Sylvia of the Stubbles

Front matter

All Rights Reserved

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Sylvia of the Stubbles

CHAPTER I The White Butterfly

IT WAS morning at the Stubbles, that sparsely-settled little village huddled at the crossroads—barren and desolate to the passer-by who had not made the acquaintance of Sylvia and the Little Gray House, but to those upon whom her blue eyes and sunny smile had rested—a vale of sunshine and flowers.

Petey Swanson, with unfailing patience, was sweeping a pile of damp sawdust along the foot-worn aisle of his little store, bobbing back and forth with his hobbling old gait, straightening the pyramid of "package goods," shooing inquisitive flies from the plates of fruit in his front window, and flapping a blue calico duster against the carved and whittled two-by-four of the rickety little porch.

He stopped in the midst of one of the spasms of blue calico flappings and, shading his eyes with gnarled old fingers, gazed intently down the sun-dappled road that led past the railroad sidetrack and across the creek. A tall man's figure was coming swiftly down the road with a light, half-dancing step. He wore a shabby black frock coat and a high silk hat; in his buttonhole was a white rosebud; he clasped in his hand a graceful nosegay of blue bachelor buttons and pink roses, and as he walked he softly sang a lilting song:

"Oh, the Road was made for you and me, And every Flower and every Tree."

He stopped, a dreamy smile on his face, and called gravely to a great collie that followed him leisurely. "Hurry, Jester, we must not keep the King waiting."

Petey Swanson shook his head dubiously as the two drew near. "Luke, poor boy; poor Loony Luke," he muttered to himself.

The man and the dog had reached the store and the former, with a low bow, swept the silk hat from his head, uncovering a thatch of silvery-white hair.

"Good morning, Sir Swanson—I have brought thee flowers from the Queen's garden—flowers for thee and Sylvia.

"Pink flowers born with rosy dawn; Blue blossoms from the sky, To greet the Fairy Princess When she lightly dances by.

"Pray put them in thy window in the crystal bowl."

Petey took the flowers. "You bane one gut poy, Poet, to gif me posies for mine shtore vindow and the little Fairy Princess, Sylvia. Von't you stop and sit avile?"

"No, Sir Swanson, the Kingdom is patiently waiting for me to finish my book of poems, and I must write, write. Come Jester." There was a dreamy look in the Poet's deep brown eyes as he lovingly caressed the dog's sleek head while the creature nuzzled the long sensitive fingers. "The King's Jester and I shall be down the road by the row of sunflowers, if we are wanted," he said, and they took up their walk, on past the store, down the white road towards the clump of sunflowers, which cast ragged shadows on the tall grass.

Petey Swanson put the flowers in a glass fruit jar and tears came into his hard old eyes as the fitful song was wafted back:

"Oh, the Road was made for you and me, And every Flower and every Tree."

"Poor boy! Poor Luke! He bane queer—too much books. But he bane a Poet, and I luf him! And little Sylvia—she bane queer little shild, too—a queer pair dose two, but I luf dem both!"

Half a mile down the crossroad, in the Little Gray House at the very edge of the Stubbles, Sylvia was bustling about the sunny kitchen, washing the breakfast dishes with a gentle clatter of cups and spoons. The soft June breeze fluttered the white sash curtain at the window and carried puffs of summer fragrance across the room.

"Now, Minerva, hurry and finish washing your face because we're goin' on a picnic just as soon as I get this cup wiped 'n put away," she said, addressing the gray angora kitten in the patch of sunshine on the floor before the open door. "I've got our lunch packed in a basket—there's a little tin pail with some milk for you—'n three sugar cookies that Granny Evans gave me yesterday, 'n six great big, beau'ful red strawberries that Daddy Jim picked for me. O' course, if you liked strawberries and sugar cookies, Minerva, I'd be glad to give you half."

Minerva stopped washing her face a moment to chase a fleeting shadow.

"Daddy Jim says we can stay until afternoon 'cause he's working so far out in the fields to-day he won't be back to dinner. And on our way back we're going to stop at Mrs. Jones' house, Minerva, 'n see how the little sick Jones baby is today. Poor little thing! But it's got to be better—it mustn't die, 'cause Daddy Jim says if it dies, Mr. Jones will go to the bad—just think, Minerva!"

