"O whistle,and I'll come to you,my lad."Candace was baking the very first batch of rhubarb pies for the season and the odour was so tempting I couldn't keep away from the kitchen door.Now Candace was a splendid cook about chicken gizzards--the liver was always mother's--doughnuts and tarts,but I never really did believe she would cut into a fresh rhubarb pie,even for me.As I reached for the generous big piece I thought of Laddie poor Laddie,plowing away at his Crusader fight,and not a hint of victory.No one in the family liked rhubarb pie better than he did.I knew there was no use to ask for a plate.
"Wait--oh wait!"I cried.
I ran to the woodshed,pulled a shining new shingle from a bale stacked there,and held it for Candace.Then I slipped around the house softly.I didn't want to run any one's errands that morning.I laid the pie on the horseblock and climbed the catalpa carefully,so as not to frighten my robins.They were part father's too,because robins were his favourite birds;he said their song through and after rain was the sweetest music on earth,and mostly he was right;so they were not all my robins,but they were most mine after him;and I owned the tree.I hunted the biggest leaf I could see,and wiped it clean on my apron,although it was early for much dust.It covered the pie nicely,because it was the proper shape,and I held the stem with one hand to keep it in place.
If I had made that morning myself I couldn't have done better.
It was sunny,spring air,but it was that cool,spicy kind that keeps you stopping every few minutes to see just how full you can suck your lungs without bursting.It seemed to wash right through and through and make you all over.The longer you breathed it the clearer your head became,and the better you felt,until you would be possessed to try and see if you really couldn't fly.I tried that last summer,and knocked myself into jelly.You'd think once would have been enough,but there I was going down the road with Laddie's pie,and wanting with all my heart to try again.
Sometimes I raced,but I was a little afraid the pie would shoot from the shingle and it was like pulling eye teeth to go fast that morning.I loved the soft warm dust,that was working up on the road.Spat!Spat!I brought down my bare feet,already scratched and turning brown,and laughed to myself at the velvety feel of it.There were little puddles yet,where May and I had "dipped and faded"last fall,and it was fun to wade them.The roadsides were covered with meadow grass and clover that had slipped through the fence.On slender green blades,in spot after spot,twinkled the delicate bloom of blue-eyed grass.
Never in all this world was our Big Creek lovelier.It went slipping,and whispering,and lipping,and lapping over the stones,tugging at the rushes and grasses as it washed their feet;everything beside it was in masses of bloom,a blackbird was gleaming and preening on every stone,as it plumed after its bath.Oh there's no use to try--it was just SPRING when it couldn't possibly be any better.
But even spring couldn't hold me very long that morning,for you see my heart was almost sick about Laddie;and if he couldn't have the girl he wanted,at least I could do my best to comfort him with the pie.I was going along being very careful the more I thought about how he would like it,so I was not watching the road so far ahead as I usually did.I always kept a lookout for Paddy Ryan,Gypsies,or Whitmore's bull.When I came to an unusually level place,and took a long glance ahead,my heart turned right over and stopped still,and I looked long enough to be sure,and then right out loud some one said,"I'll DOsomething!"and as usual,I was the only one there.
For days I'd been in a ferment,like the vinegar barrel when the cider boils,or the yeast jar when it sets too close to the stove.To have Laddie and the Princess separated was dreadful,and knowing him as I did,I knew he never really would get over it.I had tried to help once,and what I had done started things going wrong;no wonder I was slow about deciding what to try next.That I was going to do something,I made up my mind the instant Laddie said he was not mad at me;that I was his partner,and asked me to help;but exactly WHAT would do any good,took careful thought.
Here was my chance coming right at me.She was far up the road,riding Maud like racing.I began to breathe after a while,like you always do,no matter how you are worked up,and with my brain whirling,I went slowly toward her.How would I manage to stop her?Or what could I say that would help Laddie?I was shaking,and that's the truth;but through and over it all,I was watching her too.I only wish you might have seen her that morning.Of course the morning was part of it.A morning like that would make a fence post better looking.Half a mile away you could see she was tipsy with spring as I was,or the song sparrows,or the crazy babbling old bobolinks on the stakes and riders.She made such a bright splash against the pink fence row,with her dark hair,flushed cheeks,and red lips,she took my breath.Father said she was the loveliest girl in three counties,and Laddie stretched that to the whole world.As she came closer,smash!
through me went the thought that she looked precisely as Shelley had at Christmas time;and Shelley had been that way because she was in love with the Paget man.Now if the Princess was gleaming and flashing like that,for the same reason,there wasn't any one for her to love so far as I knew,except Laddie.
