Time of the Singing of Birds Read online

  “Yes, that she would, lad. Your mother was a brave lady to the end, and I thank the Lord she didn’t have to suffer too long. She was always so quiet and so brave. And she was that pleased when the piece came out in the paper saying how brave her boy was. She held the paper in her hand all that first day. She wouldn’t let it go out of her sight, and she read it over till she knew it by heart. And then she’d say, ‘Roxy, I knew he’d be like that. I knew he’d be brave, because his father was. I used to tell him about his father in the last war, and I knew he’d be like that! I’m glad I lived long enough to know that; though if I hadn’t, doubtless my Lord would have told me about it after I get Home.’ ”

  There were tears dropping down the boy’s face before she was done.

  “Oh, Roxy, I’m glad you told me that!” he said. “I’m glad she lived to know about the nice things they said. But oh, if she could have lived a little longer till I got home!”

  “Yes, I know, laddie!” soothed the old woman, coming over beside the bed.

  The young man had buried his face in the pillow, and his shoulders were shaking with dry soundless sobs. Only the back of his head was visible, and one arm, with his hand gripping the blankets. Then old Roxy bent over and patted the thick dark hair that curled over his handsome head.

  “But she said for you not to grieve, you know, laddie,” continued the sweet old voice. “She said for you to live out your life and be happy till it was time for you to come Home, and she’d be waiting there to welcome you.”

  The shaking shoulders were suddenly still, and presently the soldier turned over and brushed the tears away, with a semblance of his old grin.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “Now, let’s go on from here. We’ll talk about mother again, sometime, but now, tell me about the rest of the boys. What became of the Nezbit twins, Dave and Donnie? And where did they finally get away to? And where is Will Glegg?”

  “Well, let me see. Dave an’ Donnie, why, they’re over in Iceland, and homesick as they can be for a sight of home. Donnie wrote back last fall some other fella got an autumn leaf in a letter from a girl, an’ it made them all envious, wantin’ to get back. An’ Willy Glegg, he’s somewhere in Africa. They certainly do think up the most faraway places to send our boys to; seems if they might have gone where they wouldn’t have to learn a new language.”

  The forlorn soldier began to laugh, and Roxy was pleased, and rattled on.

  “Then there was Gene Tolland, he got himself a nice fat office job with plenty of gold stripes he hadn’t earned fighting. Came back here and strutted around like he owned the earth. And Phelps Larue was missing in action. He would be, you know. He was always everywhere when he was needed, and he had plenty of honors to his credit. And Taffy Rolland is out somewhere undersea in a submarine. That don’t seem right, either; nice quiet boy like Taffy, never did anybody any harm, and hasta go off undersea? How could he ever expect to do anything for the war undersea? And Bill Brower, he got killed at Guadalcanal they say, and that’s about all the boys.”

  “And the girls?” asked the soldier. “Are they doing anything?”

  “I should say they are,” said Roxy. “Arta Perry and Franny Forsythe went in training for nurses. They’re off on a big transport somewhere. And Betty Price is a WAC, and the Bowman girls and Lula Fritz are WAVES, or some of the A.B.C.s, I forget what. And the Grady, and Baker, and Watson girls went into a defense plant and are welders. I must say, I’m not sure I like nice girls going around doing men’s work, but I suppose that’s what war is, and we can’t help it. Though in my day it wouldn’t have been considered nice.”

  The young man on the bed laughed, and then after a moment he asked, “And whatever became of Hortense? Is she around here anywhere?”

  “Oh, she got herself married soon after you left,” announced Roxy triumphantly.

  “Married?” There was a shade of surprise in the voice of the soldier. Then after an instant, “Who did she marry?”

  “Oh, she married some rich, good-looking lieutenant, and then when he got himself sent away off somewhere she tried to insist he refuse to go, and when he wouldn’t do as she wanted she got herself divorced. Oh, she had some other trumped-up excuse, but when it came to alimony they found he wasn’t so rich after all, and she sort of lost out! And now I understand she’s trotting around to camps and the places they call ‘centers,’ entertaining soldiers. Though it never struck me she was very entertaining. Kind of coarse and loud I thought she was.”