She lifted the gray kitten and tucked it under her arm, took the tiny basket of lunch and together they started down the road apicknicking.

They had gone some distance when Minerva, her kitten patience teased to the utmost by the nodding weeds along the roadside, wriggled from her little mistress's arm and bounded off into the tall grass. Sylvia set down the basket, pushed her sunbonnet back from her hot little face, and took a deep whiff of the warm, fragrant air.

"Oh," she breathed, stretching out her chubby brown arms to the warm sun and the gentle breeze, "I could purr, just like Minerva."

The sun rose higher and higher, and the June breeze played over the tall grasses, bending their heads with one accord as it passed. It reminded Sylvia of the people in church, when the minister said: "Let us pray."

The summer day wore on. They ate their lunch and romped in the fields. And then Sylvia saw the White Butterfly! It came flying from the direction of the Joneses' place a mile down the road, and paused above a wild rosebush, its gauzy wings quivering as it alighted on one of the pale blossoms! Sylvia gazed at it in breathless wonder. It was very beautiful with its frail white wings, faintly streaked as if with strokes from a fairy paintbrush. But it was not its beauty which made Sylvia's eyes grow big with awe.

No, indeed. She knew a wonderful secret about white butterflies. She did not know where she had learned it, nor how, nor when. It was like a half-forgotten dream. Yet whenever she saw a white butterfly she seemed to see a beautiful garden—more lovely, even, than the Lonely Lady's, upon the hill beyond the creek—where there were wide green lawns and hedges and a tinkling fountain and fallen rainbows of flowers. There on a rustic seat beneath the great elm, sat a beautiful Dream Lady, who was strangely like her mother; and near her played a child who seemed to be herself, flitting about among the flower beds chasing butterflies. The child caught one and carried it gleefully to the Dream Lady.

"Let it go, dear," she had said, freeing it with gentle fingers. "I think white butterflies are the Souls of Little Babies who have just died, on their way to Heaven!"

Perhaps it was only a dream after all. Per- haps the birds or the bees or the flowers had whispered it to her, or perhaps the Poet had told her. But wherever she had learned it, she was sure that her secret was true.

Then the Jones baby must be dead. It had been very, very ill, and the Joneses were very, very poor—too poor to have a doctor, Sylvia knew—and the butterfly had certainly come from the direction of their little cottage, and now Mr. Jones would go to the bad! Sylvia didn't know just what "going to the bad" meant, but it had a portentous sound that made her think of big black monsters with fiery breath and frightful claws, and she knew by the way Daddy Jim had shaken his head when he said it, that it meant something terrible. She didn't want Dave Jones to go to the bad, for she remembered how tired and sweet and sad Mrs. Jones had looked once when she had come to church, and how she had smiled a motherly sort of smile when Sylvia had looked at her over the back of the seat.

Suddenly a thought seized Sylvia that made her catch her breath. What if she could cap- ture the little white butterfly—the Jones baby's soul—before it got any farther on its way to Heaven, and take it back to the sad, tired mother!

She darted towards the rosebush, but the fairy thing with fluttering wings was up and away, floating from weed to flower, from flower to grass, drifting lazily with the June breeze, always just out of reach of Sylvia's hands. On and on she ran, clutching at the little creature, in vain, alternately pleading and scolding:

"See here, Jones Baby, you must go back to your poor mother and father—or your father will go to the bad. Please, please, little White Butterfly!"

But the little white butterfly, evidently, had forgotten about the unhappy father and mother, and probably knew that it was much nicer in Heaven than in the little Jones cottage, and on it drifted.

Sylvia was hot and tired, and with every instant the Jones baby's soul was getting nearer Heaven. A wave of terror and dismay seized her. She beat her hands together and jumped up and down in the dusty road.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried.

Just then there was a rustling in the bushes at the roadside and out darted a girlish figure in a tattered brown dress. Her black, unkempt hair hung loosely about her swarthy face and half-shaded her sad, dark eyes.

The two, the sunbeam and the shadow, stood staring at each other in wonder for an instant. Sylvia was the first to recover herself.

"There it goes!" she cried. "Quick—the Jones baby's soul—the white butterfly—please, please catch it for me!"

There was a shy, light touch on her shoulder and a low, rich voice said in her ear:

"I'll git him fer ye."

