More Jonathan Papers Part 9

It might be said that, having undertaken to raise turkeys, we had to expect them to act like turkeys. But there were other interruptions in our evenings where our share of responsibility was not so plain. For example, one wet evening in early June we had kindled a little fire and I had brought the lamp forward. The pump was quiescent, the little turkeys were all tucked up in the turkey equivalent for bed, the farm seemed to be cuddling down into itself for the night. We sat for a moment luxuriously regarding the flames, listening to the sighing of the wind, feeling the sweet damp air as it blew in through the open windows. I was considering which book it should be and at last rose to possess myself of two or three.

Shhh! said Jonathan, a warning finger raised.

I stood listening.

I dont hear anything, I said.

Shh! he repeated. There!

This time, indeed, I heard faint bird-notes.

Young robins! He sprang up and made for the back door with long strides.

I peered out through the window of the orchard room, but saw only the reflection of the firelight and the lamp. Suddenly I heard Jonathan whistle and I ran to the back porch. Blackness pressed against my eyes.

Where are you? I called into it.

The whistle again, quite near me, apparently out of the air.

Bring a lantern, came a whisper.

I got it and came back and down the steps to the path, holding up my light and peering about in search of the voice.

Where are you? I cant see you at all.

Right herelookhereup! The voice was almost over my head.

I searched the dark ma.s.ses of the treeoh, yes! the lantern revealed the heel of a shoe in a crotch, and above,yes, undoubtedly, the rest of Jonathan, stretched out along a limb.

Oh! What are you doing up there?

Get me a long stickhoeclothes-poleanything I can poke with. Quick! The cats up here. I can hear her, but I cant see her.

I found the rake and reached it up to him. From the dark beyond him came a distressed mew.

Now the lantern. Hang it on the teeth. He drew it up to him, then, rake in one hand and lantern in the other, proceeded to squirm out along the limb.

Now I see her.

I saw her tooa huddle of yellow, crouched close.

Ill have her in a minute. Sh.e.l.l either have to drop or be caught.

And in fact this distressing dilemma was already becoming plain to the marauder herself. Her mewings grew louder and more frequent. A few more contortions brought the climber nearer his victim. A little judicious urging with the rake and she was within reach. The rake came down to me, and a long, wild mew announced that Jonathan had clutched.

I dont see how youre going to get down, I said, mopping the rain-mist out of my eyes.

Watch me, panted the contortionist.

I watched a curious ma.s.s descend the tree, the lantern, swinging and jerking, fitfully illumined the pair, and I could see, now a knee and an ear, now a hand and a yellow furry shape, now a white collar, nose, and chin. There was a last, long, scratching slide. I s.n.a.t.c.hed the lantern, and Jonathan stood beside me, holding by the scruff of her neck a very much frazzled yellow cat. We returned to the porch where her victims wereone alive, in a basket, two dead, beside it, and Jonathan, kneeling, held the cats nose close to the little bodies while he boxed her earsonce, twice; remonstrant mews rose wild, and with a desperate twist the culprit backed out under his arm and leaped into the blackness.

Dont believe sh.e.l.l eat young robin for a day or two, said Jonathan.

Is that what they were? Where were they?

Under the tree. Shed knocked them out.

Could you put this one back? He seems all rightonly sort of naked in spots.

Well half cover the basket and hang it in the tree. His folksll take care of him.

Next morning early there began the greatest to-do among the robins in the orchard. They shrieked their comments on the affair at the top of their lungs. They screamed abusively at Jonathan and me as we stood watching.

They say we did it! said Jonathan. I call that grat.i.tude!

I wish I could record that from that evening the cat was a reformed character. An impression had indeed been made. All next day she stayed under the porch, two glowing eyes in the dark. The second day she came out, walking indifferent and debonair, as cats do. But when Jonathan took down the basket from the tree and made her smell of it, she flattened her ears against her head and shot under the porch again.

But lessons grow dim and temptation is freshly importunate. It was not two weeks before Jonathan was up another tree on the same errand, and when I considered the number of nests in our orchard, and the number of catsnone of them really our catson the place, I felt that the position of overruling Providence was almost more than we could undertake, if we hoped to do anything else.

These thingstinkering of latches and chairs, pump-mending, rescue work in the orchard and among the poultryfilled our evenings fairly full. Yet these are only samples, and not particularly representative samples either. They were the sort of things that happened oftenest, the common emergencies incidental to the life. But there were also the uncommon emergencies, each occurring seldom but each adding its own touch of variety to the tale of our evenings.

For instance, there was the time of the great drought, when Jonathan, coming in from a tour of the farm at dusk, said, Ive got to go up and dig out the spring-hole across the swamp. Everything else is dry, and the cattle are getting crazy.

Can I help? I asked, not without regrets for our books and our eveningit was a black night, and I had had hopes.

Yes. Come and hold the lantern.

We went. The spring-hole had been trodden by the poor, eager creatures into a useless jelly of mud. Jonathan fell to work, while I held the lantern high. But soon it became more than a mere matter of holding the lantern. There was a cras.h.i.+ng in the blackness about us and a huge horned head emerged behind my shoulder, another loomed beyond Jonathans stooping bulk.

Keep em back, he said. Theyll have it all trodden up againHi! You!

Ge back ere! There is as special a lingo for talking to cattle as there is for talking to babies. I used it as well as I could. I swung the lantern in their faces, I brandished the hoe-handle at them, I jabbed at them recklessly. They snorted and backed and closed in again,crazy, poor things, with the smell of the water. It was an evenings battle for us.

Jonathan dug and dug, and then laid rails, and the precious water filled in slowly, grew to a dark pool, and the thirsty creatures panted and snuffed in the dark just outside the radius of the hoe-handle, until at last we could let them in. I had forgotten my books, for we had come close to the earth and the creatures of the earth. The cows were our sisters and the steers our brothers that night.

Sometimes the emergency was in the barna broken halter and trouble among the horses, or perhaps a new calf. Sometimes a stray creature,cow or horse,grazing along the roadside, got into our yard and threatened our corn and squashes and my poor, struggling flower-beds. Once it was a break in the wire fence around Jonathans muskmelon patch in the barn meadow.

The cows had just been turned in, and if it wasnt mended that evening it meant no melons that season, also melon-tainted cream for days.

Once or twice each year it was the drainpipe from the sink. The drain, like the pump, was an innovation. Our ancestors had always carried out whatever they couldnt use or burn, and dumped it on the far edge of the orchard. In a thinly settled community, there is much to be said for this method: you know just where you are. But we had the drain, and occasionally we didnt know just where we were.

Coffee grounds, Jonathan would suggest, with a touch of sternness.

No, I would reply firmly; coffee grounds are always burned.

What then?

Dont know. Ive poked and poked.

A gleam in the corner of Jonathans eyeWhat with?