Sowing Seeds in Danny
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Nellie L. McClung >> Sowing Seeds in Danny
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13 This etext was prepared by University of Pennsylvania project
"A Celebration of Women Writers" and by Gardner Buchanan.
Sowing Seeds in Danny, by Nellie L. McClung
This story is lovingly dedicated to my dear mother.
"SO MANY FAITHS--SO MANY CREEDS,--
SO MANY PATHS THAT WIND AND WIND
WHILE JUST THE ART OF BEING KIND,--
IS WHAT THE OLD WORLD NEEDS!"
People of the Story
MRS. BURTON FRANCIS--a dreamy woman, who has beautiful theories.
MR. FRANCIS--her silent husband.
CAMILLA ROSE--a capable young woman who looks after Mrs. Francis's
domestic affairs, and occasionally helps her to apply her theories.
THE WATSON FAMILY, consisting of--
JOHN WATSON--a man of few words who works on the "Section."
MRS. WATSON--who washes for Mrs. Francis.
PEARL WATSON--an imaginative, clever little girl, twelve years old,
who is the mainstay of the family.
MARY WATSON--a younger sister.
TEDDY WATSON.
BILLY WATSON.
JIMMY WATSON.
PATSEY WATSON.
TOMMY WATSON.
ROBERT ROBLIN WATSON, known as "Bugsey."
DANIEL MULCAHEY WATSON--"Wee Danny."
"Teddy will be fourteen on St. Patrick's Day and Danny
will be four come March."
MRS. McGUIRE--an elderly Irishwoman of uncertain temper who lives
on the next lot.
DR. BARNER--the old doctor of the village, clever man in his
profession, but of intemperate habits.
MARY BARNER--his beautiful daughter.
DR. HORACE CLAY--a young doctor, who has recently come to the village.
REV. HUGH GRANTLEY--the young minister.
SAMUEL MOTHERWELL--a well off but very stingy farmer.
MRS. MOTHERWELL--his wife.
TOM MOTHERWELL--their son.
ARTHUR WEMYSS--a young Englishman who is trying to learn to farm.
JIM RUSSELL--an ambitious young farmer who lives near the Motherwells.
JAMES DUCKER--a retired farmer, who has political aspirations.
CONTENTS
I. Sowing Seeds in Danny
II. The Old Doctor
III. The Pink Lady
IV. The Band of Hope
V. The Relict of the Late McGuire
VI. The Musical Sense
VII. "One of Manitoba's Prosperous Farmers"
VIII. The Other Doctor
IX. The Live Wire
X. The Butcher Ride
XI. How Pearl Watson Wiped out the Stain
XII. From Camilla's Diary
XIII. The Fifth Son
XIV. The Faith that Moveth Mountains
XV. "Inasmuch"
XVI. How Polly Went Home
XVII. "Egbert and Edythe"
XVIII. The Party at Slater's
XIX. Pearl's Diary
XX. Tom's New Viewpoint
XXI. The Crack in the Granite
XXII. Shadows
XXIII. Saved
XXIV. The Harvest
XXV. Cupid's Emissary
XXVI. The Thanksgiving
Conclusion: Convincing Camilla
Sowing Seeds in Danny
CHAPTER I
SOWING SEEDS IN DANNY
In her comfortable sitting room Mrs. J. Burton Francis
sat, at peace with herself and all mankind. The glory of
the short winter afternoon streamed into the room and
touched with new warmth and tenderness the face of a
Madonna on the wall.
The whole room suggested peace. The quiet elegance of
its furnishings, the soft leather-bound books on the
table, the dreamy face of the occupant, who sat with
folded hands looking out of the window, were all in
strange contrast to the dreariness of the scene below,
where the one long street of the little Manitoba town,
piled high with snow, stretched away into the level,
white, never-ending prairie. A farmer tried to force his
tired horses through the drifts; a little boy with a
milk-pail plodded bravely from door to door, sometimes
laying down his burden to blow his breath on his stinging
fingers.