Instantly the graceful figure was away—skimming over the ground as lightly as a brown oak leaf wafted before a vagrant breeze. Quietly she bent over the white butterfly, poised on a mullen stalk, and deftly, gently her swarthy fingers closed over the little prisoner.

She retraced her steps to the wondering Sylvia, her even white teeth gleaming against her cherry lips and berry-brown skin.

"Here 'tis. I got him for you," she said, holding out her interlaced fingers with their delicate captive.

"Oh!" cried Sylvia, smiling through her tears and flinging her chubby arms about the slender figure, "I love you, I love you! You've kept the Jones baby's soul from going—"

The joyful cry was interrupted by a hoarse call from the thicket near the roadside.

"Come back 'ere, Leah, you minx."

Startled, Sylvia and the tall, dark girl turned suddenly to see, peering through the parted branches, a man's heavy-jawed, swarthy face, with sullen eyes and wide, cruel nostrils.

The girl shrugged her straight, boyish shoulders, and turned a haughty stare at him for an instant. Then she bent her dark head over Sylvia's yellow curls. "Here," she whispered swiftly, carefully transferring the butterfly into Sylvia's cupped hands, "here's yer little baby butterfly. Take it quick. I got to go er he'll beat me."

She darted into the thicket like a swallow, but before the parted branches closed behind her soiled, tattered dress, she turned a sad, heart-hungry face toward the little figure in the road, then a brawny arm reached out and jerked her into the bushes. Sylvia stood in the road, bewildered and alone. She stared for a moment at the spot where the girl had disappeared, and then she remembered the Jones baby's soul.

It was a long, hot way to the Joneses' place. Supposing the white butterfly, that fluttered so softly against her hands, should die before she got it safely home! What, then, would become of the Jones baby's soul that had been so happily on its way to heaven?

Sylvia's heart pumped hard. It was a long way back and she was tired and hot, and it was hard to hold her hands together with the soft little fluttering thing between. She started to open her fingers, but the thought of the sad mother, and the father who would go to the bad, stopped her. She began to run, for it was far, far for a little girl to go.

An automobile coming slowly along the road behind her sounded a hoarse warning, but Sylvia did not get out of the way. Instead, she turned and ran back toward it, both hands holding the precious captive above her head.

"Stop, stop, stop!" she screamed, keeping to the center of the road, and dashing straight for the oncoming machine.

The tall young man at the wheel stopped the car suddenly with a jerk, which brought forth a growl-like exclamation from the gray-haired old gentleman who sat beside him.

"Drat your plagued bouncing stops, Billy," he roared. "You're pounding my sore foot to pieces. Get out of our way, young one," turning impatiently to Sylvia.

She stamped a bare, dusty foot, and her rosy face grew ruddier.

"I won't either get out of the way," she cried, shaking her yellow curls. "I've got something important to do, and I've got to hurry."

The young man at the wheel opened the door of the car and, leaning out, stared quizzically at the flushed, dusty Sylvia. "Mercy on us!" he gasped in mock horror, "tell me quickly what this awfully important thing is—and what's your name and where do you live?"

"I'm Daddy Jim's little girl, 'n he 'n I live in the Little Gray House—only the Poet calls me Fairy Princess,' 'n sometimes the 'Star Child,' but my real name's Sylvia."

'Oh, won't you please ride me as far as the Joneses? You see, the Jones baby died 'n I had to catch its soul before it got to Heaven so its father wouldn't go to the bad—it's here in my hands now—look!" She opened her sweaty little palms a wee crack. "A girl with long, black hair caught it for me—'n then a big black—"

Wait, wait," cried the smiling young man, putting his hand to his head distractedly. "I thought I knew a fairy Princess when I saw one, but I'm awfully sorry that I can't understand the language."

Sylvia, distressed for the precious moments that were slipping by, explained breathlessly as best she could.

The young man's twinkly gray eyes grew grave. "And they haven't had a doctor, you say?"

She shook her head earnestly.

"Then climb in and we'll do the very best we can," he said quickly, helping her into the car, and starting the engine purring.

It seemed scarcely a moment later that Sylvia told him to stop before the Joneses' tumbled-down little brown shack that looked strangely sad and hopeless. And no wonder, for when they opened the sagging door, there sat the poor mother with haggard, tear-stained face, holding in her arms the baby boy who lay very still and white. A man was kneeling beside her, his head buried in the baby's dress, his massive shoulders shaking with sobs.

