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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Strangers and Wayfarers
+
+Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31857]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet
+Archive: American Libraries.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS
+
+by
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT
+
+
+
+Boston and New York
+
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company
+
+_The Riverside Press, Cambridge_
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1890,
+
+By SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
+
+
+
+All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
+
+
+
+
+_TO_
+
+S. W.
+
+_PAINTER OF NEW ENGLAND MEN AND WOMEN_
+
+_NEW ENGLAND FIELDS AND SHORES_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A Winter Courtship
+
+The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation
+
+The Town Poor
+
+The Quest of Mr. Teaby
+
+The Luck of the Bogans
+
+Fair Day
+
+Going to Shrewsbury
+
+The Taking of Captain Ball
+
+By the Morning Boat
+
+In Dark New England Days
+
+The White Rose Road
+
+
+
+
+STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS.
+
+
+
+
+A WINTER COURTSHIP.
+
+
+The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby
+and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose
+two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of
+business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were
+stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in
+entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held
+firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot.
+The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long
+association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held
+a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of
+bloodshed and lawlessness, in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies
+and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts,
+he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own
+strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under
+his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was
+familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to
+strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley's route had
+been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not
+Mr. Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would
+turn the boldest adventurer aside.
+
+Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday
+morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from
+Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking
+woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very
+anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal
+safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but
+they were not securely fastened, and kept getting undone and flying
+loose, so that the bitter December cold seemed to be picking a lock
+now and then, and creeping in to steal away the little warmth she had.
+Mr. Briley was cold, too, and could only cheer himself by remembering
+the valor of those pony-express drivers of the pre-railroad days, who
+had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the great California route. He
+spoke at length of their perils to the suffering passenger, who felt
+none the warmer, and at last gave a groan of weariness.
+
+"How fur did you say 't was now?"
+
+"I do' know's I said, Mis' Tobin," answered the driver, with a frosty
+laugh. "You see them big pines, and the side of a barn just this way,
+with them yellow circus bills? That's my three-mile mark."
+
+"Be we got four more to make? Oh, my laws!" mourned Mrs. Tobin. "Urge
+the beast, can't ye, Jeff'son? I ain't used to bein' out in such bleak
+weather. Seems if I couldn't git my breath. I'm all pinched up and
+wigglin' with shivers now. 'T ain't no use lettin' the hoss go
+step-a-ty-step, this fashion."
+
+"Landy me!" exclaimed the affronted driver. "I don't see why folks
+expects me to race with the cars. Everybody that gits in wants me to
+run the hoss to death on the road. I make a good everage o' time, and
+that's all I _can_ do. Ef you was to go back an' forth every day but
+Sabbath fur eighteen years, _you'd_ want to ease it all you could, and
+let those thrash the spokes out o' their wheels that wanted to. North
+Kilby, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit Pond, Tuesdays,
+Thu'sdays, an' Saturdays. Me an' the beast's done it eighteen years
+together, and the creatur' warn't, so to say, young when we begun it,
+nor I neither. I re'lly didn't know's she'd hold out till this time.
+There, git up, will ye, old mar'!" as the beast of burden stopped
+short in the road.
+
+There was a story that Jefferson gave this faithful creature a rest
+three times a mile, and took four hours for the journey by himself,
+and longer whenever he had a passenger. But in pleasant weather the
+road was delightful, and full of people who drove their own
+conveyances, and liked to stop and talk. There were not many farms,
+and the third growth of white pines made a pleasant shade, though
+Jefferson liked to say that when he began to carry the mail his way
+lay through an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush, where the
+white pines nowadays completely arched the road.
+
+They had passed the barn with circus posters, and felt colder than
+ever when they caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats in their
+tights.
+
+"My gorry!" exclaimed Widow Tobin, "them pore creatur's looks as
+cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses 'em
+warmer this time o' year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin' through
+the little hoop, will ye?"
+
+"He couldn't git himself through there with two pair o' pants on,"
+answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels.
+I used to think, when I was a boy, that 't was the only thing I could
+ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an'
+follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There
+warn't nobody but me an' the little gals."
+
+"You ain't the only one that's be'n disapp'inted o' their heart's
+desire," said Mrs. Tobin sadly. "'T warn't so that I could be spared
+from home to learn the dressmaker's trade."
+
+"'T would a come handy later on, I declare," answered the sympathetic
+driver, "bein' 's you went an' had such a passel o' gals to clothe an'
+feed. There, them that's livin' is all well off now, but it must ha'
+been some inconvenient for ye when they was small."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I've had my mercies, too," said the widow
+somewhat grudgingly. "I take it master hard now, though, havin' to
+give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my
+own child'en. There was Ad'line and Susan Ellen fussin' an' bickerin'
+yesterday about who'd got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they
+both wanted me right off but I hated to hear 'em talkin' of it over.
+I'd rather live to home, and do for myself."
+
+"I've got consider'ble used to boardin'," said Jefferson, "sence ma'am
+died, but it made me ache 'long at the fust on't, I tell ye. Bein' on
+the road's I be, I couldn't do no ways at keepin' house. I should want
+to keep right there and see to things."
+
+"Course you would," replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of
+opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her. "Course you would,
+Jeff'son,"--she leaned toward the front seat; "that is to say, onless
+you had jest the right one to do it for ye."
+
+And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected
+interest and enjoyment.
+
+"See here, Sister Tobin," he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Why can't ye
+take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o' me? We
+could put one buff'lo top o' the other,--they're both wearin'
+thin,--and set close, and I do' know but we sh'd be more protected
+ag'inst the weather."
+
+"Well, I couldn't be no colder if I was froze to death," answered the
+widow, with an amiable simper. "Don't ye let me delay you, nor put you
+out, Mr. Briley. I don't know's I'd set forth to-day if I'd known't
+was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain't one that
+puts my hand to the plough an' looks back, 'cordin' to Scriptur'."
+
+"You wouldn't wanted me to ride all them seven miles alone?" asked the
+gallant Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down, and helped her up
+again to the front seat. She was a few years older than he, but they
+had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin's youthful freshness was suddenly
+revived to his mind's eye. She had a little farm; there was nobody
+left at home now but herself, and so she had broken up housekeeping
+for the winter. Jefferson himself had savings of no mean amount.
+
+They tucked themselves in, and felt better for the change, but there
+was a sudden awkwardness between them; they had not had time to
+prepare for an unexpected crisis.
+
+"They say Elder Bickers, over to East Sanscrit, 's been and got
+married again to a gal that's four year younger than his oldest
+daughter," proclaimed Mrs. Tobin presently. "Seems to me 't was fool's
+business."
+
+"I view it so," said the stage-driver. "There's goin' to be a mild
+open winter for that fam'ly."
+
+"What a joker you be for a man that's had so much responsibility!"
+smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. "Ain't you never
+'fraid, carryin' mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you'll be
+set on an' robbed, 'specially by night?"
+
+Jefferson braced his feet against the dasher under the worn buffalo
+skin. "It is kind o' scary, or would be for some folks, but I'd like
+to see anybody get the better o' me. I go armed, and I don't care who
+knows it. Some o' them drover men that comes from Canady looks as if
+they didn't care what they did, but I look 'em right in the eye every
+time."
+
+"Men folks is brave by natur'," said the widow admiringly. "You know
+how Tobin would let his fist right out at anybody that ondertook to
+sass him. Town-meetin' days, if he got disappointed about the way
+things went, he'd lay 'em out in win'rows; and ef he hadn't been a
+church-member he'd been a real fightin' character. I was always 'fraid
+to have him roused, for all he was so willin' and meechin' to home,
+and set round clever as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss him
+same's the kitten, when she was four year old."
+
+"I've got a kind of a sideways cant to my nose, that Tobin give me
+when we was to school. I don't know's you ever noticed it," said
+Mr. Briley. "We was scufflin', as lads will. I never bore him no kind
+of a grudge. I pitied ye, when he was taken away. I re'lly did, now,
+Fanny. I liked Tobin first-rate, and I liked you. I used to say you
+was the han'somest girl to school."
+
+"Lemme see your nose. 'T is all straight, for what I know," said the
+widow gently, as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty glance. "I
+don't know but what 't is warped a little, but nothin' to speak of.
+You've got real nice features, like your marm's folks."
+
+It was becoming a sentimental occasion, and Jefferson Briley felt that
+he was in for something more than he had bargained. He hurried the
+faltering sorrel horse, and began to talk of the weather. It certainly
+did look like snow, and he was tired of bumping over the frozen road.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if I hired a hand here another year, and went off
+out West myself to see the country."
+
+"Why, how you talk!" answered the widow.
+
+"Yes 'm," pursued Jefferson. "'T is tamer here than I like, and I was
+tellin' 'em yesterday I've got to know this road most too well. I'd
+like to go out an' ride in the mountains with some o' them great
+clipper coaches, where the driver don't know one minute but he'll be
+shot dead the next. They carry an awful sight o' gold down from the
+mines, I expect."
+
+"I should be scairt to death," said Mrs. Tobin. "What creatur's men
+folks be to like such things! Well, I do declare."
+
+"Yes," explained the mild little man. "There's sights of desp'radoes
+makes a han'some livin' out o' followin' them coaches, an' stoppin'
+an' robbin' 'em clean to the bone. Your money _or_ your life!" and he
+flourished his stub of a whip over the sorrel mare.
+
+"Landy me! you make me run all of a cold creep. Do tell somethin'
+heartenin', this cold day. I shall dream bad dreams all night."
+
+"They put on black crape over their heads," said the driver
+mysteriously. "Nobody knows who most on 'em be, and like as not some
+o' them fellows come o' good families. They've got so they stop the
+cars, and go right through 'em bold as brass. I could make your hair
+stand on end, Mis' Tobin,--I could _so!_"
+
+"I hope none on 'em 'll git round our way, I'm sure," said Fanny
+Tobin. "I don't want to see none on 'em in their crape bunnits comin'
+after me."
+
+"I ain't goin' to let nobody touch a hair o' your head," and
+Mr. Briley moved a little nearer, and tucked in the buffaloes again.
+
+"I feel considerable warm to what I did," observed the widow by way of
+reward.
+
+"There, I used to have my fears," Mr. Briley resumed, with an inward
+feeling that he never would get to North Kilby depot a single man.
+"But you see I hadn't nobody but myself to think of. I've got cousins,
+as you know, but nothin' nearer, and what I've laid up would soon be
+parted out; and--well, I suppose some folks would think o' me if
+anything was to happen."
+
+Mrs. Tobin was holding her cloud over her face,--the wind was sharp on
+that bit of open road,--but she gave an encouraging sound, between a
+groan and a chirp.
+
+"'T wouldn't be like nothin' to me not to see you drivin' by," she
+said, after a minute. "I shouldn't know the days o' the week. I says
+to Susan Ellen last week I was sure 't was Friday, and she said no, 't
+was Thursday; but next minute you druv by and headin' toward North
+Kilby, so we found I was right."
+
+"I've got to be a featur' of the landscape," said Mr. Briley
+plaintively. "This kind o' weather the old mare and me, we wish we was
+done with it, and could settle down kind o' comfortable. I've been
+lookin' this good while, as I drove the road, and I've picked me out a
+piece o' land two or three times. But I can't abide the thought o'
+buildin',--'t would plague me to death; and both Sister Peak to North
+Kilby and Mis' Deacon Ash to the Pond, they vie with one another to do
+well by me, fear I'll like the other stoppin'-place best."
+
+"_I_ shouldn't covet livin' long o' neither one o' them women,"
+responded the passenger with some spirit. "I see some o' Mis' Peak's
+cookin' to a farmers' supper once, when I was visitin' Susan Ellen's
+folks, an' I says 'Deliver me from sech pale-complected baked beans as
+them!' and she give a kind of a quack. She was settin' jest at my left
+hand, and couldn't help hearin' of me. I wouldn't have spoken if I had
+known, but she needn't have let on they was hers an' make everything
+unpleasant. 'I guess them beans taste just as well as other folks','
+says she, and she wouldn't never speak to me afterward."
+
+"Do' know's I blame her," ventured Mr. Briley. "Women folks is
+dreadful pudjicky about their cookin'. I've always heard you was one
+o' the best o' cooks, Mis' Tobin. I know them doughnuts an' things
+you've give me in times past, when I was drivin' by. Wish I had some
+on 'em now. I never let on, but Mis' Ash's cookin' 's the best by a
+long chalk. Mis' Peak's handy about some things, and looks after
+mendin' of me up."
+
+"It doos seem as if a man o' your years and your quiet make ought to
+have a home you could call your own," suggested the passenger. "I kind
+of hate to think o' your bangein' here and boardin' there, and one old
+woman mendin', and the other settin' ye down to meals that like's not
+don't agree with ye."
+
+"Lor', now, Mis' Tobin, le's not fuss round no longer," said
+Mr. Briley impatiently. "You know you covet me same 's I do you."
+
+"I don't nuther. Don't you go an' say fo'lish things you can't stand
+to."
+
+"I've been tryin' to git a chance to put in a word with you ever
+sence--Well, I expected you'd want to get your feelin's kind o'
+calloused after losin' Tobin."
+
+"There's nobody can fill his place," said the widow.
+
+"I do' know but I can fight for ye town-meetin' days, on a pinch,"
+urged Jefferson boldly.
+
+"I never see the beat o' you men fur conceit," and Mrs. Tobin laughed.
+"I ain't goin' to bother with ye, gone half the time as you be, an'
+carryin' on with your Mis' Peaks and Mis' Ashes. I dare say you've
+promised yourself to both on 'em twenty times."
+
+"I hope to gracious if I ever breathed a word to none on 'em!"
+protested the lover. "'T ain't for lack o' opportunities set afore me,
+nuther;" and then Mr. Briley craftily kept silence, as if he had made
+a fair proposal, and expected a definite reply.
+
+The lady of his choice was, as she might have expressed it, much beat
+about. As she soberly thought, she was getting along in years, and
+must put up with Jefferson all the rest of the time. It was not likely
+she would ever have the chance of choosing again, though she was one
+who liked variety.
+
+Jefferson wasn't much to look at, but he was pleasant and appeared
+boyish and young-feeling. "I do' know's I should do better," she said
+unconsciously and half aloud. "Well, yes, Jefferson, seein' it's you.
+But we're both on us kind of old to change our situation." Fanny Tobin
+gave a gentle sigh.
+
+"Hooray!" said Jefferson. "I was scairt you meant to keep me sufferin'
+here a half an hour. I declare, I'm more pleased than I calc'lated on.
+An' I expected till lately to die a single man!"
+
+"'T would re'lly have been a shame; 't ain't natur'," said Mrs. Tobin,
+with confidence. "I don't see how you held out so long with bein'
+solitary."
+
+"I'll hire a hand to drive for me, and we'll have a good comfortable
+winter, me an' you an' the old sorrel. I've been promisin' of her a
+rest this good while."
+
+"Better keep her a steppin'," urged thrifty Mrs. Fanny. "She'll
+stiffen up master, an' disapp'int ye, come spring."
+
+"You'll have me, now, won't ye, sartin?" pleaded Jefferson, to make
+sure. "You ain't one o' them that plays with a man's feelin's. Say
+right out you'll have me."
+
+"I s'pose I shall have to," said Mrs. Tobin somewhat mournfully. "I
+feel for Mis' Peak an' Mis' Ash, pore creatur's. I expect they'll be
+hardshipped. They've always been hard-worked, an' may have kind o'
+looked forward to a little ease. But one on 'em would be left
+lamentin', anyhow," and she gave a girlish laugh. An air of victory
+animated the frame of Mrs. Tobin. She felt but twenty-five years of
+age. In that moment she made plans for cutting her Briley's hair, and
+making him look smartened-up and ambitious. Then she wished that she
+knew for certain how much money he had in the bank; not that it would
+make any difference now. "He needn't bluster none before me," she
+thought gayly. "He's harmless as a fly."
+
+"Who'd have thought we'd done such a piece of engineerin', when we
+started out?" inquired the dear one of Mr. Briley's heart, as he
+tenderly helped her to alight at Susan Ellen's door.
+
+"Both on us, jest the least grain," answered the lover. "Gimme a good
+smack, now, you clever creatur';" and so they parted. Mr. Briley had
+been taken on the road in spite of his pistol.
+
+
+
+THE MISTRESS OF SYDENHAM PLANTATION.
+
+
+A high wind was blowing from the water into the Beaufort streets,--a
+wind with as much reckless hilarity as March could give to her
+breezes, but soft and spring-like, almost early-summer-like, in its
+warmth.
+
+In the gardens of the old Southern houses that stood along the bay,
+roses and petisporum-trees were blooming, with their delicious
+fragrance. It was the time of wistarias and wild white lilies, of the
+last yellow jas-mines and the first Cherokee roses. It was the
+Saturday before Easter Sunday.
+
+In the quaint churchyard of old St. Helena's Church, a little way from
+the bay, young figures were busy among the graves with industrious
+gardening. At first sight, one might have thought that this pretty
+service was rendered only from loving sentiments of loyalty to one's
+ancestors, for under the great live-oaks, the sturdy brick walls about
+the family burying-places and the gravestones themselves were
+moss-grown and ancient-looking; yet here and there the wounded look of
+the earth appealed to the eye, and betrayed a new-made grave. The old
+sarcophagi and heavy tablets of the historic Beaufort families stood
+side by side with plain wooden crosses. The armorial bearings and long
+epitaphs of the one and the brief lettering of the other suggested the
+changes that had come with the war to these families, yet somehow the
+wooden cross touched one's heart with closer sympathy. The padlocked
+gates to the small inclosures stood open, while gentle girls passed in
+and out with their Easter flowers of remembrance. On the high
+churchyard wall and great gate-posts perched many a mocking-bird, and
+the golden light changed the twilight under the live-oaks to a misty
+warmth of color. The birds began to sing louder; the gray moss that
+hung from the heavy boughs swayed less and less, and gave the place a
+look of pensive silence.
+
+In the church itself, most of the palms and rose branches were already
+in place for the next day's feast, and the old organ followed a fresh
+young voice that was being trained for the Easter anthem. The five
+doors of the church were standing open. On the steps of that eastern
+door which opened midway up the side aisle, where the morning sun had
+shone in upon the white faces of a hospital in war-time,--in this
+eastern doorway sat two young women.
+
+"I was just thinking," one was saying to the other, "that for the
+first time Mistress Sydenham has forgotten to keep this day. You know
+that when she has forgotten everything and everybody else, she has
+known when Easter came, and has brought flowers to her graves."
+
+"Has she been more feeble lately, do you think?" asked the younger of
+the two. "Mamma saw her the other day, and thought that she seemed
+more like herself; but she looked very old, too. She told mamma to
+bring her dolls, and she would give her some bits of silk to make them
+gowns. Poor mamma! and she had just been wondering how she could
+manage to get us ready for summer, this year,--Célestine and me," and
+the speaker smiled wistfully.
+
+"It is a mercy that the dear old lady did forget all that happened;"
+and the friends brushed some last bits of leaves from their skirts,
+and rose and walked away together through the churchyard.
+
+The ancient church waited through another Easter Even, with its
+flowers and long memory of prayer and praise. The great earthquake had
+touched it lightly, time had colored it softly, and the earthly bodies
+of its children were gathered near its walls in peaceful sleep.
+
+From one of the high houses which stood fronting the sea, with their
+airy balconies and colonnades, had come a small, slender figure, like
+some shy, dark thing of twilight out into the bright sunshine. The
+street was empty, for the most part; before one or two of the cheap
+German shops a group of men watched the little old lady step proudly
+by. She was a very stately gentlewoman, for one so small and thin; she
+was feeble, too, and bending somewhat with the weight of years, but
+there was true elegance and dignity in the way she moved, and those
+who saw her--persons who shuffled when they walked, and boasted loudly
+of the fallen pride of the South--were struck with sudden deference
+and admiration. Behind the lady walked a gray-headed negro, a man who
+was troubled in spirit, who sometimes gained a step or two, and
+offered an anxious but quite unheeded remonstrance. He was a poor,
+tottering old fellow; he wore a threadbare evening coat that might
+have belonged to his late master thirty years before.
+
+The pair went slowly along the bay street to the end of a row of new
+shops, and the lady turned decidedly toward the water, and approached
+the ferry-steps. Her servitor groaned aloud, but waited in respectful
+helplessness. There was a group of negro children on the steps,
+employed in the dangerous business of crab-fishing; at the foot, in
+his flat-bottomed boat, sat a wondering negro lad, who looked up in
+apprehension at his passengers. The lady seemed like a ghost. Old
+Peter,--with whose scorn of modern beings and their ways he was
+partially familiar,--old Peter was making frantic signs to him to put
+out from shore. But the lady's calm desire for obedience prevailed,
+and presently, out of the knot of idlers that gathered quickly, one,
+more chivalrous than the rest, helped the strange adventurers down
+into the boat. It was the fashion to laugh and joke, in Beaufort, when
+anything unusual was happening before the eyes of the younger part of
+the colored population; but as the ferryman pushed off from shore,
+even the crab-fishers kept awe-struck silence, and there were
+speechless, open mouths and much questioning of eyes that showed their
+whites in vain. Somehow or other, before the boat was out of hail,
+long before it had passed the first bank of raccoon oysters, the tide
+being at the ebb, it was known by fifty people that for the first time
+in more than twenty years the mistress of the old Sydenham plantation
+on St. Helena's Island had taken it into her poor daft head to go to
+look after her estates, her crops, and her people. Everybody knew that
+her estates had been confiscated during the war; that her people owned
+it themselves now, in three and five and even twenty acre lots; that
+her crops of rice and Sea Island cotton were theirs, planted and hoed
+and harvested on their own account. All these years she had forgotten
+Sydenham, and the live-oak avenue, and the outlook across the water to
+the Hunting Islands, where the deer ran wild; she had forgotten the
+war; she had forgotten her children and her husband, except that they
+had gone away,--the graves to which she carried Easter flowers were
+her mother's and her father's graves,--and her life was spent in a
+strange dream.
+
+Old Peter sat facing her in the boat; the ferryman pulled lustily at
+his oars, and they moved quickly along in the ebbing tide. The
+ferryman longed to get his freight safely across; he was in a fret of
+discomfort whenever he looked at the clear-cut, eager face before him
+in the stern. How still and straight the old mistress sat! Where was
+she going? He was awed by her presence, and took refuge, as he rowed,
+in needless talk about the coming of the sandflies and the great
+drum-fish to Beaufort waters. But Peter had clasped his hands together
+and bowed his old back, as if he did not dare to look anywhere but at
+the bottom of the boat. Peter was still groaning softly; the old lady
+was looking back over the water to the row of fine houses, the once
+luxurious summer homes of Rhetts and Barnwells, of many a famous
+household now scattered and impoverished. The ferryman had heard of
+more one than bereft lady or gentleman who lived in seclusion in the
+old houses. He knew that Peter still served a mysterious mistress with
+exact devotion, while most of the elderly colored men and women who
+had formed the retinues of the old families were following their own
+affairs, far and wide.
+
+"Oh, Lord, ole mis'! what kin I go to do?" mumbled Peter, with his
+head in his hands. "Thar'll be nothin' to see. Po' ole mis', I do'
+kno' what you say. Trouble, trouble!"
+
+But the mistress of Sydenham plantation had a way of speaking but
+seldom, and of rarely listening to what any one was pleased to say in
+return. Out of the mistiness of her clouded brain a thought had come
+with unwonted clearness. She must go to the island: her husband and
+sons were detained at a distance; it was the time of year to look
+after corn and cotton; she must attend to her house and her slaves.
+The remembrance of that news of battle and of the three deaths that
+had left her widowed and childless had faded away in the illness it
+had brought. She never comprehended her loss; she was like one
+bewitched into indifference; she remembered something of her youth,
+and kept a simple routine of daily life, and that was all.
+
+"I t'ought she done fo'git ebryt'ing," groaned Peter again. "O Lord,
+hab mercy on ole mis'!"
+
+The landing-place on Ladies' Island was steep and sandy, and the
+oarsman watched Peter help the strange passenger up the ascent with a
+sense of blessed relief. He pushed off a little way into the stream,
+for better self-defense. At the top of the bluff was a rough shed,
+built for shelter, and Peter looked about him eagerly, while his
+mistress stood, expectant and imperious, in the shade of a pride of
+India tree, that grew among the live-oaks and pines of a wild thicket.
+He was wretched with a sense of her discomfort, though she gave no
+sign of it. He had learned to know by instinct all that was unspoken.
+In the old times she would have found four oarsmen waiting with a
+cushioned boat at the ferry; she would have found a saddle-horse or a
+carriage ready for her on Ladies' Island for the five miles' journey,
+but the carriage had not come. The poor gray-headed old man recognized
+her displeasure. He was her only slave left, if she did but know it.
+
+"Fo' Gord's sake, git me some kin' of a cart. Ole mis', she done wake
+up and mean to go out to Syd'n'am dis day," urged Peter. "Who dis hoss
+an' kyart in de shed? Who make dese track wid huffs jus' now, like dey
+done ride by? Yo' go git somebody fo' me, or she be right mad, shore."
+
+The elderly guardian of the shed, who was also of the old _régime_,
+hobbled away quickly, and backed out a steer that was broken to
+harness, and a rickety two-wheeled cart. Their owner had left them
+there for some hours, and had crossed the ferry to Beaufort. Old
+mistress must be obeyed, and they looked toward her beseechingly where
+she was waiting, deprecating her disapproval of this poor apology for
+a conveyance. The lady long since had ceased to concern herself with
+the outward shapes of things; she accepted this possibility of
+carrying out her plans, and they lifted her light figure to the chair,
+in the cart's end, while Peter mounted before her with all a
+coachman's dignity,--he once had his ambitions of being her
+coachman,--and they moved slowly away through the deep sand.
+
+"My Gord A'mighty, look out fo' us now," said Peter over and over.
+"Ole mis', she done fo'git, good Lord, she done fo'git how de Good
+Marsa up dere done took f'om her ebryt'ing; she 'spect now she find
+Syd'n'am all de same like's it was 'fo' de war. She ain't know 'bout
+what's been sence day of de gun-shoot on Port Royal and dar-away. O
+Lord A'mighty, yo' know how yo' stove her po' head wid dem gun-shoot;
+be easy to ole mis'."
+
+But as Peter pleaded in the love and sorrow of his heart, the lady who
+sat behind him was unconscious of any cause for grief. Some sweet
+vagaries in her own mind were matched to the loveliness of the day.
+All her childhood, spent among the rustic scenes of these fertile Sea
+Islands, was yielding for her now an undefined pleasantness of
+association. The straight-stemmed palmettos stood out with picturesque
+clearness against the great level fields, with their straight furrows
+running out of sight. Figures of men and women followed the furrow
+paths slowly; here were men and horses bending to the ploughshare, and
+there women and children sowed with steady hand the rich seed of their
+crops. There were touches of color in the head kerchiefs; there were
+sounds of songs as the people worked,--not gay songs of the evening,
+but some repeated line of a hymn, to steady the patient feet and make
+the work go faster,--the unconscious music of the blacks, who sing as
+the beetle drones or the cricket chirps slowly under the dry grass. It
+had a look of permanence, this cotton-planting. It was a thing to
+paint, to relate itself to the permanence of art, an everlasting duty
+of mankind; terrible if a thing of force, and compulsion and for
+another's gain, but the birthright of the children of Adam, and not
+unrewarded nor unnatural when one drew by it one's own life from the
+earth.
+
+Peter glanced through the hedge-rows furtively, this way and that.
+What would his mistress say to the cabins that were scattered all
+about the fields now, and that were no longer put together in the long
+lines of the quarters? He looked down a deserted lane, where he well
+remembered fifty cabins on each side of the way. It was gay there of a
+summer evening; the old times had not been without their pleasures,
+and the poor old man's heart leaped with the vague delight of his
+memories. He had never been on the block; he was born and bred at old
+Sydenham; he had been trusted in house and field.
+
+"I done like dem ole times de best," ventures Peter, presently, to his
+unresponding companion. "Dere was good 'bout dem times. I say I like
+de ole times good as any. Young folks may be a change f'om me."
+
+He was growing gray in the face with apprehension; he did not dare to
+disobey.
+
+The slow-footed beast of burden was carrying them toward Sydenham step
+by step, and he dreaded the moment of arrival. He was like a
+mesmerized creature, who can only obey the force of a directing will;
+but under pretense of handling the steer's harness, he got stiffly to
+the ground to look at his mistress. He could not turn to face her, as
+he sat in the cart; he could not drive any longer and feel her there
+behind him. The silence was too great. It was a relief to see her
+placid face, and to see even a more youthful look in its worn lines.
+She had been a very beautiful woman in her young days. And a solemn
+awe fell upon Peter's tender heart, lest the veil might be lifting
+from her hidden past, and there, alone with him on the old plantation,
+she would die of grief and pain. God only knew what might happen! The
+old man mounted to his seat, and again they plodded on.
+
+"Peter," said the mistress,--he was always frightened when she
+spoke,--"Peter, we must hurry. I was late in starting. I have a great
+deal to do. Urge the horses."
+
+"Yas, mis',--yas, mis'," and Peter laughed aloud nervously, and
+brandished his sassafras switch, while the steer hastened a little.
+They had come almost to the gates.
+
+"Who are these?" the stately wayfarer asked once, as they met some
+persons who gazed at them in astonishment.
+
+"I 'spect dem de good ladies f'om de Norf, what come down to show de
+cullud folks how to do readin'," answered Peter bravely. "It do look
+kind o' comfo'ble over here," he added wistfully, half to himself. He
+could not understand even now how oblivious she was of the great
+changes on St. Helena's.
+
+There were curious eyes watching from the fields, and here by the
+roadside an aged black woman came to her cabin door.
+
+"Lord!" exclaimed Peter, "what kin I do now? An' ole Sibyl, she's done
+crazy too, and dey'll be mischievous together."
+
+The steer could not be hurried past, and Sibyl came and leaned against
+the wheel. "Mornin', mistis," said Sibyl, "an' yo' too, Peter. How's
+all? Day ob judgment's comin' in mornin'! Some nice buttermilk? I done
+git rich; t'at's my cow," and she pointed to the field and chuckled.
+Peter felt as if his brain were turning. "Bless de Lord, I no more
+slave," said old Sibyl, looking up with impudent scrutiny at her old
+mistress's impassive face. "Yo' know Mars' Middleton, what yo' buy me
+f'om? He my foster-brother; we push away from same breast. He got
+trouble, po' gen'elman; he sorry to sell Sibyl; he give me silver
+dollar dat day, an' feel bad. 'Neber min', I say. I get good mistis,
+young mistis at Sydenham. I like her well, I did so. I pick my two
+hunderd poun' all days, an' I ain't whipped. Too bad sold me, po'
+Mars' Middleton, but he in trouble. He done come see me last
+plantin'," Sibyl went on proudly. "Oh, Gord, he grown ole and
+poor-lookin'. He come in, just in dat do', an' he say, 'Sibyl, I long
+an' long to see you, an' now I see you;' an' he kiss an' kiss me. An'
+dere's one wide ribber o' Jordan, an' we'll soon be dere, black an'
+white. I was right glad I see ole Mars' Middleton 'fore I die."
+
+The old creature poured forth the one story of her great joy and
+pride; she had told it a thousand times. It had happened, not the last
+planting, but many plantings ago. It remained clear when everything
+else was confused. There was no knowing what she might say next. She
+began to take the strange steps of a slow dance, and Peter urged his
+steer forward, while his mistress said suddenly, "Good-by, Sibyl. I am
+glad you are doing so well," with a strange irrelevancy of
+graciousness. It was in the old days before the war that Sibyl had
+fallen insensible, one day, in the cotton-field. Did her mistress
+think that it was still that year, and--Peter's mind could not puzzle
+out this awful day of anxiety.
+
+They turned at last into the live-oak avenue,--they had only another
+half mile to go; and here, in the place where the lady had closest
+association, her memory was suddenly revived almost to clearness. She
+began to hurry Peter impatiently; it was a mischance that she had not
+been met at the ferry. She was going to see to putting the house in
+order, and the women were all waiting. It was autumn, and they were
+going to move over from Beaufort; it was spring next moment, and she
+had to talk with her overseers. The old imperiousness flashed out. Did
+not Peter know that his master was kept at the front, and the young
+gentlemen were with him, and their regiment was going into action? It
+was a blessing to come over and forget it all, but Peter must drive,
+drive. They had taken no care of the avenue; how the trees were broken
+in the storm! The house needed--They were going to move the next day
+but one, and nothing was ready. A party of gentlemen were coming from
+Charleston in the morning!--
+
+They passed the turn of the avenue; they came out to the open lawn,
+and the steer stopped and began to browse. Peter shook from head to
+foot. He climbed down by the wheel, and turned his face slowly. "Ole
+mis'!" he said feebly. "_Ole mis'!_"
+
+She was looking off into space. The cart jerked as it moved after the
+feeding steer. The mistress of Sydenham plantation had sought her home
+in vain. The crumbled, fallen chimneys of the house were there among
+the weeds, and that was all.
+
+
+
+On Christmas Day and Easter Day, many an old man and woman come into
+St. Helena's Church who are not seen there the rest of the year. There
+are not a few recluses in the parish, who come to listen to their
+teacher and to the familiar prayers, read with touching earnestness
+and simplicity, as one seldom hears the prayers read anywhere. This
+Easter morning dawned clear and bright, as Easter morning should. The
+fresh-bloomed roses and lilies were put in their places. There was no
+touch of paid hands anywhere, and the fragrance blew softly about the
+church. As you sat in your pew, you could look out through the
+wide-opened doors, and see the drooping branches, and the birds as
+they sat singing on the gravestones. The sad faces of the old people,
+the cheerful faces of the young, passed by up the aisle. One figure
+came to sit alone in one of the pews, to bend its head in prayer after
+the ancient habit. Peter led her, as usual, to the broad-aisle
+doorway, and helped her, stumbling himself, up the steps, and many
+eyes filled with tears as his mistress went to her place. Even the
+tragic moment of yesterday was lost already in the acquiescence of her
+mind, as the calm sea shines back to the morning sun when another
+wreck has gone down.
+
+
+
+
+THE TOWN POOR.
+
+
+Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along
+Hampden east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was
+slow. Mrs. Trimble's sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels
+were clogged by day mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground,
+although the snow was nearly gone, except in a few places on the north
+side of the woods, or where it had drifted all winter against a length
+of fence.
+
+"There must be a good deal o' snow to the nor'ard of us yet," said
+weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. "I feel it in the air; 't is more than the
+ground-damp. We ain't goin' to have real nice weather till the
+up-country snow's all gone."
+
+"I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin' yet, all up
+through Parsley," responded Miss Wright. "I shouldn't like to live in
+them northern places. My cousin Ellen's husband was a Parsley man, an'
+he was obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father's
+second wife's funeral; got back day before yesterday. 'T was about
+twenty-one miles, an' they started on wheels; but when they'd gone
+nine or ten miles, they found 't was no sort o' use, an' left their
+wagon an' took a sleigh. The man that owned it charged 'em four an'
+six, too. I shouldn't have thought he would; they told him they was
+goin' to a funeral; an' they had their own buffaloes an' everything."
+
+
+"Well, I expect it's a good deal harder scratching up that way; they
+have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
+north," suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. "'T ain't none too rich a
+country where we be, but I've always been grateful I wa'n't born up to
+Parsley."
+
+The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
+spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road.
+Sister Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her
+bonnet. She was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air;
+but Mrs. Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her
+own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left
+her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that
+she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his
+loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even
+to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that
+this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous,
+and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town
+of Hampden.
+
+"Why, there's where the Bray girls lives, ain't it?" she exclaimed,
+as, beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight
+of a weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for
+thrift or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the
+shrunken boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and
+sodden. Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.
+
+"Yes'm," said Miss Wright, "that's where they live now, poor things. I
+know the place, though I ain't been up here for years. You don't
+suppose, Mis' Trimble--I ain't seen the girls out to meetin' all
+winter. I've re'lly been covetin'"--
+
+"Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop," answered Mrs. Trimble
+heartily. "The exercises was over earlier 'n I expected, an' you're
+goin' to remain over night long o' me, you know. There won't be no tea
+till we git there, so we can't be late. I'm in the habit o' sendin' a
+basket to the Bray girls when any o' our folks is comin' this way, but
+I ain't been to see 'em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a
+good deal over a year ago. I know 't was in the late winter they had
+to make the move. 'T was cruel hard, I must say, an' if I hadn't been
+down with my pleurisy fever I'd have stirred round an' done somethin'
+about it. There was a good deal o' sickness at the time, an'--well, 't
+was kind o' rushed through, breakin' of 'em up, an' lots o' folks
+blamed the selec'_men_; but when't was done, 't was done, an' nobody
+took holt to undo it. Ann an' Mandy looked same's ever when they come
+to meetin', 'long in the summer,--kind o' wishful, perhaps. They've
+always sent me word they was gittin' on pretty comfortable."
+
+"That would be their way," said Rebecca Wright. "They never was any
+hand to complain, though Mandy's less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy 'd
+been spared such poor eyesight, an' Ann hadn't got her lame wrist that
+wa'n't set right, they'd kep' off the town fast enough. They both shed
+tears when they talked to me about havin' to break up, when I went to
+see 'em before I went over to brother Asa's. You see we was brought up
+neighbors, an' we went to school together, the Brays an' me. 'T was a
+special Providence brought us home this road, I've been so covetin' a
+chance to git to see 'em. My lameness hampers me."
+
+"I'm glad we come this way, myself," said Mrs. Trimble.
+
+"I'd like to see just how they fare," Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
+"They give their consent to goin' on the town because they knew they'd
+got to be dependent, an' so they felt 't would come easier for all
+than for a few to help 'em. They acted real dignified an'
+right-minded, contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was
+dreadful anxious to see who would bid 'em off, town-meeting day; they
+did so hope 't would be somebody right in the village. I just sat down
+an' cried good when I found Abel Janes's folks had got hold of 'em.
+They always had the name of bein' slack an' poor-spirited, an' they
+did it just for what they got out o' the town. The selectmen this last
+year ain't what we have had. I hope they've been considerate about the
+Bray girls."
+
+"I should have be'n more considerate about fetchin' of you over,"
+apologized Mrs. Trimble. "I've got my horse, an' you 're lame-footed;
+'t is too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy
+folks, an' I forgit a good deal I ought to remember."
+
+"There's nobody more considerate than you be," protested Miss Rebecca
+Wright.
+
+Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
+the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think it
+worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
+farther down the road and up a lane.
+
+"I never had any opinion of the Bray girls' father, leavin' 'em as he
+did," said Mrs. Trimble.
+
+"He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said
+his early life hadn't been up to the mark," explained her companion.
+"He was a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel
+Longbrother. They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it
+their own way. Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs
+without urging. You know 't was in his time the first repairs was
+made, when they got out the old soundin'-board an' them handsome
+square pews. It cost an awful sight o' money, too. They hadn't done
+payin' up that debt when they set to alter it again an' git the walls
+frescoed. My grandmother was one that always spoke her mind right out,
+an' she was dreadful opposed to breakin' up the square pews where
+she'd always set. They was countin' up what 't would cost in parish
+meetin', an' she riz right up an' said 't wouldn't cost nothin' to
+let 'em stay, an' there wa'n't a house carpenter left in the
+parish that could do such nice work, an' time would come when the
+great-grandchildren would give their eye-teeth to have the old
+meetin'-house look just as it did then. But haul the inside to pieces
+they would and did."
+
+"There come to be a real fight over it, didn't there?" agreed
+Mrs. Trimble soothingly. "Well, 't wa'n't good taste. I remember the
+old house well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o' mother's,
+an' Mr. Trimble's folks was neighbors, an' we was drawed to each other
+then, young's we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many's the time,--that
+first time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; 't was one
+that mother had, an' pressed over."
+
+"When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
+meetin'-house of all, I'm glad it's altered over, so's not to remind
+folks," said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. "Them old
+brimstone discourses, you know, Mis' Trimble. Preachers is far more
+reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an' thought, last Sabbath, as I
+listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an' Deacon Bray could hear the
+difference they 'd crack the ground over 'em like pole beans, an' come
+right up 'long side their headstones."
+
+Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
+by way of emphasis. "There's no gitting round you," she said, much
+pleased. "I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way, if
+'t was so he could, an' knew how his poor girls was farin'. A man
+ought to provide for his folks he's got to leave behind him, specially
+if they're women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we've
+seen how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn't means to keep
+it. I s'pose he thought he'd got time enough to lay by, when he give
+so generous in collections; but he didn't lay by, an' there they be.
+He might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
+creator's makes them their winter hoards, an' men-folks ought to know
+enough if squirrels does. 'Be just before you are generous:' that's
+what was always set for the B's in the copy-books, when I was to
+school, and it often runs through my mind."
+
+"'As for man, his days are as grass,'--that was for A; the two go well
+together," added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. "My good gracious, ain't
+this a starved-lookin' place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
+girls has to brook it here."
+
+The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
+from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner
+of the door-yard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two
+or three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a
+face appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if
+it were a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side
+door next this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for
+them, shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more
+chilly inside the house.
+
+"Take seats," said Mrs. Janes briefly. "You'll have to see me just as
+I be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague, and
+everything to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. 'T was
+inconvenient to spare him. I should be pleased to have you lay off
+your things."
+
+Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about the cheerless kitchen, and could
+not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head
+in answer to the invitation. "We'll just set a few minutes with you,
+to pass the time o' day, an' then we must go in an' have a word with
+the Miss Brays, bein' old acquaintance. It ain't been so we could git
+to call on 'em before. I don't know's you're acquainted with Miss
+R'becca Wright. She's been out of town a good deal."
+
+"I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields with her brother's
+folks," replied Mrs. Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion, as
+she sat close to the stove. "Got back some time in the fall, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes'm," said Miss Rebecca, with an undue sense of guilt and
+conviction. "We've been to the installation over to the East Parish,
+an' thought we'd stop in; we took this road home to see if 't was any
+better. How is the Miss Brays gettin' on?"
+
+"They're well's common," answered Mrs. Janes grudgingly. "I was put
+out with Mr. Janes for fetchin' of 'em here, with all I've got to do,
+an' I own I was kind o' surly to 'em 'long to the first of it. He gits
+the money from the town, an' it helps him out; but he bid 'em off for
+five dollars a month, an' we can't do much for 'em at no such price as
+that. I went an' dealt with the selec'men, an' made 'em promise to
+find their firewood an' some other things extra. They was glad to get
+rid o' the matter the fourth time I went, an' would ha' promised 'most
+anything. But Mr. Janes don't keep me half the time in oven-wood, he's
+off so much, an' we was cramped o' room, any way. I have to store
+things up garrit a good deal, an' that keeps me trampin' right through
+their room. I do the best for 'em I can, Mis' Trimble, but 't ain't so
+easy for me as 't is for you, with all your means to do with."
+
+The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was
+evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping. Mrs. Trimble's
+heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
+such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again
+gave some brief information in regard to the installation.
+
+"You go right up them back stairs," the hostess directed at last. "I'm
+glad some o' you church folks has seen fit to come an' visit 'em.
+There ain't been nobody here this long spell, an' they've aged a sight
+since they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets,
+Mis' Trimble, an' I relish it, I tell you. I'll shut the door after
+you, if you don't object. I feel every draught o' cold air."
+
+"I've always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa'n't
+she from somewheres up Parsley way?" whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
+stumbled in the half-light.
+
+
+"Poor meechin' body, wherever she come from," replied Mrs. Trimble, as
+she knocked at the door.
+
+There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of
+the Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a
+small, low room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and
+cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women
+who stood there looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look
+of apprehension, and the room itself was more bare and plain than was
+fitting to their evident refinement of character and self-respect.
+There was an uncovered small table in the middle of the floor, with
+some crackers on a plate; and, for some reason or other, this added a
+great deal to the general desolation.
+
+But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
+sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
+radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.
+
+The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
+fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she
+was laughing and crying together. "Oh, sister!" she said, "if here
+ain't our dear Mis' Trimble!--an' my heart o' goodness, 't is 'Becca
+Wright, too! What dear good creatur's you be! I've felt all day as if
+something good was goin' to happen, an' was just sayin' to myself 't
+was most sundown now, but I wouldn't let on to Mandany I'd give up
+hope quite yet. You see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very
+mornin' an' it's always a reliable sign. There, I've got to kiss ye
+both again!"
+
+"I don't know where we can all set," lamented sister Mandana. "There
+ain't but the one chair an' the bed; t' other chair's too rickety; an'
+we've been promised another these ten days; but first they've forgot
+it, an' next Mis' Janes can't spare it,--one excuse an' another. I am
+goin' to git a stump o' wood an' nail a board on to it, when I can git
+outdoor again," said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. "There, I ain't
+goin' to complain o' nothin', now you've come," she added; and the
+guests sat down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.
+
+"We've sat on the bed many's the time with you, 'Beeca, an' talked
+over our girl nonsense, ain't we? You know where 't was--in the little
+back bedroom we had when we was girls, an' used to peek out at our
+beaux through the strings o' mornin'-glories," laughed Ann Bray
+delightedly, her thin face shining more and more with joy. "I brought
+some o' them mornin'-glory seeds along when we come away, we'd raised
+'em so many years; an' we got 'em started all right, but the hens
+found 'em out. I declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as 't was;
+but the mornin'-glories I'd counted on a sight to remind me o' home.
+You see, our debts was so large, after my long sickness an' all, that
+we didn't feel 't was right to keep back anything we could help from
+the auction."
+
+It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the
+sisters felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for
+the first time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that
+neat little village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and
+this cold, unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was
+an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of
+Hampden could provide no better for its poor than this, and her round
+face flushed with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility.
+"The girls shall be well settled in the village before another winter,
+if I pay their board myself," she made an inward resolution, and took
+another almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed,
+and the sisters' one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting.
+But the poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
+
+Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it was
+so much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had
+evidently been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they
+had not been to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.
+
+"Now, don't you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!" begged little old
+Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon
+playing that life was still all before them and all pleasure. "Don't
+you go to spoilin' their visit with our complaints! They know well's
+we do that changes must come, an' we'd been so wonted to our home
+things that this come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I know
+just as well's can be. 'T will soon be summer again, an' 't is real
+pleasant right out in the fields here, when there ain't too hot a
+spell. I've got to know a sight o' singin' birds since we come."
+
+"Give me the folks I've always known," sighed the younger sister, who
+looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. "You may have your
+birds, if you want 'em. I do re'lly long to go to meetin' an' see
+folks go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you
+say. We need, each of us, a pair o' good stout shoes an'
+rubbers,--ours are all wore out; an' we've asked an' asked, an' they
+never think to bring 'em, an'"--
+
+Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
+sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
+thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed
+Mrs. Trimble's mind that it was not the first time one had wept and
+the other had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many
+times in that long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in
+her mind as fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
+
+"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning little boy, the next one to the
+baby, did you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and
+going cheerfully on with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy, dear;
+they'll think you're childish! He's a dear, friendly little creatur',
+an' likes to stay with us a good deal, though we feel's if it 't was
+too cold for him, now we are waitin' to get us more wood."
+
+"When I think of the acres o' woodland in this town!" groaned Rebecca
+Wright. "I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday, 'stead o' the
+minister, an' I'll make the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
+'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' an' I've come to
+believe it."
+
+"Now, don't you, 'Becca. You've happened on a kind of a poor time with
+us, but we've got more belongings than you see here, an' a good large
+cluset, where we can store those things there ain't room to have
+about. You an' Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you
+know. Soon's I git me some stout shoes an' rubbers, as Mandy says, I
+can fetch home plenty o' little dry boughs o' pine; you remember I was
+always a great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a
+front room, so 't we could look out on the road an' see passin', an'
+was shod for meetin', I don' know's we should complain. Now we're just
+goin' to give you what we've got, an' make out with a good welcome. We
+make more tea 'n we want in the mornin', an' then let the fire go
+down, since 't has been so mild. We've got a _good_ cluset"
+(disappearing as she spoke), "an' I know this to be good tea, 'cause
+it's some o' yourn, Mis' Trimble. An' here's our sprigged chiny cups
+that R'becca knows by sight, if Mis' Trimble don't. We kep' out four
+of 'em, an' put the even half dozen with the rest of the auction
+stuff. I've often wondered who 'd got 'em, but I never asked, for fear
+'t would be somebody that would distress us. They was mother's, you
+know."
+
+The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed,
+where Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and
+joined her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted
+about the room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of the
+closet, as if she still had much to do; then she came and stood
+opposite Mrs. Trimble. She was very short and small, and there was no
+painful sense of her being obliged to stand. The four cups were not
+quite full of cold tea, but there was a clean old tablecloth folded
+double, and a plate with three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a
+small--it must be owned, a very small--piece of hard white cheese.
+Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was a little preserved
+peach, the last--Miss Rebecca knew it instinctively--of the household
+stores brought from their old home. It was very sugary, this bit of
+peach; and as she helped her guests and sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray
+said, half unconsciously, as she often had said with less reason in
+the old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as usual this year; this is
+beginning to candy." Both the guests protested, while Rebecca added
+that the taste of it carried her back, and made her feel young again.
+The Brays had always managed to keep one or two peach-trees alive in
+their corner of a garden. "I've been keeping this preserve for a
+treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have you eat some, 'Becca. Last
+summer I often wished you was home an' could come an' see us, 'stead
+o' being away off to Plainfields."
+
+The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the
+peach on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small
+spoonful, after the others were helped, but she asked them first if
+they would not have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the
+silence a wave of tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four
+elderly women. At this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain
+room with light; the unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and Ann
+Bray, with her gray hair and aged face, stood at the head of the table
+in a kind of aureole. Mrs. Trimble's face was all aquiver as she
+looked at her; she thought of the text about two or three being
+gathered together, and was half afraid.
+
+"I believe we ought to 've asked Mis' Janes if she wouldn't come up,"
+said Ann. "She's real good feelin', but she's had it very hard, an'
+gits discouraged. I can't find that she's ever had anything real
+pleasant to look back to, as we have. There, next time we'll make a
+good heartenin' time for her too."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail, and
+the cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The two
+friends jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the
+stiffening mud, and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said a
+word until they were out of sight as well as out of sound of the Janes
+house. Time must elapse before they could reach a more familiar part
+of the road and resume conversation on its natural level.
+
+"I consider myself to blame," insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. "I
+haven't no words of accusation for nobody else, an' I ain't one to
+take comfort in calling names to the board o' selec'_men_. I make no
+reproaches, an' I take it all on my own shoulders; but I'm goin' to
+stir about me, I tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They're
+goin' back to their own house,--it's been stand-in' empty all
+winter,--an' the town's goin' to give 'em the rent an' what firewood
+they need; it won't come to more than the board's payin' out now. An'
+you an' me 'll take this same horse an' wagon, an' ride an' go afoot
+by turns, an' git means enough together to buy back their furniture
+an' whatever was sold at that plaguey auction; an' then we'll put it
+all back, an' tell 'em they've got to move to a new place, an' just
+carry 'em right back again where they come from. An' don't you never
+tell, R'becca, but here I be a widow woman, layin' up what I make from
+my farm for nobody knows who, an' I'm goin' to do for them Bray girls
+all I'm a mind to. I should be sca't to wake up in heaven, an' hear
+anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don't talk to me about the
+town o' Hampden, an' don't ever let me hear the name o' town poor! I'm
+ashamed to go home an' see what's set out for supper. I wish I'd
+brought 'em right along."
+
+"I was goin' to ask if we couldn't git the new doctor to go up an' do
+somethin' for poor Ann's arm," said Miss Rebecca. "They say he's very
+smart. If she could get so's to braid straw or hook rugs again, she'd
+soon be earnin' a little somethin'. An' may be he could do somethin'
+for Mandy's eyes. They did use to live so neat an' ladylike. Somehow I
+couldn't speak to tell 'em there that 't was I bought them six best
+cups an' saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as
+everything else did, an' I thought I could save it some other way.
+They shall have 'em back an' welcome. You're real whole-hearted, Mis'
+Trimble. I expect Ann 'll be sayin' that her father's child'n wa'n't
+goin' to be left desolate, an' that all the bread he cast on the
+water's comin' back through you."
+
+"I don't care what she says, dear creatur'!" exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
+"I'm full o' regrets I took time for that installation, an' set there
+seepin' in a lot o' talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
+bringin' us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart 't was to-morrow
+mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin' for the selec'_men_."
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEST OF MR. TEABY.
+
+
+The trees were bare on meadow and hill, and all about the country one
+saw the warm brown of lately fallen leaves. There was still a cheerful
+bravery of green in sheltered places,--a fine, live green that
+flattered the eye with its look of permanence; the first three
+quarters of the year seemed to have worked out their slow processes to
+make this perfect late-autumn day. In such weather I found even the
+East Wilby railroad station attractive, and waiting three hours for a
+slow train became a pleasure; the delight of idleness and even
+booklessness cannot be properly described.
+
+The interior of the station was bleak and gravelly, but it would have
+been possible to find fault with any interior on such an out-of-doors
+day; and after the station-master had locked his ticket-office door
+and tried the handle twice, with a comprehensive look at me, he went
+slowly away up the road to spend some leisure time with his family. He
+had ceased to take any interest in the traveling public, and answered
+my questions as briefly as possible. After he had gone some distance
+he turned to look back, but finding that I still sat on the baggage
+truck in the sunshine, just where he left me, he smothered his natural
+apprehensions, and went on.
+
+One might spend a good half hour in watching crows as they go
+southward resolutely through the clear sky, and then waver and come
+straggling back as if they had forgotten something; one might think
+over all one's immediate affairs, and learn to know the outward aspect
+of such a place as East Wilby as if born and brought up there. But
+after a while I lost interest in both past and future; there was too
+much landscape before me at the moment, and a lack of figures. The
+weather was not to be enjoyed merely as an end, yet there was no
+temptation to explore the up-hill road on the left, or the level
+fields on the right; I sat still on my baggage truck and waited for
+something to happen. Sometimes one is so happy that there is nothing
+left to wish for but to be happier, and just as the remembrance of
+this truth illuminated my mind, I saw two persons approaching from
+opposite directions. The first to arrive was a pleasant-looking
+elderly countrywoman, well wrapped in a worn winter cloak with a thick
+plaid shawl over it, and a white worsted cloud tied over her bonnet.
+She carried a well-preserved bandbox,--the outlines were perfect under
+its checked gingham cover,--and had a large bundle beside, securely
+rolled in a newspaper. From her dress I felt sure that she had made a
+mistake in dates, and expected winter to set in at once. Her face was
+crimson with undue warmth, and what appeared in the end to have been
+unnecessary haste. She did not take any notice of the elderly man who
+reached the platform a minute later, until they were near enough to
+take each other by the hand and exchange most cordial greetings.
+
+"Well, this is a treat!" said the man, who was a small and
+shivery-looking person. He carried a great umbrella and a thin,
+enameled-cloth valise, and wore an ancient little silk hat and a
+nearly new greenish linen duster, as if it were yet summer. "I was
+full o' thinkin' o' you day before yisterday; strange, wa'n't it?" he
+announced impressively, in a plaintive voice. "I was sayin' to myself,
+if there was one livin' bein' I coveted to encounter over East Wilby
+way, 't was you, Sister Pinkham."
+
+"Warm to-day, ain't it?" responded Sister Pinkham. "How's your health,
+Mr. Teaby? I guess I'd better set right down here on the aidge of the
+platform; sha'n't we git more air than if we went inside the depot?
+It's necessary to git my breath before I rise the hill."
+
+"You can't seem to account for them foresights," continued Mr. Teaby,
+putting down his tall, thin valise and letting the empty top of it
+fold over. Then he stood his umbrella against the end of my baggage
+truck, without a glance at me. I was glad that they were not finding
+me in their way. "Well, if this ain't very sing'lar, I never saw
+nothin' that was," repeated the little man. "Nobody can set forth to
+explain why the thought of you should have been so borne in upon me
+day before yisterday, your livin' countenance an' all, an' here we be
+today settin' side o' one another. I've come to rely on them
+foresights; they've been of consider'ble use in my business, too."
+
+"Trade good as common this fall?" inquired Sister Pinkham languidly.
+"You don't carry such a thing as a good palm-leaf fan amon'st your
+stuff, I expect? It does appear to me as if I hadn't been more het up
+any day this year."
+
+"I should ha' had the observation to offer it before," said Mr. Teaby,
+with pride. "Yes, Sister Pinkham, I've got an excellent fan right
+here, an' you shall have it."
+
+He reached for his bag; I heard a clink, as if there were bottles
+within. Presently his companion began to fan herself with that steady
+sway and lop of the palm-leaf which one sees only in country churches
+in midsummer weather. Mr. Teaby edged away a little, as if he feared
+such a steady trade-wind.
+
+
+"We might ha' picked out a shadier spot, on your account," he
+suggested. "Can't you unpin your shawl?"
+
+"Not while I'm so het," answered Sister Pinkham coldly. "Is there
+anything new recommended for rheumatic complaints?"
+
+"They're gittin' up new compounds right straight along, and sends
+sights o' printed bills urgin' of me to buy 'em. I don't beseech none
+o' my customers to take them strange nostrums that I ain't able to
+recommend."
+
+"Some is new cotches made o' the good old stand-bys, I expect," said
+Sister Pink-ham, and there was a comfortable silence of some minutes.
+
+"I'm kind of surprised to meet with you to-day, when all's said an'
+done; it kind of started me when I see 't was you, after dwellin' on
+you so day before yisterday," insisted Mr. Teaby; and this time Sister
+Pinkham took heed of the interesting coincidence.
+
+
+"Thinkin' o' me, was you?" and she stopped the fan a moment, and
+turned to look at him with interest.
+
+"I was so. Well, I never see nobody that kep' her looks as you do, and
+be'n a sufferer too, as one may express it."
+
+Sister Pinkham sighed heavily, and began to ply the fan again. "You
+was sayin' just now that you found them foresight notions work into
+your business."
+
+"Yes'm; I saved a valu'ble life this last spring. I was puttin' up my
+vials to start out over Briggsville way, an' 't was impressed upon me
+that I'd better carry a portion o' opodildack. I was loaded up heavy,
+had all I could lug of spring goods; salts an' seny, and them
+big-bottle spring bitters o' mine that folks counts on regular. I
+couldn't git the opodildack out o' my mind noway, and I didn't want it
+for nothin' nor nobody, but I had to remove a needed vial o' some kind
+of essence to give it place. When I was goin' down the lane t'wards
+Abel Dean's house, his women folks come flyin' out. 'Child's a-dyin'
+in here,' says they; 'tumbled down the sullar stairs.' They was like
+crazy creatur's; I give 'em the vial right there in the lane, an' they
+run in an' I followed 'em. Last time I was there the child was
+a-playin' out; looked rugged and hearty. They've never forgot it an'
+never will," said Mr. Teaby impressively, with a pensive look toward
+the horizon. "Want me to stop over night with 'em any time, or come
+an' take the hoss, or anything. Mis' Dean, she buys four times the
+essences an' stuff she wants; kind o' gratified, you see, an' didn't
+want to lose the child, I expect, though she's got a number o' others.
+If it hadn't be'n for its bein' so impressed on my mind, I should have
+omitted that opodildack. I deem it a winter remedy, chiefly."
+
+"Perhaps the young one would ha' come to without none; they do survive
+right through everything, an' then again they seem to be taken away
+right in their tracks." Sister Pinkham grew more talkative as she
+cooled. "Heard any news as you come along?"
+
+"Some," vaguely responded Mr. Teaby. "Folks ginerally relates anythin'
+that's occurred since they see me before. I ain't no great hand for
+news, an' never was."
+
+"Pity 'bout _you_, Uncle Teaby! There, anybody don't like to have
+deaths occur an' them things, and be unawares of 'em, an' the last to
+know when folks calls in." Sister Pinkham laughed at first, but said
+her say with spirit.
+
+"Certain, certain, we ought all of us to show an interest. I did hear
+it reported that Elder Fry calculates to give up preachin' an' go into
+the creamery business another spring. You know he's had means left
+him, and his throat's kind o' give out; trouble with the pipes. I
+called it brown caters, an' explained nigh as I could without hurtin'
+of his pride that he'd bawled more 'n any pipes could stand. I git so
+wore out settin' under him that I feel to go an' lay right out in the
+woods arterwards, where it's still. 'T won't never do for him to deal
+so with callin' of his cows; they'd be so aggravated 't would be more
+'n any butter business could bear."
+
+"You hadn't ought to speak so light now; he's a very feelin' man
+towards any one in trouble," Sister Pinkham rebuked the speaker. "I
+set consider'ble by Elder Fry. You sort o' divert yourself dallying
+round the country with your essences and remedies, an' you ain't never
+sagged down with no settled grievance, as most do. Think o' what the
+Elder's be'n through, a-losin' o' three good wives. I'm one o' them
+that ain't found life come none too easy, an' Elder Fry's preachin'
+stayed my mind consider'ble."
+
+"I s'pose you're right, if you think you be," acknowledged the little
+man humbly. "I can't say as I esteem myself so fortunate as most. I
+'in a lonesome creatur', an' always was; you know I be. I did expect
+somebody 'd engage my affections before this."
+
+"There, plenty 'd be glad to have ye."
+
+"I expect they would, but I don't seem to be drawed to none on 'em,"
+replied Mr. Teaby, with a mournful shake of his head. "I've spoke
+pretty decided to quite a number in my time, take 'em all together,
+but it always appeared best not to follow it up; an' so when I'd come
+their way again I'd laugh it off or somethin', in case 't was referred
+to. I see one now an' then that I kind o' fancy, but 't ain't the real
+thing."
+
+"You mustn't expect to pick out a handsome gal, at your age," insisted
+Sister Pinkham, in a business-like way. "Time's past for all that, an'
+you've got the name of a rover. I've heard some say that you was rich,
+but that ain't every thin'. You must take who you can git, and look
+you up a good home; I would. If you was to be taken down with any
+settled complaint, you'd be distressed to be without a place o' your
+own, an' I'm glad to have this chance to tell ye so. Plenty o' folks
+is glad to take you in for a short spell, an' you've had an excellent
+chance to look the ground over well. I tell you you're beginnin' to
+git along in years."
+
+"I know I be," said Mr. Teaby. "I can't travel now as I used to. I
+have to favor my left leg. I do' know but I be spoilt for settlin'
+down. This business I never meant to follow stiddy, in the fust place;
+'t was a means to an end, as one may say."
+
+"Folks would miss ye, but you could take a good long trip, say spring
+an' fall, an' live quiet the rest of the year. What if they do git out
+o' essence o' lemon an' pep'mint! There's sufficient to the stores; 't
+ain't as 't used to be when you begun."
+
+"There's Ann Maria Hart, my oldest sister's daughter. I kind of call
+it home with her by spells and when the travelin' 's bad."
+
+"Good King Agrippy! if that's the best you can do, I feel for you,"
+exclaimed the energetic adviser. "She's a harmless creatur' and seems
+to keep ploddin, but slack ain't no description, an' runs on talkin'
+about nothin' till it strikes right in an' numbs ye. She's pressed for
+house room, too. Hart ought to put on an addition long ago, but he's
+too stingy to live. Folks was tellin' me that somebody observed to him
+how he'd got a real good, stiddy man to work with him this summer.
+'He's called a very pious man, too, great hand in meetin's, Mr. Hart,'
+says they; an' says he, 'I'd have you rec'lect he's a-prayin' out o'
+my time!' Said it hasty, too, as if he meant it."
+
+"Well, I can put up with Hart; he's near, but he uses me well, an' I
+try to do the same by him. I don't bange on 'em; I pay my way, an' I
+feel as if everything was temp'rary. I did plan to go way over North
+Dexter way, where I've never be'n, an' see if there wa'n't somebody,
+but the weather ain't be'n settled as I could wish. I'm always
+expectin' to find her, I be so,"--at which I observed Sister Pinkham's
+frame shake.
+
+I felt a slight reproach of conscience at listening so intently to
+these entirely private affairs, and at this point reluctantly left my
+place and walked along the platform, to remind Sister Pinkham and
+confiding Mr. Teaby of my neighborhood. They gave no sign that there
+was any objection to the presence of a stranger, and so I came back
+gladly to the baggage truck, and we all kept silence for a little
+while. A fine flavor of extracts was wafted from the valise to where I
+sat. I pictured to myself the solitary and hopeful wanderings of
+Mr. Teaby. There was an air about him of some distinction; he might
+have been a decayed member of the medical profession. I observed that
+his hands were unhardened by any sort of rural work, and he sat there
+a meek and appealing figure, with his antique hat and linen duster,
+beside the well-wadded round shoulders of friendly Sister Pinkham. The
+expression of their backs was most interesting.
+
+"You might express it that I've got quite a number o' good homes; I've
+got me sorted out a few regular places where I mostly stop," Mr. Teaby
+explained presently. "I like to visit with the old folks an' speak o'
+the past together; an' the boys an' gals, they always have some kind
+o' fun goin' on when I git along. They always have to git me out to
+the barn an' tell me, if they're a-courtin', and I fetch an' carry for
+'em in that case, an' help out all I can. I've made peace when they
+got into some o' their misunderstanding, an' them times they set a
+good deal by Uncle Teaby; but they ain't all got along as well as they
+expected, and that's be'n one thing that's made me desirous not to git
+fooled myself. But I do' know as folks would be reconciled to my
+settlin' down in one place. I've gathered a good many extry receipts
+for things, an' folks all calls me somethin' of a doctor; you know my
+grand'ther was one, on my mother's side."
+
+"Well, you've had my counsel for what 't is wuth," said the woman, not
+unkindly. "Trouble is, you want better bread than's made o' wheat."
+
+"I'm 'most ashamed to ask ye again if 't would be any use to lay the
+matter before Hannah Jane Pinkham?" This was spoken lower, but I could
+hear the gentle suggestion.
+
+"I'm obleeged to _you_" said the lady of Mr. Teaby's choice, "but I
+ain't the right one. Don't you go to settin' your mind on me: 't ain't
+wuth while. I'm older than you be, an' apt to break down with my
+rheumatic complaints. You don't want nobody on your hands. I'd git a
+younger woman, I would so."
+
+"I've be'n a-lookin' for the right one a sight o' years, Hannah Jane.
+I've had a kind o' notion I should know her right off when I fust see
+her, but I'm afeared it ain't goin' to be that way. I've seen a sight
+o' nice, smart women, but when the thought o' you was so impressed on
+my mind day before yisterday"--
+
+"I'm sorry to disobleege you, but if I have anybody, I'm kind o' half
+promised to Elder Fry," announced Sister Pinkham bravely. "I consider
+it more on the off side than I did at first. If he'd continued
+preachin' I'd favor it more, but I dread havin' to 'tend to a growin'
+butter business an' to sense them new machines. 'T ain't as if he'd
+'stablished it. I've just begun to have things easy; but there, I feel
+as if I had a lot o' work left in me, an' I don't know's 't is right
+to let it go to waste. I expect the Elder would preach some, by
+spells, an' we could ride about an' see folks; an' he'd always be
+called to funerals, an' have some variety one way an' another. I urge
+him not to quit preachin'."
+
+"I'd rather he ondertook 'most anythin' else," said Mr. Teaby, rising
+and trying to find the buttons of his linen duster.
+
+I could see a bitter shade of jealousy cloud his amiable face; but
+Sister Pinkham looked up at him and laughed. "Set down, set down," she
+said. "We ain't in no great hurry;" and Uncle Teaby relented, and
+lingered. "I'm all out o' rose-water for the eyes," she told him, "an'
+if you've got a vial o' lemon left that you'll part with reasonable, I
+do' know but I'll take that. I'd rather have caught you when you was
+outward bound; your bag looks kind o' slim."
+
+"Everythin' 's fresh-made just before I started, 'cept the ginger, an'
+that I buy, but it's called the best there is."
+
+The two sat down and drove a succession of sharp bargains, but finally
+parted the best of friends. Mr. Teaby kindly recognized my presence
+from a business point of view, and offered me a choice of his wares at
+reasonable prices. I asked about a delightful jumping-jack which made
+its appearance, and wished very much to become the owner, for it was
+curiously whittled out and fitted together by Mr. Teaby's own hands.
+He exhibited the toy to Sister Pinkham and me, to our great pleasure,
+but scorned to sell such a trifle, it being worth nothing; and beside,
+he had made it for a little girl who lived two miles farther along the
+road he was following. I could see that she was a favorite of the old
+man's, and said no more about the matter, but provided myself, as
+recommended, with an ample package of court-plaster, "in case of
+accident before I got to where I was going," and a small bottle of
+smelling-salts, described as reviving to the faculties.
+
+Then we watched Mr. Teaby plod away, a quaint figure, with his large
+valise nearly touching the ground as it hung slack from his right
+hand. The greenish-brown duster looked bleak and unseasonable as a
+cloud went over the sun; it appeared to symbolize the youthful and
+spring-like hopes of the wearer, decking the autumn days of life.
+
+"Poor creatur'!" said Sister Pinkham. "There, he doos need somebody to
+look after him."
+
+She turned to me frankly, and I asked how far he was going.
+
+"Oh, he'll put up at that little gal's house an' git his dinner, and
+give her the jumpin'-jack an' trade a little; an' then he'll work
+along the road, callin' from place to place. He's got a good deal o'
+system, an' was a smart boy, so that folks expected he was goin' to
+make a doctor, but he kind o' petered out. He's long-winded an'
+harpin', an' some folks prays him by if they can; but there, most
+likes him, an' there's nobody would be more missed. He don't make no
+trouble for 'em; he'll take right holt an' help, and there ain't
+nobody more gentle with the sick. Always has some o' his nonsense over
+to me."
+
+This was added with sudden consciousness that I must have heard the
+recent conversation, but we only smiled at each other, and good Sister
+Pinkham did not seem displeased. We both turned to look again at the
+small figure of Mr. Teaby, as he went away, with his queer, tripping
+gait, along the level road.
+
+"Pretty day, if 't wa'n't quite so warm," said Sister Pinkham, as she
+rose and reached for her bandbox and bundle, to resume her own
+journey. "There, if here ain't Uncle Teaby's umbrilla! He forgits
+everything that belongs to him but that old valise. Folks wouldn't
+know him if he left that. You may as well just hand it to Asa Briggs,
+the depot-master, when he gits back. Like's not the old gentleman 'll
+think to call for it as he comes back along. Here's his fan, too, but
+he won't be likely to want that this winter."
+
+She looked at the large umbrella; there was a great deal of good
+material in it, but it was considerably out of repair.
+
+"I don't know but I'll stop an' mend it up for him, poor old
+creatur'," she said slowly, with an apologetic look at me. Then she
+sat down again, pulled a large rolled-up needlebook from her deep and
+accessible pocket, and sewed busily for some time with strong
+stitches.
+
+I sat by and watched her, and was glad to be of use in chasing her
+large spool of linen thread, which repeatedly rolled away along the
+platform. Sister Pinkham's affectionate thoughts were evidently
+following her old friend.
+
+"I've a great mind to walk back with the umbrilla; he may need it, an'
+'t ain't a great ways," she said to me, and then looked up quickly,
+blushing like a girl. I wished she would, for my part, but it did not
+seem best for a stranger to give advice in such serious business.
+"I'll tell you what I will do," she told me innocently, a moment
+afterwards. "I'll take the umbrilla along with me, and leave word with
+Asa Briggs I've got it. I go right by his house, so you needn't charge
+your mind nothin' about it."
+
+By the time she had taken off her gold-bowed spectacles and put them
+carefully away and was ready to make another start, she had learned
+where I came from and where I was going and what my name was, all this
+being but poor return for what I had gleaned of the history of herself
+and Mr. Teaby. I watched Sister Pinkham until she disappeared,
+umbrella in hand, over the crest of a hill far along the road to the
+eastward.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THE BOGANS.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+The old beggar women of Bantry streets had seldom showered their
+blessings upon a departing group of emigrants with such hearty good
+will as they did upon Mike Bogan and his little household one May
+morning.
+
+Peggy Muldoon, she of the game leg and green-patched eye and limber
+tongue, steadied herself well back against the battered wall at the
+street corner and gave her whole energy to a torrent of speech unusual
+to even her noble powers. She would not let Mike Bogan go to America
+unsaluted and unblessed; she meant to do full honor to this second
+cousin, once removed, on the mother's side.
+
+"Yirra, Mike Bogan, is it yerself thin, goyn away beyant the says?"
+she began with true dramatic fervor. "Let poor owld Peg take her last
+look on your laughing face me darlin'. She'll be under the ground this
+time next year, God give her grace, and you far away lavin' to strange
+spades the worruk of hapin' the sods of her grave. Give me one last
+look at me darlin' lad wid his swate Biddy an' the shild. Oh that I
+live to see this day!"
+
+Peg's companions, old Marget Dunn and Biddy O'Hern and no-legged Tom
+Whinn, the fragment of a once active sailor who propelled himself by a
+low truckle cart and two short sticks; these interesting members of
+society heard the shrill note of their leader's eloquence and suddenly
+appeared like beetles out of unsuspected crevices near by. The side
+car, upon which Mike Bogan and his wife and child were riding from
+their little farm outside the town to the place of departure, was
+stopped at the side of the narrow street. A lank yellow-haired lad,
+with eyes red from weeping sat swinging his long legs from the car
+side, another car followed, heavily laden with Mike's sister's family,
+and a mourning yet envious group of acquaintances footed it in the
+rear. It was an excited, picturesque little procession; the town was
+quickly aware of its presence, and windows went up from house to
+house, and heads came out of the second and third stories and even in
+the top attics all along the street. The air was thick with blessings,
+the quiet of Bantry was permanently broken.
+
+"Lard bliss us and save us!" cried Peggy, her shrill voice piercing
+the chatter and triumphantly lifting itself in audible relief above
+the din,--"Lard bliss us an' save us for the flower o' Bantry is
+lavin' us this day. Break my heart wid yer goyn will ye Micky Bogan
+and make it black night to the one eye that's left in me gray head
+this fine mornin' o' spring. I that hushed the mother of you and the
+father of you babies in me arms, and that was a wake old woman
+followin' and crapin' to see yerself christened. Oh may the saints be
+good to you Micky Bogan and Biddy Flaherty the wife, and forgive you
+the sin an' shame of turning yer proud backs on ould Ireland. Ain't
+there pigs and praties enough for ye in poor Bantry town that her
+crabbedest childer must lave her. Oh wisha wisha, I'll see your face
+no more, may the luck o' the Bogans follow you, that failed none o'
+the Bogans yet. May the sun shine upon you and grow two heads of
+cabbage in the same sprout, may the little b'y live long and get him a
+good wife, and if she ain't good to him may she die from him. May
+every hair on both your heads turn into a blessed candle to light your
+ways to heaven, but not yit me darlin's--not yit!"
+
+The jaunting car had been surrounded by this time and Mike and his
+wife were shaking hands and trying to respond impartially to the
+friendly farewells and blessings of their friends. There never had
+been such a leave-taking in Bantry. Peggy Muldoon felt that her
+eloquence was in danger of being ignored and made a final shrill
+appeal. "Who'll bury me now?" she screamed with a long wail which
+silenced the whole group; "who'll lay me in the grave, Micky bein'
+gone from me that always gave me the kind word and the pinny or
+trippence ivery market day, and the wife of him Biddy Flaherty the
+rose of Glengariff; many's the fine meal she's put before old Peggy
+Muldoon that is old and blind."
+
+"Awh, give the ould sowl a pinny now," said a sympathetic voice, "'t
+will bring you luck, more power to you." And Mike Bogan, the tears
+streaming down his honest cheeks, plunged deep into his pocket and
+threw the old beggar a broad five-shilling piece. It was a monstrous
+fortune to Peggy. Her one eye glared with joy, the jaunting car moved
+away while she fell flat on the ground in apparent excess of emotion.
+The farewells were louder for a minute--then they were stopped; the
+excitable neighborhood returned to its business or idleness and the
+street was still. Peggy rose rubbing an elbow, and said with the air
+of a queen to her retinue, "Coom away now poor crathurs, so we'll
+drink long life to him." And Marget Dunn and Biddy O'Hern and
+no-legged Tom Whinn with his truckle cart disappeared into an alley.
+
+"What's all this whillalu?" asked a sober-looking, clerical gentleman
+who came riding by.
+
+"'T is the Bogans going to Ameriky, yer reverence," responded Jim
+Kalehan, the shoemaker, from his low window. "The folks gived them
+their wake whilst they were here to enjoy it and them was the keeners
+that was goin' hippety with lame legs and fine joy down the convanient
+alley for beer, God bless the poor souls!"
+
+Mike Bogan and Biddy his wife looked behind them again and again. Mike
+blessed himself fervently as he caught a last glimpse of the old
+church on the hill where he was christened and married, where his
+father and his grandfather had been christened and married and buried.
+He remembered the day when he had first seen his wife, who was there
+from Glengariff to stay with her old aunt, and coming to early mass,
+had looked to him like a strange sweet flower abloom on the gray stone
+pavement where she knelt. The old church had long stood on the steep
+height at the head of Bantry street and watched and waited for her
+children. He would never again come in from his little farm in the
+early morning--he never again would be one of the Bantry men. The
+golden stories of life in America turned to paltry tinsel, and a love
+and pride of the old country, never forgotten by her sons and
+daughters, burned with fierce flame on the inmost altar of his heart.
+It had all been very easy to dream fine dreams of wealth and
+landownership, but in that moment the least of the pink daisies that
+were just opening on the roadside was dearer to the simple-hearted
+emigrant than all the world beside.
+
+"Lave me down for a bit of sod," he commanded the wondering young
+driver, who would have liked above all things to sail for the new
+world. The square of turf from the hedge foot, sparkling with dew and
+green with shamrock and gay with tiny flowers, was carefully wrapped
+in Mike's best Sunday handkerchief as they went their way. Biddy had
+covered her head with her shawl--it was she who had made the plan of
+going to America, it was she who was eager to join some successful
+members of her family who had always complained at home of their
+unjust rent and the difficulties of the crops. Everybody said that the
+times were going to be harder than ever that summer, and she was quick
+to catch at the inflammable speeches of some lawless townsfolk who
+were never satisfied with anything. As for Mike, the times always
+seemed alike, he did not grudge hard work and he never found fault
+with the good Irish weather. His nature was not resentful, he only
+laughed when Biddy assured him that the gorse would soon grow in the
+thatch of his head as it did on their cabin chimney. It was only when
+she said that, in America they could make a gentleman of baby Dan,
+that the father's blue eyes glistened and a look of determination came
+into his face.
+
+"God grant we'll come back to it some day," said Mike softly. "I
+didn't know, faix indeed, how sorry I'd be for lavin' the owld place.
+Awh Biddy girl 't is many the weary day we'll think of the home we've
+left," and Biddy removed the shawl one instant from her face only to
+cover it again and burst into a new shower of tears. The next day but
+one they were sailing away out of Queenstown harbor to the high seas.
+Old Ireland was blurring its green and purple coasts moment by moment;
+Kinsale lay low, and they had lost sight of the white cabins on the
+hillsides and the pastures golden with furze. Hours before the old
+women on the wharves had turned away from them shaking their great cap
+borders. Hours before their own feet had trodden the soil of Ireland
+for the last time. Mike Bogan and Biddy had left home, they were well
+on their way to America. Luckily nobody had been with them at last to
+say good-by--they had taken a more or less active part in the piteous
+general leave-taking at Queenstown, but those were not the faces of
+their own mothers or brothers to which they looked back as the ship
+slid away through the green water.
+
+"Well, sure, we're gone now," said Mike setting his face westward and
+tramping the steerage deck. "I like the say too, I belave, me own
+grandfather was a sailor, an' 't is a fine life for a man. Here's
+little Dan goin' to Ameriky and niver mistrustin'. We'll be sindin'
+the gossoon back again, rich and fine, to the owld place by and by,
+'tis thrue for us, Biddy."
+
+But Biddy, like many another woman, had set great changes in motion
+and then longed to escape from their consequences. She was much
+discomposed by the ship's unsteadiness. She accused patient Mike of
+having dragged her away from home and friends. She grew very white in
+the face, and was helped to her hard steerage berth where she had
+plenty of time for reflection upon the vicissitudes of seafaring. As
+for Mike, he grew more and more enthusiastic day by day over their
+prospects as he sat in the shelter of the bulkhead and tended little
+Dan and talked with his companions as they sailed westward.
+
+Who of us have made enough kindly allowance for the homesick
+quick-witted ambitious Irish men and women, who have landed every year
+with such high hopes on our shores. There are some of a worse sort, of
+whom their native country might think itself well rid--but what
+thrifty New England housekeeper who takes into her home one of the
+pleasant-faced little captive maids, from Southern Ireland, has half
+understood the change of surroundings. That was a life in the open air
+under falling showers and warm sunshine, a life of wit and humor, of
+lavishness and lack of provision for more than the passing day--of
+constant companionship with one's neighbors, and a cheerful serenity
+and lack of nervous anticipation born of the vicinity of the Gulf
+Stream. The climate makes the characteristics of Cork and Kerry; the
+fierce energy of the Celtic race in America is forced and stimulated
+by our own keen air. The beauty of Ireland is little hinted at by an
+average orderly New England town--many a young girl and many a
+blundering sturdy fellow is heartsick with the homesickness and
+restraint of his first year in this golden country of hard work. To so
+many of them a house has been but a shelter for the night--a
+sleeping-place: if you remember that, you do not wonder at fumbling
+fingers or impatience with our houses full of trinkets. Our needless
+tangle of furnishing bewilders those who still think the flowers that
+grow of themselves in the Irish thatch more beautiful than anything
+under the cover of our prosaic shingled roofs.
+
+"Faix, a fellow on deck was telling me a nate story the day," said
+Mike to Biddy Bogan, by way of kindly amusement. "Says he to me,
+'Mike,' says he, 'did ye ever hear of wan Pathrick O'Brien that heard
+some bla'guard tell how in Ameriky you picked up money in the
+streets?' 'No,' says I. 'He wint ashore in a place,' says he, 'and he
+walked along and he come to a sign on a wall. Silver Street was on it.
+"I 'ont stap here," says he, "it ain't wort my while at all, at all.
+I'll go on to Gold Street," says he, but he walked ever since and he
+ain't got there yet.'"
+
+Biddy opened her eyes and laughed feebly. Mike looked so bronzed and
+ruddy and above all so happy, that she took heart. "We're sound and
+young, thanks be to God, and we'll earn an honest living," said Mike,
+proudly. "'T is the childher I'm thinkin' of all the time, an' how
+they'll get a chance the best of us niver had at home. God bless old
+Bantry forever in spite of it. An' there's a smart rid-headed man that
+has every bother to me why 'ont I go with him and keep a tidy bar.
+He's been in the same business this four year gone since he come out,
+and twenty pince in his pocket when he landed, and this year he took a
+month off and went over to see the ould folks and build 'em a dacint
+house intirely, and hire a man to farm wid 'em now the old ones is
+old. He says will I put in my money wid him, an he'll give me a great
+start I wouldn't have in three years else."
+
+"Did you have the fool's head on you then and let out to him what
+manes you had?" whispered Biddy, fiercely and lifting herself to look
+at him.
+
+"I did then; 't was no harm," answered the unsuspecting Mike.
+
+"'T was a black-hearted rascal won the truth from you!" and Biddy
+roused her waning forces and that very afternoon appeared on deck. The
+red-headed man knew that he had lost the day when he caught her first
+scornful glance.
+
+"God pity the old folks of him an' their house," muttered the
+sharp-witted wife to Mike, as she looked at the low-lived scheming
+fellow whom she suspected of treachery.
+
+"He said thim was old clothes he was wearin' on the sea," apologized
+Mike for his friend, looking down somewhat consciously at his own
+comfortable corduroys. He and Biddy had been well to do on their
+little farm, and on good terms with their landlord the old squire.
+Poor old gentleman, it had been a sorrow to him to let the young
+people go. He was a generous, kindly old man, but he suffered from the
+evil repute of some shortsighted neighbors. "If I gave up all I had in
+the world and went to the almshouse myself, they would still damn me
+for a landlord," he said, desperately one day. "But I never thought
+Mike Bogan would throw up his good chances. I suppose some worthless
+fellow called him stick-in-the-mud and off he must go."
+
+There was some unhappiness at first for the young people in America.
+They went about the streets of their chosen town for a day or two,
+heavy-hearted with disappointment. Their old neighbors were not housed
+in palaces after all, as the letters home had suggested, and after a
+few evenings of visiting and giving of messages, and a few days of
+aimless straying about, Mike and Biddy hired two rooms at a large rent
+up three flights of stairs, and went to housekeeping. Litte Dan rolled
+down one flight the first day; no more tumbling on the green turf
+among the daisies for him, poor baby boy. His father got work at the
+forge of a carriage shop, having served a few months with a smith at
+home, and so taking rank almost as a skilled laborer. He was a great
+favorite speedily, his pay was good, at least it would have been good
+if he had lived on the old place among the fields, but he and Biddy
+did not know how to make the most of it here, and Dan had a baby
+sister presently to keep him company, and then another and another,
+and there they lived up-stairs in the heat, in the cold, in daisy time
+and snow time, and Dan was put to school and came home with a
+knowledge of sums in arithmetic which set his father's eyes dancing
+with delight, but with a knowledge besides of foul language and a
+brutal way of treating his little sisters when nobody was looking on.
+
+Mike Bogan was young and strong when he came to America, and his good
+red blood lasted well, but it was against his nature to work in a hot
+half-lighted shop, and in a very few years he began to look pale about
+the mouth and shaky in the shoulders, and then the enthusiastic
+promises of the red-headed man on the ship, borne out, we must allow,
+by Mike's own observation, inclined him and his hard earned capital to
+the purchase of a tidy looking drinking shop on a side street of the
+town. The owner had died and his widow wished to go West to live with
+her son. She knew the Bogans and was a respectable soul in her way.
+She and her husband had kept a quiet place, everybody acknowledged,
+and everybody was thankful that since drinking shops must be kept, so
+decent a man as Mike Bogan was taking up the business.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The luck of the Bogans proved to be holding true in this generation.
+Their proverbial good fortune seemed to come rather from an absence of
+bad fortune than any special distinction granted the generation or two
+before Mike's time. The good fellow sometimes reminded himself
+gratefully of Peggy Muldoon's blessing, and once sent her a pound to
+keep Christmas upon. If he had only known it, that unworthy woman
+bestowed curses enough upon him because he did not repeat it the next
+year, to cancel any favors that might have been anticipated. Good news
+flew back to Bantry of his prosperity, and his comfortable home above
+the store was a place of reception and generous assistance to all the
+westward straying children of Bantry. There was a bit of garden that
+belonged to the estate, the fences were trig and neat, and neither
+Mike nor Biddy were persons to let things look shabby while they had
+plenty of money to keep them clean and whole. It was Mike who walked
+behind the priest on Sundays when the collection was taken. It was
+Mike whom good Father Miles trusted more than any other member of his
+flock, whom he confided in and consulted, whom perhaps his reverence
+loved best of all the parish because they were both Bantry men, born
+and bred. And nobody but Father Miles and Biddy and Mike Bogan knew
+the full extent of the father's and mother's pride and hope in the
+cleverness and beauty of their only son. Nothing was too great, and no
+success seemed impossible when they tried to picture the glorious
+career of little Dan.
+
+Mike was a kind father to his little daughters, but all his hope was
+for Dan. It was for Dan that he was pleased when people called him
+Mr. Bogan in respectful tones, and when he was given a minor place of
+trust at town elections, he thought with humble gladness that Dan
+would have less cause to be ashamed of him by and by when he took his
+own place as gentleman and scholar. For there was something different
+about Dan from the rest of them, plain Irish folk that they were. Dan
+was his father's idea of a young lord; he would have liked to show the
+boy to the old squire, and see his look of surprise. Money came in at
+the shop door in a steady stream, there was plenty of it put away in
+the bank and Dan must wear well-made clothes and look like the best
+fellows at the school. He was handsomer than any of them, he was the
+best and quickest scholar of his class. The president of the great
+carriage company had said that he was a very promising boy more than
+once, and had put his hand on Mike's shoulder as he spoke. Mike and
+Biddy, dressed in their best, went to the school examinations year
+after year and heard their son do better than the rest, and saw him
+noticed and admired. For Dan's sake no noisy men were allowed to stay
+about the shop. Dan himself was forbidden to linger there, and so far
+the boy had clear honest eyes, and an affectionate way with his father
+that almost broke that honest heart with joy. They talked together
+when they went to walk on Sundays, and there was a plan, increasingly
+interesting to both, of going to old Bantry some summer--just for a
+treat. Oh happy days! They must end as summer days do, in winter
+weather.
+
+There was an outside stair to the two upper stories where the Bogans
+lived above their place of business, and late one evening, when the
+shop shutters were being clasped together below, Biddy Bogan heard a
+familiar heavy step and hastened to hold her brightest lamp in the
+doorway.
+
+"God save you," said his reverence Father Miles, who was coming up
+slowly, and Biddy dropped a decent courtesy and devout blessing in
+return. His reverence looked pale and tired, and seated himself
+wearily in a chair by the window--while Biddy coasted round by a
+bedroom door to "whist" at two wakeful daughters who were teasing each
+other and chattering in bed.
+
+"'T is long since we saw you here, sir," she said, respectfully. "'T
+is warm weather indade for you to be about the town, and folks sick
+an' dyin' and needing your help, sir. Mike'll be up now, your
+reverence. I hear him below."
+
+Biddy had grown into a stout mother of a family, red-faced and
+bustling; there was little likeness left to the rose of Glengariff
+with whom Mike had fallen in love at early mass in Bantry church. But
+the change had been so gradual that Mike himself had never become
+conscious of any damaging difference. She took a fresh loaf of bread
+and cut some generous slices and put a piece of cheese and a knife on
+the table within reach of Father Miles's hand. "I suppose 'tis waste
+of time to give you more, so it is," she said to him. "Bread an'
+cheese and no better will you ate I suppose, sir," and she folded her
+arms across her breast and stood looking at him.
+
+"How is the luck of the Bogans to-day?" asked the kind old man. "The
+head of the school I make no doubt?" and at this moment Mike came up
+the stairs and greeted his priest with reverent affection.
+
+"You're looking faint, sir," he urged. "Biddy get a glass now, we're
+quite by ourselves sir--and I've something for sickness that's very
+soft and fine entirely."
+
+"Well, well, this once then," answered Father Miles, doubtfully. "I've
+had a hard day."
+
+He held the glass in his hand for a moment and then pushed it away
+from him on the table. "Indeed it's not wrong in itself," said the
+good priest looking up presently, as if he had made something clear to
+his mind. "The wrong is in ourselves to make beasts of ourselves with
+taking too much of it. I don't shame me with this glass of the best
+that you've poured for me. My own sin is in the coffee-pot. It wilds
+my head when I've got most use for it, and I'm sure of an aching
+pate--God forgive me for indulgence; but I must have it for my
+breakfast now, and then. Give me a bit of bread and cheese; yes,
+that's what I want Bridget," and he pushed the glass still farther
+away.
+
+"I've been at a sorry place this night," he went on a moment later,
+"the smell of the stuff can't but remind me. 'T is a comfort to come
+here and find your house so clean and decent, and both of you looking
+me in the face. God save all poor sinners!" and Mike and his wife
+murmured assent.
+
+"I wish to God you were out of this business and every honest man with
+you," said the priest, suddenly dropping his fatherly, Bantry good
+fellowship and making his host conscious of the solemnity of the
+church altar. "'T is a decent shop you keep, Mike, my lad, I know. I
+know no harm of it, but there are weak souls that can't master
+themselves, and the drink drags them down. There's little use in doing
+away with the shops though. We've got to make young men strong enough
+to let drink alone. The drink will always be in the world. Here's your
+bright young son; what are they teaching him at his school, do ye
+know? Has his characther grown, do ye think Mike Bogan, and is he
+going to be a man for good, and to help decent things get a start and
+bad things to keep their place? I don't care how he does his sums, so
+I don't, if he has no characther, and they may fight about beer and
+fight about temperance and carry their Father Matthew flags flying
+high, so they may, and it's all no good, lessen we can raise the young
+folks up above the place where drink and shame can touch them. God
+grant us help," he whispered, dropping his head on his breast. "I'm
+getting to be an old man myself, and I've never known the temptation
+that's like a hounding devil to many men. I can let drink alone, God
+pity those who can't. Keep the young lads out from it Mike. You're a
+good fellow, you're careful, but poor human souls are weak, God
+knows!"
+
+"'T is thrue for you indade sir!" responded Biddy. Her eyes were full
+of tears at Father Miles's tone and earnestness, but she could not
+have made clear to herself what he had said.
+
+"Will I put a dhrap more of wather in it, your riverence?" she
+suggested, but the priest shook his head gently, and, taking a handful
+of parish papers out of his pocket, proceeded to hold conference with
+the master of the house. Biddy waited a while and at last ventured to
+clear away the good priest's frugal supper. She left the glass, but he
+went away without touching it, and in the very afterglow of his
+parting blessing she announced that she had the makings of a pain
+within, and took the cordial with apparent approval.
+
+Mike did not make any comment; he was tired and it was late, and long
+past their bedtime.
+
+Biddy was wide awake and talkative from her tonic, and soon pursued
+the subject of conversation.
+
+"What set the father out wid talking I do' know?" she inquired a
+little ill-humoredly. "'T was thrue for him that we kape a dacint shop
+anyhow, an' how will it be in the way of poor Danny when it's finding
+the manes to put him where he is?"
+
+"'T wa'n't that he mint at all," answered Mike from his pillow.
+"Didn't ye hear what he said?" after endeavoring fruitlessly to repeat
+it in his own words--"He's right, sure, about a b'y's getting thim
+books and having no characther. He thinks well of Danny, and he knows
+no harm of him. Wisha! what 'll we do wid that b'y, Biddy, I do' know!
+'Fadther,' says he to me today, 'why couldn't ye wait an' bring me
+into the wurruld on American soil,' says he 'and maybe I'd been
+prisident,' says he, and 't was the thruth for him."
+
+"I'd rather for him to be a priest meself," replied the mother.
+
+"That's what Father Miles said himself the other day," announced Mike
+wide awake now. "'I wish he'd the makings of a good priest,' said he.
+'There'll soon be need of good men and hard picking for 'em too,'
+said he, and he let a great sigh. ''T is money they want and place
+they want, most o' them bla'guard b'ys in the siminary. 'T is the old
+fashioned min like mesilf that think however will they get souls
+through this life and through heaven's gate at last, wid clane names
+and God-fearin', dacint names left after them.' Thim was his own words
+indade."
+
+"Idication was his cry always," said Bridget, blessing herself in the
+dark. "'T was only last confission he took no note of me own sins
+while he redded himself in the face with why don't I kape Mary Ellen
+to the school, and myself not an hour in the day to rest my poor
+bones. 'I have to kape her in, to mind the shmall childer,' says I,
+an' 't was thrue for me, so it was." She gave a jerk under the
+blankets, which represented the courtesy of the occasion. She had a
+great respect and some awe for Father Miles, but she considered
+herself to have held her ground in that discussion.
+
+"We'll do our best by them all, sure," answered Mike. "'T is tribbling
+me money I am ivery day," he added, gayly. "The lord-liftinant himsilf
+is no surer of a good bury-in' than you an' me. What if we made a
+priest of Dan intirely?" with a great outburst of proper pride. "A son
+of your own at the alther saying mass for you, Biddy Flaherty from
+Glengariff!"
+
+"He's no mind for it, more's the grief," answered the mother,
+unexpectedly, shaking her head gloomily on the pillow, "but marruk me
+wuds now, he'll ride in his carriage when I'm under the sods, give me
+grace and you too Mike Bogan! Look at the airs of him and the toss of
+his head. 'Mother,' says he to me, 'I'm goin' to be a big man!' says
+he, 'whin I grow up. D' ye think anybody 'll take me fer an
+Irishman?'"
+
+"Bad cess to the bla'guard fer that then!" said Mike. "It's spoilin'
+him you are. 'T is me own pride of heart to come from old Bantry, an'
+he lied to me yesterday gone, saying would I take him to see the old
+place. Wisha! he's got too much tongue, and he's spindin' me money for
+me."
+
+But Biddy pretended to be falling asleep. This was not the first time
+that the honest pair had felt anxiety creeping into their pride about
+Dan. He frightened them sometimes; he was cleverer than they, and the
+mother had already stormed at the boy for his misdemeanors, in her
+garrulous fashion, but covered them from his father notwithstanding.
+She felt an assurance of the merely temporary damage of wild oats; she
+believed it was just as well for a boy to have his freedom and his
+fling. She even treated his known lies as if they were truth. An
+easy-going comfortable soul was Biddy, who with much shrewdness and
+only a trace of shrewishness got through this evil world as best she
+might.
+
+The months flew by. Mike Bogan was a middle-aged man, and he and his
+wife looked somewhat elderly as they went to their pew in the broad
+aisle on Sunday morning. Danny usually came too, and the girls, but
+Dan looked contemptuous as he sat next his father and said his prayers
+perfunctorily. Sometimes he was not there at all, and Mike had a heavy
+heart under his stiff best coat. He was richer than any other member
+of Father Miles's parish, and he was known and respected everywhere as
+a good citizen. Even the most ardent believers in the temperance cause
+were known to say that little mischief would be done if all the
+rumsellers were such men as Mr. Bogan. He was generous and in his
+limited way public spirited. He did his duty to his neighbor as he saw
+it. Every one used liquor more or less, somebody must sell it, but a
+low groggery was as much a thing of shame to him as to any man. He
+never sold to boys, or to men who had had too much already. His shop
+was clean and wholesome, and in the evening when a dozen or more of
+his respectable acquaintances gathered after work for a social hour or
+two and a glass of whiskey to rest and cheer them after exposure,
+there was not a little good talk about affairs from their point of
+view, and plenty of honest fun. In their own houses very likely the
+rooms were close and hot, and the chairs hard and unrestful. The wife
+had taken her bit of recreation by daylight and visited her friends.
+This was their comfortable club-room, Mike Bogan's shop, and Mike
+himself the leader of the assembly. There was a sober-mindedness in
+the man; his companions were contented though he only looked on
+tolerantly at their fun, for the most part, without taking any active
+share himself.
+
+One cool October evening the company was well gathered in, there was
+even a glow of wood fire in the stove, and two of the old men were
+sitting close beside it. Corny Sullivan had been a soldier in the
+British army for many years, he had been wounded at last at
+Sebastopol, and yet here he was, full of military lore and glory, and
+propped by a wooden leg. Corny was usually addressed an Timber-toes by
+his familiars; he was an irascible old follow to deal with, but as
+clean as a whistle from long habit and even stately to look at in his
+arm-chair. He had a nephew with whom he made his home, who would give
+him an arm presently and get him home to bed. His mate was an old
+sailor much bent in the back by rheumatism, Jerry Bogan; who, though
+no relation, was tenderly treated by Mike, being old and poor. His
+score was never kept, but he seldom wanted for his evening grog. Jerry
+Bogan was a cheerful soul; the wit of the Celts and their pathetic
+wilfulness were delightful in him. The priest liked him, the doctor
+half loved him, this old-fashioned Irishman who had a graceful
+compliment or a thrust of wit for whoever came in his way. What a
+treasury of old Irish lore and legend was this old sailor! What
+broadness and good cheer and charity had been fostered in his sailor
+heart! The delight of little children with his clever tales and
+mysterious performances with bits of soft pine and a sharp jackknife,
+a very Baron Munchausen of adventure, and here he sat, round backed
+and head pushed forward like an old turtle, by the fire. The other men
+sat or stood about the low-walled room. Mike was serving his friends;
+there was a clink of glass and a stirring and shaking, a pungent odor
+of tobacco, and much laughter.
+
+"Soombody, whoiver it was, thrun a cat down in Tom Auley's well las'
+night," announced Corny Sullivan with more than usual gravity.
+
+"They'll have no luck thin," says Jerry. "Anybody that meddles wid
+wather 'ill have no luck while they live, faix they 'ont thin."
+
+"Tom Auley's been up watchin' this three nights now," confides the
+other old gossip. "Thim dirty b'y's troublin' his pigs in the sthy,
+and having every stramash about the place, all for revinge upon him
+for gettin' the police afther thim when they sthole his hins. 'T was
+as well for him too, they're dirty bligards, the whole box and dice of
+them."
+
+"Whishper now!" and Jerry pokes his great head closer to his friend.
+"The divil of 'em all is young Dan Bogan, Mike's son. Sorra a bit o'
+good is all his schoolin', and Mike's heart 'll be soon broke from
+him. I see him goin' about wid his nose in the air. He's a pritty boy,
+but the divil is in him an' 't is he ought to have been a praste wid
+his chances and Father Miles himself tarkin and tarkin wid him tryin'
+to make him a crown of pride to his people after all they did for him.
+There was niver a spade in his hand to touch the ground yet. Look at
+his poor father now! Look at Mike, that's grown old and gray since
+winther time." And they turned their eyes to the bar to refresh their
+memories with the sight of the disappointed face behind it.
+
+There was a rattling at the door-latch just then and loud voices
+outside, and as the old men looked, young Dan Bogan came stumbling
+into the shop. Behind him were two low fellows, the worst in the town,
+they had all been drinking more than was good for them, and for the
+first time Mike Bogan saw his only son's boyish face reddened and
+stupid with whiskey. It had been an unbroken law that Dan should keep
+out of the shop with his comrades; now he strode forward with an
+absurd travesty of manliness, and demanded liquor for himself and his
+friends at his father's hands.
+
+Mike staggered, his eyes glared with anger. His fatherly pride made
+him long to uphold the poor boy before so many witnesses. He reached
+for a glass, then he pushed it away--and with quick step reached Dan's
+side, caught him by the collar, and held him. One or two of the
+spectators chuckled with weak excitement, but the rest pitied Mike
+Bogan as he would have pitied them.
+
+The angry father pointed his son's companions to the door, and after a
+moment's hesitation they went skulking out, and father and son
+disappeared up the stairway. Dan was a coward, he was glad to be
+thrust into his own bedroom upstairs, his head was dizzy, and he
+muttered only a feeble oath. Several of Mike Bogan's customers had
+kindly disappeared when he returned trying to look the same as ever,
+but one after another the great tears rolled down his cheeks. He never
+had faced despair till now; he turned his back to the men, and fumbled
+aimlessly among the bottles on the shelf. Some one came, in
+unconscious of the pitiful scene, and impatiently repeated his order
+to the shopkeeper.
+
+"God help me, boys, I can't sell more this night!" he said brokenly.
+"Go home now and lave me to myself."
+
+They were glad to go, though it cut the evening short. Jerry Bogan
+bundled his way last with his two canes. "Sind the b'y to say," he
+advised in a gruff whisper. "Sind him out wid a good captain now,
+Mike,'t will make a man of him yet."
+
+A man of him yet! alas, alas--for the hopes that had been growing so
+many years. Alas for the pride of a simple heart, alas for the day
+Mike Bogan came away from sunshiny old Bantry with his baby son in his
+arms for the sake of making that son a gentleman.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Winter had fairly set in, but the snow had not come, and the street
+was bleak and cold. The wind was stinging men's faces and piercing the
+wooden houses. A hard night for sailors coming on the coast--a bitter
+night for poor people everywhere.
+
+From one house and another the lights went out in the street where the
+Bogans lived; at last there was no other lamp than theirs, in a window
+that lighted the outer stairs. Sometimes a woman's shadow passed
+across the curtain and waited there, drawing it away from the panes a
+moment as if to listen the better for a footstep that did not come.
+Poor Biddy had waited many a night before this. Her husband was far
+from well, the doctor said that his heart was not working right, and
+that he must be very careful, but the truth was that Mike's heart was
+almost broken by grief. Dan was going the downhill road, he had been
+drinking harder and harder, and spending a great deal of money. He had
+smashed more than one carriage and lamed more than one horse from the
+livery stables, and he had kept the lowest company in vilest dens. Now
+he threatened to go to New York, and it had come at last to being the
+only possible joy that he should come home at any time of night rather
+than disappear no one knew where. He had laughed in Father Miles's
+face when the good old man, after pleading with him, had tried to
+threaten him.
