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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/936-0.txt b/936-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da41049 --- /dev/null +++ b/936-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4625 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Village Watch-Tower, by +(AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +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: The Village Watch-Tower + +Author: (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Posting Date: August 7, 2008 [EBook #936] +Release Date: June, 1997 +Last Updated: March 10, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + + + + +Produced by R. McGowan, and E. P. McGowan + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + +by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION + +These days the name of Kate Douglas Wiggin is virtually unknown. But +if one mentions the title “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” recognition (at +least in America) is instant. Everyone has heard of Rebecca; her story +has been in print continuously since it was first published in 1903. +It is certainly Mrs. Wiggin's most famous book, and the only one of her +many books that is still in print. Everything else she wrote has slipped +into complete obscurity. Occasionally in an antique shop, one may +still find a copy of her immensely popular seasonal book, “The Birds' +Christmas Carol”, but that is about the extent of what is readily +available, even second-hand. + +The Birds' Christas Carol is available as our Etext #721, Nov. 1996. + +In 1904, Jack London wrote (from Manchuria!) to say that Rebecca had won +his heart. (“She is real,” he wrote, “she lives; she has given me many +regrets, but I love her.”) Some eighty years later I happened to pick +up and read “Rebecca” for the first time. The book was so thoroughly +enjoyable that when I had finished it, I began at once a search for +other works by the same author--especially for a sequel to “Rebecca”, +which seemed practically to demand one. There was never a sequel +written, but “The New Chronicles of Rebecca” was published in 1907, and +contained some further chapters in the life of its heroine. I had to be +satisfied with that, for the time being. Then, well over a year after +jotting down Mrs. Wiggin's name on my list of authors to “purchase on +sight”, I finally ran across a copy of “The Village Watch-Tower”; and it +was not even a book of which I had heard. It was first published in +1895 by Houghton, who published much of her other work at the time, and +apparently was never published again. Shortly thereafter I found a copy +of her autobiography. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin (nee Smith) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, +on September 28, 1856. She was raised for the most-part in Maine, which +forms a backdrop to much of her fiction. She moved to California in +the 1870s, and became involved in the “free kindergarten” movement. She +opened the Silver Street Free Kindergarten in San Francisco, the first +free kindergarten in California, and there she worked until the late +1880s (meantime opening her own training school for teachers). Her first +husband, Samuel Wiggin, died in 1889. By then famous, she returned to +New York and Maine. She moved in international social circles, lecturing +and giving readings from her work. In 1895 she married for the second +time (to George Riggs). + +At her home in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate and Marin +County, she wrote her first book, “The Birds' Christmas Carol”, to raise +money for her school. The book also proved to be her means of entrance +into publishing, translation, and travel in elite circles throughout +Europe. The book was republished many times thereafter, and translated +into several languages. In addition to factual and educational works +(undertaken together with her sister, Nora Archibald Smith) she also +wrote a number of other popular novels in the early years of the 20th +century, including “Rebecca”, and “The Story of Waitstill Baxter” + (1913). She died in 1923, on August 23, at Harrow-on-Hill, England. + +Beverly Seaton observed, in “American Women Writers”, that Mrs. Wiggin +was “a popular writer who expressed what her contemporaries themselves +thought of as 'real life'” (p. 413). “The Village Watch-Tower” I think +is a perfect example of that observation; it captures vividly a few +frozen moments of rural America, right at the twilight of the 19th +century. Most of it was written in the village of Quillcote, Maine, +her childhood home--and certainly the model for the village of these +stories. + +No attempt has been made to edit this book for consistency or to +update or “correct” the spelling. Mrs. Wiggin's spelling is somewhat +transitional between modern American and British spellings. The only +liberty taken is that of removing extra spaces in contractions. E.g., +I have used “wouldn't” where the original has consistently “would +n't”; this is true for all such contractions with “n't” which appeared +inordinately distracting to the modern reader. + +R. McGowan, San Jose, March 1997 + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + + +Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these stories were +written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was so close to you, who +can tell from whence the thoughts came? I only know that when all the +other trees in the orchard were barren, there were always stories to be +found under your branches, and so it is our joint book, dear apple-tree. +Your pink blossoms have fallen on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit +has dropped into my lap; the sunshine streamed through your leaves and +tipped my pencil with gold. The birds singing in your boughs may have +lent a sweet note here and there; and do you remember the day when the +gentle shower came? We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky +all cried together while we wrote “The Fore-Room Rug.” + +It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! it is not +altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, and because I have +strayed farther away from the heart of Mother Nature. + +KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + +“Quillcote,” Hollis, Maine, August 12, 1895. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + The Village Watch-Tower 1 + Tom o' the Blueb'ry Plains 31 + The Nooning Tree 55 + The Fore-Room Rug 95 + A Village Stradivarius 123 + The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry 195 + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. + + +It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its +weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the +very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the +window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions +when he brought “old Mis' Bascom” a parcel from Saco. + +Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful in the +springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the great stone +steps; or in the summer, when the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful +shadow over the front door. The elm, indeed, was the only object that +ever did cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her “front door 'n' +entry never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin' to keep +it nice for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up.” + +She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. Her high-backed +rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch and its crocheted tidy, +stood always by a southern window that looked out on the river. The +river was a sheet of crystal, as it poured over the dam; a rushing, +roaring torrent of foaming white, as it swept under the bridge and +fought its way between the rocky cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, +eddying, in its narrow channel, pulsing restlessly into the ragged +fissures of its shores, and leaping with a tempestuous roar into the +Witches' Eel-pot, a deep wooded gorge cleft in the very heart of the +granite bank. + +But Lucinda Bascom could see more than the river from her favorite +window. It was a much-traveled road, the road that ran past the house +on its way from Liberty Village to Milliken's Mills. A tottering old +sign-board, on a verdant triangle of turf, directed you over Deacon +Chute's hill to the “Flag Medder Road,” and from thence to Liberty +Centre; the little post-office and store, where the stage stopped twice +a day, was quite within eyeshot; so were the public watering-trough, +Brigadier Hill, and, behind the ruins of an old mill, the wooded path +that led to the Witches' Eel-pot, a favorite walk for village lovers. +This was all on her side of the river. As for the bridge which knit +together the two tiny villages, nobody could pass over that without +being seen from the Bascoms'. The rumble of wheels generally brought +a family party to the window,--Jot Bascom's wife (she that was Diadema +Dennett), Jot himself, if he were in the house, little Jot, and grandpa +Bascom, who looked at the passers-by with a vacant smile parting his +thin lips. Old Mrs. Bascom herself did not need the rumble of wheels +to tell her that a vehicle was coming, for she could see it fully ten +minutes before it reached the bridge,--at the very moment it appeared +at the crest of Saco Hill, where strangers pulled up their horses, on +a clear day, and paused to look at Mount Washington, miles away in the +distance. Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at the bridge, and just there, +too, the river road began its shady course along the east side of the +stream: in view of all which “old Mis' Bascom's settin'-room winder” + might well be called the “Village Watch-Tower,” when you consider +further that she had moved only from her high-backed rocker to her bed, +and from her bed to her rocker, for more than thirty years,--ever since +that july day when her husband had had a sun-stroke while painting the +meeting-house steeple, and her baby Jonathan had been thereby hastened +into a world not in the least ready to receive him. + +She could not have lived without that window, she would have told you, +nor without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she +could remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been +born. Her mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, +in that year when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had +ever seen it,--the year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been +carried away, and when the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of +succumbing to the force of the freshet. + +All the men in both villages were working on the river, strengthening +the dam, bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams of logs; and with the +parting of the boom, the snapping of the bridge timbers, the crashing +of the logs against the rocks, and the shouts of the river-drivers, +the little Lucinda had come into the world. Some one had gone for +the father, and had found him on the river, where he had been since +day-break, drenched with the storm, blown fro his dangerous footing time +after time, but still battling with the great heaped-up masses of logs, +wrenching them from one another's grasp, and sending them down the +swollen stream. + +Finally the jam broke; and a cheer of triumph burst from the excited +men, as the logs, freed from their bondage, swept down the raging +flood, on and ever on in joyous liberty, faster and faster, till they +encountered some new obstacle, when they heaped themselves together +again, like puppets of Fate, and were beaten by the waves into another +helpless surrender. + +With the breaking of the jam, one dead monarch of the forest leaped into +the air as if it had been shot from a cannon's mouth, and lodged between +two jutting peaks of rock high on the river bank. Presently another log +was dashed against it, but rolled off and hurried down the stream; then +another, and still another; but no force seemed enough to drive the +giant from its intrenched position. + +“Hurry on down to the next jam, Raish, and let it alone,” cried the men. +“Mebbe it'll git washed off in the night, and anyhow you can't budge it +with no kind of a tool we've got here.” + +Then from the shore came a boy's voice calling, “There's a baby up to +your house!” And the men repeated in stentorian tones, “Baby up to your +house, Raish! Leggo the log; you're wanted!” + +“Boy or girl?” shouted the young father. + +“Girl!” came back the answer above the roar of the river. + +Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied himself with his pick and taking a +hatchet from his belt, cut a rude letter “L” on the side of the stranded +log. + +“L's for Lucindy,” he laughed. “Now you log if you git's fur as Saco, +drop in to my wife's folks and tell 'em the baby's name.” + +There had not been such a freshet for years before, and there had never +been one since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, “Lucindy's log” was +left in peace, the columbines blooming all about it, the harebells +hanging their heads of delicate blue among the rocks that held it in +place, the birds building their nests in the knot-holes of its withered +side. + +Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, from the time when she +was only “Raish Dunnell's little Lou,” to the years when she was Lucinda +Bascom, wife and mother, she had wandered down by the river side, and +gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked +with an “L” on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear +of the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show +its age. Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, +like her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from the opposite +bank wondered if, after all, it would hold out as long as “old Mis' +Bascom.” + +She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, though she was “all skin, bones, +and tongue,” as the neighbors said; for nobody needed to go into the +Bascoms' to brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, or take her the news; one +went in to get a bit of brightness, and to hear the news. + +“I should get lonesome, I s'pose,” she was wont to say, “if it wa'n't +for the way this house is set, and this chair, and this winder, 'n' all. +Men folks used to build some o' the houses up in a lane, or turn 'em +back or side to the road, so the women folks couldn't see anythin' to +keep their minds off their churnin' or dish-washin'; but Aaron Dunnell +hed somethin' else to think about, 'n' that was himself, first, last, +and all the time. His store was down to bottom of the hill, 'n' when he +come up to his meals, he used to set where he could see the door; 'n' +if any cust'mer come, he could call to 'em to wait a spell till he got +through eatin'. Land! I can hear him now, yellin' to 'em, with his mouth +full of victuals! They hed to wait till he got good 'n' ready, too. +There wa'n't so much comp'tition in business then as there is now, or +he'd 'a' hed to give up eatin' or hire a clerk. ... I've always felt to +be thankful that the house was on this rise o' ground. The teams hev to +slow up on 'count o' the hill, 'n' it gives me consid'ble chance to see +folks 'n' what they've got in the back of the wagon, 'n' one thing 'n' +other. ... The neighbors is continually comin' in here to talk about +things that's goin' on in the village. I like to hear 'em, but land! +they can't tell me nothing'! They often say, 'For massy sakes, Lucindy +Bascom, how d' you know that?' 'Why,' says I to them, 'I don't ask no +questions, 'n' folks don't tell me no lies; I just set in my winder, +'n' put two 'n' two together,--that's all I do.' I ain't never ben in a +playhouse, but I don't suppose the play-actors git down off the platform +on t' the main floor to explain to the folks what they've ben doin', +do they? I expect, if folks can't understand their draymas when the're +actin' of 'em out, they have to go ignorant, don't they? Well, what do I +want with explainin', when everythin' is acted out right in the road?” + +There was quite a gathering of neighbors at the Bascoms' on this +particular July afternoon. No invitations had been sent out, and none +were needed. A common excitement had made it vital that people should +drop in somewhere, and speculate about certain interesting matters well +known to be going on in the community, but going on in such an underhand +and secretive fashion that it well-nigh destroyed one's faith in human +nature. + +The sitting-room door was open into the entry, so that whatever breeze +there was might come in, and an unusual glimpse of the new foreroom rug +was afforded the spectators. Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema +was a housekeeper of the type fast passing away. The great coal stove +was enveloped in its usual summer wrapper of purple calico, which, tied +neatly about its ebony neck and portly waist, gave it the appearance +of a buxom colored lady presiding over the assembly. The kerosene lamps +stood in a row on the high, narrow mantelpiece, each chimney protected +from the flies by a brown paper bag inverted over its head. Two plaster +Samuels praying under the pink mosquito netting adorned the ends of +the shelf. There were screens at all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted +nervously when a visitor came in the mosquito netting door, for fear a +fly should sneak in with her. + +On the wall were certificates of membership in the Missionary Society; a +picture of Maidens welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria, in +a frame of cucumber seeds; and an interesting document setting forth the +claims of the Dunnell family as old settlers long before the separation +of Maine from Massachusetts,--the fact bein' established by an obituary +notice reading, “In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, daughter of Abiathar +Dunnell, two months old of Fits unbaptized.” + +“He may be goin' to marry Eunice, and he may not,” observed Almira +Berry; “though what she wants of Reuben Hobson is more 'n I can make +out. I never see a widower straighten up as he has this last year. I +guess he's been lookin' round pretty lively, but couldn't find anybody +that was fool enough to give him any encouragement.” + +“Mebbe she wants to get married,” said Hannah Sophia, in a tone that +spoke volumes. “When Parson Perkins come to this parish, one of his +first calls was on Eunice Emery. He always talked like the book o' +Revelation; so says he, 'have you got your weddin' garment on, Miss +Emery?' says he. 'No,' says she, 'but I ben tryin' to these twenty +years.' She was always full of her jokes, Eunice was!” + +“The Emerys was always a humorous family,” remarked Diadema, as she +annihilated a fly with a newspaper. “Old Silas Emery was an awful +humorous man. He used to live up on the island; and there come a freshet +one year, and he said he got his sofy 'n' chairs off, anyhow!” That was +just his jokin'. He hadn't a sign of a sofy in the house; 't was his +wife Sophy he meant, she that was Sophy Swett. Then another time, when +I was a little mite of a thin runnin' in 'n' out o' his yard, he caught +holt o' me, and says he, 'You'd better take care, sissy; when I kill you +and two more, thet'll be three children I've killed!' Land! you couldn't +drag me inside that yard for years afterwards. ... There! she's got +a fire in the cook-stove; there's a stream o' smoke comin' out o' +the kitchen chimbley. I'm willin' to bet my new rug she's goin' to be +married tonight!' + +“Mebbe she's makin' jell',” suggested Hannah Sophia. + +“Jell'!” ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. “Do you s'pose Eunice Emery +would build up a fire in the middle o' the afternoon 'n' go to makin' a +jell', this hot day? Besides, there ain't a currant gone into her house +this week, as I happen to know.” + +“It's a dretful thick year for fol'age,” mumbled grandpa Bascom, +appearing in the door with his vacant smile. “I declare some o' the +maples looks like balls in the air.” + +“That's the twentieth time he's hed that over since mornin',” said +Diadema. “Here, father, take your hat off 'n' set in the kitchen door +'n' shell me this mess o' peas. Now think smart, 'n' put the pods in the +basket 'n' the peas in the pan; don't you mix 'em.” + +The old man hung his hat on the back of the chair, took the pan in his +trembling hands, and began aimlessly to open the pods, while he chuckled +at the hens that gathered round the doorstep when they heard the peas +rattling in the pan. + +“Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that's all,” remarked the Widow +Buzzell, as one who had given the matter some consideration. + +“I should think he did,” rejoined old Mrs. Bascom. “Those children 'bout +git their livin' off the road in summer, from the time the dand'lion +greens is ready for diggin' till the blackb'ries 'n' choke-cherries +is gone. Diademy calls 'em in 'n' gives 'em a cooky every time they go +past, 'n' they eat as if they was famished. Rube Hobson never was any +kind of a pervider, 'n' he's consid'able snug besides.” + +“He ain't goin' to better himself much,” said Almira. “Eunice Emery +ain't fit to housekeep for a cat. The pie she took to the pie supper at +the church was so tough that even Deacon Dyer couldn't eat it; and the +boys got holt of her doughnuts, and declared they was goin' fishin' next +day 'n' use 'em for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth Eunice Emery +does. She's about as much of a doshy as Rube is. She'll make tea that's +strong enough to bear up an egg, most, and eat her doughnuts with it +three times a day rather than take the trouble to walk out to the meat +or the fish cart. I know for a fact she don't make riz bread once a +year.” + +“Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do,” said the Widow +Buzzell. “My husband always said, give him buttermilk bread to work on. +He used to say my riz bread was so light he'd hev to tread on it to +keep it anywheres; but when you'd eat buttermilk bread he said you'd got +somethin' that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. ... For +massy sake! there's the stage stoppin' at the Hobson's door. I wonder if +Rube's first wife's mother has come from Moderation? If 't is, they must +'a' made up their quarrel, for there was a time she wouldn't step foot +over that doorsill. She must be goin' to stay some time, for there's a +trunk on the back o' the stage. ... No, there ain't nobody gettin' out. +Land, Hannah Sophia, don't push me clean through the glass! It beats me +why they make winders so small that three people can't look out of 'em +without crowdin'. Ain't that a wash-boiler he's handin' down? Well, it's +a mercy; he's ben borrowin' long enough!” + +“What goes on after dark I ain't responsible for,” commented old Mrs. +Bascom, “but no new wash-boiler has gone into Rube Hobson's door in the +daytime for many a year, and I'll be bound it means somethin'. There +goes a broom, too. Much sweepin' he'll get out o' Eunice; it's a slick +'n' a promise with her!” + +“When did you begin to suspicion this, Diademy?” asked Almira Berry. +“I've got as much faculty as the next one, but anybody that lives on +the river road has just got to give up knowin' anything. You can't keep +runnin' to the store every day, and if you could you don't find out much +nowadays. Bill Peters don't take no more interest in his neighbors than +a cow does in election.” + +“I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do,” said Diadema, “but for +one thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every other night for +a month, though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' here at this store. +She had Packard's horse to go to Saco last week. When she got home, jest +at dusk, she drove int' the barn, 'n' bimeby Pitt Packard come to git +his horse,--'t was her own buggy she went with. She looked over here +when she went int' the house, 'n' she ketched my eye, though 't was half +a mile away, so she never took a thing in with her, but soon as't was +dark she made three trips out to the barn with a lantern, 'n' any fool +could tell 't her arms was full o' pa'cels by the way she carried the +lantern. The Hobsons and the Emerys have married one another more 'n +once, as fur as that goes. I declare if I was goin' to get married I +should want to be relation to somebody besides my own folks.” + +“The reason I can hardly credit it,” said Hannah Sophia, “is because +Eunice never had a beau in her life, that I can remember of. Cyse +Higgins set up with her for a spell, but it never amounted to nothin'. +It seems queer, too, for she was always so fond o' seein' men folks +round that when Pitt Packard was shinglin' her barn she used to go out +nights 'n' rip some o' the shingles off, so 't he'd hev more days' work +on it.” + +“I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, not him on her,” + remarked the Widow Buzzell. “Their land joinin' made courtin' come +dretful handy. His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other +day (I always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), and then +she'd hev to go over and git him to drive 'em out. She's wed his onion +bed for him two summers, as I happen to know, for I've been ou' doors +more 'n common this summer, tryin' to fetch my constitution up. Diademy, +don't you want to look out the back way 'n' see if Rube's come home +yet?” + +“He ain't,” said old Mrs. Bascom, “so you needn't look; can't you see +the curtains is all down? He's gone up to the Mills, 'n' it's my opinion +he's gone to speak to the minister.” + +“He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old linen +lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' to +the minister's,” objected Mrs. Jot. + +“Anybody'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy,” + retorted her mother-in-law. “When you 've set in one spot's long's I +hev, p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more 'n +one way o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. ... +Well, I vow, there's the little Hobson girls comin' out o' the door +this minute, 'n' they 're all dressed up, and Mote don't seem to be with +'em.” + +Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed her +murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate for +some moments. + +“I guess they 're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' +Eunice, poor little things,” ventured the Widow Buzzell. + +“P'raps they be,” said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; “p'raps they be +goin' to church, takin' a three-quart tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle +along with 'em. ... They 're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. +... Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, Almiry, 'n' see +if you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. ... They ain't hardly old +enough to hold their tongues.” + +An exciting interview soon took place in the middle of the road, and +Almira reentered the room with the expression of one who had penetrated +the inscrutable and solved the riddle of the Sphinx. She had been +vouch-safed one of those gleams of light in darkness which almost dazzle +the beholder. + +“That's about the confirmingest thing I've heern yet!” she ejaculated, +as she took off her shaker bonnet. “They say they're goin' up to their +aunt Hitty's to stay two days. They're dressed in their best, clean to +the skin, for I looked; 'n' it's their night gownds they've got in the +bundle. They say little Mote has gone to Union to stop all night with +his uncle Abijah, 'n' that leaves Rube all alone, for the smith girl +that does his chores is home sick with the hives. And what do you s'pose +is in the pail? _Fruit_ _cake_,--that's what 't is, no more 'n' no less! +I knowed that Smith girl didn't bake it, 'n' so I asked 'em, 'n' they +said Miss Emery give it to 'em. There was two little round try-cakes, +baked in muffin-rings. Eunice hed took some o' the batter out of a +big loaf 'n' baked it to se how it was goin' to turn out. That means +wedding-cake, or I'm mistaken!” + +“There ain't no gittin' round that,” agreed the assembled company, “now +is there, Mis' Bascom?” + +Old Mrs. Bascom wet her finger, smoothed the parting of her false front, +and looked inscrutable. + +“I don't see why you're so secret,” objected Diadema. + +“I've got my opinions, and I've had 'em some time,” observed the good +lady. “I don't know 's I'm bound to tell 'em and have 'em held up to +ridicule. Let the veal hang, I say. If any one of us is right, we'll all +know to-morrow.” + +“Well, all any of us has got to judge from is appearances,” said +Diadema, “and how you can twist 'em one way, and us another, stumps me!” + +“Perhaps I see more appearances than you do,” retorted her +mother-in-law. “Some folks mistakes all they see for all there is. I was +reading a detective story last week. It seems there was an awful murder +in Schenectady, and a mother and her two children was found dead in one +bed, with bullet holes in their heads. The husband was away on business, +and there wasn't any near neighbors to hear her screech. Well, the +detectives come from far and from near, and begun to work up the case. +One of 'em thought 't was the husband,--though he set such store by his +wife he went ravin' crazy when he heard she was dead,--one of 'em laid +it on the children,--though they was both under six years old; and one +decided it was suicide,--though the woman was a church member and +didn't know how to fire a gun off, besides. And then there come along +a detective younger and smarter than all the rest, and says he, 'If +all you bats have seen everything you can see, I guess I'll take a look +around,' says he. Sure enough, there was a rug with 'Welcome' on it +layin' in front of the washstand, and when he turned it up he found +an elegant diamond stud with a man's full name and address on the gold +part. He took a train and went right to the man's house. He was so taken +by surprise (he hadn't missed the stud, for he had a full set of 'em) +that he owned right up and confessed the murder.” + +“I don't see as that's got anything to do with this case,” said Diadema. + +“It's got this much to do with it,” replied old Mrs. Bascom, “that +perhaps you've looked all round the room and seen everything you had +eyes to see, and perhaps I've had wit enough to turn up the rug in front +o' the washstand.” + +“Whoever he marries now, Mis' Bascom'll have to say 't was the one she +meant,” laughed the Widow Buzzell. + +“I never was caught cheatin' yet, and if I live till Saturday I shall be +seventy-one years old,” said the old lady with some heat. “Hand me Jot's +lead pencil, Diademy, and that old envelope on the winder sill. I'll +write the name I think of, and shut it up in the old Bible. My hand's +so stiff to-day I can't hardly move it, but I guess I can make it plain +enough to satisfy you.” + +“That's fair 'n' square,” said Hannah Sophia, “and for my pat I hope it +ain't Eunice, for I like her too well. What they're goin' to live on is +more 'n I can see. Add nothin' to nothin' 'n' you git nothin',--that's +arethmetic! He ain't hed a cent o' ready money sence he failed up four +years ago, 'thout it was that hundred dollars that fell to him from his +wife's aunt. Eunice'll hev her hands full this winter, I guess, with +them three hearty children 'n' him all wheezed up with phthisic from +October to April!... Who's that coming' down Tory Hill? It's Rube's +horse 'n' Rube's wagon, but it don't look like Rube.” + +“Yes, it's Rube; but he's got a new Panama hat, 'n' he 's hed his linen +duster washed,” said old Mrs. Bascom. ... “Now, do you mean to tell me +that that woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice Emery? It ain't, 'n' +that green parasol don't belong to this village. He's drivin' her into +his yard!... Just as I s'posed, it's that little, smirkin' worthless +school-teacher up to the Mills.--Don't break my neck, Diademy; can't you +see out the other winder?--Yes, he's helpin' her out, 'n' showin' her +in. He can't 'a' ben married more'n ten minutes, for he's goin' clear up +the steps to open the door for her!” + +“Wait 'n' see if he takes his horse out,” said Hannah Sophia. “Mebbe +he'll drive her back in a few minutes. ... No, he's onhitched! ... +There, he's hangin' up the head-stall!” + +“I've ben up in the attic chamber,” called the Widow Buzzell, as she +descended the stairs; “she's pulled up the curtains, and took off her +hat right in front o' the winder, 's bold as a brass kettle! She's come +to stay! Ain't that Rube Hobson all over,--to bring another woman int' +this village 'stid o' weedin' one of 'em out as he'd oughter. He ain't +got any more public sperit than a--hedgehog, 'n' never had!” + +Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied on her shaker, and started for +the door. + +“I'm goin' over to Eunice's,” she said, “and I'm goin' to take my bottle +of camphire. I shouldn't wonder a mite if I found her in a dead faint on +the kitchen floor. Nobody need tell me she wa'n't buildin' hopes.” + +“I'll go with you,” said the Widow Buzzell. “I'd like to see with my +own eyes how she takes it, 'n' it'll be too late to tell if I wait +till after supper. If she'd ben more open with me 'n' ever asked for my +advice, I could 'a' told her it wa'n't the first time Rube Hobson has +played that trick.” + +“I'd come too if 't wa'n't milkin' but Jot ain't home from the Centre, +and I've got to do his chores; come in as you go along back, will you?” + asked Diadema. + +Hannah Sophia remained behind, promising to meet them at the post-office +and hear the news. As the two women walked down the hill she drew the +old envelope from the Bible and read the wavering words scrawled upon it +in old Mrs. Bascom's rheumatic and uncertain hand,-- + +_the_ _milikins_ _Mills_ _Teecher._ + + +“Well Lucindy, you do make good use o' your winder,” she exclaimed, “but +how you pitched on anything so onlikely as her is more'n I can see.” + +“Just because 't was onlikely. A man's a great sight likelier to do an +onlikely thing than he is a likely one, when it comes to marryin'. In +the first place, Rube sent his children to school up to the Mills 'stid +of to the brick schoolhouse, though he had to pay a little something to +get 'em taken in to another deestrick. They used to come down at night +with their hands full o' 'ward o' merit cards. Do you s'pose I thought +they got 'em for good behavior, or for knowin' their lessons? Then aunt +Hitty told me some question or other Rube had asked examination day. +Since when has Rube Hobson 'tended examinations, thinks I. And when I +see the girl, a red-and-white paper doll that wouldn't know whether to +move the churn-dasher up 'n' down or round 'n' round, I made up my +mind that bein' a man he'd take her for certain, and not his next-door +neighbor of a sensible age and a house 'n' farm 'n' cow 'n' buggy!” + +“Sure enough,” agreed Hannah Sophia, “though that don't account for +Eunice's queer actions, 'n' the pa'cels 'n' the fruit cake.” + +“When I make out a case,” observed Mrs. Bascom modestly, “I ain't one to +leave weak spots in it. If I guess at all, I go all over the ground +'n' stop when I git through. Now, sisters or no sisters, Maryabby Emery +ain't spoke to Eunice sence she moved to Salem. But if Eunice has ben +bringin' pa'cels home, Maryabby must 'a' paid for what was in 'em; and +if she's ben bakin' fruit cake this hot day, why Maryabby used to be +so font o' fruit cake her folks were afraid she'd have fits 'n' die. +I shall be watchin' here as usual to-morrow morning', 'n' if Maryabby +don't drive int' Eunice's yard before noon I won't brag any more for a +year to come.” + +Hannah Sophia gazed at old Mrs. Bascom with unstinted admiration. “You +do beat all,” she said; “and I wish I could stay all night 'n' see how +it turns out, but Almiry is just comin' over the bridge, 'n' I must +start 'n' meet her. Good-by. I'm glad to see you so smart; you always +look slim, but I guess you'll tough it out's long 's the rest of us. I +see your log was all right, last time I was down side o' the river.” + + +“They say it 's jest goin' to break in two in the middle, and fall into +the river,” cheerfully responded Lucinda. “They say it's just hanging' +on by a thread. Well, that's what they 've ben sayin' about me these +ten years, 'n' here I be still hanging! It don't make no odds, I guess, +whether it's a thread or a rope you 're hangin' by, so long as you +hang.” + +* * * + + +The next morning, little Mote Hobson, who had stayed all night with his +uncle in Union, was walking home by the side of the river. He strolled +along, the happy, tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, eyes one moment +on the trees in the hope of squirrels and birds'-nests, the next on the +ground in search of the first blueberries. As he stooped to pick up a +bit of shining quartz to add to the collection in his ragged trousers' +pockets he glanced across the river, and at that very instant Lucinda's +log broke gently in twain, rolled down the bank, crumbling as it went, +and, dropping in like a tired child, was carried peacefully along on the +river's breast. + +Mote walked more quickly after that. It was quite a feather in his cap +to see, with his own eyes, the old landmark slip from its accustomed +place and float down the stream. The other boys would miss it and say, +“It's gone!” He would say, “I saw it go!” + +Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top of the hill. His white locks were +uncovered, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Baby Jot, as usual, held +fast by his shaking hand, for they loved each other, these two. The +cruel stroke of the sun that had blurred the old man's brain had spared +a blessed something in him that won the healing love of children. + +“How d' ye, Mote?” he piped in his feeble voice. “They say Lucindy's +dead. ... Jot says she is, 'n' Diademy says she is, 'n' I guess she is. +... It 's a dretful thick year for fol'age; ... some o' the maples looks +like balls in the air.” + +Mote looked in at the window. The neighbors were hurrying to and fro. +Diadema sat with her calico apron up to her face, sobbing; and for the +first morning in thirty years, old Mrs. Bascom's high-backed rocker was +empty, and there was no one sitting in the village watch-tower. + + + + +TOM O' THE BLUEB'RY PLAINS. + + +The sky is a shadowless blue; the noon-day sun glows fiercely; a cloud +of dust rises from the burning road whenever the hot breeze stirs the +air, or whenever a farm wagon creaks along, its wheels sinking into the +deep sand. + +In the distance, where the green of the earth joins the blue of the sky, +gleams the silver line of a river. + +As far as the eye an reach, the ground is covered with blueberry bushes; +red leaves peeping among green ones; bloom of blue fruit hanging in full +warm clusters,--spheres of velvet mellowed by summer sun, moistened with +crystal dew, spiced with fragrance of woods. + +In among the blueberry bushes grow huckleberries, “choky pears,” and +black-snaps. + +Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift themselves out of the wilderness of +shrubs. They look dwarfed and gloomy, as if Nature had been an untender +mother, and denied them proper nourishment. + +The road is a little-traveled one, and furrows of feathery grasses grow +between the long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts. + +The first goldenrod gleams among the loose stones at the foot of the +alder bushes. Whole families of pale butterflies, just out of their +long sleep, perch on the brilliant stalks and tilter up and down in the +sunshine. + +Straggling processions of wooly brown caterpillars wend their way in +the short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple +bull-thistle are coming into bloom. + +The song of birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains are given +over to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, the humming of +bees, and the chirping of crickets that stir the drowsy air when the +summer begins to wane. + +It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in +the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, +the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. +All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or +a man's? Neither yet all three. + + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + --swain.” + +Everybody knows the song, and everybody knows the cracked voice. The +master of this bit of silent wilderness is coming home: it is Tom o' the +blueb'ry plains. + +He is more than common tall, with a sandy beard, and a mop of tangled +hair straggling beneath his torn straw hat. A square of wet calico drips +from under the back of the hat. His gingham shirt is open at the throat, +showing his tanned neck and chest. Warm as it is, he wears portions of +at least three coats on his back. His high boots, split in foot and leg, +are mended and spliced and laced and tied on with bits of shingle rope. +He carries a small tin pail of molasses. It has a bail of rope, and +a battered cover with a knob of sticky newspaper. Over one shoulder, +suspended on a crooked branch, hangs a bundle of basket stuff,--split +willow withes and the like; over the other swings a decrepit, +bottomless, three-legged chair. + + +I call him the master of the plains, but in faith he had no legal claim +to the title. If he owned a habitation or had established a home on any +spot in the universe, it was because no man envied him what he took; for +Tom was one of God's fools, a foot-loose pilgrim in this world of +ours, a poor addle-pated, simple-minded, harmless creature,--in village +parlance, a “softy.” + +Mother or father, sister or brother, he had none, nor ever had, so far +as any one knew; but how should people who had to work from sun-up to +candlelight to get the better of the climate have leisure to discover +whether or no Blueb'ry Tom had any kin? + +At some period in an almost forgotten past there had been a house on +Tom's particular patch of the plains. It had long since tumbled +into ruins and served for fire-wood and even the chimney bricks had +disappeared one by one, as the monotonous seasons came and went. + +Tom had settled himself in an old tool-shop, corn-house, or rude +out-building of some sort that had belonged to the ruined cottage. Here +he had set up his house-hold gods; and since no one else had ever wanted +a home in this dreary tangle of berry bushes, where the only shade came +from stunted pines that flung shriveled arms to the sky and dropped dead +cones to the sterile earth, here he remained unmolested. + +In the lower part of the hut he kept his basket stuff and his collection +of two-legged and three-legged chairs. In the course of evolution they +never sprouted another leg, those chairs; as they were given to him, +so they remained. The upper floor served for his living-room, and was +reached by a ladder from the ground, for there was no stairway inside. + +No one had ever been in the little upper chamber. When a passer-by +chanced to be-think him that Tom's hermitage was close at hand, he +sometimes turned in his team by a certain clump of white birches and +drove nearer to the house, intending to remind Tom that there was a +chair to willow-bottom the next time he came to the village. But at +the noise of the wheels Tom drew in his ladder; and when the visitor +alighted and came within sight, it was to find the inhospitable host +standing in the opening of the second-story window, a quaint figure +framed in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face a kind +of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said, “Tom ain't ter +hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle.” + +There was something impressive about his way of repelling callers; it +was as effectual as a door slammed in the face, and yet there was a sort +of mendacious courtesy about it. No one ever cared to go further; +and indeed there was no mystery to tempt the curious, and no spoil to +attract the mischievous or the malicious. Any one could see, without +entering, the straw bed in the far corner, the beams piled deep with +red and white oak acorns, the strings of dried apples and bunches of +everlastings hanging from the rafters, and the half-finished baskets +filled with blown bird's-eggs, pine cones, and pebbles. + +No home in the village was better loved than Tom's retreat in the +blueberry plains. Whenever he approached it, after a long day's tramp, +when he caught the first sight of the white birches that marked the +gateway to his estate and showed him where to turn off the public road +into his own private grounds, he smiled a broader smile than usual, and +broke into his well-known song: + + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + --swain.” + +Poor Tom could never catch the last note. He had sung the song for more +than forty years, but the memory of this tone was so blurred, and his +cherished ideal of it so high (or so low, rather), that he never managed +to reach it. + +Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better supper than +ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need of sleeping under roof nor +of lighting candles to grope his way to pallet of straw, when he might +have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for +lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of +pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their +polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, +another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his +tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet +fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,--there, haunted +by no past and harassed by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a +child. + +Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well! + +But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer, and the gaunt +pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor Tom's mattress, there +came a change in the aspect of things. He still made his way to the +village, seeking chairs to mend; but he was even more unkempt than of +old, his tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled as he wove the +willow strands in and out, and over and under. + +There was little work to do, moreover, for the village had altogether +retired from business, and was no longer in competition with its +neighbors: the dam was torn away, the sawmills were pulled down; +husbands and fathers were laid in the churchyard, sons and brothers and +lovers had gone West, and mothers and widows and spinsters stayed on, +each in her quiet house alone. “'T ain't no hardship when you get used +to it,” said the Widow Buzzell. “Land sakes! a lantern 's 's good 's a +man any time, if you only think so, 'n' 't ain't half so much trouble to +keep it filled up!” + +But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, and the children always +gathered about him for the sake of hearing him repeat his well-worn +formula,--“Tom allers puts two handles on baskets: one to take 'em up by, +one to set 'em down by.” This was said with a beaming smile and a wise +shake of the head, as if he were announcing a great discovery to an +expectant world. And then he would lay down his burden of basket stuff, +and, sitting under an apple-tree in somebody's side yard, begin his task +of willow-bottoming an old chair. It was a pretty sight enough, if one +could keep back the tears,--the kindly, simple fellow with the circle of +children about his knees. Never a village fool without a troop of babies +at his heels. They love him, too, till we teach them to mock. + +When he was younger, he would sing, + + “Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop,” + +and dance the while, swinging his unfinished basket to and fro for a +cradle. He was too stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but +he still sang the “bloomin' gy-ar-ding” when ever they asked him, +particularly if some apple-cheeked little maid would say, “Please, Tom!” + He always laughed then, and, patting the child's hand, said, “Pooty +gal,--got eyes!” The youngsters dance with glee at this meaningless +phrase, just as their mothers had danced years before when it was said +to them. + +Summer waned. In the moist places the gentian uncurled its blue fringes; +purple asters and gay Joe Pye waved their colors by the roadside; tall +primroses put their yellow bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to see +themselves; and the dusty pods of the milkweed were bursting with their +silky fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. Autumn began to paint the +maples red and the elms yellow, for the early days of September brought +a frost. Some one remarked at the village store that old Blueb'ry Tom +must not be suffered to stay on the plains another winter, now that he +was getting so feeble,--not if the “_se_leckmen” had to root him out +and take him to the poor-farm. He would surely starve or freeze, and his +death would be laid at their door. + +Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, sharp words, all failed to move +him one jot or tittle. He stood in his castle door, with the ladder +behind him, smiling, always smiling (none but the fool smiles always, +nor always weeps), and saying to all visitors, “Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's +gone to Bonny Eagle; Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm.” + +November came in surly. + +The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest were over, the corn was +shocked, the apples and pumpkins were gathered into barns. The problem +of Tom's future was finally laid before the selectmen; and since the +poor fellow's mild obstinancy had defeated all attempts to conquer it, +the sheriff took the matter in hand. + +The blueberry plains looked bleak and bare enough now. It had rained +incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. The +sun came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,--like a duty +smile,--as if light, not heat, were its object. A keen wind blew the +dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance that had no merriment in +it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling +himself into a ball, remarked despondently that feathers were no sort of +protection in this kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, glanced in +at the barrel, and observed that anybody who minded a little breeze like +that had better join the woodcocks, who were leaving for the South by +the night express. + +The blueberry bushes were stripped bare of green. The stunted pines and +sombre hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape now; where all was +dreary they did not seem amiss. + +“Je-whilikins!” exclaimed the sheriff as he drew up his coat collar. +“A madhouse is the place for the man who wants to live ou'doors in the +winter time; the poor-farm is too good for him.” + +But Tom was used to privation, and even to suffering. “Ou'doors” was the +only home he knew, and with all its rigors he loved it. He looked over +the barren plains, knowing, in a dull sort of way, that they would +shortly be covered with snow; but he had three coats, two of them with +sleeves, and the crunch-crunch of the snow under his tread was music +to his ears. Then, too, there were a few hospitable firesides where he +could always warm himself; and the winter would soon be over, the birds +would come again,--new birds, singing the old songs,--the sap would +mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the +young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. +The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to +Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the +seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. To him +winter was never cruel. He looked underneath her white mantle, saw the +infant spring hidden in her warm bosom, and was content to wait. Content +to wait? Content to starve, content to freeze, if only he need not be +carried into captivity. + +The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, if only Tom had been a +reasonable being. To be sure, when Hannah Sophia Palmer asked old Mrs. +Pinkham how she liked it, she answered, with a patient sigh, that +“her 'n' Mr. Pinkham hed lived there goin' on nine year, workin' their +fingers to the bone 'most, 'n' yet they hadn't been able to lay up a +cent!” If this peculiarity of administration was its worst feature, it +was certainly one that would have had no terrors for Tom o' the blueb'ry +plains. Terrors of some sort, nevertheless, the poor-farm had for him; +and when the sheriff's party turned in by the clump of white birches and +approached the cabin, they found that fear had made the simple wise. Tom +had provished the little upper chamber, and, in place of the piece of +sacking that usually served him for a door in winter, he had woven a +defense of willow. In fine, he had taken all his basket stuff, and, +treating the opening through which he entered and left his home +precisely as if it were a bottomless chair, he had filled it in solidly, +weaving to and fro, by night as well as by day, till he felt, poor fool, +as safely intrenched as if he were in the heart of a fortress. + +The sheriff tied his horse to a tree, and Rube Hobson and Pitt Packard +got out of the double wagon. Two men laughed when they saw the pathetic +defense, but the other shut his lips together and caught his breath. +(He had been born on a poor-farm, but no one knew it at Pleasant River.) +They called Tom's name repeatedly, but no other sound broke the silence +of the plains save the rustling of the wind among the dead leaves. + +“Numb-head!” muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin +with his whip-stock. “Come out and show yourself! We know you're in +there, and it's no use hiding!” + +At last in response to a deafening blow from Rube Hobson's hard fist, +there came the answering note of a weak despairing voice. + +“Tom ain't ter hum,” it said; “Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle.” + +“That's all right!” guffawed the men; “but you've got to go some more, +and go a diff'rent way. It ain't no use fer you to hold back; we've got +a ladder, and by Jiminy! you go with us this time!” + +The ladder was put against the side of the hut, and Pitt Packard climbed +up, took his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top to bottom, and +turned back the flap. + +The men could see the inside of the chamber now. They were humorous +persons who could strain a joke to the snapping point, but they felt, +at last, that there was nothing especially amusing in the situation. +Tom was huddled in a heap on the straw bed in the far corner. The vacant +smile had fled from his face, and he looked, for the first time in his +life, quite distraught. + +“Come along, Tom,” said the sheriff kindly; “we 're going to take you +where you can sleep in a bed, and have three meals a day.” + + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding,” + +sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head in a paroxysm of fear. + +“Well, there ain't no bloomin' gardings to walk in jest now, so come +along and be peaceable.” + +“Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm,” he wailed piteously. + +But there was no alternative. They dragged him off the bed and down the +ladder as gently as possible; then Rube Hobson held him on the back seat +of the wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the horse. As they were on +the point of starting, the captive began to wail and struggle more than +ever, the burden of his plaint being a wild and tremulous plea for his +pail of molasses. + +“Dry up, old softy, or I'll put the buggy robe over your head!” muttered +Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started on the trip, +and had lost it all by this time. + +“By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!” said +Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, comforting +the shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive silence +that lasted until the unwelcome journey was over. + +Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours. It did not enter +the minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate as to be admitted +into that happy haven would decline to stay there. The unwilling guest +disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, after some search, +they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed into his beloved +retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, had mended the +willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace. They dragged +him out again, and this time more impatiently; for it was exasperating +to see a man (even if he were a fool) fight against a bed and three +meals a day. + +The second attempt was little more successful than the first. As a +place of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable or +attractive on near acquaintance than it did at long range. Tom remained +a week, because he was kept in close confinement; but when they judged +that he was weaned from his old home, they loosed his bonds, and--back +to the plains he sped, like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a bit of +iron leaping to the magnet. + +What should be done with him? + +Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that the village had +done its duty, and if the “dog-goned lunk-head” wanted to starve +and freeze, it was his funeral, not theirs. Others thought that +the community had no resource but to bear the responsibility of its +irresponsible children, however troublesome they might be. There was +entire unanimity of view so far as the main issues were concerned. It +was agreed that nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand guard over +Tom night and day, and that the sheriff could not be expected to spend +his time forcing him out of his hut on the blueberry plains. + +There was but one more expedient to be tried, a very simple and +ingenious but radical and comprehensive one, which, in Rube Hobson's +opinion, would strike at the root of the matter. + +Tom had fled from captivity for the third time. + +He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, +the molasses pail was hanging on a nail by the shed door. The remains of +a battered old bushel basket lay on the wood-pile: bottom it had none, +nor handles; rotundity of side had long since disappeared, and none +but its maker would have known it for a basket. Tom caught it up in his +flight, and, seizing the first crooked stick that offered, he slung the +dear familiar burden over his shoulder and started off on a jog-trot. + +Heaven, how happy he was! It was the rosy dawn of an Indian summer +day,--a warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak world of yesterday +without a hint of beneficent intention; one of those enchanting weather +surprises with which Dame Nature reconciles us to her stern New England +rule. + +The joy that comes of freedom, and the freedom that comes of joy, unbent +the old man's stiffened joints. He renewed his youth at every mile. He +ran like a lapwing. When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the +plains, he broke into old song of the “bloom-in' gy-ar-ding” and the +“jolly swain,” and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration +born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible last note. +His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture when he caught the +well-known gleam of the white birches. He turned into the familiar +path, boy's blood thumping in old man's veins. The past week had been +a dreadful dream. A few steps more and he would be within sight, within +touch of home,--home at last! No--what was wrong? He must have gone +beyond it, in his reckless haste! Strange that he could have forgotten +the beloved spot! Can lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window? Can +child lose the path to mother's knee? + +He turned,--ran hither and thither, like one distraught. A nameless +dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his warm blood, paralyzing +the activity of the moment before. At last, with a sob like that of a +frightened child who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness, +he darted back to the white birches and started anew. This time +he trusted to blind instinct; his feet knew the path, and, left to +themselves, they took him through the tangle of dry bushes straight to +his-- + +It had vanished! + +Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,--nothing but ashes! And +these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, and the leafless +branches on which they fell would shake them off lightly, never dreaming +that they hid the soul of a home. Nothing but ashes! + +Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains! + + + + +THE NOONING TREE. + + +The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, +and was known to all the country round about as the “Bean ellum.” The +other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they +were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the +meadow, monarch of the village. + +It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, +and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all +growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful +shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have +gathered. + +It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of +foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown +of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by +from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, +crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer +view of its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the +tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, +each time he passed; but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly +esteemed in the village. + +The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. In the +spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny +brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness +coiled up inside. In summer it stood in the midst of a waving garden of +buttercups and whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter +from the sun and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable +dome, under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward +as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven. As for the birds, +they made it a fashionable summer resort, the most commodious and +attractive in the whole country; with no limit to the accommodations +for those of a gregarious turn of mind, liking the advantages of select +society combined with country air. In the autumn it held its own; for +when the other elms changed their green to duller tints, the nooning +tree put on a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background +of sombre pine woods a brilliant mass of gold and brown. In winter, when +there was no longer dun of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor +ruddy autumn grasses, it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting +its bare, shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to +say, “Do not pity me; I have been, and, please God, I shall be!” + +Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a “nooning” + tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in +haying time that it became the favorite lunching and “bangeing” place +for Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the +adjoining farm. The men congregated under the spreading branches +at twelve o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and +“swapping” stories, as they were doing to-day. + +Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of “flour food” that +kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night. A +glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as +an illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, “Pitt took after both his +parents; one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while.” His pail +contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six buttermilk +biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold +coffee. This quantity was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group +was lined throughout with pie, cemented with buttermilk bread, and +riveted with doughnuts. + +Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide +boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others +leaned back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their +knees and chewing blades of grass reflectively. + +One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into +the air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head buried +in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and +laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word +or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, +Matt Henderson, dubbed “Dixie” for short. He was a giant fellow,--a +“great gormin' critter,” Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he +had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have +been thought a man of splendid presence. + +He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section +of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass +of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, +and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves +through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these that gave him what the +boys called a “kind of a downcasted look.” The man from Tennessee had +something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was +a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart. + +“I'm goin' to doze a spell,” drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat +over his eyes. “I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm +goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you +think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my +mind I can't git a wink o' sleep.” + +This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of +laughter. + +“It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt +Lyddy,” said David Milliken. + +“You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it +did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack +o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, +the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' +worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!” + +“You're right, Jabe.” (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting +a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.) “This ellum +can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother that +lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't +throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o' +the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called +'em.” + +“_Assidyus_ trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about +it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? _Assidyus!_ What does +it mean, anyhow?” + +“Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot +it.” + +“Assidyus--assidyus--it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me.” + +“Assiduous means 'busy,'” said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly +waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had +given the definition. + +“Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was. +One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see.” + +“Wall, there is kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it'sturrible far +fetched,” remarked Jabe Slocum, rather sleepily. “You see, our ellums +and maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' the year in buddin' 'n' +gittin' out their leaves 'n' hangin' em all over the branches; 'n' then, +no sooner air they full grown than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red +or yeller or brown, 'n' then shakin' 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you +might say, to their every-day chores o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, +'n' spreadin' 'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n' +'nother; 'n' it stan's to reason that the first 'n' hemlocks 'n' them +California redwoods, that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, +can't be so busy as them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' all the +time.” + +“I guess you're 'bout right,” allowed Steve, “but I shouldn't never 'a' +thought of it in the world. What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I +thought you was a temperance man.” + +“I guess he 's like the feller over to Shandagee schoolhouse, that said +he was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!” laughed Pitt +Packard. + +“I ain't breakin' no law; this is yarb bitters,” Jabe answered, with a +pull at the bottle. + +“It's to cirkerlate his blood,” said Ob Tarbox; “he's too dog-goned lazy +to cirkerlate it himself.” + +“I'm takin' it fer what ails me,” said Jabe oracularly; “the heart +knoweth its own bitterness, 'n' it 's a wise child that knows its own +complaints 'thout goin' to a doctor.” + +“Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start yer growth, Laigs?” asked little +Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot. “Say, +how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead, 'n' +side-track the other?” + +The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally, but the man from +Tennessee never smiled. + +Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least +by these personal remarks. “If I thought 't was a good growin' medicine, +I'd recommend it to your folks, Brad,” he replied cheerfully. “Your +mother says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin' potatoes, +yer can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin' up 'n' standing +on the potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you, I wouldn't +hector folks that had made out to grow some.” + +“Speakin' o' growin',” said Steve Webster, “who do you guess I seen in +Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins girl from the +Duck Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson. It was one Sunday, in the +Catholic meetin'-house. I'd allers wanted to go to a Catholic meetin', +an' I declare it's about the solemnest one there is. I mistrusted I was +goin' to everlastin'ly giggle, but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter +yer ever see. But anyway, the Swatkins girl--or Mis' Robinson, she is +now--was there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin' Latin, +pawin' beads, gettin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin' herself north, +south, east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan! 'Grinnin' Dan,' +we used to call him. Well, he don't grin nowadays. He never was good for +much, but he 's hed more 'n his comeuppance!” + +“Why, what 's the matter with him? Can't he git work in Boston?” + +“Matter? Why, his wife, that I see makin' believe be so dreadful pious +in the Catholic meetin', she 's carried on wuss 'n the Old Driver for +two years, 'n' now she 's up 'n' left him,--gone with a han'somer man.” + +Down on Steve Webster's hand came Jabe Slocum's immense paw with a grasp +that made him cringe. + +“What the”--began Steve, when the man from Tennessee took up his scythe +and slouched away from the group by the tree. + +“Didn't yer know no better 'n that, yer thunderin' fool? Can't yer see a +hole in a grindstun 'thout it's hung on yer nose?” + +“What hev I done?” asked Steve, as if dumfounded. + +“Done? Where 've yer ben, that yer don't know Dixie's wife 's left him?” + +“Where 've I ben? Hain't I ben workin' in Boston fer a year; 'n' since +I come home last week, hain't I ben tendin' sick folks, so 't I +couldn't git outside the dooryard? I never seen the man in my life till +yesterday, in the field, 'n' I thought he was one o' them dark-skinned +Frenchies from Guildford that hed come up here fer hayin'.” + +“Mebbe I spoke too sharp,” said Jabe apologetically; “but we 've ben +scared to talk wives, or even women folks, fer a month o' Sundays, fer +fear Dixie 'd up 'n' tumble on his scythe, or do somethin' crazy. You +see it's this way (I'd ruther talk than work; 'n' we ain't workin' by +time to-day, anyway, on account of the circus comin'): 'Bout a year 'n' +a half ago, this tall, han'some feller turned up here in Pleasant River. +He inhailed from down South somewheres, but he didn't like his work +there, 'n' drifted to New York, 'n' then to Boston; 'n' then he +remembered his mother was a State o' Maine woman, 'n' he come here to +see how he liked. We didn't take no stock in him at first,--we never +hed one o' that nigger-tradin' secedin' lot in amongst us,--but he was +pleasant spoken 'n' a square, all-round feller, 'n' didn't git off any +secesh nonsense, 'n' it ended in our likin' him first-rate. Wall, he got +work in the cannin' fact'ry over on the Butterfield road, 'n' then he +fell in with the Maddoxes. You 've hearn tell of 'em; they're relation +to Pitt here.” + + +“I wouldn't own 'em if I met 'em on Judgement Bench!” exclaimed Pitt +Packard hotly. “My stepfather's second wife married Mis' Maddox's first +husband after he got divorced from her, 'n' that's all there is to it; +they ain't no bloody-kin o' mine, 'n' I don't call 'em relation.” + +“Wall, Pitt's relations or not, they're all wuss 'n the Old Driver, +as yer said 'bout Dan Robinson's wife. Dixie went to board there. Mis +Maddox was all out o' husbands jest then,--she 'd jest disposed of her +fourth, somehow or 'nother; she always hed a plenty 'n' to spare, though +there's lots o' likely women folks round here that never hed one chance, +let alone four. Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her +father hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' +but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn +out; if he 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him. +_In_fidelity would 'a' ben a mighty sight more 'propriate; but either +of 'em is too long fer a name, so they got to callin' her Fiddy. Wall, +Fiddy didn't waste no time; she was nigh onto eighteen years old when +Dixie went there to board, 'n' she begun huneyfuglin' him's soon as ever +she set eyes on him. Folks warned him, but 't wa'n't no use; he was kind +o' bewitched with her from the first. She wa'n't so han'some, neither. +Blamed 'f I know how they do it; let 'em alone, 'f yer know when yer +'re well off, 's my motter. She was red-headed, but her hair become her +somehow when she curled 'n' frizzed it over a karosene lamp, 'n' then +wound it round 'n' round her head like ropes o' carnelian. She hedn't +any particular kind of a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry! when she +looked at yer, yer felt kind as if yer was turnin' to putty inside.” + +“I know what yer mean,” said Steve interestedly. + +“She hed a figger jest like them fashion-paper pictures you 've seen, +an' the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy Maddox would hev +'em before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n' the highest hats 'n' the +tightest skirts 'n' the longest tails to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow, +anyhow! Dixie wa'n't out o' money when he come here, an' a spell +afterwards there was more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his +father's folks down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you! Dixie +bought a top buggy 'n' a sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road most o' +the time when he wa'n't to work; 'n' when he was, she 'd go with Lem +Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the wiser. Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new +husband jest then, so 't she didn't interfere”-- + +“She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow,” interpolated Ob Tarbox. + +“Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded you can't +anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, nor a husband 'n' +young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; the least wind blows 'em +here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. As time went on, the +widder got herself a beau now 'n' then; but as fast as she hooked 'em, +Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her. You see she 'd gethered in most of +her husbands afore Fiddy was old enough to hev her finger in the pie; +but she cut her eye-teeth early, Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of +a feller come to set up with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab +him, if she hed any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I +tell yer. But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He +could n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain.” + +“He hed warnin's enough,” put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum never +needed any assistance in spinning a yarn. + +“Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist minister went +so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' was the text. +'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. If he hadn't 'a' +heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done him no good +to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble many in +the congregation, 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' 'n' +heedin', but it rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. He +'n' Fiddy was seen over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, 'n' +they didn't come back for a week.” + + “'He gin her his hand, + And he made her his own,'” + +sang little Brad Gibson. + +“He hed gin her his hand, but no minister nor trial-jestice nor +eighteen-carat ring nor stificate could 'a' made Fiddy Maddox anybody's +own 'ceptin' the devil's, an' he wouldn't 'a' married her; she'd 'a' +ben too near kin. We'd never 'spicioned she 'd git 's fur 's marryin' +anybody, 'n' she only married Dixie 'cause he told her he 'd take her to +the Wareham House to dinner, 'n' to the County Fair afterwards; if any +other feller hed offered to take her to supper, 'n' the theatre on top +o' that, she 'd 'a' married him instid.” + +“How 'd the old woman take it?” asked Steve. + +“She disowned her daughter _punctilio:_ in the first place, fer runnin' +away 'stid o' hevin' a church weddin'; 'n' second place, fer marryin' a +pauper (that was what she called him; 'n' it was true, for they 'd spent +every cent he hed); 'n' third place, fer alienatin' the 'fections of a +travelin' baker-man she hed her eye on fer herself. He was a kind of a +flour-food peddler, that used to drive a cart round by Hard Scrabble, +Moderation, 'n' Scratch Corner way. Mis' Maddox used to buy all her +baked victuals of him, 'specially after she found out he was a widower +beginnin' to take notice. His cart used to stand at her door so long +everybody on the rout would complain o' stale bread. But bime bye Fiddy +begun to set at her winder when he druv up, 'n' bime bye she pinned a +blue ribbon in her collar. When she done that, Mis' Maddox alles hed to +take a back seat. The boys used to call it a danger signal. It kind o' +drawed yer 'tention to p'ints 'bout her chin 'n' mouth 'n' neck, 'n' one +thing 'n' 'nother, in a way that was cal'lated to snarl up the thoughts +o' perfessors o' religion 'n' turn 'em earthways. There was a spell +I hed to say, '_Remember_ _Rhapseny!_ _Remember_ _Rhapseny!_' over to +myself whenever Fiddy put on her blue ribbons. Wall, as I say, Fiddy set +at the winder, the baker-man seen the blue ribbons, 'n' Mis' Maddox's +cake was dough. She put on a red ribbon; but land! her neck looked 's if +somebody 'd gone over it with a harrer! Then she stomped round 'n' slat +the dish-rag, but 't wa'n't no use. 'Gracious, mother,' says Fiddy, 'I +don't do nothin' but set at the winder. The sun shines for all.' 'You're +right it does,' says Mis' Maddox, ''n' that's jest what I complain of. +I'd like to get a change to shine on something myself.' + +“But the baker-man kep' on comin', though when he got to the Maddoxes' +doorsteps he couldn't make change for a quarter nor tell pie from bread; +an' sure 's you're born, the very day Fiddy went away to be married to +Dixie, that mornin' she drawed that everlastin' numhead of a flour-food +peddler out into the orchard, 'n' cut off a lock o' her hair, 'n' tied +it up with a piece o' her blue ribbon, 'n' give it to him; an' old Mis' +Bascom says, when he went past her house he was gazin' at it 'n' kissin' +of it, 'n' his horse meanderin' on one side the road 'n' the other, 'n' +the door o' the cart open 'n' slammin' to 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies +spillin' out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next +morning' ['t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way when +Fiddy's ribbon was pullin' t'other); an' when he found out she 'd gone +with Dixie, he cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took on like a loontic; an' when +Mis' Maddox hinted she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, +he stomped 'n' cussed wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her +a hombly old trollop, an' fired the bread loaves all over the dooryard, +he was so crazy at bein' cheated. + +“Wall, to go back to Dixie--I'll be comin' right along, boys.” (This to +Brad Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink of ginger tea preparatory +to beginning work.) + +“I pity you, Steve!” exclaimed Brad, between deep swallows. “If you 'd +known when you was well off, you 'd 'a' stayed in Boston. If Jabe hed a +story started, he 'd talk three days after he was dead.” + +“Go 'long; leave me be! Wall, as I was sayin', Dixie brought Fiddy home +['Dell,' he called her), an' they 'peared bride 'n' groom at meetin' +next Sunday. The last hundred dollars he hed in the world hed gone into +the weddin' tower 'n' on to Fiddy's back. He hed a new suit, 'n' he +looked like a major. You ain't got no idea what he was, 'cause his eyes +is dull now, 'n' he 's bowed all over, 'n' ain't shaved nor combed, +hardly; but they was the han'somest couple that ever walked up the broad +aisle. She hed on a green silk dress, an' a lace cape that was like a +skeeter nettin' over her neck an' showed her bare skin through, an' a +hat like an apple orchard in full bloom, hummin'-bird an' all. Dixie +kerried himself as proud as Lucifer. He didn't look at the minister 'n' +he didn't look at the congregation; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, +as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved +consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the +silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out +'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would +a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to +work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her +meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll +wait on women folks long as they can stan' up. + +“Then bime bye the baby come along; but that made things wuss 'stid o' +better. She didn't pay no more 'tention to it than if it hed belonged +to the town. She 'd go off to dances, an' leave Dixie to home tendin' +cradle; but that wa'n't no hardship to him for he was 'bout as much +wropped up in the child as he was in Fiddy. Wall, sir, 'bout a month ago +she up 'n' disappeared off the face o' the airth 'thout sayin' a word or +leavin' a letter. She took her clo'es, but she never thought o' takin' +the baby; one baby more or less didn't make no odds to her s' long 's +she hed that skeeter-nettin' cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an' low +fer a fortnight, but after that he give it up as a bad job. He found out +enough, I guess, to keep him pretty busy thinkin' what he 'd do next. +But day before yesterday the same circus that plays here this afternoon +was playin' to Wareham. A lot of us went over on the evenin' train, an' +we coaxed Dixie into goin', so 's to take his mind off his trouble. But +land! he didn't see nothin'. He 'd walk right up the lions 'n' tigers +in the menagerie as if they was cats 'n' chickens, an' all the time the +clown was singin' he looked like a dumb animile that 's hed a bullet put +in him. There was lots o' side shows, mermaids 'n' six-legged calves +'n' spotted girls, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, an' there was one o' them +whirligig machines with a mess o' rocking'-hosses goin' round 'n' round, +'n' an organ in the middle playin' like sixty. I wish we 'd 'a' kept +clear o' the thing, but as bad luck would hev it, we stopped to look, +an' there on top o' two high-steppin' white wooden hosses, set Mis' +Fiddy an' that dod-gasted light-complected baker-man! If ever she was +suited to a dot, it was jest then 'n' there. She could 'a' gone prancin' +round that there ring forever 'n' forever, with the whoopin' 'n' +hollerin' 'n' whizzin' 'n' whirlin' soundin' in her ears, 'n' the music +playin' like mad, 'n' she with nothin' to do but stick on 'n' let some +feller foot the bills. Somebody must 'a' ben thinkin' o' Fiddy Maddox +when the invented them whirl-a-go-rounds. She was laughin' 'n' carryin' +on like the old Scratch; her apple-blossom hat dome off, 'n' the +baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, 'n' pulled her +ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; an' that was jest the +blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. I pulled Dixie off, but I was +too late. He give a groan I shall remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then +he plunged out o' the crowd 'n' through the gate like a streak o' +lightnin'. We follered, but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I +set here, I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; I forgot +all about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. If it wa'n't no +attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated it needed a father all +the more. Anyhow, he turned up in the field yesterday mornin', ready for +work, but lookin' as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead +put in the place of it.” + +“I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back so near +him,” said Steve. + +“Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over +Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen +her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it. +Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't +one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the +time she was knee high to a grasshopper. I've seen her set down by a +peck basket of apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then +heave it fur 's she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then +another; 'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly +spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton, +now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds +'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core +in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her +sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' +writin' of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin' for the +last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' _D_'s not _F_'s, like +Dixie there!” + + +***** + + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and +gone to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition where +it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would +have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a +circus in the neighborhood. + +Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle +something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the +song it is singing to the grasses. + + + “Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, + Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; + Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, + Hush, they sing to the clover deep; + Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,-- + Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. + Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging + Over the clover, over the grass.” + + +And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,--heart +sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present +certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool shade of the nooning +tree, and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone +with his miseries,--glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them +to be, had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for +hours to come. + +How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with +such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same +tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one +who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up +all the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever +on his brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had +promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before. +How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had +ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching their +stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, he +thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within full vision, +but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; and then, in an +unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! He could swear she had loved him +that night, if never again. + +But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the +caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of +the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the +thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there +presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and +was now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube +looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly +by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ... +Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid +to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in +one of the circling seats. The, good Got!--Dell! sitting on a prancing +white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; +a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,--the very +hat she “'peared bride in” a man who brushed a grasshopper from her +shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand +coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's +cheek,--before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The +horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--a whirl of +happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to +drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, +another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop +on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless... + +There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The +river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, +swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing +to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it +was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over +these same jagged rocks again. “On, on to the unknown!” called the +river. “I come! I come!” he roused himself to respond, when a faint, +faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, +cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,--the half-forgotten +memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night's +vigil,--the baby! + +But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it +dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only +close his ears to it! But it still called--called still--the river! And +still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful +flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, +answering each other antiphonally. The river--the baby--the river--the +baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the +whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its +discordant organ, and its creaking machinery. + +But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it +more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God! +they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain +were lulled into silence, as under a “Peace, be still!” and, worn out +with the contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful +shade of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over +exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden +darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of +the birds, passed unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick +foliage and fell on his face, but the storm within had been too fierce +for him to heed the storm without. He slept on. + + +***** + + +Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant River +was on the way to the circus,--Boomer's Grand Six-in-One Universal +Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining in +the same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian +Artists; the biggest elephants, the funniest clowns, the pluckiest +riders, the stubbornest mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest +man and the shortest man, the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, +on the habitable globe; and no connection with any other show on earth, +especially Sypher's Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State. + +If the advertisements setting forth these attractions were couched in +language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, there were few +persons calm enough to perceive it, when once the glamour of the village +parade and the smell of the menagerie had intoxicated the senses. + +The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. Jot +Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic news +of its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort of +town crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, he +would go over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what +were its immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every +one of the neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of +news. He was an attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at +every wedding, in the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and +town and county fair. When more pressing duties did not hinder, he +endeavored to meet the two daily trains that passed through Milliken's +Mills, a mile or two from Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on +all journeys entailing serving of papers and other embarrassing duties +common to the law. On one occasion, when the two lawyers of the village +held an investigation before Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited +an hour because Jot Bascom did not come. They knew that something was +amiss, but it was only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was +not indispensable. He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never +missed a town meeting. He knew all the conditions attending any swapping +of horses that occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of +the trade and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and +who owed the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them. +In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence +could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot +Bascom. That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home +duties, when overborne by press of public service, was true. When +Diadema Bascom wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, +or the pigs fed, she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk. + +All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had, +therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons +who tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields. + +These were the bulletins issues:-- + +The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, in the same +place where the old one had been,--the old one, viewed with awe for five +years by all the village small boys. + +The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, had +arrived and gone to the tavern. + +An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed! + +The elephant had stepped through the floor!! + +The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come! + +And the “Cheriot”!! + +This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, to +prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating over +the fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped short under +the elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. He pinched the +twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure himself that he was alive +and in his right mind. The precious coin had been the result of careful +saving, and his hot, excited hands had almost worn it thin. But alas for +the vanity of human hopes! When the magnificent red-and-gold “Cheriot” + was uncovered, that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the +door opened, and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead +the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. Little +Jim gave one panic-stricken look as they leaped over the chariot steps, +and then fled to the barn chamber, whence he had to be dragged by his +mother, and cuffed into willingness to attend the spectacle that had +once so dazzled his imagination. + +On the eventful afternoon of the performance the road was gay with +teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat +carryall, two children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl +held down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his +mother's buggy. Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, +and scores of others were riding “shank's mare,” as they would have +said. + +It had been a close, warm day, and as the afternoon wore away it grew +hotter and closer. There was a dead calm in the air, a threatening +blackness in the west that made the farmers think anxiously of their +hay. Presently the thunderheads ran together into big black clouds, +which melted in turn into molten masses of smoky orange, so that the +heavens were like burnished brass. Drivers whipped up their horses, and +pedestrians hastened their steps. Steve Webster decided not to run even +the smallest risk of injuring so precious a commodity as Doxy Morton by +a shower of rain, so he drove into a friend's yard, put up his horse, +and waited till the storm should pass by. Brad Gibson stooped to drink +at a wayside brook, and as he bent over the water he heard a low, +murmuring, muttering sound that seemed to make the earth tremble. + +Then from hill to hill “leapt the live thunder.” Even the distant +mountains seemed to have “found a tongue.” A zigzag chain of lightning +flashed in the lurid sky, and after an appreciable interval another +peal, louder than the first, and nearer. + +The rain began to fall, the forked flashes of flame darted hither and +thither in the clouds, and the boom of heaven's artillery grew heavier +and heavier. The blinding sheets of light and the tumultuous roar +of sound now followed each other so quickly that they seemed almost +simultaneous. Flash--crash--flash--crash--flash--crash; blinding and +deafening eye and ear at once. Everybody who could find a shelter of any +sort hastened to it. The women at home set their children in the midst +of feather beds, and some of them even huddled there themselves, their +babies clinging to them in sympathetic fear, as the livid shafts of +light illuminated the dark rooms with more than noonday glare. + +The air was full of gloom; a nameless terror lurked within it; the +elements seemed at war with each other. Horses whinnied in the stables, +and colts dashed about the pastures. The cattle sought sheltered places; +the cows ambling clumsily towards some refuge, their full bags dripping +milk as they swung heavily to and fro. The birds flew towards the +orchards and the deep woods; the swallows swooped restlessly round the +barns, and hid themselves under the eaves or in the shadow of deserted +nests. + +The rain now fell in sheets. + +“Hurry up 'n' git under cover, Jabe,” said Brad Gibson; “you're jest the +kind of a pole to draw lightnin'!” + +“You hain't, then!” retorted Jabe. “There ain't enough o' you fer +lightnin' to ketch holt of!” + +Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped out of a cloud, and then +another, till the sky seemed lit up by cataracts of flame. A breath of +wind sprang into the still air. Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, +roar, peal! and as Jabe Slocum looked out of a protecting shed door, +he saw a fiery ball burst from the clouds, shooting brazen arrows as it +fell. Within the instant the meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue +of flame, and then, looking towards home, he fancied that the fireball +dropped to earth in Squire Bean's meadow. + +The wind blew more fiercely now. There was a sudden crackling of wood, +falling of old timers, and breaking of glass. The deadly fluid ran in a +winding course down a great maple by the shed, leaving a narrow charred +channel through the bark to tell how it passed to earth. A sombre pine +stood up, black and burned, its heart gaping through a ghastly wound in +the split trunk. + +The rain now subsided; there was only an occasional faint rumbling of +thunder, as if it were murmuring over the distant sea; the clouds broke +away in the west; the sun peeped out, as if to see what had been going +on in the world since he hid himself an hour before. A delicate rainbow +bridge stretched from the blackened church steeple to the glittering +weathercock on the squire's barn; and there, in the centre of the fair +green meadows from which it had risen in glorious strength and beauty +for a century or more, lay the nooning tree. + +The fireball, if ball of fire indeed there were, had struck in the very +centre of its splendid dome, and ploughed its way from feather tip to +sturdy root, riving the tree in twain, cleaving its great boughs left +and right, laying one majestic half level with the earth, and bending +the other till the proud head almost touched the grass. + +The rainbow was reflected in the million drops glittering upon the bowed +branches, turning each into a tear of liquid opal. The birds hopped on +the prone magnificence, and eyed timorously a strange object underneath. + +There had been one swift, pitiless, merciful stroke! The monarch of the +meadow would never again feel the magic thrill of the sap in its veins, +nor the bursting of brown bud into green leaf. + +The birds would build their nests and sing their idyls in other boughs. +The “time of pleasure and love” was over with the nooning tree; over +too, with him who slept beneath; for under its fallen branches, with the +light of a great peace in his upturned face, lay the man from Tennessee. + + + + +THE FORE-ROOM RUG. + + +Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village +watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything +that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical +eye being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of +past experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, +the high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's +mother, old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still +more powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. +Diadema's seat had formerly been on the less desirable side of the +little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed. + +Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having +been transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber; for, as the teacher at the +brick schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and +the daughter of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable +consequence. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were +alone. It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every +part. The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven +entirely of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed +localities by button rugs,--red, white, and blue disks superimposed one +on the other. + +Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, +Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and +handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. +This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination, +and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the +sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword +and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows of bright +red cotton. + +The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, the turkey +wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against the white-painted +chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished +with home-made scarlet “tossels.” A little whatnot in one corner was +laden with the trophies of battle. The warrior's brass buttons were +strung on a red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype on the +upper shelf; there was a tarnished shoulder strap, and a flattened +bullet that the captain's jealous contemporaries swore _he_ never +stopped, unless he got it in the rear when he was flying from the foe. +There was also a little tin canister in which a charge of powder had +been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, said that “the cap'n put +it in his musket when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he +come out.” These objects were tastefully decorated with the national +colors. In fact, no modern aesthete could have arranged a symbolic +symphony of grief and glory with any more fidelity to an ideal than +Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue. + +Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, and a +tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in +the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking +at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the +trig little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one +after another across the open space at the top. + +Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of the last horse +trade; little Jot was building “stickin'” houses in the barn; Priscilla +was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in +frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side. + +Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the +attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would +have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping down +the cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests +twice a year; but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had +made their way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of +all,--the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once +ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded relics, and reduced +the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema as “reg'lar +riddlin' sieves.” She had brought the tattered pile down in to the +kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon in cutting the good pieces +from the perforated garments. Three heaped-up baskets and a full +dish-pan were the result; and as she had snipped and cut and sorted, +one of her sentimental projects had entered her mind and taken complete +possession there. + +“I declare,” she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, “I +wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for +every time I draw in a scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the +world as if she was settin' on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan, +Miss Hollis, and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to +be a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought in together, just +as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and +mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em +altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and +have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that +will mean something to me, if it don't to anybody else. + +“We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There +'s never been more 'n half o' me left sence she died. We was born +together, played and went to school together, got engaged and married +together, and we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite alike. +There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, 'There's +sister Nabby, now: she 'n' I ain't no more alike 'n if we wa'n't two; +she 's jest as diff'rent as I am t' other way.' Well, I know what I want +to put into my rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to +begin.” + +Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest. + +“A spray of two roses in the centre,--there 's the beginning; why, don't +you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?” + +“Course I do,” said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. “I've +got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses +grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able +more like a potato blossom. The stalk 's got to be green, and here +is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had +roundabouts of it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about +four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing +up and looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother +had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to +pacify her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had +brought her. He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting +Lovice. + +“The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother +and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother +used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and +looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the +daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up +bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, +she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when +she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and +asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him +playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted +us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr. +Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she carried the +candle close to the beds to take another tally, there was thirteen +children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in +amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! While father set out on a hunt +for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o' +the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of +shavings under the joiner's bench. + +“They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles went +all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there +wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't +start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; I'm going +to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the +sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors +and filling out. + +“You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss +roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. I meant to make 'em +red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light +color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing +will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall +have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the +way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out +altogether, and mine hasn't been any too gay. + +“I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the +liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could +shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben +Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when +he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, the others had it +all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced +religion, and she was mischeevous as a kitten. + +“You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about +Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but +she couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into +a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. The boys found it out, and +used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett.” He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' +Four Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous +for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one +year. They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur +as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he +didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their +front dooryards ready to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says +he, 'For the Lord's sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went +through? Be they _all_ fools there?' + +“Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night, +when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come +back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was +him. 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through +a little crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered +out, 'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, for I +didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make +no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.' How we did laugh over that! +Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps +it helped his head some; at any rate he quit farming, and become a +Bullockite preacher. + +“It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have +drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did: she had +good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, +all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the +sect had mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a +full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never +had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had +light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover +kep' him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you +ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no otherways than +scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change of heart that winter; in +fact she had two of 'em, for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a +hope at the same time. 'T was a good honest conversion, too, though she +did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love +was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it to love God +as she 'd ought to. + +“There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished. I sha'n't +have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one +breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you +know, and dressed just alike. Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for +he wa'n't any more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; +but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start, +and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' the percession.--Now what +next?” + +“Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?” asked +Priscilla, with an amused smile. + +“Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know +what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have +forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain; +but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of +coat and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch +anyway.” + +Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden +inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging +in an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant. + +“Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! And +here they are,--one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know +what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering over +them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,--green with brown +spots. That'll bring in the husbands; and land! I wouldn't have either +of 'em know it for the world. I'll take a pattern of that lunar moth you +pinned on the curtain yesterday.” + +Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. “You have some very ingenious +ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?” + +“It's the first time I ever heard tell of it,” said Diadema cheerfully. +“Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain +and practical. While I think of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this +red into my carnation pink. It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from +Portland. It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said +if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant +business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal +husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always _are_ poor, +without they're rich; there don't seem to be any halfway in ministers. + +“We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot Bascom's +body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes into the +bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. He never +asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. You 've never +been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much +about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about +husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don't know as it +matters if all the other women folks in town don't happen to like him +as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that. They see the face +he turns to them, not the one he turns to you. Jot ain't a very good +provider, nor he ain't a man that 's much use round a farm, but he 's +such a fav'rite I can't blame him. There 's one thing: when he does +come home he 's got something to say, and he 's always as lively as a +cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. I like a man that 's good +comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded. There ain't anything specially +lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I shouldn't ever +feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. He 's got +such pleasant ways, Jot has! The other afternoon he didn't get home +early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the +kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the +tavern and tell the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't +anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's +going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And +he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple +juice to limber _his_ tongue! + +“Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, and the full wood-box, +and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and +he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best +wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what +_you_ are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) +Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a +man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove +looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss +Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a +husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't +too busy; it smooths things consid'able round the house. + +“There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and +finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next? +Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot. + +“I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made +of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud, +but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this +rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it +was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I +made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel.” + +“Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?” ventured +Priscilla. + +“I don't care if they be,” said Diadema obstinately. “What's to hender +this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but +the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after +their father. But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit +with it. I s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but +the moths never et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. There's +one thing I can do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, and have it +growing right up alongside of mine,--would you?” + +“No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your +flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing. +Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look +like a bluish white.” + +“I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths _had_ eat +the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the +scallops on the aidge for me. My grief! what int'rest she took in my +baby clothes! Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come +over from Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first +church. I shall never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life. +There was deep snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, with the +door opening into the setting-room. Mother and father Bascom kep' out in +the dining-room and kitchen, where the work was going on, and Lovey and +the baby and me had the front part of the house to ourselves, with Jot +coming in on tiptoe, heaping up wood in the fireplace so 't he 'most +roasted us out. He don't forget his chores in time o' sickness. + +“I never took so much comfort in all my days. Jot got one of the +Billings girls to come over and help in the housework, so 't I could +lay easy 's long as I wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor +since. There ain't any heaven in the book o' Revelations that 's any +better than them two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good feather +bed, fingering the pattern of my best crochet quilt, and looking at the +fire-light shining on Lovey and the baby. She 'd hardly leave him in the +cradle a minute. When I did n't want him in bed with me, she 'd have +him in her lap. Babies are common enough to most folks, but Lovey was +diff'rent. She 'd never had any experience with children, either, for we +was the youngest in our family; and it wa'n't long before we come near +being the oldest, too, for mother buried seven of us before she went +herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody else look as she done when she held +my baby. I don't mean nothing blasphemious when I say 't was for all the +world like your photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus. + +“The nights come in early, so it was 'most dark at four o'clock. +The little chamber was so peaceful! I could hear Jot rattling the +milk-pails, but I'd draw a deep breath o' comfort, for I knew the milk +would be strained and set away without my stepping foot to the floor. +Lovey used to set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand +behind her, and a little white knit cape over her shoulders. She had the +pinkest cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and a mouth like a little red +buttonhole; and when she bent over the baby, and sung to him,--though +his ears wa'n't open, I guess for his eyes wa'n't,--the tears o' joy +used to rain down my cheeks. It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing +mostly, and the one I remember best was + + + “'Daniel's wisdom may I know, + Stephen's faith and spirit show; + John's divine communion feel, + Moses' meekness, Joshua's zeal, + Run like the unwearied Paul, + Win the day and conquer all. + + + “'Mary's love may I possess, + Lydia's tender-heartedness, + Peter's fervent spirit feel, + James's faith by works reveal, + Like young Timothy may I + Every sinful passion fly.' + + +“'Oh Diademy,' she 'd say, 'you was always the best, and it 's nothing +more 'n right the baby should have come to you. P'r'aps God will think +I'm good enough some time; and if he does, Diademy, I'll offer up a +sacrifice every morning and every evening. But I'm afraid,' says she, +'he thinks I can't stand any more happiness, and be a faithful follower +of the cross. The Bible says we 've got to wade through fiery floods +before we can enter the kingdom. I don't hardly know how Reuben and I +are going to find any way to wade through; we're both so happy, they 'd +have to be consid'able hot before we took notice,' says she, with the +dimples all breaking out in her cheeks. + +“And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done was +just right, and he thought everything she done was just right. There +wa'n't nobody else; the world was all Reuben 'n' all Lovey to them. +If you could have seen her when she was looking for him to come from +Skowhegan! She used to watch at the attic window; and when she seen him +at the foot of the hill she 'd up like a squirrel, and run down the road +without stopping for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. And +Reuben would ketch her up as if she was a child, and scold her for not +putting a hat on, and take her under his coat coming up the hill. They +was a sight for the neighbors, I must confess, but it wa'n't one you +could hardly disapprove of, neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting +Providence and couldn't last, and God would visit his wrath on 'em for +making idols of sinful human flesh. + +“She was right one way,--it didn't last; but nobody can tell me God was +punishing of 'em for being too happy. I guess he 'ain't got no objection +to folks being happy here below, if they don't forget it ain't the whole +story. + +“Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey's stalk now, and I'm going to make +it of her baby's long white cloak. I earned the money for it myself, +making coats, and put four yards of the finest cashmere into it; for +three years after little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help +Lovey through her time o' trial. Time o' trial! I thought I was happy, +but I didn't know how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa'n't made on that +pattern. + +“When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes +shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered +the little bundle o' warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close +she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb +to the altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I +seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on +the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. +'T wa'n't no place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. We didn't +mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and +I'm glad I give 'em every minute.” + +The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant +River. Priscilla's lip trembled; Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on +the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed +the pattern. + + +“I ain't said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on, +with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I've got going I can't +stop. I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow. + +“Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her +home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she +holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd +got to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood +we've had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave +as I know how.' + +“She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a +snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the +face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o' +mourning like sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et +or slept, or what we done. + +“As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its +mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would +have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless +sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it _could_n't have been! +You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! +But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms +and laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we +thought she seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There +never was another like her, and there never will be. 'Nonesuch,' Reuben +used to call her.” + +There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old +clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous +movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head +in Diadema's gingham apron. + +“Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say.” + +“No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see me give way. +You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so 't the kettle will +be boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. I don't know what the +neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but +the spell's over now, or 'bout over, and when I can muster up courage +I'll take the rest of the baby's cloak and put a border of white +everlastings round the outside of the rug. I'll always mean the baby's +birth and Lovey's death to me; but the flowers will remind me it 's life +everlasting for both of 'em, and so it's the most comforting end I can +think of.” + +It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of +the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company +was expected she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in +a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it. +Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated +themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not “set easy” or “rest +comfortable” there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by +the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of +Diadema's “p'ison neatness,” excusable in this case as there was so much +white in the new rug. + +The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death +pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was +allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window, +and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, Miss Hollis would look in as +she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance +of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned +posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads. +Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that +all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, +motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were +chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square. + +Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon. + +“I cal'late,” she said, “that being kep' in a dark room, and never being +tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know +that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: that would +make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece +out the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white +flowers, and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. The rug would be +han'somer than ever then, and the story--would be finished.” + + + + +A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. + + +I. + + + “Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, + Know more than any book. + Down with your doleful problems, + And court the sunny brook. + The south-winds are quick-witted, + The schools are sad and slow, + The masters quite omitted + The lore we care to know.” + + Emerson's _April._ + + +“Find the 317th page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand +column.” + +The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and +then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:-- + +“'One of Pag-pag'”-- + +“Pag-a-ni-ni's.” + +“'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn't +have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when +playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) 'Some +one asked him to im-pro-vise on the violin the story of a son who kills +his father, runs a-way, becomes a highway-man, falls in love with a +girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, +suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s'”-- + +“Abyss.” + +“'--a--rock--into--an--abyss, were they disappear forever. Paggernyner +listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he asked that all the +lights should be distinguished.'” + +“Look closer, Davy.” + +“'Should be extinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was +the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him +that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-s_a_lon, when +relighted, looked like a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like to +have been there, uncle Tony? But I don't believe anybody ever played +that way, do you?” + +“Yes,” said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the +elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. “I believe it, and I can hear +it myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret of +everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is +hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it +from captivity.” + +“You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies +don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a +battle-field when you 've finished. I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, +for I should have more housework to do than ever.” + +“Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; +but it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your pictures, +laddie; make me see with your eyes.” + +The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely +touching the old millstone that served for a step. Taking a stand in +the well-worn path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the landscape +with the glance of an eagle, and began like a young improvisator:-- + +“The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill.” + +“What color is it?” + +“Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it,--it 's almost alone +in the sky; there 's only teenty little white feather clouds here and +there. The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two sides +of the river together. The water is pink where the sun shines into it. +All the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red light,--I +tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass. The weather +vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems to be shooting +gold arrows into the river. I can see the tip top of Mount Washington +where the peak of its snow-cap touches the pink sky. The hen-house door +is open. The chickens are all on their roost, with their heads cuddled +under their wings.” + +“Did you feed them?” + +The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture of +penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he +scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating +calls of “Chick, chick, chick, chick! _Come,_ biddy, biddy, biddy, +biddy! _Come,_ chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!” + +The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanor of somebody very +dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a corner +shelf, took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a silk bag. +He removed the covering with reverential hands. The tenderness of the +face was like that of a young mother dressing or undressing her child. +As he fingered the instrument his hands seemed to have become all eyes. +They wandered caressingly over the polished surface as if enamored of +the perfect thing that they had created, lingering here and there with +rapturous tenderness on some special beauty,--the graceful arch of +the neck, the melting curves of the cheeks, the delicious swell of the +breasts. + +When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, and +lifting the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly toward it +and began to play. + +The tune at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began +in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' the playing grew firmer and +clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until +the atmosphere was satiated with harmony. No more ethereal note ever +flew out of a bird's throat than Anthony Croft set free from this +violin, his _liebling_, his “swan song,” made in the year he had lost +his eyesight. + +Anthony Croft had been the only son of his mother, and she a widow. His +boyhood had been exactly like that of all the other boys in Edgewood, +save that he hated school a trifle more, if possible, than any of the +others; though there was a unanimity of aversion in this matter that +surprised and wounded teachers and parents. + +The school was the ordinary “deestrick” school of that time; there were +not enough scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a “degraded” school. +The difference between Anthony and the other boys lay in the reason as +well as the degree of his abhorrence. + +He had come into the world a naked, starving human soul; he longed to +clothe himself, and he was hungry and ever hungrier for knowledge; but +never within the four walls of the village schoolhouse could he get hold +of one fact that would yield him its secret sense, one glimpse of clear +light that would shine in upon the “darkness which may be felt” in his +mind, one thought or word that would feed his soul. + +The only place where his longings were ever stilled, where he seemed at +peace with himself, where he understood what he was made for, was out +of doors in the woods. When he should have been poring over the sweet, +palpitating mysteries of the multiplication table, his vagrant gaze was +always on the open window near which he sat. He could never study when a +fly buzzed on the window-pane; he was always standing on the toes of his +bare feet, trying to locate and understand the buzz that puzzled him. +The book was a mute, soulless thing that had no relation to his +inner world of thought and feeling. He turned ever from the dead +seven-times-six to the mystery of life about him. + +He was never a special favorite with his teachers; that was scarcely to +be expected. In his very early years, his pockets were gone through with +every morning when he entered the school door, and the contents, when +confiscated, would comprise a jew's-harp, a bit of catgut, screws +whittled out of wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. But when robbed +of all these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, which, when +put between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, would yield +a delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. He could also +fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means of spools +and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life was an +old tuning-fork that the teacher of the singing school had given him, +but, owing to the degrading and arbitrary censorship of pockets that +prevailed, he never dared bring it into the schoolroom. There were ways, +however, of evading inexorable law and circumventing base injustice. +He hid the precious thing under a thistle just outside the window. The +teacher had sometimes a brief season of apathy on hot afternoons, when +she was hearing the primer class read, “_I see a pig. The pig is big. +The big pig can dig;_” which stirring in phrases were always punctuated +by the snores of the Hanks baby, who kept sinking down on his fat little +legs in the line and giving way to slumber during the lesson. At such +a moment Anthony slipped out of the window and snapped the tuning-fork +several times,--just enough to save his soul from death,--and then +slipped in again. He was caught occasionally, but not often; and even +when he was, there were mitigating circumstances, for he was generally +put under the teacher's desk for punishment. It was a dark, close, +sultry spot, but when he was well seated, and had grown tied of looking +at the triangle of elastic in the teacher's congress boot, and tired +of wishing it was his instead of hers, he would tie one end of a bit of +thread to the button of his gingham shirt, and, carrying it round his +left ear several times, make believe he was Paganini languishing in +prison and playing on a violin with a single string. + +As he grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony Croft was by +general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. That he was lazy +in certain matters merely because he was in a frenzy of industry to +pursue certain others had nothing to do with the case, of course. + +If any one had ever given him a task in which he could have seen cause +working to effect, in which he could have found by personal experiment a +single fact that belonged to him, his own by divine right of discovery, +he would have counted labor or study all joy. + +He was one incarnate Why and How, one brooding wonder and interrogation +point. “Why does the sun drive away the stars? Why do the leaves turn +red and gold? What makes the seed swell in the earth? From whence comes +the life hidden in the egg under the bird's breast? What holds the moon +in the sky? Who regulates her shining? Who moves the wind? Who made +me, and what am I? Who, why, how whither? If I came from God but only +lately, teach me his lessons first, put me into vital relation with +life and law, and then give me your dead signs and equivalents for real +things, that I may learn more and more, and ever more and ever more.” + +There was no spirit in Edgewood bold enough to conceive that Tony +learned anything in the woods, but as there was never sufficient school +money to keep the village seat of learning open more than half the year +the boy educated himself at the fountain head of wisdom, and knowledge +of the other half. His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched +from a hen's egg, and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black +sheep and a crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony had +more useless information than any boy in the village. He knew just where +to find the first Mayflowers, and would bring home the waxen beauties +when other people had scarcely begun to think about the spring. He could +tell where to look for the rare fringed gentian, the yellow violet, the +Indian pipe. There were clefts in the rocks of the Indian Cellar where, +when every one else failed, he could find harebells and columbines. + +When his tasks were done, and the other boys were amusing themselves +each in his own way, you would find Tony lying flat on the pine needles +in the woods, listening to the notes of the wild birds, and imitating +them patiently, til you could scarcely tell which was boy and which was +bird; and if you could, the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed +the bobolinks and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head and +chirp to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about +the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have +taken hold and helped if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had +had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. He would sit near a beehive +for hours without moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, under the +full glare of the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy; +sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the comedy might +not be turned into a tragedy by a careless footfall. The cottage on the +river road grew more and more to resemble a museum and herbarium as the +years went by, and the Widow Croft's weekly house-cleaning was a matter +that called for the exercise of Christian grace. + +Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, considerate, and obedient. +His mother had no idea that he would ever be able, or indeed willing, +to make a living; but there was a forest of young timber growing up, a +small hay farm to depend upon, and a little hoard that would keep him +out of the poorhouse when she died and left him to his own devices. +It never occurred to her that he was in any way remarkable. If he were +difficult to understand, it reflected more upon his eccentricity than +upon her density. What was a woman to do with a boy of twelve who, when +she urged him to drop the old guitar he was taking apart and hurry off +to school, cried, “Oh, mother! when there is so much to learn in this +world, it is wicked, wicked to waste time in school.” + +About this period Tony spent hours in the attic arranging bottles and +tumblers into a musical scale. He also invented an instrument made +of small and great, long and short pins, driven into soft board to +different depths, and when the widow passed his door on the way to bed +she invariable saw this barbaric thing locked up to the boy's breast, +for he often played himself to sleep with it. + +At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put together again, strengthened, +soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced every accordion, guitar, +melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the +neighboring villages. There was a little money to be earned in this way, +but very little, as people in general regarded this “tinkering” as a +pleasing diversion in which they could indulge him without danger. As +an example of this attitude, Dr. Berry's wife's melodeon had lost two +stops, the pedals had severed connection with the rest of the works, +it wheezed like an asthmatic, and two black keys were missing. Anthony +worked more than a week on its rehabilitation, and received in return +Mrs. Berry's promise that the doctor would pull a tooth for him some +time! This, of course, was a guerdon for the future, but it seemed +pathetically distant to the lad who had never had a toothache in his +life. He had to plead with Cyse Higgins for a week before that prudent +young farmer would allow him to touch his five-dollar fiddle. He +obtained permission at last only because by offering to give Cyse his +calf in case he spoiled the violin. “That seems square,” said Cyse +doubtfully, “but after all, you can't play on a calf!” “Neither will +your fiddle give milk, if you keep it long enough,” retorted Tony; and +this argument was convincing. + +So great was his confidence in Tony's skill that Squire Bean trusted his +father's violin to him, one that had been bought in Berlin seventy years +before. It had been hanging on the attic wall for a half century, so +that the back was split in twain, the sound-post lost, the neck and the +tailpiece cracked. The lad took it home, and studied it for two whole +evenings before the open fire. The problem of restoring it was quite +beyond his abilities. He finally took the savings of two summers' +“blueberry money” and walked sixteen miles to Portland, where he bought +a book called The Practical Violinist. The Supplement proved to be +a mine of wealth. Even the headings appealed to his imagination and +intoxicated him with their suggestions,--On Scraping, Splitting, and +Repairing Violins, Violin Players, Great Violinists, Solo Playing, +etc.; and at the very end a Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, +Repair, and Improvement of the Violin, by Jacob Augustus Friedheim, +Instrument Maker to the Court of the Archduke of Weimar. + +There was a good deal of moral advice in the preface that sadly puzzled +the boy, who was always in a condition of chronic amazement at the +village disapprobation of his favorite fiddle. That the violin did not +in some way receive the confidence enjoyed by other musical instruments, +he perceived from various paragraphs written by the worthy author of The +Practical Violinist, as for example:-- + +“Some very excellent Christian people hold a strong prejudice against +the violin because they have always known it associated with dancing and +dissipation. Let it be understood that your violin is 'converted,' and +such an obligation will no longer lie against it. ... Many delightful +hours may be enjoyed by a young man, if he has obtained a respectable +knowledge of his instrument, who otherwise would find the time hang +heavy on his hands; or, for want of some better amusement, would +frequent the dangerous and destructive paths of vice and be ruined +forever. ... I am in hopes, therefore, my dear young pupil, that your +violin will occupy your attention at just those very times when, if you +were immoral or dissipated, you would be at the grogshop, gaming-table, +or among vicious females. Such a use of the violin, notwithstanding the +prejudices many hold against it, must contribute to virtue, and furnish +abundance of innocent and entirely unobjectionable amusement. These are +the views with which I hope you have adopted it, and will continue to +cherish and cultivate it.” + + +II. + + + “There is no bard in all the choir, + ....... + Not one of all can put in verse, + Or to this presence could rehearse + The sights and voices ravishing + The boy knew on the hills in spring, + When pacing through the oaks he heard + Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, + The heavy grouse's sudden whir, + The rattle of the kingfisher.” + + Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Now began an era of infinite happiness, of days that were never long +enough, of evenings when bedtime came all too soon. Oh that there had +been some good angel who would have taken in hand Anthony Croft the +boy, and, training the powers that pointed so unmistakably in certain +directions, given to the world the genius of Anthony Croft, potential +instrument maker to the court of St. Cecilia; for it was not only that +he had the fingers of a wizard; his ear caught the faintest breath of +harmony or hint of discord, as + + + “Fairy folk a-listening + Hear the seed sprout in the spring, + And for music to their dance + Hear the hedge-rows wake from trance; + Sap that trembles into buds + Sending little rhythmic floods + Of fairy sound in fairy ears. + Thus all beauty that appears + Has birth as sound to finer sense + And lighter-clad intelligence.” + + +As the universe is all mechanism to one man, all form and color to +another, so to Anthony Croft the world was all melody. Notwithstanding +all these gifts and possibilities, the doctor's wife advised the Widow +Croft to make a plumber of him, intimating delicately that these freaks +of nature, while playing no apparent part in the divine economy, could +sometimes be made self-supporting. + +The seventeenth year of his life marked a definite epoch in his +development. He studied Jacob Friedheim's treatise until he knew +the characteristics of all the great violin models, from the Amatis, +Hieronymus, Antonius, and Nicolas, to those of Stradivarius, Guarnerius, +and Steiner. + +It was in this year, also, that he made a very precious discovery. While +browsing in the rubbish in Squire Bean's garret to see if he could find +the missing sound-post of the old violin, he came upon a billet of wood +wrapped in cloth and paper. When unwrapped, it was plainly labeled “Wood +from the Bean Maple at Pleasant Point; the biggest maple in York County, +and believed to be one of the biggest in the State of Maine.” Anthony +found that the oldest inhabitant of Pleasant River remembered the stump +of the tree, and that the boys used to jump over it and admire +its proportions whenever they went fishing at the Point. The wood, +therefore, was perhaps eighty or ninety years old. The squire agreed +willingly that it should be used to mend the old violin, and told Tony +he should have what was left for himself. When, by careful calculation, +he found that the remainder would make a whole violin, he laid it +reverently away for another twenty years, so that he should be sure it +had completed its century of patient waiting for service, and falling on +his knees by his bedside said, “I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for +this precious gift, and I promise from this moment to gather the most +beautiful wood I can find, and lay it by where it can be used some time +to make perfect violins, so that if any creature as poor and helpless as +I am needs the wherewithal to do good work, I shall have helped him as +Thou hast helped me.” And according to his promise so he did, and the +pieces of richly curled maple, of sycamore, and of spruce began to +accumulate. They were cut from the sunny side of the trees, in just +the right season of the year, split so as to have a full inch thickness +towards the bark, and a quarter inch towards the heart. They were then +laid for weeks under one of the falls in Wine Brook, where the musical +tinkle, tinkle of the stream fell on the wood already wrought upon by +years of sunshine and choruses of singing birds. + + +This boy, toiling not alone for himself, but with full and conscious +purpose for posterity also, was he not worthy to wear the mantle of +Antonius Stradivarius? + + +“That plain white-aproned man who stood at work Patient and accurate +full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, +And since keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect violins, the +needed paths For inspiration and high mastery.” + +And as if the year were not full enough of glory, the school-teacher +sent him a book with a wonderful poem in it. + +That summer's teaching had been the freak of a college student, who had +gone back to his senior year strengthened by his experience of village +life. Anthony Croft, who was only three or four years his junior, had +been his favorite pupil and companion. + +“How does Tony get along?” asked the Widow Croft when the teacher came +to call. + +“Tony? Oh, I can't teach him anything.” + +Tears sprang to the mother's eyes. + +“I know he ain't much on book learning,” she said apologetically, “but +I'm bound he don't make you no trouble in deportment.” + +“I mean,” said the school-teacher gravely, “that I can show him how to +read a little Latin and do a little geometry, but he knows as much in +one day as I shall ever know in a year.” + +Tony crouched by the old fireplace in the winter evenings, dropping his +knife or his compasses a moment to read aloud to his mother, who sat in +the opposite corner knitting:-- + + + “Of old Antonio Stradivari,--him + Who a good quarter century and a half ago + Put his true work in the brown instrument, + And by the nice adjustment of its frame + Gave it responsive life, continuous + With the master's finger-tips, and perfected + Like them by delicate rectitude of use.” + + +The mother listened with painful intentness. “I like the sound of it,” + she said, “but I can't hardly say I take in the full sense.” + +“Why mother,” said the lad, in a rare moment of self-expression, “you +know the poetry says he cherished his sight and touch by temperance; +that an idiot might see a straggling line and be content, but he had +an eye that winced at false work, and loved the true. When it says his +finger-tips were perfected by delicate rectitude of use, I think it +means doing everything as it is done in heaven, and that anybody +who wants to make a perfect violin must keep his eye open to all the +beautiful things God has made, and his ear open to all the music he has +put into the world, and then never let his hands touch a piece of work +that is crooked or straggling or false, till, after years and years of +rightness, they are fit to make a violin like the squire's, a violin +that can say everything, a violin that an angel wouldn't be ashamed to +play on.” + +Do these words seem likely ones to fall from the lips of a lad who had +been at the tail of his class ever since his primer days? Well, +Anthony was seventeen now, and he was “educated,” in spite of sorry +recitations,--educated, the Lord knows how! Yes, in point of fact the +Lord does know how! He knows how the drill and pressure of the daily +task, still more the presence of the high ideal, the inspiration working +from within, how these educate us. + +The blind Anthony Croft sitting in the kitchen doorway had seemingly +missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked his close +on fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every +finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, feet +stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; seeing and +hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; for while +imperious genius surmounts all obstacles, brushes laws and formulas from +its horizon, and with its own free soul sees its “path and the outlets +of the sky,” potential genius forever needs an angel of deliverance to +set it free. + +Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which,--God +knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. “One thing I do,” + said Paul. “One thing I do,” said Anthony. He was not able to realize +his ideals, but he had the “angel aim” by which he idealized his reals. + +O waiting heart of God! how soon would thy kingdom come if we all did +our allotted tasks, humble or splendid, in this consecrated fashion! + + +III. + + + “Therein I hear the Parcae reel + The threads of man at their humming wheel, + The threads of life and power and pain, + So sweet and mournful falls the strain.” + + Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis, and died +of a Sunday night. She was all alone in her little cottage on the river +bank, with no neighbor nearer than Croft's, and nobody there but a blind +man and a small boy. Everybody had told her it was foolish to live alone +in a house on the river road, and everybody was pleased in a discreet +and chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly as they +had predicted. + +Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up to Milliken's Mills, with her +little black reticule hanging over her arm, and noticing that there +was no smoke coming out of the chimney, and that the hens were gathered +about the kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it +best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from +her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom +window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was +obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting +with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a +considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one +never grudged trouble when she wanted to find out anything. + +When she discovered that her premonitions were correct, and that +old Mrs. Butterfield was indeed dead, her grief at losing a pleasant +acquaintance was largely mitigated by her sense of importance at being +first on the spot, and chosen by Providence to take command of the +situation. There were no relations in the village; there was no woman +neighbor within a mile: it was therefore her obvious Christian duty not +only to take charge of the remains, but to conduct such a funeral as the +remains would have wished for herself. + +The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny to guide +the ship of state, the general who sees a possible Victoria Cross in +a hazardous engagement, can have a faint conception of aunt Hitty's +feeling on this momentous occasion. Funerals were the very breath of her +life. There was no ceremony, either of public or private import, that, +to her mind, approached a funeral in real satisfying interest. Yet, +with distinct talent in this direction, she had always been “cabined, +cribbed, confined” within hopeless limitations. She had assisted in a +secondary capacity at funerals in the families of other people, but she +would have reveled in personally conducted ones. The members of her own +family stubbornly refused to die, however, even the distant connections +living on and on to a ridiculous old age; and if they ever did die, by +reason of a falling roof, shipwreck, or conflagration, they generally +died in Texas or Iowa, or some remote State where aunt Hitty could not +follow the hearse in the first carriage. This blighted ambition was a +heart sorrow of so deep and sacred a character that she did not even +confess it to “Si,” as her appendage of a husband was called. + +Now at last her chance for planning a funeral had come. Mrs. Butterfield +had no kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, who lived in Andover, +or Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts,--aunt Hitty couldn't remember +which, and hoped nobody else could. The niece would be sent for when +they found out where she lived; meanwhile the funeral could not be put +off. + +She glanced round the house preparatory to locking it up and starting +to notify Anthony Croft. She would just run over and talk to him about +ordering the coffin; then she could attend to all other necessary +preliminaries herself. The remains had been well-to-do, and there was no +occasion for sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined in her own mind to +have the latest fashion in everything, including a silver coffin plate. +The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to be proud of. They had +been sacredly preserved for years and years, and the entire +collection--numbering nineteen in all had been framed, and adorned the +walls of the deceased lady's best room. They were not of solid silver, +it is true, but even so it was a matter of distinction to have belonged +to a family that could afford to have nineteen coffin plates of any +sort. + +Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic details as she walked town the road +to Croft's. It came to her in a burst of inspiration that she would have +two ministers: one for the long prayer, and one for the short prayer and +the remarks. She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter +direction. She knew she couldn't for the life of her think of anything +interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed nineteen +coffin plates, and brought her hens to Edgewood every summer for their +health; but she had heard Elder Weeks make a moving discourse out of +less than that. To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to +that. There was Ivory Brown's funeral: how would that have gone on if it +hadn't been for her? Wasn't the elder ten minutes late, and what would +his remarks have amounted to without her suggestions? You might almost +say she was the author of the discourse, for she gave him all the +appropriate ideas. As she had helped him out of the wagon she had said: +“Are you prepared? I thought not; but there's no time to lose. Remember +there are aged parents; two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane +Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D. C. Don't mention the +Universalists,--there's ben two in the fam'ly; nor insanity,--there 's +ben one o' them. The girl in the corner by the clock is the one that +the remains has been keeping comp'ny with. If you can make some genteel +allusions to her, it'll be much appreciated by his folks.” + +As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied +on to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails. +She had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, got up +and straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually +“prayed” around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear. + +These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked quite +half a mile beyond Croft's, and was obliged to retrace her steps. +She conceived bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the +pallbearers, and a festoon of the same over the front gate, if there +should be any left over. She planned the singing by the choir. There +had been no real choir-singing at any funeral in Edgewood since the Rev. +Joshua Beckwith had died. She would ask them to open with-- + + Rebel mourner, cease your weepin'. + You too must die. + +This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty would be in +keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a +soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could +possibly sing it. It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks +officiated; but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder +always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief +over his head before beginning the twenty-seven verses. After the long +prayer, she would have Almira Berry give for a solo-- + + This gro-o-oanin' world 's too dark and + dre-e-ar for the saints' e - ter - nal rest, + +This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile one to death, enabled one to +look upon life with sufficient solemnity. It was a thousand pities, she +thought, that the old hearse was so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly +Eldridge, who drove it, would insist on wearing a faded peach-blow +overcoat. It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, +and contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River. In Egypt +they had sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, and now they were +having hearse sociables every month to raise money for a new one. + +All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in fascinating +procession. There shouldn't be “a hitch” anywhere. There had been a +hitch at her last funeral, but she had been only an assistant there. +Matt Henderson had been struck by lightning at the foot of Squire Bean's +old nooning tree, and certain circumstances combined to make the funeral +one of unusual interest, so much so that fat old Mrs. Potter from +Deerwander created a sensation at the cemetery. She was so anxious +to get where she could see everything to the best advantage that she +crowded too near the bier, stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched +into the grave. As she weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a +position of some disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from +the dilemma, and the operation made a long and somewhat awkward break in +the religious services. Aunt Hitty always said of this catastrophe, +“If I'd 'a' ben Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' +said, 'I wa'n't plannin' to be buried, but now I'm in here I declare +I'll stop!'” + +Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted an entire success by +the villagers, but the seal of professional approval was set upon it +by an undertaker from Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could make +a handsome living in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who always +assists those who assist themselves, decreed that the niece Lyddy Ann +should not arrive until the aunt was safely buried; so, there being +none to resist her right or grudge her the privilege aunt Hitty, for the +first time in her life, rode in the next buggy to the hearse. Si, in his +best suit, a broad weed and weepers, drove Cyse Higgins's black colt, +and aunt Hitty was dressed in deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's +crape veil over her face, and in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a +black ribbon. Her comment to Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that +night, was: “It was an awful dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in +it. It would 'a' ben perfect if there' ben anybody to shed tears. I +come pretty nigh it myself, though I ain't no relation, when Elder Weeks +said, 'You'll go round the house, my sisters, and Mis' Butterfield won't +be there; you'll go int' the orchard, and Mis' Butterfield won't be +there; you'll go int' the barn and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; +you'll go int' the shed, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go +int' the hencoop, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there!' That would 'a' +drawed tears from a stone most, 'specially sence Mis' Butterfield set +such store by her hens.” + +And this is the way that Lyddy Butterfield came into her kingdom, a +little lone brown house on the river's brim. She had seen it only once +before when she had driven out from Portland, years ago, with her aunt. +Mrs. Butterfield lived in Portland, but spent her summers in Edgewood +on account of her chickens. She always explained that the country was +dreadful dull for her, but good for the hens; they always laid so much +better in the winter time. + +Lyddy liked the place all the better for its loneliness. She had never +had enough of solitude, and this quiet home, with the song of the +river for company, if one needed more company than chickens and a cat, +satisfied all her desires, particularly as it was accompanied by a snug +little income of two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum that seemed to +open up mysterious avenues of joy to her starved, impatient heart. + +When she was a mere infant, her brother was holding her on his knee +before the great old-fashioned fireplace heaped with burning logs. +A sudden noise startled him, and the crowing, restless baby gave an +unexpected lurch, and slipped, face downward, into the glowing embers. +It was a full minute before the horror-stricken boy could extricate the +little creature from the cruel flame that had already done its fatal +work. The baby escaped with her life, but was disfigured forever. As +she grew older, the gentle hand of time could not entirely efface the +terrible scars. One cheek was wrinkled and crimson, while one eye and +the mouth were drawn down pathetically. The accident might have changed +the disposition of any child, but Lyddy chanced to be a sensitive, +introspective bit of feminine humanity, in whose memory the burning +flame was never quenched. Her mother, partly to conceal her own wounded +vanity, and partly to shield the timid, morbid child, kept her out of +sight as much as possible; so that at sixteen, when she was left an +orphan, she had lived almost entirely in solitude. + +She became, in course of time, a kind of general nursery governess in a +large family of motherless children. The father was almost always away +from home; his sister kept the house, and Lyddy stayed in the nursery, +bathing the brood and putting them to bed, dressing them in the morning, +and playing with them in the safe privacy of the back garden or the open +attic. They loved her, disfigured as she was, for the child despises +mere externals, and explores the heart of things to see whether it be +good or evil,--but they could never induce her to see strangers, nor to +join any gathering of people. + +The children were grown and married now, and Lyddy was nearly forty when +she came into possession of house and lands and fortune; forty, with +twenty years of unexpended feeling pent within her. Forty, that is +rather old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter. Haven't you +seen girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been nibbled at ever +since they were sixteen, but who have neither caught anything nor been +caught? They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was forty and still young, +with her susceptibilities cherished, not dulled, and with all the +“language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about a +spring.” + + +IV. + + + “He shall daily joy dispense + Hid in song's sweet influence.” + + Emerson's _Merlin._ + + +Lyddy had very few callers during her first month as a property owner +in Edgewood. Her appearance would have been against her winning friends +easily in any case, even if she had not acquired the habits of a +recluse. It took a certain amount of time, too, for the community to get +used to the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead, and her niece +Lyddy Ann living in the cottage on the river road. There were numbers +of people who had not yet heard that old Mrs. Butterfield had bought the +house from the Thatcher boys, and that was fifteen years ago; but this +was not strange, for, notwithstanding aunt Hitty's valuable services in +disseminating general information, there was a man living on the Bonny +Eagle road who was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead, and +complained that folks were not so long-lived as they used to be. + +Aunt Hitty thought Lyddy a Goth and a Vandal because she took down +the twenty silver coffin plates and laid them reverently away. “Mis' +Butterfield would turn in her grave,” she said, “if she knew it. She +ain't much of a housekeeper, I guess,” she went on, as she cut over +Dr. Berry's old trousers into briefer ones for Tommy Berry. “She gives +considerable stuff to her hens that she'd a sight better heat over and +eat herself, in these hard times when the missionary societies can't +hardly keep the heathen fed and clothed and warmed--no, I don't mean +warmed, for most o' the heathens live in hot climates, somehow or +'nother. My back door's jest opposite hers; it's across the river, to +be sure, but it's the narrer part, and I can see everything she does as +plain as daylight. She washed a Monday, and she ain't taken her clothes +in yet, and it's Thursday. She may be bleachin' of 'em out, but it +looks slack. I said to Si last night I should stand it till 'bout +Friday,--seein' 'em lay on the grass there, but if she didn't take 'em +in then, I should go over and offer to help her. She has a fire in the +settin'-room 'most every night, though we ain't had a frost yet; and +as near's I can make out, she's got full red curtains hangin' up to her +windows. I ain't sure, for she don't open the blinds in that room till +I get away in the morning, and she shuts 'em before I get back at night. +Si don't know red from green, so he's useless in such matters. I'm going +home late to-night, and walk down on that side o' the river, so't I can +call in after dark and see what makes her house light up as if the sun +was settin' inside of it.” + +As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling in house-furnishing of a humble +sort. She had a passion for color. There was a red-and-white straw +matting on the sitting-room floor. Reckless in the certain possession +of twenty dollars a month, she purchased yards upon yards of turkey red +cotton; enough to cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, for long +curtains at the windows, and for cushions to the rockers. She knotted +white fringes for the table covers and curtains, painted the inside +of the fireplace red, put some pots, of scarlet geraniums on the +window-sills, filled newspaper rack with ferns and tacked it over an +ugly spot in the wall, edged her work-basket with a tufted trimming of +scarlet worsted, and made an elaborate photograph case of white crash +and red cotton that stretched the entire length of the old-fashioned +mantelshelf, and held pictures of Mr. Reynolds, Miss Elvira Reynolds, +George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, Ella, and Rufus Reynolds, her former +charges. When all this was done, she lighted a little blaze on the +hearth, took the red curtains from their hands, let them fall gracefully +to the floor, and sat down in her rocking-chair, reconciled to her +existence for absolutely the first time in her forty years. + +I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough in Paradise to appreciate and +feel Lyddy's joy. I can even believe she was glad to have died, since +her dying could bring such content to any wretched living human soul. +As Lydia sat in the firelight, the left side of her poor face in shadow, +you saw that she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure, clad in plain +black-and-white calico dress, was a graceful, womanly one. She had +beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet wrist. Her hair was soft +and plentiful, and her hands were fine, strong, and sensitive. This +possibility of rare beauty made her scars and burns more pitiful, for +if a cheap chrome has smirch across its face, we think it a matter of no +moment, but we deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any work of real +art. + +Lydia felt a little less bitter and hopeless about life when she sat in +front of her own open fire, after her usual twilight walk. It was her +habit to wander down the wooded road after her simple five-o'clock +supper, gatherings ferns or goldenrod or frost flowers for her vases; +and one night she heard, above the rippling of the river, the strange, +sweet, piercing sound of Anthony Croft's violin. + +She drew nearer, and saw a middle-aged man sitting in the kitchen +doorway, with a lad of ten or twelve years leaning against his knees. +She could tell little of his appearance, save that he had a high +forehead, and hair that waved well back from it in rather an unusual +fashion. He was in his shirt-sleeves, but the gingham was scrupulously +clean, and he had the uncommon refinement of a collar and necktie. Out +of sight herself, Lyddy drew near enough to hear; and this she did every +night without recognizing that the musician was blind. The music had +a curious effect upon her. It was a hitherto unknown influence in her +life, and it interpreted her, so to speak, to herself. As she sat on +the bed of brown pine needles, under a friendly tree, her head resting +against its trunk, her eyes half closed, the tone of Anthony's violin +came like a heavenly message to a tired, despairing soul. Remember that +in her secluded life she had heard only such harmony as Elvira Reynolds +evoked from her piano or George Reynolds from his flute, and the +Reynolds temperament was distinctly inartistic. + +Lyddy lived through a lifetime of emotion in these twilight concerts. +Sometimes she was filled with an exquisite melancholy from which there +was no escape; at others, the ethereal purity of the strain stirred her +heart with a strange, sweet vision of mysterious joy; joy that she had +never possessed, would never possess; joy whose bare existence she never +before realized. When the low notes sank lower and lower with their soft +wail of delicious woe, she bent forward into the dark, dreading that +something would be lost in the very struggle of listening; then, after +a, pause, a pure human tone would break the stillness, and soaring, +bird-like, higher and higher, seem to mount to heaven itself, and, +“piercing its starry floors,” lift poor scarred Lydia's soul to the very +grates of infinite bliss. In the gentle moods that stole upon her in +those summer twilights she became a different woman, softer in her +prosperity than she had ever been in her adversity; for some plants only +blossom in sunshine. What wonder if to her the music and the musician +became one? It is sometimes a dangerous thing to fuse the man and his +talents in this way; but it did no harm here, for Anthony Croft was his +music, and the music was Anthony Croft. When he played on his violin, +it was as if the miracle of its fashioning were again enacted; as if the +bird on the quivering bough, the mellow sunshine streaming through the +lattice of green leaves, the tinkle of the woodland stream, spoke in +every tone; and more than this, the hearth-glow in whose light the +patient hands had worked, the breath of the soul bending itself in +passionate prayer for perfection, these, too, seemed to have wrought +their blessed influence on the willing strings until the tone was laden +with spiritual harmony. One might indeed have sung of this little red +violin--that looked to Lyddy, in the sunset glow, as if it were veneered +with rubies--all that Shelley sang of another perfect instrument:-- + + + “The artist who this viol wrought + To echo all harmonious thought, + Fell'd a tree, while on the steep + The woods were in their winter sleep, + Rock'd in that repose divine + Of the wind-swept Apennine; + And dreaming, some of Autumn past, + And some of Spring approaching fast, + And some of April buds and showers, + And some of songs in July bowers, + And all of love; and so this tree-- + O that such our death may be!