CHAPTER X. DISAPPEARANCE¹ OF PADDY

As I remember, the spring came late that year in Carlisle. It was May before the weather began to satisfy the grown-ups. But we children were more easily pleased, and we thought April a splendid month because the snow all went early and left gray, firm, frozen ground for our rambles² and games. As the days slipped by they grew more gracious; the hillsides began to look as if they were thinking of mayflowers; the old orchard³ was washed in a bath of tingling⁴ sunshine and the sap stirred in the big trees; by day the sky was veiled with delicate cloud drift, fine and filmy as woven mist; in the evenings a full, low moon looked over the valleys, as pallid⁵ and holy as some aureoled saint; a sound of laughter and dream was on the wind and the world grew young with the mirth of April breezes.

“It’s so nice to be alive in the spring,” said the Story Girl one twilight⁶ as we swung on the boughs⁷ of Uncle Stephen’s walk.

“It’s nice to be alive any time,” said Felicity, complacently⁸.

“But it’s nicer in the spring,” insisted the Story Girl. “When I’m dead I think I’ll FEEL dead all the rest of the year, but when spring comes I’m sure I’ll feel like getting up and being alive again.”

“You do say such queer things,” complained Felicity. “You won’t be really dead any time. You’ll be in the next world. And I think it’s horrid⁹ to talk about people being dead anyhow.”

“We’ve all got to die,” said Sara Ray solemnly, but with a certain relish¹⁰. It was as if she enjoyed looking forward to something in which nothing, neither an unsympathetic mother, nor the cruel fate which had made her a colourless little nonentity¹¹, could prevent her from being the chief performer.

“I sometimes think,” said Cecily, rather wearily, “that it isn’t so dreadful to die young as I used to suppose.”

She prefaced her remark with a slight cough, as she had been all too apt to do of late, for the remnants of the cold she had caught the night we were lost in the storm still clung to her.

“Don’t talk such nonsense, Cecily,” cried the Story Girl with unwonted sharpness, a sharpness we all understood. All of us, in our hearts, though we never spoke¹² of it to each other, thought Cecily was not as well as she ought to be that spring, and we hated to hear anything said which seemed in any way to touch or acknowledge the tiny, faint shadow which now and again showed itself dimly athwart our sunshine.

“Well, it was you began talking of being dead,” said Felicity angrily. “I don’t think it’s right to talk of such things. Cecily, are you sure your feet ain’t damp? We ought to go in anyhow—it’s too chilly¹³ out here for you.”

“You girls had better go,” said Dan, “but I ain’t going in till old Isaac Frewen goes. I’ve no use for him.”

“I hate him, too,” said Felicity, agreeing with Dan for once in her life. “He chews tobacco all the time and spits on the floor—the horrid pig!”

“And yet his brother is an elder in the church,” said Sara Ray wonderingly.

“I know a story about Isaac Frewen,” said the Story Girl. “When he was young he went by the name of Oatmeal Frewen and he got it this way. He was noted¹⁴ for doing outlandish things. He lived at Markdale then and he was a great, overgrown, awkward fellow, six feet tall. He drove over to Baywater one Saturday to visit his uncle there and came home the next afternoon, and although it was Sunday he brought a big bag of oatmeal in the wagon¹⁵ with him. When he came to Carlisle church he saw that service was going on there, and he concluded to stop and go in. But he didn’t like to leave his oatmeal outside for fear something would happen to it, because there were always mischievous¹⁶ boys around, so he hoisted¹⁷ the bag on his back and walked into church with it and right to the top of the aisle¹⁸ to Grandfather King’s pew. Grandfather King used to say he would never forget it to his dying day. The minister was preaching and everything was quiet and solemn when he heard a snicker behind him. Grandfather King turned around with a terrible frown—for you know in those days it was thought a dreadful thing to laugh in church—to rebuke¹⁹ the offender²⁰; and what did he see but that great, hulking young Isaac stalking up the aisle, bending a little forward under the weight of a big bag of oatmeal? Grandfather King was so amazed he couldn’t laugh, but almost everyone else in the church was laughing, and grandfather said he never blamed them, for no funnier sight was ever seen. Young Isaac turned into grandfather’s pew and thumped²¹ the bag of oatmeal down on the seat with a thud that cracked it. Then he plumped down beside it, took off his hat, wiped his face, and settled back to listen to the sermon, just as if it was all a matter of course. When the service was over he hoisted his bag up again, marched out of church, and drove home. He could never understand why it made so much talk; but he was known by the name of Oatmeal Frewen for years.”

Our laughter, as we separated, rang sweetly through the old orchard and across the far, dim meadows. Felicity and Cecily went into the house and Sara Ray and the Story Girl went home, but Peter decoyed me into the granary to ask advice.

“You know Felicity has a birthday next week,” he said, “and I want to write her an ode.”

“A—a what?” I gasped²².

“An ode,” repeated Peter, gravely. “It’s poetry, you know. I’ll put it in Our Magazine.”

“But you can’t write poetry, Peter,” I protested.

“I’m going to try,” said Peter stoutly²³. “That is, if you think she won’t be offended at me.”

“She ought to feel flattered,” I replied.

“You never can tell how she’ll take things,” said Peter gloomily. “Of course I ain’t going to sign my name, and if she ain’t pleased I won’t tell her I wrote it. Don’t you let on.”

I promised I wouldn’t and Peter went off with a light heart. He said he meant to write two lines every day till he got it done.