+
+Biddy was in an agony of suspense as the night wore on. She dozed a
+little only to wake with a start, and listen for some welcome sound
+out in the cold night. Was her boy freezing to death somewhere? Other
+mothers only scolded if their sons were wild, but this was killing her
+and Mike, they had set their hopes so high. Mike was groaning
+dreadfully in his sleep to-night--the fire was burning low, and she
+did not dare to stir it. She took her worn rosary again and tried to
+tell its beads. "Mother of Pity, pray for us!" she said, wearily
+dropping the beads in her lap.
+
+There was a sound in the street at last, but it was not of one man's
+stumbling feet, but of many. She was stiff with cold, she had slept
+long, and it was almost day. She rushed with strange apprehension to
+the doorway and stood with the flaring lamp in her hand at the top of
+the stairs. The voices were suddenly hushed. "Go for Father Miles!"
+said somebody in a hoarse voice, and she heard the words. They were
+carrying a burden, they brought it tip to the mother who waited. In
+their arms lay her son stone dead; he had been stabbed in a fight, he
+had struck a man down who had sprung back at him like a tiger. Dan,
+little Dan, was dead, the luck of the Bogans, the end was here, and a
+wail that pierced the night, and chilled the hearts that heard it, was
+the first message of sorrow to the poor father in his uneasy sleep.
+
+The group of men stood by--some of them had been drinking, but they
+were all awed and shocked. You would have believed every one of them
+to be on the side of law and order. Mike Bogan knew that the worst had
+happened. Biddy had rushed to him and fallen across the bed; for one
+minute her aggravating shrieks had stopped; he began to dress himself,
+but he was shaking too much; he stepped out to the kitchen and faced
+the frightened crowd.
+
+"Is my son dead, then?" asked Mike Bogan of Bantry, with a piteous
+quiver of the lip, and nobody spoke. There was something glistening
+and awful about his pleasant Irish face. He tottered where he stood,
+he caught at a chair to steady himself. "The luck o' the Bogans is
+it?" and he smiled strangely, then a fierce hardness came across his
+face and changed it utterly. "Come down, come down!" he shouted, and
+snatching the key of the shop went down the stairs himself with great
+sure-footed leaps. What was in Mike? was he crazy with grief? They
+stood out of his way and saw him fling out bottle after bottle and
+shatter them against the wall. They saw him roll one cask after
+another to the doorway, and out into the street in the gray light of
+morning, and break through the staves with a heavy axe. Nobody dared
+to restrain his fury--there was a devil in him, they were afraid of
+the man in his blinded rage The odor of whiskey and gin filled the
+cold air--some of them would have stolen the wasted liquor if they
+could, but no man there dared to move or speak, and it was not until
+the tall figure of Father Miles came along the street, and the patient
+eyes that seemed always to keep vigil, and the calm voice with its
+flavor of Bantry brogue, came to Mike Bogan's help, that he let
+himself be taken out of the wrecked shop and away from the spilt
+liquors to the shelter of his home.
+
+A week later he was only a shadow of his sturdy self, he was lying on
+his bed dreaming of Bantry Bay and the road to Glengariff--the hedge
+roses were in bloom, and he was trudging along the road to see Biddy.
+He was working on the old farm at home and could not put the seed
+potatoes in their trench, for little Dan kept falling in and getting
+in his way. "Dan's not going to be plagued with the bad craps," he
+muttered to Father Miles who sat beside the bed. "Dan will be a fine
+squire in Ameriky," but the priest only stroked his hand as it
+twitched and lifted on the coverlet. What was Biddy doing, crying and
+putting the candles about him? Then Mike's poor brain grew steady.
+
+"Oh, my God, if we were back in Bantry! I saw the gorse bloomin' in
+the t'atch d' ye know. Oh wisha wisha the poor ould home an' the green
+praties that day we come from it--with our luck smilin' us in the
+face."
+
+"Whist darlin': kape aisy darlin'!" mourned Biddy, with a great sob.
+Father Miles sat straight and stem in his chair by the pillow--he had
+said the prayers for the dying, and the holy oil was already shining
+on Mike Bogan's forehead. The keeners were swaying themselves to and
+fro, there where they waited in the next room.
+
+
+
+
+FAIR DAY.
+
+
+Widow Mercy Bascom came back alone into the empty kitchen and seated
+herself in her favorite splint-bottomed chair by the window, with a
+dreary look on her face.
+
+"I s'pose I be an old woman, an' past goin' to cattle shows an'
+junketings, but folks needn't take it so for granted. I'm sure I don't
+want to be on my feet all day, trapesin' fair grounds an' swallowin'
+everybody's dust; not but what I'm as able as most, though I be
+seventy-three year old."
+
+She folded her hands in her lap and looked out across the deserted
+yard. There was not even a hen in sight; she was left alone for the
+day. "Tobias's folks," as she called the son's family with whom she
+made her home--Tobias's folks had just started for a day's pleasuring
+at the county fair, ten miles distant. She had not thought of going
+with them, nor expected any invitation; she had even helped them off
+with her famous energy; but there was an unexpected reluctance at
+being left behind, a sad little feeling that would rise suddenly in
+her throat as she stood in the door and saw them drive away in the
+shiny, two-seated wagon. Johnny, the youngest and favorite of her
+grandchildren, had shouted back in his piping voice, "I wish you was
+goin', Grandma."
+
+"The only one on 'em that thought of me," said Mercy Bascom to
+herself, and then not being a meditative person by nature, she went to
+work industriously and proceeded to the repairing of Tobias's work-day
+coat. It was sharp weather now in the early morning, and he would soon
+need the warmth of it. Tobias's placid wife never anticipated and
+always lived in a state of trying to catch up with her work. It never
+had been the elder woman's way, and Mercy reviewed her own active
+career with no mean pride. She had been left a widow at twenty-eight,
+with four children and a stony New Hampshire farm, but had bravely won
+her way, paid her debts, and provided the three girls and their
+brother Tobias with the best available schooling.
+
+For a woman of such good judgment and high purpose in life,
+Mrs. Bascom had made a very unwise choice in marrying Tobias Bascom
+the elder. He was not even the owner of a good name, and led her a
+terrible life with his drunken shiftlessness, and hindrance of all her
+own better aims. Even while the children were babies, however, and
+life was at its busiest and most demanding stages, the determined soul
+would not be baffled by such damaging partnership. She showed the
+plainer of what stuff she was made, and simply worked the harder and
+went her ways more fiercely. If it were sometimes whispered that she
+was unamiable, her wiser neighbors understood the power of will that
+was needed to cope with circumstances that would have crushed a weaker
+woman. As for her children, they were very fond of her in the
+undemonstrative New England fashion. Only the two eldest could
+remember their father at all, and after he was removed from this world
+Tobias Bascom left but slight proofs of having ever existed at all,
+except in the stern lines and premature aging of his wife's face.
+
+The years that followed were years of hard work on the little farm,
+but diligence and perseverance had their reward. When the three
+daughters came to womanhood they were already skilled farmhouse
+keepers, and were dispatched for their own homes well equipped with
+feather-beds and homespun linen and woolen. Mercy Bascom was glad to
+have them well settled, if the truth were known. She did not like to
+have her own will and law questioned or opposed, and when she sat down
+to supper alone with her son Tobias, after the last daughter's
+wedding, she had a glorious feeling of peace and satisfaction.
+
+"There's a sight o' work left yet in the old ma'am," she said to
+Tobias, in an unwontedly affectionate tone. "I guess we shall keep
+house together as comfortable as most folks." But Tobias grew very red
+in the face and bent over his plate.
+
+"I don' know's I want the girls to get ahead of me," he said
+sheepishly. "I ain't meanin' to put you out with another wedding right
+away, but I've been a-lookin' round, an' I guess I've found somebody
+to suit _me_."
+
+Mercy Bascom turned cold with misery and disappointment. "Why T'bias,"
+she said, anxiously, "folks always said that you was cut out for an
+old bachelor till I come to believe it, an' I've been lottin' on"--
+
+"Course nobody's goin' to wrench me an' you apart," said Tobias
+gallantly. "I made up my mind long ago you an' me was yoke-mates,
+mother. An' I had it in my mind to fetch you somebody that would ease
+you o' quite so much work now 'Liza's gone off."
+
+"I don't want nobody," said the grieved woman, and she could eat no
+more supper; that festive supper for which she had cooked her very
+best. Tobias was sorry for her, but he had his rights, and now simply
+felt light-hearted because he had freed his mind of this unwelcome
+declaration. Tobias was slow and stolid to behold, but he was a man of
+sound ideas and great talent for farming. He had found it difficult to
+choose between his favorites among the marriageable girls, a bright
+young creature who was really too good for him, but penniless, and a
+weaker damsel who was heiress to the best farm in town. The farm won
+the day at last; and Mrs. Bascom felt a thrill of pride at her son's
+worldly success; then she asked to know her son's plans, and was
+wholly disappointed. Tobias meant to sell the old place; he had no
+idea of leaving her alone as she wistfully complained; he meant to
+have her make a new home at the Bassett place with him and his bride.
+
+That she would never do: the old place which had given them a living
+never should be left or sold to strangers. Tobias was not prepared for
+her fierce outburst of reproach at the mere suggestion. She would live
+alone and pay her way as she always had done, and so it was, for a few
+years of difficulties. Tobias was never ready to plough or plant when
+she needed him; his own great farm was more than he could serve
+properly. It grew more and more difficult to hire workmen, and they
+were seldom worth their wages. At last Tobias's wife, who was a kindly
+soul, persuaded her reluctant mother-in-law to come and spend a
+winter; the old woman was tired and for once disheartened; she found
+herself deeply in love with her grandchildren, and so next spring she
+let the little hill farm on the halves to an impecunious but
+hard-working young couple.
+
+To everybody's surprise the two women lived together harmoniously.
+Tobias's wife did everything to please her mother-in-law except to be
+other than a Bassett. And Mercy, for the most part, ignored this
+misfortune, and rarely was provoked into calling it a fault. Now that
+the necessity for hard work and anxiety was past, she appeared to have
+come to an Indian summer shining-out of her natural amiability and
+tolerance. She was sometimes indirectly reproachful of her daughter's
+easy-going ways, and set an indignant example now and then by a famous
+onslaught of unnecessary work, and always dressed and behaved herself
+in plainest farm fashion, while Mrs. Tobias was given to undue
+worldliness and style. But they worked well together in the main, for,
+to use Mercy's own words, she "had seen enough of life not to want to
+go into other folks' houses and make trouble."
+
+As people grow older their interests are apt to become fewer, and one
+of the thoughts that came oftenest to Mercy Bascom in her old age was
+a time-honored quarrel with one of her husband's sisters, who had been
+her neighbor many years before, and then moved to greater prosperity
+at the other side of the county. It is not worth while to tell the
+long story of accusations and misunderstandings, but while the two
+women did not meet for almost half a lifetime the grievance was as
+fresh as if it were yesterday's. Wrongs of defrauded sums of money and
+contested rights in unproductive acres of land, wrongs of slighting
+remarks and contempt of equal claims; the remembrance of all these was
+treasured as a miser fingers his gold. Mercy Bascom freed herself from
+the wearisome detail of every-day life whenever she could find a
+patient listener to whom to tell the long story. She found it as
+interesting as a story of the Arabian Nights, or an exciting play at
+the theatre. She would have you believe that she was faultless in the
+matter, and would not acknowledge that her sister-in-law Ruth Bascom,
+now Mrs. Parlet, was also a hard-working woman with dependent little
+children at the time of the great fray. Of late years her son had
+suspected that his mother regretted the alienation, but he knew better
+than to suggest a peace-making. "Let them work--let them work!" he
+told his wife, when she proposed one night to bring the warring
+sisters-in-law unexpectedly together. It may have been that old Mercy
+began to feel a little lonely and would be glad to have somebody of
+her own age with whom to talk over old times. She never had known the
+people much in this Bassett region, and there were few but young folks
+left at any rate.
+
+As the pleasure-makers hastened toward the fair that bright October
+morning Mercy sat by the table sewing at a sufficient patch in the old
+coat. There was little else to do all day but to get herself a
+luncheon at noon and have supper ready when the family came home cold
+and tired at night. The two cats came purring about her chair; one
+persuaded her to open the cellar door, and the other leaped to the top
+of the kitchen table unrebuked, and blinked herself to sleep there in
+the sun. This was a favored kitten brought from the old home, and
+seemed like a link between the old days and these. Her mistress
+noticed with surprise that pussy was beginning to look old, and she
+could not resist a little sigh. "Land! the next world may seem
+dreadful new too, and I've got to get used to that," she thought with
+a grim smile of foreboding. "How do folks live that wants always to be
+on the go? There was Ruth Parlet, that must be always a visitin' and
+goin'--well, I won't say that there wasn't a time when I wished for
+the chance." Justice always won the day in such minor questions as
+this.
+
+Ruth Parlet's name started the usual thoughts, but somehow or other
+Mercy could not find it in her heart to be as harsh as usual. She
+remembered one thing after another about their girlhood together. They
+had been great friends then, and the animosity may have had its root
+in the fact that Ruth helped forward her brother's marriage. But there
+were years before that of friendly foregathering and girlish alliances
+and rivalries; spinning and herb gathering and quilting. It seemed, as
+Mercy thought about it, that Ruth was good company after all. But what
+did make her act so, and turn right round later on?
+
+The morning grew warm, and at last Mrs. Bascom had to open the window
+to let out the buzzing flies and an imprisoned wild bee. The patch was
+finished and the elbow would serve Tobias as good as new. She laid the
+coat over a chair and put her bent brass thimble into the paper-collar
+box that served as work-basket. She used to have a queer splint basket
+at the old place, but it had been broken under something heavier when
+her household goods were moved. Some of the family had long been tired
+of hearing that basket regretted, and another had never been found
+worthy to take its place. The thimble, the smooth mill bobbin on which
+was wound black linen thread, the dingy lump of beeswax, and a smart
+leather needle-book, which Johnny had given her the Christmas before,
+all looked ready for use, but Mrs. Bascom pushed them farther back on
+the table and quickly rose to her feet. "'T ain't nine o'clock yet,"
+she said, exultantly. "I'll just take a couple o' crackers in my
+pocket and step over to the old place. I'll take my time and be back
+soon enough to make 'em that pan o' my hot gingerbread they'll be
+counting on for supper."
+
+Half an hour later one might have seen a bent figure lock the side
+door of the large farmhouse carefully, trying the latch again and
+again to see if it were fast, putting the key into a safe hiding-place
+by the door, and then stepping away up the road with eager
+determination. "I ain't felt so like a jaunt this five year," said
+Mercy to herself, "an' if Tobias was here an' Ann, they'd take all the
+fun out fussin' and talkin', an' bein' afeard I'd tire myself, or
+wantin' me to ride over. I do like to be my own master once in a
+while."
+
+The autumn day was glorious, with a fine flavor of fruit and ripeness
+in the air. The sun was warm, there was a cool breeze from the great
+hills, and far off across the wide valley the old woman could see her
+little gray house on its pleasant eastern slope; she could even trace
+the outline of the two small fields and large pasture. "I done well
+with it, if I wasn't nothin' but a woman with four dependin' on me an'
+no means," said Mercy proudly as she came in full sight of the old
+place. It was a long drive from one farm to the other by roundabout
+highways, but there was a footpath known to the wayfarer which took a
+good piece off the distance. "Now, ain't this a sight better than them
+hustlin' fairs?" Mercy asked gleefully as she felt herself free and
+alone in the wide meadow-land. She had long been promising little
+Johnny to take him over to Gran'ma's house, as she loved to call it
+still. She could not help thinking longingly how much he would enjoy
+this escapade. "Why, I'm running away just like a young-one, that's
+what I be," she exclaimed, and then laughed aloud for very pleasure.
+
+The weather-beaten farmhouse was deserted that day, as its former
+owner suspected. She boldly gathered some of her valued spice-apples,
+with an assuring sense of proprietorship as she crossed the last
+narrow field. The Browns, man and wife and little boy and baby, had
+hied them early to the fair with nearly the whole population of the
+countryside. The house and yard and out-buildings never had worn such
+an aspect of appealing pleasantness as when Mercy Bascom came near.
+She felt as if she were going to cry for a minute, and then hurried to
+get inside the gate. She saw the outgoing track of horses' feet with
+delight, but went discreetly to the door and knocked, to make herself
+perfectly sure that there was no one left at home. Out of breath and
+tired as she was, she turned to look off at the view. Yes, there was
+Tobias's place, prosperous and white-painted; she could just get a
+glimpse of the upper roofs and gables. It was always a sorrow and
+complaint that a low hill kept her from looking up at this farm from
+any of the windows, but now that she was at the farm itself she found
+herself regarding Tobias's home with a good deal of affection. She
+looked sharply with an apprehension of fire, but there was no whiff of
+alarming smoke against the dear sky.
+
+"Now I must git me a drink o' that water first of anything," and she
+hastened to the creaking well-sweep and lowered the bucket. There was
+the same rusty, handleless tin dipper that she had left years before,
+standing on the shelf inside the well-curb. She was proud to find that
+the bucket was no heavier than ever, and was heartily thankful for the
+clear water. There never was such a well as that, and it seemed as if
+she had not been away a day. "What an old gal I be," said Mercy, with
+plaintive merriment. "Well, they ain't made no great changes since I
+was here last spring," and then she went over and held her face close
+against one of the kitchen windows, and took a hungry look at the
+familiar room. The bedroom door was open and a new sense of attachment
+to the place filled her heart. "It seems as if I was locked out o' my
+own home," she whispered as she looked in.
+
+There were the same old spruce and pine boards that she had scrubbed
+so many times and trodden thin as she hurried to and fro about her
+work. It was very strange to see an unfamiliar chair or two, but the
+furnishings of a farm kitchen were much the same, and there was no
+great change. Even the cradle was like that cradle in which her own
+children had been rocked. She gazed and gazed, poor old Mother Bascom,
+and forgot the present as her early life came back in vivid memories.
+At last she turned away from the window with a sigh.
+
+The flowers that she had planted herself long ago had bloomed all
+summer in the garden; there were still some ragged sailors and the
+snowberries and phlox and her favorite white mallows, of which she
+picked herself a posy. "I'm glad the old place is so well took care
+of," she thought, gratefully. "An' they've new-silled the old barn I
+do declare, and battened the cracks to keep the dumb creatures warm.
+'T was a sham-built barn anyways, but 't was the best I could do when
+the child'n needed something every handturn o' the day. It put me to
+some expense every year, tinkering of it up where the poor lumber
+warped and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope with things and
+gettin' the better of my disadvantages! The ground's too rich for me
+over there to Tobias's; I don't want things too easy, for my part. I
+feel most as young as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play helpless,
+not for nobody.
+
+"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here by an' by a spell an' stop
+with the young folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their work. I
+ain't needed all the time to Tobias' s now, and they can hire help,
+while these can't. I've been favoring myself till I'm as soft as an
+old hoss that's right out of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without
+wheezin'."
+
+There was a sense of companionship in the very weather. The bees were
+abroad as if it were summer, and a flock of little birds came
+fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom as she sat on the doorstep. She
+remembered the biscuits in her pocket and ate them with a hunger she
+had seldom known of late, but she threw the crumbs generously to her
+feathered neighbors. The soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of
+the wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of relationship to her
+surroundings all served to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful
+state. There was only one thought that would not let her be quite
+happy. She could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet out of her
+mind. And strangely enough the old grudge did not present itself with
+the usual power of aggravation; it was of their early friendship and
+Ruth's good fellowship that memories would come.
+
+"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to the folks, but I should like
+to have a good visit with Ruth if so be that we could set aside the
+past," she said, resolutely at last. "I never thought I should come to
+it, but if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do nothin' to hinder
+it. Not to say but what I should have to free my mind on one or two
+points before we could start fair. I've waited forty year to make one
+remark to Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin' to be old folks."
+Mercy rebuked herself gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard
+feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the culmination of a long, slow
+process of reconciliation, or whether Mrs. Bascom's placid
+satisfaction helped to hasten it by many stages, nobody could say. As
+she sat there she thought of many things; her life spread itself out
+like a picture; perhaps never before had she been able to detach
+herself from her immediate occupation in this way. She never had been
+aware of her own character and exploits to such a degree, and the
+minutes sped by as she thought with deep interest along the course of
+her own history. There was nothing she was ashamed of to an
+uncomfortable degree but the long animosity between herself and the
+children's aunt. How harsh she had been sometimes; she had even tried
+to prejudice everybody who listened to these tales of an offender. "I
+wa'n't more 'n half right, now I come to look myself full in the
+face," said Mercy Bascom, "and I never owned it till this day."
+
+The sun was already past noon, and the good woman dutifully rose and
+with instant consciousness of resource glanced in at the kitchen
+window to tell the time by a familiar mark on the floor. "I needn't
+start just yet," she muttered. "Oh my! how I do wish I could git in
+and poke round into every corner! 'T would make this day just
+perfect."
+
+"There now!" she continued, "p'raps they leave the key just where our
+folks used to." And in another minute the key lay in Mercy's worn old
+hand. She gave a shrewd look along the road, opened the door, which
+creaked what may have been a hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear
+old kitchen. She had not been in the house alone since she left it,
+but now she was nobody's guest. It was like some shell-fish finding
+its own old shell again and settling comfortably into the
+convolutions. Even we must not follow Mother Bascom about from the
+dark cellar to the hot little attic. She was not curious about the
+Browns' worldly goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious of anything
+but the comfort of going up and down the short flight of stairs and
+looking out of her own windows with nobody to watch.
+
+"There's the place where Tobias scratched the cupboard door with a
+nail. Didn't I thrash him for it good?" she said once with a proud
+remembrance of the time when she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he
+dependent.
+
+At length a creeping fear stole over her lest the family might return.
+She stopped one moment to look back into the little bedroom. "How good
+I did use to sleep here," she said. "I worked as stout as I could the
+day through, and there wa'n't no wakin' up by two o'clock in the
+morning, and smellin' for fire and harkin' for thieves like I have to
+nowadays."
+
+Mercy stepped away down the long sloping field like a young woman. It
+was a long walk back to Tobias's, even if one followed the pleasant
+footpaths across country. She was heavy-footed, but entirely
+light-hearted when she came safely in at the gate of the Bassett
+place. "I've done extra for me," she said as she put away her old
+shawl and bonnet; "but I'm goin' to git the best supper Tobias's folks
+have eat for a year," and so she did.
+
+"I've be'n over to the old place to-day," she announced bravely to her
+son, who had finished his work and his supper and was now tipped back
+in his wooden arm-chair against the wall.
+
+"You ain't, mother!" responded Tobias, with instant excitement. "Next
+fall, then, I won't take no for an answer but what you'll go to the
+fair and see what's goin'. You ain't footed it way over there?"
+
+Mother Bascom nodded. "I have," she answered solemnly, a minute later,
+as if the nod were not enough.
+
+"T'bias, son," she added, lowering her voice, "I ain't one to give in
+my rights, but I was thinkin' it all over about y'r Aunt Ruth
+Parlet"--
+
+"Now if that ain't curi's!" exclaimed Tobias, bringing his chair down
+hastily upon all four legs. "I didn't know just how you'd take it,
+mother, but I see Aunt Ruth to-day to the fair, and she made
+everything o' me and wanted to know how you was, and she got me off
+from the rest, an' says she: 'I declare I should like to see your marm
+again. I wonder if she won't agree to let bygones be bygones.'"
+
+"My sakes!" said Mercy, who was startled by this news. "'T is the hand
+o' Providence! How did she look, son?"
+
+"A sight older 'n you look, but kind of natural too. One o' her sons'
+wives that she's made her home with, has led her a dance, folks say."
+
+"Poor old creatur'! we'll have her over here, if your folks don't find
+fault. I've had her in my mind"--
+
+Tobias's folks, in the shape of his wife and little Johnny, appeared
+from the outer kitchen. "I haven't had such a supper I don't know
+when," repeated the younger woman for at least the fifth time. "You
+must have been keepin' busy all day, Mother Bascom."
+
+But Mother Bascom and Tobias looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"I ain't had such a good time I don't know when, but my feet are all
+of a fidget now, and I've got to git to bed. I've be'n runnin' away
+since you've be'n gone, Ann!" said the pleased old soul, and then went
+away, still laughing, to her own room. She was strangely excited and
+satisfied, as if she had at last paid a long-standing debt. She could
+trudge across pastures as well as anybody, and the old grudge was done
+with. Mercy hardly noticed how her fingers trembled as she unhooked
+the old gray gown. The odor of sweet fern shook out fresh and strong
+as she smoothed and laid it carefully over a chair. There was a little
+rent in the skirt, but she could mend it by daylight.
+
+The great harvest moon was shining high in the sky, and she needed no
+other light in the bedroom. "I've be'n a smart woman to work in my
+day, and I've airnt a little pleasurin'," said Mother Bascom sleepily
+to herself. "Poor Ruthy! so she looks old, does she? I'm goin' to tell
+her right out, 't was I that spoke first to Tobias."
+
+
+
+
+GOING TO SHREWSBURY.
+
+
+The train stopped at a way station with apparent unwillingness, and
+there was barely time for one elderly passenger to be hurried on board
+before a sudden jerk threw her almost off her unsteady old feet and we
+moved on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed old countrywoman,
+laden with a large basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an
+old-fashioned bundle-handkerchief; then I discovered that she was a
+friend of mine, Mrs. Peet, who lived on a small farm, several miles
+from the village. She used to be renowned for good butter and fresh
+eggs and the earliest cowslip greens; in fact, she always made the
+most of her farm's slender resources; but it was some time since I had
+seen her drive by from market in her ancient thorough-braced wagon.
+
+The brakeman followed her into the crowded car, also carrying a number
+of packages. I leaned forward and asked Mrs. Peet to sit by me; it was
+a great pleasure to see her again. The brakeman seemed relieved, and
+smiled as he tried to put part of his burden into the rack overhead;
+but even the flowered carpet-bag was much too large, and he explained
+that he would take care of everything at the end of the car. Mrs. Peet
+was not large herself, but with the big basket, and the
+bundle-handkerchief, and some possessions of my own we had very little
+spare room.
+
+"So this 'ere is what you call ridin' in the cars! Well, I do
+declare!" said my friend, as soon as she had recovered herself a
+little. She looked pale and as if she had been in tears, but there was
+the familiar gleam of good humor in her tired old eyes.
+
+"Where in the world are you going, Mrs. Peet?" I asked.
+
+"Can't be you ain't heared about me, dear?" said she. "Well, the
+world's bigger than I used to think 't was. I've broke up,--'t was
+the only thing _to_ do,--and I'm a-movin' to Shrewsbury."
+
+"To Shrewsbury? Have you sold the farm?" I exclaimed, with sorrow and
+surprise. Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic to be suddenly
+transplanted from her native soil, "'T wa'n't mine, the place wa'n't."
+Her pleasant face hardened slightly. "He was coaxed an' over-persuaded
+into signin' off before he was taken away. Is'iah, son of his sister
+that married old Josh Peet, come it over him about his bein' past work
+and how he'd do for him like an own son, an' we owed him a little
+somethin'. I'd paid off everythin' but that, an' was fool enough to
+leave it till the last, on account o' Is'iah's bein' a relation and
+not needin' his pay much as some others did. It's hurt me to have the
+place fall into other hands. Some wanted me to go right to law; but 't
+wouldn't be no use. Is'iah's smarter 'n I be about them matters. You
+see he's got my name on the paper, too; he said 't was somethin' 'bout
+bein' responsible for the taxes. We was scant o' money, an' I was wore
+out with watchin' an' being broke o' my rest. After my tryin' hard for
+risin' forty-five year to provide for bein' past work, here I be,
+dear, here I be! I used to drive things smart, you remember. But we
+was fools enough in '72 to put about everythin' we had safe in the
+bank into that spool factory that come to nothin'. But I tell ye I
+could ha' kept myself long's I lived, if I could ha' held the place.
+I'd parted with most o' the woodland, if Is'iah 'd coveted it. He was
+welcome to that, 'cept what might keep me in oven-wood. I've always
+desired to travel an' see somethin' o' the world, but I've got the
+chance now when I don't value it no great."
+
+"Shrewsbury is a busy, pleasant place," I ventured to say by way of
+comfort, though my heart was filled with rage at the trickery of
+Isaiah Peet, who had always looked like a fox and behaved like one.
+
+"Shrewsbury's be'n held up consid'able for me to smile at," said the
+poor old soul, "but I tell ye, dear, it's hard to go an' live
+twenty-two miles from where you've always had your home and friends.
+It may divert me, but it won't be home. You might as well set out one
+o' my old apple-trees on the beach, so 't could see the waves come
+in,--there wouldn't be no please to it."
+
+"Where are you going to live in Shrewsbury?" I asked presently.
+
+"I don't expect to stop long, dear creatur'. I'm 'most seventy-six
+year old," and Mrs. Peet turned to look at me with pathetic amusement
+in her honest wrinkled face. "I said right out to Is'iah, before a
+roomful o' the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an'
+bury me when my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn
+my livin', if 't was so I could, till then. He'd made sly talk, you
+see, about my electin' to leave the farm and go 'long some o' my own
+folks; but"--and she whispered this carefully--"he didn't give me no
+chance to stay there without hurtin' my pride and dependin' on him. I
+ain't said that to many folks, but all must have suspected. A good
+sight on 'em's had money of Is'iah, though, and they don't like to do
+nothin' but take his part an' be pretty soft spoken, fear it'll git to
+his ears. Well, well, dear, we'll let it be bygones, and not think of
+it no more;" but I saw the great tears roll slowly down her cheeks,
+and she pulled her bonnet forward impatiently, and looked the other
+way.
+
+"There looks to be plenty o' good farmin' land in this part o' the
+country," she said, a minute later. "Where be we now? See them
+handsome farm buildings; he must be a well-off man." But I had to tell
+my companion that we were still within the borders of the old town
+where we had both been born. Mrs. Peet gave a pleased little laugh,
+like a girl. "I'm expectin' Shrewsbury to pop up any minute. I'm
+feared to be kerried right by. I wa'n't never aboard of the cars
+before, but I've so often thought about em' I don't know but it seems
+natural. Ain't it jest like flyin' through the air? I can't catch holt
+to see nothin'. Land! and here's my old cat goin' too, and never
+mistrustin'. I ain't told you that I'd fetched her."
+
+"Is she in that basket?" I inquired with interest.
+
+"Yis, dear. Truth was, I calculated to have her put out o' the misery
+o' movin', an spoke to one o' the Barnes boys, an' he promised me all
+fair; but he wa'n't there in season, an' I kind o' made excuse to
+myself to fetch her along. She's an' old creatur', like me, an' I can
+make shift to keep her some way or 'nuther; there's probably mice
+where we're goin', an' she's a proper mouser that can about keep
+herself if there's any sort o' chance. 'T will be somethin' o' home to
+see her goin' an' comin', but I expect we're both on us goin' to miss
+our old haunts. I'd love to know what kind o' mousin' there's goin' to
+be for me."
+
+"You mustn't worry," I answered, with all the bravery and assurance
+that I could muster. "Your niece will be thankful to have you with
+her. Is she one of Mrs. Winn's daughters?"
+
+"Oh, no, they ain't able; it's Sister Wayland's darter Isabella, that
+married the overseer of the gre't carriage-shop. I ain't seen her
+since just after she was married; but I turned to her first because I
+knew she was best able to have me, and then I can see just how the
+other girls is situated and make me some kind of a plot. I wrote to
+Isabella, though she _is_ ambitious, and said 't was so I'd got to ask
+to come an' make her a visit, an' she wrote back she would be glad to
+have me; but she didn't write right off, and her letter was scented up
+dreadful strong with some sort o' essence, and I don't feel heartened
+about no great of a welcome. But there, I've got eyes, an' I can see
+_how_ 't is when I git _where_ 't is. Sister Winn's gals ain't
+married, an' they've always boarded, an' worked in the shop on
+trimmin's. Isabella' s well off; she had some means from her father's
+sister. I thought it all over by night an' day, an' I recalled that
+our folks kept Sister Wayland's folks all one winter, when he'd failed
+up and got into trouble. I'm reckonin' on sendin' over to-night an'
+gittin' the Winn gals to come and see me and advise. Perhaps some on
+'em may know of somebody that'll take me for what help I can give
+about house, or some clever folks that have been lookin' for a smart
+cat, any ways; no, I don't know's I could let her go to strangers."
+
+"There was two or three o' the folks round home that acted real
+warm-hearted towards me, an' urged me to come an' winter with 'em,"
+continued the exile; "an' this mornin' I wished I'd agreed to, 't was
+so hard to break away. But now it's done I feel more 'n ever it's
+best. I couldn't bear to live right in sight o' the old place, and
+come spring I shouldn't 'prove of nothing Is'iah ondertakes to do with
+the land. Oh, dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not to have had no
+child'n. When I was young an' workin' hard and into everything, I felt
+kind of free an' superior to them that was so blessed, an' their
+houses cluttered up from mornin' till night, but I tell ye it comes
+home to me now. I'd be most willin' to own to even Is'iah, mean's he
+is; but I tell ye I'd took it out of him 'fore he was a grown man, if
+there 'd be'n any virtue in cow-hidin' of him. Folks don't look like
+wild creator's for nothin'. Is'iah's got fox blood in him, an'
+p'r'haps 't is his misfortune. His own mother always favored the looks
+of an old fox, true's the world; she was a poor tool,--a poor tool! I
+d' know's we ought to blame him same's we do.
+
+"I've always been a master proud woman, if I was riz among the
+pastures," Mrs. Peet added, half to herself. There was no use in
+saying much to her; she was conscious of little beside her own
+thoughts and the smouldering excitement caused by this great crisis in
+her simple existence. Yet the atmosphere of her loneliness,
+uncertainty, and sorrow was so touching that after scolding again at
+her nephew's treachery, and finding the tears come fast to my eyes as
+she talked, I looked intently out of the car window, and tried to
+think what could be done for the poor soul. She was one of the
+old-time people, and I hated to have her go away; but even if she
+could keep her home she would soon be too feeble to live there alone,
+and some definite plan must be made for her comfort. Farms in that
+neighborhood were not valuable. Perhaps through the agency of the law
+and quite in secret, Isaiah Peet could be forced to give up his
+unrighteous claim. Perhaps, too, the Winn girls, who were really no
+longer young, might have saved something, and would come home again.
+But it was easy to make such pictures in one's mind, and I must do
+what I could through other people, for I was just leaving home for a
+long time. I wondered sadly about Mrs. Peet's future, and the
+ambitious Isabella, and the favorite Sister Winn's daughters, to whom,
+with all their kindliness of heart, the care of so old and perhaps so
+dependent an aunt might seem impossible. The truth about life in
+Shrewsbury would soon be known; more than half the short journey was
+already past.
+
+To my great pleasure, my fellow-traveler now began to forget her own
+troubles in looking about her. She was an alert, quickly interested
+old soul, and this was a bit of neutral ground between the farm and
+Shrewsbury, where she was unattached and irresponsible. She had lived
+through the last tragic moments of her old life, and felt a certain
+relief, and Shrewsbury might be as far away as the other side of the
+Rocky Mountains for all the consciousness she had of its real
+existence. She was simply a traveler for the time being, and began to
+comment, with delicious phrases and shrewd understanding of human
+nature, on two or three persons near us who attracted her attention.
+
+"Where do you s'pose they be all goin'?" she asked contemptuously.
+"There ain't none on 'em but what looks kind o' respectable. I'll
+warrant they've left work to home they'd ought to be doin'. I knowed,
+if ever I stopped to think, that cars was hived full o' folks, an'
+wa'n't run to an' fro for nothin'; but these can't be quite up to the
+average, be they? Some on 'em's real thrif'less? guess they've be'n
+shoved out o' the last place, an' goin' to try the next one,--_like
+me_, I suppose you'll want to say! Jest see that flauntin' old
+creatur' that looks like a stopped clock. There! everybody can't be o'
+one goodness, even preachers."
+
+I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we
+could be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be
+forgiven for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars
+that she never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take
+her ticket she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a
+loss.
+
+"You 'll have to look after me, dear, when we get to Shrewsbury," she
+said, after we had spent some distracted moments in hunting for the
+ticket, and the cat had almost escaped from the basket, and the
+bundle-handkerchief had become untied and all its miscellaneous
+contents scattered about our laps and the floor. It was a touching
+collection of the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet's housekeeping: some
+battered books, and singed holders for flatirons, and the faded little
+shoulder shawl that I had seen her wear many a day about her bent
+shoulders. There were her old tin match-box spilling all its matches,
+and a goose-wing for brushing up ashes, and her much-thumbed Leavitt's
+Almanac. It was most pathetic to see these poor trifles out of their
+places. At last the ticket was found in her left-hand woolen glove,
+where her stiff, work-worn hand had grown used to the feeling of it.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder, now, if I come to like living over to Shrewsbury
+first-rate," she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful, eager look to
+see if I differed. "You see 't won't be so tough for me as if I hadn't
+always felt it lurking within me to go off some day or 'nother an' see
+how other folks did things. I do' know but what the Winn gals have
+laid up somethin' sufficient for us to take a house, with the little
+mite I've got by me. I might keep house for us all, 'stead o' boardin'
+round in other folks' houses. That I ain't never been demeaned to, but
+I dare say I should find it pleasant in some ways. Town folks has got
+the upper hand o' country folks, but with all their work an' pride
+they can't make a dandelion. I do' know the times when I've set out to
+wash Monday mornin's, an' tied out the line betwixt the old
+pucker-pear tree and the corner o' the barn, an' thought, 'Here I be
+with the same kind o' week's work right over again.' I'd wonder kind
+o' f'erce if I couldn't git out of it noways; an' now here I be out of
+it, and an uprooteder creatur' never stood on the airth. Just as I got
+to feel I had somethin' ahead come that spool-factory business. There!
+you know he never was a forehanded man; his health was slim, and he
+got discouraged pretty nigh before ever he begun. I hope he don't know
+I'm turned out o' the old place. 'Is'iah's well off; he'll do the
+right thing by ye,' says he. But my! I turned hot all over when I
+found out what I'd put my name to,--me that had always be'n counted a
+smart woman! I did undertake to read it over, but I couldn't sense it.
+I've told all the folks so when they laid it off on to me some: but
+hand-writin' is awful tedious readin' and my head felt that day as if
+the works was gone."
+
+"I ain't goin' to sag on to nobody," she assured me eagerly, as the
+train rushed along. "I've got more work in me now than folks expects
+at my age. I may be consid'able use to Isabella. She's got a family,
+an' I'll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She
+had four on 'em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked
+house-work. Little gals! I do' know now but what they must be about
+grown, time doos slip away so. I expect I shall look outlandish to
+'em. But there! everybody knows me to home, an' nobody knows me to
+Shrewsbury; 't won't make a mite o' difference, if I take holt
+willin'."
+
+I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she would never be persuaded
+to cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that
+she had worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist
+upon more modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested, as if it were a matter
+of little consequence, that she had kept it in mind to buy some
+mourning; but there were other things to be thought of first, and so
+she had let it go until winter, any way, or until she should be fairly
+settled in Shrewsbury.
+
+"Are your nieces expecting you by this train?" I was moved to ask,
+though with all the good soul's ready talk and appealing manner I
+could hardly believe that she was going to Shrewsbury for more than a
+visit; it seemed as if she must return to the worn old farmhouse over
+by the sheep-lands. She answered that one of the Barnes boys had
+written a letter for her the day before, and there was evidently
+little uneasiness about her first reception.
+
+We drew near the junction where I must leave her within a mile of the
+town. The cat was clawing indignantly at the basket, and her mistress
+grew as impatient of the car. She began to look very old and pale, my
+poor fellow-traveler, and said that she felt dizzy, going so fast.
+Presently the friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came along, bringing
+the carpet-bag and other possessions, and insisted upon taking the
+alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive paw that had worked its
+way through the wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her goods disappear
+with suspicious eyes, and clutched her bundle-handkerchief as if it
+might be all that she could save. Then she anxiously got to her feet,
+much too soon, and when I said good-by to her at the car door she was
+ready to cry. I pointed to the car which she was to take next on the
+branch line of railway, and I assured her that it was only a few
+minutes' ride to Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she would find
+somebody waiting. The sight of that worn, thin figure adventuring
+alone across the platform gave my heart a sharp pang as the train
+carried me away.
+
+Some of the passengers who sat near asked me about my old friend with
+great sympathy, after she had gone. There was a look of tragedy about
+her, and indeed it had been impossible not to get a good deal of her
+history, as she talked straight on in the same tone, when we stopped
+at a station, as if the train were going at full speed, and some of
+her remarks caused pity and amusements by turns. At the last minute
+she said, with deep self-reproach, "Why, I haven't asked a word about
+your folks; but you'd ought to excuse such an old stray hen as I be."
+
+In the spring I was driving by on what the old people of my native
+town call the sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs. Peet's former
+home brought our former journey freshly to my mind. I had last heard
+from her just after she got to Shrewsbury, when she had sent me a
+message.
+
+"Have you ever heard how she got on?" I eagerly asked my companion.
+
+"Didn't I tell you that I met her in Shrewsbury High Street one day?"
+I was answered. "She seemed perfectly delighted with everything. Her
+nieces have laid up a good bit of money, and are soon to leave the
+mill, and most thankful to have old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told
+me that they wished to buy the farm here, and come back to live, but
+she wouldn't hear of it, and thought they would miss too many
+privileges. She has been going to concerts and lectures this winter,
+and insists that Isaiah did her a good turn."
+
+We both laughed. My own heart was filled with joy, for the uncertain,
+lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The
+rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole
+lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The pucker-pear tree was
+in full bloom, however, and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted
+door-yard.
+
+A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet, the prosperous money-lender,
+who had cheated the old woman of her own. I fancied that he looked
+somewhat ashamed, as he recognized us. To my surprise, he stopped his
+horse in most social fashion.
+
+"Old Aunt Peet's passed away," he informed me briskly. "She had a
+shock, and went right off sudden yisterday forenoon. I'm about now
+tendin' to the funeral 'rangements. She's be'n extry smart, they say,
+all winter,--out to meetin' last Sabbath; never enjoyed herself so
+complete as she has this past month. She'd be'n a very hard-workin'
+woman. Her folks was glad to have her there, and give her every
+attention. The place here never was good for nothin'. The old
+gen'leman,--uncle, you know,--he wore hisself out tryin' to make a
+livin' off from it."
+
+There was an ostentatious sympathy and half-suppressed excitement from
+bad news which were quite lost upon us, and we did not linger to hear
+much more. It seemed to me as if I had known Mrs. Peet better than any
+one else had known her. I had counted upon seeing her again, and
+hearing her own account of Shrewsbury life, its pleasures and its
+limitations. I wondered what had become of the cat and the contents of
+the faded bundle-handkerchief.
+
+
+
+
+THE TAKING OF CAPTAIN BALL.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+There was a natural disinclination to the cares of housekeeping in the
+mind of Captain Ball, and he would have left the sea much earlier in
+life if he had not liked much better to live on board ship. A man was
+his own master there, and meddlesome neighbors and parsons and tearful
+women-folks could be made to keep their distance. But as years went
+on, and the extremes of weather produced much affliction in the shape
+of rheumatism, this, and the decline of the merchant service, and the
+degeneracy of common seamen, forced Captain Ball to come ashore for
+good. He regretted that he could no longer follow the sea, and, in
+spite of many alleviations, grumbled at his hard fate. He might have
+been condemned to an inland town, but in reality his house was within
+sight of tide-water, and he found plenty of companionship in the
+decayed seaport where he had been born and bred. There were several
+retired shipmasters who closely approached his own rank and dignity.
+They all gave other excuses than that of old age and infirmity for
+being out of business, took a sober satisfaction in their eleven
+o'clock bitters, and discussed the shipping list of the morning paper
+with far more interest than the political or general news of the other
+columns.
+
+While Captain Asaph Ball was away on his long voyages he had left his
+house in charge of an elder sister, who was joint owner. She was a
+grim old person, very stern in matters of sectarian opinion, and the
+captain recognized in his heart of hearts that she alone was his
+superior officer. He endeavored to placate her with generous offerings
+of tea and camel's-hair scarfs and East Indian sweetmeats, not to
+speak of unnecessary and sometimes very beautiful china for the
+parties that she never gave, and handsome dress patterns with which
+she scorned to decorate her sinful shape of clay. She pinched herself
+to the verge of want in order to send large sums of money to the
+missionaries, but she saved the captain's money for him against the
+time when his willful lavishness and improvidence might find him a
+poor man. She was always looking forward to the days when he would be
+aged and forlorn, that burly seafaring brother of hers. She loved to
+remind him of his latter end, and in writing her long letters that
+were to reach him in foreign ports, she told little of the
+neighborhood news and results of voyages, but bewailed, in page after
+page, his sad condition of impenitence and the shortness of time. The
+captain would rather have faced a mutinous crew any day than his
+sister's solemn statements of this sort, but he loyally read them
+through with heavy sighs, and worked himself into his best broadcloth
+suit, at least once while he lay in port, to go to church on Sunday,
+out of good New England habit and respect to her opinions. It was not
+his sister's principles but her phrases that the captain failed to
+comprehend. Sometimes when he returned to his ship he took pains to
+write a letter to dear sister Ann, and to casually mention the fact of
+his attendance upon public worship, and even to recall the text and
+purport of the sermon. He was apt to fall asleep in his humble place
+at the very back of the church, and his report of the services would
+have puzzled a far less keen theologian than Miss Ann Ball. In fact
+these poor makeshifts of religious interest did not deceive her, and
+the captain had an uneasy consciousness that, to use his own
+expression, the thicker he laid on the words, the quicker she saw
+through them. And somehow or other that manly straightforwardness and
+honesty of his, that free-handed generosity, that true unselfishness
+which made him stick by his ship when the crew had run away from a
+poor black cook who was taken down with the yellow-fever, which made
+him nurse the frightened beggar as tenderly as a woman, and bring him
+back to life, and send him packing afterward with plenty of money in
+his pocket--all these fine traits that made Captain Ball respected in
+every port where his loud voice and clumsy figure and bronzed face
+were known, seemed to count for nothing with the stern sister. At
+least her younger brother thought so. But when, a few years after he
+came ashore for good, she died and left him alone in the neat old
+white house, which his instinctive good taste and his father's before
+him had made a museum of East Indian treasures, he found all his
+letters stored away with loving care after they had been read and
+reread into tatters, and among her papers such touching expressions of
+love and pride and longing for his soul's good, that poor Captain
+Asaph broke down altogether and cried like a school-boy. She had saved
+every line of newspaper which even mentioned his ships' names. She had
+loved him deeply in the repressed New England fashion, that under a
+gray and forbidding crust of manner, like a chilled lava bed, hides
+glowing fires of loyalty and devotion.
+
+Sister Ann was a princess among housekeepers, and for some time after
+her death the captain was a piteous mourner indeed. No growing
+school-boy could be more shy and miserable in the presence of women
+than he, though nobody had a readier friendliness or more off-hand
+sailor ways among men. The few intimate family friends who came to his
+assistance at the time of his sister's illness and death added untold
+misery to the gloomy situation. Yet he received the minister with
+outspoken gratitude in spite of that worthy man's trepidation.
+Everybody said that poor Captain Ball looked as if his heart was
+broken. "I tell ye I feel as if I was tied in a bag of fleas," said
+the distressed mariner, and his pastor turned away to cough, hoping to
+hide the smile that would come. "Widders an' old maids, they're busier
+than the divil in a gale o' wind," grumbled the captain. "Poor Ann,
+she was worth every one of 'em lashed together, and here you find me
+with a head-wind every way I try to steer." The minister was a man at
+any rate; his very presence was a protection.
+
+Some wretched days went by while Captain Ball tried to keep his lonely
+house with the assistance of one Silas Jenkins, who had made several
+voyages with him as cook, but they soon proved that the best of
+sailors may make the worst of housekeepers. Life looked darker and
+darker, and when, one morning, Silas inadvertently overheated and
+warped the new cooking stove, which had been the pride of Miss Ball's
+heart, the breakfastless captain dismissed him in a fit of blind rage.
+The captain was first cross and then abject when he went hungry, and
+in this latter stage was ready to abase himself enough to recall Widow
+Sparks, his sister's lieutenant, who lived close by in Ropewalk Lane,
+forgetting that he had driven her into calling him an old hog two days
+after the funeral. He groaned aloud as he thought of her, but reached
+for his hat and cane, when there came a gentle feminine rap at the
+door.
+
+"Let 'em knock!" grumbled the captain, angrily, but after a moment's
+reflection, he scowled and went and lifted the latch.
+
+There stood upon the doorstep a middle-aged woman, with a pleasant
+though determined face. The captain scowled again, but involuntarily
+opened his fore-door a little wider.
+
+"Capt'in Asaph Ball, I presume?"
+
+"The same," answered the captain.
+
+"I've been told, sir, that you need a housekeeper, owing to recent
+affliction."
+
+There was a squally moment of resistance in the old sailor's breast,
+but circumstances seemed to be wrecking him on a lee shore. Down came
+his flag on the run.
+
+"I can't say but what I do, ma'am," and with lofty courtesy, such as
+an admiral should use to his foe of equal rank, the master of the
+house signified that his guest might enter. When they were seated
+opposite each other in the desolate sitting-room he felt himself the
+weaker human being of the two. Five years earlier, and he would have
+put to sea before the week's end, if only to gain the poor freedom of
+a coastwise lime schooner.
+
+"Well, speak up, can't ye?" he said, trying to laugh. "Tell me what's
+the tax, and how much you can take hold and do, without coming to me
+for orders every hand's turn o' the day. I've had Silas Jinkins here,
+one o' my old ship's cooks; he served well at sea, and I thought he
+had some head; but we've been beat, I tell ye, and you'll find some
+work to put things ship-shape. He's gitting in years, that's the
+trouble; I oughtn't to have called on him," said Captain Ball, anxious
+to maintain even so poorly the dignity of his sex.
+
+"I like your looks; you seem a good steady hand, with no nonsense
+about ye." He cast a shy glance at his companion, and would not have
+believed that any woman could have come to the house a stranger, and
+have given him such an immediate feeling of confidence and relief.
+
+"I'll tell ye what's about the worst of the matter," and the captain
+pulled a letter out of his deep coat pocket. His feelings had been
+pent up too long. At the sight of the pretty handwriting and
+aggravatingly soft-spoken sentences, Asaph Ball was forced to
+inconsiderate speech. The would-be housekeeper pushed back her
+rocking-chair as he began, and tucked her feet under, beside settling
+her bonnet a little, as if she were close-reefed and anchored to ride
+out the gale.
+
+"I'm in most need of an able person," he roared, "on account of this
+letter's settin' me adrift about knowing what to do. 'T is from a gal
+that wants to come and make her home here. Land sakes alive, puts
+herself right forrard! I don't want her, _an' I won't have her_. She
+may be a great-niece; I don't say she ain't; but what should I do with
+one o' them jiggetin' gals about? In the name o' reason, why should I
+be set out o' my course? I'm left at the mercy o' you women-folks,"
+and the captain got stiffly to his feet. "If you've had experience,
+an' think you can do for me, why, stop an' try, an' I'll be much
+obleeged to ye. You'll find me a good provider, and we'll let one
+another alone, and get along some way or 'nother."
+
+The captain's voice fairly broke; he had been speaking as if to a
+brother man; he was tired out and perplexed. His sister Ann had saved
+him so many petty trials, and now she was gone. The poor man had
+watched her suffer and seen her die, and he was as tender-hearted and
+as lonely as a child, however he might bluster. Even such infrequent
+matters as family letters had been left to his busy sister. It
+happened that they had inherited a feud with an elder half-brother's
+family in the West, though the captain was well aware of the existence
+of this forth-putting great-niece, who had been craftily named for
+Miss Ann Ball, and so gained a precarious hold on her affections; but
+to harbor one of the race was to consent to the whole. Captain Ball
+was not a man to bring down upon himself an army of interferers and
+plunderers, and he now threw down the poor girl's well-meant letter
+with an outrageous expression of his feelings. Then he felt a silly
+weakness, and hastened to wipe his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"I've been beat, I tell ye," he said brokenly.
+
+There was a look of apparent sympathy, mingled with victory, on the
+housekeeper's face. Perhaps she had known some other old sailor of the
+same make, for she rose and turned her face aside to look out of the
+window until the captain's long upper lip had time to draw itself
+straight and stern again. Plainly she was a woman of experience and
+discretion.
+
+"I'll take my shawl and bunnit right off, sir," she said, in a
+considerate little voice. "I see a-plenty to do; there'll be time
+enough after I get you your dinner to see to havin' my trunk here; but
+it needn't stay a day longer than you give the word."
+
+"That's clever," said the captain. "I'll step right down street and
+get us a good fish, an' you can fry it or make us a chowder, just
+which you see fit. It now wants a little of eleven"--and an air of
+pleased anticipation lighted his face--"I must be on my way."
+
+"If it's all the same to you, I guess we don't want no company till we
+get to rights a little. You're kind of tired out, sir," said the
+housekeeper, feelingly. "By-and-by you can have the young girl come
+an' make you a visit, and either let her go or keep her, 'cordin' as
+seems fit. I may not turn out to suit."
+
+"What may I call you, ma'am?" inquired Captain Ball. "Mis' French? Not
+one o' them Fleet Street Frenches?" (suspiciously). "Oh, come from
+Massachusetts way!" (with relief).
+
+"I was stopping with some friends that had a letter from some o' the
+minister's folks here, and they told how bad off you was," said
+Mrs. French, modestly. "I was out of employment, an' I said to myself
+that I should feel real happy to go and do for that Captain Ball. He
+knows what he wants, and I know what I want, and no flummery."
+
+"You know somethin' o' life, I do declare," and the captain fairly
+beamed. "I never was called a hard man at sea, but I like to give my
+orders, and have folks foller 'em. If it was women-folks that wrote,
+they may have set me forth more 'n ordinary. I had every widder and
+single woman in town here while Ann lay dead, and my natural feelin's
+were all worked up. I see 'em dressed up and smirkin' and settin'
+their nets to ketch me when I was in an extremity. I wouldn't give a
+kentle o' sp'iled fish for the whole on 'em. I ain't a marryin' man,
+there's once for all for ye," and the old sailor stepped toward the
+door with some temper.
+
+"Ef you'll write to the young woman, sir, just to put off comin' for a
+couple or three weeks," suggested Mrs. French.
+
+"_This afternoon, ma'am_," said the captain, as if it were the ay, ay,
+sir, of an able seaman who sprang to his duty of reefing the
+main-topsail.
+
+Captain Ball walked down to the fish shop with stately steps and
+measured taps of his heavy cane. He stopped on the way, a little
+belated, and assured two or three retired ship-masters that he had
+manned the old brig complete at last; he even gave a handsome wink of
+his left eye over the edge of a glass, and pronounced his morning grog
+to be A No. 1, prime.
+
+Mrs. French picked up her gown at each side with thumb and finger, and
+swept the captain a low courtesy behind his back as he went away; then
+she turned up the aforesaid gown and sought for one of the lamented
+Miss Ann Ball's calico aprons, and if ever a New England woman did a
+morning's work in an hour, it was this same Mrs. French.
+
+"'T ain't every one knows how to make what I call a chowder," said the
+captain, pleased and replete, as he leaned back in his chair after
+dinner. "Mis' French, you shall have everything to do with, an' I
+ain't no kitchen colonel myself to bother ye."
+
+There was a new subject for gossip in that seaport town. More than one
+woman had felt herself to be a fitting helpmate for the captain, and
+was confident that if time had been allowed, she could have made sure
+of even such wary game as he. When a stranger stepped in and occupied
+the ground at once, it gave nobody a fair chance, and Mrs. French was
+recognized as a presuming adventuress by all disappointed aspirants
+for the captain's hand. The captain was afraid at times that
+Mrs. French carried almost too many guns, but she made him so
+comfortable that she kept the upper hand, and at last he was conscious
+of little objection to whatever this able housekeeper proposed. Her
+only intimate friends were the minister and his wife, and the captain
+himself was so won over to familiarity by the kindness of his pastor
+in the time of affliction, that when after some weeks Mrs. French
+invited the good people to tea, Captain Ball sat manfully at the foot
+of his table, and listened with no small pleasure to the delighted
+exclamations of the parson's wife over his store of china and glass.
+There was a little feeling of guilt when he remembered how many times
+in his sister's day he had evaded such pleasant social occasions by
+complaint of inward malady, or by staying boldly among the wharves
+until long past supper-time, and forcing good Miss Ann to as many
+anxious excuses as if her brother's cranky ways were not as well known
+to the guests as to herself.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Mrs. Captain Topliff and Miss Miranda Hull were sitting together one
+late summer afternoon in Mrs. Topliff's south chamber. They were at
+work upon a black dress which was to be made over, and each sat by a
+front window with the blinds carefully set ajar.
+
+"This is a real handy room to sew in," said Miranda, who had come
+early after dinner for a good long afternoon. "You git the light as
+long as there is any; and I do like a straw carpet; I don't feel's if
+I made so much work scatterin' pieces."
+
+"Don't you have no concern about pieces," answered Mrs. Topliff,
+amiably. "I was precious glad to get you right on the sudden so. You
+see, I counted on my other dress lasting me till winter, and sort of
+put this by to do at a leisure time. I knew 't wa'n't fit to wear as
+'t was. Anyway, I've done dealin' with Stover; he told me, lookin' me
+right in the eye, that it was as good a wearin' piece o' goods as he
+had in the store. 'T was a real cheat; you can put your finger right
+through it."
+
+"You've got some wear but of it," ventured Miranda, meekly, bending
+over her work. "I made it up quite a spell ago, I know. Six or seven
+years, ain't it, Mis' Topliff?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure," replied Mrs. Topliff, with suppressed indignation;
+"but this we're to work on I had before the Centennial. I know I
+wouldn't take it to Philadelphy because 't was too good. An' the first
+two or three years of a dress don't count. You know how 't is; you
+just wear 'em to meetin' a pleasant Sunday, or to a funeral, p'r'aps,
+an' keep 'em in a safe cluset meanwhiles."
+
+"Goods don't wear as 't used to," agreed Miranda; "but 't is all the
+better for my trade. Land! there's some dresses in this town I'm sick
+o' bein' called on to make good's new. Now I call you reasonable about
+such things, but there's some I could name"--Miss Hull at this point
+put several pins into her mouth, as if to guard a secret.
+
+Mrs. Topliff looked up with interest. "I always thought Ann Ball was
+the meanest woman about such expense. She always looked respectable
+too, and I s'pose she 'd said the heathen was gittin' the good o' what
+she saved. She must have given away hundreds o' dollars in that
+direction."
+
+"She left plenty too, and I s'pose Cap'n Asaph's Mis' French will get
+the good of it now," said Miranda through the pins. "Seems to me he's
+gittin' caught in spite of himself. Old vain creatur', he seemed to
+think all the women-folks in town was in love with him."
+
+"Some was," answered Mrs. Topliff. "I think any woman that needed a
+home would naturally think 't was a good chance." She thought that
+Miranda had indulged high hopes, but wished to ignore them now.
+
+"Some that had a home seemed inclined to bestow their affections, I
+observed," retorted the dressmaker, who had lost her little property
+by unfortunate investment, but would not be called homeless by
+Mrs. Topliff. Everybody knew that the widow had set herself down
+valiantly to besiege the enemy; but after this passage at arms between
+the friends they went on amiably with their conversation.
+
+"Seems to me the minister and Mis' Calvinn are dreadful intimate at
+the Cap'n's. I wonder if the Cap'n's goin' to give as much to the
+heathen as his sister did?" said Mrs. Topliff, presently.
+
+"I understood he told the minister that none o' the heathen was wuth
+it that ever he see," replied Miranda in a pinless voice at last. "Mr.
+Calvinn only laughed; he knows the Cap'n's ways. But I shouldn't
+thought Asaph Ball would have let his hired help set out and ask
+company to tea just four weeks from the day his only sister was laid
+away. 'T wa'n't feelin'."
+
+"That Mis' French wanted to get the minister's folks to back her up,
+don't you understand?" was Mrs. Topliff's comment. "I should think the
+Calvinns wouldn't want to be so free and easy with a woman from nobody
+knows where. She runs in and out o' the parsonage any time o' day, as
+Ann Ball never took it upon her to do. Ann liked Mis' Calvinn, but she
+always had to go through with just so much, and be formal with
+everybody."
+
+"I'll tell you something that exasperated _me_," confided the
+disappointed Miranda. "That night they was there to tea, Mis' Calvinn
+was praising up a handsome flowered china bowl that was on the table,
+with some new kind of a fancy jelly in it, and the Cap'n told her to
+take it along when she went home, if she wanted to, speakin' right out
+thoughtless, as men do; and that Mis' French chirped up, 'Yes, I'm
+glad; you ought to have somethin' to remember the cap'n's sister by,'
+says she. Can't you hear just how up an' comin' it was?"
+
+"I can so," said Mrs. Topliff. "I see that bowl myself on Miss
+Calvinn's card-table, when I was makin' a call there day before
+yesterday. I wondered how she come by it. 'Tis an elegant bowl. Ann
+must have set the world by it, poor thing. Wonder if he ain't goin' to
+give remembrances to those that knew his sister ever since they can
+remember? Mirandy Hull, that Mis' French is a fox!"
+
+"'T was Widow Sparks gave me the particulars," continued Mrs. Topliff.
+"She declared at first that never would she step foot inside his doors
+again, but I always thought the cap'n put up with a good deal. Her
+husband's havin' been killed in one o' his ships by a fall when he was
+full o' liquor, and her bein' there so much to help Ann, and their
+havin' provided for her all these years one way an' another, didn't
+give her the right to undertake the housekeepin' and direction o'
+everything soon as Ann died. She dressed up as if 't was for meetin',
+and 'tended the front door, and saw the folks that came. You'd thought
+she was ma'am of everything; and to hear her talk up to the cap'n! I
+thought I should die o' laughing when he blowed out at her. You know
+how he gives them great whoos when he's put about. 'Go below, can't
+ye, till your watch's called,' says he, same's 't was aboard ship; but
+there! everybody knew he was all broke down, and everything tried him.
+But to see her flounce out o' that back door!"
+
+"'T was the evenin' after the funeral," Miranda said, presently. "I
+was there, too, you may rec'lect, seeing what I could do. The cap'n
+thought I was the proper one to look after her things, and guard
+against moths. He said there wa'n't no haste, but I knew better, an'
+told him I'd brought some camphire right with me. Well, did you git
+anything further out o' Mis' Sparks?"
+
+"That French woman made all up with her, and Mis' Sparks swallowed her
+resentment. She's a good-feelin', ignorant kind o' woman, an' she
+needed the money bad," answered Mrs. Topliff. "If you'll never repeat,
+I'll tell you somethin' that'll make your eyes stick out, Miranda."
+
+Miranda promised, and filled her mouth with pins preparatory to proper
+silence.
+
+"You know the Balls had a half-brother that went off out West
+somewhere in New York State years ago. I don't remember him, but he
+brought up a family, and some of 'em came here an' made visits. Ann
+used to get letters from 'em sometimes, she's told me, and I dare say
+used to do for 'em. Well, Mis' Sparks says that there was a smart
+young Miss Ball, niece, or great-niece o' the cap'n, wrote on and
+wanted to come an' live with him for the sake o' the home--his own
+blood and kin, you see, and very needy--and Mis' Sparks heard 'em talk
+about her, and that wicked, low, offscourin' has got round Asaph Ball
+till he's consented to put the pore girl off. You see, she wants to
+contrive time to make him marry her, and then she'll do as she pleases
+about his folks. Now ain't it a shame? When I see her parade up the
+broad aisle, I want to stick out my tongue at her--I do so, right in
+meetin'. If the cap'n's goin' to have a shock within a year, I could
+wish it might be soon, to disappoint such a woman. Who is she, anyway?
+She makes me think o' some carr'on bird pouncin' down on us right out
+o' the air." Mrs. Topliff sniffed and jerked about in her chair,
+having worked herself into a fine fit of temper.
+
+"There ain't no up nor down to this material, is there?" inquired
+Miranda, meekly. She was thinking that if she were as well off as
+Mrs. Topliff, and toward seventy years of age, she would never show a
+matrimonial disappointment in this open way. It was ridiculous for a
+woman who had any respect for herself and for the opinion of society.
+Miranda had much more dignity, and tried to cool off Mrs. Topliff's
+warmth by discussion of the black gown.
+
+"'T ain't pleasant to have such a character among us. Do you think it
+is, Mirandy?" asked Mrs. Topliff, after a few minutes of silence.
+"She's a good-looking person, but with something sly about her. I
+don't mean to call on her again until she accounts for herself. Livin'
+nearer than any of Ann's friends, I thought there would be a good many
+ways I could oblige the cap'n if he'd grant the opportunity, but 't
+ain't so to be. Now Mr. Topliff was such an easy-goin',
+pleasant-tempered man, that I take time to remember others is made
+different."
+
+Miranda smiled. Her companion had suffered many things from a most
+trying husband; it was difficult to see why she was willing to risk
+her peace of mind again.
+
+"Cap'n Asaph looks now as meek as Moses," she suggested, as she pared
+a newly basted seam with her creaking scissors. "Mis' French, whoever
+she may be, has got him right under her thumb. I, for one, believe
+she'll never get him, for all her pains. He's as sharp as she is any
+day, when it comes to that; but he's made comfortable, and she
+starches his shirt bosoms so's you can hear 'em creak 'way across the
+meeting-house. I was in there the other night--she wanted to see me
+about some work--and 't was neat as wax, and an awful good scent o'
+somethin' they'd had for supper."
+
+"That kind's always smart enough," granted the widow Topliff. "I want
+to know if she cooks him a hot supper every night? Well, she'll catch
+him if anybody can. Why don't you get a look into some o' the clusets,
+if you go there to work? Ann was so formal I never spoke up as I
+wanted to about seeing her things. They must have an awful sight of
+china, and as for the linen and so on that the cap'n and his father
+before him fetched home from sea, you couldn't find no end to it. Ann
+never made 'way with much. I hope the mice ain't hivin' into it and
+makin' their nests. Ann was very particular, but I dare say it wore
+her out tryin' to take care o' such a houseful."
+
+"I'm going there Wednesday," said Miranda. "I'll spy round all I can,
+but I don't like to carry news from one house to another. I never was
+one to make trouble; 't would make my business more difficult than't
+is a'ready."
+
+"I'd trust you," responded Mrs. Topliff, emphatically. "But there,
+Mirandy, you know you can trust me too, and anything you say goes no
+further."
+
+"Yes'm," returned Miranda, somewhat absently. "To cut this the way you
+want it is going to give the folds a ter'ble skimpy look."
+
+"I thought it would from the first," was Mrs. Topliff's obliging
+answer.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+The captain could not believe that two months had passed since his
+sister's death, but Mrs. French assured him one evening that it was
+so. He had troubled himself very little about public opinion, though
+hints of his housekeeper's suspicious character and abominable
+intentions had reached his ears through more than one disinterested
+tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his wife were the only persons
+among the old family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse with
+Mrs. French. The ladies of the parish themselves had not dared to
+asperse her character to the gruff captain, but were contented with
+ignoring her existence and setting their husbands to the fray. "Why
+don't you tell him what folks think?" was a frequent question; but
+after a first venture even the most intimate and valiant friends were
+sure to mind their own business, as the indignant captain bade them.
+Two of them had been partially won over to Mrs. French's side by a
+taste of her good cooking. In fact, these were Captain Dunn and
+Captain Allister, who, at the eleven o'clock rendezvous, reported
+their wives as absent at the County Conference, and were promptly
+bidden to a chowder dinner by the independent Captain Ball, who
+gloried in the fact that neither of his companions would dare to ask a
+friend home unexpectedly. Our hero promised his guests that what they
+did not find in eatables they should make up in drinkables, and
+actually produced a glistening decanter of Madeira that had made
+several voyages in his father's ships while he himself was a boy.
+There were several casks and long rows of cobwebby bottles in the
+cellar, which had been provided against possible use in case of
+illness, but the captain rarely touched them, though he went regularly
+every morning for a social glass of what he frankly persisted in
+calling his grog. The dinner party proved to be a noble occasion, and
+Mrs. French won the esteem of the three elderly seamen by her discreet
+behavior, as well as by the flavor of the chowder.
+
+They walked out into the old garden when the feast was over, and
+continued their somewhat excited discussion of the decline of
+shipping, on the seats of the ancient latticed summer-house. There
+Mrs. French surprised them by bringing out a tray of coffee, served in
+the handsome old cups which the captain's father had brought home from
+France. She was certainly a good-looking woman, and stepped modestly
+and soberly along the walk between the mallows and marigolds. Her
+feminine rivals insisted that she looked both bold and sly, but she
+minded her work like a steam-tug, as the captain whispered admiringly
+to his friends.
+
+"Ain't never ascertained where she came from last, have ye?" inquired
+Captain Alister, emboldened by the best  Madeira and the
+good-fellowship of the occasion.
+
+"I'm acquainted with all I need to know," answered Captain Ball,
+shortly; but his face darkened, and when his guests finished their
+coffee they thought it was high time to go away.
+
+Everybody was sorry that a jarring note had been struck on so
+delightful an occasion, but it could not be undone. On the whole, the
+dinner was an uncommon pleasure, and the host walked back into the
+house to compliment his housekeeper, though the sting of his friend's
+untimely question expressed itself by a remark that they had made most
+too much of an every-day matter by having the coffee in those best
+cups.
+
+Mrs. French laughed. "'T will give 'em something to talk about; 't was
+excellent good coffee, this last you got, anyway," and Captain Asaph
+walked away, restored to a pleased and cheerful frame of mind. When he
+waked up after a solid after-dinner nap, Mrs. French, in her decent
+afternoon gown, as calm as if there had been no company to dinner, was
+just coming down the front stairs.
+
+She seated herself by the window, and pretended to look into the
+street. The captain shook his newspaper at an invading fly. It was
+early September and flies were cruelly persistent. Somehow his nap had
+not entirely refreshed him, and he watched his housekeeper with
+something like disapproval.
+
+"I want to talk with you about something, sir," said Mrs. French.
+
+"She's going to raise her pay," the captain grumbled to himself.
+"Well, speak out, can't ye ma'am?" he said.
+
+"You know I've been sayin' all along that you ought to get your
+niece"--
+
+"She's my _great_-niece," blew the captain, "an' I don't know as I
+want her." The awful certainty came upon him that those hints were
+well-founded about Mrs. French's determination to marry him, and his
+stormy nature rose in wild revolt. "Can't you keep your place, ma'am?"
+and he gave a great _whoo!_ as if he were letting off superabundant
+steam. She might prove to carry too many guns for him, and he grew
+very red in the face. It was a much worse moment than when a vessel
+comes driving at you amidships out of the fog.
+
+"Why, yes, sir, I should be glad to keep my place," said Mrs. French,
+taking the less grave meaning of his remark by instinct, if not by
+preference; "only it seems your duty to let your great-niece come some
+time or other, and I can go off. Perhaps it is an untimely season to
+speak, about it, but, you see, I have had it in mind, and now I've got
+through with the preserves, and there's a space between now and
+house-cleaning, I guess you'd better let the young woman come. Folks
+have got wind about your refusing her earlier, and think hard of me:
+my position isn't altogether pleasant," and she changed color a
+little, and looked him full in the face.
+
+The captain's eyes fell. He did owe her something. He never had been
+so comfortable in his life, on shore, as she had made him. She had
+heard some cursed ill-natured speeches, and he very well knew that a
+more self-respecting woman never lived. But now her moment of
+self-assertion seemed to have come, and, to use his own words, she had
+him fast. Stop! there was a way of escape.
+
+"Then I _will_ send for the gal. Perhaps you're right, ma'am. I've
+slept myself into the doldrums. _Whoo! whoo!_" he said,
+loudly--anything to gain a little time. "Anything you say, ma'am," he
+protested. "I've got to step down-town on some business," and the
+captain fled with ponderous footsteps out through the dining-room to
+the little side entry where he hung his hat; then a moment later he
+went away, clicking his cane along the narrow sidewalk.
+
+He had escaped that time, and wrote the brief note to his great-niece,
+Ann Ball--how familiar the name looked!--with a sense of victory. He
+dreaded the next interview with his housekeeper, but she was
+business-like and self-possessed, and seemed to be giving him plenty
+of time. Then the captain regretted his letter, and felt as if he were
+going to be broken up once more in his home comfort. He spoke only
+when it was absolutely necessary, and simply nodded his head when
+Mrs. French said that she was ready to start as soon as she showed the
+young woman about the house. But what favorite dishes were served the
+captain in those intervening days! and there was one cool evening
+beside, when the housekeeper had the social assistance of a fire in
+the Franklin stove. The captain thought that his only safety lay in
+sleep, and promptly took that means of saving himself from a dangerous
+conversation. He even went to a panorama on Friday night, a diversion
+that would usually be quite beneath his dignity. It was difficult to
+avoid asking Mrs. French to accompany him, she helped him on with his
+coat so pleasantly, but "she'd git her claws on me comin' home
+perhaps," mused the self-distrustful mariner, and stoutly went his way
+to the panorama alone. It was a very dull show indeed, and he bravely
+confessed it, and then was angry at a twinkle in Mrs. French's eyes.
+Yet he should miss the good creature, and for the life of him he could
+not think lightly of her. "She well knows how able she is to do for
+me. Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," sighed the captain as he went
+upstairs to bed.
+
+"Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," he repeated, in solemn confidence to
+one of his intimate friends, as they stood next day on one of the
+deserted wharves, looking out across the empty harbor roads. There was
+nothing coming in. How they had watched the deep-laden ships enter
+between the outer capes and drop their great sails in home waters! How
+they had ruled those ships, and been the ablest ship-masters of their
+day, with nobody to question their decisions! There is no such
+absolute monarchy as a sea-captain's. He is a petty king, indeed, as
+he sails the high seas from port to port.
+
+There was a fine easterly breeze and a bright sun that day, but
+Captain Ball came toiling up the cobble-stoned street toward his house
+as if he were vexed by a headwind. He carried a post-card between his
+thumb and finger, and grumbled aloud as he stumped along. "Mis'
+French!" he called, loudly, as he opened the door, and that worthy
+woman appeared with a floured apron, and a mind divided between her
+employer's special business and her own affairs of pie-making.
+
+"She's coming this same day," roared the captain. "Might have given
+some notice, I'm sure. 'Be with you Saturday afternoon,' and signed
+her name. That's all she's written. Whoo! whoo! 'tis a dreadful close
+day," and the poor old fellow fumbled for his big silk handkerchief.
+"I don't know what train she'll take. I ain't going to hang round up
+at the depot; my rheumatism troubles me."
+
+"I wouldn't, if I was you," answered Mrs. French, shortly, and turned
+from him with a pettish movement to open the oven door.
+
+The captain passed into the sitting-room, and sat down heavily in his
+large chair. On the wall facing him was a picture of his old ship the
+Ocean Rover leaving the harbor of Bristol. It was not valuable as a
+marine painting, but the sea was blue in that picture, and the white
+canvas all spread to the very sky-scrapers; it was an emblem of that
+freedom which Captain Asaph Ball had once enjoyed. Dinner that day was
+a melancholy meal, and after it was cleared away the master of the
+house forlornly watched Mrs. French gather an armful of her own
+belongings, and mount the stairs as if she were going to pack her box
+that very afternoon. It did not seem possible that she meant to leave
+before Monday, but the captain could not bring himself to ask any
+questions. He was at the mercy of womankind. "A jiggeting girl. I
+don't know how to act with her. She sha'n't rule me," he muttered to
+himself. "She and Mis' French may think they've got things right to
+their hands, but I'll stand my ground--I'll stand my ground," and the
+captain gently slid into the calmer waters of his afternoon nap.
+
+When he waked the house was still, and with sudden consciousness of
+approaching danger, and a fear lest Mrs. French might have some last
+words to say if she found him awake, he stole out of his house as
+softly as possible and went down-town, hiding his secret woes and
+joining in the long seafaring reminiscences with which he and his
+friends usually diverted themselves. As he came up the street again
+toward supper-time, he saw that the blinds were thrown open in the
+parlor windows, and his heart began to beat loudly. He could hear
+women's voices, and he went in by a side gate and sought the quiet
+garden. It had suffered from a touch of frost; so had the captain.
+
+Mrs. French heard the gate creak, and presently she came to the garden
+door at the end of the front entry. "Come in, won't ye, cap'n?" she
+called, persuasively, and with a mighty sea oath the captain rose and
+obeyed.
+
+The house was still. He strode along the entry lite a brave man: there
+was nothing of the coward about Asaph Ball when he made up his mind to
+a thing. There was nobody in the best parlor, and he turned toward the
+sitting-room, but there sat smiling Mrs. French.
+
+"Where is the gal?" blew the captain.
+
+"Here I be, sir," said Mrs. French, with a flushed and beaming face.
+"I thought 't was full time to put you out of your misery."
+
+"What's all this mean? _Whoo! whoo!_"
+
+"Here I be; take me or leave me, uncle," answered the housekeeper: she
+began to be anxious, the captain looked so bewildered and irate.
+"Folks seemed to think that you was peculiar, and I was impressed that
+it would be better to just come first without a word's bein' said, and
+find out how you an' me got on; then, if we didn't make out, nobody 'd
+be bound. I'm sure I didn't want to be."
+
+"Who was that I heard talking with ye as I come by?" blew the captain
+very loud.
+
+"That was Mis' Cap'n Topliff; an' an old cat she is," calmly replied
+Mrs. French. "She hasn't been near me before this three months, but
+plenty of stories she's set goin' about us, and plenty of spyin' she's
+done. I thought I'd tell you who I was within a week after I come, but
+I found out how things was goin', and I had to spite 'em well before I
+got through. I expected that something would turn up, an' the whole
+story get out. But we've been middlin' comfortable, haven't we, sir?
+an' I thought 't was 'bout time to give you a little surprise. Mis'
+Calvinn and the minister knows the whole story," she concluded: "I
+wouldn't have kep' it from them. Mis' Calvinn said all along 't would
+be a good lesson"--
+
+"Who wrote that card from the post-office?" demanded the captain,
+apparently but half persuaded.
+
+"I did," said Mrs. French.
+
+"Good Hector, you women-folks!" but Captain Ball ventured to cross the
+room and establish himself in his chair. Then, being a man of humor,
+he saw that he had a round turn on those who had spitefufly sought to
+question him.
+
+"You needn't let on, that you haven't known me all along," suggested
+Mrs. French. "I should be pleased if you would call me by my Christian
+name, sir. I was married to Mr. French only a short time; he was taken
+away very sudden. The letter that came after aunt's death was directed
+to my maiden name, but aunt knew all about me. I've got some means,
+an' I ain't distressed but what I can earn my living."
+
+"They don't call me such an old Turk, I hope!" exclaimed the excited
+captain, deprecating the underrated estimate of himself which was
+suddenly presented. "I ain't a hard man at sea, now I tell ye," and he
+turned away, much moved at the injustice of society. "I've got no head
+for geneology. Ann usually set in to give me the family particulars
+when I was logy with sleep a Sunday night. I thought you was a French
+from Massachusetts way."
+
+"I had to say somethin'," responded the housekeeper, promptly.
+
+"Well, well!" and a suppressed laugh shook the captain like an
+earthquake. He was suddenly set free from his enemies, while an hour
+before he had been hemmed in on every side.
+
+They had a cheerful supper, and Ann French cut a pie, and said, as she
+passed him more than a quarter part of it, that she thought she should
+give up when she was baking that morning, and saw the look on his face
+as he handed her the post-card.
+
+"You're fit to be captain of a privateer," acknowledged Captain Asaph
+Ball, handsomely. The complications of shore life were very
+astonishing to this seafaring man of the old school.
+
+Early on Monday morning he had a delightful sense of triumph. Captain
+Allister, who was the chief gossip of the waterside club, took it upon
+himself--a cheap thing to do, as everybody said afterwards--to ask
+many questions about those unvalued relatives of the Balls, who had
+settled long ago in New York State. Were there any children left of
+the captain's half-brother's family?
+
+"I've got a niece living--a great-niece she is," answered Captain
+Ball, with a broad smile--"makes me feel old. You see, my
+half-brother was a grown man when I was born. I never saw him
+scarcely; there was some misunderstanding an' he always lived with his
+own mother's folks; and father, he married again, and had me and Ann
+thirty year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been 'most a hundred; I
+don't know but more."
+
+Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone; the audience meditated, and
+Captain Allister mentioned meekly that time did slip away.
+
+"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired. In some way public interest was
+aroused in the niece.
+
+"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the captain, in a loud tone. "You
+fool, Allister, who's keepin' my house this minute? Why, Ann French;
+Ann Ball that was, and a smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a
+marryin' man: there's been plenty o' fools to try me. I've been picked
+over well by you and others, and I thought if 't pleased you, you
+could take your own time."
+
+The honest captain for once lent himself to deception. One would have
+thought that he had planned the siege himself. He took his stick from
+where it leaned against a decaying piece of ship-timber and went
+clicking away. The explanation of his housekeeping arrangements was
+not long in flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain Topliff made an
+early call to say that she had always suspected it from the first,
+from the family likeness.
+
+From this time Captain Ball submitted to the rule of Mrs. French, and
+under her sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody said, more
+like other people than ever before. As he grew older it was more and
+more convenient to have a superior officer to save him from petty
+responsibilities. But now and then, after the first relief at finding
+that Mrs. French was not seeking his hand in marriage, and that the
+jiggeting girl was a mere fabrication, Captain Ball was both surprised
+and a little ashamed to discover that something in his heart had
+suffered disappointment in the matter of the great-niece. Those who
+knew him well would have as soon expected to see a flower grow out of
+a cobble-stone as that Captain Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment
+in his honest breast. He had fancied her a pretty girl in a pink
+dress, who would make some life in the quiet house, and sit and sing
+at her sewing by the front window, in all her foolish furbelows, as he
+came up the street.
+
+
+
+
+BY THE MORNING BOAT.
+
+
+On the coast of Maine, where many green islands and salt inlets fringe
+the deep-cut shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry bushes send
+their fragrance far seaward, and song-sparrows sing all day, and the
+tide runs plashing in and out among the weedy ledges; where cowbells
+tinkle on the hills and herons stand in the shady coves,--on the
+lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray house facing the morning
+light. All the weather-beaten houses of that region face the sea
+apprehensively, like the women who live in them.
+
+This home of four people was as bleached and gray with wind and rain
+as one of the pasture rocks close by. There were some cinnamon rose
+bushes under the window at one side of the door, and a stunted lilac
+at the other side. It was so early in the cool morning that nobody was
+astir but some shy birds, that had come in the stillness of dawn to
+pick and flutter in the short grass.
+
+They flew away together as some one softly opened the unlocked door
+and stepped out. This was a bent old man, who shaded his eyes with his
+hand, and looked at the west and the east and overhead, and then took
+a few lame and feeble steps farther out to see a wooden vane on the
+barn. Then he sat down on the doorstep, clasped his hands together
+between his knees, and looked steadily out to sea, scanning the
+horizon where some schooners had held on their course all night, with
+a light westerly breeze. He seemed to be satisfied at sight of the
+weather, as if he had been anxious, as he lay unassured in his north
+bedroom, vexed with the sleeplessness of age and excited by thoughts
+of the coming day. The old seaman dozed as he sat on the doorstep,
+while dawn came up and the world grew bright; and the little birds
+returned, fearfully at first, to finish their breakfast, and at last
+made bold to hop close to his feet.
+
+After a time some one else came and stood in the open door behind him.
+
+"Why, father! seems to me you've got an early start; 't ain't but four
+o'clock. I thought I was foolish to get up so soon, but 't wa'n't so I
+could sleep."
+
+"No, darter." The old man smiled as he turned to look at her, wide
+awake on the instant. "'T ain't so soon as I git out some o' these
+'arly mornin's. The birds wake me up singin', and it's plenty light,
+you know. I wanted to make sure 'Lisha would have a fair day to go."
+
+"I expect he'd have to go if the weather wa'n't good," said the woman.
+
+"Yes, yes, but 'tis useful to have fair weather, an' a good sign some
+says it is. This is a great event for the boy, ain't it?"
+
+"I can't face the thought o' losin' on him, father." The woman came
+forward a step or two and sat down on the doorstep. She was a
+hard-worked, anxious creature, whose face had lost all look of youth.
+She was apt, in the general course of things, to hurry the old man and
+to spare little time for talking, and he was pleased by this
+acknowledged unity of their interests. He moved aside a little to give
+her more room, and glanced at her with a smile, as if to beg her to
+speak freely. They were both undemonstrative, taciturn New Englanders;
+their hearts were warm with pent-up feeling, that summer morning, yet
+it was easier to understand one another through silence than through
+speech.
+
+"No, I couldn't git much sleep," repeated the daughter at last. "Some
+things I thought of that ain't come to mind before for years,--things
+I don't relish the feelin' of, all over again."
+
+"'T was just such a mornin' as this, pore little 'Lisha's father went
+off on that last v'y'ge o' his," answered the old sailor, with instant
+comprehension. "Yes, you've had it master hard, pore gal, ain't you? I
+advised him against goin' off on that old vessel with a crew that
+wa'n't capable."
+
+"Such a mornin' as this, when I come out at sun-up, I always seem to
+see her top-s'ils over there beyond the p'int, where she was to
+anchor. Well, I thank Heaven 'Lisha was averse to goin' to sea,"
+declared the mother.
+
+"There's dangers ashore, Lucy Ann," said the grandfather, solemnly;
+but there was no answer, and they sat there in silence until the old
+man grew drowsy again.
+
+"Yisterday was the first time it fell onto my heart that 'Lisha was
+goin' off," the mother began again, after a time had passed. "P'r'aps
+folks was right about our needing of him. I've been workin' every way
+I could to further him and git him a real good chance up to Boston,
+and now that we've got to part with him I don't see how to put up with
+it."
+
+"All nateral," insisted the old man. "My mother wept the night through
+before I was goin' to sail on my first v'y'ge; she was kind of
+satisfied, though, when I come home next summer, grown a full man,
+with my savin's in my pocket, an' I had a master pretty little figured
+shawl I'd bought for her to Bristol."
+
+"I don't want no shawls. Partin' is partin' to me," said the woman.
+
+"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door an' see the chimbleys
+o' three child'n's houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to
+console her. "All ready an' willin' to do their part for you, so as
+you could let 'Lisha go off and have his chance."
+
+"I don't know how it is," she answered, "but none on 'em never give me
+the rooted home feelin' that 'Lisha has. They was more varyin' and
+kind o' fast growin' and scatterin'; but 'Lisha was always 'Lisha when
+he was a babe, and I settled on him for the one to keep with me."
+
+"Then he's just the kind to send off, one you ain't got to worry
+about. They're all good child'n," said the man. "We've reason to be
+thankful none on 'em's been like some young sprigs, more grief 'n
+glory to their folks. An' I ain't regrettin' 'Lisha's goin' one mite;
+I believe you'd rather go on doin' for him an' cossetin'. I think 't
+was high time to shove him out o' the nest."
+
+"You ain't his mother," said Lucy Ann.
+
+"What be you goin' to give him for his breakfast?" asked the stern
+grandfather, in a softened, less business-like voice.
+
+"I don't know's I'd thought about it, special, sir. I did lay aside
+that piece o' apple pie we had left yisterday from dinner," she
+confessed.
+
+"Fry him out a nice little crisp piece o' pork, Lucy Ann, an' 't will
+relish with his baked potatoes. He'll think o' his breakfast more
+times 'n you expect. I know a lad's feelin's when home's put behind
+him."
+
+The sun was up clear and bright over the broad sea inlet to the
+eastward, but the shining water struck the eye by its look of vacancy.
+It was broad daylight, and still so early that no sails came stealing
+out from the farmhouse landings, or even from the gray groups of
+battered fish-houses that overhung, here and there, a sheltered cove.
+Some crows and gulls were busy in the air; it was the time of day when
+the world belongs more to birds than to men.
+
+"Poor 'Lisha!" the mother went on compassionately. "I expect it has
+been a long night to him. He seemed to take it in, as he was goin' to
+bed, how 't was his last night to home. I heard him thrashin' about
+kind o' restless, sometimes."
+
+"Come, Lucy Ann, the boy ought to be stirrin'!" exclaimed the old
+sailor, without the least show of sympathy. "He's got to be ready when
+John Sykes comes, an' he ain't so quick as some lads."
+
+The mother rose with a sigh, and went into the house. After her own
+sleepless night, she dreaded to face the regretful, sleepless eyes of
+her son; but as she opened the door of his little bedroom, there lay
+Elisha sound asleep and comfortable to behold. She stood watching him
+with gloomy tenderness until he stirred uneasily, his consciousness
+roused by the intentness of her thought, and the mysterious current
+that flowed from her wistful, eager eyes.
+
+But when the lad waked, it was to a joyful sense of manliness and
+responsibility; for him the change of surroundings was coming through
+natural processes of growth, not through the uprooting which gave his
+mother such an aching heart.
+
+A little later Elisha came out to the breakfast-table, arrayed in his
+best sandy-brown clothes set off with a bright blue satin cravat,
+which had been the pride and delight of pleasant Sundays and rare
+holidays. He already felt unrelated to the familiar scene of things,
+and was impatient to be gone. For one thing, it was strange to sit
+down to breakfast in Sunday splendor, while his mother and grandfather
+and little sister Lydia were in their humble every-day attire. They
+ate in silence and haste, as they always did, but with a new
+constraint and awkwardness that forbade their looking at one another.
+At last the head of the household broke the silence with simple
+straightforwardness.
+
+"You've got an excellent good day, 'Lisha. I like to have a fair start
+myself. 'T ain't goin' to be too hot; the wind's working into the
+north a little."
+
+"Yes, sir," responded Elisha.
+
+"The great p'int about gittin' on in life is bein' able to cope with
+your headwinds," continued the old man earnestly, pushing away his
+plate. "Any fool can run before a fair breeze, but I tell ye a good
+seaman is one that gits the best out o' his disadvantages. You won't
+be treated so pretty as you expect in the store, and you'll git plenty
+o' blows to your pride; but you keep right ahead, and if you can't run
+before the wind you can always beat. I ain't no hand to preach, but
+preachin' ain't goin' to sarve ye now. We've gone an' fetched ye up
+the best we could, your mother an' me, an' you can't never say but
+you've started amongst honest folks. If a vessel's built out o' sound
+timber an' has got good lines for sailin', why then she's seaworthy;
+but if she ain't, she ain't; an' a mess o' preachin' ain't goin' to
+alter her over. Now you're standin' out to sea, my boy, an' you can
+bear your home in mind and work your way, same's plenty of others has
+done."
+
+It was a solemn moment; the speaker's voice faltered, and little Lydia
+dried her tearful blue eyes with her gingham apron. Elisha hung his
+head, and patted the old spotted cat which came to rub herself against
+his trowsers-leg. The mother rose hastily, and hurried into the pantry
+close by. She was always an appealing figure, with her thin shoulders
+and faded calico gowns; it was difficult to believe that she had once
+been the prettiest girl in that neighborhood. But her son loved her in
+his sober, undemonstrative way, and was full of plans for coming home,
+rich and generous enough to make her proud and happy. He was half
+pleased and half annoyed because his leave-taking was of such deep
+concern to the household.
+
+"Come, Lyddy, don't you take on," he said, with rough kindliness.
+"Let's go out, and I'll show you how to feed the pig and 'tend to the
+chickens. You'll have to be chief clerk when I'm gone."
+
+They went out to the yard, hand in hand. Elisha stopped to stroke the
+old cat again, as she ran by his side and mewed. "I wish I was off and
+done with it; this morning does seem awful long," said the boy.
+
+"Ain't you afraid you'll be homesick an' want to come back?" asked the
+little sister timidly; but Elisha scorned so poor a thought.
+
+"You'll have to see if grandpa has 'tended to these things, the pig
+an' the chickens," he advised her gravely. "He forgets 'em sometimes
+when I'm away, but he would be cast down if you told him so, and you
+just keep an eye open, Lyddy. Mother's got enough to do inside the
+house. But grandsir'll keep her in kindlin's; he likes to set and chop
+in the shed rainy days, an' he'll do a sight more if you'll set with
+him, an' let him get goin' on his old seafarin' times."
+
+Lydia nodded discreetly.
+
+"An', Lyddy, don't you loiter comin' home from school, an' don't play
+out late, an' get 'em fussy, when it comes cold weather. And you tell
+Susy Draper,"--the boy's voice sounded unconcerned, but Lydia glanced
+at him quickly,--"you tell Susy Draper that I was awful sorry she was
+over to her aunt's, so I couldn't say good-by."
+
+Lydia's heart was the heart of a woman, and she comprehended. Lydia
+nodded again, more sagely than before.
+
+"See here," said the boy suddenly. "I'm goin' to let my old woodchuck
+out."
+
+Lydia's face was blank with surprise. "I thought you promised to sell
+him to big Jim Hooper."
+
+"I did, but I don't care for big Jim Hooper; you just tell him I let
+my wood-chuck go."
+
+The brother and sister went to their favorite playground between the
+ledges, not far from the small old barn. Here was a clumsy box with
+wire gratings, behind which an untamed little wild beast sat up and
+chittered at his harmless foes. "He's a whopping old fellow," said
+Elisha admiringly. "Big Jim Hooper sha'n't have him!" and as he opened
+the trap, Lydia had hardly time to perch herself high on the ledge,
+before the woodchuck tumbled and scuttled along the short green turf,
+and was lost among the clumps of juniper and bayberry just beyond.
+
+"I feel just like him," said the boy. "I want to get up to Boston just
+as bad as that. See here, now!" and he flung a gallant cart-wheel of
+himself in the same direction, and then stood on his head and waved
+his legs furiously in the air. "I feel just like that."
+
+Lydia, who had been tearful all the morning, looked at him in vague
+dismay. Only a short time ago she had never been made to feel that her
+brother was so much older than herself. They had been constant
+playmates; but now he was like a grown man, and cared no longer for
+their old pleasures. There was all possible difference between them
+that there can be between fifteen years and twelve, and Lydia was
+nothing but a child.
+
+"Come, come, where be ye?" shouted the old grandfather, and they both
+started guiltily. Elisha rubbed some dry grass out of his
+short-cropped hair, and the little sister came down from her ledge. At
+that moment the real pang of parting shot through her heart; her
+brother belonged irrevocably to a wider world.
+
+"Ma'am Stover has sent for ye to come over; she wants to say good-by
+to ye!" shouted the grandfather, leaning on his two canes at the end
+of the bam. "Come, step lively, an' remember you ain't got none too
+much time, an' the boat ain't goin' to wait a minute for nobody."
+
+"Ma'am Stover?" repeated the boy, with a frown. He and his sister knew
+only too well the pasture path between the two houses. Ma'am Stover
+was a bedridden woman, who had seen much trouble,--a town charge in
+her old age. Her neighbors gave to her generously out of their own
+slender stores. Yet with all this poverty and dependence, she held
+firm sway over the customs and opinions of her acquaintance, from the
+uneasy bed where she lay year in and year out, watching the far sea
+line beyond a pasture slope.
+
+The young people walked fast, sometimes running a little way,
+light-footed, the boy going ahead, and burst into their neighbor's
+room out of breath.
+
+She was calm and critical, and their excitement had a sudden chill.
+
+"So the great day's come at last, 'Lisha?" she asked; at which 'Lisha
+was conscious of unnecessary aggravation.
+
+"I don't know's it's much of a day--to anybody but me," he added,
+discovering a twinkle in her black eyes that was more sympathetic than
+usual. "I expected to stop an' see you last night; but I had to go
+round and see all our folks, and when I got back 't was late and the
+tide was down, an' I knew that grandsir couldn't git the boat up all
+alone to our lower landin'."
+
+"Well, I didn't forgit you, but I thought p'r'aps you might forgit me,
+an' I'm goin' to give ye somethin'. 'T is for your folks' sake; I want
+ye to tell 'em so. I don't want ye never to part with it, even if it
+fails to work and you git proud an' want a new one. It's been a sight
+o' company to me." She reached up, with a flush on her wrinkled cheeks
+and tears in her eyes, and took a worn old silver watch from its nail,
+and handed it, with a last look at its white face and large gold
+hands, to the startled boy.
+
+"Oh, I can't take it from ye, Ma'am Stover. I'm just as much obliged
+to you," he faltered.
+
+"There, go now, dear, go right along." said the old woman, turning
+quickly away. "Be a good boy for your folks' sake. If so be that I'm
+here when you come home, you can let me see how well you've kep' it."
+
+The boy and girl went softly out, leaving the door wide open, as Ma'am
+Stover liked to have it in summer weather, her windows being small and
+few. There were neighbors near enough to come and shut it, if a heavy
+shower blew up. Sometimes the song sparrows and whippoorwills came
+hopping in about the little bare room.
+
+"I felt kind of'shamed to carry off her watch," protested Elisha, with
+a radiant face that belied his honest words.
+
+"Put it on," said proud little Lydia, trotting alongside; and he
+hooked the bright steel chain into his buttonhole, and looked down to
+see how it shone across his waistcoat. None of his friends had so fine
+a watch; even his grandfather's was so poor a timekeeper that it was
+rarely worn except as a decoration on Sundays or at a funeral. They
+hurried home. Ma'am Stover, lying in her bed, could see the two slight
+figures nearly all the way on the pasture path; flitting along in
+their joyful haste.
+
+It was disappointing that the mother and grandfather had so little to
+say about the watch. In fact, Elisha's grandfather only said "Pore
+creatur'" once or twice, and turned away, rubbing his eyes with the
+back of his hand. If Ma'am Stover had chosen to give so rich a gift,
+to know the joy of such generosity, nobody had a right to protest. Yet
+nobody knew how much the poor wakeful soul would miss the only one of
+her meagre possessions that seemed alive and companionable in lonely
+hours. Somebody had said once that there were chairs that went about
+on wheels, made on purpose for crippled persons like Ma'am Stover; and
+Elisha's heart was instantly filled with delight at the remembrance.
+Perhaps before long, if he could save some money and get ahead, he
+would buy one of those chairs and send it down from Boston; and a new
+sense of power filled his honest heart. He had dreamed a great many
+dreams already of what he meant to do with all his money, when he came
+home rich and a person of consequence, in summer vacations.
+
+The large leather valise was soon packed, and its owner carried it out
+to the roadside, and put his last winter's overcoat and a great new
+umbrella beside it, so as to be ready when John Sykes came with the
+wagon. He was more and more anxious to be gone, and felt no sense of
+his old identification with the home interests. His mother said sadly
+that he would be gone full soon enough, when he joined his grandfather
+in accusing Mr. Sykes of keeping them waiting forever and making him
+miss the boat. There were three rough roundabout miles to be traveled
+to the steamer landing, and the Sykes horses were known to be slow.
+But at last the team came nodding in sight over a steep hill in the
+road.
+
+Then the moment of parting had come, the moment toward which all the
+long late winter and early summer had looked. The boy was leaving his
+plain little home for the great adventure of his life's fortunes.
+Until then he had been the charge and anxiety of his elders, and under
+their rule and advice. Now he was free to choose; his was the power of
+direction, his the responsibility; for in the world one must be ranked
+by his own character and ability, and doomed by his own failures. The
+boy lifted his burden lightly, and turned with an eager smile to say
+farewell. But the old people and little Lydia were speechless with
+grief; they could not bear to part with the pride and hope and boyish
+strength, that were all their slender joy. The worn-out old man, the
+anxious woman who had been beaten and buffeted by the waves of poverty
+and sorrow, the little sister with her dreaming heart, stood at the
+bars and hungrily watched him go away. They feared success for him
+almost as much as failure. The world was before him now, with its
+treasures and pleasures, but with those inevitable disappointments and
+losses which old people know and fear; those sorrows of incapacity and
+lack of judgment which young hearts go out to meet without foreboding.
+It was a world of love and favor to which little Lydia's brother had
+gone; but who would know her fairy prince, in that disguise of a
+country boy's bashfulness and humble raiment from the cheap counter of
+a country store? The household stood rapt and silent until the farm
+wagon had made its last rise on the hilly road and disappeared.
+
+"Well, he's left us now," said the sorrowful, hopeful old grandfather.
+"I expect I've got to turn to an' be a boy again myself. I feel to
+hope 'Lisha'll do as well as we covet for him. I seem to take it in,
+all my father felt when he let me go off to sea. He stood where I'm
+standin' now, an' I was just as triflin' as pore 'Lisha, and felt full
+as big as a man. But Lord! how I give up when it come night, an' I
+took it in I was gone from home!"
+
+"There, don't ye, father," said the pale mother gently. She was, after
+all, the stronger of the two. "'Lisha's good an' honest-hearted.
+You'll feel real proud a year from now, when he gits back. I'm so glad
+he's got his watch to carry,--he did feel so grand. I expect them poor
+hens is sufferin'; nobody's thought on 'em this livin' mornin'. You'd
+better step an' feed 'em right away, sir." She could hardly speak for
+sorrow and excitement, but the old man was diverted at once, and
+hobbled away with cheerful importance on his two canes. Then she
+looked round at the poor, stony little farm almost angrily. "He'd no
+natural turn for the sea, 'Lisha hadn't; but I might have kept him
+with me if the land was good for anything."
+
+Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now that his great adventure
+was begun. He answered John Sykes's questions mechanically, and his
+head was a little dull and dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow
+plodding of the farm horses would make him too late for the steamboat,
+and with sudden satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see if
+there were still time enough to get to the landing. He was filled with
+remorse because it was impossible to remember whether he had thanked
+Ma'am Stover for her gift. It seemed like a thing of life and
+consciousness as he pushed it back into his tight pocket. John Sykes
+looked at him curiously. "Why, that's old Ma'am Stover's timepiece,
+ain't it? Lend it to ye, did she?"
+
+"Gave it to me," answered Elisha proudly.
+
+"You be careful of that watch," said the driver soberly; and Elisha
+nodded.
+
+"Well, good-day to ye; be a stiddy lad," advised John Sykes, a few
+minutes afterward. "Don't start in too smart an' scare 'm up to
+Boston. Pride an' ambition was the downfall o' old Cole's dog. There,
+sonny, the bo't ain't nowheres in sight, for all your fidgetin'!"
+
+They both smiled broadly at the humorous warning, and as the old wagon
+rattled away, Elisha stood a moment looking after it; then he went
+down to the wharf by winding ways among piles of decayed timber and
+disused lobster-pots. A small group of travelers and spectators had
+already assembled, and they stared at him in a way that made him feel
+separated from his kind, though some of them had come to see him
+depart. One unenlightened acquaintance inquired if Elisha were
+expecting friends by that morning's boat; and when he explained that
+he was going away himself, asked kindly whether it was to be as far as
+Bath. Elisha mentioned the word "Boston" with scorn and compassion,
+but he did not feel like discussing his brilliant prospects now, as he
+had been more than ready to do the week before. Just then a deaf old
+woman asked for the time of day. She sat next him on the battered
+bench.
+
+"Be you going up to Bath, dear?" she demanded suddenly; and he said
+yes. "Guess I'll stick to you, then, fur's you go; 't is kind o' blind
+in them big places." Elisha faintly nodded a meek but grudging assent;
+then, after a few moments, he boldly rose, tall umbrella in hand, and
+joined the talkative company of old and young men at the other side of
+the wharf. They proceeded to make very light of a person's going to
+Boston to enter upon his business career; but, after all, their
+thoughts were those of mingled respect and envy. Most of them had seen
+Boston, but no one save Elisha was going there that day to stay for a
+whole year. It made him feel like a city man.
+
+The steamer whistled loud and hoarse before she came in sight, but
+presently the gay flags showed close by above the pointed spruces.
+Then she came jarring against the wharf, and the instant bustle and
+hurry, the strange faces of the passengers, and the loud rattle of
+freight going on board, were as confusing and exciting as if a small
+piece of Boston itself had been dropped into that quiet cove.
+
+The people on the wharf shouted cheerful good-byes, to which the young
+traveler responded; then he seated himself well astern to enjoy the
+views, and felt as if he had made a thousand journeys. He bought a
+newspaper, and began to read it with much pride and a beating heart.
+The little old woman came and sat beside him, and talked straight on
+whether he listened or not, until he was afraid of what the other
+passengers might think, but nobody looked that way, and he could not
+find anything in the paper that he cared to read. Alone, but
+unfettered and aflame with courage; to himself he was not the boy who
+went away, but the proud man who one day would be coming home.