-- + Died in sleep, and felt no pain, + To live in happier form again.” + +The viol “whispers in enamoured tone:”-- + + + “Sweet oracles of woods and dells, + And summer windy ill sylvan cells;.. + The clearest echoes of the hills, + The softest notes of falling rills, + The melodies of birds and bees, + The murmuring of summer seas, + And pattering rain, and breathing dew, + And airs of evening; all it knew.... + --All this it knows, but will not tell + To those who cannot question well + The spirit that inhabits it;... + But, sweetly as its answers will + Flatter hands of perfect skill, + It keeps its highest, holiest tone + For one beloved Friend alone.” + +Lyddy heard the violin and the man's voice as he talked to the +child,--heard them night after night; and when she went home to the +little brown house to light the fire on the hearth and let down the warm +red curtains, she fell into sweet, sad reveries; and when she blew out +her candle for the night, she fell asleep and dreamed new dreams, and +her heart was stirred with the rustling of new-born hopes that rose and +took wing like birds startled from their nests. + + +V. + + + “Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, + A poet or a friend to find: + Behold, he watches at the door! + Behold his shadow on the floor!” + + Emerson's _Saadi._ + +Lyddy Butterfield's hen turkey was of a roving disposition. She had +never appreciated her luxurious country quarters in Edgewood, and was +seemingly anxious to return to the modest back yard in her native city. +At any rate, she was in the habit of straying far from home, and the +habit was growing upon her to such an extent that she would even lead +her docile little gobblers down to visit Anthony Croft's hens and share +their corn. + +Lyddy had caught her at it once, and was now pursuing her to that end +for the second time. She paused in front of the house, but there were +no turkeys to be seen. Could they have wandered up the hill road,--the +discontented, “traipsing,” exasperating things? She started in that +direction, when she heard a crash in the Croft kitchen, and then the +sound of a boy's voice coming from an inner room,--a weak and querulous +voice, as if the child were ill. + +She drew nearer, in spite of her dread of meeting people, or above all +of intruding, and saw Anthony Croft standing over the stove, with an +expression of utter helplessness on his usually placid face. She had +never really seen him before in the daylight, and there was something +about his appearance that startled her. The teakettle was on the floor, +and a sea of water was flooding the man's feet, yet he seemed to be +gazing into vacancy. Presently he stooped, and fumbled gropingly for the +kettle. It was too hot to be touched with impunity, and he finally left +it in a despairing sort of way, and walked in the direction of a shelf, +from under which a row of coats was hanging. The boy called again in a +louder and more insistent tone, ending in a whimper of restless pain. +This seemed to make the man more nervous than ever. His hands went +patiently over and over the shelf, then paused at each separate nail. + +“Bless the poor dear!” thought Lyddy. “Is he trying to find his hat, +or what is he trying to do? I wonder if he is music mad?” and she drew +still nearer the steps. + +At this moment he turned and came rapidly toward the door. She looked +straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: he was blind. The +magician who had told her through his violin secrets that she had +scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had set her heart to throbbing and +aching and longing as it had never throbbed and ached and longed before, +the being who had worn a halo of romance and genius to her simple mind, +was stone-blind! A wave of impetuous anguish, as sharp and passionate +as any she had ever felt for her own misfortunes, swept over her soul at +the spectacle of the man's helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her +like a blow. But there was no time to lose. She was directly in his +path: if she stood still he would certainly walk over her, and if she +moved he would hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave a +nervous cough and said, “Good-morning, Mr. Croft.” + +He stopped short. “Who is it?” he asked. + +“I am--it is--I am--your new neighbor,” said Lyddy, with a trembling +attempt at cheerfulness. + +“Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see you before this +if it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. But I am a good-for-nothing +neighbor, as you have doubtless heard. Nobody expects anything of me.” + +(“Nobody expects anything of me.” Her own plaint, uttered in her own +tone!) + +“I don't know about that,” she answered swiftly. “You've given me, for +one, a great deal of pleasure with your wonderful music. I often hear +you as you play after supper, and it has kept me from being lonesome. +That isn't very much, to be sure.” + +“You are fond of music, then?” + +“I didn't know I was; I never heard any before,” said Lyddy simply; “but +it seems to help people to say things they couldn't say for themselves, +don't you think so? It comforts me even to hear it, and I think it must +be still more beautiful to make it.” + +Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no sooner uttered this commonplace speech +than the reflection darted through her mind like a lightning flash that +she had never spoken a bit of her heart out like this in all her life +before. The reason came to her in the same flash: she was not being +looked at; her disfigured face was hidden. This man, at least, could +not shrink, turn away, shiver, affect indifference, fix his eyes on +hers with a fascinated horror, as others had done. Her heart was divided +between a great throb of pity and sympathy for him and an irresistible +sense of gratitude for herself. Sure of protection and comprehension, +her lovely soul came out of her poor eyes and sat in the sunshine. She +spoke her mind at ease, as we utter sacred things sometimes under cover +of darkness. + +“You seem to have had an accident; what can I do to help you?” she +asked. + +“Nothing, thank you. The boy has been sick for some days, but he seems +worse since last night. Nothing is in its right place in the house, so I +have given up trying to find anything, and am just going to Edgewood to +see if somebody will help me for a few days.” + +“Uncle Tony! Uncle To-ny! where are you? Do give me another drink, I'm +so hot!” came the boy's voice from within. + +“Coming, laddie! I don't believe he ought to drink so much water, but +what can I do? He is burning up with fever.” + +“Now look here, Mr. Croft,” and Lydia's tone was cheerfully decisive. +“You sit down in that rocker, please, and let me command the ship for +a while. This is one of the cases where a woman is necessary. First and +foremost, what were you hunting for?” + +“My hat and the butter,” said Anthony meekly, and at this unique +combination they both laughed. Lyddy's laugh was particularly fresh, +childlike, and pleased; one that would have astonished the Reynolds +children. She had seldom laughed heartily since little Rufus had cried +and told her she frightened him when she twisted her face so. + +“Your hat is in the wood-box, and I'll find the butter in the twinkling +of an eye, though why you want it now is more than--My patience, Mr. +Croft, your hand is burned to a blister!” + +“Don't mind me. Be good enough to look at the boy and tell me what ails +him; nothing else matters much.” + +“I will with pleasure, but let me ease you a little first. Here's a rag +that will be just the thing,” and Lyddy, suiting the pretty action to +the mendacious worn, took a good handkerchief from her pocket and tore +it in three strips, after spreading it with tallow from a candle heated +over the stove. This done, she hound up the burned hand skillfully, and, +crossing the dining-room, disappeared within the little chamber door +beyond. She came out presently, and said half hesitatingly, “Would +you--mind going out in the orchard for an hour or so? You seem to be +rather in the way here, and I should like the place to myself, if you'll +excuse me for saying so. I'm ever so much more capable than Mrs. Buck; +won't you give me a trial, sir? Here's your violin and your hat. I'll +call you if you can help or advise me.” + +“But I can't let a stranger come in and do my housework,” he objected. +“I can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all the same.” + +“I am your nearest neighbor, and your only one, for that matter,” said +Lyddy firmly; “its nothing more than right that I should look after +that sick child, and I must do it. I haven't got a thing to do in my +own house. I am nothing but a poor lonely old maid, who's been used to +children all her life, and likes nothing better than to work over them.” + +A calm settled upon Anthony's perturbed spirit, as he sat under the +apple-trees and heard Lyddy going to and fro in the cottage. “She isn't +any old maid,” he thought; “she doesn't step like one; she has soft +shoes and a springy walk. She must be a very handsome woman, with a hand +like that; and such a voice! I knew the moment she spoke that she didn't +belong in this village.” + +As a matter of fact, his keen ear had caught the melody in Lyddy's +voice, a voice full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power. His sense +of touch, too, had captured the beauty of her hand, and held it in +remembrance,--the soft palm, the fine skin, supple fingers, smooth +nails, and firm round wrist. These charms would never have been noted +by any seeing man in Edgewood, but they were revealed to Anthony Croft +while Lyddy, like the good Samaritan, bound up his wounds. It is these +saving stars that light the eternal darkness of the blind. + +Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo when, with arms akimbo, she gazed +about the Croft establishment, which was a scene of desolation for the +moment. Anthony's cousin from Bridgton was in the habit of visiting +him every two months for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from +Pleasant River came every Saturday and Monday for baking and washing. +Between times Davy and his uncle did the housework together; and +although it was respectably done, there was no pink-and-white daintiness +about it, you may be sure. + +Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in about an hour, laughing a little +nervously as she said, “I'm sorry to have taken a mean advantage of you, +Mr. Croft, but I know everything you've got in your house, and exactly +where it is. I couldn't help it, you see, when I was making things tidy. +It would do you good to see the boy. His room was too light, and the +flies were devouring him. I swept him and dusted him, put on clean +sheets and pillow slips, sponged him with bay rum, brushed his hair, +drove out the flies, and tacked a green curtain up to the window. +Fifteen minutes after he was sleeping like a kitten. He has a sore +throat and considerable fever. Could you--can you--at least, will you, +go up to my house on an errand?” + +“Certainly I can. I know it inside and out as well as my own.” + +“Very good. On the clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of +sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, so you can't make +any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you didn't +send for him yesterday?” + +“Davy wouldn't have him,” apologized his uncle. + +“Wouldn't he?” said Lyddy with cheerful scorn. “He has you under pretty +good control, hasn't he? But children are unmerciful tyrants.” + +“Couldn't you coax him into it before you go home?” asked Anthony in a +wheedling voice. + +“I can try; but it isn't likely I can influence him, if you can't. +Still, if we both fail, I really don't see what 's to prevent our +sending for the doctor in spite of him. He is as weak as a baby, +you know, and can't sit up in bed: what could he do? I will risk the +consequences, if you will!” + +There was a note of such amiable and winning sarcasm in all this, such +a cheery, invincible courage, such a friendly neighborliness and +cooperation, above all such a different tone from any he was accustomed +to hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt warmed through to the core. + +As he walked quickly along the road, he conjured up a vision of autumn +beauty from the few hints nature gave even to her sightless ones on this +glorious morning,--the rustle of a few fallen leaves under his feet, the +clear wine of the air, the full rush of the swollen river, the whisking +of the squirrels in the boughs, the crunch of their teeth on the nuts, +the spicy odor of the apples lying under the trees. He missed his mother +that morning more than he had missed her for years. How neat she was, +how thrifty, how comfortable, and how comforting! His life was so dreary +and aimless; and was it the best or the right one for Davy, with his +talent and dawning ambition? Would it not be better to have Mrs. +Buck live with them altogether, instead of coming twice a week, as +heretofore? No; he shrank from that with a hopeless aversion born of +Saturday and Monday dinners in her company. He could hear her pour her +coffee into the saucer; hear the scraping of the cup on the rim, and +know that she was setting it sloppily down on the cloth. He could +remember her noisy drinking, the weight of her elbow on the table, the +creaking of her calico dress under the pressure of superabundant flesh. +Besides, she had tried to scrub his favorite violin with sapolio. No, +anything was better than Mrs. Buck as a constancy. + +He took off his hat unconsciously as he entered Lyddy's sitting-room. +A gentle breeze blew one of the full red curtains towards him till it +fluttered about his shoulders like a frolicsome, teasing hand. There was +a sweet, pungent odor of pine boughs, a canary sang in the window, the +clock was trimmed with a blackberry vine; he knew the prickles, and +they called up to his mind the glowing tints he had loved so well. His +sensitive hand, that carried a divining rod in every finger-tip, met a +vase on the shelf, and, traveling upward, touched a full branch of alder +berries tied about with a ribbon. The ribbon would be red; the woman +who arranged this room would make no mistake; for in one morning Anthony +Croft had penetrated the secret of Lyddy's true personality, and in a +measure had sounded the shallows that led to the depths of her nature. + +Lyddy went home at seven o'clock that night rather reluctantly. The +doctor had said Mr. Croft could sit up with the boy unless he grew much +worse, and there was no propriety in her staying longer unless there was +danger. + +“You have been very good to me,” Anthony said gravely, as he shook her +hand at parting,--“very good.” + +They stood together on the doorstep. A distant bell, called to evening +prayer-meeting; the restless murmur of the river and the whisper of +the wind in the pines broke the twilight stillness. The long, quiet day +together, part of it spent by the sick child's bedside, had brought the +two strangers curiously near to each other. + +“The house hasn't seemed so sweet and fresh since my mother died,” he +went on, as he dropped her hand, “and I haven't had so many flowers and +green things in it since I lost my eyesight.” + +“Was it long ago?” + +“Ten years. Is that long?” + +“Long to bear a burden.” + +“I hope you know little of burden-bearing?” + +“I know little else.” + +“I might have guessed it from the alacrity with which you took up +Davy's and mine. You must be very happy to have the power to make +things straight and sunny and wholesome; to breathe your strength into +helplessness such as mine. I thank you, and I envy you. Good-night.” + +Lyddy turned on her heel without a word; her mind was beyond and above +words. The sky seemed to have descended upon, enveloped her, caught her +up into its heaven, as she rose into unaccustomed heights of feeling, +like Elijah in his chariot of fire. She very happy! She with power, +power to make things straight and sunny and wholesome! She able to +breathe strength into helplessness, even a consecrated, Godsmitten +helplessness like his! She not only to be thanked, but envied! + +Her house seemed strange to her that night. She went to bed in the dark, +dreading even the light of a candle; and before she turned down her +counterpane she flung herself on her knees, and poured out her soul in +a prayer that had been growing, waiting, and waited for, perhaps, for +years:-- + +“O Lord, I thank Thee for health and strength and life. I never could do +it before, but I thank Thee to-night for life on any terms. I thank +Thee for this home; for the chance of helping another human creature, +stricken like myself; for the privilege of ministering to a motherless +child. Make me to long only for the beauty of holiness, and to be +satisfied if I attain to it. Wash my soul pure and clean, and let that +be the only mirror in which I see my face. I have tried to be useful. +Forgive me if it always seemed so hard and dreary a life. Forgive me +if I am too happy because for one short day I have really helped in a +beautiful way, and found a friend who saw, because he was blind, the +real me underneath; the me that never was burned by the fire; the me +that isn't disfigured, unless my wicked discontent has done it; the me +that has lived on and on and on, starving to death for the friendship +and sympathy and love that come to other women. I have spent my forty +years in the wilderness, feeding on wrath and bitterness and tears. +Forgive me, Lord, and give me one more vision of the blessed land of +Canaan, even if I never dwell there.” + + +VI. + + + “Nor less the eternal poles + Of tendency distribute souls. + There need no vows to bind + Whom not each other seek, but find.” + + Emerson's _Celestial Love._ + + +Davy's sickness was a lingering one. Mrs. Buck came for two or three +hours a day, but Lyddy was the self-installed angel of the house; and +before a week had passed the boy's thin arms were around her neck, his +head on her loving shoulder, and his cheek pressed against hers. Anthony +could hear them talk, as he sat in the kitchen busy at his work. Musical +instruments were still brought him to repair, though less frequently +than of yore, and he could still make many parts of violins far better +than his seeing competitors. A friend and pupil sat by his side in the +winter evenings and supplemented his weakness, helping and learning +alternately, while his blind master's skill filled him with wonder and +despair. The years of struggle for perfection had not been wasted; and +though the eye that once detected the deviation of a hair's breadth +could no longer tell the true from the false, yet nature had been busy +with her divine work of compensation. The one sense stricken with death, +she poured floods of new life and vigor into the others. Touch became +something more than the stupid, empty grasp of things we seeing mortals +know, and in place of the two eyes he had lost he now had ten in every +finger-tip. As for odors, let other folks be proud of smelling musk and +lavender, but let him tell you by a quiver of the nostrils the various +kinds of so-called scentless flowers, and let him bend his ear and +interpret secrets that the universe is ever whispering to us who are +pent in partial deafness because, forsooth, we see. + +He often paused to hear Lydia's low, soothing tones and the boy's +weak treble. Anthony had said to him once, “Miss Butterfield is very +beautiful, isn't she, Davy? You haven't painted me a picture of her yet. +How does she look?” + +Davy was stricken at first with silent embarrassment. He was a truthful +child, but in this he could no more have told the whole truth than +he could have cut off his hand. He was knit to Lyddy by every tie of +gratitude and affection. He would sit for hours with his expectant face +pressed against the window-pane, and when he saw her coming down the +shady road he was filled with a sense of impending comfort and joy. + +“NO,” he said hesitatingly, “she isn't pretty, nunky, but she's sweet +and nice and dear, Everything on her shines, it's so clean; and when +she comes through the trees, with her white apron and her purple calico +dress, your heart jumps, because you know she's going to make everything +pleasant. Her hair has a pretty wave in it, and her hand is soft on your +forehead; and it's most worth while being sick just to have her in the +house.” + +Meanwhile, so truly is “praise our fructifying sun,” Lydia bloomed into +a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. +A sly sense of humor woke into life, and a positive talent for +conversation, latent hitherto because she had never known any one who +cared to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. +When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's +sofa, his thin hand in hers, and talk with Anthony about books and +flowers and music, and about the meaning of life, too,--its burdens and +mistakes, and joys and sorrows; groping with him in the darkness to find +a clue to God's purposes. + +Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy's house as the autumn grew into +winter. He read to her while she sewed rags for a new sitting-room +carpet, and they played dominoes and checkers together in the twilight +before supper time,--suppers that were a feast to the boy, after Mrs. +Buck's cookery. Anthony brought his violin sometimes of an evening, and +Almira Berry, the next neighbor on the road to the Mills, would drop +in and join the little party. Almira used to sing Auld Robin Gray, What +Will You Do, Love, and Robin Adair, to the great enjoyment of everybody; +and she persuaded Lyddy to buy the old church melodeon, and learn to +sing alto in Oh, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, Gently, Gently Sighs the +Breeze, and I know a Bank. Nobody sighed for the gayeties and advantages +of a great city when, these concerts being over, Lyddy would pass crisp +seedcakes and raspberry shrub, doughnuts and cider, or hot popped corn +and molasses candy. + +“But there, she can afford to,” said aunt Hitty Tarbox; “she's pretty +middlin' wealthy for Edgewood. And it's lucky she is, for she 'bout +feeds that boy o' Croft's. No wonder he wants her to fill him up, after +six years of the Widder Buck's victuals. Aurelia Buck can take good +flour and sugar, sweet butter and fresh eggs, and in ten strokes of her +hand she can make 'em into something the very hogs 'll turn away from. I +declare, it brings the tears to my eyes sometimes when I see her coming +out of Croft's Saturday afternoons, and think of the stone crocks full +of nasty messes she's left behind her for that innocent man and boy to +eat up.... Anthony goes to see Miss Butterfield consid'able often. +Of course it's awstensibly to walk home with Davy, or do an errand or +something, but everybody knows better. She went down to Croft's pretty +nearly every day when his cousin from Bridgton come to house-clean. +She suspicioned something, I guess. Anyhow, she asked me if Miss +Butterfield's two hundred a year was in gov'ment bonds. Anthony's +eyesight ain't good, but I guess he could make out to cut cowpons +off.... It would be strange if them two left-overs should take an' +marry each other; though, come to think of it, I don't know's 't would +neither. He's blind, to be sure, and can't see her scarred face. It's a +pity she ain't deef, so't she can't hear his everlastin' fiddle. She's +lucky to get any kind of a husband; she's too humbly to choose. I +declare, she reminds me of a Jack-o'-lantern, though if you look at the +back of her, or see her in meetin' with a thick veil on, she's about the +best appearin' woman in Edgewood.... I never see anybody stiffen up as +Anthony has. He had me make him three white shirts and three gingham +ones, with collars and cuffs on all of 'em. It seems as if six shirts at +one time must mean something out o' the common!” + +Aunt Hitty was right; it did mean something out of the common. It meant +the growth of an all-engrossing, grateful, divinely tender passion +between two love-starved souls. On the one hand, Lyddy, who though she +had scarcely known the meaning of love in all her dreary life, yet was +as full to the brim of all sweet, womanly possibilities of loving and +giving as any pretty woman; on the other, the blind violin-maker, who +had never loved any woman but his mother, and who was in the direst need +of womanly sympathy and affection. + +Anthony Croft, being ministered unto by Lyddy's kind hands, hearing +her sweet voice and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, knowing the +best; forgiving the worst, like God, and forgetting it, still more like +God, I think. + +And Lyddy? There is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep +in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool, so deep that +no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. +If God had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the other in +tender benediction. + +There had been a pitiful scene of unspeakable solemnity when Anthony +first told Lyddy that he loved her, and asked her to be his wife. He had +heard all her sad history by this time, though not from her own lips, +and his heart went out to her all the more for the heavy cross that +had been laid upon her. He had the wit and wisdom to put her affliction +quite out of the question, and allude only to her sacrifice in marrying +a blind man, hopelessly and helplessly dependent on her sweet offices +for the rest of his life, if she, in her womanly mercy, would love him +and help him bear his burdens. + +When his tender words fell upon Lyddy's dazed brain she sank beside +his chair, and, clasping his knees, sobbed: “I love you, I cannot help +loving you, I cannot help telling you I love you! But you must hear the +truth; you have heard it from others, but perhaps they softened it. If I +marry you, people will always blame me and pity you. You would never ask +me to be your wife if you could see my face; you could not love me an +instant if you were not blind.” + +“Then I thank God unceasingly for my infirmity,” said Anthony Croft, as +he raised her to her feet. + + +***** + + +Anthony and Lyddy Croft sat in the apple orchard, one warm day in late +spring. + +Anthony's work would have puzzled a casual on-looker. Ten stout wires +were stretched between two trees, fifteen or twenty feet apart, and each +group of five represented the lines of the musical staff. Wooden +bars crossed the wires at regular intervals, dividing the staff into +measures. A box with many compartments sat on a stool beside him, and +this held bits of wood that looked like pegs, but were in reality whole, +half, quarter, and eighth notes, rests, flats, sharps, and the like. +These were cleft in such a way that he could fit them on the wires +almost as rapidly as his musical theme came to him, and Lyddy had +learned to transcribe with pen and ink the music she found in wood and +wire, He could write only simple airs in this way, but when he played +them on the violin they were transported into a loftier region, such +genius lay in the harmony, the arabesque, the delicate lacework of +embroidery with which the tune was inwrought; now high, now low, now +major, now minor, now sad, now gay, with the one thrilling, haunting +cadence recurring again and again, to be watched for, longed for, and +greeted with a throb of delight. + +Davy was reading at the window, his curly head buried in a well-worn +Shakespeare opened at Midsummer Night's Dream. Lyddy was sitting under +her favorite pink apple-tree, a mass of fragrant bloom, more beautiful +than Aurora's morning gown. She was sewing; lining with snowy lawn +innumerable pockets in a square basket that she held in her lap. The +pockets were small, the needles were fine, the thread was a length of +cobweb. Everything about the basket was small except the hopes that she +was stitching into it; they were so great that her heart could scarcely +hold them. Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds were springing in +the warm earth. The hens were clucking to their downy chicks just out of +the egg. The birds were flying hither and thither in the apple boughs, +and there was one little home of straw so hung that Lyddy could look +into it and see the patient mother brooding her nestlings. The sight of +her bright eyes, alert for every sign of danger, sent a rush of feeling +through Lyddy's veins that made her long to clasp the little feathered +mother to her own breast. + +A sweet gravity and consecration of thought possessed her, and the +pink blossoms falling into her basket were not more delicate than the +rose-colored dreams that flushed her soul. + +Anthony put in the last wooden peg, and taking up his violin called, +“Davy, lad, come out and tell me what this means!” + +Davy was used to this; from a wee boy he had been asked to paint the +changing landscape of each day, and to put into words his uncle's music. + +Lyddy dropped her needle, the birds stopped to listen, and Anthony +played. + +“It is this apple orchard in May time,” said Davy; “it is the song of +the green things growing, isn't it?” + +“What do you say, dear?” asked Anthony, turning to his wife. + +Love and hope had made a poet of Lyddy. “I think Davy is right,” she +said. “It is a dream of the future, the story of all new and beautiful +things growing out of the old. It is full of the sweetness of present +joy, but there is promise and hope in it besides. It is like the Spring +sitting in the lap of Winter, and holding a baby Summer in her bosom.” + +Davy did not quite understand this, though he thought it pretty; but +Lyddy's husband did, and when the boy went back to his books, he took +his wife in his arms and kissed her twice,--once for herself, and then +once again. + + + + +THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY. + + +In the little villages along the Saco River, in the year 1850 or +thereabouts, the arrival and departure of the stage-coach was the one +exciting incident of the day. It did not run on schedule time in those +days, but started from Limington or Saco, as the case might be, at about +or somewhere near a certain hour, and arrived at the other end of the +route whenever it got there. There were no trains to meet (the railway +popularly known as the “York and Yank'em” was not built till 1862); the +roads were occasionally good and generally bad; and thus it was often +dusk, and sometimes late in the evening, when the lumbering vehicle +neared its final destination and drew up to the little post-offices +along the way. However late it might be, the village postmaster had to +be on hand to receive and open the mailbags; after which he distributed +the newspapers and letters in a primitive set of pine pigeon-holes on +the wall, turned out the loafers, “banked up” the fire, and went home to +bed. + +“Life” Lane was a jolly good fellow,--just the man to sit on the box +seat and drive the three horses through ruts and “thank-you-ma'ams,” + slush and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, +his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story +forever on the tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings +(his mother used to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the +State o' Maine); his shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs +just the sort to fill amply his noble chest. Therefore, when he had what +was called in the vernacular “turrible bad goin',” and when any other +stage-driver in York County would have shrunk into his muffler and +snapped and snarled on the slightest provocation, Life Lane opened his +great throat when he passed over the bridges at Moderation or Bonny +Eagle, and sent forth a golden, sonorous “Yo ho! halloo!” into the still +air. The later it was and the stormier it was, the more vigor he put +into the note, and it was a drowsy postmaster indeed who did not start +from his bench by the fire at the sound of that ringing halloo. Thus the +old stage-coach, in Life Lane's time, was generally called “The Midnight +Cry,” and not such a bad name either, whether the term was derisively +applied because the stage was always late; or whether Life's “Yo ho!” + had caught the popular fancy. + +There was a pretty girl in Pleasant River (and, alas! another in Bonny +Eagle) who went to bed every night with the chickens, but stayed awake +till she heard first the rumble of heavy wheels on a bridge, then a +faint, bell-like tone that might have come out of the mouth of a silver +horn; whereupon she blushed as if it were an offer of marriage, and +turned over and went to sleep. + +If the stage arrived in good season, Life would have a few minutes to +sit on the loafers' beach beside the big open fire; and what a feature +he was, with his tales culled from all sorts of passengers, who were +never so fluent as when sitting beside him “up in front!” There was a +tallow dip or two, and no other light save that of the fire. Who that +ever told a story could wish a more inspiring auditor than Jacob Bean, +a literal, honest old fellow who took the most vital interest in every +detail of the stories told, looking upon their heroes and their +villains as personal friends or foes. He always sat in one corner of the +fireplace, poker in hand, and the crowd tacitly allowed him the role of +Greek chorus. Indeed, nobody could have told a story properly without +Jake Bean's parentheses and punctuation marks poked in at exciting +junctures. + +“That 's so every time!” he would say, with a lunge at the forestick. +“I'll bate he was glad then!” with another stick flung on in just the +right spot. “Golly! but that served 'em right!” with a thrust at the +backlog. + +The New England story seemed to flourish under these conditions: a +couple of good hard benches in a store or tavern, where you could not +only smoke and chew but could keep on your hat (there was not a man in +York County in those days who could say anything worth hearing with his +hat off); the blazing logs to poke; and a cavernous fireplace into which +tobacco juice could be neatly and judiciously directed. Those were good +old times, and the stage-coach was a mighty thing when school children +were taught to take off their hats and make a bow as the United States +mail passed the old stage tavern. + +Life Lane's coaching days were over long before this story begins, but +the Midnight Cry was still in pretty fair condition, and was driven +ostensibly by Jeremiah Todd, who lived on the “back-nippin'” road from +Bonny Eagle to Limington. + +When I say ostensibly driven, I but follow the lead of the villagers, +who declared that, though Jerry held the reins, Mrs. Todd drove the +stage, as she drove everything else. As a proof of this lady's strong +individuality, she was still generally spoken of as “the Widder Bixby,” + though she had been six years wedded to Jeremiah Todd. The Widder Bixby, +then, was strong, self-reliant, valiant, indomitable. Jerry Todd was, +to use his wife's own characterization, so soft you could stick a cat's +tail into him without ruffling the fur. He was always alluded to as “the +Widder Bixby's husband;” but that was no new or special mortification, +for he had been known successively as Mrs. Todd's youngest baby, the +Widder Todd's only son, Susan Todd's brother, and, when Susan Todd's +oldest boy fought at Chapultepec, William Peck's uncle. + +The Widder Bixby's record was far different. She was the mildest of the +four Stover sisters of Scarboro, and the quartette was supposed to +have furnished more kinds of temper than had ever before come from one +household. When Peace, the eldest, was mad, she frequently kicked the +churn out of the kitchen door, cream and all,--and that lost her a +husband. + +Love, the second, married, and according to local tradition once kicked +her husband all the way up Foolscap Hill with a dried cod-fish. Charity, +the third, married too,--for the Stovers of Scarboro were handsome +girls, but she got a fit mate in her spouse. She failed to intimidate +him, for he was a foeman worthy of her steel; but she left his bed and +board, and left in a manner that kept up the credit of the Stover family +of Scarboro. + +They had had a stormy breakfast one morning before he started to +Portland with a load of hay. “Good-by,” she called, as she stood in the +door, “you've seen the last of me!” “No such luck!” he said, and whipped +up his horse. Charity baked a great pile of biscuits, and left them on +the kitchen table with a pitcher of skimmed milk. (She wouldn't give +him anything to complain of, not she!) She then put a few clothes in a +bundle, and, tying on her shaker, prepared to walk to Pleasant River, +twelve miles distant. As she locked the door and put the key in its +accustomed place under the mat, a pleasant young man drove up and +explained that he was the advance agent of the Sypher's Two-in-One +Menagerie and Circus, soon to appear in that vicinity. He added that +he should be glad to give her five tickets to the entertainment if she +would allow him to paste a few handsome posters on that side of her barn +next the road; that their removal was attended with trifling difficulty, +owing to the nature of a very superior paste invented by himself; that +any small boy, in fact, could tear them off in an hour, and be well paid +by the gift of a ticket. + +The devil entered into Charity (not by any means for the first time), +and she told the man composedly that if he would give her ten tickets he +might paper over the cottage as well as the barn, for they were going +to tear it down shortly and build a larger one. The advance agent was +delighted, and they passed a pleasant hour together; Charity holding the +paste-pot, while the talkative gentleman glued six lions and an elephant +on the roof, a fat lady on the front door, a tattooed man between the +windows, living skeletons on the blinds, and ladies insufficiently +clothed in all the vacant spaces and on the chimneys. Nobody went by +during the operation, and the agent remarked, as he unhitched his horse, +that he had never done a neater job. “Why, they'll come as far to see +your house as they will to the circus!” he exclaimed. + +“I calculate they will,” said Charity, as she latched the gate and +started for Pleasant River. + +I am not telling Charity Stover's story, so I will only add that +the bill-poster was mistaken in the nature of his paste, and greatly +undervalued its adhesive properties. + +The temper of Prudence, the youngest sister, now Mrs. Todd, paled into +insignificance beside that of the others, but it was a very pretty thing +in tempers nevertheless, and would have been thought remarkable in any +other family in Scarboro. + +You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often +as his vices that make him difficult to live with. Mrs. Todd's +masterfulness and even her jealousy might have been endured, by the +aid of fasting and prayer, but her neatness, her economy, and her +forehandedness made a combination that only the grace of God could have +abided with comfortably, so that Jerry Todd's comparative success is a +matter of local tradition. Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough, +but as the years went on, Mrs. Todd blew her breakfast horn at so early +an hour that the neighbors were in some doubt as to whether it might not +herald the supper of the day before. They also predicted that she would +have her funeral before she was fairly dead, and related with great +gusto that when she heard there was to be an eclipse of the sun on +Monday, the 26th of July, she wished they could have it the 25th, as +Sunday would be so much more convenient than wash-day. + +She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth mats to +save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off in the shed, +and he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. She blackened +her stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, in +order to keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open in the +sitting-room, but spread newspapers over the carpet wherever the sun +shone in. + +It was the desire of Jerry's heart to give up the fatigues and exposures +of stage-driving, and “keep store,” but Mrs. Todd deemed it much better +for him to be in the open air than dealing out rum and molasses to a +roystering crew. This being her view of the case, it is unnecessary to +state that he went on driving the stage. + +“Do you wear a flannel shirt, Jerry?” asked Pel Frost once. “I don' +know,” he replied, “ask Mis' Todd; she keeps the books.” + +“Women-folks” (he used to say to a casual passenger), “like all other +animiles, has to be trained up before they're real good comp'ny. You +have to begin with 'em early, and begin as you mean to hold out. When +they once git in the habit of takin' the bit in their teeth and runnin', +it's too late for you to hold 'em in.” + +It was only to strangers that he aired his convictions on the training +of “womenfolks,” though for that matter he might safely have done it +even at home; for everybody in Limington knew that it would always +have been too late to begin with the Widder Bixby, since, like all the +Stovers of Scarboro, she had been born with the bit in her teeth. Jerry +had never done anything he wanted to since he had married her, and he +hadn't really wanted to do that. He had been rather candid with her on +this point (as candid as a tender-hearted and obliging man can be with +a woman who is determined to marry him, and has two good reasons why she +should to every one of his why he shouldn't), and this may have been +the reason for her jealousy. Although by her superior force she had +overborne his visible reluctance, she, being a woman, or at all events +of the female gender, could never quite forget that she had done the +wooing. + +Certainly his charms were not of the sort to tempt women from the +strict and narrow path, yet the fact remained that the Widder Bixby was +jealous, and more than one person in Limington was aware of it. + +Pelatiah, otherwise “Pel” Frost, knew more about the matter than most +other folks, because he had unlimited time to devote to general culture. +Though not yet thirty years old, he was the laziest man in York County. +(Jabe Slocum had not then established his record; and Jot Bascom had +ruined his by cutting his hay before it was dead in the summer of '49, +always alluded to afterwards in Pleasant River as the year when gold was +discovered and Jot Bascom cut his hay.) + +Pel was a general favorite in half a dozen villages, where he was the +life of the loafers' bench. An energetic loafer can attend properly to +one bench, but it takes genius as well as assiduity to do justice to six +of them. His habits were decidedly convivial, and he spent a good deal +of time at the general musters, drinking and carousing with the other +ne'er-do-weels. You may be sure he was no favorite of Mrs. Todd's; and +she represented to him all that is most undesirable in womankind, his +taste running decidedly to rosy, smiling, easy-going ones who had no +regular hours for meals, but could have a dinner on the table any time +in fifteen minutes after you got there. + +Now, a certain lady with a noticeable green frock and a white “drawn-in” + cape bonnet had graced the Midnight Cry on its journey from Limington to +Saco on three occasions during the month of July. Report said that she +was a stranger who had appeared at the post-office in a wagon driven by +a small, freckled boy. + +The first trip passed without comment; the second provoked some +discussion; on the occasion of the third, Mrs. Todd said nothing, +because there seemed nothing to say, but she felt so out-of-sorts that +she cut Jerry's hair close to his head, though he particularly fancied +the thin fringe of curls at the nape of his neck. + +Pel Frost went over to Todd's one morning to borrow an axe, and seized +a favorable opportunity to ask casually, “Oh, Mis' Todd, did Jerry find +out the name o' that woman in a green dress and white bunnit that rid to +Saco with him last week?” + +“Mr. Todd's got something better to do than get acquainted with his lady +passengers,” snapped Mrs. Todd, “'specially as they always ride inside.” + +“I know they gen'ally do,” said Pel, shouldering the axe (it was for +his mother's use), “but this one rides up in front part o' the way, so I +thought mebbe Jerry 'd find out something 'bout her. She's han'some as a +picture, but she must have a good strong back to make the trip down 'n' +up in one day.” + +Nothing could have been more effective or more effectual than this +blow dealt with consummate skill. Having thus driven the iron into Mrs. +Todd's soul, Pel entertained his mother with an account of the interview +while she chopped the kindling-wood. He had no special end in view when, +Iago-like, he dropped his first poisoned seed in Mrs. Todd's fertile +mind, or, at most, nothing worse than the hope that matters might reach +an unendurable point, and Jerry might strike for his altars and his +fires. Jerry was a man and a brother, and petticoat government must +be discouraged whenever and wherever possible, or the world would soon +cease to be a safe place to live in. Pel's idea grew upon him in the +night watches, and the next morning he searched his mother's garret till +he found a green dress and a white bonnet. Putting them in a basket, he +walked out on the road a little distance till he met the stage, when, +finding no passengers inside, he asked Jerry to let him jump in and +“ride a piece.” Once within, he hastily donned the green wrapper and +tell-tale headgear, and, when the Midnight Cry rattled down the stony +hill past the Todd house, Pel took good care to expose a large green +sleeve and the side of a white bonnet at the stage window. It was easy +enough to cram the things back into the basket, jump out, and call a +cordial thank you to the unsuspecting Jerry. He was rewarded for his +ingenuity and enterprise at night, when he returned Mrs. Todd's axe, for +just as he reached the back door he distinctly heard her say that if she +saw that green woman on the stage again, she would knock her off with a +broomstick as sure as she was a Stover of Scarboro. As a matter of fact +she was equal to it. Her great-grandmother had been born on a soil where +the broomstick is a prominent factor in settling connubial differences; +and if it occurred to her at this juncture, it is a satisfactory proof +of the theory of atavism. + +Pel intended to see this domestic tragedy through to the end, and +accordingly took another brief trip in costume the very next week, +hoping to be the witness of a scene of blood and carnage. But Mrs. Todd +did not stir from her house, although he was confident she had seen “my +lady green-sleeves” from her post at the window. Puzzled by her apathy, +and much disappointed in her temper, he took off the dress, and, +climbing up in front, rode to Moderation, where he received an urgent +invitation to go over to the county fair at Gorham. The last idea was +always the most captivating to Pel, and he departed serenely for a stay +of several days without so much luggage as a hairbrush. His mother's +best clothespin basket, to say nothing of its contents, appeared at this +juncture to be an unexpected incumbrance; so on the spur of the moment +he handed it up to Jerry just as the stage was starting, saying, “If +Mis' Todd has a brash to-night, you can clear yourself by showing her +this basket, but for massy sakes don't lay it on to me! You can stan' it +better'n I can,--you 're more used to it!” + +Jerry took the basket, and when he was well out on the road he looked +inside and saw a bright green calico wrapper, a white cape bonnet, a +white “fall veil,” and a pair of white cotton gloves. He had ample time +for reflection, for it was a hot day, and though he drove slowly, the +horses were sweating at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have overheard +his wife's storm of reproaches, perhaps even her threats of violence. +It had come to this, that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of +ridicule at the store and tavern. + +Now, two years before this, Jerry Todd had for the first and only time +in his married life “put his foot down.” Mrs. Todd had insisted on +making him a suit of clothes much against his wishes. When finished she +put them on him almost by main force, though his plaintive appeals would +have melted any but a Stover-of-Scarboro heart. The stuff was a large +plaid, the elbows and knees came in the wrong places, the seat was lined +with enameled cloth, and the sleeves cut him in the armholes. + +Mr. Todd said nothing for a moment, but the pent-up slavery of years +stirred in him, and, mounting to his brain, gave him a momentary courage +that resembled intoxication. He retired, took off the suit, hung it over +his arm, and, stalking into the sitting-room in his undergarments, +laid it on the table before his astonished spouse, and, thumping it +dramatically, said firmly, “I--will--not--wear--them--clo'es!” whereupon +he fell into silence again and went to bed. + +The joke of the matter was, that, all unknown to himself, he had +absolutely frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could have realized the +impressiveness and the thorough success of his first rebellion! But +if he had realized it he could not have repeated it often, for so much +virtue went out of him on that occasion that he felt hardly able to +drive the stage for days afterward. + +“I shall have to put down my foot agin,” he said to himself on the +eventful morning when Pel presented him with the basket. “Dern my luck, +I've got to do it agin, when I ain't hardly got over the other time.” + So, after an hour's plotting and planning, he made some purchases in +Biddeford and started on his return trip. He was very low in his mind, +thinking, if his wife really meditated upon warfare, she was likely to +inspect the stage that night, but giving her credit in his inmost heart +for too much common sense to use a broomstick,--a woman with her tongue! + +The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. Its route had been shortened, +and Mrs. Todd wanted its name changed to something less outlandish, such +as the Rising Sun, or the Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon, but her idea +met with no votaries; it had been, was, and ever should be, the Midnight +Cry, no matter what time it set out or got back. It had seen its best +days, Jerry thought, and so had he, for that matter. Yet he had been +called “a likely feller” when he married the Widder Bixby, or rather +when she married him. Well, the mischief was done; all that remained was +to save a remnant of his self-respect, and make an occasional dash for +liberty. + +He did all his errands with his usual care, dropping a blue ribbon for +Doxy Morton's Sunday hat, four cents' worth of gum-camphor for Almira +Berry, a spool of cotton for Mrs. Wentworth, and a pair of “galluses” + for Living Bean. He finally turned into the “back-nippin'” road from +Bonny Eagle to Limington, and when he was within forty rods of his own +house he stopped to water his horses. If he feared a scene he had good +reason, for as the horses climbed the crest of the long hill the lady in +green was by his side on the box. He looked anxiously ahead, and there, +in a hedge of young alder bushes, he saw something stirring, and, unless +he was greatly mistaken, a birch broom lay on the ground near the hedge. + +Notwithstanding these danger signals, Jerry's arm encircled the plump +waist of the lady in green, and, emboldened by the shades of twilight, +his lips sought the identical spot under the white “fall veil” where +her incendiary mouth might be supposed to lurk, quite “fit for treasons, +stratagems, and spoils.” This done, he put on the brake and headed his +horses toward the fence. He was none too soon, for the Widder Bixby, +broom in hand, darted out from the alders and approached the stage with +objurgations which, had she rated them at their proper value, needed +no supplement in the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror-stricken +look, wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, +disappeared behind a convenient tree. + +At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd would have preferred to chastise +both her victims at once; but, being robbed of one by Jerry's cowardly +flight, her weapon descended upon the other with double force. There was +no lack of courage here at least. Whether the lady in green was borne up +by the consciousness of virtue, whether she was too proud to retreat, +or whatever may have been her animating reason, the blow fell, yet she +stood her ground and gave no answering shriek. Enraged as much by her +rival's cool resistance as by her own sense of injury, the Widder +Bixby aimed full at the bonnet beneath which were the charms that +had befuddled Jerry Todd's brain. To blast the fatal beauty that had +captivated her wedded husband was the Widder Bixby's idea, and the broom +descended. A shower of seeds and pulp, a copious spattering of pumpkin +juice, and the lady in green fell resistlessly into her assailant's +arms; her straw body, her wooden arms and pumpkin head, decorating the +earth at her feet! Mrs. Todd stared helplessly at the wreck she +had made, not altogether comprehending the ruse that had led to her +discomfiture, but fully conscious that her empire was shaken to its +foundations. She glanced in every direction, and then hurling the +hateful green-and-white livery into the stage, she gathered up all +traces of the shameful fray, and sweeping them into her gingham apron +ran into the house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. + +Jerry stayed behind the tree for some minutes, and when the coast was +clear he mounted the seat and drove to the store and the stable. When +he had put up his horses he went into the shed, took off his boots +as usual, but, despite all his philosophy, broke into a cold sweat of +terror as he crossed the kitchen threshold. “I can't stand many more +of these times when I put my foot down,” he thought, “they're too +weakening!” + +But he need not have feared. There was a good supper under the mosquito +netting on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a pot of hot tea. Mrs. +Todd had gone to bed and left him a pot of tea! + +Which was the more eloquent apology! + +Jerry never referred to the lady in green, then or afterwards; he was +willing to let well enough alone; but whenever his spouse passed a +certain line, which, being a Stover of Scarboro, she was likely to do +about once in six months, he had only to summon his recreant courage and +glance meaningly behind the kitchen door, where the birch broom hung +on a nail. It was a simple remedy to outward appearances, but made his +declining years more comfortable. I can hardly believe that he ever +took Pel Frost into his confidence, but Pel certainly was never more +interesting to the loafers' bench than when he told the story of the +eventful trip of the Midnight Cry and “the breaking in of the Widder +Bixby.” + + +NOTES: + +1. On page 20, reentered is spelled with diaeresis over the second “e”. + +2. On pages 153 & 154 the verses beginning respectively “Rebel mourner” + and “This gro-o-oanin' world” are accompanied with staves of music in +the treble clef. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Village Watch-Tower, by +(AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + +***** This file should be named 936-0.txt or 936-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/936/ + +Produced by R. McGowan, and E. P. McGowan + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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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: The Village Watch-Tower + +Author: (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Release Date: August 7, 2008 [EBook #936] +Last Updated: March 10, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + + + + +Produced by R. McGowan, E. P. McGowan, and David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> + <h1> + THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by Kate Douglas Wiggin + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div class="mynote"> + <h2> + INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION + </h2> + <p> + These days the name of Kate Douglas Wiggin is virtually unknown. But if + one mentions the title “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” recognition (at + least in America) is instant. Everyone has heard of Rebecca; her story + has been in print continuously since it was first published in 1903. It + is certainly Mrs. Wiggin's most famous book, and the only one of her + many books that is still in print. Everything else she wrote has slipped + into complete obscurity. Occasionally in an antique shop, one may still + find a copy of her immensely popular seasonal book, “The Birds' + Christmas Carol”, but that is about the extent of what is readily + available, even second-hand. + </p> + <p> + The Birds' Christas Carol is available as our Etext #721, Nov. 1996. + </p> + <p> + In 1904, Jack London wrote (from Manchuria!) to say that Rebecca had won + his heart. (“She is real,” he wrote, “she lives; she has given me many + regrets, but I love her.”) Some eighty years later I happened to pick up + and read “Rebecca” for the first time. The book was so thoroughly + enjoyable that when I had finished it, I began at once a search for + other works by the same author—especially for a sequel to + “Rebecca”, which seemed practically to demand one. There was never a + sequel written, but “The New Chronicles of Rebecca” was published in + 1907, and contained some further chapters in the life of its heroine. I + had to be satisfied with that, for the time being. Then, well over a + year after jotting down Mrs. Wiggin's name on my list of authors to + “purchase on sight”, I finally ran across a copy of “The Village + Watch-Tower”; and it was not even a book of which I had heard. It was + first published in 1895 by Houghton, who published much of her other + work at the time, and apparently was never published again. Shortly + thereafter I found a copy of her autobiography. + </p> + <p> + Kate Douglas Wiggin (nee Smith) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, + on September 28, 1856. She was raised for the most-part in Maine, which + forms a backdrop to much of her fiction. She moved to California in the + 1870s, and became involved in the “free kindergarten” movement. She + opened the Silver Street Free Kindergarten in San Francisco, the first + free kindergarten in California, and there she worked until the late + 1880s (meantime opening her own training school for teachers). Her first + husband, Samuel Wiggin, died in 1889. By then famous, she returned to + New York and Maine. She moved in international social circles, lecturing + and giving readings from her work. In 1895 she married for the second + time (to George Riggs). + </p> + <p> + At her home in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate and Marin + County, she wrote her first book, “The Birds' Christmas Carol”, to raise + money for her school. The book also proved to be her means of entrance + into publishing, translation, and travel in elite circles throughout + Europe. The book was republished many times thereafter, and translated + into several languages. In addition to factual and educational works + (undertaken together with her sister, Nora Archibald Smith) she also + wrote a number of other popular novels in the early years of the 20th + century, including “Rebecca”, and “The Story of Waitstill Baxter” + (1913). She died in 1923, on August 23, at Harrow-on-Hill, England. + </p> + <p> + Beverly Seaton observed, in “American Women Writers”, that Mrs. Wiggin + was “a popular writer who expressed what her contemporaries themselves + thought of as 'real life'” (p. 413). “The Village Watch-Tower” I think + is a perfect example of that observation; it captures vividly a few + frozen moments of rural America, right at the twilight of the 19th + century. Most of it was written in the village of Quillcote, Maine, her + childhood home—and certainly the model for the village of these + stories. + </p> + <p> + No attempt has been made to edit this book for consistency or to update + or “correct” the spelling. Mrs. Wiggin's spelling is somewhat + transitional between modern American and British spellings. The only + liberty taken is that of removing extra spaces in contractions. E.g., I + have used “wouldn't” where the original has consistently “would n't”; + this is true for all such contractions with “n't” which appeared + inordinately distracting to the modern reader. + </p> + <p> + R. McGowan, San Jose, March 1997 + </p> + <br /> + </div> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + </h2> + <p> + Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these stories were + written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was so close to you, who can + tell from whence the thoughts came? I only know that when all the other + trees in the orchard were barren, there were always stories to be found + under your branches, and so it is our joint book, dear apple-tree. Your + pink blossoms have fallen on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit has + dropped into my lap; the sunshine streamed through your leaves and tipped + my pencil with gold. The birds singing in your boughs may have lent a + sweet note here and there; and do you remember the day when the gentle + shower came? We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky all + cried together while we wrote “The Fore-Room Rug.” + </p> + <p> + It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! it is not + altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, and because I have + strayed farther away from the heart of Mother Nature. + </p> + <p> + KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + </p> + <p> + “Quillcote,” Hollis, Maine, August 12, 1895. + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> TOM O' THE BLUEB'RY PLAINS. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> THE NOONING TREE. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE FORE-ROOM RUG. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY. + </a> + </p> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <h2> + THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. + </h2> + <p> + It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its + weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the + very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the + window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions + when he brought “old Mis' Bascom” a parcel from Saco. + </p> + <p> + Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful in the + springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the great stone + steps; or in the summer, when the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful + shadow over the front door. The elm, indeed, was the only object that ever + did cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her “front door 'n' entry + never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin' to keep it nice + for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up.” + </p> + <p> + She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. Her high-backed + rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch and its crocheted tidy, + stood always by a southern window that looked out on the river. The river + was a sheet of crystal, as it poured over the dam; a rushing, roaring + torrent of foaming white, as it swept under the bridge and fought its way + between the rocky cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, eddying, in its narrow + channel, pulsing restlessly into the ragged fissures of its shores, and + leaping with a tempestuous roar into the Witches' Eel-pot, a deep wooded + gorge cleft in the very heart of the granite bank. + </p> + <p> + But Lucinda Bascom could see more than the river from her favorite window. + It was a much-traveled road, the road that ran past the house on its way + from Liberty Village to Milliken's Mills. A tottering old sign-board, on a + verdant triangle of turf, directed you over Deacon Chute's hill to the + “Flag Medder Road,” and from thence to Liberty Centre; the little + post-office and store, where the stage stopped twice a day, was quite + within eyeshot; so were the public watering-trough, Brigadier Hill, and, + behind the ruins of an old mill, the wooded path that led to the Witches' + Eel-pot, a favorite walk for village lovers. This was all on her side of + the river. As for the bridge which knit together the two tiny villages, + nobody could pass over that without being seen from the Bascoms'. The + rumble of wheels generally brought a family party to the window,—Jot + Bascom's wife (she that was Diadema Dennett), Jot himself, if he were in + the house, little Jot, and grandpa Bascom, who looked at the passers-by + with a vacant smile parting his thin lips. Old Mrs. Bascom herself did not + need the rumble of wheels to tell her that a vehicle was coming, for she + could see it fully ten minutes before it reached the bridge,—at the + very moment it appeared at the crest of Saco Hill, where strangers pulled + up their horses, on a clear day, and paused to look at Mount Washington, + miles away in the distance. Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at the bridge, and + just there, too, the river road began its shady course along the east side + of the stream: in view of all which “old Mis' Bascom's settin'-room + winder” might well be called the “Village Watch-Tower,” when you consider + further that she had moved only from her high-backed rocker to her bed, + and from her bed to her rocker, for more than thirty years,—ever + since that july day when her husband had had a sun-stroke while painting + the meeting-house steeple, and her baby Jonathan had been thereby hastened + into a world not in the least ready to receive him. + </p> + <p> + She could not have lived without that window, she would have told you, nor + without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she could + remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been born. Her + mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, in that year + when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had ever seen it,—the + year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been carried away, and when + the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of succumbing to the force of + the freshet. + </p> + <p> + All the men in both villages were working on the river, strengthening the + dam, bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams of logs; and with the + parting of the boom, the snapping of the bridge timbers, the crashing of + the logs against the rocks, and the shouts of the river-drivers, the + little Lucinda had come into the world. Some one had gone for the father, + and had found him on the river, where he had been since day-break, + drenched with the storm, blown fro his dangerous footing time after time, + but still battling with the great heaped-up masses of logs, wrenching them + from one another's grasp, and sending them down the swollen stream. + </p> + <p> + Finally the jam broke; and a cheer of triumph burst from the excited men, + as the logs, freed from their bondage, swept down the raging flood, on and + ever on in joyous liberty, faster and faster, till they encountered some + new obstacle, when they heaped themselves together again, like puppets of + Fate, and were beaten by the waves into another helpless surrender. + </p> + <p> + With the breaking of the jam, one dead monarch of the forest leaped into + the air as if it had been shot from a cannon's mouth, and lodged between + two jutting peaks of rock high on the river bank. Presently another log + was dashed against it, but rolled off and hurried down the stream; then + another, and still another; but no force seemed enough to drive the giant + from its intrenched position. + </p> + <p> + “Hurry on down to the next jam, Raish, and let it alone,” cried the men. + “Mebbe it'll git washed off in the night, and anyhow you can't budge it + with no kind of a tool we've got here.” + </p> + <p> + Then from the shore came a boy's voice calling, “There's a baby up to your + house!” And the men repeated in stentorian tones, “Baby up to your house, + Raish! Leggo the log; you're wanted!” + </p> + <p> + “Boy or girl?” shouted the young father. + </p> + <p> + “Girl!” came back the answer above the roar of the river. + </p> + <p> + Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied himself with his pick and taking a + hatchet from his belt, cut a rude letter “L” on the side of the stranded + log. + </p> + <p> + “L's for Lucindy,” he laughed. “Now you log if you git's fur as Saco, drop + in to my wife's folks and tell 'em the baby's name.” + </p> + <p> + There had not been such a freshet for years before, and there had never + been one since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, “Lucindy's log” was left + in peace, the columbines blooming all about it, the harebells hanging + their heads of delicate blue among the rocks that held it in place, the + birds building their nests in the knot-holes of its withered side. + </p> + <p> + Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, from the time when she was + only “Raish Dunnell's little Lou,” to the years when she was Lucinda + Bascom, wife and mother, she had wandered down by the river side, and + gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked + with an “L” on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear of + the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show its + age. Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, like + her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from the opposite bank + wondered if, after all, it would hold out as long as “old Mis' Bascom.” + </p> + <p> + She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, though she was “all skin, bones, + and tongue,” as the neighbors said; for nobody needed to go into the + Bascoms' to brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, or take her the news; one went + in to get a bit of brightness, and to hear the news. + </p> + <p> + “I should get lonesome, I s'pose,” she was wont to say, “if it wa'n't for + the way this house is set, and this chair, and this winder, 'n' all. Men + folks used to build some o' the houses up in a lane, or turn 'em back or + side to the road, so the women folks couldn't see anythin' to keep their + minds off their churnin' or dish-washin'; but Aaron Dunnell hed somethin' + else to think about, 'n' that was himself, first, last, and all the time. + His store was down to bottom of the hill, 'n' when he come up to his + meals, he used to set where he could see the door; 'n' if any cust'mer + come, he could call to 'em to wait a spell till he got through eatin'. + Land! I can hear him now, yellin' to 'em, with his mouth full of victuals! + They hed to wait till he got good 'n' ready, too. There wa'n't so much + comp'tition in business then as there is now, or he'd 'a' hed to give up + eatin' or hire a clerk. ... I've always felt to be thankful that the house + was on this rise o' ground. The teams hev to slow up on 'count o' the + hill, 'n' it gives me consid'ble chance to see folks 'n' what they've got + in the back of the wagon, 'n' one thing 'n' other. ... The neighbors is + continually comin' in here to talk about things that's goin' on in the + village. I like to hear 'em, but land! they can't tell me nothing'! They + often say, 'For massy sakes, Lucindy Bascom, how d' you know that?' 'Why,' + says I to them, 'I don't ask no questions, 'n' folks don't tell me no + lies; I just set in my winder, 'n' put two 'n' two together,—that's + all I do.' I ain't never ben in a playhouse, but I don't suppose the + play-actors git down off the platform on t' the main floor to explain to + the folks what they've ben doin', do they? I expect, if folks can't + understand their draymas when the're actin' of 'em out, they have to go + ignorant, don't they? Well, what do I want with explainin', when + everythin' is acted out right in the road?” + </p> + <p> + There was quite a gathering of neighbors at the Bascoms' on this + particular July afternoon. No invitations had been sent out, and none were + needed. A common excitement had made it vital that people should drop in + somewhere, and speculate about certain interesting matters well known to + be going on in the community, but going on in such an underhand and + secretive fashion that it well-nigh destroyed one's faith in human nature. + </p> + <p> + The sitting-room door was open into the entry, so that whatever breeze + there was might come in, and an unusual glimpse of the new foreroom rug + was afforded the spectators. Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema + was a housekeeper of the type fast passing away. The great coal stove was + enveloped in its usual summer wrapper of purple calico, which, tied neatly + about its ebony neck and portly waist, gave it the appearance of a buxom + colored lady presiding over the assembly. The kerosene lamps stood in a + row on the high, narrow mantelpiece, each chimney protected from the flies + by a brown paper bag inverted over its head. Two plaster Samuels praying + under the pink mosquito netting adorned the ends of the shelf. There were + screens at all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted nervously when a visitor + came in the mosquito netting door, for fear a fly should sneak in with + her. + </p> + <p> + On the wall were certificates of membership in the Missionary Society; a + picture of Maidens welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria, in a + frame of cucumber seeds; and an interesting document setting forth the + claims of the Dunnell family as old settlers long before the separation of + Maine from Massachusetts,—the fact bein' established by an obituary + notice reading, “In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, daughter of Abiathar + Dunnell, two months old of Fits unbaptized.” + </p> + <p> + “He may be goin' to marry Eunice, and he may not,” observed Almira Berry; + “though what she wants of Reuben Hobson is more 'n I can make out. I never + see a widower straighten up as he has this last year. I guess he's been + lookin' round pretty lively, but couldn't find anybody that was fool + enough to give him any encouragement.” + </p> + <p> + “Mebbe she wants to get married,” said Hannah Sophia, in a tone that spoke + volumes. “When Parson Perkins come to this parish, one of his first calls + was on Eunice Emery. He always talked like the book o' Revelation; so says + he, 'have you got your weddin' garment on, Miss Emery?' says he. 'No,' + says she, 'but I ben tryin' to these twenty years.' She was always full of + her jokes, Eunice was!” + </p> + <p> + “The Emerys was always a humorous family,” remarked Diadema, as she + annihilated a fly with a newspaper. “Old Silas Emery was an awful humorous + man. He used to live up on the island; and there come a freshet one year, + and he said he got his sofy 'n' chairs off, anyhow!” That was just his + jokin'. He hadn't a sign of a sofy in the house; 't was his wife Sophy he + meant, she that was Sophy Swett. Then another time, when I was a little + mite of a thin runnin' in 'n' out o' his yard, he caught holt o' me, and + says he, 'You'd better take care, sissy; when I kill you and two more, + thet'll be three children I've killed!' Land! you couldn't drag me inside + that yard for years afterwards. ... There! she's got a fire in the + cook-stove; there's a stream o' smoke comin' out o' the kitchen chimbley. + I'm willin' to bet my new rug she's goin' to be married tonight!' + </p> + <p> + “Mebbe she's makin' jell',” suggested Hannah Sophia. + </p> + <p> + “Jell'!” ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. “Do you s'pose Eunice Emery would + build up a fire in the middle o' the afternoon 'n' go to makin' a jell', + this hot day? Besides, there ain't a currant gone into her house this + week, as I happen to know.” + </p> + <p> + “It's a dretful thick year for fol'age,” mumbled grandpa Bascom, appearing + in the door with his vacant smile. “I declare some o' the maples looks + like balls in the air.” + </p> + <p> + “That's the twentieth time he's hed that over since mornin',” said + Diadema. “Here, father, take your hat off 'n' set in the kitchen door 'n' + shell me this mess o' peas. Now think smart, 'n' put the pods in the + basket 'n' the peas in the pan; don't you mix 'em.” + </p> + <p> + The old man hung his hat on the back of the chair, took the pan in his + trembling hands, and began aimlessly to open the pods, while he chuckled + at the hens that gathered round the doorstep when they heard the peas + rattling in the pan. + </p> + <p> + “Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that's all,” remarked the Widow + Buzzell, as one who had given the matter some consideration. + </p> + <p> + “I should think he did,” rejoined old Mrs. Bascom. “Those children 'bout + git their livin' off the road in summer, from the time the dand'lion + greens is ready for diggin' till the blackb'ries 'n' choke-cherries is + gone. Diademy calls 'em in 'n' gives 'em a cooky every time they go past, + 'n' they eat as if they was famished. Rube Hobson never was any kind of a + pervider, 'n' he's consid'able snug besides.” + </p> + <p> + “He ain't goin' to better himself much,” said Almira. “Eunice Emery ain't + fit to housekeep for a cat. The pie she took to the pie supper at the + church was so tough that even Deacon Dyer couldn't eat it; and the boys + got holt of her doughnuts, and declared they was goin' fishin' next day + 'n' use 'em for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth Eunice Emery does. + She's about as much of a doshy as Rube is. She'll make tea that's strong + enough to bear up an egg, most, and eat her doughnuts with it three times + a day rather than take the trouble to walk out to the meat or the fish + cart. I know for a fact she don't make riz bread once a year.” + </p> + <p> + “Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do,” said the Widow + Buzzell. “My husband always said, give him buttermilk bread to work on. He + used to say my riz bread was so light he'd hev to tread on it to keep it + anywheres; but when you'd eat buttermilk bread he said you'd got somethin' + that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. ... For massy sake! + there's the stage stoppin' at the Hobson's door. I wonder if Rube's first + wife's mother has come from Moderation? If 't is, they must 'a' made up + their quarrel, for there was a time she wouldn't step foot over that + doorsill. She must be goin' to stay some time, for there's a trunk on the + back o' the stage. ... No, there ain't nobody gettin' out. Land, Hannah + Sophia, don't push me clean through the glass! It beats me why they make + winders so small that three people can't look out of 'em without crowdin'. + Ain't that a wash-boiler he's handin' down? Well, it's a mercy; he's ben + borrowin' long enough!” + </p> + <p> + “What goes on after dark I ain't responsible for,” commented old Mrs. + Bascom, “but no new wash-boiler has gone into Rube Hobson's door in the + daytime for many a year, and I'll be bound it means somethin'. There goes + a broom, too. Much sweepin' he'll get out o' Eunice; it's a slick 'n' a + promise with her!” + </p> + <p> + “When did you begin to suspicion this, Diademy?” asked Almira Berry. “I've + got as much faculty as the next one, but anybody that lives on the river + road has just got to give up knowin' anything. You can't keep runnin' to + the store every day, and if you could you don't find out much nowadays. + Bill Peters don't take no more interest in his neighbors than a cow does + in election.” + </p> + <p> + “I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do,” said Diadema, “but for one + thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every other night for a month, + though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' here at this store. She had + Packard's horse to go to Saco last week. When she got home, jest at dusk, + she drove int' the barn, 'n' bimeby Pitt Packard come to git his horse,—'t + was her own buggy she went with. She looked over here when she went int' + the house, 'n' she ketched my eye, though 't was half a mile away, so she + never took a thing in with her, but soon as't was dark she made three + trips out to the barn with a lantern, 'n' any fool could tell 't her arms + was full o' pa'cels by the way she carried the lantern. The Hobsons and + the Emerys have married one another more 'n once, as fur as that goes. I + declare if I was goin' to get married I should want to be relation to + somebody besides my own folks.” + </p> + <p> + “The reason I can hardly credit it,” said Hannah Sophia, “is because + Eunice never had a beau in her life, that I can remember of. Cyse Higgins + set up with her for a spell, but it never amounted to nothin'. It seems + queer, too, for she was always so fond o' seein' men folks round that when + Pitt Packard was shinglin' her barn she used to go out nights 'n' rip some + o' the shingles off, so 't he'd hev more days' work on it.” + </p> + <p> + “I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, not him on her,” + remarked the Widow Buzzell. “Their land joinin' made courtin' come dretful + handy. His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other day (I + always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), and then she'd hev + to go over and git him to drive 'em out. She's wed his onion bed for him + two summers, as I happen to know, for I've been ou' doors more 'n common + this summer, tryin' to fetch my constitution up. Diademy, don't you want + to look out the back way 'n' see if Rube's come home yet?” + </p> + <p> + “He ain't,” said old Mrs. Bascom, “so you needn't look; can't you see the + curtains is all down? He's gone up to the Mills, 'n' it's my opinion he's + gone to speak to the minister.” + </p> + <p> + “He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old linen + lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' to + the minister's,” objected Mrs. Jot. + </p> + <p> + “Anybody'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy,” + retorted her mother-in-law. “When you 've set in one spot's long's I hev, + p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more 'n one way + o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. ... Well, I + vow, there's the little Hobson girls comin' out o' the door this minute, + 'n' they 're all dressed up, and Mote don't seem to be with 'em.” + </p> + <p> + Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed her + murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate for some + moments. + </p> + <p> + “I guess they 're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' Eunice, + poor little things,” ventured the Widow Buzzell. + </p> + <p> + “P'raps they be,” said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; “p'raps they be + goin' to church, takin' a three-quart tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle + along with 'em. ... They 're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. + ... Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, Almiry, 'n' see + if you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. ... They ain't hardly old + enough to hold their tongues.” + </p> + <p> + An exciting interview soon took place in the middle of the road, and + Almira reentered the room with the expression of one who had penetrated + the inscrutable and solved the riddle of the Sphinx. She had been + vouch-safed one of those gleams of light in darkness which almost dazzle + the beholder. + </p> + <p> + “That's about the confirmingest thing I've heern yet!” she ejaculated, as + she took off her shaker bonnet. “They say they're goin' up to their aunt + Hitty's to stay two days. They're dressed in their best, clean to the + skin, for I looked; 'n' it's their night gownds they've got in the bundle. + They say little Mote has gone to Union to stop all night with his uncle + Abijah, 'n' that leaves Rube all alone, for the smith girl that does his + chores is home sick with the hives. And what do you s'pose is in the pail? + <i>Fruit</i> <i>cake</i>,—that's what 't is, no more 'n' no less! I + knowed that Smith girl didn't bake it, 'n' so I asked 'em, 'n' they said + Miss Emery give it to 'em. There was two little round try-cakes, baked in + muffin-rings. Eunice hed took some o' the batter out of a big loaf 'n' + baked it to se how it was goin' to turn out. That means wedding-cake, or + I'm mistaken!” + </p> + <p> + “There ain't no gittin' round that,” agreed the assembled company, “now is + there, Mis' Bascom?” + </p> + <p> + Old Mrs. Bascom wet her finger, smoothed the parting of her false front, + and looked inscrutable. + </p> + <p> + “I don't see why you're so secret,” objected Diadema. + </p> + <p> + “I've got my opinions, and I've had 'em some time,” observed the good + lady. “I don't know 's I'm bound to tell 'em and have 'em held up to + ridicule. Let the veal hang, I say. If any one of us is right, we'll all + know to-morrow.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, all any of us has got to judge from is appearances,” said Diadema, + “and how you can twist 'em one way, and us another, stumps me!” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I see more appearances than you do,” retorted her mother-in-law. + “Some folks mistakes all they see for all there is. I was reading a + detective story last week. It seems there was an awful murder in + Schenectady, and a mother and her two children was found dead in one bed, + with bullet holes in their heads. The husband was away on business, and + there wasn't any near neighbors to hear her screech. Well, the detectives + come from far and from near, and begun to work up the case. One of 'em + thought 't was the husband,—though he set such store by his wife he + went ravin' crazy when he heard she was dead,—one of 'em laid it on + the children,—though they was both under six years old; and one + decided it was suicide,—though the woman was a church member and + didn't know how to fire a gun off, besides. And then there come along a + detective younger and smarter than all the rest, and says he, 'If all you + bats have seen everything you can see, I guess I'll take a look around,' + says he. Sure enough, there was a rug with 'Welcome' on it layin' in front + of the washstand, and when he turned it up he found an elegant diamond + stud with a man's full name and address on the gold part. He took a train + and went right to the man's house. He was so taken by surprise (he hadn't + missed the stud, for he had a full set of 'em) that he owned right up and + confessed the murder.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't see as that's got anything to do with this case,” said Diadema. + </p> + <p> + “It's got this much to do with it,” replied old Mrs. Bascom, “that perhaps + you've looked all round the room and seen everything you had eyes to see, + and perhaps I've had wit enough to turn up the rug in front o' the + washstand.” + </p> + <p> + “Whoever he marries now, Mis' Bascom'll have to say 't was the one she + meant,” laughed the Widow Buzzell. + </p> + <p> + “I never was caught cheatin' yet, and if I live till Saturday I shall be + seventy-one years old,” said the old lady with some heat. “Hand me Jot's + lead pencil, Diademy, and that old envelope on the winder sill. I'll write + the name I think of, and shut it up in the old Bible. My hand's so stiff + to-day I can't hardly move it, but I guess I can make it plain enough to + satisfy you.” + </p> + <p> + “That's fair 'n' square,” said Hannah Sophia, “and for my pat I hope it + ain't Eunice, for I like her too well. What they're goin' to live on is + more 'n I can see. Add nothin' to nothin' 'n' you git nothin',—that's + arethmetic! He ain't hed a cent o' ready money sence he failed up four + years ago, 'thout it was that hundred dollars that fell to him from his + wife's aunt. Eunice'll hev her hands full this winter, I guess, with them + three hearty children 'n' him all wheezed up with phthisic from October to + April!... Who's that coming' down Tory Hill? It's Rube's horse 'n' Rube's + wagon, but it don't look like Rube.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, it's Rube; but he's got a new Panama hat, 'n' he 's hed his linen + duster washed,” said old Mrs. Bascom. ... “Now, do you mean to tell me + that that woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice Emery? It ain't, 'n' that + green parasol don't belong to this village. He's drivin' her into his + yard!... Just as I s'posed, it's that little, smirkin' worthless + school-teacher up to the Mills.—Don't break my neck, Diademy; can't + you see out the other winder?—Yes, he's helpin' her out, 'n' showin' + her in. He can't 'a' ben married more'n ten minutes, for he's goin' clear + up the steps to open the door for her!” + </p> + <p> + “Wait 'n' see if he takes his horse out,” said Hannah Sophia. “Mebbe he'll + drive her back in a few minutes. ... No, he's onhitched! ... There, he's + hangin' up the head-stall!” + </p> + <p> + “I've ben up in the attic chamber,” called the Widow Buzzell, as she + descended the stairs; “she's pulled up the curtains, and took off her hat + right in front o' the winder, 's bold as a brass kettle! She's come to + stay! Ain't that Rube Hobson all over,—to bring another woman int' + this village 'stid o' weedin' one of 'em out as he'd oughter. He ain't got + any more public sperit than a—hedgehog, 'n' never had!” + </p> + <p> + Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied on her shaker, and started for + the door. + </p> + <p> + “I'm goin' over to Eunice's,” she said, “and I'm goin' to take my bottle + of camphire. I shouldn't wonder a mite if I found her in a dead faint on + the kitchen floor. Nobody need tell me she wa'n't buildin' hopes.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll go with you,” said the Widow Buzzell. “I'd like to see with my own + eyes how she takes it, 'n' it'll be too late to tell if I wait till after + supper. If she'd ben more open with me 'n' ever asked for my advice, I + could 'a' told her it wa'n't the first time Rube Hobson has played that + trick.” + </p> + <p> + “I'd come too if 't wa'n't milkin' but Jot ain't home from the Centre, and + I've got to do his chores; come in as you go along back, will you?” asked + Diadema. + </p> + <p> + Hannah Sophia remained behind, promising to meet them at the post-office + and hear the news. As the two women walked down the hill she drew the old + envelope from the Bible and read the wavering words scrawled upon it in + old Mrs. Bascom's rheumatic and uncertain hand,— + </p> + <p> + <i>the</i> <i>milikins</i> <i>Mills</i> <i>Teecher.</i> + </p> + <p> + “Well Lucindy, you do make good use o' your winder,” she exclaimed, “but + how you pitched on anything so onlikely as her is more'n I can see.” + </p> + <p> + “Just because 't was onlikely. A man's a great sight likelier to do an + onlikely thing than he is a likely one, when it comes to marryin'. In the + first place, Rube sent his children to school up to the Mills 'stid of to + the brick schoolhouse, though he had to pay a little something to get 'em + taken in to another deestrick. They used to come down at night with their + hands full o' 'ward o' merit cards. Do you s'pose I thought they got 'em + for good behavior, or for knowin' their lessons? Then aunt Hitty told me + some question or other Rube had asked examination day. Since when has Rube + Hobson 'tended examinations, thinks I. And when I see the girl, a + red-and-white paper doll that wouldn't know whether to move the + churn-dasher up 'n' down or round 'n' round, I made up my mind that bein' + a man he'd take her for certain, and not his next-door neighbor of a + sensible age and a house 'n' farm 'n' cow 'n' buggy!” + </p> + <p> + “Sure enough,” agreed Hannah Sophia, “though that don't account for + Eunice's queer actions, 'n' the pa'cels 'n' the fruit cake.” + </p> + <p> + “When I make out a case,” observed Mrs. Bascom modestly, “I ain't one to + leave weak spots in it. If I guess at all, I go all over the ground 'n' + stop when I git through. Now, sisters or no sisters, Maryabby Emery ain't + spoke to Eunice sence she moved to Salem. But if Eunice has ben bringin' + pa'cels home, Maryabby must 'a' paid for what was in 'em; and if she's ben + bakin' fruit cake this hot day, why Maryabby used to be so font o' fruit + cake her folks were afraid she'd have fits 'n' die. I shall be watchin' + here as usual to-morrow morning', 'n' if Maryabby don't drive int' + Eunice's yard before noon I won't brag any more for a year to come.” + </p> + <p> + Hannah Sophia gazed at old Mrs. Bascom with unstinted admiration. “You do + beat all,” she said; “and I wish I could stay all night 'n' see how it + turns out, but Almiry is just comin' over the bridge, 'n' I must start 'n' + meet her. Good-by. I'm glad to see you so smart; you always look slim, but + I guess you'll tough it out's long 's the rest of us. I see your log was + all right, last time I was down side o' the river.” + </p> + <p> + “They say it 's jest goin' to break in two in the middle, and fall into + the river,” cheerfully responded Lucinda. “They say it's just hanging' on + by a thread. Well, that's what they 've ben sayin' about me these ten + years, 'n' here I be still hanging! It don't make no odds, I guess, + whether it's a thread or a rope you 're hangin' by, so long as you hang.” + </p> + <p> + * * * + </p> + <p> + The next morning, little Mote Hobson, who had stayed all night with his + uncle in Union, was walking home by the side of the river. He strolled + along, the happy, tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, eyes one moment on + the trees in the hope of squirrels and birds'-nests, the next on the + ground in search of the first blueberries. As he stooped to pick up a bit + of shining quartz to add to the collection in his ragged trousers' pockets + he glanced across the river, and at that very instant Lucinda's log broke + gently in twain, rolled down the bank, crumbling as it went, and, dropping + in like a tired child, was carried peacefully along on the river's breast. + </p> + <p> + Mote walked more quickly after that. It was quite a feather in his cap to + see, with his own eyes, the old landmark slip from its accustomed place + and float down the stream. The other boys would miss it and say, “It's + gone!” He would say, “I saw it go!” + </p> + <p> + Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top of the hill. His white locks were + uncovered, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Baby Jot, as usual, held fast + by his shaking hand, for they loved each other, these two. The cruel + stroke of the sun that had blurred the old man's brain had spared a + blessed something in him that won the healing love of children. + </p> + <p> + “How d' ye, Mote?” he piped in his feeble voice. “They say Lucindy's dead. + ... Jot says she is, 'n' Diademy says she is, 'n' I guess she is. ... It + 's a dretful thick year for fol'age; ... some o' the maples looks like + balls in the air.” + </p> + <p> + Mote looked in at the window. The neighbors were hurrying to and fro. + Diadema sat with her calico apron up to her face, sobbing; and for the + first morning in thirty years, old Mrs. Bascom's high-backed rocker was + empty, and there was no one sitting in the village watch-tower. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + TOM O' THE BLUEB'RY PLAINS. + </h2> + <p> + The sky is a shadowless blue; the noon-day sun glows fiercely; a cloud of + dust rises from the burning road whenever the hot breeze stirs the air, or + whenever a farm wagon creaks along, its wheels sinking into the deep sand. + </p> + <p> + In the distance, where the green of the earth joins the blue of the sky, + gleams the silver line of a river. + </p> + <p> + As far as the eye an reach, the ground is covered with blueberry bushes; + red leaves peeping among green ones; bloom of blue fruit hanging in full + warm clusters,—spheres of velvet mellowed by summer sun, moistened + with crystal dew, spiced with fragrance of woods. + </p> + <p> + In among the blueberry bushes grow huckleberries, “choky pears,” and + black-snaps. + </p> + <p> + Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift themselves out of the wilderness of + shrubs. They look dwarfed and gloomy, as if Nature had been an untender + mother, and denied them proper nourishment. + </p> + <p> + The road is a little-traveled one, and furrows of feathery grasses grow + between the long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts. + </p> + <p> + The first goldenrod gleams among the loose stones at the foot of the alder + bushes. Whole families of pale butterflies, just out of their long sleep, + perch on the brilliant stalks and tilter up and down in the sunshine. + </p> + <p> + Straggling processions of wooly brown caterpillars wend their way in the + short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple + bull-thistle are coming into bloom. + </p> + <p> + The song of birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains are given over + to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, the humming of bees, and + the chirping of crickets that stir the drowsy air when the summer begins + to wane. + </p> + <p> + It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in the + distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, the + swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. All at + once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or a man's? + Neither yet all three. