Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer Part 12

Sleep pretty wantons, do not cry, And I will sing a lullabye."

Another moment, and the arms had fallen, each girl faced her opposite partner, and then linking hands together they were rocking a cradle as they joyously warbled:

"Baby is a sailor boy, swing, cradle, swing; Sailing is the sailor's joy, swing, cradle, swing."

Now the girls were waltzing gaily down the room and back again to place, where this time they formed in rows of three in each line. A crash of chords from the piano, and each girl stepped forward with outstretched left hand, and made the motion of taking something with the right hand from the closed left, and casting it on the ground, as they repeated clearly and loudly:

"Good flax and good hemp to have of her own, In May, a good housewife will see that it is sown.

And afterwards trim it to serve in a need, The fimble to spin, the card from her reel."

Yes, they were sowing hemp as their great-grand-mothers had done hundreds of years ago-a sign of a thrifty housewife. Now came three claps of the hand and again the girls swung into two facing lines. Each performer now lightly put forward the right foot, poised on the ball of the left one, while making the motion as of moving the treadle of a spinning-wheel, as with lifted hands she twisted the flax, stopping every moment to moisten one finger in an imaginary cup fastened to the distaff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen.]

"Polly Green, her reel," announced Helen as leader of the dance, and then came the old-fas.h.i.+oned couplet softly hummed:

"Count your threads right, If you reel in the night When I am far away."

Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of early days.

Now they are singing:

"Twice a year deplumed may they be In spryngen tyme and harvest tyme,"

as with swift motion each girl pretended to grab up something with her left hand while the right flew up and down with noiseless regularity-plucking a goose for dinner.

The next instant every alternate girl had put her hand over her mouth in the form of a horn and was calling loudly, "Ho, Molly Gray! Hi, Crumple Horn!" This call had barely ceased its musical reverberation when each fair dancer caught up the hem of her ap.r.o.n and, bending forward, with well-simulated deftness was gathering or picking up something from the ground which was quickly thrust into her ap.r.o.n. Another flash of white arms, and each girl had caught up the hem of her neighbor's gown and with a pretended switch was driving her forward while merrily singing:

"Driving in twilight the waiting cows home, With arms full-laden with hemlock boughs, To be traced on a broom ere the coming day From its eastern chamber should dance away."

As the songs and motions ended, the girls filed into line and marched around the room as if carrying muskets, that is, women's muskets, brooms.

Once more in row, each girl pretended she was holding a card with one hand, while drawing another card softly, but swiftly across the first.

This was done with a deft, catchy motion as the girls sing-songed:

"Niddy-noddy, niddy-noddy Two heads on one body."

"Now we are imitating the motions of carding wool," Helen whispered softly to Nathalie. "Niddy-noddy means the old-fas.h.i.+oned hand-reel used in the days when there were no machines."

The Pioneers had finished carding wool and were dancing the Virginia Reel, spinning each other around with the vigor and vim of young hearts as a prelude to the next dance. In this they simulated sewing, taking their st.i.tches with a precision and handiness that rivalled the little maids of Puritan days. With a posture as of holding a wooden frame, while in and out the needle flew, each damsel repeated slowly, with quaint precision:

"Lola Standish is my name.

Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy will, And fill my Hands with such convenient skill As will conduce to Virtue void of shame, And I will give the Glory to thy name."

Only a s.p.a.ce of time and the samplers were dropped, and each girl grew strangely still, with bent head and listening ears. With eyes flaming in a fixed stare she poised an imaginary fowling-piece on her shoulder.

They stood for a moment in this pose as each one present grasped the idea that they were doing the deed that many a Pioneer woman had bravely done in those early days, in the absence of husband keeping guard over the home from the relentless ravages of the red man!

CHAPTER VIII-THE MOTTO, "I CAN"

A few days after the Pilgrim Rally, as Nathalie lay in the hammock dreaming day dreams as she was wont to do, her mother came and seated herself in a low chair near by.

Nathalie turned, and then with a quick movement sat up as she asked anxiously, "Oh, Mother, has anything happened?"

"I should say 'anything' has happened," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed d.i.c.k, who was lounging near, ignoring his mother's gesture to be silent, "for your mother has been chief cook and bottle-washer all day!"