+
+"Goin' to Boston, be ye?" asked the old lady for the third time; and
+it was still a pleasure to say yes, when the boat swung round, and
+there, far away on its gray and green pasture slope, with the dark
+evergreens standing back, were the low gray house, and the little
+square barn, and the lines of fence that shut in his home. He strained
+his eyes to see if any one were watching from the door. He had almost
+forgotten that they could see him still. He sprang to the boat's side:
+yes, his mother remembered; there was something white waving from the
+doorway. The whole landscape faded from his eyes except that faraway
+gray house; his heart leaped back with love and longing; he gazed and
+gazed, until a height of green forest came between and shut the
+picture out. Then the country boy went on alone to make his way in the
+wide world.
+
+
+
+
+IN DARK NEW ENGLAND DAYS.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+The last of the neighbors was going home; officious Mrs. Peter Downs
+had lingered late and sought for additional housework with which to
+prolong her stay. She had talked incessantly, and buzzed like a busy
+bee as she helped to put away the best crockery after the funeral
+supper, while the sisters Betsey and Hannah Knowles grew every moment
+more forbidding and unwilling to speak. They lighted a solitary small
+oil lamp at last, as if for Sunday evening idleness, and put it on the
+side table in the kitchen.
+
+"We ain't intending to make a late evening of it," announced Betsey,
+the elder, standing before Mrs. Downs in an expectant, final way,
+making an irresistible opportunity for saying good-night. "I'm sure
+we're more than obleeged to ye,--ain't we, Hannah?--but I don't feel's
+if we ought to keep ye longer. We ain't going to do no more to-night,
+but set down a spell and kind of collect ourselves, and then make for
+bed."
+
+Susan Downs offered one more plea. "I'd stop all night with ye an'
+welcome; 't is gettin' late--an' dark," she added plaintively; but the
+sisters shook their heads quickly, while Hannah said that they might
+as well get used to staying alone, since they would have to do it
+first or last. In spite of herself Mrs. Downs was obliged to put on
+her funeral best bonnet and shawl and start on her homeward way.
+
+"Closed-mouthed old maids!" she grumbled as the door shut behind her
+all too soon and denied her the light of the lamp along the footpath.
+Suddenly there was a bright ray from the window, as if some one had
+pushed back the curtain and stood with the lamp close to the sash.
+"That's Hannah," said the retreating guest. "She'd told me somethin'
+about things, I know, if it hadn't 'a' been for Betsey. Catch me
+workin' myself to pieces again for 'em." But, however grudgingly this
+was said, Mrs. Downs's conscience told her that the industry of the
+past two days had been somewhat selfish on her part; she had hoped
+that in the excitement of this unexpected funeral season she might for
+once be taken into the sisters' confidence. More than this, she knew
+that they were certain of her motive, and had deliberately refused the
+expected satisfaction. "'T ain't as if I was one o' them curious
+busy-bodies anyway," she said to herself pityingly; "they might 'a'
+neighbored with somebody for once, I do believe." Everybody would have
+a question ready for her the next day, for it was known that she had
+been slaving herself devotedly since the news had come of old Captain
+Knowles's sudden death in his bed from a stroke, the last of three
+which had in the course of a year or two changed him from a strong old
+man to a feeble, chair-bound cripple.
+
+Mrs. Downs stepped bravely along the dark country road; she could see
+a light in her own kitchen window half a mile away, and did not stop
+to notice either the penetrating dampness, or the shadowy woods at her
+right. It was a cloudy night, but there was a dim light over the open
+fields. She had a disposition of mind towards the exciting
+circumstances of death and burial, and was in request at such times
+among her neighbors; in this she was like a city person who prefers
+tragedy to comedy, but not having the semblance within her reach, she
+made the most of looking on at real griefs and departures.
+
+Some one was walking towards her in the road; suddenly she heard
+footsteps. The figure stopped, then it came forward again.
+
+"Oh, 't is you, ain't it?" with a tone of disappointment. "I cal'lated
+you'd stop all night, 't had got to be so late, an' I was just going
+over to the Knowles gals'; well, to kind o' ask how they be, an'"--Mr.
+Peter Downs was evidently counting on his visit.
+
+"They never passed me the compliment," replied the wife. "I declare I
+didn't covet the walk home; I'm most beat out, bein' on foot so much.
+I was 'most put out with 'em for letten' of me see quite so plain that
+my room was better than my company. But I don't know's I blame 'em;
+they want to look an' see what they've got, an' kind of git by
+theirselves, I expect. 'T was natural."
+
+Mrs. Downs knew that her husband would resent her first statements,
+being a sensitive and grumbling man. She had formed a pacific habit of
+suiting her remarks to his point of view, to save an outburst. He
+contented Himself with calling the Knowles girls hoggish, and put a
+direct question as to whether they had let fall any words about their
+situation, but Martha Downs was obliged to answer in the negative.
+
+"Was Enoch Holt there after the folks come back from the grave?"
+
+"He wa'n't; they never give _him_ no encouragement neither."
+
+"He appeared well, I must say," continued Peter Downs. "He took his
+place next but one behind us in the procession, 'long of Melinda
+Dutch, an' walked to an' from with her, give her his arm, and then I
+never see him after we got back; but I thought he might be somewhere
+in the house, an' I was out about the barn an' so on."
+
+"They was civil to him. I was by when he come, just steppin' out of
+the bedroom after we'd finished layin' the old Cap'n into his coffin.
+Hannah looked real pleased when she see Enoch, as if she hadn't really
+expected him, but Betsey stuck out her hand's if 't was an eend o'
+board, an' drawed her face solemner 'n ever. There, they had natural
+feelin's. He was their own father when all was said, the Cap'n was,
+an' I don't know but he was clever to 'em in his way, 'ceptin' when he
+disappointed Hannah about her marryin' Jake Good'in. She l'arned to
+respect the old Cap'n's foresight, too."
+
+"Sakes alive, Marthy, how you do knock folks down with one hand an'
+set 'em up with t' other," chuckled Mr. Downs. They next discussed the
+Captain's appearance as he lay in state in the front room, a subject
+which, with its endless ramifications, would keep the whole
+neighborhood interested for weeks to come.
+
+An hour later the twinkling light in the Downs house suddenly
+disappeared. As Martha Downs took a last look out of doors through her
+bedroom window she could see no other light; the neighbors had all
+gone to bed. It was a little past nine, and the night was damp and
+still.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The Captain Knowles place was eastward from the Downs's, and a short
+turn in the road and the piece of hard-wood growth hid one house from
+the other. At this unwontedly late hour the elderly sisters were still
+sitting in their warm kitchen; there were bright coals under the
+singing tea-kettle which hung from the crane by three or four long
+pothooks. Betsey Knowles objected when her sister offered to put on
+more wood.
+
+"Father never liked to leave no great of a fire, even though he slept
+right here in the bedroom. He said this floor was one that would light
+an' catch easy, you r'member."
+
+"Another winter we can move down and take the bedroom ourselves--'t
+will be warmer for us," suggested Hannah; but Betsey shook her head
+doubtfully. The thought of their old father's grave, unwatched and
+undefended in the outermost dark field, filled their hearts with a
+strange tenderness. They had been his dutiful, patient slaves, and it
+seemed like disloyalty to have abandoned the poor shape; to be sitting
+there disregarding the thousand requirements and services of the past.
+More than all, they were facing a free future; they were their own
+mistresses at last, though past sixty years of age. Hannah was still a
+child at heart. She chased away a dread suspicion, when Betsey forbade
+the wood, lest this elder sister, who favored their father' s looks,
+might take his place as stern ruler of the household.
+
+"Betsey," said the younger sister suddenly, "we'll have us a cook
+stove, won't we, next winter? I expect we're going to have something
+to do with?"
+
+Betsey did not answer; it was impossible to say whether she truly felt
+grief or only assumed it. She had been sober and silent for the most
+part since she routed neighbor Downs, though she answered her sister's
+prattling questions with patience and sympathy. Now, she rose from her
+chair and went to one of the windows, and, pushing back the sash
+curtain, pulled the wooden shutter across and hasped it.
+
+"I ain't going to bed just yet," she explained. "I've been a-waiting
+to make sure nobody was coming in. I don't know's there'll be any
+better time to look in the chest and see what we've got to depend on.
+We never'll get no chance to do it by day."
+
+Hannah looked frightened for a moment, then nodded, and turned to the
+opposite window and pulled that shutter with much difficulty; it had
+always caught and hitched and been provoking--a warped piece of red
+oak, when even-grained white pine would have saved strength and
+patience to three generations of the Knowles race. Then the sisters
+crossed the kitchen and opened the bedroom door. Hannah shivered a
+little as the colder air struck her, and her heart beat loudly.
+Perhaps it was the same with Betsey.
+
+The bedroom was clean and orderly for the funeral guests. Instead of
+the blue homespun there was a beautifully quilted white coverlet which
+had been part of their mother's wedding furnishing, and this made the
+bedstead with its four low posts-look unfamiliar and awesome. The
+lamplight shone through the kitchen door behind them, not very bright
+at best, but Betsey reached under the bed, and with all the strength
+she could muster pulled out the end of a great sea chest. The sisters
+tugged together and pushed, and made the most of their strength before
+they finally brought it through the narrow door into the kitchen. The
+solemnity of the deed made them both whisper as they talked, and
+Hannah did not dare to say what was in her timid heart--that she would
+rather brave discovery by daylight than such a feeling of being
+disapprovingly watched now, in the dead of night. There came a slight
+sound outside the house which made her look anxiously at Betsey, but
+Betsey remained tranquil.
+
+"It's nothing but a stick falling down the woodpile," she answered in
+a contemptuous whisper, and the younger woman was reassured.
+
+Betsey reached deep into her pocket and found a great key which was
+worn smooth and bright like silver, and never had been trusted
+willingly into even her own careful hands. Hannah held the lamp, and
+the two thin figures bent eagerly over the lid as it opened. Their
+shadows were waving about the low walls, and looked like strange
+shapes bowing and dancing behind them.
+
+The chest was stoutly timbered, as if it were built in some ship-yard,
+and there were heavy wrought-iron hinges and a large escutcheon for
+the keyhole that the ship's blacksmith might have hammered out. On the
+top somebody had scratched deeply the crossed lines for a game of fox
+and geese, which had a trivial, irreverent look, and might have been
+the unforgiven fault of some idle ship's boy. The sisters had hardly
+dared look at the chest or to signify their knowledge of its
+existence, at unwary times. They had swept carefully about it year
+after year, and wondered if it were indeed full of gold as the
+neighbors used to hint; but no matter how much found a way in, little
+had found the way out. They had been hampered all their lives for
+money, and in consequence had developed a wonderful facility for
+spinning and weaving, mending and making. Their small farm was an
+early example of intensive farming; they were allowed to use its
+products in a niggardly way, but the money that was paid for wool, for
+hay, for wood, and for summer crops had all gone into the chest. The
+old captain was a hard master; he rarely commended and often blamed.
+Hannah trembled before him, but Betsey faced him sturdily, being
+amazingly like him, with a feminine difference; as like as a ruled
+person can be to a ruler, for the discipline of life had taught the
+man to aggress, the woman only to defend. In the chest was a fabled
+sum of prize-money, besides these slender earnings of many years; all
+the sisters' hard work and self-sacrifice were there in money and a
+mysterious largess besides. All their lives they had been looking
+forward to this hour of ownership.
+
+There was a solemn hush in the house; the two sisters were safe from
+their neighbors, and there was no fear of interruption at such an hour
+in that hard-working community, tired with a day's work that had been
+early begun. If any one came knocking at the door, both door and
+windows were securely fastened.
+
+The eager sisters bent above the chest, they held their breath and
+talked in softest whispers. With stealthy tread a man came out of the
+woods near by.
+
+He stopped to listen, came nearer, stopped again, and then crept close
+to the old house. He stepped upon the banking, next the window with
+the warped shutter; there was a knothole in it high above the women's
+heads, towards the top. As they leaned over the chest, an eager eye
+watched them. If they had turned that way suspiciously, the eye might
+have caught the flicker of the lamp and betrayed itself. No, they were
+too busy: the eye at the shutter watched and watched.
+
+There was a certain feeling of relief in the sisters' minds because
+the contents of the chest were so commonplace at first sight. There
+were some old belongings dating back to their father's early days of
+seafaring. They unfolded a waistcoat pattern or two of figured stuff
+which they had seen him fold and put away again and again. Once he had
+given Betsey a gay China silk handkerchief, and here were two more
+like it. They had not known what a store of treasures might be waiting
+for them, but the reality so far was disappointing; there was much
+spare room to begin with, and the wares within looked pinched and few.
+There were bundles of papers, old receipts, some letters in two not
+very thick bundles, some old account books with worn edges, and a
+blackened silver can which looked very small in comparison with their
+anticipation, being an heirloom and jealously hoarded and secreted by
+the old man. The women began to feel as if his lean angry figure were
+bending with them over the sea chest.
+
+They opened a package wrapped in many layers of old soft paper--a
+worked piece of Indian muslin, and an embroidered red scarf which they
+had never seen before. "He must have brought them home to mother,"
+said Betsey with a great outburst of feeling. "He never was the same
+man again; he never would let nobody else have them when he found she
+was dead, poor old father!"
+
+Hannah looked wistfully at the treasures. She rebuked herself for
+selfishness, but she thought of her pinched girlhood and the delight
+these things would have been. Ah yes! it was too late now for many
+things besides the sprigged muslin. "If I was young as I was once
+there's lots o' things I'd like to do now I'm free," said Hannah with
+a gentle sigh; but her sister checked her anxiously--it was fitting
+that they should preserve a semblance of mourning even to themselves.
+
+The lamp stood in a kitchen chair at the chest's end and shone full
+across their faces. Betsey looked intent and sober as she turned over
+the old man's treasures. Under the India mull was an antique pair of
+buff trousers, a waistcoat of strange old-fashioned foreign stuff, and
+a blue coat with brass buttons, brought home from over seas, as the
+women knew, for their father's wedding clothes. They had seen him
+carry them out at long intervals to hang them in the spring sunshine;
+he had been very feeble the last time, and Hannah remembered that she
+had longed to take them from his shaking hands.
+
+"I declare for 't I wish 't we had laid him out in 'em, 'stead o' the
+robe," she whispered; but Betsey made no answer. She was kneeling
+still, but held herself upright and looked away. It was evident that
+she was lost in her own thoughts.
+
+"I can't find nothing else by eyesight," she muttered. "This chest
+never 'd be so heavy with them old clothes. Stop! Hold that light
+down, Hannah; there's a place underneath here. Them papers in the till
+takes a shallow part. Oh, my gracious! See here, will ye? Hold the
+light, hold the light!"
+
+There was a hidden drawer in the chest's side--a long, deep place, and
+it was full of gold pieces. Hannah had seated herself in the chair to
+be out of her sister's way. She held the lamp with one hand and
+gathered her apron on her lap with the other, while Betsey, exultant
+and hawk-eyed, took out handful after handful of heavy coins, letting
+them jingle and chink, letting them shine in the lamp's rays, letting
+them roll across the floor--guineas, dollars, doubloons, old French
+and Spanish and English gold!
+
+_Now, now! Look! The eye at the window!_
+
+At last they have found it all; the bag of silver, the great roll of
+bank bills, and the heavy weight of gold--the prize-money that had
+been like Robinson Crusoe's in the cave. They were rich women that
+night; their faces grew young again as they sat side by side and
+exulted while the old kitchen grew cold. There was nothing they might
+not do within the range of their timid ambitions; they were women of
+fortune now and their own mistresses. They were beginning at last to
+live.
+
+The watcher outside was cramped and chilled. He let himself down
+softly from the high step of the winter banking, and crept toward the
+barn, where he might bury himself in the hay and think. His fingers
+were quick to find the peg that opened the little barn door; the
+beasts within were startled and stumbled to their feet, then went back
+to their slumbers. The night wore on; the light spring rain began to
+fall, and the sound of it on the house roof close down upon the
+sisters' bed lulled them quickly to sleep. Twelve, one, two o'clock
+passed by.
+
+They had put back the money and the clothes and the minor goods and
+treasures and pulled the chest back into the bedroom so that it was
+out of sight from the kitchen; the bedroom door was always shut by
+day. The younger sister wished to carry the money to their own room,
+but Betsey disdained such precaution. The money had always been safe
+in the old chest, and there it should stay. The next week they would
+go to Riverport and put it into the bank; it was no use to lose the
+interest any longer. Because their father had lost some invested money
+in his early youth, it did not follow that every bank was faithless.
+Betsey's self-assertion was amazing, but they still whispered to each
+other as they got ready for bed. With strange forgetfulness Betsey had
+laid the chest key on the white coverlet in the bedroom and left it
+there.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+In August of that year the whole countryside turned out to go to
+court.
+
+The sisters had been rich for one night; in the morning they waked to
+find themselves poor with a bitter pang of poverty of which they had
+never dreamed. They had said little, but they grew suddenly pinched
+and old. They could not tell how much money they had lost, except that
+Hannah's lap was full of gold, a weight she could not lift nor carry.
+After a few days of stolid misery they had gone to the chief lawyer of
+their neighborhood to accuse Enoch Holt of the robbery. They dressed
+in their best and walked solemnly side by side across the fields and
+along the road, the shortest way to the man of law. Enoch Holt's
+daughter saw them go as she stood in her doorway, and felt a cold
+shiver run through her frame as if in foreboding. Her father was not
+at home; he had left for Boston late on the afternoon of Captain
+Knowles's funeral. He had had notice the day before of the coming in
+of a ship in which he owned  a thirty-second; there was talk of
+selling the ship, and the owners' agent had summoned him. He had taken
+pains to go to the funeral, because he and the old captain had been on
+bad terms ever since they had bought a piece of woodland together, and
+the captain declared himself wronged at the settling of accounts. He
+was growing feeble even then, and had left the business to the younger
+man. Enoch Holt was not a trusted man, yet he had never before been
+openly accused of dishonesty. He was not a professor of religion, but
+foremost on the secular side of church matters. Most of the men in
+that region were hard men; it was difficult to get money, and there
+was little real comfort in a community where the sterner, stingier,
+forbidding side of New England life was well exemplified.
+
+The proper steps had been taken by the officers of the law, and in
+answer to the writ Enoch Holt appeared, much shocked and very
+indignant, and was released on bail which covered the sum his shipping
+interest had brought him. The weeks had dragged by; June and July were
+long in passing, and here was court day at last, and all the townsfolk
+hastening by high-roads and by-roads to the court-house. The Knowles
+girls themselves had risen at break of day and walked the distance
+steadfastly, like two of the three Fates: who would make the third, to
+cut the thread for their enemy's disaster? Public opinion was divided.
+There were many voices ready to speak on the accused man's side; a
+sharp-looking acquaintance left his business in Boston to swear that
+Holt was in his office before noon on the day following the robbery,
+and that he had spent most of the night in Boston, as proved by
+several minor details of their interview. As for Holt's young married
+daughter, she was a favorite with the townsfolk, and her husband was
+away at sea overdue these last few weeks. She sat on one of the hard
+court benches with a young child in her arms, born since its father
+sailed; they had been more or less unlucky, the Holt family, though
+Enoch himself was a man of brag and bluster.
+
+All the hot August morning, until the noon recess, and all the hot
+August afternoon, fly-teased and wretched with the heavy air, the
+crowd of neighbors listened to the trial. There was not much evidence
+brought; everybody knew that Enoch Holt left the funeral procession
+hurriedly, and went away on horseback towards Boston. His daughter
+knew no more than this. The Boston man gave his testimony impatiently,
+and one or two persons insisted that they saw the accused on his way
+at nightfall, several miles from home.
+
+As the testimony came out, it all tended to prove his innocence,
+though public opinion was to the contrary. The Knowles sisters looked
+more stern and gray hour by hour; their vengeance was not to be
+satisfied; their accusation had been listened to and found wanting,
+but their instinctive knowledge of the matter counted for nothing.
+They must have been watched through the knot-hole of the shutter;
+nobody had noticed it until, some years before, Enoch Holt himself had
+spoken of the light's shining through on a winter's night as he came
+towards the house. The chief proof was that nobody else could have
+done the deed. But why linger over _pros_ and _cons?_ The jury
+returned directly with a verdict of "not proven," and the tired
+audience left the court-house.
+
+But not until Hannah Knowles with angry eyes had risen to her feet.
+
+The sterner elder sister tried to pull her back; every one said that
+they should have looked to Betsey to say the awful words that
+followed, not to her gentler companion. It was Hannah, broken and
+disappointed, who cried in a strange high voice as Enoch Holt was
+passing by without a look:
+
+"You stole it, you thief! You know it in your heart!"
+
+The startled man faltered, then he faced the women. The people who
+stood near seemed made of eyes as they stared to see what he would
+say.
+
+"I swear by my right hand I never touched it."
+
+"Curse your right hand, then!" cried Hannah Knowles, growing tall and
+thin like a white flame drawing upward. "Curse your right hand, yours
+and all your folks' that follow you! May I live to see the day!"
+
+The people drew back, while for a moment accused and accuser stood
+face to face. Then Holt's flushed face turned white, and he shrank
+from the fire in those wild eyes, and walked away clumsily down the
+courtroom. Nobody followed him, nobody shook hands with him, or told
+the acquitted man that they were glad of his release. Half an hour
+later, Betsey and Hannah Knowles took their homeward way, to begin
+their hard round of work again. The horizon that had widened with such
+glory for one night, had closed round them again like an iron wall.
+
+Betsey was alarmed and excited by her sister's uncharacteristic
+behavior, and she looked at her anxiously from time to time. Hannah
+had become the harder-faced of the two. Her disappointment was the
+keener, for she had kept more of the unsatisfied desires of her
+girlhood until that dreary morning when they found the sea-chest
+rifled and the treasure gone.
+
+Betsey said inconsequently that it was a pity she did not have that
+black silk gown that would stand alone. They had planned for it over
+the open chest, and Hannah's was to be a handsome green. They might
+have worn them to court. But even the pathetic facetiousness of her
+elder sister did not bring a smile to Hannah Knowles's face, and the
+next day one was at the loom and the other at the wheel again. The
+neighbors talked about the curse with horror; in their minds a fabric
+of sad fate was spun from the bitter words.
+
+The Knowles sisters never had worn silk gowns and they never would.
+Sometimes Hannah or Betsey would stealthily look over the chest in one
+or the other's absence. One day when Betsey was very old and her mind
+had grown feeble, she tied her own India silk handkerchief about her
+neck, but they never used the other two. They aired the wedding suit
+once every spring as long as they lived. They were both too old and
+forlorn to make up the India mull. Nobody knows how many times they
+took everything out of the heavy old clamped box, and peered into
+every nook and corner to see if there was not a single gold piece
+left. They never answered any one who made bold to speak of their
+misfortune.
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Enoch Holt had been a seafaring man in his early days, and there was
+news that the owners of a Salem ship in which he held a small interest
+wished him to go out as supercargo. He was brisk and well in health,
+and his son-in-law, an honest but an unlucky fellow, had done less
+well than usual, so that nobody was surprised when Enoch made ready
+for his voyage. It was nearly a year after the theft, and nothing had
+come so near to restoring him to public favor as his apparent lack of
+ready money. He openly said that he put great hope in his adventure to
+the Spice Islands, and when he said farewell one Sunday to some
+members of the dispersing congregation, more than one person wished
+him heartily a pleasant voyage and safe return. He had an insinuating
+tone of voice and an imploring look that day, and this fact, with his
+probable long absence and the dangers of the deep, won him much
+sympathy. It is a shameful thing to accuse a man wrongfully, and Enoch
+Holt had behaved well since the trial; and, what is more, had shown no
+accession to his means of living.  So away he went, with a fair amount
+of good wishes, though one or two persons assured remonstrating
+listeners that they thought it likely Enoch would make a good voyage,
+better than common, and show himself forwarded when he came to port.
+Soon after his departure, Mrs. Peter Downs and an intimate
+acquaintance discussed the ever-exciting subject of the Knowles
+robbery over a friendly cup of tea.
+
+They were in the Downs kitchen, and quite by themselves. Peter Downs
+himself had been drawn as a juror, and had been for two days at the
+county town. Mrs. Downs was giving herself to social interests in his
+absence, and Mrs. Forder, an asthmatic but very companionable person,
+had arrived by two o'clock that afternoon with her knitting work, sure
+of being welcome. The two old friends had first talked over varied
+subjects of immediate concern, but when supper was nearly finished,
+they fell back upon the lost Knowles gold, as has been already said.
+
+"They got a dreadful blow, poor gals," wheezed Mrs. Forder, with
+compassion. "'T was harder for them than for most folks; they'd had a
+long stent with the ol' gentleman; very arbitrary, very arbitrary."
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Downs, pushing back her tea-cup, then lifting it
+again to see if it was quite empty. "Yes, it took holt o' Hannah, the
+most. I should 'a' said Betsey was a good deal the most set in her
+ways an' would 'a' been most tore up, but 't wa'n't so."
+
+"Lucky that Holt's folks sets on the other aisle in the meetin'-house,
+I do consider, so 't they needn't face each other sure as Sabbath
+comes round."
+
+"I see Hannah an' him come face to face two Sabbaths afore Enoch left.
+So happened he dallied to have a word 'long o' Deacon Good'in, an' him
+an' Hannah stepped front of each other 'fore they knowed what they's
+about. I sh'd thought her eyes 'd looked right through him. No one of
+'em took the word; Enoch he slinked off pretty quick."
+
+"I see 'em too," said Mrs. Forder; "made my blood run cold."
+
+"Nothin' ain't come of the curse yit,"--Mrs. Downs lowered the tone of
+her voice,--"least, folks says so. It kind o' worries pore Phoebe
+Holt--Mis' Dow, I would say. She was narved all up at the time o' the
+trial, an' when her next baby come into the world, first thin' she
+made out t' ask me was whether it seemed likely, an' she gived me a
+pleadin' look as if I'd got to tell her what she hadn't heart to ask.
+'Yes, dear,' says I, 'put up his little hands to me kind of wonted';
+an' she turned a look on me like another creatur', so pleased an'
+contented."
+
+"I s'pose you don't see no great of the Knowles gals?" inquired
+Mrs. Forder, who lived two miles away in the other direction.
+
+"They stepped to the door yisterday when I was passin' by, an' I went
+in an' set a spell long of 'em," replied the hostess. "They'd got
+pestered with that ol' loom o' theirn. 'Fore I thought, says I, ''T is
+all worn out, Betsey,' says I. 'Why on airth don't ye git somebody to
+git some o' your own wood an' season it well so 't won't warp, same's
+mine done, an' build ye a new one?' But Betsey muttered an' twitched
+away; 't wa'n't like her, but they're dis'p'inted at every turn, I
+s'pose, an' feel poor where they've got the same's ever to do with.
+Hannah's a-coughin' this spring's if somethin' ailed her. I asked her
+if she had bad feelin's in her pipes, an' she said yis, she had, but
+not to speak of 't before Betsey. I'm goin' to fix her up some
+hoarhound an' elecampane quick's the ground's nice an' warm an' roots
+livens up a grain more. They're limp an' wizened 'long to the fust of
+the spring. Them would be service'ble, simmered away to a syrup 'long
+o' molasses; now don't you think so, Mis' Forder?"
+
+"Excellent," replied the wheezing dame. "I covet a portion myself, now
+you speak. Nothin' cures my complaint, but a new remedy takes holt
+clever sometimes, an' eases me for a spell." And she gave a plaintive
+sigh, and began to knit again.
+
+Mrs. Downs rose and pushed the supper-table to the wall and drew her
+chair nearer to the stove. The April nights were chilly.
+
+"The folks is late comin' after me," said Mrs. Forder, ostentatiously.
+"I may's well confess that I told 'em if they was late with the work
+they might let go o' fetchin' o' me an' I'd walk home in the mornin';
+take it easy when I was fresh. Course I mean ef 't wouldn't put you
+out: I knowed you was all alone, an' I kind o' wanted a change."
+
+"Them words was in my mind to utter while we was to table," avowed
+Mrs. Downs, hospitably. "I ain't reelly afeared, but 't is sort o'
+creepy fastenin' up an' goin' to bed alone. Nobody can't help
+hearkin', an' every common noise starts you. I never used to give
+nothin' a thought till the Knowleses was robbed, though."
+
+"'T was mysterious, I do maintain," acknowledged Mrs. Forder. "Comes
+over me sometimes p'raps 't wasn't Enoch; he'd 'a' branched out more
+in course o' time. I'm waitin' to see if he does extry well to sea
+'fore I let my mind come to bear on his bein' clean handed."
+
+"Plenty thought 't was the ole Cap'n come back for it an' sperited it
+away. Enough said that 't wasn't no honest gains; most on't was
+prize-money o' slave ships, an' all kinds o' devil's gold was mixed
+in. I s'pose you've heard that said?"
+
+"Time an' again," responded Mrs. Forder; "an' the worst on't was
+simple old Pappy Flanders went an' told the Knowles gals themselves
+that folks thought the ole Cap'n come back an' got it, and Hannah done
+wrong to cuss Enoch Holt an' his ginerations after him the way she
+done."
+
+"I think it took holt on her ter'ble after all she'd gone through,"
+said Mrs. Downs, compassionately. "He ain't near so simple as he is
+ugly, Pappy Flanders ain't. I've seen him set here an' read the paper
+sober's anybody when I've been goin' about my mornin's work in the
+shed-room, an' when I'd come in to look about he'd twist it with his
+hands an' roll his eyes an' begin to git off some o' his gable. I
+think them wander-in' cheap-wits likes the fun on't an' 'scapes stiddy
+work, an' gits the rovin' habit so fixed, it sp'iles 'em."
+
+"My gran'ther was to the South Seas in his young days," related
+Mrs. Forder, impressively, "an' he said cussin' was common there. I
+mean sober spitin' with a cuss. He seen one o' them black folks git a
+gredge against another an' go an' set down an' look stiddy at him in
+his hut an' cuss him in his mind an' set there an' watch, watch, until
+the other kind o' took sick an' died, all in a fortnight, I believe he
+said; 't would make your blood run cold to hear gran'ther describe it,
+'t would so. He never done nothin' but set an' look, an' folks would
+give him somethin' to eat now an' then, as if they thought 't was all
+right, an' the other one 'd try to go an' come, an' at last he hived
+away altogether an' died. I don't know what you'd call it that ailed
+him. There's suthin' in cussin' that's bad for folks, now I tell ye,
+Mis' Downs."
+
+"Hannah's eyes always makes me creepy now," Mrs. Downs confessed
+uneasily. "They don't look pleadin' an' childish same 's they used to.
+Seems to me as if she'd had the worst on't."
+
+"We ain't seen the end on't yit," said Mrs. Forder, impressively. "I
+feel it within me, Marthy Downs, an' it's a terrible thing to have
+happened right amon'st us in Christian times. If we live long enough
+we're goin' to have plenty to talk over in our old age that's come o'
+that cuss. Some seed's shy o' sproutin' till a spring when the s'ile's
+jest right to breed it."
+
+"There's lobeely now," agreed Mrs. Downs, pleased to descend to
+prosaic and familiar levels. "They ain't a good crop one year in six,
+and then you find it in a place where you never observed none to grow
+afore, like's not; ain't it so, reelly?" And she rose to clear the
+table, pleased with the certainty of a guest that night. Their
+conversation was not reassuring to the heart of a timid woman, alone
+in an isolated farmhouse on a dark spring evening, especially so near
+the anniversary of old Captain Knowles's death.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+
+Later in these rural lives by many years two aged women were crossing
+a wide field together, following a footpath such as one often finds
+between widely separated homes of the New England country. Along these
+lightly traced thoroughfares, the children go to play, and lovers to
+plead, and older people to companion one another in work and pleasure,
+in sickness and sorrow; generation after generation comes and goes
+again by these country by-ways.
+
+The footpath led from Mrs. Forder's to another farmhouse half a mile
+beyond, where there had been a wedding. Mrs. Downs was there, and in
+the June weather she had been easily persuaded to go home to tea with
+Mrs. Forder with the promise of being driven home later in the
+evening. Mrs. Downs's husband had been dead three years, and her
+friend's large family was scattered from the old nest; they were
+lonely at times in their later years, these old friends, and found it
+very pleasant now to have a walk together. Thin little Mrs. Forder,
+with all her wheezing, was the stronger and more active of the two:
+Downs had grown heavier and weaker with advancing years.
+
+They paced along the footpath slowly, Mrs. Downs rolling in her gait
+like a sailor, and availing herself of every pretext to stop and look
+at herbs in the pasture ground they crossed, and at the growing grass
+in the mowing fields. They discussed the wedding minutely, and then
+where the way grew wider they walked side by side instead of following
+each other, and their voices sank to the low tone that betokens
+confidence.
+
+"You don't say that you really put faith in all them old stories?"
+
+"It ain't accident altogether, noways you can fix it in your mind,"
+maintained Mrs. Downs. "Needn't tell me that cussin' don't do neither
+good nor harm. I shouldn't want to marry amon'st the Holts if I was
+young ag'in! I r'member when this young man was born that's married
+to-day, an' the fust thing his poor mother wanted to know was about
+his hands bein' right. I said yes they was, but las' year he was
+twenty year old and come home from the frontier with one o' them
+hands--his right one--shot off in a fight. They say 't happened to
+sights o' other fel-lows, an' their laigs gone too, but I count 'em
+over on my fingers, them Holts, an' he's the third. May say that 't
+was all an accident his mother's gittin' throwed out o' her waggin
+comin' home from meetin', an' her wrist not bein' set good, an' she,
+bein' run down at the time, 'most lost it altogether, but thar' it is,
+stiffened up an' no good to her. There was the second. An' Enoch Holt
+hisself come home from the Chiny seas, made a good passage an' a sight
+o' money in the pepper trade, jest's we expected, an' goin' to build
+him a new house, an' the frame gives a kind o' lurch when they was
+raisin' of it an' surges over on to him an' nips him under. 'Which
+arm?' says everybody along the road when they was comin' an' goin'
+with the doctor. 'Right one--got to lose it,' says the doctor to 'em,
+an' next time Enoch Holt got out to meetin' he stood up in the house
+o' God with the hymn-book in his left hand, an' no right hand to turn
+his leaf with. He knowed what we was all a-thinkin'."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Forder, very short-breathed with climbing the long
+slope of the pasture hill, "I don't know but I'd as soon be them as
+the Knowles gals. Hannah never knowed no peace again after she spoke
+them words in the co't-house. They come back an' harnted her, an' you
+know, Miss Downs, better 'n I do, being door-neighbors as one may say,
+how they lived their lives out like wild beasts into a lair."
+
+"They used to go out some by night to git the air," pursued Mrs. Downs
+with interest. "I used to open the door an' step right in, an' I used
+to take their yarn an' stuff 'long o' mine an' sell 'em, an' do for
+the poor stray creatur's long's they'd let me. They'd be grateful for
+a mess o' early pease or potatoes as ever you see, an' Peter he allays
+favored 'em with pork, fresh an' salt, when we slaughtered. The old
+Cap'n kept 'em child'n long as he lived, an' then they was too old to
+l'arn different. I allays liked Hannah the best till that change
+struck her. Betsey she held out to the last jest about the same. I
+don't know, now I come to think of it, but what she felt it the most
+o' the two."
+
+"They'd never let me's much as git a look at 'em," complained
+Mrs. Forder. "Folks got awful stories a-goin' one time. I've heard it
+said, an' it allays creeped me cold all over, that there was somethin'
+come an' lived with 'em--a kind o' black shadder, a cobweb kind o' a
+man-shape that followed 'em about the house an' made a third to them;
+but they got hardened to it theirselves, only they was afraid 't would
+follow if they went anywheres from home. You don't believe no such
+piece o' nonsense?--But there, I've asked ye times enough before."
+
+"They'd got shadders enough, poor creatur's," said Mrs. Downs with
+reserve. "Wasn't no kind o' need to make 'em up no spooks, as I know
+on. Well, here's these young folks a-startin'; I wish 'em well, I'm
+sure. She likes him with his one hand better than most gals likes them
+as has a good sound pair. They looked prime happy; I hope no curse
+won't foller 'em."
+
+The friends stopped again--poor, short-winded bodies--on the crest of
+the low hill and turned to look at the wide landscape, bewildered by
+the marvelous beauty and the sudden flood of golden sunset light that
+poured out of the western sky. They could not remember that they had
+ever observed the wide view before; it was like a revelation or an
+outlook towards the celestial country, the sight of their own green
+farms and the countryside that bounded them. It was a pleasant country
+indeed, their own New England: their petty thoughts and vain
+imaginings seemed futile and unrelated to so fair a scene of things.
+But the figure of a man who was crossing the meadow below looked like
+a malicious black insect. It was an old man, it was Enoch Holt; time
+had worn and bent him enough to have satisfied his bitterest foe. The
+women could see his empty coat-sleeve flutter as he walked slowly and
+unexpectantly in that glorious evening light.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE ROSE ROAD.
+
+
+Being a New Englander, it is natural that I should first speak about
+the weather. Only the middle of June, the green fields, and blue sky,
+and bright sun, with a touch of northern mountain wind blowing
+straight toward the sea, could make such a day, and that is all one
+can say about it. We were driving seaward through a part of the
+country which has been least changed in the last thirty years,--among
+farms which have been won from swampy lowland, and rocky,
+stamp-buttressed hillsides: where the forests wall in the fields, and
+send their outposts year by year farther into the pastures. There is a
+year or two in the history of these pastures before they have arrived
+at the dignity of being called woodland, and yet are too much shaded
+and overgrown by young trees to give proper pasturage, when they made
+delightful harbors for the small wild creatures which yet remain, and
+for wild flowers and berries. Here you send an astonished rabbit
+scurrying to his burrow, and there you startle yourself with a
+partridge, who seems to get the best of the encounter. Sometimes you
+see a hen partridge and her brood of chickens crossing your path with
+an air of comfortable door-yard security. As you drive along the
+narrow, grassy road, you see many charming sights and delightful nooks
+on either hand, where the young trees spring out of a close-cropped
+turf that carpets the ground like velvet. Toward the east and the
+quaint fishing village of Ogunquit, I find the most delightful
+woodland roads. There is little left of the large timber which once
+filled the region, but much young growth, and there are hundreds of
+acres of cleared land and pasture-ground where the forests are
+springing fast and covering the country once more, as if they had no
+idea of losing in their war with civilization and the intruding white
+settler. The pine woods and the Indians seem to be next of kin, and
+the former owners of this corner of New England are the only proper
+figures to paint into such landscapes. The twilight under tall pines
+seems to be untenanted and to lack something, at first sight, as if
+one opened the door of an empty house. A farmer passing through with
+his axe is but an intruder, and children straying home from school
+give one a feeling of solicitude at their unprotectedness. The pine
+woods are the red man's house, and it may be hazardous even yet for
+the gray farmhouses to stand so near the eaves of the forest. I have
+noticed a distrust of the deep woods, among elderly people, which was
+something more than a fear of losing their way. It was a feeling of
+defenselessness against some unrecognized but malicious influence.
+
+Driving through the long woodland way, shaded and chilly when you are
+out of the sun; across the Great Works River and its pretty elm-grown
+intervale; across the short bridges of brown brooks; delayed now and
+then by the sight of ripe strawberries in sunny spots by the roadside,
+one comes to a higher open country, where farm joins farm, and the
+cleared fields lie all along the highway, while the woods are pushed
+back a good distance on either hand. The wooded hills, bleak here and
+there with granite ledges, rise beyond. The houses are beside the
+road, with green door-yards and large barns, almost empty now, and
+with wide doors standing open, as if they were already expecting the
+hay crop to be brought in. The tall green grass is waving in the
+fields as the wind goes over, and there is a fragrance of whiteweed
+and ripe strawberries and clover blowing through the sunshiny barns,
+with their lean sides and their festoons of brown, dusty cobwebs;
+dull, comfortable creatures they appear to imaginative eyes, waiting
+hungrily for their yearly meal. The eave-swallows are teasing their
+sleepy shapes, like the birds which flit about great beasts; gay,
+movable, irreverent, almost derisive, those barn swallows fly to and
+fro in the still, clear air.
+
+The noise of our wheels brings fewer faces to the windows than usual,
+and we lose the pleasure of seeing some of our friends who are apt to
+be looking out, and to whom we like to say good-day. Some funeral must
+be taking place, or perhaps the women may have gone out into the
+fields. It is hoeing-time and strawberry-time, and already we have
+seen some of the younger women at work among the corn and potatoes.
+One sight will be charming to remember. On a green hillside sloping to
+the west, near one of the houses, a thin little girl was working away
+lustily with a big hoe on a patch of land perhaps fifty feet by
+twenty. There were all sorts of things growing there, as if a child's
+fancy had made the choice,--straight rows of turnips and carrots and
+beets, a little of everything, one might say; but the only touch of
+color was from a long border of useful sage in full bloom of dull
+blue, on the upper side. I am sure this was called Katy's or Becky's
+_piece_ by the elder members of the family. One can imagine how the
+young creature had planned it in the spring, and persuaded the men to
+plough and harrow it, and since then had stoutly done all the work
+herself, and meant to send the harvest of the piece to market, and
+pocket her honest gains, as they came in, for some great end. She was
+as thin as a grasshopper, this busy little gardener, and hardly turned
+to give us a glance, as we drove slowly up the hill close by. The sun
+will brown and dry her like a spear of grass on that hot slope, but a
+spark of fine spirit is in the small body, and I wish her a famous
+crop. I hate to say that the piece looked backward, all except the
+sage, and that it was a heavy bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pick
+at. The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do with so long a row of
+sage. Yet there may be a large family with a downfall of measles yet
+ahead, and she does not mean to be caught without sage-tea.
+
+Along this road every one of the old farmhouses has at least one tall
+bush of white roses by the door,--a most lovely sight, with buds and
+blossoms, and unvexed green leaves. I wish that I knew the history of
+them, and whence the first bush was brought. Perhaps from England
+itself, like a red rose that I know in Kittery, and the new shoots
+from the root were given to one neighbor after another all through the
+district. The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbing
+against the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace of
+youth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must have
+picked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carried
+them along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsily
+under their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. Here,
+too, where the sea wind nips many a young life before its prime, how
+often the white roses have been put into paler hands, and withered
+there! In spite of the serene and placid look of the old houses, one
+who has always known them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of these
+farms and their almost undiverted toil. Near the little gardener's
+plot, we turned from the main road and drove through lately cleared
+woodland up to an old farmhouse, high on a ledgy hill, whence there is
+a fine view of the country seaward and mountain-ward. There were few
+of the once large household left there: only the old farmer, who was
+crippled by war wounds, active, cheerful man that he was once, and two
+young orphan children. There has been much hard work spent on the
+place. Every generation has toiled from youth to age without being
+able to make much beyond a living. The dollars that can be saved are
+but few, and sickness and death have often brought their bitter cost.
+The mistress of the farm was helpless for many years; through all the
+summers and winters she sat in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plain
+room. She could watch the seldom-visited lane, and beyond it, a little
+way across the fields, were the woods; besides these, only the clouds
+in the sky. She could not lift her food to her mouth; she could not be
+her husband's working partner. She never went into another woman's
+house to see her works and ways, but sat there, aching and tired,
+vexed by flies and by heat, and isolated in long storms. Yet the whole
+countryside neighbored her with true affection. Her spirit grew
+stronger as her body grew weaker, and the doctors, who grieved because
+they could do so little with their skill, were never confronted by
+that malady of the spirit, a desire for ease and laziness, which makes
+the soundest of bodies useless and complaining. The thought of her
+blooms in one's mind like the whitest of flowers; it makes one braver
+and more thankful to remember the simple faith and patience with which
+she bore her pain and trouble. How often she must have said, "I wish I
+could do something for you in return," when she was doing a thousand
+times more than if, like her neighbors, she followed the simple round
+of daily life! She was doing constant kindness by her example; but
+nobody can tell the woe of her long days and nights, the solitude of
+her spirit, as she was being lifted by such hard ways to the knowledge
+of higher truth and experience. Think of her pain when, one after
+another, her children fell ill and died, and she could not tend them!
+And now, in the same worn chair where she lived and slept sat her
+husband, helpless too, thinking of her, and missing her more than if
+she had been sometimes away from home, like other women. Even a
+stranger would miss her in the house.
+
+There sat the old farmer looking down the lane in his turn, bearing
+his afflictions with a patient sterness that may have been born of
+watching his wife's serenity. There was a half-withered rose lying
+within his reach. Some days nobody came up the lane, and the wild
+birds that ventured near the house and the clouds that blew over were
+his only entertainment. He had a fine face, of the older New England
+type, clean-shaven and strong-featured,--a type that is fast passing
+away. He might have been a Cumberland dalesman, such were his dignity,
+and self-possession, and English soberness of manner. His large frame
+was built for hard work, for lifting great weights and pushing his
+plough through new-cleared land. We felt at home together, and each
+knew many things that the other did of earlier days, and of losses
+that had come with time. I remembered coming to the old house often in
+my childhood; it was in this very farm lane that I first saw anemones,
+and learned what to call them. After we drove away, this crippled man
+must have thought a long time about my elders and betters, as if he
+were reading their story out of a book. I suppose he has hauled many a
+stick of timber pine down for ship-yards, and gone through the village
+so early in the winter morning that I, waking in my warm bed, only
+heard the sleds creak through the frozen snow as the slow oxen plodded
+by.
+
+Near the house a trout brook comes plashing over the ledges. At one
+place there is a most exquisite waterfall, to which neither painter's
+brush nor writer's pen can do justice. The sunlight falls through
+flickering leaves into the deep glen, and makes the foam whiter and
+the brook more golden-brown. You can hear the merry noise of it all
+night, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead it
+comes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of much
+illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill of
+pain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all that
+trouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as it
+hurried away down the glen.
+
+When we had said good-by and were turning the horses away, there
+suddenly appeared in a footpath that led down from one of the green
+hills the young grandchild, just coming home from school. She was as
+quick as a bird, and as shy in her little pink gown, and balanced
+herself on one foot, like a flower. The brother was the elder of the
+two orphans; he was the old man's delight and dependence by day, while
+his hired man was afield. The sober country boy had learned to wait
+and tend, and the young people were indeed a joy in that lonely
+household. There was no sign that they ever played like other
+children,--no truckle-cart in the yard, no doll, no bits of broken
+crockery in order on a rock. They had learned a fashion of life from
+their elders, and already could lift and carry their share of the
+burdens of life.
+
+It was a country of wild flowers; the last of the columbines were
+clinging to the hillsides; down in the small, fenced meadows belonging
+to the farm were meadow rue just coming in flower, and red and white
+clover; the golden buttercups were thicker than the grass, while many
+mulleins were standing straight and slender among the pine stumps,
+with their first blossoms atop. Rudbeckias had found their way in, and
+appeared more than ever like bold foreigners. Their names should be
+translated into country speech, and the children ought to call them
+"rude-beckies," by way of relating them to bouncing-bets and
+sweet-williams. The pasture grass was green and thick after the
+plentiful rains, and the busy cattle took little notice of us as they
+browsed steadily and tinkled their pleasant bells. Looking off, the
+smooth, round back of Great Hill caught the sunlight with its fields
+of young grain, and all the long, wooded slopes and valleys were fresh
+and fair in the June weather, away toward the blue New Hampshire hills
+on the northern horizon. Seaward stood Agamenticus, dark with its
+pitch pines, and the far sea itself, blue and calm, ruled the uneven
+country with its unchangeable line.
+
+Out on the white rose road again, we saw more of the rose-trees than
+ever, and now and then a carefully tended flower garden, always
+delightful to see and think about. These are not made by merely
+looking through a florist's catalogue, and ordering this or that new
+seedling and a proper selection of bulbs or shrubs; everything in a
+country garden has its history and personal association. The old
+bushes, the perennials, are apt to have most tender relationship with
+the hands that planted them long ago. There is a constant exchange of
+such treasures between the neighbors, and in the spring, slips and
+cuttings may be seen rooting on the window ledges, while the house
+plants give endless work all winter long, since they need careful
+protection against frost in long nights of the severe weather. A
+flower-loving woman brings back from every one of her infrequent
+journeys some treasure of flower-seeds or a huge miscellaneous
+nosegay. Time to work in the little plot of pleasure-ground is hardly
+won by the busy mistress of the farmhouse. The most appealing
+collection of flowering plants and vines that I ever saw was in
+Virginia, once, above the exquisite valley spanned by the Natural
+Bridge, a valley far too little known or praised. I had noticed an old
+log house, as I learned to know the outlook from the picturesque
+hotel, and was sure that it must give a charming view from its perch
+on the summit of a hill.
+
+One day I went there,--one April day, when the whole landscape was
+full of color from the budding trees,--and before I could look at the
+view, I caught sight of some rare vines, already in leaf, about the
+dilapidated walls of the cabin. Then across the low paling I saw the
+brilliant colors of tulips and daffodils. There were many rose-bushes;
+in fact, the whole top of the hill was a flower garden, once well
+cared for and carefully ordered. It was all the work of an old woman
+of Scotch-Irish descent, who had been busy with the cares of life, and
+a very hard worker; yet I was told that to gratify her love for
+flowers she would often go afoot many miles over those rough Virginia
+roads, with a root or cutting from her own garden, to barter for a new
+rose or a brighter blossom of some sort, with which she would return
+in triumph. I fancied that sometimes she had to go by night on these
+charming quests. I could see her business-like, small figure setting
+forth down the steep path, when she had a good conscience toward her
+housekeeping and the children were in order to be left. I am sure that
+her friends thought of her when they were away from home and could
+bring her an offering of something rare. Alas, she had grown too old
+and feeble to care for her dear blossoms any longer, and had been
+forced to go to live with a married son. I dare say that she was
+thinking of her garden that very day, and wondering if this plant or
+that were not in bloom, and perhaps had a heartache at the thought
+that her tenants, the careless colored children, might tread the young
+shoots of peony and rose, and make havoc in the herb-bed. It was an
+uncommon collection, made by years of patient toil and self-sacrifice.
+
+I thought of that deserted Southern garden as I followed my own New
+England road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom all along the way;
+almost every house had some flowers before it, sometimes carefully
+fenced about by stakes and barrel staves from the miscreant hens and
+chickens which lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch and
+fluffing in soft earth this year as well as any other. The world
+seemed full of young life. There were calves tethered in pleasant
+shady spots, and puppies and kittens adventuring from the door-ways.
+The trees were full of birds: bobolinks, and cat-birds, and
+yellow-hammers, and golden robins, and sometimes a thrush, for the
+afternoon was wearing late. We passed the spring which famous spot in
+the early settlement of the country, but many of its old traditions
+are now forgotten. One of the omnipresent regicides of Charles the
+First is believed to have hidden himself for a long time under a great
+rock close by. The story runs that he made his miserable home in this
+den for several years, but I believe that there is no record that more
+than three of the regicides escaped to this country, and their
+wanderings are otherwise accounted for. There is a firm belief that
+one of them came to York, and was the ancestor of many persons now
+living there, but I do not know whether he can have been the hero of
+the Baker's Spring hermitage beside. We stopped to drink some of the
+delicious water, which never fails to flow cold and clear under the
+shade of a great oak, and were amused with the sight of a flock of gay
+little country children who passed by in deep conversation. What could
+such atoms of humanity be talking about? "Old times," said John, the
+master of horse, with instant decision.
+
+We met now and then a man or woman, who stopped to give us hospitable
+greeting; but there was no staying for visits, lest the daylight might
+fail us. It was delightful to find this old-established neighborhood
+so thriving and populous, for a few days before I had driven over
+three miles of road, and passed only one house that was tenanted, and
+six cellars or crumbling chimneys where good farmhouses had been, the
+lilacs blooming in solitude, and the fields, cleared with so much
+difficulty a century or two ago, all going back to the original
+woodland from which they were won. What would the old farmers say to
+see the fate of their worthy bequest to the younger generation? They
+would wag their heads sorrowfully, with sad foreboding.
+
+After we had passed more woodland and a well-known quarry, where, for
+a wonder, the derrick was not creaking and not a single hammer was
+clinking at the stone wedges, we did not see any one hoeing in the
+fields, as we had seen so many on the white rose road, the other side
+of the hills. Presently we met two or three people walking sedately,
+clad in their best clothes. There was a subdued air of public
+excitement and concern, and one of us remembered that there had been a
+death in the neighborhood; this was the day of the funeral. The man
+had been known to us in former years. We had an instinct to hide our
+unsympathetic pleasuring, but there was nothing to be done except to
+follow our homeward road straight by the house.
+
+The occasion was nearly ended by this time: the borrowed chairs were
+being set out in the yard in little groups; even the funeral supper
+had been eaten, and the brothers and sisters and near relatives of the
+departed man were just going home. The new grave showed plainly out in
+the green field near by. He had belonged to one of the ancient
+families of the region, long settled on this old farm by the narrow
+river; they had given their name to a bridge, and the bridge had
+christened the meeting-house which stood close by. We were much struck
+by the solemn figure of the mother, a very old woman, as she walked
+toward her old home with some of her remaining children. I had not
+thought to see her again, knowing her great age and infirmity. She was
+like a presence out of the last century, tall and still erect,
+dark-eyed and of striking features, and a firm look not modern, but as
+if her mind were still set upon an earlier and simpler scheme of life.
+An air of dominion cloaked her finely. She had long been queen of her
+surroundings and law-giver to her great family. Royalty is a quality,
+one of Nature's gifts, and there one might behold it as truly as if
+Victoria Regina Imperatrix had passed by. The natural instincts common
+to humanity were there undisguised, unconcealed, simply accepted. We
+had seen a royal progress; she was the central figure of that rural
+society; as you looked at the little group, you could see her only.
+Now that she came abroad so rarely, her presence was not without deep
+significance, and so she took her homeward way with a primitive kind
+of majesty.
+
+It was evident that the neighborhood was in great excitement and quite
+thrown out of its usual placidity. An acquaintance came from a small
+house farther down the road, and we stopped for a word with him. We
+spoke of the funeral, and were told something of the man who had died.
+"Yes, and there's a man layin' very sick here," said our friend in an
+excited whisper. "He won't last but a day or two. There's another man
+buried yesterday that was struck by lightnin', comin' acrost a field
+when that great shower begun. The lightnin' stove through his hat and
+run down all over him, and ploughed a spot in the ground." There was a
+knot of people about the door; the minister of that scattered parish
+stood among them, and they all looked at us eagerly, as if we too
+might be carrying news of a fresh disaster through the countryside.
+
+Somehow the melancholy tales did not touch our sympathies as they
+ought, and we could not see the pathetic side of them as at another
+time, the day was so full of cheer and the sky and earth so glorious.
+The very fields looked busy with their early summer growth, the horses
+began to think of the clack of the oat-bin cover, and we were hurried
+along between the silvery willows and the rustling alders, taking time
+to gather a handful of stray-away conserve roses by the roadside; and
+where the highway made a long bend eastward among the farms, two of us
+left the carriage, and followed a footpath along the green river bank
+and through the pastures, coming out to the road again only a minute
+later than the horses. I believe that it is an old Indian trail
+followed from the salmon falls farther down the river, where the
+up-country Indians came to dry the plentiful fish for their winter
+supplies. I have traced the greater part of this deep-worn footpath,
+which goes straight as an arrow across the country, the first day's
+trail being from the falls (where Mason's settlers came in 1627, and
+built their Great Works of a saw-mill with a gang of saws, and
+presently a grist mill beside) to Emery's Bridge. I should like to
+follow the old footpath still farther. I found part of it by accident
+a long time ago. Once, as you came close to the river, you were sure
+to find fishermen scattered along,--sometimes I myself have been
+discovered; but it is not much use to go fishing any more. If some
+public-spirited person would kindly be the Frank Buckland of New
+England, and try to have the laws enforced that protect the inland
+fisheries, he would do his country great service. Years ago, there
+were so many salmon that, as an enthusiastic old friend once assured
+me, "you could walk across on them below the falls;" but now they are
+unknown, simply because certain substances which would enrich the
+farms are thrown from factories and tanneries into our clear New
+England streams. Good river fish are growing very scarce. The smelts,
+and bass, and shad have all left this upper branch of the Piscataqua,
+as the salmon left it long ago, and the supply of one necessary sort
+of good cheap food is lost to a growing community, for the lack of a
+little thought and care in the factory companies and saw-mills, and
+the building in some cases of fish-ways over the dams. I think that
+the need of preaching against this bad economy is very great. The
+sight of a proud lad with a string of undersized trout will scatter
+half the idlers in town into the pastures next day, but everybody
+patiently accepts the depopulation of a fine clear river, where the
+tide comes fresh from the sea to be tainted by the spoiled stream,
+which started from its mountain sources as pure as heart could wish.
+Man has done his best to ruin the world he lives in, one is tempted to
+say at impulsive first thought; but after all, as I mounted the last
+hill before reaching the village, the houses took on a new look of
+comfort and pleasantness; the fields that I knew so well were a
+fresher green than before, the sun was down, and the provocations of
+the day seemed very slight compared to the satisfaction. I believed
+that with a little more time we should grow wiser about our fish and
+other things beside.
+
+It will be good to remember the white rose road and its quietness in
+many a busy town day to come. As I think of these slight sketches, I
+wonder if they will have to others a tinge of sadness; but I have
+seldom spent an afternoon so full of pleasure and fresh and delighted
+consciousness of the possibilities of rural life.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett
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+Title: Strangers and Wayfarers
+
+Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31857]
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS ***
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+Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet
+Archive: American Libraries.
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+</pre>
+
+<h1 align="center">STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS</h1>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">by</h3>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">SARAH ORNE JEWETT</h2>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1">
+Boston and New York<br>
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company<br>
+<i>The Riverside Press, Cambridge</i><br>
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1">
+<small>Copyright, 1890,<br>
+By SARAH ORNE JEWETT.</small>
+</p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><small>
+All rights reserved.</small>
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><small>
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.<br>
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.</small>
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1">
+<i><small>TO</small></i>
+<br>
+<br>
+S. W.
+</p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1">
+<i><small>PAINTER OF NEW ENGLAND MEN AND WOMEN<br>
+NEW ENGLAND FIELDS AND SHORES</small></i>
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">CONTENTS.</h2>
+<br>
+<hr width="25%">
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_AWinterCourtship" href= "#a_AWinterCourtship">A Winter Courtship</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_MistressSydenhamPlantation" href= "#a_MistressSydenhamPlantation">The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_TheTownPoor" href= "#a_TheTownPoor">The Town Poor</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_QuestMrTeaby" href= "#a_QuestMrTeaby">The Quest of Mr. Teaby</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_TheLuckBogans" href= "#a_TheLuckBogans">The Luck of the Bogans</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_FairDay" href= "#a_FairDay">Fair Day</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_GoingShrewsbury" href= "#a_GoingShrewsbury">Going to Shrewsbury</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_TakingCaptainBall" href= "#a_TakingCaptainBall">The Taking of Captain Ball</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_ByMorningBoat" href= "#a_ByMorningBoat">By the Morning Boat</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_DarkNewEnglandDays" href= "#a_DarkNewEnglandDays">In Dark New England Days</a></p>
+<br>
+<p class="pg1"><a name="a_sub_WhiteRoseRoad" href= "#a_WhiteRoseRoad">The White Rose Road</a></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS.</h2>
+<br>
+<hr width="25%">
+<a name="a_AWinterCourtship"></a>
+<br><br>
+<h2 align="center">A WINTER COURTSHIP.</h2>
+<br>
+<p>
+The passenger and mail transportation
+between the towns of North Kilby and Sanscrit
+Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson
+Briley, whose two-seated covered wagon was
+usually much too large for the demands of
+business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and
+North Kilby people were stayers-at-home,
+and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile
+journey in entire solitude, except for the
+limp leather mail-bag, which he held firmly
+to the floor of the carriage with his heavily
+shod left foot. The mail-bag had almost a
+personality to him, born of long association.
+Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking
+body, but he held a warlike soul, and encouraged
+his fancies by reading awful tales
+of bloodshed and lawlessness, in the far
+West. Mindful of stage robberies and train
+thieves, and of express messengers who died
+at their posts, he was prepared for anything;
+and although he had trusted to his own
+strength and bravery these many years, he
+carried a heavy pistol under his front-seat
+cushion for better defense. This awful
+weapon was familiar to all his regular passengers,
+and was usually shown to strangers
+by the time two of the seven miles of Mr.
+Briley's route had been passed. The pistol
+was not loaded. Nobody (at least not Mr.
+Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight
+of such a weapon would turn the boldest adventurer
+aside.
+</p><p>
+Protected by such a man and such a piece
+of armament, one gray Friday morning in
+the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was
+traveling from Sanscrit Pond to North
+Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking
+woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in
+her eyes, and she felt very anxious about her
+numerous pieces of baggage and her own
+personal safety. She was enveloped in
+many shawls and smaller wrappings, but
+they were not securely fastened, and kept
+getting undone and flying loose, so that the
+bitter December cold seemed to be picking
+a lock now and then, and creeping in to steal
+away the little warmth she had. Mr. Briley
+was cold, too, and could only cheer himself
+by remembering the valor of those pony-express
+drivers of the pre-railroad days, who
+had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the
+great California route. He spoke at length
+of their perils to the suffering passenger,
+who felt none the warmer, and at last gave
+a groan of weariness.
+</p><p>
+"How fur did you say 't was now?"
+</p><p>
+"I do' know's I said, Mis' Tobin," answered
+the driver, with a frosty laugh.
+"You see them big pines, and the side of
+a barn just this way, with them yellow circus
+bills? That's my three-mile mark."
+</p><p>
+"Be we got four more to make? Oh,
+my laws!" mourned Mrs. Tobin. "Urge
+the beast, can't ye, Jeff'son? I ain't used
+to bein' out in such bleak weather. Seems
+if I couldn't git my breath. I'm all
+pinched up and wigglin' with shivers now.
+'T ain't no use lettin' the hoss go step-a-ty-step,
+this fashion."
+</p><p>
+"Landy me!" exclaimed the affronted
+driver. "I don't see why folks expects me
+to race with the cars. Everybody that gits
+in wants me to run the hoss to death on the
+road. I make a good everage o' time, and
+that's all I <i>can</i> do. Ef you was to go back
+an' forth every day but Sabbath fur eighteen
+years, <i>you'd</i> want to ease it all you
+could, and let those thrash the spokes out o'
+their wheels that wanted to. North Kilby,
+Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit
+Pond, Tuesdays, Thu'sdays, an' Saturdays.
+Me an' the beast's done it eighteen
+years together, and the creatur' warn't, so to
+say, young when we begun it, nor I neither.
+I re'lly didn't know's she'd hold out till
+this time. There, git up, will ye, old mar'!"
+as the beast of burden stopped short in the
+road.
+</p><p>
+There was a story that Jefferson gave this
+faithful creature a rest three times a mile,
+and took four hours for the journey by himself,
+and longer whenever he had a passenger.
+But in pleasant weather the road was
+delightful, and full of people who drove their
+own conveyances, and liked to stop and talk.
+There were not many farms, and the third
+growth of white pines made a pleasant shade,
+though Jefferson liked to say that when he
+began to carry the mail his way lay through
+an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush,
+where the white pines nowadays completely
+arched the road.
+</p><p>
+They had passed the barn with circus
+posters, and felt colder than ever when they
+caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats
+in their tights.
+</p><p>
+"My gorry!" exclaimed Widow Tobin,
+"them pore creatur's looks as cheerless as
+little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they
+dresses 'em warmer this time o' year. Now,
+there! look at that one jumpin' through the
+little hoop, will ye?"
+</p><p>
+"He couldn't git himself through there
+with two pair o' pants on," answered Mr.
+Briley. "I expect they must have to keep
+limber as eels. I used to think, when I was
+a boy, that 't was the only thing I could ever
+be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to
+run away an' follow a rovin' showman once,
+but mother needed me to home. There
+warn't nobody but me an' the little gals."
+</p><p>
+"You ain't the only one that's be'n disapp'inted
+o' their heart's desire," said Mrs.
+Tobin sadly. "'T warn't so that I could be
+spared from home to learn the dressmaker's
+trade."
+</p><p>
+"'T would a come handy later on, I declare,"
+answered the sympathetic driver,
+"bein' 's you went an' had such a passel o'
+gals to clothe an' feed. There, them that's
+livin' is all well off now, but it must ha'
+been some inconvenient for ye when they
+was small."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I've had my
+mercies, too," said the widow somewhat
+grudgingly. "I take it master hard now,
+though, havin' to give up my own home and
+live round from place to place, if they be
+my own child'en. There was Ad'line and
+Susan Ellen fussin' an' bickerin' yesterday
+about who'd got to have me next; and, Lord
+be thanked, they both wanted me right off
+but I hated to hear 'em talkin' of it over.
+I'd rather live to home, and do for myself."
+</p><p>
+"I've got consider'ble used to boardin',"
+said Jefferson, "sence ma'am died, but it
+made me ache 'long at the fust on't, I tell
+ye. Bein' on the road's I be, I couldn't do
+no ways at keepin' house. I should want to
+keep right there and see to things."
+</p><p>
+"Course you would," replied Mrs. Tobin,
+with a sudden inspiration of opportunity
+which sent a welcome glow all over her.
+"Course you would, Jeff'son,"&mdash;she leaned
+toward the front seat; "that is to say, onless
+you had jest the right one to do it for ye."
+</p><p>
+And Jefferson felt a strange glow also,
+and a sense of unexpected interest and
+enjoyment.
+</p><p>
+"See here, Sister Tobin," he exclaimed
+with enthusiasm. "Why can't ye take the
+trouble to shift seats, and come front here
+long o' me? We could put one buff'lo top
+o' the other,&mdash;they're both wearin' thin,&mdash;and set
+close, and I do' know but we sh'd be
+more protected ag'inst the weather."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I couldn't be no colder if I was
+froze to death," answered the widow, with an
+amiable simper. "Don't ye let me delay you,
+nor put you out, Mr. Briley. I don't know's
+I'd set forth to-day if I'd known't was so
+cold; but I had all my bundles done up,
+and I ain't one that puts my hand to the
+plough an' looks back, 'cordin' to Scriptur'."
+</p><p>
+"You wouldn't wanted me to ride all
+them seven miles alone?" asked the gallant
+Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down,
+and helped her up again to the front seat.
+She was a few years older than he, but they
+had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin's
+youthful freshness was suddenly revived to
+his mind's eye. She had a little farm; there
+was nobody left at home now but herself,
+and so she had broken up housekeeping for
+the winter. Jefferson himself had savings
+of no mean amount.
+</p><p>
+They tucked themselves in, and felt better
+for the change, but there was a sudden awkwardness
+between them; they had not had
+time to prepare for an unexpected crisis.
+</p><p>
+"They say Elder Bickers, over to East
+Sanscrit, 's been and got married again to a
+gal that's four year younger than his oldest
+daughter," proclaimed Mrs. Tobin presently.
+"Seems to me 't was fool's business."
+</p><p>
+"I view it so," said the stage-driver.
+"There's goin' to be a mild open winter for
+that fam'ly."
+</p><p>
+"What a joker you be for a man that's
+had so much responsibility!" smiled Mrs. Tobin,
+after they had done laughing. "Ain't
+you never 'fraid, carryin' mail matter and
+such valuable stuff, that you'll be set on an'
+robbed, 'specially by night?"
+</p><p>
+Jefferson braced his feet against the
+dasher under the worn buffalo skin. "It is
+kind o' scary, or would be for some folks,
+but I'd like to see anybody get the better
+o' me. I go armed, and I don't care who
+knows it. Some o' them drover men that
+comes from Canady looks as if they didn't
+care what they did, but I look 'em right in
+the eye every time."
+</p><p>
+"Men folks is brave by natur'," said the
+widow admiringly. "You know how Tobin
+would let his fist right out at anybody that
+ondertook to sass him. Town-meetin' days,
+if he got disappointed about the way things
+went, he'd lay 'em out in win'rows; and ef
+he hadn't been a church-member he'd been
+a real fightin' character. I was always 'fraid
+to have him roused, for all he was so willin'
+and meechin' to home, and set round clever
+as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss
+him same's the kitten, when she was four
+year old."
+</p><p>
+"I've got a kind of a sideways cant to
+my nose, that Tobin give me when we was
+to school. I don't know's you ever noticed
+it," said Mr. Briley. "We was scufflin', as
+lads will. I never bore him no kind of a
+grudge. I pitied ye, when he was taken
+away. I re'lly did, now, Fanny. I liked
+Tobin first-rate, and I liked you. I used to
+say you was the han'somest girl to school."
+</p><p>
+"Lemme see your nose. 'T is all straight,
+for what I know," said the widow gently,
+as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty
+glance. "I don't know but what 't is
+warped a little, but nothin' to speak of.
+You've got real nice features, like your
+marm's folks."
+</p><p>
+It was becoming a sentimental occasion,
+and Jefferson Briley felt that he was in for
+something more than he had bargained.
+He hurried the faltering sorrel horse, and
+began to talk of the weather. It certainly
+did look like snow, and he was tired of
+bumping over the frozen road.
+</p><p>
+"I shouldn't wonder if I hired a hand
+here another year, and went off out West
+myself to see the country."
+</p><p>
+"Why, how you talk!" answered the
+widow.
+</p><p>
+"Yes 'm," pursued Jefferson. "'T is
+tamer here than I like, and I was tellin' 'em
+yesterday I've got to know this road most
+too well. I'd like to go out an' ride in the
+mountains with some o' them great clipper
+coaches, where the driver don't know one
+minute but he'll be shot dead the next.
+They carry an awful sight o' gold down
+from the mines, I expect."
+</p><p>
+"I should be scairt to death," said Mrs.
+Tobin. "What creatur's men folks be to
+like such things! Well, I do declare."
+</p><p>
+"Yes," explained the mild little man.
+"There's sights of desp'radoes makes a
+han'some livin' out o' followin' them coaches,
+an' stoppin' an' robbin' 'em clean to the
+bone. Your money <i>or</i> your life!" and he
+flourished his stub of a whip over the sorrel
+mare.
+</p><p>
+"Landy me! you make me run all of a
+cold creep. Do tell somethin' heartenin',
+this cold day. I shall dream bad dreams
+all night."
+</p><p>
+"They put on black crape over their
+heads," said the driver mysteriously. "Nobody
+knows who most on 'em be, and like
+as not some o' them fellows come o' good
+families. They've got so they stop the cars,
+and go right through 'em bold as brass. I
+could make your hair stand on end, Mis'
+Tobin,&mdash;I could <i>so!</i>"
+</p><p>
+"I hope none on 'em 'll git round our
+way, I'm sure," said Fanny Tobin. "I
+don't want to see none on 'em in their crape
+bunnits comin' after me."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't goin' to let nobody touch a hair
+o' your head," and Mr. Briley moved a little
+nearer, and tucked in the buffaloes again.
+</p><p>
+"I feel considerable warm to what I did,"
+observed the widow by way of reward.
+</p><p>
+"There, I used to have my fears," Mr.
+Briley resumed, with an inward feeling that
+he never would get to North Kilby depot a
+single man. "But you see I hadn't nobody
+but myself to think of. I've got cousins,
+as you know, but nothin' nearer, and what
+I've laid up would soon be parted out; and&mdash;well,
+I suppose some folks would think o'
+me if anything was to happen."
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Tobin was holding her cloud over
+her face,&mdash;the wind was sharp on that bit
+of open road,&mdash;but she gave an encouraging
+sound, between a groan and a chirp.
+</p><p>
+"'T wouldn't be like nothin' to me not
+to see you drivin' by," she said, after a
+minute. "I shouldn't know the days o'
+the week. I says to Susan Ellen last week
+I was sure 't was Friday, and she said no,
+'t was Thursday; but next minute you druv
+by and headin' toward North Kilby, so we
+found I was right."
+</p><p>
+"I've got to be a featur' of the landscape,"
+said Mr. Briley plaintively. "This
+kind o' weather the old mare and me, we
+wish we was done with it, and could settle
+down kind o' comfortable. I've been lookin'
+this good while, as I drove the road, and
+I've picked me out a piece o' land two or
+three times. But I can't abide the thought
+o' buildin',&mdash;'t would plague me to death;
+and both Sister Peak to North Kilby and
+Mis' Deacon Ash to the Pond, they vie with
+one another to do well by me, fear I'll like
+the other stoppin'-place best."
+</p><p>
+"<i>I</i> shouldn't covet livin' long o' neither
+one o' them women," responded the passenger
+with some spirit. "I see some o' Mis'
+Peak's cookin' to a farmers' supper once,
+when I was visitin' Susan Ellen's folks, an'
+I says 'Deliver me from sech pale-complected
+baked beans as them!' and she give
+a kind of a quack. She was settin' jest at
+my left hand, and couldn't help hearin' of
+me. I wouldn't have spoken if I had known,
+but she needn't have let on they was hers
+an' make everything unpleasant. 'I guess
+them beans taste just as well as other folks','
+says she, and she wouldn't never speak to
+me afterward."
+</p><p>
+"Do' know's I blame her," ventured Mr.
+Briley. "Women folks is dreadful pudjicky
+about their cookin'. I've always heard you
+was one o' the best o' cooks, Mis' Tobin.
+I know them doughnuts an' things you've
+give me in times past, when I was drivin'
+by. Wish I had some on 'em now. I never
+let on, but Mis' Ash's cookin' 's the best by
+a long chalk. Mis' Peak's handy about
+some things, and looks after mendin' of me
+up."
+</p><p>
+"It doos seem as if a man o' your years
+and your quiet make ought to have a home
+you could call your own," suggested the passenger.
+"I kind of hate to think o' your
+bangein' here and boardin' there, and one
+old woman mendin', and the other settin' ye
+down to meals that like's not don't agree
+with ye."
+</p><p>
+"Lor', now, Mis' Tobin, le's not fuss
+round no longer," said Mr. Briley impatiently.
+"You know you covet me same 's
+I do you."
+</p><p>
+"I don't nuther. Don't you go an' say
+fo'lish things you can't stand to."
+</p><p>
+"I've been tryin' to git a chance to put
+in a word with you ever sence&mdash;Well, I
+expected you'd want to get your feelin's
+kind o' calloused after losin' Tobin."
+</p><p>
+"There's nobody can fill his place," said
+the widow.
+</p><p>
+"I do' know but I can fight for ye town-meetin'
+days, on a pinch," urged Jefferson
+boldly.
+</p><p>
+"I never see the beat o' you men fur
+conceit," and Mrs. Tobin laughed. "I ain't
+goin' to bother with ye, gone half the time
+as you be, an' carryin' on with your Mis'
+Peaks and Mis' Ashes. I dare say you've
+promised yourself to both on 'em twenty
+times."
+</p><p>
+"I hope to gracious if I ever breathed a
+word to none on 'em!" protested the lover.
+"'T ain't for lack o' opportunities set afore
+me, nuther;" and then Mr. Briley craftily
+kept silence, as if he had made a fair proposal,
+and expected a definite reply.
+</p><p>
+The lady of his choice was, as she might
+have expressed it, much beat about. As she
+soberly thought, she was getting along in
+years, and must put up with Jefferson all
+the rest of the time. It was not likely she
+would ever have the chance of choosing
+again, though she was one who liked variety.
+</p><p>
+Jefferson wasn't much to look at, but
+he was pleasant and appeared boyish and
+young-feeling. "I do' know's I should do
+better," she said unconsciously and half
+aloud. "Well, yes, Jefferson, seein' it's you.
+But we're both on us kind of old to change
+our situation." Fanny Tobin gave a gentle
+sigh.
+</p><p>
+"Hooray!" said Jefferson. "I was scairt
+you meant to keep me sufferin' here a half
+an hour. I declare, I'm more pleased than
+I calc'lated on. An' I expected till lately
+to die a single man!"
+</p><p>
+"'T would re'lly have been a shame;
+'t ain't natur'," said Mrs. Tobin, with confidence.
+"I don't see how you held out so
+long with bein' solitary."
+</p><p>
+"I'll hire a hand to drive for me, and
+we'll have a good comfortable winter, me
+an' you an' the old sorrel. I've been promisin'
+of her a rest this good while."
+</p><p>
+"Better keep her a steppin'," urged
+thrifty Mrs. Fanny. "She'll stiffen up
+master, an' disapp'int ye, come spring."
+</p><p>
+"You'll have me, now, won't ye, sartin?"
+pleaded Jefferson, to make sure. "You
+ain't one o' them that plays with a man's
+feelin's. Say right out you'll have me."
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose I shall have to," said Mrs.
+Tobin somewhat mournfully. "I feel for
+Mis' Peak an' Mis' Ash, pore creatur's. I
+expect they'll be hardshipped. They've
+always been hard-worked, an' may have kind
+o' looked forward to a little ease. But one
+on 'em would be left lamentin', anyhow,"
+and she gave a girlish laugh. An air of
+victory animated the frame of Mrs. Tobin.
+She felt but twenty-five years of age. In
+that moment she made plans for cutting her
+Briley's hair, and making him look smartened-up
+and ambitious. Then she wished
+that she knew for certain how much money
+he had in the bank; not that it would make
+any difference now. "He needn't bluster
+none before me," she thought gayly. "He's
+harmless as a fly."
+</p><p>
+"Who'd have thought we'd done such a
+piece of engineerin', when we started out?"
+inquired the dear one of Mr. Briley's heart,
+as he tenderly helped her to alight at Susan
+Ellen's door.
+</p><p>
+"Both on us, jest the least grain," answered
+the lover. "Gimme a good smack,
+now, you clever creatur';" and so they
+parted. Mr. Briley had been taken on the
+road in spite of his pistol.
+</p><p>
+<a name="a_MistressSydenhamPlantation"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE MISTRESS OF SYDENHAM PLANTATION.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+A high wind was blowing from the water
+into the Beaufort streets,&mdash;a wind with as
+much reckless hilarity as March could give
+to her breezes, but soft and spring-like, almost
+early-summer-like, in its warmth.
+</p><p>
+In the gardens of the old Southern houses
+that stood along the bay, roses and petisporum-trees
+were blooming, with their delicious
+fragrance. It was the time of wistarias
+and wild white lilies, of the last yellow jas-mines
+and the first Cherokee roses. It was
+the Saturday before Easter Sunday.
+</p><p>
+In the quaint churchyard of old St.
+Helena's Church, a little way from the bay,
+young figures were busy among the graves
+with industrious gardening. At first sight,
+one might have thought that this pretty
+service was rendered only from loving sentiments
+of loyalty to one's ancestors, for
+under the great live-oaks, the sturdy brick
+walls about the family burying-places and
+the gravestones themselves were moss-grown
+and ancient-looking; yet here and there the
+wounded look of the earth appealed to the
+eye, and betrayed a new-made grave. The
+old sarcophagi and heavy tablets of the historic
+Beaufort families stood side by side
+with plain wooden crosses. The armorial
+bearings and long epitaphs of the one and
+the brief lettering of the other suggested the
+changes that had come with the war to these
+families, yet somehow the wooden cross
+touched one's heart with closer sympathy.
+The padlocked gates to the small inclosures
+stood open, while gentle girls passed in and
+out with their Easter flowers of remembrance.
+On the high churchyard wall and
+great gate-posts perched many a mocking-bird,
+and the golden light changed the twilight
+under the live-oaks to a misty warmth
+of color. The birds began to sing louder;
+the gray moss that hung from the heavy
+boughs swayed less and less, and gave the
+place a look of pensive silence.
+</p><p>
+In the church itself, most of the palms
+and rose branches were already in place for
+the next day's feast, and the old organ followed
+a fresh young voice that was being
+trained for the Easter anthem. The five
+doors of the church were standing open.
+On the steps of that eastern door which
+opened midway up the side aisle, where the
+morning sun had shone in upon the white
+faces of a hospital in war-time,&mdash;in this
+eastern doorway sat two young women.
+</p><p>
+"I was just thinking," one was saying to
+the other, "that for the first time Mistress
+Sydenham has forgotten to keep this day.
+You know that when she has forgotten
+everything and everybody else, she has
+known when Easter came, and has brought
+flowers to her graves."
+</p><p>
+"Has she been more feeble lately, do you
+think?" asked the younger of the two.
+"Mamma saw her the other day, and
+thought that she seemed more like herself;
+but she looked very old, too. She told
+mamma to bring her dolls, and she would
+give her some bits of silk to make them
+gowns. Poor mamma! and she had just
+been wondering how she could manage to get
+us ready for summer, this year,&mdash;Célestine
+and me," and the speaker smiled wistfully.
+</p><p>
+"It is a mercy that the dear old lady did
+forget all that happened;" and the friends
+brushed some last bits of leaves from their
+skirts, and rose and walked away together
+through the churchyard.
+</p><p>
+The ancient church waited through another
+Easter Even, with its flowers and long
+memory of prayer and praise. The great
+earthquake had touched it lightly, time had
+colored it softly, and the earthly bodies of
+its children were gathered near its walls in
+peaceful sleep.
+</p><p>
+From one of the high houses which stood
+fronting the sea, with their airy balconies
+and colonnades, had come a small, slender
+figure, like some shy, dark thing of twilight
+out into the bright sunshine. The street
+was empty, for the most part; before one or
+two of the cheap German shops a group of
+men watched the little old lady step proudly
+by. She was a very stately gentlewoman, for
+one so small and thin; she was feeble, too,
+and bending somewhat with the weight of
+years, but there was true elegance and dignity
+in the way she moved, and those who
+saw her&mdash;persons who shuffled when they
+walked, and boasted loudly of the fallen
+pride of the South&mdash;were struck with sudden
+deference and admiration. Behind the
+lady walked a gray-headed negro, a man
+who was troubled in spirit, who sometimes
+gained a step or two, and offered an anxious
+but quite unheeded remonstrance. He
+was a poor, tottering old fellow; he wore a
+threadbare evening coat that might have belonged
+to his late master thirty years before.
+</p><p>
+The pair went slowly along the bay street
+to the end of a row of new shops, and the
+lady turned decidedly toward the water, and
+approached the ferry-steps. Her servitor
+groaned aloud, but waited in respectful helplessness.
+There was a group of negro children
+on the steps, employed in the dangerous
+business of crab-fishing; at the foot,
+in his flat-bottomed boat, sat a wondering
+negro lad, who looked up in apprehension
+at his passengers. The lady seemed like a
+ghost. Old Peter,&mdash;with whose scorn of
+modern beings and their ways he was partially
+familiar,&mdash;old Peter was making frantic
+signs to him to put out from shore. But
+the lady's calm desire for obedience prevailed,
+and presently, out of the knot of
+idlers that gathered quickly, one, more chivalrous
+than the rest, helped the strange
+adventurers down into the boat. It was the
+fashion to laugh and joke, in Beaufort, when
+anything unusual was happening before the
+eyes of the younger part of the colored population;
+but as the ferryman pushed off from
+shore, even the crab-fishers kept awe-struck
+silence, and there were speechless, open
+mouths and much questioning of eyes that
+showed their whites in vain. Somehow or
+other, before the boat was out of hail, long
+before it had passed the first bank of raccoon
+oysters, the tide being at the ebb, it was
+known by fifty people that for the first time
+in more than twenty years the mistress of
+the old Sydenham plantation on St. Helena's
+Island had taken it into her poor daft head
+to go to look after her estates, her crops, and
+her people. Everybody knew that her estates
+had been confiscated during the war;
+that her people owned it themselves now, in
+three and five and even twenty acre lots;
+that her crops of rice and Sea Island cotton
+were theirs, planted and hoed and harvested
+on their own account. All these years she
+had forgotten Sydenham, and the live-oak avenue,
+and the outlook across the water to the
+Hunting Islands, where the deer ran wild;
+she had forgotten the war; she had forgotten
+her children and her husband, except that
+they had gone away,&mdash;the graves to which
+she carried Easter flowers were her mother's
+and her father's graves,&mdash;and her life was
+spent in a strange dream.
+</p><p>
+Old Peter sat facing her in the boat; the
+ferryman pulled lustily at his oars, and they
+moved quickly along in the ebbing tide.
+The ferryman longed to get his freight
+safely across; he was in a fret of discomfort
+whenever he looked at the clear-cut, eager
+face before him in the stern. How still and
+straight the old mistress sat! Where was
+she going? He was awed by her presence,
+and took refuge, as he rowed, in needless
+talk about the coming of the sandflies and
+the great drum-fish to Beaufort waters. But
+Peter had clasped his hands together and
+bowed his old back, as if he did not dare to
+look anywhere but at the bottom of the boat.
+Peter was still groaning softly; the old lady
+was looking back over the water to the row
+of fine houses, the once luxurious summer
+homes of Rhetts and Barnwells, of many a
+famous household now scattered and impoverished.
+The ferryman had heard of more
+one than bereft lady or gentleman who lived
+in seclusion in the old houses. He knew that
+Peter still served a mysterious mistress with
+exact devotion, while most of the elderly
+colored men and women who had formed the
+retinues of the old families were following
+their own affairs, far and wide.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, Lord, ole mis'! what kin I go to
+do?" mumbled Peter, with his head in his
+hands. "Thar'll be nothin' to see. Po'
+ole mis', I do' kno' what you say. Trouble,
+trouble!"
+</p><p>
+But the mistress of Sydenham plantation
+had a way of speaking but seldom, and of
+rarely listening to what any one was pleased
+to say in return. Out of the mistiness of
+her clouded brain a thought had come with
+unwonted clearness. She must go to the
+island: her husband and sons were detained
+at a distance; it was the time of year to look
+after corn and cotton; she must attend to
+her house and her slaves. The remembrance
+of that news of battle and of the three deaths
+that had left her widowed and childless had
+faded away in the illness it had brought.
+She never comprehended her loss; she was
+like one bewitched into indifference; she
+remembered something of her youth, and
+kept a simple routine of daily life, and that
+was all.
+</p><p>
+"I t'ought she done fo'git ebryt'ing,"
+groaned Peter again. "O Lord, hab mercy
+on ole mis'!"
+</p><p>
+The landing-place on Ladies' Island was
+steep and sandy, and the oarsman watched
+Peter help the strange passenger up the
+ascent with a sense of blessed relief. He
+pushed off a little way into the stream, for
+better self-defense. At the top of the bluff
+was a rough shed, built for shelter, and
+Peter looked about him eagerly, while his
+mistress stood, expectant and imperious, in
+the shade of a pride of India tree, that grew
+among the live-oaks and pines of a wild
+thicket. He was wretched with a sense of
+her discomfort, though she gave no sign of
+it. He had learned to know by instinct all
+that was unspoken. In the old times she
+would have found four oarsmen waiting with
+a cushioned boat at the ferry; she would
+have found a saddle-horse or a carriage
+ready for her on Ladies' Island for the five
+miles' journey, but the carriage had not come.
+The poor gray-headed old man recognized
+her displeasure. He was her only slave left,
+if she did but know it.
+</p><p>
+"Fo' Gord's sake, git me some kin' of a
+cart. Ole mis', she done wake up and mean
+to go out to Syd'n'am dis day," urged Peter.
+"Who dis hoss an' kyart in de shed? Who
+make dese track wid huffs jus' now, like dey
+done ride by? Yo' go git somebody fo' me,
+or she be right mad, shore."
+</p><p>
+The elderly guardian of the shed, who was
+also of the old <i>régime</i>, hobbled away quickly,
+and backed out a steer that was broken to
+harness, and a rickety two-wheeled cart.
+Their owner had left them there for some
+hours, and had crossed the ferry to Beaufort.
+Old mistress must be obeyed, and they
+looked toward her beseechingly where she
+was waiting, deprecating her disapproval of
+this poor apology for a conveyance. The
+lady long since had ceased to concern herself
+with the outward shapes of things; she
+accepted this possibility of carrying out her
+plans, and they lifted her light figure to the
+chair, in the cart's end, while Peter mounted
+before her with all a coachman's dignity,&mdash;he
+once had his ambitions of being her
+coachman,&mdash;and they moved slowly away
+through the deep sand.
+</p><p>
+"My Gord A'mighty, look out fo' us
+now," said Peter over and over. "Ole mis',
+she done fo'git, good Lord, she done fo'git
+how de Good Marsa up dere done took f'om
+her ebryt'ing; she 'spect now she find Syd'n'am
+all de same like's it was 'fo' de war.
+She ain't know 'bout what's been sence day
+of de gun-shoot on Port Royal and dar-away.
+O Lord A'mighty, yo' know how yo' stove
+her po' head wid dem gun-shoot; be easy to
+ole mis'."
+</p><p>
+But as Peter pleaded in the love and
+sorrow of his heart, the lady who sat behind
+him was unconscious of any cause for grief.
+Some sweet vagaries in her own mind were
+matched to the loveliness of the day. All
+her childhood, spent among the rustic scenes
+of these fertile Sea Islands, was yielding for
+her now an undefined pleasantness of association.
+The straight-stemmed palmettos
+stood out with picturesque clearness against
+the great level fields, with their straight
+furrows running out of sight. Figures of
+men and women followed the furrow paths
+slowly; here were men and horses bending
+to the ploughshare, and there women and
+children sowed with steady hand the rich
+seed of their crops. There were touches of
+color in the head kerchiefs; there were
+sounds of songs as the people worked,&mdash;not
+gay songs of the evening, but some repeated
+line of a hymn, to steady the patient feet
+and make the work go faster,&mdash;the unconscious
+music of the blacks, who sing as the
+beetle drones or the cricket chirps slowly under
+the dry grass. It had a look of permanence,
+this cotton-planting. It was a thing
+to paint, to relate itself to the permanence
+of art, an everlasting duty of mankind;
+terrible if a thing of force, and compulsion
+and for another's gain, but the birthright of
+the children of Adam, and not unrewarded
+nor unnatural when one drew by it one's
+own life from the earth.
+</p><p>
+Peter glanced through the hedge-rows
+furtively, this way and that. What would
+his mistress say to the cabins that were
+scattered all about the fields now, and that
+were no longer put together in the long lines
+of the quarters? He looked down a deserted
+lane, where he well remembered fifty cabins
+on each side of the way. It was gay there
+of a summer evening; the old times had
+not been without their pleasures, and the
+poor old man's heart leaped with the vague
+delight of his memories. He had never
+been on the block; he was born and bred at
+old Sydenham; he had been trusted in
+house and field.
+</p><p>
+"I done like dem ole times de best,"
+ventures Peter, presently, to his unresponding
+companion. "Dere was good 'bout dem
+times. I say I like de ole times good as
+any. Young folks may be a change f'om me."
+</p><p>
+He was growing gray in the face with
+apprehension; he did not dare to disobey.
+</p><p>
+The slow-footed beast of burden was carrying
+them toward Sydenham step by step,
+and he dreaded the moment of arrival. He
+was like a mesmerized creature, who can
+only obey the force of a directing will; but
+under pretense of handling the steer's harness,
+he got stiffly to the ground to look at
+his mistress. He could not turn to face her,
+as he sat in the cart; he could not drive any
+longer and feel her there behind him. The
+silence was too great. It was a relief to see
+her placid face, and to see even a more
+youthful look in its worn lines. She had
+been a very beautiful woman in her young
+days. And a solemn awe fell upon Peter's
+tender heart, lest the veil might be lifting
+from her hidden past, and there, alone with
+him on the old plantation, she would die of
+grief and pain. God only knew what might
+happen! The old man mounted to his seat,
+and again they plodded on.
+</p><p>
+"Peter," said the mistress,&mdash;he was always
+frightened when she spoke,&mdash;"Peter,
+we must hurry. I was late in starting. I
+have a great deal to do. Urge the horses."
+</p><p>
+"Yas, mis',&mdash;yas, mis'," and Peter
+laughed aloud nervously, and brandished
+his sassafras switch, while the steer hastened
+a little. They had come almost to the
+gates.
+</p><p>
+"Who are these?" the stately wayfarer
+asked once, as they met some persons who
+gazed at them in astonishment.
+</p><p>
+"I 'spect dem de good ladies f'om de
+Norf, what come down to show de cullud
+folks how to do readin'," answered Peter
+bravely. "It do look kind o' comfo'ble
+over here," he added wistfully, half to himself.
+He could not understand even now
+how oblivious she was of the great changes
+on St. Helena's.
+</p><p>
+There were curious eyes watching from
+the fields, and here by the roadside an aged
+black woman came to her cabin door.
+</p><p>
+"Lord!" exclaimed Peter, "what kin I
+do now? An' ole Sibyl, she's done crazy
+too, and dey'll be mischievous together."
+</p><p>
+The steer could not be hurried past, and
+Sibyl came and leaned against the wheel.
+"Mornin', mistis," said Sibyl, "an' yo' too,
+Peter. How's all? Day ob judgment's
+comin' in mornin'! Some nice buttermilk?
+I done git rich; t'at's my cow," and she
+pointed to the field and chuckled. Peter
+felt as if his brain were turning. "Bless
+de Lord, I no more slave," said old Sibyl,
+looking up with impudent scrutiny at her
+old mistress's impassive face. "Yo' know
+Mars' Middleton, what yo' buy me f'om?
+He my foster-brother; we push away from
+same breast. He got trouble, po' gen'elman;
+he sorry to sell Sibyl; he give me silver
+dollar dat day, an' feel bad. 'Neber
+min', I say. I get good mistis, young mistis
+at Sydenham. I like her well, I did so.
+I pick my two hunderd poun' all days, an' I
+ain't whipped. Too bad sold me, po' Mars'
+Middleton, but he in trouble. He done
+come see me last plantin'," Sibyl went on
+proudly. "Oh, Gord, he grown ole and
+poor-lookin'. He come in, just in dat do',
+an' he say, 'Sibyl, I long an' long to see
+you, an' now I see you;' an' he kiss an' kiss
+me. An' dere's one wide ribber o' Jordan,
+an' we'll soon be dere, black an' white. I
+was right glad I see ole Mars' Middleton
+'fore I die."
+</p><p>
+The old creature poured forth the one
+story of her great joy and pride; she had
+told it a thousand times. It had happened,
+not the last planting, but many plantings
+ago. It remained clear when everything
+else was confused. There was no knowing
+what she might say next. She began to
+take the strange steps of a slow dance, and
+Peter urged his steer forward, while his
+mistress said suddenly, "Good-by, Sibyl. I
+am glad you are doing so well," with a
+strange irrelevancy of graciousness. It was
+in the old days before the war that Sibyl
+had fallen insensible, one day, in the cotton-field.
+Did her mistress think that it was
+still that year, and&mdash;Peter's mind could
+not puzzle out this awful day of anxiety.
+</p><p>
+They turned at last into the live-oak avenue,&mdash;they
+had only another half mile to
+go; and here, in the place where the lady
+had closest association, her memory was suddenly
+revived almost to clearness. She began
+to hurry Peter impatiently; it was a
+mischance that she had not been met at the
+ferry. She was going to see to putting the
+house in order, and the women were all
+waiting. It was autumn, and they were going
+to move over from Beaufort; it was
+spring next moment, and she had to talk
+with her overseers. The old imperiousness
+flashed out. Did not Peter know that his
+master was kept at the front, and the young
+gentlemen were with him, and their regiment
+was going into action? It was a
+blessing to come over and forget it all, but
+Peter must drive, drive. They had taken
+no care of the avenue; how the trees were
+broken in the storm! The house needed&mdash;They
+were going to move the next day but
+one, and nothing was ready. A party of
+gentlemen were coming from Charleston in
+the morning!&mdash;
+</p><p>
+They passed the turn of the avenue;
+they came out to the open lawn, and the
+steer stopped and began to browse. Peter
+shook from head to foot. He climbed down
+by the wheel, and turned his face slowly.
+"Ole mis'!" he said feebly. "<i>Ole mis'!</i>"
+</p><p>
+She was looking off into space. The cart
+jerked as it moved after the feeding steer.
+The mistress of Sydenham plantation had
+sought her home in vain. The crumbled,
+fallen chimneys of the house were there
+among the weeds, and that was all.
+</p>
+<br><br>
+<p>
+On Christmas Day and Easter Day,
+many an old man and woman come into St.
+Helena's Church who are not seen there the
+rest of the year. There are not a few recluses
+in the parish, who come to listen to
+their teacher and to the familiar prayers,
+read with touching earnestness and simplicity,
+as one seldom hears the prayers
+read anywhere. This Easter morning
+dawned clear and bright, as Easter morning
+should. The fresh-bloomed roses and lilies
+were put in their places. There was no
+touch of paid hands anywhere, and the fragrance
+blew softly about the church. As
+you sat in your pew, you could look out
+through the wide-opened doors, and see the
+drooping branches, and the birds as they sat
+singing on the gravestones. The sad faces
+of the old people, the cheerful faces of the
+young, passed by up the aisle. One figure
+came to sit alone in one of the pews, to
+bend its head in prayer after the ancient
+habit. Peter led her, as usual, to the broad-aisle
+doorway, and helped her, stumbling
+himself, up the steps, and many eyes filled
+with tears as his mistress went to her place.
+Even the tragic moment of yesterday was
+lost already in the acquiescence of her mind,
+as the calm sea shines back to the morning
+sun when another wreck has gone down.
+</p>
+<a name="a_TheTownPoor"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE TOWN POOR.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca
+Wright were driving along Hampden
+east road, one afternoon in early spring.
+Their progress was slow. Mrs. Trimble's
+sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels
+were clogged by day mud. The frost was
+not yet out of the ground, although the snow
+was nearly gone, except in a few places on
+the north side of the woods, or where it had
+drifted all winter against a length of fence.
+</p><p>
+"There must be a good deal o' snow to
+the nor'ard of us yet," said weather-wise
+Mrs. Trimble. "I feel it in the air; 't is
+more than the ground-damp. We ain't
+goin' to have real nice weather till the up-country
+snow's all gone."
+</p><p>
+"I heard say yesterday that there was
+good sleddin' yet, all up through Parsley,"
+responded Miss Wright. "I shouldn't like
+to live in them northern places. My cousin
+Ellen's husband was a Parsley man, an' he
+was obliged, as you may have heard, to go
+up north to his father's second wife's funeral;
+got back day before yesterday. 'T was
+about twenty-one miles, an' they started on
+wheels; but when they'd gone nine or ten
+miles, they found 't was no sort o' use, an'
+left their wagon an' took a sleigh. The
+man that owned it charged 'em four an' six,
+too. I shouldn't have thought he would;
+they told him they was goin' to a funeral;
+an' they had their own buffaloes an' everything."
+</p><p>
+</p><p>
+"Well, I expect it's a good deal harder
+scratching up that way; they have to git
+money where they can; the farms is very
+poor as you go north," suggested Mrs.
+Trimble kindly. "'T ain't none too rich a
+country where we be, but I've always been
+grateful I wa'n't born up to Parsley."
+</p><p>
+The old horse plodded along, and the sun,
+coming out from the heavy spring clouds,
+sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy
+road. Sister Wright drew her large veil
+forward over the high brim of her bonnet.
+She was not used to driving, or to being
+much in the open air; but Mrs. Trimble
+was an active business woman, and looked
+after her own affairs herself, in all weathers.
+The late Mr. Trimble had left her a good
+farm, but not much ready money, and it was
+often said that she was better off in the end
+than if he had lived. She regretted his loss
+deeply, however; it was impossible for her
+to speak of him, even to intimate friends,
+without emotion, and nobody had ever
+hinted that this emotion was insincere. She
+was most warm-hearted and generous, and
+in her limited way played the part of Lady
+Bountiful in the town of Hampden.
+</p><p>
+"Why, there's where the Bray girls
+lives, ain't it?" she exclaimed, as, beyond
+a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they
+came in sight of a weather-beaten, solitary
+farmhouse. The barn was too far away for
+thrift or comfort, and they could see long
+lines of light between the shrunken boards
+as they came nearer. The fields looked both
+stony and sodden. Somehow, even Parsley
+itself could be hardly more forlorn.
+</p><p>
+"Yes'm," said Miss Wright, "that's
+where they live now, poor things. I know
+the place, though I ain't been up here for
+years. You don't suppose, Mis' Trimble&mdash;I
+ain't seen the girls out to meetin' all winter.
+I've re'lly been covetin'"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could
+stop," answered Mrs. Trimble heartily.
+"The exercises was over earlier 'n I expected,
+an' you're goin' to remain over
+night long o' me, you know. There won't
+be no tea till we git there, so we can't be
+late. I'm in the habit o' sendin' a basket
+to the Bray girls when any o' our folks is
+comin' this way, but I ain't been to see 'em
+since they moved up here. Why, it must
+be a good deal over a year ago. I know
+'t was in the late winter they had to make the
+move. 'T was cruel hard, I must say, an' if
+I hadn't been down with my pleurisy fever
+I'd have stirred round an' done somethin'
+about it. There was a good deal o' sickness
+at the time, an'&mdash;well, 't was kind o' rushed
+through, breakin' of 'em up, an' lots o' folks
+blamed the selec'<i>men</i>; but when't was done,
+'t was done, an' nobody took holt to undo
+it. Ann an' Mandy looked same's ever
+when they come to meetin', 'long in the summer,&mdash;kind
+o' wishful, perhaps. They've
+always sent me word they was gittin' on
+pretty comfortable."
+</p><p>
+"That would be their way," said Rebecca
+Wright. "They never was any hand to
+complain, though Mandy's less cheerful
+than Ann. If Mandy 'd been spared such
+poor eyesight, an' Ann hadn't got her lame
+wrist that wa'n't set right, they'd kep' off
+the town fast enough. They both shed tears
+when they talked to me about havin' to
+break up, when I went to see 'em before I
+went over to brother Asa's. You see we
+was brought up neighbors, an' we went to
+school together, the Brays an' me. 'T was
+a special Providence brought us home this
+road, I've been so covetin' a chance to git
+to see 'em. My lameness hampers me."
+</p><p>
+"I'm glad we come this way, myself,"
+said Mrs. Trimble.
+</p><p>
+"I'd like to see just how they fare," Miss
+Rebecca Wright continued. "They give
+their consent to goin' on the town because
+they knew they'd got to be dependent, an'
+so they felt 't would come easier for all than
+for a few to help 'em. They acted real dignified
+an' right-minded, contrary to what
+most do in such cases, but they was dreadful
+anxious to see who would bid 'em off, town-meeting
+day; they did so hope 't would be
+somebody right in the village. I just sat
+down an' cried good when I found Abel
+Janes's folks had got hold of 'em. They
+always had the name of bein' slack an' poor-spirited,
+an' they did it just for what they
+got out o' the town. The selectmen this
+last year ain't what we have had. I hope
+they've been considerate about the Bray
+girls."
+</p><p>
+"I should have be'n more considerate
+about fetchin' of you over," apologized Mrs.
+Trimble. "I've got my horse, an' you 're
+lame-footed; 't is too far for you to come.
+But time does slip away with busy folks, an'
+I forgit a good deal I ought to remember."
+</p><p>
+"There's nobody more considerate than
+you be," protested Miss Rebecca Wright.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took
+out her whip and gently touched the sorrel
+horse, who walked considerably faster, but
+did not think it worth while to trot. It was
+a long, round-about way to the house, farther
+down the road and up a lane.
+</p><p>
+"I never had any opinion of the Bray
+girls' father, leavin' 'em as he did," said
+Mrs. Trimble.
+</p><p>
+"He was much praised in his time, though
+there was always some said his early life
+hadn't been up to the mark," explained
+her companion. "He was a great favorite
+of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel
+Longbrother. They did a good deal for
+the parish, but they did it their own way.
+Deacon Bray was one that did his part
+in the repairs without urging. You know
+'t was in his time the first repairs was made,
+when they got out the old soundin'-board an'
+them handsome square pews. It cost an
+awful sight o' money, too. They hadn't
+done payin' up that debt when they set to
+alter it again an' git the walls frescoed.
+My grandmother was one that always spoke
+her mind right out, an' she was dreadful
+opposed to breakin' up the square pews
+where she'd always set. They was countin'
+up what 't would cost in parish meetin', an'
+she riz right up an' said 't wouldn't cost
+nothin' to let 'em stay, an' there wa'n't a
+house carpenter left in the parish that could
+do such nice work, an' time would come
+when the great-grandchildren would give
+their eye-teeth to have the old meetin'-house
+look just as it did then. But haul the inside
+to pieces they would and did."
+</p><p>
+"There come to be a real fight over it,
+didn't there?" agreed Mrs. Trimble soothingly.