The only sound that disturbed the quiet of the afternoon
in Mrs. Francis's sitting room was the regular rub-rub
of the wash-board in the kitchen below.
"Mrs. Watson is slow with the washing to-day," Mrs.
Francis murmured with a look of concern on her usually
placid face. "Possibly she is not well. I will call her
and see."
"Mrs. Watson, will you come upstairs, please?" she called
from the stairway.
Mrs. Watson, slow and shambling, came up the stairs, and
stood in the doorway wiping her face on her apron.
"Is it me ye want ma'am?" she asked when she had recovered
her breath.
"Yes, Mrs. Watson," Mrs. Francis said sweetly. "I thought
perhaps you were not feeling well to-day. I have not
heard you singing at your work, and the washing seems to
have gone slowly. You must be very careful of your health,
and not overdo your strength."
While she was speaking, Mrs. Watson's eyes were busy with
the room, the pictures on the wall, the cosey window-seat
with its numerous cushions; the warmth and brightness of
it all brought a glow to her tired face.
"Yes, ma'am," she said, "thank ye kindly, ma'am. It is
very kind of ye to be thinkin' o' the likes of me."
"Oh, we should always think of others, you know," Mrs.
Francis replied quickly with her most winning smile, as
she seated herself in a rocking-chair. "Are the children
all well? Dear little Danny, how is he?"
"Indade, ma'am, that same Danny is the upsettinest one
of the nine, and him only four come March. It was only
this morn's mornin' that he sez to me, sez he, as I was
comin' away, 'Ma, d'ye think she'll give ye pie for
your dinner? Thry and remimber the taste of it, won't ye
ma, and tell us when ye come home,' sez he."
"Oh, the sweet prattle of childhood," said Mrs. Francis,
clasping her shapely white hands. "How very interesting
it must be to watch their young minds unfolding as the
flower! Is it nine little ones you have, Mrs. Watson?"
"Yes, nine it is, ma'am. God save us. Teddy will be
fourteen on St. Patrick's Day, and all the rest are
younger."
"It is a great responsibility to be a mother, and yet
how few there be that think of it," added Mrs. Francis,
dreamily.
"Thrue for ye ma'am," Mrs. Watson broke in. "There's my
own man, John Watson. That man knows no more of what it
manes than you do yerself that hasn't one at all at all,
the Lord be praised; and him the father of nine."
"I have just been reading a great book by Dr. Ernestus
Parker, on 'Motherhood.' It would be a great benefit to
both you and your husband."
"Och, ma'am," Mrs. Watson broke in, hastily, "John is no
hand for books and has always had his suspicions o' them
since his own mother's great-uncle William Mulcahey got
himself transported durin' life or good behaviour for
havin' one found on him no bigger'n an almanac, at the
time of the riots in Ireland. No, ma'am, John wouldn't
rade it at all at all, and he don't know one letther from
another, what's more."
"Then if you would read it and explain it to him, it
would be so helpful to you both, and so inspiring. It
deals so ably with the problems of child-training. You
must be puzzled many times in the training of so many
little minds, and Dr. Parker really does throw wonderful
light on all the problems that confront mothers. And I
am sure the mother of nine must have a great many
perplexities."
Yes, Mrs. Watson had a great many perplexities--how to
make trousers for four boys out of the one old pair the
minister's wife had given her; how to make the memory of
the rice-pudding they had on Sunday last all the week;
how to work all day and sew at night, and still be brave
and patient; how to make little Danny and Bugsey forget
they were cold and hungry. Yes, Mrs. Watson had her
problems; but they were not the kind that Dr. Ernestus
Parker had dealt with in his book on "Motherhood."
"But I must not keep you, Mrs. Watson," Mrs. Francis
said, as she remembered the washing. "When you go downstairs
will you kindly bring me up a small red notebook that
you will find on the desk in the library?"
"Yes ma'am," said Mrs. Watson, and went heavily down the
stairs. She found the book and brought it up.
While she was making the second laborious journey down
the softly padded stairs, Mrs. Francis was making an
entry in the little red book.