  “You never liked Hortense, did you, Roxy?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t so keen on her of course, but I did own she used to be pretty after a fashion. But she’s changed a lot. She’s all painted up fit to kill; got a mouth as big as a hollyhock, all greasy red stuff. I don’t know why they paint ’em so thick, if they must paint ’em. But anyhow she’s a sight. However, she’s got plenty of fellas to run after her where she is now, though I don’t know what good it’ll do her, when they’re all going overseas all the time.”

  “No, you never did like Hortense,” laughed the young man. “I always knew that.”

  “Well, neither did your mother,” said Roxy belligerently, looking grim and sober. “Say, would you like another batch of pancakes? The griddle is still on. It won’t take a minute.”

  “No, oh, no! I’ve eaten a big breakfast already, and I ought to be getting up sometime pretty soon.”

  “Oh, why not lie still and get a good rest? You had a long journey and you need to really sleep a lot to make up your strength. There won’t be anybody around today. They don’t know you’re home yet, you know. You just keep quiet a day or two, till you really feel like going out. I won’t let on you’ve come till you’re ready to see people, and I’ll tell Joel to keep mum, too.”

  “All right,” the soldier said, grinning, “maybe I will. This bed still feels pretty good to me.” And he turned over and settled down for another nap.

  Then out in the hall he heard the telephone ring, and heard the felt slippers shuffle to answer it. His senses were already drowsy with the thought that there was no need for him to rouse yet, but he heard a raucous voice, a girl’s voice, asking a question about himself.

  “When is Barney coming back?” it said.

  Then his senses came alive a little. That was Hortense’s voice, wasn’t it? Sharper, more nasal, more possessive than it used to be?

  And then Roxy, disapproving, reproving, quite final: “Why, I really couldn’t say!”

  Barney grinned silently.

  Then the other voice, murmuring sharply again. But something had happened to the telephone now. He couldn’t hear the annoyed questions that were being asked next, for it seemed that Roxy’s capable hand was being laid firmly over the receiver so that the sound would not penetrate to the other end of the hall, and he could envision Roxy, standing there with her thin lips firmly set in a grim line. Then he heard Roxy’s voice again: “No, I really couldn’t say! No, I couldn’t say!” That last with finality, and then the click of the receiver as Roxy hung up.

  The young man on the pillow grinned to himself again. Foiled! Hortense was foiled, effectively. And yet apparently Roxy hadn’t told any lies. Just reiterated that she couldn’t say. And he knew her of old, that her grim conscience would not hold her to account for that statement, even though it was not made with the meaning that it might be understood to have. Roxy had a clever way of protecting her beloved ones when she felt they needed protection. And still grinning, the young man closed his eyes and surrendered himself to the luxury of going on with the rest he had been definitely ordered to take every day when he got home. Oh, it was good to be at home!

  When next he came awake, some hours later, it was the clear sweet notes of a whistle that brought him back to his senses. It was a peculiar whistle, one that was all his own, and nobody else had ever seemed to be able to imitate, though many had tried. Its sweetness swept across his heart like a skillful hand on the stings of a harp, bringing back old days when home had been the pl
ace he loved best, and there was no grim specter of war anywhere. It was a sound of heartening cheer, and it almost seemed to him that it came out of his dreams, so sweet and perfect it had been. Not just one note, but several tones, like a bit of a message. It was that peculiar trill that was not easy to imitate. He must have dreamed it! But no, there it was again, and now he was hearing the crunch of bicycle wheels on the gravel of the drive. Someone was coming to the house, and giving that clarion call of his.

  He sprang from the bed and stole to the window, peering from behind the curtain. Had some other boy succeeded in mastering that whistle?

  But now he could see, it was not a boy. It was a girl, riding a bicycle, carrying a small parcel in the rack before her. A girl with a cloud of golden hair.

  He stepped back so he would not be seen, but kept her in view. Who could she be?

  Then she called.

  “Roxy! Oh, Roxy! Where are you? Mother sent you a pat of her new butter.”