+"Well, 't wa'n't good taste. I remember
+the old house well. I come here
+as a child to visit a cousin o' mother's, an'
+Mr. Trimble's folks was neighbors, an' we
+was drawed to each other then, young's we
+was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many's the
+time,&mdash;that first time he ever see me, in a
+leghorn hat with a feather; 't was one that
+mother had, an' pressed over."
+</p><p>
+"When I think of them old sermons that
+used to be preached in that old meetin'-house
+of all, I'm glad it's altered over, so's not
+to remind folks," said Miss Rebecca Wright,
+after a suitable pause. "Them old brimstone
+discourses, you know, Mis' Trimble.
+Preachers is far more reasonable, nowadays.
+Why, I set an' thought, last Sabbath, as
+I listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an'
+Deacon Bray could hear the difference they 'd
+crack the ground over 'em like pole beans, an'
+come right up 'long side their headstones."
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook
+the reins three or four times by way of emphasis.
+"There's no gitting round you,"
+she said, much pleased. "I should think
+Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way,
+if 't was so he could, an' knew how his poor
+girls was farin'. A man ought to provide
+for his folks he's got to leave behind him,
+specially if they're women. To be sure,
+they had their little home; but we've seen
+how, with all their industrious ways, they
+hadn't means to keep it. I s'pose he
+thought he'd got time enough to lay by,
+when he give so generous in collections;
+but he didn't lay by, an' there they be.
+He might have took lessons from the
+squirrels: even them little wild creator's
+makes them their winter hoards, an' men-folks
+ought to know enough if squirrels
+does. 'Be just before you are generous:'
+that's what was always set for the B's in
+the copy-books, when I was to school, and it
+often runs through my mind."
+</p><p>
+"'As for man, his days are as grass,'&mdash;that
+was for A; the two go well together,"
+added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. "My
+good gracious, ain't this a starved-lookin'
+place? It makes me ache to think them
+nice Bray girls has to brook it here."
+</p><p>
+The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled
+by an unexpected deviation from his homeward
+way, willingly came to a stand by the
+gnawed corner of the door-yard fence, which
+evidently served as hitching-place. Two or
+three ragged old hens were picking about
+the yard, and at last a face appeared at the
+kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief,
+as if it were a case of toothache. By the
+time our friends reached the side door next
+this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately
+to open it for them, shutting it again
+as soon as possible, though the air felt more
+chilly inside the house.
+</p><p>
+"Take seats," said Mrs. Janes briefly.
+"You'll have to see me just as I be. I
+have been suffering these four days with the
+ague, and everything to do. Mr. Janes is
+to court, on the jury. 'T was inconvenient
+to spare him. I should be pleased to have
+you lay off your things."
+</p><p>
+Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about
+the cheerless kitchen, and could not think
+of anything to say; so she smiled blandly
+and shook her head in answer to the invitation.
+"We'll just set a few minutes
+with you, to pass the time o' day, an' then
+we must go in an' have a word with the
+Miss Brays, bein' old acquaintance. It
+ain't been so we could git to call on 'em before.
+I don't know's you're acquainted
+with Miss R'becca Wright. She's been out
+of town a good deal."
+</p><p>
+"I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields
+with her brother's folks," replied Mrs.
+Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion,
+as she sat close to the stove. "Got back
+some time in the fall, I believe?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes'm," said Miss Rebecca, with an
+undue sense of guilt and conviction.
+"We've been to the installation over to the
+East Parish, an' thought we'd stop in; we
+took this road home to see if 't was any
+better. How is the Miss Brays gettin' on?"
+</p><p>
+"They're well's common," answered
+Mrs. Janes grudgingly. "I was put out
+with Mr. Janes for fetchin' of 'em here,
+with all I've got to do, an' I own I was
+kind o' surly to 'em 'long to the first of it.
+He gits the money from the town, an' it
+helps him out; but he bid 'em off for five
+dollars a month, an' we can't do much for
+'em at no such price as that. I went an'
+dealt with the selec'men, an' made 'em
+promise to find their firewood an' some other
+things extra. They was glad to get rid o'
+the matter the fourth time I went, an'
+would ha' promised 'most anything. But
+Mr. Janes don't keep me half the time in
+oven-wood, he's off so much, an' we was
+cramped o' room, any way. I have to store
+things up garrit a good deal, an' that keeps
+me trampin' right through their room. I
+do the best for 'em I can, Mis' Trimble,
+but 't ain't so easy for me as 't is for you,
+with all your means to do with."
+</p><p>
+The poor woman looked pinched and miserable
+herself, though it was evident that
+she had no gift at house or home keeping.
+Mrs. Trimble's heart was wrung with pain,
+as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
+such a place; but she held her peace bravely,
+while Miss Rebecca again gave some brief
+information in regard to the installation.
+</p><p>
+"You go right up them back stairs," the
+hostess directed at last. "I'm glad some
+o' you church folks has seen fit to come an'
+visit 'em. There ain't been nobody here
+this long spell, an' they've aged a sight
+since they come. They always send down a
+taste out of your baskets, Mis' Trimble, an'
+I relish it, I tell you. I'll shut the door
+after you, if you don't object. I feel every
+draught o' cold air."
+</p><p>
+"I've always heard she was a great hand
+to make a poor mouth. Wa'n't she from
+somewheres up Parsley way?" whispered
+Miss Rebecca, as they stumbled in the half-light.
+</p><p>
+</p><p>
+"Poor meechin' body, wherever she come
+from," replied Mrs. Trimble, as she knocked
+at the door.
+</p><p>
+There was silence for a moment after
+this unusual sound; then one of the Bray
+sisters opened the door. The eager guests
+stared into a small, low room, brown with
+age, and gray, too, as if former dust and
+cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear.
+The two elderly women who stood
+there looked like captives. Their withered
+faces wore a look of apprehension, and the
+room itself was more bare and plain than
+was fitting to their evident refinement of
+character and self-respect. There was an
+uncovered small table in the middle of the
+floor, with some crackers on a plate; and,
+for some reason or other, this added a great
+deal to the general desolation.
+</p><p>
+But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who
+carried her right arm in a sling, with piteously
+drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors
+with radiant joy. She had not seen them
+arrive.
+</p><p>
+The one window gave only the view at
+the back of the house, across the fields, and
+their coming was indeed a surprise. The
+next minute she was laughing and crying
+together. "Oh, sister!" she said, "if here
+ain't our dear Mis' Trimble!&mdash;an' my
+heart o' goodness, 't is 'Becca Wright, too!
+What dear good creatur's you be! I've
+felt all day as if something good was goin'
+to happen, an' was just sayin' to myself
+'t was most sundown now, but I wouldn't
+let on to Mandany I'd give up hope quite
+yet. You see, the scissors stuck in the
+floor this very mornin' an' it's always a reliable
+sign. There, I've got to kiss ye both
+again!"
+</p><p>
+"I don't know where we can all set,"
+lamented sister Mandana. "There ain't but
+the one chair an' the bed; t' other chair's
+too rickety; an' we've been promised another
+these ten days; but first they've forgot
+it, an' next Mis' Janes can't spare it,&mdash;one
+excuse an' another. I am goin' to git
+a stump o' wood an' nail a board on to it,
+when I can git outdoor again," said Mandana,
+in a plaintive voice. "There, I ain't
+goin' to complain o' nothin', now you've
+come," she added; and the guests sat down,
+Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one
+chair.
+</p><p>
+"We've sat on the bed many's the time
+with you, 'Beeca, an' talked over our girl
+nonsense, ain't we? You know where 't was&mdash;in
+the little back bedroom we had when
+we was girls, an' used to peek out at our
+beaux through the strings o' mornin'-glories,"
+laughed Ann Bray delightedly, her
+thin face shining more and more with
+joy. "I brought some o' them mornin'-glory
+seeds along when we come away, we'd
+raised 'em so many years; an' we got 'em
+started all right, but the hens found 'em
+out. I declare I chased them poor hens,
+foolish as 't was; but the mornin'-glories
+I'd counted on a sight to remind me o' home.
+You see, our debts was so large, after my
+long sickness an' all, that we didn't feel
+'t was right to keep back anything we could
+help from the auction."
+</p><p>
+It was impossible for any one to speak
+for a moment or two; the sisters felt their
+own uprooted condition afresh, and their
+guests for the first time really comprehended
+the piteous contrast between that
+neat little village house, which now seemed
+a palace of comfort, and this cold, unpainted
+upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse.
+It was an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble
+that the well-to-do town of Hampden
+could provide no better for its poor than
+this, and her round face flushed with resentment
+and the shame of personal responsibility.
+"The girls shall be well settled in
+the village before another winter, if I pay
+their board myself," she made an inward
+resolution, and took another almost tearful
+look at the broken stove, the miserable bed,
+and the sisters' one hair-covered trunk, on
+which Mandana was sitting. But the poor
+place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
+</p><p>
+Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently
+of the installation; it was so much easier
+to speak of general subjects, and the sisters
+had evidently been longing to hear some
+news. Since the late summer they had not
+been to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble
+asked the reason.
+</p><p>
+"Now, don't you go to pouring out our
+woes, Mandy!" begged little old Ann, looking
+shy and almost girlish, and as if she
+insisted upon playing that life was still
+all before them and all pleasure. "Don't
+you go to spoilin' their visit with our complaints!
+They know well's we do that
+changes must come, an' we'd been so
+wonted to our home things that this come
+hard at first; but then they felt for us, I
+know just as well's can be. 'T will soon be
+summer again, an' 't is real pleasant right
+out in the fields here, when there ain't too
+hot a spell. I've got to know a sight o'
+singin' birds since we come."
+</p><p>
+"Give me the folks I've always known,"
+sighed the younger sister, who looked older
+than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered.
+"You may have your birds, if you want 'em.
+I do re'lly long to go to meetin' an' see folks
+go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it,
+Ann, whatever you say. We need, each of
+us, a pair o' good stout shoes an' rubbers,&mdash;ours
+are all wore out; an' we've asked an'
+asked, an' they never think to bring 'em,
+an'"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered
+her face with her arms and sobbed aloud.
+The elder sister stood over her, and patted
+her on the thin shoulder like a child,
+and tried to comfort her. It crossed Mrs.
+Trimble's mind that it was not the first time
+one had wept and the other had comforted.
+The sad scene must have been repeated
+many times in that long, drear winter.
+She would see them forever after in her
+mind as fixed as a picture, and her own
+tears fell fast.
+</p><p>
+"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning
+little boy, the next one to the baby, did
+you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round
+quickly at last, and going cheerfully on
+with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy,
+dear; they'll think you're childish!
+He's a dear, friendly little creatur', an'
+likes to stay with us a good deal, though we
+feel's if it 't was too cold for him, now we
+are waitin' to get us more wood."
+</p><p>
+"When I think of the acres o' woodland
+in this town!" groaned Rebecca Wright.
+"I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday,
+'stead o' the minister, an' I'll make
+the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
+'What's everybody's business is nobody's
+business,' an' I've come to believe
+it."
+</p><p>
+"Now, don't you, 'Becca. You've happened
+on a kind of a poor time with us, but
+we've got more belongings than you see
+here, an' a good large cluset, where we can
+store those things there ain't room to have
+about. You an' Miss Trimble have happened
+on a kind of poor day, you know.
+Soon's I git me some stout shoes an' rubbers,
+as Mandy says, I can fetch home
+plenty o' little dry boughs o' pine; you remember
+I was always a great hand to roam in
+the woods? If we could only have a front
+room, so 't we could look out on the road an'
+see passin', an' was shod for meetin', I don'
+know's we should complain. Now we're just
+goin' to give you what we've got, an' make
+out with a good welcome. We make more
+tea 'n we want in the mornin', an' then let
+the fire go down, since 't has been so mild.
+We've got a <i>good</i> cluset" (disappearing
+as she spoke), "an' I know this to be good
+tea, 'cause it's some o' yourn, Mis' Trimble.
+An' here's our sprigged chiny cups that
+R'becca knows by sight, if Mis' Trimble
+don't. We kep' out four of 'em, an' put
+the even half dozen with the rest of the auction
+stuff. I've often wondered who 'd got
+'em, but I never asked, for fear 't would be
+somebody that would distress us. They was
+mother's, you know."
+</p><p>
+The four cups were poured, and the little
+table pushed to the bed, where Rebecca
+Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her
+eyes, came and joined her. Mrs. Trimble
+sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted
+about the room in pleased content for a while,
+and in and out of the closet, as if she still
+had much to do; then she came and stood
+opposite Mrs. Trimble. She was very short
+and small, and there was no painful sense
+of her being obliged to stand. The four cups
+were not quite full of cold tea, but there was
+a clean old tablecloth folded double, and a
+plate with three pairs of crackers neatly
+piled, and a small&mdash;it must be owned, a
+very small&mdash;piece of hard white cheese.
+Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was
+a little preserved peach, the last&mdash;Miss Rebecca
+knew it instinctively&mdash;of the household
+stores brought from their old home. It
+was very sugary, this bit of peach; and as
+she helped her guests and sister Mandy,
+Miss Ann Bray said, half unconsciously, as
+she often had said with less reason in the
+old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as
+usual this year; this is beginning to candy."
+Both the guests protested, while Rebecca
+added that the taste of it carried her back,
+and made her feel young again. The Brays
+had always managed to keep one or two
+peach-trees alive in their corner of a garden.
+"I've been keeping this preserve for a
+treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have
+you eat some, 'Becca. Last summer I often
+wished you was home an' could come an' see
+us, 'stead o' being away off to Plainfields."
+</p><p>
+The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss
+Ann took the last of the peach on her own
+cracker; there could not have been quite a
+small spoonful, after the others were helped,
+but she asked them first if they would not
+have some more. Then there was a silence,
+and in the silence a wave of tender feeling
+rose high in the hearts of the four elderly
+women. At this moment the setting sun
+flooded the poor plain room with light; the
+unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown,
+and Ann Bray, with her gray hair and
+aged face, stood at the head of the table in a
+kind of aureole. Mrs. Trimble's face was all
+aquiver as she looked at her; she thought of
+the text about two or three being gathered
+together, and was half afraid.
+</p><p>
+"I believe we ought to 've asked Mis'
+Janes if she wouldn't come up," said Ann.
+"She's real good feelin', but she's had it
+very hard, an' gits discouraged. I can't find
+that she's ever had anything real pleasant
+to look back to, as we have. There, next
+time we'll make a good heartenin' time for
+her too."
+</p>
+<br>
+<hr width="25%">
+<br><br>
+<p>
+The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by
+the gnawed fence-rail, and the cool air after
+sundown made him impatient to be gone.
+The two friends jolted homeward in the
+gathering darkness, through the stiffening
+mud, and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca
+Wright said a word until they were out of
+sight as well as out of sound of the Janes
+house. Time must elapse before they could
+reach a more familiar part of the road and
+resume conversation on its natural level.
+</p><p>
+"I consider myself to blame," insisted
+Mrs. Trimble at last. "I haven't no words
+of accusation for nobody else, an' I ain't
+one to take comfort in calling names to the
+board o' selec'<i>men</i>. I make no reproaches,
+an' I take it all on my own shoulders; but
+I'm goin' to stir about me, I tell you! I
+shall begin early to-morrow. They're goin'
+back to their own house,&mdash;it's been stand-in'
+empty all winter,&mdash;an' the town's goin'
+to give 'em the rent an' what firewood they
+need; it won't come to more than the board's
+payin' out now. An' you an' me 'll take this
+same horse an' wagon, an' ride an' go afoot
+by turns, an' git means enough together to
+buy back their furniture an' whatever was
+sold at that plaguey auction; an' then we'll
+put it all back, an' tell 'em they've got to
+move to a new place, an' just carry 'em right
+back again where they come from. An'
+don't you never tell, R'becca, but here I be
+a widow woman, layin' up what I make from
+my farm for nobody knows who, an' I'm
+goin' to do for them Bray girls all I'm a
+mind to. I should be sca't to wake up in
+heaven, an' hear anybody there ask how the
+Bray girls was. Don't talk to me about the
+town o' Hampden, an' don't ever let me hear
+the name o' town poor! I'm ashamed to go
+home an' see what's set out for supper. I
+wish I'd brought 'em right along."
+</p><p>
+"I was goin' to ask if we couldn't git the
+new doctor to go up an' do somethin' for
+poor Ann's arm," said Miss Rebecca. "They
+say he's very smart. If she could get so's
+to braid straw or hook rugs again, she'd
+soon be earnin' a little somethin'. An' may
+be he could do somethin' for Mandy's eyes.
+They did use to live so neat an' ladylike.
+Somehow I couldn't speak to tell 'em there
+that 't was I bought them six best cups an'
+saucers, time of the auction; they went very
+low, as everything else did, an' I thought I
+could save it some other way. They shall
+have 'em back an' welcome. You're real
+whole-hearted, Mis' Trimble. I expect
+Ann 'll be sayin' that her father's child'n
+wa'n't goin' to be left desolate, an' that all
+the bread he cast on the water's comin' back
+through you."
+</p><p>
+"I don't care what she says, dear creatur'!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Trimble. "I'm full
+o' regrets I took time for that installation,
+an' set there seepin' in a lot o' talk this whole
+day long, except for its kind of bringin' us
+to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart 't was
+to-morrow mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin'
+for the selec'<i>men</i>."
+</p>
+<a name="a_QuestMrTeaby"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE QUEST OF MR. TEABY.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The trees were bare on meadow and hill,
+and all about the country one saw the warm
+brown of lately fallen leaves. There was
+still a cheerful bravery of green in sheltered
+places,&mdash;a fine, live green that flattered
+the eye with its look of permanence; the
+first three quarters of the year seemed to
+have worked out their slow processes to
+make this perfect late-autumn day. In such
+weather I found even the East Wilby railroad
+station attractive, and waiting three
+hours for a slow train became a pleasure;
+the delight of idleness and even booklessness
+cannot be properly described.
+</p><p>
+The interior of the station was bleak and
+gravelly, but it would have been possible to
+find fault with any interior on such an out-of-doors
+day; and after the station-master
+had locked his ticket-office door and tried
+the handle twice, with a comprehensive look
+at me, he went slowly away up the road to
+spend some leisure time with his family.
+He had ceased to take any interest in the
+traveling public, and answered my questions
+as briefly as possible. After he had
+gone some distance he turned to look back,
+but finding that I still sat on the baggage
+truck in the sunshine, just where he left me,
+he smothered his natural apprehensions, and
+went on.
+</p><p>
+One might spend a good half hour in watching
+crows as they go southward resolutely
+through the clear sky, and then waver and
+come straggling back as if they had forgotten
+something; one might think over all
+one's immediate affairs, and learn to know
+the outward aspect of such a place as East
+Wilby as if born and brought up there.
+But after a while I lost interest in both past
+and future; there was too much landscape
+before me at the moment, and a lack of figures.
+The weather was not to be enjoyed
+merely as an end, yet there was no temptation
+to explore the up-hill road on the left, or the
+level fields on the right; I sat still on my
+baggage truck and waited for something to
+happen. Sometimes one is so happy that
+there is nothing left to wish for but to be
+happier, and just as the remembrance of
+this truth illuminated my mind, I saw two
+persons approaching from opposite directions.
+The first to arrive was a pleasant-looking
+elderly countrywoman, well wrapped
+in a worn winter cloak with a thick plaid
+shawl over it, and a white worsted cloud tied
+over her bonnet. She carried a well-preserved
+bandbox,&mdash;the outlines were perfect
+under its checked gingham cover,&mdash;and had
+a large bundle beside, securely rolled in a
+newspaper. From her dress I felt sure that
+she had made a mistake in dates, and expected
+winter to set in at once. Her face
+was crimson with undue warmth, and what
+appeared in the end to have been unnecessary
+haste. She did not take any notice
+of the elderly man who reached the platform
+a minute later, until they were near enough
+to take each other by the hand and exchange
+most cordial greetings.
+</p><p>
+"Well, this is a treat!" said the man,
+who was a small and shivery-looking person.
+He carried a great umbrella and a thin,
+enameled-cloth valise, and wore an ancient
+little silk hat and a nearly new greenish
+linen duster, as if it were yet summer. "I
+was full o' thinkin' o' you day before yisterday;
+strange, wa'n't it?" he announced
+impressively, in a plaintive voice. "I was
+sayin' to myself, if there was one livin' bein'
+I coveted to encounter over East Wilby
+way, 't was you, Sister Pinkham."
+</p><p>
+"Warm to-day, ain't it?" responded Sister
+Pinkham. "How's your health, Mr.
+Teaby? I guess I'd better set right down
+here on the aidge of the platform; sha'n't
+we git more air than if we went inside the
+depot? It's necessary to git my breath before
+I rise the hill."
+</p><p>
+"You can't seem to account for them
+foresights," continued Mr. Teaby, putting
+down his tall, thin valise and letting the
+empty top of it fold over. Then he stood
+his umbrella against the end of my baggage
+truck, without a glance at me. I was glad
+that they were not finding me in their way.
+"Well, if this ain't very sing'lar, I never
+saw nothin' that was," repeated the little
+man. "Nobody can set forth to explain
+why the thought of you should have been so
+borne in upon me day before yisterday, your
+livin' countenance an' all, an' here we be today
+settin' side o' one another. I've come
+to rely on them foresights; they've been of
+consider'ble use in my business, too."
+</p><p>
+"Trade good as common this fall?" inquired
+Sister Pinkham languidly. "You
+don't carry such a thing as a good palm-leaf
+fan amon'st your stuff, I expect? It does
+appear to me as if I hadn't been more het
+up any day this year."
+</p><p>
+"I should ha' had the observation to offer
+it before," said Mr. Teaby, with pride.
+"Yes, Sister Pinkham, I've got an excellent
+fan right here, an' you shall have it."
+</p><p>
+He reached for his bag; I heard a clink,
+as if there were bottles within. Presently
+his companion began to fan herself with that
+steady sway and lop of the palm-leaf which
+one sees only in country churches in midsummer
+weather. Mr. Teaby edged away
+a little, as if he feared such a steady trade-wind.
+</p><p>
+</p><p>
+"We might ha' picked out a shadier spot,
+on your account," he suggested. "Can't
+you unpin your shawl?"
+</p><p>
+"Not while I'm so het," answered Sister
+Pinkham coldly. "Is there anything new
+recommended for rheumatic complaints?"
+</p><p>
+"They're gittin' up new compounds right
+straight along, and sends sights o' printed
+bills urgin' of me to buy 'em. I don't beseech
+none o' my customers to take them
+strange nostrums that I ain't able to recommend."
+</p><p>
+"Some is new cotches made o' the good
+old stand-bys, I expect," said Sister Pink-ham,
+and there was a comfortable silence
+of some minutes.
+</p><p>
+"I'm kind of surprised to meet with you
+to-day, when all's said an' done; it kind
+of started me when I see 't was you, after
+dwellin' on you so day before yisterday,"
+insisted Mr. Teaby; and this time Sister
+Pinkham took heed of the interesting coincidence.
+</p><p>
+</p><p>
+"Thinkin' o' me, was you?" and she
+stopped the fan a moment, and turned to
+look at him with interest.
+</p><p>
+"I was so. Well, I never see nobody
+that kep' her looks as you do, and be'n a
+sufferer too, as one may express it."
+</p><p>
+Sister Pinkham sighed heavily, and began
+to ply the fan again. "You was sayin'
+just now that you found them foresight notions
+work into your business."
+</p><p>
+"Yes'm; I saved a valu'ble life this last
+spring. I was puttin' up my vials to start
+out over Briggsville way, an' 't was impressed
+upon me that I'd better carry a portion
+o' opodildack. I was loaded up heavy,
+had all I could lug of spring goods; salts
+an' seny, and them big-bottle spring bitters
+o' mine that folks counts on regular. I
+couldn't git the opodildack out o' my mind
+noway, and I didn't want it for nothin' nor
+nobody, but I had to remove a needed vial
+o' some kind of essence to give it place.
+When I was goin' down the lane t'wards
+Abel Dean's house, his women folks come
+flyin' out. 'Child's a-dyin' in here,' says
+they; 'tumbled down the sullar stairs.'
+They was like crazy creatur's; I give 'em
+the vial right there in the lane, an' they
+run in an' I followed 'em. Last time I was
+there the child was a-playin' out; looked
+rugged and hearty. They've never forgot
+it an' never will," said Mr. Teaby impressively,
+with a pensive look toward the horizon.
+"Want me to stop over night with
+'em any time, or come an' take the hoss, or
+anything. Mis' Dean, she buys four times
+the essences an' stuff she wants; kind o'
+gratified, you see, an' didn't want to lose
+the child, I expect, though she's got a number
+o' others. If it hadn't be'n for its
+bein' so impressed on my mind, I should
+have omitted that opodildack. I deem it a
+winter remedy, chiefly."
+</p><p>
+"Perhaps the young one would ha' come
+to without none; they do survive right
+through everything, an' then again they seem
+to be taken away right in their tracks."
+Sister Pinkham grew more talkative as she cooled. "Heard any news as you come
+along?"
+</p><p>
+"Some," vaguely responded Mr. Teaby.
+"Folks ginerally relates anythin' that's occurred
+since they see me before. I ain't no
+great hand for news, an' never was."
+</p><p>
+"Pity 'bout <i>you</i>, Uncle Teaby! There,
+anybody don't like to have deaths occur an'
+them things, and be unawares of 'em, an'
+the last to know when folks calls in." Sister
+Pinkham laughed at first, but said her
+say with spirit.
+</p><p>
+"Certain, certain, we ought all of us to
+show an interest. I did hear it reported
+that Elder Fry calculates to give up preachin'
+an' go into the creamery business another
+spring. You know he's had means
+left him, and his throat's kind o' give out;
+trouble with the pipes. I called it brown
+caters, an' explained nigh as I could without
+hurtin' of his pride that he'd bawled more 'n
+any pipes could stand. I git so wore out
+settin' under him that I feel to go an' lay
+right out in the woods arterwards, where
+it's still. 'T won't never do for him to deal
+so with callin' of his cows; they'd be so
+aggravated 't would be more 'n any butter
+business could bear."
+</p><p>
+"You hadn't ought to speak so light now;
+he's a very feelin' man towards any one
+in trouble," Sister Pinkham rebuked the
+speaker. "I set consider'ble by Elder Fry.
+You sort o' divert yourself dallying round
+the country with your essences and remedies,
+an' you ain't never sagged down with no settled
+grievance, as most do. Think o' what
+the Elder's be'n through, a-losin' o' three
+good wives. I'm one o' them that ain't
+found life come none too easy, an' Elder
+Fry's preachin' stayed my mind consider'ble."
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose you're right, if you think you
+be," acknowledged the little man humbly.
+"I can't say as I esteem myself so fortunate
+as most. I 'in a lonesome creatur', an'
+always was; you know I be. I did expect
+somebody 'd engage my affections before
+this."
+</p><p>
+"There, plenty 'd be glad to have ye."
+</p><p>
+"I expect they would, but I don't seem
+to be drawed to none on 'em," replied Mr.
+Teaby, with a mournful shake of his head.
+"I've spoke pretty decided to quite a number
+in my time, take 'em all together, but it
+always appeared best not to follow it up;
+an' so when I'd come their way again I'd
+laugh it off or somethin', in case 't was referred
+to. I see one now an' then that I
+kind o' fancy, but 't ain't the real thing."
+</p><p>
+"You mustn't expect to pick out a handsome
+gal, at your age," insisted Sister Pinkham,
+in a business-like way. "Time's past
+for all that, an' you've got the name of a
+rover. I've heard some say that you was
+rich, but that ain't every thin'. You must
+take who you can git, and look you up a
+good home; I would. If you was to be
+taken down with any settled complaint,
+you'd be distressed to be without a place o'
+your own, an' I'm glad to have this chance
+to tell ye so. Plenty o' folks is glad to take
+you in for a short spell, an' you've had an
+excellent chance to look the ground over
+well. I tell you you're beginnin' to git
+along in years."
+</p><p>
+"I know I be," said Mr. Teaby. "I
+can't travel now as I used to. I have to favor
+my left leg. I do' know but I be spoilt
+for settlin' down. This business I never
+meant to follow stiddy, in the fust place;
+'t was a means to an end, as one may say."
+</p><p>
+"Folks would miss ye, but you could
+take a good long trip, say spring an' fall,
+an' live quiet the rest of the year. What
+if they do git out o' essence o' lemon an'
+pep'mint! There's sufficient to the stores;
+'t ain't as 't used to be when you begun."
+</p><p>
+"There's Ann Maria Hart, my oldest
+sister's daughter. I kind of call it home
+with her by spells and when the travelin' 's
+bad."
+</p><p>
+"Good King Agrippy! if that's the best
+you can do, I feel for you," exclaimed the
+energetic adviser. "She's a harmless creatur'
+and seems to keep ploddin, but slack
+ain't no description, an' runs on talkin'
+about nothin' till it strikes right in an'
+numbs ye. She's pressed for house room,
+too. Hart ought to put on an addition long
+ago, but he's too stingy to live. Folks was
+tellin' me that somebody observed to him how
+he'd got a real good, stiddy man to work
+with him this summer. 'He's called a
+very pious man, too, great hand in meetin's,
+Mr. Hart,' says they; an' says he, 'I'd have
+you rec'lect he's a-prayin' out o' my time!'
+Said it hasty, too, as if he meant it."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I can put up with Hart; he's
+near, but he uses me well, an' I try to do
+the same by him. I don't bange on 'em; I
+pay my way, an' I feel as if everything was
+temp'rary. I did plan to go way over North
+Dexter way, where I've never be'n, an' see
+if there wa'n't somebody, but the weather
+ain't be'n settled as I could wish. I'm always
+expectin' to find her, I be so,"&mdash;at
+which I observed Sister Pinkham's frame
+shake.
+</p><p>
+I felt a slight reproach of conscience at
+listening so intently to these entirely private
+affairs, and at this point reluctantly left my
+place and walked along the platform, to remind
+Sister Pinkham and confiding Mr.
+Teaby of my neighborhood. They gave no
+sign that there was any objection to the
+presence of a stranger, and so I came back
+gladly to the baggage truck, and we all kept
+silence for a little while. A fine flavor of
+extracts was wafted from the valise to where
+I sat. I pictured to myself the solitary and
+hopeful wanderings of Mr. Teaby. There
+was an air about him of some distinction;
+he might have been a decayed member of
+the medical profession. I observed that his
+hands were unhardened by any sort of rural
+work, and he sat there a meek and appealing
+figure, with his antique hat and linen
+duster, beside the well-wadded round shoulders
+of friendly Sister Pinkham. The expression
+of their backs was most interesting.
+</p><p>
+"You might express it that I've got quite
+a number o' good homes; I've got me sorted
+out a few regular places where I mostly
+stop," Mr. Teaby explained presently. "I
+like to visit with the old folks an' speak o'
+the past together; an' the boys an' gals,
+they always have some kind o' fun goin' on
+when I git along. They always have to git
+me out to the barn an' tell me, if they're
+a-courtin', and I fetch an' carry for 'em in
+that case, an' help out all I can. I've made
+peace when they got into some o' their misunderstanding,
+an' them times they set a
+good deal by Uncle Teaby; but they ain't
+all got along as well as they expected, and
+that's be'n one thing that's made me desirous
+not to git fooled myself. But I do'
+know as folks would be reconciled to my
+settlin' down in one place. I've gathered a
+good many extry receipts for things, an' folks
+all calls me somethin' of a doctor; you know
+my grand'ther was one, on my mother's
+side."
+</p><p>
+"Well, you've had my counsel for what
+'t is wuth," said the woman, not unkindly.
+"Trouble is, you want better bread than's
+made o' wheat."
+</p><p>
+"I'm 'most ashamed to ask ye again if
+'t would be any use to lay the matter before
+Hannah Jane Pinkham?" This was spoken
+lower, but I could hear the gentle suggestion.
+</p><p>
+"I'm obleeged to <i>you</i>" said the lady of
+Mr. Teaby's choice, "but I ain't the right
+one. Don't you go to settin' your mind on
+me: 't ain't wuth while. I'm older than
+you be, an' apt to break down with my
+rheumatic complaints. You don't want nobody
+on your hands. I'd git a younger
+woman, I would so."
+</p><p>
+"I've be'n a-lookin' for the right one a
+sight o' years, Hannah Jane. I've had a
+kind o' notion I should know her right off
+when I fust see her, but I'm afeared it
+ain't goin' to be that way. I've seen a
+sight o' nice, smart women, but when the
+thought o' you was so impressed on my mind
+day before yisterday"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"I'm sorry to disobleege you, but if I
+have anybody, I'm kind o' half promised
+to Elder Fry," announced Sister Pinkham
+bravely. "I consider it more on the off side
+than I did at first. If he'd continued preachin'
+I'd favor it more, but I dread havin' to
+'tend to a growin' butter business an' to
+sense them new machines. 'T ain't as if he'd
+'stablished it. I've just begun to have
+things easy; but there, I feel as if I had a
+lot o' work left in me, an' I don't know's
+'t is right to let it go to waste. I expect
+the Elder would preach some, by spells, an'
+we could ride about an' see folks; an' he'd
+always be called to funerals, an' have some
+variety one way an' another. I urge him
+not to quit preachin'."
+</p><p>
+"I'd rather he ondertook 'most anythin'
+else," said Mr. Teaby, rising and trying to
+find the buttons of his linen duster.
+</p><p>
+I could see a bitter shade of jealousy
+cloud his amiable face; but Sister Pinkham
+looked up at him and laughed. "Set down,
+set down," she said. "We ain't in no great
+hurry;" and Uncle Teaby relented, and lingered.
+"I'm all out o' rose-water for the
+eyes," she told him, "an' if you've got a
+vial o' lemon left that you'll part with reasonable,
+I do' know but I'll take that. I'd
+rather have caught you when you was outward
+bound; your bag looks kind o' slim."
+</p><p>
+"Everythin' 's fresh-made just before I
+started, 'cept the ginger, an' that I buy, but
+it's called the best there is."
+</p><p>
+The two sat down and drove a succession
+of sharp bargains, but finally parted the best
+of friends. Mr. Teaby kindly recognized
+my presence from a business point of view,
+and offered me a choice of his wares at reasonable
+prices. I asked about a delightful
+jumping-jack which made its appearance,
+and wished very much to become the owner,
+for it was curiously whittled out and fitted
+together by Mr. Teaby's own hands. He
+exhibited the toy to Sister Pinkham and me,
+to our great pleasure, but scorned to sell such
+a trifle, it being worth nothing; and beside,
+he had made it for a little girl who lived two
+miles farther along the road he was following.
+I could see that she was a favorite of
+the old man's, and said no more about the
+matter, but provided myself, as recommended,
+with an ample package of court-plaster,
+"in case of accident before I got to
+where I was going," and a small bottle of
+smelling-salts, described as reviving to the
+faculties.
+</p><p>
+Then we watched Mr. Teaby plod away,
+a quaint figure, with his large valise nearly
+touching the ground as it hung slack from
+his right hand. The greenish-brown duster
+looked bleak and unseasonable as a cloud
+went over the sun; it appeared to symbolize
+the youthful and spring-like hopes of the
+wearer, decking the autumn days of life.
+</p><p>
+"Poor creatur'!" said Sister Pinkham.
+"There, he doos need somebody to look after
+him."
+</p><p>
+She turned to me frankly, and I asked
+how far he was going.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, he'll put up at that little gal's
+house an' git his dinner, and give her the
+jumpin'-jack an' trade a little; an' then he'll
+work along the road, callin' from place to
+place. He's got a good deal o' system, an'
+was a smart boy, so that folks expected he
+was goin' to make a doctor, but he kind o'
+petered out. He's long-winded an' harpin',
+an' some folks prays him by if they can;
+but there, most likes him, an' there's nobody
+would be more missed. He don't make
+no trouble for 'em; he'll take right holt an'
+help, and there ain't nobody more gentle
+with the sick. Always has some o' his nonsense
+over to me."
+</p><p>
+This was added with sudden consciousness
+that I must have heard the recent conversation,
+but we only smiled at each other, and
+good Sister Pinkham did not seem displeased.
+We both turned to look again at the small
+figure of Mr. Teaby, as he went away, with
+his queer, tripping gait, along the level road.
+</p><p>
+"Pretty day, if 't wa'n't quite so warm,"
+said Sister Pinkham, as she rose and reached
+for her bandbox and bundle, to resume her
+own journey. "There, if here ain't Uncle
+Teaby's umbrilla! He forgits everything
+that belongs to him but that old valise.
+Folks wouldn't know him if he left that.
+You may as well just hand it to Asa Briggs,
+the depot-master, when he gits back. Like's
+not the old gentleman 'll think to call for it
+as he comes back along. Here's his fan, too,
+but he won't be likely to want that this
+winter."
+</p><p>
+She looked at the large umbrella; there
+was a great deal of good material in it, but
+it was considerably out of repair.
+</p><p>
+"I don't know but I'll stop an' mend it
+up for him, poor old creatur'," she said
+slowly, with an apologetic look at me. Then
+she sat down again, pulled a large rolled-up
+needlebook from her deep and accessible
+pocket, and sewed busily for some time with
+strong stitches.
+</p><p>
+I sat by and watched her, and was glad to
+be of use in chasing her large spool of linen
+thread, which repeatedly rolled away along
+the platform. Sister Pinkham's affectionate
+thoughts were evidently following her old
+friend.
+</p><p>
+"I've a great mind to walk back with the
+umbrilla; he may need it, an' 't ain't a great
+ways," she said to me, and then looked up
+quickly, blushing like a girl. I wished she
+would, for my part, but it did not seem best
+for a stranger to give advice in such serious
+business. "I'll tell you what I will do,"
+she told me innocently, a moment afterwards.
+"I'll take the umbrilla along with
+me, and leave word with Asa Briggs I've
+got it. I go right by his house, so you
+needn't charge your mind nothin' about it."
+</p><p>
+By the time she had taken off her gold-bowed
+spectacles and put them carefully
+away and was ready to make another start,
+she had learned where I came from and
+where I was going and what my name was,
+all this being but poor return for what I
+had gleaned of the history of herself and
+Mr. Teaby. I watched Sister Pinkham
+until she disappeared, umbrella in hand, over
+the crest of a hill far along the road to the
+eastward.
+</p>
+<a name="a_TheLuckBogans"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE LUCK OF THE BOGANS.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">I.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The old beggar women of Bantry streets
+had seldom showered their blessings upon
+a departing group of emigrants with such
+hearty good will as they did upon Mike Bogan
+and his little household one May morning.
+</p><p>
+Peggy Muldoon, she of the game leg and
+green-patched eye and limber tongue,
+steadied herself well back against the battered
+wall at the street corner and gave her
+whole energy to a torrent of speech unusual
+to even her noble powers. She would not
+let Mike Bogan go to America unsaluted
+and unblessed; she meant to do full honor
+to this second cousin, once removed, on the
+mother's side.
+</p><p>
+"Yirra, Mike Bogan, is it yerself thin,
+goyn away beyant the says?" she began
+with true dramatic fervor. "Let poor owld
+Peg take her last look on your laughing face
+me darlin'. She'll be under the ground
+this time next year, God give her grace, and
+you far away lavin' to strange spades the
+worruk of hapin' the sods of her grave.
+Give me one last look at me darlin' lad wid
+his swate Biddy an' the shild. Oh that I
+live to see this day!"
+</p><p>
+Peg's companions, old Marget Dunn and
+Biddy O'Hern and no-legged Tom Whinn,
+the fragment of a once active sailor who
+propelled himself by a low truckle cart and
+two short sticks; these interesting members
+of society heard the shrill note of their
+leader's eloquence and suddenly appeared
+like beetles out of unsuspected crevices near
+by. The side car, upon which Mike Bogan
+and his wife and child were riding from
+their little farm outside the town to the
+place of departure, was stopped at the side
+of the narrow street. A lank yellow-haired
+lad, with eyes red from weeping sat swinging
+his long legs from the car side, another
+car followed, heavily laden with Mike's sister's
+family, and a mourning yet envious
+group of acquaintances footed it in the rear.
+It was an excited, picturesque little procession;
+the town was quickly aware of its presence,
+and windows went up from house to
+house, and heads came out of the second
+and third stories and even in the top attics
+all along the street. The air was thick with
+blessings, the quiet of Bantry was permanently
+broken.
+</p><p>
+"Lard bliss us and save us!" cried Peggy,
+her shrill voice piercing the chatter and
+triumphantly lifting itself in audible relief
+above the din,&mdash;"Lard bliss us an' save
+us for the flower o' Bantry is lavin' us this
+day. Break my heart wid yer goyn will ye
+Micky Bogan and make it black night to
+the one eye that's left in me gray head this
+fine mornin' o' spring. I that hushed the
+mother of you and the father of you babies
+in me arms, and that was a wake old woman
+followin' and crapin' to see yerself christened.
+Oh may the saints be good to you
+Micky Bogan and Biddy Flaherty the wife,
+and forgive you the sin an' shame of turning
+yer proud backs on ould Ireland.
+Ain't there pigs and praties enough for ye
+in poor Bantry town that her crabbedest
+childer must lave her. Oh wisha wisha, I'll
+see your face no more, may the luck o' the
+Bogans follow you, that failed none o' the
+Bogans yet. May the sun shine upon you
+and grow two heads of cabbage in the same
+sprout, may the little b'y live long and get
+him a good wife, and if she ain't good to
+him may she die from him. May every
+hair on both your heads turn into a blessed
+candle to light your ways to heaven, but not
+yit me darlin's&mdash;not yit!"
+</p><p>
+The jaunting car had been surrounded by
+this time and Mike and his wife were shaking
+hands and trying to respond impartially to
+the friendly farewells and blessings of their
+friends. There never had been such a
+leave-taking in Bantry. Peggy Muldoon
+felt that her eloquence was in danger of being
+ignored and made a final shrill appeal.
+"Who'll bury me now?" she screamed
+with a long wail which silenced the whole
+group; "who'll lay me in the grave, Micky
+bein' gone from me that always gave me the
+kind word and the pinny or trippence ivery
+market day, and the wife of him Biddy
+Flaherty the rose of Glengariff; many's the
+fine meal she's put before old Peggy Muldoon
+that is old and blind."
+</p><p>
+"Awh, give the ould sowl a pinny now,"
+said a sympathetic voice, "'t will bring you
+luck, more power to you." And Mike Bogan,
+the tears streaming down his honest
+cheeks, plunged deep into his pocket and
+threw the old beggar a broad five-shilling
+piece. It was a monstrous fortune to
+Peggy. Her one eye glared with joy, the
+jaunting car moved away while she fell flat
+on the ground in apparent excess of emotion.
+The farewells were louder for a minute&mdash;then
+they were stopped; the excitable
+neighborhood returned to its business
+or idleness and the street was still. Peggy
+rose rubbing an elbow, and said with the
+air of a queen to her retinue, "Coom away
+now poor crathurs, so we'll drink long life
+to him." And Marget Dunn and Biddy
+O'Hern and no-legged Tom Whinn with
+his truckle cart disappeared into an alley.
+</p><p>
+"What's all this whillalu?" asked a sober-looking,
+clerical gentleman who came
+riding by.
+</p><p>
+"'T is the Bogans going to Ameriky, yer
+reverence," responded Jim Kalehan, the
+shoemaker, from his low window. "The
+folks gived them their wake whilst they
+were here to enjoy it and them was the
+keeners that was goin' hippety with lame
+legs and fine joy down the convanient alley
+for beer, God bless the poor souls!"
+</p><p>
+Mike Bogan and Biddy his wife looked
+behind them again and again. Mike
+blessed himself fervently as he caught a
+last glimpse of the old church on the hill
+where he was christened and married,
+where his father and his grandfather had
+been christened and married and buried.
+He remembered the day when he had first
+seen his wife, who was there from Glengariff
+to stay with her old aunt, and coming
+to early mass, had looked to him like a
+strange sweet flower abloom on the gray
+stone pavement where she knelt. The old
+church had long stood on the steep height
+at the head of Bantry street and watched
+and waited for her children. He would
+never again come in from his little farm in
+the early morning&mdash;he never again would
+be one of the Bantry men. The golden
+stories of life in America turned to paltry
+tinsel, and a love and pride of the old country,
+never forgotten by her sons and daughters,
+burned with fierce flame on the inmost
+altar of his heart. It had all been very
+easy to dream fine dreams of wealth and
+landownership, but in that moment the
+least of the pink daisies that were just
+opening on the roadside was dearer to the
+simple-hearted emigrant than all the world
+beside.
+</p><p>
+"Lave me down for a bit of sod," he
+commanded the wondering young driver,
+who would have liked above all things to sail
+for the new world. The square of turf from
+the hedge foot, sparkling with dew and green
+with shamrock and gay with tiny flowers,
+was carefully wrapped in Mike's best Sunday
+handkerchief as they went their way.
+Biddy had covered her head with her shawl&mdash;it
+was she who had made the plan of
+going to America, it was she who was eager
+to join some successful members of her
+family who had always complained at home
+of their unjust rent and the difficulties of
+the crops. Everybody said that the times
+were going to be harder than ever that summer,
+and she was quick to catch at the inflammable
+speeches of some lawless townsfolk
+who were never satisfied with anything.
+As for Mike, the times always seemed alike,
+he did not grudge hard work and he never
+found fault with the good Irish weather.
+His nature was not resentful, he only
+laughed when Biddy assured him that the
+gorse would soon grow in the thatch of his
+head as it did on their cabin chimney. It
+was only when she said that, in America
+they could make a gentleman of baby Dan,
+that the father's blue eyes glistened and a
+look of determination came into his face.
+</p><p>
+"God grant we'll come back to it some
+day," said Mike softly. "I didn't know,
+faix indeed, how sorry I'd be for lavin' the
+owld place. Awh Biddy girl 't is many the
+weary day we'll think of the home we've
+left," and Biddy removed the shawl one instant
+from her face only to cover it again
+and burst into a new shower of tears. The
+next day but one they were sailing away
+out of Queenstown harbor to the high seas.
+Old Ireland was blurring its green and purple
+coasts moment by moment; Kinsale
+lay low, and they had lost sight of the
+white cabins on the hillsides and the pastures
+golden with furze. Hours before the
+old women on the wharves had turned
+away from them shaking their great cap
+borders. Hours before their own feet had
+trodden the soil of Ireland for the last time.
+Mike Bogan and Biddy had left home, they
+were well on their way to America. Luckily
+nobody had been with them at last to
+say good-by&mdash;they had taken a more or
+less active part in the piteous general leave-taking
+at Queenstown, but those were not
+the faces of their own mothers or brothers
+to which they looked back as the ship slid
+away through the green water.
+</p><p>
+"Well, sure, we're gone now," said Mike
+setting his face westward and tramping the
+steerage deck. "I like the say too, I belave,
+me own grandfather was a sailor, an'
+'t is a fine life for a man. Here's little Dan
+goin' to Ameriky and niver mistrustin'.
+We'll be sindin' the gossoon back again,
+rich and fine, to the owld place by and by,
+'tis thrue for us, Biddy."
+</p><p>
+But Biddy, like many another woman,
+had set great changes in motion and then
+longed to escape from their consequences.
+She was much discomposed by the ship's
+unsteadiness. She accused patient Mike of
+having dragged her away from home and
+friends. She grew very white in the face,
+and was helped to her hard steerage berth
+where she had plenty of time for reflection
+upon the vicissitudes of seafaring. As for
+Mike, he grew more and more enthusiastic
+day by day over their prospects as he sat
+in the shelter of the bulkhead and tended
+little Dan and talked with his companions
+as they sailed westward.
+</p><p>
+Who of us have made enough kindly allowance
+for the homesick quick-witted ambitious
+Irish men and women, who have
+landed every year with such high hopes on
+our shores. There are some of a worse sort,
+of whom their native country might think
+itself well rid&mdash;but what thrifty New England
+housekeeper who takes into her home
+one of the pleasant-faced little captive maids,
+from Southern Ireland, has half understood
+the change of surroundings. That was a
+life in the open air under falling showers
+and warm sunshine, a life of wit and humor,
+of lavishness and lack of provision for more
+than the passing day&mdash;of constant companionship
+with one's neighbors, and a
+cheerful serenity and lack of nervous anticipation
+born of the vicinity of the Gulf
+Stream. The climate makes the characteristics
+of Cork and Kerry; the fierce energy
+of the Celtic race in America is forced and
+stimulated by our own keen air. The
+beauty of Ireland is little hinted at by an
+average orderly New England town&mdash;many
+a young girl and many a blundering sturdy
+fellow is heartsick with the homesickness
+and restraint of his first year in this golden
+country of hard work. To so many of them
+a house has been but a shelter for the night&mdash;a
+sleeping-place: if you remember that,
+you do not wonder at fumbling fingers or
+impatience with our houses full of trinkets.
+Our needless tangle of furnishing bewilders
+those who still think the flowers that grow
+of themselves in the Irish thatch more beautiful
+than anything under the cover of our
+prosaic shingled roofs.
+</p><p>
+"Faix, a fellow on deck was telling me a
+nate story the day," said Mike to Biddy Bogan,
+by way of kindly amusement. "Says
+he to me, 'Mike,' says he, 'did ye ever hear
+of wan Pathrick O'Brien that heard some
+bla'guard tell how in Ameriky you picked
+up money in the streets?' 'No,' says I.
+'He wint ashore in a place,' says he, 'and
+he walked along and he come to a sign on
+a wall. Silver Street was on it. "I 'ont
+stap here," says he, "it ain't wort my while
+at all, at all. I'll go on to Gold Street,"
+says he, but he walked ever since and he
+ain't got there yet.'"
+</p><p>
+Biddy opened her eyes and laughed feebly.
+Mike looked so bronzed and ruddy
+and above all so happy, that she took heart.
+"We're sound and young, thanks be to
+God, and we'll earn an honest living," said
+Mike, proudly. "'T is the childher I'm
+thinkin' of all the time, an' how they'll get
+a chance the best of us niver had at home.
+God bless old Bantry forever in spite of it.
+An' there's a smart rid-headed man that has
+every bother to me why 'ont I go with him
+and keep a tidy bar. He's been in the
+same business this four year gone since he
+come out, and twenty pince in his pocket
+when he landed, and this year he took a
+month off and went over to see the ould
+folks and build 'em a dacint house intirely,
+and hire a man to farm wid 'em now the
+old ones is old. He says will I put in my
+money wid him, an he'll give me a great
+start I wouldn't have in three years else."
+</p><p>
+"Did you have the fool's head on you
+then and let out to him what manes you
+had?" whispered Biddy, fiercely and lifting
+herself to look at him.
+</p><p>
+"I did then; 't was no harm," answered
+the unsuspecting Mike.
+</p><p>
+"'T was a black-hearted rascal won the
+truth from you!" and Biddy roused her
+waning forces and that very afternoon appeared
+on deck. The red-headed man knew
+that he had lost the day when he caught her
+first scornful glance.
+</p><p>
+"God pity the old folks of him an' their
+house," muttered the sharp-witted wife to
+Mike, as she looked at the low-lived scheming
+fellow whom she suspected of treachery.
+</p><p>
+"He said thim was old clothes he was
+wearin' on the sea," apologized Mike for his
+friend, looking down somewhat consciously
+at his own comfortable corduroys. He and
+Biddy had been well to do on their little farm,
+and on good terms with their landlord the
+old squire. Poor old gentleman, it had been
+a sorrow to him to let the young people go.
+He was a generous, kindly old man, but he
+suffered from the evil repute of some shortsighted
+neighbors. "If I gave up all I had
+in the world and went to the almshouse myself,
+they would still damn me for a landlord,"
+he said, desperately one day. "But I
+never thought Mike Bogan would throw up
+his good chances. I suppose some worthless
+fellow called him stick-in-the-mud and off he
+must go."
+</p><p>
+There was some unhappiness at first for
+the young people in America. They went
+about the streets of their chosen town for a
+day or two, heavy-hearted with disappointment.
+Their old neighbors were not housed
+in palaces after all, as the letters home had
+suggested, and after a few evenings of visiting
+and giving of messages, and a few days
+of aimless straying about, Mike and Biddy
+hired two rooms at a large rent up three
+flights of stairs, and went to housekeeping.
+Litte Dan rolled down one flight the first
+day; no more tumbling on the green turf
+among the daisies for him, poor baby boy.
+His father got work at the forge of a carriage
+shop, having served a few months with
+a smith at home, and so taking rank almost
+as a skilled laborer. He was a great favorite
+speedily, his pay was good, at least it would
+have been good if he had lived on the old
+place among the fields, but he and Biddy did
+not know how to make the most of it here,
+and Dan had a baby sister presently to keep
+him company, and then another and another,
+and there they lived up-stairs in the heat, in
+the cold, in daisy time and snow time, and
+Dan was put to school and came home with
+a knowledge of sums in arithmetic which set
+his father's eyes dancing with delight, but
+with a knowledge besides of foul language
+and a brutal way of treating his little sisters
+when nobody was looking on.
+</p><p>
+Mike Bogan was young and strong when
+he came to America, and his good red blood
+lasted well, but it was against his nature to
+work in a hot half-lighted shop, and in a
+very few years he began to look pale about
+the mouth and shaky in the shoulders, and
+then the enthusiastic promises of the red-headed
+man on the ship, borne out, we must
+allow, by Mike's own observation, inclined
+him and his hard earned capital to the purchase
+of a tidy looking drinking shop on a
+side street of the town. The owner had died
+and his widow wished to go West to live with
+her son. She knew the Bogans and was a
+respectable soul in her way. She and her
+husband had kept a quiet place, everybody
+acknowledged, and everybody was thankful
+that since drinking shops must be kept, so
+decent a man as Mike Bogan was taking up
+the business.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">II.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The luck of the Bogans proved to be
+holding true in this generation. Their proverbial
+good fortune seemed to come rather
+from an absence of bad fortune than any
+special distinction granted the generation or
+two before Mike's time. The good fellow
+sometimes reminded himself gratefully of
+Peggy Muldoon's blessing, and once sent her
+a pound to keep Christmas upon. If he had
+only known it, that unworthy woman bestowed
+curses enough upon him because he
+did not repeat it the next year, to cancel any
+favors that might have been anticipated.
+Good news flew back to Bantry of his prosperity,
+and his comfortable home above the
+store was a place of reception and generous
+assistance to all the westward straying children
+of Bantry. There was a bit of garden
+that belonged to the estate, the fences were
+trig and neat, and neither Mike nor Biddy
+were persons to let things look shabby while
+they had plenty of money to keep them clean
+and whole. It was Mike who walked behind
+the priest on Sundays when the collection
+was taken. It was Mike whom good Father
+Miles trusted more than any other member
+of his flock, whom he confided in and consulted,
+whom perhaps his reverence loved
+best of all the parish because they were both
+Bantry men, born and bred. And nobody
+but Father Miles and Biddy and Mike
+Bogan knew the full extent of the father's
+and mother's pride and hope in the cleverness
+and beauty of their only son. Nothing
+was too great, and no success seemed impossible
+when they tried to picture the glorious
+career of little Dan.
+</p><p>
+Mike was a kind father to his little
+daughters, but all his hope was for Dan.
+It was for Dan that he was pleased when
+people called him Mr. Bogan in respectful
+tones, and when he was given a minor place
+of trust at town elections, he thought with
+humble gladness that Dan would have less
+cause to be ashamed of him by and by when
+he took his own place as gentleman and
+scholar. For there was something different
+about Dan from the rest of them, plain Irish
+folk that they were. Dan was his father's
+idea of a young lord; he would have liked to
+show the boy to the old squire, and see his
+look of surprise. Money came in at the
+shop door in a steady stream, there was
+plenty of it put away in the bank and Dan
+must wear well-made clothes and look like
+the best fellows at the school. He was
+handsomer than any of them, he was the
+best and quickest scholar of his class. The
+president of the great carriage company had
+said that he was a very promising boy more
+than once, and had put his hand on Mike's
+shoulder as he spoke. Mike and Biddy,
+dressed in their best, went to the school examinations
+year after year and heard their
+son do better than the rest, and saw him
+noticed and admired. For Dan's sake no
+noisy men were allowed to stay about the
+shop. Dan himself was forbidden to linger
+there, and so far the boy had clear honest
+eyes, and an affectionate way with his father
+that almost broke that honest heart with
+joy. They talked together when they went
+to walk on Sundays, and there was a plan,
+increasingly interesting to both, of going to
+old Bantry some summer&mdash;just for a treat.
+Oh happy days! They must end as summer
+days do, in winter weather.
+</p><p>
+There was an outside stair to the two upper
+stories where the Bogans lived above
+their place of business, and late one evening,
+when the shop shutters were being clasped
+together below, Biddy Bogan heard a familiar
+heavy step and hastened to hold her
+brightest lamp in the doorway.
+</p><p>
+"God save you," said his reverence Father
+Miles, who was coming up slowly, and
+Biddy dropped a decent courtesy and devout
+blessing in return. His reverence
+looked pale and tired, and seated himself
+wearily in a chair by the window&mdash;while
+Biddy coasted round by a bedroom door to
+"whist" at two wakeful daughters who
+were teasing each other and chattering in
+bed.
+</p><p>
+"'T is long since we saw you here, sir,"
+she said, respectfully. "'T is warm weather
+indade for you to be about the town, and
+folks sick an' dyin' and needing your help,
+sir. Mike'll be up now, your reverence.
+I hear him below."
+</p><p>
+Biddy had grown into a stout mother of
+a family, red-faced and bustling; there was
+little likeness left to the rose of Glengariff
+with whom Mike had fallen in love at early
+mass in Bantry church. But the change
+had been so gradual that Mike himself had
+never become conscious of any damaging
+difference. She took a fresh loaf of bread
+and cut some generous slices and put a piece
+of cheese and a knife on the table within
+reach of Father Miles's hand. "I suppose
+'tis waste of time to give you more, so it is,"
+she said to him. "Bread an' cheese and no
+better will you ate I suppose, sir," and she
+folded her arms across her breast and stood
+looking at him.
+</p><p>
+"How is the luck of the Bogans to-day?"
+asked the kind old man. "The head of the
+school I make no doubt?" and at this moment
+Mike came up the stairs and greeted
+his priest with reverent affection.
+</p><p>
+"You're looking faint, sir," he urged.
+"Biddy get a glass now, we're quite by ourselves
+sir&mdash;and I've something for sickness
+that's very soft and fine entirely."
+</p><p>
+"Well, well, this once then," answered
+Father Miles, doubtfully. "I've had a hard
+day."
+</p><p>
+He held the glass in his hand for a moment
+and then pushed it away from him
+on the table. "Indeed it's not wrong in
+itself," said the good priest looking up presently,
+as if he had made something clear to
+his mind. "The wrong is in ourselves to
+make beasts of ourselves with taking too
+much of it. I don't shame me with this
+glass of the best that you've poured for me.
+My own sin is in the coffee-pot. It wilds
+my head when I've got most use for it, and
+I'm sure of an aching pate&mdash;God forgive
+me for indulgence; but I must have it for
+my breakfast now, and then. Give me a bit
+of bread and cheese; yes, that's what I
+want Bridget," and he pushed the glass still
+farther away.
+</p><p>
+"I've been at a sorry place this night,"
+he went on a moment later, "the smell of
+the stuff can't but remind me. 'T is a comfort
+to come here and find your house so
+clean and decent, and both of you looking
+me in the face. God save all poor sinners!"
+and Mike and his wife murmured assent.
+</p><p>
+"I wish to God you were out of this business
+and every honest man with you," said
+the priest, suddenly dropping his fatherly,
+Bantry good fellowship and making his host
+conscious of the solemnity of the church altar.
+"'T is a decent shop you keep, Mike,
+my lad, I know. I know no harm of it, but
+there are weak souls that can't master themselves,
+and the drink drags them down.
+There's little use in doing away with the
+shops though. We've got to make young
+men strong enough to let drink alone. The
+drink will always be in the world. Here's
+your bright young son; what are they teaching
+him at his school, do ye know? Has
+his characther grown, do ye think Mike Bogan,
+and is he going to be a man for good,
+and to help decent things get a start and
+bad things to keep their place? I don't
+care how he does his sums, so I don't, if he
+has no characther, and they may fight about
+beer and fight about temperance and carry
+their Father Matthew flags flying high, so
+they may, and it's all no good, lessen we
+can raise the young folks up above the place
+where drink and shame can touch them.
+God grant us help," he whispered, dropping
+his head on his breast. "I'm getting to be
+an old man myself, and I've never known
+the temptation that's like a hounding devil
+to many men. I can let drink alone, God
+pity those who can't. Keep the young lads
+out from it Mike. You're a good fellow,
+you're careful, but poor human souls are
+weak, God knows!"
+</p><p>
+"'T is thrue for you indade sir!" responded
+Biddy. Her eyes were full of tears
+at Father Miles's tone and earnestness, but
+she could not have made clear to herself
+what he had said.
+</p><p>
+"Will I put a dhrap more of wather in
+it, your riverence?" she suggested, but the
+priest shook his head gently, and, taking a
+handful of parish papers out of his pocket,
+proceeded to hold conference with the master
+of the house. Biddy waited a while and
+at last ventured to clear away the good
+priest's frugal supper. She left the glass,
+but he went away without touching it, and
+in the very afterglow of his parting blessing
+she announced that she had the makings
+of a pain within, and took the cordial with
+apparent approval.
+</p><p>
+Mike did not make any comment; he was
+tired and it was late, and long past their
+bedtime.
+</p><p>
+Biddy was wide awake and talkative from
+her tonic, and soon pursued the subject of
+conversation.
+</p><p>
+"What set the father out wid talking I
+do' know?" she inquired a little ill-humoredly.
+"'T was thrue for him that we
+kape a dacint shop anyhow, an' how will it
+be in the way of poor Danny when it's finding
+the manes to put him where he is?"
+</p><p>
+"'T wa'n't that he mint at all," answered
+Mike from his pillow. "Didn't ye hear
+what he said?" after endeavoring fruitlessly
+to repeat it in his own words&mdash;"He's right,
+sure, about a b'y's getting thim books and
+having no characther. He thinks well of
+Danny, and he knows no harm of him.
+Wisha! what 'll we do wid that b'y, Biddy,
+I do' know! 'Fadther,' says he to me today,
+'why couldn't ye wait an' bring me
+into the wurruld on American soil,' says he
+'and maybe I'd been prisident,' says he,
+and 't was the thruth for him."
+</p><p>
+"I'd rather for him to be a priest meself,"
+replied the mother.
+</p><p>
+"That's what Father Miles said himself
+the other day," announced Mike wide awake
+now. "'I wish he'd the makings of a good
+priest,' said he. 'There'll soon be need of
+good men and hard picking for 'em too,'
+said he, and he let a great sigh. ''T is
+money they want and place they want, most
+o' them bla'guard b'ys in the siminary.
+'T is the old fashioned min like mesilf that
+think however will they get souls through
+this life and through heaven's gate at last,
+wid clane names and God-fearin', dacint
+names left after them.' Thim was his own
+words indade."
+</p><p>
+"Idication was his cry always," said Bridget,
+blessing herself in the dark. "'T was
+only last confission he took no note of me
+own sins while he redded himself in the
+face with why don't I kape Mary Ellen to
+the school, and myself not an hour in the
+day to rest my poor bones. 'I have to kape
+her in, to mind the shmall childer,' says I,
+an' 't was thrue for me, so it was." She
+gave a jerk under the blankets, which represented
+the courtesy of the occasion. She
+had a great respect and some awe for Father
+Miles, but she considered herself to
+have held her ground in that discussion.
+</p><p>
+"We'll do our best by them all, sure," answered
+Mike. "'T is tribbling me money I
+am ivery day," he added, gayly. "The lord-liftinant
+himsilf is no surer of a good bury-in'
+than you an' me. What if we made a
+priest of Dan intirely?" with a great outburst
+of proper pride. "A son of your own
+at the alther saying mass for you, Biddy
+Flaherty from Glengariff!"
+</p><p>
+"He's no mind for it, more's the grief,"
+answered the mother, unexpectedly, shaking
+her head gloomily on the pillow, "but
+marruk me wuds now, he'll ride in his carriage
+when I'm under the sods, give me
+grace and you too Mike Bogan! Look at
+the airs of him and the toss of his head.
+'Mother,' says he to me, 'I'm goin' to be a
+big man!' says he, 'whin I grow up. D' ye
+think anybody 'll take me fer an Irishman?'"
+</p><p>
+"Bad cess to the bla'guard fer that then!"
+said Mike. "It's spoilin' him you are. 'T is
+me own pride of heart to come from old
+Bantry, an' he lied to me yesterday gone,
+saying would I take him to see the old
+place. Wisha! he's got too much tongue,
+and he's spindin' me money for me."
+</p><p>
+But Biddy pretended to be falling asleep.
+This was not the first time that the honest
+pair had felt anxiety creeping into their pride
+about Dan. He frightened them sometimes;
+he was cleverer than they, and the mother
+had already stormed at the boy for his misdemeanors,
+in her garrulous fashion, but covered
+them from his father notwithstanding.
+She felt an assurance of the merely temporary
+damage of wild oats; she believed it
+was just as well for a boy to have his freedom
+and his fling. She even treated his
+known lies as if they were truth. An easy-going
+comfortable soul was Biddy, who with
+much shrewdness and only a trace of shrewishness
+got through this evil world as best
+she might.
+</p><p>
+The months flew by. Mike Bogan was a
+middle-aged man, and he and his wife looked
+somewhat elderly as they went to their pew in
+the broad aisle on Sunday morning. Danny
+usually came too, and the girls, but Dan
+looked contemptuous as he sat next his
+father and said his prayers perfunctorily.
+Sometimes he was not there at all, and Mike
+had a heavy heart under his stiff best coat.
+He was richer than any other member of
+Father Miles's parish, and he was known
+and respected everywhere as a good citizen.
+Even the most ardent believers in the temperance
+cause were known to say that little
+mischief would be done if all the rumsellers
+were such men as Mr. Bogan. He was generous
+and in his limited way public spirited.
+He did his duty to his neighbor as he saw it.
+Every one used liquor more or less, somebody
+must sell it, but a low groggery was as much
+a thing of shame to him as to any man. He
+never sold to boys, or to men who had had too
+much already. His shop was clean and wholesome,
+and in the evening when a dozen or
+more of his respectable acquaintances gathered
+after work for a social hour or two and
+a glass of whiskey to rest and cheer them
+after exposure, there was not a little good
+talk about affairs from their point of view,
+and plenty of honest fun. In their own
+houses very likely the rooms were close and
+hot, and the chairs hard and unrestful. The
+wife had taken her bit of recreation by daylight
+and visited her friends. This was their
+comfortable club-room, Mike Bogan's shop,
+and Mike himself the leader of the assembly.
+There was a sober-mindedness in the
+man; his companions were contented though
+he only looked on tolerantly at their fun, for
+the most part, without taking any active
+share himself.
+</p><p>
+One cool October evening the company was
+well gathered in, there was even a glow
+of wood fire in the stove, and two of the old
+men were sitting close beside it. Corny Sullivan
+had been a soldier in the British army
+for many years, he had been wounded at
+last at Sebastopol, and yet here he was, full
+of military lore and glory, and propped by a
+wooden leg. Corny was usually addressed
+an Timber-toes by his familiars; he was an
+irascible old follow to deal with, but as clean
+as a whistle from long habit and even stately
+to look at in his arm-chair. He had a
+nephew with whom he made his home, who
+would give him an arm presently and get him
+home to bed. His mate was an old sailor
+much bent in the back by rheumatism, Jerry
+Bogan; who, though no relation, was tenderly
+treated by Mike, being old and poor.
+His score was never kept, but he seldom
+wanted for his evening grog. Jerry Bogan
+was a cheerful soul; the wit of the Celts and
+their pathetic wilfulness were delightful in
+him. The priest liked him, the doctor half
+loved him, this old-fashioned Irishman who
+had a graceful compliment or a thrust of
+wit for whoever came in his way. What a
+treasury of old Irish lore and legend was
+this old sailor! What broadness and good
+cheer and charity had been fostered in his
+sailor heart! The delight of little children
+with his clever tales and mysterious performances
+with bits of soft pine and a sharp
+jackknife, a very Baron Munchausen of adventure,
+and here he sat, round backed and
+head pushed forward like an old turtle,
+by the fire. The other men sat or stood
+about the low-walled room. Mike was serving
+his friends; there was a clink of glass
+and a stirring and shaking, a pungent odor
+of tobacco, and much laughter.
+</p><p>
+"Soombody, whoiver it was, thrun a cat
+down in Tom Auley's well las' night," announced
+Corny Sullivan with more than
+usual gravity.
+</p><p>
+"They'll have no luck thin," says Jerry.
+"Anybody that meddles wid wather 'ill have
+no luck while they live, faix they 'ont thin."
+</p><p>
+"Tom Auley's been up watchin' this three
+nights now," confides the other old gossip.
+"Thim dirty b'y's troublin' his pigs in the
+sthy, and having every stramash about the
+place, all for revinge upon him for gettin'
+the police afther thim when they sthole his
+hins. 'T was as well for him too, they're
+dirty bligards, the whole box and dice of
+them."
+</p><p>
+"Whishper now!" and Jerry pokes his
+great head closer to his friend. "The divil
+of 'em all is young Dan Bogan, Mike's son.
+Sorra a bit o' good is all his schoolin', and
+Mike's heart 'll be soon broke from him. I
+see him goin' about wid his nose in the air.
+He's a pritty boy, but the divil is in him an'
+'t is he ought to have been a praste wid his
+chances and Father Miles himself tarkin and
+tarkin wid him tryin' to make him a crown
+of pride to his people after all they did for
+him. There was niver a spade in his hand
+to touch the ground yet. Look at his poor
+father now! Look at Mike, that's grown
+old and gray since winther time." And they
+turned their eyes to the bar to refresh their
+memories with the sight of the disappointed
+face behind it.
+</p><p>
+There was a rattling at the door-latch just
+then and loud voices outside, and as the old
+men looked, young Dan Bogan came stumbling
+into the shop. Behind him were two
+low fellows, the worst in the town, they had
+all been drinking more than was good for
+them, and for the first time Mike Bogan saw
+his only son's boyish face reddened and
+stupid with whiskey. It had been an unbroken
+law that Dan should keep out of the
+shop with his comrades; now he strode forward
+with an absurd travesty of manliness,
+and demanded liquor for himself and his
+friends at his father's hands.
+</p><p>
+Mike staggered, his eyes glared with
+anger. His fatherly pride made him long
+to uphold the poor boy before so many witnesses.
+He reached for a glass, then he
+pushed it away&mdash;and with quick step
+reached Dan's side, caught him by the collar,
+and held him. One or two of the spectators
+chuckled with weak excitement, but
+the rest pitied Mike Bogan as he would have
+pitied them.
+</p><p>
+The angry father pointed his son's companions
+to the door, and after a moment's
+hesitation they went skulking out, and father
+and son disappeared up the stairway. Dan
+was a coward, he was glad to be thrust into
+his own bedroom upstairs, his head was
+dizzy, and he muttered only a feeble oath.
+Several of Mike Bogan's customers had
+kindly disappeared when he returned trying
+to look the same as ever, but one after
+another the great tears rolled down his
+cheeks. He never had faced despair till
+now; he turned his back to the men, and
+fumbled aimlessly among the bottles on the
+shelf. Some one came, in unconscious of the
+pitiful scene, and impatiently repeated his
+order to the shopkeeper.
+</p><p>
+"God help me, boys, I can't sell more
+this night!" he said brokenly. "Go home
+now and lave me to myself."
+</p><p>
+They were glad to go, though it cut the
+evening short. Jerry Bogan bundled his
+way last with his two canes. "Sind the b'y
+to say," he advised in a gruff whisper.
+"Sind him out wid a good captain now,
+Mike,'t will make a man of him yet."
+</p><p>
+A man of him yet! alas, alas&mdash;for the
+hopes that had been growing so many years.
+Alas for the pride of a simple heart, alas
+for the day Mike Bogan came away from
+sunshiny old Bantry with his baby son in
+his arms for the sake of making that son a
+gentleman.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">III.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Winter had fairly set in, but the snow
+had not come, and the street was bleak and
+cold. The wind was stinging men's faces
+and piercing the wooden houses. A hard
+night for sailors coming on the coast&mdash;a
+bitter night for poor people everywhere.
+</p><p>
+From one house and another the lights
+went out in the street where the Bogans
+lived; at last there was no other lamp than
+theirs, in a window that lighted the outer
+stairs. Sometimes a woman's shadow passed
+across the curtain and waited there, drawing
+it away from the panes a moment as if
+to listen the better for a footstep that did
+not come. Poor Biddy had waited many a
+night before this. Her husband was far
+from well, the doctor said that his heart
+was not working right, and that he must be
+very careful, but the truth was that Mike's
+heart was almost broken by grief. Dan
+was going the downhill road, he had been
+drinking harder and harder, and spending a
+great deal of money. He had smashed more
+than one carriage and lamed more than one
+horse from the livery stables, and he had
+kept the lowest company in vilest dens. Now
+he threatened to go to New York, and it had
+come at last to being the only possible joy
+that he should come home at any time of
+night rather than disappear no one knew
+where. He had laughed in Father Miles's
+face when the good old man, after pleading
+with him, had tried to threaten him.
+</p><p>
+Biddy was in an agony of suspense as the
+night wore on. She dozed a little only to
+wake with a start, and listen for some welcome
+sound out in the cold night. Was
+her boy freezing to death somewhere?
+Other mothers only scolded if their sons
+were wild, but this was killing her and
+Mike, they had set their hopes so high.
+Mike was groaning dreadfully in his sleep
+to-night&mdash;the fire was burning low, and
+she did not dare to stir it. She took her
+worn rosary again and tried to tell its beads.
+"Mother of Pity, pray for us!" she said,
+wearily dropping the beads in her lap.
+</p><p>
+There was a sound in the street at last,
+but it was not of one man's stumbling feet,
+but of many. She was stiff with cold, she
+had slept long, and it was almost day. She
+rushed with strange apprehension to the
+doorway and stood with the flaring lamp
+in her hand at the top of the stairs. The
+voices were suddenly hushed. "Go for
+Father Miles!" said somebody in a hoarse
+voice, and she heard the words. They were
+carrying a burden, they brought it tip to
+the mother who waited. In their arms lay
+her son stone dead; he had been stabbed in
+a fight, he had struck a man down who had
+sprung back at him like a tiger. Dan, little
+Dan, was dead, the luck of the Bogans,
+the end was here, and a wail that pierced
+the night, and chilled the hearts that heard
+it, was the first message of sorrow to the
+poor father in his uneasy sleep.
+</p><p>
+The group of men stood by&mdash;some of
+them had been drinking, but they were all
+awed and shocked. You would have believed
+every one of them to be on the side
+of law and order. Mike Bogan knew that
+the worst had happened. Biddy had rushed
+to him and fallen across the bed; for one
+minute her aggravating shrieks had stopped;
+he began to dress himself, but he was shaking
+too much; he stepped out to the kitchen
+and faced the frightened crowd.
+</p><p>
+"Is my son dead, then?" asked Mike
+Bogan of Bantry, with a piteous quiver of
+the lip, and nobody spoke. There was
+something glistening and awful about his
+pleasant Irish face. He tottered where he
+stood, he caught at a chair to steady himself.
+"The luck o' the Bogans is it?" and
+he smiled strangely, then a fierce hardness
+came across his face and changed it utterly.
+"Come down, come down!" he shouted,
+and snatching the key of the shop went
+down the stairs himself with great sure-footed
+leaps. What was in Mike? was he
+crazy with grief? They stood out of his
+way and saw him fling out bottle after bottle
+and shatter them against the wall.
+They saw him roll one cask after another to
+the doorway, and out into the street in the
+gray light of morning, and break through
+the staves with a heavy axe. Nobody dared
+to restrain his fury&mdash;there was a devil in
+him, they were afraid of the man in his
+blinded rage The odor of whiskey and
+gin filled the cold air&mdash;some of them would
+have stolen the wasted liquor if they could,
+but no man there dared to move or speak,
+and it was not until the tall figure of Father
+Miles came along the street, and the patient
+eyes that seemed always to keep vigil, and
+the calm voice with its flavor of Bantry
+brogue, came to Mike Bogan's help, that he
+let himself be taken out of the wrecked shop
+and away from the spilt liquors to the shelter
+of his home.
+</p><p>
+A week later he was only a shadow of his
+sturdy self, he was lying on his bed dreaming
+of Bantry Bay and the road to Glengariff&mdash;the
+hedge roses were in bloom, and
+he was trudging along the road to see
+Biddy. He was working on the old farm
+at home and could not put the seed potatoes
+in their trench, for little Dan kept falling in
+and getting in his way. "Dan's not going
+to be plagued with the bad craps," he muttered
+to Father Miles who sat beside the bed.
+"Dan will be a fine squire in Ameriky,"
+but the priest only stroked his hand as it
+twitched and lifted on the coverlet. What
+was Biddy doing, crying and putting the
+candles about him? Then Mike's poor
+brain grew steady.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, my God, if we were back in Bantry!
+I saw the gorse bloomin' in the
+t'atch d' ye know. Oh wisha wisha the poor
+ould home an' the green praties that day
+we come from it&mdash;with our luck smilin' us
+in the face."
+</p><p>
+"Whist darlin': kape aisy darlin'!"
+mourned Biddy, with a great sob. Father
+Miles sat straight and stem in his chair
+by the pillow&mdash;he had said the prayers for
+the dying, and the holy oil was already
+shining on Mike Bogan's forehead. The
+keeners were swaying themselves to and fro,
+there where they waited in the next room.
+</p>
+<a name="a_FairDay"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">FAIR DAY.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Widow Mercy Bascom came back alone
+into the empty kitchen and seated herself in
+her favorite splint-bottomed chair by the
+window, with a dreary look on her face.
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose I be an old woman, an' past
+goin' to cattle shows an' junketings, but
+folks needn't take it so for granted. I'm
+sure I don't want to be on my feet all day,
+trapesin' fair grounds an' swallowin' everybody's
+dust; not but what I'm as able as
+most, though I be seventy-three year old."
+</p><p>
+She folded her hands in her lap and
+looked out across the deserted yard. There
+was not even a hen in sight; she was left
+alone for the day. "Tobias's folks," as she
+called the son's family with whom she made
+her home&mdash;Tobias's folks had just started
+for a day's pleasuring at the county fair, ten
+miles distant. She had not thought of going
+with them, nor expected any invitation; she
+had even helped them off with her famous
+energy; but there was an unexpected reluctance
+at being left behind, a sad little feeling
+that would rise suddenly in her throat as she
+stood in the door and saw them drive away
+in the shiny, two-seated wagon. Johnny,
+the youngest and favorite of her grandchildren,
+had shouted back in his piping voice,
+"I wish you was goin', Grandma."
+</p><p>
+"The only one on 'em that thought of
+me," said Mercy Bascom to herself, and then
+not being a meditative person by nature, she
+went to work industriously and proceeded to
+the repairing of Tobias's work-day coat. It
+was sharp weather now in the early morning,
+and he would soon need the warmth of it.
+Tobias's placid wife never anticipated and
+always lived in a state of trying to catch up
+with her work. It never had been the elder
+woman's way, and Mercy reviewed her own
+active career with no mean pride. She had
+been left a widow at twenty-eight, with four
+children and a stony New Hampshire farm,
+but had bravely won her way, paid her
+debts, and provided the three girls and their
+brother Tobias with the best available
+schooling.
+</p><p>
+For a woman of such good judgment and
+high purpose in life, Mrs. Bascom had made
+a very unwise choice in marrying Tobias
+Bascom the elder. He was not even the
+owner of a good name, and led her a terrible
+life with his drunken shiftlessness, and hindrance
+of all her own better aims. Even
+while the children were babies, however, and
+life was at its busiest and most demanding
+stages, the determined soul would not be
+baffled by such damaging partnership. She
+showed the plainer of what stuff she was
+made, and simply worked the harder and
+went her ways more fiercely. If it were sometimes
+whispered that she was unamiable, her
+wiser neighbors understood the power of will
+that was needed to cope with circumstances
+that would have crushed a weaker woman.
+As for her children, they were very fond of
+her in the undemonstrative New England
+fashion. Only the two eldest could remember
+their father at all, and after he was removed
+from this world Tobias Bascom left
+but slight proofs of having ever existed at
+all, except in the stern lines and premature
+aging of his wife's face.
+</p><p>
+The years that followed were years of
+hard work on the little farm, but diligence
+and perseverance had their reward. When
+the three daughters came to womanhood
+they were already skilled farmhouse keepers,
+and were dispatched for their own homes
+well equipped with feather-beds and homespun
+linen and woolen. Mercy Bascom was
+glad to have them well settled, if the truth
+were known. She did not like to have her
+own will and law questioned or opposed, and
+when she sat down to supper alone with her
+son Tobias, after the last daughter's wedding,
+she had a glorious feeling of peace and
+satisfaction.
+</p><p>
+"There's a sight o' work left yet in the
+old ma'am," she said to Tobias, in an unwontedly
+affectionate tone. "I guess we
+shall keep house together as comfortable as
+most folks." But Tobias grew very red in
+the face and bent over his plate.
+</p><p>
+"I don' know's I want the girls to get
+ahead of me," he said sheepishly. "I ain't
+meanin' to put you out with another wedding
+right away, but I've been a-lookin' round,
+an' I guess I've found somebody to suit
+<i>me</i>."
+</p><p>
+Mercy Bascom turned cold with misery
+and disappointment. "Why T'bias," she
+said, anxiously, "folks always said that you
+was cut out for an old bachelor till I come
+to believe it, an' I've been lottin' on"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Course nobody's goin' to wrench me an'
+you apart," said Tobias gallantly. "I made
+up my mind long ago you an' me was yoke-mates,
+mother. An' I had it in my mind to
+fetch you somebody that would ease you o'
+quite so much work now 'Liza's gone off."
+</p><p>
+"I don't want nobody," said the grieved
+woman, and she could eat no more supper;
+that festive supper for which she had cooked
+her very best. Tobias was sorry for her,
+but he had his rights, and now simply felt
+light-hearted because he had freed his mind
+of this unwelcome declaration. Tobias was
+slow and stolid to behold, but he was a man
+of sound ideas and great talent for farming.
+He had found it difficult to choose between
+his favorites among the marriageable girls,
+a bright young creature who was really too
+good for him, but penniless, and a weaker
+damsel who was heiress to the best farm in
+town. The farm won the day at last; and
+Mrs. Bascom felt a thrill of pride at her son's
+worldly success; then she asked to know
+her son's plans, and was wholly disappointed.
+Tobias meant to sell the old place; he had
+no idea of leaving her alone as she wistfully
+complained; he meant to have her make a
+new home at the Bassett place with him and
+his bride.
+</p><p>
+That she would never do: the old place
+which had given them a living never should
+be left or sold to strangers. Tobias was not
+prepared for her fierce outburst of reproach
+at the mere suggestion. She would live alone
+and pay her way as she always had done,
+and so it was, for a few years of difficulties.
+Tobias was never ready to plough or plant
+when she needed him; his own great farm
+was more than he could serve properly. It
+grew more and more difficult to hire workmen,
+and they were seldom worth their
+wages. At last Tobias's wife, who was a
+kindly soul, persuaded her reluctant mother-in-law
+to come and spend a winter; the old
+woman was tired and for once disheartened;
+she found herself deeply in love with her
+grandchildren, and so next spring she let
+the little hill farm on the halves to an impecunious
+but hard-working young couple.
+</p><p>
+To everybody's surprise the two women
+lived together harmoniously. Tobias's wife
+did everything to please her mother-in-law
+except to be other than a Bassett. And
+Mercy, for the most part, ignored this misfortune,
+and rarely was provoked into calling
+it a fault. Now that the necessity for
+hard work and anxiety was past, she appeared
+to have come to an Indian summer
+shining-out of her natural amiability and tolerance.
+She was sometimes indirectly reproachful
+of her daughter's easy-going ways,
+and set an indignant example now and then
+by a famous onslaught of unnecessary work,
+and always dressed and behaved herself in
+plainest farm fashion, while Mrs. Tobias was
+given to undue worldliness and style. But
+they worked well together in the main, for, to
+use Mercy's own words, she "had seen enough
+of life not to want to go into other folks'
+houses and make trouble."
+</p><p>
+As people grow older their interests are
+apt to become fewer, and one of the thoughts
+that came oftenest to Mercy Bascom in her
+old age was a time-honored quarrel with one
+of her husband's sisters, who had been her
+neighbor many years before, and then moved
+to greater prosperity at the other side of the
+county. It is not worth while to tell the long
+story of accusations and misunderstandings,
+but while the two women did not meet for
+almost half a lifetime the grievance was as
+fresh as if it were yesterday's. Wrongs of
+defrauded sums of money and contested
+rights in unproductive acres of land, wrongs
+of slighting remarks and contempt of equal
+claims; the remembrance of all these was
+treasured as a miser fingers his gold. Mercy
+Bascom freed herself from the wearisome
+detail of every-day life whenever she could
+find a patient listener to whom to tell the
+long story. She found it as interesting as a
+story of the Arabian Nights, or an exciting
+play at the theatre. She would have you
+believe that she was faultless in the matter,
+and would not acknowledge that her sister-in-law
+Ruth Bascom, now Mrs. Parlet, was
+also a hard-working woman with dependent
+little children at the time of the great fray.
+Of late years her son had suspected that
+his mother regretted the alienation, but he
+knew better than to suggest a peace-making.
+"Let them work&mdash;let them work!" he told
+his wife, when she proposed one night to
+bring the warring sisters-in-law unexpectedly
+together. It may have been that old
+Mercy began to feel a little lonely and would
+be glad to have somebody of her own age
+with whom to talk over old times. She never
+had known the people much in this Bassett
+region, and there were few but young folks
+left at any rate.
+</p><p>
+As the pleasure-makers hastened toward
+the fair that bright October morning Mercy
+sat by the table sewing at a sufficient patch
+in the old coat. There was little else to do
+all day but to get herself a luncheon at noon
+and have supper ready when the family
+came home cold and tired at night. The
+two cats came purring about her chair; one
+persuaded her to open the cellar door, and
+the other leaped to the top of the kitchen table
+unrebuked, and blinked herself to sleep
+there in the sun. This was a favored kitten
+brought from the old home, and seemed like
+a link between the old days and these. Her
+mistress noticed with surprise that pussy was
+beginning to look old, and she could not resist
+a little sigh. "Land! the next world
+may seem dreadful new too, and I've got to
+get used to that," she thought with a grim
+smile of foreboding. "How do folks live
+that wants always to be on the go? There
+was Ruth Parlet, that must be always a visitin'
+and goin'&mdash;well, I won't say that there
+wasn't a time when I wished for the chance."
+Justice always won the day in such minor
+questions as this.
+</p><p>
+Ruth Parlet's name started the usual
+thoughts, but somehow or other Mercy could
+not find it in her heart to be as harsh as
+usual. She remembered one thing after another
+about their girlhood together. They
+had been great friends then, and the animosity
+may have had its root in the fact that
+Ruth helped forward her brother's marriage.
+But there were years before that of friendly
+foregathering and girlish alliances and rivalries;
+spinning and herb gathering and quilting.
+It seemed, as Mercy thought about it,
+that Ruth was good company after all. But
+what did make her act so, and turn right
+round later on?
+</p><p>
+The morning grew warm, and at last Mrs.
+Bascom had to open the window to let out
+the buzzing flies and an imprisoned wild
+bee. The patch was finished and the elbow
+would serve Tobias as good as new. She
+laid the coat over a chair and put her bent
+brass thimble into the paper-collar box that
+served as work-basket. She used to have a
+queer splint basket at the old place, but it
+had been broken under something heavier
+when her household goods were moved.
+Some of the family had long been tired of
+hearing that basket regretted, and another
+had never been found worthy to take its
+place. The thimble, the smooth mill bobbin
+on which was wound black linen thread, the
+dingy lump of beeswax, and a smart leather
+needle-book, which Johnny had given her the
+Christmas before, all looked ready for use,
+but Mrs. Bascom pushed them farther back
+on the table and quickly rose to her feet.
+"'T ain't nine o'clock yet," she said, exultantly.
+"I'll just take a couple o' crackers
+in my pocket and step over to the old place.
+I'll take my time and be back soon enough
+to make 'em that pan o' my hot gingerbread
+they'll be counting on for supper."
+</p><p>
+Half an hour later one might have seen a
+bent figure lock the side door of the large
+farmhouse carefully, trying the latch again
+and again to see if it were fast, putting the
+key into a safe hiding-place by the door, and
+then stepping away up the road with eager
+determination. "I ain't felt so like a jaunt
+this five year," said Mercy to herself, "an'
+if Tobias was here an' Ann, they'd take all
+the fun out fussin' and talkin', an' bein'
+afeard I'd tire myself, or wantin' me to ride
+over. I do like to be my own master once
+in a while."
+</p><p>
+The autumn day was glorious, with a fine
+flavor of fruit and ripeness in the air. The
+sun was warm, there was a cool breeze from
+the great hills, and far off across the wide
+valley the old woman could see her little
+gray house on its pleasant eastern slope;
+she could even trace the outline of the two
+small fields and large pasture. "I done well
+with it, if I wasn't nothin' but a woman
+with four dependin' on me an' no means,"
+said Mercy proudly as she came in full sight
+of the old place. It was a long drive from
+one farm to the other by roundabout highways,
+but there was a footpath known to the
+wayfarer which took a good piece off the distance.
+"Now, ain't this a sight better than
+them hustlin' fairs?" Mercy asked gleefully
+as she felt herself free and alone in the wide
+meadow-land. She had long been promising
+little Johnny to take him over to Gran'ma's
+house, as she loved to call it still. She could
+not help thinking longingly how much he
+would enjoy this escapade. "Why, I'm
+running away just like a young-one, that's
+what I be," she exclaimed, and then laughed
+aloud for very pleasure.
+</p><p>
+The weather-beaten farmhouse was deserted
+that day, as its former owner suspected.
+She boldly gathered some of her
+valued spice-apples, with an assuring sense
+of proprietorship as she crossed the last narrow
+field. The Browns, man and wife and
+little boy and baby, had hied them early to
+the fair with nearly the whole population of
+the countryside. The house and yard and
+out-buildings never had worn such an aspect
+of appealing pleasantness as when Mercy
+Bascom came near. She felt as if she were
+going to cry for a minute, and then hurried
+to get inside the gate. She saw the outgoing
+track of horses' feet with delight, but
+went discreetly to the door and knocked, to
+make herself perfectly sure that there was
+no one left at home. Out of breath and
+tired as she was, she turned to look off at the
+view. Yes, there was Tobias's place, prosperous
+and white-painted; she could just get
+a glimpse of the upper roofs and gables. It
+was always a sorrow and complaint that a
+low hill kept her from looking up at this
+farm from any of the windows, but now that
+she was at the farm itself she found herself
+regarding Tobias's home with a good deal of
+affection. She looked sharply with an apprehension
+of fire, but there was no whiff of
+alarming smoke against the dear sky.
+</p><p>
+"Now I must git me a drink o' that water
+first of anything," and she hastened to the
+creaking well-sweep and lowered the bucket.
+There was the same rusty, handleless tin dipper
+that she had left years before, standing
+on the shelf inside the well-curb. She was
+proud to find that the bucket was no heavier
+than ever, and was heartily thankful for the
+clear water. There never was such a well
+as that, and it seemed as if she had not
+been away a day. "What an old gal I be,"
+said Mercy, with plaintive merriment.
+"Well, they ain't made no great changes
+since I was here last spring," and then she
+went over and held her face close against
+one of the kitchen windows, and took a hungry
+look at the familiar room. The bedroom
+door was open and a new sense of attachment
+to the place filled her heart. "It
+seems as if I was locked out o' my own
+home," she whispered as she looked in.
+</p><p>
+There were the same old spruce and pine
+boards that she had scrubbed so many
+times and trodden thin as she hurried to
+and fro about her work. It was very
+strange to see an unfamiliar chair or two,
+but the furnishings of a farm kitchen were
+much the same, and there was no great
+change. Even the cradle was like that cradle
+in which her own children had been
+rocked. She gazed and gazed, poor old
+Mother Bascom, and forgot the present as
+her early life came back in vivid memories.
+At last she turned away from the window
+with a sigh.
+</p><p>
+The flowers that she had planted herself
+long ago had bloomed all summer in the
+garden; there were still some ragged
+sailors and the snowberries and phlox and
+her favorite white mallows, of which she
+picked herself a posy. "I'm glad the old
+place is so well took care of," she thought,
+gratefully. "An' they've new-silled the old
+barn I do declare, and battened the cracks
+to keep the dumb creatures warm. 'T was
+a sham-built barn anyways, but 't was the
+best I could do when the child'n needed
+something every handturn o' the day. It
+put me to some expense every year, tinkering
+of it up where the poor lumber warped
+and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope
+with things and gettin' the better of my disadvantages!
+The ground's too rich for me
+over there to Tobias's; I don't want things
+too easy, for my part. I feel most as young
+as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play
+helpless, not for nobody.
+</p><p>
+"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here
+by an' by a spell an' stop with the young
+folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their
+work. I ain't needed all the time to Tobias'
+s now, and they can hire help, while
+these can't. I've been favoring myself till
+I'm as soft as an old hoss that's right out
+of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without
+wheezin'."
+</p><p>
+There was a sense of companionship in
+the very weather. The bees were abroad as
+if it were summer, and a flock of little birds
+came fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom
+as she sat on the doorstep. She remembered
+the biscuits in her pocket and ate
+them with a hunger she had seldom known
+of late, but she threw the crumbs generously
+to her feathered neighbors. The
+soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of the
+wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of
+relationship to her surroundings all served
+to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful
+state. There was only one thought that
+would not let her be quite happy. She
+could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet
+out of her mind. And strangely enough
+the old grudge did not present itself with
+the usual power of aggravation; it was of
+their early friendship and Ruth's good fellowship
+that memories would come.
+</p><p>
+"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to
+the folks, but I should like to have a good
+visit with Ruth if so be that we could set
+aside the past," she said, resolutely at last.
+"I never thought I should come to it, but
+if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do
+nothin' to hinder it. Not to say but what I
+should have to free my mind on one or two
+points before we could start fair. I've
+waited forty year to make one remark to
+Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin'
+to be old folks." Mercy rebuked herself
+gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard
+feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the
+culmination of a long, slow process of reconciliation,
+or whether Mrs. Bascom's
+placid satisfaction helped to hasten it by
+many stages, nobody could say. As she sat
+there she thought of many things; her life
+spread itself out like a picture; perhaps
+never before had she been able to detach
+herself from her immediate occupation in
+this way. She never had been aware of
+her own character and exploits to such a
+degree, and the minutes sped by as she
+thought with deep interest along the course
+of her own history. There was nothing she
+was ashamed of to an uncomfortable degree
+but the long animosity between herself and
+the children's aunt. How harsh she had
+been sometimes; she had even tried to prejudice
+everybody who listened to these tales
+of an offender. "I wa'n't more 'n half
+right, now I come to look myself full in the
+face," said Mercy Bascom, "and I never
+owned it till this day."
+</p><p>
+The sun was already past noon, and the
+good woman dutifully rose and with instant
+consciousness of resource glanced in at the
+kitchen window to tell the time by a familiar
+mark on the floor. "I needn't start
+just yet," she muttered. "Oh my! how I
+do wish I could git in and poke round into
+every corner! 'T would make this day just
+perfect."
+</p><p>
+"There now!" she continued, "p'raps
+they leave the key just where our folks
+used to." And in another minute the key
+lay in Mercy's worn old hand. She gave
+a shrewd look along the road, opened the
+door, which creaked what may have been a
+hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear
+old kitchen. She had not been in the house
+alone since she left it, but now she was
+nobody's guest. It was like some shell-fish
+finding its own old shell again and settling
+comfortably into the convolutions. Even we
+must not follow Mother Bascom about from
+the dark cellar to the hot little attic. She
+was not curious about the Browns' worldly
+goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious
+of anything but the comfort of going up
+and down the short flight of stairs and looking
+out of her own windows with nobody to
+watch.
+</p><p>
+"There's the place where Tobias scratched
+the cupboard door with a nail. Didn't I
+thrash him for it good?" she said once
+with a proud remembrance of the time when
+she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he
+dependent.
+</p><p>
+At length a creeping fear stole over her
+lest the family might return. She stopped
+one moment to look back into the little bedroom.
+"How good I did use to sleep here,"
+she said. "I worked as stout as I could
+the day through, and there wa'n't no wakin'
+up by two o'clock in the morning, and
+smellin' for fire and harkin' for thieves like
+I have to nowadays."
+</p><p>
+Mercy stepped away down the long sloping
+field like a young woman. It was a
+long walk back to Tobias's, even if one followed
+the pleasant footpaths across country.
+She was heavy-footed, but entirely light-hearted
+when she came safely in at the gate
+of the Bassett place. "I've done extra for
+me," she said as she put away her old shawl
+and bonnet; "but I'm goin' to git the best
+supper Tobias's folks have eat for a year,"
+and so she did.
+</p><p>
+"I've be'n over to the old place to-day,"
+she announced bravely to her son, who had
+finished his work and his supper and was
+now tipped back in his wooden arm-chair
+against the wall.
+</p><p>
+"You ain't, mother!" responded Tobias,
+with instant excitement. "Next fall, then,
+I won't take no for an answer but what
+you'll go to the fair and see what's goin'.
+You ain't footed it way over there?"
+</p><p>
+Mother Bascom nodded. "I have," she
+answered solemnly, a minute later, as if the
+nod were not enough.
+</p><p>
+"T'bias, son," she
+added, lowering her voice, "I ain't one to
+give in my rights, but I was thinkin' it all
+over about y'r Aunt Ruth Parlet"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Now if that ain't curi's!" exclaimed
+Tobias, bringing his chair down hastily upon
+all four legs. "I didn't know just how
+you'd take it, mother, but I see Aunt Ruth
+to-day to the fair, and she made everything
+o' me and wanted to know how you was, and
+she got me off from the rest, an' says she:
+'I declare I should like to see your marm
+again. I wonder if she won't agree to let
+bygones be bygones.'"
+</p><p>
+"My sakes!" said Mercy, who was startled
+by this news. "'T is the hand o' Providence!
+How did she look, son?"
+</p><p>
+"A sight older 'n you look, but kind of
+natural too. One o' her sons' wives that
+she's made her home with, has led her a
+dance, folks say."
+</p><p>
+"Poor old creatur'! we'll have her over
+here, if your folks don't find fault. I've
+had her in my mind"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+Tobias's folks, in the shape of his wife
+and little Johnny, appeared from the outer
+kitchen. "I haven't had such a supper I
+don't know when," repeated the younger
+woman for at least the fifth time. "You
+must have been keepin' busy all day,
+Mother Bascom."
+</p><p>
+But Mother Bascom and Tobias looked at
+each other and laughed.
+</p><p>
+"I ain't had such a good time I don't
+know when, but my feet are all of a fidget
+now, and I've got to git to bed. I've
+be'n runnin' away since you've be'n gone,
+Ann!" said the pleased old soul, and then
+went away, still laughing, to her own room.
+She was strangely excited and satisfied, as
+if she had at last paid a long-standing debt.
+She could trudge across pastures as well as
+anybody, and the old grudge was done with.
+Mercy hardly noticed how her fingers trembled
+as she unhooked the old gray gown.
+The odor of sweet fern shook out fresh and
+strong as she smoothed and laid it carefully
+over a chair. There was a little rent in the
+skirt, but she could mend it by daylight.
+</p><p>
+The great harvest moon was shining high
+in the sky, and she needed no other light in
+the bedroom. "I've be'n a smart woman
+to work in my day, and I've airnt a little
+pleasurin'," said Mother Bascom sleepily to
+herself. "Poor Ruthy! so she looks old,
+does she? I'm goin' to tell her right out,
+'t was I that spoke first to Tobias."
+</p>
+<a name="a_GoingShrewsbury"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">GOING TO SHREWSBURY.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The train stopped at a way station with
+apparent unwillingness, and there was barely
+time for one elderly passenger to be hurried
+on board before a sudden jerk threw her almost
+off her unsteady old feet and we moved
+on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed
+old countrywoman, laden with a large
+basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an
+old-fashioned bundle-handkerchief; then I
+discovered that she was a friend of mine,
+Mrs. Peet, who lived on a small farm, several
+miles from the village. She used to be
+renowned for good butter and fresh eggs
+and the earliest cowslip greens; in fact, she
+always made the most of her farm's slender
+resources; but it was some time since I had
+seen her drive by from market in her ancient
+thorough-braced wagon.
+</p><p>
+The brakeman followed her into the
+crowded car, also carrying a number of packages.
+I leaned forward and asked Mrs. Peet
+to sit by me; it was a great pleasure to see
+her again. The brakeman seemed relieved,
+and smiled as he tried to put part of his burden
+into the rack overhead; but even the
+flowered carpet-bag was much too large, and
+he explained that he would take care of
+everything at the end of the car. Mrs. Peet
+was not large herself, but with the big basket,
+and the bundle-handkerchief, and some
+possessions of my own we had very little
+spare room.
+</p><p>
+"So this 'ere is what you call ridin' in the
+cars! Well, I do declare!" said my friend,
+as soon as she had recovered herself a little.
+She looked pale and as if she had been in
+tears, but there was the familiar gleam of
+good humor in her tired old eyes.
+</p><p>
+"Where in the world are you going, Mrs.
+Peet?" I asked.
+</p><p>
+"Can't be you ain't heared about me,
+dear?" said she. "Well, the world's bigger
+than I used to think 't was. I've broke
+up,&mdash;'t was the only thing <i>to</i> do,&mdash;and I'm
+a-movin' to Shrewsbury."
+</p><p>
+"To Shrewsbury? Have you sold the
+farm?" I exclaimed, with sorrow and surprise.
+Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic
+to be suddenly transplanted from
+her native soil,
+"'T wa'n't mine, the place wa'n't." Her
+pleasant face hardened slightly. "He was
+coaxed an' over-persuaded into signin' off
+before he was taken away. Is'iah, son of
+his sister that married old Josh Peet, come
+it over him about his bein' past work and
+how he'd do for him like an own son, an'
+we owed him a little somethin'. I'd paid
+off everythin' but that, an' was fool enough
+to leave it till the last, on account o' Is'iah's
+bein' a relation and not needin' his pay much
+as some others did. It's hurt me to have
+the place fall into other hands. Some
+wanted me to go right to law; but 't wouldn't
+be no use. Is'iah's smarter 'n I be about
+them matters. You see he's got my name
+on the paper, too; he said 't was somethin'
+'bout bein' responsible for the taxes. We
+was scant o' money, an' I was wore out with
+watchin' an' being broke o' my rest. After
+my tryin' hard for risin' forty-five year to
+provide for bein' past work, here I be, dear,
+here I be! I used to drive things smart, you
+remember. But we was fools enough in '72
+to put about everythin' we had safe in the
+bank into that spool factory that come to
+nothin'. But I tell ye I could ha' kept myself
+long's I lived, if I could ha' held the
+place. I'd parted with most o' the woodland,
+if Is'iah 'd coveted it. He was welcome
+to that, 'cept what might keep me in oven-wood.
+I've always desired to travel an' see
+somethin' o' the world, but I've got the
+chance now when I don't value it no great."
+</p><p>
+"Shrewsbury is a busy, pleasant place,"
+I ventured to say by way of comfort, though
+my heart was filled with rage at the trickery
+of Isaiah Peet, who had always looked like
+a fox and behaved like one.
+</p><p>
+"Shrewsbury's be'n held up consid'able
+for me to smile at," said the poor old soul,
+"but I tell ye, dear, it's hard to go an' live
+twenty-two miles from where you've always
+had your home and friends. It may divert
+me, but it won't be home. You might as
+well set out one o' my old apple-trees on the
+beach, so 't could see the waves come in,&mdash;there
+wouldn't be no please to it."
+</p><p>
+"Where are you going to live in Shrewsbury?"
+I asked presently.
+</p><p>
+"I don't expect to stop long, dear creatur'.
+I'm 'most seventy-six year old," and Mrs.
