"And so he did!" cried the Princess angrily. "How beastly!"

"That's one reason Laddie sticks so close to land. He says he doesn't meet nearly so many two-legged beasts in the country. Almost every time he goes to town he either gets into a fight or he sees something that makes him fighting mad. Princess, you think this beautiful, don't you?"

I just pointed anywhere. All the world was in it that morning. You couldn't look right or left and not see lovely places, hear music, and smell flowers.

"Yes! It is altogether wonderful!" she said.

"Would you like to live among this all your life, and have your plans made to fix you a place even nicer, and then be forced to leave it and go to a little room in the city, and make all the money you earned off of how much other men fight over business, and land and such perfectly awful things, that they always have to be whispered when Jerry tells about them? Would you?"

"You little dunce!" she cried.

"I know I'm a fool. I know I'm not telling you a single thing I should! Maybe I'm hurting Laddie far more than I'm helping him, and if I am, I wish I would die before I see him; but oh! Princess, I'm trying with all my might to make you understand how he feels. He WANTS to do every least thing you'd like him to. He will, almost any thing else in the world, he would this--he would in a minute, but he just CAN'T. All of us know he can't! If you'd lived with him since he was little and always had known him, you wouldn't ask him to; you wouldn't want him to! You don't know what you're doing! Mother says you don't!

You'll kill him if you send him to the city to live, you just will!

You are doing it now! He's getting thinner and whiter every day.

Don't! Oh please don't do it!"

The Princess was looking at the world. She was gazing at it so dazed-like she seemed to be surprised at what she saw. She acted as if she'd never really seen it before. She looked and she looked. She even turned her horse a full circle to see all of it, and she went around slowly. I stepped from one foot to the other and sweat; but I kept quiet and let her look. At last when she came around, she glanced down at me, and she was all melted, and lovely as any one you ever saw, exactly like Sh.e.l.ley at Christmas, and she said: "I don't think I ever saw the world before. I don't know that I'm so crazy about a city myself, and I perfectly hate lawyers. Come to thing of it, a lawyer helped work ruin in our family, and I never have believed, I never will believe----"

She stopped talking and began looking again. I gave her all the time she needed. I was just straining to be wise, for mother says it takes the very wisest person there is to know when to talk, and when to keep still. As I figured it, now was the time not to say another word until she made up her mind about what I had told her already. If Pryors didn't know what we thought of them by that time, it wasn't mother's fault or mine. As she studied things over she kept on looking. What she saw seemed to be doing her a world of good. Her face showed it every second plainer and plainer. Pretty soon it began to look like she was going to come through as Amos Hurd did when he was redeemed.

Then, before my very eyes, it happened! I don't know how I ever held on to the pie or kept from shouting, "Praise the Lord!" as father does at the Meeting House when he is happiest. Then she leaned toward me all wavery, and shining eyed, and bloomful, and said: "Did you ever hurt Laddie's feelings, and make him angry and sad?"

"I'm sure I never did," I answered.

"But suppose you had! What would you do?"

"Do? Why, I'd go to him on the run, and I'd tell him I never intended to hurt his feelings, and how sorry I was, and I'd give him the very best kiss I could."

The Princess stroked Maud's neck a long time and thought while she studied our farm, theirs beyond it, and at the last, the far field where Laddie was plowing. She thought, and thought, and afraid to cheep, I stood gripping the shingle and waited. Finally she said: "The last time Laddie was at our house, I said to him those things he repeated to you. He went away at once, hurt and disappointed. Now, if you like, along with your precious pie, you may carry him this message from me. You may tell him that I said I am sorry!"

I could have cried "Glory!" and danced and shouted there in the road, but I didn't. It was no time to lose my head. That was all so fine and splendid, as far as it went, but it didn't quite cover the case. I never could have done it for myself; but for Laddie I would venture anything, so I looked her in the eyes, straight as a dart, and said: "He'd want the kiss too, Princess!"

You could see her stiffen in the saddle and her fingers grip the reins, but I kept on staring right into her eyes.

"I could come up, you know," I offered.

A dull red flamed in her cheeks and her lips closed tight. One second she sat very still, then a dancing light leaped sparkling into her eyes; a flock of dimples chased each other around her lips like swallows circling their homing place at twilight.

"What about that wonderful pie?" she asked me.

I ran to the nearest fence corner, and laid the shingle on the gnarled roots of a Johnny Appleseed apple tree. Then I set one foot on the arch of the Princess' instep and held up my hands. One second I thought she would not lift me, the next I was on her level and her lips met mine in a touch like velvet woven from threads of flame. Then with a turn of her stout little wrist, she dropped me, and a streak went up our road. Nothing so amazing and so important ever had happened to me.

It was an occasion that demanded something unusual. To cry, "Praise the Lord!" was only to repeat an hourly phrase at our house; this demanded something out of the ordinary, so I said just exactly as father did the day the brown mare balked with the last load of seed clover, when a big storm was breaking--"Jupiter Ammon!"

When I had calmed down so I could, I climbed the fence, and reached through a crack for the pie. As I followed the cool, damp furrow, and Laddie's whistle, clear as the lark's above the wheat, thrilled me, I was almost insane with joy. Just joy! Pure joy! Oh what a good world it was!--most of the time! Most of the time! Of course, there WERE Paget men in it. But anyway, THIS couldn't be beaten. I had a message for Laddie from the Princess that would send him to the seventh heaven, wherever that was; no one at our house spent any time thinking farther than the first one. I had her kiss, that I didn't know what would do to him, and I also had a big piece of juicy rhubarb pie not yet entirely cold. If that didn't wipe out the trouble I had made showing the old crest thing, nothing ever could. I knew even then, that men were pretty hard to satisfy, but I was quite certain that Laddie would be satisfied that morning. As I hurried along I wondered whether it would be better to give him my gift first, or the Princess'. I decided that joy would keep, while the pie was cold enough, with all the time I had stopped; and if I told him about her first, maybe he wouldn't touch it at all, and it wasn't so easy as it looked to carry it to him and never even once stick in my finger for the tiniest lick--joy would keep; but I was going to feed him; so with shining face, I offered the pie and stood back to see just how happy I could get.