  The girl stepped from her bicycle, and lifted her face to scan the windows of the house. She was very lovely. A flash of shy blue eyes, wide and sweet, a beautiful face framed in apple blossoms. Then he heard Roxy’s voice as she opened the kitchen door, and the vision vanished. There was only the bicycle lying on its side against the grassy terrace, and the sound of the closing kitchen door. She had gone inside. Who was she?

  Yet that whistle still seemed to linger on the air hauntingly. Was she someone to whom he had tried to teach it?

  Then a robin came noisily back to the branch by the window, looked down at the bicycle on the ground, and turned a beady, wondering eye on Barney as he stirred behind the curtain.

  Chapter 4

  He waited breathlessly behind the screening curtain, and presently he heard the kitchen door open again, low voices, just a few words, then the girl came out, flinging backward to Roxy a kiss from her fingertips, and the single word “Bye!” as she mounted her bicycle and rode away. Out the gravel drive, down the road, a slender graceful figure in a soft gray suit with a rosy collar, a bright blue sweater, and gold hair flying back from her shoulders. She made a picture that fit well into the background of apple blossoms and tender new leaves. Barney, behind the window curtain, and the fat robin on his branch, stood and watched her as she flashed out into the sunlight and on down the road. Almost she might have been a bird, so swiftly and easily she rode.

  When she disappeared from sight down toward the village the bird unfurled his wings and sailed into the spring sunshine, and the young man turned and picked up his garments and dressed quickly. He had no desire any longer to lie and sleep. He wanted to get back into life and find out who that girl was, and how she happened to be able to give that whistle, which he had always supposed was his own private property.

  Barney appeared down in the kitchen very soon.

  “Roxy, wasn’t there someone here a few minutes ago?” he asked, after he had greeted her. “Who was it?”

  “Oh,” said Roxy with distress in her tone, “did we wake you? I tried to be very quiet.”

  “No, you didn’t wake me,” laughed Barney. “It was the whistle that woke me. Roxy, who can whistle like that? I didn’t know anybody but myself knew that trick.”

  “Well, it was yourself that taught her to whistle. You’ve nobody else to blame.”

  “I taught her?” exclaimed the young man amazed. “But I don’t remember ever teaching any of the girls to whistle. I tried to teach a couple of children now and then, but they couldn’t seem to get it.”

  “Well, one of ’em did!” said Roxy firmly. “And it wasn’t one of them silly girls that used to swarm around here, either. It was one of the little ones. Think back, boy, and see if you can’t figure out who it was. You took a lot of pains teaching her, and she never forgot. She practiced and practiced after you went away, and once in a while she would come over to me and say, ‘Roxy, do I sound all right now? Do I do it at all the way Barney did?’ And I would tell her how it sounded to me. But she said she wouldn’t be satisfied till I couldn’t tell the difference. Till she could make me think it was you come back again. So one morning she came early while I was making breakfast for Joel, and I heard her whistling, and I went quick to the door with my heart all a-twitter, for I really thought it was you, come back somehow! Yes, I did! And when I saw her pert little face all a-twinkle, I knew she had reached her ambition and she could whistle as well as you did. So—that’s the story! And to think you should hear her your first day when she didn’t even know you were home!”

  “Roxy, you don’t mean that was Sunny Roselle? Not little Sunny! The little girl I used to play ball with?”

  “The very same. She hasn’t changed a mite, only grown up a little bit.”

  “But, I don’t understand. The last time I saw her I’m sure she was only a child. Where has she been all this time? I haven’t seen her since I went away to college. I thought the family had moved away. Didn’t someone say so?”

  “Children do grow up, you know,” laughed Roxy. “And you remember there were two summers when you went out to the Warren farm to work as soon as you came back from college. You didn’t see much of her then. And the next year she went off to stay with her grandmother who was getting old and sick and needed her. She was out there three years, off and on, her mother, too, part of the time, till her grandmother died, and then she came home again. No, the family didn’t move away. They are right on their little farm just where they were. They still have the best garden in town, and make their own butter. Of course two of her brothers went away to the service, and there’s only her youngest brother, Frank, left to help his father on the farm.”