+Peet turned to look at me with pathetic
+amusement in her honest wrinkled face. "I
+said right out to Is'iah, before a roomful o'
+the neighbors, that I expected it of him to
+git me home an' bury me when my time
+come, and do it respectable; but I wanted
+to airn my livin', if 't was so I could, till
+then. He'd made sly talk, you see, about
+my electin' to leave the farm and go 'long
+some o' my own folks; but"&mdash;and she
+whispered this carefully&mdash;"he didn't give
+me no chance to stay there without hurtin'
+my pride and dependin' on him. I ain't said
+that to many folks, but all must have suspected.
+A good sight on 'em's had money
+of Is'iah, though, and they don't like to do
+nothin' but take his part an' be pretty soft
+spoken, fear it'll git to his ears. Well,
+well, dear, we'll let it be bygones, and not
+think of it no more;" but I saw the great
+tears roll slowly down her cheeks, and she
+pulled her bonnet forward impatiently, and
+looked the other way.
+</p><p>
+"There looks to be plenty o' good farmin'
+land in this part o' the country," she said, a
+minute later. "Where be we now? See
+them handsome farm buildings; he must be
+a well-off man." But I had to tell my companion
+that we were still within the borders
+of the old town where we had both been
+born. Mrs. Peet gave a pleased little laugh,
+like a girl. "I'm expectin' Shrewsbury to
+pop up any minute. I'm feared to be kerried
+right by. I wa'n't never aboard of the
+cars before, but I've so often thought about
+em' I don't know but it seems natural.
+Ain't it jest like flyin' through the air? I
+can't catch holt to see nothin'. Land! and
+here's my old cat goin' too, and never mistrustin'.
+I ain't told you that I'd fetched
+her."
+</p><p>
+"Is she in that basket?" I inquired with
+interest.
+</p><p>
+"Yis, dear. Truth was, I calculated to
+have her put out o' the misery o' movin', an
+spoke to one o' the Barnes boys, an' he
+promised me all fair; but he wa'n't there
+in season, an' I kind o' made excuse to myself
+to fetch her along. She's an' old creatur',
+like me, an' I can make shift to keep
+her some way or 'nuther; there's probably
+mice where we're goin', an' she's a proper
+mouser that can about keep herself if there's
+any sort o' chance. 'T will be somethin' o'
+home to see her goin' an' comin', but I expect
+we're both on us goin' to miss our old
+haunts. I'd love to know what kind o'
+mousin' there's goin' to be for me."
+</p><p>
+"You mustn't worry," I answered, with
+all the bravery and assurance that I could
+muster. "Your niece will be thankful to
+have you with her. Is she one of Mrs.
+Winn's daughters?"
+</p><p>
+"Oh, no, they ain't able; it's Sister
+Wayland's darter Isabella, that married the
+overseer of the gre't carriage-shop. I ain't
+seen her since just after she was married;
+but I turned to her first because I knew she
+was best able to have me, and then I can see
+just how the other girls is situated and make
+me some kind of a plot. I wrote to Isabella,
+though she <i>is</i> ambitious, and said 't was so
+I'd got to ask to come an' make her a visit,
+an' she wrote back she would be glad to have
+me; but she didn't write right off, and her
+letter was scented up dreadful strong with
+some sort o' essence, and I don't feel heartened
+about no great of a welcome. But
+there, I've got eyes, an' I can see <i>how</i> 't is
+when I git <i>where</i> 't is. Sister Winn's gals
+ain't married, an' they've always boarded,
+an' worked in the shop on trimmin's. Isabella'
+s well off; she had some means from
+her father's sister. I thought it all over by
+night an' day, an' I recalled that our folks
+kept Sister Wayland's folks all one winter,
+when he'd failed up and got into trouble.
+I'm reckonin' on sendin' over to-night an'
+gittin' the Winn gals to come and see me
+and advise. Perhaps some on 'em may
+know of somebody that 'll take me for what
+help I can give about house, or some clever
+folks that have been lookin' for a smart cat,
+any ways; no, I don't know's I could let
+her go to strangers."
+</p><p>
+"There was two or three o' the folks
+round home that acted real warm-hearted
+towards me, an' urged me to come an' winter
+with 'em," continued the exile; "an' this
+mornin' I wished I'd agreed to, 't was so
+hard to break away. But now it's done I
+feel more 'n ever it's best. I couldn't bear
+to live right in sight o' the old place, and
+come spring I shouldn't 'prove of nothing
+Is'iah ondertakes to do with the land. Oh,
+dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not
+to have had no child'n. When I was young
+an' workin' hard and into everything, I felt
+kind of free an' superior to them that was
+so blessed, an' their houses cluttered up from
+mornin' till night, but I tell ye it comes
+home to me now. I'd be most willin' to
+own to even Is'iah, mean's he is; but I tell
+ye I'd took it out of him 'fore he was a
+grown man, if there 'd be'n any virtue in
+cow-hidin' of him. Folks don't look like
+wild creator's for nothin'. Is'iah's got fox
+blood in him, an' p'r'haps 't is his misfortune.
+His own mother always favored the
+looks of an old fox, true's the world; she
+was a poor tool,&mdash;a poor tool! I d' know's
+we ought to blame him same's we do.
+</p><p>
+"I've always been a master proud woman,
+if I was riz among the pastures," Mrs.
+Peet added, half to herself. There was no
+use in saying much to her; she was conscious
+of little beside her own thoughts and
+the smouldering excitement caused by this
+great crisis in her simple existence. Yet the
+atmosphere of her loneliness, uncertainty,
+and sorrow was so touching that after scolding
+again at her nephew's treachery, and
+finding the tears come fast to my eyes as she
+talked, I looked intently out of the car window,
+and tried to think what could be done
+for the poor soul. She was one of the old-time
+people, and I hated to have her go away;
+but even if she could keep her home she
+would soon be too feeble to live there alone,
+and some definite plan must be made for her
+comfort. Farms in that neighborhood were
+not valuable. Perhaps through the agency
+of the law and quite in secret, Isaiah Peet
+could be forced to give up his unrighteous
+claim. Perhaps, too, the Winn girls, who
+were really no longer young, might have
+saved something, and would come home
+again. But it was easy to make such pictures
+in one's mind, and I must do what I
+could through other people, for I was just
+leaving home for a long time. I wondered
+sadly about Mrs. Peet's future, and the ambitious
+Isabella, and the favorite Sister
+Winn's daughters, to whom, with all their
+kindliness of heart, the care of so old and
+perhaps so dependent an aunt might seem
+impossible. The truth about life in Shrewsbury
+would soon be known; more than half
+the short journey was already past.
+</p><p>
+To my great pleasure, my fellow-traveler
+now began to forget her own troubles in looking
+about her. She was an alert, quickly
+interested old soul, and this was a bit of neutral
+ground between the farm and Shrewsbury,
+where she was unattached and irresponsible.
+She had lived through the last
+tragic moments of her old life, and felt a
+certain relief, and Shrewsbury might be as
+far away as the other side of the Rocky
+Mountains for all the consciousness she had
+of its real existence. She was simply a traveler
+for the time being, and began to comment,
+with delicious phrases and shrewd
+understanding of human nature, on two or
+three persons near us who attracted her
+attention.
+</p><p>
+"Where do you s'pose they be all goin'?"
+she asked contemptuously. "There ain't
+none on 'em but what looks kind o' respectable.
+I'll warrant they've left work to
+home they'd ought to be doin'. I knowed,
+if ever I stopped to think, that cars was
+hived full o' folks, an' wa'n't run to an' fro
+for nothin'; but these can't be quite up to
+the average, be they? Some on 'em's real
+thrif'less? guess they've be'n shoved out o'
+the last place, an' goin' to try the next one,&mdash;<i>like
+me</i>, I suppose you'll want to say!
+Jest see that flauntin' old creatur' that looks
+like a stopped clock. There! everybody
+can't be o' one goodness, even preachers."
+</p><p>
+I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and
+we were as cheerful as we could be for a few
+minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped
+to be forgiven for such talk, but there were
+some kinds of folks in the cars that she
+never had seen before. But when the conductor
+came to take her ticket she relapsed
+into her first state of mind, and was at a
+loss.
+</p><p>
+"You 'll have to look after me, dear, when
+we get to Shrewsbury," she said, after we
+had spent some distracted moments in hunting
+for the ticket, and the cat had almost
+escaped from the basket, and the bundle-handkerchief
+had become untied and all its
+miscellaneous contents scattered about our
+laps and the floor. It was a touching collection
+of the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet's
+housekeeping: some battered books, and
+singed holders for flatirons, and the faded
+little shoulder shawl that I had seen her
+wear many a day about her bent shoulders.
+There were her old tin match-box spilling
+all its matches, and a goose-wing for brushing
+up ashes, and her much-thumbed Leavitt's
+Almanac. It was most pathetic to see
+these poor trifles out of their places. At
+last the ticket was found in her left-hand
+woolen glove, where her stiff, work-worn
+hand had grown used to the feeling of it.
+</p><p>
+"I shouldn't wonder, now, if I come to
+like living over to Shrewsbury first-rate,"
+she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful,
+eager look to see if I differed. "You see
+'t won't be so tough for me as if I hadn't
+always felt it lurking within me to go off
+some day or 'nother an' see how other folks
+did things. I do' know but what the Winn
+gals have laid up somethin' sufficient for us
+to take a house, with the little mite I've got
+by me. I might keep house for us all, 'stead
+o' boardin' round in other folks' houses.
+That I ain't never been demeaned to, but I
+dare say I should find it pleasant in some
+ways. Town folks has got the upper hand
+o' country folks, but with all their work an'
+pride they can't make a dandelion. I do'
+know the times when I've set out to wash
+Monday mornin's, an' tied out the line betwixt
+the old pucker-pear tree and the corner
+o' the barn, an' thought, 'Here I be with the
+same kind o' week's work right over again.'
+I'd wonder kind o' f'erce if I couldn't git
+out of it noways; an' now here I be out of it,
+and an uprooteder creatur' never stood on
+the airth. Just as I got to feel I had somethin'
+ahead come that spool-factory business.
+There! you know he never was a forehanded
+man; his health was slim, and he got discouraged
+pretty nigh before ever he begun.
+I hope he don't know I'm turned out o' the
+old place. 'Is'iah's well off; he'll do the
+right thing by ye,' says he. But my! I
+turned hot all over when I found out what
+I'd put my name to,&mdash;me that had always
+be'n counted a smart woman! I did undertake
+to read it over, but I couldn't sense it.
+I've told all the folks so when they laid it
+off on to me some: but hand-writin' is awful
+tedious readin' and my head felt that day as
+if the works was gone."
+</p><p>
+"I ain't goin' to sag on to nobody," she
+assured me eagerly, as the train rushed
+along. "I've got more work in me now
+than folks expects at my age. I may be consid'able
+use to Isabella. She's got a family,
+an' I'll take right holt in the kitchen or
+with the little gals. She had four on 'em,
+last I heared. Isabella was never one that
+liked house-work. Little gals! I do' know
+now but what they must be about grown,
+time doos slip away so. I expect I shall
+look outlandish to 'em. But there! everybody
+knows me to home, an' nobody knows
+me to Shrewsbury; 't won't make a mite o'
+difference, if I take holt willin'."
+</p><p>
+I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that
+she would never be persuaded to cast off the
+gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain
+shawl that she had worn so many years;
+but Isabella might think it best to insist
+upon more modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested,
+as if it were a matter of little consequence,
+that she had kept it in mind to buy
+some mourning; but there were other things
+to be thought of first, and so she had let it
+go until winter, any way, or until she should
+be fairly settled in Shrewsbury.
+</p><p>
+"Are your nieces expecting you by this
+train?" I was moved to ask, though with
+all the good soul's ready talk and appealing
+manner I could hardly believe that she was
+going to Shrewsbury for more than a visit;
+it seemed as if she must return to the worn
+old farmhouse over by the sheep-lands.
+She answered that one of the Barnes boys
+had written a letter for her the day before,
+and there was evidently little uneasiness
+about her first reception.
+</p><p>
+We drew near the junction where I must
+leave her within a mile of the town. The
+cat was clawing indignantly at the basket,
+and her mistress grew as impatient of the
+car. She began to look very old and pale,
+my poor fellow-traveler, and said that she
+felt dizzy, going so fast. Presently the
+friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came
+along, bringing the carpet-bag and other
+possessions, and insisted upon taking the
+alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive
+paw that had worked its way through the
+wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her
+goods disappear with suspicious eyes, and
+clutched her bundle-handkerchief as if it
+might be all that she could save. Then she
+anxiously got to her feet, much too soon,
+and when I said good-by to her at the car
+door she was ready to cry. I pointed to the
+car which she was to take next on the
+branch line of railway, and I assured her
+that it was only a few minutes' ride to
+Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she
+would find somebody waiting. The sight of
+that worn, thin figure adventuring alone
+across the platform gave my heart a sharp
+pang as the train carried me away.
+</p><p>
+Some of the passengers who sat near
+asked me about my old friend with great
+sympathy, after she had gone. There was a
+look of tragedy about her, and indeed it
+had been impossible not to get a good deal
+of her history, as she talked straight on in
+the same tone, when we stopped at a station,
+as if the train were going at full speed,
+and some of her remarks caused pity and
+amusements by turns. At the last minute
+she said, with deep self-reproach, "Why, I
+haven't asked a word about your folks;
+but you'd ought to excuse such an old stray
+hen as I be."
+</p><p>
+In the spring I was driving by on what
+the old people of my native town call the
+sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs.
+Peet's former home brought our former
+journey freshly to my mind. I had last
+heard from her just after she got to Shrewsbury,
+when she had sent me a message.
+</p><p>
+"Have you ever heard how she got on?"
+I eagerly asked my companion.
+</p><p>
+"Didn't I tell you that I met her in
+Shrewsbury High Street one day?" I was
+answered. "She seemed perfectly delighted
+with everything. Her nieces have
+laid up a good bit of money, and are soon
+to leave the mill, and most thankful to have
+old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told
+me that they wished to buy the farm here,
+and come back to live, but she wouldn't
+hear of it, and thought they would miss too
+many privileges. She has been going to
+concerts and lectures this winter, and insists
+that Isaiah did her a good turn."
+</p><p>
+We both laughed. My own heart was filled
+with joy, for the uncertain, lonely face of
+this homeless old woman had often haunted
+me. The rain-blackened little house did
+certainly look dreary, and a whole lifetime
+of patient toil had left few traces. The
+pucker-pear tree was in full bloom, however,
+and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted
+door-yard.
+</p><p>
+A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet,
+the prosperous money-lender, who had
+cheated the old woman of her own. I fancied
+that he looked somewhat ashamed, as
+he recognized us. To my surprise, he
+stopped his horse in most social fashion.
+</p><p>
+"Old Aunt Peet's passed away," he informed
+me briskly. "She had a shock,
+and went right off sudden yisterday forenoon.
+I'm about now tendin' to the funeral
+'rangements. She's be'n extry smart,
+they say, all winter,&mdash;out to meetin' last
+Sabbath; never enjoyed herself so complete
+as she has this past month. She'd be'n a
+very hard-workin' woman. Her folks was
+glad to have her there, and give her every
+attention. The place here never was good
+for nothin'. The old gen'leman,&mdash;uncle,
+you know,&mdash;he wore hisself out tryin' to
+make a livin' off from it."
+</p><p>
+There was an ostentatious sympathy and
+half-suppressed excitement from bad news
+which were quite lost upon us, and we did
+not linger to hear much more. It seemed
+to me as if I had known Mrs. Peet better
+than any one else had known her. I had
+counted upon seeing her again, and hearing
+her own account of Shrewsbury life, its
+pleasures and its limitations. I wondered
+what had become of the cat and the contents
+of the faded bundle-handkerchief.
+</p>
+<a name="a_TakingCaptainBall"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE TAKING OF CAPTAIN BALL.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">I.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+There was a natural disinclination to the
+cares of housekeeping in the mind of Captain
+Ball, and he would have left the sea much
+earlier in life if he had not liked much better
+to live on board ship. A man was his
+own master there, and meddlesome neighbors
+and parsons and tearful women-folks
+could be made to keep their distance. But
+as years went on, and the extremes of
+weather produced much affliction in the
+shape of rheumatism, this, and the decline
+of the merchant service, and the degeneracy
+of common seamen, forced Captain Ball to
+come ashore for good. He regretted that
+he could no longer follow the sea, and, in
+spite of many alleviations, grumbled at his
+hard fate. He might have been condemned
+to an inland town, but in reality his house
+was within sight of tide-water, and he found
+plenty of companionship in the decayed seaport
+where he had been born and bred.
+There were several retired shipmasters who
+closely approached his own rank and dignity.
+They all gave other excuses than
+that of old age and infirmity for being out
+of business, took a sober satisfaction in
+their eleven o'clock bitters, and discussed
+the shipping list of the morning paper with
+far more interest than the political or general
+news of the other columns.
+</p><p>
+While Captain Asaph Ball was away on his
+long voyages he had left his house in charge
+of an elder sister, who was joint owner.
+She was a grim old person, very stern in
+matters of sectarian opinion, and the captain
+recognized in his heart of hearts that
+she alone was his superior officer. He endeavored
+to placate her with generous offerings
+of tea and camel's-hair scarfs and East
+Indian sweetmeats, not to speak of unnecessary
+and sometimes very beautiful china for
+the parties that she never gave, and handsome
+dress patterns with which she scorned
+to decorate her sinful shape of clay. She
+pinched herself to the verge of want in order
+to send large sums of money to the
+missionaries, but she saved the captain's
+money for him against the time when his
+willful lavishness and improvidence might
+find him a poor man. She was always looking
+forward to the days when he would be
+aged and forlorn, that burly seafaring
+brother of hers. She loved to remind him
+of his latter end, and in writing her long
+letters that were to reach him in foreign
+ports, she told little of the neighborhood
+news and results of voyages, but bewailed,
+in page after page, his sad condition of impenitence
+and the shortness of time. The
+captain would rather have faced a mutinous
+crew any day than his sister's solemn
+statements of this sort, but he loyally read
+them through with heavy sighs, and worked
+himself into his best broadcloth suit, at
+least once while he lay in port, to go to
+church on Sunday, out of good New England
+habit and respect to her opinions. It
+was not his sister's principles but her
+phrases that the captain failed to comprehend.
+Sometimes when he returned to
+his ship he took pains to write a letter to
+dear sister Ann, and to casually mention
+the fact of his attendance upon public
+worship, and even to recall the text and
+purport of the sermon. He was apt to fall
+asleep in his humble place at the very back
+of the church, and his report of the services
+would have puzzled a far less keen theologian
+than Miss Ann Ball. In fact these
+poor makeshifts of religious interest did
+not deceive her, and the captain had an uneasy
+consciousness that, to use his own expression,
+the thicker he laid on the words,
+the quicker she saw through them. And
+somehow or other that manly straightforwardness
+and honesty of his, that free-handed
+generosity, that true unselfishness
+which made him stick by his ship when the
+crew had run away from a poor black cook
+who was taken down with the yellow-fever,
+which made him nurse the frightened beggar
+as tenderly as a woman, and bring him
+back to life, and send him packing afterward
+with plenty of money in his pocket&mdash;all
+these fine traits that made Captain
+Ball respected in every port where his loud
+voice and clumsy figure and bronzed face
+were known, seemed to count for nothing
+with the stern sister. At least her younger
+brother thought so. But when, a few years
+after he came ashore for good, she died and
+left him alone in the neat old white house,
+which his instinctive good taste and his
+father's before him had made a museum of
+East Indian treasures, he found all his letters
+stored away with loving care after they
+had been read and reread into tatters, and
+among her papers such touching expressions
+of love and pride and longing for his soul's
+good, that poor Captain Asaph broke down
+altogether and cried like a school-boy.
+She had saved every line of newspaper
+which even mentioned his ships' names.
+She had loved him deeply in the repressed
+New England fashion, that under a gray
+and forbidding crust of manner, like a
+chilled lava bed, hides glowing fires of loyalty
+and devotion.
+</p><p>
+Sister Ann was a princess among housekeepers,
+and for some time after her death
+the captain was a piteous mourner indeed.
+No growing school-boy could be more shy
+and miserable in the presence of women
+than he, though nobody had a readier friendliness
+or more off-hand sailor ways among
+men. The few intimate family friends who
+came to his assistance at the time of his sister's
+illness and death added untold misery
+to the gloomy situation. Yet he received
+the minister with outspoken gratitude in
+spite of that worthy man's trepidation.
+Everybody said that poor Captain Ball
+looked as if his heart was broken. "I tell
+ye I feel as if I was tied in a bag of fleas,"
+said the distressed mariner, and his pastor
+turned away to cough, hoping to hide the
+smile that would come. "Widders an' old
+maids, they're busier than the divil in a
+gale o' wind," grumbled the captain. "Poor
+Ann, she was worth every one of 'em lashed
+together, and here you find me with a head-wind
+every way I try to steer." The minister
+was a man at any rate; his very presence
+was a protection.
+</p><p>
+Some wretched days went by while Captain
+Ball tried to keep his lonely house
+with the assistance of one Silas Jenkins,
+who had made several voyages with him as
+cook, but they soon proved that the best of
+sailors may make the worst of housekeepers.
+Life looked darker and darker, and when,
+one morning, Silas inadvertently overheated
+and warped the new cooking stove, which
+had been the pride of Miss Ball's heart, the
+breakfastless captain dismissed him in a fit
+of blind rage. The captain was first cross
+and then abject when he went hungry, and
+in this latter stage was ready to abase himself
+enough to recall Widow Sparks, his
+sister's lieutenant, who lived close by in
+Ropewalk Lane, forgetting that he had
+driven her into calling him an old hog two
+days after the funeral. He groaned aloud
+as he thought of her, but reached for his
+hat and cane, when there came a gentle
+feminine rap at the door.
+</p><p>
+"Let 'em knock!" grumbled the captain,
+angrily, but after a moment's reflection,
+he scowled and went and lifted the latch.
+</p><p>
+There stood upon the doorstep a middle-aged
+woman, with a pleasant though determined
+face. The captain scowled again,
+but involuntarily opened his fore-door a
+little wider.
+</p><p>
+"Capt'in Asaph Ball, I presume?"
+</p><p>
+"The same," answered the captain.
+</p><p>
+"I've been told, sir, that you need a
+housekeeper, owing to recent affliction."
+</p><p>
+There was a squally moment of resistance
+in the old sailor's breast, but circumstances
+seemed to be wrecking him on a lee shore.
+Down came his flag on the run.
+</p><p>
+"I can't say but what I do, ma'am," and
+with lofty courtesy, such as an admiral
+should use to his foe of equal rank, the master
+of the house signified that his guest
+might enter. When they were seated opposite
+each other in the desolate sitting-room
+he felt himself the weaker human being of
+the two. Five years earlier, and he would
+have put to sea before the week's end, if
+only to gain the poor freedom of a coastwise
+lime schooner.
+</p><p>
+"Well, speak up, can't ye?" he said,
+trying to laugh. "Tell me what's the tax,
+and how much you can take hold and do,
+without coming to me for orders every
+hand's turn o' the day. I've had Silas Jinkins
+here, one o' my old ship's cooks; he
+served well at sea, and I thought he had
+some head; but we've been beat, I tell ye,
+and you'll find some work to put things
+ship-shape. He's gitting in years, that's
+the trouble; I oughtn't to have called on
+him," said Captain Ball, anxious to maintain
+even so poorly the dignity of his sex.
+</p><p>
+"I like your looks; you seem a good
+steady hand, with no nonsense about ye."
+He cast a shy glance at his companion, and
+would not have believed that any woman
+could have come to the house a stranger, and
+have given him such an immediate feeling of
+confidence and relief.
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell ye what's about the worst of
+the matter," and the captain pulled a letter
+out of his deep coat pocket. His feelings
+had been pent up too long. At the sight
+of the pretty handwriting and aggravatingly
+soft-spoken sentences, Asaph Ball was forced
+to inconsiderate speech. The would-be
+housekeeper pushed back her rocking-chair
+as he began, and tucked her feet under, beside
+settling her bonnet a little, as if she
+were close-reefed and anchored to ride out
+the gale.
+</p><p>
+"I'm in most need of an able person,"
+he roared, "on account of this letter's settin'
+me adrift about knowing what to do. 'T is
+from a gal that wants to come and make
+her home here. Land sakes alive, puts herself
+right forrard! I don't want her, <i>an' I
+won't have her</i>. She may be a great-niece;
+I don't say she ain't; but what should I do
+with one o' them jiggetin' gals about? In
+the name o' reason, why should I be set out
+o' my course? I'm left at the mercy o' you
+women-folks," and the captain got stiffly to
+his feet. "If you've had experience, an'
+think you can do for me, why, stop an' try,
+an' I'll be much obleeged to ye. You'll
+find me a good provider, and we'll let one
+another alone, and get along some way or
+'nother."
+</p><p>
+The captain's voice fairly broke; he had
+been speaking as if to a brother man; he
+was tired out and perplexed. His sister
+Ann had saved him so many petty trials,
+and now she was gone. The poor man had
+watched her suffer and seen her die, and he
+was as tender-hearted and as lonely as a
+child, however he might bluster. Even
+such infrequent matters as family letters
+had been left to his busy sister. It happened
+that they had inherited a feud with
+an elder half-brother's family in the West,
+though the captain was well aware of the
+existence of this forth-putting great-niece,
+who had been craftily named for Miss Ann
+Ball, and so gained a precarious hold on her
+affections; but to harbor one of the race was
+to consent to the whole. Captain Ball was
+not a man to bring down upon himself an
+army of interferers and plunderers, and he
+now threw down the poor girl's well-meant
+letter with an outrageous expression of his
+feelings. Then he felt a silly weakness, and
+hastened to wipe his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief.
+</p><p>
+"I've been beat, I tell ye," he said brokenly.
+</p><p>
+There was a look of apparent sympathy,
+mingled with victory, on the housekeeper's
+face. Perhaps she had known some other
+old sailor of the same make, for she rose
+and turned her face aside to look out of the
+window until the captain's long upper lip
+had time to draw itself straight and stern
+again. Plainly she was a woman of experience
+and discretion.
+</p><p>
+"I'll take my shawl and bunnit right off,
+sir," she said, in a considerate little voice.
+"I see a-plenty to do; there'll be time
+enough after I get you your dinner to see to
+havin' my trunk here; but it needn't stay a
+day longer than you give the word."
+</p><p>
+"That's clever," said the captain. "I'll
+step right down street and get us a good
+fish, an' you can fry it or make us a chowder,
+just which you see fit. It now wants
+a little of eleven"&mdash;and an air of pleased
+anticipation lighted his face&mdash;"I must be
+on my way."
+</p><p>
+"If it's all the same to you, I guess we
+don't want no company till we get to rights
+a little. You're kind of tired out, sir,"
+said the housekeeper, feelingly. "By-and-by
+you can have the young girl come an'
+make you a visit, and either let her go or
+keep her, 'cordin' as seems fit. I may not
+turn out to suit."
+</p><p>
+"What may I call you, ma'am?" inquired
+Captain Ball. "Mis' French? Not
+one o' them Fleet Street Frenches?" (suspiciously).
+"Oh, come from Massachusetts
+way!" (with relief).
+</p><p>
+"I was stopping with some friends that
+had a letter from some o' the minister's folks
+here, and they told how bad off you was,"
+said Mrs. French, modestly. "I was out of
+employment, an' I said to myself that I
+should feel real happy to go and do for that
+Captain Ball. He knows what he wants,
+and I know what I want, and no flummery."
+</p><p>
+"You know somethin' o' life, I do declare,"
+and the captain fairly beamed. "I
+never was called a hard man at sea, but I
+like to give my orders, and have folks foller
+'em. If it was women-folks that wrote, they
+may have set me forth more 'n ordinary. I
+had every widder and single woman in town
+here while Ann lay dead, and my natural
+feelin's were all worked up. I see 'em
+dressed up and smirkin' and settin' their
+nets to ketch me when I was in an extremity.
+I wouldn't give a kentle o' sp'iled fish for
+the whole on 'em. I ain't a marryin' man,
+there's once for all for ye," and the old
+sailor stepped toward the door with some
+temper.
+</p><p>
+"Ef you'll write to the young woman,
+sir, just to put off comin' for a couple or
+three weeks," suggested Mrs. French.
+</p><p>
+"<i>This afternoon, ma'am</i>," said the captain,
+as if it were the ay, ay, sir, of an able
+seaman who sprang to his duty of reefing
+the main-topsail.
+</p><p>
+Captain Ball walked down to the fish shop
+with stately steps and measured taps of his
+heavy cane. He stopped on the way, a little
+belated, and assured two or three retired
+ship-masters that he had manned the old
+brig complete at last; he even gave a handsome
+wink of his left eye over the edge of a
+glass, and pronounced his morning grog to
+be A No. 1, prime.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. French picked up her gown at each
+side with thumb and finger, and swept the
+captain a low courtesy behind his back as he
+went away; then she turned up the aforesaid
+gown and sought for one of the lamented
+Miss Ann Ball's calico aprons, and if ever a
+New England woman did a morning's work
+in an hour, it was this same Mrs. French.
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't every one knows how to make
+what I call a chowder," said the captain,
+pleased and replete, as he leaned back in his
+chair after dinner. "Mis' French, you shall
+have everything to do with, an' I ain't no
+kitchen colonel myself to bother ye."
+</p><p>
+There was a new subject for gossip in that
+seaport town. More than one woman had
+felt herself to be a fitting helpmate for the
+captain, and was confident that if time had
+been allowed, she could have made sure of
+even such wary game as he. When a stranger
+stepped in and occupied the ground at
+once, it gave nobody a fair chance, and Mrs.
+French was recognized as a presuming adventuress
+by all disappointed aspirants for
+the captain's hand. The captain was afraid
+at times that Mrs. French carried almost too
+many guns, but she made him so comfortable
+that she kept the upper hand, and at last he
+was conscious of little objection to whatever
+this able housekeeper proposed. Her only
+intimate friends were the minister and his
+wife, and the captain himself was so won
+over to familiarity by the kindness of his
+pastor in the time of affliction, that when
+after some weeks Mrs. French invited the
+good people to tea, Captain Ball sat manfully
+at the foot of his table, and listened
+with no small pleasure to the delighted exclamations
+of the parson's wife over his store
+of china and glass. There was a little feeling
+of guilt when he remembered how many
+times in his sister's day he had evaded such
+pleasant social occasions by complaint of inward
+malady, or by staying boldly among
+the wharves until long past supper-time, and
+forcing good Miss Ann to as many anxious
+excuses as if her brother's cranky ways were
+not as well known to the guests as to herself.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">II.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Mrs. Captain Topliff and Miss Miranda
+Hull were sitting together one late summer
+afternoon in Mrs. Topliff's south chamber.
+They were at work upon a black dress which
+was to be made over, and each sat by a front
+window with the blinds carefully set ajar.
+</p><p>
+"This is a real handy room to sew in,"
+said Miranda, who had come early after dinner
+for a good long afternoon. "You git
+the light as long as there is any; and I do
+like a straw carpet; I don't feel's if I made
+so much work scatterin' pieces."
+</p><p>
+"Don't you have no concern about pieces,"
+answered Mrs. Topliff, amiably. "I was
+precious glad to get you right on the sudden
+so. You see, I counted on my other dress
+lasting me till winter, and sort of put this
+by to do at a leisure time. I knew 't wa'n't
+fit to wear as 't was. Anyway, I've done
+dealin' with Stover; he told me, lookin' me
+right in the eye, that it was as good a wearin'
+piece o' goods as he had in the store.
+'T was a real cheat; you can put your finger
+right through it."
+</p><p>
+"You've got some wear but of it," ventured
+Miranda, meekly, bending over her
+work. "I made it up quite a spell ago, I
+know. Six or seven years, ain't it, Mis'
+Topliff?"
+</p><p>
+"Yes, to be sure," replied Mrs. Topliff,
+with suppressed indignation; "but this we're
+to work on I had before the Centennial. I
+know I wouldn't take it to Philadelphy
+because 't was too good. An' the first two
+or three years of a dress don't count. You
+know how 't is; you just wear 'em to meetin'
+a pleasant Sunday, or to a funeral, p'r'aps,
+an' keep 'em in a safe cluset meanwhiles."
+</p><p>
+"Goods don't wear as 't used to," agreed
+Miranda; "but 't is all the better for my
+trade. Land! there's some dresses in this
+town I'm sick o' bein' called on to make
+good's new. Now I call you reasonable
+about such things, but there's some I could
+name"&mdash;Miss Hull at this point put several
+pins into her mouth, as if to guard a
+secret.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Topliff looked up with interest. "I
+always thought Ann Ball was the meanest
+woman about such expense. She always
+looked respectable too, and I s'pose she 'd
+said the heathen was gittin' the good o'
+what she saved. She must have given away
+hundreds o' dollars in that direction."
+</p><p>
+"She left plenty too, and I s'pose Cap'n
+Asaph's Mis' French will get the good of
+it now," said Miranda through the pins.
+"Seems to me he's gittin' caught in spite
+of himself. Old vain creatur', he seemed
+to think all the women-folks in town was in
+love with him."
+</p><p>
+"Some was," answered Mrs. Topliff. "I
+think any woman that needed a home would
+naturally think 't was a good chance." She
+thought that Miranda had indulged high
+hopes, but wished to ignore them now.
+</p><p>
+"Some that had a home seemed inclined
+to bestow their affections, I observed," retorted
+the dressmaker, who had lost her little
+property by unfortunate investment, but
+would not be called homeless by Mrs. Topliff.
+Everybody knew that the widow had
+set herself down valiantly to besiege the
+enemy; but after this passage at arms between
+the friends they went on amiably with
+their conversation.
+</p><p>
+"Seems to me the minister and Mis' Calvinn
+are dreadful intimate at the Cap'n's.
+I wonder if the Cap'n's goin' to give as
+much to the heathen as his sister did?" said
+Mrs. Topliff, presently.
+</p><p>
+"I understood he told the minister that
+none o' the heathen was wuth it that ever
+he see," replied Miranda in a pinless voice
+at last. "Mr. Calvinn only laughed; he
+knows the Cap'n's ways. But I shouldn't
+thought Asaph Ball would have let his hired
+help set out and ask company to tea just
+four weeks from the day his only sister was
+laid away. 'T wa'n't feelin'."
+</p><p>
+"That Mis' French wanted to get the
+minister's folks to back her up, don't you
+understand?" was Mrs. Topliff's comment.
+"I should think the Calvinns wouldn't want
+to be so free and easy with a woman from
+nobody knows where. She runs in and out
+o' the parsonage any time o' day, as Ann
+Ball never took it upon her to do. Ann
+liked Mis' Calvinn, but she always had to
+go through with just so much, and be formal
+with everybody."
+</p><p>
+"I'll tell you something that exasperated
+<i>me</i>," confided the disappointed Miranda.
+"That night they was there to tea, Mis'
+Calvinn was praising up a handsome flowered
+china bowl that was on the table, with
+some new kind of a fancy jelly in it, and
+the Cap'n told her to take it along when she
+went home, if she wanted to, speakin' right
+out thoughtless, as men do; and that Mis'
+French chirped up, 'Yes, I'm glad; you
+ought to have somethin' to remember the
+cap'n's sister by,' says she. Can't you hear
+just how up an' comin' it was?"
+</p><p>
+"I can so," said Mrs. Topliff. "I see
+that bowl myself on Miss Calvinn's card-table,
+when I was makin' a call there day before
+yesterday. I wondered how she come
+by it. 'Tis an elegant bowl. Ann must
+have set the world by it, poor thing. Wonder
+if he ain't goin' to give remembrances
+to those that knew his sister ever since they
+can remember? Mirandy Hull, that Mis'
+French is a fox!"
+</p><p>
+"'T was Widow Sparks gave me the particulars,"
+continued Mrs. Topliff. "She
+declared at first that never would she step
+foot inside his doors again, but I always
+thought the cap'n put up with a good deal.
+Her husband's havin' been killed in one o'
+his ships by a fall when he was full o' liquor,
+and her bein' there so much to help Ann,
+and their havin' provided for her all these
+years one way an' another, didn't give her
+the right to undertake the housekeepin' and
+direction o' everything soon as Ann died.
+She dressed up as if 't was for meetin', and
+'tended the front door, and saw the folks
+that came. You'd thought she was ma'am
+of everything; and to hear her talk up to
+the cap'n! I thought I should die o' laughing
+when he blowed out at her. You know
+how he gives them great whoos when he's
+put about. 'Go below, can't ye, till your
+watch's called,' says he, same's 't was
+aboard ship; but there! everybody knew he
+was all broke down, and everything tried
+him. But to see her flounce out o' that
+back door!"
+</p><p>
+"'T was the evenin' after the funeral,"
+Miranda said, presently. "I was there, too,
+you may rec'lect, seeing what I could do.
+The cap'n thought I was the proper one to
+look after her things, and guard against
+moths. He said there wa'n't no haste, but
+I knew better, an' told him I'd brought
+some camphire right with me. Well,
+did you git anything further out o' Mis'
+Sparks?"
+</p><p>
+"That French woman made all up with
+her, and Mis' Sparks swallowed her resentment.
+She's a good-feelin', ignorant kind
+o' woman, an' she needed the money bad,"
+answered Mrs. Topliff. "If you'll never
+repeat, I'll tell you somethin' that'll make
+your eyes stick out, Miranda."
+</p><p>
+Miranda promised, and filled her mouth
+with pins preparatory to proper silence.
+</p><p>
+"You know the Balls had a half-brother
+that went off out West somewhere in New
+York State years ago. I don't remember
+him, but he brought up a family, and some
+of 'em came here an' made visits. Ann used
+to get letters from 'em sometimes, she's told
+me, and I dare say used to do for 'em. Well,
+Mis' Sparks says that there was a smart
+young Miss Ball, niece, or great-niece o' the
+cap'n, wrote on and wanted to come an' live
+with him for the sake o' the home&mdash;his own
+blood and kin, you see, and very needy&mdash;and
+Mis' Sparks heard 'em talk about her,
+and that wicked, low, offscourin' has got
+round Asaph Ball till he's consented to put
+the pore girl off. You see, she wants to
+contrive time to make him marry her, and
+then she'll do as she pleases about his folks.
+Now ain't it a shame? When I see her parade
+up the broad aisle, I want to stick out
+my tongue at her&mdash;I do so, right in meetin'.
+If the cap'n's goin' to have a shock within a
+year, I could wish it might be soon, to disappoint
+such a woman. Who is she, anyway?
+She makes me think o' some carr'on
+bird pouncin' down on us right out o' the
+air." Mrs. Topliff sniffed and jerked about
+in her chair, having worked herself into a
+fine fit of temper.
+</p><p>
+"There ain't no up nor down to this material,
+is there?" inquired Miranda, meekly.
+She was thinking that if she were as well off
+as Mrs. Topliff, and toward seventy years of
+age, she would never show a matrimonial
+disappointment in this open way. It was
+ridiculous for a woman who had any respect
+for herself and for the opinion of society.
+Miranda had much more dignity, and tried
+to cool off Mrs. Topliff's warmth by discussion
+of the black gown.
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't pleasant to have such a character
+among us. Do you think it is, Mirandy?"
+asked Mrs. Topliff, after a few minutes of
+silence. "She's a good-looking person, but
+with something sly about her. I don't mean
+to call on her again until she accounts for
+herself. Livin' nearer than any of Ann's
+friends, I thought there would be a good
+many ways I could oblige the cap'n if he'd
+grant the opportunity, but 't ain't so to be.
+Now Mr. Topliff was such an easy-goin',
+pleasant-tempered man, that I take time to
+remember others is made different."
+</p><p>
+Miranda smiled. Her companion had suffered
+many things from a most trying husband;
+it was difficult to see why she was
+willing to risk her peace of mind again.
+</p><p>
+"Cap'n Asaph looks now as meek as
+Moses," she suggested, as she pared a newly
+basted seam with her creaking scissors.
+"Mis' French, whoever she may be, has got
+him right under her thumb. I, for one, believe
+she'll never get him, for all her pains.
+He's as sharp as she is any day, when it
+comes to that; but he's made comfortable,
+and she starches his shirt bosoms so's you
+can hear 'em creak 'way across the meeting-house.
+I was in there the other night&mdash;she
+wanted to see me about some work&mdash;and 't was neat as wax, and an awful good
+scent o' somethin' they'd had for supper."
+</p><p>
+"That kind's always smart enough,"
+granted the widow Topliff. "I want to
+know if she cooks him a hot supper every
+night? Well, she'll catch him if anybody
+can. Why don't you get a look into some
+o' the clusets, if you go there to work? Ann
+was so formal I never spoke up as I wanted
+to about seeing her things. They must have
+an awful sight of china, and as for the linen
+and so on that the cap'n and his father before
+him fetched home from sea, you couldn't
+find no end to it. Ann never made 'way
+with much. I hope the mice ain't hivin'
+into it and makin' their nests. Ann was
+very particular, but I dare say it wore her
+out tryin' to take care o' such a houseful."
+</p><p>
+"I'm going there Wednesday," said Miranda.
+"I'll spy round all I can, but I
+don't like to carry news from one house to
+another. I never was one to make trouble;
+'t would make my business more difficult
+than't is a'ready."
+</p><p>
+"I'd trust you," responded Mrs. Topliff,
+emphatically. "But there, Mirandy, you
+know you can trust me too, and anything
+you say goes no further."
+</p><p>
+"Yes'm," returned Miranda, somewhat
+absently. "To cut this the way you want
+it is going to give the folds a ter'ble skimpy
+look."
+</p><p>
+"I thought it would from the first," was
+Mrs. Topliff's obliging answer.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">III.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The captain could not believe that two
+months had passed since his sister's death,
+but Mrs. French assured him one evening
+that it was so. He had troubled himself
+very little about public opinion, though hints
+of his housekeeper's suspicious character
+and abominable intentions had reached his
+ears through more than one disinterested
+tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his
+wife were the only persons among the old
+family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse
+with Mrs. French. The ladies of
+the parish themselves had not dared to
+asperse her character to the gruff captain,
+but were contented with ignoring her existence
+and setting their husbands to the fray.
+"Why don't you tell him what folks think?"
+was a frequent question; but after a first
+venture even the most intimate and valiant
+friends were sure to mind their own business,
+as the indignant captain bade them.
+Two of them had been partially won over to
+Mrs. French's side by a taste of her good
+cooking. In fact, these were Captain Dunn
+and Captain Allister, who, at the eleven
+o'clock rendezvous, reported their wives as
+absent at the County Conference, and were
+promptly bidden to a chowder dinner by the
+independent Captain Ball, who gloried in
+the fact that neither of his companions would
+dare to ask a friend home unexpectedly.
+Our hero promised his guests that what they
+did not find in eatables they should make up
+in drinkables, and actually produced a glistening
+decanter of Madeira that had made
+several voyages in his father's ships while
+he himself was a boy. There were several
+casks and long rows of cobwebby bottles in
+the cellar, which had been provided against
+possible use in case of illness, but the captain
+rarely touched them, though he went
+regularly every morning for a social glass of
+what he frankly persisted in calling his grog.
+The dinner party proved to be a noble occasion,
+and Mrs. French won the esteem of
+the three elderly seamen by her discreet behavior,
+as well as by the flavor of the chowder.
+</p><p>
+They walked out into the old garden when
+the feast was over, and continued their somewhat
+excited discussion of the decline of
+shipping, on the seats of the ancient latticed
+summer-house. There Mrs. French surprised
+them by bringing out a tray of coffee,
+served in the handsome old cups which the
+captain's father had brought home from
+France. She was certainly a good-looking
+woman, and stepped modestly and soberly
+along the walk between the mallows and
+marigolds. Her feminine rivals insisted that
+she looked both bold and sly, but she minded
+her work like a steam-tug, as the captain
+whispered admiringly to his friends.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't never ascertained where she came
+from last, have ye?" inquired Captain Alister,
+emboldened by the best  Madeira and
+the good-fellowship of the occasion.
+</p><p>
+"I'm acquainted with all I need to know,"
+answered Captain Ball, shortly; but his face
+darkened, and when his guests finished their
+coffee they thought it was high time to go
+away.
+</p><p>
+Everybody was sorry that a jarring note
+had been struck on so delightful an occasion,
+but it could not be undone. On the whole,
+the dinner was an uncommon pleasure, and
+the host walked back into the house to compliment
+his housekeeper, though the sting
+of his friend's untimely question expressed
+itself by a remark that they had made most
+too much of an every-day matter by having
+the coffee in those best cups.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. French laughed. "'T will give 'em
+something to talk about; 't was excellent
+good coffee, this last you got, anyway," and
+Captain Asaph walked away, restored to a
+pleased and cheerful frame of mind. When
+he waked up after a solid after-dinner nap,
+Mrs. French, in her decent afternoon gown,
+as calm as if there had been no company
+to dinner, was just coming down the front
+stairs.
+</p><p>
+She seated herself by the window, and
+pretended to look into the street. The captain
+shook his newspaper at an invading
+fly. It was early September and flies were
+cruelly persistent. Somehow his nap had
+not entirely refreshed him, and he watched
+his housekeeper with something like disapproval.
+</p><p>
+"I want to talk with you about something,
+sir," said Mrs. French.
+</p><p>
+"She's going to raise her pay," the captain
+grumbled to himself. "Well, speak
+out, can't ye ma'am?" he said.
+</p><p>
+"You know I've been sayin' all along
+that you ought to get your niece"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"She's my <i>great</i>-niece," blew the captain,
+"an' I don't know as I want her." The
+awful certainty came upon him that those
+hints were well-founded about Mrs. French's
+determination to marry him, and his stormy
+nature rose in wild revolt. "Can't you
+keep your place, ma'am?" and he gave a
+great <i>whoo!</i> as if he were letting off superabundant
+steam. She might prove to carry
+too many guns for him, and he grew very
+red in the face. It was a much worse moment
+than when a vessel comes driving at
+you amidships out of the fog.
+</p><p>
+"Why, yes, sir, I should be glad to keep
+my place," said Mrs. French, taking the less
+grave meaning of his remark by instinct, if
+not by preference; "only it seems your duty
+to let your great-niece come some time or
+other, and I can go off. Perhaps it is an
+untimely season to speak, about it, but, you
+see, I have had it in mind, and now I've
+got through with the preserves, and there's
+a space between now and house-cleaning, I
+guess you'd better let the young woman
+come. Folks have got wind about your refusing
+her earlier, and think hard of me:
+my position isn't altogether pleasant," and
+she changed color a little, and looked him
+full in the face.
+</p><p>
+The captain's eyes fell. He did owe her
+something. He never had been so comfortable
+in his life, on shore, as she had made
+him. She had heard some cursed ill-natured
+speeches, and he very well knew that a more
+self-respecting woman never lived. But now
+her moment of self-assertion seemed to have
+come, and, to use his own words, she had him
+fast. Stop! there was a way of escape.
+</p><p>
+"Then I <i>will</i> send for the gal. Perhaps
+you're right, ma'am. I've slept myself into
+the doldrums. <i>Whoo! whoo!</i>" he said,
+loudly&mdash;anything to gain a little time.
+"Anything you say, ma'am," he protested.
+"I've got to step down-town on some business,"
+and the captain fled with ponderous
+footsteps out through the dining-room to the
+little side entry where he hung his hat; then
+a moment later he went away, clicking his
+cane along the narrow sidewalk.
+</p><p>
+He had escaped that time, and wrote the
+brief note to his great-niece, Ann Ball&mdash;how
+familiar the name looked!&mdash;with a
+sense of victory. He dreaded the next interview
+with his housekeeper, but she was
+business-like and self-possessed, and seemed
+to be giving him plenty of time. Then the
+captain regretted his letter, and felt as if
+he were going to be broken up once more in
+his home comfort. He spoke only when it
+was absolutely necessary, and simply nodded
+his head when Mrs. French said that she
+was ready to start as soon as she showed
+the young woman about the house. But
+what favorite dishes were served the captain
+in those intervening days! and there
+was one cool evening beside, when the housekeeper
+had the social assistance of a fire in
+the Franklin stove. The captain thought
+that his only safety lay in sleep, and promptly
+took that means of saving himself from a
+dangerous conversation. He even went to
+a panorama on Friday night, a diversion
+that would usually be quite beneath his
+dignity. It was difficult to avoid asking
+Mrs. French to accompany him, she helped
+him on with his coat so pleasantly, but
+"she'd git her claws on me comin' home
+perhaps," mused the self-distrustful mariner,
+and stoutly went his way to the panorama
+alone. It was a very dull show indeed, and
+he bravely confessed it, and then was angry
+at a twinkle in Mrs. French's eyes. Yet he
+should miss the good creature, and for the
+life of him he could not think lightly of her.
+"She well knows how able she is to do for
+me. Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," sighed
+the captain as he went upstairs to bed.
+</p><p>
+"Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," he repeated,
+in solemn confidence to one of his
+intimate friends, as they stood next day on
+one of the deserted wharves, looking out
+across the empty harbor roads. There was
+nothing coming in. How they had watched
+the deep-laden ships enter between the outer
+capes and drop their great sails in home
+waters! How they had ruled those ships,
+and been the ablest ship-masters of their
+day, with nobody to question their decisions!
+There is no such absolute monarchy as a sea-captain's.
+He is a petty king, indeed, as he
+sails the high seas from port to port.
+</p><p>
+There was a fine easterly breeze and a
+bright sun that day, but Captain Ball came
+toiling up the cobble-stoned street toward his
+house as if he were vexed by a headwind. He
+carried a post-card between his thumb and
+finger, and grumbled aloud as he stumped
+along. "Mis' French!" he called, loudly,
+as he opened the door, and that worthy woman
+appeared with a floured apron, and a
+mind divided between her employer's special
+business and her own affairs of pie-making.
+</p><p>
+"She's coming this same day," roared the
+captain. "Might have given some notice,
+I'm sure. 'Be with you Saturday afternoon,'
+and signed her name. That's all she's
+written. Whoo! whoo! 'tis a dreadful close
+day," and the poor old fellow fumbled for
+his big silk handkerchief. "I don't know
+what train she'll take. I ain't going to hang
+round up at the depot; my rheumatism
+troubles me."
+</p><p>
+"I wouldn't, if I was you," answered Mrs.
+French, shortly, and turned from him with a
+pettish movement to open the oven door.
+</p><p>
+The captain passed into the sitting-room,
+and sat down heavily in his large chair. On
+the wall facing him was a picture of his old
+ship the Ocean Rover leaving the harbor of
+Bristol. It was not valuable as a marine
+painting, but the sea was blue in that picture,
+and the white canvas all spread to the
+very sky-scrapers; it was an emblem of that
+freedom which Captain Asaph Ball had once
+enjoyed. Dinner that day was a melancholy
+meal, and after it was cleared away the master
+of the house forlornly watched Mrs.
+French gather an armful of her own belongings,
+and mount the stairs as if she were going
+to pack her box that very afternoon. It
+did not seem possible that she meant to leave
+before Monday, but the captain could not
+bring himself to ask any questions. He was
+at the mercy of womankind. "A jiggeting
+girl. I don't know how to act with her. She
+sha'n't rule me," he muttered to himself.
+"She and Mis' French may think they've
+got things right to their hands, but I'll
+stand my ground&mdash;I'll stand my ground,"
+and the captain gently slid into the calmer
+waters of his afternoon nap.
+</p><p>
+When he waked the house was still, and
+with sudden consciousness of approaching
+danger, and a fear lest Mrs. French might
+have some last words to say if she found him
+awake, he stole out of his house as softly as
+possible and went down-town, hiding his secret
+woes and joining in the long seafaring
+reminiscences with which he and his friends
+usually diverted themselves. As he came up
+the street again toward supper-time, he saw
+that the blinds were thrown open in the parlor
+windows, and his heart began to beat
+loudly. He could hear women's voices, and
+he went in by a side gate and sought the
+quiet garden. It had suffered from a touch
+of frost; so had the captain.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. French heard the gate creak, and
+presently she came to the garden door at the
+end of the front entry. "Come in, won't ye,
+cap'n?" she called, persuasively, and with a
+mighty sea oath the captain rose and obeyed.
+</p><p>
+The house was still. He strode along the
+entry lite a brave man: there was nothing
+of the coward about Asaph Ball when he
+made up his mind to a thing. There was
+nobody in the best parlor, and he turned
+toward the sitting-room, but there sat smiling
+Mrs. French.
+</p><p>
+"Where is the gal?" blew the captain.
+</p><p>
+"Here I be, sir," said Mrs. French, with
+a flushed and beaming face. "I thought
+'t was full time to put you out of your
+misery."
+</p><p>
+"What's all this mean? <i>Whoo! whoo!</i>"
+</p><p>
+"Here I be; take me or leave me, uncle,"
+answered the housekeeper: she began to be
+anxious, the captain looked so bewildered
+and irate. "Folks seemed to think that you
+was peculiar, and I was impressed that it
+would be better to just come first without a
+word's bein' said, and find out how you an'
+me got on; then, if we didn't make out,
+nobody 'd be bound. I'm sure I didn't
+want to be."
+</p><p>
+"Who was that I heard talking with ye
+as I come by?" blew the captain very loud.
+</p><p>
+"That was Mis' Cap'n Topliff; an' an
+old cat she is," calmly replied Mrs. French.
+"She hasn't been near me before this three
+months, but plenty of stories she's set goin'
+about us, and plenty of spyin' she's done. I
+thought I'd tell you who I was within a week
+after I come, but I found out how things was
+goin', and I had to spite 'em well before I
+got through. I expected that something
+would turn up, an' the whole story get out.
+But we've been middlin' comfortable, haven't
+we, sir? an' I thought 't was 'bout time
+to give you a little surprise. Mis' Calvinn
+and the minister knows the whole story,"
+she concluded: "I wouldn't have kep' it
+from them. Mis' Calvinn said all along
+'t would be a good lesson"&mdash;
+</p><p>
+"Who wrote that card from the post-office?"
+demanded the captain, apparently but
+half persuaded.
+</p><p>
+"I did," said Mrs. French.
+</p><p>
+"Good Hector, you women-folks!" but
+Captain Ball ventured to cross the room and
+establish himself in his chair. Then, being
+a man of humor, he saw that he had a round
+turn on those who had spitefufly sought to
+question him.
+</p><p>
+"You needn't let on, that you haven't
+known me all along," suggested Mrs. French.
+"I should be pleased if you would call me
+by my Christian name, sir. I was married
+to Mr. French only a short time; he was
+taken away very sudden. The letter that
+came after aunt's death was directed to my
+maiden name, but aunt knew all about me.
+I've got some means, an' I ain't distressed
+but what I can earn my living."
+</p><p>
+"They don't call me such an old Turk,
+I hope!" exclaimed the excited captain,
+deprecating the underrated estimate of himself
+which was suddenly presented. "I
+ain't a hard man at sea, now I tell ye," and
+he turned away, much moved at the injustice
+of society. "I've got no head for geneology.
+Ann usually set in to give me the
+family particulars when I was logy with
+sleep a Sunday night. I thought you was
+a French from Massachusetts way."
+</p><p>
+"I had to say somethin'," responded the
+housekeeper, promptly.
+</p><p>
+"Well, well!" and a suppressed laugh
+shook the captain like an earthquake. He
+was suddenly set free from his enemies,
+while an hour before he had been hemmed
+in on every side.
+</p><p>
+They had a cheerful supper, and Ann
+French cut a pie, and said, as she passed
+him more than a quarter part of it, that she
+thought she should give up when she was
+baking that morning, and saw the look on
+his face as he handed her the post-card.
+</p><p>
+"You're fit to be captain of a privateer,"
+acknowledged Captain Asaph Ball, handsomely.
+The complications of shore life
+were very astonishing to this seafaring man
+of the old school.
+</p><p>
+Early on Monday morning he had a delightful
+sense of triumph. Captain Allister,
+who was the chief gossip of the waterside
+club, took it upon himself&mdash;a cheap thing
+to do, as everybody said afterwards&mdash;to
+ask many questions about those unvalued
+relatives of the Balls, who had settled long
+ago in New York State. Were there any
+children left of the captain's half-brother's
+family?
+</p><p>
+"I've got a niece living&mdash;a great-niece
+she is," answered Captain Ball, with a broad
+smile&mdash;"makes me feel old. You see, my
+half-brother was a grown man when I was
+born. I never saw him scarcely; there was
+some misunderstanding an' he always lived
+with his own mother's folks; and father, he
+married again, and had me and Ann thirty
+year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been
+'most a hundred; I don't know but more."
+</p><p>
+Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone;
+the audience meditated, and Captain Allister
+mentioned meekly that time did slip away.
+</p><p>
+"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired.
+In some way public interest was aroused in
+the niece.
+</p><p>
+"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the
+captain, in a loud tone. "You fool, Allister,
+who's keepin' my house this minute? Why,
+Ann French; Ann Ball that was, and a
+smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a marryin'
+man: there's been plenty o' fools to
+try me. I've been picked over well by you
+and others, and I thought if 't pleased you,
+you could take your own time."
+</p><p>
+The honest captain for once lent himself
+to deception. One would have thought
+that he had planned the siege himself. He
+took his stick from where it leaned against
+a decaying piece of ship-timber and went
+clicking away. The explanation of his
+housekeeping arrangements was not long in
+flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain
+Topliff made an early call to say that she
+had always suspected it from the first, from
+the family likeness.
+</p><p>
+From this time Captain Ball submitted
+to the rule of Mrs. French, and under her
+sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody
+said, more like other people than ever
+before. As he grew older it was more and
+more convenient to have a superior officer
+to save him from petty responsibilities.
+But now and then, after the first relief at
+finding that Mrs. French was not seeking
+his hand in marriage, and that the jiggeting
+girl was a mere fabrication, Captain
+Ball was both surprised and a little ashamed
+to discover that something in his heart had
+suffered disappointment in the matter of the
+great-niece. Those who knew him well
+would have as soon expected to see a flower
+grow out of a cobble-stone as that Captain
+Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment in
+his honest breast. He had fancied her a
+pretty girl in a pink dress, who would make
+some life in the quiet house, and sit and
+sing at her sewing by the front window, in
+all her foolish furbelows, as he came up
+the street.
+</p>
+<a name="a_ByMorningBoat"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">BY THE MORNING BOAT.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+On the coast of Maine, where many green
+islands and salt inlets fringe the deep-cut
+shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry
+bushes send their fragrance far seaward, and
+song-sparrows sing all day, and the tide runs
+plashing in and out among the weedy ledges;
+where cowbells tinkle on the hills and herons
+stand in the shady coves,&mdash;on the
+lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray
+house facing the morning light. All the
+weather-beaten houses of that region face
+the sea apprehensively, like the women who
+live in them.
+</p><p>
+This home of four people was as bleached
+and gray with wind and rain as one of the
+pasture rocks close by. There were some
+cinnamon rose bushes under the window at
+one side of the door, and a stunted lilac at
+the other side. It was so early in the cool
+morning that nobody was astir but some shy
+birds, that had come in the stillness of
+dawn to pick and flutter in the short grass.
+</p><p>
+They flew away together as some one softly
+opened the unlocked door and stepped out.
+This was a bent old man, who shaded his
+eyes with his hand, and looked at the west
+and the east and overhead, and then took a
+few lame and feeble steps farther out to see
+a wooden vane on the barn. Then he sat
+down on the doorstep, clasped his hands together
+between his knees, and looked steadily
+out to sea, scanning the horizon where
+some schooners had held on their course all
+night, with a light westerly breeze. He
+seemed to be satisfied at sight of the weather,
+as if he had been anxious, as he lay unassured
+in his north bedroom, vexed with the
+sleeplessness of age and excited by thoughts
+of the coming day. The old seaman dozed
+as he sat on the doorstep, while dawn came
+up and the world grew bright; and the little
+birds returned, fearfully at first, to finish
+their breakfast, and at last made bold to hop
+close to his feet.
+</p><p>
+After a time some one else came and stood
+in the open door behind him.
+</p><p>
+"Why, father! seems to me you've got
+an early start; 't ain't but four o'clock. I
+thought I was foolish to get up so soon, but
+'t wa'n't so I could sleep."
+</p><p>
+"No, darter." The old man smiled as he
+turned to look at her, wide awake on the instant.
+"'T ain't so soon as I git out some
+o' these 'arly mornin's. The birds wake me
+up singin', and it's plenty light, you know.
+I wanted to make sure 'Lisha would have a
+fair day to go."
+</p><p>
+"I expect he'd have to go if the weather
+wa'n't good," said the woman.
+</p><p>
+"Yes, yes, but 'tis useful to have fair
+weather, an' a good sign some says it is.
+This is a great event for the boy, ain't it?"
+</p><p>
+"I can't face the thought o' losin' on him,
+father." The woman came forward a step
+or two and sat down on the doorstep. She
+was a hard-worked, anxious creature, whose
+face had lost all look of youth. She was
+apt, in the general course of things, to hurry
+the old man and to spare little time for talking,
+and he was pleased by this acknowledged
+unity of their interests. He moved
+aside a little to give her more room, and
+glanced at her with a smile, as if to beg her
+to speak freely. They were both undemonstrative,
+taciturn New Englanders; their
+hearts were warm with pent-up feeling, that
+summer morning, yet it was easier to understand
+one another through silence than
+through speech.
+</p><p>
+"No, I couldn't git much sleep," repeated
+the daughter at last. "Some things I
+thought of that ain't come to mind before
+for years,&mdash;things I don't relish the feelin'
+of, all over again."
+</p><p>
+"'T was just such a mornin' as this, pore
+little 'Lisha's father went off on that last
+v'y'ge o' his," answered the old sailor, with
+instant comprehension. "Yes, you've had
+it master hard, pore gal, ain't you? I advised
+him against goin' off on that old vessel
+with a crew that wa'n't capable."
+</p><p>
+"Such a mornin' as this, when I come
+out at sun-up, I always seem to see her top-s'ils
+over there beyond the p'int, where she
+was to anchor. Well, I thank Heaven
+'Lisha was averse to goin' to sea," declared
+the mother.
+</p><p>
+"There's dangers ashore, Lucy Ann,"
+said the grandfather, solemnly; but there
+was no answer, and they sat there in silence
+until the old man grew drowsy again.
+</p><p>
+"Yisterday was the first time it fell onto
+my heart that 'Lisha was goin' off," the mother
+began again, after a time had passed.
+"P'r'aps folks was right about our needing
+of him. I've been workin' every way I
+could to further him and git him a real good
+chance up to Boston, and now that we've
+got to part with him I don't see how to put
+up with it."
+</p><p>
+"All nateral," insisted the old man. "My
+mother wept the night through before I was
+goin' to sail on my first v'y'ge; she was kind
+of satisfied, though, when I come home next
+summer, grown a full man, with my savin's
+in my pocket, an' I had a master pretty
+little figured shawl I'd bought for her to
+Bristol."
+</p><p>
+"I don't want no shawls. Partin' is partin'
+to me," said the woman.
+</p><p>
+"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door
+an' see the chimbleys o' three child'n's
+houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to
+console her. "All ready an' willin' to do
+their part for you, so as you could let 'Lisha
+go off and have his chance."
+</p><p>
+"I don't know how it is," she answered,
+"but none on 'em never give me the rooted
+home feelin' that 'Lisha has. They was
+more varyin' and kind o' fast growin' and
+scatterin'; but 'Lisha was always 'Lisha
+when he was a babe, and I settled on him
+for the one to keep with me."
+</p><p>
+"Then he's just the kind to send off, one
+you ain't got to worry about. They're all
+good child'n," said the man. "We've reason
+to be thankful none on 'em's been like
+some young sprigs, more grief 'n glory to
+their folks. An' I ain't regrettin' 'Lisha's
+goin' one mite; I believe you'd rather go
+on doin' for him an' cossetin'. I think 't was
+high time to shove him out o' the nest."
+</p><p>
+"You ain't his mother," said Lucy Ann.
+</p><p>
+"What be you goin' to give him for his
+breakfast?" asked the stern grandfather, in
+a softened, less business-like voice.
+</p><p>
+"I don't know's I'd thought about it,
+special, sir. I did lay aside that piece o'
+apple pie we had left yisterday from dinner,"
+she confessed.
+</p><p>
+"Fry him out a nice little crisp piece o'
+pork, Lucy Ann, an' 't will relish with his
+baked potatoes. He'll think o' his breakfast
+more times 'n you expect. I know a
+lad's feelin's when home's put behind him."
+</p><p>
+The sun was up clear and bright over the
+broad sea inlet to the eastward, but the shining
+water struck the eye by its look of vacancy.
+It was broad daylight, and still so
+early that no sails came stealing out from the
+farmhouse landings, or even from the gray
+groups of battered fish-houses that overhung,
+here and there, a sheltered cove. Some
+crows and gulls were busy in the air; it was
+the time of day when the world belongs more
+to birds than to men.
+</p><p>
+"Poor 'Lisha!" the mother went on compassionately.
+"I expect it has been a long
+night to him. He seemed to take it in, as
+he was goin' to bed, how 't was his last night
+to home. I heard him thrashin' about kind
+o' restless, sometimes."
+</p><p>
+"Come, Lucy Ann, the boy ought to be
+stirrin'!" exclaimed the old sailor, without
+the least show of sympathy. "He's got to
+be ready when John Sykes comes, an' he
+ain't so quick as some lads."
+</p><p>
+The mother rose with a sigh, and went
+into the house. After her own sleepless
+night, she dreaded to face the regretful,
+sleepless eyes of her son; but as she opened
+the door of his little bedroom, there lay
+Elisha sound asleep and comfortable to behold.
+She stood watching him with gloomy
+tenderness until he stirred uneasily, his consciousness
+roused by the intentness of her
+thought, and the mysterious current that
+flowed from her wistful, eager eyes.
+</p><p>
+But when the lad waked, it was to a joyful
+sense of manliness and responsibility;
+for him the change of surroundings was coming
+through natural processes of growth, not
+through the uprooting which gave his mother
+such an aching heart.
+</p><p>
+A little later Elisha came out to the
+breakfast-table, arrayed in his best sandy-brown
+clothes set off with a bright blue satin
+cravat, which had been the pride and delight
+of pleasant Sundays and rare holidays. He
+already felt unrelated to the familiar scene
+of things, and was impatient to be gone.
+For one thing, it was strange to sit down to
+breakfast in Sunday splendor, while his mother
+and grandfather and little sister Lydia
+were in their humble every-day attire. They
+ate in silence and haste, as they always did,
+but with a new constraint and awkwardness
+that forbade their looking at one another.
+At last the head of the household broke the
+silence with simple straightforwardness.
+</p><p>
+"You've got an excellent good day,
+'Lisha. I like to have a fair start myself.
+'T ain't goin' to be too hot; the wind's
+working into the north a little."
+</p><p>
+"Yes, sir," responded Elisha.
+</p><p>
+"The great p'int about gittin' on in life
+is bein' able to cope with your headwinds,"
+continued the old man earnestly, pushing
+away his plate. "Any fool can run before
+a fair breeze, but I tell ye a good seaman is
+one that gits the best out o' his disadvantages.
+You won't be treated so pretty as
+you expect in the store, and you'll git
+plenty o' blows to your pride; but you keep
+right ahead, and if you can't run before the
+wind you can always beat. I ain't no hand
+to preach, but preachin' ain't goin' to sarve
+ye now. We've gone an' fetched ye up the
+best we could, your mother an' me, an' you
+can't never say but you've started amongst
+honest folks. If a vessel's built out o' sound
+timber an' has got good lines for sailin', why
+then she's seaworthy; but if she ain't, she
+ain't; an' a mess o' preachin' ain't goin' to
+alter her over. Now you're standin' out to
+sea, my boy, an' you can bear your home in
+mind and work your way, same's plenty of
+others has done."
+</p><p>
+It was a solemn moment; the speaker's
+voice faltered, and little Lydia dried her
+tearful blue eyes with her gingham apron.
+Elisha hung his head, and patted the old
+spotted cat which came to rub herself against
+his trowsers-leg. The mother rose hastily,
+and hurried into the pantry close by. She
+was always an appealing figure, with her
+thin shoulders and faded calico gowns; it
+was difficult to believe that she had once
+been the prettiest girl in that neighborhood.
+But her son loved her in his sober, undemonstrative
+way, and was full of plans for coming
+home, rich and generous enough to make
+her proud and happy. He was half pleased
+and half annoyed because his leave-taking
+was of such deep concern to the household.
+</p><p>
+"Come, Lyddy, don't you take on," he
+said, with rough kindliness. "Let's go out,
+and I'll show you how to feed the pig and
+'tend to the chickens. You'll have to be
+chief clerk when I'm gone."
+</p><p>
+They went out to the yard, hand in hand.
+Elisha stopped to stroke the old cat again,
+as she ran by his side and mewed. "I wish
+I was off and done with it; this morning
+does seem awful long," said the boy.
+</p><p>
+"Ain't you afraid you'll be homesick
+an' want to come back?" asked the little
+sister timidly; but Elisha scorned so poor
+a thought.
+</p><p>
+"You'll have to see if grandpa has 'tended
+to these things, the pig an' the chickens," he
+advised her gravely. "He forgets 'em sometimes
+when I'm away, but he would be cast
+down if you told him so, and you just keep
+an eye open, Lyddy. Mother's got enough
+to do inside the house. But grandsir'll
+keep her in kindlin's; he likes to set and
+chop in the shed rainy days, an' he'll do a
+sight more if you'll set with him, an' let
+him get goin' on his old seafarin' times."
+</p><p>
+Lydia nodded discreetly.
+</p><p>
+"An', Lyddy, don't you loiter comin'
+home from school, an' don't play out late, an'
+get 'em fussy, when it comes cold weather.
+And you tell Susy Draper,"&mdash;the boy's
+voice sounded unconcerned, but Lydia
+glanced at him quickly,&mdash;"you tell Susy
+Draper that I was awful sorry she was over
+to her aunt's, so I couldn't say good-by."
+</p><p>
+Lydia's heart was the heart of a woman,
+and she comprehended. Lydia nodded
+again, more sagely than before.
+</p><p>
+"See here," said the boy suddenly. "I'm
+goin' to let my old woodchuck out."
+</p><p>
+Lydia's face was blank with surprise. "I
+thought you promised to sell him to big Jim
+Hooper."
+</p><p>
+"I did, but I don't care for big Jim
+Hooper; you just tell him I let my wood-chuck
+go."
+</p><p>
+The brother and sister went to their favorite
+playground between the ledges, not
+far from the small old barn. Here was a
+clumsy box with wire gratings, behind which
+an untamed little wild beast sat up and chittered
+at his harmless foes. "He's a whopping
+old fellow," said Elisha admiringly.
+"Big Jim Hooper sha'n't have him!" and
+as he opened the trap, Lydia had hardly time
+to perch herself high on the ledge, before
+the woodchuck tumbled and scuttled along
+the short green turf, and was lost among the
+clumps of juniper and bayberry just beyond.
+</p><p>
+"I feel just like him," said the boy. "I
+want to get up to Boston just as bad as that.
+See here, now!" and he flung a gallant cart-wheel
+of himself in the same direction, and
+then stood on his head and waved his legs
+furiously in the air. "I feel just like that."
+</p><p>
+Lydia, who had been tearful all the morning,
+looked at him in vague dismay. Only a
+short time ago she had never been made to
+feel that her brother was so much older than
+herself. They had been constant playmates;
+but now he was like a grown man, and cared
+no longer for their old pleasures. There
+was all possible difference between them
+that there can be between fifteen years and
+twelve, and Lydia was nothing but a child.
+</p><p>
+"Come, come, where be ye?" shouted the
+old grandfather, and they both started guiltily.
+Elisha rubbed some dry grass out of
+his short-cropped hair, and the little sister
+came down from her ledge. At that moment
+the real pang of parting shot through
+her heart; her brother belonged irrevocably
+to a wider world.
+</p><p>
+"Ma'am Stover has sent for ye to come
+over; she wants to say good-by to ye!"
+shouted the grandfather, leaning on his two
+canes at the end of the bam. "Come, step
+lively, an' remember you ain't got none too
+much time, an' the boat ain't goin' to wait a
+minute for nobody."
+</p><p>
+"Ma'am Stover?" repeated the boy, with
+a frown. He and his sister knew only too
+well the pasture path between the two houses.
+Ma'am Stover was a bedridden woman, who
+had seen much trouble,&mdash;a town charge in
+her old age. Her neighbors gave to her
+generously out of their own slender stores.
+Yet with all this poverty and dependence,
+she held firm sway over the customs and
+opinions of her acquaintance, from the uneasy
+bed where she lay year in and year out,
+watching the far sea line beyond a pasture
+slope.
+</p><p>
+The young people walked fast, sometimes
+running a little way, light-footed, the boy
+going ahead, and burst into their neighbor's
+room out of breath.
+</p><p>
+She was calm and critical, and their excitement
+had a sudden chill.
+</p><p>
+"So the great day's come at last, 'Lisha?"
+she asked; at which 'Lisha was conscious
+of unnecessary aggravation.
+</p><p>
+"I don't know's it's much of a day&mdash;to
+anybody but me," he added, discovering a
+twinkle in her black eyes that was more
+sympathetic than usual. "I expected to
+stop an' see you last night; but I had to go
+round and see all our folks, and when I got
+back 't was late and the tide was down, an'
+I knew that grandsir couldn't git the boat
+up all alone to our lower landin'."
+</p><p>
+"Well, I didn't forgit you, but I thought
+p'r'aps you might forgit me, an' I'm goin'
+to give ye somethin'. 'T is for your folks'
+sake; I want ye to tell 'em so. I don't
+want ye never to part with it, even if it fails
+to work and you git proud an' want a new
+one. It's been a sight o' company to me."
+She reached up, with a flush on her wrinkled
+cheeks and tears in her eyes, and took a
+worn old silver watch from its nail, and
+handed it, with a last look at its white face
+and large gold hands, to the startled boy.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, I can't take it from ye, Ma'am
+Stover. I'm just as much obliged to you,"
+he faltered.
+</p><p>
+"There, go now, dear, go right along."
+said the old woman, turning quickly away.
+"Be a good boy for your folks' sake. If so
+be that I'm here when you come home, you
+can let me see how well you've kep' it."
+</p><p>
+The boy and girl went softly out, leaving
+the door wide open, as Ma'am Stover liked
+to have it in summer weather, her windows
+being small and few. There were neighbors
+near enough to come and shut it, if a heavy
+shower blew up. Sometimes the song sparrows
+and whippoorwills came hopping in
+about the little bare room.
+</p><p>
+"I felt kind of'shamed to carry off her
+watch," protested Elisha, with a radiant face
+that belied his honest words.
+</p><p>
+"Put it on," said proud little Lydia, trotting
+alongside; and he hooked the bright
+steel chain into his buttonhole, and looked
+down to see how it shone across his waistcoat.
+None of his friends had so fine a
+watch; even his grandfather's was so poor
+a timekeeper that it was rarely worn except
+as a decoration on Sundays or at a funeral.
+They hurried home. Ma'am Stover, lying
+in her bed, could see the two slight figures
+nearly all the way on the pasture path; flitting
+along in their joyful haste.
+</p><p>
+It was disappointing that the mother and
+grandfather had so little to say about the
+watch. In fact, Elisha's grandfather only
+said "Pore creatur'" once or twice, and
+turned away, rubbing his eyes with the back
+of his hand. If Ma'am Stover had chosen
+to give so rich a gift, to know the joy of
+such generosity, nobody had a right to protest.
+Yet nobody knew how much the poor
+wakeful soul would miss the only one of
+her meagre possessions that seemed alive
+and companionable in lonely hours. Somebody
+had said once that there were chairs
+that went about on wheels, made on purpose
+for crippled persons like Ma'am Stover;
+and Elisha's heart was instantly filled with
+delight at the remembrance. Perhaps before
+long, if he could save some money and
+get ahead, he would buy one of those chairs
+and send it down from Boston; and a new
+sense of power filled his honest heart. He
+had dreamed a great many dreams already
+of what he meant to do with all his money,
+when he came home rich and a person of
+consequence, in summer vacations.
+</p><p>
+The large leather valise was soon packed,
+and its owner carried it out to the roadside,
+and put his last winter's overcoat and a great
+new umbrella beside it, so as to be ready
+when John Sykes came with the wagon. He
+was more and more anxious to be gone, and
+felt no sense of his old identification with
+the home interests. His mother said sadly
+that he would be gone full soon enough,
+when he joined his grandfather in accusing
+Mr. Sykes of keeping them waiting forever
+and making him miss the boat. There were
+three rough roundabout miles to be traveled
+to the steamer landing, and the Sykes horses
+were known to be slow. But at last the
+team came nodding in sight over a steep
+hill in the road.
+</p><p>
+Then the moment of parting had come,
+the moment toward which all the long late
+winter and early summer had looked. The
+boy was leaving his plain little home for the
+great adventure of his life's fortunes. Until
+then he had been the charge and anxiety of
+his elders, and under their rule and advice.
+Now he was free to choose; his was the
+power of direction, his the responsibility;
+for in the world one must be ranked by his
+own character and ability, and doomed by
+his own failures. The boy lifted his burden
+lightly, and turned with an eager smile to
+say farewell. But the old people and little
+Lydia were speechless with grief; they could
+not bear to part with the pride and hope and
+boyish strength, that were all their slender
+joy. The worn-out old man, the anxious
+woman who had been beaten and buffeted
+by the waves of poverty and sorrow, the
+little sister with her dreaming heart, stood
+at the bars and hungrily watched him go
+away. They feared success for him almost
+as much as failure. The world was before
+him now, with its treasures and pleasures,
+but with those inevitable disappointments
+and losses which old people know and fear;
+those sorrows of incapacity and lack of
+judgment which young hearts go out to meet
+without foreboding. It was a world of love
+and favor to which little Lydia's brother had
+gone; but who would know her fairy prince,
+in that disguise of a country boy's bashfulness
+and humble raiment from the cheap
+counter of a country store? The household
+stood rapt and silent until the farm wagon
+had made its last rise on the hilly road and
+disappeared.
+</p><p>
+"Well, he's left us now," said the sorrowful,
+hopeful old grandfather. "I expect
+I've got to turn to an' be a boy again myself.
+I feel to hope 'Lisha'll do as well as
+we covet for him. I seem to take it in, all
+my father felt when he let me go off to sea.
+He stood where I'm standin' now, an' I was
+just as triflin' as pore 'Lisha, and felt full as
+big as a man. But Lord! how I give up
+when it come night, an' I took it in I was
+gone from home!"
+</p><p>
+"There, don't ye, father," said the pale
+mother gently. She was, after all, the
+stronger of the two. "'Lisha's good an'
+honest-hearted. You'll feel real proud a
+year from now, when he gits back. I'm so
+glad he's got his watch to carry,&mdash;he did
+feel so grand. I expect them poor hens is
+sufferin'; nobody's thought on 'em this
+livin' mornin'. You'd better step an' feed
+'em right away, sir." She could hardly
+speak for sorrow and excitement, but the
+old man was diverted at once, and hobbled
+away with cheerful importance on his two
+canes. Then she looked round at the poor,
+stony little farm almost angrily. "He'd no
+natural turn for the sea, 'Lisha hadn't; but
+I might have kept him with me if the land
+was good for anything."
+</p><p>
+Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now
+that his great adventure was begun. He
+answered John Sykes's questions mechanically,
+and his head was a little dull and
+dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow
+plodding of the farm horses would make him
+too late for the steamboat, and with sudden
+satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see
+if there were still time enough to get to the
+landing. He was filled with remorse because
+it was impossible to remember whether
+he had thanked Ma'am Stover for her gift.
+It seemed like a thing of life and consciousness
+as he pushed it back into his tight
+pocket. John Sykes looked at him curiously.
+"Why, that's old Ma'am Stover's timepiece,
+ain't it? Lend it to ye, did she?"
+</p><p>
+"Gave it to me," answered Elisha proudly.
+</p><p>
+"You be careful of that watch," said the
+driver soberly; and Elisha nodded.
+</p><p>
+"Well, good-day to ye; be a stiddy lad,"
+advised John Sykes, a few minutes afterward.
+"Don't start in too smart an' scare 'm up to
+Boston. Pride an' ambition was the downfall
+o' old Cole's dog. There, sonny, the
+bo't ain't nowheres in sight, for all your
+fidgetin'!"
+</p><p>
+They both smiled broadly at the humorous
+warning, and as the old wagon rattled
+away, Elisha stood a moment looking after
+it; then he went down to the wharf by
+winding ways among piles of decayed timber
+and disused lobster-pots. A small group
+of travelers and spectators had already assembled,
+and they stared at him in a way
+that made him feel separated from his kind,
+though some of them had come to see him depart.
+One unenlightened acquaintance inquired
+if Elisha were expecting friends by
+that morning's boat; and when he explained
+that he was going away himself, asked
+kindly whether it was to be as far as Bath.
+Elisha mentioned the word "Boston" with
+scorn and compassion, but he did not feel
+like discussing his brilliant prospects now,
+as he had been more than ready to do the
+week before. Just then a deaf old woman
+asked for the time of day. She sat next
+him on the battered bench.
+</p><p>
+"Be you going up to Bath, dear?" she
+demanded suddenly; and he said yes.
+"Guess I'll stick to you, then, fur's you
+go; 't is kind o' blind in them big places."
+Elisha faintly nodded a meek but grudging
+assent; then, after a few moments, he boldly
+rose, tall umbrella in hand, and joined the
+talkative company of old and young men at
+the other side of the wharf. They proceeded
+to make very light of a person's going to
+Boston to enter upon his business career;
+but, after all, their thoughts were those of
+mingled respect and envy. Most of them
+had seen Boston, but no one save Elisha
+was going there that day to stay for a whole
+year. It made him feel like a city man.
+</p><p>
+The steamer whistled loud and hoarse before
+she came in sight, but presently the
+gay flags showed close by above the pointed
+spruces. Then she came jarring against the
+wharf, and the instant bustle and hurry, the
+strange faces of the passengers, and the loud
+rattle of freight going on board, were as confusing
+and exciting as if a small piece of
+Boston itself had been dropped into that
+quiet cove.
+</p><p>
+The people on the wharf shouted cheerful
+good-byes, to which the young traveler responded;
+then he seated himself well astern
+to enjoy the views, and felt as if he had
+made a thousand journeys. He bought a
+newspaper, and began to read it with much
+pride and a beating heart. The little old
+woman came and sat beside him, and talked
+straight on whether he listened or not, until
+he was afraid of what the other passengers
+might think, but nobody looked that way,
+and he could not find anything in the paper
+that he cared to read. Alone, but unfettered
+and aflame with courage; to himself he was
+not the boy who went away, but the proud
+man who one day would be coming home.
+</p><p>
+"Goin' to Boston, be ye?" asked the old
+lady for the third time; and it was still a
+pleasure to say yes, when the boat swung
+round, and there, far away on its gray and
+green pasture slope, with the dark evergreens
+standing back, were the low gray
+house, and the little square barn, and the
+lines of fence that shut in his home. He
+strained his eyes to see if any one were
+watching from the door. He had almost
+forgotten that they could see him still. He
+sprang to the boat's side: yes, his mother
+remembered; there was something white
+waving from the doorway. The whole landscape
+faded from his eyes except that faraway
+gray house; his heart leaped back
+with love and longing; he gazed and gazed,
+until a height of green forest came between
+and shut the picture out. Then the country
+boy went on alone to make his way in
+the wide world.
+</p>
+<a name="a_DarkNewEnglandDays"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">IN DARK NEW ENGLAND DAYS.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">I.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The last of the neighbors was going
+home; officious Mrs. Peter Downs had lingered
+late and sought for additional housework
+with which to prolong her stay. She
+had talked incessantly, and buzzed like a
+busy bee as she helped to put away the best
+crockery after the funeral supper, while the
+sisters Betsey and Hannah Knowles grew
+every moment more forbidding and unwilling
+to speak. They lighted a solitary small
+oil lamp at last, as if for Sunday evening
+idleness, and put it on the side table in the
+kitchen.
+</p><p>
+"We ain't intending to make a late evening
+of it," announced Betsey, the elder,
+standing before Mrs. Downs in an expectant,
+final way, making an irresistible opportunity
+for saying good-night. "I'm sure
+we're more than obleeged to ye,&mdash;ain't we,
+Hannah?&mdash;but I don't feel's if we ought
+to keep ye longer. We ain't going to do no
+more to-night, but set down a spell and kind
+of collect ourselves, and then make for bed."
+</p><p>
+Susan Downs offered one more plea. "I'd
+stop all night with ye an' welcome; 't is gettin'
+late&mdash;an' dark," she added plaintively;
+but the sisters shook their heads quickly,
+while Hannah said that they might as well
+get used to staying alone, since they would
+have to do it first or last. In spite of herself
+Mrs. Downs was obliged to put on her
+funeral best bonnet and shawl and start on
+her homeward way.
+</p><p>
+"Closed-mouthed old maids!" she grumbled
+as the door shut behind her all too soon
+and denied her the light of the lamp along the
+footpath. Suddenly there was a bright ray
+from the window, as if some one had pushed
+back the curtain and stood with the lamp
+close to the sash. "That's Hannah," said
+the retreating guest. "She'd told me somethin'
+about things, I know, if it hadn't 'a'
+been for Betsey. Catch me workin' myself to
+pieces again for 'em." But, however grudgingly
+this was said, Mrs. Downs's conscience
+told her that the industry of the past two
+days had been somewhat selfish on her part;
+she had hoped that in the excitement of this
+unexpected funeral season she might for
+once be taken into the sisters' confidence.
+More than this, she knew that they were
+certain of her motive, and had deliberately
+refused the expected satisfaction. "'T ain't
+as if I was one o' them curious busy-bodies
+anyway," she said to herself pityingly; "they
+might 'a' neighbored with somebody for once,
+I do believe." Everybody would have a
+question ready for her the next day, for it
+was known that she had been slaving herself
+devotedly since the news had come of
+old Captain Knowles's sudden death in his
+bed from a stroke, the last of three which
+had in the course of a year or two changed
+him from a strong old man to a feeble,
+chair-bound cripple.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Downs stepped bravely along the
+dark country road; she could see a light in
+her own kitchen window half a mile away,
+and did not stop to notice either the penetrating
+dampness, or the shadowy woods at
+her right. It was a cloudy night, but there
+was a dim light over the open fields. She
+had a disposition of mind towards the exciting
+circumstances of death and burial, and
+was in request at such times among her
+neighbors; in this she was like a city person
+who prefers tragedy to comedy, but not
+having the semblance within her reach, she
+made the most of looking on at real griefs
+and departures.
+</p><p>
+Some one was walking towards her in the
+road; suddenly she heard footsteps. The
+figure stopped, then it came forward again.
+</p><p>
+"Oh, 't is you, ain't it?" with a tone of
+disappointment. "I cal'lated you'd stop all
+night, 't had got to be so late, an' I was just
+going over to the Knowles gals'; well, to
+kind o' ask how they be, an'"&mdash;Mr. Peter
+Downs was evidently counting on his visit.
+</p><p>
+"They never passed me the compliment,"
+replied the wife. "I declare I didn't covet
+the walk home; I'm most beat out, bein'
+on foot so much. I was 'most put out with
+'em for letten' of me see quite so plain
+that my room was better than my company.
+But I don't know's I blame 'em; they want
+to look an' see what they've got, an' kind
+of git by theirselves, I expect. 'T was natural."
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Downs knew that her husband
+would resent her first statements, being a
+sensitive and grumbling man. She had
+formed a pacific habit of suiting her remarks
+to his point of view, to save an outburst.
+He contented Himself with calling
+the Knowles girls hoggish, and put a direct
+question as to whether they had let fall any
+words about their situation, but Martha
+Downs was obliged to answer in the negative.
+</p><p>
+"Was Enoch Holt there after the folks
+come back from the grave?"
+</p><p>
+"He wa'n't; they never give <i>him</i> no encouragement
+neither."
+</p><p>
+"He appeared well, I must say," continued
+Peter Downs. "He took his place
+next but one behind us in the procession,
+'long of Melinda Dutch, an' walked to an'
+from with her, give her his arm, and then
+I never see him after we got back; but I
+thought he might be somewhere in the house,
+an' I was out about the barn an' so on."
+</p><p>
+"They was civil to him. I was by when
+he come, just steppin' out of the bedroom
+after we'd finished layin' the old Cap'n into
+his coffin. Hannah looked real pleased
+when she see Enoch, as if she hadn't really
+expected him, but Betsey stuck out her
+hand's if 't was an eend o' board, an' drawed
+her face solemner 'n ever. There, they had
+natural feelin's. He was their own father
+when all was said, the Cap'n was, an' I don't
+know but he was clever to 'em in his way,
+'ceptin' when he disappointed Hannah about
+her marryin' Jake Good'in. She l'arned to
+respect the old Cap'n's foresight, too."
+</p><p>
+"Sakes alive, Marthy, how you do knock
+folks down with one hand an' set 'em up
+with t' other," chuckled Mr. Downs. They
+next discussed the Captain's appearance as
+he lay in state in the front room, a subject
+which, with its endless ramifications, would
+keep the whole neighborhood interested for
+weeks to come.
+</p><p>
+An hour later the twinkling light in the
+Downs house suddenly disappeared. As
+Martha Downs took a last look out of doors
+through her bedroom window she could see
+no other light; the neighbors had all gone
+to bed. It was a little past nine, and the
+night was damp and still.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">II.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+The Captain Knowles place was eastward
+from the Downs's, and a short turn in
+the road and the piece of hard-wood growth
+hid one house from the other. At this unwontedly
+late hour the elderly sisters were
+still sitting in their warm kitchen; there
+were bright coals under the singing tea-kettle
+which hung from the crane by three or
+four long pothooks. Betsey Knowles objected
+when her sister offered to put on
+more wood.
+</p><p>
+"Father never liked to leave no great of a
+fire, even though he slept right here in the
+bedroom. He said this floor was one that
+would light an' catch easy, you r'member."
+</p><p>
+"Another winter we can move down
+and take the bedroom ourselves&mdash;'t will be
+warmer for us," suggested Hannah; but
+Betsey shook her head doubtfully. The
+thought of their old father's grave, unwatched
+and undefended in the outermost
+dark field, filled their hearts with a strange
+tenderness. They had been his dutiful, patient
+slaves, and it seemed like disloyalty
+to have abandoned the poor shape; to be sitting
+there disregarding the thousand requirements
+and services of the past. More than
+all, they were facing a free future; they
+were their own mistresses at last, though
+past sixty years of age. Hannah was still
+a child at heart. She chased away a dread
+suspicion, when Betsey forbade the wood,
+lest this elder sister, who favored their father'
+s looks, might take his place as stern
+ruler of the household.
+</p><p>
+"Betsey," said the younger sister suddenly,
+"we'll have us a cook stove, won't
+we, next winter? I expect we're going to
+have something to do with?"
+</p><p>
+Betsey did not answer; it was impossible
+to say whether she truly felt grief or only
+assumed it. She had been sober and silent
+for the most part since she routed neighbor
+Downs, though she answered her sister's
+prattling questions with patience and sympathy.
+Now, she rose from her chair and
+went to one of the windows, and, pushing
+back the sash curtain, pulled the wooden
+shutter across and hasped it.
+</p><p>
+"I ain't going to bed just yet," she explained.
+"I've been a-waiting to make sure
+nobody was coming in. I don't know's
+there'll be any better time to look in the
+chest and see what we've got to depend on.
+We never'll get no chance to do it by day."
+</p><p>
+Hannah looked frightened for a moment,
+then nodded, and turned to the opposite window
+and pulled that shutter with much difficulty;
+it had always caught and hitched and
+been provoking&mdash;a warped piece of red oak,
+when even-grained white pine would have
+saved strength and patience to three generations
+of the Knowles race. Then the sisters
+crossed the kitchen and opened the bedroom
+door. Hannah shivered a little as the colder
+air struck her, and her heart beat loudly.
+Perhaps it was the same with Betsey.
+</p><p>
+The bedroom was clean and orderly for the
+funeral guests. Instead of the blue homespun
+there was a beautifully quilted white coverlet
+which had been part of their mother's wedding
+furnishing, and this made the bedstead
+with its four low posts-look unfamiliar and
+awesome. The lamplight shone through the
+kitchen door behind them, not very bright
+at best, but Betsey reached under the bed,
+and with all the strength she could muster
+pulled out the end of a great sea chest. The
+sisters tugged together and pushed, and made
+the most of their strength before they finally
+brought it through the narrow door into the
+kitchen. The solemnity of the deed made
+them both whisper as they talked, and Hannah
+did not dare to say what was in her timid
+heart&mdash;that she would rather brave discovery
+by daylight than such a feeling of being
+disapprovingly watched now, in the dead of
+night. There came a slight sound outside
+the house which made her look anxiously at
+Betsey, but Betsey remained tranquil.
+</p><p>
+"It's nothing but a stick falling down the
+woodpile," she answered in a contemptuous
+whisper, and the younger woman was reassured.
+</p><p>
+Betsey reached deep into her pocket and
+found a great key which was worn smooth
+and bright like silver, and never had been
+trusted willingly into even her own careful
+hands. Hannah held the lamp, and the two
+thin figures bent eagerly over the lid as it
+opened. Their shadows were waving about
+the low walls, and looked like strange shapes
+bowing and dancing behind them.
+</p><p>
+The chest was stoutly timbered, as if it
+were built in some ship-yard, and there
+were heavy wrought-iron hinges and a large
+escutcheon for the keyhole that the ship's
+blacksmith might have hammered out. On
+the top somebody had scratched deeply the
+crossed lines for a game of fox and geese,
+which had a trivial, irreverent look, and
+might have been the unforgiven fault of some
+idle ship's boy. The sisters had hardly dared
+look at the chest or to signify their knowledge
+of its existence, at unwary times. They
+had swept carefully about it year after year,
+and wondered if it were indeed full of gold
+as the neighbors used to hint; but no matter
+how much found a way in, little had found
+the way out. They had been hampered all
+their lives for money, and in consequence
+had developed a wonderful facility for spinning
+and weaving, mending and making.
+Their small farm was an early example of
+intensive farming; they were allowed to use
+its products in a niggardly way, but the
+money that was paid for wool, for hay, for
+wood, and for summer crops had all gone
+into the chest. The old captain was a hard
+master; he rarely commended and often
+blamed. Hannah trembled before him, but
+Betsey faced him sturdily, being amazingly
+like him, with a feminine difference; as like
+as a ruled person can be to a ruler, for the
+discipline of life had taught the man to aggress,
+the woman only to defend. In the
+chest was a fabled sum of prize-money, besides
+these slender earnings of many years;
+all the sisters' hard work and self-sacrifice
+were there in money and a mysterious largess
+besides. All their lives they had been looking
+forward to this hour of ownership.
+</p><p>
+There was a solemn hush in the house;
+the two sisters were safe from their neighbors,
+and there was no fear of interruption
+at such an hour in that hard-working community,
+tired with a day's work that had
+been early begun. If any one came knocking
+at the door, both door and windows were
+securely fastened.
+</p><p>
+The eager sisters bent above the chest,
+they held their breath and talked in softest
+whispers. With stealthy tread a man came
+out of the woods near by.
+</p><p>
+He stopped to listen, came nearer, stopped
+again, and then crept close to the old house.
+He stepped upon the banking, next the window
+with the warped shutter; there was a
+knothole in it high above the women's heads,
+towards the top. As they leaned over the
+chest, an eager eye watched them. If they
+had turned that way suspiciously, the eye
+might have caught the flicker of the lamp
+and betrayed itself. No, they were too busy:
+the eye at the shutter watched and watched.
+</p><p>
+There was a certain feeling of relief in the
+sisters' minds because the contents of the
+chest were so commonplace at first sight.
+There were some old belongings dating back
+to their father's early days of seafaring.
+They unfolded a waistcoat pattern or two of
+figured stuff which they had seen him fold
+and put away again and again. Once he had
+given Betsey a gay China silk handkerchief,
+and here were two more like it. They had
+not known what a store of treasures might
+be waiting for them, but the reality so far was
+disappointing; there was much spare room
+to begin with, and the wares within looked
+pinched and few. There were bundles of
+papers, old receipts, some letters in two not
+very thick bundles, some old account books
+with worn edges, and a blackened silver can
+which looked very small in comparison with
+their anticipation, being an heirloom and
+jealously hoarded and secreted by the old
+man. The women began to feel as if his lean
+angry figure were bending with them over
+the sea chest.
+</p><p>
+They opened a package wrapped in many
+layers of old soft paper&mdash;a worked piece of
+Indian muslin, and an embroidered red scarf
+which they had never seen before. "He
+must have brought them home to mother,"
+said Betsey with a great outburst of feeling.
+"He never was the same man again;
+he never would let nobody else have them
+when he found she was dead, poor old father!"
+</p><p>
+Hannah looked wistfully at the treasures.
+She rebuked herself for selfishness, but she
+thought of her pinched girlhood and the delight
+these things would have been. Ah yes!
+it was too late now for many things besides
+the sprigged muslin. "If I was young as I
+was once there's lots o' things I'd like to do
+now I'm free," said Hannah with a gentle
+sigh; but her sister checked her anxiously&mdash;it
+was fitting that they should preserve a
+semblance of mourning even to themselves.
+</p><p>
+The lamp stood in a kitchen chair at the
+chest's end and shone full across their faces.
+Betsey looked intent and sober as she turned
+over the old man's treasures. Under the India
+mull was an antique pair of buff trousers,
+a waistcoat of strange old-fashioned foreign
+stuff, and a blue coat with brass buttons,
+brought home from over seas, as the women
+knew, for their father's wedding clothes.
+They had seen him carry them out at long
+intervals to hang them in the spring sunshine;
+he had been very feeble the last time,
+and Hannah remembered that she had longed
+to take them from his shaking hands.
+</p><p>
+"I declare for 't I wish 't we had laid him
+out in 'em, 'stead o' the robe," she whispered;
+but Betsey made no answer. She
+was kneeling still, but held herself upright
+and looked away. It was evident that she
+was lost in her own thoughts.
+</p><p>
+"I can't find nothing else by eyesight,"
+she muttered. "This chest never 'd be so
+heavy with them old clothes. Stop! Hold
+that light down, Hannah; there's a place
+underneath here. Them papers in the till
+takes a shallow part. Oh, my gracious! See
+here, will ye? Hold the light, hold the
+light!"
+</p><p>
+There was a hidden drawer in the chest's
+side&mdash;a long, deep place, and it was full of
+gold pieces. Hannah had seated herself in
+the chair to be out of her sister's way. She
+held the lamp with one hand and gathered
+her apron on her lap with the other, while
+Betsey, exultant and hawk-eyed, took out
+handful after handful of heavy coins, letting
+them jingle and chink, letting them shine
+in the lamp's rays, letting them roll across
+the floor&mdash;guineas, dollars, doubloons, old
+French and Spanish and English gold!
+</p><p>
+<i>Now, now! Look! The eye at the window!</i>
+</p><p>
+At last they have found it all; the bag of
+silver, the great roll of bank bills, and the
+heavy weight of gold&mdash;the prize-money that
+had been like Robinson Crusoe's in the cave.
+They were rich women that night; their
+faces grew young again as they sat side by
+side and exulted while the old kitchen grew
+cold. There was nothing they might not do
+within the range of their timid ambitions;
+they were women of fortune now and their
+own mistresses. They were beginning at last
+to live.
+</p><p>
+The watcher outside was cramped and
+chilled. He let himself down softly from the
+high step of the winter banking, and crept
+toward the barn, where he might bury himself
+in the hay and think. His fingers were
+quick to find the peg that opened the little
+barn door; the beasts within were startled
+and stumbled to their feet, then went back
+to their slumbers. The night wore on; the
+light spring rain began to fall, and the sound
+of it on the house roof close down upon the
+sisters' bed lulled them quickly to sleep.
+Twelve, one, two o'clock passed by.
+</p><p>
+They had put back the money and the
+clothes and the minor goods and treasures
+and pulled the chest back into the bedroom
+so that it was out of sight from the kitchen;
+the bedroom door was always shut by day.
+The younger sister wished to carry the
+money to their own room, but Betsey disdained
+such precaution. The money had
+always been safe in the old chest, and there
+it should stay. The next week they would
+go to Riverport and put it into the bank;
+it was no use to lose the interest any longer.
+Because their father had lost some invested
+money in his early youth, it did not follow
+that every bank was faithless. Betsey's self-assertion
+was amazing, but they still whispered
+to each other as they got ready for
+bed. With strange forgetfulness Betsey
+had laid the chest key on the white coverlet
+in the bedroom and left it there.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">III.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+In August of that year the whole countryside
+turned out to go to court.
+</p><p>
+The sisters had been rich for one night;
+in the morning they waked to find themselves
+poor with a bitter pang of poverty of
+which they had never dreamed. They had
+said little, but they grew suddenly pinched
+and old. They could not tell how much
+money they had lost, except that Hannah's
+lap was full of gold, a weight she could not
+lift nor carry. After a few days of stolid
+misery they had gone to the chief lawyer of
+their neighborhood to accuse Enoch Holt of
+the robbery. They dressed in their best and
+walked solemnly side by side across the fields
+and along the road, the shortest way to the
+man of law. Enoch Holt's daughter saw
+them go as she stood in her doorway, and
+felt a cold shiver run through her frame as
+if in foreboding. Her father was not at
+home; he had left for Boston late on the
+afternoon of Captain Knowles's funeral.
+He had had notice the day before of the
+coming in of a ship in which he owned  a
+thirty-second; there was talk of selling the
+ship, and the owners' agent had summoned
+him. He had taken pains to go to the
+funeral, because he and the old captain had
+been on bad terms ever since they had
+bought a piece of woodland together, and
+the captain declared himself wronged at the
+settling of accounts. He was growing feeble
+even then, and had left the business to the
+younger man. Enoch Holt was not a trusted
+man, yet he had never before been openly
+accused of dishonesty. He was not a professor
+of religion, but foremost on the secular
+side of church matters. Most of the
+men in that region were hard men; it was
+difficult to get money, and there was little
+real comfort in a community where the
+sterner, stingier, forbidding side of New
+England life was well exemplified.
+</p><p>
+The proper steps had been taken by the
+officers of the law, and in answer to the writ
+Enoch Holt appeared, much shocked and
+very indignant, and was released on bail
+which covered the sum his shipping interest
+had brought him. The weeks had dragged
+by; June and July were long in passing, and
+here was court day at last, and all the townsfolk
+hastening by high-roads and by-roads
+to the court-house. The Knowles girls themselves
+had risen at break of day and walked
+the distance steadfastly, like two of the three
+Fates: who would make the third, to cut
+the thread for their enemy's disaster? Public
+opinion was divided. There were many
+voices ready to speak on the accused man's
+side; a sharp-looking acquaintance left his
+business in Boston to swear that Holt was
+in his office before noon on the day following
+the robbery, and that he had spent most
+of the night in Boston, as proved by several
+minor details of their interview. As for
+Holt's young married daughter, she was a
+favorite with the townsfolk, and her husband
+was away at sea overdue these last
+few weeks. She sat on one of the hard court
+benches with a young child in her arms, born
+since its father sailed; they had been more
+or less unlucky, the Holt family, though
+Enoch himself was a man of brag and
+bluster.
+</p><p>
+All the hot August morning, until the
+noon recess, and all the hot August afternoon,
+fly-teased and wretched with the heavy
+air, the crowd of neighbors listened to the
+trial. There was not much evidence
+brought; everybody knew that Enoch Holt
+left the funeral procession hurriedly, and
+went away on horseback towards Boston.
+His daughter knew no more than this. The
+Boston man gave his testimony impatiently,
+and one or two persons insisted that they
+saw the accused on his way at nightfall, several
+miles from home.
+</p><p>
+As the testimony came out, it all tended
+to prove his innocence, though public opinion
+was to the contrary. The Knowles sisters
+looked more stern and gray hour by hour;
+their vengeance was not to be satisfied; their
+accusation had been listened to and found
+wanting, but their instinctive knowledge of
+the matter counted for nothing. They must
+have been watched through the knot-hole of
+the shutter; nobody had noticed it until,
+some years before, Enoch Holt himself had
+spoken of the light's shining through on a
+winter's night as he came towards the house.
+The chief proof was that nobody else could
+have done the deed. But why linger over
+<i>pros</i> and <i>cons?</i> The jury returned directly
+with a verdict of "not proven," and the
+tired audience left the court-house.
+</p><p>
+But not until Hannah Knowles with
+angry eyes had risen to her feet.