Dec. 7, 1903. Talked with one woman to-day RE Beauty
of Motherhood. Recommended Dr. Parker's book. Believe
good done.
Then she closed the book with a satisfied feeling. She
was going to have a very full report for her department
at the next Annual Convention of the Society for Propagation
of Lofty Ideals.
In another part of the same Manitoba town lived John
Watson, unregenerate hater of books, his wife and their
family of nine. Their first dwelling when they had come
to Manitoba from the Ottawa Valley, thirteen years ago,
had been C. P. R. box-car No. 722, but this had soon to
be enlarged, which was done by adding to it other car-roofed
shanties. One of these was painted a bright yellow and
was a little larger than the others. It had been the
caboose of a threshing outfit that John had worked for
in '96. John was the fireman and when the boiler blew up
and John was carried home insensible the "boys" felt that
they should do something for the widow and orphans. They
raised one hundred and sixty dollars forthwith, every
man contributing his wages for the last four days. The
owner of the outfit, Sam Motherwell, in a strange fit of
generosity, donated the caboose.
The next fall Sam found that he needed the caboose himself,
and came with his trucks to take it back. He claimed that
he had given it with the understanding that John was
going to die. John had not fulfilled his share of the
contract, and Sam felt that his generosity had been
misplaced.
John was cutting wood beside his dwelling when Sam arrived
with his trucks, and accused him of obtaining goods under
false pretences. John was a man of few words and listened
attentively to Sam's reasoning. From the little window
of the caboose came the discordant wail of a very young
infant, and old Sam felt his claims growing more and more
shadowy.
John took the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the
woodpile. Then, jerking his thumb toward the little
window, he said briefly:
"Twins. Last night."
Sam Motherwell mounted his trucks and drove away. He knew
when he was beaten.
The house had received additions on every side, until it
seemed to threaten to run over the edge of the lot, and
looked like a section of a wrecked freight train, with
its yellow refrigerator car.
The snow had drifted up to the windows, and entirely over
the little lean-to that had been erected at the time that
little Danny had added his feeble wail to the general
family chorus.
But the smoke curled bravely up from the chimney into
the frosty air, and a snug pile of wood by the "cheek of
the dure" gave evidence of John's industry, notwithstanding
his dislike of the world's best literature.
Inside the floor was swept and the stove was clean, and
an air of comfort was over all, in spite of the evidence
of poverty. A great variety of calendars hung on the
wall. Every store in town it seems had sent one this
year, last year and the year before. A large poster of
the Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition hung in the parlour,
and a Massey-Harris self-binder, in full swing, propelled
by three maroon horses, swept through a waving field of
golden grain, driven by an adipose individual in blue
shirt and grass-green overalls. An enlarged picture of
John himself glared grimly from a very heavy frame, on
the opposite wall, the grimness of it somewhat relieved
by the row of Sunday-school "big cards" that were stuck
in around the frame.
On the afternoon that Mrs. Watson had received the
uplifting talk on motherhood, and Mrs. Francis had entered
it in the little red book, Pearlie Watson, aged twelve,
was keeping the house, as she did six days in the week.
The day was too cold for even Jimmy to be out, and so
all except the three eldest boys were in the kitchen
variously engaged. Danny under promise of a story was in
the high chair submitting to a thorough going over with
soap and water. Patsey, looking up from his self-appointed
task of brushing the legs of the stove with the hair-brush,
loudly demanded that the story should begin at once.
"Story, is it?" cried Pearlie in her wrath, as she took
the hair-brush from Patsey. "What time have I to be
thinkin' of stories and you that full of badness. My
heart is bruck wid ye."
"I'll be good now," Patsey said, penitently, sitting on
the wood-box, and tenderly feeling his skinned nose. "I
got hurt to-day, mind that, Pearlie."
"So ye did, poor bye," said Pearlie, her wrath all gone,
"and what will I tell yez about, my beauties?"
"The pink lady where Jimmy brings the milk," said Patsey
promptly.