Cupid was playing his world-old tricks with others than poor Peter that spring. Allusion²⁴ has been made in these chronicles to one, Cyrus Brisk, and to the fact that our brown-haired, soft-voiced Cecily had found favour in the eyes of the said Cyrus. Cecily did not regard her conquest with any pride. On the contrary, it annoyed her terribly to be teased about Cyrus. She declared she hated both him and his name. She was as uncivil to him as sweet Cecily could be to anyone, but the gallant²⁵ Cyrus was nothing daunted²⁶. He laid determined²⁷ siege to Cecily’s young heart by all the methods known to love-lorn swains. He placed delicate tributes of spruce gum, molasses taffy, “conversation” candies and decorated slate²⁸ pencils on her desk; he persistently²⁹ “chose” her in all school games calling for a partner; he entreated³⁰ to be allowed to carry her basket from school; he offered to work her sums for her; and rumour³¹ had it that he had made a wild statement to the effect that he meant to ask if he might see her home some night from prayer meeting. Cecily was quite frightened that he would; she confided³² to me that she would rather die than walk home with him, but that if he asked her she would be too bashful to say no. So far, however, Cyrus had not molested³³ her out of school, nor had he as yet thumped Willy Fraser—who was reported to be very low in his spirits over the whole affair.

And now Cyrus had written Cecily a letter—a love letter, mark you. Moreover, he had sent it through the post-office, with a real stamp on it. Its arrival made a sensation among us. Dan brought it from the office and, recognizing the handwriting of Cyrus, gave Cecily no peace until she showed us the letter. It was a very sentimental³⁴ and rather ill-spelled epistle in which the inflammable Cyrus reproached her in heart-rending words for her coldness, and begged her to answer his letter, saying that if she did he would keep the secret “in violets.” Cyrus probably meant “inviolate³⁵” but Cecily thought it was intended for a poetical³⁶ touch. He signed himself “your troo lover, Cyrus Brisk” and added in a postcript that he couldn’t eat or sleep for thinking of her.

“Are you going to answer it?” asked Dan.

“Certainly not,” said Cecily with dignity.

“Cyrus Brisk wants to be kicked,” growled³⁷ Felix, who never seemed to be any particular friend of Willy Fraser’s either. “He’d better learn how to spell before he takes to writing love letters.”

“Maybe Cyrus will starve to death if you don’t,” suggested Sara Ray.

“I hope he will,” said Cecily cruelly. She was truly vexed³⁸ over the letter; and yet, so contradictory³⁹ a thing is the feminine heart, even at twelve years old, I think she was a little flattered by it also. It was her first love letter and she confided to me that it gives you a very queer feeling to get it. At all events—the letter, though unanswered, was not torn up. I feel sure Cecily preserved it. But she walked past Cyrus next morning at school with a frozen countenance⁴⁰, evincing not the slightest pity for his pangs⁴¹ of unrequited affection. Cecily winced⁴² when Pat caught a mouse, visited a school chum the day the pigs were killed that she might not hear their squealing⁴³, and would not have stepped on a caterpillar⁴⁴ for anything; yet she did not care at all how much she made the brisk Cyrus suffer.

Then, suddenly, all our spring gladness and Maytime hopes were blighted⁴⁵ as by a killing⁴⁶ frost. Sorrow and anxiety pervaded⁴⁷ our days and embittered⁴⁸ our dreams by night. Grim tragedy held sway in our lives for the next fortnight.

Paddy disappeared. One night he lapped his new milk as usual at Uncle Roger’s dairy door and then sat blandly⁴⁹ on the flat stone before it, giving the world assurance of a cat, sleek⁵⁰ sides glistening⁵¹, plumy tail gracefully⁵² folded around his paws, brilliant eyes watching the stir and flicker⁵³ of bare willow⁵⁴ boughs in the twilight air above him. That was the last seen of him. In the morning he was not.

At first we were not seriously alarmed. Paddy was no roving Thomas, but occasionally he vanished for a day or so. But when two days passed without his return we became anxious, the third day worried us greatly, and the fourth found us distracted.

“Something has happened to Pat,” the Story Girl declared miserably⁵⁵. “He never stayed away from home more than two days in his life.”

“What could have happened to him?” asked Felix.

“He’s been poisoned—or a dog has killed him,” answered the Story Girl in tragic⁵⁶ tones.

Cecily began to cry at this; but tears were of no avail. Neither was anything else, apparently⁵⁷. We searched every nook and cranny of barns and out-buildings and woods on both the King farms; we inquired far and wide; we roved over Carlisle meadows calling Paddy’s name, until Aunt Janet grew exasperated⁵⁸ and declared we must stop making such exhibitions of ourselves. But we found and heard no trace of our lost pet. The Story Girl moped and refused to be comforted; Cecily declared she could not sleep at night for thinking of poor Paddy dying miserably in some corner to which he had dragged his failing body, or lying somewhere mangled⁵⁹ and torn by a dog. We hated every dog we saw on the ground that he might be the guilty one.

“It’s the suspense⁶⁰ that’s so hard,” sobbed⁶¹ the Story Girl. “If I just knew what had happened to him it wouldn’t be QUITE so hard. But I don’t know whether he’s dead or alive. He may be living and suffering, and every night I dream that he has come home and when I wake up and find it’s only a dream it just breaks my heart.”

“It’s ever so much worse than when he was so sick last fall,” said Cecily drearily⁶². “Then we knew that everything was done for him that could be done.”

We could not appeal to Peg⁶³ Bowen this time. In our desperation we would have done it, but Peg was far away. With the first breath of spring she was up and off, answering to the lure⁶⁴ of the long road. She had not been seen in her accustomed haunts for many a day. Her pets were gaining their own living in the woods and her house was locked up.