+</p><p>
+The sterner elder sister tried to pull her
+back; every one said that they should have
+looked to Betsey to say the awful words that
+followed, not to her gentler companion. It
+was Hannah, broken and disappointed, who
+cried in a strange high voice as Enoch Holt
+was passing by without a look:
+</p><p>
+"You stole it, you thief! You know it
+in your heart!"
+</p><p>
+The startled man faltered, then he faced
+the women. The people who stood near
+seemed made of eyes as they stared to see
+what he would say.
+</p><p>
+"I swear by my right hand I never
+touched it."
+</p><p>
+"Curse your right hand, then!" cried
+Hannah Knowles, growing tall and thin like
+a white flame drawing upward. "Curse
+your right hand, yours and all your folks'
+that follow you! May I live to see the
+day!"
+</p><p>
+The people drew back, while for a moment
+accused and accuser stood face to face.
+Then Holt's flushed face turned white, and
+he shrank from the fire in those wild eyes,
+and walked away clumsily down the courtroom.
+Nobody followed him, nobody shook
+hands with him, or told the acquitted man
+that they were glad of his release. Half
+an hour later, Betsey and Hannah Knowles
+took their homeward way, to begin their hard
+round of work again. The horizon that had
+widened with such glory for one night, had
+closed round them again like an iron wall.
+</p><p>
+Betsey was alarmed and excited by her
+sister's uncharacteristic behavior, and she
+looked at her anxiously from time to time.
+Hannah had become the harder-faced of the
+two. Her disappointment was the keener,
+for she had kept more of the unsatisfied desires
+of her girlhood until that dreary morning
+when they found the sea-chest rifled and
+the treasure gone.
+</p><p>
+Betsey said inconsequently that it was a
+pity she did not have that black silk gown
+that would stand alone. They had planned
+for it over the open chest, and Hannah's was
+to be a handsome green. They might have
+worn them to court. But even the pathetic
+facetiousness of her elder sister did not bring
+a smile to Hannah Knowles's face, and the
+next day one was at the loom and the other
+at the wheel again. The neighbors talked
+about the curse with horror; in their minds
+a fabric of sad fate was spun from the bitter
+words.
+</p><p>
+The Knowles sisters never had worn silk
+gowns and they never would. Sometimes
+Hannah or Betsey would stealthily look over
+the chest in one or the other's absence. One
+day when Betsey was very old and her mind
+had grown feeble, she tied her own India
+silk handkerchief about her neck, but they
+never used the other two. They aired the
+wedding suit once every spring as long as
+they lived. They were both too old and forlorn
+to make up the India mull. Nobody
+knows how many times they took everything
+out of the heavy old clamped box, and
+peered into every nook and corner to see if
+there was not a single gold piece left. They
+never answered any one who made bold to
+speak of their misfortune.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">IV.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Enoch Holt had been a seafaring man in
+his early days, and there was news that the
+owners of a Salem ship in which he held a
+small interest wished him to go out as supercargo.
+He was brisk and well in health,
+and his son-in-law, an honest but an unlucky
+fellow, had done less well than usual, so that
+nobody was surprised when Enoch made
+ready for his voyage. It was nearly a year
+after the theft, and nothing had come so
+near to restoring him to public favor as his
+apparent lack of ready money. He openly
+said that he put great hope in his adventure
+to the Spice Islands, and when he said farewell
+one Sunday to some members of the
+dispersing congregation, more than one person
+wished him heartily a pleasant voyage
+and safe return. He had an insinuating
+tone of voice and an imploring look that
+day, and this fact, with his probable long
+absence and the dangers of the deep, won
+him much sympathy. It is a shameful thing
+to accuse a man wrongfully, and Enoch Holt
+had behaved well since the trial; and, what
+is more, had shown no accession to his means
+of living.  So away he went, with a fair
+amount of good wishes, though one or two
+persons assured remonstrating listeners that
+they thought it likely Enoch would make a
+good voyage, better than common, and show
+himself forwarded when he came to port.
+Soon after his departure, Mrs. Peter Downs
+and an intimate acquaintance discussed the
+ever-exciting subject of the Knowles robbery
+over a friendly cup of tea.
+</p><p>
+They were in the Downs kitchen, and
+quite by themselves. Peter Downs himself
+had been drawn as a juror, and had been
+for two days at the county town. Mrs.
+Downs was giving herself to social interests
+in his absence, and Mrs. Forder, an asthmatic
+but very companionable person, had arrived
+by two o'clock that afternoon with her knitting
+work, sure of being welcome. The two
+old friends had first talked over varied subjects
+of immediate concern, but when supper
+was nearly finished, they fell back upon the
+lost Knowles gold, as has been already said.
+</p><p>
+"They got a dreadful blow, poor gals,"
+wheezed Mrs. Forder, with compassion.
+"'T was harder for them than for most
+folks; they'd had a long stent with the ol'
+gentleman; very arbitrary, very arbitrary."
+</p><p>
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Downs, pushing
+back her tea-cup, then lifting it again to see
+if it was quite empty. "Yes, it took holt
+o' Hannah, the most. I should 'a' said Betsey
+was a good deal the most set in her
+ways an' would 'a' been most tore up, but
+'t wa'n't so."
+</p><p>
+"Lucky that Holt's folks sets on the other
+aisle in the meetin'-house, I do consider, so 't
+they needn't face each other sure as Sabbath
+comes round."
+</p><p>
+"I see Hannah an' him come face to face
+two Sabbaths afore Enoch left. So happened
+he dallied to have a word 'long o'
+Deacon Good'in, an' him an' Hannah stepped
+front of each other 'fore they knowed what
+they's about. I sh'd thought her eyes 'd
+looked right through him. No one of 'em
+took the word; Enoch he slinked off pretty
+quick."
+</p><p>
+"I see 'em too," said Mrs. Forder; "made
+my blood run cold."
+</p><p>
+"Nothin' ain't come of the curse yit,"&mdash;Mrs.
+Downs lowered the tone of her voice,&mdash;"least,
+folks says so. It kind o' worries
+pore Ph&oelig;be Holt&mdash;Mis' Dow, I would say.
+She was narved all up at the time o' the
+trial, an' when her next baby come into the
+world, first thin' she made out t' ask me was
+whether it seemed likely, an' she gived me a
+pleadin' look as if I'd got to tell her what
+she hadn't heart to ask. 'Yes, dear,'
+says I, 'put up his little hands to me kind
+of wonted'; an' she turned a look on me
+like another creatur', so pleased an' contented."
+</p><p>
+"I s'pose you don't see no great of the
+Knowles gals?" inquired Mrs. Forder, who
+lived two miles away in the other direction.
+</p><p>
+"They stepped to the door yisterday when
+I was passin' by, an' I went in an' set a spell
+long of 'em," replied the hostess. "They'd
+got pestered with that ol' loom o' theirn.
+'Fore I thought, says I, ''T is all worn out,
+Betsey,' says I. 'Why on airth don't ye
+git somebody to git some o' your own wood
+an' season it well so 't won't warp, same's
+mine done, an' build ye a new one?' But
+Betsey muttered an' twitched away; 't wa'n't
+like her, but they're dis'p'inted at every
+turn, I s'pose, an' feel poor where they've
+got the same's ever to do with. Hannah's
+a-coughin' this spring's if somethin' ailed
+her. I asked her if she had bad feelin's in
+her pipes, an' she said yis, she had, but not
+to speak of 't before Betsey. I'm goin' to
+fix her up some hoarhound an' elecampane
+quick's the ground's nice an' warm an'
+roots livens up a grain more. They're limp
+an' wizened 'long to the fust of the spring.
+Them would be service'ble, simmered away
+to a syrup 'long o' molasses; now don't you
+think so, Mis' Forder?"
+</p><p>
+"Excellent," replied the wheezing dame.
+"I covet a portion myself, now you speak.
+Nothin' cures my complaint, but a new remedy
+takes holt clever sometimes, an' eases
+me for a spell." And she gave a plaintive
+sigh, and began to knit again.
+</p><p>
+Mrs. Downs rose and pushed the supper-table
+to the wall and drew her chair nearer
+to the stove. The April nights were chilly.
+</p><p>
+"The folks is late comin' after me," said
+Mrs. Forder, ostentatiously. "I may's well
+confess that I told 'em if they was late
+with the work they might let go o' fetchin'
+o' me an' I'd walk home in the mornin';
+take it easy when I was fresh. Course I
+mean ef 't wouldn't put you out: I knowed
+you was all alone, an' I kind o' wanted a
+change."
+</p><p>
+"Them words was in my mind to utter
+while we was to table," avowed Mrs. Downs,
+hospitably. "I ain't reelly afeared, but 't is
+sort o' creepy fastenin' up an' goin' to bed
+alone. Nobody can't help hearkin', an'
+every common noise starts you. I never
+used to give nothin' a thought till the
+Knowleses was robbed, though."
+</p><p>
+"'T was mysterious, I do maintain," acknowledged
+Mrs. Forder. "Comes over me
+sometimes p'raps 't wasn't Enoch; he'd 'a'
+branched out more in course o' time. I'm
+waitin' to see if he does extry well to sea
+'fore I let my mind come to bear on his
+bein' clean handed."
+</p><p>
+"Plenty thought 't was the ole Cap'n
+come back for it an' sperited it away.
+Enough said that 't wasn't no honest gains;
+most on't was prize-money o' slave ships,
+an' all kinds o' devil's gold was mixed in. I
+s'pose you've heard that said?"
+</p><p>
+"Time an' again," responded Mrs. Forder;
+"an' the worst on't was simple old Pappy
+Flanders went an' told the Knowles gals
+themselves that folks thought the ole Cap'n
+come back an' got it, and Hannah done
+wrong to cuss Enoch Holt an' his ginerations
+after him the way she done."
+</p><p>
+"I think it took holt on her ter'ble after
+all she'd gone through," said Mrs. Downs,
+compassionately. "He ain't near so simple
+as he is ugly, Pappy Flanders ain't. I've
+seen him set here an' read the paper sober's
+anybody when I've been goin' about my
+mornin's work in the shed-room, an' when
+I'd come in to look about he'd twist it with
+his hands an' roll his eyes an' begin to git
+off some o' his gable. I think them wander-in'
+cheap-wits likes the fun on't an' 'scapes
+stiddy work, an' gits the rovin' habit so fixed,
+it sp'iles 'em."
+</p><p>
+"My gran'ther was to the South Seas in
+his young days," related Mrs. Forder, impressively,
+"an' he said cussin' was common
+there. I mean sober spitin' with a cuss.
+He seen one o' them black folks git a gredge
+against another an' go an' set down an' look
+stiddy at him in his hut an' cuss him in his
+mind an' set there an' watch, watch, until the
+other kind o' took sick an' died, all in a fortnight,
+I believe he said; 't would make your
+blood run cold to hear gran'ther describe it,
+'t would so. He never done nothin' but set
+an' look, an' folks would give him somethin'
+to eat now an' then, as if they thought 't was
+all right, an' the other one 'd try to go an'
+come, an' at last he hived away altogether
+an' died. I don't know what you'd call it
+that ailed him. There's suthin' in cussin'
+that's bad for folks, now I tell ye, Mis'
+Downs."
+</p><p>
+"Hannah's eyes always makes me creepy
+now," Mrs. Downs confessed uneasily.
+"They don't look pleadin' an' childish same
+'s they used to. Seems to me as if she'd
+had the worst on't."
+</p><p>
+"We ain't seen the end on't yit," said
+Mrs. Forder, impressively. "I feel it within
+me, Marthy Downs, an' it's a terrible thing
+to have happened right amon'st us in
+Christian times. If we live long enough
+we're goin' to have plenty to talk over in
+our old age that's come o' that cuss. Some
+seed's shy o' sproutin' till a spring when the
+s'ile's jest right to breed it."
+</p><p>
+"There's lobeely now," agreed Mrs.
+Downs, pleased to descend to prosaic and
+familiar levels. "They ain't a good crop
+one year in six, and then you find it in a
+place where you never observed none to grow
+afore, like's not; ain't it so, reelly?" And
+she rose to clear the table, pleased with the
+certainty of a guest that night. Their conversation
+was not reassuring to the heart of
+a timid woman, alone in an isolated farmhouse
+on a dark spring evening, especially
+so near the anniversary of old Captain
+Knowles's death.
+</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3 align="center">V.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Later in these rural lives by many years
+two aged women were crossing a wide field
+together, following a footpath such as one
+often finds between widely separated homes
+of the New England country. Along these
+lightly traced thoroughfares, the children go
+to play, and lovers to plead, and older people
+to companion one another in work and pleasure,
+in sickness and sorrow; generation after
+generation comes and goes again by these
+country by-ways.
+</p><p>
+The footpath led from Mrs. Forder's to
+another farmhouse half a mile beyond,
+where there had been a wedding. Mrs.
+Downs was there, and in the June weather
+she had been easily persuaded to go home
+to tea with Mrs. Forder with the promise
+of being driven home later in the evening.
+Mrs. Downs's husband had been dead three
+years, and her friend's large family was scattered
+from the old nest; they were lonely at
+times in their later years, these old friends,
+and found it very pleasant now to have a
+walk together. Thin little Mrs. Forder,
+with all her wheezing, was the stronger and
+more active of the two: Downs had
+grown heavier and weaker with advancing
+years.
+</p><p>
+They paced along the footpath slowly, Mrs.
+Downs rolling in her gait like a sailor, and
+availing herself of every pretext to stop and
+look at herbs in the pasture ground they
+crossed, and at the growing grass in the mowing
+fields. They discussed the wedding minutely,
+and then where the way grew wider
+they walked side by side instead of following
+each other, and their voices sank to the
+low tone that betokens confidence.
+</p><p>
+"You don't say that you really put faith
+in all them old stories?"
+</p><p>
+"It ain't accident altogether, noways you
+can fix it in your mind," maintained Mrs.
+Downs. "Needn't tell me that cussin' don't
+do neither good nor harm. I shouldn't want
+to marry amon'st the Holts if I was young
+ag'in! I r'member when this young man
+was born that's married to-day, an' the fust
+thing his poor mother wanted to know was
+about his hands bein' right. I said yes they
+was, but las' year he was twenty year old and
+come home from the frontier with one o' them
+hands&mdash;his right one&mdash;shot off in a fight.
+They say 't happened to sights o' other fel-lows,
+an' their laigs gone too, but I count
+'em over on my fingers, them Holts, an' he's
+the third. May say that 't was all an accident
+his mother's gittin' throwed out o' her
+waggin comin' home from meetin', an' her
+wrist not bein' set good, an' she, bein' run
+down at the time, 'most lost it altogether,
+but thar' it is, stiffened up an' no good to her.
+There was the second. An' Enoch Holt hisself
+come home from the Chiny seas, made
+a good passage an' a sight o' money in the
+pepper trade, jest's we expected, an' goin'
+to build him a new house, an' the frame gives
+a kind o' lurch when they was raisin' of it
+an' surges over on to him an' nips him under.
+'Which arm?' says everybody along the
+road when they was comin' an' goin' with the
+doctor. 'Right one&mdash;got to lose it,' says the
+doctor to 'em, an' next time Enoch Holt got
+out to meetin' he stood up in the house o'
+God with the hymn-book in his left hand, an'
+no right hand to turn his leaf with. He
+knowed what we was all a-thinkin'."
+</p><p>
+"Well," said Mrs. Forder, very short-breathed
+with climbing the long slope of the
+pasture hill, "I don't know but I'd as soon
+be them as the Knowles gals. Hannah never
+knowed no peace again after she spoke them
+words in the co't-house. They come back
+an' harnted her, an' you know, Miss Downs,
+better 'n I do, being door-neighbors as one
+may say, how they lived their lives out like
+wild beasts into a lair."
+</p><p>
+"They used to go out some by night to git
+the air," pursued Mrs. Downs with interest.
+"I used to open the door an' step right in,
+an' I used to take their yarn an' stuff 'long
+o' mine an' sell 'em, an' do for the poor stray
+creatur's long's they'd let me. They'd be
+grateful for a mess o' early pease or potatoes
+as ever you see, an' Peter he allays favored
+'em with pork, fresh an' salt, when we slaughtered.
+The old Cap'n kept 'em child'n long
+as he lived, an' then they was too old to l'arn
+different. I allays liked Hannah the best till
+that change struck her. Betsey she held out
+to the last jest about the same. I don't know,
+now I come to think of it, but what she felt
+it the most o' the two."
+</p><p>
+"They'd never let me's much as git a look
+at 'em," complained Mrs. Forder. "Folks
+got awful stories a-goin' one time. I've heard
+it said, an' it allays creeped me cold all over,
+that there was somethin' come an' lived with
+'em&mdash;a kind o' black shadder, a cobweb
+kind o' a man-shape that followed 'em about
+the house an' made a third to them; but
+they got hardened to it theirselves, only they
+was afraid 't would follow if they went anywheres
+from home. You don't believe no
+such piece o' nonsense?&mdash;But there, I've
+asked ye times enough before."
+</p><p>
+"They'd got shadders enough, poor creatur's," said
+Mrs. Downs with reserve. "Wasn't no kind o' need
+to make 'em up no spooks,
+as I know on. Well, here's these young
+folks a-startin'; I wish 'em well, I'm sure.
+She likes him with his one hand better than
+most gals likes them as has a good sound
+pair. They looked prime happy; I hope no
+curse won't foller 'em."
+</p><p>
+The friends stopped again&mdash;poor, short-winded
+bodies&mdash;on the crest of the low hill
+and turned to look at the wide landscape, bewildered
+by the marvelous beauty and the
+sudden flood of golden sunset light that
+poured out of the western sky. They could
+not remember that they had ever observed
+the wide view before; it was like a revelation
+or an outlook towards the celestial country,
+the sight of their own green farms and
+the countryside that bounded them. It was
+a pleasant country indeed, their own New
+England: their petty thoughts and vain imaginings
+seemed futile and unrelated to so
+fair a scene of things. But the figure of a
+man who was crossing the meadow below
+looked like a malicious black insect. It was
+an old man, it was Enoch Holt; time had
+worn and bent him enough to have satisfied
+his bitterest foe. The women could see his
+empty coat-sleeve flutter as he walked slowly
+and unexpectantly in that glorious evening
+light.
+</p>
+<a name="a_WhiteRoseRoad"></a>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2 align="center">THE WHITE ROSE ROAD.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>
+Being a New Englander, it is natural
+that I should first speak about the weather.
+Only the middle of June, the green fields,
+and blue sky, and bright sun, with a touch
+of northern mountain wind blowing straight
+toward the sea, could make such a day, and
+that is all one can say about it. We were
+driving seaward through a part of the country
+which has been least changed in the last
+thirty years,&mdash;among farms which have
+been won from swampy lowland, and rocky,
+stamp-buttressed hillsides: where the forests
+wall in the fields, and send their outposts
+year by year farther into the pastures.
+There is a year or two in the history of these
+pastures before they have arrived at the
+dignity of being called woodland, and yet
+are too much shaded and overgrown by
+young trees to give proper pasturage, when
+they made delightful harbors for the small
+wild creatures which yet remain, and for
+wild flowers and berries. Here you send an
+astonished rabbit scurrying to his burrow,
+and there you startle yourself with a partridge,
+who seems to get the best of the encounter.
+Sometimes you see a hen partridge
+and her brood of chickens crossing your path
+with an air of comfortable door-yard security.
+As you drive along the narrow, grassy
+road, you see many charming sights and delightful
+nooks on either hand, where the
+young trees spring out of a close-cropped
+turf that carpets the ground like velvet.
+Toward the east and the quaint fishing village
+of Ogunquit, I find the most delightful
+woodland roads. There is little left of the
+large timber which once filled the region,
+but much young growth, and there are hundreds
+of acres of cleared land and pasture-ground
+where the forests are springing fast
+and covering the country once more, as if
+they had no idea of losing in their war with
+civilization and the intruding white settler.
+The pine woods and the Indians seem to be
+next of kin, and the former owners of this
+corner of New England are the only proper
+figures to paint into such landscapes. The
+twilight under tall pines seems to be untenanted
+and to lack something, at first sight,
+as if one opened the door of an empty house.
+A farmer passing through with his axe is
+but an intruder, and children straying home
+from school give one a feeling of solicitude
+at their unprotectedness. The pine woods
+are the red man's house, and it may be hazardous
+even yet for the gray farmhouses to
+stand so near the eaves of the forest. I
+have noticed a distrust of the deep woods,
+among elderly people, which was something
+more than a fear of losing their way. It
+was a feeling of defenselessness against some
+unrecognized but malicious influence.
+</p><p>
+Driving through the long woodland way,
+shaded and chilly when you are out of the
+sun; across the Great Works River and its
+pretty elm-grown intervale; across the short
+bridges of brown brooks; delayed now and
+then by the sight of ripe strawberries in
+sunny spots by the roadside, one comes to a
+higher open country, where farm joins farm,
+and the cleared fields lie all along the highway,
+while the woods are pushed back a
+good distance on either hand. The wooded
+hills, bleak here and there with granite
+ledges, rise beyond. The houses are beside
+the road, with green door-yards and large
+barns, almost empty now, and with wide
+doors standing open, as if they were already
+expecting the hay crop to be brought in.
+The tall green grass is waving in the fields
+as the wind goes over, and there is a fragrance
+of whiteweed and ripe strawberries
+and clover blowing through the sunshiny
+barns, with their lean sides and their festoons
+of brown, dusty cobwebs; dull, comfortable
+creatures they appear to imaginative
+eyes, waiting hungrily for their yearly
+meal. The eave-swallows are teasing their
+sleepy shapes, like the birds which flit about
+great beasts; gay, movable, irreverent, almost
+derisive, those barn swallows fly to
+and fro in the still, clear air.
+</p><p>
+The noise of our wheels brings fewer faces
+to the windows than usual, and we lose the
+pleasure of seeing some of our friends who
+are apt to be looking out, and to whom we
+like to say good-day. Some funeral must
+be taking place, or perhaps the women may
+have gone out into the fields. It is hoeing-time
+and strawberry-time, and already we
+have seen some of the younger women at
+work among the corn and potatoes. One
+sight will be charming to remember. On a
+green hillside sloping to the west, near one
+of the houses, a thin little girl was working
+away lustily with a big hoe on a patch of
+land perhaps fifty feet by twenty. There
+were all sorts of things growing there, as if
+a child's fancy had made the choice,&mdash;straight
+rows of turnips and carrots and
+beets, a little of everything, one might say;
+but the only touch of color was from a long
+border of useful sage in full bloom of dull
+blue, on the upper side. I am sure this was
+called Katy's or Becky's <i>piece</i> by the elder
+members of the family. One can imagine
+how the young creature had planned it in
+the spring, and persuaded the men to plough
+and harrow it, and since then had stoutly
+done all the work herself, and meant to send
+the harvest of the piece to market, and pocket
+her honest gains, as they came in, for some
+great end. She was as thin as a grasshopper,
+this busy little gardener, and hardly turned
+to give us a glance, as we drove slowly up
+the hill close by. The sun will brown and
+dry her like a spear of grass on that hot
+slope, but a spark of fine spirit is in the
+small body, and I wish her a famous crop.
+I hate to say that the piece looked backward,
+all except the sage, and that it was a heavy
+bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pick at.
+The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do
+with so long a row of sage. Yet there may
+be a large family with a downfall of measles
+yet ahead, and she does not mean to be
+caught without sage-tea.
+</p><p>
+Along this road every one of the old farmhouses
+has at least one tall bush of white
+roses by the door,&mdash;a most lovely sight,
+with buds and blossoms, and unvexed green
+leaves. I wish that I knew the history of
+them, and whence the first bush was brought.
+Perhaps from England itself, like a red rose
+that I know in Kittery, and the new shoots
+from the root were given to one neighbor
+after another all through the district. The
+bushes are slender, but they grow tall without
+climbing against the wall, and sway to
+and fro in the wind with a grace of youth
+and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How
+many lovers must have picked them on Sunday
+evenings, in all the bygone years, and
+carried them along the roads or by the pasture
+footpaths, hiding them clumsily under
+their Sunday coats if they caught sight of
+any one coming. Here, too, where the sea
+wind nips many a young life before its prime,
+how often the white roses have been put into
+paler hands, and withered there!
+In spite of the serene and placid look of
+the old houses, one who has always known
+them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of
+these farms and their almost undiverted toil.
+Near the little gardener's plot, we turned
+from the main road and drove through lately
+cleared woodland up to an old farmhouse,
+high on a ledgy hill, whence there is a fine
+view of the country seaward and mountain-ward.
+There were few of the once large
+household left there: only the old farmer,
+who was crippled by war wounds, active,
+cheerful man that he was once, and two
+young orphan children. There has been
+much hard work spent on the place. Every
+generation has toiled from youth to age
+without being able to make much beyond a
+living. The dollars that can be saved are
+but few, and sickness and death have often
+brought their bitter cost. The mistress of
+the farm was helpless for many years;
+through all the summers and winters she sat
+in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plain
+room. She could watch the seldom-visited
+lane, and beyond it, a little way across the
+fields, were the woods; besides these, only
+the clouds in the sky. She could not lift
+her food to her mouth; she could not be her
+husband's working partner. She never went
+into another woman's house to see her works
+and ways, but sat there, aching and tired,
+vexed by flies and by heat, and isolated in
+long storms. Yet the whole countryside
+neighbored her with true affection. Her
+spirit grew stronger as her body grew weaker,
+and the doctors, who grieved because they
+could do so little with their skill, were never
+confronted by that malady of the spirit, a
+desire for ease and laziness, which makes the
+soundest of bodies useless and complaining.
+The thought of her blooms in one's mind
+like the whitest of flowers; it makes one
+braver and more thankful to remember the
+simple faith and patience with which she
+bore her pain and trouble. How often she
+must have said, "I wish I could do something
+for you in return," when she was doing
+a thousand times more than if, like her
+neighbors, she followed the simple round of
+daily life! She was doing constant kindness
+by her example; but nobody can tell the
+woe of her long days and nights, the solitude
+of her spirit, as she was being lifted by such
+hard ways to the knowledge of higher truth
+and experience. Think of her pain when,
+one after another, her children fell ill and
+died, and she could not tend them! And
+now, in the same worn chair where she lived
+and slept sat her husband, helpless too,
+thinking of her, and missing her more than
+if she had been sometimes away from home,
+like other women. Even a stranger would
+miss her in the house.
+</p><p>
+There sat the old farmer looking down the
+lane in his turn, bearing his afflictions with
+a patient sterness that may have been born
+of watching his wife's serenity. There was
+a half-withered rose lying within his reach.
+Some days nobody came up the lane, and the
+wild birds that ventured near the house and
+the clouds that blew over were his only entertainment.
+He had a fine face, of the
+older New England type, clean-shaven and
+strong-featured,&mdash;a type that is fast passing
+away. He might have been a Cumberland
+dalesman, such were his dignity,
+and self-possession, and English soberness
+of manner. His large frame was built for
+hard work, for lifting great weights and
+pushing his plough through new-cleared
+land. We felt at home together, and each
+knew many things that the other did of earlier
+days, and of losses that had come with
+time. I remembered coming to the old
+house often in my childhood; it was in this
+very farm lane that I first saw anemones,
+and learned what to call them. After we
+drove away, this crippled man must have
+thought a long time about my elders and betters,
+as if he were reading their story out of
+a book. I suppose he has hauled many a
+stick of timber pine down for ship-yards,
+and gone through the village so early in the
+winter morning that I, waking in my warm
+bed, only heard the sleds creak through the
+frozen snow as the slow oxen plodded by.
+</p><p>
+Near the house a trout brook comes
+plashing over the ledges. At one place
+there is a most exquisite waterfall, to which
+neither painter's brush nor writer's pen can
+do justice. The sunlight falls through flickering
+leaves into the deep glen, and makes
+the foam whiter and the brook more golden-brown.
+You can hear the merry noise of it
+all night, all day, in the house. A little way
+above the farmstead it comes through marshy
+ground, which I fear has been the cause of
+much illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled
+family. I had a thrill of pain, as it seemed
+to me that the brook was mocking at all
+that trouble with all its wild carelessness
+and loud laughter, as it hurried away down
+the glen.
+</p><p>
+When we had said good-by and were turning
+the horses away, there suddenly appeared
+in a footpath that led down from one of the
+green hills the young grandchild, just coming
+home from school. She was as quick as a
+bird, and as shy in her little pink gown, and
+balanced herself on one foot, like a flower.
+The brother was the elder of the two orphans;
+he was the old man's delight and
+dependence by day, while his hired man was
+afield. The sober country boy had learned
+to wait and tend, and the young people were
+indeed a joy in that lonely household.
+There was no sign that they ever played
+like other children,&mdash;no truckle-cart in the
+yard, no doll, no bits of broken crockery in
+order on a rock. They had learned a fashion
+of life from their elders, and already
+could lift and carry their share of the burdens
+of life.
+</p><p>
+It was a country of wild flowers; the last
+of the columbines were clinging to the hillsides;
+down in the small, fenced meadows
+belonging to the farm were meadow rue just
+coming in flower, and red and white clover;
+the golden buttercups were thicker than the
+grass, while many mulleins were standing
+straight and slender among the pine stumps,
+with their first blossoms atop. Rudbeckias
+had found their way in, and appeared more
+than ever like bold foreigners. Their names
+should be translated into country speech, and
+the children ought to call them "rude-beckies,"
+by way of relating them to bouncing-bets
+and sweet-williams. The pasture
+grass was green and thick after the plentiful
+rains, and the busy cattle took little notice
+of us as they browsed steadily and
+tinkled their pleasant bells. Looking off,
+the smooth, round back of Great Hill caught
+the sunlight with its fields of young grain,
+and all the long, wooded slopes and valleys
+were fresh and fair in the June weather,
+away toward the blue New Hampshire hills
+on the northern horizon. Seaward stood
+Agamenticus, dark with its pitch pines, and
+the far sea itself, blue and calm, ruled the
+uneven country with its unchangeable line.
+</p><p>
+Out on the white rose road again, we saw
+more of the rose-trees than ever, and now
+and then a carefully tended flower garden,
+always delightful to see and think about.
+These are not made by merely looking
+through a florist's catalogue, and ordering
+this or that new seedling and a proper selection
+of bulbs or shrubs; everything in a
+country garden has its history and personal
+association. The old bushes, the perennials,
+are apt to have most tender relationship
+with the hands that planted them long ago.
+There is a constant exchange of such treasures
+between the neighbors, and in the
+spring, slips and cuttings may be seen rooting
+on the window ledges, while the house
+plants give endless work all winter long,
+since they need careful protection against
+frost in long nights of the severe weather.
+A flower-loving woman brings back from
+every one of her infrequent journeys some
+treasure of flower-seeds or a huge miscellaneous
+nosegay. Time to work in the little
+plot of pleasure-ground is hardly won by the
+busy mistress of the farmhouse. The most
+appealing collection of flowering plants and
+vines that I ever saw was in Virginia, once,
+above the exquisite valley spanned by the
+Natural Bridge, a valley far too little known
+or praised. I had noticed an old log house,
+as I learned to know the outlook from the
+picturesque hotel, and was sure that it must
+give a charming view from its perch on the
+summit of a hill.
+</p><p>
+One day I went there,&mdash;one April day,
+when the whole landscape was full of color
+from the budding trees,&mdash;and before I
+could look at the view, I caught sight of
+some rare vines, already in leaf, about the
+dilapidated walls of the cabin. Then across
+the low paling I saw the brilliant colors of
+tulips and daffodils. There were many rose-bushes;
+in fact, the whole top of the hill
+was a flower garden, once well cared for and
+carefully ordered. It was all the work of an
+old woman of Scotch-Irish descent, who had
+been busy with the cares of life, and a very
+hard worker; yet I was told that to gratify
+her love for flowers she would often go afoot
+many miles over those rough Virginia roads,
+with a root or cutting from her own garden,
+to barter for a new rose or a brighter blossom
+of some sort, with which she would return
+in triumph. I fancied that sometimes
+she had to go by night on these charming
+quests. I could see her business-like, small
+figure setting forth down the steep path,
+when she had a good conscience toward her
+housekeeping and the children were in order
+to be left. I am sure that her friends thought
+of her when they were away from home and
+could bring her an offering of something
+rare. Alas, she had grown too old and feeble
+to care for her dear blossoms any longer,
+and had been forced to go to live with a
+married son. I dare say that she was thinking
+of her garden that very day, and wondering
+if this plant or that were not in bloom,
+and perhaps had a heartache at the thought
+that her tenants, the careless colored children,
+might tread the young shoots of peony and
+rose, and make havoc in the herb-bed. It
+was an uncommon collection, made by years
+of patient toil and self-sacrifice.
+</p><p>
+I thought of that deserted Southern garden
+as I followed my own New England
+road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom
+all along the way; almost every house had
+some flowers before it, sometimes carefully
+fenced about by stakes and barrel staves
+from the miscreant hens and chickens which
+lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch
+and fluffing in soft earth this year as well as
+any other. The world seemed full of young
+life. There were calves tethered in pleasant
+shady spots, and puppies and kittens adventuring
+from the door-ways. The trees
+were full of birds: bobolinks, and cat-birds,
+and yellow-hammers, and golden robins, and
+sometimes a thrush, for the afternoon was
+wearing late. We passed the spring which
+famous spot in the early settlement of the
+country, but many of its old traditions are
+now forgotten. One of the omnipresent
+regicides of Charles the First is believed to
+have hidden himself for a long time under
+a great rock close by. The story runs that
+he made his miserable home in this den for
+several years, but I believe that there is no
+record that more than three of the regicides
+escaped to this country, and their wanderings
+are otherwise accounted for. There is
+a firm belief that one of them came to York,
+and was the ancestor of many persons now
+living there, but I do not know whether he
+can have been the hero of the Baker's Spring
+hermitage beside. We stopped to drink
+some of the delicious water, which never
+fails to flow cold and clear under the shade
+of a great oak, and were amused with the
+sight of a flock of gay little country children
+who passed by in deep conversation. What
+could such atoms of humanity be talking
+about? "Old times," said John, the master
+of horse, with instant decision.
+</p><p>
+We met now and then a man or woman,
+who stopped to give us hospitable greeting;
+but there was no staying for visits, lest the
+daylight might fail us. It was delightful to
+find this old-established neighborhood so
+thriving and populous, for a few days before
+I had driven over three miles of road, and
+passed only one house that was tenanted,
+and six cellars or crumbling chimneys where
+good farmhouses had been, the lilacs blooming
+in solitude, and the fields, cleared with
+so much difficulty a century or two ago, all
+going back to the original woodland from
+which they were won. What would the old
+farmers say to see the fate of their worthy
+bequest to the younger generation? They
+would wag their heads sorrowfully, with sad
+foreboding.
+</p><p>
+After we had passed more woodland and
+a well-known quarry, where, for a wonder,
+the derrick was not creaking and not a single
+hammer was clinking at the stone wedges,
+we did not see any one hoeing in the fields,
+as we had seen so many on the white rose
+road, the other side of the hills. Presently
+we met two or three people walking sedately,
+clad in their best clothes. There was a subdued
+air of public excitement and concern,
+and one of us remembered that there had
+been a death in the neighborhood; this was
+the day of the funeral. The man had been
+known to us in former years. We had an
+instinct to hide our unsympathetic pleasuring,
+but there was nothing to be done except
+to follow our homeward road straight by the
+house.
+</p><p>
+The occasion was nearly ended by this
+time: the borrowed chairs were being set
+out in the yard in little groups; even the
+funeral supper had been eaten, and the
+brothers and sisters and near relatives of the
+departed man were just going home. The
+new grave showed plainly out in the green
+field near by. He had belonged to one of
+the ancient families of the region, long settled
+on this old farm by the narrow river;
+they had given their name to a bridge, and
+the bridge had christened the meeting-house
+which stood close by. We were much struck
+by the solemn figure of the mother, a very
+old woman, as she walked toward her old
+home with some of her remaining children.
+I had not thought to see her again, knowing
+her great age and infirmity. She was like a
+presence out of the last century, tall and still
+erect, dark-eyed and of striking features,
+and a firm look not modern, but as if her
+mind were still set upon an earlier and simpler
+scheme of life. An air of dominion
+cloaked her finely. She had long been
+queen of her surroundings and law-giver to
+her great family. Royalty is a quality, one
+of Nature's gifts, and there one might behold
+it as truly as if Victoria Regina Imperatrix
+had passed by. The natural instincts common
+to humanity were there undisguised,
+unconcealed, simply accepted. We had seen
+a royal progress; she was the central figure
+of that rural society; as you looked at the
+little group, you could see her only. Now
+that she came abroad so rarely, her presence
+was not without deep significance, and so she
+took her homeward way with a primitive
+kind of majesty.
+</p><p>
+It was evident that the neighborhood was
+in great excitement and quite thrown out of
+its usual placidity. An acquaintance came
+from a small house farther down the road,
+and we stopped for a word with him. We
+spoke of the funeral, and were told something
+of the man who had died. "Yes, and
+there's a man layin' very sick here," said
+our friend in an excited whisper. "He
+won't last but a day or two. There's another
+man buried yesterday that was struck
+by lightnin', comin' acrost a field when that
+great shower begun. The lightnin' stove
+through his hat and run down all over him,
+and ploughed a spot in the ground." There
+was a knot of people about the door; the
+minister of that scattered parish stood among
+them, and they all looked at us eagerly, as
+if we too might be carrying news of a fresh
+disaster through the countryside.
+</p><p>
+Somehow the melancholy tales did not
+touch our sympathies as they ought, and we
+could not see the pathetic side of them as at
+another time, the day was so full of cheer
+and the sky and earth so glorious. The
+very fields looked busy with their early summer
+growth, the horses began to think of
+the clack of the oat-bin cover, and we were
+hurried along between the silvery willows
+and the rustling alders, taking time to gather
+a handful of stray-away conserve roses by
+the roadside; and where the highway made
+a long bend eastward among the farms, two
+of us left the carriage, and followed a footpath
+along the green river bank and through
+the pastures, coming out to the road again
+only a minute later than the horses. I believe
+that it is an old Indian trail followed
+from the salmon falls farther down the river,
+where the up-country Indians came to dry
+the plentiful fish for their winter supplies.
+I have traced the greater part of this deep-worn
+footpath, which goes straight as an
+arrow across the country, the first day's trail
+being from the falls (where Mason's settlers
+came in 1627, and built their Great Works
+of a saw-mill with a gang of saws, and presently
+a grist mill beside) to Emery's Bridge.
+I should like to follow the old footpath still
+farther. I found part of it by accident a
+long time ago. Once, as you came close to
+the river, you were sure to find fishermen
+scattered along,&mdash;sometimes I myself have
+been discovered; but it is not much use to
+go fishing any more. If some public-spirited
+person would kindly be the Frank Buckland
+of New England, and try to have the laws
+enforced that protect the inland fisheries, he
+would do his country great service. Years
+ago, there were so many salmon that, as an enthusiastic
+old friend once assured me, "you
+could walk across on them below the falls;"
+but now they are unknown, simply because
+certain substances which would enrich the
+farms are thrown from factories and tanneries
+into our clear New England streams.
+Good river fish are growing very scarce.
+The smelts, and bass, and shad have all left
+this upper branch of the Piscataqua, as the
+salmon left it long ago, and the supply of
+one necessary sort of good cheap food is lost
+to a growing community, for the lack of a
+little thought and care in the factory companies
+and saw-mills, and the building in some
+cases of fish-ways over the dams. I think
+that the need of preaching against this bad
+economy is very great. The sight of a proud
+lad with a string of undersized trout will
+scatter half the idlers in town into the pastures
+next day, but everybody patiently accepts
+the depopulation of a fine clear river,
+where the tide comes fresh from the sea
+to be tainted by the spoiled stream, which
+started from its mountain sources as pure as
+heart could wish. Man has done his best
+to ruin the world he lives in, one is tempted
+to say at impulsive first thought; but after
+all, as I mounted the last hill before reaching
+the village, the houses took on a new
+look of comfort and pleasantness; the fields
+that I knew so well were a fresher green
+than before, the sun was down, and the provocations
+of the day seemed very slight compared
+to the satisfaction. I believed that
+with a little more time we should grow wiser
+about our fish and other things beside.
+</p><p>
+It will be good to remember the white
+rose road and its quietness in many a busy
+town day to come. As I think of these
+slight sketches, I wonder if they will have
+to others a tinge of sadness; but I have seldom
+spent an afternoon so full of pleasure
+and fresh and delighted consciousness of the
+possibilities of rural life.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
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+
+Title: Strangers and Wayfarers
+
+Author: Sarah Orne Jewett
+
+Release Date: April 1, 2010 [EBook #31857]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS ***
+
+
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+Produced by James Adcock. Special thanks to The Internet
+Archive: American Libraries.
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+
+STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS
+
+by
+
+SARAH ORNE JEWETT
+
+
+
+Boston and New York
+
+Houghton, Mifflin and Company
+
+_The Riverside Press, Cambridge_
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1890,
+
+By SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
+
+
+
+All rights reserved.
+
+
+
+
+The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
+
+Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
+
+
+
+
+_TO_
+
+S. W.
+
+_PAINTER OF NEW ENGLAND MEN AND WOMEN_
+
+_NEW ENGLAND FIELDS AND SHORES_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+A Winter Courtship
+
+The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation
+
+The Town Poor
+
+The Quest of Mr. Teaby
+
+The Luck of the Bogans
+
+Fair Day
+
+Going to Shrewsbury
+
+The Taking of Captain Ball
+
+By the Morning Boat
+
+In Dark New England Days
+
+The White Rose Road
+
+
+
+
+STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS.
+
+
+
+
+A WINTER COURTSHIP.
+
+
+The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby
+and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose
+two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of
+business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were
+stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in
+entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held
+firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot.
+The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long
+association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held
+a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of
+bloodshed and lawlessness, in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies
+and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts,
+he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own
+strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under
+his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was
+familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to
+strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley's route had
+been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not
+Mr. Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would
+turn the boldest adventurer aside.
+
+Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday
+morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from
+Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking
+woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very
+anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal
+safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but
+they were not securely fastened, and kept getting undone and flying
+loose, so that the bitter December cold seemed to be picking a lock
+now and then, and creeping in to steal away the little warmth she had.
+Mr. Briley was cold, too, and could only cheer himself by remembering
+the valor of those pony-express drivers of the pre-railroad days, who
+had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the great California route. He
+spoke at length of their perils to the suffering passenger, who felt
+none the warmer, and at last gave a groan of weariness.
+
+"How fur did you say 't was now?"
+
+"I do' know's I said, Mis' Tobin," answered the driver, with a frosty
+laugh. "You see them big pines, and the side of a barn just this way,
+with them yellow circus bills? That's my three-mile mark."
+
+"Be we got four more to make? Oh, my laws!" mourned Mrs. Tobin. "Urge
+the beast, can't ye, Jeff'son? I ain't used to bein' out in such bleak
+weather. Seems if I couldn't git my breath. I'm all pinched up and
+wigglin' with shivers now. 'T ain't no use lettin' the hoss go
+step-a-ty-step, this fashion."
+
+"Landy me!" exclaimed the affronted driver. "I don't see why folks
+expects me to race with the cars. Everybody that gits in wants me to
+run the hoss to death on the road. I make a good everage o' time, and
+that's all I _can_ do. Ef you was to go back an' forth every day but
+Sabbath fur eighteen years, _you'd_ want to ease it all you could, and
+let those thrash the spokes out o' their wheels that wanted to. North
+Kilby, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit Pond, Tuesdays,
+Thu'sdays, an' Saturdays. Me an' the beast's done it eighteen years
+together, and the creatur' warn't, so to say, young when we begun it,
+nor I neither. I re'lly didn't know's she'd hold out till this time.
+There, git up, will ye, old mar'!" as the beast of burden stopped
+short in the road.
+
+There was a story that Jefferson gave this faithful creature a rest
+three times a mile, and took four hours for the journey by himself,
+and longer whenever he had a passenger. But in pleasant weather the
+road was delightful, and full of people who drove their own
+conveyances, and liked to stop and talk. There were not many farms,
+and the third growth of white pines made a pleasant shade, though
+Jefferson liked to say that when he began to carry the mail his way
+lay through an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush, where the
+white pines nowadays completely arched the road.
+
+They had passed the barn with circus posters, and felt colder than
+ever when they caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats in their
+tights.
+
+"My gorry!" exclaimed Widow Tobin, "them pore creatur's looks as
+cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses 'em
+warmer this time o' year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin' through
+the little hoop, will ye?"
+
+"He couldn't git himself through there with two pair o' pants on,"
+answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels.
+I used to think, when I was a boy, that 't was the only thing I could
+ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an'
+follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There
+warn't nobody but me an' the little gals."
+
+"You ain't the only one that's be'n disapp'inted o' their heart's
+desire," said Mrs. Tobin sadly. "'T warn't so that I could be spared
+from home to learn the dressmaker's trade."
+
+"'T would a come handy later on, I declare," answered the sympathetic
+driver, "bein' 's you went an' had such a passel o' gals to clothe an'
+feed. There, them that's livin' is all well off now, but it must ha'
+been some inconvenient for ye when they was small."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I've had my mercies, too," said the widow
+somewhat grudgingly. "I take it master hard now, though, havin' to
+give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my
+own child'en. There was Ad'line and Susan Ellen fussin' an' bickerin'
+yesterday about who'd got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they
+both wanted me right off but I hated to hear 'em talkin' of it over.
+I'd rather live to home, and do for myself."
+
+"I've got consider'ble used to boardin'," said Jefferson, "sence ma'am
+died, but it made me ache 'long at the fust on't, I tell ye. Bein' on
+the road's I be, I couldn't do no ways at keepin' house. I should want
+to keep right there and see to things."
+
+"Course you would," replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of
+opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her. "Course you would,
+Jeff'son,"--she leaned toward the front seat; "that is to say, onless
+you had jest the right one to do it for ye."
+
+And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected
+interest and enjoyment.
+
+"See here, Sister Tobin," he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Why can't ye
+take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o' me? We
+could put one buff'lo top o' the other,--they're both wearin'
+thin,--and set close, and I do' know but we sh'd be more protected
+ag'inst the weather."
+
+"Well, I couldn't be no colder if I was froze to death," answered the
+widow, with an amiable simper. "Don't ye let me delay you, nor put you
+out, Mr. Briley. I don't know's I'd set forth to-day if I'd known't
+was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain't one that
+puts my hand to the plough an' looks back, 'cordin' to Scriptur'."
+
+"You wouldn't wanted me to ride all them seven miles alone?" asked the
+gallant Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down, and helped her up
+again to the front seat. She was a few years older than he, but they
+had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin's youthful freshness was suddenly
+revived to his mind's eye. She had a little farm; there was nobody
+left at home now but herself, and so she had broken up housekeeping
+for the winter. Jefferson himself had savings of no mean amount.
+
+They tucked themselves in, and felt better for the change, but there
+was a sudden awkwardness between them; they had not had time to
+prepare for an unexpected crisis.
+
+"They say Elder Bickers, over to East Sanscrit, 's been and got
+married again to a gal that's four year younger than his oldest
+daughter," proclaimed Mrs. Tobin presently. "Seems to me 't was fool's
+business."
+
+"I view it so," said the stage-driver. "There's goin' to be a mild
+open winter for that fam'ly."
+
+"What a joker you be for a man that's had so much responsibility!"
+smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. "Ain't you never
+'fraid, carryin' mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you'll be
+set on an' robbed, 'specially by night?"
+
+Jefferson braced his feet against the dasher under the worn buffalo
+skin. "It is kind o' scary, or would be for some folks, but I'd like
+to see anybody get the better o' me. I go armed, and I don't care who
+knows it. Some o' them drover men that comes from Canady looks as if
+they didn't care what they did, but I look 'em right in the eye every
+time."
+
+"Men folks is brave by natur'," said the widow admiringly. "You know
+how Tobin would let his fist right out at anybody that ondertook to
+sass him. Town-meetin' days, if he got disappointed about the way
+things went, he'd lay 'em out in win'rows; and ef he hadn't been a
+church-member he'd been a real fightin' character. I was always 'fraid
+to have him roused, for all he was so willin' and meechin' to home,
+and set round clever as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss him
+same's the kitten, when she was four year old."
+
+"I've got a kind of a sideways cant to my nose, that Tobin give me
+when we was to school. I don't know's you ever noticed it," said
+Mr. Briley. "We was scufflin', as lads will. I never bore him no kind
+of a grudge. I pitied ye, when he was taken away. I re'lly did, now,
+Fanny. I liked Tobin first-rate, and I liked you. I used to say you
+was the han'somest girl to school."
+
+"Lemme see your nose. 'T is all straight, for what I know," said the
+widow gently, as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty glance. "I
+don't know but what 't is warped a little, but nothin' to speak of.
+You've got real nice features, like your marm's folks."
+
+It was becoming a sentimental occasion, and Jefferson Briley felt that
+he was in for something more than he had bargained. He hurried the
+faltering sorrel horse, and began to talk of the weather. It certainly
+did look like snow, and he was tired of bumping over the frozen road.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder if I hired a hand here another year, and went off
+out West myself to see the country."
+
+"Why, how you talk!" answered the widow.
+
+"Yes 'm," pursued Jefferson. "'T is tamer here than I like, and I was
+tellin' 'em yesterday I've got to know this road most too well. I'd
+like to go out an' ride in the mountains with some o' them great
+clipper coaches, where the driver don't know one minute but he'll be
+shot dead the next. They carry an awful sight o' gold down from the
+mines, I expect."
+
+"I should be scairt to death," said Mrs. Tobin. "What creatur's men
+folks be to like such things! Well, I do declare."
+
+"Yes," explained the mild little man. "There's sights of desp'radoes
+makes a han'some livin' out o' followin' them coaches, an' stoppin'
+an' robbin' 'em clean to the bone. Your money _or_ your life!" and he
+flourished his stub of a whip over the sorrel mare.
+
+"Landy me! you make me run all of a cold creep. Do tell somethin'
+heartenin', this cold day. I shall dream bad dreams all night."
+
+"They put on black crape over their heads," said the driver
+mysteriously. "Nobody knows who most on 'em be, and like as not some
+o' them fellows come o' good families. They've got so they stop the
+cars, and go right through 'em bold as brass. I could make your hair
+stand on end, Mis' Tobin,--I could _so!_"
+
+"I hope none on 'em 'll git round our way, I'm sure," said Fanny
+Tobin. "I don't want to see none on 'em in their crape bunnits comin'
+after me."
+
+"I ain't goin' to let nobody touch a hair o' your head," and
+Mr. Briley moved a little nearer, and tucked in the buffaloes again.
+
+"I feel considerable warm to what I did," observed the widow by way of
+reward.
+
+"There, I used to have my fears," Mr. Briley resumed, with an inward
+feeling that he never would get to North Kilby depot a single man.
+"But you see I hadn't nobody but myself to think of. I've got cousins,
+as you know, but nothin' nearer, and what I've laid up would soon be
+parted out; and--well, I suppose some folks would think o' me if
+anything was to happen."
+
+Mrs. Tobin was holding her cloud over her face,--the wind was sharp on
+that bit of open road,--but she gave an encouraging sound, between a
+groan and a chirp.
+
+"'T wouldn't be like nothin' to me not to see you drivin' by," she
+said, after a minute. "I shouldn't know the days o' the week. I says
+to Susan Ellen last week I was sure 't was Friday, and she said no, 't
+was Thursday; but next minute you druv by and headin' toward North
+Kilby, so we found I was right."
+
+"I've got to be a featur' of the landscape," said Mr. Briley
+plaintively. "This kind o' weather the old mare and me, we wish we was
+done with it, and could settle down kind o' comfortable. I've been
+lookin' this good while, as I drove the road, and I've picked me out a
+piece o' land two or three times. But I can't abide the thought o'
+buildin',--'t would plague me to death; and both Sister Peak to North
+Kilby and Mis' Deacon Ash to the Pond, they vie with one another to do
+well by me, fear I'll like the other stoppin'-place best."
+
+"_I_ shouldn't covet livin' long o' neither one o' them women,"
+responded the passenger with some spirit. "I see some o' Mis' Peak's
+cookin' to a farmers' supper once, when I was visitin' Susan Ellen's
+folks, an' I says 'Deliver me from sech pale-complected baked beans as
+them!' and she give a kind of a quack. She was settin' jest at my left
+hand, and couldn't help hearin' of me. I wouldn't have spoken if I had
+known, but she needn't have let on they was hers an' make everything
+unpleasant. 'I guess them beans taste just as well as other folks','
+says she, and she wouldn't never speak to me afterward."
+
+"Do' know's I blame her," ventured Mr. Briley. "Women folks is
+dreadful pudjicky about their cookin'. I've always heard you was one
+o' the best o' cooks, Mis' Tobin. I know them doughnuts an' things
+you've give me in times past, when I was drivin' by. Wish I had some
+on 'em now. I never let on, but Mis' Ash's cookin' 's the best by a
+long chalk. Mis' Peak's handy about some things, and looks after
+mendin' of me up."
+
+"It doos seem as if a man o' your years and your quiet make ought to
+have a home you could call your own," suggested the passenger. "I kind
+of hate to think o' your bangein' here and boardin' there, and one old
+woman mendin', and the other settin' ye down to meals that like's not
+don't agree with ye."
+
+"Lor', now, Mis' Tobin, le's not fuss round no longer," said
+Mr. Briley impatiently. "You know you covet me same 's I do you."
+
+"I don't nuther. Don't you go an' say fo'lish things you can't stand
+to."
+
+"I've been tryin' to git a chance to put in a word with you ever
+sence--Well, I expected you'd want to get your feelin's kind o'
+calloused after losin' Tobin."
+
+"There's nobody can fill his place," said the widow.
+
+"I do' know but I can fight for ye town-meetin' days, on a pinch,"
+urged Jefferson boldly.
+
+"I never see the beat o' you men fur conceit," and Mrs. Tobin laughed.
+"I ain't goin' to bother with ye, gone half the time as you be, an'
+carryin' on with your Mis' Peaks and Mis' Ashes. I dare say you've
+promised yourself to both on 'em twenty times."
+
+"I hope to gracious if I ever breathed a word to none on 'em!"
+protested the lover. "'T ain't for lack o' opportunities set afore me,
+nuther;" and then Mr. Briley craftily kept silence, as if he had made
+a fair proposal, and expected a definite reply.
+
+The lady of his choice was, as she might have expressed it, much beat
+about. As she soberly thought, she was getting along in years, and
+must put up with Jefferson all the rest of the time. It was not likely
+she would ever have the chance of choosing again, though she was one
+who liked variety.
+
+Jefferson wasn't much to look at, but he was pleasant and appeared
+boyish and young-feeling. "I do' know's I should do better," she said
+unconsciously and half aloud. "Well, yes, Jefferson, seein' it's you.
+But we're both on us kind of old to change our situation." Fanny Tobin
+gave a gentle sigh.
+
+"Hooray!" said Jefferson. "I was scairt you meant to keep me sufferin'
+here a half an hour. I declare, I'm more pleased than I calc'lated on.
+An' I expected till lately to die a single man!"
+
+"'T would re'lly have been a shame; 't ain't natur'," said Mrs. Tobin,
+with confidence. "I don't see how you held out so long with bein'
+solitary."
+
+"I'll hire a hand to drive for me, and we'll have a good comfortable
+winter, me an' you an' the old sorrel. I've been promisin' of her a
+rest this good while."
+
+"Better keep her a steppin'," urged thrifty Mrs. Fanny. "She'll
+stiffen up master, an' disapp'int ye, come spring."
+
+"You'll have me, now, won't ye, sartin?" pleaded Jefferson, to make
+sure. "You ain't one o' them that plays with a man's feelin's. Say
+right out you'll have me."
+
+"I s'pose I shall have to," said Mrs. Tobin somewhat mournfully. "I
+feel for Mis' Peak an' Mis' Ash, pore creatur's. I expect they'll be
+hardshipped. They've always been hard-worked, an' may have kind o'
+looked forward to a little ease. But one on 'em would be left
+lamentin', anyhow," and she gave a girlish laugh. An air of victory
+animated the frame of Mrs. Tobin. She felt but twenty-five years of
+age. In that moment she made plans for cutting her Briley's hair, and
+making him look smartened-up and ambitious. Then she wished that she
+knew for certain how much money he had in the bank; not that it would
+make any difference now. "He needn't bluster none before me," she
+thought gayly. "He's harmless as a fly."
+
+"Who'd have thought we'd done such a piece of engineerin', when we
+started out?" inquired the dear one of Mr. Briley's heart, as he
+tenderly helped her to alight at Susan Ellen's door.
+
+"Both on us, jest the least grain," answered the lover. "Gimme a good
+smack, now, you clever creatur';" and so they parted. Mr. Briley had
+been taken on the road in spite of his pistol.
+
+
+
+THE MISTRESS OF SYDENHAM PLANTATION.
+
+
+A high wind was blowing from the water into the Beaufort streets,--a
+wind with as much reckless hilarity as March could give to her
+breezes, but soft and spring-like, almost early-summer-like, in its
+warmth.
+
+In the gardens of the old Southern houses that stood along the bay,
+roses and petisporum-trees were blooming, with their delicious
+fragrance. It was the time of wistarias and wild white lilies, of the
+last yellow jas-mines and the first Cherokee roses. It was the
+Saturday before Easter Sunday.
+
+In the quaint churchyard of old St. Helena's Church, a little way from
+the bay, young figures were busy among the graves with industrious
+gardening. At first sight, one might have thought that this pretty
+service was rendered only from loving sentiments of loyalty to one's
+ancestors, for under the great live-oaks, the sturdy brick walls about
+the family burying-places and the gravestones themselves were
+moss-grown and ancient-looking; yet here and there the wounded look of
+the earth appealed to the eye, and betrayed a new-made grave. The old
+sarcophagi and heavy tablets of the historic Beaufort families stood
+side by side with plain wooden crosses. The armorial bearings and long
+epitaphs of the one and the brief lettering of the other suggested the
+changes that had come with the war to these families, yet somehow the
+wooden cross touched one's heart with closer sympathy. The padlocked
+gates to the small inclosures stood open, while gentle girls passed in
+and out with their Easter flowers of remembrance. On the high
+churchyard wall and great gate-posts perched many a mocking-bird, and
+the golden light changed the twilight under the live-oaks to a misty
+warmth of color. The birds began to sing louder; the gray moss that
+hung from the heavy boughs swayed less and less, and gave the place a
+look of pensive silence.
+
+In the church itself, most of the palms and rose branches were already
+in place for the next day's feast, and the old organ followed a fresh
+young voice that was being trained for the Easter anthem. The five
+doors of the church were standing open. On the steps of that eastern
+door which opened midway up the side aisle, where the morning sun had
+shone in upon the white faces of a hospital in war-time,--in this
+eastern doorway sat two young women.
+
+"I was just thinking," one was saying to the other, "that for the
+first time Mistress Sydenham has forgotten to keep this day. You know
+that when she has forgotten everything and everybody else, she has
+known when Easter came, and has brought flowers to her graves."
+
+"Has she been more feeble lately, do you think?" asked the younger of
+the two. "Mamma saw her the other day, and thought that she seemed
+more like herself; but she looked very old, too. She told mamma to
+bring her dolls, and she would give her some bits of silk to make them
+gowns. Poor mamma! and she had just been wondering how she could
+manage to get us ready for summer, this year,--Celestine and me," and
+the speaker smiled wistfully.
+
+"It is a mercy that the dear old lady did forget all that happened;"
+and the friends brushed some last bits of leaves from their skirts,
+and rose and walked away together through the churchyard.
+
+The ancient church waited through another Easter Even, with its
+flowers and long memory of prayer and praise. The great earthquake had
+touched it lightly, time had colored it softly, and the earthly bodies
+of its children were gathered near its walls in peaceful sleep.
+
+From one of the high houses which stood fronting the sea, with their
+airy balconies and colonnades, had come a small, slender figure, like
+some shy, dark thing of twilight out into the bright sunshine. The
+street was empty, for the most part; before one or two of the cheap
+German shops a group of men watched the little old lady step proudly
+by. She was a very stately gentlewoman, for one so small and thin; she
+was feeble, too, and bending somewhat with the weight of years, but
+there was true elegance and dignity in the way she moved, and those
+who saw her--persons who shuffled when they walked, and boasted loudly
+of the fallen pride of the South--were struck with sudden deference
+and admiration. Behind the lady walked a gray-headed negro, a man who
+was troubled in spirit, who sometimes gained a step or two, and
+offered an anxious but quite unheeded remonstrance. He was a poor,
+tottering old fellow; he wore a threadbare evening coat that might
+have belonged to his late master thirty years before.
+
+The pair went slowly along the bay street to the end of a row of new
+shops, and the lady turned decidedly toward the water, and approached
+the ferry-steps. Her servitor groaned aloud, but waited in respectful
+helplessness. There was a group of negro children on the steps,
+employed in the dangerous business of crab-fishing; at the foot, in
+his flat-bottomed boat, sat a wondering negro lad, who looked up in
+apprehension at his passengers. The lady seemed like a ghost. Old
+Peter,--with whose scorn of modern beings and their ways he was
+partially familiar,--old Peter was making frantic signs to him to put
+out from shore. But the lady's calm desire for obedience prevailed,
+and presently, out of the knot of idlers that gathered quickly, one,
+more chivalrous than the rest, helped the strange adventurers down
+into the boat. It was the fashion to laugh and joke, in Beaufort, when
+anything unusual was happening before the eyes of the younger part of
+the colored population; but as the ferryman pushed off from shore,
+even the crab-fishers kept awe-struck silence, and there were
+speechless, open mouths and much questioning of eyes that showed their
+whites in vain. Somehow or other, before the boat was out of hail,
+long before it had passed the first bank of raccoon oysters, the tide
+being at the ebb, it was known by fifty people that for the first time
+in more than twenty years the mistress of the old Sydenham plantation
+on St. Helena's Island had taken it into her poor daft head to go to
+look after her estates, her crops, and her people. Everybody knew that
+her estates had been confiscated during the war; that her people owned
+it themselves now, in three and five and even twenty acre lots; that
+her crops of rice and Sea Island cotton were theirs, planted and hoed
+and harvested on their own account. All these years she had forgotten
+Sydenham, and the live-oak avenue, and the outlook across the water to
+the Hunting Islands, where the deer ran wild; she had forgotten the
+war; she had forgotten her children and her husband, except that they
+had gone away,--the graves to which she carried Easter flowers were
+her mother's and her father's graves,--and her life was spent in a
+strange dream.
+
+Old Peter sat facing her in the boat; the ferryman pulled lustily at
+his oars, and they moved quickly along in the ebbing tide. The
+ferryman longed to get his freight safely across; he was in a fret of
+discomfort whenever he looked at the clear-cut, eager face before him
+in the stern. How still and straight the old mistress sat! Where was
+she going? He was awed by her presence, and took refuge, as he rowed,
+in needless talk about the coming of the sandflies and the great
+drum-fish to Beaufort waters. But Peter had clasped his hands together
+and bowed his old back, as if he did not dare to look anywhere but at
+the bottom of the boat. Peter was still groaning softly; the old lady
+was looking back over the water to the row of fine houses, the once
+luxurious summer homes of Rhetts and Barnwells, of many a famous
+household now scattered and impoverished. The ferryman had heard of
+more one than bereft lady or gentleman who lived in seclusion in the
+old houses. He knew that Peter still served a mysterious mistress with
+exact devotion, while most of the elderly colored men and women who
+had formed the retinues of the old families were following their own
+affairs, far and wide.
+
+"Oh, Lord, ole mis'! what kin I go to do?" mumbled Peter, with his
+head in his hands. "Thar'll be nothin' to see. Po' ole mis', I do'
+kno' what you say. Trouble, trouble!"
+
+But the mistress of Sydenham plantation had a way of speaking but
+seldom, and of rarely listening to what any one was pleased to say in
+return. Out of the mistiness of her clouded brain a thought had come
+with unwonted clearness. She must go to the island: her husband and
+sons were detained at a distance; it was the time of year to look
+after corn and cotton; she must attend to her house and her slaves.
+The remembrance of that news of battle and of the three deaths that
+had left her widowed and childless had faded away in the illness it
+had brought. She never comprehended her loss; she was like one
+bewitched into indifference; she remembered something of her youth,
+and kept a simple routine of daily life, and that was all.
+
+"I t'ought she done fo'git ebryt'ing," groaned Peter again. "O Lord,
+hab mercy on ole mis'!"
+
+The landing-place on Ladies' Island was steep and sandy, and the
+oarsman watched Peter help the strange passenger up the ascent with a
+sense of blessed relief. He pushed off a little way into the stream,
+for better self-defense. At the top of the bluff was a rough shed,
+built for shelter, and Peter looked about him eagerly, while his
+mistress stood, expectant and imperious, in the shade of a pride of
+India tree, that grew among the live-oaks and pines of a wild thicket.
+He was wretched with a sense of her discomfort, though she gave no
+sign of it. He had learned to know by instinct all that was unspoken.
+In the old times she would have found four oarsmen waiting with a
+cushioned boat at the ferry; she would have found a saddle-horse or a
+carriage ready for her on Ladies' Island for the five miles' journey,
+but the carriage had not come. The poor gray-headed old man recognized
+her displeasure. He was her only slave left, if she did but know it.
+
+"Fo' Gord's sake, git me some kin' of a cart. Ole mis', she done wake
+up and mean to go out to Syd'n'am dis day," urged Peter. "Who dis hoss
+an' kyart in de shed? Who make dese track wid huffs jus' now, like dey
+done ride by? Yo' go git somebody fo' me, or she be right mad, shore."
+
+The elderly guardian of the shed, who was also of the old _regime_,
+hobbled away quickly, and backed out a steer that was broken to
+harness, and a rickety two-wheeled cart. Their owner had left them
+there for some hours, and had crossed the ferry to Beaufort. Old
+mistress must be obeyed, and they looked toward her beseechingly where
+she was waiting, deprecating her disapproval of this poor apology for
+a conveyance. The lady long since had ceased to concern herself with
+the outward shapes of things; she accepted this possibility of
+carrying out her plans, and they lifted her light figure to the chair,
+in the cart's end, while Peter mounted before her with all a
+coachman's dignity,--he once had his ambitions of being her
+coachman,--and they moved slowly away through the deep sand.
+
+"My Gord A'mighty, look out fo' us now," said Peter over and over.
+"Ole mis', she done fo'git, good Lord, she done fo'git how de Good
+Marsa up dere done took f'om her ebryt'ing; she 'spect now she find
+Syd'n'am all de same like's it was 'fo' de war. She ain't know 'bout
+what's been sence day of de gun-shoot on Port Royal and dar-away. O
+Lord A'mighty, yo' know how yo' stove her po' head wid dem gun-shoot;
+be easy to ole mis'."
+
+But as Peter pleaded in the love and sorrow of his heart, the lady who
+sat behind him was unconscious of any cause for grief. Some sweet
+vagaries in her own mind were matched to the loveliness of the day.
+All her childhood, spent among the rustic scenes of these fertile Sea
+Islands, was yielding for her now an undefined pleasantness of
+association. The straight-stemmed palmettos stood out with picturesque
+clearness against the great level fields, with their straight furrows
+running out of sight. Figures of men and women followed the furrow
+paths slowly; here were men and horses bending to the ploughshare, and
+there women and children sowed with steady hand the rich seed of their
+crops. There were touches of color in the head kerchiefs; there were
+sounds of songs as the people worked,--not gay songs of the evening,
+but some repeated line of a hymn, to steady the patient feet and make
+the work go faster,--the unconscious music of the blacks, who sing as
+the beetle drones or the cricket chirps slowly under the dry grass. It
+had a look of permanence, this cotton-planting. It was a thing to
+paint, to relate itself to the permanence of art, an everlasting duty
+of mankind; terrible if a thing of force, and compulsion and for
+another's gain, but the birthright of the children of Adam, and not
+unrewarded nor unnatural when one drew by it one's own life from the
+earth.
+
+Peter glanced through the hedge-rows furtively, this way and that.
+What would his mistress say to the cabins that were scattered all
+about the fields now, and that were no longer put together in the long
+lines of the quarters? He looked down a deserted lane, where he well
+remembered fifty cabins on each side of the way. It was gay there of a
+summer evening; the old times had not been without their pleasures,
+and the poor old man's heart leaped with the vague delight of his
+memories. He had never been on the block; he was born and bred at old
+Sydenham; he had been trusted in house and field.
+
+"I done like dem ole times de best," ventures Peter, presently, to his
+unresponding companion. "Dere was good 'bout dem times. I say I like
+de ole times good as any. Young folks may be a change f'om me."
+
+He was growing gray in the face with apprehension; he did not dare to
+disobey.
+
+The slow-footed beast of burden was carrying them toward Sydenham step
+by step, and he dreaded the moment of arrival. He was like a
+mesmerized creature, who can only obey the force of a directing will;
+but under pretense of handling the steer's harness, he got stiffly to
+the ground to look at his mistress. He could not turn to face her, as
+he sat in the cart; he could not drive any longer and feel her there
+behind him. The silence was too great. It was a relief to see her
+placid face, and to see even a more youthful look in its worn lines.
+She had been a very beautiful woman in her young days. And a solemn
+awe fell upon Peter's tender heart, lest the veil might be lifting
+from her hidden past, and there, alone with him on the old plantation,
+she would die of grief and pain. God only knew what might happen! The
+old man mounted to his seat, and again they plodded on.
+
+"Peter," said the mistress,--he was always frightened when she
+spoke,--"Peter, we must hurry. I was late in starting. I have a great
+deal to do. Urge the horses."
+
+"Yas, mis',--yas, mis'," and Peter laughed aloud nervously, and
+brandished his sassafras switch, while the steer hastened a little.
+They had come almost to the gates.
+
+"Who are these?" the stately wayfarer asked once, as they met some
+persons who gazed at them in astonishment.
+
+"I 'spect dem de good ladies f'om de Norf, what come down to show de
+cullud folks how to do readin'," answered Peter bravely. "It do look
+kind o' comfo'ble over here," he added wistfully, half to himself. He
+could not understand even now how oblivious she was of the great
+changes on St. Helena's.
+
+There were curious eyes watching from the fields, and here by the
+roadside an aged black woman came to her cabin door.
+
+"Lord!" exclaimed Peter, "what kin I do now? An' ole Sibyl, she's done
+crazy too, and dey'll be mischievous together."
+
+The steer could not be hurried past, and Sibyl came and leaned against
+the wheel. "Mornin', mistis," said Sibyl, "an' yo' too, Peter. How's
+all? Day ob judgment's comin' in mornin'! Some nice buttermilk? I done
+git rich; t'at's my cow," and she pointed to the field and chuckled.
+Peter felt as if his brain were turning. "Bless de Lord, I no more
+slave," said old Sibyl, looking up with impudent scrutiny at her old
+mistress's impassive face. "Yo' know Mars' Middleton, what yo' buy me
+f'om? He my foster-brother; we push away from same breast. He got
+trouble, po' gen'elman; he sorry to sell Sibyl; he give me silver
+dollar dat day, an' feel bad. 'Neber min', I say. I get good mistis,
+young mistis at Sydenham. I like her well, I did so. I pick my two
+hunderd poun' all days, an' I ain't whipped. Too bad sold me, po'
+Mars' Middleton, but he in trouble. He done come see me last
+plantin'," Sibyl went on proudly. "Oh, Gord, he grown ole and
+poor-lookin'. He come in, just in dat do', an' he say, 'Sibyl, I long
+an' long to see you, an' now I see you;' an' he kiss an' kiss me. An'
+dere's one wide ribber o' Jordan, an' we'll soon be dere, black an'
+white. I was right glad I see ole Mars' Middleton 'fore I die."
+
+The old creature poured forth the one story of her great joy and
+pride; she had told it a thousand times. It had happened, not the last
+planting, but many plantings ago. It remained clear when everything
+else was confused. There was no knowing what she might say next. She
+began to take the strange steps of a slow dance, and Peter urged his
+steer forward, while his mistress said suddenly, "Good-by, Sibyl. I am
+glad you are doing so well," with a strange irrelevancy of
+graciousness. It was in the old days before the war that Sibyl had
+fallen insensible, one day, in the cotton-field. Did her mistress
+think that it was still that year, and--Peter's mind could not puzzle
+out this awful day of anxiety.
+
+They turned at last into the live-oak avenue,--they had only another
+half mile to go; and here, in the place where the lady had closest
+association, her memory was suddenly revived almost to clearness. She
+began to hurry Peter impatiently; it was a mischance that she had not
+been met at the ferry. She was going to see to putting the house in
+order, and the women were all waiting. It was autumn, and they were
+going to move over from Beaufort; it was spring next moment, and she
+had to talk with her overseers. The old imperiousness flashed out. Did
+not Peter know that his master was kept at the front, and the young
+gentlemen were with him, and their regiment was going into action? It
+was a blessing to come over and forget it all, but Peter must drive,
+drive. They had taken no care of the avenue; how the trees were broken
+in the storm! The house needed--They were going to move the next day
+but one, and nothing was ready. A party of gentlemen were coming from
+Charleston in the morning!--
+
+They passed the turn of the avenue; they came out to the open lawn,
+and the steer stopped and began to browse. Peter shook from head to
+foot. He climbed down by the wheel, and turned his face slowly. "Ole
+mis'!" he said feebly. "_Ole mis'!_"
+
+She was looking off into space. The cart jerked as it moved after the
+feeding steer. The mistress of Sydenham plantation had sought her home
+in vain. The crumbled, fallen chimneys of the house were there among
+the weeds, and that was all.
+
+
+
+On Christmas Day and Easter Day, many an old man and woman come into
+St. Helena's Church who are not seen there the rest of the year. There
+are not a few recluses in the parish, who come to listen to their
+teacher and to the familiar prayers, read with touching earnestness
+and simplicity, as one seldom hears the prayers read anywhere. This
+Easter morning dawned clear and bright, as Easter morning should. The
+fresh-bloomed roses and lilies were put in their places. There was no
+touch of paid hands anywhere, and the fragrance blew softly about the
+church. As you sat in your pew, you could look out through the
+wide-opened doors, and see the drooping branches, and the birds as
+they sat singing on the gravestones. The sad faces of the old people,
+the cheerful faces of the young, passed by up the aisle. One figure
+came to sit alone in one of the pews, to bend its head in prayer after
+the ancient habit. Peter led her, as usual, to the broad-aisle
+doorway, and helped her, stumbling himself, up the steps, and many
+eyes filled with tears as his mistress went to her place. Even the
+tragic moment of yesterday was lost already in the acquiescence of her
+mind, as the calm sea shines back to the morning sun when another
+wreck has gone down.
+
+
+
+
+THE TOWN POOR.
+
+
+Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along
+Hampden east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was
+slow. Mrs. Trimble's sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels
+were clogged by day mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground,
+although the snow was nearly gone, except in a few places on the north
+side of the woods, or where it had drifted all winter against a length
+of fence.
+
+"There must be a good deal o' snow to the nor'ard of us yet," said
+weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. "I feel it in the air; 't is more than the
+ground-damp. We ain't goin' to have real nice weather till the
+up-country snow's all gone."
+
+"I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin' yet, all up
+through Parsley," responded Miss Wright. "I shouldn't like to live in
+them northern places. My cousin Ellen's husband was a Parsley man, an'
+he was obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father's
+second wife's funeral; got back day before yesterday. 'T was about
+twenty-one miles, an' they started on wheels; but when they'd gone
+nine or ten miles, they found 't was no sort o' use, an' left their
+wagon an' took a sleigh. The man that owned it charged 'em four an'
+six, too. I shouldn't have thought he would; they told him they was
+goin' to a funeral; an' they had their own buffaloes an' everything."
+
+
+"Well, I expect it's a good deal harder scratching up that way; they
+have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
+north," suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. "'T ain't none too rich a
+country where we be, but I've always been grateful I wa'n't born up to
+Parsley."
+
+The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
+spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road.
+Sister Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her
+bonnet. She was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air;
+but Mrs. Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her
+own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left
+her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that
+she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his
+loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even
+to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that
+this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous,
+and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town
+of Hampden.
+
+"Why, there's where the Bray girls lives, ain't it?" she exclaimed,
+as, beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight
+of a weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for
+thrift or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the
+shrunken boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and
+sodden. Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.
+
+"Yes'm," said Miss Wright, "that's where they live now, poor things. I
+know the place, though I ain't been up here for years. You don't
+suppose, Mis' Trimble--I ain't seen the girls out to meetin' all
+winter. I've re'lly been covetin'"--
+
+"Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop," answered Mrs. Trimble
+heartily. "The exercises was over earlier 'n I expected, an' you're
+goin' to remain over night long o' me, you know. There won't be no tea
+till we git there, so we can't be late. I'm in the habit o' sendin' a
+basket to the Bray girls when any o' our folks is comin' this way, but
+I ain't been to see 'em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a
+good deal over a year ago. I know 't was in the late winter they had
+to make the move. 'T was cruel hard, I must say, an' if I hadn't been
+down with my pleurisy fever I'd have stirred round an' done somethin'
+about it. There was a good deal o' sickness at the time, an'--well, 't
+was kind o' rushed through, breakin' of 'em up, an' lots o' folks
+blamed the selec'_men_; but when't was done, 't was done, an' nobody
+took holt to undo it. Ann an' Mandy looked same's ever when they come
+to meetin', 'long in the summer,--kind o' wishful, perhaps. They've
+always sent me word they was gittin' on pretty comfortable."
+
+"That would be their way," said Rebecca Wright. "They never was any
+hand to complain, though Mandy's less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy 'd
+been spared such poor eyesight, an' Ann hadn't got her lame wrist that
+wa'n't set right, they'd kep' off the town fast enough. They both shed
+tears when they talked to me about havin' to break up, when I went to
+see 'em before I went over to brother Asa's. You see we was brought up
+neighbors, an' we went to school together, the Brays an' me. 'T was a
+special Providence brought us home this road, I've been so covetin' a
+chance to git to see 'em. My lameness hampers me."
+
+"I'm glad we come this way, myself," said Mrs. Trimble.
+
+"I'd like to see just how they fare," Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
+"They give their consent to goin' on the town because they knew they'd
+got to be dependent, an' so they felt 't would come easier for all
+than for a few to help 'em. They acted real dignified an'
+right-minded, contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was
+dreadful anxious to see who would bid 'em off, town-meeting day; they
+did so hope 't would be somebody right in the village. I just sat down
+an' cried good when I found Abel Janes's folks had got hold of 'em.
+They always had the name of bein' slack an' poor-spirited, an' they
+did it just for what they got out o' the town. The selectmen this last
+year ain't what we have had. I hope they've been considerate about the
+Bray girls."
+
+"I should have be'n more considerate about fetchin' of you over,"
+apologized Mrs. Trimble. "I've got my horse, an' you 're lame-footed;
+'t is too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy
+folks, an' I forgit a good deal I ought to remember."
+
+"There's nobody more considerate than you be," protested Miss Rebecca
+Wright.
+
+Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
+the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think it
+worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
+farther down the road and up a lane.
+
+"I never had any opinion of the Bray girls' father, leavin' 'em as he
+did," said Mrs. Trimble.
+
+"He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said
+his early life hadn't been up to the mark," explained her companion.
+"He was a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel
+Longbrother. They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it
+their own way. Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs
+without urging. You know 't was in his time the first repairs was
+made, when they got out the old soundin'-board an' them handsome
+square pews. It cost an awful sight o' money, too. They hadn't done
+payin' up that debt when they set to alter it again an' git the walls
+frescoed. My grandmother was one that always spoke her mind right out,
+an' she was dreadful opposed to breakin' up the square pews where
+she'd always set. They was countin' up what 't would cost in parish
+meetin', an' she riz right up an' said 't wouldn't cost nothin' to
+let 'em stay, an' there wa'n't a house carpenter left in the
+parish that could do such nice work, an' time would come when the
+great-grandchildren would give their eye-teeth to have the old
+meetin'-house look just as it did then. But haul the inside to pieces
+they would and did."
+
+"There come to be a real fight over it, didn't there?" agreed
+Mrs. Trimble soothingly. "Well, 't wa'n't good taste. I remember the
+old house well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o' mother's,
+an' Mr. Trimble's folks was neighbors, an' we was drawed to each other
+then, young's we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many's the time,--that
+first time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; 't was one
+that mother had, an' pressed over."
+
+"When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
+meetin'-house of all, I'm glad it's altered over, so's not to remind
+folks," said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. "Them old
+brimstone discourses, you know, Mis' Trimble. Preachers is far more
+reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an' thought, last Sabbath, as I
+listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an' Deacon Bray could hear the
+difference they 'd crack the ground over 'em like pole beans, an' come
+right up 'long side their headstones."
+
+Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
+by way of emphasis. "There's no gitting round you," she said, much
+pleased. "I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way, if
+'t was so he could, an' knew how his poor girls was farin'. A man
+ought to provide for his folks he's got to leave behind him, specially
+if they're women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we've
+seen how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn't means to keep
+it. I s'pose he thought he'd got time enough to lay by, when he give
+so generous in collections; but he didn't lay by, an' there they be.
+He might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
+creator's makes them their winter hoards, an' men-folks ought to know
+enough if squirrels does. 'Be just before you are generous:' that's
+what was always set for the B's in the copy-books, when I was to
+school, and it often runs through my mind."
+
+"'As for man, his days are as grass,'--that was for A; the two go well
+together," added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. "My good gracious, ain't
+this a starved-lookin' place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
+girls has to brook it here."
+
+The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
+from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner
+of the door-yard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two
+or three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a
+face appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if
+it were a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side
+door next this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for
+them, shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more
+chilly inside the house.
+
+"Take seats," said Mrs. Janes briefly. "You'll have to see me just as
+I be. I have been suffering these four days with the ague, and
+everything to do. Mr. Janes is to court, on the jury. 'T was
+inconvenient to spare him. I should be pleased to have you lay off
+your things."
+
+Comfortable Mrs. Trimble looked about the cheerless kitchen, and could
+not think of anything to say; so she smiled blandly and shook her head
+in answer to the invitation. "We'll just set a few minutes with you,
+to pass the time o' day, an' then we must go in an' have a word with
+the Miss Brays, bein' old acquaintance. It ain't been so we could git
+to call on 'em before. I don't know's you're acquainted with Miss
+R'becca Wright. She's been out of town a good deal."
+
+"I heard she was stopping over to Plainfields with her brother's
+folks," replied Mrs. Janes, rocking herself with irregular motion, as
+she sat close to the stove. "Got back some time in the fall, I
+believe?"
+
+"Yes'm," said Miss Rebecca, with an undue sense of guilt and
+conviction. "We've been to the installation over to the East Parish,
+an' thought we'd stop in; we took this road home to see if 't was any
+better. How is the Miss Brays gettin' on?"
+
+"They're well's common," answered Mrs. Janes grudgingly. "I was put
+out with Mr. Janes for fetchin' of 'em here, with all I've got to do,
+an' I own I was kind o' surly to 'em 'long to the first of it. He gits
+the money from the town, an' it helps him out; but he bid 'em off for
+five dollars a month, an' we can't do much for 'em at no such price as
+that. I went an' dealt with the selec'men, an' made 'em promise to
+find their firewood an' some other things extra. They was glad to get
+rid o' the matter the fourth time I went, an' would ha' promised 'most
+anything. But Mr. Janes don't keep me half the time in oven-wood, he's
+off so much, an' we was cramped o' room, any way. I have to store
+things up garrit a good deal, an' that keeps me trampin' right through
+their room. I do the best for 'em I can, Mis' Trimble, but 't ain't so
+easy for me as 't is for you, with all your means to do with."
+
+The poor woman looked pinched and miserable herself, though it was
+evident that she had no gift at house or home keeping. Mrs. Trimble's
+heart was wrung with pain, as she thought of the unwelcome inmates of
+such a place; but she held her peace bravely, while Miss Rebecca again
+gave some brief information in regard to the installation.
+
+"You go right up them back stairs," the hostess directed at last. "I'm
+glad some o' you church folks has seen fit to come an' visit 'em.
+There ain't been nobody here this long spell, an' they've aged a sight
+since they come. They always send down a taste out of your baskets,
+Mis' Trimble, an' I relish it, I tell you. I'll shut the door after
+you, if you don't object. I feel every draught o' cold air."
+
+"I've always heard she was a great hand to make a poor mouth. Wa'n't
+she from somewheres up Parsley way?" whispered Miss Rebecca, as they
+stumbled in the half-light.
+
+
+"Poor meechin' body, wherever she come from," replied Mrs. Trimble, as
+she knocked at the door.
+
+There was silence for a moment after this unusual sound; then one of
+the Bray sisters opened the door. The eager guests stared into a
+small, low room, brown with age, and gray, too, as if former dust and
+cobwebs could not be made wholly to disappear. The two elderly women
+who stood there looked like captives. Their withered faces wore a look
+of apprehension, and the room itself was more bare and plain than was
+fitting to their evident refinement of character and self-respect.
+There was an uncovered small table in the middle of the floor, with
+some crackers on a plate; and, for some reason or other, this added a
+great deal to the general desolation.
+
+But Miss Ann Bray, the elder sister, who carried her right arm in a
+sling, with piteously drooping fingers, gazed at the visitors with
+radiant joy. She had not seen them arrive.
+
+The one window gave only the view at the back of the house, across the
+fields, and their coming was indeed a surprise. The next minute she
+was laughing and crying together. "Oh, sister!" she said, "if here
+ain't our dear Mis' Trimble!--an' my heart o' goodness, 't is 'Becca
+Wright, too! What dear good creatur's you be! I've felt all day as if
+something good was goin' to happen, an' was just sayin' to myself 't
+was most sundown now, but I wouldn't let on to Mandany I'd give up
+hope quite yet. You see, the scissors stuck in the floor this very
+mornin' an' it's always a reliable sign. There, I've got to kiss ye
+both again!"
+
+"I don't know where we can all set," lamented sister Mandana. "There
+ain't but the one chair an' the bed; t' other chair's too rickety; an'
+we've been promised another these ten days; but first they've forgot
+it, an' next Mis' Janes can't spare it,--one excuse an' another. I am
+goin' to git a stump o' wood an' nail a board on to it, when I can git
+outdoor again," said Mandana, in a plaintive voice. "There, I ain't
+goin' to complain o' nothin', now you've come," she added; and the
+guests sat down, Mrs. Trimble, as was proper, in the one chair.
+
+"We've sat on the bed many's the time with you, 'Beeca, an' talked
+over our girl nonsense, ain't we? You know where 't was--in the little
+back bedroom we had when we was girls, an' used to peek out at our
+beaux through the strings o' mornin'-glories," laughed Ann Bray
+delightedly, her thin face shining more and more with joy. "I brought
+some o' them mornin'-glory seeds along when we come away, we'd raised
+'em so many years; an' we got 'em started all right, but the hens
+found 'em out. I declare I chased them poor hens, foolish as 't was;
+but the mornin'-glories I'd counted on a sight to remind me o' home.
+You see, our debts was so large, after my long sickness an' all, that
+we didn't feel 't was right to keep back anything we could help from
+the auction."
+
+It was impossible for any one to speak for a moment or two; the
+sisters felt their own uprooted condition afresh, and their guests for
+the first time really comprehended the piteous contrast between that
+neat little village house, which now seemed a palace of comfort, and
+this cold, unpainted upper room in the remote Janes farmhouse. It was
+an unwelcome thought to Mrs. Trimble that the well-to-do town of
+Hampden could provide no better for its poor than this, and her round
+face flushed with resentment and the shame of personal responsibility.
+"The girls shall be well settled in the village before another winter,
+if I pay their board myself," she made an inward resolution, and took
+another almost tearful look at the broken stove, the miserable bed,
+and the sisters' one hair-covered trunk, on which Mandana was sitting.
+But the poor place was filled with a golden spirit of hospitality.
+
+Rebecca was again discoursing eloquently of the installation; it was
+so much easier to speak of general subjects, and the sisters had
+evidently been longing to hear some news. Since the late summer they
+had not been to church, and presently Mrs. Trimble asked the reason.
+
+"Now, don't you go to pouring out our woes, Mandy!" begged little old
+Ann, looking shy and almost girlish, and as if she insisted upon
+playing that life was still all before them and all pleasure. "Don't
+you go to spoilin' their visit with our complaints! They know well's
+we do that changes must come, an' we'd been so wonted to our home
+things that this come hard at first; but then they felt for us, I know
+just as well's can be. 'T will soon be summer again, an' 't is real
+pleasant right out in the fields here, when there ain't too hot a
+spell. I've got to know a sight o' singin' birds since we come."
+
+"Give me the folks I've always known," sighed the younger sister, who
+looked older than Miss Ann, and less even-tempered. "You may have your
+birds, if you want 'em. I do re'lly long to go to meetin' an' see
+folks go by up the aisle. Now, I will speak of it, Ann, whatever you
+say. We need, each of us, a pair o' good stout shoes an'
+rubbers,--ours are all wore out; an' we've asked an' asked, an' they
+never think to bring 'em, an'"--
+
+Poor old Mandana, on the trunk, covered her face with her arms and
+sobbed aloud. The elder sister stood over her, and patted her on the
+thin shoulder like a child, and tried to comfort her. It crossed
+Mrs. Trimble's mind that it was not the first time one had wept and
+the other had comforted. The sad scene must have been repeated many
+times in that long, drear winter. She would see them forever after in
+her mind as fixed as a picture, and her own tears fell fast.
+
+"You didn't see Mis' Janes's cunning little boy, the next one to the
+baby, did you?" asked Ann Bray, turning round quickly at last, and
+going cheerfully on with the conversation. "Now, hush, Mandy, dear;
+they'll think you're childish! He's a dear, friendly little creatur',
+an' likes to stay with us a good deal, though we feel's if it 't was
+too cold for him, now we are waitin' to get us more wood."
+
+"When I think of the acres o' woodland in this town!" groaned Rebecca
+Wright. "I believe I'm goin' to preach next Sunday, 'stead o' the
+minister, an' I'll make the sparks fly. I've always heard the saying,
+'What's everybody's business is nobody's business,' an' I've come to
+believe it."
+
+"Now, don't you, 'Becca. You've happened on a kind of a poor time with
+us, but we've got more belongings than you see here, an' a good large
+cluset, where we can store those things there ain't room to have
+about. You an' Miss Trimble have happened on a kind of poor day, you
+know. Soon's I git me some stout shoes an' rubbers, as Mandy says, I
+can fetch home plenty o' little dry boughs o' pine; you remember I was
+always a great hand to roam in the woods? If we could only have a
+front room, so 't we could look out on the road an' see passin', an'
+was shod for meetin', I don' know's we should complain. Now we're just
+goin' to give you what we've got, an' make out with a good welcome. We
+make more tea 'n we want in the mornin', an' then let the fire go
+down, since 't has been so mild. We've got a _good_ cluset"
+(disappearing as she spoke), "an' I know this to be good tea, 'cause
+it's some o' yourn, Mis' Trimble. An' here's our sprigged chiny cups
+that R'becca knows by sight, if Mis' Trimble don't. We kep' out four
+of 'em, an' put the even half dozen with the rest of the auction
+stuff. I've often wondered who 'd got 'em, but I never asked, for fear
+'t would be somebody that would distress us. They was mother's, you
+know."
+
+The four cups were poured, and the little table pushed to the bed,
+where Rebecca Wright still sat, and Mandana, wiping her eyes, came and
+joined her. Mrs. Trimble sat in her chair at the end, and Ann trotted
+about the room in pleased content for a while, and in and out of the
+closet, as if she still had much to do; then she came and stood
+opposite Mrs. Trimble. She was very short and small, and there was no
+painful sense of her being obliged to stand. The four cups were not
+quite full of cold tea, but there was a clean old tablecloth folded
+double, and a plate with three pairs of crackers neatly piled, and a
+small--it must be owned, a very small--piece of hard white cheese.
+Then, for a treat, in a glass dish, there was a little preserved
+peach, the last--Miss Rebecca knew it instinctively--of the household
+stores brought from their old home. It was very sugary, this bit of
+peach; and as she helped her guests and sister Mandy, Miss Ann Bray
+said, half unconsciously, as she often had said with less reason in
+the old days, "Our preserves ain't so good as usual this year; this is
+beginning to candy." Both the guests protested, while Rebecca added
+that the taste of it carried her back, and made her feel young again.
+The Brays had always managed to keep one or two peach-trees alive in
+their corner of a garden. "I've been keeping this preserve for a
+treat," said her friend. "I'm glad to have you eat some, 'Becca. Last
+summer I often wished you was home an' could come an' see us, 'stead
+o' being away off to Plainfields."
+
+The crackers did not taste too dry. Miss Ann took the last of the
+peach on her own cracker; there could not have been quite a small
+spoonful, after the others were helped, but she asked them first if
+they would not have some more. Then there was a silence, and in the
+silence a wave of tender feeling rose high in the hearts of the four
+elderly women. At this moment the setting sun flooded the poor plain
+room with light; the unpainted wood was all of a golden-brown, and Ann
+Bray, with her gray hair and aged face, stood at the head of the table
+in a kind of aureole. Mrs. Trimble's face was all aquiver as she
+looked at her; she thought of the text about two or three being
+gathered together, and was half afraid.
+
+"I believe we ought to 've asked Mis' Janes if she wouldn't come up,"
+said Ann. "She's real good feelin', but she's had it very hard, an'
+gits discouraged. I can't find that she's ever had anything real
+pleasant to look back to, as we have. There, next time we'll make a
+good heartenin' time for her too."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+The sorrel horse had taken a long nap by the gnawed fence-rail, and
+the cool air after sundown made him impatient to be gone. The two
+friends jolted homeward in the gathering darkness, through the
+stiffening mud, and neither Mrs. Trimble nor Rebecca Wright said a
+word until they were out of sight as well as out of sound of the Janes
+house. Time must elapse before they could reach a more familiar part
+of the road and resume conversation on its natural level.
+
+"I consider myself to blame," insisted Mrs. Trimble at last. "I
+haven't no words of accusation for nobody else, an' I ain't one to
+take comfort in calling names to the board o' selec'_men_. I make no
+reproaches, an' I take it all on my own shoulders; but I'm goin' to
+stir about me, I tell you! I shall begin early to-morrow. They're
+goin' back to their own house,--it's been stand-in' empty all
+winter,--an' the town's goin' to give 'em the rent an' what firewood
+they need; it won't come to more than the board's payin' out now. An'
+you an' me 'll take this same horse an' wagon, an' ride an' go afoot
+by turns, an' git means enough together to buy back their furniture
+an' whatever was sold at that plaguey auction; an' then we'll put it
+all back, an' tell 'em they've got to move to a new place, an' just
+carry 'em right back again where they come from. An' don't you never
+tell, R'becca, but here I be a widow woman, layin' up what I make from
+my farm for nobody knows who, an' I'm goin' to do for them Bray girls
+all I'm a mind to. I should be sca't to wake up in heaven, an' hear
+anybody there ask how the Bray girls was. Don't talk to me about the
+town o' Hampden, an' don't ever let me hear the name o' town poor! I'm
+ashamed to go home an' see what's set out for supper. I wish I'd
+brought 'em right along."
+
+"I was goin' to ask if we couldn't git the new doctor to go up an' do
+somethin' for poor Ann's arm," said Miss Rebecca. "They say he's very
+smart. If she could get so's to braid straw or hook rugs again, she'd
+soon be earnin' a little somethin'. An' may be he could do somethin'
+for Mandy's eyes. They did use to live so neat an' ladylike. Somehow I
+couldn't speak to tell 'em there that 't was I bought them six best
+cups an' saucers, time of the auction; they went very low, as
+everything else did, an' I thought I could save it some other way.
+They shall have 'em back an' welcome. You're real whole-hearted, Mis'
+Trimble. I expect Ann 'll be sayin' that her father's child'n wa'n't
+goin' to be left desolate, an' that all the bread he cast on the
+water's comin' back through you."
+
+"I don't care what she says, dear creatur'!" exclaimed Mrs. Trimble.
+"I'm full o' regrets I took time for that installation, an' set there
+seepin' in a lot o' talk this whole day long, except for its kind of
+bringin' us to the Bray girls. I wish to my heart 't was to-morrow
+mornin' a'ready, an' I a-startin' for the selec'_men_."
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEST OF MR. TEABY.
+
+
+The trees were bare on meadow and hill, and all about the country one
+saw the warm brown of lately fallen leaves. There was still a cheerful
+bravery of green in sheltered places,--a fine, live green that
+flattered the eye with its look of permanence; the first three
+quarters of the year seemed to have worked out their slow processes to
+make this perfect late-autumn day. In such weather I found even the
+East Wilby railroad station attractive, and waiting three hours for a
+slow train became a pleasure; the delight of idleness and even
+booklessness cannot be properly described.
+
+The interior of the station was bleak and gravelly, but it would have
+been possible to find fault with any interior on such an out-of-doors
+day; and after the station-master had locked his ticket-office door
+and tried the handle twice, with a comprehensive look at me, he went
+slowly away up the road to spend some leisure time with his family. He
+had ceased to take any interest in the traveling public, and answered
+my questions as briefly as possible. After he had gone some distance
+he turned to look back, but finding that I still sat on the baggage
+truck in the sunshine, just where he left me, he smothered his natural
+apprehensions, and went on.
+
+One might spend a good half hour in watching crows as they go
+southward resolutely through the clear sky, and then waver and come
+straggling back as if they had forgotten something; one might think
+over all one's immediate affairs, and learn to know the outward aspect
+of such a place as East Wilby as if born and brought up there. But
+after a while I lost interest in both past and future; there was too
+much landscape before me at the moment, and a lack of figures. The
+weather was not to be enjoyed merely as an end, yet there was no
+temptation to explore the up-hill road on the left, or the level
+fields on the right; I sat still on my baggage truck and waited for
+something to happen. Sometimes one is so happy that there is nothing
+left to wish for but to be happier, and just as the remembrance of
+this truth illuminated my mind, I saw two persons approaching from
+opposite directions. The first to arrive was a pleasant-looking
+elderly countrywoman, well wrapped in a worn winter cloak with a thick
+plaid shawl over it, and a white worsted cloud tied over her bonnet.
+She carried a well-preserved bandbox,--the outlines were perfect under
+its checked gingham cover,--and had a large bundle beside, securely
+rolled in a newspaper. From her dress I felt sure that she had made a
+mistake in dates, and expected winter to set in at once. Her face was
+crimson with undue warmth, and what appeared in the end to have been
+unnecessary haste. She did not take any notice of the elderly man who
+reached the platform a minute later, until they were near enough to
+take each other by the hand and exchange most cordial greetings.
+
+"Well, this is a treat!" said the man, who was a small and
+shivery-looking person. He carried a great umbrella and a thin,
+enameled-cloth valise, and wore an ancient little silk hat and a
+nearly new greenish linen duster, as if it were yet summer. "I was
+full o' thinkin' o' you day before yisterday; strange, wa'n't it?" he
+announced impressively, in a plaintive voice. "I was sayin' to myself,
+if there was one livin' bein' I coveted to encounter over East Wilby
+way, 't was you, Sister Pinkham."
+
+"Warm to-day, ain't it?" responded Sister Pinkham. "How's your health,
+Mr. Teaby? I guess I'd better set right down here on the aidge of the
+platform; sha'n't we git more air than if we went inside the depot?
+It's necessary to git my breath before I rise the hill."
+
+"You can't seem to account for them foresights," continued Mr. Teaby,
+putting down his tall, thin valise and letting the empty top of it
+fold over. Then he stood his umbrella against the end of my baggage
+truck, without a glance at me. I was glad that they were not finding
+me in their way. "Well, if this ain't very sing'lar, I never saw
+nothin' that was," repeated the little man. "Nobody can set forth to
+explain why the thought of you should have been so borne in upon me
+day before yisterday, your livin' countenance an' all, an' here we be
+today settin' side o' one another. I've come to rely on them
+foresights; they've been of consider'ble use in my business, too."
+
+"Trade good as common this fall?" inquired Sister Pinkham languidly.
+"You don't carry such a thing as a good palm-leaf fan amon'st your
+stuff, I expect? It does appear to me as if I hadn't been more het up
+any day this year."
+
+"I should ha' had the observation to offer it before," said Mr. Teaby,
+with pride. "Yes, Sister Pinkham, I've got an excellent fan right
+here, an' you shall have it."
+
+He reached for his bag; I heard a clink, as if there were bottles
+within. Presently his companion began to fan herself with that steady
+sway and lop of the palm-leaf which one sees only in country churches
+in midsummer weather. Mr. Teaby edged away a little, as if he feared
+such a steady trade-wind.
+
+
+"We might ha' picked out a shadier spot, on your account," he
+suggested. "Can't you unpin your shawl?"
+
+"Not while I'm so het," answered Sister Pinkham coldly. "Is there
+anything new recommended for rheumatic complaints?"
+
+"They're gittin' up new compounds right straight along, and sends
+sights o' printed bills urgin' of me to buy 'em. I don't beseech none
+o' my customers to take them strange nostrums that I ain't able to
+recommend."
+
+"Some is new cotches made o' the good old stand-bys, I expect," said
+Sister Pink-ham, and there was a comfortable silence of some minutes.
+
+"I'm kind of surprised to meet with you to-day, when all's said an'
+done; it kind of started me when I see 't was you, after dwellin' on
+you so day before yisterday," insisted Mr. Teaby; and this time Sister
+Pinkham took heed of the interesting coincidence.
+
+
+"Thinkin' o' me, was you?" and she stopped the fan a moment, and
+turned to look at him with interest.
+
+"I was so. Well, I never see nobody that kep' her looks as you do, and
+be'n a sufferer too, as one may express it."
+
+Sister Pinkham sighed heavily, and began to ply the fan again. "You
+was sayin' just now that you found them foresight notions work into
+your business."
+
+"Yes'm; I saved a valu'ble life this last spring. I was puttin' up my
+vials to start out over Briggsville way, an' 't was impressed upon me
+that I'd better carry a portion o' opodildack. I was loaded up heavy,
+had all I could lug of spring goods; salts an' seny, and them
+big-bottle spring bitters o' mine that folks counts on regular. I
+couldn't git the opodildack out o' my mind noway, and I didn't want it
+for nothin' nor nobody, but I had to remove a needed vial o' some kind
+of essence to give it place. When I was goin' down the lane t'wards
+Abel Dean's house, his women folks come flyin' out. 'Child's a-dyin'
+in here,' says they; 'tumbled down the sullar stairs.' They was like
+crazy creatur's; I give 'em the vial right there in the lane, an' they
+run in an' I followed 'em. Last time I was there the child was
+a-playin' out; looked rugged and hearty. They've never forgot it an'
+never will," said Mr. Teaby impressively, with a pensive look toward
+the horizon. "Want me to stop over night with 'em any time, or come
+an' take the hoss, or anything. Mis' Dean, she buys four times the
+essences an' stuff she wants; kind o' gratified, you see, an' didn't
+want to lose the child, I expect, though she's got a number o' others.
+If it hadn't be'n for its bein' so impressed on my mind, I should have
+omitted that opodildack. I deem it a winter remedy, chiefly."
+
+"Perhaps the young one would ha' come to without none; they do survive
+right through everything, an' then again they seem to be taken away
+right in their tracks." Sister Pinkham grew more talkative as she
+cooled. "Heard any news as you come along?"
+
+"Some," vaguely responded Mr. Teaby. "Folks ginerally relates anythin'
+that's occurred since they see me before. I ain't no great hand for
+news, an' never was."
+
+"Pity 'bout _you_, Uncle Teaby! There, anybody don't like to have
+deaths occur an' them things, and be unawares of 'em, an' the last to
+know when folks calls in." Sister Pinkham laughed at first, but said
+her say with spirit.
+
+"Certain, certain, we ought all of us to show an interest. I did hear
+it reported that Elder Fry calculates to give up preachin' an' go into
+the creamery business another spring. You know he's had means left
+him, and his throat's kind o' give out; trouble with the pipes. I
+called it brown caters, an' explained nigh as I could without hurtin'
+of his pride that he'd bawled more 'n any pipes could stand. I git so
+wore out settin' under him that I feel to go an' lay right out in the
+woods arterwards, where it's still. 'T won't never do for him to deal
+so with callin' of his cows; they'd be so aggravated 't would be more
+'n any butter business could bear."