"But it's me that's gettin' combed," wailed Danny. "I
should say what ye'r to tell, Pearlie."
"True for ye," said Pearlie, "Howld ye'r tongue, Patsey.
What will I tell about, honey?"
"What Patsey said'll do" said Danny with an injured air,
"and don't forget the chockalut drops she had the day ma
was there and say she sent three o' them to me, and you
can have one o' them, Pearlie."
"And don't forget the big plate o' potatoes and gravy
and mate she gave the dog, and the cake she threw in the
fire to get red of it," said Mary. who was knitting a
sock for Teddy.
"No, don't tell that," said Jimmy, "it always makes wee
Bugsey cry."
"Well," began Pearlie, as she had done many times before.
"Once upon a time not very long ago, there lived a lovely
pink lady in a big house painted red, with windies in
ivery side of it, and a bell on the front dure, and a
velvet carpet on the stair and--"
"What's a stair?' asked Bugsey.
"It's a lot of boxes piled up higher and higher, and
nailed down tight so that ye can walk on them, and when
ye get away up high, there is another house right farninst
ye--well anyway, there was a lovely pianny in the parlow,
and flowers in the windies, and two yalla burds that sing
as if their hearts wud break, and the windies had a border
of coloured glass all around them, and long white curtings
full of holes, but they like them all the better o' that,
for it shows they are owld and must ha' been good to ha'
stood it so long. Well. annyway. there was a little boy
called Jimmie Watson"--here all eyes were turned on Jimmy,
who was sitting on the floor mending his moccasin with
a piece of sinew. "There was a little boy called Jimmy
Watson who used to carry milk to the lady's back dure,
and a girl with black eyes and white teeth all smiley
used to take it from him, and put it in a lovely pitcher
with birds flying all over it. But one day the lady,
herself, was there all dressed in lovely pink velvet and
lace, and a train as long as from me to you, and she sez
to Jimmy, sez she, 'Have you any sisters or brothers at
home,' and Jim speaks up real proud-like, 'Just nine,'
he sez, and sez she, swate as you please, 'Oh, that's
lovely! Are they all as purty as you?' she sez, and Jimmy
sez, 'Purtier if anything,' and she sez, 'I'll be steppin'
over to-day to see yer ma,' and Jim ran home and told
them all, and they all got brushed and combed and actin'
good, and in she comes, laving her carriage at the dure,
and her in a long pink velvet cape draggin' behind her
on the flure, and wide white fer all around it, her silk
skirts creakin' like a bag of cabbage and the eyes of
her just dancin' out of her head, and she says, 'These
are fine purty childer ye have here, Mrs. Watson. This
is a rale purty girl, this oldest one. What's her name?'
and ma ups and tells her it is Rebecca Jane Pearl, named
for her two grandmothers, and Pearl just for short. She
says, 'I'll be for taking you home wid me, Pearlie, to
play the pianny for me,' and then she asks all around
what the children's names is, and then she brings out a
big box, from under her cape, all tied wid store string,
and she planks it on the table and tearin' off the string,
she sez, 'Now, Pearlie, it's ladies first, tibby sure.
What would you like to see in here?' And I says up quick--
'A long coat wid fer on it, and a handkerchief smellin'
strong of satchel powder,' and she whipped them out of
the box and threw them on my knee, and a new pair of red
mitts too. And then she says, 'Mary, acushla, it's your
turn now.' And Mary says, 'A doll with a real head on
it,' and there it was as big as Danny, all dressed in
green satin, opening its eyes, if you plaze."
"Now, me!" roared Danny, squirming in his chair.
"'Daniel Mulcahey Watson, what wud you like?' she says,
and Danny ups and says, 'Chockaluts and candy men and
taffy and curren' buns and ginger bread,' and she had
every wan of them."
"'Robert Roblin Watson, him as they call Bugsey, what
would you like?' and 'Patrick Healy Watson, as is called
Patsey, what is your choice?' says she, and--"
In the confusion that ensued while these two young
gentlemen thus referred to stated their modest wishes,
their mother came in, tired and pale, from her hard day's
work.
