Let me tell you how the Pryor family strikes me.I think he is a high-tempered,domineering man,proud as Lucifer!For some cause,just or not,he is ruining his life and that of his family because he so firmly believes it just;he is hiding here from his home country,his relatives,and friends.I think she is,barring you and mother,the handsomest woman of her age I ever saw----"All of them laughed,because Sarah Hood was nearly as homely as a woman could grow,and maybe other people didn't find our mother so lovely as we thought her.I once heard one of her best friends say she was "distinctly plain."I didn't see how she could;but she said that.
"--and the most pitiful,"Laddie went on."Sarah,what do you suppose sends a frail little woman pacing the yard,and up and down the road,sometimes in storm and rain,gripping both hands over her heart?""I suppose it's some shameful thing I don't want you mixed up with!"said Sarah Hood promptly,and people just shouted.
"Sarah,"said Laddie,"I've seen her closely,watched her move,and studied her expression.There's not one grain of possibility that you,or mother,or Mrs.Fall,or any woman here,could be any closer connected with SHAME.Shame there is,"said Laddie,"and what a word!How it stings,burns,withers,and causes heart trouble and hiding;but shame in connection with that woman,more than shame thrust upon her,which might come to any of us,at any time,shame that is her error,in the life of a woman having a face like hers,Sarah,I am ashamed of you!Your only excuse is that you haven't persisted as I have until you got to see for yourself.""I am not much on persistence in the face of a locked door,a cast-iron man with a big cane,and two raving bulldogs,"said Mrs.Hood."Wait,young man!Just wait until he sets them on you."Laddie's head went back and how he laughed.
"Hist!A word with you,Sarah!"he said."'Member I have a sort of knack with animals.I never yet have failed with one I undertook to win.Now those bulldogs of Pryors' are as mild as kittens with a man who knows the right word.Reason I know,Sarah,I've said the word to them,separately and collectively,and it worked.There is a contrast,Sarah,between what I say and do to those dogs,and the kicks and curses they get from their owner.I'll wager you two to one that if you can get Mr.
Pryor to go into a `sic-ing'contest with me,I can have his own dogs at his throat,when he can't make them do more than to lick my hands."They laughed as if that were funny.
"Well,I didn't know about this,"said Sarah."How long have you lived at Pryors'?"You couldn't have heard what Laddie said if he'd spoken;so he waited until he could be heard,and it never worried him a speck.
He only stood and laughed too;then,"Long enough,"he said,"to know that all of us are making a big and cruel mistake in taking them at their word,and leaving them penned up there weltering in misery.What we should do,is to go over there,one at a time,or in a body,and batter at the door of their hearts,until we break down the wall of pride they have built around them,ease their pain,and bring them with us socially,if they are going to live among us.You people who talk loudly and often about loving God,and `doing unto others,'should have gone long ago,for Jesus'sake;I'm going for the sake of a girl,with a face as sweet,and a heart as pure,as any accepted angel at the foot of the throne.Mother,I want a cup of peach jelly,and some of that exceptionally fine cake you served at dinner,to take to our sick neighbour."Mother left the room.
"Father,I want permission to cut and carry a generous chestnut branch,burred,and full fruited,to the young woman.There is none save ours in this part of the country,and she may never have seen any,and be interested.And I want that article about foot disease in horses,for Mr.Pryor.I'll bring it back when he finishes."Father folded the paper and handed it to Laddie,who slipped it in his pocket.
"Take the finest branch you can select,"father said,and I almost fell over.
He had carried those trees from Ohio,before I had been born,and mother said for years he wrapped them in her shawl in winter and held an umbrella over them in summer,and father always went red and grinned when she told it.He was wild about trees,and bushes,so he made up his mind he'd have chestnuts.He planted them one place,and if they didn't like it,he dug them up and set them another where he thought they could have what they needed and hadn't got the last place.Finally,he put them,on the fourth move,on a little sandy ridge across the road from the wood yard,and that was the spot.They shot up,branched,spread,and one was a male and two were females,so the pollen flew,the burrs filled right,and we had a bag of chestnuts to send each child away from home,every Christmas.The brown leaves and burrs were so lovely,mother cut one of the finest branches she could select and hung it above the steel engraving of "Lincoln Freeing the Slaves,"in the boys'room,and nothing in the house was looked at oftener,or thought prettier.That must have been what was in the back of Laddie's head when he wanted a branch for the Princess.
Mother came in with the cake and jelly in a little fancy basket,and Laddie said:"Thank you!Now every one wish me luck!I'm going to ride to Pryors',knock at the door,and present these offerings with my compliments.If I'm invited in,I'm going to make the effort of my life at driving the entering wedge toward social intercourse between Pryors and their neighbours.If I'm not,I'll be back in thirty minutes and tell you what happened to me.If they refuse my gifts,you shall have the jelly,Sarah;I'll give Mrs.Fall the olive branch,bring back the paper,and eat the cake to console my wounded spirits."Of course every one laughed;they couldn't help it.I watched father and he laughed hardest of the men,but mother was more stiff-lipped about it;she couldn't help a little,though.And I noticed some of those women acted as if they had lost something.