Nathalie, who had been off on a Pioneer demonstration most of the day, showed her dismay as she exclaimed, "Oh, where is Ophelia?"

Mrs. Page's worry lines deepened as she answered, "Oh, she is ill. She has been complaining for some days, and when she begged to be allowed to go home this morning I did not have the heart to refuse her. Poor thing!

she looked the embodiment of woe!"

"But isn't she coming back?" inquired alarmed Nathalie.

"Not for several days," was the answer, as Mrs. Page leaned wearily back in her chair.

"But can't we get some one to help us?" demanded her daughter insistently.

"Dorothy went to the colored settlement, but could not get any one.

Colored people don't like to work in warm weather, and I don't blame them," her mother added in an undertone, "for standing over a fire in this heat is terrible."

"Oh, what shall we do?" thought Nathalie ruefully, as she saw a pile of unwashed dishes confronting her. But a cheery "h.e.l.lo?" caused her to look up to see her friend, with dust-brush in hand, cleaning the window shutters of the neighboring house. With gripping force she suddenly realized how useful Helen was, and the numerous things she managed to do to help her mother, notwithstanding the many hours she was compelled to spend at the stenography school.

Nathalie twisted about in the hammock; somehow it did not seem as comfortable as it did before her mother had come. Her sky visions had departed, and in their place had come the thought that she ought to help her mother. Oh, but dish-was.h.i.+ng was degrading, such greasy work. She glanced down at her slim, white hands as if they would aid her in this argument with self.

"Oh, why do people have to do the very things they hate?" she questioned rebelliously as she arose from her comfortable position and with a long-drawn sigh started to enter the house.

"You have dropped your book!" exclaimed her mother as she stooped and picked up the Pioneer manual that had fallen from Nathalie's lap and handed it to her.

"Thank you," returned the girl and then, with a pang of regret as she noted her mother's weary eyes, she bent and kissed her.

"Oh, I'm so sorry you had to work so hard!" she cried impulsively.

"Isn't there something I can do to help?" She almost wished her mother would say no.

"Not now," replied her mother with a brighter expression than she had worn, "but perhaps you can help me later-when I get dinner."

"All right," returned her daughter with forced cheerfulness. As she entered the hall her eyes were caught by the word "Pioneer" in big, black letters on the manual. Reminded by the name that flaunted itself so determinedly before her, she remembered that she was a Pioneer, that she had taken vows upon herself, and that in order to keep these vows she should do the very things, perhaps, that she hated to do. This new thought jarred her uncomfortably as she hurried up to her room and began to make herself cool and comfortable after a rather strenuous morning spent in trying her hand at the many new interests that had come to her as a Pioneer.

But somehow she was haunted, as it were, by the thought that she was not making a good beginning as a Pioneer; oh, yes, being a Pioneer did not mean all play, or even doing the things that were interesting, or that one liked to do, those were the Director's words that morning. The more one gives up or overcomes in order to do and accomplish the demands made upon her as a Pioneer, the greater the victory. She picked up the manual from the bureau and began to turn its leaves aimlessly, and then she halted, for two very small words held her eyes, "I can!" why, that was the Pioneer motto-the one Lillie Bell had mentioned when she told of the picked chicken. She would read the laws!

"A Girl Pioneer is trustworthy." Oh, Nathalie was sure she was that.

"Helpful," her conscience p.r.i.c.ked sharply. Was she helpful if she didn't try and do all she could to help her mother? "O dear," she ruminated, "I am shying at the first 'overcome.'" She remembered that Mrs. Morrow had said all the disagreeable things that one didn't want to do, but did in the end, were "overcomes."

"Kind-" she heaved a sigh, well, she was afraid she hadn't been very kind the other day when she had answered Lucille so sharply, but she was trying, and the hasty retort would slip out; she would have to put a b.u.t.ton on her lips as her mother often told her.

"Reverent," her religion taught her that. "Happy," not always, for how could one be happy when life had been full of disappointments? Her eyes saddened as she thought of d.i.c.k, who was so patiently waiting for something to turn up, so that he could have the operation on his knee.

Poor fellow! she had felt like crying the other day when she heard him telling how he had written to a law firm in the city in the hope that he could get some copying to do so that he could earn some money.