+
+"You hadn't ought to speak so light now; he's a very feelin' man
+towards any one in trouble," Sister Pinkham rebuked the speaker. "I
+set consider'ble by Elder Fry. You sort o' divert yourself dallying
+round the country with your essences and remedies, an' you ain't never
+sagged down with no settled grievance, as most do. Think o' what the
+Elder's be'n through, a-losin' o' three good wives. I'm one o' them
+that ain't found life come none too easy, an' Elder Fry's preachin'
+stayed my mind consider'ble."
+
+"I s'pose you're right, if you think you be," acknowledged the little
+man humbly. "I can't say as I esteem myself so fortunate as most. I
+'in a lonesome creatur', an' always was; you know I be. I did expect
+somebody 'd engage my affections before this."
+
+"There, plenty 'd be glad to have ye."
+
+"I expect they would, but I don't seem to be drawed to none on 'em,"
+replied Mr. Teaby, with a mournful shake of his head. "I've spoke
+pretty decided to quite a number in my time, take 'em all together,
+but it always appeared best not to follow it up; an' so when I'd come
+their way again I'd laugh it off or somethin', in case 't was referred
+to. I see one now an' then that I kind o' fancy, but 't ain't the real
+thing."
+
+"You mustn't expect to pick out a handsome gal, at your age," insisted
+Sister Pinkham, in a business-like way. "Time's past for all that, an'
+you've got the name of a rover. I've heard some say that you was rich,
+but that ain't every thin'. You must take who you can git, and look
+you up a good home; I would. If you was to be taken down with any
+settled complaint, you'd be distressed to be without a place o' your
+own, an' I'm glad to have this chance to tell ye so. Plenty o' folks
+is glad to take you in for a short spell, an' you've had an excellent
+chance to look the ground over well. I tell you you're beginnin' to
+git along in years."
+
+"I know I be," said Mr. Teaby. "I can't travel now as I used to. I
+have to favor my left leg. I do' know but I be spoilt for settlin'
+down. This business I never meant to follow stiddy, in the fust place;
+'t was a means to an end, as one may say."
+
+"Folks would miss ye, but you could take a good long trip, say spring
+an' fall, an' live quiet the rest of the year. What if they do git out
+o' essence o' lemon an' pep'mint! There's sufficient to the stores; 't
+ain't as 't used to be when you begun."
+
+"There's Ann Maria Hart, my oldest sister's daughter. I kind of call
+it home with her by spells and when the travelin' 's bad."
+
+"Good King Agrippy! if that's the best you can do, I feel for you,"
+exclaimed the energetic adviser. "She's a harmless creatur' and seems
+to keep ploddin, but slack ain't no description, an' runs on talkin'
+about nothin' till it strikes right in an' numbs ye. She's pressed for
+house room, too. Hart ought to put on an addition long ago, but he's
+too stingy to live. Folks was tellin' me that somebody observed to him
+how he'd got a real good, stiddy man to work with him this summer.
+'He's called a very pious man, too, great hand in meetin's, Mr. Hart,'
+says they; an' says he, 'I'd have you rec'lect he's a-prayin' out o'
+my time!' Said it hasty, too, as if he meant it."
+
+"Well, I can put up with Hart; he's near, but he uses me well, an' I
+try to do the same by him. I don't bange on 'em; I pay my way, an' I
+feel as if everything was temp'rary. I did plan to go way over North
+Dexter way, where I've never be'n, an' see if there wa'n't somebody,
+but the weather ain't be'n settled as I could wish. I'm always
+expectin' to find her, I be so,"--at which I observed Sister Pinkham's
+frame shake.
+
+I felt a slight reproach of conscience at listening so intently to
+these entirely private affairs, and at this point reluctantly left my
+place and walked along the platform, to remind Sister Pinkham and
+confiding Mr. Teaby of my neighborhood. They gave no sign that there
+was any objection to the presence of a stranger, and so I came back
+gladly to the baggage truck, and we all kept silence for a little
+while. A fine flavor of extracts was wafted from the valise to where I
+sat. I pictured to myself the solitary and hopeful wanderings of
+Mr. Teaby. There was an air about him of some distinction; he might
+have been a decayed member of the medical profession. I observed that
+his hands were unhardened by any sort of rural work, and he sat there
+a meek and appealing figure, with his antique hat and linen duster,
+beside the well-wadded round shoulders of friendly Sister Pinkham. The
+expression of their backs was most interesting.
+
+"You might express it that I've got quite a number o' good homes; I've
+got me sorted out a few regular places where I mostly stop," Mr. Teaby
+explained presently. "I like to visit with the old folks an' speak o'
+the past together; an' the boys an' gals, they always have some kind
+o' fun goin' on when I git along. They always have to git me out to
+the barn an' tell me, if they're a-courtin', and I fetch an' carry for
+'em in that case, an' help out all I can. I've made peace when they
+got into some o' their misunderstanding, an' them times they set a
+good deal by Uncle Teaby; but they ain't all got along as well as they
+expected, and that's be'n one thing that's made me desirous not to git
+fooled myself. But I do' know as folks would be reconciled to my
+settlin' down in one place. I've gathered a good many extry receipts
+for things, an' folks all calls me somethin' of a doctor; you know my
+grand'ther was one, on my mother's side."
+
+"Well, you've had my counsel for what 't is wuth," said the woman, not
+unkindly. "Trouble is, you want better bread than's made o' wheat."
+
+"I'm 'most ashamed to ask ye again if 't would be any use to lay the
+matter before Hannah Jane Pinkham?" This was spoken lower, but I could
+hear the gentle suggestion.
+
+"I'm obleeged to _you_" said the lady of Mr. Teaby's choice, "but I
+ain't the right one. Don't you go to settin' your mind on me: 't ain't
+wuth while. I'm older than you be, an' apt to break down with my
+rheumatic complaints. You don't want nobody on your hands. I'd git a
+younger woman, I would so."
+
+"I've be'n a-lookin' for the right one a sight o' years, Hannah Jane.
+I've had a kind o' notion I should know her right off when I fust see
+her, but I'm afeared it ain't goin' to be that way. I've seen a sight
+o' nice, smart women, but when the thought o' you was so impressed on
+my mind day before yisterday"--
+
+"I'm sorry to disobleege you, but if I have anybody, I'm kind o' half
+promised to Elder Fry," announced Sister Pinkham bravely. "I consider
+it more on the off side than I did at first. If he'd continued
+preachin' I'd favor it more, but I dread havin' to 'tend to a growin'
+butter business an' to sense them new machines. 'T ain't as if he'd
+'stablished it. I've just begun to have things easy; but there, I feel
+as if I had a lot o' work left in me, an' I don't know's 't is right
+to let it go to waste. I expect the Elder would preach some, by
+spells, an' we could ride about an' see folks; an' he'd always be
+called to funerals, an' have some variety one way an' another. I urge
+him not to quit preachin'."
+
+"I'd rather he ondertook 'most anythin' else," said Mr. Teaby, rising
+and trying to find the buttons of his linen duster.
+
+I could see a bitter shade of jealousy cloud his amiable face; but
+Sister Pinkham looked up at him and laughed. "Set down, set down," she
+said. "We ain't in no great hurry;" and Uncle Teaby relented, and
+lingered. "I'm all out o' rose-water for the eyes," she told him, "an'
+if you've got a vial o' lemon left that you'll part with reasonable, I
+do' know but I'll take that. I'd rather have caught you when you was
+outward bound; your bag looks kind o' slim."
+
+"Everythin' 's fresh-made just before I started, 'cept the ginger, an'
+that I buy, but it's called the best there is."
+
+The two sat down and drove a succession of sharp bargains, but finally
+parted the best of friends. Mr. Teaby kindly recognized my presence
+from a business point of view, and offered me a choice of his wares at
+reasonable prices. I asked about a delightful jumping-jack which made
+its appearance, and wished very much to become the owner, for it was
+curiously whittled out and fitted together by Mr. Teaby's own hands.
+He exhibited the toy to Sister Pinkham and me, to our great pleasure,
+but scorned to sell such a trifle, it being worth nothing; and beside,
+he had made it for a little girl who lived two miles farther along the
+road he was following. I could see that she was a favorite of the old
+man's, and said no more about the matter, but provided myself, as
+recommended, with an ample package of court-plaster, "in case of
+accident before I got to where I was going," and a small bottle of
+smelling-salts, described as reviving to the faculties.
+
+Then we watched Mr. Teaby plod away, a quaint figure, with his large
+valise nearly touching the ground as it hung slack from his right
+hand. The greenish-brown duster looked bleak and unseasonable as a
+cloud went over the sun; it appeared to symbolize the youthful and
+spring-like hopes of the wearer, decking the autumn days of life.
+
+"Poor creatur'!" said Sister Pinkham. "There, he doos need somebody to
+look after him."
+
+She turned to me frankly, and I asked how far he was going.
+
+"Oh, he'll put up at that little gal's house an' git his dinner, and
+give her the jumpin'-jack an' trade a little; an' then he'll work
+along the road, callin' from place to place. He's got a good deal o'
+system, an' was a smart boy, so that folks expected he was goin' to
+make a doctor, but he kind o' petered out. He's long-winded an'
+harpin', an' some folks prays him by if they can; but there, most
+likes him, an' there's nobody would be more missed. He don't make no
+trouble for 'em; he'll take right holt an' help, and there ain't
+nobody more gentle with the sick. Always has some o' his nonsense over
+to me."
+
+This was added with sudden consciousness that I must have heard the
+recent conversation, but we only smiled at each other, and good Sister
+Pinkham did not seem displeased. We both turned to look again at the
+small figure of Mr. Teaby, as he went away, with his queer, tripping
+gait, along the level road.
+
+"Pretty day, if 't wa'n't quite so warm," said Sister Pinkham, as she
+rose and reached for her bandbox and bundle, to resume her own
+journey. "There, if here ain't Uncle Teaby's umbrilla! He forgits
+everything that belongs to him but that old valise. Folks wouldn't
+know him if he left that. You may as well just hand it to Asa Briggs,
+the depot-master, when he gits back. Like's not the old gentleman 'll
+think to call for it as he comes back along. Here's his fan, too, but
+he won't be likely to want that this winter."
+
+She looked at the large umbrella; there was a great deal of good
+material in it, but it was considerably out of repair.
+
+"I don't know but I'll stop an' mend it up for him, poor old
+creatur'," she said slowly, with an apologetic look at me. Then she
+sat down again, pulled a large rolled-up needlebook from her deep and
+accessible pocket, and sewed busily for some time with strong
+stitches.
+
+I sat by and watched her, and was glad to be of use in chasing her
+large spool of linen thread, which repeatedly rolled away along the
+platform. Sister Pinkham's affectionate thoughts were evidently
+following her old friend.
+
+"I've a great mind to walk back with the umbrilla; he may need it, an'
+'t ain't a great ways," she said to me, and then looked up quickly,
+blushing like a girl. I wished she would, for my part, but it did not
+seem best for a stranger to give advice in such serious business.
+"I'll tell you what I will do," she told me innocently, a moment
+afterwards. "I'll take the umbrilla along with me, and leave word with
+Asa Briggs I've got it. I go right by his house, so you needn't charge
+your mind nothin' about it."
+
+By the time she had taken off her gold-bowed spectacles and put them
+carefully away and was ready to make another start, she had learned
+where I came from and where I was going and what my name was, all this
+being but poor return for what I had gleaned of the history of herself
+and Mr. Teaby. I watched Sister Pinkham until she disappeared,
+umbrella in hand, over the crest of a hill far along the road to the
+eastward.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUCK OF THE BOGANS.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+The old beggar women of Bantry streets had seldom showered their
+blessings upon a departing group of emigrants with such hearty good
+will as they did upon Mike Bogan and his little household one May
+morning.
+
+Peggy Muldoon, she of the game leg and green-patched eye and limber
+tongue, steadied herself well back against the battered wall at the
+street corner and gave her whole energy to a torrent of speech unusual
+to even her noble powers. She would not let Mike Bogan go to America
+unsaluted and unblessed; she meant to do full honor to this second
+cousin, once removed, on the mother's side.
+
+"Yirra, Mike Bogan, is it yerself thin, goyn away beyant the says?"
+she began with true dramatic fervor. "Let poor owld Peg take her last
+look on your laughing face me darlin'. She'll be under the ground this
+time next year, God give her grace, and you far away lavin' to strange
+spades the worruk of hapin' the sods of her grave. Give me one last
+look at me darlin' lad wid his swate Biddy an' the shild. Oh that I
+live to see this day!"
+
+Peg's companions, old Marget Dunn and Biddy O'Hern and no-legged Tom
+Whinn, the fragment of a once active sailor who propelled himself by a
+low truckle cart and two short sticks; these interesting members of
+society heard the shrill note of their leader's eloquence and suddenly
+appeared like beetles out of unsuspected crevices near by. The side
+car, upon which Mike Bogan and his wife and child were riding from
+their little farm outside the town to the place of departure, was
+stopped at the side of the narrow street. A lank yellow-haired lad,
+with eyes red from weeping sat swinging his long legs from the car
+side, another car followed, heavily laden with Mike's sister's family,
+and a mourning yet envious group of acquaintances footed it in the
+rear. It was an excited, picturesque little procession; the town was
+quickly aware of its presence, and windows went up from house to
+house, and heads came out of the second and third stories and even in
+the top attics all along the street. The air was thick with blessings,
+the quiet of Bantry was permanently broken.
+
+"Lard bliss us and save us!" cried Peggy, her shrill voice piercing
+the chatter and triumphantly lifting itself in audible relief above
+the din,--"Lard bliss us an' save us for the flower o' Bantry is
+lavin' us this day. Break my heart wid yer goyn will ye Micky Bogan
+and make it black night to the one eye that's left in me gray head
+this fine mornin' o' spring. I that hushed the mother of you and the
+father of you babies in me arms, and that was a wake old woman
+followin' and crapin' to see yerself christened. Oh may the saints be
+good to you Micky Bogan and Biddy Flaherty the wife, and forgive you
+the sin an' shame of turning yer proud backs on ould Ireland. Ain't
+there pigs and praties enough for ye in poor Bantry town that her
+crabbedest childer must lave her. Oh wisha wisha, I'll see your face
+no more, may the luck o' the Bogans follow you, that failed none o'
+the Bogans yet. May the sun shine upon you and grow two heads of
+cabbage in the same sprout, may the little b'y live long and get him a
+good wife, and if she ain't good to him may she die from him. May
+every hair on both your heads turn into a blessed candle to light your
+ways to heaven, but not yit me darlin's--not yit!"
+
+The jaunting car had been surrounded by this time and Mike and his
+wife were shaking hands and trying to respond impartially to the
+friendly farewells and blessings of their friends. There never had
+been such a leave-taking in Bantry. Peggy Muldoon felt that her
+eloquence was in danger of being ignored and made a final shrill
+appeal. "Who'll bury me now?" she screamed with a long wail which
+silenced the whole group; "who'll lay me in the grave, Micky bein'
+gone from me that always gave me the kind word and the pinny or
+trippence ivery market day, and the wife of him Biddy Flaherty the
+rose of Glengariff; many's the fine meal she's put before old Peggy
+Muldoon that is old and blind."
+
+"Awh, give the ould sowl a pinny now," said a sympathetic voice, "'t
+will bring you luck, more power to you." And Mike Bogan, the tears
+streaming down his honest cheeks, plunged deep into his pocket and
+threw the old beggar a broad five-shilling piece. It was a monstrous
+fortune to Peggy. Her one eye glared with joy, the jaunting car moved
+away while she fell flat on the ground in apparent excess of emotion.
+The farewells were louder for a minute--then they were stopped; the
+excitable neighborhood returned to its business or idleness and the
+street was still. Peggy rose rubbing an elbow, and said with the air
+of a queen to her retinue, "Coom away now poor crathurs, so we'll
+drink long life to him." And Marget Dunn and Biddy O'Hern and
+no-legged Tom Whinn with his truckle cart disappeared into an alley.
+
+"What's all this whillalu?" asked a sober-looking, clerical gentleman
+who came riding by.
+
+"'T is the Bogans going to Ameriky, yer reverence," responded Jim
+Kalehan, the shoemaker, from his low window. "The folks gived them
+their wake whilst they were here to enjoy it and them was the keeners
+that was goin' hippety with lame legs and fine joy down the convanient
+alley for beer, God bless the poor souls!"
+
+Mike Bogan and Biddy his wife looked behind them again and again. Mike
+blessed himself fervently as he caught a last glimpse of the old
+church on the hill where he was christened and married, where his
+father and his grandfather had been christened and married and buried.
+He remembered the day when he had first seen his wife, who was there
+from Glengariff to stay with her old aunt, and coming to early mass,
+had looked to him like a strange sweet flower abloom on the gray stone
+pavement where she knelt. The old church had long stood on the steep
+height at the head of Bantry street and watched and waited for her
+children. He would never again come in from his little farm in the
+early morning--he never again would be one of the Bantry men. The
+golden stories of life in America turned to paltry tinsel, and a love
+and pride of the old country, never forgotten by her sons and
+daughters, burned with fierce flame on the inmost altar of his heart.
+It had all been very easy to dream fine dreams of wealth and
+landownership, but in that moment the least of the pink daisies that
+were just opening on the roadside was dearer to the simple-hearted
+emigrant than all the world beside.
+
+"Lave me down for a bit of sod," he commanded the wondering young
+driver, who would have liked above all things to sail for the new
+world. The square of turf from the hedge foot, sparkling with dew and
+green with shamrock and gay with tiny flowers, was carefully wrapped
+in Mike's best Sunday handkerchief as they went their way. Biddy had
+covered her head with her shawl--it was she who had made the plan of
+going to America, it was she who was eager to join some successful
+members of her family who had always complained at home of their
+unjust rent and the difficulties of the crops. Everybody said that the
+times were going to be harder than ever that summer, and she was quick
+to catch at the inflammable speeches of some lawless townsfolk who
+were never satisfied with anything. As for Mike, the times always
+seemed alike, he did not grudge hard work and he never found fault
+with the good Irish weather. His nature was not resentful, he only
+laughed when Biddy assured him that the gorse would soon grow in the
+thatch of his head as it did on their cabin chimney. It was only when
+she said that, in America they could make a gentleman of baby Dan,
+that the father's blue eyes glistened and a look of determination came
+into his face.
+
+"God grant we'll come back to it some day," said Mike softly. "I
+didn't know, faix indeed, how sorry I'd be for lavin' the owld place.
+Awh Biddy girl 't is many the weary day we'll think of the home we've
+left," and Biddy removed the shawl one instant from her face only to
+cover it again and burst into a new shower of tears. The next day but
+one they were sailing away out of Queenstown harbor to the high seas.
+Old Ireland was blurring its green and purple coasts moment by moment;
+Kinsale lay low, and they had lost sight of the white cabins on the
+hillsides and the pastures golden with furze. Hours before the old
+women on the wharves had turned away from them shaking their great cap
+borders. Hours before their own feet had trodden the soil of Ireland
+for the last time. Mike Bogan and Biddy had left home, they were well
+on their way to America. Luckily nobody had been with them at last to
+say good-by--they had taken a more or less active part in the piteous
+general leave-taking at Queenstown, but those were not the faces of
+their own mothers or brothers to which they looked back as the ship
+slid away through the green water.
+
+"Well, sure, we're gone now," said Mike setting his face westward and
+tramping the steerage deck. "I like the say too, I belave, me own
+grandfather was a sailor, an' 't is a fine life for a man. Here's
+little Dan goin' to Ameriky and niver mistrustin'. We'll be sindin'
+the gossoon back again, rich and fine, to the owld place by and by,
+'tis thrue for us, Biddy."
+
+But Biddy, like many another woman, had set great changes in motion
+and then longed to escape from their consequences. She was much
+discomposed by the ship's unsteadiness. She accused patient Mike of
+having dragged her away from home and friends. She grew very white in
+the face, and was helped to her hard steerage berth where she had
+plenty of time for reflection upon the vicissitudes of seafaring. As
+for Mike, he grew more and more enthusiastic day by day over their
+prospects as he sat in the shelter of the bulkhead and tended little
+Dan and talked with his companions as they sailed westward.
+
+Who of us have made enough kindly allowance for the homesick
+quick-witted ambitious Irish men and women, who have landed every year
+with such high hopes on our shores. There are some of a worse sort, of
+whom their native country might think itself well rid--but what
+thrifty New England housekeeper who takes into her home one of the
+pleasant-faced little captive maids, from Southern Ireland, has half
+understood the change of surroundings. That was a life in the open air
+under falling showers and warm sunshine, a life of wit and humor, of
+lavishness and lack of provision for more than the passing day--of
+constant companionship with one's neighbors, and a cheerful serenity
+and lack of nervous anticipation born of the vicinity of the Gulf
+Stream. The climate makes the characteristics of Cork and Kerry; the
+fierce energy of the Celtic race in America is forced and stimulated
+by our own keen air. The beauty of Ireland is little hinted at by an
+average orderly New England town--many a young girl and many a
+blundering sturdy fellow is heartsick with the homesickness and
+restraint of his first year in this golden country of hard work. To so
+many of them a house has been but a shelter for the night--a
+sleeping-place: if you remember that, you do not wonder at fumbling
+fingers or impatience with our houses full of trinkets. Our needless
+tangle of furnishing bewilders those who still think the flowers that
+grow of themselves in the Irish thatch more beautiful than anything
+under the cover of our prosaic shingled roofs.
+
+"Faix, a fellow on deck was telling me a nate story the day," said
+Mike to Biddy Bogan, by way of kindly amusement. "Says he to me,
+'Mike,' says he, 'did ye ever hear of wan Pathrick O'Brien that heard
+some bla'guard tell how in Ameriky you picked up money in the
+streets?' 'No,' says I. 'He wint ashore in a place,' says he, 'and he
+walked along and he come to a sign on a wall. Silver Street was on it.
+"I 'ont stap here," says he, "it ain't wort my while at all, at all.
+I'll go on to Gold Street," says he, but he walked ever since and he
+ain't got there yet.'"
+
+Biddy opened her eyes and laughed feebly. Mike looked so bronzed and
+ruddy and above all so happy, that she took heart. "We're sound and
+young, thanks be to God, and we'll earn an honest living," said Mike,
+proudly. "'T is the childher I'm thinkin' of all the time, an' how
+they'll get a chance the best of us niver had at home. God bless old
+Bantry forever in spite of it. An' there's a smart rid-headed man that
+has every bother to me why 'ont I go with him and keep a tidy bar.
+He's been in the same business this four year gone since he come out,
+and twenty pince in his pocket when he landed, and this year he took a
+month off and went over to see the ould folks and build 'em a dacint
+house intirely, and hire a man to farm wid 'em now the old ones is
+old. He says will I put in my money wid him, an he'll give me a great
+start I wouldn't have in three years else."
+
+"Did you have the fool's head on you then and let out to him what
+manes you had?" whispered Biddy, fiercely and lifting herself to look
+at him.
+
+"I did then; 't was no harm," answered the unsuspecting Mike.
+
+"'T was a black-hearted rascal won the truth from you!" and Biddy
+roused her waning forces and that very afternoon appeared on deck. The
+red-headed man knew that he had lost the day when he caught her first
+scornful glance.
+
+"God pity the old folks of him an' their house," muttered the
+sharp-witted wife to Mike, as she looked at the low-lived scheming
+fellow whom she suspected of treachery.
+
+"He said thim was old clothes he was wearin' on the sea," apologized
+Mike for his friend, looking down somewhat consciously at his own
+comfortable corduroys. He and Biddy had been well to do on their
+little farm, and on good terms with their landlord the old squire.
+Poor old gentleman, it had been a sorrow to him to let the young
+people go. He was a generous, kindly old man, but he suffered from the
+evil repute of some shortsighted neighbors. "If I gave up all I had in
+the world and went to the almshouse myself, they would still damn me
+for a landlord," he said, desperately one day. "But I never thought
+Mike Bogan would throw up his good chances. I suppose some worthless
+fellow called him stick-in-the-mud and off he must go."
+
+There was some unhappiness at first for the young people in America.
+They went about the streets of their chosen town for a day or two,
+heavy-hearted with disappointment. Their old neighbors were not housed
+in palaces after all, as the letters home had suggested, and after a
+few evenings of visiting and giving of messages, and a few days of
+aimless straying about, Mike and Biddy hired two rooms at a large rent
+up three flights of stairs, and went to housekeeping. Litte Dan rolled
+down one flight the first day; no more tumbling on the green turf
+among the daisies for him, poor baby boy. His father got work at the
+forge of a carriage shop, having served a few months with a smith at
+home, and so taking rank almost as a skilled laborer. He was a great
+favorite speedily, his pay was good, at least it would have been good
+if he had lived on the old place among the fields, but he and Biddy
+did not know how to make the most of it here, and Dan had a baby
+sister presently to keep him company, and then another and another,
+and there they lived up-stairs in the heat, in the cold, in daisy time
+and snow time, and Dan was put to school and came home with a
+knowledge of sums in arithmetic which set his father's eyes dancing
+with delight, but with a knowledge besides of foul language and a
+brutal way of treating his little sisters when nobody was looking on.
+
+Mike Bogan was young and strong when he came to America, and his good
+red blood lasted well, but it was against his nature to work in a hot
+half-lighted shop, and in a very few years he began to look pale about
+the mouth and shaky in the shoulders, and then the enthusiastic
+promises of the red-headed man on the ship, borne out, we must allow,
+by Mike's own observation, inclined him and his hard earned capital to
+the purchase of a tidy looking drinking shop on a side street of the
+town. The owner had died and his widow wished to go West to live with
+her son. She knew the Bogans and was a respectable soul in her way.
+She and her husband had kept a quiet place, everybody acknowledged,
+and everybody was thankful that since drinking shops must be kept, so
+decent a man as Mike Bogan was taking up the business.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The luck of the Bogans proved to be holding true in this generation.
+Their proverbial good fortune seemed to come rather from an absence of
+bad fortune than any special distinction granted the generation or two
+before Mike's time. The good fellow sometimes reminded himself
+gratefully of Peggy Muldoon's blessing, and once sent her a pound to
+keep Christmas upon. If he had only known it, that unworthy woman
+bestowed curses enough upon him because he did not repeat it the next
+year, to cancel any favors that might have been anticipated. Good news
+flew back to Bantry of his prosperity, and his comfortable home above
+the store was a place of reception and generous assistance to all the
+westward straying children of Bantry. There was a bit of garden that
+belonged to the estate, the fences were trig and neat, and neither
+Mike nor Biddy were persons to let things look shabby while they had
+plenty of money to keep them clean and whole. It was Mike who walked
+behind the priest on Sundays when the collection was taken. It was
+Mike whom good Father Miles trusted more than any other member of his
+flock, whom he confided in and consulted, whom perhaps his reverence
+loved best of all the parish because they were both Bantry men, born
+and bred. And nobody but Father Miles and Biddy and Mike Bogan knew
+the full extent of the father's and mother's pride and hope in the
+cleverness and beauty of their only son. Nothing was too great, and no
+success seemed impossible when they tried to picture the glorious
+career of little Dan.
+
+Mike was a kind father to his little daughters, but all his hope was
+for Dan. It was for Dan that he was pleased when people called him
+Mr. Bogan in respectful tones, and when he was given a minor place of
+trust at town elections, he thought with humble gladness that Dan
+would have less cause to be ashamed of him by and by when he took his
+own place as gentleman and scholar. For there was something different
+about Dan from the rest of them, plain Irish folk that they were. Dan
+was his father's idea of a young lord; he would have liked to show the
+boy to the old squire, and see his look of surprise. Money came in at
+the shop door in a steady stream, there was plenty of it put away in
+the bank and Dan must wear well-made clothes and look like the best
+fellows at the school. He was handsomer than any of them, he was the
+best and quickest scholar of his class. The president of the great
+carriage company had said that he was a very promising boy more than
+once, and had put his hand on Mike's shoulder as he spoke. Mike and
+Biddy, dressed in their best, went to the school examinations year
+after year and heard their son do better than the rest, and saw him
+noticed and admired. For Dan's sake no noisy men were allowed to stay
+about the shop. Dan himself was forbidden to linger there, and so far
+the boy had clear honest eyes, and an affectionate way with his father
+that almost broke that honest heart with joy. They talked together
+when they went to walk on Sundays, and there was a plan, increasingly
+interesting to both, of going to old Bantry some summer--just for a
+treat. Oh happy days! They must end as summer days do, in winter
+weather.
+
+There was an outside stair to the two upper stories where the Bogans
+lived above their place of business, and late one evening, when the
+shop shutters were being clasped together below, Biddy Bogan heard a
+familiar heavy step and hastened to hold her brightest lamp in the
+doorway.
+
+"God save you," said his reverence Father Miles, who was coming up
+slowly, and Biddy dropped a decent courtesy and devout blessing in
+return. His reverence looked pale and tired, and seated himself
+wearily in a chair by the window--while Biddy coasted round by a
+bedroom door to "whist" at two wakeful daughters who were teasing each
+other and chattering in bed.
+
+"'T is long since we saw you here, sir," she said, respectfully. "'T
+is warm weather indade for you to be about the town, and folks sick
+an' dyin' and needing your help, sir. Mike'll be up now, your
+reverence. I hear him below."
+
+Biddy had grown into a stout mother of a family, red-faced and
+bustling; there was little likeness left to the rose of Glengariff
+with whom Mike had fallen in love at early mass in Bantry church. But
+the change had been so gradual that Mike himself had never become
+conscious of any damaging difference. She took a fresh loaf of bread
+and cut some generous slices and put a piece of cheese and a knife on
+the table within reach of Father Miles's hand. "I suppose 'tis waste
+of time to give you more, so it is," she said to him. "Bread an'
+cheese and no better will you ate I suppose, sir," and she folded her
+arms across her breast and stood looking at him.
+
+"How is the luck of the Bogans to-day?" asked the kind old man. "The
+head of the school I make no doubt?" and at this moment Mike came up
+the stairs and greeted his priest with reverent affection.
+
+"You're looking faint, sir," he urged. "Biddy get a glass now, we're
+quite by ourselves sir--and I've something for sickness that's very
+soft and fine entirely."
+
+"Well, well, this once then," answered Father Miles, doubtfully. "I've
+had a hard day."
+
+He held the glass in his hand for a moment and then pushed it away
+from him on the table. "Indeed it's not wrong in itself," said the
+good priest looking up presently, as if he had made something clear to
+his mind. "The wrong is in ourselves to make beasts of ourselves with
+taking too much of it. I don't shame me with this glass of the best
+that you've poured for me. My own sin is in the coffee-pot. It wilds
+my head when I've got most use for it, and I'm sure of an aching
+pate--God forgive me for indulgence; but I must have it for my
+breakfast now, and then. Give me a bit of bread and cheese; yes,
+that's what I want Bridget," and he pushed the glass still farther
+away.
+
+"I've been at a sorry place this night," he went on a moment later,
+"the smell of the stuff can't but remind me. 'T is a comfort to come
+here and find your house so clean and decent, and both of you looking
+me in the face. God save all poor sinners!" and Mike and his wife
+murmured assent.
+
+"I wish to God you were out of this business and every honest man with
+you," said the priest, suddenly dropping his fatherly, Bantry good
+fellowship and making his host conscious of the solemnity of the
+church altar. "'T is a decent shop you keep, Mike, my lad, I know. I
+know no harm of it, but there are weak souls that can't master
+themselves, and the drink drags them down. There's little use in doing
+away with the shops though. We've got to make young men strong enough
+to let drink alone. The drink will always be in the world. Here's your
+bright young son; what are they teaching him at his school, do ye
+know? Has his characther grown, do ye think Mike Bogan, and is he
+going to be a man for good, and to help decent things get a start and
+bad things to keep their place? I don't care how he does his sums, so
+I don't, if he has no characther, and they may fight about beer and
+fight about temperance and carry their Father Matthew flags flying
+high, so they may, and it's all no good, lessen we can raise the young
+folks up above the place where drink and shame can touch them. God
+grant us help," he whispered, dropping his head on his breast. "I'm
+getting to be an old man myself, and I've never known the temptation
+that's like a hounding devil to many men. I can let drink alone, God
+pity those who can't. Keep the young lads out from it Mike. You're a
+good fellow, you're careful, but poor human souls are weak, God
+knows!"
+
+"'T is thrue for you indade sir!" responded Biddy. Her eyes were full
+of tears at Father Miles's tone and earnestness, but she could not
+have made clear to herself what he had said.
+
+"Will I put a dhrap more of wather in it, your riverence?" she
+suggested, but the priest shook his head gently, and, taking a handful
+of parish papers out of his pocket, proceeded to hold conference with
+the master of the house. Biddy waited a while and at last ventured to
+clear away the good priest's frugal supper. She left the glass, but he
+went away without touching it, and in the very afterglow of his
+parting blessing she announced that she had the makings of a pain
+within, and took the cordial with apparent approval.
+
+Mike did not make any comment; he was tired and it was late, and long
+past their bedtime.
+
+Biddy was wide awake and talkative from her tonic, and soon pursued
+the subject of conversation.
+
+"What set the father out wid talking I do' know?" she inquired a
+little ill-humoredly. "'T was thrue for him that we kape a dacint shop
+anyhow, an' how will it be in the way of poor Danny when it's finding
+the manes to put him where he is?"
+
+"'T wa'n't that he mint at all," answered Mike from his pillow.
+"Didn't ye hear what he said?" after endeavoring fruitlessly to repeat
+it in his own words--"He's right, sure, about a b'y's getting thim
+books and having no characther. He thinks well of Danny, and he knows
+no harm of him. Wisha! what 'll we do wid that b'y, Biddy, I do' know!
+'Fadther,' says he to me today, 'why couldn't ye wait an' bring me
+into the wurruld on American soil,' says he 'and maybe I'd been
+prisident,' says he, and 't was the thruth for him."
+
+"I'd rather for him to be a priest meself," replied the mother.
+
+"That's what Father Miles said himself the other day," announced Mike
+wide awake now. "'I wish he'd the makings of a good priest,' said he.
+'There'll soon be need of good men and hard picking for 'em too,'
+said he, and he let a great sigh. ''T is money they want and place
+they want, most o' them bla'guard b'ys in the siminary. 'T is the old
+fashioned min like mesilf that think however will they get souls
+through this life and through heaven's gate at last, wid clane names
+and God-fearin', dacint names left after them.' Thim was his own words
+indade."
+
+"Idication was his cry always," said Bridget, blessing herself in the
+dark. "'T was only last confission he took no note of me own sins
+while he redded himself in the face with why don't I kape Mary Ellen
+to the school, and myself not an hour in the day to rest my poor
+bones. 'I have to kape her in, to mind the shmall childer,' says I,
+an' 't was thrue for me, so it was." She gave a jerk under the
+blankets, which represented the courtesy of the occasion. She had a
+great respect and some awe for Father Miles, but she considered
+herself to have held her ground in that discussion.
+
+"We'll do our best by them all, sure," answered Mike. "'T is tribbling
+me money I am ivery day," he added, gayly. "The lord-liftinant himsilf
+is no surer of a good bury-in' than you an' me. What if we made a
+priest of Dan intirely?" with a great outburst of proper pride. "A son
+of your own at the alther saying mass for you, Biddy Flaherty from
+Glengariff!"
+
+"He's no mind for it, more's the grief," answered the mother,
+unexpectedly, shaking her head gloomily on the pillow, "but marruk me
+wuds now, he'll ride in his carriage when I'm under the sods, give me
+grace and you too Mike Bogan! Look at the airs of him and the toss of
+his head. 'Mother,' says he to me, 'I'm goin' to be a big man!' says
+he, 'whin I grow up. D' ye think anybody 'll take me fer an
+Irishman?'"
+
+"Bad cess to the bla'guard fer that then!" said Mike. "It's spoilin'
+him you are. 'T is me own pride of heart to come from old Bantry, an'
+he lied to me yesterday gone, saying would I take him to see the old
+place. Wisha! he's got too much tongue, and he's spindin' me money for
+me."
+
+But Biddy pretended to be falling asleep. This was not the first time
+that the honest pair had felt anxiety creeping into their pride about
+Dan. He frightened them sometimes; he was cleverer than they, and the
+mother had already stormed at the boy for his misdemeanors, in her
+garrulous fashion, but covered them from his father notwithstanding.
+She felt an assurance of the merely temporary damage of wild oats; she
+believed it was just as well for a boy to have his freedom and his
+fling. She even treated his known lies as if they were truth. An
+easy-going comfortable soul was Biddy, who with much shrewdness and
+only a trace of shrewishness got through this evil world as best she
+might.
+
+The months flew by. Mike Bogan was a middle-aged man, and he and his
+wife looked somewhat elderly as they went to their pew in the broad
+aisle on Sunday morning. Danny usually came too, and the girls, but
+Dan looked contemptuous as he sat next his father and said his prayers
+perfunctorily. Sometimes he was not there at all, and Mike had a heavy
+heart under his stiff best coat. He was richer than any other member
+of Father Miles's parish, and he was known and respected everywhere as
+a good citizen. Even the most ardent believers in the temperance cause
+were known to say that little mischief would be done if all the
+rumsellers were such men as Mr. Bogan. He was generous and in his
+limited way public spirited. He did his duty to his neighbor as he saw
+it. Every one used liquor more or less, somebody must sell it, but a
+low groggery was as much a thing of shame to him as to any man. He
+never sold to boys, or to men who had had too much already. His shop
+was clean and wholesome, and in the evening when a dozen or more of
+his respectable acquaintances gathered after work for a social hour or
+two and a glass of whiskey to rest and cheer them after exposure,
+there was not a little good talk about affairs from their point of
+view, and plenty of honest fun. In their own houses very likely the
+rooms were close and hot, and the chairs hard and unrestful. The wife
+had taken her bit of recreation by daylight and visited her friends.
+This was their comfortable club-room, Mike Bogan's shop, and Mike
+himself the leader of the assembly. There was a sober-mindedness in
+the man; his companions were contented though he only looked on
+tolerantly at their fun, for the most part, without taking any active
+share himself.
+
+One cool October evening the company was well gathered in, there was
+even a glow of wood fire in the stove, and two of the old men were
+sitting close beside it. Corny Sullivan had been a soldier in the
+British army for many years, he had been wounded at last at
+Sebastopol, and yet here he was, full of military lore and glory, and
+propped by a wooden leg. Corny was usually addressed an Timber-toes by
+his familiars; he was an irascible old follow to deal with, but as
+clean as a whistle from long habit and even stately to look at in his
+arm-chair. He had a nephew with whom he made his home, who would give
+him an arm presently and get him home to bed. His mate was an old
+sailor much bent in the back by rheumatism, Jerry Bogan; who, though
+no relation, was tenderly treated by Mike, being old and poor. His
+score was never kept, but he seldom wanted for his evening grog. Jerry
+Bogan was a cheerful soul; the wit of the Celts and their pathetic
+wilfulness were delightful in him. The priest liked him, the doctor
+half loved him, this old-fashioned Irishman who had a graceful
+compliment or a thrust of wit for whoever came in his way. What a
+treasury of old Irish lore and legend was this old sailor! What
+broadness and good cheer and charity had been fostered in his sailor
+heart! The delight of little children with his clever tales and
+mysterious performances with bits of soft pine and a sharp jackknife,
+a very Baron Munchausen of adventure, and here he sat, round backed
+and head pushed forward like an old turtle, by the fire. The other men
+sat or stood about the low-walled room. Mike was serving his friends;
+there was a clink of glass and a stirring and shaking, a pungent odor
+of tobacco, and much laughter.
+
+"Soombody, whoiver it was, thrun a cat down in Tom Auley's well las'
+night," announced Corny Sullivan with more than usual gravity.
+
+"They'll have no luck thin," says Jerry. "Anybody that meddles wid
+wather 'ill have no luck while they live, faix they 'ont thin."
+
+"Tom Auley's been up watchin' this three nights now," confides the
+other old gossip. "Thim dirty b'y's troublin' his pigs in the sthy,
+and having every stramash about the place, all for revinge upon him
+for gettin' the police afther thim when they sthole his hins. 'T was
+as well for him too, they're dirty bligards, the whole box and dice of
+them."
+
+"Whishper now!" and Jerry pokes his great head closer to his friend.
+"The divil of 'em all is young Dan Bogan, Mike's son. Sorra a bit o'
+good is all his schoolin', and Mike's heart 'll be soon broke from
+him. I see him goin' about wid his nose in the air. He's a pritty boy,
+but the divil is in him an' 't is he ought to have been a praste wid
+his chances and Father Miles himself tarkin and tarkin wid him tryin'
+to make him a crown of pride to his people after all they did for him.
+There was niver a spade in his hand to touch the ground yet. Look at
+his poor father now! Look at Mike, that's grown old and gray since
+winther time." And they turned their eyes to the bar to refresh their
+memories with the sight of the disappointed face behind it.
+
+There was a rattling at the door-latch just then and loud voices
+outside, and as the old men looked, young Dan Bogan came stumbling
+into the shop. Behind him were two low fellows, the worst in the town,
+they had all been drinking more than was good for them, and for the
+first time Mike Bogan saw his only son's boyish face reddened and
+stupid with whiskey. It had been an unbroken law that Dan should keep
+out of the shop with his comrades; now he strode forward with an
+absurd travesty of manliness, and demanded liquor for himself and his
+friends at his father's hands.
+
+Mike staggered, his eyes glared with anger. His fatherly pride made
+him long to uphold the poor boy before so many witnesses. He reached
+for a glass, then he pushed it away--and with quick step reached Dan's
+side, caught him by the collar, and held him. One or two of the
+spectators chuckled with weak excitement, but the rest pitied Mike
+Bogan as he would have pitied them.
+
+The angry father pointed his son's companions to the door, and after a
+moment's hesitation they went skulking out, and father and son
+disappeared up the stairway. Dan was a coward, he was glad to be
+thrust into his own bedroom upstairs, his head was dizzy, and he
+muttered only a feeble oath. Several of Mike Bogan's customers had
+kindly disappeared when he returned trying to look the same as ever,
+but one after another the great tears rolled down his cheeks. He never
+had faced despair till now; he turned his back to the men, and fumbled
+aimlessly among the bottles on the shelf. Some one came, in
+unconscious of the pitiful scene, and impatiently repeated his order
+to the shopkeeper.
+
+"God help me, boys, I can't sell more this night!" he said brokenly.
+"Go home now and lave me to myself."
+
+They were glad to go, though it cut the evening short. Jerry Bogan
+bundled his way last with his two canes. "Sind the b'y to say," he
+advised in a gruff whisper. "Sind him out wid a good captain now,
+Mike,'t will make a man of him yet."
+
+A man of him yet! alas, alas--for the hopes that had been growing so
+many years. Alas for the pride of a simple heart, alas for the day
+Mike Bogan came away from sunshiny old Bantry with his baby son in his
+arms for the sake of making that son a gentleman.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+Winter had fairly set in, but the snow had not come, and the street
+was bleak and cold. The wind was stinging men's faces and piercing the
+wooden houses. A hard night for sailors coming on the coast--a bitter
+night for poor people everywhere.
+
+From one house and another the lights went out in the street where the
+Bogans lived; at last there was no other lamp than theirs, in a window
+that lighted the outer stairs. Sometimes a woman's shadow passed
+across the curtain and waited there, drawing it away from the panes a
+moment as if to listen the better for a footstep that did not come.
+Poor Biddy had waited many a night before this. Her husband was far
+from well, the doctor said that his heart was not working right, and
+that he must be very careful, but the truth was that Mike's heart was
+almost broken by grief. Dan was going the downhill road, he had been
+drinking harder and harder, and spending a great deal of money. He had
+smashed more than one carriage and lamed more than one horse from the
+livery stables, and he had kept the lowest company in vilest dens. Now
+he threatened to go to New York, and it had come at last to being the
+only possible joy that he should come home at any time of night rather
+than disappear no one knew where. He had laughed in Father Miles's
+face when the good old man, after pleading with him, had tried to
+threaten him.
+
+Biddy was in an agony of suspense as the night wore on. She dozed a
+little only to wake with a start, and listen for some welcome sound
+out in the cold night. Was her boy freezing to death somewhere? Other
+mothers only scolded if their sons were wild, but this was killing her
+and Mike, they had set their hopes so high. Mike was groaning
+dreadfully in his sleep to-night--the fire was burning low, and she
+did not dare to stir it. She took her worn rosary again and tried to
+tell its beads. "Mother of Pity, pray for us!" she said, wearily
+dropping the beads in her lap.
+
+There was a sound in the street at last, but it was not of one man's
+stumbling feet, but of many. She was stiff with cold, she had slept
+long, and it was almost day. She rushed with strange apprehension to
+the doorway and stood with the flaring lamp in her hand at the top of
+the stairs. The voices were suddenly hushed. "Go for Father Miles!"
+said somebody in a hoarse voice, and she heard the words. They were
+carrying a burden, they brought it tip to the mother who waited. In
+their arms lay her son stone dead; he had been stabbed in a fight, he
+had struck a man down who had sprung back at him like a tiger. Dan,
+little Dan, was dead, the luck of the Bogans, the end was here, and a
+wail that pierced the night, and chilled the hearts that heard it, was
+the first message of sorrow to the poor father in his uneasy sleep.
+
+The group of men stood by--some of them had been drinking, but they
+were all awed and shocked. You would have believed every one of them
+to be on the side of law and order. Mike Bogan knew that the worst had
+happened. Biddy had rushed to him and fallen across the bed; for one
+minute her aggravating shrieks had stopped; he began to dress himself,
+but he was shaking too much; he stepped out to the kitchen and faced
+the frightened crowd.
+
+"Is my son dead, then?" asked Mike Bogan of Bantry, with a piteous
+quiver of the lip, and nobody spoke. There was something glistening
+and awful about his pleasant Irish face. He tottered where he stood,
+he caught at a chair to steady himself. "The luck o' the Bogans is
+it?" and he smiled strangely, then a fierce hardness came across his
+face and changed it utterly. "Come down, come down!" he shouted, and
+snatching the key of the shop went down the stairs himself with great
+sure-footed leaps. What was in Mike? was he crazy with grief? They
+stood out of his way and saw him fling out bottle after bottle and
+shatter them against the wall. They saw him roll one cask after
+another to the doorway, and out into the street in the gray light of
+morning, and break through the staves with a heavy axe. Nobody dared
+to restrain his fury--there was a devil in him, they were afraid of
+the man in his blinded rage The odor of whiskey and gin filled the
+cold air--some of them would have stolen the wasted liquor if they
+could, but no man there dared to move or speak, and it was not until
+the tall figure of Father Miles came along the street, and the patient
+eyes that seemed always to keep vigil, and the calm voice with its
+flavor of Bantry brogue, came to Mike Bogan's help, that he let
+himself be taken out of the wrecked shop and away from the spilt
+liquors to the shelter of his home.
+
+A week later he was only a shadow of his sturdy self, he was lying on
+his bed dreaming of Bantry Bay and the road to Glengariff--the hedge
+roses were in bloom, and he was trudging along the road to see Biddy.
+He was working on the old farm at home and could not put the seed
+potatoes in their trench, for little Dan kept falling in and getting
+in his way. "Dan's not going to be plagued with the bad craps," he
+muttered to Father Miles who sat beside the bed. "Dan will be a fine
+squire in Ameriky," but the priest only stroked his hand as it
+twitched and lifted on the coverlet. What was Biddy doing, crying and
+putting the candles about him? Then Mike's poor brain grew steady.
+
+"Oh, my God, if we were back in Bantry! I saw the gorse bloomin' in
+the t'atch d' ye know. Oh wisha wisha the poor ould home an' the green
+praties that day we come from it--with our luck smilin' us in the
+face."
+
+"Whist darlin': kape aisy darlin'!" mourned Biddy, with a great sob.
+Father Miles sat straight and stem in his chair by the pillow--he had
+said the prayers for the dying, and the holy oil was already shining
+on Mike Bogan's forehead. The keeners were swaying themselves to and
+fro, there where they waited in the next room.
+
+
+
+
+FAIR DAY.
+
+
+Widow Mercy Bascom came back alone into the empty kitchen and seated
+herself in her favorite splint-bottomed chair by the window, with a
+dreary look on her face.
+
+"I s'pose I be an old woman, an' past goin' to cattle shows an'
+junketings, but folks needn't take it so for granted. I'm sure I don't
+want to be on my feet all day, trapesin' fair grounds an' swallowin'
+everybody's dust; not but what I'm as able as most, though I be
+seventy-three year old."
+
+She folded her hands in her lap and looked out across the deserted
+yard. There was not even a hen in sight; she was left alone for the
+day. "Tobias's folks," as she called the son's family with whom she
+made her home--Tobias's folks had just started for a day's pleasuring
+at the county fair, ten miles distant. She had not thought of going
+with them, nor expected any invitation; she had even helped them off
+with her famous energy; but there was an unexpected reluctance at
+being left behind, a sad little feeling that would rise suddenly in
+her throat as she stood in the door and saw them drive away in the
+shiny, two-seated wagon. Johnny, the youngest and favorite of her
+grandchildren, had shouted back in his piping voice, "I wish you was
+goin', Grandma."
+
+"The only one on 'em that thought of me," said Mercy Bascom to
+herself, and then not being a meditative person by nature, she went to
+work industriously and proceeded to the repairing of Tobias's work-day
+coat. It was sharp weather now in the early morning, and he would soon
+need the warmth of it. Tobias's placid wife never anticipated and
+always lived in a state of trying to catch up with her work. It never
+had been the elder woman's way, and Mercy reviewed her own active
+career with no mean pride. She had been left a widow at twenty-eight,
+with four children and a stony New Hampshire farm, but had bravely won
+her way, paid her debts, and provided the three girls and their
+brother Tobias with the best available schooling.
+
+For a woman of such good judgment and high purpose in life,
+Mrs. Bascom had made a very unwise choice in marrying Tobias Bascom
+the elder. He was not even the owner of a good name, and led her a
+terrible life with his drunken shiftlessness, and hindrance of all her
+own better aims. Even while the children were babies, however, and
+life was at its busiest and most demanding stages, the determined soul
+would not be baffled by such damaging partnership. She showed the
+plainer of what stuff she was made, and simply worked the harder and
+went her ways more fiercely. If it were sometimes whispered that she
+was unamiable, her wiser neighbors understood the power of will that
+was needed to cope with circumstances that would have crushed a weaker
+woman. As for her children, they were very fond of her in the
+undemonstrative New England fashion. Only the two eldest could
+remember their father at all, and after he was removed from this world
+Tobias Bascom left but slight proofs of having ever existed at all,
+except in the stern lines and premature aging of his wife's face.
+
+The years that followed were years of hard work on the little farm,
+but diligence and perseverance had their reward. When the three
+daughters came to womanhood they were already skilled farmhouse
+keepers, and were dispatched for their own homes well equipped with
+feather-beds and homespun linen and woolen. Mercy Bascom was glad to
+have them well settled, if the truth were known. She did not like to
+have her own will and law questioned or opposed, and when she sat down
+to supper alone with her son Tobias, after the last daughter's
+wedding, she had a glorious feeling of peace and satisfaction.
+
+"There's a sight o' work left yet in the old ma'am," she said to
+Tobias, in an unwontedly affectionate tone. "I guess we shall keep
+house together as comfortable as most folks." But Tobias grew very red
+in the face and bent over his plate.
+
+"I don' know's I want the girls to get ahead of me," he said
+sheepishly. "I ain't meanin' to put you out with another wedding right
+away, but I've been a-lookin' round, an' I guess I've found somebody
+to suit _me_."
+
+Mercy Bascom turned cold with misery and disappointment. "Why T'bias,"
+she said, anxiously, "folks always said that you was cut out for an
+old bachelor till I come to believe it, an' I've been lottin' on"--
+
+"Course nobody's goin' to wrench me an' you apart," said Tobias
+gallantly. "I made up my mind long ago you an' me was yoke-mates,
+mother. An' I had it in my mind to fetch you somebody that would ease
+you o' quite so much work now 'Liza's gone off."
+
+"I don't want nobody," said the grieved woman, and she could eat no
+more supper; that festive supper for which she had cooked her very
+best. Tobias was sorry for her, but he had his rights, and now simply
+felt light-hearted because he had freed his mind of this unwelcome
+declaration. Tobias was slow and stolid to behold, but he was a man of
+sound ideas and great talent for farming. He had found it difficult to
+choose between his favorites among the marriageable girls, a bright
+young creature who was really too good for him, but penniless, and a
+weaker damsel who was heiress to the best farm in town. The farm won
+the day at last; and Mrs. Bascom felt a thrill of pride at her son's
+worldly success; then she asked to know her son's plans, and was
+wholly disappointed. Tobias meant to sell the old place; he had no
+idea of leaving her alone as she wistfully complained; he meant to
+have her make a new home at the Bassett place with him and his bride.
+
+That she would never do: the old place which had given them a living
+never should be left or sold to strangers. Tobias was not prepared for
+her fierce outburst of reproach at the mere suggestion. She would live
+alone and pay her way as she always had done, and so it was, for a few
+years of difficulties. Tobias was never ready to plough or plant when
+she needed him; his own great farm was more than he could serve
+properly. It grew more and more difficult to hire workmen, and they
+were seldom worth their wages. At last Tobias's wife, who was a kindly
+soul, persuaded her reluctant mother-in-law to come and spend a
+winter; the old woman was tired and for once disheartened; she found
+herself deeply in love with her grandchildren, and so next spring she
+let the little hill farm on the halves to an impecunious but
+hard-working young couple.
+
+To everybody's surprise the two women lived together harmoniously.
+Tobias's wife did everything to please her mother-in-law except to be
+other than a Bassett. And Mercy, for the most part, ignored this
+misfortune, and rarely was provoked into calling it a fault. Now that
+the necessity for hard work and anxiety was past, she appeared to have
+come to an Indian summer shining-out of her natural amiability and
+tolerance. She was sometimes indirectly reproachful of her daughter's
+easy-going ways, and set an indignant example now and then by a famous
+onslaught of unnecessary work, and always dressed and behaved herself
+in plainest farm fashion, while Mrs. Tobias was given to undue
+worldliness and style. But they worked well together in the main, for,
+to use Mercy's own words, she "had seen enough of life not to want to
+go into other folks' houses and make trouble."
+
+As people grow older their interests are apt to become fewer, and one
+of the thoughts that came oftenest to Mercy Bascom in her old age was
+a time-honored quarrel with one of her husband's sisters, who had been
+her neighbor many years before, and then moved to greater prosperity
+at the other side of the county. It is not worth while to tell the
+long story of accusations and misunderstandings, but while the two
+women did not meet for almost half a lifetime the grievance was as
+fresh as if it were yesterday's. Wrongs of defrauded sums of money and
+contested rights in unproductive acres of land, wrongs of slighting
+remarks and contempt of equal claims; the remembrance of all these was
+treasured as a miser fingers his gold. Mercy Bascom freed herself from
+the wearisome detail of every-day life whenever she could find a
+patient listener to whom to tell the long story. She found it as
+interesting as a story of the Arabian Nights, or an exciting play at
+the theatre. She would have you believe that she was faultless in the
+matter, and would not acknowledge that her sister-in-law Ruth Bascom,
+now Mrs. Parlet, was also a hard-working woman with dependent little
+children at the time of the great fray. Of late years her son had
+suspected that his mother regretted the alienation, but he knew better
+than to suggest a peace-making. "Let them work--let them work!" he
+told his wife, when she proposed one night to bring the warring
+sisters-in-law unexpectedly together. It may have been that old Mercy
+began to feel a little lonely and would be glad to have somebody of
+her own age with whom to talk over old times. She never had known the
+people much in this Bassett region, and there were few but young folks
+left at any rate.
+
+As the pleasure-makers hastened toward the fair that bright October
+morning Mercy sat by the table sewing at a sufficient patch in the old
+coat. There was little else to do all day but to get herself a
+luncheon at noon and have supper ready when the family came home cold
+and tired at night. The two cats came purring about her chair; one
+persuaded her to open the cellar door, and the other leaped to the top
+of the kitchen table unrebuked, and blinked herself to sleep there in
+the sun. This was a favored kitten brought from the old home, and
+seemed like a link between the old days and these. Her mistress
+noticed with surprise that pussy was beginning to look old, and she
+could not resist a little sigh. "Land! the next world may seem
+dreadful new too, and I've got to get used to that," she thought with
+a grim smile of foreboding. "How do folks live that wants always to be
+on the go? There was Ruth Parlet, that must be always a visitin' and
+goin'--well, I won't say that there wasn't a time when I wished for
+the chance." Justice always won the day in such minor questions as
+this.
+
+Ruth Parlet's name started the usual thoughts, but somehow or other
+Mercy could not find it in her heart to be as harsh as usual. She
+remembered one thing after another about their girlhood together. They
+had been great friends then, and the animosity may have had its root
+in the fact that Ruth helped forward her brother's marriage. But there
+were years before that of friendly foregathering and girlish alliances
+and rivalries; spinning and herb gathering and quilting. It seemed, as
+Mercy thought about it, that Ruth was good company after all. But what
+did make her act so, and turn right round later on?
+
+The morning grew warm, and at last Mrs. Bascom had to open the window
+to let out the buzzing flies and an imprisoned wild bee. The patch was
+finished and the elbow would serve Tobias as good as new. She laid the
+coat over a chair and put her bent brass thimble into the paper-collar
+box that served as work-basket. She used to have a queer splint basket
+at the old place, but it had been broken under something heavier when
+her household goods were moved. Some of the family had long been tired
+of hearing that basket regretted, and another had never been found
+worthy to take its place. The thimble, the smooth mill bobbin on which
+was wound black linen thread, the dingy lump of beeswax, and a smart
+leather needle-book, which Johnny had given her the Christmas before,
+all looked ready for use, but Mrs. Bascom pushed them farther back on
+the table and quickly rose to her feet. "'T ain't nine o'clock yet,"
+she said, exultantly. "I'll just take a couple o' crackers in my
+pocket and step over to the old place. I'll take my time and be back
+soon enough to make 'em that pan o' my hot gingerbread they'll be
+counting on for supper."
+
+Half an hour later one might have seen a bent figure lock the side
+door of the large farmhouse carefully, trying the latch again and
+again to see if it were fast, putting the key into a safe hiding-place
+by the door, and then stepping away up the road with eager
+determination. "I ain't felt so like a jaunt this five year," said
+Mercy to herself, "an' if Tobias was here an' Ann, they'd take all the
+fun out fussin' and talkin', an' bein' afeard I'd tire myself, or
+wantin' me to ride over. I do like to be my own master once in a
+while."
+
+The autumn day was glorious, with a fine flavor of fruit and ripeness
+in the air. The sun was warm, there was a cool breeze from the great
+hills, and far off across the wide valley the old woman could see her
+little gray house on its pleasant eastern slope; she could even trace
+the outline of the two small fields and large pasture. "I done well
+with it, if I wasn't nothin' but a woman with four dependin' on me an'
+no means," said Mercy proudly as she came in full sight of the old
+place. It was a long drive from one farm to the other by roundabout
+highways, but there was a footpath known to the wayfarer which took a
+good piece off the distance. "Now, ain't this a sight better than them
+hustlin' fairs?" Mercy asked gleefully as she felt herself free and
+alone in the wide meadow-land. She had long been promising little
+Johnny to take him over to Gran'ma's house, as she loved to call it
+still. She could not help thinking longingly how much he would enjoy
+this escapade. "Why, I'm running away just like a young-one, that's
+what I be," she exclaimed, and then laughed aloud for very pleasure.
+
+The weather-beaten farmhouse was deserted that day, as its former
+owner suspected. She boldly gathered some of her valued spice-apples,
+with an assuring sense of proprietorship as she crossed the last
+narrow field. The Browns, man and wife and little boy and baby, had
+hied them early to the fair with nearly the whole population of the
+countryside. The house and yard and out-buildings never had worn such
+an aspect of appealing pleasantness as when Mercy Bascom came near.
+She felt as if she were going to cry for a minute, and then hurried to
+get inside the gate. She saw the outgoing track of horses' feet with
+delight, but went discreetly to the door and knocked, to make herself
+perfectly sure that there was no one left at home. Out of breath and
+tired as she was, she turned to look off at the view. Yes, there was
+Tobias's place, prosperous and white-painted; she could just get a
+glimpse of the upper roofs and gables. It was always a sorrow and
+complaint that a low hill kept her from looking up at this farm from
+any of the windows, but now that she was at the farm itself she found
+herself regarding Tobias's home with a good deal of affection. She
+looked sharply with an apprehension of fire, but there was no whiff of
+alarming smoke against the dear sky.
+
+"Now I must git me a drink o' that water first of anything," and she
+hastened to the creaking well-sweep and lowered the bucket. There was
+the same rusty, handleless tin dipper that she had left years before,
+standing on the shelf inside the well-curb. She was proud to find that
+the bucket was no heavier than ever, and was heartily thankful for the
+clear water. There never was such a well as that, and it seemed as if
+she had not been away a day. "What an old gal I be," said Mercy, with
+plaintive merriment. "Well, they ain't made no great changes since I
+was here last spring," and then she went over and held her face close
+against one of the kitchen windows, and took a hungry look at the
+familiar room. The bedroom door was open and a new sense of attachment
+to the place filled her heart. "It seems as if I was locked out o' my
+own home," she whispered as she looked in.
+
+There were the same old spruce and pine boards that she had scrubbed
+so many times and trodden thin as she hurried to and fro about her
+work. It was very strange to see an unfamiliar chair or two, but the
+furnishings of a farm kitchen were much the same, and there was no
+great change. Even the cradle was like that cradle in which her own
+children had been rocked. She gazed and gazed, poor old Mother Bascom,
+and forgot the present as her early life came back in vivid memories.
+At last she turned away from the window with a sigh.
+
+The flowers that she had planted herself long ago had bloomed all
+summer in the garden; there were still some ragged sailors and the
+snowberries and phlox and her favorite white mallows, of which she
+picked herself a posy. "I'm glad the old place is so well took care
+of," she thought, gratefully. "An' they've new-silled the old barn I
+do declare, and battened the cracks to keep the dumb creatures warm.
+'T was a sham-built barn anyways, but 't was the best I could do when
+the child'n needed something every handturn o' the day. It put me to
+some expense every year, tinkering of it up where the poor lumber
+warped and split. There, I enjoyed try'n to cope with things and
+gettin' the better of my disadvantages! The ground's too rich for me
+over there to Tobias's; I don't want things too easy, for my part. I
+feel most as young as ever I did, and I ain't agoin' to play helpless,
+not for nobody.
+
+"I declare for 't, I mean to come up here by an' by a spell an' stop
+with the young folks, an' give 'em a good lift with their work. I
+ain't needed all the time to Tobias' s now, and they can hire help,
+while these can't. I've been favoring myself till I'm as soft as an
+old hoss that's right out of pasture an' can't pull two wheels without
+wheezin'."
+
+There was a sense of companionship in the very weather. The bees were
+abroad as if it were summer, and a flock of little birds came
+fluttering down close to Mrs. Bascom as she sat on the doorstep. She
+remembered the biscuits in her pocket and ate them with a hunger she
+had seldom known of late, but she threw the crumbs generously to her
+feathered neighbors. The soft air, the brilliant or fading colors of
+the wide landscape, the comfortable feeling of relationship to her
+surroundings all served to put good old Mercy into a most peaceful
+state. There was only one thought that would not let her be quite
+happy. She could not get her sister-in-law Ruth Parlet out of her
+mind. And strangely enough the old grudge did not present itself with
+the usual power of aggravation; it was of their early friendship and
+Ruth's good fellowship that memories would come.
+
+"I declare for 't, I wouldn't own up to the folks, but I should like
+to have a good visit with Ruth if so be that we could set aside the
+past," she said, resolutely at last. "I never thought I should come to
+it, but if she offered to make peace I wouldn't do nothin' to hinder
+it. Not to say but what I should have to free my mind on one or two
+points before we could start fair. I've waited forty year to make one
+remark to Ruthy Parlet. But there! we're gettin' to be old folks."
+Mercy rebuked herself gravely. "I don't want to go off with hard
+feelins' to nobody." Whether this was the culmination of a long, slow
+process of reconciliation, or whether Mrs. Bascom's placid
+satisfaction helped to hasten it by many stages, nobody could say. As
+she sat there she thought of many things; her life spread itself out
+like a picture; perhaps never before had she been able to detach
+herself from her immediate occupation in this way. She never had been
+aware of her own character and exploits to such a degree, and the
+minutes sped by as she thought with deep interest along the course of
+her own history. There was nothing she was ashamed of to an
+uncomfortable degree but the long animosity between herself and the
+children's aunt. How harsh she had been sometimes; she had even tried
+to prejudice everybody who listened to these tales of an offender. "I
+wa'n't more 'n half right, now I come to look myself full in the
+face," said Mercy Bascom, "and I never owned it till this day."
+
+The sun was already past noon, and the good woman dutifully rose and
+with instant consciousness of resource glanced in at the kitchen
+window to tell the time by a familiar mark on the floor. "I needn't
+start just yet," she muttered. "Oh my! how I do wish I could git in
+and poke round into every corner! 'T would make this day just
+perfect."
+
+"There now!" she continued, "p'raps they leave the key just where our
+folks used to." And in another minute the key lay in Mercy's worn old
+hand. She gave a shrewd look along the road, opened the door, which
+creaked what may have been a hearty welcome, and stood inside the dear
+old kitchen. She had not been in the house alone since she left it,
+but now she was nobody's guest. It was like some shell-fish finding
+its own old shell again and settling comfortably into the
+convolutions. Even we must not follow Mother Bascom about from the
+dark cellar to the hot little attic. She was not curious about the
+Browns' worldly goods; indeed, she was nearly unconscious of anything
+but the comfort of going up and down the short flight of stairs and
+looking out of her own windows with nobody to watch.
+
+"There's the place where Tobias scratched the cupboard door with a
+nail. Didn't I thrash him for it good?" she said once with a proud
+remembrance of the time when she was a lawgiver and proprietor and he
+dependent.
+
+At length a creeping fear stole over her lest the family might return.
+She stopped one moment to look back into the little bedroom. "How good
+I did use to sleep here," she said. "I worked as stout as I could the
+day through, and there wa'n't no wakin' up by two o'clock in the
+morning, and smellin' for fire and harkin' for thieves like I have to
+nowadays."
+
+Mercy stepped away down the long sloping field like a young woman. It
+was a long walk back to Tobias's, even if one followed the pleasant
+footpaths across country. She was heavy-footed, but entirely
+light-hearted when she came safely in at the gate of the Bassett
+place. "I've done extra for me," she said as she put away her old
+shawl and bonnet; "but I'm goin' to git the best supper Tobias's folks
+have eat for a year," and so she did.
+
+"I've be'n over to the old place to-day," she announced bravely to her
+son, who had finished his work and his supper and was now tipped back
+in his wooden arm-chair against the wall.
+
+"You ain't, mother!" responded Tobias, with instant excitement. "Next
+fall, then, I won't take no for an answer but what you'll go to the
+fair and see what's goin'. You ain't footed it way over there?"
+
+Mother Bascom nodded. "I have," she answered solemnly, a minute later,
+as if the nod were not enough.
+
+"T'bias, son," she added, lowering her voice, "I ain't one to give in
+my rights, but I was thinkin' it all over about y'r Aunt Ruth
+Parlet"--
+
+"Now if that ain't curi's!" exclaimed Tobias, bringing his chair down
+hastily upon all four legs. "I didn't know just how you'd take it,
+mother, but I see Aunt Ruth to-day to the fair, and she made
+everything o' me and wanted to know how you was, and she got me off
+from the rest, an' says she: 'I declare I should like to see your marm
+again. I wonder if she won't agree to let bygones be bygones.'"
+
+"My sakes!" said Mercy, who was startled by this news. "'T is the hand
+o' Providence! How did she look, son?"
+
+"A sight older 'n you look, but kind of natural too. One o' her sons'
+wives that she's made her home with, has led her a dance, folks say."
+
+"Poor old creatur'! we'll have her over here, if your folks don't find
+fault. I've had her in my mind"--
+
+Tobias's folks, in the shape of his wife and little Johnny, appeared
+from the outer kitchen. "I haven't had such a supper I don't know
+when," repeated the younger woman for at least the fifth time. "You
+must have been keepin' busy all day, Mother Bascom."
+
+But Mother Bascom and Tobias looked at each other and laughed.
+
+"I ain't had such a good time I don't know when, but my feet are all
+of a fidget now, and I've got to git to bed. I've be'n runnin' away
+since you've be'n gone, Ann!" said the pleased old soul, and then went
+away, still laughing, to her own room. She was strangely excited and
+satisfied, as if she had at last paid a long-standing debt. She could
+trudge across pastures as well as anybody, and the old grudge was done
+with. Mercy hardly noticed how her fingers trembled as she unhooked
+the old gray gown. The odor of sweet fern shook out fresh and strong
+as she smoothed and laid it carefully over a chair. There was a little
+rent in the skirt, but she could mend it by daylight.
+
+The great harvest moon was shining high in the sky, and she needed no
+other light in the bedroom. "I've be'n a smart woman to work in my
+day, and I've airnt a little pleasurin'," said Mother Bascom sleepily
+to herself. "Poor Ruthy! so she looks old, does she? I'm goin' to tell
+her right out, 't was I that spoke first to Tobias."
+
+
+
+
+GOING TO SHREWSBURY.
+
+
+The train stopped at a way station with apparent unwillingness, and
+there was barely time for one elderly passenger to be hurried on board
+before a sudden jerk threw her almost off her unsteady old feet and we
+moved on. At my first glance I saw only a perturbed old countrywoman,
+laden with a large basket and a heavy bundle tied up in an
+old-fashioned bundle-handkerchief; then I discovered that she was a
+friend of mine, Mrs. Peet, who lived on a small farm, several miles
+from the village. She used to be renowned for good butter and fresh
+eggs and the earliest cowslip greens; in fact, she always made the
+most of her farm's slender resources; but it was some time since I had
+seen her drive by from market in her ancient thorough-braced wagon.
+
+The brakeman followed her into the crowded car, also carrying a number
+of packages. I leaned forward and asked Mrs. Peet to sit by me; it was
+a great pleasure to see her again. The brakeman seemed relieved, and
+smiled as he tried to put part of his burden into the rack overhead;
+but even the flowered carpet-bag was much too large, and he explained
+that he would take care of everything at the end of the car. Mrs. Peet
+was not large herself, but with the big basket, and the
+bundle-handkerchief, and some possessions of my own we had very little
+spare room.
+
+"So this 'ere is what you call ridin' in the cars! Well, I do
+declare!" said my friend, as soon as she had recovered herself a
+little. She looked pale and as if she had been in tears, but there was
+the familiar gleam of good humor in her tired old eyes.
+
+"Where in the world are you going, Mrs. Peet?" I asked.
+
+"Can't be you ain't heared about me, dear?" said she. "Well, the
+world's bigger than I used to think 't was. I've broke up,--'t was
+the only thing _to_ do,--and I'm a-movin' to Shrewsbury."
+
+"To Shrewsbury? Have you sold the farm?" I exclaimed, with sorrow and
+surprise. Mrs. Peet was too old and too characteristic to be suddenly
+transplanted from her native soil, "'T wa'n't mine, the place wa'n't."
+Her pleasant face hardened slightly. "He was coaxed an' over-persuaded
+into signin' off before he was taken away. Is'iah, son of his sister
+that married old Josh Peet, come it over him about his bein' past work
+and how he'd do for him like an own son, an' we owed him a little
+somethin'. I'd paid off everythin' but that, an' was fool enough to
+leave it till the last, on account o' Is'iah's bein' a relation and
+not needin' his pay much as some others did. It's hurt me to have the
+place fall into other hands. Some wanted me to go right to law; but 't
+wouldn't be no use. Is'iah's smarter 'n I be about them matters. You
+see he's got my name on the paper, too; he said 't was somethin' 'bout
+bein' responsible for the taxes. We was scant o' money, an' I was wore
+out with watchin' an' being broke o' my rest. After my tryin' hard for
+risin' forty-five year to provide for bein' past work, here I be,
+dear, here I be! I used to drive things smart, you remember. But we
+was fools enough in '72 to put about everythin' we had safe in the
+bank into that spool factory that come to nothin'. But I tell ye I
+could ha' kept myself long's I lived, if I could ha' held the place.
+I'd parted with most o' the woodland, if Is'iah 'd coveted it. He was
+welcome to that, 'cept what might keep me in oven-wood. I've always
+desired to travel an' see somethin' o' the world, but I've got the
+chance now when I don't value it no great."
+
+"Shrewsbury is a busy, pleasant place," I ventured to say by way of
+comfort, though my heart was filled with rage at the trickery of
+Isaiah Peet, who had always looked like a fox and behaved like one.
+
+"Shrewsbury's be'n held up consid'able for me to smile at," said the
+poor old soul, "but I tell ye, dear, it's hard to go an' live
+twenty-two miles from where you've always had your home and friends.
+It may divert me, but it won't be home. You might as well set out one
+o' my old apple-trees on the beach, so 't could see the waves come
+in,--there wouldn't be no please to it."
+
+"Where are you going to live in Shrewsbury?" I asked presently.
+
+"I don't expect to stop long, dear creatur'. I'm 'most seventy-six
+year old," and Mrs. Peet turned to look at me with pathetic amusement
+in her honest wrinkled face. "I said right out to Is'iah, before a
+roomful o' the neighbors, that I expected it of him to git me home an'
+bury me when my time come, and do it respectable; but I wanted to airn
+my livin', if 't was so I could, till then. He'd made sly talk, you
+see, about my electin' to leave the farm and go 'long some o' my own
+folks; but"--and she whispered this carefully--"he didn't give me no
+chance to stay there without hurtin' my pride and dependin' on him. I
+ain't said that to many folks, but all must have suspected. A good
+sight on 'em's had money of Is'iah, though, and they don't like to do
+nothin' but take his part an' be pretty soft spoken, fear it'll git to
+his ears. Well, well, dear, we'll let it be bygones, and not think of
+it no more;" but I saw the great tears roll slowly down her cheeks,
+and she pulled her bonnet forward impatiently, and looked the other
+way.
+
+"There looks to be plenty o' good farmin' land in this part o' the
+country," she said, a minute later. "Where be we now? See them
+handsome farm buildings; he must be a well-off man." But I had to tell
+my companion that we were still within the borders of the old town
+where we had both been born. Mrs. Peet gave a pleased little laugh,
+like a girl. "I'm expectin' Shrewsbury to pop up any minute. I'm
+feared to be kerried right by. I wa'n't never aboard of the cars
+before, but I've so often thought about em' I don't know but it seems
+natural. Ain't it jest like flyin' through the air? I can't catch holt
+to see nothin'. Land! and here's my old cat goin' too, and never
+mistrustin'. I ain't told you that I'd fetched her."
+
+"Is she in that basket?" I inquired with interest.
+
+"Yis, dear. Truth was, I calculated to have her put out o' the misery
+o' movin', an spoke to one o' the Barnes boys, an' he promised me all
+fair; but he wa'n't there in season, an' I kind o' made excuse to
+myself to fetch her along. She's an' old creatur', like me, an' I can
+make shift to keep her some way or 'nuther; there's probably mice
+where we're goin', an' she's a proper mouser that can about keep
+herself if there's any sort o' chance. 'T will be somethin' o' home to
+see her goin' an' comin', but I expect we're both on us goin' to miss
+our old haunts. I'd love to know what kind o' mousin' there's goin' to
+be for me."
+
+"You mustn't worry," I answered, with all the bravery and assurance
+that I could muster. "Your niece will be thankful to have you with
+her. Is she one of Mrs. Winn's daughters?"
+
+"Oh, no, they ain't able; it's Sister Wayland's darter Isabella, that
+married the overseer of the gre't carriage-shop. I ain't seen her
+since just after she was married; but I turned to her first because I
+knew she was best able to have me, and then I can see just how the
+other girls is situated and make me some kind of a plot. I wrote to
+Isabella, though she _is_ ambitious, and said 't was so I'd got to ask
+to come an' make her a visit, an' she wrote back she would be glad to
+have me; but she didn't write right off, and her letter was scented up
+dreadful strong with some sort o' essence, and I don't feel heartened
+about no great of a welcome. But there, I've got eyes, an' I can see
+_how_ 't is when I git _where_ 't is. Sister Winn's gals ain't
+married, an' they've always boarded, an' worked in the shop on
+trimmin's. Isabella' s well off; she had some means from her father's
+sister. I thought it all over by night an' day, an' I recalled that
+our folks kept Sister Wayland's folks all one winter, when he'd failed
+up and got into trouble. I'm reckonin' on sendin' over to-night an'
+gittin' the Winn gals to come and see me and advise. Perhaps some on
+'em may know of somebody that'll take me for what help I can give
+about house, or some clever folks that have been lookin' for a smart
+cat, any ways; no, I don't know's I could let her go to strangers."
+
+"There was two or three o' the folks round home that acted real
+warm-hearted towards me, an' urged me to come an' winter with 'em,"
+continued the exile; "an' this mornin' I wished I'd agreed to, 't was
+so hard to break away. But now it's done I feel more 'n ever it's
+best. I couldn't bear to live right in sight o' the old place, and
+come spring I shouldn't 'prove of nothing Is'iah ondertakes to do with
+the land. Oh, dear sakes! now it comes hard with me not to have had no
+child'n. When I was young an' workin' hard and into everything, I felt
+kind of free an' superior to them that was so blessed, an' their
+houses cluttered up from mornin' till night, but I tell ye it comes
+home to me now. I'd be most willin' to own to even Is'iah, mean's he
+is; but I tell ye I'd took it out of him 'fore he was a grown man, if
+there 'd be'n any virtue in cow-hidin' of him. Folks don't look like
+wild creator's for nothin'. Is'iah's got fox blood in him, an'
+p'r'haps 't is his misfortune. His own mother always favored the looks
+of an old fox, true's the world; she was a poor tool,--a poor tool! I
+d' know's we ought to blame him same's we do.
+
+"I've always been a master proud woman, if I was riz among the
+pastures," Mrs. Peet added, half to herself. There was no use in
+saying much to her; she was conscious of little beside her own
+thoughts and the smouldering excitement caused by this great crisis in
+her simple existence. Yet the atmosphere of her loneliness,
+uncertainty, and sorrow was so touching that after scolding again at
+her nephew's treachery, and finding the tears come fast to my eyes as
+she talked, I looked intently out of the car window, and tried to
+think what could be done for the poor soul. She was one of the
+old-time people, and I hated to have her go away; but even if she
+could keep her home she would soon be too feeble to live there alone,
+and some definite plan must be made for her comfort. Farms in that
+neighborhood were not valuable. Perhaps through the agency of the law
+and quite in secret, Isaiah Peet could be forced to give up his
+unrighteous claim. Perhaps, too, the Winn girls, who were really no
+longer young, might have saved something, and would come home again.
+But it was easy to make such pictures in one's mind, and I must do
+what I could through other people, for I was just leaving home for a
+long time. I wondered sadly about Mrs. Peet's future, and the
+ambitious Isabella, and the favorite Sister Winn's daughters, to whom,
+with all their kindliness of heart, the care of so old and perhaps so
+dependent an aunt might seem impossible. The truth about life in
+Shrewsbury would soon be known; more than half the short journey was
+already past.
+
+To my great pleasure, my fellow-traveler now began to forget her own
+troubles in looking about her. She was an alert, quickly interested
+old soul, and this was a bit of neutral ground between the farm and
+Shrewsbury, where she was unattached and irresponsible. She had lived
+through the last tragic moments of her old life, and felt a certain
+relief, and Shrewsbury might be as far away as the other side of the
+Rocky Mountains for all the consciousness she had of its real
+existence. She was simply a traveler for the time being, and began to
+comment, with delicious phrases and shrewd understanding of human
+nature, on two or three persons near us who attracted her attention.
+
+"Where do you s'pose they be all goin'?" she asked contemptuously.
+"There ain't none on 'em but what looks kind o' respectable. I'll
+warrant they've left work to home they'd ought to be doin'. I knowed,
+if ever I stopped to think, that cars was hived full o' folks, an'
+wa'n't run to an' fro for nothin'; but these can't be quite up to the
+average, be they? Some on 'em's real thrif'less? guess they've be'n
+shoved out o' the last place, an' goin' to try the next one,--_like
+me_, I suppose you'll want to say! Jest see that flauntin' old
+creatur' that looks like a stopped clock. There! everybody can't be o'
+one goodness, even preachers."
+
+I was glad to have Mrs. Peet amused, and we were as cheerful as we
+could be for a few minutes. She said earnestly that she hoped to be
+forgiven for such talk, but there were some kinds of folks in the cars
+that she never had seen before. But when the conductor came to take
+her ticket she relapsed into her first state of mind, and was at a
+loss.
+
+"You 'll have to look after me, dear, when we get to Shrewsbury," she
+said, after we had spent some distracted moments in hunting for the
+ticket, and the cat had almost escaped from the basket, and the
+bundle-handkerchief had become untied and all its miscellaneous
+contents scattered about our laps and the floor. It was a touching
+collection of the last odds and ends of Mrs. Peet's housekeeping: some
+battered books, and singed holders for flatirons, and the faded little
+shoulder shawl that I had seen her wear many a day about her bent
+shoulders. There were her old tin match-box spilling all its matches,
+and a goose-wing for brushing up ashes, and her much-thumbed Leavitt's
+Almanac. It was most pathetic to see these poor trifles out of their
+places. At last the ticket was found in her left-hand woolen glove,
+where her stiff, work-worn hand had grown used to the feeling of it.
+
+"I shouldn't wonder, now, if I come to like living over to Shrewsbury
+first-rate," she insisted, turning to me with a hopeful, eager look to
+see if I differed. "You see 't won't be so tough for me as if I hadn't
+always felt it lurking within me to go off some day or 'nother an' see
+how other folks did things. I do' know but what the Winn gals have
+laid up somethin' sufficient for us to take a house, with the little
+mite I've got by me. I might keep house for us all, 'stead o' boardin'
+round in other folks' houses. That I ain't never been demeaned to, but
+I dare say I should find it pleasant in some ways. Town folks has got
+the upper hand o' country folks, but with all their work an' pride
+they can't make a dandelion. I do' know the times when I've set out to
+wash Monday mornin's, an' tied out the line betwixt the old
+pucker-pear tree and the corner o' the barn, an' thought, 'Here I be
+with the same kind o' week's work right over again.' I'd wonder kind
+o' f'erce if I couldn't git out of it noways; an' now here I be out of
+it, and an uprooteder creatur' never stood on the airth. Just as I got
+to feel I had somethin' ahead come that spool-factory business. There!
+you know he never was a forehanded man; his health was slim, and he
+got discouraged pretty nigh before ever he begun. I hope he don't know
+I'm turned out o' the old place. 'Is'iah's well off; he'll do the
+right thing by ye,' says he. But my! I turned hot all over when I
+found out what I'd put my name to,--me that had always be'n counted a
+smart woman! I did undertake to read it over, but I couldn't sense it.
+I've told all the folks so when they laid it off on to me some: but
+hand-writin' is awful tedious readin' and my head felt that day as if
+the works was gone."
+
+"I ain't goin' to sag on to nobody," she assured me eagerly, as the
+train rushed along. "I've got more work in me now than folks expects
+at my age. I may be consid'able use to Isabella. She's got a family,
+an' I'll take right holt in the kitchen or with the little gals. She
+had four on 'em, last I heared. Isabella was never one that liked
+house-work. Little gals! I do' know now but what they must be about
+grown, time doos slip away so. I expect I shall look outlandish to
+'em. But there! everybody knows me to home, an' nobody knows me to
+Shrewsbury; 't won't make a mite o' difference, if I take holt
+willin'."
+
+I hoped, as I looked at Mrs. Peet, that she would never be persuaded
+to cast off the gathered brown silk bonnet and the plain shawl that
+she had worn so many years; but Isabella might think it best to insist
+upon more modern fashions. Mrs. Peet suggested, as if it were a matter
+of little consequence, that she had kept it in mind to buy some
+mourning; but there were other things to be thought of first, and so
+she had let it go until winter, any way, or until she should be fairly
+settled in Shrewsbury.
+
+"Are your nieces expecting you by this train?" I was moved to ask,
+though with all the good soul's ready talk and appealing manner I
+could hardly believe that she was going to Shrewsbury for more than a
+visit; it seemed as if she must return to the worn old farmhouse over
+by the sheep-lands. She answered that one of the Barnes boys had
+written a letter for her the day before, and there was evidently
+little uneasiness about her first reception.
+
+We drew near the junction where I must leave her within a mile of the
+town. The cat was clawing indignantly at the basket, and her mistress
+grew as impatient of the car. She began to look very old and pale, my
+poor fellow-traveler, and said that she felt dizzy, going so fast.
+Presently the friendly red-cheeked young brakeman came along, bringing
+the carpet-bag and other possessions, and insisted upon taking the
+alarmed cat beside, in spite of an aggressive paw that had worked its
+way through the wicker prison. Mrs. Peet watched her goods disappear
+with suspicious eyes, and clutched her bundle-handkerchief as if it
+might be all that she could save. Then she anxiously got to her feet,
+much too soon, and when I said good-by to her at the car door she was
+ready to cry. I pointed to the car which she was to take next on the
+branch line of railway, and I assured her that it was only a few
+minutes' ride to Shrewsbury, and that I felt certain she would find
+somebody waiting. The sight of that worn, thin figure adventuring
+alone across the platform gave my heart a sharp pang as the train
+carried me away.
+
+Some of the passengers who sat near asked me about my old friend with
+great sympathy, after she had gone. There was a look of tragedy about
+her, and indeed it had been impossible not to get a good deal of her
+history, as she talked straight on in the same tone, when we stopped
+at a station, as if the train were going at full speed, and some of
+her remarks caused pity and amusements by turns. At the last minute
+she said, with deep self-reproach, "Why, I haven't asked a word about
+your folks; but you'd ought to excuse such an old stray hen as I be."
+
+In the spring I was driving by on what the old people of my native
+town call the sheep-lands road, and the sight of Mrs. Peet's former
+home brought our former journey freshly to my mind. I had last heard
+from her just after she got to Shrewsbury, when she had sent me a
+message.
+
+"Have you ever heard how she got on?" I eagerly asked my companion.
+
+"Didn't I tell you that I met her in Shrewsbury High Street one day?"
+I was answered. "She seemed perfectly delighted with everything. Her
+nieces have laid up a good bit of money, and are soon to leave the
+mill, and most thankful to have old Mrs. Peet with them. Somebody told
+me that they wished to buy the farm here, and come back to live, but
+she wouldn't hear of it, and thought they would miss too many
+privileges. She has been going to concerts and lectures this winter,
+and insists that Isaiah did her a good turn."
+
+We both laughed. My own heart was filled with joy, for the uncertain,
+lonely face of this homeless old woman had often haunted me. The
+rain-blackened little house did certainly look dreary, and a whole
+lifetime of patient toil had left few traces. The pucker-pear tree was
+in full bloom, however, and gave a welcome gayety to the deserted
+door-yard.
+
+A little way beyond we met Isaiah Peet, the prosperous money-lender,
+who had cheated the old woman of her own. I fancied that he looked
+somewhat ashamed, as he recognized us. To my surprise, he stopped his
+horse in most social fashion.
+
+"Old Aunt Peet's passed away," he informed me briskly. "She had a
+shock, and went right off sudden yisterday forenoon. I'm about now
+tendin' to the funeral 'rangements. She's be'n extry smart, they say,
+all winter,--out to meetin' last Sabbath; never enjoyed herself so
+complete as she has this past month. She'd be'n a very hard-workin'
+woman. Her folks was glad to have her there, and give her every
+attention. The place here never was good for nothin'. The old
+gen'leman,--uncle, you know,--he wore hisself out tryin' to make a
+livin' off from it."
+
+There was an ostentatious sympathy and half-suppressed excitement from
+bad news which were quite lost upon us, and we did not linger to hear
+much more. It seemed to me as if I had known Mrs. Peet better than any
+one else had known her. I had counted upon seeing her again, and
+hearing her own account of Shrewsbury life, its pleasures and its
+limitations. I wondered what had become of the cat and the contents of
+the faded bundle-handkerchief.
+
+
+
+
+THE TAKING OF CAPTAIN BALL.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+There was a natural disinclination to the cares of housekeeping in the
+mind of Captain Ball, and he would have left the sea much earlier in
+life if he had not liked much better to live on board ship. A man was
+his own master there, and meddlesome neighbors and parsons and tearful
+women-folks could be made to keep their distance. But as years went
+on, and the extremes of weather produced much affliction in the shape
+of rheumatism, this, and the decline of the merchant service, and the
+degeneracy of common seamen, forced Captain Ball to come ashore for
+good. He regretted that he could no longer follow the sea, and, in
+spite of many alleviations, grumbled at his hard fate. He might have
+been condemned to an inland town, but in reality his house was within
+sight of tide-water, and he found plenty of companionship in the
+decayed seaport where he had been born and bred. There were several
+retired shipmasters who closely approached his own rank and dignity.
+They all gave other excuses than that of old age and infirmity for
+being out of business, took a sober satisfaction in their eleven
+o'clock bitters, and discussed the shipping list of the morning paper
+with far more interest than the political or general news of the other
+columns.
+
+While Captain Asaph Ball was away on his long voyages he had left his
+house in charge of an elder sister, who was joint owner. She was a
+grim old person, very stern in matters of sectarian opinion, and the
+captain recognized in his heart of hearts that she alone was his
+superior officer. He endeavored to placate her with generous offerings
+of tea and camel's-hair scarfs and East Indian sweetmeats, not to
+speak of unnecessary and sometimes very beautiful china for the
+parties that she never gave, and handsome dress patterns with which
+she scorned to decorate her sinful shape of clay. She pinched herself
+to the verge of want in order to send large sums of money to the
+missionaries, but she saved the captain's money for him against the
+time when his willful lavishness and improvidence might find him a
+poor man. She was always looking forward to the days when he would be
+aged and forlorn, that burly seafaring brother of hers. She loved to
+remind him of his latter end, and in writing her long letters that
+were to reach him in foreign ports, she told little of the
+neighborhood news and results of voyages, but bewailed, in page after
+page, his sad condition of impenitence and the shortness of time. The
+captain would rather have faced a mutinous crew any day than his
+sister's solemn statements of this sort, but he loyally read them
+through with heavy sighs, and worked himself into his best broadcloth
+suit, at least once while he lay in port, to go to church on Sunday,
+out of good New England habit and respect to her opinions. It was not
+his sister's principles but her phrases that the captain failed to
+comprehend. Sometimes when he returned to his ship he took pains to
+write a letter to dear sister Ann, and to casually mention the fact of
+his attendance upon public worship, and even to recall the text and
+purport of the sermon. He was apt to fall asleep in his humble place
+at the very back of the church, and his report of the services would
+have puzzled a far less keen theologian than Miss Ann Ball. In fact
+these poor makeshifts of religious interest did not deceive her, and
+the captain had an uneasy consciousness that, to use his own
+expression, the thicker he laid on the words, the quicker she saw
+through them. And somehow or other that manly straightforwardness and
+honesty of his, that free-handed generosity, that true unselfishness
+which made him stick by his ship when the crew had run away from a
+poor black cook who was taken down with the yellow-fever, which made
+him nurse the frightened beggar as tenderly as a woman, and bring him
+back to life, and send him packing afterward with plenty of money in
+his pocket--all these fine traits that made Captain Ball respected in
+every port where his loud voice and clumsy figure and bronzed face
+were known, seemed to count for nothing with the stern sister. At
+least her younger brother thought so. But when, a few years after he
+came ashore for good, she died and left him alone in the neat old
+white house, which his instinctive good taste and his father's before
+him had made a museum of East Indian treasures, he found all his
+letters stored away with loving care after they had been read and
+reread into tatters, and among her papers such touching expressions of
+love and pride and longing for his soul's good, that poor Captain
+Asaph broke down altogether and cried like a school-boy. She had saved
+every line of newspaper which even mentioned his ships' names. She had
+loved him deeply in the repressed New England fashion, that under a
+gray and forbidding crust of manner, like a chilled lava bed, hides
+glowing fires of loyalty and devotion.
+
+Sister Ann was a princess among housekeepers, and for some time after
+her death the captain was a piteous mourner indeed. No growing
+school-boy could be more shy and miserable in the presence of women
+than he, though nobody had a readier friendliness or more off-hand
+sailor ways among men. The few intimate family friends who came to his
+assistance at the time of his sister's illness and death added untold
+misery to the gloomy situation. Yet he received the minister with
+outspoken gratitude in spite of that worthy man's trepidation.
+Everybody said that poor Captain Ball looked as if his heart was
+broken. "I tell ye I feel as if I was tied in a bag of fleas," said
+the distressed mariner, and his pastor turned away to cough, hoping to
+hide the smile that would come. "Widders an' old maids, they're busier
+than the divil in a gale o' wind," grumbled the captain. "Poor Ann,
+she was worth every one of 'em lashed together, and here you find me
+with a head-wind every way I try to steer." The minister was a man at
+any rate; his very presence was a protection.
+
+Some wretched days went by while Captain Ball tried to keep his lonely
+house with the assistance of one Silas Jenkins, who had made several
+voyages with him as cook, but they soon proved that the best of
+sailors may make the worst of housekeepers. Life looked darker and
+darker, and when, one morning, Silas inadvertently overheated and
+warped the new cooking stove, which had been the pride of Miss Ball's
+heart, the breakfastless captain dismissed him in a fit of blind rage.
+The captain was first cross and then abject when he went hungry, and
+in this latter stage was ready to abase himself enough to recall Widow
+Sparks, his sister's lieutenant, who lived close by in Ropewalk Lane,
+forgetting that he had driven her into calling him an old hog two days
+after the funeral. He groaned aloud as he thought of her, but reached
+for his hat and cane, when there came a gentle feminine rap at the
+door.
+
+"Let 'em knock!" grumbled the captain, angrily, but after a moment's
+reflection, he scowled and went and lifted the latch.
+
+There stood upon the doorstep a middle-aged woman, with a pleasant
+though determined face. The captain scowled again, but involuntarily
+opened his fore-door a little wider.
+
+"Capt'in Asaph Ball, I presume?"
+
+"The same," answered the captain.
+
+"I've been told, sir, that you need a housekeeper, owing to recent
+affliction."
+
+There was a squally moment of resistance in the old sailor's breast,
+but circumstances seemed to be wrecking him on a lee shore. Down came
+his flag on the run.
+
+"I can't say but what I do, ma'am," and with lofty courtesy, such as
+an admiral should use to his foe of equal rank, the master of the
+house signified that his guest might enter. When they were seated
+opposite each other in the desolate sitting-room he felt himself the
+weaker human being of the two. Five years earlier, and he would have
+put to sea before the week's end, if only to gain the poor freedom of
+a coastwise lime schooner.
+
+"Well, speak up, can't ye?" he said, trying to laugh. "Tell me what's
+the tax, and how much you can take hold and do, without coming to me
+for orders every hand's turn o' the day. I've had Silas Jinkins here,
+one o' my old ship's cooks; he served well at sea, and I thought he
+had some head; but we've been beat, I tell ye, and you'll find some
+work to put things ship-shape. He's gitting in years, that's the
+trouble; I oughtn't to have called on him," said Captain Ball, anxious
+to maintain even so poorly the dignity of his sex.
+
+"I like your looks; you seem a good steady hand, with no nonsense
+about ye." He cast a shy glance at his companion, and would not have
+believed that any woman could have come to the house a stranger, and
+have given him such an immediate feeling of confidence and relief.
+
+"I'll tell ye what's about the worst of the matter," and the captain
+pulled a letter out of his deep coat pocket. His feelings had been
+pent up too long. At the sight of the pretty handwriting and
+aggravatingly soft-spoken sentences, Asaph Ball was forced to
+inconsiderate speech. The would-be housekeeper pushed back her
+rocking-chair as he began, and tucked her feet under, beside settling
+her bonnet a little, as if she were close-reefed and anchored to ride
+out the gale.
+
+"I'm in most need of an able person," he roared, "on account of this
+letter's settin' me adrift about knowing what to do. 'T is from a gal
+that wants to come and make her home here. Land sakes alive, puts
+herself right forrard! I don't want her, _an' I won't have her_. She
+may be a great-niece; I don't say she ain't; but what should I do with
+one o' them jiggetin' gals about? In the name o' reason, why should I
+be set out o' my course? I'm left at the mercy o' you women-folks,"
+and the captain got stiffly to his feet. "If you've had experience,
+an' think you can do for me, why, stop an' try, an' I'll be much
+obleeged to ye. You'll find me a good provider, and we'll let one
+another alone, and get along some way or 'nother."
+
+The captain's voice fairly broke; he had been speaking as if to a
+brother man; he was tired out and perplexed. His sister Ann had saved
+him so many petty trials, and now she was gone. The poor man had
+watched her suffer and seen her die, and he was as tender-hearted and
+as lonely as a child, however he might bluster. Even such infrequent
+matters as family letters had been left to his busy sister. It
+happened that they had inherited a feud with an elder half-brother's
+family in the West, though the captain was well aware of the existence
+of this forth-putting great-niece, who had been craftily named for
+Miss Ann Ball, and so gained a precarious hold on her affections; but
+to harbor one of the race was to consent to the whole. Captain Ball
+was not a man to bring down upon himself an army of interferers and
+plunderers, and he now threw down the poor girl's well-meant letter
+with an outrageous expression of his feelings. Then he felt a silly
+weakness, and hastened to wipe his eyes with his pocket-handkerchief.
+
+"I've been beat, I tell ye," he said brokenly.
+
+There was a look of apparent sympathy, mingled with victory, on the
+housekeeper's face. Perhaps she had known some other old sailor of the
+same make, for she rose and turned her face aside to look out of the
+window until the captain's long upper lip had time to draw itself
+straight and stern again. Plainly she was a woman of experience and
+discretion.
+
+"I'll take my shawl and bunnit right off, sir," she said, in a
+considerate little voice. "I see a-plenty to do; there'll be time
+enough after I get you your dinner to see to havin' my trunk here; but
+it needn't stay a day longer than you give the word."
+
+"That's clever," said the captain. "I'll step right down street and
+get us a good fish, an' you can fry it or make us a chowder, just
+which you see fit. It now wants a little of eleven"--and an air of
+pleased anticipation lighted his face--"I must be on my way."
+
+"If it's all the same to you, I guess we don't want no company till we
+get to rights a little. You're kind of tired out, sir," said the
+housekeeper, feelingly. "By-and-by you can have the young girl come
+an' make you a visit, and either let her go or keep her, 'cordin' as
+seems fit. I may not turn out to suit."
+
+"What may I call you, ma'am?" inquired Captain Ball. "Mis' French? Not
+one o' them Fleet Street Frenches?" (suspiciously). "Oh, come from
+Massachusetts way!" (with relief).
+
+"I was stopping with some friends that had a letter from some o' the
+minister's folks here, and they told how bad off you was," said
+Mrs. French, modestly. "I was out of employment, an' I said to myself
+that I should feel real happy to go and do for that Captain Ball. He
+knows what he wants, and I know what I want, and no flummery."
+
+"You know somethin' o' life, I do declare," and the captain fairly
+beamed. "I never was called a hard man at sea, but I like to give my
+orders, and have folks foller 'em. If it was women-folks that wrote,
+they may have set me forth more 'n ordinary. I had every widder and
+single woman in town here while Ann lay dead, and my natural feelin's
+were all worked up. I see 'em dressed up and smirkin' and settin'
+their nets to ketch me when I was in an extremity. I wouldn't give a
+kentle o' sp'iled fish for the whole on 'em. I ain't a marryin' man,
+there's once for all for ye," and the old sailor stepped toward the
+door with some temper.
+
+"Ef you'll write to the young woman, sir, just to put off comin' for a
+couple or three weeks," suggested Mrs. French.
+
+"_This afternoon, ma'am_," said the captain, as if it were the ay, ay,
+sir, of an able seaman who sprang to his duty of reefing the
+main-topsail.
+
+Captain Ball walked down to the fish shop with stately steps and
+measured taps of his heavy cane. He stopped on the way, a little
+belated, and assured two or three retired ship-masters that he had
+manned the old brig complete at last; he even gave a handsome wink of
+his left eye over the edge of a glass, and pronounced his morning grog
+to be A No. 1, prime.
+
+Mrs. French picked up her gown at each side with thumb and finger, and
+swept the captain a low courtesy behind his back as he went away; then
+she turned up the aforesaid gown and sought for one of the lamented
+Miss Ann Ball's calico aprons, and if ever a New England woman did a
+morning's work in an hour, it was this same Mrs. French.
+
+"'T ain't every one knows how to make what I call a chowder," said the
+captain, pleased and replete, as he leaned back in his chair after
+dinner. "Mis' French, you shall have everything to do with, an' I
+ain't no kitchen colonel myself to bother ye."
+
+There was a new subject for gossip in that seaport town. More than one
+woman had felt herself to be a fitting helpmate for the captain, and
+was confident that if time had been allowed, she could have made sure
+of even such wary game as he. When a stranger stepped in and occupied
+the ground at once, it gave nobody a fair chance, and Mrs. French was
+recognized as a presuming adventuress by all disappointed aspirants
+for the captain's hand. The captain was afraid at times that
+Mrs. French carried almost too many guns, but she made him so
+comfortable that she kept the upper hand, and at last he was conscious
+of little objection to whatever this able housekeeper proposed. Her
+only intimate friends were the minister and his wife, and the captain
+himself was so won over to familiarity by the kindness of his pastor
+in the time of affliction, that when after some weeks Mrs. French
+invited the good people to tea, Captain Ball sat manfully at the foot
+of his table, and listened with no small pleasure to the delighted
+exclamations of the parson's wife over his store of china and glass.
+There was a little feeling of guilt when he remembered how many times
+in his sister's day he had evaded such pleasant social occasions by
+complaint of inward malady, or by staying boldly among the wharves
+until long past supper-time, and forcing good Miss Ann to as many
+anxious excuses as if her brother's cranky ways were not as well known
+to the guests as to herself.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Mrs. Captain Topliff and Miss Miranda Hull were sitting together one
+late summer afternoon in Mrs. Topliff's south chamber. They were at
+work upon a black dress which was to be made over, and each sat by a
+front window with the blinds carefully set ajar.
+
+"This is a real handy room to sew in," said Miranda, who had come
+early after dinner for a good long afternoon. "You git the light as
+long as there is any; and I do like a straw carpet; I don't feel's if
+I made so much work scatterin' pieces."
+
+"Don't you have no concern about pieces," answered Mrs. Topliff,
+amiably. "I was precious glad to get you right on the sudden so. You
+see, I counted on my other dress lasting me till winter, and sort of
+put this by to do at a leisure time. I knew 't wa'n't fit to wear as
+'t was. Anyway, I've done dealin' with Stover; he told me, lookin' me
+right in the eye, that it was as good a wearin' piece o' goods as he
+had in the store. 'T was a real cheat; you can put your finger right
+through it."
+
+"You've got some wear but of it," ventured Miranda, meekly, bending
+over her work. "I made it up quite a spell ago, I know. Six or seven
+years, ain't it, Mis' Topliff?"
+
+"Yes, to be sure," replied Mrs. Topliff, with suppressed indignation;
+"but this we're to work on I had before the Centennial. I know I
+wouldn't take it to Philadelphy because 't was too good. An' the first
+two or three years of a dress don't count. You know how 't is; you
+just wear 'em to meetin' a pleasant Sunday, or to a funeral, p'r'aps,
+an' keep 'em in a safe cluset meanwhiles."
+
+"Goods don't wear as 't used to," agreed Miranda; "but 't is all the
+better for my trade. Land! there's some dresses in this town I'm sick
+o' bein' called on to make good's new. Now I call you reasonable about
+such things, but there's some I could name"--Miss Hull at this point
+put several pins into her mouth, as if to guard a secret.
+
+Mrs. Topliff looked up with interest. "I always thought Ann Ball was
+the meanest woman about such expense. She always looked respectable
+too, and I s'pose she 'd said the heathen was gittin' the good o' what
+she saved. She must have given away hundreds o' dollars in that
+direction."
+
+"She left plenty too, and I s'pose Cap'n Asaph's Mis' French will get
+the good of it now," said Miranda through the pins. "Seems to me he's
+gittin' caught in spite of himself. Old vain creatur', he seemed to
+think all the women-folks in town was in love with him."
