then uttered a prayer of pure gratitude, and tried to fall asleep to the lapping of the water against the ship's side.
But sleep would not come in spite of the wave's lullaby. Every nerve vibrated with excitement. As the old Salthaven folk used to say of children so wrought up over the morrow's journey to Boston-town that they were neither fit for food or slumber, she was "journey-proud." ”

“ Sally did not answer, and there was a dead silence in which they could hear the tide gently dashing on the weedy rocks.
"You and I are neither of us what we were then, Sally," said Moses. "We are as different as if we were each another person. We have been trained in another life,—educated by a great sorrow,—is it not so?" ”

“ Mawes,—most painful to Jocelyn, who had a fixed notion, implanted in him early in the decent cover of Almond Tree Cottage, that the truly well-bred were never conspicuous. How unpleasant, how extraordinarily unpleasant when, the morning lesson over and the need for exercise imperative, he went round to the garage to fetch the car, to find on his return the sea-wall opposite their lodgings black with expectant loungers; how unpleasant, how extraordinarily unpleasant to have to hurry Sally into the thing, as if she were the centre figure of a cause célèbre leaving the Law Courts ”

“ Sally gave vent to a chuckle which was entirely unexpected; entirely unexpected by herself, at least.
"Father," she asked, as soon as she had managed to suppress her chuckles, "then could your little lizard fly up high?"
"Yep," he answered; "like a pigeon. Or, more probably, he flew more like a bat than like a pigeon."
"Right up into the tops of the trees?"
"Right up into the topmost branches of the coal trees."
"The coal trees!"
"The coal trees. Fed on the fruit. Large lizards customarily ate furnace coal, middle-sized lizards ate stove coal. Little lizards ate chestnut coal." ”

“ After that, hardly an afternoon went by without young men hurrying through Woodles. Sometimes they were on motor-bicycles, sometimes they were on horses, sometimes they were in cars, but always they hurried. Where did they all come from? Mr. Pinner was astonished, and wondered uneasily whether Sally were not somehow at the bottom of it. But she couldn’t have been, for they never so much as glanced at the shop window, from behind whose jars of bulls’-eyes and mounds of toffee he and Sally secretly observed them. ”

“ The seam was long, straight, and monotonous, and Sally was restless and fidgety; her thread would catch in knots, and when she tried to loosen it, would break, and the needle had to be threaded over. Somehow the work was terribly irksome to her, and the house looked so still and dim and lonesome, and the tick-tock of the kitchen-clock was insufferable, and Sally let her work fall in her lap and looked out of the open window, [Pg 309] far to the open ocean, where a fresh breeze was blowing toward her, and her eyes grew deep and dreamy following the gliding ship sails. ”

“ THE PERIWINKLE FAMILY
That night Sally couldn’t go to sleep.
She tossed and turned in her little white bed. She watched Snow White’s wings move lazily to and fro on the window-sill. She had two drinks of water. But still she couldn’t go to sleep.
‘Mother,’ called Sally, ‘Mother, I can’t go to sleep.’
So Mother came to smooth Sally’s pillow and to tuck in the bed covers that were sadly tumbled and twisted about. ”

“ At that moment Sally came in with the beer, and, having poured out a glass for Philip, went to the other side of the table to pour some out for her father. He put his hand round her waist.
"Did you ever see such a handsome, strapping girl? Only fifteen and she might be twenty. Look at her cheeks. She's never had a day's illness in her life. It'll be a lucky man who marries her, won't it, Sally?" ”

“ And presently all the lustrous shapes are gazing tenderly on Sally's baby-treasure, upon whose tiny feet the cobbler is fitting a pair of shining slippers. A sudden clap of thunder inspires multitudinous images of beauty, all of which presently merge into the sound of falling water, and the air is filled with a myriad slender lines of flashing light. ”

“ Sally came softly in on tiptoe, threw her arms around her, and kissed her, with a half laugh, then bursting into tears, sobbed upon her shoulder.
"Dear Sally, what is the matter?" said Mara, looking up.
"Oh, Mara, I just met Miss Roxy, and she told me"—
Sally only sobbed passionately.
"It is very sad to make all one's friends so unhappy," said Mara, in a soothing voice, stroking Sally's hair. "You don't know how much I have suffered dreading it. Sally, it is a long time since I began to expect and dread and fear. ”

“ Could anybody be doing anything very wrong who had such a splendid car to sit in, and such a respectful and attentive young gentleman driving it?
§
Mr. Pinner disillusioned her.
For many years he hadn’t tasted such quiet happiness, such contentment and well-being, as during the four weeks he had been without Sally. Her marriage to a gentleman, to one of the scholars from Cambridge, was known to every one in the village, and he was proud of it, very proud. Sally, besides having been handed over safe and sound to some one else’s care, had risen in life and was now a lady. ”

“ We call them the Swallows because they migrate so much. Baby Swallow is very pretty, isn't she? and, by-the-by, she's rather afraid that you may be worrying about that riddle."
"Me—I?"
This was the moment for which I had been waiting, but the wee lieutenant took cover, hunting his dessert fork on the floor long after Maria had brought up reinforcements.
"Why, yes, she ought to have said 'dumb,' not 'deaf.' I've forgotten the answer—something about 'gesticulate.' She's coming to tea with me to-morrow. Would you like me to ask her what the answer is, and write it down for you?" ”

“ If she went from me now, it would be always the Sally of that year of poverty, of suffering, that I had lost. In the future she would haunt me, not in her sea-green gown, with the jewels on her bosom, but in her gingham apron with the sleeves rolled back from her reddened arms and the jagged scar from the burn disfiguring her flesh. ”

“ Those gossiping, lying reports are always exaggerated. They are dreadful exaggerations,—they frighten a sick person into the grave; but you have good sense and a hopeful, cheerful temper,—you must see and know how things are. Mara is not so very—very"—He held Sally's hand and looked at her with a burning eagerness. "Say, what do you think of her?"
"We all think that we cannot long keep her with us," said Sally. "And oh, Moses, I am so glad you have come." ”