Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard

PART IV

The six milkmaids were waiting for him in the apple-tree—no; Joscelyn was in the swing.

"And so," said Martin, sitting down on the bough, "on the sixth night the sixth Gorgon also became a maiden as lovely as her fellows, and gave the Wanderer the sixth key to the Tower. And they let out the Princess and set her in The Golden Truant, and she sailed away to her Squire a thousand leagues over the water. And everybody lived happily ever after."

"What a beautiful story!" said Jane. And they all thought so too.

"I knew from the first," said Joscelyn, "that it would have a happy ending."

"And so did I," said Joyce.

"And I," said Jennifer,

"And I," said Jessica,

"And I," said Jane and

"And I," said little Joan.

"The verdict is passed," said Martin. "And look! over our heads hangs the moon, as round and beautiful as a penny balloon, with an eye as wide awake as a child's at six in the morning. If she will not go to sleep in heaven to-night, why on earth should we? Let's have a party!"

The girls looked at one another in amazement and delight. "A party? Oh!" cried they. "But who will give it?"

"I will," said Martin.

"And who will come to it?"

"Whoever luck sends us," said Martin. "But we'll begin with ourselves. Joan and Joyce and Jennifer and Jessica and Jane and Joscelyn, will you come to my party in the Apple-Orchard?"

"Yes, thank you, Martin!" cried they. And ran away to change. But the only change possible was to take the kerchiefs off their white necks, and the shoes and stockings off their little feet, and let down their pretty hair. So they did these things, and made wreaths for one another, and posies for their yellow dresses. And it is time for you to know that Jennifer's dress was primrose and Jane's cowslip yellow, and that Joyce looked like buttercups and Jessica like marigolds; and Joscelyn's was the glory of the kingcups that rise like magic golden isles above the Amberley floods in May. But little Joan had not been able to decide between the two yellows that go to make wild daffodils, so she had them both. Under their flowerlike skirts their white ankles and rosy heels moved as lightly as windflowers swaying in the grass. And just when they were ready they heard Martin Pippin's lute under the apple-tree, so they came to the party dancing. Round and round the tree they danced in the moonlight till they were out of breath. But when they could dance no more they stood stock still and stared without speaking; for spread under the trees was such a feast as they had not seen for months and months.

In the middle was a great heap of apples, red and brown and green and gold; but besides these was a dish of roasted apples and another of apple dumplings, and between them a bowl of brown sugar and a full pitcher of cream. The cream had spilled, and you could see where Martin had run his finger up the round of the pitcher to its lip, where one drip lingered still. Near these there was a plum-cake of the sort our grannies make. It is of these cakes we say that twenty men could not put their arms round them. There were nuts in it too, and spices. And there was a big basin of curds and whey, and a bigger one of fruit salad, and another of custard; and plates of jam tarts and lemon cheesecakes and cheesestraws and macaroons; and gingerbread in cakes and also in figures of girls and boys with caraway comfits for eyes, and a unicorn and a lion with gilded horn and crown; and pots of honey and quince jelly and treacle; and mushrooms and pickled walnuts and green salads. Even Mr. Ringdaly did not provide a bigger feast when he married Mrs. Ringdaly. For there were also all the best sorts of sweets in the world: sugar-candy on a string, and twisted barley-sticks, and bulls'-eyes, and peardrops, and licorice shoe-strings, and Turkish Delight, and pink and white sugar mice; besides these there was sherbet, not to drink of course, but to dip your finger in. There were a good many other things, but these were what the milkmaids took in at a glance.

"OH!" cried six voices at once. "Where did they come from?"

"Through the gap," said Martin.

"But who brought them?"

"Don't ask me," said Martin.

At first the girls were rather shy—you can't help that at parties. But as they ate (and you know what each ate first) they got more and more at their ease, and by the time they were licking their sticky fingers were in the mood for any game. So they played all the best games there are, such as "Cobbler! Cobbler!" (Joscelyn's shoe), and Hunt the Thimble (Jane's thimble), and Mulberry Bush, and Oranges and Lemons, and Nuts in May. And in Nuts in May Martin insisted on being a side all by himself, and one after another he fetched each girl away from her side to his. And Joan came like a bird, and Joyce pretended to struggle, and Jennifer had no fight in her at all, and Jessica really tried, and Jane didn't like it because it was undignified and so rough. But when Joscelyn's turn came to be fetched as she stood all alone on her side deserted by her supporters, she put her hands behind her back, and jumped over the handkerchief of her own accord, and walked up to Martin and said, "All right, you've won." For when it comes to fetching away it is a game that boys are better at than girls.

"In that case," said Martin, "it's time for Hide-and-Seek." And he sat down on the swing and shut his eyes.

At the same moment the moon went behind a cloud.