+
+"Some was," answered Mrs. Topliff. "I think any woman that needed a
+home would naturally think 't was a good chance." She thought that
+Miranda had indulged high hopes, but wished to ignore them now.
+
+"Some that had a home seemed inclined to bestow their affections, I
+observed," retorted the dressmaker, who had lost her little property
+by unfortunate investment, but would not be called homeless by
+Mrs. Topliff. Everybody knew that the widow had set herself down
+valiantly to besiege the enemy; but after this passage at arms between
+the friends they went on amiably with their conversation.
+
+"Seems to me the minister and Mis' Calvinn are dreadful intimate at
+the Cap'n's. I wonder if the Cap'n's goin' to give as much to the
+heathen as his sister did?" said Mrs. Topliff, presently.
+
+"I understood he told the minister that none o' the heathen was wuth
+it that ever he see," replied Miranda in a pinless voice at last. "Mr.
+Calvinn only laughed; he knows the Cap'n's ways. But I shouldn't
+thought Asaph Ball would have let his hired help set out and ask
+company to tea just four weeks from the day his only sister was laid
+away. 'T wa'n't feelin'."
+
+"That Mis' French wanted to get the minister's folks to back her up,
+don't you understand?" was Mrs. Topliff's comment. "I should think the
+Calvinns wouldn't want to be so free and easy with a woman from nobody
+knows where. She runs in and out o' the parsonage any time o' day, as
+Ann Ball never took it upon her to do. Ann liked Mis' Calvinn, but she
+always had to go through with just so much, and be formal with
+everybody."
+
+"I'll tell you something that exasperated _me_," confided the
+disappointed Miranda. "That night they was there to tea, Mis' Calvinn
+was praising up a handsome flowered china bowl that was on the table,
+with some new kind of a fancy jelly in it, and the Cap'n told her to
+take it along when she went home, if she wanted to, speakin' right out
+thoughtless, as men do; and that Mis' French chirped up, 'Yes, I'm
+glad; you ought to have somethin' to remember the cap'n's sister by,'
+says she. Can't you hear just how up an' comin' it was?"
+
+"I can so," said Mrs. Topliff. "I see that bowl myself on Miss
+Calvinn's card-table, when I was makin' a call there day before
+yesterday. I wondered how she come by it. 'Tis an elegant bowl. Ann
+must have set the world by it, poor thing. Wonder if he ain't goin' to
+give remembrances to those that knew his sister ever since they can
+remember? Mirandy Hull, that Mis' French is a fox!"
+
+"'T was Widow Sparks gave me the particulars," continued Mrs. Topliff.
+"She declared at first that never would she step foot inside his doors
+again, but I always thought the cap'n put up with a good deal. Her
+husband's havin' been killed in one o' his ships by a fall when he was
+full o' liquor, and her bein' there so much to help Ann, and their
+havin' provided for her all these years one way an' another, didn't
+give her the right to undertake the housekeepin' and direction o'
+everything soon as Ann died. She dressed up as if 't was for meetin',
+and 'tended the front door, and saw the folks that came. You'd thought
+she was ma'am of everything; and to hear her talk up to the cap'n! I
+thought I should die o' laughing when he blowed out at her. You know
+how he gives them great whoos when he's put about. 'Go below, can't
+ye, till your watch's called,' says he, same's 't was aboard ship; but
+there! everybody knew he was all broke down, and everything tried him.
+But to see her flounce out o' that back door!"
+
+"'T was the evenin' after the funeral," Miranda said, presently. "I
+was there, too, you may rec'lect, seeing what I could do. The cap'n
+thought I was the proper one to look after her things, and guard
+against moths. He said there wa'n't no haste, but I knew better, an'
+told him I'd brought some camphire right with me. Well, did you git
+anything further out o' Mis' Sparks?"
+
+"That French woman made all up with her, and Mis' Sparks swallowed her
+resentment. She's a good-feelin', ignorant kind o' woman, an' she
+needed the money bad," answered Mrs. Topliff. "If you'll never repeat,
+I'll tell you somethin' that'll make your eyes stick out, Miranda."
+
+Miranda promised, and filled her mouth with pins preparatory to proper
+silence.
+
+"You know the Balls had a half-brother that went off out West
+somewhere in New York State years ago. I don't remember him, but he
+brought up a family, and some of 'em came here an' made visits. Ann
+used to get letters from 'em sometimes, she's told me, and I dare say
+used to do for 'em. Well, Mis' Sparks says that there was a smart
+young Miss Ball, niece, or great-niece o' the cap'n, wrote on and
+wanted to come an' live with him for the sake o' the home--his own
+blood and kin, you see, and very needy--and Mis' Sparks heard 'em talk
+about her, and that wicked, low, offscourin' has got round Asaph Ball
+till he's consented to put the pore girl off. You see, she wants to
+contrive time to make him marry her, and then she'll do as she pleases
+about his folks. Now ain't it a shame? When I see her parade up the
+broad aisle, I want to stick out my tongue at her--I do so, right in
+meetin'. If the cap'n's goin' to have a shock within a year, I could
+wish it might be soon, to disappoint such a woman. Who is she, anyway?
+She makes me think o' some carr'on bird pouncin' down on us right out
+o' the air." Mrs. Topliff sniffed and jerked about in her chair,
+having worked herself into a fine fit of temper.
+
+"There ain't no up nor down to this material, is there?" inquired
+Miranda, meekly. She was thinking that if she were as well off as
+Mrs. Topliff, and toward seventy years of age, she would never show a
+matrimonial disappointment in this open way. It was ridiculous for a
+woman who had any respect for herself and for the opinion of society.
+Miranda had much more dignity, and tried to cool off Mrs. Topliff's
+warmth by discussion of the black gown.
+
+"'T ain't pleasant to have such a character among us. Do you think it
+is, Mirandy?" asked Mrs. Topliff, after a few minutes of silence.
+"She's a good-looking person, but with something sly about her. I
+don't mean to call on her again until she accounts for herself. Livin'
+nearer than any of Ann's friends, I thought there would be a good many
+ways I could oblige the cap'n if he'd grant the opportunity, but 't
+ain't so to be. Now Mr. Topliff was such an easy-goin',
+pleasant-tempered man, that I take time to remember others is made
+different."
+
+Miranda smiled. Her companion had suffered many things from a most
+trying husband; it was difficult to see why she was willing to risk
+her peace of mind again.
+
+"Cap'n Asaph looks now as meek as Moses," she suggested, as she pared
+a newly basted seam with her creaking scissors. "Mis' French, whoever
+she may be, has got him right under her thumb. I, for one, believe
+she'll never get him, for all her pains. He's as sharp as she is any
+day, when it comes to that; but he's made comfortable, and she
+starches his shirt bosoms so's you can hear 'em creak 'way across the
+meeting-house. I was in there the other night--she wanted to see me
+about some work--and 't was neat as wax, and an awful good scent o'
+somethin' they'd had for supper."
+
+"That kind's always smart enough," granted the widow Topliff. "I want
+to know if she cooks him a hot supper every night? Well, she'll catch
+him if anybody can. Why don't you get a look into some o' the clusets,
+if you go there to work? Ann was so formal I never spoke up as I
+wanted to about seeing her things. They must have an awful sight of
+china, and as for the linen and so on that the cap'n and his father
+before him fetched home from sea, you couldn't find no end to it. Ann
+never made 'way with much. I hope the mice ain't hivin' into it and
+makin' their nests. Ann was very particular, but I dare say it wore
+her out tryin' to take care o' such a houseful."
+
+"I'm going there Wednesday," said Miranda. "I'll spy round all I can,
+but I don't like to carry news from one house to another. I never was
+one to make trouble; 't would make my business more difficult than't
+is a'ready."
+
+"I'd trust you," responded Mrs. Topliff, emphatically. "But there,
+Mirandy, you know you can trust me too, and anything you say goes no
+further."
+
+"Yes'm," returned Miranda, somewhat absently. "To cut this the way you
+want it is going to give the folds a ter'ble skimpy look."
+
+"I thought it would from the first," was Mrs. Topliff's obliging
+answer.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+The captain could not believe that two months had passed since his
+sister's death, but Mrs. French assured him one evening that it was
+so. He had troubled himself very little about public opinion, though
+hints of his housekeeper's suspicious character and abominable
+intentions had reached his ears through more than one disinterested
+tale-bearer. Indeed, the minister and his wife were the only persons
+among the old family friends who kept up any sort of intercourse with
+Mrs. French. The ladies of the parish themselves had not dared to
+asperse her character to the gruff captain, but were contented with
+ignoring her existence and setting their husbands to the fray. "Why
+don't you tell him what folks think?" was a frequent question; but
+after a first venture even the most intimate and valiant friends were
+sure to mind their own business, as the indignant captain bade them.
+Two of them had been partially won over to Mrs. French's side by a
+taste of her good cooking. In fact, these were Captain Dunn and
+Captain Allister, who, at the eleven o'clock rendezvous, reported
+their wives as absent at the County Conference, and were promptly
+bidden to a chowder dinner by the independent Captain Ball, who
+gloried in the fact that neither of his companions would dare to ask a
+friend home unexpectedly. Our hero promised his guests that what they
+did not find in eatables they should make up in drinkables, and
+actually produced a glistening decanter of Madeira that had made
+several voyages in his father's ships while he himself was a boy.
+There were several casks and long rows of cobwebby bottles in the
+cellar, which had been provided against possible use in case of
+illness, but the captain rarely touched them, though he went regularly
+every morning for a social glass of what he frankly persisted in
+calling his grog. The dinner party proved to be a noble occasion, and
+Mrs. French won the esteem of the three elderly seamen by her discreet
+behavior, as well as by the flavor of the chowder.
+
+They walked out into the old garden when the feast was over, and
+continued their somewhat excited discussion of the decline of
+shipping, on the seats of the ancient latticed summer-house. There
+Mrs. French surprised them by bringing out a tray of coffee, served in
+the handsome old cups which the captain's father had brought home from
+France. She was certainly a good-looking woman, and stepped modestly
+and soberly along the walk between the mallows and marigolds. Her
+feminine rivals insisted that she looked both bold and sly, but she
+minded her work like a steam-tug, as the captain whispered admiringly
+to his friends.
+
+"Ain't never ascertained where she came from last, have ye?" inquired
+Captain Alister, emboldened by the best  Madeira and the
+good-fellowship of the occasion.
+
+"I'm acquainted with all I need to know," answered Captain Ball,
+shortly; but his face darkened, and when his guests finished their
+coffee they thought it was high time to go away.
+
+Everybody was sorry that a jarring note had been struck on so
+delightful an occasion, but it could not be undone. On the whole, the
+dinner was an uncommon pleasure, and the host walked back into the
+house to compliment his housekeeper, though the sting of his friend's
+untimely question expressed itself by a remark that they had made most
+too much of an every-day matter by having the coffee in those best
+cups.
+
+Mrs. French laughed. "'T will give 'em something to talk about; 't was
+excellent good coffee, this last you got, anyway," and Captain Asaph
+walked away, restored to a pleased and cheerful frame of mind. When he
+waked up after a solid after-dinner nap, Mrs. French, in her decent
+afternoon gown, as calm as if there had been no company to dinner, was
+just coming down the front stairs.
+
+She seated herself by the window, and pretended to look into the
+street. The captain shook his newspaper at an invading fly. It was
+early September and flies were cruelly persistent. Somehow his nap had
+not entirely refreshed him, and he watched his housekeeper with
+something like disapproval.
+
+"I want to talk with you about something, sir," said Mrs. French.
+
+"She's going to raise her pay," the captain grumbled to himself.
+"Well, speak out, can't ye ma'am?" he said.
+
+"You know I've been sayin' all along that you ought to get your
+niece"--
+
+"She's my _great_-niece," blew the captain, "an' I don't know as I
+want her." The awful certainty came upon him that those hints were
+well-founded about Mrs. French's determination to marry him, and his
+stormy nature rose in wild revolt. "Can't you keep your place, ma'am?"
+and he gave a great _whoo!_ as if he were letting off superabundant
+steam. She might prove to carry too many guns for him, and he grew
+very red in the face. It was a much worse moment than when a vessel
+comes driving at you amidships out of the fog.
+
+"Why, yes, sir, I should be glad to keep my place," said Mrs. French,
+taking the less grave meaning of his remark by instinct, if not by
+preference; "only it seems your duty to let your great-niece come some
+time or other, and I can go off. Perhaps it is an untimely season to
+speak, about it, but, you see, I have had it in mind, and now I've got
+through with the preserves, and there's a space between now and
+house-cleaning, I guess you'd better let the young woman come. Folks
+have got wind about your refusing her earlier, and think hard of me:
+my position isn't altogether pleasant," and she changed color a
+little, and looked him full in the face.
+
+The captain's eyes fell. He did owe her something. He never had been
+so comfortable in his life, on shore, as she had made him. She had
+heard some cursed ill-natured speeches, and he very well knew that a
+more self-respecting woman never lived. But now her moment of
+self-assertion seemed to have come, and, to use his own words, she had
+him fast. Stop! there was a way of escape.
+
+"Then I _will_ send for the gal. Perhaps you're right, ma'am. I've
+slept myself into the doldrums. _Whoo! whoo!_" he said,
+loudly--anything to gain a little time. "Anything you say, ma'am," he
+protested. "I've got to step down-town on some business," and the
+captain fled with ponderous footsteps out through the dining-room to
+the little side entry where he hung his hat; then a moment later he
+went away, clicking his cane along the narrow sidewalk.
+
+He had escaped that time, and wrote the brief note to his great-niece,
+Ann Ball--how familiar the name looked!--with a sense of victory. He
+dreaded the next interview with his housekeeper, but she was
+business-like and self-possessed, and seemed to be giving him plenty
+of time. Then the captain regretted his letter, and felt as if he were
+going to be broken up once more in his home comfort. He spoke only
+when it was absolutely necessary, and simply nodded his head when
+Mrs. French said that she was ready to start as soon as she showed the
+young woman about the house. But what favorite dishes were served the
+captain in those intervening days! and there was one cool evening
+beside, when the housekeeper had the social assistance of a fire in
+the Franklin stove. The captain thought that his only safety lay in
+sleep, and promptly took that means of saving himself from a dangerous
+conversation. He even went to a panorama on Friday night, a diversion
+that would usually be quite beneath his dignity. It was difficult to
+avoid asking Mrs. French to accompany him, she helped him on with his
+coat so pleasantly, but "she'd git her claws on me comin' home
+perhaps," mused the self-distrustful mariner, and stoutly went his way
+to the panorama alone. It was a very dull show indeed, and he bravely
+confessed it, and then was angry at a twinkle in Mrs. French's eyes.
+Yet he should miss the good creature, and for the life of him he could
+not think lightly of her. "She well knows how able she is to do for
+me. Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," sighed the captain as he went
+upstairs to bed.
+
+"Women-folks is cap'ns ashore," he repeated, in solemn confidence to
+one of his intimate friends, as they stood next day on one of the
+deserted wharves, looking out across the empty harbor roads. There was
+nothing coming in. How they had watched the deep-laden ships enter
+between the outer capes and drop their great sails in home waters! How
+they had ruled those ships, and been the ablest ship-masters of their
+day, with nobody to question their decisions! There is no such
+absolute monarchy as a sea-captain's. He is a petty king, indeed, as
+he sails the high seas from port to port.
+
+There was a fine easterly breeze and a bright sun that day, but
+Captain Ball came toiling up the cobble-stoned street toward his house
+as if he were vexed by a headwind. He carried a post-card between his
+thumb and finger, and grumbled aloud as he stumped along. "Mis'
+French!" he called, loudly, as he opened the door, and that worthy
+woman appeared with a floured apron, and a mind divided between her
+employer's special business and her own affairs of pie-making.
+
+"She's coming this same day," roared the captain. "Might have given
+some notice, I'm sure. 'Be with you Saturday afternoon,' and signed
+her name. That's all she's written. Whoo! whoo! 'tis a dreadful close
+day," and the poor old fellow fumbled for his big silk handkerchief.
+"I don't know what train she'll take. I ain't going to hang round up
+at the depot; my rheumatism troubles me."
+
+"I wouldn't, if I was you," answered Mrs. French, shortly, and turned
+from him with a pettish movement to open the oven door.
+
+The captain passed into the sitting-room, and sat down heavily in his
+large chair. On the wall facing him was a picture of his old ship the
+Ocean Rover leaving the harbor of Bristol. It was not valuable as a
+marine painting, but the sea was blue in that picture, and the white
+canvas all spread to the very sky-scrapers; it was an emblem of that
+freedom which Captain Asaph Ball had once enjoyed. Dinner that day was
+a melancholy meal, and after it was cleared away the master of the
+house forlornly watched Mrs. French gather an armful of her own
+belongings, and mount the stairs as if she were going to pack her box
+that very afternoon. It did not seem possible that she meant to leave
+before Monday, but the captain could not bring himself to ask any
+questions. He was at the mercy of womankind. "A jiggeting girl. I
+don't know how to act with her. She sha'n't rule me," he muttered to
+himself. "She and Mis' French may think they've got things right to
+their hands, but I'll stand my ground--I'll stand my ground," and the
+captain gently slid into the calmer waters of his afternoon nap.
+
+When he waked the house was still, and with sudden consciousness of
+approaching danger, and a fear lest Mrs. French might have some last
+words to say if she found him awake, he stole out of his house as
+softly as possible and went down-town, hiding his secret woes and
+joining in the long seafaring reminiscences with which he and his
+friends usually diverted themselves. As he came up the street again
+toward supper-time, he saw that the blinds were thrown open in the
+parlor windows, and his heart began to beat loudly. He could hear
+women's voices, and he went in by a side gate and sought the quiet
+garden. It had suffered from a touch of frost; so had the captain.
+
+Mrs. French heard the gate creak, and presently she came to the garden
+door at the end of the front entry. "Come in, won't ye, cap'n?" she
+called, persuasively, and with a mighty sea oath the captain rose and
+obeyed.
+
+The house was still. He strode along the entry lite a brave man: there
+was nothing of the coward about Asaph Ball when he made up his mind to
+a thing. There was nobody in the best parlor, and he turned toward the
+sitting-room, but there sat smiling Mrs. French.
+
+"Where is the gal?" blew the captain.
+
+"Here I be, sir," said Mrs. French, with a flushed and beaming face.
+"I thought 't was full time to put you out of your misery."
+
+"What's all this mean? _Whoo! whoo!_"
+
+"Here I be; take me or leave me, uncle," answered the housekeeper: she
+began to be anxious, the captain looked so bewildered and irate.
+"Folks seemed to think that you was peculiar, and I was impressed that
+it would be better to just come first without a word's bein' said, and
+find out how you an' me got on; then, if we didn't make out, nobody 'd
+be bound. I'm sure I didn't want to be."
+
+"Who was that I heard talking with ye as I come by?" blew the captain
+very loud.
+
+"That was Mis' Cap'n Topliff; an' an old cat she is," calmly replied
+Mrs. French. "She hasn't been near me before this three months, but
+plenty of stories she's set goin' about us, and plenty of spyin' she's
+done. I thought I'd tell you who I was within a week after I come, but
+I found out how things was goin', and I had to spite 'em well before I
+got through. I expected that something would turn up, an' the whole
+story get out. But we've been middlin' comfortable, haven't we, sir?
+an' I thought 't was 'bout time to give you a little surprise. Mis'
+Calvinn and the minister knows the whole story," she concluded: "I
+wouldn't have kep' it from them. Mis' Calvinn said all along 't would
+be a good lesson"--
+
+"Who wrote that card from the post-office?" demanded the captain,
+apparently but half persuaded.
+
+"I did," said Mrs. French.
+
+"Good Hector, you women-folks!" but Captain Ball ventured to cross the
+room and establish himself in his chair. Then, being a man of humor,
+he saw that he had a round turn on those who had spitefufly sought to
+question him.
+
+"You needn't let on, that you haven't known me all along," suggested
+Mrs. French. "I should be pleased if you would call me by my Christian
+name, sir. I was married to Mr. French only a short time; he was taken
+away very sudden. The letter that came after aunt's death was directed
+to my maiden name, but aunt knew all about me. I've got some means,
+an' I ain't distressed but what I can earn my living."
+
+"They don't call me such an old Turk, I hope!" exclaimed the excited
+captain, deprecating the underrated estimate of himself which was
+suddenly presented. "I ain't a hard man at sea, now I tell ye," and he
+turned away, much moved at the injustice of society. "I've got no head
+for geneology. Ann usually set in to give me the family particulars
+when I was logy with sleep a Sunday night. I thought you was a French
+from Massachusetts way."
+
+"I had to say somethin'," responded the housekeeper, promptly.
+
+"Well, well!" and a suppressed laugh shook the captain like an
+earthquake. He was suddenly set free from his enemies, while an hour
+before he had been hemmed in on every side.
+
+They had a cheerful supper, and Ann French cut a pie, and said, as she
+passed him more than a quarter part of it, that she thought she should
+give up when she was baking that morning, and saw the look on his face
+as he handed her the post-card.
+
+"You're fit to be captain of a privateer," acknowledged Captain Asaph
+Ball, handsomely. The complications of shore life were very
+astonishing to this seafaring man of the old school.
+
+Early on Monday morning he had a delightful sense of triumph. Captain
+Allister, who was the chief gossip of the waterside club, took it upon
+himself--a cheap thing to do, as everybody said afterwards--to ask
+many questions about those unvalued relatives of the Balls, who had
+settled long ago in New York State. Were there any children left of
+the captain's half-brother's family?
+
+"I've got a niece living--a great-niece she is," answered Captain
+Ball, with a broad smile--"makes me feel old. You see, my
+half-brother was a grown man when I was born. I never saw him
+scarcely; there was some misunderstanding an' he always lived with his
+own mother's folks; and father, he married again, and had me and Ann
+thirty year after. Why, my half-brother 'd been 'most a hundred; I
+don't know but more."
+
+Captain Ball spoke in a cheerful tone; the audience meditated, and
+Captain Allister mentioned meekly that time did slip away.
+
+"Ever see any of 'em?" he inquired. In some way public interest was
+aroused in the niece.
+
+"Ever see any of 'em?" repeated the captain, in a loud tone. "You
+fool, Allister, who's keepin' my house this minute? Why, Ann French;
+Ann Ball that was, and a smart, likely woman she is. I ain't a
+marryin' man: there's been plenty o' fools to try me. I've been picked
+over well by you and others, and I thought if 't pleased you, you
+could take your own time."
+
+The honest captain for once lent himself to deception. One would have
+thought that he had planned the siege himself. He took his stick from
+where it leaned against a decaying piece of ship-timber and went
+clicking away. The explanation of his housekeeping arrangements was
+not long in flying about the town, and Mrs. Captain Topliff made an
+early call to say that she had always suspected it from the first,
+from the family likeness.
+
+From this time Captain Ball submitted to the rule of Mrs. French, and
+under her sensible and fearless sway became, as everybody said, more
+like other people than ever before. As he grew older it was more and
+more convenient to have a superior officer to save him from petty
+responsibilities. But now and then, after the first relief at finding
+that Mrs. French was not seeking his hand in marriage, and that the
+jiggeting girl was a mere fabrication, Captain Ball was both surprised
+and a little ashamed to discover that something in his heart had
+suffered disappointment in the matter of the great-niece. Those who
+knew him well would have as soon expected to see a flower grow out of
+a cobble-stone as that Captain Asaph Ball should hide such a sentiment
+in his honest breast. He had fancied her a pretty girl in a pink
+dress, who would make some life in the quiet house, and sit and sing
+at her sewing by the front window, in all her foolish furbelows, as he
+came up the street.
+
+
+
+
+BY THE MORNING BOAT.
+
+
+On the coast of Maine, where many green islands and salt inlets fringe
+the deep-cut shore line; where balsam firs and bayberry bushes send
+their fragrance far seaward, and song-sparrows sing all day, and the
+tide runs plashing in and out among the weedy ledges; where cowbells
+tinkle on the hills and herons stand in the shady coves,--on the
+lonely coast of Maine stood a small gray house facing the morning
+light. All the weather-beaten houses of that region face the sea
+apprehensively, like the women who live in them.
+
+This home of four people was as bleached and gray with wind and rain
+as one of the pasture rocks close by. There were some cinnamon rose
+bushes under the window at one side of the door, and a stunted lilac
+at the other side. It was so early in the cool morning that nobody was
+astir but some shy birds, that had come in the stillness of dawn to
+pick and flutter in the short grass.
+
+They flew away together as some one softly opened the unlocked door
+and stepped out. This was a bent old man, who shaded his eyes with his
+hand, and looked at the west and the east and overhead, and then took
+a few lame and feeble steps farther out to see a wooden vane on the
+barn. Then he sat down on the doorstep, clasped his hands together
+between his knees, and looked steadily out to sea, scanning the
+horizon where some schooners had held on their course all night, with
+a light westerly breeze. He seemed to be satisfied at sight of the
+weather, as if he had been anxious, as he lay unassured in his north
+bedroom, vexed with the sleeplessness of age and excited by thoughts
+of the coming day. The old seaman dozed as he sat on the doorstep,
+while dawn came up and the world grew bright; and the little birds
+returned, fearfully at first, to finish their breakfast, and at last
+made bold to hop close to his feet.
+
+After a time some one else came and stood in the open door behind him.
+
+"Why, father! seems to me you've got an early start; 't ain't but four
+o'clock. I thought I was foolish to get up so soon, but 't wa'n't so I
+could sleep."
+
+"No, darter." The old man smiled as he turned to look at her, wide
+awake on the instant. "'T ain't so soon as I git out some o' these
+'arly mornin's. The birds wake me up singin', and it's plenty light,
+you know. I wanted to make sure 'Lisha would have a fair day to go."
+
+"I expect he'd have to go if the weather wa'n't good," said the woman.
+
+"Yes, yes, but 'tis useful to have fair weather, an' a good sign some
+says it is. This is a great event for the boy, ain't it?"
+
+"I can't face the thought o' losin' on him, father." The woman came
+forward a step or two and sat down on the doorstep. She was a
+hard-worked, anxious creature, whose face had lost all look of youth.
+She was apt, in the general course of things, to hurry the old man and
+to spare little time for talking, and he was pleased by this
+acknowledged unity of their interests. He moved aside a little to give
+her more room, and glanced at her with a smile, as if to beg her to
+speak freely. They were both undemonstrative, taciturn New Englanders;
+their hearts were warm with pent-up feeling, that summer morning, yet
+it was easier to understand one another through silence than through
+speech.
+
+"No, I couldn't git much sleep," repeated the daughter at last. "Some
+things I thought of that ain't come to mind before for years,--things
+I don't relish the feelin' of, all over again."
+
+"'T was just such a mornin' as this, pore little 'Lisha's father went
+off on that last v'y'ge o' his," answered the old sailor, with instant
+comprehension. "Yes, you've had it master hard, pore gal, ain't you? I
+advised him against goin' off on that old vessel with a crew that
+wa'n't capable."
+
+"Such a mornin' as this, when I come out at sun-up, I always seem to
+see her top-s'ils over there beyond the p'int, where she was to
+anchor. Well, I thank Heaven 'Lisha was averse to goin' to sea,"
+declared the mother.
+
+"There's dangers ashore, Lucy Ann," said the grandfather, solemnly;
+but there was no answer, and they sat there in silence until the old
+man grew drowsy again.
+
+"Yisterday was the first time it fell onto my heart that 'Lisha was
+goin' off," the mother began again, after a time had passed. "P'r'aps
+folks was right about our needing of him. I've been workin' every way
+I could to further him and git him a real good chance up to Boston,
+and now that we've got to part with him I don't see how to put up with
+it."
+
+"All nateral," insisted the old man. "My mother wept the night through
+before I was goin' to sail on my first v'y'ge; she was kind of
+satisfied, though, when I come home next summer, grown a full man,
+with my savin's in my pocket, an' I had a master pretty little figured
+shawl I'd bought for her to Bristol."
+
+"I don't want no shawls. Partin' is partin' to me," said the woman.
+
+"'T ain't everybody can stand in her fore-door an' see the chimbleys
+o' three child'n's houses without a glass," he tried eagerly to
+console her. "All ready an' willin' to do their part for you, so as
+you could let 'Lisha go off and have his chance."
+
+"I don't know how it is," she answered, "but none on 'em never give me
+the rooted home feelin' that 'Lisha has. They was more varyin' and
+kind o' fast growin' and scatterin'; but 'Lisha was always 'Lisha when
+he was a babe, and I settled on him for the one to keep with me."
+
+"Then he's just the kind to send off, one you ain't got to worry
+about. They're all good child'n," said the man. "We've reason to be
+thankful none on 'em's been like some young sprigs, more grief 'n
+glory to their folks. An' I ain't regrettin' 'Lisha's goin' one mite;
+I believe you'd rather go on doin' for him an' cossetin'. I think 't
+was high time to shove him out o' the nest."
+
+"You ain't his mother," said Lucy Ann.
+
+"What be you goin' to give him for his breakfast?" asked the stern
+grandfather, in a softened, less business-like voice.
+
+"I don't know's I'd thought about it, special, sir. I did lay aside
+that piece o' apple pie we had left yisterday from dinner," she
+confessed.
+
+"Fry him out a nice little crisp piece o' pork, Lucy Ann, an' 't will
+relish with his baked potatoes. He'll think o' his breakfast more
+times 'n you expect. I know a lad's feelin's when home's put behind
+him."
+
+The sun was up clear and bright over the broad sea inlet to the
+eastward, but the shining water struck the eye by its look of vacancy.
+It was broad daylight, and still so early that no sails came stealing
+out from the farmhouse landings, or even from the gray groups of
+battered fish-houses that overhung, here and there, a sheltered cove.
+Some crows and gulls were busy in the air; it was the time of day when
+the world belongs more to birds than to men.
+
+"Poor 'Lisha!" the mother went on compassionately. "I expect it has
+been a long night to him. He seemed to take it in, as he was goin' to
+bed, how 't was his last night to home. I heard him thrashin' about
+kind o' restless, sometimes."
+
+"Come, Lucy Ann, the boy ought to be stirrin'!" exclaimed the old
+sailor, without the least show of sympathy. "He's got to be ready when
+John Sykes comes, an' he ain't so quick as some lads."
+
+The mother rose with a sigh, and went into the house. After her own
+sleepless night, she dreaded to face the regretful, sleepless eyes of
+her son; but as she opened the door of his little bedroom, there lay
+Elisha sound asleep and comfortable to behold. She stood watching him
+with gloomy tenderness until he stirred uneasily, his consciousness
+roused by the intentness of her thought, and the mysterious current
+that flowed from her wistful, eager eyes.
+
+But when the lad waked, it was to a joyful sense of manliness and
+responsibility; for him the change of surroundings was coming through
+natural processes of growth, not through the uprooting which gave his
+mother such an aching heart.
+
+A little later Elisha came out to the breakfast-table, arrayed in his
+best sandy-brown clothes set off with a bright blue satin cravat,
+which had been the pride and delight of pleasant Sundays and rare
+holidays. He already felt unrelated to the familiar scene of things,
+and was impatient to be gone. For one thing, it was strange to sit
+down to breakfast in Sunday splendor, while his mother and grandfather
+and little sister Lydia were in their humble every-day attire. They
+ate in silence and haste, as they always did, but with a new
+constraint and awkwardness that forbade their looking at one another.
+At last the head of the household broke the silence with simple
+straightforwardness.
+
+"You've got an excellent good day, 'Lisha. I like to have a fair start
+myself. 'T ain't goin' to be too hot; the wind's working into the
+north a little."
+
+"Yes, sir," responded Elisha.
+
+"The great p'int about gittin' on in life is bein' able to cope with
+your headwinds," continued the old man earnestly, pushing away his
+plate. "Any fool can run before a fair breeze, but I tell ye a good
+seaman is one that gits the best out o' his disadvantages. You won't
+be treated so pretty as you expect in the store, and you'll git plenty
+o' blows to your pride; but you keep right ahead, and if you can't run
+before the wind you can always beat. I ain't no hand to preach, but
+preachin' ain't goin' to sarve ye now. We've gone an' fetched ye up
+the best we could, your mother an' me, an' you can't never say but
+you've started amongst honest folks. If a vessel's built out o' sound
+timber an' has got good lines for sailin', why then she's seaworthy;
+but if she ain't, she ain't; an' a mess o' preachin' ain't goin' to
+alter her over. Now you're standin' out to sea, my boy, an' you can
+bear your home in mind and work your way, same's plenty of others has
+done."
+
+It was a solemn moment; the speaker's voice faltered, and little Lydia
+dried her tearful blue eyes with her gingham apron. Elisha hung his
+head, and patted the old spotted cat which came to rub herself against
+his trowsers-leg. The mother rose hastily, and hurried into the pantry
+close by. She was always an appealing figure, with her thin shoulders
+and faded calico gowns; it was difficult to believe that she had once
+been the prettiest girl in that neighborhood. But her son loved her in
+his sober, undemonstrative way, and was full of plans for coming home,
+rich and generous enough to make her proud and happy. He was half
+pleased and half annoyed because his leave-taking was of such deep
+concern to the household.
+
+"Come, Lyddy, don't you take on," he said, with rough kindliness.
+"Let's go out, and I'll show you how to feed the pig and 'tend to the
+chickens. You'll have to be chief clerk when I'm gone."
+
+They went out to the yard, hand in hand. Elisha stopped to stroke the
+old cat again, as she ran by his side and mewed. "I wish I was off and
+done with it; this morning does seem awful long," said the boy.
+
+"Ain't you afraid you'll be homesick an' want to come back?" asked the
+little sister timidly; but Elisha scorned so poor a thought.
+
+"You'll have to see if grandpa has 'tended to these things, the pig
+an' the chickens," he advised her gravely. "He forgets 'em sometimes
+when I'm away, but he would be cast down if you told him so, and you
+just keep an eye open, Lyddy. Mother's got enough to do inside the
+house. But grandsir'll keep her in kindlin's; he likes to set and chop
+in the shed rainy days, an' he'll do a sight more if you'll set with
+him, an' let him get goin' on his old seafarin' times."
+
+Lydia nodded discreetly.
+
+"An', Lyddy, don't you loiter comin' home from school, an' don't play
+out late, an' get 'em fussy, when it comes cold weather. And you tell
+Susy Draper,"--the boy's voice sounded unconcerned, but Lydia glanced
+at him quickly,--"you tell Susy Draper that I was awful sorry she was
+over to her aunt's, so I couldn't say good-by."
+
+Lydia's heart was the heart of a woman, and she comprehended. Lydia
+nodded again, more sagely than before.
+
+"See here," said the boy suddenly. "I'm goin' to let my old woodchuck
+out."
+
+Lydia's face was blank with surprise. "I thought you promised to sell
+him to big Jim Hooper."
+
+"I did, but I don't care for big Jim Hooper; you just tell him I let
+my wood-chuck go."
+
+The brother and sister went to their favorite playground between the
+ledges, not far from the small old barn. Here was a clumsy box with
+wire gratings, behind which an untamed little wild beast sat up and
+chittered at his harmless foes. "He's a whopping old fellow," said
+Elisha admiringly. "Big Jim Hooper sha'n't have him!" and as he opened
+the trap, Lydia had hardly time to perch herself high on the ledge,
+before the woodchuck tumbled and scuttled along the short green turf,
+and was lost among the clumps of juniper and bayberry just beyond.
+
+"I feel just like him," said the boy. "I want to get up to Boston just
+as bad as that. See here, now!" and he flung a gallant cart-wheel of
+himself in the same direction, and then stood on his head and waved
+his legs furiously in the air. "I feel just like that."
+
+Lydia, who had been tearful all the morning, looked at him in vague
+dismay. Only a short time ago she had never been made to feel that her
+brother was so much older than herself. They had been constant
+playmates; but now he was like a grown man, and cared no longer for
+their old pleasures. There was all possible difference between them
+that there can be between fifteen years and twelve, and Lydia was
+nothing but a child.
+
+"Come, come, where be ye?" shouted the old grandfather, and they both
+started guiltily. Elisha rubbed some dry grass out of his
+short-cropped hair, and the little sister came down from her ledge. At
+that moment the real pang of parting shot through her heart; her
+brother belonged irrevocably to a wider world.
+
+"Ma'am Stover has sent for ye to come over; she wants to say good-by
+to ye!" shouted the grandfather, leaning on his two canes at the end
+of the bam. "Come, step lively, an' remember you ain't got none too
+much time, an' the boat ain't goin' to wait a minute for nobody."
+
+"Ma'am Stover?" repeated the boy, with a frown. He and his sister knew
+only too well the pasture path between the two houses. Ma'am Stover
+was a bedridden woman, who had seen much trouble,--a town charge in
+her old age. Her neighbors gave to her generously out of their own
+slender stores. Yet with all this poverty and dependence, she held
+firm sway over the customs and opinions of her acquaintance, from the
+uneasy bed where she lay year in and year out, watching the far sea
+line beyond a pasture slope.
+
+The young people walked fast, sometimes running a little way,
+light-footed, the boy going ahead, and burst into their neighbor's
+room out of breath.
+
+She was calm and critical, and their excitement had a sudden chill.
+
+"So the great day's come at last, 'Lisha?" she asked; at which 'Lisha
+was conscious of unnecessary aggravation.
+
+"I don't know's it's much of a day--to anybody but me," he added,
+discovering a twinkle in her black eyes that was more sympathetic than
+usual. "I expected to stop an' see you last night; but I had to go
+round and see all our folks, and when I got back 't was late and the
+tide was down, an' I knew that grandsir couldn't git the boat up all
+alone to our lower landin'."
+
+"Well, I didn't forgit you, but I thought p'r'aps you might forgit me,
+an' I'm goin' to give ye somethin'. 'T is for your folks' sake; I want
+ye to tell 'em so. I don't want ye never to part with it, even if it
+fails to work and you git proud an' want a new one. It's been a sight
+o' company to me." She reached up, with a flush on her wrinkled cheeks
+and tears in her eyes, and took a worn old silver watch from its nail,
+and handed it, with a last look at its white face and large gold
+hands, to the startled boy.
+
+"Oh, I can't take it from ye, Ma'am Stover. I'm just as much obliged
+to you," he faltered.
+
+"There, go now, dear, go right along." said the old woman, turning
+quickly away. "Be a good boy for your folks' sake. If so be that I'm
+here when you come home, you can let me see how well you've kep' it."
+
+The boy and girl went softly out, leaving the door wide open, as Ma'am
+Stover liked to have it in summer weather, her windows being small and
+few. There were neighbors near enough to come and shut it, if a heavy
+shower blew up. Sometimes the song sparrows and whippoorwills came
+hopping in about the little bare room.
+
+"I felt kind of'shamed to carry off her watch," protested Elisha, with
+a radiant face that belied his honest words.
+
+"Put it on," said proud little Lydia, trotting alongside; and he
+hooked the bright steel chain into his buttonhole, and looked down to
+see how it shone across his waistcoat. None of his friends had so fine
+a watch; even his grandfather's was so poor a timekeeper that it was
+rarely worn except as a decoration on Sundays or at a funeral. They
+hurried home. Ma'am Stover, lying in her bed, could see the two slight
+figures nearly all the way on the pasture path; flitting along in
+their joyful haste.
+
+It was disappointing that the mother and grandfather had so little to
+say about the watch. In fact, Elisha's grandfather only said "Pore
+creatur'" once or twice, and turned away, rubbing his eyes with the
+back of his hand. If Ma'am Stover had chosen to give so rich a gift,
+to know the joy of such generosity, nobody had a right to protest. Yet
+nobody knew how much the poor wakeful soul would miss the only one of
+her meagre possessions that seemed alive and companionable in lonely
+hours. Somebody had said once that there were chairs that went about
+on wheels, made on purpose for crippled persons like Ma'am Stover; and
+Elisha's heart was instantly filled with delight at the remembrance.
+Perhaps before long, if he could save some money and get ahead, he
+would buy one of those chairs and send it down from Boston; and a new
+sense of power filled his honest heart. He had dreamed a great many
+dreams already of what he meant to do with all his money, when he came
+home rich and a person of consequence, in summer vacations.
+
+The large leather valise was soon packed, and its owner carried it out
+to the roadside, and put his last winter's overcoat and a great new
+umbrella beside it, so as to be ready when John Sykes came with the
+wagon. He was more and more anxious to be gone, and felt no sense of
+his old identification with the home interests. His mother said sadly
+that he would be gone full soon enough, when he joined his grandfather
+in accusing Mr. Sykes of keeping them waiting forever and making him
+miss the boat. There were three rough roundabout miles to be traveled
+to the steamer landing, and the Sykes horses were known to be slow.
+But at last the team came nodding in sight over a steep hill in the
+road.
+
+Then the moment of parting had come, the moment toward which all the
+long late winter and early summer had looked. The boy was leaving his
+plain little home for the great adventure of his life's fortunes.
+Until then he had been the charge and anxiety of his elders, and under
+their rule and advice. Now he was free to choose; his was the power of
+direction, his the responsibility; for in the world one must be ranked
+by his own character and ability, and doomed by his own failures. The
+boy lifted his burden lightly, and turned with an eager smile to say
+farewell. But the old people and little Lydia were speechless with
+grief; they could not bear to part with the pride and hope and boyish
+strength, that were all their slender joy. The worn-out old man, the
+anxious woman who had been beaten and buffeted by the waves of poverty
+and sorrow, the little sister with her dreaming heart, stood at the
+bars and hungrily watched him go away. They feared success for him
+almost as much as failure. The world was before him now, with its
+treasures and pleasures, but with those inevitable disappointments and
+losses which old people know and fear; those sorrows of incapacity and
+lack of judgment which young hearts go out to meet without foreboding.
+It was a world of love and favor to which little Lydia's brother had
+gone; but who would know her fairy prince, in that disguise of a
+country boy's bashfulness and humble raiment from the cheap counter of
+a country store? The household stood rapt and silent until the farm
+wagon had made its last rise on the hilly road and disappeared.
+
+"Well, he's left us now," said the sorrowful, hopeful old grandfather.
+"I expect I've got to turn to an' be a boy again myself. I feel to
+hope 'Lisha'll do as well as we covet for him. I seem to take it in,
+all my father felt when he let me go off to sea. He stood where I'm
+standin' now, an' I was just as triflin' as pore 'Lisha, and felt full
+as big as a man. But Lord! how I give up when it come night, an' I
+took it in I was gone from home!"
+
+"There, don't ye, father," said the pale mother gently. She was, after
+all, the stronger of the two. "'Lisha's good an' honest-hearted.
+You'll feel real proud a year from now, when he gits back. I'm so glad
+he's got his watch to carry,--he did feel so grand. I expect them poor
+hens is sufferin'; nobody's thought on 'em this livin' mornin'. You'd
+better step an' feed 'em right away, sir." She could hardly speak for
+sorrow and excitement, but the old man was diverted at once, and
+hobbled away with cheerful importance on his two canes. Then she
+looked round at the poor, stony little farm almost angrily. "He'd no
+natural turn for the sea, 'Lisha hadn't; but I might have kept him
+with me if the land was good for anything."
+
+Elisha felt as if lie were in a dream, now that his great adventure
+was begun. He answered John Sykes's questions mechanically, and his
+head was a little dull and dazed. Then he began to fear that the slow
+plodding of the farm horses would make him too late for the steamboat,
+and with sudden satisfaction pulled out the great watch to see if
+there were still time enough to get to the landing. He was filled with
+remorse because it was impossible to remember whether he had thanked
+Ma'am Stover for her gift. It seemed like a thing of life and
+consciousness as he pushed it back into his tight pocket. John Sykes
+looked at him curiously. "Why, that's old Ma'am Stover's timepiece,
+ain't it? Lend it to ye, did she?"
+
+"Gave it to me," answered Elisha proudly.
+
+"You be careful of that watch," said the driver soberly; and Elisha
+nodded.
+
+"Well, good-day to ye; be a stiddy lad," advised John Sykes, a few
+minutes afterward. "Don't start in too smart an' scare 'm up to
+Boston. Pride an' ambition was the downfall o' old Cole's dog. There,
+sonny, the bo't ain't nowheres in sight, for all your fidgetin'!"
+
+They both smiled broadly at the humorous warning, and as the old wagon
+rattled away, Elisha stood a moment looking after it; then he went
+down to the wharf by winding ways among piles of decayed timber and
+disused lobster-pots. A small group of travelers and spectators had
+already assembled, and they stared at him in a way that made him feel
+separated from his kind, though some of them had come to see him
+depart. One unenlightened acquaintance inquired if Elisha were
+expecting friends by that morning's boat; and when he explained that
+he was going away himself, asked kindly whether it was to be as far as
+Bath. Elisha mentioned the word "Boston" with scorn and compassion,
+but he did not feel like discussing his brilliant prospects now, as he
+had been more than ready to do the week before. Just then a deaf old
+woman asked for the time of day. She sat next him on the battered
+bench.
+
+"Be you going up to Bath, dear?" she demanded suddenly; and he said
+yes. "Guess I'll stick to you, then, fur's you go; 't is kind o' blind
+in them big places." Elisha faintly nodded a meek but grudging assent;
+then, after a few moments, he boldly rose, tall umbrella in hand, and
+joined the talkative company of old and young men at the other side of
+the wharf. They proceeded to make very light of a person's going to
+Boston to enter upon his business career; but, after all, their
+thoughts were those of mingled respect and envy. Most of them had seen
+Boston, but no one save Elisha was going there that day to stay for a
+whole year. It made him feel like a city man.
+
+The steamer whistled loud and hoarse before she came in sight, but
+presently the gay flags showed close by above the pointed spruces.
+Then she came jarring against the wharf, and the instant bustle and
+hurry, the strange faces of the passengers, and the loud rattle of
+freight going on board, were as confusing and exciting as if a small
+piece of Boston itself had been dropped into that quiet cove.
+
+The people on the wharf shouted cheerful good-byes, to which the young
+traveler responded; then he seated himself well astern to enjoy the
+views, and felt as if he had made a thousand journeys. He bought a
+newspaper, and began to read it with much pride and a beating heart.
+The little old woman came and sat beside him, and talked straight on
+whether he listened or not, until he was afraid of what the other
+passengers might think, but nobody looked that way, and he could not
+find anything in the paper that he cared to read. Alone, but
+unfettered and aflame with courage; to himself he was not the boy who
+went away, but the proud man who one day would be coming home.
+
+"Goin' to Boston, be ye?" asked the old lady for the third time; and
+it was still a pleasure to say yes, when the boat swung round, and
+there, far away on its gray and green pasture slope, with the dark
+evergreens standing back, were the low gray house, and the little
+square barn, and the lines of fence that shut in his home. He strained
+his eyes to see if any one were watching from the door. He had almost
+forgotten that they could see him still. He sprang to the boat's side:
+yes, his mother remembered; there was something white waving from the
+doorway. The whole landscape faded from his eyes except that faraway
+gray house; his heart leaped back with love and longing; he gazed and
+gazed, until a height of green forest came between and shut the
+picture out. Then the country boy went on alone to make his way in the
+wide world.
+
+
+
+
+IN DARK NEW ENGLAND DAYS.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+The last of the neighbors was going home; officious Mrs. Peter Downs
+had lingered late and sought for additional housework with which to
+prolong her stay. She had talked incessantly, and buzzed like a busy
+bee as she helped to put away the best crockery after the funeral
+supper, while the sisters Betsey and Hannah Knowles grew every moment
+more forbidding and unwilling to speak. They lighted a solitary small
+oil lamp at last, as if for Sunday evening idleness, and put it on the
+side table in the kitchen.
+
+"We ain't intending to make a late evening of it," announced Betsey,
+the elder, standing before Mrs. Downs in an expectant, final way,
+making an irresistible opportunity for saying good-night. "I'm sure
+we're more than obleeged to ye,--ain't we, Hannah?--but I don't feel's
+if we ought to keep ye longer. We ain't going to do no more to-night,
+but set down a spell and kind of collect ourselves, and then make for
+bed."
+
+Susan Downs offered one more plea. "I'd stop all night with ye an'
+welcome; 't is gettin' late--an' dark," she added plaintively; but the
+sisters shook their heads quickly, while Hannah said that they might
+as well get used to staying alone, since they would have to do it
+first or last. In spite of herself Mrs. Downs was obliged to put on
+her funeral best bonnet and shawl and start on her homeward way.
+
+"Closed-mouthed old maids!" she grumbled as the door shut behind her
+all too soon and denied her the light of the lamp along the footpath.
+Suddenly there was a bright ray from the window, as if some one had
+pushed back the curtain and stood with the lamp close to the sash.
+"That's Hannah," said the retreating guest. "She'd told me somethin'
+about things, I know, if it hadn't 'a' been for Betsey. Catch me
+workin' myself to pieces again for 'em." But, however grudgingly this
+was said, Mrs. Downs's conscience told her that the industry of the
+past two days had been somewhat selfish on her part; she had hoped
+that in the excitement of this unexpected funeral season she might for
+once be taken into the sisters' confidence. More than this, she knew
+that they were certain of her motive, and had deliberately refused the
+expected satisfaction. "'T ain't as if I was one o' them curious
+busy-bodies anyway," she said to herself pityingly; "they might 'a'
+neighbored with somebody for once, I do believe." Everybody would have
+a question ready for her the next day, for it was known that she had
+been slaving herself devotedly since the news had come of old Captain
+Knowles's sudden death in his bed from a stroke, the last of three
+which had in the course of a year or two changed him from a strong old
+man to a feeble, chair-bound cripple.
+
+Mrs. Downs stepped bravely along the dark country road; she could see
+a light in her own kitchen window half a mile away, and did not stop
+to notice either the penetrating dampness, or the shadowy woods at her
+right. It was a cloudy night, but there was a dim light over the open
+fields. She had a disposition of mind towards the exciting
+circumstances of death and burial, and was in request at such times
+among her neighbors; in this she was like a city person who prefers
+tragedy to comedy, but not having the semblance within her reach, she
+made the most of looking on at real griefs and departures.
+
+Some one was walking towards her in the road; suddenly she heard
+footsteps. The figure stopped, then it came forward again.
+
+"Oh, 't is you, ain't it?" with a tone of disappointment. "I cal'lated
+you'd stop all night, 't had got to be so late, an' I was just going
+over to the Knowles gals'; well, to kind o' ask how they be, an'"--Mr.
+Peter Downs was evidently counting on his visit.
+
+"They never passed me the compliment," replied the wife. "I declare I
+didn't covet the walk home; I'm most beat out, bein' on foot so much.
+I was 'most put out with 'em for letten' of me see quite so plain that
+my room was better than my company. But I don't know's I blame 'em;
+they want to look an' see what they've got, an' kind of git by
+theirselves, I expect. 'T was natural."
+
+Mrs. Downs knew that her husband would resent her first statements,
+being a sensitive and grumbling man. She had formed a pacific habit of
+suiting her remarks to his point of view, to save an outburst. He
+contented Himself with calling the Knowles girls hoggish, and put a
+direct question as to whether they had let fall any words about their
+situation, but Martha Downs was obliged to answer in the negative.
+
+"Was Enoch Holt there after the folks come back from the grave?"
+
+"He wa'n't; they never give _him_ no encouragement neither."
+
+"He appeared well, I must say," continued Peter Downs. "He took his
+place next but one behind us in the procession, 'long of Melinda
+Dutch, an' walked to an' from with her, give her his arm, and then I
+never see him after we got back; but I thought he might be somewhere
+in the house, an' I was out about the barn an' so on."
+
+"They was civil to him. I was by when he come, just steppin' out of
+the bedroom after we'd finished layin' the old Cap'n into his coffin.
+Hannah looked real pleased when she see Enoch, as if she hadn't really
+expected him, but Betsey stuck out her hand's if 't was an eend o'
+board, an' drawed her face solemner 'n ever. There, they had natural
+feelin's. He was their own father when all was said, the Cap'n was,
+an' I don't know but he was clever to 'em in his way, 'ceptin' when he
+disappointed Hannah about her marryin' Jake Good'in. She l'arned to
+respect the old Cap'n's foresight, too."
+
+"Sakes alive, Marthy, how you do knock folks down with one hand an'
+set 'em up with t' other," chuckled Mr. Downs. They next discussed the
+Captain's appearance as he lay in state in the front room, a subject
+which, with its endless ramifications, would keep the whole
+neighborhood interested for weeks to come.
+
+An hour later the twinkling light in the Downs house suddenly
+disappeared. As Martha Downs took a last look out of doors through her
+bedroom window she could see no other light; the neighbors had all
+gone to bed. It was a little past nine, and the night was damp and
+still.
+
+
+II.
+
+
+The Captain Knowles place was eastward from the Downs's, and a short
+turn in the road and the piece of hard-wood growth hid one house from
+the other. At this unwontedly late hour the elderly sisters were still
+sitting in their warm kitchen; there were bright coals under the
+singing tea-kettle which hung from the crane by three or four long
+pothooks. Betsey Knowles objected when her sister offered to put on
+more wood.
+
+"Father never liked to leave no great of a fire, even though he slept
+right here in the bedroom. He said this floor was one that would light
+an' catch easy, you r'member."
+
+"Another winter we can move down and take the bedroom ourselves--'t
+will be warmer for us," suggested Hannah; but Betsey shook her head
+doubtfully. The thought of their old father's grave, unwatched and
+undefended in the outermost dark field, filled their hearts with a
+strange tenderness. They had been his dutiful, patient slaves, and it
+seemed like disloyalty to have abandoned the poor shape; to be sitting
+there disregarding the thousand requirements and services of the past.
+More than all, they were facing a free future; they were their own
+mistresses at last, though past sixty years of age. Hannah was still a
+child at heart. She chased away a dread suspicion, when Betsey forbade
+the wood, lest this elder sister, who favored their father' s looks,
+might take his place as stern ruler of the household.
+
+"Betsey," said the younger sister suddenly, "we'll have us a cook
+stove, won't we, next winter? I expect we're going to have something
+to do with?"
+
+Betsey did not answer; it was impossible to say whether she truly felt
+grief or only assumed it. She had been sober and silent for the most
+part since she routed neighbor Downs, though she answered her sister's
+prattling questions with patience and sympathy. Now, she rose from her
+chair and went to one of the windows, and, pushing back the sash
+curtain, pulled the wooden shutter across and hasped it.
+
+"I ain't going to bed just yet," she explained. "I've been a-waiting
+to make sure nobody was coming in. I don't know's there'll be any
+better time to look in the chest and see what we've got to depend on.
+We never'll get no chance to do it by day."
+
+Hannah looked frightened for a moment, then nodded, and turned to the
+opposite window and pulled that shutter with much difficulty; it had
+always caught and hitched and been provoking--a warped piece of red
+oak, when even-grained white pine would have saved strength and
+patience to three generations of the Knowles race. Then the sisters
+crossed the kitchen and opened the bedroom door. Hannah shivered a
+little as the colder air struck her, and her heart beat loudly.
+Perhaps it was the same with Betsey.
+
+The bedroom was clean and orderly for the funeral guests. Instead of
+the blue homespun there was a beautifully quilted white coverlet which
+had been part of their mother's wedding furnishing, and this made the
+bedstead with its four low posts-look unfamiliar and awesome. The
+lamplight shone through the kitchen door behind them, not very bright
+at best, but Betsey reached under the bed, and with all the strength
+she could muster pulled out the end of a great sea chest. The sisters
+tugged together and pushed, and made the most of their strength before
+they finally brought it through the narrow door into the kitchen. The
+solemnity of the deed made them both whisper as they talked, and
+Hannah did not dare to say what was in her timid heart--that she would
+rather brave discovery by daylight than such a feeling of being
+disapprovingly watched now, in the dead of night. There came a slight
+sound outside the house which made her look anxiously at Betsey, but
+Betsey remained tranquil.
+
+"It's nothing but a stick falling down the woodpile," she answered in
+a contemptuous whisper, and the younger woman was reassured.
+
+Betsey reached deep into her pocket and found a great key which was
+worn smooth and bright like silver, and never had been trusted
+willingly into even her own careful hands. Hannah held the lamp, and
+the two thin figures bent eagerly over the lid as it opened. Their
+shadows were waving about the low walls, and looked like strange
+shapes bowing and dancing behind them.
+
+The chest was stoutly timbered, as if it were built in some ship-yard,
+and there were heavy wrought-iron hinges and a large escutcheon for
+the keyhole that the ship's blacksmith might have hammered out. On the
+top somebody had scratched deeply the crossed lines for a game of fox
+and geese, which had a trivial, irreverent look, and might have been
+the unforgiven fault of some idle ship's boy. The sisters had hardly
+dared look at the chest or to signify their knowledge of its
+existence, at unwary times. They had swept carefully about it year
+after year, and wondered if it were indeed full of gold as the
+neighbors used to hint; but no matter how much found a way in, little
+had found the way out. They had been hampered all their lives for
+money, and in consequence had developed a wonderful facility for
+spinning and weaving, mending and making. Their small farm was an
+early example of intensive farming; they were allowed to use its
+products in a niggardly way, but the money that was paid for wool, for
+hay, for wood, and for summer crops had all gone into the chest. The
+old captain was a hard master; he rarely commended and often blamed.
+Hannah trembled before him, but Betsey faced him sturdily, being
+amazingly like him, with a feminine difference; as like as a ruled
+person can be to a ruler, for the discipline of life had taught the
+man to aggress, the woman only to defend. In the chest was a fabled
+sum of prize-money, besides these slender earnings of many years; all
+the sisters' hard work and self-sacrifice were there in money and a
+mysterious largess besides. All their lives they had been looking
+forward to this hour of ownership.
+
+There was a solemn hush in the house; the two sisters were safe from
+their neighbors, and there was no fear of interruption at such an hour
+in that hard-working community, tired with a day's work that had been
+early begun. If any one came knocking at the door, both door and
+windows were securely fastened.
+
+The eager sisters bent above the chest, they held their breath and
+talked in softest whispers. With stealthy tread a man came out of the
+woods near by.
+
+He stopped to listen, came nearer, stopped again, and then crept close
+to the old house. He stepped upon the banking, next the window with
+the warped shutter; there was a knothole in it high above the women's
+heads, towards the top. As they leaned over the chest, an eager eye
+watched them. If they had turned that way suspiciously, the eye might
+have caught the flicker of the lamp and betrayed itself. No, they were
+too busy: the eye at the shutter watched and watched.
+
+There was a certain feeling of relief in the sisters' minds because
+the contents of the chest were so commonplace at first sight. There
+were some old belongings dating back to their father's early days of
+seafaring. They unfolded a waistcoat pattern or two of figured stuff
+which they had seen him fold and put away again and again. Once he had
+given Betsey a gay China silk handkerchief, and here were two more
+like it. They had not known what a store of treasures might be waiting
+for them, but the reality so far was disappointing; there was much
+spare room to begin with, and the wares within looked pinched and few.
+There were bundles of papers, old receipts, some letters in two not
+very thick bundles, some old account books with worn edges, and a
+blackened silver can which looked very small in comparison with their
+anticipation, being an heirloom and jealously hoarded and secreted by
+the old man. The women began to feel as if his lean angry figure were
+bending with them over the sea chest.
+
+They opened a package wrapped in many layers of old soft paper--a
+worked piece of Indian muslin, and an embroidered red scarf which they
+had never seen before. "He must have brought them home to mother,"
+said Betsey with a great outburst of feeling. "He never was the same
+man again; he never would let nobody else have them when he found she
+was dead, poor old father!"
+
+Hannah looked wistfully at the treasures. She rebuked herself for
+selfishness, but she thought of her pinched girlhood and the delight
+these things would have been. Ah yes! it was too late now for many
+things besides the sprigged muslin. "If I was young as I was once
+there's lots o' things I'd like to do now I'm free," said Hannah with
+a gentle sigh; but her sister checked her anxiously--it was fitting
+that they should preserve a semblance of mourning even to themselves.
+
+The lamp stood in a kitchen chair at the chest's end and shone full
+across their faces. Betsey looked intent and sober as she turned over
+the old man's treasures. Under the India mull was an antique pair of
+buff trousers, a waistcoat of strange old-fashioned foreign stuff, and
+a blue coat with brass buttons, brought home from over seas, as the
+women knew, for their father's wedding clothes. They had seen him
+carry them out at long intervals to hang them in the spring sunshine;
+he had been very feeble the last time, and Hannah remembered that she
+had longed to take them from his shaking hands.
+
+"I declare for 't I wish 't we had laid him out in 'em, 'stead o' the
+robe," she whispered; but Betsey made no answer. She was kneeling
+still, but held herself upright and looked away. It was evident that
+she was lost in her own thoughts.
+
+"I can't find nothing else by eyesight," she muttered. "This chest
+never 'd be so heavy with them old clothes. Stop! Hold that light
+down, Hannah; there's a place underneath here. Them papers in the till
+takes a shallow part. Oh, my gracious! See here, will ye? Hold the
+light, hold the light!"
+
+There was a hidden drawer in the chest's side--a long, deep place, and
+it was full of gold pieces. Hannah had seated herself in the chair to
+be out of her sister's way. She held the lamp with one hand and
+gathered her apron on her lap with the other, while Betsey, exultant
+and hawk-eyed, took out handful after handful of heavy coins, letting
+them jingle and chink, letting them shine in the lamp's rays, letting
+them roll across the floor--guineas, dollars, doubloons, old French
+and Spanish and English gold!
+
+_Now, now! Look! The eye at the window!_
+
+At last they have found it all; the bag of silver, the great roll of
+bank bills, and the heavy weight of gold--the prize-money that had
+been like Robinson Crusoe's in the cave. They were rich women that
+night; their faces grew young again as they sat side by side and
+exulted while the old kitchen grew cold. There was nothing they might
+not do within the range of their timid ambitions; they were women of
+fortune now and their own mistresses. They were beginning at last to
+live.
+
+The watcher outside was cramped and chilled. He let himself down
+softly from the high step of the winter banking, and crept toward the
+barn, where he might bury himself in the hay and think. His fingers
+were quick to find the peg that opened the little barn door; the
+beasts within were startled and stumbled to their feet, then went back
+to their slumbers. The night wore on; the light spring rain began to
+fall, and the sound of it on the house roof close down upon the
+sisters' bed lulled them quickly to sleep. Twelve, one, two o'clock
+passed by.
+
+They had put back the money and the clothes and the minor goods and
+treasures and pulled the chest back into the bedroom so that it was
+out of sight from the kitchen; the bedroom door was always shut by
+day. The younger sister wished to carry the money to their own room,
+but Betsey disdained such precaution. The money had always been safe
+in the old chest, and there it should stay. The next week they would
+go to Riverport and put it into the bank; it was no use to lose the
+interest any longer. Because their father had lost some invested money
+in his early youth, it did not follow that every bank was faithless.
+Betsey's self-assertion was amazing, but they still whispered to each
+other as they got ready for bed. With strange forgetfulness Betsey had
+laid the chest key on the white coverlet in the bedroom and left it
+there.
+
+
+III.
+
+
+In August of that year the whole countryside turned out to go to
+court.
+
+The sisters had been rich for one night; in the morning they waked to
+find themselves poor with a bitter pang of poverty of which they had
+never dreamed. They had said little, but they grew suddenly pinched
+and old. They could not tell how much money they had lost, except that
+Hannah's lap was full of gold, a weight she could not lift nor carry.
+After a few days of stolid misery they had gone to the chief lawyer of
+their neighborhood to accuse Enoch Holt of the robbery. They dressed
+in their best and walked solemnly side by side across the fields and
+along the road, the shortest way to the man of law. Enoch Holt's
+daughter saw them go as she stood in her doorway, and felt a cold
+shiver run through her frame as if in foreboding. Her father was not
+at home; he had left for Boston late on the afternoon of Captain
+Knowles's funeral. He had had notice the day before of the coming in
+of a ship in which he owned  a thirty-second; there was talk of
+selling the ship, and the owners' agent had summoned him. He had taken
+pains to go to the funeral, because he and the old captain had been on
+bad terms ever since they had bought a piece of woodland together, and
+the captain declared himself wronged at the settling of accounts. He
+was growing feeble even then, and had left the business to the younger
+man. Enoch Holt was not a trusted man, yet he had never before been
+openly accused of dishonesty. He was not a professor of religion, but
+foremost on the secular side of church matters. Most of the men in
+that region were hard men; it was difficult to get money, and there
+was little real comfort in a community where the sterner, stingier,
+forbidding side of New England life was well exemplified.
+
+The proper steps had been taken by the officers of the law, and in
+answer to the writ Enoch Holt appeared, much shocked and very
+indignant, and was released on bail which covered the sum his shipping
+interest had brought him. The weeks had dragged by; June and July were
+long in passing, and here was court day at last, and all the townsfolk
+hastening by high-roads and by-roads to the court-house. The Knowles
+girls themselves had risen at break of day and walked the distance
+steadfastly, like two of the three Fates: who would make the third, to
+cut the thread for their enemy's disaster? Public opinion was divided.
+There were many voices ready to speak on the accused man's side; a
+sharp-looking acquaintance left his business in Boston to swear that
+Holt was in his office before noon on the day following the robbery,
+and that he had spent most of the night in Boston, as proved by
+several minor details of their interview. As for Holt's young married
+daughter, she was a favorite with the townsfolk, and her husband was
+away at sea overdue these last few weeks. She sat on one of the hard
+court benches with a young child in her arms, born since its father
+sailed; they had been more or less unlucky, the Holt family, though
+Enoch himself was a man of brag and bluster.
+
+All the hot August morning, until the noon recess, and all the hot
+August afternoon, fly-teased and wretched with the heavy air, the
+crowd of neighbors listened to the trial. There was not much evidence
+brought; everybody knew that Enoch Holt left the funeral procession
+hurriedly, and went away on horseback towards Boston. His daughter
+knew no more than this. The Boston man gave his testimony impatiently,
+and one or two persons insisted that they saw the accused on his way
+at nightfall, several miles from home.
+
+As the testimony came out, it all tended to prove his innocence,
+though public opinion was to the contrary. The Knowles sisters looked
+more stern and gray hour by hour; their vengeance was not to be
+satisfied; their accusation had been listened to and found wanting,
+but their instinctive knowledge of the matter counted for nothing.
+They must have been watched through the knot-hole of the shutter;
+nobody had noticed it until, some years before, Enoch Holt himself had
+spoken of the light's shining through on a winter's night as he came
+towards the house. The chief proof was that nobody else could have
+done the deed. But why linger over _pros_ and _cons?_ The jury
+returned directly with a verdict of "not proven," and the tired
+audience left the court-house.
+
+But not until Hannah Knowles with angry eyes had risen to her feet.
+
+The sterner elder sister tried to pull her back; every one said that
+they should have looked to Betsey to say the awful words that
+followed, not to her gentler companion. It was Hannah, broken and
+disappointed, who cried in a strange high voice as Enoch Holt was
+passing by without a look:
+
+"You stole it, you thief! You know it in your heart!"
+
+The startled man faltered, then he faced the women. The people who
+stood near seemed made of eyes as they stared to see what he would
+say.
+
+"I swear by my right hand I never touched it."
+
+"Curse your right hand, then!" cried Hannah Knowles, growing tall and
+thin like a white flame drawing upward. "Curse your right hand, yours
+and all your folks' that follow you! May I live to see the day!"
+
+The people drew back, while for a moment accused and accuser stood
+face to face. Then Holt's flushed face turned white, and he shrank
+from the fire in those wild eyes, and walked away clumsily down the
+courtroom. Nobody followed him, nobody shook hands with him, or told
+the acquitted man that they were glad of his release. Half an hour
+later, Betsey and Hannah Knowles took their homeward way, to begin
+their hard round of work again. The horizon that had widened with such
+glory for one night, had closed round them again like an iron wall.
+
+Betsey was alarmed and excited by her sister's uncharacteristic
+behavior, and she looked at her anxiously from time to time. Hannah
+had become the harder-faced of the two. Her disappointment was the
+keener, for she had kept more of the unsatisfied desires of her
+girlhood until that dreary morning when they found the sea-chest
+rifled and the treasure gone.
+
+Betsey said inconsequently that it was a pity she did not have that
+black silk gown that would stand alone. They had planned for it over
+the open chest, and Hannah's was to be a handsome green. They might
+have worn them to court. But even the pathetic facetiousness of her
+elder sister did not bring a smile to Hannah Knowles's face, and the
+next day one was at the loom and the other at the wheel again. The
+neighbors talked about the curse with horror; in their minds a fabric
+of sad fate was spun from the bitter words.
+
+The Knowles sisters never had worn silk gowns and they never would.
+Sometimes Hannah or Betsey would stealthily look over the chest in one
+or the other's absence. One day when Betsey was very old and her mind
+had grown feeble, she tied her own India silk handkerchief about her
+neck, but they never used the other two. They aired the wedding suit
+once every spring as long as they lived. They were both too old and
+forlorn to make up the India mull. Nobody knows how many times they
+took everything out of the heavy old clamped box, and peered into
+every nook and corner to see if there was not a single gold piece
+left. They never answered any one who made bold to speak of their
+misfortune.
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+Enoch Holt had been a seafaring man in his early days, and there was
+news that the owners of a Salem ship in which he held a small interest
+wished him to go out as supercargo. He was brisk and well in health,
+and his son-in-law, an honest but an unlucky fellow, had done less
+well than usual, so that nobody was surprised when Enoch made ready
+for his voyage. It was nearly a year after the theft, and nothing had
+come so near to restoring him to public favor as his apparent lack of
+ready money. He openly said that he put great hope in his adventure to
+the Spice Islands, and when he said farewell one Sunday to some
+members of the dispersing congregation, more than one person wished
+him heartily a pleasant voyage and safe return. He had an insinuating
+tone of voice and an imploring look that day, and this fact, with his
+probable long absence and the dangers of the deep, won him much
+sympathy. It is a shameful thing to accuse a man wrongfully, and Enoch
+Holt had behaved well since the trial; and, what is more, had shown no
+accession to his means of living.  So away he went, with a fair amount
+of good wishes, though one or two persons assured remonstrating
+listeners that they thought it likely Enoch would make a good voyage,
+better than common, and show himself forwarded when he came to port.
+Soon after his departure, Mrs. Peter Downs and an intimate
+acquaintance discussed the ever-exciting subject of the Knowles
+robbery over a friendly cup of tea.
+
+They were in the Downs kitchen, and quite by themselves. Peter Downs
+himself had been drawn as a juror, and had been for two days at the
+county town. Mrs. Downs was giving herself to social interests in his
+absence, and Mrs. Forder, an asthmatic but very companionable person,
+had arrived by two o'clock that afternoon with her knitting work, sure
+of being welcome. The two old friends had first talked over varied
+subjects of immediate concern, but when supper was nearly finished,
+they fell back upon the lost Knowles gold, as has been already said.
+
+"They got a dreadful blow, poor gals," wheezed Mrs. Forder, with
+compassion. "'T was harder for them than for most folks; they'd had a
+long stent with the ol' gentleman; very arbitrary, very arbitrary."
+
+"Yes," answered Mrs. Downs, pushing back her tea-cup, then lifting it
+again to see if it was quite empty. "Yes, it took holt o' Hannah, the
+most. I should 'a' said Betsey was a good deal the most set in her
+ways an' would 'a' been most tore up, but 't wa'n't so."
+
+"Lucky that Holt's folks sets on the other aisle in the meetin'-house,
+I do consider, so 't they needn't face each other sure as Sabbath
+comes round."
+
+"I see Hannah an' him come face to face two Sabbaths afore Enoch left.
+So happened he dallied to have a word 'long o' Deacon Good'in, an' him
+an' Hannah stepped front of each other 'fore they knowed what they's
+about. I sh'd thought her eyes 'd looked right through him. No one of
+'em took the word; Enoch he slinked off pretty quick."
+
+"I see 'em too," said Mrs. Forder; "made my blood run cold."
+
+"Nothin' ain't come of the curse yit,"--Mrs. Downs lowered the tone of
+her voice,--"least, folks says so. It kind o' worries pore Phoebe
+Holt--Mis' Dow, I would say. She was narved all up at the time o' the
+trial, an' when her next baby come into the world, first thin' she
+made out t' ask me was whether it seemed likely, an' she gived me a
+pleadin' look as if I'd got to tell her what she hadn't heart to ask.
+'Yes, dear,' says I, 'put up his little hands to me kind of wonted';
+an' she turned a look on me like another creatur', so pleased an'
+contented."
+
+"I s'pose you don't see no great of the Knowles gals?" inquired
+Mrs. Forder, who lived two miles away in the other direction.
+
+"They stepped to the door yisterday when I was passin' by, an' I went
+in an' set a spell long of 'em," replied the hostess. "They'd got
+pestered with that ol' loom o' theirn. 'Fore I thought, says I, ''T is
+all worn out, Betsey,' says I. 'Why on airth don't ye git somebody to
+git some o' your own wood an' season it well so 't won't warp, same's
+mine done, an' build ye a new one?' But Betsey muttered an' twitched
+away; 't wa'n't like her, but they're dis'p'inted at every turn, I
+s'pose, an' feel poor where they've got the same's ever to do with.
+Hannah's a-coughin' this spring's if somethin' ailed her. I asked her
+if she had bad feelin's in her pipes, an' she said yis, she had, but
+not to speak of 't before Betsey. I'm goin' to fix her up some
+hoarhound an' elecampane quick's the ground's nice an' warm an' roots
+livens up a grain more. They're limp an' wizened 'long to the fust of
+the spring. Them would be service'ble, simmered away to a syrup 'long
+o' molasses; now don't you think so, Mis' Forder?"
+
+"Excellent," replied the wheezing dame. "I covet a portion myself, now
+you speak. Nothin' cures my complaint, but a new remedy takes holt
+clever sometimes, an' eases me for a spell." And she gave a plaintive
+sigh, and began to knit again.
+
+Mrs. Downs rose and pushed the supper-table to the wall and drew her
+chair nearer to the stove. The April nights were chilly.
+
+"The folks is late comin' after me," said Mrs. Forder, ostentatiously.
+"I may's well confess that I told 'em if they was late with the work
+they might let go o' fetchin' o' me an' I'd walk home in the mornin';
+take it easy when I was fresh. Course I mean ef 't wouldn't put you
+out: I knowed you was all alone, an' I kind o' wanted a change."
+
+"Them words was in my mind to utter while we was to table," avowed
+Mrs. Downs, hospitably. "I ain't reelly afeared, but 't is sort o'
+creepy fastenin' up an' goin' to bed alone. Nobody can't help
+hearkin', an' every common noise starts you. I never used to give
+nothin' a thought till the Knowleses was robbed, though."
+
+"'T was mysterious, I do maintain," acknowledged Mrs. Forder. "Comes
+over me sometimes p'raps 't wasn't Enoch; he'd 'a' branched out more
+in course o' time. I'm waitin' to see if he does extry well to sea
+'fore I let my mind come to bear on his bein' clean handed."
+
+"Plenty thought 't was the ole Cap'n come back for it an' sperited it
+away. Enough said that 't wasn't no honest gains; most on't was
+prize-money o' slave ships, an' all kinds o' devil's gold was mixed
+in. I s'pose you've heard that said?"
+
+"Time an' again," responded Mrs. Forder; "an' the worst on't was
+simple old Pappy Flanders went an' told the Knowles gals themselves
+that folks thought the ole Cap'n come back an' got it, and Hannah done
+wrong to cuss Enoch Holt an' his ginerations after him the way she
+done."
+
+"I think it took holt on her ter'ble after all she'd gone through,"
+said Mrs. Downs, compassionately. "He ain't near so simple as he is
+ugly, Pappy Flanders ain't. I've seen him set here an' read the paper
+sober's anybody when I've been goin' about my mornin's work in the
+shed-room, an' when I'd come in to look about he'd twist it with his
+hands an' roll his eyes an' begin to git off some o' his gable. I
+think them wander-in' cheap-wits likes the fun on't an' 'scapes stiddy
+work, an' gits the rovin' habit so fixed, it sp'iles 'em."
+
+"My gran'ther was to the South Seas in his young days," related
+Mrs. Forder, impressively, "an' he said cussin' was common there. I
+mean sober spitin' with a cuss. He seen one o' them black folks git a
+gredge against another an' go an' set down an' look stiddy at him in
+his hut an' cuss him in his mind an' set there an' watch, watch, until
+the other kind o' took sick an' died, all in a fortnight, I believe he
+said; 't would make your blood run cold to hear gran'ther describe it,
+'t would so. He never done nothin' but set an' look, an' folks would
+give him somethin' to eat now an' then, as if they thought 't was all
+right, an' the other one 'd try to go an' come, an' at last he hived
+away altogether an' died. I don't know what you'd call it that ailed
+him. There's suthin' in cussin' that's bad for folks, now I tell ye,
+Mis' Downs."
+
+"Hannah's eyes always makes me creepy now," Mrs. Downs confessed
+uneasily. "They don't look pleadin' an' childish same 's they used to.
+Seems to me as if she'd had the worst on't."
+
+"We ain't seen the end on't yit," said Mrs. Forder, impressively. "I
+feel it within me, Marthy Downs, an' it's a terrible thing to have
+happened right amon'st us in Christian times. If we live long enough
+we're goin' to have plenty to talk over in our old age that's come o'
+that cuss. Some seed's shy o' sproutin' till a spring when the s'ile's
+jest right to breed it."
+
+"There's lobeely now," agreed Mrs. Downs, pleased to descend to
+prosaic and familiar levels. "They ain't a good crop one year in six,
+and then you find it in a place where you never observed none to grow
+afore, like's not; ain't it so, reelly?" And she rose to clear the
+table, pleased with the certainty of a guest that night. Their
+conversation was not reassuring to the heart of a timid woman, alone
+in an isolated farmhouse on a dark spring evening, especially so near
+the anniversary of old Captain Knowles's death.
+
+
+
+V.
+
+
+
+Later in these rural lives by many years two aged women were crossing
+a wide field together, following a footpath such as one often finds
+between widely separated homes of the New England country. Along these
+lightly traced thoroughfares, the children go to play, and lovers to
+plead, and older people to companion one another in work and pleasure,
+in sickness and sorrow; generation after generation comes and goes
+again by these country by-ways.
+
+The footpath led from Mrs. Forder's to another farmhouse half a mile
+beyond, where there had been a wedding. Mrs. Downs was there, and in
+the June weather she had been easily persuaded to go home to tea with
+Mrs. Forder with the promise of being driven home later in the
+evening. Mrs. Downs's husband had been dead three years, and her
+friend's large family was scattered from the old nest; they were
+lonely at times in their later years, these old friends, and found it
+very pleasant now to have a walk together. Thin little Mrs. Forder,
+with all her wheezing, was the stronger and more active of the two:
+Downs had grown heavier and weaker with advancing years.
+
+They paced along the footpath slowly, Mrs. Downs rolling in her gait
+like a sailor, and availing herself of every pretext to stop and look
+at herbs in the pasture ground they crossed, and at the growing grass
+in the mowing fields. They discussed the wedding minutely, and then
+where the way grew wider they walked side by side instead of following
+each other, and their voices sank to the low tone that betokens
+confidence.
+
+"You don't say that you really put faith in all them old stories?"
+
+"It ain't accident altogether, noways you can fix it in your mind,"
+maintained Mrs. Downs. "Needn't tell me that cussin' don't do neither
+good nor harm. I shouldn't want to marry amon'st the Holts if I was
+young ag'in! I r'member when this young man was born that's married
+to-day, an' the fust thing his poor mother wanted to know was about
+his hands bein' right. I said yes they was, but las' year he was
+twenty year old and come home from the frontier with one o' them
+hands--his right one--shot off in a fight. They say 't happened to
+sights o' other fel-lows, an' their laigs gone too, but I count 'em
+over on my fingers, them Holts, an' he's the third. May say that 't
+was all an accident his mother's gittin' throwed out o' her waggin
+comin' home from meetin', an' her wrist not bein' set good, an' she,
+bein' run down at the time, 'most lost it altogether, but thar' it is,
+stiffened up an' no good to her. There was the second. An' Enoch Holt
+hisself come home from the Chiny seas, made a good passage an' a sight
+o' money in the pepper trade, jest's we expected, an' goin' to build
+him a new house, an' the frame gives a kind o' lurch when they was
+raisin' of it an' surges over on to him an' nips him under. 'Which
+arm?' says everybody along the road when they was comin' an' goin'
+with the doctor. 'Right one--got to lose it,' says the doctor to 'em,
+an' next time Enoch Holt got out to meetin' he stood up in the house
+o' God with the hymn-book in his left hand, an' no right hand to turn
+his leaf with. He knowed what we was all a-thinkin'."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Forder, very short-breathed with climbing the long
+slope of the pasture hill, "I don't know but I'd as soon be them as
+the Knowles gals. Hannah never knowed no peace again after she spoke
+them words in the co't-house. They come back an' harnted her, an' you
+know, Miss Downs, better 'n I do, being door-neighbors as one may say,
+how they lived their lives out like wild beasts into a lair."
+
+"They used to go out some by night to git the air," pursued Mrs. Downs
+with interest. "I used to open the door an' step right in, an' I used
+to take their yarn an' stuff 'long o' mine an' sell 'em, an' do for
+the poor stray creatur's long's they'd let me. They'd be grateful for
+a mess o' early pease or potatoes as ever you see, an' Peter he allays
+favored 'em with pork, fresh an' salt, when we slaughtered. The old
+Cap'n kept 'em child'n long as he lived, an' then they was too old to
+l'arn different. I allays liked Hannah the best till that change
+struck her. Betsey she held out to the last jest about the same. I
+don't know, now I come to think of it, but what she felt it the most
+o' the two."
+
+"They'd never let me's much as git a look at 'em," complained
+Mrs. Forder. "Folks got awful stories a-goin' one time. I've heard it
+said, an' it allays creeped me cold all over, that there was somethin'
+come an' lived with 'em--a kind o' black shadder, a cobweb kind o' a
+man-shape that followed 'em about the house an' made a third to them;
+but they got hardened to it theirselves, only they was afraid 't would
+follow if they went anywheres from home. You don't believe no such
+piece o' nonsense?--But there, I've asked ye times enough before."
+
+"They'd got shadders enough, poor creatur's," said Mrs. Downs with
+reserve. "Wasn't no kind o' need to make 'em up no spooks, as I know
+on. Well, here's these young folks a-startin'; I wish 'em well, I'm
+sure. She likes him with his one hand better than most gals likes them
+as has a good sound pair. They looked prime happy; I hope no curse
+won't foller 'em."
+
+The friends stopped again--poor, short-winded bodies--on the crest of
+the low hill and turned to look at the wide landscape, bewildered by
+the marvelous beauty and the sudden flood of golden sunset light that
+poured out of the western sky. They could not remember that they had
+ever observed the wide view before; it was like a revelation or an
+outlook towards the celestial country, the sight of their own green
+farms and the countryside that bounded them. It was a pleasant country
+indeed, their own New England: their petty thoughts and vain
+imaginings seemed futile and unrelated to so fair a scene of things.
+But the figure of a man who was crossing the meadow below looked like
+a malicious black insect. It was an old man, it was Enoch Holt; time
+had worn and bent him enough to have satisfied his bitterest foe. The
+women could see his empty coat-sleeve flutter as he walked slowly and
+unexpectantly in that glorious evening light.
+
+
+
+
+THE WHITE ROSE ROAD.
+
+
+Being a New Englander, it is natural that I should first speak about
+the weather. Only the middle of June, the green fields, and blue sky,
+and bright sun, with a touch of northern mountain wind blowing
+straight toward the sea, could make such a day, and that is all one
+can say about it. We were driving seaward through a part of the
+country which has been least changed in the last thirty years,--among
+farms which have been won from swampy lowland, and rocky,
+stamp-buttressed hillsides: where the forests wall in the fields, and
+send their outposts year by year farther into the pastures. There is a
+year or two in the history of these pastures before they have arrived
+at the dignity of being called woodland, and yet are too much shaded
+and overgrown by young trees to give proper pasturage, when they made
+delightful harbors for the small wild creatures which yet remain, and
+for wild flowers and berries. Here you send an astonished rabbit
+scurrying to his burrow, and there you startle yourself with a
+partridge, who seems to get the best of the encounter. Sometimes you
+see a hen partridge and her brood of chickens crossing your path with
+an air of comfortable door-yard security. As you drive along the
+narrow, grassy road, you see many charming sights and delightful nooks
+on either hand, where the young trees spring out of a close-cropped
+turf that carpets the ground like velvet. Toward the east and the
+quaint fishing village of Ogunquit, I find the most delightful
+woodland roads. There is little left of the large timber which once
+filled the region, but much young growth, and there are hundreds of
+acres of cleared land and pasture-ground where the forests are
+springing fast and covering the country once more, as if they had no
+idea of losing in their war with civilization and the intruding white
+settler. The pine woods and the Indians seem to be next of kin, and
+the former owners of this corner of New England are the only proper
+figures to paint into such landscapes. The twilight under tall pines
+seems to be untenanted and to lack something, at first sight, as if
+one opened the door of an empty house. A farmer passing through with
+his axe is but an intruder, and children straying home from school
+give one a feeling of solicitude at their unprotectedness. The pine
+woods are the red man's house, and it may be hazardous even yet for
+the gray farmhouses to stand so near the eaves of the forest. I have
+noticed a distrust of the deep woods, among elderly people, which was
+something more than a fear of losing their way. It was a feeling of
+defenselessness against some unrecognized but malicious influence.
+
+Driving through the long woodland way, shaded and chilly when you are
+out of the sun; across the Great Works River and its pretty elm-grown
+intervale; across the short bridges of brown brooks; delayed now and
+then by the sight of ripe strawberries in sunny spots by the roadside,
+one comes to a higher open country, where farm joins farm, and the
+cleared fields lie all along the highway, while the woods are pushed
+back a good distance on either hand. The wooded hills, bleak here and
+there with granite ledges, rise beyond. The houses are beside the
+road, with green door-yards and large barns, almost empty now, and
+with wide doors standing open, as if they were already expecting the
+hay crop to be brought in. The tall green grass is waving in the
+fields as the wind goes over, and there is a fragrance of whiteweed
+and ripe strawberries and clover blowing through the sunshiny barns,
+with their lean sides and their festoons of brown, dusty cobwebs;
+dull, comfortable creatures they appear to imaginative eyes, waiting
+hungrily for their yearly meal. The eave-swallows are teasing their
+sleepy shapes, like the birds which flit about great beasts; gay,
+movable, irreverent, almost derisive, those barn swallows fly to and
+fro in the still, clear air.
+
+The noise of our wheels brings fewer faces to the windows than usual,
+and we lose the pleasure of seeing some of our friends who are apt to
+be looking out, and to whom we like to say good-day. Some funeral must
+be taking place, or perhaps the women may have gone out into the
+fields. It is hoeing-time and strawberry-time, and already we have
+seen some of the younger women at work among the corn and potatoes.
+One sight will be charming to remember. On a green hillside sloping to
+the west, near one of the houses, a thin little girl was working away
+lustily with a big hoe on a patch of land perhaps fifty feet by
+twenty. There were all sorts of things growing there, as if a child's
+fancy had made the choice,--straight rows of turnips and carrots and
+beets, a little of everything, one might say; but the only touch of
+color was from a long border of useful sage in full bloom of dull
+blue, on the upper side. I am sure this was called Katy's or Becky's
+_piece_ by the elder members of the family. One can imagine how the
+young creature had planned it in the spring, and persuaded the men to
+plough and harrow it, and since then had stoutly done all the work
+herself, and meant to send the harvest of the piece to market, and
+pocket her honest gains, as they came in, for some great end. She was
+as thin as a grasshopper, this busy little gardener, and hardly turned
+to give us a glance, as we drove slowly up the hill close by. The sun
+will brown and dry her like a spear of grass on that hot slope, but a
+spark of fine spirit is in the small body, and I wish her a famous
+crop. I hate to say that the piece looked backward, all except the
+sage, and that it was a heavy bit of land for the clumsy hoe to pick
+at. The only puzzle is, what she proposes to do with so long a row of
+sage. Yet there may be a large family with a downfall of measles yet
+ahead, and she does not mean to be caught without sage-tea.
+
+Along this road every one of the old farmhouses has at least one tall
+bush of white roses by the door,--a most lovely sight, with buds and
+blossoms, and unvexed green leaves. I wish that I knew the history of
+them, and whence the first bush was brought. Perhaps from England
+itself, like a red rose that I know in Kittery, and the new shoots
+from the root were given to one neighbor after another all through the
+district. The bushes are slender, but they grow tall without climbing
+against the wall, and sway to and fro in the wind with a grace of
+youth and an inexpressible charm of beauty. How many lovers must have
+picked them on Sunday evenings, in all the bygone years, and carried
+them along the roads or by the pasture footpaths, hiding them clumsily
+under their Sunday coats if they caught sight of any one coming. Here,
+too, where the sea wind nips many a young life before its prime, how
+often the white roses have been put into paler hands, and withered
+there! In spite of the serene and placid look of the old houses, one
+who has always known them cannot help thinking of the sorrows of these
+farms and their almost undiverted toil. Near the little gardener's
+plot, we turned from the main road and drove through lately cleared
+woodland up to an old farmhouse, high on a ledgy hill, whence there is
+a fine view of the country seaward and mountain-ward. There were few
+of the once large household left there: only the old farmer, who was
+crippled by war wounds, active, cheerful man that he was once, and two
+young orphan children. There has been much hard work spent on the
+place. Every generation has toiled from youth to age without being
+able to make much beyond a living. The dollars that can be saved are
+but few, and sickness and death have often brought their bitter cost.
+The mistress of the farm was helpless for many years; through all the
+summers and winters she sat in her pillowed rocking-chair in the plain
+room. She could watch the seldom-visited lane, and beyond it, a little
+way across the fields, were the woods; besides these, only the clouds
+in the sky. She could not lift her food to her mouth; she could not be
+her husband's working partner. She never went into another woman's
+house to see her works and ways, but sat there, aching and tired,
+vexed by flies and by heat, and isolated in long storms. Yet the whole
+countryside neighbored her with true affection. Her spirit grew
+stronger as her body grew weaker, and the doctors, who grieved because
+they could do so little with their skill, were never confronted by
+that malady of the spirit, a desire for ease and laziness, which makes
+the soundest of bodies useless and complaining. The thought of her
+blooms in one's mind like the whitest of flowers; it makes one braver
+and more thankful to remember the simple faith and patience with which
+she bore her pain and trouble. How often she must have said, "I wish I
+could do something for you in return," when she was doing a thousand
+times more than if, like her neighbors, she followed the simple round
+of daily life! She was doing constant kindness by her example; but
+nobody can tell the woe of her long days and nights, the solitude of
+her spirit, as she was being lifted by such hard ways to the knowledge
+of higher truth and experience. Think of her pain when, one after
+another, her children fell ill and died, and she could not tend them!
+And now, in the same worn chair where she lived and slept sat her
+husband, helpless too, thinking of her, and missing her more than if
+she had been sometimes away from home, like other women. Even a
+stranger would miss her in the house.
+
+There sat the old farmer looking down the lane in his turn, bearing
+his afflictions with a patient sterness that may have been born of
+watching his wife's serenity. There was a half-withered rose lying
+within his reach. Some days nobody came up the lane, and the wild
+birds that ventured near the house and the clouds that blew over were
+his only entertainment. He had a fine face, of the older New England
+type, clean-shaven and strong-featured,--a type that is fast passing
+away. He might have been a Cumberland dalesman, such were his dignity,
+and self-possession, and English soberness of manner. His large frame
+was built for hard work, for lifting great weights and pushing his
+plough through new-cleared land. We felt at home together, and each
+knew many things that the other did of earlier days, and of losses
+that had come with time. I remembered coming to the old house often in
+my childhood; it was in this very farm lane that I first saw anemones,
+and learned what to call them. After we drove away, this crippled man
+must have thought a long time about my elders and betters, as if he
+were reading their story out of a book. I suppose he has hauled many a
+stick of timber pine down for ship-yards, and gone through the village
+so early in the winter morning that I, waking in my warm bed, only
+heard the sleds creak through the frozen snow as the slow oxen plodded
+by.
+
+Near the house a trout brook comes plashing over the ledges. At one
+place there is a most exquisite waterfall, to which neither painter's
+brush nor writer's pen can do justice. The sunlight falls through
+flickering leaves into the deep glen, and makes the foam whiter and
+the brook more golden-brown. You can hear the merry noise of it all
+night, all day, in the house. A little way above the farmstead it
+comes through marshy ground, which I fear has been the cause of much
+illness and sorrow to the poor, troubled family. I had a thrill of
+pain, as it seemed to me that the brook was mocking at all that
+trouble with all its wild carelessness and loud laughter, as it
+hurried away down the glen.
+
+When we had said good-by and were turning the horses away, there
+suddenly appeared in a footpath that led down from one of the green
+hills the young grandchild, just coming home from school. She was as
+quick as a bird, and as shy in her little pink gown, and balanced
+herself on one foot, like a flower. The brother was the elder of the
+two orphans; he was the old man's delight and dependence by day, while
+his hired man was afield. The sober country boy had learned to wait
+and tend, and the young people were indeed a joy in that lonely
+household. There was no sign that they ever played like other
+children,--no truckle-cart in the yard, no doll, no bits of broken
+crockery in order on a rock. They had learned a fashion of life from
+their elders, and already could lift and carry their share of the
+burdens of life.
+
+It was a country of wild flowers; the last of the columbines were
+clinging to the hillsides; down in the small, fenced meadows belonging
+to the farm were meadow rue just coming in flower, and red and white
+clover; the golden buttercups were thicker than the grass, while many
+mulleins were standing straight and slender among the pine stumps,
+with their first blossoms atop. Rudbeckias had found their way in, and
+appeared more than ever like bold foreigners. Their names should be
+translated into country speech, and the children ought to call them
+"rude-beckies," by way of relating them to bouncing-bets and
+sweet-williams. The pasture grass was green and thick after the
+plentiful rains, and the busy cattle took little notice of us as they
+browsed steadily and tinkled their pleasant bells. Looking off, the
+smooth, round back of Great Hill caught the sunlight with its fields
+of young grain, and all the long, wooded slopes and valleys were fresh
+and fair in the June weather, away toward the blue New Hampshire hills
+on the northern horizon. Seaward stood Agamenticus, dark with its
+pitch pines, and the far sea itself, blue and calm, ruled the uneven
+country with its unchangeable line.
+
+Out on the white rose road again, we saw more of the rose-trees than
+ever, and now and then a carefully tended flower garden, always
+delightful to see and think about. These are not made by merely
+looking through a florist's catalogue, and ordering this or that new
+seedling and a proper selection of bulbs or shrubs; everything in a
+country garden has its history and personal association. The old
+bushes, the perennials, are apt to have most tender relationship with
+the hands that planted them long ago. There is a constant exchange of
+such treasures between the neighbors, and in the spring, slips and
+cuttings may be seen rooting on the window ledges, while the house
+plants give endless work all winter long, since they need careful
+protection against frost in long nights of the severe weather. A
+flower-loving woman brings back from every one of her infrequent
+journeys some treasure of flower-seeds or a huge miscellaneous
+nosegay. Time to work in the little plot of pleasure-ground is hardly
+won by the busy mistress of the farmhouse. The most appealing
+collection of flowering plants and vines that I ever saw was in
+Virginia, once, above the exquisite valley spanned by the Natural
+Bridge, a valley far too little known or praised. I had noticed an old
+log house, as I learned to know the outlook from the picturesque
+hotel, and was sure that it must give a charming view from its perch
+on the summit of a hill.
+
+One day I went there,--one April day, when the whole landscape was
+full of color from the budding trees,--and before I could look at the
+view, I caught sight of some rare vines, already in leaf, about the
+dilapidated walls of the cabin. Then across the low paling I saw the
+brilliant colors of tulips and daffodils. There were many rose-bushes;
+in fact, the whole top of the hill was a flower garden, once well
+cared for and carefully ordered. It was all the work of an old woman
+of Scotch-Irish descent, who had been busy with the cares of life, and
+a very hard worker; yet I was told that to gratify her love for
+flowers she would often go afoot many miles over those rough Virginia
+roads, with a root or cutting from her own garden, to barter for a new
+rose or a brighter blossom of some sort, with which she would return
+in triumph. I fancied that sometimes she had to go by night on these
+charming quests. I could see her business-like, small figure setting
+forth down the steep path, when she had a good conscience toward her
+housekeeping and the children were in order to be left. I am sure that
+her friends thought of her when they were away from home and could
+bring her an offering of something rare. Alas, she had grown too old
+and feeble to care for her dear blossoms any longer, and had been
+forced to go to live with a married son. I dare say that she was
+thinking of her garden that very day, and wondering if this plant or
+that were not in bloom, and perhaps had a heartache at the thought
+that her tenants, the careless colored children, might tread the young
+shoots of peony and rose, and make havoc in the herb-bed. It was an
+uncommon collection, made by years of patient toil and self-sacrifice.
+
+I thought of that deserted Southern garden as I followed my own New
+England road. The flower-plots were in gay bloom all along the way;
+almost every house had some flowers before it, sometimes carefully
+fenced about by stakes and barrel staves from the miscreant hens and
+chickens which lurked everywhere, and liked a good scratch and
+fluffing in soft earth this year as well as any other. The world
+seemed full of young life. There were calves tethered in pleasant
+shady spots, and puppies and kittens adventuring from the door-ways.
+The trees were full of birds: bobolinks, and cat-birds, and
+yellow-hammers, and golden robins, and sometimes a thrush, for the
+afternoon was wearing late. We passed the spring which famous spot in
+the early settlement of the country, but many of its old traditions
+are now forgotten. One of the omnipresent regicides of Charles the
+First is believed to have hidden himself for a long time under a great
+rock close by. The story runs that he made his miserable home in this
+den for several years, but I believe that there is no record that more
+than three of the regicides escaped to this country, and their
+wanderings are otherwise accounted for. There is a firm belief that
+one of them came to York, and was the ancestor of many persons now
+living there, but I do not know whether he can have been the hero of
+the Baker's Spring hermitage beside. We stopped to drink some of the
+delicious water, which never fails to flow cold and clear under the
+shade of a great oak, and were amused with the sight of a flock of gay
+little country children who passed by in deep conversation. What could
+such atoms of humanity be talking about? "Old times," said John, the
+master of horse, with instant decision.
+
+We met now and then a man or woman, who stopped to give us hospitable
+greeting; but there was no staying for visits, lest the daylight might
+fail us. It was delightful to find this old-established neighborhood
+so thriving and populous, for a few days before I had driven over
+three miles of road, and passed only one house that was tenanted, and
+six cellars or crumbling chimneys where good farmhouses had been, the
+lilacs blooming in solitude, and the fields, cleared with so much
+difficulty a century or two ago, all going back to the original
+woodland from which they were won. What would the old farmers say to
+see the fate of their worthy bequest to the younger generation? They
+would wag their heads sorrowfully, with sad foreboding.
+
+After we had passed more woodland and a well-known quarry, where, for
+a wonder, the derrick was not creaking and not a single hammer was
+clinking at the stone wedges, we did not see any one hoeing in the
+fields, as we had seen so many on the white rose road, the other side
+of the hills. Presently we met two or three people walking sedately,
+clad in their best clothes. There was a subdued air of public
+excitement and concern, and one of us remembered that there had been a
+death in the neighborhood; this was the day of the funeral. The man
+had been known to us in former years. We had an instinct to hide our
+unsympathetic pleasuring, but there was nothing to be done except to
+follow our homeward road straight by the house.
+
+The occasion was nearly ended by this time: the borrowed chairs were
+being set out in the yard in little groups; even the funeral supper
+had been eaten, and the brothers and sisters and near relatives of the
+departed man were just going home. The new grave showed plainly out in
+the green field near by. He had belonged to one of the ancient
+families of the region, long settled on this old farm by the narrow
+river; they had given their name to a bridge, and the bridge had
+christened the meeting-house which stood close by. We were much struck
+by the solemn figure of the mother, a very old woman, as she walked
+toward her old home with some of her remaining children. I had not
+thought to see her again, knowing her great age and infirmity. She was
+like a presence out of the last century, tall and still erect,
+dark-eyed and of striking features, and a firm look not modern, but as
+if her mind were still set upon an earlier and simpler scheme of life.
+An air of dominion cloaked her finely. She had long been queen of her
+surroundings and law-giver to her great family. Royalty is a quality,
+one of Nature's gifts, and there one might behold it as truly as if
+Victoria Regina Imperatrix had passed by. The natural instincts common
+to humanity were there undisguised, unconcealed, simply accepted. We
+had seen a royal progress; she was the central figure of that rural
+society; as you looked at the little group, you could see her only.
+Now that she came abroad so rarely, her presence was not without deep
+significance, and so she took her homeward way with a primitive kind
+of majesty.
+
+It was evident that the neighborhood was in great excitement and quite
+thrown out of its usual placidity. An acquaintance came from a small
+house farther down the road, and we stopped for a word with him. We
+spoke of the funeral, and were told something of the man who had died.
+"Yes, and there's a man layin' very sick here," said our friend in an
+excited whisper. "He won't last but a day or two. There's another man
+buried yesterday that was struck by lightnin', comin' acrost a field
+when that great shower begun. The lightnin' stove through his hat and
+run down all over him, and ploughed a spot in the ground." There was a
+knot of people about the door; the minister of that scattered parish
+stood among them, and they all looked at us eagerly, as if we too
+might be carrying news of a fresh disaster through the countryside.
+
+Somehow the melancholy tales did not touch our sympathies as they
+ought, and we could not see the pathetic side of them as at another
+time, the day was so full of cheer and the sky and earth so glorious.
+The very fields looked busy with their early summer growth, the horses
+began to think of the clack of the oat-bin cover, and we were hurried
+along between the silvery willows and the rustling alders, taking time
+to gather a handful of stray-away conserve roses by the roadside; and
+where the highway made a long bend eastward among the farms, two of us
+left the carriage, and followed a footpath along the green river bank
+and through the pastures, coming out to the road again only a minute
+later than the horses. I believe that it is an old Indian trail
+followed from the salmon falls farther down the river, where the
+up-country Indians came to dry the plentiful fish for their winter
+supplies. I have traced the greater part of this deep-worn footpath,
+which goes straight as an arrow across the country, the first day's
+trail being from the falls (where Mason's settlers came in 1627, and
+built their Great Works of a saw-mill with a gang of saws, and
+presently a grist mill beside) to Emery's Bridge. I should like to
+follow the old footpath still farther. I found part of it by accident
+a long time ago. Once, as you came close to the river, you were sure
+to find fishermen scattered along,--sometimes I myself have been
+discovered; but it is not much use to go fishing any more. If some
+public-spirited person would kindly be the Frank Buckland of New
+England, and try to have the laws enforced that protect the inland
+fisheries, he would do his country great service. Years ago, there
+were so many salmon that, as an enthusiastic old friend once assured
+me, "you could walk across on them below the falls;" but now they are
+unknown, simply because certain substances which would enrich the
+farms are thrown from factories and tanneries into our clear New
+England streams. Good river fish are growing very scarce. The smelts,
+and bass, and shad have all left this upper branch of the Piscataqua,
+as the salmon left it long ago, and the supply of one necessary sort
+of good cheap food is lost to a growing community, for the lack of a
+little thought and care in the factory companies and saw-mills, and
+the building in some cases of fish-ways over the dams. I think that
+the need of preaching against this bad economy is very great. The
+sight of a proud lad with a string of undersized trout will scatter
+half the idlers in town into the pastures next day, but everybody
+patiently accepts the depopulation of a fine clear river, where the
+tide comes fresh from the sea to be tainted by the spoiled stream,
+which started from its mountain sources as pure as heart could wish.
+Man has done his best to ruin the world he lives in, one is tempted to
+say at impulsive first thought; but after all, as I mounted the last
+hill before reaching the village, the houses took on a new look of
+comfort and pleasantness; the fields that I knew so well were a
+fresher green than before, the sun was down, and the provocations of
+the day seemed very slight compared to the satisfaction. I believed
+that with a little more time we should grow wiser about our fish and
+other things beside.
+
+It will be good to remember the white rose road and its quietness in
+many a busy town day to come. As I think of these slight sketches, I
+wonder if they will have to others a tinge of sadness; but I have
+seldom spent an afternoon so full of pleasure and fresh and delighted
+consciousness of the possibilities of rural life.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Strangers and Wayfarers, by Sarah Orne Jewett
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