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + —swain.” + </pre> + <p> + Everybody knows the song, and everybody knows the cracked voice. The + master of this bit of silent wilderness is coming home: it is Tom o' the + blueb'ry plains. + </p> + <p> + He is more than common tall, with a sandy beard, and a mop of tangled hair + straggling beneath his torn straw hat. A square of wet calico drips from + under the back of the hat. His gingham shirt is open at the throat, + showing his tanned neck and chest. Warm as it is, he wears portions of at + least three coats on his back. His high boots, split in foot and leg, are + mended and spliced and laced and tied on with bits of shingle rope. He + carries a small tin pail of molasses. It has a bail of rope, and a + battered cover with a knob of sticky newspaper. Over one shoulder, + suspended on a crooked branch, hangs a bundle of basket stuff,—split + willow withes and the like; over the other swings a decrepit, bottomless, + three-legged chair. + </p> + <p> + I call him the master of the plains, but in faith he had no legal claim to + the title. If he owned a habitation or had established a home on any spot + in the universe, it was because no man envied him what he took; for Tom + was one of God's fools, a foot-loose pilgrim in this world of ours, a poor + addle-pated, simple-minded, harmless creature,—in village parlance, + a “softy.” + </p> + <p> + Mother or father, sister or brother, he had none, nor ever had, so far as + any one knew; but how should people who had to work from sun-up to + candlelight to get the better of the climate have leisure to discover + whether or no Blueb'ry Tom had any kin? + </p> + <p> + At some period in an almost forgotten past there had been a house on Tom's + particular patch of the plains. It had long since tumbled into ruins and + served for fire-wood and even the chimney bricks had disappeared one by + one, as the monotonous seasons came and went. + </p> + <p> + Tom had settled himself in an old tool-shop, corn-house, or rude + out-building of some sort that had belonged to the ruined cottage. Here he + had set up his house-hold gods; and since no one else had ever wanted a + home in this dreary tangle of berry bushes, where the only shade came from + stunted pines that flung shriveled arms to the sky and dropped dead cones + to the sterile earth, here he remained unmolested. + </p> + <p> + In the lower part of the hut he kept his basket stuff and his collection + of two-legged and three-legged chairs. In the course of evolution they + never sprouted another leg, those chairs; as they were given to him, so + they remained. The upper floor served for his living-room, and was reached + by a ladder from the ground, for there was no stairway inside. + </p> + <p> + No one had ever been in the little upper chamber. When a passer-by chanced + to be-think him that Tom's hermitage was close at hand, he sometimes + turned in his team by a certain clump of white birches and drove nearer to + the house, intending to remind Tom that there was a chair to willow-bottom + the next time he came to the village. But at the noise of the wheels Tom + drew in his ladder; and when the visitor alighted and came within sight, + it was to find the inhospitable host standing in the opening of the + second-story window, a quaint figure framed in green branches, the ladder + behind him, and on his face a kind of impenetrable dignity, as he shook + his head and said, “Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle.” + </p> + <p> + There was something impressive about his way of repelling callers; it was + as effectual as a door slammed in the face, and yet there was a sort of + mendacious courtesy about it. No one ever cared to go further; and indeed + there was no mystery to tempt the curious, and no spoil to attract the + mischievous or the malicious. Any one could see, without entering, the + straw bed in the far corner, the beams piled deep with red and white oak + acorns, the strings of dried apples and bunches of everlastings hanging + from the rafters, and the half-finished baskets filled with blown + bird's-eggs, pine cones, and pebbles. + </p> + <p> + No home in the village was better loved than Tom's retreat in the + blueberry plains. Whenever he approached it, after a long day's tramp, + when he caught the first sight of the white birches that marked the + gateway to his estate and showed him where to turn off the public road + into his own private grounds, he smiled a broader smile than usual, and + broke into his well-known song: + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + —swain.” + </pre> + <p> + Poor Tom could never catch the last note. He had sung the song for more + than forty years, but the memory of this tone was so blurred, and his + cherished ideal of it so high (or so low, rather), that he never managed + to reach it. + </p> + <p> + Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better supper than ripe + berries and molasses? Nor was there need of sleeping under roof nor of + lighting candles to grope his way to pallet of straw, when he might have + the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, + and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine + needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished + spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, another layer + of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his tired body on this + grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow + with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,—there, haunted by no past and + harassed by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a child. + </p> + <p> + Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well! + </p> + <p> + But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer, and the gaunt + pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor Tom's mattress, there + came a change in the aspect of things. He still made his way to the + village, seeking chairs to mend; but he was even more unkempt than of old, + his tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled as he wove the willow + strands in and out, and over and under. + </p> + <p> + There was little work to do, moreover, for the village had altogether + retired from business, and was no longer in competition with its + neighbors: the dam was torn away, the sawmills were pulled down; husbands + and fathers were laid in the churchyard, sons and brothers and lovers had + gone West, and mothers and widows and spinsters stayed on, each in her + quiet house alone. “'T ain't no hardship when you get used to it,” said + the Widow Buzzell. “Land sakes! a lantern 's 's good 's a man any time, if + you only think so, 'n' 't ain't half so much trouble to keep it filled + up!” + </p> + <p> + But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, and the children always gathered + about him for the sake of hearing him repeat his well-worn formula,—“Tom + allers puts two handles on baskets: one to take 'em up by, one to set 'em + down by.” This was said with a beaming smile and a wise shake of the head, + as if he were announcing a great discovery to an expectant world. And then + he would lay down his burden of basket stuff, and, sitting under an + apple-tree in somebody's side yard, begin his task of willow-bottoming an + old chair. It was a pretty sight enough, if one could keep back the tears,—the + kindly, simple fellow with the circle of children about his knees. Never a + village fool without a troop of babies at his heels. They love him, too, + till we teach them to mock. + </p> + <p> + When he was younger, he would sing, + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop,” + </pre> + <p> + and dance the while, swinging his unfinished basket to and fro for a + cradle. He was too stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but he still + sang the “bloomin' gy-ar-ding” when ever they asked him, particularly if + some apple-cheeked little maid would say, “Please, Tom!” He always laughed + then, and, patting the child's hand, said, “Pooty gal,—got eyes!” + The youngsters dance with glee at this meaningless phrase, just as their + mothers had danced years before when it was said to them. + </p> + <p> + Summer waned. In the moist places the gentian uncurled its blue fringes; + purple asters and gay Joe Pye waved their colors by the roadside; tall + primroses put their yellow bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to see + themselves; and the dusty pods of the milkweed were bursting with their + silky fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. Autumn began to paint the + maples red and the elms yellow, for the early days of September brought a + frost. Some one remarked at the village store that old Blueb'ry Tom must + not be suffered to stay on the plains another winter, now that he was + getting so feeble,—not if the “<i>se</i>leckmen” had to root him out + and take him to the poor-farm. He would surely starve or freeze, and his + death would be laid at their door. + </p> + <p> + Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, sharp words, all failed to move + him one jot or tittle. He stood in his castle door, with the ladder behind + him, smiling, always smiling (none but the fool smiles always, nor always + weeps), and saying to all visitors, “Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's gone to + Bonny Eagle; Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm.” + </p> + <p> + November came in surly. + </p> + <p> + The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest were over, the corn was + shocked, the apples and pumpkins were gathered into barns. The problem of + Tom's future was finally laid before the selectmen; and since the poor + fellow's mild obstinancy had defeated all attempts to conquer it, the + sheriff took the matter in hand. + </p> + <p> + The blueberry plains looked bleak and bare enough now. It had rained + incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. The sun + came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,—like a duty + smile,—as if light, not heat, were its object. A keen wind blew the + dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance that had no merriment in + it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling + himself into a ball, remarked despondently that feathers were no sort of + protection in this kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, glanced in at + the barrel, and observed that anybody who minded a little breeze like that + had better join the woodcocks, who were leaving for the South by the night + express. + </p> + <p> + The blueberry bushes were stripped bare of green. The stunted pines and + sombre hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape now; where all was + dreary they did not seem amiss. + </p> + <p> + “Je-whilikins!” exclaimed the sheriff as he drew up his coat collar. “A + madhouse is the place for the man who wants to live ou'doors in the winter + time; the poor-farm is too good for him.” + </p> + <p> + But Tom was used to privation, and even to suffering. “Ou'doors” was the + only home he knew, and with all its rigors he loved it. He looked over the + barren plains, knowing, in a dull sort of way, that they would shortly be + covered with snow; but he had three coats, two of them with sleeves, and + the crunch-crunch of the snow under his tread was music to his ears. Then, + too, there were a few hospitable firesides where he could always warm + himself; and the winter would soon be over, the birds would come again,—new + birds, singing the old songs,—the sap would mount in the trees, the + buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the young ivory leaves push their + ruddy tips through the softening ground. The plains were fatherland and + mother-country, home and kindred, to Tom. He loved the earth that + nourished him, and he saw through all the seeming death in nature the + eternal miracle of the resurrection. To him winter was never cruel. He + looked underneath her white mantle, saw the infant spring hidden in her + warm bosom, and was content to wait. Content to wait? Content to starve, + content to freeze, if only he need not be carried into captivity. + </p> + <p> + The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, if only Tom had been a + reasonable being. To be sure, when Hannah Sophia Palmer asked old Mrs. + Pinkham how she liked it, she answered, with a patient sigh, that “her 'n' + Mr. Pinkham hed lived there goin' on nine year, workin' their fingers to + the bone 'most, 'n' yet they hadn't been able to lay up a cent!” If this + peculiarity of administration was its worst feature, it was certainly one + that would have had no terrors for Tom o' the blueb'ry plains. Terrors of + some sort, nevertheless, the poor-farm had for him; and when the sheriff's + party turned in by the clump of white birches and approached the cabin, + they found that fear had made the simple wise. Tom had provished the + little upper chamber, and, in place of the piece of sacking that usually + served him for a door in winter, he had woven a defense of willow. In + fine, he had taken all his basket stuff, and, treating the opening through + which he entered and left his home precisely as if it were a bottomless + chair, he had filled it in solidly, weaving to and fro, by night as well + as by day, till he felt, poor fool, as safely intrenched as if he were in + the heart of a fortress. + </p> + <p> + The sheriff tied his horse to a tree, and Rube Hobson and Pitt Packard got + out of the double wagon. Two men laughed when they saw the pathetic + defense, but the other shut his lips together and caught his breath. (He + had been born on a poor-farm, but no one knew it at Pleasant River.) They + called Tom's name repeatedly, but no other sound broke the silence of the + plains save the rustling of the wind among the dead leaves. + </p> + <p> + “Numb-head!” muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin with + his whip-stock. “Come out and show yourself! We know you're in there, and + it's no use hiding!” + </p> + <p> + At last in response to a deafening blow from Rube Hobson's hard fist, + there came the answering note of a weak despairing voice. + </p> + <p> + “Tom ain't ter hum,” it said; “Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle.” + </p> + <p> + “That's all right!” guffawed the men; “but you've got to go some more, and + go a diff'rent way. It ain't no use fer you to hold back; we've got a + ladder, and by Jiminy! you go with us this time!” + </p> + <p> + The ladder was put against the side of the hut, and Pitt Packard climbed + up, took his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top to bottom, and + turned back the flap. + </p> + <p> + The men could see the inside of the chamber now. They were humorous + persons who could strain a joke to the snapping point, but they felt, at + last, that there was nothing especially amusing in the situation. Tom was + huddled in a heap on the straw bed in the far corner. The vacant smile had + fled from his face, and he looked, for the first time in his life, quite + distraught. + </p> + <p> + “Come along, Tom,” said the sheriff kindly; “we 're going to take you + where you can sleep in a bed, and have three meals a day.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding,” + </pre> + <p> + sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head in a paroxysm of fear. + </p> + <p> + “Well, there ain't no bloomin' gardings to walk in jest now, so come along + and be peaceable.” + </p> + <p> + “Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm,” he wailed piteously. + </p> + <p> + But there was no alternative. They dragged him off the bed and down the + ladder as gently as possible; then Rube Hobson held him on the back seat + of the wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the horse. As they were on the + point of starting, the captive began to wail and struggle more than ever, + the burden of his plaint being a wild and tremulous plea for his pail of + molasses. + </p> + <p> + “Dry up, old softy, or I'll put the buggy robe over your head!” muttered + Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started on the trip, + and had lost it all by this time. + </p> + <p> + “By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!” said + Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, comforting the + shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive silence that + lasted until the unwelcome journey was over. + </p> + <p> + Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours. It did not enter the + minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate as to be admitted into + that happy haven would decline to stay there. The unwilling guest + disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, after some search, + they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed into his beloved + retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, had mended the + willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace. They dragged him + out again, and this time more impatiently; for it was exasperating to see + a man (even if he were a fool) fight against a bed and three meals a day. + </p> + <p> + The second attempt was little more successful than the first. As a place + of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable or attractive + on near acquaintance than it did at long range. Tom remained a week, + because he was kept in close confinement; but when they judged that he was + weaned from his old home, they loosed his bonds, and—back to the + plains he sped, like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a bit of iron + leaping to the magnet. + </p> + <p> + What should be done with him? + </p> + <p> + Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that the village had done + its duty, and if the “dog-goned lunk-head” wanted to starve and freeze, it + was his funeral, not theirs. Others thought that the community had no + resource but to bear the responsibility of its irresponsible children, + however troublesome they might be. There was entire unanimity of view so + far as the main issues were concerned. It was agreed that nobody at the + poor-farm had leisure to stand guard over Tom night and day, and that the + sheriff could not be expected to spend his time forcing him out of his hut + on the blueberry plains. + </p> + <p> + There was but one more expedient to be tried, a very simple and ingenious + but radical and comprehensive one, which, in Rube Hobson's opinion, would + strike at the root of the matter. + </p> + <p> + Tom had fled from captivity for the third time. + </p> + <p> + He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, + the molasses pail was hanging on a nail by the shed door. The remains of a + battered old bushel basket lay on the wood-pile: bottom it had none, nor + handles; rotundity of side had long since disappeared, and none but its + maker would have known it for a basket. Tom caught it up in his flight, + and, seizing the first crooked stick that offered, he slung the dear + familiar burden over his shoulder and started off on a jog-trot. + </p> + <p> + Heaven, how happy he was! It was the rosy dawn of an Indian summer day,—a + warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak world of yesterday without a + hint of beneficent intention; one of those enchanting weather surprises + with which Dame Nature reconciles us to her stern New England rule. + </p> + <p> + The joy that comes of freedom, and the freedom that comes of joy, unbent + the old man's stiffened joints. He renewed his youth at every mile. He ran + like a lapwing. When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the plains, + he broke into old song of the “bloom-in' gy-ar-ding” and the “jolly + swain,” and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration born of the + supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible last note. His heard + could hardly hold its burden of rapture when he caught the well-known + gleam of the white birches. He turned into the familiar path, boy's blood + thumping in old man's veins. The past week had been a dreadful dream. A + few steps more and he would be within sight, within touch of home,—home + at last! No—what was wrong? He must have gone beyond it, in his + reckless haste! Strange that he could have forgotten the beloved spot! Can + lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window? Can child lose the path to + mother's knee? + </p> + <p> + He turned,—ran hither and thither, like one distraught. A nameless + dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his warm blood, paralyzing + the activity of the moment before. At last, with a sob like that of a + frightened child who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness, he + darted back to the white birches and started anew. This time he trusted to + blind instinct; his feet knew the path, and, left to themselves, they took + him through the tangle of dry bushes straight to his— + </p> + <p> + It had vanished! + </p> + <p> + Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,—nothing but ashes! And + these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, and the leafless + branches on which they fell would shake them off lightly, never dreaming + that they hid the soul of a home. Nothing but ashes! + </p> + <p> + Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains! + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE NOONING TREE. + </h2> + <p> + The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, and + was known to all the country round about as the “Bean ellum.” The other + trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they were not + worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the meadow, + monarch of the village. + </p> + <p> + It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, and + then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all growing + symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful shadow under + which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have gathered. + </p> + <p> + It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of + foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown of + its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by from + the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, crawl + through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer view of + its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every + day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, each time he + passed; but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly esteemed in + the village. + </p> + <p> + The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. In the spring + it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny brown leaf + buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness coiled up + inside. In summer it stood in the midst of a waving garden of buttercups + and whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter from the sun + and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable dome, under + which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward as into the + heights and depths of an emerald heaven. As for the birds, they made it a + fashionable summer resort, the most commodious and attractive in the whole + country; with no limit to the accommodations for those of a gregarious + turn of mind, liking the advantages of select society combined with + country air. In the autumn it held its own; for when the other elms + changed their green to duller tints, the nooning tree put on a gown of + yellow, and stood out against the far background of sombre pine woods a + brilliant mass of gold and brown. In winter, when there was no longer dun + of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy autumn grasses, it + rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting its bare, shapely branches in + sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to say, “Do not pity me; I have + been, and, please God, I shall be!” + </p> + <p> + Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a “nooning” + tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in + haying time that it became the favorite lunching and “bangeing” place for + Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the + adjoining farm. The men congregated under the spreading branches at twelve + o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and “swapping” + stories, as they were doing to-day. + </p> + <p> + Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of “flour food” that + kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night. A + glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as an + illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, “Pitt took after both his parents; + one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while.” His pail contained four + doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six buttermilk biscuits, six ginger + cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold coffee. This quantity + was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group was lined throughout with + pie, cemented with buttermilk bread, and riveted with doughnuts. + </p> + <p> + Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide boots + turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others leaned + back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their knees + and chewing blades of grass reflectively. + </p> + <p> + One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into the + air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head buried in his + hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and laughed; for + he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word or two when he + was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, Matt Henderson, + dubbed “Dixie” for short. He was a giant fellow,—a “great gormin' + critter,” Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he had held up his head + and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have been thought a man of + splendid presence. + </p> + <p> + He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section of + the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass of wavy + dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, and the sad + mouth,—a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves through + telling Yankee jokes,—it was not these that gave him what the boys + called a “kind of a downcasted look.” The man from Tennessee had something + more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a + sorrow tugging at his heart. + </p> + <p> + “I'm goin' to doze a spell,” drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat + over his eyes. “I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm + goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you + think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my mind + I can't git a wink o' sleep.” + </p> + <p> + This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of + laughter. + </p> + <p> + “It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt Lyddy,” + said David Milliken. + </p> + <p> + “You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it did + you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack o' + doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew + 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked + together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!” + </p> + <p> + “You're right, Jabe.” (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting a + <i>D</i> in the bark. He was always cutting <i>D</i>'s these days.) “This + ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother + that lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, + don't throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall + o' the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called + 'em.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>Assidyus</i> trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're + about it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? <i>Assidyus!</i> + What does it mean, anyhow?” + </p> + <p> + “Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot it.” + </p> + <p> + “Assidyus—assidyus—it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to + me.” + </p> + <p> + “Assiduous means 'busy,'” said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly + waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had + given the definition. + </p> + <p> + “Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was. + One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see.” + </p> + <p> + “Wall, there is kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it'sturrible far + fetched,” remarked Jabe Slocum, rather sleepily. “You see, our ellums and + maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' the year in buddin' 'n' gittin' + out their leaves 'n' hangin' em all over the branches; 'n' then, no sooner + air they full grown than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red or yeller + or brown, 'n' then shakin' 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you might say, + to their every-day chores o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, 'n' spreadin' + 'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother; 'n' it + stan's to reason that the first 'n' hemlocks 'n' them California redwoods, + that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, can't be so busy as + them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' all the time.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess you're 'bout right,” allowed Steve, “but I shouldn't never 'a' + thought of it in the world. What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I + thought you was a temperance man.” + </p> + <p> + “I guess he 's like the feller over to Shandagee schoolhouse, that said he + was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!” laughed Pitt Packard. + </p> + <p> + “I ain't breakin' no law; this is yarb bitters,” Jabe answered, with a + pull at the bottle. + </p> + <p> + “It's to cirkerlate his blood,” said Ob Tarbox; “he's too dog-goned lazy + to cirkerlate it himself.” + </p> + <p> + “I'm takin' it fer what ails me,” said Jabe oracularly; “the heart knoweth + its own bitterness, 'n' it 's a wise child that knows its own complaints + 'thout goin' to a doctor.” + </p> + <p> + “Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start yer growth, Laigs?” asked little + Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot. “Say, + how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead, 'n' + side-track the other?” + </p> + <p> + The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally, but the man from + Tennessee never smiled. + </p> + <p> + Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least by + these personal remarks. “If I thought 't was a good growin' medicine, I'd + recommend it to your folks, Brad,” he replied cheerfully. “Your mother + says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin' potatoes, yer + can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin' up 'n' standing on the + potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you, I wouldn't hector + folks that had made out to grow some.” + </p> + <p> + “Speakin' o' growin',” said Steve Webster, “who do you guess I seen in + Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins girl from the Duck + Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson. It was one Sunday, in the + Catholic meetin'-house. I'd allers wanted to go to a Catholic meetin', an' + I declare it's about the solemnest one there is. I mistrusted I was goin' + to everlastin'ly giggle, but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter yer ever + see. But anyway, the Swatkins girl—or Mis' Robinson, she is now—was + there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin' Latin, pawin' + beads, gettin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin' herself north, south, + east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan! 'Grinnin' Dan,' we used to + call him. Well, he don't grin nowadays. He never was good for much, but he + 's hed more 'n his comeuppance!” + </p> + <p> + “Why, what 's the matter with him? Can't he git work in Boston?” + </p> + <p> + “Matter? Why, his wife, that I see makin' believe be so dreadful pious in + the Catholic meetin', she 's carried on wuss 'n the Old Driver for two + years, 'n' now she 's up 'n' left him,—gone with a han'somer man.” + </p> + <p> + Down on Steve Webster's hand came Jabe Slocum's immense paw with a grasp + that made him cringe. + </p> + <p> + “What the”—began Steve, when the man from Tennessee took up his + scythe and slouched away from the group by the tree. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't yer know no better 'n that, yer thunderin' fool? Can't yer see a + hole in a grindstun 'thout it's hung on yer nose?” + </p> + <p> + “What hev I done?” asked Steve, as if dumfounded. + </p> + <p> + “Done? Where 've yer ben, that yer don't know Dixie's wife 's left him?” + </p> + <p> + “Where 've I ben? Hain't I ben workin' in Boston fer a year; 'n' since I + come home last week, hain't I ben tendin' sick folks, so 't I couldn't git + outside the dooryard? I never seen the man in my life till yesterday, in + the field, 'n' I thought he was one o' them dark-skinned Frenchies from + Guildford that hed come up here fer hayin'.” + </p> + <p> + “Mebbe I spoke too sharp,” said Jabe apologetically; “but we 've ben + scared to talk wives, or even women folks, fer a month o' Sundays, fer + fear Dixie 'd up 'n' tumble on his scythe, or do somethin' crazy. You see + it's this way (I'd ruther talk than work; 'n' we ain't workin' by time + to-day, anyway, on account of the circus comin'): 'Bout a year 'n' a half + ago, this tall, han'some feller turned up here in Pleasant River. He + inhailed from down South somewheres, but he didn't like his work there, + 'n' drifted to New York, 'n' then to Boston; 'n' then he remembered his + mother was a State o' Maine woman, 'n' he come here to see how he liked. + We didn't take no stock in him at first,—we never hed one o' that + nigger-tradin' secedin' lot in amongst us,—but he was pleasant + spoken 'n' a square, all-round feller, 'n' didn't git off any secesh + nonsense, 'n' it ended in our likin' him first-rate. Wall, he got work in + the cannin' fact'ry over on the Butterfield road, 'n' then he fell in with + the Maddoxes. You 've hearn tell of 'em; they're relation to Pitt here.” + </p> + <p> + “I wouldn't own 'em if I met 'em on Judgement Bench!” exclaimed Pitt + Packard hotly. “My stepfather's second wife married Mis' Maddox's first + husband after he got divorced from her, 'n' that's all there is to it; + they ain't no bloody-kin o' mine, 'n' I don't call 'em relation.” + </p> + <p> + “Wall, Pitt's relations or not, they're all wuss 'n the Old Driver, as yer + said 'bout Dan Robinson's wife. Dixie went to board there. Mis Maddox was + all out o' husbands jest then,—she 'd jest disposed of her fourth, + somehow or 'nother; she always hed a plenty 'n' to spare, though there's + lots o' likely women folks round here that never hed one chance, let alone + four. Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her father hed + named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' but a + two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn out; if he + 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him. <i>In</i>fidelity + would 'a' ben a mighty sight more 'propriate; but either of 'em is too + long fer a name, so they got to callin' her Fiddy. Wall, Fiddy didn't + waste no time; she was nigh onto eighteen years old when Dixie went there + to board, 'n' she begun huneyfuglin' him's soon as ever she set eyes on + him. Folks warned him, but 't wa'n't no use; he was kind o' bewitched with + her from the first. She wa'n't so han'some, neither. Blamed 'f I know how + they do it; let 'em alone, 'f yer know when yer 're well off, 's my + motter. She was red-headed, but her hair become her somehow when she + curled 'n' frizzed it over a karosene lamp, 'n' then wound it round 'n' + round her head like ropes o' carnelian. She hedn't any particular kind of + a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry! when she looked at yer, yer felt + kind as if yer was turnin' to putty inside.” + </p> + <p> + “I know what yer mean,” said Steve interestedly. + </p> + <p> + “She hed a figger jest like them fashion-paper pictures you 've seen, an' + the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy Maddox would hev 'em + before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n' the highest hats 'n' the tightest + skirts 'n' the longest tails to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow, anyhow! Dixie + wa'n't out o' money when he come here, an' a spell afterwards there was + more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his father's folks down South. + Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you! Dixie bought a top buggy 'n' a + sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road most o' the time when he wa'n't to + work; 'n' when he was, she 'd go with Lem Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the + wiser. Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new husband jest then, so 't she didn't + interfere”— + </p> + <p> + “She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow,” interpolated Ob Tarbox. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded you can't + anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, nor a husband 'n' + young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; the least wind blows 'em here + 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. As time went on, the widder got + herself a beau now 'n' then; but as fast as she hooked 'em, Fiddy up 'n' + took 'em away from her. You see she 'd gethered in most of her husbands + afore Fiddy was old enough to hev her finger in the pie; but she cut her + eye-teeth early, Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of a feller come to + set up with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab him, if she hed any + use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I tell yer. But Dixie, he + was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He could n't see nothin' but + Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain.” + </p> + <p> + “He hed warnin's enough,” put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum never + needed any assistance in spinning a yarn. + </p> + <p> + “Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist minister went so + fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' was the text. 'Why + did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. If he hadn't 'a' heerd, he + couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done him no good to 'a' heerd + 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble many in the congregation, + 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' 'n' heedin', but it + rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. He 'n' Fiddy was seen + over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, 'n' they didn't come back + for a week.” + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'He gin her his hand, + And he made her his own,'” + </pre> + <p> + sang little Brad Gibson. + </p> + <p> + “He hed gin her his hand, but no minister nor trial-jestice nor + eighteen-carat ring nor stificate could 'a' made Fiddy Maddox anybody's + own 'ceptin' the devil's, an' he wouldn't 'a' married her; she'd 'a' ben + too near kin. We'd never 'spicioned she 'd git 's fur 's marryin' anybody, + 'n' she only married Dixie 'cause he told her he 'd take her to the + Wareham House to dinner, 'n' to the County Fair afterwards; if any other + feller hed offered to take her to supper, 'n' the theatre on top o' that, + she 'd 'a' married him instid.” + </p> + <p> + “How 'd the old woman take it?” asked Steve. + </p> + <p> + “She disowned her daughter <i>punctilio:</i> in the first place, fer + runnin' away 'stid o' hevin' a church weddin'; 'n' second place, fer + marryin' a pauper (that was what she called him; 'n' it was true, for they + 'd spent every cent he hed); 'n' third place, fer alienatin' the 'fections + of a travelin' baker-man she hed her eye on fer herself. He was a kind of + a flour-food peddler, that used to drive a cart round by Hard Scrabble, + Moderation, 'n' Scratch Corner way. Mis' Maddox used to buy all her baked + victuals of him, 'specially after she found out he was a widower beginnin' + to take notice. His cart used to stand at her door so long everybody on + the rout would complain o' stale bread. But bime bye Fiddy begun to set at + her winder when he druv up, 'n' bime bye she pinned a blue ribbon in her + collar. When she done that, Mis' Maddox alles hed to take a back seat. The + boys used to call it a danger signal. It kind o' drawed yer 'tention to + p'ints 'bout her chin 'n' mouth 'n' neck, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, in a + way that was cal'lated to snarl up the thoughts o' perfessors o' religion + 'n' turn 'em earthways. There was a spell I hed to say, '<i>Remember</i> + <i>Rhapseny!</i> <i>Remember</i> <i>Rhapseny!</i>' over to myself whenever + Fiddy put on her blue ribbons. Wall, as I say, Fiddy set at the winder, + the baker-man seen the blue ribbons, 'n' Mis' Maddox's cake was dough. She + put on a red ribbon; but land! her neck looked 's if somebody 'd gone over + it with a harrer! Then she stomped round 'n' slat the dish-rag, but 't + wa'n't no use. 'Gracious, mother,' says Fiddy, 'I don't do nothin' but set + at the winder. The sun shines for all.' 'You're right it does,' says Mis' + Maddox, ''n' that's jest what I complain of. I'd like to get a change to + shine on something myself.' + </p> + <p> + “But the baker-man kep' on comin', though when he got to the Maddoxes' + doorsteps he couldn't make change for a quarter nor tell pie from bread; + an' sure 's you're born, the very day Fiddy went away to be married to + Dixie, that mornin' she drawed that everlastin' numhead of a flour-food + peddler out into the orchard, 'n' cut off a lock o' her hair, 'n' tied it + up with a piece o' her blue ribbon, 'n' give it to him; an' old Mis' + Bascom says, when he went past her house he was gazin' at it 'n' kissin' + of it, 'n' his horse meanderin' on one side the road 'n' the other, 'n' + the door o' the cart open 'n' slammin' to 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies + spillin' out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next morning' + ('t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way when Fiddy's ribbon + was pullin' t'other); an' when he found out she 'd gone with Dixie, he + cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took on like a loontic; an' when Mis' Maddox hinted + she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, he stomped 'n' cussed + wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her a hombly old trollop, + an' fired the bread loaves all over the dooryard, he was so crazy at bein' + cheated. + </p> + <p> + “Wall, to go back to Dixie—I'll be comin' right along, boys.” (This + to Brad Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink of ginger tea + preparatory to beginning work.) + </p> + <p> + “I pity you, Steve!” exclaimed Brad, between deep swallows. “If you 'd + known when you was well off, you 'd 'a' stayed in Boston. If Jabe hed a + story started, he 'd talk three days after he was dead.” + </p> + <p> + “Go 'long; leave me be! Wall, as I was sayin', Dixie brought Fiddy home + ('Dell,' he called her), an' they 'peared bride 'n' groom at meetin' next + Sunday. The last hundred dollars he hed in the world hed gone into the + weddin' tower 'n' on to Fiddy's back. He hed a new suit, 'n' he looked + like a major. You ain't got no idea what he was, 'cause his eyes is dull + now, 'n' he 's bowed all over, 'n' ain't shaved nor combed, hardly; but + they was the han'somest couple that ever walked up the broad aisle. She + hed on a green silk dress, an' a lace cape that was like a skeeter nettin' + over her neck an' showed her bare skin through, an' a hat like an apple + orchard in full bloom, hummin'-bird an' all. Dixie kerried himself as + proud as Lucifer. He didn't look at the minister 'n' he didn't look at the + congregation; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, as if he couldn't hardly + keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few + months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before + Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She + allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to + git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty + stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her + on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll wait on women folks long as they can + stan' up. + </p> + <p> + “Then bime bye the baby come along; but that made things wuss 'stid o' + better. She didn't pay no more 'tention to it than if it hed belonged to + the town. She 'd go off to dances, an' leave Dixie to home tendin' cradle; + but that wa'n't no hardship to him for he was 'bout as much wropped up in + the child as he was in Fiddy. Wall, sir, 'bout a month ago she up 'n' + disappeared off the face o' the airth 'thout sayin' a word or leavin' a + letter. She took her clo'es, but she never thought o' takin' the baby; one + baby more or less didn't make no odds to her s' long 's she hed that + skeeter-nettin' cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an' low fer a fortnight, + but after that he give it up as a bad job. He found out enough, I guess, + to keep him pretty busy thinkin' what he 'd do next. But day before + yesterday the same circus that plays here this afternoon was playin' to + Wareham. A lot of us went over on the evenin' train, an' we coaxed Dixie + into goin', so 's to take his mind off his trouble. But land! he didn't + see nothin'. He 'd walk right up the lions 'n' tigers in the menagerie as + if they was cats 'n' chickens, an' all the time the clown was singin' he + looked like a dumb animile that 's hed a bullet put in him. There was lots + o' side shows, mermaids 'n' six-legged calves 'n' spotted girls, 'n' one + thing 'n' 'nother, an' there was one o' them whirligig machines with a + mess o' rocking'-hosses goin' round 'n' round, 'n' an organ in the middle + playin' like sixty. I wish we 'd 'a' kept clear o' the thing, but as bad + luck would hev it, we stopped to look, an' there on top o' two + high-steppin' white wooden hosses, set Mis' Fiddy an' that dod-gasted + light-complected baker-man! If ever she was suited to a dot, it was jest + then 'n' there. She could 'a' gone prancin' round that there ring forever + 'n' forever, with the whoopin' 'n' hollerin' 'n' whizzin' 'n' whirlin' + soundin' in her ears, 'n' the music playin' like mad, 'n' she with nothin' + to do but stick on 'n' let some feller foot the bills. Somebody must 'a' + ben thinkin' o' Fiddy Maddox when the invented them whirl-a-go-rounds. She + was laughin' 'n' carryin' on like the old Scratch; her apple-blossom hat + dome off, 'n' the baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, + 'n' pulled her ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; an' that was + jest the blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. I pulled Dixie off, but I + was too late. He give a groan I shall remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then + he plunged out o' the crowd 'n' through the gate like a streak o' + lightnin'. We follered, but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I set + here, I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; I forgot all + about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. If it wa'n't no + attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated it needed a father all the + more. Anyhow, he turned up in the field yesterday mornin', ready for work, + but lookin' as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead put in + the place of it.” + </p> + <p> + “I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back so near + him,” said Steve. + </p> + <p> + “Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over + Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen + her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it. + Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't one + to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the time she + was knee high to a grasshopper. I've seen her set down by a peck basket of + apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then heave it fur 's + she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then another; 'n' 't + wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly spile 'bout a dozen + of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton, now, would eat an + apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds 'n' put 'em on the + window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core in the stove, 'n' wipe her + hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got + to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' writin' of 'em in the grass with a + stick like you 've ben doin' for the last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky + to be doin' <i>D</i>'s not <i>F</i>'s, like Dixie there!” + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and gone + to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition where it could + be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would have + stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a circus + in the neighborhood. + </p> + <p> + Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle + something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the song + it is singing to the grasses. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, + Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; + Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, + Hush, they sing to the clover deep; + Hush,—'t is the lullaby Time is singing,— + Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. + Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging + Over the clover, over the grass.” + </pre> + <p> + And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,—heart + sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present certainty + and future dread,—he sat under the cool shade of the nooning tree, + and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone with his + miseries,—glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them to be, + had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for hours to + come. + </p> + <p> + How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with + such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same + tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one who + noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up all + the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever on his + brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,—Wareham, where she had + promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before. How + well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had ten miles + to drive in the moonlight before reaching their stopping-place,—ten + miles of such joy as only a man could know, he thought, who had had the + warm fruit of life hanging within full vision, but just out of reach,—just + above his longing lips; and then, in an unlooked-for, gracious moment, + his! He could swear she had loved him that night, if never again. + </p> + <p> + But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the + caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of + the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the + thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there + presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and was + now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube + looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly by the + prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ... Pretty + Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid to mount + one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in one of the + circling seats. The, good Got!—Dell! sitting on a prancing white + horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; a man + who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,—the very hat + she “'peared bride in” a man who brushed a grasshopper from her shoulder + with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, + even dared to pinch her pink cheek,—his wife's cheek,—before + that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The horrible thing was + well named; and life was just like it,—a whirl of happiness and + misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to drown the creak of + the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and + the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once + mounted, there is no getting off, unless... + </p> + <p> + There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The river! + The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, swirling among + the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing to the sea's + embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping + from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over these same jagged + rocks again. “On, on to the unknown!” called the river. “I come! I come!” + he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke in + upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a + real voice,—the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail that had + added fresh misery to his night's vigil,—the baby! + </p> + <p> + But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it dashed + between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only close his + ears to it! But it still called—called still—the river! And + still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute + note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, answering + each other antiphonally. The river—the baby—the river—the + baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the whirling + merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its discordant organ, + and its creaking machinery. + </p> + <p> + But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it + more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God! they + were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain were + lulled into silence, as under a “Peace, be still!” and, worn out with the + contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful shade of + the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over exhausted body + and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden darkness, the + distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of the birds, passed + unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage and fell on his + face, but the storm within had been too fierce for him to heed the storm + without. He slept on. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant River was + on the way to the circus,—Boomer's Grand Six-in-One Universal + Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining in the + same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian + Artists; the biggest elephants, the funniest clowns, the pluckiest riders, + the stubbornest mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest man and the + shortest man, the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, on the habitable + globe; and no connection with any other show on earth, especially Sypher's + Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State. + </p> + <p> + If the advertisements setting forth these attractions were couched in + language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, there were few + persons calm enough to perceive it, when once the glamour of the village + parade and the smell of the menagerie had intoxicated the senses. + </p> + <p> + The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. Jot + Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic news of + its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort of town + crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, he would go + over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what were its + immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every one of the + neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of news. He was an + attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at every wedding, in + the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and town and county fair. + When more pressing duties did not hinder, he endeavored to meet the two + daily trains that passed through Milliken's Mills, a mile or two from + Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on all journeys entailing + serving of papers and other embarrassing duties common to the law. On one + occasion, when the two lawyers of the village held an investigation before + Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited an hour because Jot Bascom did + not come. They knew that something was amiss, but it was only on + reflection that they remembered that Jot was not indispensable. He went + with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never missed a town meeting. He + knew all the conditions attending any swapping of horses that occurred + within a radius of twenty miles,—the terms of the trade and the + amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and who owed the + meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them. In fact, so far + as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence could be vested + in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot Bascom. That he was + quite unable to attend conscientiously to home duties, when overborne by + press of public service, was true. When Diadema Bascom wanted kindling + split, wood brought in, the cows milked, or the pigs fed, she commonly + found her spouse serving humanity in bulk. + </p> + <p> + All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had, + therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons who + tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields. + </p> + <p> + These were the bulletins issues:— + </p> + <p> + The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, in the same + place where the old one had been,—the old one, viewed with awe for + five years by all the village small boys. + </p> + <p> + The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, had + arrived and gone to the tavern. + </p> + <p> + An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed! + </p> + <p> + The elephant had stepped through the floor!! + </p> + <p> + The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come! + </p> + <p> + And the “Cheriot”!! + </p> + <p> + This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, to + prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating over the + fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped short under the + elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. He pinched the + twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure himself that he was alive + and in his right mind. The precious coin had been the result of careful + saving, and his hot, excited hands had almost worn it thin. But alas for + the vanity of human hopes! When the magnificent red-and-gold “Cheriot” was + uncovered, that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the door + opened, and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead the + procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. Little Jim gave + one panic-stricken look as they leaped over the chariot steps, and then + fled to the barn chamber, whence he had to be dragged by his mother, and + cuffed into willingness to attend the spectacle that had once so dazzled + his imagination. + </p> + <p> + On the eventful afternoon of the performance the road was gay with teams. + David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat carryall, two + children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl held down by a + serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his mother's buggy. + Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, and scores of others + were riding “shank's mare,” as they would have said. + </p> + <p> + It had been a close, warm day, and as the afternoon wore away it grew + hotter and closer. There was a dead calm in the air, a threatening + blackness in the west that made the farmers think anxiously of their hay. + Presently the thunderheads ran together into big black clouds, which + melted in turn into molten masses of smoky orange, so that the heavens + were like burnished brass. Drivers whipped up their horses, and + pedestrians hastened their steps. Steve Webster decided not to run even + the smallest risk of injuring so precious a commodity as Doxy Morton by a + shower of rain, so he drove into a friend's yard, put up his horse, and + waited till the storm should pass by. Brad Gibson stooped to drink at a + wayside brook, and as he bent over the water he heard a low, murmuring, + muttering sound that seemed to make the earth tremble. + </p> + <p> + Then from hill to hill “leapt the live thunder.” Even the distant + mountains seemed to have “found a tongue.” A zigzag chain of lightning + flashed in the lurid sky, and after an appreciable interval another peal, + louder than the first, and nearer. + </p> + <p> + The rain began to fall, the forked flashes of flame darted hither and + thither in the clouds, and the boom of heaven's artillery grew heavier and + heavier. The blinding sheets of light and the tumultuous roar of sound now + followed each other so quickly that they seemed almost simultaneous. Flash—crash—flash—crash—flash—crash; + blinding and deafening eye and ear at once. Everybody who could find a + shelter of any sort hastened to it. The women at home set their children + in the midst of feather beds, and some of them even huddled there + themselves, their babies clinging to them in sympathetic fear, as the + livid shafts of light illuminated the dark rooms with more than noonday + glare. + </p> + <p> + The air was full of gloom; a nameless terror lurked within it; the + elements seemed at war with each other. Horses whinnied in the stables, + and colts dashed about the pastures. The cattle sought sheltered places; + the cows ambling clumsily towards some refuge, their full bags dripping + milk as they swung heavily to and fro. The birds flew towards the orchards + and the deep woods; the swallows swooped restlessly round the barns, and + hid themselves under the eaves or in the shadow of deserted nests. + </p> + <p> + The rain now fell in sheets. + </p> + <p> + “Hurry up 'n' git under cover, Jabe,” said Brad Gibson; “you're jest the + kind of a pole to draw lightnin'!” + </p> + <p> + “You hain't, then!” retorted Jabe. “There ain't enough o' you fer + lightnin' to ketch holt of!” + </p> + <p> + Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped out of a cloud, and then + another, till the sky seemed lit up by cataracts of flame. A breath of + wind sprang into the still air. Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, roar, + peal! and as Jabe Slocum looked out of a protecting shed door, he saw a + fiery ball burst from the clouds, shooting brazen arrows as it fell. + Within the instant the meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue of flame, + and then, looking towards home, he fancied that the fireball dropped to + earth in Squire Bean's meadow. + </p> + <p> + The wind blew more fiercely now. There was a sudden crackling of wood, + falling of old timers, and breaking of glass. The deadly fluid ran in a + winding course down a great maple by the shed, leaving a narrow charred + channel through the bark to tell how it passed to earth. A sombre pine + stood up, black and burned, its heart gaping through a ghastly wound in + the split trunk. + </p> + <p> + The rain now subsided; there was only an occasional faint rumbling of + thunder, as if it were murmuring over the distant sea; the clouds broke + away in the west; the sun peeped out, as if to see what had been going on + in the world since he hid himself an hour before. A delicate rainbow + bridge stretched from the blackened church steeple to the glittering + weathercock on the squire's barn; and there, in the centre of the fair + green meadows from which it had risen in glorious strength and beauty for + a century or more, lay the nooning tree. + </p> + <p> + The fireball, if ball of fire indeed there were, had struck in the very + centre of its splendid dome, and ploughed its way from feather tip to + sturdy root, riving the tree in twain, cleaving its great boughs left and + right, laying one majestic half level with the earth, and bending the + other till the proud head almost touched the grass. + </p> + <p> + The rainbow was reflected in the million drops glittering upon the bowed + branches, turning each into a tear of liquid opal. The birds hopped on the + prone magnificence, and eyed timorously a strange object underneath. + </p> + <p> + There had been one swift, pitiless, merciful stroke! The monarch of the + meadow would never again feel the magic thrill of the sap in its veins, + nor the bursting of brown bud into green leaf. + </p> + <p> + The birds would build their nests and sing their idyls in other boughs. + The “time of pleasure and love” was over with the nooning tree; over too, + with him who slept beneath; for under its fallen branches, with the light + of a great peace in his upturned face, lay the man from Tennessee. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE FORE-ROOM RUG. + </h2> + <p> + Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village + watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything + that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical eye + being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of past + experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, the + high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's mother, + old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still more powerful + intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. Diadema's seat had + formerly been on the less desirable side of the little light-stand, where + Priscilla Hollis was now installed. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having been + transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber; for, as the teacher at the brick + schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and the daughter + of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable consequence. It was + a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were alone. It was a + pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every part. The floor + was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven entirely of red, + white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed localities by + button rugs,—red, white, and blue disks superimposed one on the + other. + </p> + <p> + Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, + Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and + handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. This + unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination, and + when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the + sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword + and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows of bright red + cotton. + </p> + <p> + The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, the turkey wings + that served as hearth brushes were hung against the white-painted + chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished + with home-made scarlet “tossels.” A little whatnot in one corner was laden + with the trophies of battle. The warrior's brass buttons were strung on a + red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype on the upper shelf; there + was a tarnished shoulder strap, and a flattened bullet that the captain's + jealous contemporaries swore <i>he</i> never stopped, unless he got it in + the rear when he was flying from the foe. There was also a little tin + canister in which a charge of powder had been sacredly preserved. The + scoffers, again, said that “the cap'n put it in his musket when he went + into the war, and kep' it there till he come out.” These objects were + tastefully decorated with the national colors. In fact, no modern aesthete + could have arranged a symbolic symphony of grief and glory with any more + fidelity to an ideal than Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of + red, white, and blue. + </p> + <p> + Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, and a + tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in + the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking at + the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the trig + little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one after + another across the open space at the top. + </p> + <p> + Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of the last horse + trade; little Jot was building “stickin'” houses in the barn; Priscilla + was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in + frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side. + </p> + <p> + Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the + attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would + have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping down the + cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests twice a + year; but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had made their way + into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of all,—the old + hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once ensconced there, + they had eaten through its hoarded relics, and reduced the faded finery to + a state best described by Diadema as “reg'lar riddlin' sieves.” She had + brought the tattered pile down in to the kitchen, and had spent a tearful + afternoon in cutting the good pieces from the perforated garments. Three + heaped-up baskets and a full dish-pan were the result; and as she had + snipped and cut and sorted, one of her sentimental projects had entered + her mind and taken complete possession there. + </p> + <p> + “I declare,” she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, “I + wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for + every time I draw in a scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the + world as if she was settin' on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan, + Miss Hollis, and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to + be a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought in together, just as + we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and mine was + laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em altogether. + If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and have a good cry + over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that will mean + something to me, if it don't to anybody else. + </p> + <p> + “We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There 's + never been more 'n half o' me left sence she died. We was born together, + played and went to school together, got engaged and married together, and + we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite alike. There was an old + lady come to our house once that used to say, 'There's sister Nabby, now: + she 'n' I ain't no more alike 'n if we wa'n't two; she 's jest as + diff'rent as I am t' other way.' Well, I know what I want to put into my + rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to begin.” + </p> + <p> + Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest. + </p> + <p> + “A spray of two roses in the centre,—there 's the beginning; why, + don't you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?” + </p> + <p> + “Course I do,” said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. “I've + got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses + grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able + more like a potato blossom. The stalk 's got to be green, and here is the + very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had roundabouts of + it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about four years old, + and one of the first things I can remember is climbing up and looking over + mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother had let her slip on her + new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to pacify her, and there she + set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had brought her. He was only + ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting Lovice. + </p> + <p> + “The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother and + father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother used to + tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and looked + pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the daytime + when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up bedstead in + the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, she used to + count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when she 'd counted + thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and asked if Moses was + all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him playing side of the river + about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted us straight, but she went + round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr. Granger had a head as red as a + shumac bush; and when she carried the candle close to the beds to take + another tally, there was thirteen children, sure enough, but if there + wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in amongst our boys in the turn-up + bedstead! While father set out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked the + sleepy little red-headed Granger out o' the middle and took him home, and + father found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings under the joiner's bench. + </p> + <p> + “They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles went all + over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there wa'n't + enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't start in + on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; I'm going to draw in a + little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the sperit of + plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors and filling + out. + </p> + <p> + “You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss + roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. I meant to make 'em + red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light + color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing will + do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall have to + fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the way, if it 's + going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out altogether, and + mine hasn't been any too gay. + </p> + <p> + “I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the liveliest + girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could shake a stick + at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben Granger was crazy + about her from the time she was knee-high; but when he went away to Bangor + to study for the ministry, the others had it all their own way. She was + only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced religion, and she was + mischeevous as a kitten. + </p> + <p> + “You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about + Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but she + couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into a + hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. The boys found it out, and used + to call him 'Hogshead Jowett.” He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' Four + Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous for its + fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one year. They + say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur as Foxboro' he + kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he didn't meet them + thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their front dooryards ready + to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says he, 'For the Lord's + sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went through? Be they <i>all</i> + fools there?' + </p> + <p> + “Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night, + when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come + back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was him. + 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through a little + crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered out, 'Yes, I + forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, for I didn't pay out but + fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make no use of it 'ceptins + to wipe my nose on.' How we did laugh over that! Well, he had a conviction + of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps it helped his head some; at any + rate he quit farming, and become a Bullockite preacher. + </p> + <p> + “It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have + drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did: she had good + Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, all on + her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the sect had + mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a full-feathered-out + minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never had before, though + they were always good friends from children. He had light hair and blue + eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover kep' him bleached out), + and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you ever see; for she was dark + complected, and her cheeks no otherways than scarlit the whole durin' + time. She had a change of heart that winter; in fact she had two of 'em, + for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a hope at the same time. 'T + was a good honest conversion, too, though she did say to me she was afraid + that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love was or might be, she 'd never + have found out enough about it to love God as she 'd ought to. + </p> + <p> + “There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished. I sha'n't have + more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one breadth of + the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you know, and dressed + just alike. Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for he wa'n't any more + forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; but I told him Lovey + and I had kept up with each other from the start, and he 'd got to fall + into line or drop out o' the percession.—Now what next?” + </p> + <p> + “Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?” asked Priscilla, + with an amused smile. + </p> + <p> + “Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know + what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have + forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain; + but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of coat + and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch anyway.” + </p> + <p> + Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden + inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging in + an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant. + </p> + <p> + “Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! And here + they are,—one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know + what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering over them + two roses, and make it out of the neckties,—green with brown spots. + That'll bring in the husbands; and land! I wouldn't have either of 'em + know it for the world. I'll take a pattern of that lunar moth you pinned + on the curtain yesterday.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. “You have some very ingenious + ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?” + </p> + <p> + “It's the first time I ever heard tell of it,” said Diadema cheerfully. + “Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain and + practical. While I think of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this red + into my carnation pink. It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from + Portland. It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said if + one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant + business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal + husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always <i>are</i> + poor, without they're rich; there don't seem to be any halfway in + ministers. + </p> + <p> + “We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot Bascom's + body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes into the bureau + drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. He never asks me what + I done with the last five cents he give me. You 've never been married + Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much about it; but I + tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about husbands. If you get + the one you like yourself, I don't know as it matters if all the other + women folks in town don't happen to like him as well as you do; they ain't + called on to do that. They see the face he turns to them, not the one he + turns to you. Jot ain't a very good provider, nor he ain't a man that 's + much use round a farm, but he 's such a fav'rite I can't blame him. There + 's one thing: when he does come home he 's got something to say, and he 's + always as lively as a cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. I like a + man that 's good comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded. There ain't + anything specially lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I + shouldn't ever feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. + He 's got such pleasant ways, Jot has! The other afternoon he didn't get + home early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the + kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the + tavern and tell the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't + anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's + going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And he + can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple juice + to limber <i>his</i> tongue! + </p> + <p> + “Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, and the full wood-box, + and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and + he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best wife + in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,—that 's what <i>you</i> + are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) Now I'd + like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a man do all + the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove looking as + doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: get a + good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a husband that'll + keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't too busy; it smooths + things consid'able round the house. + </p> + <p> + “There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and + finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next? + Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot. + </p> + <p> + “I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made + of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud, + but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this + rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it + was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I + made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel.” + </p> + <p> + “Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?” ventured + Priscilla. + </p> + <p> + “I don't care if they be,” said Diadema obstinately. “What's to hender + this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but + the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after their + father. But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit with it. I + s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but the moths never + et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. There's one thing I can + do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, and have it growing right up + alongside of mine,—would you?” + </p> + <p> + “No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your + flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing. + Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look like + a bluish white.” + </p> + <p> + “I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths <i>had</i> eat the + pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the scallops + on the aidge for me. My grief! what int'rest she took in my baby clothes! + Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come over from + Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first church. I shall + never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life. There was deep + snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, with the door opening into + the setting-room. Mother and father Bascom kep' out in the dining-room and + kitchen, where the work was going on, and Lovey and the baby and me had + the front part of the house to ourselves, with Jot coming in on tiptoe, + heaping up wood in the fireplace so 't he 'most roasted us out. He don't + forget his chores in time o' sickness. + </p> + <p> + “I never took so much comfort in all my days. Jot got one of the Billings + girls to come over and help in the housework, so 't I could lay easy 's + long as I wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor since. There + ain't any heaven in the book o' Revelations that 's any better than them + two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good feather bed, fingering the + pattern of my best crochet quilt, and looking at the fire-light shining on + Lovey and the baby. She 'd hardly leave him in the cradle a minute. When I + did n't want him in bed with me, she 'd have him in her lap. Babies are + common enough to most folks, but Lovey was diff'rent. She 'd never had any + experience with children, either, for we was the youngest in our family; + and it wa'n't long before we come near being the oldest, too, for mother + buried seven of us before she went herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody + else look as she done when she held my baby. I don't mean nothing + blasphemious when I say 't was for all the world like your photograph of + Mary, the mother of Jesus. + </p> + <p> + “The nights come in early, so it was 'most dark at four o'clock. The + little chamber was so peaceful! I could hear Jot rattling the milk-pails, + but I'd draw a deep breath o' comfort, for I knew the milk would be + strained and set away without my stepping foot to the floor. Lovey used to + set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand behind her, and a + little white knit cape over her shoulders. She had the pinkest cheeks, and + the longest eyelashes, and a mouth like a little red buttonhole; and when + she bent over the baby, and sung to him,—though his ears wa'n't + open, I guess for his eyes wa'n't,—the tears o' joy used to rain + down my cheeks. It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing mostly, and the + one I remember best was + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Daniel's wisdom may I know, + Stephen's faith and spirit show; + John's divine communion feel, + Moses' meekness, Joshua's zeal, + Run like the unwearied Paul, + Win the day and conquer all. +</pre> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “'Mary's love may I possess, + Lydia's tender-heartedness, + Peter's fervent spirit feel, + James's faith by works reveal, + Like young Timothy may I + Every sinful passion fly.' +</pre> + <p> + “'Oh Diademy,' she 'd say, 'you was always the best, and it 's nothing + more 'n right the baby should have come to you. P'r'aps God will think I'm + good enough some time; and if he does, Diademy, I'll offer up a sacrifice + every morning and every evening. But I'm afraid,' says she, 'he thinks I + can't stand any more happiness, and be a faithful follower of the cross. + The Bible says we 've got to wade through fiery floods before we can enter + the kingdom. I don't hardly know how Reuben and I are going to find any + way to wade through; we're both so happy, they 'd have to be consid'able + hot before we took notice,' says she, with the dimples all breaking out in + her cheeks. + </p> + <p> + “And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done was just + right, and he thought everything she done was just right. There wa'n't + nobody else; the world was all Reuben 'n' all Lovey to them. If you could + have seen her when she was looking for him to come from Skowhegan! She + used to watch at the attic window; and when she seen him at the foot of + the hill she 'd up like a squirrel, and run down the road without stopping + for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. And Reuben would ketch + her up as if she was a child, and scold her for not putting a hat on, and + take her under his coat coming up the hill. They was a sight for the + neighbors, I must confess, but it wa'n't one you could hardly disapprove + of, neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting Providence and couldn't last, + and God would visit his wrath on 'em for making idols of sinful human + flesh. + </p> + <p> + “She was right one way,—it didn't last; but nobody can tell me God + was punishing of 'em for being too happy. I guess he 'ain't got no + objection to folks being happy here below, if they don't forget it ain't + the whole story. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey's stalk now, and I'm going to make it + of her baby's long white cloak. I earned the money for it myself, making + coats, and put four yards of the finest cashmere into it; for three years + after little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help Lovey through + her time o' trial. Time o' trial! I thought I was happy, but I didn't know + how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa'n't made on that pattern. + </p> + <p> + “When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes + shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered the + little bundle o' warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close she shut + her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb to the + altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I seen him + give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on the white + piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. 'T wa'n't no + place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. We didn't mistrust it + then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and I'm glad I give + 'em every minute.” + </p> + <p> + The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant + River. Priscilla's lip trembled; Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on + the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed the + pattern. + </p> + <p> + “I ain't said as much as this about it for five years,” she went on, with + a tell-tale quiver in her voice, “but now I've got going I can't stop. + I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow. + </p> + <p> + “Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her + home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she + holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd got + to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood we've + had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave as I know + how.' + </p> + <p> + “She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a snowdrop, + hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the face as if we + was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o' mourning like + sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et or slept, or + what we done. + </p> + <p> + “As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its + mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would + have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless + sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it <i>could</i>n't have been! + You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! + But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms and + laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we thought she + seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There never was + another like her, and there never will be. 'Nonesuch,' Reuben used to call + her.” + </p> + <p> + There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old clock + and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous movement, + flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head in Diadema's + gingham apron. + </p> + <p> + “Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see me give way. You + go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so 't the kettle will be + boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. I don't know what the neighbors + would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but the spell's + over now, or 'bout over, and when I can muster up courage I'll take the + rest of the baby's cloak and put a border of white everlastings round the + outside of the rug. I'll always mean the baby's birth and Lovey's death to + me; but the flowers will remind me it 's life everlasting for both of 'em, + and so it's the most comforting end I can think of.” + </p> + <p> + It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of + the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company was + expected she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in a + corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it. + Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated + themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not “set easy” or “rest + comfortable” there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by the + window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of + Diadema's “p'ison neatness,” excusable in this case as there was so much + white in the new rug. + </p> + <p> + The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death + pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was + allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window, + and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, Miss Hollis would look in as + she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance of + rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned + posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads. + Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that all + its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, + motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were + chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square. + </p> + <p> + Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon. + </p> + <p> + “I cal'late,” she said, “that being kep' in a dark room, and never being + tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know + that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: that would + make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece out + the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white flowers, + and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. The rug would be han'somer + than ever then, and the story—would be finished.” + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. + </h2> + <p> + I. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, + Know more than any book. + Down with your doleful problems, + And court the sunny brook. + The south-winds are quick-witted, + The schools are sad and slow, + The masters quite omitted + The lore we care to know.” + + Emerson's <i>April.</i> +</pre> + <p> + “Find the 317th page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand + column.” + </p> + <p> + The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and then + began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:— + </p> + <p> + “'One of Pag-pag'”— + </p> + <p> + “Pag-a-ni-ni's.” + </p> + <p> + “'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn't + have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when + playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) 'Some one + asked him to im-pro-vise on the violin the story of a son who kills his + father, runs a-way, becomes a highway-man, falls in love with a girl who + will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, suddenly + jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s'”— + </p> + <p> + “Abyss.” + </p> + <p> + “'—a—rock—into—an—abyss, were they disappear + forever. Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he + asked that all the lights should be distinguished.'” + </p> + <p> + “Look closer, Davy.” + </p> + <p> + “'Should be extinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was the + musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him that + several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-s<i>a</i>lon, when + relighted, looked like a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like to have + been there, uncle Tony? But I don't believe anybody ever played that way, + do you?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the + elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. “I believe it, and I can hear it + myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret of everything + in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is hidden in the + strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it from captivity.” + </p> + <p> + “You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies + don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a + battle-field when you 've finished. I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, for + I should have more housework to do than ever.