remember that there were any divisions in our society. This group went to
the Congregational church, and that to the Presbyterian, but each family felt
itself to be as good as any other, and even if, ordinarily, some of them
withdrew themselves in mild exclusiveness, on all occasions of public
celebration, or when in trouble, we stood together in the pleasantest and
most unaffected democracy.
There were only the "Bad Madigans" outside the pale.
The facts about the Bad Madigans were, no doubt, serious enough, but the
fiction was even more appalling. As to facts, the father drank, the mother
followed suit, the appearance of the house—a ramshackle old place beyond
the fair-grounds—was a scandal; the children could not be got to go to
school for any length of time, and, when they were there, each class in
which they were put felt itself to be in disgrace, and the dislike focused upon
the intruders, sent them, sullen and hateful, back to their lair. And, indeed,
the Madigan house seemed little more than a lair. It had been rather a fine
house once, and had been built for the occupancy of the man who owned
the fairgrounds; but he choosing finally to live in the village, had permitted
the house to fall into decay, until only a family with no sense of order or selfrespect would think of occupying it.
When there occurred one of the rare burglaries in the village, when anything
was missing from a clothes-line, or a calf or pig disappeared, it was generally
laid to the Madigans. Unaccounted-for fires were supposed to be their doing;
they were accorded responsibility for vicious practical jokes; and it was
generally felt that before we were through with them they would commit
some blood-curdling crime.
When, as sometimes happened, I had met one of the Bad Madigans on the
road, or down on the village street, my heart had beaten as if I was face to
face with a company of banditti; but I cannot say that this excitement was
caused by aversion alone. The truth was, the Bad Madigans fascinated me.
They stood out from all the others, proudly and disdainfully like Robin Hood
and his band, and I could not get over the idea that they said: "Fetch me
yonder bow!" to each other; or, "Go slaughter me a ten-tined buck!" I felt
that they were fortunate in not being held down to hours like the rest of us.
Out of bed at six-thirty, at table by seven, tidying bedroom at seven-thirty,
dusting sitting-room at eight, on way to school at eight-thirty, was not for
"the likes of them!" Only we, slaves of respectability and of an inordinate
appetite for order, suffered such monotony and drabness to rule. I knew the
Madigan boys could go fishing whenever they pleased, that the Madigan
girls picked the blackberries before any one else could get out to them, that
every member of the family could pack up and go picnicking for days at a
time, and that any stray horse was likely to be ridden bareback, within an
inch of its life, by the younger members of the family.
Only once however, did I have a chance to meet one of these modern
Visigoths face to face, and the feelings aroused by that incident remained
the darling secret of my youth. I dared tell no one, and I longed, yet feared,
to have the experience repeated. But it never was! It happened in this way:
On a certain Sunday afternoon in May, my father and mother and I went to
Emmons' Woods. To reach Emmons' Woods, you went out the back door,
past the pump and the currant bushes, then down the path to the chickenhouses, and so on, by way of the woodpile, to the south gate. After that, you
went west toward the clover meadows, past the house where the Crazy Lady
lived—here, if you were alone, you ran—and then, reaching the verge of the
woods, you took your choice of climbing a seven-rail fence or of walking a
quarter of a mile till you came to the bars. The latter was much better for
the lace on a Sunday petticoat.
Once in Emmons' Woods, there was enchantment. An eagle might come—or
a blue heron. There had been bears in Emmons' Woods—bears with rolling
eyes and red mouths from which their tongues lolled. There was one place
for pinky trillium, and another for gentians; one for tawny adders' tongues,
and another for yellow Dutchman's breeches. In the sap-starting season, the
maples dripped their luscious sap into little wooden cups; later, partridges
nested in the sun-burned grass. There was no lake or river, but there was a
pond, swarming with a vivacious population, and on the hard-baked clay of
the pond beach the green beetles aired their splendid changeable silks and
sandpipers hopped ridiculously.
It was, curiously enough, easier to run than to walk in Emmons' Woods, and
even more natural to dance than to run. One became acquainted with
squirrels, established intimacies with chipmunks, and was on some sort of
civil relation with blackbirds. And, oh, the tossing green of the young
willows, where the lilac distance melted into the pale blue of the sky! And,
oh, the budding of the maples and the fringing of the oaks; and, oh, the
blossoming of the tulip trees and the garnering of the chestnuts! And then,
the wriggling things in the grass; the procession of ants; the coquetries of
the robins; and the Beyond, deepening, deepening into the forest where it
was safe only for the woodsmen to go.
On this particular Sunday one of us was requested not to squeal and run
about, and to remember that we wore our best shoes and need not mess
them unnecessarily. It was hard to be reminded just when the dance was
getting into my feet, but I tried to have Sunday manners, and went along in
the still woods, wondering why the purple colours disappeared as we came
on and what had been distance became nearness. There was a beautiful,
aching vagueness over everything, and it was not strange that father, who
had stretched himself on the moss, and mother, who was reading Godey's
Ladies' Book, should presently both of them be nodding. So, that being a
well-established fact—I established it by hanging over them and staring at
their eyelids—it seemed a good time for me to let the dance out of my toes.
Still careful of my fresh linen frock, and remembering about the best shoes,
I went on, demurely, down the green alleys of the wood. Now I stepped on
patches of sunshine, now in pools of shadow. I thought of how naughty I
was to run away like this, and of what a mistake people made who said I
was a good, quiet, child. I knew that I looked sad and prim, but I really
hated my sadness and primness and goodness, and longed to let out all the
interesting, wild, naughty thoughts there were in me. I wanted to act as if I
were bewitched, and to tear up vines and wind them about me, to shriek to
the echoes, and to scold back at the squirrels. I wanted to take off my
clothes and rush into the pond, and swim like a fish, or wriggle like a
pollywog. I wanted to climb trees and drop from them; and, most of all—oh,
with what longing—did I wish to lift myself above the earth and fly into the
bland blue air!
I came to a hollow where there was a wonderful greenness over everything,
and I said to myself that I would be bewitched at last. I would dance and
whirl and call till, perhaps, some kind of a creature as wild and wicked and
wonderful as I, would come out of the woods and join me. So I forgot about
the fresh linen frock, and wreathed myself with wild grape-vine; I cared
nothing for my fresh braids and wound trillium in my hair; and I ceased to
remember my new shoes, and whirled around and around in the leafy
mould, singing and shouting.
I grew madder and madder. I seemed not to be myself at all, but some sort
of a wood creature; and just when the trees were looking larger than ever
they did before, and the sky higher up, a girl came running down from a sort
of embankment where a tornado had made a path for itself and had hurled
some great chestnuts and oaks in a tumbled mass. The girl came leaping
down the steep sides of this place, her arms outspread, her feet bare, her
dress no more than a rag the colour of the tree-trunks. She had on a torn
green jacket, which made her seem more than ever like some one who had just stepped out of a hollow tree, and, to my unspeakable happiness, she
joined me in my dance.
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