Possession (Roche, February 1923)/Part 1/Chapter 7
They're goin' to flit again," said Newbigging.
"The Indians?" asked Vale.
"Ay. They're leavin' Chaird in the lurch this time. That is, they're all leavin' but the eldest daughter and her husband, and young Fawnie and Jammery. Chaird's fair wild."
"I suppose he'll be after my few Mistwell pickers now."
"He'll never get them. They're insulted because he turned them away for Indians."
"But why are they leaving?"
"It's the auld man—Solomon. He was fiddlin' away at the door of his cottage yesterday when up marched Chaird and told him that the black caps were droppin' off the bushes. 'Let 'em drop,' says Solomon. 'The spirit's on me to fiddle and I've got to fiddle though every berry in the country rots.' Chaird said he would not have an Indian on his farm who would not pick every day and all day. Solomon said that was all very well for squaws, but he was a chief and a gentleman and old Mr. Vale had always treated him as such. This morning he and his family are all packed up ready to go to Reuben MacNeil who grows hops as well as fruit, so auld Solomon says he'll 'make plenty money' there. It sairves Chaird right, and nobody's sorry for him."
Derek, however, could not help feeling sorry for Chard. He had experienced so much anxiety himself over his cherries and raspberries and had lost such a considerable portion of the crop through lack of pickers, that, though Chard had been the cause of his troubles, he felt himself better able to bear the loss than a man with a family of young children. He had heard, too, that Mrs. Chard worked slavishly between her periods of child-bearing, and now there would be still more to do.
He felt disgusted with the Indians. They were like naughty children. Yet they were infinitely more efficient as pickers than the women and boys of Mistwell. He could see some of the boys now scuffling among the black caps, probably trampling them. He told Newbigging to go and make order among them, and himself went to inspect the raspberries. They were almost over, and gentle little Mrs. Orde was cleaning up the last of them, handicapped, as usual, by her greedy son.
He strolled among the canes, the new growth as high as his shoulder, the last, sun-warmed berries smelling strangely sweet, like violets. Some milkweed had come up among them and, here and there, a bursting pod scattered its shimmering fluff. He found the nest of a yellow warbler dangling, light and dried, from a curving cane. It seemed abnormally deep and when he pulled it apart to examine it he discovered a tiny separate compartment in the bottom almost filled by a large, whitish egg and a very small blue one.
"Look here, Fawnie," he called, for he saw her wandering among the canes a short way off. She came slowly, picking raspberries and poking them into her childish mouth. "I'm gettin' my breakfas' off your berry patch," she said. "I'm mad at everybody and I won' eat with them."
"What made you mad, Fawnie?"
"The ole man. He wants me to go pickin' hops and I won't. I got my hen and chickens to look after, and Jammery and me's goin' to pick thimbleberries for you. . . . What's that you' got?"
He showed her the strange nest.
She chuckled. "Oh, don' you know what that's for, Durek? Gosh, them little birds are sly! I'll tell you now. They built their nice little nest, and the little squaw-bird, she laid a pretty blue egg in it, then she flew away to eat a strawberry and rest a while before she laid some more. When she got back her ole man was perched on the side of the nest, scratchin' his head and lookin' awful mad. 'Come here missus,' he says, 'and jus' see what some darned cowbird's did. Laid her egg alongside what's goin' to be our little papoose.' She hurried up to see if he was lyin', 'cos he often lied to her. But this time, sure enough, he was tellin' the truth. She swore pretty fierce and pecked him 'cos he hadn't guarded her egg better. Then they both set to work and built a new bottom to the nest, right on top of the cowbird's egg, and then she laid some more eggs and hatched 'em out but the cowbird's egg got cold and died—and so did her first poor little egg lyin' there beside it. But the ole man thought, 'Oh, well, I don' care—it's one less to feed'." She smiled roguishly and shrugged her plump shoulders. "You like that story? Yes? Well, kiss me then."
"I like your story, but your cheeks are berry-stained and if I kissed you everyone would know. The stains are purple. Have you been trying the thimbleberries? You'll be sick, Fawnie, they're not ripe."
"Yes, they're gettin' ripe fast—millions of them. Oh, I forgot, Durek, my paw wants to see you. He's waitin' by the shack. Come along."
"Do you think he's coming back to pick for me?" asked Derek, hopefully, as they passed the thimbleberry canes whose purple clusters of fruit were becoming dark and shiny.
"No. He's goin' to MacNeil's to pick hops. But he wants to see you first."
They found Solomon Sharroe sitting on the edge of the long table beneath the apple trees. His wife inside the shack was making a bundle of some bedding. Fawnie's hen with her lusty, fluttering brood about her, was scratching in the doorway. Solomon greeted Derek with a dignified inclination of his iron-grey head.
"Mr. Vale," he said, "I am goin' to leave Chard today and take all my family except Esther and her husband, and Jammery."
"And me, paw!" cried Fawnie. "I'm goin' to stay."
"You're goin' to stay," repeated Solomon, with a scornful gesture of his dark hand. "Nobody cares what you're goin' to do because you're so lazy. Even Beulah who is four years younger picks faster than you. Yet when the hot bread and the ham and the pickles are put on the table, you are the first one to sit down and eat all you kin." He turned to Derek with a sombre smile. "There is no harm in her, but she was made for play. The man who marries her will have to pick for the two of them."
"I wish you would come back to me," said Derek, abruptly, his eyes on the vast stretch of his thimbleberry canes, almost threatening in their imminent ripeness. "You know I never interfere with you."
"You are a gentleman," said Solomon, simply, "and I am a chief. I have given my word to Mr. MacNeil that I will take my family to him today, but next season we will come to you and stay till the last Spy ripens, if you need us. . . . Your uncle would have lent me five dollars, for I have done very badly at Chard's. I would repay it next season and it would make me certain to come. Your uncle knew that a chief is to be trusted."
Derek felt in his pocket. The five dollars was transferred to the hand of Solomon. "The gulls are flying low, and screaming," he said, his eyes raised to the tree-tops. "That means a storm." He muttered a sentence in Indian to the woman who, raising the heavy bundles, followed him meekly through the orchard.