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; but + it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your pictures, laddie; make + me see with your eyes.” + </p> + <p> + The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely touching + the old millstone that served for a step. Taking a stand in the well-worn + path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the landscape with the glance + of an eagle, and began like a young improvisator:— + </p> + <p> + “The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill.” + </p> + <p> + “What color is it?” + </p> + <p> + “Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it,—it 's almost alone + in the sky; there 's only teenty little white feather clouds here and + there. The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two sides + of the river together. The water is pink where the sun shines into it. All + the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red light,—I + tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass. The weather + vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems to be shooting + gold arrows into the river. I can see the tip top of Mount Washington + where the peak of its snow-cap touches the pink sky. The hen-house door is + open. The chickens are all on their roost, with their heads cuddled under + their wings.” + </p> + <p> + “Did you feed them?” + </p> + <p> + The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture of + penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he + scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating calls + of “Chick, chick, chick, chick! <i>Come,</i> biddy, biddy, biddy, biddy! + <i>Come,</i> chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!” + </p> + <p> + The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanor of somebody very + dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a corner + shelf, took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a silk bag. + He removed the covering with reverential hands. The tenderness of the face + was like that of a young mother dressing or undressing her child. As he + fingered the instrument his hands seemed to have become all eyes. They + wandered caressingly over the polished surface as if enamored of the + perfect thing that they had created, lingering here and there with + rapturous tenderness on some special beauty,—the graceful arch of + the neck, the melting curves of the cheeks, the delicious swell of the + breasts. + </p> + <p> + When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, and lifting + the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly toward it and began to + play. + </p> + <p> + The tune at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began in + distant echoes, but after a few minutes' the playing grew firmer and + clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until the + atmosphere was satiated with harmony. No more ethereal note ever flew out + of a bird's throat than Anthony Croft set free from this violin, his <i>liebling</i>, + his “swan song,” made in the year he had lost his eyesight. + </p> + <p> + Anthony Croft had been the only son of his mother, and she a widow. His + boyhood had been exactly like that of all the other boys in Edgewood, save + that he hated school a trifle more, if possible, than any of the others; + though there was a unanimity of aversion in this matter that surprised and + wounded teachers and parents. + </p> + <p> + The school was the ordinary “deestrick” school of that time; there were + not enough scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a “degraded” school. The + difference between Anthony and the other boys lay in the reason as well as + the degree of his abhorrence. + </p> + <p> + He had come into the world a naked, starving human soul; he longed to + clothe himself, and he was hungry and ever hungrier for knowledge; but + never within the four walls of the village schoolhouse could he get hold + of one fact that would yield him its secret sense, one glimpse of clear + light that would shine in upon the “darkness which may be felt” in his + mind, one thought or word that would feed his soul. + </p> + <p> + The only place where his longings were ever stilled, where he seemed at + peace with himself, where he understood what he was made for, was out of + doors in the woods. When he should have been poring over the sweet, + palpitating mysteries of the multiplication table, his vagrant gaze was + always on the open window near which he sat. He could never study when a + fly buzzed on the window-pane; he was always standing on the toes of his + bare feet, trying to locate and understand the buzz that puzzled him. The + book was a mute, soulless thing that had no relation to his inner world of + thought and feeling. He turned ever from the dead seven-times-six to the + mystery of life about him. + </p> + <p> + He was never a special favorite with his teachers; that was scarcely to be + expected. In his very early years, his pockets were gone through with + every morning when he entered the school door, and the contents, when + confiscated, would comprise a jew's-harp, a bit of catgut, screws whittled + out of wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. But when robbed of all + these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, which, when put + between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, would yield a + delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. He could also + fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means of spools + and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life was an old + tuning-fork that the teacher of the singing school had given him, but, + owing to the degrading and arbitrary censorship of pockets that prevailed, + he never dared bring it into the schoolroom. There were ways, however, of + evading inexorable law and circumventing base injustice. He hid the + precious thing under a thistle just outside the window. The teacher had + sometimes a brief season of apathy on hot afternoons, when she was hearing + the primer class read, “<i>I see a pig. The pig is big. The big pig can + dig;</i>” which stirring in phrases were always punctuated by the snores + of the Hanks baby, who kept sinking down on his fat little legs in the + line and giving way to slumber during the lesson. At such a moment Anthony + slipped out of the window and snapped the tuning-fork several times,—just + enough to save his soul from death,—and then slipped in again. He + was caught occasionally, but not often; and even when he was, there were + mitigating circumstances, for he was generally put under the teacher's + desk for punishment. It was a dark, close, sultry spot, but when he was + well seated, and had grown tied of looking at the triangle of elastic in + the teacher's congress boot, and tired of wishing it was his instead of + hers, he would tie one end of a bit of thread to the button of his gingham + shirt, and, carrying it round his left ear several times, make believe he + was Paganini languishing in prison and playing on a violin with a single + string. + </p> + <p> + As he grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony Croft was by + general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. That he was lazy in + certain matters merely because he was in a frenzy of industry to pursue + certain others had nothing to do with the case, of course. + </p> + <p> + If any one had ever given him a task in which he could have seen cause + working to effect, in which he could have found by personal experiment a + single fact that belonged to him, his own by divine right of discovery, he + would have counted labor or study all joy. + </p> + <p> + He was one incarnate Why and How, one brooding wonder and interrogation + point. “Why does the sun drive away the stars? Why do the leaves turn red + and gold? What makes the seed swell in the earth? From whence comes the + life hidden in the egg under the bird's breast? What holds the moon in the + sky? Who regulates her shining? Who moves the wind? Who made me, and what + am I? Who, why, how whither? If I came from God but only lately, teach me + his lessons first, put me into vital relation with life and law, and then + give me your dead signs and equivalents for real things, that I may learn + more and more, and ever more and ever more.” + </p> + <p> + There was no spirit in Edgewood bold enough to conceive that Tony learned + anything in the woods, but as there was never sufficient school money to + keep the village seat of learning open more than half the year the boy + educated himself at the fountain head of wisdom, and knowledge of the + other half. His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched from a hen's + egg, and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black sheep and a + crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony had more useless + information than any boy in the village. He knew just where to find the + first Mayflowers, and would bring home the waxen beauties when other + people had scarcely begun to think about the spring. He could tell where + to look for the rare fringed gentian, the yellow violet, the Indian pipe. + There were clefts in the rocks of the Indian Cellar where, when every one + else failed, he could find harebells and columbines. + </p> + <p> + When his tasks were done, and the other boys were amusing themselves each + in his own way, you would find Tony lying flat on the pine needles in the + woods, listening to the notes of the wild birds, and imitating them + patiently, til you could scarcely tell which was boy and which was bird; + and if you could, the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed the + bobolinks and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head and chirp + to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about the + building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have taken hold + and helped if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had had beak and + claw instead of clumsy fingers. He would sit near a beehive for hours + without moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, under the full glare of + the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy; sometimes + surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the comedy might not be + turned into a tragedy by a careless footfall. The cottage on the river + road grew more and more to resemble a museum and herbarium as the years + went by, and the Widow Croft's weekly house-cleaning was a matter that + called for the exercise of Christian grace. + </p> + <p> + Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, considerate, and obedient. His + mother had no idea that he would ever be able, or indeed willing, to make + a living; but there was a forest of young timber growing up, a small hay + farm to depend upon, and a little hoard that would keep him out of the + poorhouse when she died and left him to his own devices. It never occurred + to her that he was in any way remarkable. If he were difficult to + understand, it reflected more upon his eccentricity than upon her density. + What was a woman to do with a boy of twelve who, when she urged him to + drop the old guitar he was taking apart and hurry off to school, cried, + “Oh, mother! when there is so much to learn in this world, it is wicked, + wicked to waste time in school.” + </p> + <p> + About this period Tony spent hours in the attic arranging bottles and + tumblers into a musical scale. He also invented an instrument made of + small and great, long and short pins, driven into soft board to different + depths, and when the widow passed his door on the way to bed she + invariable saw this barbaric thing locked up to the boy's breast, for he + often played himself to sleep with it. + </p> + <p> + At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put together again, strengthened, + soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced every accordion, guitar, melodeon, + dulcimer, and fiddle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the neighboring + villages. There was a little money to be earned in this way, but very + little, as people in general regarded this “tinkering” as a pleasing + diversion in which they could indulge him without danger. As an example of + this attitude, Dr. Berry's wife's melodeon had lost two stops, the pedals + had severed connection with the rest of the works, it wheezed like an + asthmatic, and two black keys were missing. Anthony worked more than a + week on its rehabilitation, and received in return Mrs. Berry's promise + that the doctor would pull a tooth for him some time! This, of course, was + a guerdon for the future, but it seemed pathetically distant to the lad + who had never had a toothache in his life. He had to plead with Cyse + Higgins for a week before that prudent young farmer would allow him to + touch his five-dollar fiddle. He obtained permission at last only because + by offering to give Cyse his calf in case he spoiled the violin. “That + seems square,” said Cyse doubtfully, “but after all, you can't play on a + calf!” “Neither will your fiddle give milk, if you keep it long enough,” + retorted Tony; and this argument was convincing. + </p> + <p> + So great was his confidence in Tony's skill that Squire Bean trusted his + father's violin to him, one that had been bought in Berlin seventy years + before. It had been hanging on the attic wall for a half century, so that + the back was split in twain, the sound-post lost, the neck and the + tailpiece cracked. The lad took it home, and studied it for two whole + evenings before the open fire. The problem of restoring it was quite + beyond his abilities. He finally took the savings of two summers' + “blueberry money” and walked sixteen miles to Portland, where he bought a + book called The Practical Violinist. The Supplement proved to be a mine of + wealth. Even the headings appealed to his imagination and intoxicated him + with their suggestions,—On Scraping, Splitting, and Repairing + Violins, Violin Players, Great Violinists, Solo Playing, etc.; and at the + very end a Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, Repair, and + Improvement of the Violin, by Jacob Augustus Friedheim, Instrument Maker + to the Court of the Archduke of Weimar. + </p> + <p> + There was a good deal of moral advice in the preface that sadly puzzled + the boy, who was always in a condition of chronic amazement at the village + disapprobation of his favorite fiddle. That the violin did not in some way + receive the confidence enjoyed by other musical instruments, he perceived + from various paragraphs written by the worthy author of The Practical + Violinist, as for example:— + </p> + <p> + “Some very excellent Christian people hold a strong prejudice against the + violin because they have always known it associated with dancing and + dissipation. Let it be understood that your violin is 'converted,' and + such an obligation will no longer lie against it. ... Many delightful + hours may be enjoyed by a young man, if he has obtained a respectable + knowledge of his instrument, who otherwise would find the time hang heavy + on his hands; or, for want of some better amusement, would frequent the + dangerous and destructive paths of vice and be ruined forever. ... I am in + hopes, therefore, my dear young pupil, that your violin will occupy your + attention at just those very times when, if you were immoral or + dissipated, you would be at the grogshop, gaming-table, or among vicious + females. Such a use of the violin, notwithstanding the prejudices many + hold against it, must contribute to virtue, and furnish abundance of + innocent and entirely unobjectionable amusement. These are the views with + which I hope you have adopted it, and will continue to cherish and + cultivate it.” + </p> + <p> + II. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “There is no bard in all the choir, + ....... + Not one of all can put in verse, + Or to this presence could rehearse + The sights and voices ravishing + The boy knew on the hills in spring, + When pacing through the oaks he heard + Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, + The heavy grouse's sudden whir, + The rattle of the kingfisher.” + + Emerson's <i>Harp.</i> +</pre> + <p> + Now began an era of infinite happiness, of days that were never long + enough, of evenings when bedtime came all too soon. Oh that there had been + some good angel who would have taken in hand Anthony Croft the boy, and, + training the powers that pointed so unmistakably in certain directions, + given to the world the genius of Anthony Croft, potential instrument maker + to the court of St. Cecilia; for it was not only that he had the fingers + of a wizard; his ear caught the faintest breath of harmony or hint of + discord, as + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Fairy folk a-listening + Hear the seed sprout in the spring, + And for music to their dance + Hear the hedge-rows wake from trance; + Sap that trembles into buds + Sending little rhythmic floods + Of fairy sound in fairy ears. + Thus all beauty that appears + Has birth as sound to finer sense + And lighter-clad intelligence.” + </pre> + <p> + As the universe is all mechanism to one man, all form and color to + another, so to Anthony Croft the world was all melody. Notwithstanding all + these gifts and possibilities, the doctor's wife advised the Widow Croft + to make a plumber of him, intimating delicately that these freaks of + nature, while playing no apparent part in the divine economy, could + sometimes be made self-supporting. + </p> + <p> + The seventeenth year of his life marked a definite epoch in his + development. He studied Jacob Friedheim's treatise until he knew the + characteristics of all the great violin models, from the Amatis, + Hieronymus, Antonius, and Nicolas, to those of Stradivarius, Guarnerius, + and Steiner. + </p> + <p> + It was in this year, also, that he made a very precious discovery. While + browsing in the rubbish in Squire Bean's garret to see if he could find + the missing sound-post of the old violin, he came upon a billet of wood + wrapped in cloth and paper. When unwrapped, it was plainly labeled “Wood + from the Bean Maple at Pleasant Point; the biggest maple in York County, + and believed to be one of the biggest in the State of Maine.” Anthony + found that the oldest inhabitant of Pleasant River remembered the stump of + the tree, and that the boys used to jump over it and admire its + proportions whenever they went fishing at the Point. The wood, therefore, + was perhaps eighty or ninety years old. The squire agreed willingly that + it should be used to mend the old violin, and told Tony he should have + what was left for himself. When, by careful calculation, he found that the + remainder would make a whole violin, he laid it reverently away for + another twenty years, so that he should be sure it had completed its + century of patient waiting for service, and falling on his knees by his + bedside said, “I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for this precious gift, and + I promise from this moment to gather the most beautiful wood I can find, + and lay it by where it can be used some time to make perfect violins, so + that if any creature as poor and helpless as I am needs the wherewithal to + do good work, I shall have helped him as Thou hast helped me.” And + according to his promise so he did, and the pieces of richly curled maple, + of sycamore, and of spruce began to accumulate. They were cut from the + sunny side of the trees, in just the right season of the year, split so as + to have a full inch thickness towards the bark, and a quarter inch towards + the heart. They were then laid for weeks under one of the falls in Wine + Brook, where the musical tinkle, tinkle of the stream fell on the wood + already wrought upon by years of sunshine and choruses of singing birds. + </p> + <p> + This boy, toiling not alone for himself, but with full and conscious + purpose for posterity also, was he not worthy to wear the mantle of + Antonius Stradivarius? + </p> + <p> + “That plain white-aproned man who stood at work Patient and accurate full + fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, And since + keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect violins, the needed paths + For inspiration and high mastery.” + </p> + <p> + And as if the year were not full enough of glory, the school-teacher sent + him a book with a wonderful poem in it. + </p> + <p> + That summer's teaching had been the freak of a college student, who had + gone back to his senior year strengthened by his experience of village + life. Anthony Croft, who was only three or four years his junior, had been + his favorite pupil and companion. + </p> + <p> + “How does Tony get along?” asked the Widow Croft when the teacher came to + call. + </p> + <p> + “Tony? Oh, I can't teach him anything.” + </p> + <p> + Tears sprang to the mother's eyes. + </p> + <p> + “I know he ain't much on book learning,” she said apologetically, “but I'm + bound he don't make you no trouble in deportment.” + </p> + <p> + “I mean,” said the school-teacher gravely, “that I can show him how to + read a little Latin and do a little geometry, but he knows as much in one + day as I shall ever know in a year.” + </p> + <p> + Tony crouched by the old fireplace in the winter evenings, dropping his + knife or his compasses a moment to read aloud to his mother, who sat in + the opposite corner knitting:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Of old Antonio Stradivari,—him + Who a good quarter century and a half ago + Put his true work in the brown instrument, + And by the nice adjustment of its frame + Gave it responsive life, continuous + With the master's finger-tips, and perfected + Like them by delicate rectitude of use.” + </pre> + <p> + The mother listened with painful intentness. “I like the sound of it,” she + said, “but I can't hardly say I take in the full sense.” + </p> + <p> + “Why mother,” said the lad, in a rare moment of self-expression, “you know + the poetry says he cherished his sight and touch by temperance; that an + idiot might see a straggling line and be content, but he had an eye that + winced at false work, and loved the true. When it says his finger-tips + were perfected by delicate rectitude of use, I think it means doing + everything as it is done in heaven, and that anybody who wants to make a + perfect violin must keep his eye open to all the beautiful things God has + made, and his ear open to all the music he has put into the world, and + then never let his hands touch a piece of work that is crooked or + straggling or false, till, after years and years of rightness, they are + fit to make a violin like the squire's, a violin that can say everything, + a violin that an angel wouldn't be ashamed to play on.” + </p> + <p> + Do these words seem likely ones to fall from the lips of a lad who had + been at the tail of his class ever since his primer days? Well, Anthony + was seventeen now, and he was “educated,” in spite of sorry recitations,—educated, + the Lord knows how! Yes, in point of fact the Lord does know how! He knows + how the drill and pressure of the daily task, still more the presence of + the high ideal, the inspiration working from within, how these educate us. + </p> + <p> + The blind Anthony Croft sitting in the kitchen doorway had seemingly + missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked his close on + fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every + finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, feet + stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; seeing and + hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; for while + imperious genius surmounts all obstacles, brushes laws and formulas from + its horizon, and with its own free soul sees its “path and the outlets of + the sky,” potential genius forever needs an angel of deliverance to set it + free. + </p> + <p> + Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which,—God + knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. “One thing I do,” + said Paul. “One thing I do,” said Anthony. He was not able to realize his + ideals, but he had the “angel aim” by which he idealized his reals. + </p> + <p> + O waiting heart of God! how soon would thy kingdom come if we all did our + allotted tasks, humble or splendid, in this consecrated fashion! + </p> + <p> + III. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Therein I hear the Parcae reel + The threads of man at their humming wheel, + The threads of life and power and pain, + So sweet and mournful falls the strain.” + + Emerson's <i>Harp.</i> +</pre> + <p> + Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis, and died of a + Sunday night. She was all alone in her little cottage on the river bank, + with no neighbor nearer than Croft's, and nobody there but a blind man and + a small boy. Everybody had told her it was foolish to live alone in a + house on the river road, and everybody was pleased in a discreet and + chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly as they had + predicted. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up to Milliken's Mills, with her little + black reticule hanging over her arm, and noticing that there was no smoke + coming out of the chimney, and that the hens were gathered about the + kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop + and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. + She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window with her + thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was obliged to pry open the + kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting with her shears, and crawl + into the house over the sink. This was a considerable feat for a somewhat + rheumatic elderly lady, but this one never grudged trouble when she wanted + to find out anything. + </p> + <p> + When she discovered that her premonitions were correct, and that old Mrs. + Butterfield was indeed dead, her grief at losing a pleasant acquaintance + was largely mitigated by her sense of importance at being first on the + spot, and chosen by Providence to take command of the situation. There + were no relations in the village; there was no woman neighbor within a + mile: it was therefore her obvious Christian duty not only to take charge + of the remains, but to conduct such a funeral as the remains would have + wished for herself. + </p> + <p> + The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny to guide the + ship of state, the general who sees a possible Victoria Cross in a + hazardous engagement, can have a faint conception of aunt Hitty's feeling + on this momentous occasion. Funerals were the very breath of her life. + There was no ceremony, either of public or private import, that, to her + mind, approached a funeral in real satisfying interest. Yet, with distinct + talent in this direction, she had always been “cabined, cribbed, confined” + within hopeless limitations. She had assisted in a secondary capacity at + funerals in the families of other people, but she would have reveled in + personally conducted ones. The members of her own family stubbornly + refused to die, however, even the distant connections living on and on to + a ridiculous old age; and if they ever did die, by reason of a falling + roof, shipwreck, or conflagration, they generally died in Texas or Iowa, + or some remote State where aunt Hitty could not follow the hearse in the + first carriage. This blighted ambition was a heart sorrow of so deep and + sacred a character that she did not even confess it to “Si,” as her + appendage of a husband was called. + </p> + <p> + Now at last her chance for planning a funeral had come. Mrs. Butterfield + had no kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, who lived in Andover, or + Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts,—aunt Hitty couldn't remember + which, and hoped nobody else could. The niece would be sent for when they + found out where she lived; meanwhile the funeral could not be put off. + </p> + <p> + She glanced round the house preparatory to locking it up and starting to + notify Anthony Croft. She would just run over and talk to him about + ordering the coffin; then she could attend to all other necessary + preliminaries herself. The remains had been well-to-do, and there was no + occasion for sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined in her own mind to + have the latest fashion in everything, including a silver coffin plate. + The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to be proud of. They had been + sacredly preserved for years and years, and the entire collection—numbering + nineteen in all had been framed, and adorned the walls of the deceased + lady's best room. They were not of solid silver, it is true, but even so + it was a matter of distinction to have belonged to a family that could + afford to have nineteen coffin plates of any sort. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic details as she walked town the road to + Croft's. It came to her in a burst of inspiration that she would have two + ministers: one for the long prayer, and one for the short prayer and the + remarks. She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter + direction. She knew she couldn't for the life of her think of anything + interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed nineteen + coffin plates, and brought her hens to Edgewood every summer for their + health; but she had heard Elder Weeks make a moving discourse out of less + than that. To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to that. There + was Ivory Brown's funeral: how would that have gone on if it hadn't been + for her? Wasn't the elder ten minutes late, and what would his remarks + have amounted to without her suggestions? You might almost say she was the + author of the discourse, for she gave him all the appropriate ideas. As + she had helped him out of the wagon she had said: “Are you prepared? I + thought not; but there's no time to lose. Remember there are aged parents; + two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane Falls, the other clerking + in Washington, D. C. Don't mention the Universalists,—there's ben + two in the fam'ly; nor insanity,—there 's ben one o' them. The girl + in the corner by the clock is the one that the remains has been keeping + comp'ny with. If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it'll be much + appreciated by his folks.” + </p> + <p> + As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied on + to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails. She + had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, got up and + straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually “prayed” + around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear. + </p> + <p> + These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked quite half + a mile beyond Croft's, and was obliged to retrace her steps. She conceived + bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the pallbearers, and a + festoon of the same over the front gate, if there should be any left over. + She planned the singing by the choir. There had been no real choir-singing + at any funeral in Edgewood since the Rev. Joshua Beckwith had died. She + would ask them to open with— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + Rebel mourner, cease your weepin'. + You too must die. +</pre> + <p> + This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty would be in keeping + aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a soprano + skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could possibly sing it. + It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; but it + never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder always looked so + unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief over his head + before beginning the twenty-seven verses. After the long prayer, she would + have Almira Berry give for a solo— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + This gro-o-oanin' world 's too dark and + dre-e-ar for the saints' e - ter - nal rest, +</pre> + <p> + This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile one to death, enabled one to + look upon life with sufficient solemnity. It was a thousand pities, she + thought, that the old hearse was so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly + Eldridge, who drove it, would insist on wearing a faded peach-blow + overcoat. It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, and + contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River. In Egypt they had + sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, and now they were having + hearse sociables every month to raise money for a new one. + </p> + <p> + All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in fascinating + procession. There shouldn't be “a hitch” anywhere. There had been a hitch + at her last funeral, but she had been only an assistant there. Matt + Henderson had been struck by lightning at the foot of Squire Bean's old + nooning tree, and certain circumstances combined to make the funeral one + of unusual interest, so much so that fat old Mrs. Potter from Deerwander + created a sensation at the cemetery. She was so anxious to get where she + could see everything to the best advantage that she crowded too near the + bier, stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched into the grave. As she + weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a position of some + disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from the dilemma, and the + operation made a long and somewhat awkward break in the religious + services. Aunt Hitty always said of this catastrophe, “If I'd 'a' ben Mis' + Potter, I'd 'a' ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' said, 'I wa'n't + plannin' to be buried, but now I'm in here I declare I'll stop!'” + </p> + <p> + Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted an entire success by the + villagers, but the seal of professional approval was set upon it by an + undertaker from Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could make a handsome + living in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who always assists those + who assist themselves, decreed that the niece Lyddy Ann should not arrive + until the aunt was safely buried; so, there being none to resist her right + or grudge her the privilege aunt Hitty, for the first time in her life, + rode in the next buggy to the hearse. Si, in his best suit, a broad weed + and weepers, drove Cyse Higgins's black colt, and aunt Hitty was dressed + in deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's crape veil over her face, and + in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a black ribbon. Her comment to Si, as + she went to her virtuous couch that night, was: “It was an awful dry + funeral, but that was the only flaw in it. It would 'a' ben perfect if + there' ben anybody to shed tears. I come pretty nigh it myself, though I + ain't no relation, when Elder Weeks said, 'You'll go round the house, my + sisters, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the orchard, + and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the barn and Mis' + Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the shed, and Mis' Butterfield + won't be there; you'll go int' the hencoop, and Mis' Butterfield won't be + there!' That would 'a' drawed tears from a stone most, 'specially sence + Mis' Butterfield set such store by her hens.” + </p> + <p> + And this is the way that Lyddy Butterfield came into her kingdom, a little + lone brown house on the river's brim. She had seen it only once before + when she had driven out from Portland, years ago, with her aunt. Mrs. + Butterfield lived in Portland, but spent her summers in Edgewood on + account of her chickens. She always explained that the country was + dreadful dull for her, but good for the hens; they always laid so much + better in the winter time. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy liked the place all the better for its loneliness. She had never had + enough of solitude, and this quiet home, with the song of the river for + company, if one needed more company than chickens and a cat, satisfied all + her desires, particularly as it was accompanied by a snug little income of + two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum that seemed to open up mysterious + avenues of joy to her starved, impatient heart. + </p> + <p> + When she was a mere infant, her brother was holding her on his knee before + the great old-fashioned fireplace heaped with burning logs. A sudden noise + startled him, and the crowing, restless baby gave an unexpected lurch, and + slipped, face downward, into the glowing embers. It was a full minute + before the horror-stricken boy could extricate the little creature from + the cruel flame that had already done its fatal work. The baby escaped + with her life, but was disfigured forever. As she grew older, the gentle + hand of time could not entirely efface the terrible scars. One cheek was + wrinkled and crimson, while one eye and the mouth were drawn down + pathetically. The accident might have changed the disposition of any + child, but Lyddy chanced to be a sensitive, introspective bit of feminine + humanity, in whose memory the burning flame was never quenched. Her + mother, partly to conceal her own wounded vanity, and partly to shield the + timid, morbid child, kept her out of sight as much as possible; so that at + sixteen, when she was left an orphan, she had lived almost entirely in + solitude. + </p> + <p> + She became, in course of time, a kind of general nursery governess in a + large family of motherless children. The father was almost always away + from home; his sister kept the house, and Lyddy stayed in the nursery, + bathing the brood and putting them to bed, dressing them in the morning, + and playing with them in the safe privacy of the back garden or the open + attic. They loved her, disfigured as she was, for the child despises mere + externals, and explores the heart of things to see whether it be good or + evil,—but they could never induce her to see strangers, nor to join + any gathering of people. + </p> + <p> + The children were grown and married now, and Lyddy was nearly forty when + she came into possession of house and lands and fortune; forty, with + twenty years of unexpended feeling pent within her. Forty, that is rather + old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter. Haven't you seen + girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been nibbled at ever since + they were sixteen, but who have neither caught anything nor been caught? + They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was forty and still young, with her + susceptibilities cherished, not dulled, and with all the “language of + passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about a spring.” + </p> + <p> + IV. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “He shall daily joy dispense + Hid in song's sweet influence.” + + Emerson's <i>Merlin.</i> +</pre> + <p> + Lyddy had very few callers during her first month as a property owner in + Edgewood. Her appearance would have been against her winning friends + easily in any case, even if she had not acquired the habits of a recluse. + It took a certain amount of time, too, for the community to get used to + the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead, and her niece Lyddy Ann + living in the cottage on the river road. There were numbers of people who + had not yet heard that old Mrs. Butterfield had bought the house from the + Thatcher boys, and that was fifteen years ago; but this was not strange, + for, notwithstanding aunt Hitty's valuable services in disseminating + general information, there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle road who + was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead, and complained that + folks were not so long-lived as they used to be. + </p> + <p> + Aunt Hitty thought Lyddy a Goth and a Vandal because she took down the + twenty silver coffin plates and laid them reverently away. “Mis' + Butterfield would turn in her grave,” she said, “if she knew it. She ain't + much of a housekeeper, I guess,” she went on, as she cut over Dr. Berry's + old trousers into briefer ones for Tommy Berry. “She gives considerable + stuff to her hens that she'd a sight better heat over and eat herself, in + these hard times when the missionary societies can't hardly keep the + heathen fed and clothed and warmed—no, I don't mean warmed, for most + o' the heathens live in hot climates, somehow or 'nother. My back door's + jest opposite hers; it's across the river, to be sure, but it's the narrer + part, and I can see everything she does as plain as daylight. She washed a + Monday, and she ain't taken her clothes in yet, and it's Thursday. She may + be bleachin' of 'em out, but it looks slack. I said to Si last night I + should stand it till 'bout Friday,—seein' 'em lay on the grass + there, but if she didn't take 'em in then, I should go over and offer to + help her. She has a fire in the settin'-room 'most every night, though we + ain't had a frost yet; and as near's I can make out, she's got full red + curtains hangin' up to her windows. I ain't sure, for she don't open the + blinds in that room till I get away in the morning, and she shuts 'em + before I get back at night. Si don't know red from green, so he's useless + in such matters. I'm going home late to-night, and walk down on that side + o' the river, so't I can call in after dark and see what makes her house + light up as if the sun was settin' inside of it.” + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling in house-furnishing of a humble + sort. She had a passion for color. There was a red-and-white straw matting + on the sitting-room floor. Reckless in the certain possession of twenty + dollars a month, she purchased yards upon yards of turkey red cotton; + enough to cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, for long curtains + at the windows, and for cushions to the rockers. She knotted white fringes + for the table covers and curtains, painted the inside of the fireplace + red, put some pots, of scarlet geraniums on the window-sills, filled + newspaper rack with ferns and tacked it over an ugly spot in the wall, + edged her work-basket with a tufted trimming of scarlet worsted, and made + an elaborate photograph case of white crash and red cotton that stretched + the entire length of the old-fashioned mantelshelf, and held pictures of + Mr. Reynolds, Miss Elvira Reynolds, George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, Ella, + and Rufus Reynolds, her former charges. When all this was done, she + lighted a little blaze on the hearth, took the red curtains from their + hands, let them fall gracefully to the floor, and sat down in her + rocking-chair, reconciled to her existence for absolutely the first time + in her forty years. + </p> + <p> + I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough in Paradise to appreciate and + feel Lyddy's joy. I can even believe she was glad to have died, since her + dying could bring such content to any wretched living human soul. As Lydia + sat in the firelight, the left side of her poor face in shadow, you saw + that she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure, clad in plain + black-and-white calico dress, was a graceful, womanly one. She had + beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet wrist. Her hair was soft and + plentiful, and her hands were fine, strong, and sensitive. This + possibility of rare beauty made her scars and burns more pitiful, for if a + cheap chrome has smirch across its face, we think it a matter of no + moment, but we deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any work of real + art. + </p> + <p> + Lydia felt a little less bitter and hopeless about life when she sat in + front of her own open fire, after her usual twilight walk. It was her + habit to wander down the wooded road after her simple five-o'clock supper, + gatherings ferns or goldenrod or frost flowers for her vases; and one + night she heard, above the rippling of the river, the strange, sweet, + piercing sound of Anthony Croft's violin. + </p> + <p> + She drew nearer, and saw a middle-aged man sitting in the kitchen doorway, + with a lad of ten or twelve years leaning against his knees. She could + tell little of his appearance, save that he had a high forehead, and hair + that waved well back from it in rather an unusual fashion. He was in his + shirt-sleeves, but the gingham was scrupulously clean, and he had the + uncommon refinement of a collar and necktie. Out of sight herself, Lyddy + drew near enough to hear; and this she did every night without recognizing + that the musician was blind. The music had a curious effect upon her. It + was a hitherto unknown influence in her life, and it interpreted her, so + to speak, to herself. As she sat on the bed of brown pine needles, under a + friendly tree, her head resting against its trunk, her eyes half closed, + the tone of Anthony's violin came like a heavenly message to a tired, + despairing soul. Remember that in her secluded life she had heard only + such harmony as Elvira Reynolds evoked from her piano or George Reynolds + from his flute, and the Reynolds temperament was distinctly inartistic. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy lived through a lifetime of emotion in these twilight concerts. + Sometimes she was filled with an exquisite melancholy from which there was + no escape; at others, the ethereal purity of the strain stirred her heart + with a strange, sweet vision of mysterious joy; joy that she had never + possessed, would never possess; joy whose bare existence she never before + realized. When the low notes sank lower and lower with their soft wail of + delicious woe, she bent forward into the dark, dreading that something + would be lost in the very struggle of listening; then, after a, pause, a + pure human tone would break the stillness, and soaring, bird-like, higher + and higher, seem to mount to heaven itself, and, “piercing its starry + floors,” lift poor scarred Lydia's soul to the very grates of infinite + bliss. In the gentle moods that stole upon her in those summer twilights + she became a different woman, softer in her prosperity than she had ever + been in her adversity; for some plants only blossom in sunshine. What + wonder if to her the music and the musician became one? It is sometimes a + dangerous thing to fuse the man and his talents in this way; but it did no + harm here, for Anthony Croft was his music, and the music was Anthony + Croft. When he played on his violin, it was as if the miracle of its + fashioning were again enacted; as if the bird on the quivering bough, the + mellow sunshine streaming through the lattice of green leaves, the tinkle + of the woodland stream, spoke in every tone; and more than this, the + hearth-glow in whose light the patient hands had worked, the breath of the + soul bending itself in passionate prayer for perfection, these, too, + seemed to have wrought their blessed influence on the willing strings + until the tone was laden with spiritual harmony. One might indeed have + sung of this little red violin—that looked to Lyddy, in the sunset + glow, as if it were veneered with rubies—all that Shelley sang of + another perfect instrument:— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “The artist who this viol wrought + To echo all harmonious thought, + Fell'd a tree, while on the steep + The woods were in their winter sleep, + Rock'd in that repose divine + Of the wind-swept Apennine; + And dreaming, some of Autumn past, + And some of Spring approaching fast, + And some of April buds and showers, + And some of songs in July bowers, + And all of love; and so this tree— + O that such our death may be!— + Died in sleep, and felt no pain, + To live in happier form again.” + </pre> + <p> + The viol “whispers in enamoured tone:”— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Sweet oracles of woods and dells, + And summer windy ill sylvan cells;.. + The clearest echoes of the hills, + The softest notes of falling rills, + The melodies of birds and bees, + The murmuring of summer seas, + And pattering rain, and breathing dew, + And airs of evening; all it knew.... + —All this it knows, but will not tell + To those who cannot question well + The spirit that inhabits it;... + But, sweetly as its answers will + Flatter hands of perfect skill, + It keeps its highest, holiest tone + For one beloved Friend alone.” + </pre> + <p> + Lyddy heard the violin and the man's voice as he talked to the child,—heard + them night after night; and when she went home to the little brown house + to light the fire on the hearth and let down the warm red curtains, she + fell into sweet, sad reveries; and when she blew out her candle for the + night, she fell asleep and dreamed new dreams, and her heart was stirred + with the rustling of new-born hopes that rose and took wing like birds + startled from their nests. + </p> + <p> + V. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, + A poet or a friend to find: + Behold, he watches at the door! + Behold his shadow on the floor!” + + Emerson's <i>Saadi.</i> +</pre> + <p> + Lyddy Butterfield's hen turkey was of a roving disposition. She had never + appreciated her luxurious country quarters in Edgewood, and was seemingly + anxious to return to the modest back yard in her native city. At any rate, + she was in the habit of straying far from home, and the habit was growing + upon her to such an extent that she would even lead her docile little + gobblers down to visit Anthony Croft's hens and share their corn. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy had caught her at it once, and was now pursuing her to that end for + the second time. She paused in front of the house, but there were no + turkeys to be seen. Could they have wandered up the hill road,—the + discontented, “traipsing,” exasperating things? She started in that + direction, when she heard a crash in the Croft kitchen, and then the sound + of a boy's voice coming from an inner room,—a weak and querulous + voice, as if the child were ill. + </p> + <p> + She drew nearer, in spite of her dread of meeting people, or above all of + intruding, and saw Anthony Croft standing over the stove, with an + expression of utter helplessness on his usually placid face. She had never + really seen him before in the daylight, and there was something about his + appearance that startled her. The teakettle was on the floor, and a sea of + water was flooding the man's feet, yet he seemed to be gazing into + vacancy. Presently he stooped, and fumbled gropingly for the kettle. It + was too hot to be touched with impunity, and he finally left it in a + despairing sort of way, and walked in the direction of a shelf, from under + which a row of coats was hanging. The boy called again in a louder and + more insistent tone, ending in a whimper of restless pain. This seemed to + make the man more nervous than ever. His hands went patiently over and + over the shelf, then paused at each separate nail. + </p> + <p> + “Bless the poor dear!” thought Lyddy. “Is he trying to find his hat, or + what is he trying to do? I wonder if he is music mad?” and she drew still + nearer the steps. + </p> + <p> + At this moment he turned and came rapidly toward the door. She looked + straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: he was blind. The + magician who had told her through his violin secrets that she had scarcely + dreamed of, the wizard who had set her heart to throbbing and aching and + longing as it had never throbbed and ached and longed before, the being + who had worn a halo of romance and genius to her simple mind, was + stone-blind! A wave of impetuous anguish, as sharp and passionate as any + she had ever felt for her own misfortunes, swept over her soul at the + spectacle of the man's helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her like a + blow. But there was no time to lose. She was directly in his path: if she + stood still he would certainly walk over her, and if she moved he would + hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave a nervous cough and + said, “Good-morning, Mr. Croft.” + </p> + <p> + He stopped short. “Who is it?” he asked. + </p> + <p> + “I am—it is—I am—your new neighbor,” said Lyddy, with a + trembling attempt at cheerfulness. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see you before this if + it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. But I am a good-for-nothing + neighbor, as you have doubtless heard. Nobody expects anything of me.” + </p> + <p> + (“Nobody expects anything of me.” Her own plaint, uttered in her own + tone!) + </p> + <p> + “I don't know about that,” she answered swiftly. “You've given me, for + one, a great deal of pleasure with your wonderful music. I often hear you + as you play after supper, and it has kept me from being lonesome. That + isn't very much, to be sure.” + </p> + <p> + “You are fond of music, then?” + </p> + <p> + “I didn't know I was; I never heard any before,” said Lyddy simply; “but + it seems to help people to say things they couldn't say for themselves, + don't you think so? It comforts me even to hear it, and I think it must be + still more beautiful to make it.” + </p> + <p> + Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no sooner uttered this commonplace speech + than the reflection darted through her mind like a lightning flash that + she had never spoken a bit of her heart out like this in all her life + before. The reason came to her in the same flash: she was not being looked + at; her disfigured face was hidden. This man, at least, could not shrink, + turn away, shiver, affect indifference, fix his eyes on hers with a + fascinated horror, as others had done. Her heart was divided between a + great throb of pity and sympathy for him and an irresistible sense of + gratitude for herself. Sure of protection and comprehension, her lovely + soul came out of her poor eyes and sat in the sunshine. She spoke her mind + at ease, as we utter sacred things sometimes under cover of darkness. + </p> + <p> + “You seem to have had an accident; what can I do to help you?” she asked. + </p> + <p> + “Nothing, thank you. The boy has been sick for some days, but he seems + worse since last night. Nothing is in its right place in the house, so I + have given up trying to find anything, and am just going to Edgewood to + see if somebody will help me for a few days.” + </p> + <p> + “Uncle Tony! Uncle To-ny! where are you? Do give me another drink, I'm so + hot!” came the boy's voice from within. + </p> + <p> + “Coming, laddie! I don't believe he ought to drink so much water, but what + can I do? He is burning up with fever.” + </p> + <p> + “Now look here, Mr. Croft,” and Lydia's tone was cheerfully decisive. “You + sit down in that rocker, please, and let me command the ship for a while. + This is one of the cases where a woman is necessary. First and foremost, + what were you hunting for?” + </p> + <p> + “My hat and the butter,” said Anthony meekly, and at this unique + combination they both laughed. Lyddy's laugh was particularly fresh, + childlike, and pleased; one that would have astonished the Reynolds + children. She had seldom laughed heartily since little Rufus had cried and + told her she frightened him when she twisted her face so. + </p> + <p> + “Your hat is in the wood-box, and I'll find the butter in the twinkling of + an eye, though why you want it now is more than—My patience, Mr. + Croft, your hand is burned to a blister!” + </p> + <p> + “Don't mind me. Be good enough to look at the boy and tell me what ails + him; nothing else matters much.” + </p> + <p> + “I will with pleasure, but let me ease you a little first. Here's a rag + that will be just the thing,” and Lyddy, suiting the pretty action to the + mendacious worn, took a good handkerchief from her pocket and tore it in + three strips, after spreading it with tallow from a candle heated over the + stove. This done, she hound up the burned hand skillfully, and, crossing + the dining-room, disappeared within the little chamber door beyond. She + came out presently, and said half hesitatingly, “Would you—mind + going out in the orchard for an hour or so? You seem to be rather in the + way here, and I should like the place to myself, if you'll excuse me for + saying so. I'm ever so much more capable than Mrs. Buck; won't you give me + a trial, sir? Here's your violin and your hat. I'll call you if you can + help or advise me.” + </p> + <p> + “But I can't let a stranger come in and do my housework,” he objected. “I + can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all the same.” + </p> + <p> + “I am your nearest neighbor, and your only one, for that matter,” said + Lyddy firmly; “its nothing more than right that I should look after that + sick child, and I must do it. I haven't got a thing to do in my own house. + I am nothing but a poor lonely old maid, who's been used to children all + her life, and likes nothing better than to work over them.” + </p> + <p> + A calm settled upon Anthony's perturbed spirit, as he sat under the + apple-trees and heard Lyddy going to and fro in the cottage. “She isn't + any old maid,” he thought; “she doesn't step like one; she has soft shoes + and a springy walk. She must be a very handsome woman, with a hand like + that; and such a voice! I knew the moment she spoke that she didn't belong + in this village.” + </p> + <p> + As a matter of fact, his keen ear had caught the melody in Lyddy's voice, + a voice full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power. His sense of touch, + too, had captured the beauty of her hand, and held it in remembrance,—the + soft palm, the fine skin, supple fingers, smooth nails, and firm round + wrist. These charms would never have been noted by any seeing man in + Edgewood, but they were revealed to Anthony Croft while Lyddy, like the + good Samaritan, bound up his wounds. It is these saving stars that light + the eternal darkness of the blind. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo when, with arms akimbo, she gazed + about the Croft establishment, which was a scene of desolation for the + moment. Anthony's cousin from Bridgton was in the habit of visiting him + every two months for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from Pleasant + River came every Saturday and Monday for baking and washing. Between times + Davy and his uncle did the housework together; and although it was + respectably done, there was no pink-and-white daintiness about it, you may + be sure. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in about an hour, laughing a little + nervously as she said, “I'm sorry to have taken a mean advantage of you, + Mr. Croft, but I know everything you've got in your house, and exactly + where it is. I couldn't help it, you see, when I was making things tidy. + It would do you good to see the boy. His room was too light, and the flies + were devouring him. I swept him and dusted him, put on clean sheets and + pillow slips, sponged him with bay rum, brushed his hair, drove out the + flies, and tacked a green curtain up to the window. Fifteen minutes after + he was sleeping like a kitten. He has a sore throat and considerable + fever. Could you—can you—at least, will you, go up to my house + on an errand?” + </p> + <p> + “Certainly I can. I know it inside and out as well as my own.” + </p> + <p> + “Very good. On the clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of + sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, so you can't make any + mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you didn't send for + him yesterday?” + </p> + <p> + “Davy wouldn't have him,” apologized his uncle. + </p> + <p> + “Wouldn't he?” said Lyddy with cheerful scorn. “He has you under pretty + good control, hasn't he? But children are unmerciful tyrants.” + </p> + <p> + “Couldn't you coax him into it before you go home?” asked Anthony in a + wheedling voice. + </p> + <p> + “I can try; but it isn't likely I can influence him, if you can't. Still, + if we both fail, I really don't see what 's to prevent our sending for the + doctor in spite of him. He is as weak as a baby, you know, and can't sit + up in bed: what could he do? I will risk the consequences, if you will!” + </p> + <p> + There was a note of such amiable and winning sarcasm in all this, such a + cheery, invincible courage, such a friendly neighborliness and + cooperation, above all such a different tone from any he was accustomed to + hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt warmed through to the core. + </p> + <p> + As he walked quickly along the road, he conjured up a vision of autumn + beauty from the few hints nature gave even to her sightless ones on this + glorious morning,—the rustle of a few fallen leaves under his feet, + the clear wine of the air, the full rush of the swollen river, the + whisking of the squirrels in the boughs, the crunch of their teeth on the + nuts, the spicy odor of the apples lying under the trees. He missed his + mother that morning more than he had missed her for years. How neat she + was, how thrifty, how comfortable, and how comforting! His life was so + dreary and aimless; and was it the best or the right one for Davy, with + his talent and dawning ambition? Would it not be better to have Mrs. Buck + live with them altogether, instead of coming twice a week, as heretofore? + No; he shrank from that with a hopeless aversion born of Saturday and + Monday dinners in her company. He could hear her pour her coffee into the + saucer; hear the scraping of the cup on the rim, and know that she was + setting it sloppily down on the cloth. He could remember her noisy + drinking, the weight of her elbow on the table, the creaking of her calico + dress under the pressure of superabundant flesh. Besides, she had tried to + scrub his favorite violin with sapolio. No, anything was better than Mrs. + Buck as a constancy. + </p> + <p> + He took off his hat unconsciously as he entered Lyddy's sitting-room. A + gentle breeze blew one of the full red curtains towards him till it + fluttered about his shoulders like a frolicsome, teasing hand. There was a + sweet, pungent odor of pine boughs, a canary sang in the window, the clock + was trimmed with a blackberry vine; he knew the prickles, and they called + up to his mind the glowing tints he had loved so well. His sensitive hand, + that carried a divining rod in every finger-tip, met a vase on the shelf, + and, traveling upward, touched a full branch of alder berries tied about + with a ribbon. The ribbon would be red; the woman who arranged this room + would make no mistake; for in one morning Anthony Croft had penetrated the + secret of Lyddy's true personality, and in a measure had sounded the + shallows that led to the depths of her nature. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy went home at seven o'clock that night rather reluctantly. The doctor + had said Mr. Croft could sit up with the boy unless he grew much worse, + and there was no propriety in her staying longer unless there was danger. + </p> + <p> + “You have been very good to me,” Anthony said gravely, as he shook her + hand at parting,—“very good.” + </p> + <p> + They stood together on the doorstep. A distant bell, called to evening + prayer-meeting; the restless murmur of the river and the whisper of the + wind in the pines broke the twilight stillness. The long, quiet day + together, part of it spent by the sick child's bedside, had brought the + two strangers curiously near to each other. + </p> + <p> + “The house hasn't seemed so sweet and fresh since my mother died,” he went + on, as he dropped her hand, “and I haven't had so many flowers and green + things in it since I lost my eyesight.” + </p> + <p> + “Was it long ago?” + </p> + <p> + “Ten years. Is that long?” + </p> + <p> + “Long to bear a burden.” + </p> + <p> + “I hope you know little of burden-bearing?” + </p> + <p> + “I know little else.” + </p> + <p> + “I might have guessed it from the alacrity with which you took up Davy's + and mine. You must be very happy to have the power to make things straight + and sunny and wholesome; to breathe your strength into helplessness such + as mine. I thank you, and I envy you. Good-night.” + </p> + <p> + Lyddy turned on her heel without a word; her mind was beyond and above + words. The sky seemed to have descended upon, enveloped her, caught her up + into its heaven, as she rose into unaccustomed heights of feeling, like + Elijah in his chariot of fire. She very happy! She with power, power to + make things straight and sunny and wholesome! She able to breathe strength + into helplessness, even a consecrated, Godsmitten helplessness like his! + She not only to be thanked, but envied! + </p> + <p> + Her house seemed strange to her that night. She went to bed in the dark, + dreading even the light of a candle; and before she turned down her + counterpane she flung herself on her knees, and poured out her soul in a + prayer that had been growing, waiting, and waited for, perhaps, for years:— + </p> + <p> + “O Lord, I thank Thee for health and strength and life. I never could do + it before, but I thank Thee to-night for life on any terms. I thank Thee + for this home; for the chance of helping another human creature, stricken + like myself; for the privilege of ministering to a motherless child. Make + me to long only for the beauty of holiness, and to be satisfied if I + attain to it. Wash my soul pure and clean, and let that be the only mirror + in which I see my face. I have tried to be useful. Forgive me if it always + seemed so hard and dreary a life. Forgive me if I am too happy because for + one short day I have really helped in a beautiful way, and found a friend + who saw, because he was blind, the real me underneath; the me that never + was burned by the fire; the me that isn't disfigured, unless my wicked + discontent has done it; the me that has lived on and on and on, starving + to death for the friendship and sympathy and love that come to other + women. I have spent my forty years in the wilderness, feeding on wrath and + bitterness and tears. Forgive me, Lord, and give me one more vision of the + blessed land of Canaan, even if I never dwell there.” + </p> + <p> + VI. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Nor less the eternal poles + Of tendency distribute souls. + There need no vows to bind + Whom not each other seek, but find.” + + Emerson's <i>Celestial Love.</i> +</pre> + <p> + Davy's sickness was a lingering one. Mrs. Buck came for two or three hours + a day, but Lyddy was the self-installed angel of the house; and before a + week had passed the boy's thin arms were around her neck, his head on her + loving shoulder, and his cheek pressed against hers. Anthony could hear + them talk, as he sat in the kitchen busy at his work. Musical instruments + were still brought him to repair, though less frequently than of yore, and + he could still make many parts of violins far better than his seeing + competitors. A friend and pupil sat by his side in the winter evenings and + supplemented his weakness, helping and learning alternately, while his + blind master's skill filled him with wonder and despair. The years of + struggle for perfection had not been wasted; and though the eye that once + detected the deviation of a hair's breadth could no longer tell the true + from the false, yet nature had been busy with her divine work of + compensation. The one sense stricken with death, she poured floods of new + life and vigor into the others. Touch became something more than the + stupid, empty grasp of things we seeing mortals know, and in place of the + two eyes he had lost he now had ten in every finger-tip. As for odors, let + other folks be proud of smelling musk and lavender, but let him tell you + by a quiver of the nostrils the various kinds of so-called scentless + flowers, and let him bend his ear and interpret secrets that the universe + is ever whispering to us who are pent in partial deafness because, + forsooth, we see. + </p> + <p> + He often paused to hear Lydia's low, soothing tones and the boy's weak + treble. Anthony had said to him once, “Miss Butterfield is very beautiful, + isn't she, Davy? You haven't painted me a picture of her yet. How does she + look?” + </p> + <p> + Davy was stricken at first with silent embarrassment. He was a truthful + child, but in this he could no more have told the whole truth than he + could have cut off his hand. He was knit to Lyddy by every tie of + gratitude and affection. He would sit for hours with his expectant face + pressed against the window-pane, and when he saw her coming down the shady + road he was filled with a sense of impending comfort and joy. + </p> + <p> + “NO,” he said hesitatingly, “she isn't pretty, nunky, but she's sweet and + nice and dear, Everything on her shines, it's so clean; and when she comes + through the trees, with her white apron and her purple calico dress, your + heart jumps, because you know she's going to make everything pleasant. Her + hair has a pretty wave in it, and her hand is soft on your forehead; and + it's most worth while being sick just to have her in the house.” + </p> + <p> + Meanwhile, so truly is “praise our fructifying sun,” Lydia bloomed into a + hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. A sly + sense of humor woke into life, and a positive talent for conversation, + latent hitherto because she had never known any one who cared to drop a + plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. When the violin was + laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's sofa, his thin hand in + hers, and talk with Anthony about books and flowers and music, and about + the meaning of life, too,—its burdens and mistakes, and joys and + sorrows; groping with him in the darkness to find a clue to God's + purposes. + </p> + <p> + Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy's house as the autumn grew into winter. + He read to her while she sewed rags for a new sitting-room carpet, and + they played dominoes and checkers together in the twilight before supper + time,—suppers that were a feast to the boy, after Mrs. Buck's + cookery. Anthony brought his violin sometimes of an evening, and Almira + Berry, the next neighbor on the road to the Mills, would drop in and join + the little party. Almira used to sing Auld Robin Gray, What Will You Do, + Love, and Robin Adair, to the great enjoyment of everybody; and she + persuaded Lyddy to buy the old church melodeon, and learn to sing alto in + Oh, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, Gently, Gently Sighs the Breeze, and I + know a Bank. Nobody sighed for the gayeties and advantages of a great city + when, these concerts being over, Lyddy would pass crisp seedcakes and + raspberry shrub, doughnuts and cider, or hot popped corn and molasses + candy. + </p> + <p> + “But there, she can afford to,” said aunt Hitty Tarbox; “she's pretty + middlin' wealthy for Edgewood. And it's lucky she is, for she 'bout feeds + that boy o' Croft's. No wonder he wants her to fill him up, after six + years of the Widder Buck's victuals. Aurelia Buck can take good flour and + sugar, sweet butter and fresh eggs, and in ten strokes of her hand she can + make 'em into something the very hogs 'll turn away from. I declare, it + brings the tears to my eyes sometimes when I see her coming out of Croft's + Saturday afternoons, and think of the stone crocks full of nasty messes + she's left behind her for that innocent man and boy to eat up.... Anthony + goes to see Miss Butterfield consid'able often. Of course it's awstensibly + to walk home with Davy, or do an errand or something, but everybody knows + better. She went down to Croft's pretty nearly every day when his cousin + from Bridgton come to house-clean. She suspicioned something, I guess. + Anyhow, she asked me if Miss Butterfield's two hundred a year was in + gov'ment bonds. Anthony's eyesight ain't good, but I guess he could make + out to cut cowpons off.... It would be strange if them two left-overs + should take an' marry each other; though, come to think of it, I don't + know's 't would neither. He's blind, to be sure, and can't see her scarred + face. It's a pity she ain't deef, so't she can't hear his everlastin' + fiddle. She's lucky to get any kind of a husband; she's too humbly to + choose. I declare, she reminds me of a Jack-o'-lantern, though if you look + at the back of her, or see her in meetin' with a thick veil on, she's + about the best appearin' woman in Edgewood.... I never see anybody stiffen + up as Anthony has. He had me make him three white shirts and three gingham + ones, with collars and cuffs on all of 'em. It seems as if six shirts at + one time must mean something out o' the common!” + </p> + <p> + Aunt Hitty was right; it did mean something out of the common. It meant + the growth of an all-engrossing, grateful, divinely tender passion between + two love-starved souls. On the one hand, Lyddy, who though she had + scarcely known the meaning of love in all her dreary life, yet was as full + to the brim of all sweet, womanly possibilities of loving and giving as + any pretty woman; on the other, the blind violin-maker, who had never + loved any woman but his mother, and who was in the direst need of womanly + sympathy and affection. + </p> + <p> + Anthony Croft, being ministered unto by Lyddy's kind hands, hearing her + sweet voice and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, knowing the best; + forgiving the worst, like God, and forgetting it, still more like God, I + think. + </p> + <p> + And Lyddy? There is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep in + her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool, so deep that no + ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. If God + had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the other in tender + benediction. + </p> + <p> + There had been a pitiful scene of unspeakable solemnity when Anthony first + told Lyddy that he loved her, and asked her to be his wife. He had heard + all her sad history by this time, though not from her own lips, and his + heart went out to her all the more for the heavy cross that had been laid + upon her. He had the wit and wisdom to put her affliction quite out of the + question, and allude only to her sacrifice in marrying a blind man, + hopelessly and helplessly dependent on her sweet offices for the rest of + his life, if she, in her womanly mercy, would love him and help him bear + his burdens. + </p> + <p> + When his tender words fell upon Lyddy's dazed brain she sank beside his + chair, and, clasping his knees, sobbed: “I love you, I cannot help loving + you, I cannot help telling you I love you! But you must hear the truth; + you have heard it from others, but perhaps they softened it. If I marry + you, people will always blame me and pity you. You would never ask me to + be your wife if you could see my face; you could not love me an instant if + you were not blind.” + </p> + <p> + “Then I thank God unceasingly for my infirmity,” said Anthony Croft, as he + raised her to her feet. + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + Anthony and Lyddy Croft sat in the apple orchard, one warm day in late + spring. + </p> + <p> + Anthony's work would have puzzled a casual on-looker. Ten stout wires were + stretched between two trees, fifteen or twenty feet apart, and each group + of five represented the lines of the musical staff. Wooden bars crossed + the wires at regular intervals, dividing the staff into measures. A box + with many compartments sat on a stool beside him, and this held bits of + wood that looked like pegs, but were in reality whole, half, quarter, and + eighth notes, rests, flats, sharps, and the like. These were cleft in such + a way that he could fit them on the wires almost as rapidly as his musical + theme came to him, and Lyddy had learned to transcribe with pen and ink + the music she found in wood and wire, He could write only simple airs in + this way, but when he played them on the violin they were transported into + a loftier region, such genius lay in the harmony, the arabesque, the + delicate lacework of embroidery with which the tune was inwrought; now + high, now low, now major, now minor, now sad, now gay, with the one + thrilling, haunting cadence recurring again and again, to be watched for, + longed for, and greeted with a throb of delight. + </p> + <p> + Davy was reading at the window, his curly head buried in a well-worn + Shakespeare opened at Midsummer Night's Dream. Lyddy was sitting under her + favorite pink apple-tree, a mass of fragrant bloom, more beautiful than + Aurora's morning gown. She was sewing; lining with snowy lawn innumerable + pockets in a square basket that she held in her lap. The pockets were + small, the needles were fine, the thread was a length of cobweb. + Everything about the basket was small except the hopes that she was + stitching into it; they were so great that her heart could scarcely hold + them. Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds were springing in the warm + earth. The hens were clucking to their downy chicks just out of the egg. + The birds were flying hither and thither in the apple boughs, and there + was one little home of straw so hung that Lyddy could look into it and see + the patient mother brooding her nestlings. The sight of her bright eyes, + alert for every sign of danger, sent a rush of feeling through Lyddy's + veins that made her long to clasp the little feathered mother to her own + breast. + </p> + <p> + A sweet gravity and consecration of thought possessed her, and the pink + blossoms falling into her basket were not more delicate than the + rose-colored dreams that flushed her soul. + </p> + <p> + Anthony put in the last wooden peg, and taking up his violin called, + “Davy, lad, come out and tell me what this means!” + </p> + <p> + Davy was used to this; from a wee boy he had been asked to paint the + changing landscape of each day, and to put into words his uncle's music. + </p> + <p> + Lyddy dropped her needle, the birds stopped to listen, and Anthony played. + </p> + <p> + “It is this apple orchard in May time,” said Davy; “it is the song of the + green things growing, isn't it?” + </p> + <p> + “What do you say, dear?” asked Anthony, turning to his wife. + </p> + <p> + Love and hope had made a poet of Lyddy. “I think Davy is right,” she said. + “It is a dream of the future, the story of all new and beautiful things + growing out of the old. It is full of the sweetness of present joy, but + there is promise and hope in it besides. It is like the Spring sitting in + the lap of Winter, and holding a baby Summer in her bosom.” + </p> + <p> + Davy did not quite understand this, though he thought it pretty; but + Lyddy's husband did, and when the boy went back to his books, he took his + wife in his arms and kissed her twice,—once for herself, and then + once again. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY. + </h2> + <p> + In the little villages along the Saco River, in the year 1850 or + thereabouts, the arrival and departure of the stage-coach was the one + exciting incident of the day. It did not run on schedule time in those + days, but started from Limington or Saco, as the case might be, at about + or somewhere near a certain hour, and arrived at the other end of the + route whenever it got there. There were no trains to meet (the railway + popularly known as the “York and Yank'em” was not built till 1862); the + roads were occasionally good and generally bad; and thus it was often + dusk, and sometimes late in the evening, when the lumbering vehicle neared + its final destination and drew up to the little post-offices along the + way. However late it might be, the village postmaster had to be on hand to + receive and open the mailbags; after which he distributed the newspapers + and letters in a primitive set of pine pigeon-holes on the wall, turned + out the loafers, “banked up” the fire, and went home to bed. + </p> + <p> + “Life” Lane was a jolly good fellow,—just the man to sit on the box + seat and drive the three horses through ruts and “thank-you-ma'ams,” slush + and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, his ruddy + cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story forever on the + tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings (his mother used + to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the State o' Maine); his + shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs just the sort to fill + amply his noble chest. Therefore, when he had what was called in the + vernacular “turrible bad goin',” and when any other stage-driver in York + County would have shrunk into his muffler and snapped and snarled on the + slightest provocation, Life Lane opened his great throat when he passed + over the bridges at Moderation or Bonny Eagle, and sent forth a golden, + sonorous “Yo ho! halloo!” into the still air. The later it was and the + stormier it was, the more vigor he put into the note, and it was a drowsy + postmaster indeed who did not start from his bench by the fire at the + sound of that ringing halloo. Thus the old stage-coach, in Life Lane's + time, was generally called “The Midnight Cry,” and not such a bad name + either, whether the term was derisively applied because the stage was + always late; or whether Life's “Yo ho!” had caught the popular fancy. + </p> + <p> + There was a pretty girl in Pleasant River (and, alas! another in Bonny + Eagle) who went to bed every night with the chickens, but stayed awake + till she heard first the rumble of heavy wheels on a bridge, then a faint, + bell-like tone that might have come out of the mouth of a silver horn; + whereupon she blushed as if it were an offer of marriage, and turned over + and went to sleep. + </p> + <p> + If the stage arrived in good season, Life would have a few minutes to sit + on the loafers' beach beside the big open fire; and what a feature he was, + with his tales culled from all sorts of passengers, who were never so + fluent as when sitting beside him “up in front!” There was a tallow dip or + two, and no other light save that of the fire. Who that ever told a story + could wish a more inspiring auditor than Jacob Bean, a literal, honest old + fellow who took the most vital interest in every detail of the stories + told, looking upon their heroes and their villains as personal friends or + foes. He always sat in one corner of the fireplace, poker in hand, and the + crowd tacitly allowed him the role of Greek chorus. Indeed, nobody could + have told a story properly without Jake Bean's parentheses and punctuation + marks poked in at exciting junctures. + </p> + <p> + “That 's so every time!” he would say, with a lunge at the forestick. + “I'll bate he was glad then!” with another stick flung on in just the + right spot. “Golly! but that served 'em right!” with a thrust at the + backlog. + </p> + <p> + The New England story seemed to flourish under these conditions: a couple + of good hard benches in a store or tavern, where you could not only smoke + and chew but could keep on your hat (there was not a man in York County in + those days who could say anything worth hearing with his hat off); the + blazing logs to poke; and a cavernous fireplace into which tobacco juice + could be neatly and judiciously directed. Those were good old times, and + the stage-coach was a mighty thing when school children were taught to + take off their hats and make a bow as the United States mail passed the + old stage tavern. + </p> + <p> + Life Lane's coaching days were over long before this story begins, but the + Midnight Cry was still in pretty fair condition, and was driven ostensibly + by Jeremiah Todd, who lived on the “back-nippin'” road from Bonny Eagle to + Limington. + </p> + <p> + When I say ostensibly driven, I but follow the lead of the villagers, who + declared that, though Jerry held the reins, Mrs. Todd drove the stage, as + she drove everything else. As a proof of this lady's strong individuality, + she was still generally spoken of as “the Widder Bixby,” though she had + been six years wedded to Jeremiah Todd. The Widder Bixby, then, was + strong, self-reliant, valiant, indomitable. Jerry Todd was, to use his + wife's own characterization, so soft you could stick a cat's tail into him + without ruffling the fur. He was always alluded to as “the Widder Bixby's + husband;” but that was no new or special mortification, for he had been + known successively as Mrs. Todd's youngest baby, the Widder Todd's only + son, Susan Todd's brother, and, when Susan Todd's oldest boy fought at + Chapultepec, William Peck's uncle. + </p> + <p> + The Widder Bixby's record was far different. She was the mildest of the + four Stover sisters of Scarboro, and the quartette was supposed to have + furnished more kinds of temper than had ever before come from one + household. When Peace, the eldest, was mad, she frequently kicked the + churn out of the kitchen door, cream and all,—and that lost her a + husband. + </p> + <p> + Love, the second, married, and according to local tradition once kicked + her husband all the way up Foolscap Hill with a dried cod-fish. Charity, + the third, married too,—for the Stovers of Scarboro were handsome + girls, but she got a fit mate in her spouse. She failed to intimidate him, + for he was a foeman worthy of her steel; but she left his bed and board, + and left in a manner that kept up the credit of the Stover family of + Scarboro. + </p> + <p> + They had had a stormy breakfast one morning before he started to Portland + with a load of hay. “Good-by,” she called, as she stood in the door, + “you've seen the last of me!” “No such luck!” he said, and whipped up his + horse. Charity baked a great pile of biscuits, and left them on the + kitchen table with a pitcher of skimmed milk. (She wouldn't give him + anything to complain of, not she!) She then put a few clothes in a bundle, + and, tying on her shaker, prepared to walk to Pleasant River, twelve miles + distant. As she locked the door and put the key in its accustomed place + under the mat, a pleasant young man drove up and explained that he was the + advance agent of the Sypher's Two-in-One Menagerie and Circus, soon to + appear in that vicinity. He added that he should be glad to give her five + tickets to the entertainment if she would allow him to paste a few + handsome posters on that side of her barn next the road; that their + removal was attended with trifling difficulty, owing to the nature of a + very superior paste invented by himself; that any small boy, in fact, + could tear them off in an hour, and be well paid by the gift of a ticket. + </p> + <p> + The devil entered into Charity (not by any means for the first time), and + she told the man composedly that if he would give her ten tickets he might + paper over the cottage as well as the barn, for they were going to tear it + down shortly and build a larger one. The advance agent was delighted, and + they passed a pleasant hour together; Charity holding the paste-pot, while + the talkative gentleman glued six lions and an elephant on the roof, a fat + lady on the front door, a tattooed man between the windows, living + skeletons on the blinds, and ladies insufficiently clothed in all the + vacant spaces and on the chimneys. Nobody went by during the operation, + and the agent remarked, as he unhitched his horse, that he had never done + a neater job. “Why, they'll come as far to see your house as they will to + the circus!” he exclaimed. + </p> + <p> + “I calculate they will,” said Charity, as she latched the gate and started + for Pleasant River. + </p> + <p> + I am not telling Charity Stover's story, so I will only add that the + bill-poster was mistaken in the nature of his paste, and greatly + undervalued its adhesive properties. + </p> + <p> + The temper of Prudence, the youngest sister, now Mrs. Todd, paled into + insignificance beside that of the others, but it was a very pretty thing + in tempers nevertheless, and would have been thought remarkable in any + other family in Scarboro. + </p> + <p> + You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often as his + vices that make him difficult to live with. Mrs. Todd's masterfulness and + even her jealousy might have been endured, by the aid of fasting and + prayer, but her neatness, her economy, and her forehandedness made a + combination that only the grace of God could have abided with comfortably, + so that Jerry Todd's comparative success is a matter of local tradition. + Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough, but as the years went on, + Mrs. Todd blew her breakfast horn at so early an hour that the neighbors + were in some doubt as to whether it might not herald the supper of the day + before. They also predicted that she would have her funeral before she was + fairly dead, and related with great gusto that when she heard there was to + be an eclipse of the sun on Monday, the 26th of July, she wished they + could have it the 25th, as Sunday would be so much more convenient than + wash-day. + </p> + <p> + She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth mats to + save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off in the shed, and + he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. She blackened her + stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, in order to + keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open in the sitting-room, + but spread newspapers over the carpet wherever the sun shone in. + </p> + <p> + It was the desire of Jerry's heart to give up the fatigues and exposures + of stage-driving, and “keep store,” but Mrs. Todd deemed it much better + for him to be in the open air than dealing out rum and molasses to a + roystering crew. This being her view of the case, it is unnecessary to + state that he went on driving the stage. + </p> + <p> + “Do you wear a flannel shirt, Jerry?” asked Pel Frost once. “I don' know,” + he replied, “ask Mis' Todd; she keeps the books.” + </p> + <p> + “Women-folks” (he used to say to a casual passenger), “like all other + animiles, has to be trained up before they're real good comp'ny. You have + to begin with 'em early, and begin as you mean to hold out. When they once + git in the habit of takin' the bit in their teeth and runnin', it's too + late for you to hold 'em in.” + </p> + <p> + It was only to strangers that he aired his convictions on the training of + “womenfolks,” though for that matter he might safely have done it even at + home; for everybody in Limington knew that it would always have been too + late to begin with the Widder Bixby, since, like all the Stovers of + Scarboro, she had been born with the bit in her teeth. Jerry had never + done anything he wanted to since he had married her, and he hadn't really + wanted to do that. He had been rather candid with her on this point (as + candid as a tender-hearted and obliging man can be with a woman who is + determined to marry him, and has two good reasons why she should to every + one of his why he shouldn't), and this may have been the reason for her + jealousy. Although by her superior force she had overborne his visible + reluctance, she, being a woman, or at all events of the female gender, + could never quite forget that she had done the wooing. + </p> + <p> + Certainly his charms were not of the sort to tempt women from the strict + and narrow path, yet the fact remained that the Widder Bixby was jealous, + and more than one person in Limington was aware of it. + </p> + <p> + Pelatiah, otherwise “Pel” Frost, knew more about the matter than most + other folks, because he had unlimited time to devote to general culture. + Though not yet thirty years old, he was the laziest man in York County. + (Jabe Slocum had not then established his record; and Jot Bascom had + ruined his by cutting his hay before it was dead in the summer of '49, + always alluded to afterwards in Pleasant River as the year when gold was + discovered and Jot Bascom cut his hay.) + </p> + <p> + Pel was a general favorite in half a dozen villages, where he was the life + of the loafers' bench. An energetic loafer can attend properly to one + bench, but it takes genius as well as assiduity to do justice to six of + them. His habits were decidedly convivial, and he spent a good deal of + time at the general musters, drinking and carousing with the other + ne'er-do-weels. You may be sure he was no favorite of Mrs. Todd's; and she + represented to him all that is most undesirable in womankind, his taste + running decidedly to rosy, smiling, easy-going ones who had no regular + hours for meals, but could have a dinner on the table any time in fifteen + minutes after you got there. + </p> + <p> + Now, a certain lady with a noticeable green frock and a white “drawn-in” + cape bonnet had graced the Midnight Cry on its journey from Limington to + Saco on three occasions during the month of July. Report said that she was + a stranger who had appeared at the post-office in a wagon driven by a + small, freckled boy. + </p> + <p> + The first trip passed without comment; the second provoked some + discussion; on the occasion of the third, Mrs. Todd said nothing, because + there seemed nothing to say, but she felt so out-of-sorts that she cut + Jerry's hair close to his head, though he particularly fancied the thin + fringe of curls at the nape of his neck. + </p> + <p> + Pel Frost went over to Todd's one morning to borrow an axe, and seized a + favorable opportunity to ask casually, “Oh, Mis' Todd, did Jerry find out + the name o' that woman in a green dress and white bunnit that rid to Saco + with him last week?” + </p> + <p> + “Mr. Todd's got something better to do than get acquainted with his lady + passengers,” snapped Mrs. Todd, “'specially as they always ride inside.” + </p> + <p> + “I know they gen'ally do,” said Pel, shouldering the axe (it was for his + mother's use), “but this one rides up in front part o' the way, so I + thought mebbe Jerry 'd find out something 'bout her. She's han'some as a + picture, but she must have a good strong back to make the trip down 'n' up + in one day.” + </p> + <p> + Nothing could have been more effective or more effectual than this blow + dealt with consummate skill. Having thus driven the iron into Mrs. Todd's + soul, Pel entertained his mother with an account of the interview while + she chopped the kindling-wood. He had no special end in view when, + Iago-like, he dropped his first poisoned seed in Mrs. Todd's fertile mind, + or, at most, nothing worse than the hope that matters might reach an + unendurable point, and Jerry might strike for his altars and his fires. + Jerry was a man and a brother, and petticoat government must be + discouraged whenever and wherever possible, or the world would soon cease + to be a safe place to live in. Pel's idea grew upon him in the night + watches, and the next morning he searched his mother's garret till he + found a green dress and a white bonnet. Putting them in a basket, he + walked out on the road a little distance till he met the stage, when, + finding no passengers inside, he asked Jerry to let him jump in and “ride + a piece.” Once within, he hastily donned the green wrapper and tell-tale + headgear, and, when the Midnight Cry rattled down the stony hill past the + Todd house, Pel took good care to expose a large green sleeve and the side + of a white bonnet at the stage window. It was easy enough to cram the + things back into the basket, jump out, and call a cordial thank you to the + unsuspecting Jerry. He was rewarded for his ingenuity and enterprise at + night, when he returned Mrs. Todd's axe, for just as he reached the back + door he distinctly heard her say that if she saw that green woman on the + stage again, she would knock her off with a broomstick as sure as she was + a Stover of Scarboro. As a matter of fact she was equal to it. Her + great-grandmother had been born on a soil where the broomstick is a + prominent factor in settling connubial differences; and if it occurred to + her at this juncture, it is a satisfactory proof of the theory of atavism. + </p> + <p> + Pel intended to see this domestic tragedy through to the end, and + accordingly took another brief trip in costume the very next week, hoping + to be the witness of a scene of blood and carnage. But Mrs. Todd did not + stir from her house, although he was confident she had seen “my lady + green-sleeves” from her post at the window. Puzzled by her apathy, and + much disappointed in her temper, he took off the dress, and, climbing up + in front, rode to Moderation, where he received an urgent invitation to go + over to the county fair at Gorham. The last idea was always the most + captivating to Pel, and he departed serenely for a stay of several days + without so much luggage as a hairbrush. His mother's best clothespin + basket, to say nothing of its contents, appeared at this juncture to be an + unexpected incumbrance; so on the spur of the moment he handed it up to + Jerry just as the stage was starting, saying, “If Mis' Todd has a brash + to-night, you can clear yourself by showing her this basket, but for massy + sakes don't lay it on to me! You can stan' it better'n I can,—you + 're more used to it!” + </p> + <p> + Jerry took the basket, and when he was well out on the road he looked + inside and saw a bright green calico wrapper, a white cape bonnet, a white + “fall veil,” and a pair of white cotton gloves. He had ample time for + reflection, for it was a hot day, and though he drove slowly, the horses + were sweating at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have overheard his + wife's storm of reproaches, perhaps even her threats of violence. It had + come to this, that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of ridicule + at the store and tavern. + </p> + <p> + Now, two years before this, Jerry Todd had for the first and only time in + his married life “put his foot down.” Mrs. Todd had insisted on making him + a suit of clothes much against his wishes. When finished she put them on + him almost by main force, though his plaintive appeals would have melted + any but a Stover-of-Scarboro heart. The stuff was a large plaid, the + elbows and knees came in the wrong places, the seat was lined with + enameled cloth, and the sleeves cut him in the armholes. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Todd said nothing for a moment, but the pent-up slavery of years + stirred in him, and, mounting to his brain, gave him a momentary courage + that resembled intoxication. He retired, took off the suit, hung it over + his arm, and, stalking into the sitting-room in his undergarments, laid it + on the table before his astonished spouse, and, thumping it dramatically, + said firmly, “I—will—not—wear—them—clo'es!” + whereupon he fell into silence again and went to bed. + </p> + <p> + The joke of the matter was, that, all unknown to himself, he had + absolutely frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could have realized the + impressiveness and the thorough success of his first rebellion! But if he + had realized it he could not have repeated it often, for so much virtue + went out of him on that occasion that he felt hardly able to drive the + stage for days afterward. + </p> + <p> + “I shall have to put down my foot agin,” he said to himself on the + eventful morning when Pel presented him with the basket. “Dern my luck, + I've got to do it agin, when I ain't hardly got over the other time.” So, + after an hour's plotting and planning, he made some purchases in Biddeford + and started on his return trip. He was very low in his mind, thinking, if + his wife really meditated upon warfare, she was likely to inspect the + stage that night, but giving her credit in his inmost heart for too much + common sense to use a broomstick,—a woman with her tongue! + </p> + <p> + The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. Its route had been shortened, and + Mrs. Todd wanted its name changed to something less outlandish, such as + the Rising Sun, or the Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon, but her idea met + with no votaries; it had been, was, and ever should be, the Midnight Cry, + no matter what time it set out or got back. It had seen its best days, + Jerry thought, and so had he, for that matter. Yet he had been called “a + likely feller” when he married the Widder Bixby, or rather when she + married him. Well, the mischief was done; all that remained was to save a + remnant of his self-respect, and make an occasional dash for liberty. + </p> + <p> + He did all his errands with his usual care, dropping a blue ribbon for + Doxy Morton's Sunday hat, four cents' worth of gum-camphor for Almira + Berry, a spool of cotton for Mrs. Wentworth, and a pair of “galluses” for + Living Bean. He finally turned into the “back-nippin'” road from Bonny + Eagle to Limington, and when he was within forty rods of his own house he + stopped to water his horses. If he feared a scene he had good reason, for + as the horses climbed the crest of the long hill the lady in green was by + his side on the box. He looked anxiously ahead, and there, in a hedge of + young alder bushes, he saw something stirring, and, unless he was greatly + mistaken, a birch broom lay on the ground near the hedge. + </p> + <p> + Notwithstanding these danger signals, Jerry's arm encircled the plump + waist of the lady in green, and, emboldened by the shades of twilight, his + lips sought the identical spot under the white “fall veil” where her + incendiary mouth might be supposed to lurk, quite “fit for treasons, + stratagems, and spoils.” This done, he put on the brake and headed his + horses toward the fence. He was none too soon, for the Widder Bixby, broom + in hand, darted out from the alders and approached the stage with + objurgations which, had she rated them at their proper value, needed no + supplement in the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror-stricken look, wound + his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, disappeared + behind a convenient tree. + </p> + <p> + At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd would have preferred to chastise + both her victims at once; but, being robbed of one by Jerry's cowardly + flight, her weapon descended upon the other with double force. There was + no lack of courage here at least. Whether the lady in green was borne up + by the consciousness of virtue, whether she was too proud to retreat, or + whatever may have been her animating reason, the blow fell, yet she stood + her ground and gave no answering shriek. Enraged as much by her rival's + cool resistance as by her own sense of injury, the Widder Bixby aimed full + at the bonnet beneath which were the charms that had befuddled Jerry + Todd's brain. To blast the fatal beauty that had captivated her wedded + husband was the Widder Bixby's idea, and the broom descended. A shower of + seeds and pulp, a copious spattering of pumpkin juice, and the lady in + green fell resistlessly into her assailant's arms; her straw body, her + wooden arms and pumpkin head, decorating the earth at her feet! Mrs. Todd + stared helplessly at the wreck she had made, not altogether comprehending + the ruse that had led to her discomfiture, but fully conscious that her + empire was shaken to its foundations. She glanced in every direction, and + then hurling the hateful green-and-white livery into the stage, she + gathered up all traces of the shameful fray, and sweeping them into her + gingham apron ran into the house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. + </p> + <p> + Jerry stayed behind the tree for some minutes, and when the coast was + clear he mounted the seat and drove to the store and the stable. When he + had put up his horses he went into the shed, took off his boots as usual, + but, despite all his philosophy, broke into a cold sweat of terror as he + crossed the kitchen threshold. “I can't stand many more of these times + when I put my foot down,” he thought, “they're too weakening!” + </p> + <p> + But he need not have feared. There was a good supper under the mosquito + netting on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a pot of hot tea. Mrs. + Todd had gone to bed and left him a pot of tea! + </p> + <p> + Which was the more eloquent apology! + </p> + <p> + Jerry never referred to the lady in green, then or afterwards; he was + willing to let well enough alone; but whenever his spouse passed a certain + line, which, being a Stover of Scarboro, she was likely to do about once + in six months, he had only to summon his recreant courage and glance + meaningly behind the kitchen door, where the birch broom hung on a nail. + It was a simple remedy to outward appearances, but made his declining + years more comfortable. I can hardly believe that he ever took Pel Frost + into his confidence, but Pel certainly was never more interesting to the + loafers' bench than when he told the story of the eventful trip of the + Midnight Cry and “the breaking in of the Widder Bixby.” + </p> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <p> + NOTES: 1. On page 20, reentered is spelled with diaeresis over the second + “e”. + </p> + <p> + 2. On pages 153 & 154 the verses beginning respectively “Rebel + mourner” and “This gro-o-oanin' world” are accompanied with staves of + music in the treble clef. + </p> + <p> + <br /><br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Village Watch-Tower, by +(AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + +***** This file should be named 936-h.htm or 936-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/936/ + +Produced by R. McGowan, E. P. 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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: The Village Watch-Tower + +Author: (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +Posting Date: August 7, 2008 [EBook #936] +Release Date: June, 1997 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + + + + +Produced by R. McGowan, and E. P. McGowan + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + +by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION + +These days the name of Kate Douglas Wiggin is virtually unknown. But +if one mentions the title "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," recognition (at +least in America) is instant. Everyone has heard of Rebecca; her story +has been in print continuously since it was first published in 1903. +It is certainly Mrs. Wiggin's most famous book, and the only one of her +many books that is still in print. Everything else she wrote has slipped +into complete obscurity. Occasionally in an antique shop, one may +still find a copy of her immensely popular seasonal book, "The Birds' +Christmas Carol", but that is about the extent of what is readily +available, even second-hand. + +The Birds' Christas Carol is available as our Etext #721, Nov. 1996. + +In 1904, Jack London wrote (from Manchuria!) to say that Rebecca had won +his heart. ("She is real," he wrote, "she lives; she has given me many +regrets, but I love her.") Some eighty years later I happened to pick +up and read "Rebecca" for the first time. The book was so thoroughly +enjoyable that when I had finished it, I began at once a search for +other works by the same author--especially for a sequel to "Rebecca", +which seemed practically to demand one. There was never a sequel +written, but "The New Chronicles of Rebecca" was published in 1907, and +contained some further chapters in the life of its heroine. I had to be +satisfied with that, for the time being. Then, well over a year after +jotting down Mrs. Wiggin's name on my list of authors to "purchase on +sight", I finally ran across a copy of "The Village Watch-Tower"; and it +was not even a book of which I had heard. It was first published in +1895 by Houghton, who published much of her other work at the time, and +apparently was never published again. Shortly thereafter I found a copy +of her autobiography. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin (nee Smith) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, +on September 28, 1856. She was raised for the most-part in Maine, which +forms a backdrop to much of her fiction. She moved to California in +the 1870s, and became involved in the "free kindergarten" movement. She +opened the Silver Street Free Kindergarten in San Francisco, the first +free kindergarten in California, and there she worked until the late +1880s (meantime opening her own training school for teachers). Her first +husband, Samuel Wiggin, died in 1889. By then famous, she returned to +New York and Maine. She moved in international social circles, lecturing +and giving readings from her work. In 1895 she married for the second +time (to George Riggs). + +At her home in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden Gate and Marin +County, she wrote her first book, "The Birds' Christmas Carol", to raise +money for her school. The book also proved to be her means of entrance +into publishing, translation, and travel in elite circles throughout +Europe. The book was republished many times thereafter, and translated +into several languages. In addition to factual and educational works +(undertaken together with her sister, Nora Archibald Smith) she also +wrote a number of other popular novels in the early years of the 20th +century, including "Rebecca", and "The Story of Waitstill Baxter" +(1913). She died in 1923, on August 23, at Harrow-on-Hill, England. + +Beverly Seaton observed, in "American Women Writers", that Mrs. Wiggin +was "a popular writer who expressed what her contemporaries themselves +thought of as 'real life'" (p. 413). "The Village Watch-Tower" I think +is a perfect example of that observation; it captures vividly a few +frozen moments of rural America, right at the twilight of the 19th +century. Most of it was written in the village of Quillcote, Maine, +her childhood home--and certainly the model for the village of these +stories. + +No attempt has been made to edit this book for consistency or to +update or "correct" the spelling. Mrs. Wiggin's spelling is somewhat +transitional between modern American and British spellings. The only +liberty taken is that of removing extra spaces in contractions. E.g., +I have used "wouldn't" where the original has consistently "would +n't"; this is true for all such contractions with "n't" which appeared +inordinately distracting to the modern reader. + +R. McGowan, San Jose, March 1997 + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + + +Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these stories were +written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was so close to you, who +can tell from whence the thoughts came? I only know that when all the +other trees in the orchard were barren, there were always stories to be +found under your branches, and so it is our joint book, dear apple-tree. +Your pink blossoms have fallen on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit +has dropped into my lap; the sunshine streamed through your leaves and +tipped my pencil with gold. The birds singing in your boughs may have +lent a sweet note here and there; and do you remember the day when the +gentle shower came? We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky +all cried together while we wrote "The Fore-Room Rug." + +It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! it is not +altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, and because I have +strayed farther away from the heart of Mother Nature. + +KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + +"Quillcote," Hollis, Maine, August 12, 1895. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + The Village Watch-Tower 1 + Tom o' the Blueb'ry Plains 31 + The Nooning Tree 55 + The Fore-Room Rug 95 + A Village Stradivarius 123 + The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry 195 + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. + + +It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, with its +weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. It was in the +very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost knock on the +window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare occasions +when he brought "old Mis' Bascom" a parcel from Saco. + +Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful in the +springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close to the great stone +steps; or in the summer, when the famous Bascom elm cast its graceful +shadow over the front door. The elm, indeed, was the only object that +ever did cast its shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her "front door 'n' +entry never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin' to keep +it nice for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up." + +She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. Her high-backed +rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch and its crocheted tidy, +stood always by a southern window that looked out on the river. The +river was a sheet of crystal, as it poured over the dam; a rushing, +roaring torrent of foaming white, as it swept under the bridge and +fought its way between the rocky cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, +eddying, in its narrow channel, pulsing restlessly into the ragged +fissures of its shores, and leaping with a tempestuous roar into the +Witches' Eel-pot, a deep wooded gorge cleft in the very heart of the +granite bank. + +But Lucinda Bascom could see more than the river from her favorite +window. It was a much-traveled road, the road that ran past the house +on its way from Liberty Village to Milliken's Mills. A tottering old +sign-board, on a verdant triangle of turf, directed you over Deacon +Chute's hill to the "Flag Medder Road," and from thence to Liberty +Centre; the little post-office and store, where the stage stopped twice +a day, was quite within eyeshot; so were the public watering-trough, +Brigadier Hill, and, behind the ruins of an old mill, the wooded path +that led to the Witches' Eel-pot, a favorite walk for village lovers. +This was all on her side of the river. As for the bridge which knit +together the two tiny villages, nobody could pass over that without +being seen from the Bascoms'. The rumble of wheels generally brought +a family party to the window,--Jot Bascom's wife (she that was Diadema +Dennett), Jot himself, if he were in the house, little Jot, and grandpa +Bascom, who looked at the passers-by with a vacant smile parting his +thin lips. Old Mrs. Bascom herself did not need the rumble of wheels +to tell her that a vehicle was coming, for she could see it fully ten +minutes before it reached the bridge,--at the very moment it appeared +at the crest of Saco Hill, where strangers pulled up their horses, on +a clear day, and paused to look at Mount Washington, miles away in the +distance. Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at the bridge, and just there, +too, the river road began its shady course along the east side of the +stream: in view of all which "old Mis' Bascom's settin'-room winder" +might well be called the "Village Watch-Tower," when you consider +further that she had moved only from her high-backed rocker to her bed, +and from her bed to her rocker, for more than thirty years,--ever since +that july day when her husband had had a sun-stroke while painting the +meeting-house steeple, and her baby Jonathan had been thereby hastened +into a world not in the least ready to receive him. + +She could not have lived without that window, she would have told you, +nor without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she +could remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been +born. Her mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, +in that year when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had +ever seen it,--the year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been +carried away, and when the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of +succumbing to the force of the freshet. + +All the men in both villages were working on the river, strengthening +the dam, bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams of logs; and with the +parting of the boom, the snapping of the bridge timbers, the crashing +of the logs against the rocks, and the shouts of the river-drivers, +the little Lucinda had come into the world. Some one had gone for +the father, and had found him on the river, where he had been since +day-break, drenched with the storm, blown fro his dangerous footing time +after time, but still battling with the great heaped-up masses of logs, +wrenching them from one another's grasp, and sending them down the +swollen stream. + +Finally the jam broke; and a cheer of triumph burst from the excited +men, as the logs, freed from their bondage, swept down the raging +flood, on and ever on in joyous liberty, faster and faster, till they +encountered some new obstacle, when they heaped themselves together +again, like puppets of Fate, and were beaten by the waves into another +helpless surrender. + +With the breaking of the jam, one dead monarch of the forest leaped into +the air as if it had been shot from a cannon's mouth, and lodged between +two jutting peaks of rock high on the river bank. Presently another log +was dashed against it, but rolled off and hurried down the stream; then +another, and still another; but no force seemed enough to drive the +giant from its intrenched position. + +"Hurry on down to the next jam, Raish, and let it alone," cried the men. +"Mebbe it'll git washed off in the night, and anyhow you can't budge it +with no kind of a tool we've got here." + +Then from the shore came a boy's voice calling, "There's a baby up to +your house!" And the men repeated in stentorian tones, "Baby up to your +house, Raish! Leggo the log; you're wanted!" + +"Boy or girl?" shouted the young father. + +"Girl!" came back the answer above the roar of the river. + +Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied himself with his pick and taking a +hatchet from his belt, cut a rude letter "L" on the side of the stranded +log. + +"L's for Lucindy," he laughed. "Now you log if you git's fur as Saco, +drop in to my wife's folks and tell 'em the baby's name." + +There had not been such a freshet for years before, and there had never +been one since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, "Lucindy's log" was +left in peace, the columbines blooming all about it, the harebells +hanging their heads of delicate blue among the rocks that held it in +place, the birds building their nests in the knot-holes of its withered +side. + +Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, from the time when she +was only "Raish Dunnell's little Lou," to the years when she was Lucinda +Bascom, wife and mother, she had wandered down by the river side, and +gazed, a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had been marked +with an "L" on the morning she was born. It had stood the wear and tear +of the elements bravely, but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show +its age. Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, +like her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from the opposite +bank wondered if, after all, it would hold out as long as "old Mis' +Bascom." + +She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, though she was "all skin, bones, +and tongue," as the neighbors said; for nobody needed to go into the +Bascoms' to brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, or take her the news; one +went in to get a bit of brightness, and to hear the news. + +"I should get lonesome, I s'pose," she was wont to say, "if it wa'n't +for the way this house is set, and this chair, and this winder, 'n' all. +Men folks used to build some o' the houses up in a lane, or turn 'em +back or side to the road, so the women folks couldn't see anythin' to +keep their minds off their churnin' or dish-washin'; but Aaron Dunnell +hed somethin' else to think about, 'n' that was himself, first, last, +and all the time. His store was down to bottom of the hill, 'n' when he +come up to his meals, he used to set where he could see the door; 'n' +if any cust'mer come, he could call to 'em to wait a spell till he got +through eatin'. Land! I can hear him now, yellin' to 'em, with his mouth +full of victuals! They hed to wait till he got good 'n' ready, too. +There wa'n't so much comp'tition in business then as there is now, or +he'd 'a' hed to give up eatin' or hire a clerk. ... I've always felt to +be thankful that the house was on this rise o' ground. The teams hev to +slow up on 'count o' the hill, 'n' it gives me consid'ble chance to see +folks 'n' what they've got in the back of the wagon, 'n' one thing 'n' +other. ... The neighbors is continually comin' in here to talk about +things that's goin' on in the village. I like to hear 'em, but land! +they can't tell me nothing'! They often say, 'For massy sakes, Lucindy +Bascom, how d' you know that?' 'Why,' says I to them, 'I don't ask no +questions, 'n' folks don't tell me no lies; I just set in my winder, +'n' put two 'n' two together,--that's all I do.' I ain't never ben in a +playhouse, but I don't suppose the play-actors git down off the platform +on t' the main floor to explain to the folks what they've ben doin', +do they? I expect, if folks can't understand their draymas when the're +actin' of 'em out, they have to go ignorant, don't they? Well, what do I +want with explainin', when everythin' is acted out right in the road?" + +There was quite a gathering of neighbors at the Bascoms' on this +particular July afternoon. No invitations had been sent out, and none +were needed. A common excitement had made it vital that people should +drop in somewhere, and speculate about certain interesting matters well +known to be going on in the community, but going on in such an underhand +and secretive fashion that it well-nigh destroyed one's faith in human +nature. + +The sitting-room door was open into the entry, so that whatever breeze +there was might come in, and an unusual glimpse of the new foreroom rug +was afforded the spectators. Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema +was a housekeeper of the type fast passing away. The great coal stove +was enveloped in its usual summer wrapper of purple calico, which, tied +neatly about its ebony neck and portly waist, gave it the appearance +of a buxom colored lady presiding over the assembly. The kerosene lamps +stood in a row on the high, narrow mantelpiece, each chimney protected +from the flies by a brown paper bag inverted over its head. Two plaster +Samuels praying under the pink mosquito netting adorned the ends of +the shelf. There were screens at all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted +nervously when a visitor came in the mosquito netting door, for fear a +fly should sneak in with her. + +On the wall were certificates of membership in the Missionary Society; a +picture of Maidens welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria, in +a frame of cucumber seeds; and an interesting document setting forth the +claims of the Dunnell family as old settlers long before the separation +of Maine from Massachusetts,--the fact bein' established by an obituary +notice reading, "In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, daughter of Abiathar +Dunnell, two months old of Fits unbaptized." + +"He may be goin' to marry Eunice, and he may not," observed Almira +Berry; "though what she wants of Reuben Hobson is more 'n I can make +out. I never see a widower straighten up as he has this last year. I +guess he's been lookin' round pretty lively, but couldn't find anybody +that was fool enough to give him any encouragement." + +"Mebbe she wants to get married," said Hannah Sophia, in a tone that +spoke volumes. "When Parson Perkins come to this parish, one of his +first calls was on Eunice Emery. He always talked like the book o' +Revelation; so says he, 'have you got your weddin' garment on, Miss +Emery?' says he. 'No,' says she, 'but I ben tryin' to these twenty +years.' She was always full of her jokes, Eunice was!" + +"The Emerys was always a humorous family," remarked Diadema, as she +annihilated a fly with a newspaper. "Old Silas Emery was an awful +humorous man. He used to live up on the island; and there come a freshet +one year, and he said he got his sofy 'n' chairs off, anyhow!" That was +just his jokin'. He hadn't a sign of a sofy in the house; 't was his +wife Sophy he meant, she that was Sophy Swett. Then another time, when +I was a little mite of a thin runnin' in 'n' out o' his yard, he caught +holt o' me, and says he, 'You'd better take care, sissy; when I kill you +and two more, thet'll be three children I've killed!' Land! you couldn't +drag me inside that yard for years afterwards. ... There! she's got +a fire in the cook-stove; there's a stream o' smoke comin' out o' +the kitchen chimbley. I'm willin' to bet my new rug she's goin' to be +married tonight!' + +"Mebbe she's makin' jell'," suggested Hannah Sophia. + +"Jell'!" ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. "Do you s'pose Eunice Emery +would build up a fire in the middle o' the afternoon 'n' go to makin' a +jell', this hot day? Besides, there ain't a currant gone into her house +this week, as I happen to know." + +"It's a dretful thick year for fol'age," mumbled grandpa Bascom, +appearing in the door with his vacant smile. "I declare some o' the +maples looks like balls in the air." + +"That's the twentieth time he's hed that over since mornin'," said +Diadema. "Here, father, take your hat off 'n' set in the kitchen door +'n' shell me this mess o' peas. Now think smart, 'n' put the pods in the +basket 'n' the peas in the pan; don't you mix 'em." + +The old man hung his hat on the back of the chair, took the pan in his +trembling hands, and began aimlessly to open the pods, while he chuckled +at the hens that gathered round the doorstep when they heard the peas +rattling in the pan. + +"Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that's all," remarked the Widow +Buzzell, as one who had given the matter some consideration. + +"I should think he did," rejoined old Mrs. Bascom. "Those children 'bout +git their livin' off the road in summer, from the time the dand'lion +greens is ready for diggin' till the blackb'ries 'n' choke-cherries +is gone. Diademy calls 'em in 'n' gives 'em a cooky every time they go +past, 'n' they eat as if they was famished. Rube Hobson never was any +kind of a pervider, 'n' he's consid'able snug besides." + +"He ain't goin' to better himself much," said Almira. "Eunice Emery +ain't fit to housekeep for a cat. The pie she took to the pie supper at +the church was so tough that even Deacon Dyer couldn't eat it; and the +boys got holt of her doughnuts, and declared they was goin' fishin' next +day 'n' use 'em for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth Eunice Emery +does. She's about as much of a doshy as Rube is. She'll make tea that's +strong enough to bear up an egg, most, and eat her doughnuts with it +three times a day rather than take the trouble to walk out to the meat +or the fish cart. I know for a fact she don't make riz bread once a +year." + +"Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do," said the Widow +Buzzell. "My husband always said, give him buttermilk bread to work on. +He used to say my riz bread was so light he'd hev to tread on it to +keep it anywheres; but when you'd eat buttermilk bread he said you'd got +somethin' that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. ... For +massy sake! there's the stage stoppin' at the Hobson's door. I wonder if +Rube's first wife's mother has come from Moderation? If 't is, they must +'a' made up their quarrel, for there was a time she wouldn't step foot +over that doorsill. She must be goin' to stay some time, for there's a +trunk on the back o' the stage. ... No, there ain't nobody gettin' out. +Land, Hannah Sophia, don't push me clean through the glass! It beats me +why they make winders so small that three people can't look out of 'em +without crowdin'. Ain't that a wash-boiler he's handin' down? Well, it's +a mercy; he's ben borrowin' long enough!" + +"What goes on after dark I ain't responsible for," commented old Mrs. +Bascom, "but no new wash-boiler has gone into Rube Hobson's door in the +daytime for many a year, and I'll be bound it means somethin'. There +goes a broom, too. Much sweepin' he'll get out o' Eunice; it's a slick +'n' a promise with her!" + +"When did you begin to suspicion this, Diademy?" asked Almira Berry. +"I've got as much faculty as the next one, but anybody that lives on +the river road has just got to give up knowin' anything. You can't keep +runnin' to the store every day, and if you could you don't find out much +nowadays. Bill Peters don't take no more interest in his neighbors than +a cow does in election." + +"I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do," said Diadema, "but for +one thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every other night for +a month, though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' here at this store. +She had Packard's horse to go to Saco last week. When she got home, jest +at dusk, she drove int' the barn, 'n' bimeby Pitt Packard come to git +his horse,--'t was her own buggy she went with. She looked over here +when she went int' the house, 'n' she ketched my eye, though 't was half +a mile away, so she never took a thing in with her, but soon as't was +dark she made three trips out to the barn with a lantern, 'n' any fool +could tell 't her arms was full o' pa'cels by the way she carried the +lantern. The Hobsons and the Emerys have married one another more 'n +once, as fur as that goes. I declare if I was goin' to get married I +should want to be relation to somebody besides my own folks." + +"The reason I can hardly credit it," said Hannah Sophia, "is because +Eunice never had a beau in her life, that I can remember of. Cyse +Higgins set up with her for a spell, but it never amounted to nothin'. +It seems queer, too, for she was always so fond o' seein' men folks +round that when Pitt Packard was shinglin' her barn she used to go out +nights 'n' rip some o' the shingles off, so 't he'd hev more days' work +on it." + +"I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, not him on her," +remarked the Widow Buzzell. "Their land joinin' made courtin' come +dretful handy. His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other +day (I always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), and then +she'd hev to go over and git him to drive 'em out. She's wed his onion +bed for him two summers, as I happen to know, for I've been ou' doors +more 'n common this summer, tryin' to fetch my constitution up. Diademy, +don't you want to look out the back way 'n' see if Rube's come home +yet?" + +"He ain't," said old Mrs. Bascom, "so you needn't look; can't you see +the curtains is all down? He's gone up to the Mills, 'n' it's my opinion +he's gone to speak to the minister." + +"He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old linen +lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' to +the minister's," objected Mrs. Jot. + +"Anybody'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy," +retorted her mother-in-law. "When you 've set in one spot's long's I +hev, p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more 'n +one way o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. ... +Well, I vow, there's the little Hobson girls comin' out o' the door +this minute, 'n' they 're all dressed up, and Mote don't seem to be with +'em." + +Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed her +murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate for +some moments. + +"I guess they 're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' +Eunice, poor little things," ventured the Widow Buzzell. + +"P'raps they be," said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; "p'raps they be +goin' to church, takin' a three-quart tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle +along with 'em. ... They 're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. +... Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, Almiry, 'n' see +if you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. ... They ain't hardly old +enough to hold their tongues." + +An exciting interview soon took place in the middle of the road, and +Almira reentered the room with the expression of one who had penetrated +the inscrutable and solved the riddle of the Sphinx. She had been +vouch-safed one of those gleams of light in darkness which almost dazzle +the beholder. + +"That's about the confirmingest thing I've heern yet!" she ejaculated, +as she took off her shaker bonnet. "They say they're goin' up to their +aunt Hitty's to stay two days. They're dressed in their best, clean to +the skin, for I looked; 'n' it's their night gownds they've got in the +bundle. They say little Mote has gone to Union to stop all night with +his uncle Abijah, 'n' that leaves Rube all alone, for the smith girl +that does his chores is home sick with the hives. And what do you s'pose +is in the pail? _Fruit_ _cake_,--that's what 't is, no more 'n' no less! +I knowed that Smith girl didn't bake it, 'n' so I asked 'em, 'n' they +said Miss Emery give it to 'em. There was two little round try-cakes, +baked in muffin-rings. Eunice hed took some o' the batter out of a +big loaf 'n' baked it to se how it was goin' to turn out. That means +wedding-cake, or I'm mistaken!" + +"There ain't no gittin' round that," agreed the assembled company, "now +is there, Mis' Bascom?" + +Old Mrs. Bascom wet her finger, smoothed the parting of her false front, +and looked inscrutable. + +"I don't see why you're so secret," objected Diadema. + +"I've got my opinions, and I've had 'em some time," observed the good +lady. "I don't know 's I'm bound to tell 'em and have 'em held up to +ridicule. Let the veal hang, I say. If any one of us is right, we'll all +know to-morrow." + +"Well, all any of us has got to judge from is appearances," said +Diadema, "and how you can twist 'em one way, and us another, stumps me!" + +"Perhaps I see more appearances than you do," retorted her +mother-in-law. "Some folks mistakes all they see for all there is. I was +reading a detective story last week. It seems there was an awful murder +in Schenectady, and a mother and her two children was found dead in one +bed, with bullet holes in their heads. The husband was away on business, +and there wasn't any near neighbors to hear her screech. Well, the +detectives come from far and from near, and begun to work up the case. +One of 'em thought 't was the husband,--though he set such store by his +wife he went ravin' crazy when he heard she was dead,--one of 'em laid +it on the children,--though they was both under six years old; and one +decided it was suicide,--though the woman was a church member and +didn't know how to fire a gun off, besides. And then there come along +a detective younger and smarter than all the rest, and says he, 'If +all you bats have seen everything you can see, I guess I'll take a look +around,' says he. Sure enough, there was a rug with 'Welcome' on it +layin' in front of the washstand, and when he turned it up he found +an elegant diamond stud with a man's full name and address on the gold +part. He took a train and went right to the man's house. He was so taken +by surprise (he hadn't missed the stud, for he had a full set of 'em) +that he owned right up and confessed the murder." + +"I don't see as that's got anything to do with this case," said Diadema. + +"It's got this much to do with it," replied old Mrs. Bascom, "that +perhaps you've looked all round the room and seen everything you had +eyes to see, and perhaps I've had wit enough to turn up the rug in front +o' the washstand." + +"Whoever he marries now, Mis' Bascom'll have to say 't was the one she +meant," laughed the Widow Buzzell. + +"I never was caught cheatin' yet, and if I live till Saturday I shall be +seventy-one years old," said the old lady with some heat. "Hand me Jot's +lead pencil, Diademy, and that old envelope on the winder sill. I'll +write the name I think of, and shut it up in the old Bible. My hand's +so stiff to-day I can't hardly move it, but I guess I can make it plain +enough to satisfy you." + +"That's fair 'n' square," said Hannah Sophia, "and for my pat I hope it +ain't Eunice, for I like her too well. What they're goin' to live on is +more 'n I can see. Add nothin' to nothin' 'n' you git nothin',--that's +arethmetic! He ain't hed a cent o' ready money sence he failed up four +years ago, 'thout it was that hundred dollars that fell to him from his +wife's aunt. Eunice'll hev her hands full this winter, I guess, with +them three hearty children 'n' him all wheezed up with phthisic from +October to April!... Who's that coming' down Tory Hill? It's Rube's +horse 'n' Rube's wagon, but it don't look like Rube." + +"Yes, it's Rube; but he's got a new Panama hat, 'n' he 's hed his linen +duster washed," said old Mrs. Bascom. ... "Now, do you mean to tell me +that that woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice Emery? It ain't, 'n' +that green parasol don't belong to this village. He's drivin' her into +his yard!... Just as I s'posed, it's that little, smirkin' worthless +school-teacher up to the Mills.--Don't break my neck, Diademy; can't you +see out the other winder?--Yes, he's helpin' her out, 'n' showin' her +in. He can't 'a' ben married more'n ten minutes, for he's goin' clear up +the steps to open the door for her!" + +"Wait 'n' see if he takes his horse out," said Hannah Sophia. "Mebbe +he'll drive her back in a few minutes. ... No, he's onhitched! ... +There, he's hangin' up the head-stall!" + +"I've ben up in the attic chamber," called the Widow Buzzell, as she +descended the stairs; "she's pulled up the curtains, and took off her +hat right in front o' the winder, 's bold as a brass kettle! She's come +to stay! Ain't that Rube Hobson all over,--to bring another woman int' +this village 'stid o' weedin' one of 'em out as he'd oughter. He ain't +got any more public sperit than a--hedgehog, 'n' never had!" + +Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied on her shaker, and started for +the door. + +"I'm goin' over to Eunice's," she said, "and I'm goin' to take my bottle +of camphire. I shouldn't wonder a mite if I found her in a dead faint on +the kitchen floor. Nobody need tell me she wa'n't buildin' hopes." + +"I'll go with you," said the Widow Buzzell. "I'd like to see with my +own eyes how she takes it, 'n' it'll be too late to tell if I wait +till after supper. If she'd ben more open with me 'n' ever asked for my +advice, I could 'a' told her it wa'n't the first time Rube Hobson has +played that trick." + +"I'd come too if 't wa'n't milkin' but Jot ain't home from the Centre, +and I've got to do his chores; come in as you go along back, will you?" +asked Diadema. + +Hannah Sophia remained behind, promising to meet them at the post-office +and hear the news. As the two women walked down the hill she drew the +old envelope from the Bible and read the wavering words scrawled upon it +in old Mrs. Bascom's rheumatic and uncertain hand,-- + +_the_ _milikins_ _Mills_ _Teecher._ + + +"Well Lucindy, you do make good use o' your winder," she exclaimed, "but +how you pitched on anything so onlikely as her is more'n I can see." + +"Just because 't was onlikely. A man's a great sight likelier to do an +onlikely thing than he is a likely one, when it comes to marryin'. In +the first place, Rube sent his children to school up to the Mills 'stid +of to the brick schoolhouse, though he had to pay a little something to +get 'em taken in to another deestrick. They used to come down at night +with their hands full o' 'ward o' merit cards. Do you s'pose I thought +they got 'em for good behavior, or for knowin' their lessons? Then aunt +Hitty told me some question or other Rube had asked examination day. +Since when has Rube Hobson 'tended examinations, thinks I. And when I +see the girl, a red-and-white paper doll that wouldn't know whether to +move the churn-dasher up 'n' down or round 'n' round, I made up my +mind that bein' a man he'd take her for certain, and not his next-door +neighbor of a sensible age and a house 'n' farm 'n' cow 'n' buggy!" + +"Sure enough," agreed Hannah Sophia, "though that don't account for +Eunice's queer actions, 'n' the pa'cels 'n' the fruit cake." + +"When I make out a case," observed Mrs. Bascom modestly, "I ain't one to +leave weak spots in it. If I guess at all, I go all over the ground +'n' stop when I git through. Now, sisters or no sisters, Maryabby Emery +ain't spoke to Eunice sence she moved to Salem. But if Eunice has ben +bringin' pa'cels home, Maryabby must 'a' paid for what was in 'em; and +if she's ben bakin' fruit cake this hot day, why Maryabby used to be +so font o' fruit cake her folks were afraid she'd have fits 'n' die. +I shall be watchin' here as usual to-morrow morning', 'n' if Maryabby +don't drive int' Eunice's yard before noon I won't brag any more for a +year to come." + +Hannah Sophia gazed at old Mrs. Bascom with unstinted admiration. "You +do beat all," she said; "and I wish I could stay all night 'n' see how +it turns out, but Almiry is just comin' over the bridge, 'n' I must +start 'n' meet her. Good-by. I'm glad to see you so smart; you always +look slim, but I guess you'll tough it out's long 's the rest of us. I +see your log was all right, last time I was down side o' the river." + + +"They say it 's jest goin' to break in two in the middle, and fall into +the river," cheerfully responded Lucinda. "They say it's just hanging' +on by a thread. Well, that's what they 've ben sayin' about me these +ten years, 'n' here I be still hanging! It don't make no odds, I guess, +whether it's a thread or a rope you 're hangin' by, so long as you +hang." + +* * * + + +The next morning, little Mote Hobson, who had stayed all night with his +uncle in Union, was walking home by the side of the river. He strolled +along, the happy, tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, eyes one moment +on the trees in the hope of squirrels and birds'-nests, the next on the +ground in search of the first blueberries. As he stooped to pick up a +bit of shining quartz to add to the collection in his ragged trousers' +pockets he glanced across the river, and at that very instant Lucinda's +log broke gently in twain, rolled down the bank, crumbling as it went, +and, dropping in like a tired child, was carried peacefully along on the +river's breast. + +Mote walked more quickly after that. It was quite a feather in his cap +to see, with his own eyes, the old landmark slip from its accustomed +place and float down the stream. The other boys would miss it and say, +"It's gone!" He would say, "I saw it go!" + +Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top of the hill. His white locks were +uncovered, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Baby Jot, as usual, held +fast by his shaking hand, for they loved each other, these two. The +cruel stroke of the sun that had blurred the old man's brain had spared +a blessed something in him that won the healing love of children. + +"How d' ye, Mote?" he piped in his feeble voice. "They say Lucindy's +dead. ... Jot says she is, 'n' Diademy says she is, 'n' I guess she is. +... It 's a dretful thick year for fol'age; ... some o' the maples looks +like balls in the air." + +Mote looked in at the window. The neighbors were hurrying to and fro. +Diadema sat with her calico apron up to her face, sobbing; and for the +first morning in thirty years, old Mrs. Bascom's high-backed rocker was +empty, and there was no one sitting in the village watch-tower. + + + + +TOM O' THE BLUEB'RY PLAINS. + + +The sky is a shadowless blue; the noon-day sun glows fiercely; a cloud +of dust rises from the burning road whenever the hot breeze stirs the +air, or whenever a farm wagon creaks along, its wheels sinking into the +deep sand. + +In the distance, where the green of the earth joins the blue of the sky, +gleams the silver line of a river. + +As far as the eye an reach, the ground is covered with blueberry bushes; +red leaves peeping among green ones; bloom of blue fruit hanging in full +warm clusters,--spheres of velvet mellowed by summer sun, moistened with +crystal dew, spiced with fragrance of woods. + +In among the blueberry bushes grow huckleberries, "choky pears," and +black-snaps. + +Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift themselves out of the wilderness of +shrubs. They look dwarfed and gloomy, as if Nature had been an untender +mother, and denied them proper nourishment. + +The road is a little-traveled one, and furrows of feathery grasses grow +between the long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts. + +The first goldenrod gleams among the loose stones at the foot of the +alder bushes. Whole families of pale butterflies, just out of their +long sleep, perch on the brilliant stalks and tilter up and down in the +sunshine. + +Straggling processions of wooly brown caterpillars wend their way in +the short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple +bull-thistle are coming into bloom. + +The song of birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains are given +over to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, the humming of +bees, and the chirping of crickets that stir the drowsy air when the +summer begins to wane. + +It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard in +the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, +the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. +All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, or +a man's? Neither yet all three. + + "I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + --swain." + +Everybody knows the song, and everybody knows the cracked voice. The +master of this bit of silent wilderness is coming home: it is Tom o' the +blueb'ry plains. + +He is more than common tall, with a sandy beard, and a mop of tangled +hair straggling beneath his torn straw hat. A square of wet calico drips +from under the back of the hat. His gingham shirt is open at the throat, +showing his tanned neck and chest. Warm as it is, he wears portions of +at least three coats on his back. His high boots, split in foot and leg, +are mended and spliced and laced and tied on with bits of shingle rope. +He carries a small tin pail of molasses. It has a bail of rope, and +a battered cover with a knob of sticky newspaper. Over one shoulder, +suspended on a crooked branch, hangs a bundle of basket stuff,--split +willow withes and the like; over the other swings a decrepit, +bottomless, three-legged chair. + + +I call him the master of the plains, but in faith he had no legal claim +to the title. If he owned a habitation or had established a home on any +spot in the universe, it was because no man envied him what he took; for +Tom was one of God's fools, a foot-loose pilgrim in this world of +ours, a poor addle-pated, simple-minded, harmless creature,--in village +parlance, a "softy." + +Mother or father, sister or brother, he had none, nor ever had, so far +as any one knew; but how should people who had to work from sun-up to +candlelight to get the better of the climate have leisure to discover +whether or no Blueb'ry Tom had any kin? + +At some period in an almost forgotten past there had been a house on +Tom's particular patch of the plains. It had long since tumbled +into ruins and served for fire-wood and even the chimney bricks had +disappeared one by one, as the monotonous seasons came and went. + +Tom had settled himself in an old tool-shop, corn-house, or rude +out-building of some sort that had belonged to the ruined cottage. Here +he had set up his house-hold gods; and since no one else had ever wanted +a home in this dreary tangle of berry bushes, where the only shade came +from stunted pines that flung shriveled arms to the sky and dropped dead +cones to the sterile earth, here he remained unmolested. + +In the lower part of the hut he kept his basket stuff and his collection +of two-legged and three-legged chairs. In the course of evolution they +never sprouted another leg, those chairs; as they were given to him, +so they remained. The upper floor served for his living-room, and was +reached by a ladder from the ground, for there was no stairway inside. + +No one had ever been in the little upper chamber. When a passer-by +chanced to be-think him that Tom's hermitage was close at hand, he +sometimes turned in his team by a certain clump of white birches and +drove nearer to the house, intending to remind Tom that there was a +chair to willow-bottom the next time he came to the village. But at +the noise of the wheels Tom drew in his ladder; and when the visitor +alighted and came within sight, it was to find the inhospitable host +standing in the opening of the second-story window, a quaint figure +framed in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face a kind +of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said, "Tom ain't ter +hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle." + +There was something impressive about his way of repelling callers; it +was as effectual as a door slammed in the face, and yet there was a sort +of mendacious courtesy about it. No one ever cared to go further; +and indeed there was no mystery to tempt the curious, and no spoil to +attract the mischievous or the malicious. Any one could see, without +entering, the straw bed in the far corner, the beams piled deep with +red and white oak acorns, the strings of dried apples and bunches of +everlastings hanging from the rafters, and the half-finished baskets +filled with blown bird's-eggs, pine cones, and pebbles. + +No home in the village was better loved than Tom's retreat in the +blueberry plains. Whenever he approached it, after a long day's tramp, +when he caught the first sight of the white birches that marked the +gateway to his estate and showed him where to turn off the public road +into his own private grounds, he smiled a broader smile than usual, and +broke into his well-known song: + + "I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, + An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly + --swain." + +Poor Tom could never catch the last note. He had sung the song for more +than forty years, but the memory of this tone was so blurred, and his +cherished ideal of it so high (or so low, rather), that he never managed +to reach it. + +Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better supper than +ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need of sleeping under roof nor +of lighting candles to grope his way to pallet of straw, when he might +have the blue vault of heaven arching over him, and all God's stars for +lamps, and for a bed a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of +pine needles. There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their +polished spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, +another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. Flinging his +tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head in the crushed sweet +fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn sigh of pleasure,--there, haunted +by no past and harassed by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a +child. + +Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well! + +But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer, and the gaunt +pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor Tom's mattress, there +came a change in the aspect of things. He still made his way to the +village, seeking chairs to mend; but he was even more unkempt than of +old, his tall figure was bent, and his fingers trembled as he wove the +willow strands in and out, and over and under. + +There was little work to do, moreover, for the village had altogether +retired from business, and was no longer in competition with its +neighbors: the dam was torn away, the sawmills were pulled down; +husbands and fathers were laid in the churchyard, sons and brothers and +lovers had gone West, and mothers and widows and spinsters stayed on, +each in her quiet house alone. "'T ain't no hardship when you get used +to it," said the Widow Buzzell. "Land sakes! a lantern 's 's good 's a +man any time, if you only think so, 'n' 't ain't half so much trouble to +keep it filled up!" + +But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, and the children always +gathered about him for the sake of hearing him repeat his well-worn +formula,--"Tom allers puts two handles on baskets: one to take 'em up by, +one to set 'em down by." This was said with a beaming smile and a wise +shake of the head, as if he were announcing a great discovery to an +expectant world. And then he would lay down his burden of basket stuff, +and, sitting under an apple-tree in somebody's side yard, begin his task +of willow-bottoming an old chair. It was a pretty sight enough, if one +could keep back the tears,--the kindly, simple fellow with the circle of +children about his knees. Never a village fool without a troop of babies +at his heels. They love him, too, till we teach them to mock. + +When he was younger, he would sing, + + "Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop," + +and dance the while, swinging his unfinished basket to and fro for a +cradle. He was too stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but +he still sang the "bloomin' gy-ar-ding" when ever they asked him, +particularly if some apple-cheeked little maid would say, "Please, Tom!" +He always laughed then, and, patting the child's hand, said, "Pooty +gal,--got eyes!" The youngsters dance with glee at this meaningless +phrase, just as their mothers had danced years before when it was said +to them. + +Summer waned. In the moist places the gentian uncurled its blue fringes; +purple asters and gay Joe Pye waved their colors by the roadside; tall +primroses put their yellow bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to see +themselves; and the dusty pods of the milkweed were bursting with their +silky fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. Autumn began to paint the +maples red and the elms yellow, for the early days of September brought +a frost. Some one remarked at the village store that old Blueb'ry Tom +must not be suffered to stay on the plains another winter, now that he +was getting so feeble,--not if the "_se_leckmen" had to root him out +and take him to the poor-farm. He would surely starve or freeze, and his +death would be laid at their door. + +Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, sharp words, all failed to move +him one jot or tittle. He stood in his castle door, with the ladder +behind him, smiling, always smiling (none but the fool smiles always, +nor always weeps), and saying to all visitors, "Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's +gone to Bonny Eagle; Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm." + +November came in surly. + +The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest were over, the corn was +shocked, the apples and pumpkins were gathered into barns. The problem +of Tom's future was finally laid before the selectmen; and since the +poor fellow's mild obstinancy had defeated all attempts to conquer it, +the sheriff took the matter in hand. + +The blueberry plains looked bleak and bare enough now. It had rained +incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. The +sun came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,--like a duty +smile,--as if light, not heat, were its object. A keen wind blew the +dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance that had no merriment in +it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling +himself into a ball, remarked despondently that feathers were no sort of +protection in this kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, glanced in +at the barrel, and observed that anybody who minded a little breeze like +that had better join the woodcocks, who were leaving for the South by +the night express. + +The blueberry bushes were stripped bare of green. The stunted pines and +sombre hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape now; where all was +dreary they did not seem amiss. + +"Je-whilikins!" exclaimed the sheriff as he drew up his coat collar. +"A madhouse is the place for the man who wants to live ou'doors in the +winter time; the poor-farm is too good for him." + +But Tom was used to privation, and even to suffering. "Ou'doors" was the +only home he knew, and with all its rigors he loved it. He looked over +the barren plains, knowing, in a dull sort of way, that they would +shortly be covered with snow; but he had three coats, two of them with +sleeves, and the crunch-crunch of the snow under his tread was music +to his ears. Then, too, there were a few hospitable firesides where he +could always warm himself; and the winter would soon be over, the birds +would come again,--new birds, singing the old songs,--the sap would +mount in the trees, the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the +young ivory leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. +The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to +Tom. He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all the +seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. To him +winter was never cruel. He looked underneath her white mantle, saw the +infant spring hidden in her warm bosom, and was content to wait. Content +to wait? Content to starve, content to freeze, if only he need not be +carried into captivity. + +The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, if only Tom had been a +reasonable being. To be sure, when Hannah Sophia Palmer asked old Mrs. +Pinkham how she liked it, she answered, with a patient sigh, that +"her 'n' Mr. Pinkham hed lived there goin' on nine year, workin' their +fingers to the bone 'most, 'n' yet they hadn't been able to lay up a +cent!" If this peculiarity of administration was its worst feature, it +was certainly one that would have had no terrors for Tom o' the blueb'ry +plains. Terrors of some sort, nevertheless, the poor-farm had for him; +and when the sheriff's party turned in by the clump of white birches and +approached the cabin, they found that fear had made the simple wise. Tom +had provished the little upper chamber, and, in place of the piece of +sacking that usually served him for a door in winter, he had woven a +defense of willow. In fine, he had taken all his basket stuff, and, +treating the opening through which he entered and left his home +precisely as if it were a bottomless chair, he had filled it in solidly, +weaving to and fro, by night as well as by day, till he felt, poor fool, +as safely intrenched as if he were in the heart of a fortress. + +The sheriff tied his horse to a tree, and Rube Hobson and Pitt Packard +got out of the double wagon. Two men laughed when they saw the pathetic +defense, but the other shut his lips together and caught his breath. +(He had been born on a poor-farm, but no one knew it at Pleasant River.) +They called Tom's name repeatedly, but no other sound broke the silence +of the plains save the rustling of the wind among the dead leaves. + +"Numb-head!" muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side of the cabin +with his whip-stock. "Come out and show yourself! We know you're in +there, and it's no use hiding!" + +At last in response to a deafening blow from Rube Hobson's hard fist, +there came the answering note of a weak despairing voice. + +"Tom ain't ter hum," it said; "Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle." + +"That's all right!" guffawed the men; "but you've got to go some more, +and go a diff'rent way. It ain't no use fer you to hold back; we've got +a ladder, and by Jiminy! you go with us this time!" + +The ladder was put against the side of the hut, and Pitt Packard climbed +up, took his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top to bottom, and +turned back the flap. + +The men could see the inside of the chamber now. They were humorous +persons who could strain a joke to the snapping point, but they felt, +at last, that there was nothing especially amusing in the situation. +Tom was huddled in a heap on the straw bed in the far corner. The vacant +smile had fled from his face, and he looked, for the first time in his +life, quite distraught. + +"Come along, Tom," said the sheriff kindly; "we 're going to take you +where you can sleep in a bed, and have three meals a day." + + "I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding," + +sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head in a paroxysm of fear. + +"Well, there ain't no bloomin' gardings to walk in jest now, so come +along and be peaceable." + +"Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm," he wailed piteously. + +But there was no alternative. They dragged him off the bed and down the +ladder as gently as possible; then Rube Hobson held him on the back seat +of the wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the horse. As they were on +the point of starting, the captive began to wail and struggle more than +ever, the burden of his plaint being a wild and tremulous plea for his +pail of molasses. + +"Dry up, old softy, or I'll put the buggy robe over your head!" muttered +Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started on the trip, +and had lost it all by this time. + +"By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!" said +Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, comforting +the shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive silence +that lasted until the unwelcome journey was over. + +Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours. It did not enter +the minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate as to be admitted +into that happy haven would decline to stay there. The unwilling guest +disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, after some search, +they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed into his beloved +retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, had mended the +willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace. They dragged +him out again, and this time more impatiently; for it was exasperating +to see a man (even if he were a fool) fight against a bed and three +meals a day. + +The second attempt was little more successful than the first. As a +place of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable or +attractive on near acquaintance than it did at long range. Tom remained +a week, because he was kept in close confinement; but when they judged +that he was weaned from his old home, they loosed his bonds, and--back +to the plains he sped, like an arrow shot from the bow, or like a bit of +iron leaping to the magnet. + +What should be done with him? + +Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that the village had +done its duty, and if the "dog-goned lunk-head" wanted to starve +and freeze, it was his funeral, not theirs. Others thought that +the community had no resource but to bear the responsibility of its +irresponsible children, however troublesome they might be. There was +entire unanimity of view so far as the main issues were concerned. It +was agreed that nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand guard over +Tom night and day, and that the sheriff could not be expected to spend +his time forcing him out of his hut on the blueberry plains. + +There was but one more expedient to be tried, a very simple and +ingenious but radical and comprehensive one, which, in Rube Hobson's +opinion, would strike at the root of the matter. + +Tom had fled from captivity for the third time. + +He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by an unexpected stroke of fortune, +the molasses pail was hanging on a nail by the shed door. The remains of +a battered old bushel basket lay on the wood-pile: bottom it had none, +nor handles; rotundity of side had long since disappeared, and none +but its maker would have known it for a basket. Tom caught it up in his +flight, and, seizing the first crooked stick that offered, he slung the +dear familiar burden over his shoulder and started off on a jog-trot. + +Heaven, how happy he was! It was the rosy dawn of an Indian summer +day,--a warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak world of yesterday +without a hint of beneficent intention; one of those enchanting weather +surprises with which Dame Nature reconciles us to her stern New England +rule. + +The joy that comes of freedom, and the freedom that comes of joy, unbent +the old man's stiffened joints. He renewed his youth at every mile. He +ran like a lapwing. When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the +plains, he broke into old song of the "bloom-in' gy-ar-ding" and the +"jolly swain," and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration +born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible last note. +His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture when he caught the +well-known gleam of the white birches. He turned into the familiar +path, boy's blood thumping in old man's veins. The past week had been +a dreadful dream. A few steps more and he would be within sight, within +touch of home,--home at last! No--what was wrong? He must have gone +beyond it, in his reckless haste! Strange that he could have forgotten +the beloved spot! Can lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window? Can +child lose the path to mother's knee? + +He turned,--ran hither and thither, like one distraught. A nameless +dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his warm blood, paralyzing +the activity of the moment before. At last, with a sob like that of a +frightened child who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness, +he darted back to the white birches and started anew. This time +he trusted to blind instinct; his feet knew the path, and, left to +themselves, they took him through the tangle of dry bushes straight to +his-- + +It had vanished! + +Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,--nothing but ashes! And +these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, and the leafless +branches on which they fell would shake them off lightly, never dreaming +that they hid the soul of a home. Nothing but ashes! + +Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains! + + + + +THE NOONING TREE. + + +The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, +and was known to all the country round about as the "Bean ellum." The +other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, as if they +were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, king of the +meadow, monarch of the village. + +It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, +and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, all +growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting a grateful +shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny village might have +gathered. + +It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density of +foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low grown +of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. Passers-by +from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams by the wayside, +crawl through the stump fence and walk across the fields, for a nearer +view of its magnificence. One man, indeed, was known to drive by the +tree every day during the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, +each time he passed; but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly +esteemed in the village. + +The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. In the +spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, its tiny +brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought of the loveliness +coiled up inside. In summer it stood in the midst of a waving garden of +buttercups and whiteweed, a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter +from the sun and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable +dome, under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze upward +as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven. As for the birds, +they made it a fashionable summer resort, the most commodious and +attractive in the whole country; with no limit to the accommodations +for those of a gregarious turn of mind, liking the advantages of select +society combined with country air. In the autumn it held its own; for +when the other elms changed their green to duller tints, the nooning +tree put on a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background +of sombre pine woods a brilliant mass of gold and brown. In winter, when +there was no longer dun of upturned sod, nor waving daisy gardens, nor +ruddy autumn grasses, it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting +its bare, shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming to +say, "Do not pity me; I have been, and, please God, I shall be!" + +Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a "nooning" +tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in +haying time that it became the favorite lunching and "bangeing" place +for Squire Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the +adjoining farm. The men congregated under the spreading branches +at twelve o' the clock, and spent the noon hour there, eating and +"swapping" stories, as they were doing to-day. + +Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of "flour food" that +kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night. A +glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice as +an illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, "Pitt took after both his +parents; one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while." His pail +contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, six buttermilk +biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, and a quart of cold +coffee. This quantity was a trifle unusual, but every man in the group +was lined throughout with pie, cemented with buttermilk bread, and +riveted with doughnuts. + +Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, their cowhide +boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, Steve Webster, and the others +leaned back against the tree-trunk, smoking clay pipes, or hugging their +knees and chewing blades of grass reflectively. + +One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke into +the air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head buried +in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked and +laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word +or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, +Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie" for short. He was a giant fellow,--a +"great gormin' critter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him; but if he +had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, he would have +been thought a man of splendid presence. + +He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another section +of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, the mass +of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, the sombre eyes, +and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown into laughing curves +through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these that gave him what the +boys called a "kind of a downcasted look." The man from Tennessee had +something more than a melancholy temperament; he had, or physiognomy was +a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart. + +"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his straw hat +over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like the eagle's, 'f I'm +goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. Wake me up, boys, when you +think I'd ought to sling that scythe some more, for if I hev it on my +mind I can't git a wink o' sleep." + +This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited roars of +laughter. + +"It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his great-aunt +Lyddy," said David Milliken. + +"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git to workin' as it +did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't git mowed down to crack +o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, +the dew 'n' the showers, 'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' +worked together on this tree, 'n' no mistake!" + +"You're right, Jabe." (This from Steve Webster, who was absently cutting +a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.) "This ellum +can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. My brother that +lives in California says that the big redwoods, big as they air, don't +throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, 'specially in the fall o' +the year, as our State o' Maine trees; 'assiduous trees,' he called +'em." + +"_Assidyus_ trees? Why don't you talk United States while you're about +it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? _Assidyus!_ What does +it mean, anyhow?" + +"Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' I never forgot +it." + +"Assidyus--assidyus--it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me." + +"Assiduous means 'busy,'" said the man from Tennessee, who had suddenly +waked from a brown study, and dropped off into another as soon as he had +given the definition. + +"Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off now 'n we ever was. +One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, as fur 's I can see." + +"Wall, there is kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it'sturrible far +fetched," remarked Jabe Slocum, rather sleepily. "You see, our ellums +and maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' the year in buddin' 'n' +gittin' out their leaves 'n' hangin' em all over the branches; 'n' then, +no sooner air they full grown than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red +or yeller or brown, 'n' then shakin' 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you +might say, to their every-day chores o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, +'n' spreadin' 'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n' +'nother; 'n' it stan's to reason that the first 'n' hemlocks 'n' them +California redwoods, that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, +can't be so busy as them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' all the +time." + +"I guess you're 'bout right," allowed Steve, "but I shouldn't never 'a' +thought of it in the world. What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I +thought you was a temperance man." + +"I guess he 's like the feller over to Shandagee schoolhouse, that said +he was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!" laughed Pitt +Packard. + +"I ain't breakin' no law; this is yarb bitters," Jabe answered, with a +pull at the bottle. + +"It's to cirkerlate his blood," said Ob Tarbox; "he's too dog-goned lazy +to cirkerlate it himself." + +"I'm takin' it fer what ails me," said Jabe oracularly; "the heart +knoweth its own bitterness, 'n' it 's a wise child that knows its own +complaints 'thout goin' to a doctor." + +"Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start yer growth, Laigs?" asked little +Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot. "Say, +how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead, 'n' +side-track the other?" + +The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally, but the man from +Tennessee never smiled. + +Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least +by these personal remarks. "If I thought 't was a good growin' medicine, +I'd recommend it to your folks, Brad," he replied cheerfully. "Your +mother says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin' potatoes, +yer can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin' up 'n' standing +on the potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you, I wouldn't +hector folks that had made out to grow some." + +"Speakin' o' growin'," said Steve Webster, "who do you guess I seen in +Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins girl from the +Duck Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson. It was one Sunday, in the +Catholic meetin'-house. I'd allers wanted to go to a Catholic meetin', +an' I declare it's about the solemnest one there is. I mistrusted I was +goin' to everlastin'ly giggle, but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter +yer ever see. But anyway, the Swatkins girl--or Mis' Robinson, she is +now--was there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin' Latin, +pawin' beads, gettin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin' herself north, +south, east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan! 'Grinnin' Dan,' +we used to call him. Well, he don't grin nowadays. He never was good for +much, but he 's hed more 'n his comeuppance!" + +"Why, what 's the matter with him? Can't he git work in Boston?" + +"Matter? Why, his wife, that I see makin' believe be so dreadful pious +in the Catholic meetin', she 's carried on wuss 'n the Old Driver for +two years, 'n' now she 's up 'n' left him,--gone with a han'somer man." + +Down on Steve Webster's hand came Jabe Slocum's immense paw with a grasp +that made him cringe. + +"What the"--began Steve, when the man from Tennessee took up his scythe +and slouched away from the group by the tree. + +"Didn't yer know no better 'n that, yer thunderin' fool? Can't yer see a +hole in a grindstun 'thout it's hung on yer nose?" + +"What hev I done?" asked Steve, as if dumfounded. + +"Done? Where 've yer ben, that yer don't know Dixie's wife 's left him?" + +"Where 've I ben? Hain't I ben workin' in Boston fer a year; 'n' since +I come home last week, hain't I ben tendin' sick folks, so 't I +couldn't git outside the dooryard? I never seen the man in my life till +yesterday, in the field, 'n' I thought he was one o' them dark-skinned +Frenchies from Guildford that hed come up here fer hayin'." + +"Mebbe I spoke too sharp," said Jabe apologetically; "but we 've ben +scared to talk wives, or even women folks, fer a month o' Sundays, fer +fear Dixie 'd up 'n' tumble on his scythe, or do somethin' crazy. You +see it's this way (I'd ruther talk than work; 'n' we ain't workin' by +time to-day, anyway, on account of the circus comin'): 'Bout a year 'n' +a half ago, this tall, han'some feller turned up here in Pleasant River. +He inhailed from down South somewheres, but he didn't like his work +there, 'n' drifted to New York, 'n' then to Boston; 'n' then he +remembered his mother was a State o' Maine woman, 'n' he come here to +see how he liked. We didn't take no stock in him at first,--we never +hed one o' that nigger-tradin' secedin' lot in amongst us,--but he was +pleasant spoken 'n' a square, all-round feller, 'n' didn't git off any +secesh nonsense, 'n' it ended in our likin' him first-rate. Wall, he got +work in the cannin' fact'ry over on the Butterfield road, 'n' then he +fell in with the Maddoxes. You 've hearn tell of 'em; they're relation +to Pitt here." + + +"I wouldn't own 'em if I met 'em on Judgement Bench!" exclaimed Pitt +Packard hotly. "My stepfather's second wife married Mis' Maddox's first +husband after he got divorced from her, 'n' that's all there is to it; +they ain't no bloody-kin o' mine, 'n' I don't call 'em relation." + +"Wall, Pitt's relations or not, they're all wuss 'n the Old Driver, +as yer said 'bout Dan Robinson's wife. Dixie went to board there. Mis +Maddox was all out o' husbands jest then,--she 'd jest disposed of her +fourth, somehow or 'nother; she always hed a plenty 'n' to spare, though +there's lots o' likely women folks round here that never hed one chance, +let alone four. Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her +father hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' +but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn +out; if he 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him. +_In_fidelity would 'a' ben a mighty sight more 'propriate; but either +of 'em is too long fer a name, so they got to callin' her Fiddy. Wall, +Fiddy didn't waste no time; she was nigh onto eighteen years old when +Dixie went there to board, 'n' she begun huneyfuglin' him's soon as ever +she set eyes on him. Folks warned him, but 't wa'n't no use; he was kind +o' bewitched with her from the first. She wa'n't so han'some, neither. +Blamed 'f I know how they do it; let 'em alone, 'f yer know when yer +'re well off, 's my motter. She was red-headed, but her hair become her +somehow when she curled 'n' frizzed it over a karosene lamp, 'n' then +wound it round 'n' round her head like ropes o' carnelian. She hedn't +any particular kind of a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry! when she +looked at yer, yer felt kind as if yer was turnin' to putty inside." + +"I know what yer mean," said Steve interestedly. + +"She hed a figger jest like them fashion-paper pictures you 've seen, +an' the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy Maddox would hev +'em before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n' the highest hats 'n' the +tightest skirts 'n' the longest tails to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow, +anyhow! Dixie wa'n't out o' money when he come here, an' a spell +afterwards there was more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his +father's folks down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you! Dixie +bought a top buggy 'n' a sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road most o' +the time when he wa'n't to work; 'n' when he was, she 'd go with Lem +Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the wiser. Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new +husband jest then, so 't she didn't interfere"-- + +"She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow," interpolated Ob Tarbox. + +"Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded you can't +anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, nor a husband 'n' +young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; the least wind blows 'em +here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. As time went on, the +widder got herself a beau now 'n' then; but as fast as she hooked 'em, +Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her. You see she 'd gethered in most of +her husbands afore Fiddy was old enough to hev her finger in the pie; +but she cut her eye-teeth early, Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of +a feller come to set up with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab +him, if she hed any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I +tell yer. But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He +could n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain." + +"He hed warnin's enough," put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum never +needed any assistance in spinning a yarn. + +"Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist minister went +so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' was the text. +'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. If he hadn't 'a' +heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done him no good +to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble many in +the congregation, 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' 'n' +heedin', but it rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. He +'n' Fiddy was seen over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, 'n' +they didn't come back for a week." + + "'He gin her his hand, + And he made her his own,'" + +sang little Brad Gibson. + +"He hed gin her his hand, but no minister nor trial-jestice nor +eighteen-carat ring nor stificate could 'a' made Fiddy Maddox anybody's +own 'ceptin' the devil's, an' he wouldn't 'a' married her; she'd 'a' +ben too near kin. We'd never 'spicioned she 'd git 's fur 's marryin' +anybody, 'n' she only married Dixie 'cause he told her he 'd take her to +the Wareham House to dinner, 'n' to the County Fair afterwards; if any +other feller hed offered to take her to supper, 'n' the theatre on top +o' that, she 'd 'a' married him instid." + +"How 'd the old woman take it?" asked Steve. + +"She disowned her daughter _punctilio:_ in the first place, fer runnin' +away 'stid o' hevin' a church weddin'; 'n' second place, fer marryin' a +pauper (that was what she called him; 'n' it was true, for they 'd spent +every cent he hed); 'n' third place, fer alienatin' the 'fections of a +travelin' baker-man she hed her eye on fer herself. He was a kind of a +flour-food peddler, that used to drive a cart round by Hard Scrabble, +Moderation, 'n' Scratch Corner way. Mis' Maddox used to buy all her +baked victuals of him, 'specially after she found out he was a widower +beginnin' to take notice. His cart used to stand at her door so long +everybody on the rout would complain o' stale bread. But bime bye Fiddy +begun to set at her winder when he druv up, 'n' bime bye she pinned a +blue ribbon in her collar. When she done that, Mis' Maddox alles hed to +take a back seat. The boys used to call it a danger signal. It kind o' +drawed yer 'tention to p'ints 'bout her chin 'n' mouth 'n' neck, 'n' one +thing 'n' 'nother, in a way that was cal'lated to snarl up the thoughts +o' perfessors o' religion 'n' turn 'em earthways. There was a spell +I hed to say, '_Remember_ _Rhapseny!_ _Remember_ _Rhapseny!_' over to +myself whenever Fiddy put on her blue ribbons. Wall, as I say, Fiddy set +at the winder, the baker-man seen the blue ribbons, 'n' Mis' Maddox's +cake was dough. She put on a red ribbon; but land! her neck looked 's if +somebody 'd gone over it with a harrer! Then she stomped round 'n' slat +the dish-rag, but 't wa'n't no use. 'Gracious, mother,' says Fiddy, 'I +don't do nothin' but set at the winder. The sun shines for all.' 