"How is the pink lady to-day, ma?" asked Pearlie, setting
Danny down and beginning operations on Bugsey.
"Oh, she's as swate as ever, an' can talk that soft and
kind about children as to melt the heart in ye."
Danny crept up on his mother's knee "Ma, did she give ye
pie?" he asked, wistfully.
"Yes, me beauty, and she sent this to you wid her love,"
and Mrs. Watson took a small piece out of a newspaper
from under her cape. It was the piece that had been set
on the kitchen table for Mrs. Watson's dinner. Danny
called them all to have a bite.
"Sure it's the first bite that's always the best, a body
might not like it so well on the second," said Jimmy as
he took his, but Bugsey refused to have any at all. "Wan
bite's no good," he said, "it just lets yer see what yer
missin."
"D'ye think she'll ever come to see us, ma?" asked Pearlie,
as she set Danny in the chair to give him his supper.
The family was fed in divisions. Danny was always in
Division A.
"Her? Is it?" said Mrs. Watson and they all listened,
for Pearlie's story to-day had far surpassed all her
former efforts, and it seemed as if there must be some
hope of its coming true. "Why och! childer dear, d'ye
think a foine lady like her would be bothered with the
likes of us? She is r'adin' her book, and writin' letthers,
and thinkin' great thoughts, all the time. When she was
speakin' to me to-day, she looked at me so wonderin' and
faraway I could see that she thought I wasn't there at
all at all, and me farninst her all the time--no childer,
dear, don't be thinkin' of it, and Pearlie, I think ye'd
better not be puttin' notions inter their heads. Yer
father wouldn't like it. Well Danny, me man, how goes
it?" went on Mrs. Watson, as her latest born was eating
his rather scanty supper. "It's not skim milk and dhry
bread ye'd be havin', if you were her child this night,
but taffy candy filled wid nuts and chunks o' cake as
big as yer head." Whereupon Danny wailed dismally, and
had to be taken from his chair and have the "Little Boy
Blue" sung to him, before he could be induced to go on
with his supper.
The next morning when Jimmy brought the milk to Mrs.
Francis's back door the dark-eyed girl with the "smiley"
teeth let him in, and set a chair beside the kitchen
stove for him to warm his little blue hands. While she
was emptying the milk into the pitcher with the birds on
it, Mrs. Francis, with a wonderful pink kimono on, came
into the kitchen.
"Who is this boy, Camilla?" she asked, regarding Jimmy
with a critical gaze.
"This is Master James Watson, Mrs. Francis," answered
Camilla with her pleasant smile. "He brings the milk
every morning."
"Oh yes; of course, I remember now," said Mrs. Francis,
adjusting her glasses. "How old is the baby, James?"
"Danny is it?" said Jim. "He's four come March."
"Is he very sweet and cunning James, and do you love him
very much?"
"Oh, he's all right," Jim answered sheepishly.
"It is a great privilege to have a little brother like
Daniel. You must be careful to set before him a good
example of honesty and sobriety. He will be a man some
day, and if properly trained he may be a useful factor
in the uplifting and refining of the world. I love little
children," she went on rapturously, looking at Jimmy as
if he wasn't there at all, "and I would love to train
one, for service in the world to uplift and refine."
"Yes ma'am," said Jimmy. He felt that something was
expected of him, but he was not sure what.
"Will you bring Daniel to see me to-morrow, James?" she
said, as Camilla handed him his pail. "I would like to
speak to his young mind and endeavour to plant the seeds
of virtue and honesty in that fertile soil."
When Jimmy got home he told Pearlie of his interview with
the pink lady, as much as he could remember. The only
thing that he was sure of was that she wanted to see
Danny, and that she had said something about planting
seeds in him.
Jimmy and Pearlie thought it best not to mention Danny's
proposed visit to their mother, for they knew that she
would be fretting about his clothes, and would be sitting
up mending and sewing for him when she should be sleeping.