  “Well, that’s interesting,” said Barney. “And I suppose Sunny is in high school by this time.”

  Roxy laughed. “Yes, she’s in high school all right, but she’s a teacher, not a student. Why, boy, she must be all of nineteen by now, and they do say she’s about the best teacher they ever had in that school, barring none.”

  “Sunny a teacher!” exclaimed Barney. “Why, I can’t believe it. Little Sunny!”

  “Wait till you see her!” said Roxy with satisfaction.

  “Tell me about her,” said the young man, settling back in the old kitchen chair and clasping his hands behind his head with comfortable informality. “Is she as pretty as she used to be?”

  “Prettier,” said Roxy without reservation. “And she doesn’t have to put a lot of paint and powder on to make herself look attractive, either. She’s as sweet and unspoiled as she was when she was a baby, and I don’t believe you’ll find another like her in the whole country round.”

  “Well, that’s great! I’ve often wondered what became of her. And you say it was she who was whistling when she came in? You say I taught her to whistle like that! Well, I certainly am proud to know it. That child! To think she’s remembered it all these years!”

  “Oh, yes, she remembered it. She never forgot anything you taught her. She adored the very ground you walked on in those days!”

  “Yes, we were pretty good pals,” said Barney, with a reminiscent grin. “But I suppose she’s forgotten all about me by this time. Does she know I’ve come home?”

  Roxy shook her head. “No, I didn’t tell her yet. I thought you wanted a few days to rest before you began to see people.”

  “Oh, well, that goes for the others, but somehow I’d like to see Sunny. She’s different. When will she come again?”

  “Well, she’s pretty busy with her school, and she helps her mother around the house, too, since Miranda went down to the factory to do welding. They thought they ought to help the war that much by letting her go, and she was keen for it herself, though I guess it was hard for her to leave the Roselles, too.”

  “Well, then I suppose I ought to go and see Sunny, instead of expecting her to come over here the way she used to do when she was a kid,” said Barney thoughtfully. “I can’t make it seem real that she is grown up and rates being treated like a young woman.”

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p; “Oh, she’s still a kid,” Roxy said, smiling. “I’m sure she will be to you anyway. Yet she seldom speaks of you except to ask now and then if anything has been heard from you, and whether you’re all right. She’s pretty much of a lady, you know. Quiet-like, and eyes like two stars. She’s grown up, but yes, she’s still a kid,” said Roxy happily. “And the sweetest kid you ever saw. She may not be fashionable, but I think she’s a sight better looking than those other girls all painted up and their fingernails like birds’ claws. Oh, I can’t stand the way they fix their nails now!”

  “Well, I can’t say I admire them, either,” said Barney with a shrug. “I wonder what they do it for. It can’t be pleasant to live with clattery claws like that on their hands, and surely they’re not good-looking. It gives me the shivers just to see them.”

  “Oh, they think it’s smart!” snapped Roxy with a disapproving toss of her head. “That’s all they live for nowadays, ‘to be smaht!’ ” and she imitated a silly girl’s tone so exactly that it set Barney off laughing again.

  Roxy had to go out and look after her chickens then, and Barney sauntered slowly into the other part of the house. Somehow he wanted to take his first look around when he was by himself. There was something sacred in the blessed places where he remembered his mother’s presence, and he wanted to take it in for the first time, tenderly and alone.

  Awhile he lingered in the library where she had always spent so much time. The walls were almost lined with books, dear old books that he had cherished, and his mother had loved.

  Roxy, with a careful thought to Barney’s tastes, had built up a delightful fire in the old fireplace, and drawn up the big chair that had always been his favorite seat, to tempt him to a pleasant rest. And it was there she found him when she came in, deep in the old chair, with a book, one of his old-time favorites, his long limbs stretched out to the pleasant warmth of the kindly blaze, comfort and peace all around him, the vague consciousness of his mother’s desk there almost beside him. It seemed just as she had left it, neat papers and letters in orderly fashion, tucked into their compartments as if she had been there just that morning.