'You're +right it does,' says Mis' Maddox, ''n' that's jest what I complain of. +I'd like to get a change to shine on something myself.' + +"But the baker-man kep' on comin', though when he got to the Maddoxes' +doorsteps he couldn't make change for a quarter nor tell pie from bread; +an' sure 's you're born, the very day Fiddy went away to be married to +Dixie, that mornin' she drawed that everlastin' numhead of a flour-food +peddler out into the orchard, 'n' cut off a lock o' her hair, 'n' tied +it up with a piece o' her blue ribbon, 'n' give it to him; an' old Mis' +Bascom says, when he went past her house he was gazin' at it 'n' kissin' +of it, 'n' his horse meanderin' on one side the road 'n' the other, 'n' +the door o' the cart open 'n' slammin' to 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies +spillin' out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next +morning' ('t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way when +Fiddy's ribbon was pullin' t'other); an' when he found out she 'd gone +with Dixie, he cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took on like a loontic; an' when +Mis' Maddox hinted she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, +he stomped 'n' cussed wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her +a hombly old trollop, an' fired the bread loaves all over the dooryard, +he was so crazy at bein' cheated. + +"Wall, to go back to Dixie--I'll be comin' right along, boys." (This to +Brad Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink of ginger tea preparatory +to beginning work.) + +"I pity you, Steve!" exclaimed Brad, between deep swallows. "If you 'd +known when you was well off, you 'd 'a' stayed in Boston. If Jabe hed a +story started, he 'd talk three days after he was dead." + +"Go 'long; leave me be! Wall, as I was sayin', Dixie brought Fiddy home +('Dell,' he called her), an' they 'peared bride 'n' groom at meetin' +next Sunday. The last hundred dollars he hed in the world hed gone into +the weddin' tower 'n' on to Fiddy's back. He hed a new suit, 'n' he +looked like a major. You ain't got no idea what he was, 'cause his eyes +is dull now, 'n' he 's bowed all over, 'n' ain't shaved nor combed, +hardly; but they was the han'somest couple that ever walked up the broad +aisle. She hed on a green silk dress, an' a lace cape that was like a +skeeter nettin' over her neck an' showed her bare skin through, an' a +hat like an apple orchard in full bloom, hummin'-bird an' all. Dixie +kerried himself as proud as Lucifer. He didn't look at the minister 'n' +he didn't look at the congregation; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, +as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved +consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the +silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out +'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would +a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to +work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her +meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll +wait on women folks long as they can stan' up. + +"Then bime bye the baby come along; but that made things wuss 'stid o' +better. She didn't pay no more 'tention to it than if it hed belonged +to the town. She 'd go off to dances, an' leave Dixie to home tendin' +cradle; but that wa'n't no hardship to him for he was 'bout as much +wropped up in the child as he was in Fiddy. Wall, sir, 'bout a month ago +she up 'n' disappeared off the face o' the airth 'thout sayin' a word or +leavin' a letter. She took her clo'es, but she never thought o' takin' +the baby; one baby more or less didn't make no odds to her s' long 's +she hed that skeeter-nettin' cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an' low +fer a fortnight, but after that he give it up as a bad job. He found out +enough, I guess, to keep him pretty busy thinkin' what he 'd do next. +But day before yesterday the same circus that plays here this afternoon +was playin' to Wareham. A lot of us went over on the evenin' train, an' +we coaxed Dixie into goin', so 's to take his mind off his trouble. But +land! he didn't see nothin'. He 'd walk right up the lions 'n' tigers +in the menagerie as if they was cats 'n' chickens, an' all the time the +clown was singin' he looked like a dumb animile that 's hed a bullet put +in him. There was lots o' side shows, mermaids 'n' six-legged calves +'n' spotted girls, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, an' there was one o' them +whirligig machines with a mess o' rocking'-hosses goin' round 'n' round, +'n' an organ in the middle playin' like sixty. I wish we 'd 'a' kept +clear o' the thing, but as bad luck would hev it, we stopped to look, +an' there on top o' two high-steppin' white wooden hosses, set Mis' +Fiddy an' that dod-gasted light-complected baker-man! If ever she was +suited to a dot, it was jest then 'n' there. She could 'a' gone prancin' +round that there ring forever 'n' forever, with the whoopin' 'n' +hollerin' 'n' whizzin' 'n' whirlin' soundin' in her ears, 'n' the music +playin' like mad, 'n' she with nothin' to do but stick on 'n' let some +feller foot the bills. Somebody must 'a' ben thinkin' o' Fiddy Maddox +when the invented them whirl-a-go-rounds. She was laughin' 'n' carryin' +on like the old Scratch; her apple-blossom hat dome off, 'n' the +baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, 'n' pulled her +ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; an' that was jest the +blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. I pulled Dixie off, but I was +too late. He give a groan I shall remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then +he plunged out o' the crowd 'n' through the gate like a streak o' +lightnin'. We follered, but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I +set here, I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; I forgot +all about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. If it wa'n't no +attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated it needed a father all +the more. Anyhow, he turned up in the field yesterday mornin', ready for +work, but lookin' as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead +put in the place of it." + +"I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back so near +him," said Steve. + +"Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over +Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen +her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it. +Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't +one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the +time she was knee high to a grasshopper. I've seen her set down by a +peck basket of apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then +heave it fur 's she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then +another; 'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly +spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton, +now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds +'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core +in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her +sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' +writin' of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin' for the +last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' _D_'s not _F_'s, like +Dixie there!" + + +***** + + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and +gone to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition where +it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would +have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a +circus in the neighborhood. + +Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle +something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the +song it is singing to the grasses. + + + "Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, + Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; + Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, + Hush, they sing to the clover deep; + Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,-- + Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. + Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging + Over the clover, over the grass." + + +And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,--heart +sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present +certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool shade of the nooning +tree, and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone +with his miseries,--glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them +to be, had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for +hours to come. + +How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with +such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same +tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one +who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up +all the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever +on his brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had +promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before. +How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had +ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching their +stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, he +thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within full vision, +but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; and then, in an +unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! He could swear she had loved him +that night, if never again. + +But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the +caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of +the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the +thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there +presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and +was now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube +looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly +by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ... +Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid +to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in +one of the circling seats. The, good Got!--Dell! sitting on a prancing +white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; +a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,--the very +hat she "'peared bride in" a man who brushed a grasshopper from her +shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand +coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's +cheek,--before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The +horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--a whirl of +happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to +drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, +another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop +on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless... + +There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The +river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, +swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing +to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it +was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over +these same jagged rocks again. "On, on to the unknown!" called the +river. "I come! I come!" he roused himself to respond, when a faint, +faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, +cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,--the half-forgotten +memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night's +vigil,--the baby! + +But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it +dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only +close his ears to it! But it still called--called still--the river! And +still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful +flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, +answering each other antiphonally. The river--the baby--the river--the +baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the +whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its +discordant organ, and its creaking machinery. + +But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it +more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God! +they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain +were lulled into silence, as under a "Peace, be still!" and, worn out +with the contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful +shade of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over +exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden +darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of +the birds, passed unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick +foliage and fell on his face, but the storm within had been too fierce +for him to heed the storm without. He slept on. + + +***** + + +Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant River +was on the way to the circus,--Boomer's Grand Six-in-One Universal +Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining in +the same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian +Artists; the biggest elephants, the funniest clowns, the pluckiest +riders, the stubbornest mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest +man and the shortest man, the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, +on the habitable globe; and no connection with any other show on earth, +especially Sypher's Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State. + +If the advertisements setting forth these attractions were couched in +language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, there were few +persons calm enough to perceive it, when once the glamour of the village +parade and the smell of the menagerie had intoxicated the senses. + +The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. Jot +Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic news +of its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort of +town crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, he +would go over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what +were its immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every +one of the neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of +news. He was an attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at +every wedding, in the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and +town and county fair. When more pressing duties did not hinder, he +endeavored to meet the two daily trains that passed through Milliken's +Mills, a mile or two from Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on +all journeys entailing serving of papers and other embarrassing duties +common to the law. On one occasion, when the two lawyers of the village +held an investigation before Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited +an hour because Jot Bascom did not come. They knew that something was +amiss, but it was only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was +not indispensable. He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never +missed a town meeting. He knew all the conditions attending any swapping +of horses that occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of +the trade and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and +who owed the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them. +In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence +could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot +Bascom. That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home +duties, when overborne by press of public service, was true. When +Diadema Bascom wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, +or the pigs fed, she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk. + +All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had, +therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons +who tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields. + +These were the bulletins issues:-- + +The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, in the same +place where the old one had been,--the old one, viewed with awe for five +years by all the village small boys. + +The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, had +arrived and gone to the tavern. + +An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed! + +The elephant had stepped through the floor!! + +The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come! + +And the "Cheriot"!! + +This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, to +prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating over +the fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped short under +the elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. He pinched the +twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure himself that he was alive +and in his right mind. The precious coin had been the result of careful +saving, and his hot, excited hands had almost worn it thin. But alas for +the vanity of human hopes! When the magnificent red-and-gold "Cheriot" +was uncovered, that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the +door opened, and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead +the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. Little +Jim gave one panic-stricken look as they leaped over the chariot steps, +and then fled to the barn chamber, whence he had to be dragged by his +mother, and cuffed into willingness to attend the spectacle that had +once so dazzled his imagination. + +On the eventful afternoon of the performance the road was gay with +teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat +carryall, two children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl +held down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his +mother's buggy. Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, +and scores of others were riding "shank's mare," as they would have +said. + +It had been a close, warm day, and as the afternoon wore away it grew +hotter and closer. There was a dead calm in the air, a threatening +blackness in the west that made the farmers think anxiously of their +hay. Presently the thunderheads ran together into big black clouds, +which melted in turn into molten masses of smoky orange, so that the +heavens were like burnished brass. Drivers whipped up their horses, and +pedestrians hastened their steps. Steve Webster decided not to run even +the smallest risk of injuring so precious a commodity as Doxy Morton by +a shower of rain, so he drove into a friend's yard, put up his horse, +and waited till the storm should pass by. Brad Gibson stooped to drink +at a wayside brook, and as he bent over the water he heard a low, +murmuring, muttering sound that seemed to make the earth tremble. + +Then from hill to hill "leapt the live thunder." Even the distant +mountains seemed to have "found a tongue." A zigzag chain of lightning +flashed in the lurid sky, and after an appreciable interval another +peal, louder than the first, and nearer. + +The rain began to fall, the forked flashes of flame darted hither and +thither in the clouds, and the boom of heaven's artillery grew heavier +and heavier. The blinding sheets of light and the tumultuous roar +of sound now followed each other so quickly that they seemed almost +simultaneous. Flash--crash--flash--crash--flash--crash; blinding and +deafening eye and ear at once. Everybody who could find a shelter of any +sort hastened to it. The women at home set their children in the midst +of feather beds, and some of them even huddled there themselves, their +babies clinging to them in sympathetic fear, as the livid shafts of +light illuminated the dark rooms with more than noonday glare. + +The air was full of gloom; a nameless terror lurked within it; the +elements seemed at war with each other. Horses whinnied in the stables, +and colts dashed about the pastures. The cattle sought sheltered places; +the cows ambling clumsily towards some refuge, their full bags dripping +milk as they swung heavily to and fro. The birds flew towards the +orchards and the deep woods; the swallows swooped restlessly round the +barns, and hid themselves under the eaves or in the shadow of deserted +nests. + +The rain now fell in sheets. + +"Hurry up 'n' git under cover, Jabe," said Brad Gibson; "you're jest the +kind of a pole to draw lightnin'!" + +"You hain't, then!" retorted Jabe. "There ain't enough o' you fer +lightnin' to ketch holt of!" + +Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped out of a cloud, and then +another, till the sky seemed lit up by cataracts of flame. A breath of +wind sprang into the still air. Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, +roar, peal! and as Jabe Slocum looked out of a protecting shed door, +he saw a fiery ball burst from the clouds, shooting brazen arrows as it +fell. Within the instant the meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue +of flame, and then, looking towards home, he fancied that the fireball +dropped to earth in Squire Bean's meadow. + +The wind blew more fiercely now. There was a sudden crackling of wood, +falling of old timers, and breaking of glass. The deadly fluid ran in a +winding course down a great maple by the shed, leaving a narrow charred +channel through the bark to tell how it passed to earth. A sombre pine +stood up, black and burned, its heart gaping through a ghastly wound in +the split trunk. + +The rain now subsided; there was only an occasional faint rumbling of +thunder, as if it were murmuring over the distant sea; the clouds broke +away in the west; the sun peeped out, as if to see what had been going +on in the world since he hid himself an hour before. A delicate rainbow +bridge stretched from the blackened church steeple to the glittering +weathercock on the squire's barn; and there, in the centre of the fair +green meadows from which it had risen in glorious strength and beauty +for a century or more, lay the nooning tree. + +The fireball, if ball of fire indeed there were, had struck in the very +centre of its splendid dome, and ploughed its way from feather tip to +sturdy root, riving the tree in twain, cleaving its great boughs left +and right, laying one majestic half level with the earth, and bending +the other till the proud head almost touched the grass. + +The rainbow was reflected in the million drops glittering upon the bowed +branches, turning each into a tear of liquid opal. The birds hopped on +the prone magnificence, and eyed timorously a strange object underneath. + +There had been one swift, pitiless, merciful stroke! The monarch of the +meadow would never again feel the magic thrill of the sap in its veins, +nor the bursting of brown bud into green leaf. + +The birds would build their nests and sing their idyls in other boughs. +The "time of pleasure and love" was over with the nooning tree; over +too, with him who slept beneath; for under its fallen branches, with the +light of a great peace in his upturned face, lay the man from Tennessee. + + + + +THE FORE-ROOM RUG. + + +Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window of the village +watch-tower, so called because it commanded a view of nearly everything +that happened in Pleasant River; those details escaping the physical +eye being supplied by faith and imagination working in the light of +past experience. She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, +the high-backed rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's +mother, old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still +more powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. +Diadema's seat had formerly been on the less desirable side of the +little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed. + +Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having +been transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber; for, as the teacher at the +brick schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and +the daughter of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable +consequence. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were +alone. It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every +part. The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven +entirely of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed +localities by button rugs,--red, white, and blue disks superimposed one +on the other. + +Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, +Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, and +handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. +This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination, +and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished the +sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, whose sword +and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows of bright +red cotton. + +The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, the turkey +wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against the white-painted +chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white shades were finished +with home-made scarlet "tossels." A little whatnot in one corner was +laden with the trophies of battle. The warrior's brass buttons were +strung on a red picture cord and hung over his daguerreotype on the +upper shelf; there was a tarnished shoulder strap, and a flattened +bullet that the captain's jealous contemporaries swore _he_ never +stopped, unless he got it in the rear when he was flying from the foe. +There was also a little tin canister in which a charge of powder had +been sacredly preserved. The scoffers, again, said that "the cap'n put +it in his musket when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he +come out." These objects were tastefully decorated with the national +colors. In fact, no modern aesthete could have arranged a symbolic +symphony of grief and glory with any more fidelity to an ideal than +Diadema Bascom, in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue. + +Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, and a +tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. The tall clock in +the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis never tired of looking +at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group of stars on a blue ground, the +trig little ship, the old house, and the jolly moon again, creeping one +after another across the open space at the top. + +Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of the last horse +trade; little Jot was building "stickin'" houses in the barn; Priscilla +was sewing long strips for braiding; while Diadema sat at the drawing-in +frame, hook in hand, and a large basket of cut rags by her side. + +Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical visits to the +attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would +have thought of dusting a garret, washing the window and sweeping down +the cobwebs once a month, and renewing the camphor bags in the chests +twice a year; but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had +made their way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of +all,--the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. Once +ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded relics, and reduced +the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema as "reg'lar +riddlin' sieves." She had brought the tattered pile down in to the +kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon in cutting the good pieces +from the perforated garments. Three heaped-up baskets and a full +dish-pan were the result; and as she had snipped and cut and sorted, +one of her sentimental projects had entered her mind and taken complete +possession there. + +"I declare," she said, as she drew her hooking-needle in and out, "I +wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work on these pieces; for +every time I draw in a scrap of cloth Lovice comes up to me for all the +world as if she was settin' on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan, +Miss Hollis, and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to +be a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought in together, just +as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. Her things and +mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't cheat me out of 'em +altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, and shake 'em out, and +have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em up into a kind of dumb show that +will mean something to me, if it don't to anybody else. + +"We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, and we was twins. There +'s never been more 'n half o' me left sence she died. We was born +together, played and went to school together, got engaged and married +together, and we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite alike. +There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, 'There's +sister Nabby, now: she 'n' I ain't no more alike 'n if we wa'n't two; +she 's jest as diff'rent as I am t' other way.' Well, I know what I want +to put into my rag story, Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to +begin." + +Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest. + +"A spray of two roses in the centre,--there 's the beginning; why, don't +you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?" + +"Course I do," said Diadema, diving to the bottom of the dish-pan. "I've +got my start now, and don't you say a word for a minute. The two roses +grow out of one stalk; they'll be Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able +more like a potato blossom. The stalk 's got to be green, and here +is the very green silk mother walked bride in, and Lovey and I had +roundabouts of it afterwards. She had the chicken-pox when we was about +four years old, and one of the first things I can remember is climbing +up and looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. Mother +had let her slip on her new green roundabout over her nightgown, just to +pacify her, and there she set playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had +brought her. He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting +Lovice. + +"The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, and mother +and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. Mother +used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young ones and +looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice of us in the +daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when the turn-up +bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds were full, +she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. One night, when +she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, father come in and +asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors had seen him +playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she 'd counted +us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. Now, Mr. +Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she carried the +candle close to the beds to take another tally, there was thirteen +children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a red-headed Granger right in +amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! While father set out on a hunt +for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy little red-headed Granger out o' +the middle and took him home, and father found Moses asleep on a pile of +shavings under the joiner's bench. + +"They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles went +all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said there +wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they didn't +start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; I'm going +to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, while I'm in the +sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain work of matching colors +and filling out. + +"You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green of the moss +roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. I meant to make 'em +red, when I marked the pattern, and then fill out round 'em with a light +color; but now I ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing +will do in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. I shall +have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't be out of the +way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; for Lovey's life went out +altogether, and mine hasn't been any too gay. + +"I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and the +liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you could +shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. Reuben +Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; but when +he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, the others had it +all their own way. She was only seventeen; she hadn't ever experienced +religion, and she was mischeevous as a kitten. + +"You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told about +Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company with Lovey; but +she couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court her she clim' into +a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. The boys found it out, and +used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett." He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' +Four Corners; and that 's saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous +for its fools, and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one +year. They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur +as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare if he +didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, standing in their +front dooryards ready to answer questions. When he got to Dunstan, says +he, 'For the Lord's sake, what kind of a village is that I've just went +through? Be they _all_ fools there?' + +"Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. One night, +when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she always done, he come +back a second time, and she went to the door, not mistrusting it was +him. 'Did you forget anything?' says she, sparkling out at him through +a little crack. He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered +out, 'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, for I +didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, and I don't make +no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.' How we did laugh over that! +Well, he had a conviction of sin pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps +it helped his head some; at any rate he quit farming, and become a +Bullockite preacher. + +"It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, she should have +drawed the most pious young men in the village, but she did: she had +good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, Millerites and Adventists, +all on her string together; she even had one Cochranite, though the +sect had mostly died out. But when Reuben Granger come home, a +full-feathered-out minister, he seemed to strike her fancy as he never +had before, though they were always good friends from children. He had +light hair and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover +kep' him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple you +ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no otherways than +scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change of heart that winter; in +fact she had two of 'em, for she changed hers for Reuben's, and found a +hope at the same time. 'T was a good honest conversion, too, though she +did say to me she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love +was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it to love God +as she 'd ought to. + +"There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished. I sha'n't +have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky the moths spared one +breadth of the wedding dresses; we was married on the same day, you +know, and dressed just alike. Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for +he wa'n't any more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; +but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from the start, +and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' the percession.--Now what +next?" + +"Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?" asked +Priscilla, with an amused smile. + +"Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! I know +what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think I should have +forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked into the story, certain; +but it'll be consid'able of a chore, for I can't make flowers out of +coat and pants stuff, and there ain't any more flowers on this branch +anyway." + +Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, and then made a sudden +inspired dash upstairs, where Miss Hollis presently heard her rummaging +in an old chest. She soon came down, triumphant. + +"Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! And +here they are,--one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. Do you know +what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly hovering over +them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,--green with brown +spots. That'll bring in the husbands; and land! I wouldn't have either +of 'em know it for the world. I'll take a pattern of that lunar moth you +pinned on the curtain yesterday." + +Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. "You have some very ingenious +ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, do you know it?" + +"It's the first time I ever heard tell of it," said Diadema cheerfully. +"Lovey was the pretty-spoken, pretty-appearing one; I was always plain +and practical. While I think of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this +red into my carnation pink. It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from +Portland. It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said +if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, it meant +business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never was a more liberal +husband, though he was a poor minister; but then they always _are_ poor, +without they're rich; there don't seem to be any halfway in ministers. + +"We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot Bascom's +body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes into the +bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. He never +asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. You 've never +been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, so you don't know much +about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' foolishness talked about +husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, I don't know as it +matters if all the other women folks in town don't happen to like him +as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that. They see the face +he turns to them, not the one he turns to you. Jot ain't a very good +provider, nor he ain't a man that 's much use round a farm, but he 's +such a fav'rite I can't blame him. There 's one thing: when he does +come home he 's got something to say, and he 's always as lively as a +cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. I like a man that 's good +comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded. There ain't anything specially +lovable about forehandedness, when you come to that. I shouldn't ever +feel drawed to a man because he was on time with his work. He 's got +such pleasant ways, Jot has! The other afternoon he didn't get home +early enough to milk; and after I done the two cows, I split the +kindling and brought in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the +tavern and tell the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't +anybody but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's +going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. And +he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need any apple +juice to limber _his_ tongue! + +"Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, and the full wood-box, +and the supper laid out under the screen cloth on the kitchen table, and +he come up to me at the sink, and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best +wife in this county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what +_you_ are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) +Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a +man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove +looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss +Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a +husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't +too busy; it smooths things consid'able round the house. + +"There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went on and +finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. Now what comes next? +Why, the thing that happened next, of course, and that was little Jot. + +"I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, and my bud'll be made +of Jot's first trousers. The goods ain't very appropriate for a rosebud, +but it'll have to do, for the idee is the most important thing in this +rug. When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, and it +was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy me anything; so I +made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, and lined 'em with flannel." + +"Buds are generally the same color as the roses, aren't they?" ventured +Priscilla. + +"I don't care if they be," said Diadema obstinately. "What's to hender +this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger was as black as an Injun, but +the little Granger children were all red-headed, for they took after +their father. But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit +with it. I s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; but +the moths never et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. There's +one thing I can do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, and have it +growing right up alongside of mine,--would you?" + +"No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, flesh of your +flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea is the first thing. +Besides, the gray is a very light shade, and I dare say it will look +like a bluish white." + +"I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths _had_ eat +the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. Lovey worked the +scallops on the aidge for me. My grief! what int'rest she took in my +baby clothes! Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come +over from Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first +church. I shall never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life. +There was deep snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, with the +door opening into the setting-room. Mother and father Bascom kep' out in +the dining-room and kitchen, where the work was going on, and Lovey and +the baby and me had the front part of the house to ourselves, with Jot +coming in on tiptoe, heaping up wood in the fireplace so 't he 'most +roasted us out. He don't forget his chores in time o' sickness. + +"I never took so much comfort in all my days. Jot got one of the +Billings girls to come over and help in the housework, so 't I could +lay easy 's long as I wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor +since. There ain't any heaven in the book o' Revelations that 's any +better than them two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good feather +bed, fingering the pattern of my best crochet quilt, and looking at the +fire-light shining on Lovey and the baby. She 'd hardly leave him in the +cradle a minute. When I did n't want him in bed with me, she 'd have +him in her lap. Babies are common enough to most folks, but Lovey was +diff'rent. She 'd never had any experience with children, either, for we +was the youngest in our family; and it wa'n't long before we come near +being the oldest, too, for mother buried seven of us before she went +herself. Anyway, I never saw nobody else look as she done when she held +my baby. I don't mean nothing blasphemious when I say 't was for all the +world like your photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus. + +"The nights come in early, so it was 'most dark at four o'clock. +The little chamber was so peaceful! I could hear Jot rattling the +milk-pails, but I'd draw a deep breath o' comfort, for I knew the milk +would be strained and set away without my stepping foot to the floor. +Lovey used to set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand +behind her, and a little white knit cape over her shoulders. She had the +pinkest cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and a mouth like a little red +buttonhole; and when she bent over the baby, and sung to him,--though +his ears wa'n't open, I guess for his eyes wa'n't,--the tears o' joy +used to rain down my cheeks. It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing +mostly, and the one I remember best was + + + "'Daniel's wisdom may I know, + Stephen's faith and spirit show; + John's divine communion feel, + Moses' meekness, Joshua's zeal, + Run like the unwearied Paul, + Win the day and conquer all. + + + "'Mary's love may I possess, + Lydia's tender-heartedness, + Peter's fervent spirit feel, + James's faith by works reveal, + Like young Timothy may I + Every sinful passion fly.' + + +"'Oh Diademy,' she 'd say, 'you was always the best, and it 's nothing +more 'n right the baby should have come to you. P'r'aps God will think +I'm good enough some time; and if he does, Diademy, I'll offer up a +sacrifice every morning and every evening. But I'm afraid,' says she, +'he thinks I can't stand any more happiness, and be a faithful follower +of the cross. The Bible says we 've got to wade through fiery floods +before we can enter the kingdom. I don't hardly know how Reuben and I +are going to find any way to wade through; we're both so happy, they 'd +have to be consid'able hot before we took notice,' says she, with the +dimples all breaking out in her cheeks. + +"And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done was +just right, and he thought everything she done was just right. There +wa'n't nobody else; the world was all Reuben 'n' all Lovey to them. +If you could have seen her when she was looking for him to come from +Skowhegan! She used to watch at the attic window; and when she seen him +at the foot of the hill she 'd up like a squirrel, and run down the road +without stopping for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. And +Reuben would ketch her up as if she was a child, and scold her for not +putting a hat on, and take her under his coat coming up the hill. They +was a sight for the neighbors, I must confess, but it wa'n't one you +could hardly disapprove of, neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting +Providence and couldn't last, and God would visit his wrath on 'em for +making idols of sinful human flesh. + +"She was right one way,--it didn't last; but nobody can tell me God was +punishing of 'em for being too happy. I guess he 'ain't got no objection +to folks being happy here below, if they don't forget it ain't the whole +story. + +"Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey's stalk now, and I'm going to make +it of her baby's long white cloak. I earned the money for it myself, +making coats, and put four yards of the finest cashmere into it; for +three years after little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help +Lovey through her time o' trial. Time o' trial! I thought I was happy, +but I didn't know how to be as happy as Lovey did; I wa'n't made on that +pattern. + +"When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, same as mine), her eyes +shone like two evening stars. She held up her weak arms, and gathered +the little bundle o' warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close +she shut her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking her lamb +to the altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. Then Reuben come in. I +seen him give one look at the two dark heads laying close together on +the white piller, and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. +'T wa'n't no place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. We didn't +mistrust it then, but they only had three days more of happiness, and +I'm glad I give 'em every minute." + +The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over the hills of Pleasant +River. Priscilla's lip trembled; Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on +the white rosebud, and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed +the pattern. + + +"I ain't said as much as this about it for five years," she went on, +with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, "but now I've got going I can't +stop. I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow. + +"Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord called her +home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little new life, Reuben,' says she +holding the baby as if she could never let it go, 'I didn't think I'd +got to give up my own in place of it; but it's the first fiery flood +we've had, dear, and though it burns to my feet I'll tread it as brave +as I know how.' + +"She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded away like a +snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared at one another in the +face as if we was dead instead of her, and we went about that house o' +mourning like sleep-walkers for days and says, not knowing whether we et +or slept, or what we done. + +"As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live many hours after its +mother, and we buried 'em together. Reuben and I knew what Lovey would +have liked. She gave her life for the baby's, and it was a useless +sacrifice, after all. No, it wa'n't neither; it _could_n't have been! +You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come out useless! +But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, and I opened Lovey's arms +and laid the baby in 'em. When Reuben and I took our last look, we +thought she seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. There +never was another like her, and there never will be. 'Nonesuch,' Reuben +used to call her." + +There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking of the old +clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. Priscilla made an impetuous +movement, flung herself down by the basket of rags, and buried her head +in Diadema's gingham apron. + +"Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say." + +"No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see me give way. +You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, so 't the kettle will +be boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. I don't know what the +neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my drawing-in frame; but +the spell's over now, or 'bout over, and when I can muster up courage +I'll take the rest of the baby's cloak and put a border of white +everlastings round the outside of the rug. I'll always mean the baby's +birth and Lovey's death to me; but the flowers will remind me it 's life +everlasting for both of 'em, and so it's the most comforting end I can +think of." + +It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid in front of +the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. When company +was expected she removed it from its accustomed place, and spread it in +a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly tread on it. +Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. If they seated +themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not "set easy" or "rest +comfortable" there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed chair by +the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely another sign of +Diadema's "p'ison neatness," excusable in this case as there was so much +white in the new rug. + +The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness of death +pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, when the sun was +allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes of glass in each window, +and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, Miss Hollis would look in as +she went upstairs, and muse a moment over the pathetic little romance +of rags, the story of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned +posies, whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads. +Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that +all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, +motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, were +chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square. + +Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon. + +"I cal'late," she said, "that being kep' in a dark room, and never being +tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, you know +that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: that would +make a second row of everlastings round the border. You could piece +out the linings good and smooth on the under side, draw in the white +flowers, and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. The rug would be +han'somer than ever then, and the story--would be finished." + + + + +A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. + + +I. + + + "Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, + Know more than any book. + Down with your doleful problems, + And court the sunny brook. + The south-winds are quick-witted, + The schools are sad and slow, + The masters quite omitted + The lore we care to know." + + Emerson's _April._ + + +"Find the 317th page, Davy, and begin at the top of the right-hand +column." + +The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and +then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:-- + +"'One of Pag-pag'"-- + +"Pag-a-ni-ni's." + +"'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories didn't +have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs he had when +playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, uncle Tony?) 'Some +one asked him to im-pro-vise on the violin the story of a son who kills +his father, runs a-way, becomes a highway-man, falls in love with a +girl who will not listen to him; so he leads her to a wild country site, +suddenly jumping with her from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s'"-- + +"Abyss." + +"'--a--rock--into--an--abyss, were they disappear forever. Paggernyner +listened quietly, and when the story was at an end he asked that all the +lights should be distinguished.'" + +"Look closer, Davy." + +"'Should be extinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was +the musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him +that several of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-s_a_lon, when +relighted, looked like a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like to +have been there, uncle Tony? But I don't believe anybody ever played +that way, do you?" + +"Yes," said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes to the +elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. "I believe it, and I can hear +it myself when you read the story to me. I feel that the secret of +everything in the world that is beautiful, or true, or terrible, is +hidden in the strings of my violin, Davy, but only a master can draw it +from captivity." + +"You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, even if the ladies +don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen doesn't look like a +battle-field when you 've finished. I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, +for I should have more housework to do than ever." + +"Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; +but it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your pictures, +laddie; make me see with your eyes." + +The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, barely +touching the old millstone that served for a step. Taking a stand in +the well-worn path, he rested his hands on his hips, swept the landscape +with the glance of an eagle, and began like a young improvisator:-- + +"The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill." + +"What color is it?" + +"Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it,--it 's almost alone +in the sky; there 's only teenty little white feather clouds here and +there. The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two sides +of the river together. The water is pink where the sun shines into it. +All the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red light,--I +tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass. The weather +vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems to be shooting +gold arrows into the river. I can see the tip top of Mount Washington +where the peak of its snow-cap touches the pink sky. The hen-house door +is open. The chickens are all on their roost, with their heads cuddled +under their wings." + +"Did you feed them?" + +The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture of +penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he +scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating +calls of "Chick, chick, chick, chick! _Come,_ biddy, biddy, biddy, +biddy! _Come,_ chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!" + +The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanor of somebody very +dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a corner +shelf, took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a silk bag. +He removed the covering with reverential hands. The tenderness of the +face was like that of a young mother dressing or undressing her child. +As he fingered the instrument his hands seemed to have become all eyes. +They wandered caressingly over the polished surface as if enamored of +the perfect thing that they had created, lingering here and there with +rapturous tenderness on some special beauty,--the graceful arch of +the neck, the melting curves of the cheeks, the delicious swell of the +breasts. + +When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, and +lifting the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly toward it +and began to play. + +The tune at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, that began +in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' the playing grew firmer and +clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness and strength until +the atmosphere was satiated with harmony. No more ethereal note ever +flew out of a bird's throat than Anthony Croft set free from this +violin, his _liebling_, his "swan song," made in the year he had lost +his eyesight. + +Anthony Croft had been the only son of his mother, and she a widow. His +boyhood had been exactly like that of all the other boys in Edgewood, +save that he hated school a trifle more, if possible, than any of the +others; though there was a unanimity of aversion in this matter that +surprised and wounded teachers and parents. + +The school was the ordinary "deestrick" school of that time; there were +not enough scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a "degraded" school. +The difference between Anthony and the other boys lay in the reason as +well as the degree of his abhorrence. + +He had come into the world a naked, starving human soul; he longed to +clothe himself, and he was hungry and ever hungrier for knowledge; but +never within the four walls of the village schoolhouse could he get hold +of one fact that would yield him its secret sense, one glimpse of clear +light that would shine in upon the "darkness which may be felt" in his +mind, one thought or word that would feed his soul. + +The only place where his longings were ever stilled, where he seemed at +peace with himself, where he understood what he was made for, was out +of doors in the woods. When he should have been poring over the sweet, +palpitating mysteries of the multiplication table, his vagrant gaze was +always on the open window near which he sat. He could never study when a +fly buzzed on the window-pane; he was always standing on the toes of his +bare feet, trying to locate and understand the buzz that puzzled him. +The book was a mute, soulless thing that had no relation to his +inner world of thought and feeling. He turned ever from the dead +seven-times-six to the mystery of life about him. + +He was never a special favorite with his teachers; that was scarcely to +be expected. In his very early years, his pockets were gone through with +every morning when he entered the school door, and the contents, when +confiscated, would comprise a jew's-harp, a bit of catgut, screws +whittled out of wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. But when robbed +of all these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, which, when +put between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, would yield +a delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. He could also +fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means of spools +and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life was an +old tuning-fork that the teacher of the singing school had given him, +but, owing to the degrading and arbitrary censorship of pockets that +prevailed, he never dared bring it into the schoolroom. There were ways, +however, of evading inexorable law and circumventing base injustice. +He hid the precious thing under a thistle just outside the window. The +teacher had sometimes a brief season of apathy on hot afternoons, when +she was hearing the primer class read, "_I see a pig. The pig is big. +The big pig can dig;_" which stirring in phrases were always punctuated +by the snores of the Hanks baby, who kept sinking down on his fat little +legs in the line and giving way to slumber during the lesson. At such +a moment Anthony slipped out of the window and snapped the tuning-fork +several times,--just enough to save his soul from death,--and then +slipped in again. He was caught occasionally, but not often; and even +when he was, there were mitigating circumstances, for he was generally +put under the teacher's desk for punishment. It was a dark, close, +sultry spot, but when he was well seated, and had grown tied of looking +at the triangle of elastic in the teacher's congress boot, and tired +of wishing it was his instead of hers, he would tie one end of a bit of +thread to the button of his gingham shirt, and, carrying it round his +left ear several times, make believe he was Paganini languishing in +prison and playing on a violin with a single string. + +As he grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony Croft was by +general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. That he was lazy +in certain matters merely because he was in a frenzy of industry to +pursue certain others had nothing to do with the case, of course. + +If any one had ever given him a task in which he could have seen cause +working to effect, in which he could have found by personal experiment a +single fact that belonged to him, his own by divine right of discovery, +he would have counted labor or study all joy. + +He was one incarnate Why and How, one brooding wonder and interrogation +point. "Why does the sun drive away the stars? Why do the leaves turn +red and gold? What makes the seed swell in the earth? From whence comes +the life hidden in the egg under the bird's breast? What holds the moon +in the sky? Who regulates her shining? Who moves the wind? Who made +me, and what am I? Who, why, how whither? If I came from God but only +lately, teach me his lessons first, put me into vital relation with +life and law, and then give me your dead signs and equivalents for real +things, that I may learn more and more, and ever more and ever more." + +There was no spirit in Edgewood bold enough to conceive that Tony +learned anything in the woods, but as there was never sufficient school +money to keep the village seat of learning open more than half the year +the boy educated himself at the fountain head of wisdom, and knowledge +of the other half. His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched +from a hen's egg, and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black +sheep and a crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony had +more useless information than any boy in the village. He knew just where +to find the first Mayflowers, and would bring home the waxen beauties +when other people had scarcely begun to think about the spring. He could +tell where to look for the rare fringed gentian, the yellow violet, the +Indian pipe. There were clefts in the rocks of the Indian Cellar where, +when every one else failed, he could find harebells and columbines. + +When his tasks were done, and the other boys were amusing themselves +each in his own way, you would find Tony lying flat on the pine needles +in the woods, listening to the notes of the wild birds, and imitating +them patiently, til you could scarcely tell which was boy and which was +bird; and if you could, the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed +the bobolinks and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head and +chirp to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about +the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have +taken hold and helped if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had +had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. He would sit near a beehive +for hours without moving, or lie prone in the sandy road, under the +full glare of the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy; +sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the comedy might +not be turned into a tragedy by a careless footfall. The cottage on the +river road grew more and more to resemble a museum and herbarium as the +years went by, and the Widow Croft's weekly house-cleaning was a matter +that called for the exercise of Christian grace. + +Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, considerate, and obedient. +His mother had no idea that he would ever be able, or indeed willing, +to make a living; but there was a forest of young timber growing up, a +small hay farm to depend upon, and a little hoard that would keep him +out of the poorhouse when she died and left him to his own devices. +It never occurred to her that he was in any way remarkable. If he were +difficult to understand, it reflected more upon his eccentricity than +upon her density. What was a woman to do with a boy of twelve who, when +she urged him to drop the old guitar he was taking apart and hurry off +to school, cried, "Oh, mother! when there is so much to learn in this +world, it is wicked, wicked to waste time in school." + +About this period Tony spent hours in the attic arranging bottles and +tumblers into a musical scale. He also invented an instrument made +of small and great, long and short pins, driven into soft board to +different depths, and when the widow passed his door on the way to bed +she invariable saw this barbaric thing locked up to the boy's breast, +for he often played himself to sleep with it. + +At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put together again, strengthened, +soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced every accordion, guitar, +melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the +neighboring villages. There was a little money to be earned in this way, +but very little, as people in general regarded this "tinkering" as a +pleasing diversion in which they could indulge him without danger. As +an example of this attitude, Dr. Berry's wife's melodeon had lost two +stops, the pedals had severed connection with the rest of the works, +it wheezed like an asthmatic, and two black keys were missing. Anthony +worked more than a week on its rehabilitation, and received in return +Mrs. Berry's promise that the doctor would pull a tooth for him some +time! This, of course, was a guerdon for the future, but it seemed +pathetically distant to the lad who had never had a toothache in his +life. He had to plead with Cyse Higgins for a week before that prudent +young farmer would allow him to touch his five-dollar fiddle. He +obtained permission at last only because by offering to give Cyse his +calf in case he spoiled the violin. "That seems square," said Cyse +doubtfully, "but after all, you can't play on a calf!" "Neither will +your fiddle give milk, if you keep it long enough," retorted Tony; and +this argument was convincing. + +So great was his confidence in Tony's skill that Squire Bean trusted his +father's violin to him, one that had been bought in Berlin seventy years +before. It had been hanging on the attic wall for a half century, so +that the back was split in twain, the sound-post lost, the neck and the +tailpiece cracked. The lad took it home, and studied it for two whole +evenings before the open fire. The problem of restoring it was quite +beyond his abilities. He finally took the savings of two summers' +"blueberry money" and walked sixteen miles to Portland, where he bought +a book called The Practical Violinist. The Supplement proved to be +a mine of wealth. Even the headings appealed to his imagination and +intoxicated him with their suggestions,--On Scraping, Splitting, and +Repairing Violins, Violin Players, Great Violinists, Solo Playing, +etc.; and at the very end a Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, +Repair, and Improvement of the Violin, by Jacob Augustus Friedheim, +Instrument Maker to the Court of the Archduke of Weimar. + +There was a good deal of moral advice in the preface that sadly puzzled +the boy, who was always in a condition of chronic amazement at the +village disapprobation of his favorite fiddle. That the violin did not +in some way receive the confidence enjoyed by other musical instruments, +he perceived from various paragraphs written by the worthy author of The +Practical Violinist, as for example:-- + +"Some very excellent Christian people hold a strong prejudice against +the violin because they have always known it associated with dancing and +dissipation. Let it be understood that your violin is 'converted,' and +such an obligation will no longer lie against it. ... Many delightful +hours may be enjoyed by a young man, if he has obtained a respectable +knowledge of his instrument, who otherwise would find the time hang +heavy on his hands; or, for want of some better amusement, would +frequent the dangerous and destructive paths of vice and be ruined +forever. ... I am in hopes, therefore, my dear young pupil, that your +violin will occupy your attention at just those very times when, if you +were immoral or dissipated, you would be at the grogshop, gaming-table, +or among vicious females. Such a use of the violin, notwithstanding the +prejudices many hold against it, must contribute to virtue, and furnish +abundance of innocent and entirely unobjectionable amusement. These are +the views with which I hope you have adopted it, and will continue to +cherish and cultivate it." + + +II. + + + "There is no bard in all the choir, + ....... + Not one of all can put in verse, + Or to this presence could rehearse + The sights and voices ravishing + The boy knew on the hills in spring, + When pacing through the oaks he heard + Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, + The heavy grouse's sudden whir, + The rattle of the kingfisher." + + Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Now began an era of infinite happiness, of days that were never long +enough, of evenings when bedtime came all too soon. Oh that there had +been some good angel who would have taken in hand Anthony Croft the +boy, and, training the powers that pointed so unmistakably in certain +directions, given to the world the genius of Anthony Croft, potential +instrument maker to the court of St. Cecilia; for it was not only that +he had the fingers of a wizard; his ear caught the faintest breath of +harmony or hint of discord, as + + + "Fairy folk a-listening + Hear the seed sprout in the spring, + And for music to their dance + Hear the hedge-rows wake from trance; + Sap that trembles into buds + Sending little rhythmic floods + Of fairy sound in fairy ears. + Thus all beauty that appears + Has birth as sound to finer sense + And lighter-clad intelligence." + + +As the universe is all mechanism to one man, all form and color to +another, so to Anthony Croft the world was all melody. Notwithstanding +all these gifts and possibilities, the doctor's wife advised the Widow +Croft to make a plumber of him, intimating delicately that these freaks +of nature, while playing no apparent part in the divine economy, could +sometimes be made self-supporting. + +The seventeenth year of his life marked a definite epoch in his +development. He studied Jacob Friedheim's treatise until he knew +the characteristics of all the great violin models, from the Amatis, +Hieronymus, Antonius, and Nicolas, to those of Stradivarius, Guarnerius, +and Steiner. + +It was in this year, also, that he made a very precious discovery. While +browsing in the rubbish in Squire Bean's garret to see if he could find +the missing sound-post of the old violin, he came upon a billet of wood +wrapped in cloth and paper. When unwrapped, it was plainly labeled "Wood +from the Bean Maple at Pleasant Point; the biggest maple in York County, +and believed to be one of the biggest in the State of Maine." Anthony +found that the oldest inhabitant of Pleasant River remembered the stump +of the tree, and that the boys used to jump over it and admire +its proportions whenever they went fishing at the Point. The wood, +therefore, was perhaps eighty or ninety years old. The squire agreed +willingly that it should be used to mend the old violin, and told Tony +he should have what was left for himself. When, by careful calculation, +he found that the remainder would make a whole violin, he laid it +reverently away for another twenty years, so that he should be sure it +had completed its century of patient waiting for service, and falling on +his knees by his bedside said, "I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for +this precious gift, and I promise from this moment to gather the most +beautiful wood I can find, and lay it by where it can be used some time +to make perfect violins, so that if any creature as poor and helpless as +I am needs the wherewithal to do good work, I shall have helped him as +Thou hast helped me." And according to his promise so he did, and the +pieces of richly curled maple, of sycamore, and of spruce began to +accumulate. They were cut from the sunny side of the trees, in just +the right season of the year, split so as to have a full inch thickness +towards the bark, and a quarter inch towards the heart. They were then +laid for weeks under one of the falls in Wine Brook, where the musical +tinkle, tinkle of the stream fell on the wood already wrought upon by +years of sunshine and choruses of singing birds. + + +This boy, toiling not alone for himself, but with full and conscious +purpose for posterity also, was he not worthy to wear the mantle of +Antonius Stradivarius? + + +"That plain white-aproned man who stood at work Patient and accurate +full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, +And since keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect violins, the +needed paths For inspiration and high mastery." + +And as if the year were not full enough of glory, the school-teacher +sent him a book with a wonderful poem in it. + +That summer's teaching had been the freak of a college student, who had +gone back to his senior year strengthened by his experience of village +life. Anthony Croft, who was only three or four years his junior, had +been his favorite pupil and companion. + +"How does Tony get along?" asked the Widow Croft when the teacher came +to call. + +"Tony? Oh, I can't teach him anything." + +Tears sprang to the mother's eyes. + +"I know he ain't much on book learning," she said apologetically, "but +I'm bound he don't make you no trouble in deportment." + +"I mean," said the school-teacher gravely, "that I can show him how to +read a little Latin and do a little geometry, but he knows as much in +one day as I shall ever know in a year." + +Tony crouched by the old fireplace in the winter evenings, dropping his +knife or his compasses a moment to read aloud to his mother, who sat in +the opposite corner knitting:-- + + + "Of old Antonio Stradivari,--him + Who a good quarter century and a half ago + Put his true work in the brown instrument, + And by the nice adjustment of its frame + Gave it responsive life, continuous + With the master's finger-tips, and perfected + Like them by delicate rectitude of use." + + +The mother listened with painful intentness. "I like the sound of it," +she said, "but I can't hardly say I take in the full sense." + +"Why mother," said the lad, in a rare moment of self-expression, "you +know the poetry says he cherished his sight and touch by temperance; +that an idiot might see a straggling line and be content, but he had +an eye that winced at false work, and loved the true. When it says his +finger-tips were perfected by delicate rectitude of use, I think it +means doing everything as it is done in heaven, and that anybody +who wants to make a perfect violin must keep his eye open to all the +beautiful things God has made, and his ear open to all the music he has +put into the world, and then never let his hands touch a piece of work +that is crooked or straggling or false, till, after years and years of +rightness, they are fit to make a violin like the squire's, a violin +that can say everything, a violin that an angel wouldn't be ashamed to +play on." + +Do these words seem likely ones to fall from the lips of a lad who had +been at the tail of his class ever since his primer days? Well, +Anthony was seventeen now, and he was "educated," in spite of sorry +recitations,--educated, the Lord knows how! Yes, in point of fact the +Lord does know how! He knows how the drill and pressure of the daily +task, still more the presence of the high ideal, the inspiration working +from within, how these educate us. + +The blind Anthony Croft sitting in the kitchen doorway had seemingly +missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked his close +on fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch in every +finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, feet +stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; seeing and +hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; for while +imperious genius surmounts all obstacles, brushes laws and formulas from +its horizon, and with its own free soul sees its "path and the outlets +of the sky," potential genius forever needs an angel of deliverance to +set it free. + +Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which,--God +knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. "One thing I do," +said Paul. "One thing I do," said Anthony. He was not able to realize +his ideals, but he had the "angel aim" by which he idealized his reals. + +O waiting heart of God! how soon would thy kingdom come if we all did +our allotted tasks, humble or splendid, in this consecrated fashion! + + +III. + + + "Therein I hear the Parcae reel + The threads of man at their humming wheel, + The threads of life and power and pain, + So sweet and mournful falls the strain." + + Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis, and died +of a Sunday night. She was all alone in her little cottage on the river +bank, with no neighbor nearer than Croft's, and nobody there but a blind +man and a small boy. Everybody had told her it was foolish to live alone +in a house on the river road, and everybody was pleased in a discreet +and chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly as they +had predicted. + +Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up to Milliken's Mills, with her +little black reticule hanging over her arm, and noticing that there +was no smoke coming out of the chimney, and that the hens were gathered +about the kitchen door clamoring for their breakfast, she thought it +best to stop and knock. No response followed the repeated blows from +her hard knuckles. She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom +window with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was +obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito netting +with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. This was a +considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, but this one +never grudged trouble when she wanted to find out anything. + +When she discovered that her premonitions were correct, and that +old Mrs. Butterfield was indeed dead, her grief at losing a pleasant +acquaintance was largely mitigated by her sense of importance at being +first on the spot, and chosen by Providence to take command of the +situation. There were no relations in the village; there was no woman +neighbor within a mile: it was therefore her obvious Christian duty not +only to take charge of the remains, but to conduct such a funeral as the +remains would have wished for herself. + +The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny to guide +the ship of state, the general who sees a possible Victoria Cross in +a hazardous engagement, can have a faint conception of aunt Hitty's +feeling on this momentous occasion. Funerals were the very breath of her +life. There was no ceremony, either of public or private import, that, +to her mind, approached a funeral in real satisfying interest. Yet, +with distinct talent in this direction, she had always been "cabined, +cribbed, confined" within hopeless limitations. She had assisted in a +secondary capacity at funerals in the families of other people, but she +would have reveled in personally conducted ones. The members of her own +family stubbornly refused to die, however, even the distant connections +living on and on to a ridiculous old age; and if they ever did die, by +reason of a falling roof, shipwreck, or conflagration, they generally +died in Texas or Iowa, or some remote State where aunt Hitty could not +follow the hearse in the first carriage. This blighted ambition was a +heart sorrow of so deep and sacred a character that she did not even +confess it to "Si," as her appendage of a husband was called. + +Now at last her chance for planning a funeral had come. Mrs. Butterfield +had no kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, who lived in Andover, +or Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts,--aunt Hitty couldn't remember +which, and hoped nobody else could. The niece would be sent for when +they found out where she lived; meanwhile the funeral could not be put +off. + +She glanced round the house preparatory to locking it up and starting +to notify Anthony Croft. She would just run over and talk to him about +ordering the coffin; then she could attend to all other necessary +preliminaries herself. The remains had been well-to-do, and there was no +occasion for sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined in her own mind to +have the latest fashion in everything, including a silver coffin plate. +The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to be proud of. They had +been sacredly preserved for years and years, and the entire +collection--numbering nineteen in all had been framed, and adorned the +walls of the deceased lady's best room. They were not of solid silver, +it is true, but even so it was a matter of distinction to have belonged +to a family that could afford to have nineteen coffin plates of any +sort. + +Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic details as she walked town the road +to Croft's. It came to her in a burst of inspiration that she would have +two ministers: one for the long prayer, and one for the short prayer and +the remarks. She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter +direction. She knew she couldn't for the life of her think of anything +interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she possessed nineteen +coffin plates, and brought her hens to Edgewood every summer for their +health; but she had heard Elder Weeks make a moving discourse out of +less than that. To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to +that. There was Ivory Brown's funeral: how would that have gone on if it +hadn't been for her? Wasn't the elder ten minutes late, and what would +his remarks have amounted to without her suggestions? You might almost +say she was the author of the discourse, for she gave him all the +appropriate ideas. As she had helped him out of the wagon she had said: +"Are you prepared? I thought not; but there's no time to lose. Remember +there are aged parents; two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane +Falls, the other clerking in Washington, D. C. Don't mention the +Universalists,--there's ben two in the fam'ly; nor insanity,--there 's +ben one o' them. The girl in the corner by the clock is the one that +the remains has been keeping comp'ny with. If you can make some genteel +allusions to her, it'll be much appreciated by his folks." + +As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied +on to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails. +She had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, got up +and straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually +"prayed" around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear. + +These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked quite +half a mile beyond Croft's, and was obliged to retrace her steps. +She conceived bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats of the +pallbearers, and a festoon of the same over the front gate, if there +should be any left over. She planned the singing by the choir. There +had been no real choir-singing at any funeral in Edgewood since the Rev. +Joshua Beckwith had died. She would ask them to open with-- + + Rebel mourner, cease your weepin'. + You too must die. + +This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty would be in +keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a +soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could +possibly sing it. It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks +officiated; but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder +always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief +over his head before beginning the twenty-seven verses. After the long +prayer, she would have Almira Berry give for a solo-- + + This gro-o-oanin' world 's too dark and + dre-e-ar for the saints' e - ter - nal rest, + +This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile one to death, enabled one to +look upon life with sufficient solemnity. It was a thousand pities, she +thought, that the old hearse was so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly +Eldridge, who drove it, would insist on wearing a faded peach-blow +overcoat. It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, +and contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River. In Egypt +they had sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, and now they were +having hearse sociables every month to raise money for a new one. + +All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in fascinating +procession. There shouldn't be "a hitch" anywhere. There had been a +hitch at her last funeral, but she had been only an assistant there. +Matt Henderson had been struck by lightning at the foot of Squire Bean's +old nooning tree, and certain circumstances combined to make the funeral +one of unusual interest, so much so that fat old Mrs. Potter from +Deerwander created a sensation at the cemetery. She was so anxious +to get where she could see everything to the best advantage that she +crowded too near the bier, stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched +into the grave. As she weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a +position of some disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from +the dilemma, and the operation made a long and somewhat awkward break in +the religious services. Aunt Hitty always said of this catastrophe, +"If I'd 'a' ben Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' +said, 'I wa'n't plannin' to be buried, but now I'm in here I declare +I'll stop!'" + +Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted an entire success by +the villagers, but the seal of professional approval was set upon it +by an undertaker from Saco, who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could make +a handsome living in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who always +assists those who assist themselves, decreed that the niece Lyddy Ann +should not arrive until the aunt was safely buried; so, there being +none to resist her right or grudge her the privilege aunt Hitty, for the +first time in her life, rode in the next buggy to the hearse. Si, in his +best suit, a broad weed and weepers, drove Cyse Higgins's black colt, +and aunt Hitty was dressed in deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's +crape veil over her face, and in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a +black ribbon. Her comment to Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that +night, was: "It was an awful dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in +it. It would 'a' ben perfect if there' ben anybody to shed tears. I +come pretty nigh it myself, though I ain't no relation, when Elder Weeks +said, 'You'll go round the house, my sisters, and Mis' Butterfield won't +be there; you'll go int' the orchard, and Mis' Butterfield won't be +there; you'll go int' the barn and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; +you'll go int' the shed, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go +int' the hencoop, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there!' That would 'a' +drawed tears from a stone most, 'specially sence Mis' Butterfield set +such store by her hens." + +And this is the way that Lyddy Butterfield came into her kingdom, a +little lone brown house on the river's brim. She had seen it only once +before when she had driven out from Portland, years ago, with her aunt. +Mrs. Butterfield lived in Portland, but spent her summers in Edgewood +on account of her chickens. She always explained that the country was +dreadful dull for her, but good for the hens; they always laid so much +better in the winter time. + +Lyddy liked the place all the better for its loneliness. She had never +had enough of solitude, and this quiet home, with the song of the +river for company, if one needed more company than chickens and a cat, +satisfied all her desires, particularly as it was accompanied by a snug +little income of two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum that seemed to +open up mysterious avenues of joy to her starved, impatient heart. + +When she was a mere infant, her brother was holding her on his knee +before the great old-fashioned fireplace heaped with burning logs. +A sudden noise startled him, and the crowing, restless baby gave an +unexpected lurch, and slipped, face downward, into the glowing embers. +It was a full minute before the horror-stricken boy could extricate the +little creature from the cruel flame that had already done its fatal +work. The baby escaped with her life, but was disfigured forever. As +she grew older, the gentle hand of time could not entirely efface the +terrible scars. One cheek was wrinkled and crimson, while one eye and +the mouth were drawn down pathetically. The accident might have changed +the disposition of any child, but Lyddy chanced to be a sensitive, +introspective bit of feminine humanity, in whose memory the burning +flame was never quenched. Her mother, partly to conceal her own wounded +vanity, and partly to shield the timid, morbid child, kept her out of +sight as much as possible; so that at sixteen, when she was left an +orphan, she had lived almost entirely in solitude. + +She became, in course of time, a kind of general nursery governess in a +large family of motherless children. The father was almost always away +from home; his sister kept the house, and Lyddy stayed in the nursery, +bathing the brood and putting them to bed, dressing them in the morning, +and playing with them in the safe privacy of the back garden or the open +attic. They loved her, disfigured as she was, for the child despises +mere externals, and explores the heart of things to see whether it be +good or evil,--but they could never induce her to see strangers, nor to +join any gathering of people. + +The children were grown and married now, and Lyddy was nearly forty when +she came into possession of house and lands and fortune; forty, with +twenty years of unexpended feeling pent within her. Forty, that is +rather old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter. Haven't you +seen girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been nibbled at ever +since they were sixteen, but who have neither caught anything nor been +caught? They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was forty and still young, +with her susceptibilities cherished, not dulled, and with all the +"language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely leafage about a +spring." + + +IV. + + + "He shall daily joy dispense + Hid in song's sweet influence." + + Emerson's _Merlin._ + + +Lyddy had very few callers during her first month as a property owner +in Edgewood. Her appearance would have been against her winning friends +easily in any case, even if she had not acquired the habits of a +recluse. It took a certain amount of time, too, for the community to get +used to the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead, and her niece +Lyddy Ann living in the cottage on the river road. There were numbers +of people who had not yet heard that old Mrs. Butterfield had bought the +house from the Thatcher boys, and that was fifteen years ago; but this +was not strange, for, notwithstanding aunt Hitty's valuable services in +disseminating general information, there was a man living on the Bonny +Eagle road who was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead, and +complained that folks were not so long-lived as they used to be. + +Aunt Hitty thought Lyddy a Goth and a Vandal because she took down +the twenty silver coffin plates and laid them reverently away. "Mis' +Butterfield would turn in her grave," she said, "if she knew it. She +ain't much of a housekeeper, I guess," she went on, as she cut over +Dr. Berry's old trousers into briefer ones for Tommy Berry. "She gives +considerable stuff to her hens that she'd a sight better heat over and +eat herself, in these hard times when the missionary societies can't +hardly keep the heathen fed and clothed and warmed--no, I don't mean +warmed, for most o' the heathens live in hot climates, somehow or +'nother. My back door's jest opposite hers; it's across the river, to +be sure, but it's the narrer part, and I can see everything she does as +plain as daylight. She washed a Monday, and she ain't taken her clothes +in yet, and it's Thursday. She may be bleachin' of 'em out, but it +looks slack. I said to Si last night I should stand it till 'bout +Friday,--seein' 'em lay on the grass there, but if she didn't take 'em +in then, I should go over and offer to help her. She has a fire in the +settin'-room 'most every night, though we ain't had a frost yet; and +as near's I can make out, she's got full red curtains hangin' up to her +windows. I ain't sure, for she don't open the blinds in that room till +I get away in the morning, and she shuts 'em before I get back at night. +Si don't know red from green, so he's useless in such matters. I'm going +home late to-night, and walk down on that side o' the river, so't I can +call in after dark and see what makes her house light up as if the sun +was settin' inside of it." + +As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling in house-furnishing of a humble +sort. She had a passion for color. There was a red-and-white straw +matting on the sitting-room floor. Reckless in the certain possession +of twenty dollars a month, she purchased yards upon yards of turkey red +cotton; enough to cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, for long +curtains at the windows, and for cushions to the rockers. She knotted +white fringes for the table covers and curtains, painted the inside +of the fireplace red, put some pots, of scarlet geraniums on the +window-sills, filled newspaper rack with ferns and tacked it over an +ugly spot in the wall, edged her work-basket with a tufted trimming of +scarlet worsted, and made an elaborate photograph case of white crash +and red cotton that stretched the entire length of the old-fashioned +mantelshelf, and held pictures of Mr. Reynolds, Miss Elvira Reynolds, +George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, Ella, and Rufus Reynolds, her former +charges. When all this was done, she lighted a little blaze on the +hearth, took the red curtains from their hands, let them fall gracefully +to the floor, and sat down in her rocking-chair, reconciled to her +existence for absolutely the first time in her forty years. + +I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough in Paradise to appreciate and +feel Lyddy's joy. I can even believe she was glad to have died, since +her dying could bring such content to any wretched living human soul. +As Lydia sat in the firelight, the left side of her poor face in shadow, +you saw that she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure, clad in plain +black-and-white calico dress, was a graceful, womanly one. She had +beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet wrist. Her hair was soft +and plentiful, and her hands were fine, strong, and sensitive. This +possibility of rare beauty made her scars and burns more pitiful, for +if a cheap chrome has smirch across its face, we think it a matter of no +moment, but we deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any work of real +art. + +Lydia felt a little less bitter and hopeless about life when she sat in +front of her own open fire, after her usual twilight walk. It was her +habit to wander down the wooded road after her simple five-o'clock +supper, gatherings ferns or goldenrod or frost flowers for her vases; +and one night she heard, above the rippling of the river, the strange, +sweet, piercing sound of Anthony Croft's violin. + +She drew nearer, and saw a middle-aged man sitting in the kitchen +doorway, with a lad of ten or twelve years leaning against his knees. +She could tell little of his appearance, save that he had a high +forehead, and hair that waved well back from it in rather an unusual +fashion. He was in his shirt-sleeves, but the gingham was scrupulously +clean, and he had the uncommon refinement of a collar and necktie. Out +of sight herself, Lyddy drew near enough to hear; and this she did every +night without recognizing that the musician was blind. The music had +a curious effect upon her. It was a hitherto unknown influence in her +life, and it interpreted her, so to speak, to herself. As she sat on +the bed of brown pine needles, under a friendly tree, her head resting +against its trunk, her eyes half closed, the tone of Anthony's violin +came like a heavenly message to a tired, despairing soul. Remember that +in her secluded life she had heard only such harmony as Elvira Reynolds +evoked from her piano or George Reynolds from his flute, and the +Reynolds temperament was distinctly inartistic. + +Lyddy lived through a lifetime of emotion in these twilight concerts. +Sometimes she was filled with an exquisite melancholy from which there +was no escape; at others, the ethereal purity of the strain stirred her +heart with a strange, sweet vision of mysterious joy; joy that she had +never possessed, would never possess; joy whose bare existence she never +before realized. When the low notes sank lower and lower with their soft +wail of delicious woe, she bent forward into the dark, dreading that +something would be lost in the very struggle of listening; then, after +a, pause, a pure human tone would break the stillness, and soaring, +bird-like, higher and higher, seem to mount to heaven itself, and, +"piercing its starry floors," lift poor scarred Lydia's soul to the very +grates of infinite bliss. In the gentle moods that stole upon her in +those summer twilights she became a different woman, softer in her +prosperity than she had ever been in her adversity; for some plants only +blossom in sunshine. What wonder if to her the music and the musician +became one? It is sometimes a dangerous thing to fuse the man and his +talents in this way; but it did no harm here, for Anthony Croft was his +music, and the music was Anthony Croft. When he played on his violin, +it was as if the miracle of its fashioning were again enacted; as if the +bird on the quivering bough, the mellow sunshine streaming through the +lattice of green leaves, the tinkle of the woodland stream, spoke in +every tone; and more than this, the hearth-glow in whose light the +patient hands had worked, the breath of the soul bending itself in +passionate prayer for perfection, these, too, seemed to have wrought +their blessed influence on the willing strings until the tone was laden +with spiritual harmony. One might indeed have sung of this little red +violin--that looked to Lyddy, in the sunset glow, as if it were veneered +with rubies--all that Shelley sang of another perfect instrument:-- + + + "The artist who this viol wrought + To echo all harmonious thought, + Fell'd a tree, while on the steep + The woods were in their winter sleep, + Rock'd in that repose divine + Of the wind-swept Apennine; + And dreaming, some of Autumn past, + And some of Spring approaching fast, + And some of April buds and showers, + And some of songs in July bowers, + And all of love; and so this tree-- + O that such our death may be!