Sylvia, followed by the tall young man, entered. She opened her fingers and the White Butterfly spread its gauzy wings and flew out into the room.

"Look, look!" cried Sylvia, clapping her hands, and dancing about, "we've brought it back to you—the baby's soul!"

The woman lifted her head and looked for a moment in dumb wonder, first at the child, then up at the tall young man, her pale lips quivering.

But the young man was not looking at her, nor at the other man who had risen and stood with bowed head and clenched hands. He had stepped forward and was looking at the baby with keen, practiced eyes, feeling its cold little wrist with firm fingers, and bending his head to listen at the bluish little lips.

Then he held out his arms and gently took the little form from the mother.

"Do what I say, quickly, and I'm sure we can save your baby," he said in his deep, reassuring voice.

Mrs. Jones arose, staring questioningly at him.

"Be quick!" he said kindly, "I'm Billy Lynn—"

"What—you're Billy Lynn!" The woman's face was ashen.

"Yes."

"But you're not a doctor?"

"Not yet, but I'm studying to be one—and I can save your child if you do as I tell you."

"Is—is your father Dr. Lynn—of—of Fairmont?" The words came fearfully.

"He is Dr. James Lynn why?"

"Oh!" The woman put her hand to her heart as if a sharp pain had stabbed her there. "Oh, nothing—" she said, faintly, steadying herself against a table.

They worked feverishly—Doctor Billy, Sylvia, Mrs. Jones, and the baby's father—heating water and milk, wrapping the baby in warm blankets; and in a very short time the warm color began to steal back into the tiny pinched face.

"Oh, goody!" whispered Sylvia, as she stood beside the baby's crib. "He's getting all pinky again—'n—why, the butterfly's gone—the baby's soul is back. I'm going to go and tell the Ogre, Doctor Billy."

"The Ogre?"

"Yes, your father out 'n the auto."

Doctor Billy laughed heartily. "All right, skip out and tell Dad I'll be there shortly. The baby's going to be napping peacefully as quick as you can say 'Jack Robinson.

The old gentleman was fidgeting in the automobile. "Plague take this sore foot," he growled as Sylvia delivered the message. "I wish I could get out and help the boy. Here, take my medicine case in to him, he might want to use it."

She returned to the house, lugging the worn leather case.

"Poor old Dad," said Doctor Billy, "he's laid up just now with a sore foot, but I inveigled him to come with me for a little drive this afternoon. He's like a caged lion when he can't be gallivanting about with his old medicine case—he's carried it almost every day for forty years. Looks it, doesn't it?" His deep, hearty laugh rang through the poor little rooms.

"Well, Princess," he said, taking a last look at the baby, now sleeping quietly in its little crib, "let's be on our way rejoicing."

The man tried to express his thanks, incoherently, with downcast eyes, and the woman took Doctor Billy's warm hand gratefully between her own cold ones, and then, completely overcome by his kind good-bye, she threw her arms about the old doctor's medicine case, pressed it to her breast and covered its worn leather sides with kisses.

"Don't thank me," said Doctor Billy, "thank the Fairy Princess, here. I wouldn't have known without her."

But out in the car, Sylvia said, with a wistful little question in her voice, "It was really you, and not the White Butterfly at all, wasn't it?"

"Me!" said Doctor Billy with ungrammatical surprise. "Me! Why, you know, Princess, I couldn't have done a single, solitary thing if it hadn't been for the White Butterfly. I'm mighty glad you let me in on the Fairy Secret. It's a dandy! And both together I think we can do something for those poor folks, don't you?"

It was nearly supper time when Doctor Billy stopped his car in front of the Little Gray House, and accompanied Sylvia to the door.

"Good-bye, Daddy Jim's little girl—or Fairy Princess—or whatever you are. Don't forget me, will you?"

"Good-bye, Doctor Billy, course I won't forget you, 'n don't you forget what you promised—that you'd ride out to the Stubbles real, real often," she said, shaking a grimy forefinger at him. Cause I think I'm going to need you lots o' times."

"I hope you will," said Doctor Billy, and with a far-away smile on his face he went back to the car where the old doctor was impatiently waiting.

