Sent home rejoicing? Suddenly I realized that when Evan Adam Baldwin had gone, my Pan had also vanished without a word to me. What did it mean? His eyes hadn't found me sitting apart from my delegation with another woman's baby in my arms. Would there be a word for me in the morning?
"In Baldwin emerges the new American," said Matthew, with a light in his face I had never seen before, as we all rose to go.
"Do you blame every woman in the world for being mad about him when you saw that look in his eyes when he held out his hands and chanted that food plea to us? I'm glad he doesn't beckon to me, or I am afraid Owen Murray and Madam Felicia would be disappointed about that June decision of mine," said Bess as she and Owen helped Bud pack the Tilletts and me into the ark for our return trip.
"Will there be word for me in the morning?" the old wheels rattled all the way out the Riverfield ribbon, and I thought an old owl hooted the question at me from a dead tree beside the road, while I felt also that a mocking-bird sang it from a thicket of dogwood in ghostly bloom opposite. "Will there be word in the morning?"
The next morning I awoke with the same question making a new motive in the chant on my heartstrings.
"Uncle Cradd will bring his letter when he comes back from the post-office, and I know he'll send a message to you, Mr. G. Bird," I said happily, as I watered and fed and caressed and joyed in the entire barn family. "I hate him for being what he is and treating me this way, but I love him still more," I confided to Mrs. Ewe as I gave her an extra handful of wheat out of the blouse-pocket which I kept filled for Mr. G. Bird from pure partiality.
Uncle Cradd did not bring a letter from the post-office for me. The blow in the apple orchard and the purple plumes on the lilac bushes looked less brilliant in hue, but the tune on my heartstrings kept up a note of pure bravado. I weeded the garden all afternoon, but stopped early, fed early, and went up-stairs to my room before the last sunset glow had faded off the dormer windows. Opening my old mahogany chest, I took out a bundle I had made up the day after the advent of Mother Cow and the calf, spread it out on the bed, and looked it over.