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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: ASCII
+
+*** 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,--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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