"Funny little kiddie," he said as they sped away, "with the babble about poets and princesses and baby souls and the little white stone marked 'mother,' and her wonderful Daddy Jim, and Minerva, the cat, and—"

"Well, well, well, Billy, I should think you'd reached your second childhood, talking baby talk and muttering about fairies," said his father gruffly. But Doctor Billy noticed—and his gray eyes twinkled—that just before they came to the bend in the road, the old doctor looked back and waved his handkerchief to a little blue-gingham figure that hung over the fence in front of the Little Gray House and flapped a white sunbonnet at the disappearIng Car.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER II Sylvia's Birthday Wish

AND so the little Jones baby is going to get well?" asked Daddy Jim, stroking Sylvia's curls. The two were sitting on the vine-shaded porch of the Little Gray House, in the clover-scented June twilight Sylvia had been recounting the wonderful happenings of the day.

"Yes, Daddy Jim, and Mrs. Jones was so glad she cried, and then she just kissed and squeezed Doctor Billy's father's medicine case real hard, and even Mr. Jones had tears in his eyes—I s'pose he'd been thinking he'd have to go to the bad when Doctor Billy came. Of course, he isn't quite a doctor yet, but he said he was studying hard at a big school, and pretty soon he'd be one and make sick folks well and mend their broken bones. I asked him if he could fix broken hearts, too, 'cause I heard the Poet say there was just one Great Doctor who could, and Doctor Billy said that was one thing he was goin' to specialize in, if he could—but he said they were awful hard to fix sometimes, harder'n arms and legs.

"He likes to read books like yours, Daddy Jim, 'n he said you 'n I looked a lot alike when I showed him your picture 'n―"

"Sylvia," said Daddy Jim sternly, "did he come in here?"

"Just to the door, Daddy, dear, but he could see the bookcases from the porch, 'n he said—'My! what a lots o' books your daddy has.' 'N I told him we had lots more packed away. I told him how you read stories to me nights, 'n Sundays, 'n that once you read one about a goddess named Minerva, 'n I liked it so well I named my kitten that. 'N I told him what good things you could make, Daddy Jim—waffles 'n pop corn 'n oyster stew 'n how you taught me everything at home, 'cause we'd moved around so much I couldn't go to school, 'n how awful much we missed mother dear, 'n—'n he just patted my hand, Daddy Jim, 'n his eyes got all shiny 'n he said he knew just how it was, 'cause he missed his mother, too. 'N then he told me all about their great big dark house at Fairmont, with just the Ogre 'n Hannah 'n Tim—"

"The Ogre!"

"Yes, Daddy Jim, that's his father. I call him that 'cause he roared at me 'n shook his fist when I made 'em stop. Dr. Billy said he wasn't awful cross, but he's got a sore foot 'n that makes him worse."

The two sat quietly for a few minutes. Daddy Jim's eyes followed the road that wound past the house, up over the brow of the hill and away, like a gray ribbon in the dusky twilight. Then he looked down at the golden head nestled against his arm.

"Sylvia," he said, and she raised her eyes in surprise at the stern tones. Daddy Jim's voice was usually as gentle as a mother's.

"Sylvia, there are two things Daddy wants you to remember—two things that are very important. Never bring a stranger into our house or tell anything about our personal affairs."

"Why not, Daddy Jim? Is there something about us that we don't want anyone to know?" she asked.

"There is something we don't talk about. But you must love and trust Daddy Jim and not ask questions. Will you do that?"

Sylvia nodded and then she took his hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

"And the second thing is this, dear: Daddy doesn't want you to have anything to do with the dark girl—Leah—the one who helped you catch the butterfly. She belongs to the Warren tribe and they are trash—just trash. They steal and lie—and the Stubbles will never be a decent place to live in while they remain. I've been trying to get rid of them ever since Petey Swanson appointed me constable, and I shall keep trying until they are wiped out, root and branch."

"But, Daddy Jim," protested Sylvia, twining her arm about his neck, "she must be good 'cause she helped to save the baby's soul, and she looked so lonesome, an' I guess she was scared, 'cause she said the man would beat her."

"No dear," said Daddy Jim, gravely. "The daughter of such people can't be a fit friend for you, no matter how much you may have liked her. Don't you see that, little girl? You must trust Daddy's judgment."