So they resolved to say "nothin' to nobody."
The next day their mother went away early to wash for
the Methodist minister's wife, and that was always a long
day's work.
Then the work of preparation began on Danny. A wash-basin
full of snow was put on the stove to melt, and Danny was
put in the high chair which was always the place of his
ablutions.
Pearlie began to think aloud. "Bugsey, your stockin's
are the best. Off wid them, Mary, and mend the hole in
the knees of them, and, Bugsey, hop into bed for we'll
be needin' your pants anyway. It's awful stylish for a
little lad like Danny to be wearin' pants under his
dresses, and now what about boots? Let's see yours,
Patsey. They're all gone in the uppers, and Billy's are
too big, even if they were here, but they're off to school
on him. I'll tell you what Mary, hurry up wid that sock
o' Ted's and we'll draw them on him over Bugsey's boots
and purtind they're overstockin's, and I'll carry him
all the way so's not to dirty them."
Mary stopped her dish-washing, and drying her hands on
the thin towel that hung over the looking glass, found
her knitting and began to knit at the top of her speed.
"Isn't it good we have that dress o' his, so good yet,
that he got when we had all of yez christened. Put the
irons on there Mary; never mind, don't stop your knittin'.
I'll do it myself. We'll press it out a bit, and we can
put ma's handkerchief, the one pa gev her for Christmas,
around his neck, sort o' sailor collar style, to show
he's a boy. And now the snow is melted, I'll go at him.
Don't cry now Danny, man, yer going' up to the big house
where the lovely pink lady lives that has the chocaklut
drops on her stand and chunks of cake on the table wid
nuts in them as big as marbles. There now," continued
Pearlie, putting the towel over her finger and penetrating
Danny's ear, "she'll not say she can plant seeds in you.
Yer ears are as clean as hers," and Pearlie stood back
and took a critical view of Danny's ears front and back.
"Chockaluts?" asked Danny to be sure that he hadn't been
mistaken.
"Yes," went on Pearlie to keep him still while she fixed
his shock of red hair into stubborn little curls, and
she told again with ever growing enthusiasm the story of
the pink lady, and the wonderful things she had in the
box tied up with store string.
At last Danny was completed and stood on a chair for
inspection. But here a digression from the main issue
occurred, for Bugsey had grown tired of his temporary
confinement and complained that Patsey had not contributed
one thing to Danny's wardrobe while he had had to give
up both his stockings and his pants.
Pearlie stopped in the work of combing her own hair to
see what could be done.
"Patsey, where's your gum?" she asked. "Git it for me
this minute," and Patsey went to the "fallen leaf" of
the table and found it on the inside where he had put it
for safe keeping.
"Now you give that to Bugsey," she said, "and that'll
make it kind o' even though it does look as if you wuz
gettin' off pretty light."
Pearlie struggled with her hair to make it lie down and
"act dacint," but the image that looked back at her from
the cracked glass was not encouraging, even after making
allowance for the crack, but she comforted herself by
saying, "Sure it's Danny she wants to see, and she won't
be lookin' much at me anyway."
Then the question arose, and for a while looked serious
--What was Danny to wear on his head? Danny had no cap,
nor ever had one. There was one little red toque in the
house that Patsey wore, but by an unfortunate accident,
it had that very morning fallen into the milk pail and
was now drying on the oven door. For a while it seemed
as if the visit would have to be postponed until it dried,
when Mary had an inspiration.
"Wrap yer cloud around his head and say you wuz feart of
the earache, the day is so cold."
This was done and a blanket off one of the beds was
pressed into service as an outer wrap for Danny. He was
in such very bad humour at being wrapped up so tight that
Pearlie had to set him down on the bed again to get a
fresh grip on him.
"It's just as well I have no mitts," she said as she
lifted her heavy burden. "I couldn't howld him at all if
I was bothered with mitts. Open the dure, Patsey, and
mind you shut it tight again. Keep up the fire, Mary.
Bugsey, lie still and chew your gum, and don't fight any
of yez."
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