And as he waited a light drop fell on Martin's cheek, and another, and another, like the silent weeping of a girl; so that he couldn't help opening his eyes quickly and looking by instinct toward the empty Well-House. It was still empty, for wherever the girls had hidden themselves, it was not there.

Then through the shadowed raining orchard a low voice called "Cuckoo!" and "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" called another. And softly, clearly, laughingly, mockingly, defiantly, teasingly, sweetly, caressingly, "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" they called on every side. Martin stood up and stole among the trees. At first he went quietly, but soon he ran and darted. And never a girl could he find. For this after all is the game that girls are better at than boys, and when it comes to hiding if they will not be found they will not. And if they will they will. But their will was not for Martin Pippin. Through the pattering moonless orchard he hunted them in vain; and the place was full of slipping shadows and whispers. And every now and then those cuckooing milkmaids called him, sometimes at a distance, sometimes at his very ear. But he could not catch a single one.

And now it seemed to Martin that there were more of these elusive shadows than he could have believed, and whisperings that needed accounting for.

For once he heard somebody whisper, "Oh, you were right! the world IS flat—for six months it's been as flat as a pancake!" And a second voice whispered, "Then I was wrong! for pancakes are round." And Martin said to himself, "That's Joyce!" but the first voice he couldn't recognize. And then followed a sound that was not exactly a whisper, yet not exactly unlike one; and Martin darted towards it, but touched only air.

And again he heard a mysterious voice whisper, "How could you keep yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can girls keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep them a single instant if you come and ask them—but you didn't come!" "What a fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose Martin could not for the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that the other was Jennifer's. And again he heard that misleading sound which seemed to be something, yet, when he sought it, was nothing.

And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have seen my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did wobble! Why, I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter than I drilled that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST have been a sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows fly!" This was surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker?

He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was the silence got on my nerves most—it was having nobody to listen to of an evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to the point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk too much at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for ever!" Each of these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and for Martin in as little result.

He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." "And I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." "It was NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about it?" "I'm a month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It was Eve's fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" "Stuff!" "WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's fault." "Here's an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. "Oh, ripping! but I'd rather have a—" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just too late. "Rather have a what?" said Martin to himself.

He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He hadn't seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass hoping to catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow—or was it two shadows? It looked like one. And yet—

One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" "Ever so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about them myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say about IT?" "I think it's them," said the second half. The first half reflected, "It might be either one thing or two. But arithmetic's a nuisance—I never was good at it." The second half confessed, "I always have to guess at it myself. I'm only really sure of one bit." "Which bit's that?" whispered the first half, and the second half whispered, "That one and one make two." "Oh, you darling! of course they don't, and never did and never will." "Well, I don't really mind," said little Joan. And then there was a pause in which the two shadows were certainly one, until the second half whispered, "Oh! oh, you've shaved it off!" And this delighted the first half beyond all bounds; because even in the circumstances it was clever of the second half to have noticed it.

But Martin could bear no more. He sprang forward crying "Joan!"—and he grasped the empty swing. And round the orchard he flew, his hands before him, calling now "Joyce!" now "Jane!" now "Jessica!" "Jennifer!" "Joscelyn!" and again "Joan! Joan! Joan!" And all his answer was rustlings and shadows and whispers, and faint laughter like far-away echoes, and empty air.

All of a sudden the light rain stopped and the moon came out of her cloud. And Martin found himself standing beside the Well-House, and nobody near him. He gazed all around at the familiar things, the apple-trees, the swing, the green wicket, the broken feast in the grass. And then at the far end of the orchard he saw an unfamiliar thing. It was a double ladder, arched over the hawthorn. And up the ladder, like a golden shaft of the moon, went six quick girls, and ahead of each her lad.* And on the topmost rung each took his milkmaid by the hand and vanished over the hedge.

Martin Pippin was left alone in the Apple-Orchard.

*It is not important, but their names were Michael, Tom, Oliver, John, Henry, and Charles. And Michael had dark hair and light lashes, and Tom freckles and a snub-nose, and Oliver a mole on his left cheek, and John fine red-gold hair on his bronzed skin; and Henry was merely the Odd-Job Boy whose voice was breaking, so he imagined that it was he alone who ran the farm. But Charles was a dear. He had a tuft of white hair at the back of his dark head, like the cotton-tail of a rabbit, and as well as corduroy breeches he wore a rabbit-skin waistcoat, and he was a great nuisance to gamekeepers, who called him a poacher; whereas all he did was to let the rabbits out of the snares when it was kind to, and destroy the snares. And he used the bring "bunny-rabbits" (which other people call snapdragons) of the loveliest colors to plant in the little garden known as Joan's Corner. I should like to tell you more about Charles (but there isn't time) because I am fond of him. If I hadn't been I shouldn't have let him have Joan.