Sylvia bowed her head in submission. Her father watched her thoughtfully, as she clasped her hands about her knees and raised her face to the summer stars that were beginning to blink in the sunset sky, watched her hungrily until the golden head was blurred by the tender mist in his eyes.

Sylvia broke the silence with a sing-song little incantation:

"Star light, star bright, First star Iv'e seen to-night! I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish to-night!"

"And what is the wish of the Fairy Princess?" asked Daddy Jim, shaking off the quiet mood that had been stealing over him.

"Oh—" said Sylvia, raising a beaming face, "I wish—I wish I knew the answers to all the 'whys' in the whole wide world!"

"Ho, ho!" laughed Daddy Jim, throwing back his head and laughing so heartily that Minerva, who had been dozing in the cushioned porch chair, jumped lightly down and tapped his knee gently with a playful paw. "What a very, very queer and foolish wish for a Fairy Princess! Why, I thought you'd wish for a pink satin dress or a diamond necklace—or a coach and four, or a gold castle with silver windows or—"

Sylvia clapped her hands delightedly. "Oh, Daddy, Daddy Jim, whatever 'n the world made you think I wanted those things. I'd rather live in the Little Gray House than in a gold castle, 'n I'd rather wear my blue gingham dress 'n ride on Bump's back, than wear pink satin 'n ride in a coach. What made you say my wish was foolish?"

"Because, dear," said Daddy Jim, smoothing her curls, and growing grave again, "if your poor little head knew the answers to all the 'whys' in the whole wide world there wouldn't be any room left for birds and bees and fairies and flowers and poets and white butterflies. And your poor heart—why, it would be so cracked and splintered and broken that not even your friend, Doctor Billy, with all his spe- cializing, could fix it again—for he told you the truth when he said that broken hearts were much harder to mend than arms and legs."

"Well, then, Daddy Jim, couldn't I change my wish'n—make one about my birthday—that's coming next week?" asked Sylvia, throwing her arms about him.

"Of course you could," said Daddy Jim, "and I'd not be a bit surprised if it would come true, since you don't care about gold castles and diamond necklaces and things of that sort."

"Oh, goody! Then this is what I wish," said Sylvia, shutting her eyes tightly and screwing up her face until the dimples in her cheeks showed. "I wish you 'n I could go on a journey, Daddy—you 'n I together."

A swift shadow fell across Daddy Jim's face and the line of his mouth tightened, but Sylvia's eyes were closed and she did not see the fleeting expression.

"Go away—on the train, you mean? Away from the Stubbles?" A queer note crept into his voice, and he waited anxiously for her reply.

"Oh, no," explained Sylvia, not away on the train—just go 'round the Stubbles inwhat d' you's'pose, daddy—in a Little Red Wagon!" She opened her eyes suddenly and waited expectantly for the answer.

Daddy Jim laughed in a relieved way. "In a little red wagon!" he exclaimed.

"Yes! Couldn't we paint the little old spring wagon 'n put a white cover over the top—you know—with Bumps hitched to it?" Sylvia caught her father's arm excitedly. "'N couldn't I wear a red sash around my waist 'n a black velvet jacket—'n—'n earrings—like a gypsy?"

"6 Sylvia, you never saw a gypsy, did you?"

"No, Daddy Jim, but the Poet told me all about 'em, 'n about their camp fires 'n their songs 'n everything, 'n the wagons with white tops they go 'round in."

"Well," said Daddy Jim, "I shouldn't be surprised if we could manage it some way."

"And then," said Sylvia, settling herself again at Daddy Jim's side, "there's another part to my wish, 'n it's this: I wish we could drive around 'n get the Poet 'n Petey Swanson 'n the Tweenies 'n the Lonely Lady—'n take 'em all in the red wagon 'n drive over across the creek to the grove 'n have our birthday supper in the woods. 'N—wait, Daddy, there's just one more part to my wish—it's to have Doctor Billy at my party!"

"Doctor Billy—and you've only known him to-day?"

"Yes, Daddy Jim—'cause it was beautiful of him to make the Jones baby well—'n he's so lonesome 'thout his mother. And he's very much like a—a prisoner. He's sort of wonderful to me. I'd just love it if I could have him! Can't—I on my birthday?"