Laddie | Page 6

thought perhaps it would help if I should kneel on the top of the
woodpile and ask God to not let anything get me.

The more I thought about it, the less I felt like doing it, though, because
really you have no business to ask God to take care of you, unless you
KNOW you are doing right. This was right, but in my heart I also knew
that if Laddie had asked me, I would be shivering on top of that
cordwood on a hot August day, when it was wrong. On the whole, I
thought it would be more honest to leave God out of it, and take the
risk myself. That made me think of the Crusaders, and the little gold
trinket in father's chest till. There were four shells on it and each one
stood for a trip on foot or horseback to the Holy City when you had to
fight almost every step of the way. Those shells meant that my father's
people had gone four times, so he said; that, although it was away far
back, still each of us had a tiny share of the blood of the Crusaders in
our veins, and that it would make us brave and strong, and whenever
we were afraid, if we would think of them, we never could do a
cowardly thing or let any one else do one before us. He said any one
with Crusader blood had to be brave as Richard the Lion-hearted.
Thinking about that helped ever so much, so I gripped the note and
turned to take one last look at the house before I made a dash for the
gate that led into the Big Woods.
Beyond our land lay the farm of Jacob Hood, and Mrs. Hood always
teased me because Laddie had gone racing after her when I was born.
She was in the middle of Monday's washing, and the bluing settled in
the rinse water and stained her white clothes in streaks it took months
to bleach out. I always liked Sarah Hood for coming and dressing me,
though, because our Sally, who was big enough to have done it, was
upstairs crying and wouldn't come down. I liked Laddie too, because he
was the only one of our family who went to my mother and kissed her,
said he was glad, and offered to help her. Maybe the reason he went
was because he had an awful scare, but anyway he WENT, and that
was enough for me.
You see it was this way: no one wanted me; as there had been eleven of
us, every one felt that was enough. May was six years old and in school,
and my mother thought there never would be any more babies. She had
given away the cradle and divided the baby clothes among my big
married sisters and brothers, and was having a fine time and enjoying

herself the most she ever had in her life. The land was paid for long ago;
the house she had planned, builded as she wanted it; she had a big team
of matched grays and a carriage with side lamps and patent leather
trimmings; and sometimes there was money in the bank. I do not know
that there was very much, but any at all was a marvel, considering how
many of us there were to feed, clothe, and send to college. Mother was
forty-six and father was fifty; so they felt young enough yet to have a
fine time and enjoy life, and just when things were going best, I
announced that I was halfway over my journey to earth.
You can't blame my mother so much. She must have been tired of
babies and disliked to go back and begin all over after resting six years.
And you mustn't be too hard on my father if he was not just overjoyed.
He felt sure the cook would leave, and she did. He knew Sally would
object to a baby, when she wanted to begin having beaus, so he and
mother talked it over and sent her away for a long visit to Ohio with
father's people, and never told her. They intended to leave her there
until I was over the colic, at least. They knew the big married brothers
and sisters would object, and they did. They said it would be
embarrassing for their children to be the nieces and nephews of an aunt
or uncle younger than themselves. They said it so often and so
emphatically that father was provoked and mother cried. Shelley didn't
like it because she was going to school in Groveville, where Lucy, one
of our married sisters, lived, and she was afraid I would make so much
work she would have to