A Kentucky Cardinal | Page 8

But I answered, humbly,
"I am the gardener, madam."
"How much do you ask for your strawberries?"
"The gentleman who owns this place does not sell his strawberries. He gives them away, if he likes people. How much do you ask for your strawberries?"
"What a nice old gentleman! Is he having those picked to give away?"
"He is having these picked for his breakfast."
"Don't you think he'd like you to give me those, and pick him some more?"
"I fear not, madam."
"Nevertheless, you might. He'd never know."
"I think he'd find it out."
"You are not afraid of him, are you?"
"I am when he gets mad."
"Does he treat you badly?"
"If he does, I always forgive him."
"He doesn't seem to provide you with very many clothes."
I picked on.
"But you seem nicely fed."
I picked on.
"What is his name, old man? Don't you like to talk?"
"Adam Moss."
"Such a green, cool, soft name! It is like his house and yard and garden. What does he do?"
"Whatever he pleases."
"You must not be impertinent to me, or I'll tell him. What does he like?"
"Birds--red-birds. What do you like?"
"Red-birds! How does he catch them? Throw salt on their tails?"
"He is a lover of Nature, madam, and particularly of birds."
"What does he know about birds? Doesn't he care for people?"
"He doesn't think many worth caring for."
"Indeed! And he is perfect, then, is he?"
"He thinks he is nearly as bad as any; but that doesn't make the rest any better."
"Poor old gentleman! He must have the blues dreadfully. What does he do with his birds? Eat his robins, and stuff his cats, and sell his red-birds in cages?"
"He considers it part of his mission in life to keep them from being eaten or stuffed or caged."
"And you say he is nearly a hundred?"
"He is something over thirty years of age, madam."
"Thirty? Surely we heard he was very old. Thirty! And does he live in that beautiful little old house all by himself?"
"I live with him!"
"You! Ha! ha! ha! And what is your name, you dear good old man?"
"Adam."
"Two Adams living in the same house! Are you the old Adam? I have heard so much of him."
At this I rose, pushed back my hat, and looked up at her.
"I am Adam Moss," I said, with distant politeness. "You can have these strawberries for your breakfast if you want them."
There was a low quick "Oh!" and she was gone, and the curtains closed over her face. It was rude; but neither ought she to have called me the old Adam. I have been thinking of one thing: why should she speak slightingly of my knowledge of birds? What does she know about them? I should like to inquire.
Late this afternoon I dressed up in my high gray wool hat, my fine long-tailed blue cloth coat with brass buttons, by pink waistcoat, frilled shirt, white cravat, and yellow nankeen trousers, and walked slowly several times around my strawberry bed. Did no see any more ripe strawberries.
Within the last ten days I have called twice upon the Cobbs, urged no doubt by an extravagant readiness to find them all that I feared they were not. How exquisite in life is the art of not seeing many things, and of forgetting many that have been seen! They received me as though nothing unpleasant had happened. Nor did the elder daughter betray that we had met. She has not forgotten, for more than once I surprised a light in her eyes as though she were laughing. She has not, it is certain, told even her mother and sister. Somehow this fact invest her character with a charm as of subterranean roominess and secrecy. Women who tell everything are like finger-bowls of clear water.
But it is Sylvia that pleases me. She must be about seventeen; and so demure and confiding that I was ready to take her by the hand, lead her to the garden-gate, and say: Dear child, everything in here--butterflies, flowers, fruit, honey, everything--is yours; come and go and gather as you like.
Yesterday morning I sent them a large dish of strawberries, with a note asking whether they would walk during the day over to my woodland pasture, where the soldiers had a barbecue before setting out for the Mexican war. The mother and Sylvia accepted. Our walk was a little overshadowed by their loss; and as I thoughtlessly described the gayety of that scene--the splendid young fellows dancing in their bright uniforms, and now and then pausing to wipe their foreheads, the speeches, the cheering, the dinner under the trees, and, a few days later, the tear-dimmed eyes, the hand-wringing and embracing, and at last the marching proudly away, each with a Bible in his pocket, and many never, never to return--I was sorry that I had not foreseen the sacred chord I was touching. But it made good friends