"Mother send it?" asked Laddie.

People were curious that morning, as if I had a habit of stealing pie.

I only took pieces of cut ones from the cellar when mother didn't care.

So I explained again that Candace gave it to me, and I was free to bring it.

"Oh I see!" said Laddie.

After nearly two weeks of work, the grays had sobered down enough to stand without tying; so he wound the lines around the plow handle, sat on the beam, and laid aside his hat, having a fresh flower in the band.

Once he started a thing, he just simply wouldn't give up. He unb.u.t.toned his neckband until I could see his throat where it was white like a woman's, took out his knife and ate that pie. Of course we knew better than to use a knife at the table, but there was no other way in the field. He ate that pie, slowly and deliberately, and between bites he talked. I watched him with a wide grin, wondering what in this world he WOULD say, in a minute. I don't think I ever had quite such a good time in all my life before, and I never expect to again. He was saying: "Talk about nectar and ambrosia! Talk about the feasts of Lucullus! Talk about food for the G.o.ds!"

I put on his hat, sat on the ground in front of him, and was the happiest girl in the world, of that I am quite sure. When the last morsel was finished, Laddie looked at me steadily.

"I wonder," he said, "I wonder if there's another man in the world who is blest with quite such a loving, unselfish little sister as mine?"

Then he answered himself: "No! By all the G.o.ds, ant half-G.o.ds, I swear it--No!"

It was grand as a Fourth of July oration or the most exciting part when the Bishop dedicated our church. I couldn't hold in another second, I could hear my heart beat.

"Oh Laddie!" I shouted, jumping up, "that pie is only the beginning of the good things I have brought you. I have a message, and a gift besides, Laddie!"

"A message and a gift?" Laddie repeated. "What! More?"

"Truly I have a message and a gift for you," I cried, "and Laddie--they are from the Princess!"

His eyes raised to mine now, and slowly he turned Sabethany-like.

"From the Princess!" he exclaimed. "A message and a gift for me, Little Sister? You never would let Leon put you up to serve me a trick?"

That hurt. He should have KNOWN I wouldn't, and besides, "Leon feels just as badly about this as any of us," I said. "Have you forgotten he offered to plow, and let you do the clean, easy work?"

"Forgive me! I'm overanxious," said Laddie, his arms reaching for me.

"Go on and tell carefully, and if you truly love me, don't make a mistake!"

Crowding close, my arms around his neck, his crisp hair against my lips, I whispered my story softly, for this was such a fine and splendid secret, that not even the shining blackbirds, and the pert robins in the furrows were going to get to hear a word of it. Before I had finished Laddie was breathing as Flos does when he races her the limit. He sat motionless for a long time, while over his face slowly crept a beauty that surpa.s.sed that of Apollo in his Greek book.

"And her gift?"

It was only a breath.

"She helped me up, and she sent you this," I answered.

Then I set my lips on his, and held them there a second, trying my level best to give him her very kiss, but of course I could only try.

"Oh, Laddie," I cried. "Her eyes were like when stars shine down in our well! Her cheeks were like mother's damask roses! She smelled like flowers, and when her lips touched mine little stickers went all over me!"

Then Laddie's arms closed around me and I thought sure every bone in my body was going to be broken; when he finished there wasn't a trace of that kiss left for me. Remembering it would be all I'd ever have. It made me see what would have happened to the Princess if she had been there; and it was an awful pity for her to miss it, because he'd sober down a lot before he reached her, but I was sure as shooting that he wouldn't be so crazy as to kiss her hands again. Peter wasn't a patching to him!

That night Laddie rode to Pryors'. When he brought Flos to the gate you could see the shadow of your face on her shining flank; her mane and tail were like ravelled silk, her hoofs bright as polished horn, and her muzzle was clean as a ribbon. I broke one of those rank green sprouts from the s...o...b..ll bush and brushed away the flies, so she wouldn't fret, stamp, and throw dust on herself. Then Laddie came, fresh from a tubbing, starched linen, dressed in his new riding suit, and wearing top hat and gauntlets. He looked the very handsomest I ever had seen him; and at the same time, he seemed trembling with tenderness, and bursting with power. Goodness sake! I bet the Princess took one good look and "came down" like Davy Crockett's c.o.o.n.

Mother was on his arm and she walked clear to the gate with him.

"LADDIE, ARE YOU SURE ENOUGH TO GO?" I heard her ask him whisper-like.

"SURE AS DEATH!" Laddie answered.

Mother looked, and she had to see how it was with him; no doubt she saw more than I did from having been through it herself, so she smiled kind of a half-sad, half-glad smile. Then she turned to her damask rose bush, the one Lucy brought her from the city, and that she was so precious about, that none of us dared touch it, and she searched all over it and carefully selected the most perfect rose. When she borrowed Laddie's knife and cut the stem as long as my arm, I knew exactly how great and solemn the occasion was; for always before about six inches had been her limit. She held it toward him, smiling bravely and beautifully, but the tears were running straight down her cheeks.