-- + Died in sleep, and felt no pain, + To live in happier form again." + +The viol "whispers in enamoured tone:"-- + + + "Sweet oracles of woods and dells, + And summer windy ill sylvan cells;.. + The clearest echoes of the hills, + The softest notes of falling rills, + The melodies of birds and bees, + The murmuring of summer seas, + And pattering rain, and breathing dew, + And airs of evening; all it knew.... + --All this it knows, but will not tell + To those who cannot question well + The spirit that inhabits it;... + But, sweetly as its answers will + Flatter hands of perfect skill, + It keeps its highest, holiest tone + For one beloved Friend alone." + +Lyddy heard the violin and the man's voice as he talked to the +child,--heard them night after night; and when she went home to the +little brown house to light the fire on the hearth and let down the warm +red curtains, she fell into sweet, sad reveries; and when she blew out +her candle for the night, she fell asleep and dreamed new dreams, and +her heart was stirred with the rustling of new-born hopes that rose and +took wing like birds startled from their nests. + + +V. + + + "Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, + A poet or a friend to find: + Behold, he watches at the door! + Behold his shadow on the floor!" + + Emerson's _Saadi._ + +Lyddy Butterfield's hen turkey was of a roving disposition. She had +never appreciated her luxurious country quarters in Edgewood, and was +seemingly anxious to return to the modest back yard in her native city. +At any rate, she was in the habit of straying far from home, and the +habit was growing upon her to such an extent that she would even lead +her docile little gobblers down to visit Anthony Croft's hens and share +their corn. + +Lyddy had caught her at it once, and was now pursuing her to that end +for the second time. She paused in front of the house, but there were +no turkeys to be seen. Could they have wandered up the hill road,--the +discontented, "traipsing," exasperating things? She started in that +direction, when she heard a crash in the Croft kitchen, and then the +sound of a boy's voice coming from an inner room,--a weak and querulous +voice, as if the child were ill. + +She drew nearer, in spite of her dread of meeting people, or above all +of intruding, and saw Anthony Croft standing over the stove, with an +expression of utter helplessness on his usually placid face. She had +never really seen him before in the daylight, and there was something +about his appearance that startled her. The teakettle was on the floor, +and a sea of water was flooding the man's feet, yet he seemed to be +gazing into vacancy. Presently he stooped, and fumbled gropingly for the +kettle. It was too hot to be touched with impunity, and he finally left +it in a despairing sort of way, and walked in the direction of a shelf, +from under which a row of coats was hanging. The boy called again in a +louder and more insistent tone, ending in a whimper of restless pain. +This seemed to make the man more nervous than ever. His hands went +patiently over and over the shelf, then paused at each separate nail. + +"Bless the poor dear!" thought Lyddy. "Is he trying to find his hat, +or what is he trying to do? I wonder if he is music mad?" and she drew +still nearer the steps. + +At this moment he turned and came rapidly toward the door. She looked +straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: he was blind. The +magician who had told her through his violin secrets that she had +scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had set her heart to throbbing and +aching and longing as it had never throbbed and ached and longed before, +the being who had worn a halo of romance and genius to her simple mind, +was stone-blind! A wave of impetuous anguish, as sharp and passionate +as any she had ever felt for her own misfortunes, swept over her soul at +the spectacle of the man's helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her +like a blow. But there was no time to lose. She was directly in his +path: if she stood still he would certainly walk over her, and if she +moved he would hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave a +nervous cough and said, "Good-morning, Mr. Croft." + +He stopped short. "Who is it?" he asked. + +"I am--it is--I am--your new neighbor," said Lyddy, with a trembling +attempt at cheerfulness. + +"Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see you before this +if it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. But I am a good-for-nothing +neighbor, as you have doubtless heard. Nobody expects anything of me." + +("Nobody expects anything of me." Her own plaint, uttered in her own +tone!) + +"I don't know about that," she answered swiftly. "You've given me, for +one, a great deal of pleasure with your wonderful music. I often hear +you as you play after supper, and it has kept me from being lonesome. +That isn't very much, to be sure." + +"You are fond of music, then?" + +"I didn't know I was; I never heard any before," said Lyddy simply; "but +it seems to help people to say things they couldn't say for themselves, +don't you think so? It comforts me even to hear it, and I think it must +be still more beautiful to make it." + +Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no sooner uttered this commonplace speech +than the reflection darted through her mind like a lightning flash that +she had never spoken a bit of her heart out like this in all her life +before. The reason came to her in the same flash: she was not being +looked at; her disfigured face was hidden. This man, at least, could +not shrink, turn away, shiver, affect indifference, fix his eyes on +hers with a fascinated horror, as others had done. Her heart was divided +between a great throb of pity and sympathy for him and an irresistible +sense of gratitude for herself. Sure of protection and comprehension, +her lovely soul came out of her poor eyes and sat in the sunshine. She +spoke her mind at ease, as we utter sacred things sometimes under cover +of darkness. + +"You seem to have had an accident; what can I do to help you?" she +asked. + +"Nothing, thank you. The boy has been sick for some days, but he seems +worse since last night. Nothing is in its right place in the house, so I +have given up trying to find anything, and am just going to Edgewood to +see if somebody will help me for a few days." + +"Uncle Tony! Uncle To-ny! where are you? Do give me another drink, I'm +so hot!" came the boy's voice from within. + +"Coming, laddie! I don't believe he ought to drink so much water, but +what can I do? He is burning up with fever." + +"Now look here, Mr. Croft," and Lydia's tone was cheerfully decisive. +"You sit down in that rocker, please, and let me command the ship for +a while. This is one of the cases where a woman is necessary. First and +foremost, what were you hunting for?" + +"My hat and the butter," said Anthony meekly, and at this unique +combination they both laughed. Lyddy's laugh was particularly fresh, +childlike, and pleased; one that would have astonished the Reynolds +children. She had seldom laughed heartily since little Rufus had cried +and told her she frightened him when she twisted her face so. + +"Your hat is in the wood-box, and I'll find the butter in the twinkling +of an eye, though why you want it now is more than--My patience, Mr. +Croft, your hand is burned to a blister!" + +"Don't mind me. Be good enough to look at the boy and tell me what ails +him; nothing else matters much." + +"I will with pleasure, but let me ease you a little first. Here's a rag +that will be just the thing," and Lyddy, suiting the pretty action to +the mendacious worn, took a good handkerchief from her pocket and tore +it in three strips, after spreading it with tallow from a candle heated +over the stove. This done, she hound up the burned hand skillfully, and, +crossing the dining-room, disappeared within the little chamber door +beyond. She came out presently, and said half hesitatingly, "Would +you--mind going out in the orchard for an hour or so? You seem to be +rather in the way here, and I should like the place to myself, if you'll +excuse me for saying so. I'm ever so much more capable than Mrs. Buck; +won't you give me a trial, sir? Here's your violin and your hat. I'll +call you if you can help or advise me." + +"But I can't let a stranger come in and do my housework," he objected. +"I can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all the same." + +"I am your nearest neighbor, and your only one, for that matter," said +Lyddy firmly; "its nothing more than right that I should look after +that sick child, and I must do it. I haven't got a thing to do in my +own house. I am nothing but a poor lonely old maid, who's been used to +children all her life, and likes nothing better than to work over them." + +A calm settled upon Anthony's perturbed spirit, as he sat under the +apple-trees and heard Lyddy going to and fro in the cottage. "She isn't +any old maid," he thought; "she doesn't step like one; she has soft +shoes and a springy walk. She must be a very handsome woman, with a hand +like that; and such a voice! I knew the moment she spoke that she didn't +belong in this village." + +As a matter of fact, his keen ear had caught the melody in Lyddy's +voice, a voice full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power. His sense +of touch, too, had captured the beauty of her hand, and held it in +remembrance,--the soft palm, the fine skin, supple fingers, smooth +nails, and firm round wrist. These charms would never have been noted +by any seeing man in Edgewood, but they were revealed to Anthony Croft +while Lyddy, like the good Samaritan, bound up his wounds. It is these +saving stars that light the eternal darkness of the blind. + +Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo when, with arms akimbo, she gazed +about the Croft establishment, which was a scene of desolation for the +moment. Anthony's cousin from Bridgton was in the habit of visiting +him every two months for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from +Pleasant River came every Saturday and Monday for baking and washing. +Between times Davy and his uncle did the housework together; and +although it was respectably done, there was no pink-and-white daintiness +about it, you may be sure. + +Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in about an hour, laughing a little +nervously as she said, "I'm sorry to have taken a mean advantage of you, +Mr. Croft, but I know everything you've got in your house, and exactly +where it is. I couldn't help it, you see, when I was making things tidy. +It would do you good to see the boy. His room was too light, and the +flies were devouring him. I swept him and dusted him, put on clean +sheets and pillow slips, sponged him with bay rum, brushed his hair, +drove out the flies, and tacked a green curtain up to the window. +Fifteen minutes after he was sleeping like a kitten. He has a sore +throat and considerable fever. Could you--can you--at least, will you, +go up to my house on an errand?" + +"Certainly I can. I know it inside and out as well as my own." + +"Very good. On the clock shelf in the sitting-room there is a bottle of +sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, so you can't make +any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. I wonder you didn't +send for him yesterday?" + +"Davy wouldn't have him," apologized his uncle. + +"Wouldn't he?" said Lyddy with cheerful scorn. "He has you under pretty +good control, hasn't he? But children are unmerciful tyrants." + +"Couldn't you coax him into it before you go home?" asked Anthony in a +wheedling voice. + +"I can try; but it isn't likely I can influence him, if you can't. +Still, if we both fail, I really don't see what 's to prevent our +sending for the doctor in spite of him. He is as weak as a baby, +you know, and can't sit up in bed: what could he do? I will risk the +consequences, if you will!" + +There was a note of such amiable and winning sarcasm in all this, such +a cheery, invincible courage, such a friendly neighborliness and +cooperation, above all such a different tone from any he was accustomed +to hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt warmed through to the core. + +As he walked quickly along the road, he conjured up a vision of autumn +beauty from the few hints nature gave even to her sightless ones on this +glorious morning,--the rustle of a few fallen leaves under his feet, the +clear wine of the air, the full rush of the swollen river, the whisking +of the squirrels in the boughs, the crunch of their teeth on the nuts, +the spicy odor of the apples lying under the trees. He missed his mother +that morning more than he had missed her for years. How neat she was, +how thrifty, how comfortable, and how comforting! His life was so dreary +and aimless; and was it the best or the right one for Davy, with his +talent and dawning ambition? Would it not be better to have Mrs. +Buck live with them altogether, instead of coming twice a week, as +heretofore? No; he shrank from that with a hopeless aversion born of +Saturday and Monday dinners in her company. He could hear her pour her +coffee into the saucer; hear the scraping of the cup on the rim, and +know that she was setting it sloppily down on the cloth. He could +remember her noisy drinking, the weight of her elbow on the table, the +creaking of her calico dress under the pressure of superabundant flesh. +Besides, she had tried to scrub his favorite violin with sapolio. No, +anything was better than Mrs. Buck as a constancy. + +He took off his hat unconsciously as he entered Lyddy's sitting-room. +A gentle breeze blew one of the full red curtains towards him till it +fluttered about his shoulders like a frolicsome, teasing hand. There was +a sweet, pungent odor of pine boughs, a canary sang in the window, the +clock was trimmed with a blackberry vine; he knew the prickles, and +they called up to his mind the glowing tints he had loved so well. His +sensitive hand, that carried a divining rod in every finger-tip, met a +vase on the shelf, and, traveling upward, touched a full branch of alder +berries tied about with a ribbon. The ribbon would be red; the woman +who arranged this room would make no mistake; for in one morning Anthony +Croft had penetrated the secret of Lyddy's true personality, and in a +measure had sounded the shallows that led to the depths of her nature. + +Lyddy went home at seven o'clock that night rather reluctantly. The +doctor had said Mr. Croft could sit up with the boy unless he grew much +worse, and there was no propriety in her staying longer unless there was +danger. + +"You have been very good to me," Anthony said gravely, as he shook her +hand at parting,--"very good." + +They stood together on the doorstep. A distant bell, called to evening +prayer-meeting; the restless murmur of the river and the whisper of +the wind in the pines broke the twilight stillness. The long, quiet day +together, part of it spent by the sick child's bedside, had brought the +two strangers curiously near to each other. + +"The house hasn't seemed so sweet and fresh since my mother died," he +went on, as he dropped her hand, "and I haven't had so many flowers and +green things in it since I lost my eyesight." + +"Was it long ago?" + +"Ten years. Is that long?" + +"Long to bear a burden." + +"I hope you know little of burden-bearing?" + +"I know little else." + +"I might have guessed it from the alacrity with which you took up +Davy's and mine. You must be very happy to have the power to make +things straight and sunny and wholesome; to breathe your strength into +helplessness such as mine. I thank you, and I envy you. Good-night." + +Lyddy turned on her heel without a word; her mind was beyond and above +words. The sky seemed to have descended upon, enveloped her, caught her +up into its heaven, as she rose into unaccustomed heights of feeling, +like Elijah in his chariot of fire. She very happy! She with power, +power to make things straight and sunny and wholesome! She able to +breathe strength into helplessness, even a consecrated, Godsmitten +helplessness like his! She not only to be thanked, but envied! + +Her house seemed strange to her that night. She went to bed in the dark, +dreading even the light of a candle; and before she turned down her +counterpane she flung herself on her knees, and poured out her soul in +a prayer that had been growing, waiting, and waited for, perhaps, for +years:-- + +"O Lord, I thank Thee for health and strength and life. I never could do +it before, but I thank Thee to-night for life on any terms. I thank +Thee for this home; for the chance of helping another human creature, +stricken like myself; for the privilege of ministering to a motherless +child. Make me to long only for the beauty of holiness, and to be +satisfied if I attain to it. Wash my soul pure and clean, and let that +be the only mirror in which I see my face. I have tried to be useful. +Forgive me if it always seemed so hard and dreary a life. Forgive me +if I am too happy because for one short day I have really helped in a +beautiful way, and found a friend who saw, because he was blind, the +real me underneath; the me that never was burned by the fire; the me +that isn't disfigured, unless my wicked discontent has done it; the me +that has lived on and on and on, starving to death for the friendship +and sympathy and love that come to other women. I have spent my forty +years in the wilderness, feeding on wrath and bitterness and tears. +Forgive me, Lord, and give me one more vision of the blessed land of +Canaan, even if I never dwell there." + + +VI. + + + "Nor less the eternal poles + Of tendency distribute souls. + There need no vows to bind + Whom not each other seek, but find." + + Emerson's _Celestial Love._ + + +Davy's sickness was a lingering one. Mrs. Buck came for two or three +hours a day, but Lyddy was the self-installed angel of the house; and +before a week had passed the boy's thin arms were around her neck, his +head on her loving shoulder, and his cheek pressed against hers. Anthony +could hear them talk, as he sat in the kitchen busy at his work. Musical +instruments were still brought him to repair, though less frequently +than of yore, and he could still make many parts of violins far better +than his seeing competitors. A friend and pupil sat by his side in the +winter evenings and supplemented his weakness, helping and learning +alternately, while his blind master's skill filled him with wonder and +despair. The years of struggle for perfection had not been wasted; and +though the eye that once detected the deviation of a hair's breadth +could no longer tell the true from the false, yet nature had been busy +with her divine work of compensation. The one sense stricken with death, +she poured floods of new life and vigor into the others. Touch became +something more than the stupid, empty grasp of things we seeing mortals +know, and in place of the two eyes he had lost he now had ten in every +finger-tip. As for odors, let other folks be proud of smelling musk and +lavender, but let him tell you by a quiver of the nostrils the various +kinds of so-called scentless flowers, and let him bend his ear and +interpret secrets that the universe is ever whispering to us who are +pent in partial deafness because, forsooth, we see. + +He often paused to hear Lydia's low, soothing tones and the boy's +weak treble. Anthony had said to him once, "Miss Butterfield is very +beautiful, isn't she, Davy? You haven't painted me a picture of her yet. +How does she look?" + +Davy was stricken at first with silent embarrassment. He was a truthful +child, but in this he could no more have told the whole truth than +he could have cut off his hand. He was knit to Lyddy by every tie of +gratitude and affection. He would sit for hours with his expectant face +pressed against the window-pane, and when he saw her coming down the +shady road he was filled with a sense of impending comfort and joy. + +"NO," he said hesitatingly, "she isn't pretty, nunky, but she's sweet +and nice and dear, Everything on her shines, it's so clean; and when +she comes through the trees, with her white apron and her purple calico +dress, your heart jumps, because you know she's going to make everything +pleasant. Her hair has a pretty wave in it, and her hand is soft on your +forehead; and it's most worth while being sick just to have her in the +house." + +Meanwhile, so truly is "praise our fructifying sun," Lydia bloomed into +a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. +A sly sense of humor woke into life, and a positive talent for +conversation, latent hitherto because she had never known any one who +cared to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. +When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's +sofa, his thin hand in hers, and talk with Anthony about books and +flowers and music, and about the meaning of life, too,--its burdens and +mistakes, and joys and sorrows; groping with him in the darkness to find +a clue to God's purposes. + +Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy's house as the autumn grew into +winter. He read to her while she sewed rags for a new sitting-room +carpet, and they played dominoes and checkers together in the twilight +before supper time,--suppers that were a feast to the boy, after Mrs. +Buck's cookery. Anthony brought his violin sometimes of an evening, and +Almira Berry, the next neighbor on the road to the Mills, would drop +in and join the little party. Almira used to sing Auld Robin Gray, What +Will You Do, Love, and Robin Adair, to the great enjoyment of everybody; +and she persuaded Lyddy to buy the old church melodeon, and learn to +sing alto in Oh, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, Gently, Gently Sighs the +Breeze, and I know a Bank. Nobody sighed for the gayeties and advantages +of a great city when, these concerts being over, Lyddy would pass crisp +seedcakes and raspberry shrub, doughnuts and cider, or hot popped corn +and molasses candy. + +"But there, she can afford to," said aunt Hitty Tarbox; "she's pretty +middlin' wealthy for Edgewood. And it's lucky she is, for she 'bout +feeds that boy o' Croft's. No wonder he wants her to fill him up, after +six years of the Widder Buck's victuals. Aurelia Buck can take good +flour and sugar, sweet butter and fresh eggs, and in ten strokes of her +hand she can make 'em into something the very hogs 'll turn away from. I +declare, it brings the tears to my eyes sometimes when I see her coming +out of Croft's Saturday afternoons, and think of the stone crocks full +of nasty messes she's left behind her for that innocent man and boy to +eat up.... Anthony goes to see Miss Butterfield consid'able often. +Of course it's awstensibly to walk home with Davy, or do an errand or +something, but everybody knows better. She went down to Croft's pretty +nearly every day when his cousin from Bridgton come to house-clean. +She suspicioned something, I guess. Anyhow, she asked me if Miss +Butterfield's two hundred a year was in gov'ment bonds. Anthony's +eyesight ain't good, but I guess he could make out to cut cowpons +off.... It would be strange if them two left-overs should take an' +marry each other; though, come to think of it, I don't know's 't would +neither. He's blind, to be sure, and can't see her scarred face. It's a +pity she ain't deef, so't she can't hear his everlastin' fiddle. She's +lucky to get any kind of a husband; she's too humbly to choose. I +declare, she reminds me of a Jack-o'-lantern, though if you look at the +back of her, or see her in meetin' with a thick veil on, she's about the +best appearin' woman in Edgewood.... I never see anybody stiffen up as +Anthony has. He had me make him three white shirts and three gingham +ones, with collars and cuffs on all of 'em. It seems as if six shirts at +one time must mean something out o' the common!" + +Aunt Hitty was right; it did mean something out of the common. It meant +the growth of an all-engrossing, grateful, divinely tender passion +between two love-starved souls. On the one hand, Lyddy, who though she +had scarcely known the meaning of love in all her dreary life, yet was +as full to the brim of all sweet, womanly possibilities of loving and +giving as any pretty woman; on the other, the blind violin-maker, who +had never loved any woman but his mother, and who was in the direst need +of womanly sympathy and affection. + +Anthony Croft, being ministered unto by Lyddy's kind hands, hearing +her sweet voice and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, knowing the +best; forgiving the worst, like God, and forgetting it, still more like +God, I think. + +And Lyddy? There is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. Her joy lay deep +in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool, so deep that +no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb the hidden treasure. +If God had smitten these two with one hand, he had held out the other in +tender benediction. + +There had been a pitiful scene of unspeakable solemnity when Anthony +first told Lyddy that he loved her, and asked her to be his wife. He had +heard all her sad history by this time, though not from her own lips, +and his heart went out to her all the more for the heavy cross that +had been laid upon her. He had the wit and wisdom to put her affliction +quite out of the question, and allude only to her sacrifice in marrying +a blind man, hopelessly and helplessly dependent on her sweet offices +for the rest of his life, if she, in her womanly mercy, would love him +and help him bear his burdens. + +When his tender words fell upon Lyddy's dazed brain she sank beside +his chair, and, clasping his knees, sobbed: "I love you, I cannot help +loving you, I cannot help telling you I love you! But you must hear the +truth; you have heard it from others, but perhaps they softened it. If I +marry you, people will always blame me and pity you. You would never ask +me to be your wife if you could see my face; you could not love me an +instant if you were not blind." + +"Then I thank God unceasingly for my infirmity," said Anthony Croft, as +he raised her to her feet. + + +***** + + +Anthony and Lyddy Croft sat in the apple orchard, one warm day in late +spring. + +Anthony's work would have puzzled a casual on-looker. Ten stout wires +were stretched between two trees, fifteen or twenty feet apart, and each +group of five represented the lines of the musical staff. Wooden +bars crossed the wires at regular intervals, dividing the staff into +measures. A box with many compartments sat on a stool beside him, and +this held bits of wood that looked like pegs, but were in reality whole, +half, quarter, and eighth notes, rests, flats, sharps, and the like. +These were cleft in such a way that he could fit them on the wires +almost as rapidly as his musical theme came to him, and Lyddy had +learned to transcribe with pen and ink the music she found in wood and +wire, He could write only simple airs in this way, but when he played +them on the violin they were transported into a loftier region, such +genius lay in the harmony, the arabesque, the delicate lacework of +embroidery with which the tune was inwrought; now high, now low, now +major, now minor, now sad, now gay, with the one thrilling, haunting +cadence recurring again and again, to be watched for, longed for, and +greeted with a throb of delight. + +Davy was reading at the window, his curly head buried in a well-worn +Shakespeare opened at Midsummer Night's Dream. Lyddy was sitting under +her favorite pink apple-tree, a mass of fragrant bloom, more beautiful +than Aurora's morning gown. She was sewing; lining with snowy lawn +innumerable pockets in a square basket that she held in her lap. The +pockets were small, the needles were fine, the thread was a length of +cobweb. Everything about the basket was small except the hopes that she +was stitching into it; they were so great that her heart could scarcely +hold them. Nature was stirring everywhere. The seeds were springing in +the warm earth. The hens were clucking to their downy chicks just out of +the egg. The birds were flying hither and thither in the apple boughs, +and there was one little home of straw so hung that Lyddy could look +into it and see the patient mother brooding her nestlings. The sight of +her bright eyes, alert for every sign of danger, sent a rush of feeling +through Lyddy's veins that made her long to clasp the little feathered +mother to her own breast. + +A sweet gravity and consecration of thought possessed her, and the +pink blossoms falling into her basket were not more delicate than the +rose-colored dreams that flushed her soul. + +Anthony put in the last wooden peg, and taking up his violin called, +"Davy, lad, come out and tell me what this means!" + +Davy was used to this; from a wee boy he had been asked to paint the +changing landscape of each day, and to put into words his uncle's music. + +Lyddy dropped her needle, the birds stopped to listen, and Anthony +played. + +"It is this apple orchard in May time," said Davy; "it is the song of +the green things growing, isn't it?" + +"What do you say, dear?" asked Anthony, turning to his wife. + +Love and hope had made a poet of Lyddy. "I think Davy is right," she +said. "It is a dream of the future, the story of all new and beautiful +things growing out of the old. It is full of the sweetness of present +joy, but there is promise and hope in it besides. It is like the Spring +sitting in the lap of Winter, and holding a baby Summer in her bosom." + +Davy did not quite understand this, though he thought it pretty; but +Lyddy's husband did, and when the boy went back to his books, he took +his wife in his arms and kissed her twice,--once for herself, and then +once again. + + + + +THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY. + + +In the little villages along the Saco River, in the year 1850 or +thereabouts, the arrival and departure of the stage-coach was the one +exciting incident of the day. It did not run on schedule time in those +days, but started from Limington or Saco, as the case might be, at about +or somewhere near a certain hour, and arrived at the other end of the +route whenever it got there. There were no trains to meet (the railway +popularly known as the "York and Yank'em" was not built till 1862); the +roads were occasionally good and generally bad; and thus it was often +dusk, and sometimes late in the evening, when the lumbering vehicle +neared its final destination and drew up to the little post-offices +along the way. However late it might be, the village postmaster had to +be on hand to receive and open the mailbags; after which he distributed +the newspapers and letters in a primitive set of pine pigeon-holes on +the wall, turned out the loafers, "banked up" the fire, and went home to +bed. + +"Life" Lane was a jolly good fellow,--just the man to sit on the box +seat and drive the three horses through ruts and "thank-you-ma'ams," +slush and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, +his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story +forever on the tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings +(his mother used to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the +State o' Maine); his shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs +just the sort to fill amply his noble chest. Therefore, when he had what +was called in the vernacular "turrible bad goin'," and when any other +stage-driver in York County would have shrunk into his muffler and +snapped and snarled on the slightest provocation, Life Lane opened his +great throat when he passed over the bridges at Moderation or Bonny +Eagle, and sent forth a golden, sonorous "Yo ho! halloo!" into the still +air. The later it was and the stormier it was, the more vigor he put +into the note, and it was a drowsy postmaster indeed who did not start +from his bench by the fire at the sound of that ringing halloo. Thus the +old stage-coach, in Life Lane's time, was generally called "The Midnight +Cry," and not such a bad name either, whether the term was derisively +applied because the stage was always late; or whether Life's "Yo ho!" +had caught the popular fancy. + +There was a pretty girl in Pleasant River (and, alas! another in Bonny +Eagle) who went to bed every night with the chickens, but stayed awake +till she heard first the rumble of heavy wheels on a bridge, then a +faint, bell-like tone that might have come out of the mouth of a silver +horn; whereupon she blushed as if it were an offer of marriage, and +turned over and went to sleep. + +If the stage arrived in good season, Life would have a few minutes to +sit on the loafers' beach beside the big open fire; and what a feature +he was, with his tales culled from all sorts of passengers, who were +never so fluent as when sitting beside him "up in front!" There was a +tallow dip or two, and no other light save that of the fire. Who that +ever told a story could wish a more inspiring auditor than Jacob Bean, +a literal, honest old fellow who took the most vital interest in every +detail of the stories told, looking upon their heroes and their +villains as personal friends or foes. He always sat in one corner of the +fireplace, poker in hand, and the crowd tacitly allowed him the role of +Greek chorus. Indeed, nobody could have told a story properly without +Jake Bean's parentheses and punctuation marks poked in at exciting +junctures. + +"That 's so every time!" he would say, with a lunge at the forestick. +"I'll bate he was glad then!" with another stick flung on in just the +right spot. "Golly! but that served 'em right!" with a thrust at the +backlog. + +The New England story seemed to flourish under these conditions: a +couple of good hard benches in a store or tavern, where you could not +only smoke and chew but could keep on your hat (there was not a man in +York County in those days who could say anything worth hearing with his +hat off); the blazing logs to poke; and a cavernous fireplace into which +tobacco juice could be neatly and judiciously directed. Those were good +old times, and the stage-coach was a mighty thing when school children +were taught to take off their hats and make a bow as the United States +mail passed the old stage tavern. + +Life Lane's coaching days were over long before this story begins, but +the Midnight Cry was still in pretty fair condition, and was driven +ostensibly by Jeremiah Todd, who lived on the "back-nippin'" road from +Bonny Eagle to Limington. + +When I say ostensibly driven, I but follow the lead of the villagers, +who declared that, though Jerry held the reins, Mrs. Todd drove the +stage, as she drove everything else. As a proof of this lady's strong +individuality, she was still generally spoken of as "the Widder Bixby," +though she had been six years wedded to Jeremiah Todd. The Widder Bixby, +then, was strong, self-reliant, valiant, indomitable. Jerry Todd was, +to use his wife's own characterization, so soft you could stick a cat's +tail into him without ruffling the fur. He was always alluded to as "the +Widder Bixby's husband;" but that was no new or special mortification, +for he had been known successively as Mrs. Todd's youngest baby, the +Widder Todd's only son, Susan Todd's brother, and, when Susan Todd's +oldest boy fought at Chapultepec, William Peck's uncle. + +The Widder Bixby's record was far different. She was the mildest of the +four Stover sisters of Scarboro, and the quartette was supposed to +have furnished more kinds of temper than had ever before come from one +household. When Peace, the eldest, was mad, she frequently kicked the +churn out of the kitchen door, cream and all,--and that lost her a +husband. + +Love, the second, married, and according to local tradition once kicked +her husband all the way up Foolscap Hill with a dried cod-fish. Charity, +the third, married too,--for the Stovers of Scarboro were handsome +girls, but she got a fit mate in her spouse. She failed to intimidate +him, for he was a foeman worthy of her steel; but she left his bed and +board, and left in a manner that kept up the credit of the Stover family +of Scarboro. + +They had had a stormy breakfast one morning before he started to +Portland with a load of hay. "Good-by," she called, as she stood in the +door, "you've seen the last of me!" "No such luck!" he said, and whipped +up his horse. Charity baked a great pile of biscuits, and left them on +the kitchen table with a pitcher of skimmed milk. (She wouldn't give +him anything to complain of, not she!) She then put a few clothes in a +bundle, and, tying on her shaker, prepared to walk to Pleasant River, +twelve miles distant. As she locked the door and put the key in its +accustomed place under the mat, a pleasant young man drove up and +explained that he was the advance agent of the Sypher's Two-in-One +Menagerie and Circus, soon to appear in that vicinity. He added that +he should be glad to give her five tickets to the entertainment if she +would allow him to paste a few handsome posters on that side of her barn +next the road; that their removal was attended with trifling difficulty, +owing to the nature of a very superior paste invented by himself; that +any small boy, in fact, could tear them off in an hour, and be well paid +by the gift of a ticket. + +The devil entered into Charity (not by any means for the first time), +and she told the man composedly that if he would give her ten tickets he +might paper over the cottage as well as the barn, for they were going +to tear it down shortly and build a larger one. The advance agent was +delighted, and they passed a pleasant hour together; Charity holding the +paste-pot, while the talkative gentleman glued six lions and an elephant +on the roof, a fat lady on the front door, a tattooed man between the +windows, living skeletons on the blinds, and ladies insufficiently +clothed in all the vacant spaces and on the chimneys. Nobody went by +during the operation, and the agent remarked, as he unhitched his horse, +that he had never done a neater job. "Why, they'll come as far to see +your house as they will to the circus!" he exclaimed. + +"I calculate they will," said Charity, as she latched the gate and +started for Pleasant River. + +I am not telling Charity Stover's story, so I will only add that +the bill-poster was mistaken in the nature of his paste, and greatly +undervalued its adhesive properties. + +The temper of Prudence, the youngest sister, now Mrs. Todd, paled into +insignificance beside that of the others, but it was a very pretty thing +in tempers nevertheless, and would have been thought remarkable in any +other family in Scarboro. + +You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues as often +as his vices that make him difficult to live with. Mrs. Todd's +masterfulness and even her jealousy might have been endured, by the +aid of fasting and prayer, but her neatness, her economy, and her +forehandedness made a combination that only the grace of God could have +abided with comfortably, so that Jerry Todd's comparative success is a +matter of local tradition. Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough, +but as the years went on, Mrs. Todd blew her breakfast horn at so early +an hour that the neighbors were in some doubt as to whether it might not +herald the supper of the day before. They also predicted that she would +have her funeral before she was fairly dead, and related with great +gusto that when she heard there was to be an eclipse of the sun on +Monday, the 26th of July, she wished they could have it the 25th, as +Sunday would be so much more convenient than wash-day. + +She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth mats to +save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off in the shed, +and he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. She blackened +her stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, in +order to keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open in the +sitting-room, but spread newspapers over the carpet wherever the sun +shone in. + +It was the desire of Jerry's heart to give up the fatigues and exposures +of stage-driving, and "keep store," but Mrs. Todd deemed it much better +for him to be in the open air than dealing out rum and molasses to a +roystering crew. This being her view of the case, it is unnecessary to +state that he went on driving the stage. + +"Do you wear a flannel shirt, Jerry?" asked Pel Frost once. "I don' +know," he replied, "ask Mis' Todd; she keeps the books." + +"Women-folks" (he used to say to a casual passenger), "like all other +animiles, has to be trained up before they're real good comp'ny. You +have to begin with 'em early, and begin as you mean to hold out. When +they once git in the habit of takin' the bit in their teeth and runnin', +it's too late for you to hold 'em in." + +It was only to strangers that he aired his convictions on the training +of "womenfolks," though for that matter he might safely have done it +even at home; for everybody in Limington knew that it would always +have been too late to begin with the Widder Bixby, since, like all the +Stovers of Scarboro, she had been born with the bit in her teeth. Jerry +had never done anything he wanted to since he had married her, and he +hadn't really wanted to do that. He had been rather candid with her on +this point (as candid as a tender-hearted and obliging man can be with +a woman who is determined to marry him, and has two good reasons why she +should to every one of his why he shouldn't), and this may have been +the reason for her jealousy. Although by her superior force she had +overborne his visible reluctance, she, being a woman, or at all events +of the female gender, could never quite forget that she had done the +wooing. + +Certainly his charms were not of the sort to tempt women from the +strict and narrow path, yet the fact remained that the Widder Bixby was +jealous, and more than one person in Limington was aware of it. + +Pelatiah, otherwise "Pel" Frost, knew more about the matter than most +other folks, because he had unlimited time to devote to general culture. +Though not yet thirty years old, he was the laziest man in York County. +(Jabe Slocum had not then established his record; and Jot Bascom had +ruined his by cutting his hay before it was dead in the summer of '49, +always alluded to afterwards in Pleasant River as the year when gold was +discovered and Jot Bascom cut his hay.) + +Pel was a general favorite in half a dozen villages, where he was the +life of the loafers' bench. An energetic loafer can attend properly to +one bench, but it takes genius as well as assiduity to do justice to six +of them. His habits were decidedly convivial, and he spent a good deal +of time at the general musters, drinking and carousing with the other +ne'er-do-weels. You may be sure he was no favorite of Mrs. Todd's; and +she represented to him all that is most undesirable in womankind, his +taste running decidedly to rosy, smiling, easy-going ones who had no +regular hours for meals, but could have a dinner on the table any time +in fifteen minutes after you got there. + +Now, a certain lady with a noticeable green frock and a white "drawn-in" +cape bonnet had graced the Midnight Cry on its journey from Limington to +Saco on three occasions during the month of July. Report said that she +was a stranger who had appeared at the post-office in a wagon driven by +a small, freckled boy. + +The first trip passed without comment; the second provoked some +discussion; on the occasion of the third, Mrs. Todd said nothing, +because there seemed nothing to say, but she felt so out-of-sorts that +she cut Jerry's hair close to his head, though he particularly fancied +the thin fringe of curls at the nape of his neck. + +Pel Frost went over to Todd's one morning to borrow an axe, and seized +a favorable opportunity to ask casually, "Oh, Mis' Todd, did Jerry find +out the name o' that woman in a green dress and white bunnit that rid to +Saco with him last week?" + +"Mr. Todd's got something better to do than get acquainted with his lady +passengers," snapped Mrs. Todd, "'specially as they always ride inside." + +"I know they gen'ally do," said Pel, shouldering the axe (it was for +his mother's use), "but this one rides up in front part o' the way, so I +thought mebbe Jerry 'd find out something 'bout her. She's han'some as a +picture, but she must have a good strong back to make the trip down 'n' +up in one day." + +Nothing could have been more effective or more effectual than this +blow dealt with consummate skill. Having thus driven the iron into Mrs. +Todd's soul, Pel entertained his mother with an account of the interview +while she chopped the kindling-wood. He had no special end in view when, +Iago-like, he dropped his first poisoned seed in Mrs. Todd's fertile +mind, or, at most, nothing worse than the hope that matters might reach +an unendurable point, and Jerry might strike for his altars and his +fires. Jerry was a man and a brother, and petticoat government must +be discouraged whenever and wherever possible, or the world would soon +cease to be a safe place to live in. Pel's idea grew upon him in the +night watches, and the next morning he searched his mother's garret till +he found a green dress and a white bonnet. Putting them in a basket, he +walked out on the road a little distance till he met the stage, when, +finding no passengers inside, he asked Jerry to let him jump in and +"ride a piece." Once within, he hastily donned the green wrapper and +tell-tale headgear, and, when the Midnight Cry rattled down the stony +hill past the Todd house, Pel took good care to expose a large green +sleeve and the side of a white bonnet at the stage window. It was easy +enough to cram the things back into the basket, jump out, and call a +cordial thank you to the unsuspecting Jerry. He was rewarded for his +ingenuity and enterprise at night, when he returned Mrs. Todd's axe, for +just as he reached the back door he distinctly heard her say that if she +saw that green woman on the stage again, she would knock her off with a +broomstick as sure as she was a Stover of Scarboro. As a matter of fact +she was equal to it. Her great-grandmother had been born on a soil where +the broomstick is a prominent factor in settling connubial differences; +and if it occurred to her at this juncture, it is a satisfactory proof +of the theory of atavism. + +Pel intended to see this domestic tragedy through to the end, and +accordingly took another brief trip in costume the very next week, +hoping to be the witness of a scene of blood and carnage. But Mrs. Todd +did not stir from her house, although he was confident she had seen "my +lady green-sleeves" from her post at the window. Puzzled by her apathy, +and much disappointed in her temper, he took off the dress, and, +climbing up in front, rode to Moderation, where he received an urgent +invitation to go over to the county fair at Gorham. The last idea was +always the most captivating to Pel, and he departed serenely for a stay +of several days without so much luggage as a hairbrush. His mother's +best clothespin basket, to say nothing of its contents, appeared at this +juncture to be an unexpected incumbrance; so on the spur of the moment +he handed it up to Jerry just as the stage was starting, saying, "If +Mis' Todd has a brash to-night, you can clear yourself by showing her +this basket, but for massy sakes don't lay it on to me! You can stan' it +better'n I can,--you 're more used to it!" + +Jerry took the basket, and when he was well out on the road he looked +inside and saw a bright green calico wrapper, a white cape bonnet, a +white "fall veil," and a pair of white cotton gloves. He had ample time +for reflection, for it was a hot day, and though he drove slowly, the +horses were sweating at every pore. Pel Frost, then, must have overheard +his wife's storm of reproaches, perhaps even her threats of violence. +It had come to this, that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of +ridicule at the store and tavern. + +Now, two years before this, Jerry Todd had for the first and only time +in his married life "put his foot down." Mrs. Todd had insisted on +making him a suit of clothes much against his wishes. When finished she +put them on him almost by main force, though his plaintive appeals would +have melted any but a Stover-of-Scarboro heart. The stuff was a large +plaid, the elbows and knees came in the wrong places, the seat was lined +with enameled cloth, and the sleeves cut him in the armholes. + +Mr. Todd said nothing for a moment, but the pent-up slavery of years +stirred in him, and, mounting to his brain, gave him a momentary courage +that resembled intoxication. He retired, took off the suit, hung it over +his arm, and, stalking into the sitting-room in his undergarments, +laid it on the table before his astonished spouse, and, thumping it +dramatically, said firmly, "I--will--not--wear--them--clo'es!" whereupon +he fell into silence again and went to bed. + +The joke of the matter was, that, all unknown to himself, he had +absolutely frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could have realized the +impressiveness and the thorough success of his first rebellion! But +if he had realized it he could not have repeated it often, for so much +virtue went out of him on that occasion that he felt hardly able to +drive the stage for days afterward. + +"I shall have to put down my foot agin," he said to himself on the +eventful morning when Pel presented him with the basket. "Dern my luck, +I've got to do it agin, when I ain't hardly got over the other time." +So, after an hour's plotting and planning, he made some purchases in +Biddeford and started on his return trip. He was very low in his mind, +thinking, if his wife really meditated upon warfare, she was likely to +inspect the stage that night, but giving her credit in his inmost heart +for too much common sense to use a broomstick,--a woman with her tongue! + +The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. Its route had been shortened, +and Mrs. Todd wanted its name changed to something less outlandish, such +as the Rising Sun, or the Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon, but her idea +met with no votaries; it had been, was, and ever should be, the Midnight +Cry, no matter what time it set out or got back. It had seen its best +days, Jerry thought, and so had he, for that matter. Yet he had been +called "a likely feller" when he married the Widder Bixby, or rather +when she married him. Well, the mischief was done; all that remained was +to save a remnant of his self-respect, and make an occasional dash for +liberty. + +He did all his errands with his usual care, dropping a blue ribbon for +Doxy Morton's Sunday hat, four cents' worth of gum-camphor for Almira +Berry, a spool of cotton for Mrs. Wentworth, and a pair of "galluses" +for Living Bean. He finally turned into the "back-nippin'" road from +Bonny Eagle to Limington, and when he was within forty rods of his own +house he stopped to water his horses. If he feared a scene he had good +reason, for as the horses climbed the crest of the long hill the lady in +green was by his side on the box. He looked anxiously ahead, and there, +in a hedge of young alder bushes, he saw something stirring, and, unless +he was greatly mistaken, a birch broom lay on the ground near the hedge. + +Notwithstanding these danger signals, Jerry's arm encircled the plump +waist of the lady in green, and, emboldened by the shades of twilight, +his lips sought the identical spot under the white "fall veil" where +her incendiary mouth might be supposed to lurk, quite "fit for treasons, +stratagems, and spoils." This done, he put on the brake and headed his +horses toward the fence. He was none too soon, for the Widder Bixby, +broom in hand, darted out from the alders and approached the stage with +objurgations which, had she rated them at their proper value, needed +no supplement in the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror-stricken +look, wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, +disappeared behind a convenient tree. + +At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd would have preferred to chastise +both her victims at once; but, being robbed of one by Jerry's cowardly +flight, her weapon descended upon the other with double force. There was +no lack of courage here at least. Whether the lady in green was borne up +by the consciousness of virtue, whether she was too proud to retreat, +or whatever may have been her animating reason, the blow fell, yet she +stood her ground and gave no answering shriek. Enraged as much by her +rival's cool resistance as by her own sense of injury, the Widder +Bixby aimed full at the bonnet beneath which were the charms that +had befuddled Jerry Todd's brain. To blast the fatal beauty that had +captivated her wedded husband was the Widder Bixby's idea, and the broom +descended. A shower of seeds and pulp, a copious spattering of pumpkin +juice, and the lady in green fell resistlessly into her assailant's +arms; her straw body, her wooden arms and pumpkin head, decorating the +earth at her feet! Mrs. Todd stared helplessly at the wreck she +had made, not altogether comprehending the ruse that had led to her +discomfiture, but fully conscious that her empire was shaken to its +foundations. She glanced in every direction, and then hurling the +hateful green-and-white livery into the stage, she gathered up all +traces of the shameful fray, and sweeping them into her gingham apron +ran into the house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. + +Jerry stayed behind the tree for some minutes, and when the coast was +clear he mounted the seat and drove to the store and the stable. When +he had put up his horses he went into the shed, took off his boots +as usual, but, despite all his philosophy, broke into a cold sweat of +terror as he crossed the kitchen threshold. "I can't stand many more +of these times when I put my foot down," he thought, "they're too +weakening!" + +But he need not have feared. There was a good supper under the mosquito +netting on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a pot of hot tea. Mrs. +Todd had gone to bed and left him a pot of tea! + +Which was the more eloquent apology! + +Jerry never referred to the lady in green, then or afterwards; he was +willing to let well enough alone; but whenever his spouse passed a +certain line, which, being a Stover of Scarboro, she was likely to do +about once in six months, he had only to summon his recreant courage and +glance meaningly behind the kitchen door, where the birch broom hung +on a nail. It was a simple remedy to outward appearances, but made his +declining years more comfortable. I can hardly believe that he ever +took Pel Frost into his confidence, but Pel certainly was never more +interesting to the loafers' bench than when he told the story of the +eventful trip of the Midnight Cry and "the breaking in of the Widder +Bixby." + + +NOTES: + +1. On page 20, reentered is spelled with diaeresis over the second "e". + +2. On pages 153 & 154 the verses beginning respectively "Rebel mourner" +and "This gro-o-oanin' world" are accompanied with staves of music in +the treble clef. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Village Watch-Tower, by +(AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER *** + +***** This file should be named 936.txt or 936.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/3/936/ + +Produced by R. McGowan, and E. P. 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McGowan + + + + + +The Village Watch-Tower +by Kate Douglas Wiggin + + + + +INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION + + + +These days the name of Kate Douglas Wiggin is virtually unknown. +But if one mentions the title "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," recognition +(at least in America) is instant. Everyone has heard of Rebecca; +her story has been in print continuously since it was first +published in 1903. It is certainly Mrs. Wiggin's most famous book, +and the only one of her many books that is still in print. +Everything else she wrote has slipped into complete obscurity. +Occasionally in an antique shop, one may still find a copy of her +immensely popular seasonal book, "The Birds' Christmas Carol", but that +is about the extent of what is readily available, even second-hand. + +The Birds' Christas Carol is available as our Etext #721, Nov. 1996. + +In 1904, Jack London wrote (from Manchuria!) to say that +Rebecca had won his heart. ("She is real," he wrote, "she lives; +she has given me many regrets, but I love her.") Some eighty years +later I happened to pick up and read "Rebecca" for the first time. +The book was so thoroughly enjoyable that when I had finished it, +I began at once a search for other works by the same author-- +especially for a sequel to "Rebecca", which seemed practically to demand one. +There was never a sequel written, but "The New Chronicles of Rebecca" +was published in 1907, and contained some further chapters in the life +of its heroine. I had to be satisfied with that, for the time being. +Then, well over a year after jotting down Mrs. Wiggin's name on my list +of authors to "purchase on sight", I finally ran across a copy of "The +Village Watch-Tower"; and it was not even a book of which I had heard. +It was first published in 1895 by Houghton, who published much of her +other work at the time, and apparently was never published again. +Shortly thereafter I found a copy of her autobiography. + +Kate Douglas Wiggin (nee Smith) was born in Philadelphia, +Pennsylvania, on September 28, 1856. She was raised for the most-part +in Maine, which forms a backdrop to much of her fiction. +She moved to California in the 1870s, and became involved +in the "free kindergarten" movement. She opened the Silver +Street Free Kindergarten in San Francisco, the first free +kindergarten in California, and there she worked until +the late 1880s (meantime opening her own training school +for teachers). Her first husband, Samuel Wiggin, died in 1889. +By then famous, she returned to New York and Maine. +She moved in international social circles, lecturing and giving +readings from her work. In 1895 she married for the second time +(to George Riggs). + +At her home in San Francisco, overlooking the Golden +Gate and Marin County, she wrote her first book, "The Birds' +Christmas Carol", to raise money for her school. +The book also proved to be her means of entrance into publishing, +translation, and travel in elite circles throughout Europe. +The book was republished many times thereafter, and translated into +several languages. In addition to factual and educational works +(undertaken together with her sister, Nora Archibald Smith) +she also wrote a number of other popular novels in the early +years of the 20th century, including "Rebecca", and "The Story +of Waitstill Baxter" (1913). She died in 1923, on August 23, +at Harrow-on-Hill, England. + +Beverly Seaton observed, in "American Women Writers", +that Mrs. Wiggin was "a popular writer who expressed what +her contemporaries themselves thought of as 'real life'" +(p. 413). "The Village Watch-Tower" I think is a perfect example +of that observation; it captures vividly a few frozen moments +of rural America, right at the twilight of the 19th century. +Most of it was written in the village of Quillcote, Maine, +her childhood home--and certainly the model for the village +of these stories. + +No attempt has been made to edit this book for consistency +or to update or "correct" the spelling. Mrs. Wiggin's spelling is +somewhat transitional between modern American and British spellings. +The only liberty taken is that of removing extra spaces in contractions. +E.g., I have used "wouldn't" where the original has consistently "would n't"; +this is true for all such contractions with "n't" which appeared +inordinately distracting to the modern reader. + +R. McGowan, San Jose, March 1997 + + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER + +BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + + + + + +Dear old apple-tree, under whose gnarled branches these +stories were written, to you I dedicate the book. My head was +so close to you, who can tell from whence the thoughts came? +I only know that when all the other trees in the orchard were barren, +there were always stories to be found under your branches, and so it +is our joint book, dear apple-tree. Your pink blossoms have fallen +on the page as I wrote; your ruddy fruit has dropped into my lap; +the sunshine streamed through your leaves and tipped my pencil with gold. +The birds singing in your boughs may have lent a sweet note here +and there; and do you remember the day when the gentle shower came? +We just curled the closer, and you and I and the sky all cried +together while we wrote "The Fore-Room Rug." + +It should be a lovely book, dear apple-tree, but alas! +it is not altogether that, because I am not so simple as you, +and because I have strayed farther away from the heart +of Mother Nature. + +KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN + +"Quillcote," Hollis, Maine, +August 12, 1895. + + + +CONTENTS. + +The Village Watch-Tower 1 +Tom o' the Blueb'ry Plains 31 +The Nooning Tree 55 +The Fore-Room Rug 95 +A Village Stradivarius 123 +The Eventful Trip of the Midnight Cry 195 + + + + +THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. + + +It stood on the gentle slope of a hill, the old gray house, +with its weather-beaten clapboards and its roof of ragged shingles. +It was in the very lap of the road, so that the stage-driver could almost +knock on the window pane without getting down from his seat, on those rare +occasions when he brought "old Mis' Bascom" a parcel from Saco. + +Humble and dilapidated as it was, it was almost beautiful +in the springtime, when the dandelion-dotted turf grew close +to the great stone steps; or in the summer, when the famous +Bascom elm cast its graceful shadow over the front door. +The elm, indeed, was the only object that ever did cast its +shadow there. Lucinda Bascom said her "front door 'n' entry +never hed ben used except for fun'rals, 'n' she was goin' +to keep it nice for that purpose, 'n' not get it all tracked up." + +She was sitting now where she had sat for thirty years. +Her high-backed rocker, with its cushion of copperplate patch +and its crocheted tidy, stood always by a southern window that +looked out on the river. The river was a sheet of crystal, as it +poured over the dam; a rushing, roaring torrent of foaming white, +as it swept under the bridge and fought its way between the rocky +cliffs beyond, sweeping swirling, eddying, in its narrow channel, +pulsing restlessly into the ragged fissures of its shores, +and leaping with a tempestuous roar into the Witches' Eel-pot, a deep +wooded gorge cleft in the very heart of the granite bank. + +But Lucinda Bascom could see more than the river from her +favorite window. It was a much-traveled road, the road that ran +past the house on its way from Liberty Village to Milliken's Mills. +A tottering old sign-board, on a verdant triangle of turf, directed you +over Deacon Chute's hill to the "Flag Medder Road," and from thence +to Liberty Centre; the little post-office and store, where the stage +stopped twice a day, was quite within eyeshot; so were the public +watering-trough, Brigadier Hill, and, behind the ruins of an old mill, +the wooded path that led to the Witches' Eel-pot, a favorite +walk for village lovers. This was all on her side of the river. +As for the bridge which knit together the two tiny villages, +nobody could pass over that without being seen from the Bascoms'. The +rumble of wheels generally brought a family party to the window,-- +Jot Bascom's wife (she that was Diadema Dennett), Jot himself, +if he were in the house, little Jot, and grandpa Bascom, who looked +at the passers-by with a vacant smile parting his thin lips. +Old Mrs. Bascom herself did not need the rumble of wheels to tell +her that a vehicle was coming, for she could see it fully ten minutes +before it reached the bridge,--at the very moment it appeared at the crest +of Saco Hill, where strangers pulled up their horses, on a clear day, +and paused to look at Mount Washington, miles away in the distance. +Tory Hill and Saco Hill met at the bridge, and just there, too, the river +road began its shady course along the east side of the stream: +in view of all which "old Mis' Bascom's settin'-room winder" +might well be called the "Village Watch-Tower," when you consider +further that she had moved only from her high-backed rocker to +her bed, and from her bed to her rocker, for more than thirty years,-- +ever since that july day when her husband had had a sun-stroke +while painting the meeting-house steeple, and her baby Jonathan +had been thereby hastened into a world not in the least ready +to receive him. + +She could not have lived without that window, she would have told you, +nor without the river, which had lulled her to sleep ever since she +could remember. It was in the south chamber upstairs that she had been born. +Her mother had lain there and listened to the swirl of the water, in that year +when the river was higher than the oldest inhabitant had ever seen it,-- +the year when the covered bridge at the Mills had been carried away, +and when the one at the Falls was in hourly danger of succumbing to the force +of the freshet. + +All the men in both villages were working on the river, +strengthening the dam, bracing the bridge, and breaking the jams of logs; +and with the parting of the boom, the snapping of the bridge timbers, +the crashing of the logs against the rocks, and the shouts of +the river-drivers, the little Lucinda had come into the world. +Some one had gone for the father, and had found him on the river, +where he had been since day-break, drenched with the storm, +blown fro his dangerous footing time after time, but still battling +with the great heaped-up masses of logs, wrenching them from one +another's grasp, and sending them down the swollen stream. + +Finally the jam broke; and a cheer of triumph burst +from the excited men, as the logs, freed from their bondage, +swept down the raging flood, on and ever on in joyous liberty, +faster and faster, till they encountered some new obstacle, +when they heaped themselves together again, like puppets of Fate, +and were beaten by the waves into another helpless surrender. + +With the breaking of the jam, one dead monarch of the forest +leaped into the air as if it had been shot from a cannon's mouth, +and lodged between two jutting peaks of rock high on the river bank. +Presently another log was dashed against it, but rolled off and hurried +down the stream; then another, and still another; but no force seemed +enough to drive the giant from its intrenched position. + +"Hurry on down to the next jam, Raish, and let it alone," +cried the men. "Mebbe it'll git washed off in the night, and anyhow +you can't budge it with no kind of a tool we've got here." + +Then from the shore came a boy's voice calling, "There's a baby +up to your house!" And the men repeated in stentorian tones, +"Baby up to your house, Raish! Leggo the log; you're wanted!" + +"Boy or girl?" shouted the young father. + +"Girl!" came back the answer above the roar of the river. + +Whereupon Raish Dunnell steadied himself with his pick +and taking a hatchet from his belt, cut a rude letter "L" +on the side of the stranded log. + +"L's for Lucindy," he laughed. "Now you log if you git's fur as Saco, +drop in to my wife's folks and tell 'em the baby's name." + +There had not been such a freshet for years before, and there had +never been one since; so, as the quiet seasons went by, "Lucindy's log" +was left in peace, the columbines blooming all about it, the harebells +hanging their heads of delicate blue among the rocks that held it in place, +the birds building their nests in the knot-holes of its withered side. + +Seventy years had passed, and on each birthday, +from the time when she was only "Raish Dunnell's little Lou," +to the years when she was Lucinda Bascom, wife and mother, +she had wandered down by the river side, and gazed, +a little superstitiously perhaps, on the log that had +been marked with an "L" on the morning she was born. +It had stood the wear and tear of the elements bravely, +but now it was beginning, like Lucinda, to show its age. +Its back was bent, like hers; its face was seamed and wrinkled, +like her own; and the village lovers who looked at it from +the opposite bank wondered if, after all, it would hold out +as long as "old Mis' Bascom." + +She held out bravely, old Mrs. Bascom, though she was +"all skin, bones, and tongue," as the neighbors said; for nobody +needed to go into the Bascoms' to brighten up aunt Lucinda a bit, +or take her the news; one went in to get a bit of brightness, +and to hear the news. + +"I should get lonesome, I s'pose," she was wont to say, "if it wa'n't +for the way this house is set, and this chair, and this winder, 'n' all. +Men folks used to build some o' the houses up in a lane, or turn 'em back +or side to the road, so the women folks couldn't see anythin' to keep their +minds off their churnin' or dish-washin'; but Aaron Dunnell hed somethin' +else to think about, 'n' that was himself, first, last, and all the time. +His store was down to bottom of the hill, 'n' when he come up to his meals, +he used to set where he could see the door; 'n' if any cust'mer come, +he could call to 'em to wait a spell till he got through eatin'. Land! +I can hear him now, yellin' to 'em, with his mouth full of victuals! +They hed to wait till he got good 'n' ready, too. There wa'n't so much +comp'tition in business then as there is now, or he'd 'a' hed to give up +eatin' or hire a clerk. . . . I've always felt to be thankful that the house +was on this rise o' ground. The teams hev to slow up on 'count o' +the hill, 'n' it gives me consid'ble chance to see folks 'n' what they've +got in the back of the wagon, 'n' one thing 'n' other. . . . The +neighbors is continually comin' in here to talk about things that's goin' +on in the village. I like to hear 'em, but land! they can't tell me +nothing'! They often say, `For massy sakes, Lucindy Bascom, how d' +you know that?' `Why,' says I to them, `I don't ask no questions, +'n' folks don't tell me no lies; I just set in my winder, 'n' put two +'n' two together,--that's all I do.' I ain't never ben in a playhouse, +but I don't suppose the play-actors git down off the platform on t' +the main floor to explain to the folks what they've ben doin', do they? +I expect, if folks can't understand their draymas when the're actin' +of 'em out, they have to go ignorant, don't they? Well, what do I want +with explainin', when everythin' is acted out right in the road?" + +There was quite a gathering of neighbors at the Bascoms' +on this particular July afternoon. No invitations had been sent out, +and none were needed. A common excitement had made it vital +that people should drop in somewhere, and speculate about certain +interesting matters well known to be going on in the community, +but going on in such an underhand and secretive fashion that it +well-nigh destroyed one's faith in human nature. + +The sitting-room door was open into the entry, so that +whatever breeze there was might come in, and an unusual +glimpse of the new foreroom rug was afforded the spectators. +Everything was as neat as wax, for Diadema was a housekeeper +of the type fast passing away. The great coal stove was enveloped +in its usual summer wrapper of purple calico, which, tied neatly +about its ebony neck and portly waist, gave it the appearance +of a buxom colored lady presiding over the assembly. +The kerosene lamps stood in a row on the high, narrow mantelpiece, +each chimney protected from the flies by a brown paper bag +inverted over its head. Two plaster Samuels praying under +the pink mosquito netting adorned the ends of the shelf. +There were screens at all the windows, and Diadema fidgeted +nervously when a visitor came in the mosquito netting door, +for fear a fly should sneak in with her. + +On the wall were certificates of membership in the Missionary Society; +a picture of Maidens welcoming Washington in the Streets of Alexandria, +in a frame of cucumber seeds; and an interesting document setting forth +the claims of the Dunnell family as old settlers long before the separation +of Maine from Massachusetts,--the fact bein' established by an obituary +notice reading, "In Saco, December 1791, Dorcas, daughter of Abiathar Dunnell, +two months old of Fits unbaptized." + +"He may be goin' to marry Eunice, and he may not," observed Almira Berry; +"though what she wants of Reuben Hobson is more 'n I can make out. +I never see a widower straighten up as he has this last year. +I guess he's been lookin' round pretty lively, but couldn't find anybody +that was fool enough to give him any encouragement." + +"Mebbe she wants to get married," said Hannah Sophia, +in a tone that spoke volumes. "When Parson Perkins come +to this parish, one of his first calls was on Eunice Emery. +He always talked like the book o' Revelation; so says he, +`have you got your weddin' garment on, Miss Emery?' says he. +`No,' says she, `but I ben tryin' to these twenty years.' +She was always full of her jokes, Eunice was!" + +"The Emerys was always a humorous family," +remarked Diadema, as she annihilated a fly with a newspaper. +"Old Silas Emery was an awful humorous man. He used to live +up on the island; and there come a freshet one year, +and he said he got his sofy 'n' chairs off, anyhow!" That was +just his jokin'. He hadn't a sign of a sofy in the house; +'t was his wife Sophy he meant, she that was Sophy Swett. +Then another time, when I was a little mite of a thin runnin' +in 'n' out o' his yard, he caught holt o' me, and says he, +`You'd better take care, sissy; when I kill you and two more, +thet'll be three children I've killed!' Land! you couldn't +drag me inside that yard for years afterwards. +. . . There! she's got a fire in the cook-stove; there's a stream o' +smoke comin' out o' the kitchen chimbley. I'm willin' +to bet my new rug she's goin' to be married tonight!" + +"Mebbe she's makin' jell'," suggested Hannah Sophia. + +"Jell'!" ejaculated Mrs. Jot scornfully. "Do you +s'pose Eunice Emery would build up a fire in the middle o' +the afternoon 'n' go to makin' a jell', this hot day? +Besides, there ain't a currant gone into her house this week, +as I happen to know." + +"It's a dretful thick year for fol'age," mumbled grandpa Bascom, +appearing in the door with his vacant smile. "I declare some o' +the maples looks like balls in the air." + +"That's the twentieth time he's hed that over since mornin'," +said Diadema. "Here, father, take your hat off 'n' set in the +kitchen door 'n' shell me this mess o' peas. Now think smart, +'n' put the pods in the basket 'n' the peas in the pan; +don't you mix 'em." + +The old man hung his hat on the back of the chair, took the pan +in his trembling hands, and began aimlessly to open the pods, +while he chuckled at the hens that gathered round the doorstep +when they heard the peas rattling in the pan. + +"Reuben needs a wife bad enough, if that's all," remarked the +Widow Buzzell, as one who had given the matter some consideration. + +"I should think he did," rejoined old Mrs. Bascom. +"Those children 'bout git their livin' off the road in summer, +from the time the dand'lion greens is ready for diggin' +till the blackb'ries 'n' choke-cherries is gone. +Diademy calls 'em in 'n' gives 'em a cooky every time +they go past, 'n' they eat as if they was famished. +Rube Hobson never was any kind of a pervider, 'n' he's +consid'able snug besides." + +"He ain't goin' to better himself much," said Almira. +"Eunice Emery ain't fit to housekeep for a cat. +The pie she took to the pie supper at the church was so tough +that even Deacon Dyer couldn't eat it; and the boys got holt +of her doughnuts, and declared they was goin' fishin' next day +'n' use 'em for sinkers. She lives from hand to mouth Eunice +Emery does. She's about as much of a doshy as Rube is. +She'll make tea that's strong enough to bear up an egg, most, +and eat her doughnuts with it three times a day rather than +take the trouble to walk out to the meat or the fish cart. +I know for a fact she don't make riz bread once a year." + +"Mebbe her folks likes buttermilk bread best; some do," +said the Widow Buzzell. "My husband always said, give him +buttermilk bread to work on. He used to say my riz bread +was so light he'd hev to tread on it to keep it anywheres; +but when you'd eat buttermilk bread he said you'd got somethin' +that stayed by you; you knew where it was every time. +. . . For massy sake! there's the stage stoppin' at the Hobson's door. +I wonder if Rube's first wife's mother has come from Moderation? +If 't is, they must 'a' made up their quarrel, for there was a time +she wouldn't step foot over that doorsill. She must be goin' +to stay some time, for there's a trunk on the back o' the stage. +. . . No, there ain't nobody gettin' out. Land, Hannah Sophia, +don't push me clean through the glass! It beats me why they make winders +so small that three people can't look out of 'em without crowdin'. +Ain't that a wash-boiler he's handin' down? Well, it's a mercy; +he's ben borrowin' long enough!" + +"What goes on after dark I ain't responsible for," +commented old Mrs. Bascom, "but no new wash-boiler has gone +into Rube Hobson's door in the daytime for many a year, +and I'll be bound it means somethin'. There goes a broom, too. +Much sweepin' he'll get out o' Eunice; it's a slick 'n' +a promise with her!" + +"When did you begin to suspicion this, Diademy?" asked Almira Berry. +"I've got as much faculty as the next one, but anybody that lives on the river +road has just got to give up knowin' anything. You can't keep runnin' +to the store every day, and if you could you don't find out much nowadays. +Bill Peters don't take no more interest in his neighbors than a cow +does in election." + +"I can't get mother Bascom to see it as I do," said Diadema, +"but for one thing she's ben carryin' home bundles 'bout every +other night for a month, though she's ben too smart to buy anythin' +here at this store. She had Packard's horse to go to Saco last week. +When she got home, jest at dusk, she drove int' the barn, +'n' bimeby Pitt Packard come to git his horse,--'t was her own +buggy she went with. She looked over here when she went int' +the house, 'n' she ketched my eye, though 't was half a mile away, +so she never took a thing in with her, but soon as't was dark she made +three trips out to the barn with a lantern, 'n' any fool could tell +'t her arms was full o' pa'cels by the way she carried the lantern. +The Hobsons and the Emerys have married one another more 'n once, +as fur as that goes. I declare if I was goin' to get married I +should want to be relation to somebody besides my own folks." + +"The reason I can hardly credit it," said Hannah Sophia, +"is because Eunice never had a beau in her life, that I can +remember of. Cyse Higgins set up with her for a spell, +but it never amounted to nothin'. It seems queer, too, for she +was always so fond o' seein' men folks round that when Pitt +Packard was shinglin' her barn she used to go out nights +'n' rip some o' the shingles off, so 't he'd hev more days' +work on it." + +"I always said 't was she that begun on Rube Hobson, +not him on her," remarked the Widow Buzzell. +"Their land joinin' made courtin' come dretful handy. +His critters used to git in her field 'bout every other day +(I always suspicioned she broke the fence down herself), +and then she'd hev to go over and git him to drive 'em out. +She's wed his onion bed for him two summers, as I happen to know, +for I've been ou' doors more 'n common this summer, tryin' +to fetch my constitution up. Diademy, don't you want to look +out the back way 'n' see if Rube's come home yet?" + +"He ain't," said old Mrs. Bascom, "so you needn't look; +can't you see the curtains is all down? He's gone up to the Mills, +'n' it's my opinion he's gone to speak to the minister." + +"He hed somethin' in the back o' the wagon covered up with an old +linen lap robe; 't ain't at all likely he 'd 'a' hed that if he'd ben goin' +to the minister's," objected Mrs. Jot. + +"Anybody'd think you was born yesterday, to hear you talk, Diademy," +retorted her mother-in-law. "When you 've set in one spot's long's +I hev, p'raps you'll hev the use o' your faculties! Men folks has more +'n one way o' gettin' married, 'specially when they 're ashamed of it. +. . . Well, I vow, there's the little Hobson girls comin' out o' +the door this minute, 'n' they 're all dressed up, and Mote don't seem +to be with 'em." + +Every woman in the room rose to her feet, and Diadema removed +her murderous eye from a fly which she had been endeavoring to locate +for some moments. + +"I guess they 're goin' up to the church to meet their father 'n' Eunice, +poor little things," ventured the Widow Buzzell. + +"P'raps they be," said old Mrs. Bascom sarcastically; +"p'raps they be goin' to church, takin' a three-quart +tin pail 'n' a brown paper bundle along with 'em. +. . . They 're comin' over the bridge, just as I s'posed. +. . . Now, if they come past this house, you head 'em off, +Almiry, 'n' see if you can git some satisfaction out of 'em. +. . . They ain't hardly old enough to hold their tongues." + +An exciting interview soon took place in the middle of the road, +and Almira reentered the room with the expression of one who had +penetrated the inscrutable and solved the riddle of the Sphinx. +She had been vouch-safed one of those gleams of light in darkness +which almost dazzle the beholder. + +"That's about the confirmingest thing I've heern yet!" +she ejaculated, as she took off her shaker bonnet. +"They say they're goin' up to their aunt Hitty's to stay two days. +They're dressed in their best, clean to the skin, for I looked; +'n' it's their night gownds they've got in the bundle. +They say little Mote has gone to Union to stop all night +with his uncle Abijah, 'n' that leaves Rube all alone, +for the smith girl that does his chores is home sick +with the hives. And what do you s'pose is in the pail? +_Fruit_ _cake_,--that's what 't is, no more 'n' no less! +I knowed that Smith girl didn't bake it, 'n' so I asked 'em, +'n' they said Miss Emery give it to 'em. There was two little +round try-cakes, baked in muffin-rings. Eunice hed took some o' +the batter out of a big loaf 'n' baked it to se how it was goin' +to turn out. That means wedding-cake, or I'm mistaken!" + +"There ain't no gittin' round that," agreed the assembled company, +"now is there, Mis' Bascom?" + +Old Mrs. Bascom wet her finger, smoothed the parting +of her false front, and looked inscrutable. + +"I don't see why you're so secret," objected Diadema. + +"I've got my opinions, and I've had 'em some time," +observed the good lady. "I don't know 's I'm bound to tell 'em +and have 'em held up to ridicule. Let the veal hang, I say. +If any one of us is right, we'll all know to-morrow." + +"Well, all any of us has got to judge from is appearances," said Diadema, +"and how you can twist 'em one way, and us another, stumps me!" + +"Perhaps I see more appearances than you do," +retorted her mother-in-law. "Some folks mistakes all they see +for all there is. I was reading a detective story last week. +It seems there was an awful murder in Schenectady, and a mother +and her two children was found dead in one bed, with bullet +holes in their heads. The husband was away on business, +and there wasn't any near neighbors to hear her screech. +Well, the detectives come from far and from near, and begun +to work up the case. One of 'em thought 't was the husband,-- +though he set such store by his wife he went ravin' +crazy when he heard she was dead,--one of 'em laid it +on the children,--though they was both under six years old; +and one decided it was suicide,--though the woman was a church +member and didn't know how to fire a gun off, besides. +And then there come along a detective younger and smarter than +all the rest, and says he, `If all you bats have seen everything +you can see, I guess I'll take a look around,' says he. +Sure enough, there was a rug with `Welcome' on it layin' in front +of the washstand, and when he turned it up he found an elegant +diamond stud with a man's full name and address on the gold part. +He took a train and went right to the man's house. +He was so taken by surprise (he hadn't missed the stud, +for he had a full set of 'em) that he owned right up and +confessed the murder." + +"I don't see as that's got anything to do with this case," said Diadema. + +"It's got this much to do with it," replied old Mrs. Bascom, +"that perhaps you've looked all round the room and seen everything +you had eyes to see, and perhaps I've had wit enough to turn up +the rug in front o' the washstand." + +"Whoever he marries now, Mis' Bascom'll have to say 't +was the one she meant," laughed the Widow Buzzell. + +"I never was caught cheatin' yet, and if I live till Saturday I shall +be seventy-one years old," said the old lady with some heat. "Hand me +Jot's lead pencil, Diademy, and that old envelope on the winder sill. +I'll write the name I think of, and shut it up in the old Bible. +My hand's so stiff to-day I can't hardly move it, but I guess I can make +it plain enough to satisfy you." + +"That's fair 'n' square," said Hannah Sophia, "and for +my pat I hope it ain't Eunice, for I like her too well. +What they're goin' to live on is more 'n I can see. Add nothin' +to nothin' 'n' you git nothin',--that's arethmetic! He ain't hed +a cent o' ready money sence he failed up four years ago, 'thout it +was that hundred dollars that fell to him from his wife's aunt. +Eunice'll hev her hands full this winter, I guess, with them +three hearty children 'n' him all wheezed up with phthisic +from October to April! . . . Who's that coming' down Tory Hill? +It's Rube's horse 'n' Rube's wagon, but it don't look like Rube." + +"Yes, it's Rube; but he's got a new Panama hat, 'n' he 's hed his +linen duster washed," said old Mrs. Bascom. . . . "Now, do you +mean to tell me that that woman with a stuck-up hat on is Eunice Emery? +It ain't, 'n' that green parasol don't belong to this village. He's drivin' +her into his yard! . . . Just as I s'posed, it's that little, smirkin' +worthless school-teacher up to the Mills.--Don't break my neck, Diademy; +can't you see out the other winder?--Yes, he's helpin' her out, 'n' showin' +her in. He can't 'a' ben married more'n ten minutes, for he's goin' +clear up the steps to open the door for her!" + +"Wait 'n' see if he takes his horse out," said Hannah Sophia. +"Mebbe he'll drive her back in a few minutes. . . . No, he's onhitched! +. . . There, he's hangin' up the head-stall!" + +"I've ben up in the attic chamber," called the Widow Buzzell, +as she descended the stairs; "she's pulled up the curtains, and took +off her hat right in front o' the winder, 's bold as a brass kettle! +She's come to stay! Ain't that Rube Hobson all over,--to bring another +woman int' this village 'stid o' weedin' one of 'em out as he'd oughter. +He ain't got any more public sperit than a--hedgehog, 'n' never had!" + +Almira drew on her mitts excitedly, tied on her shaker, +and started for the door. + +"I'm goin' over to Eunice's," she said, "and I'm goin' +to take my bottle of camphire. I shouldn't wonder a mite +if I found her in a dead faint on the kitchen floor. +Nobody need tell me she wa'n't buildin' hopes." + +"I'll go with you," said the Widow Buzzell. +"I'd like to see with my own eyes how she takes it, +'n' it'll be too late to tell if I wait till after supper. +If she'd ben more open with me 'n' ever asked for my advice, +I could 'a' told her it wa'n't the first time Rube Hobson has +played that trick." + +"I'd come too if 't wa'n't milkin' but Jot ain't home +from the Centre, and I've got to do his chores; come in as you +go along back, will you?" asked Diadema. + +Hannah Sophia remained behind, promising to meet them at the post-office +and hear the news. As the two women walked down the hill she drew the old +envelope from the Bible and read the wavering words scrawled upon it in old +Mrs. Bascom's rheumatic and uncertain hand,-- + + +_the_ _milikins_ _Mills_ _Teecher._ + + +"Well Lucindy, you do make good use o' your winder," +she exclaimed, "but how you pitched on anything so onlikely +as her is more'n I can see." + +"Just because 't was onlikely. A man's a great sight likelier +to do an onlikely thing than he is a likely one, when it comes +to marryin'. In the first place, Rube sent his children to school +up to the Mills 'stid of to the brick schoolhouse, though he had +to pay a little something to get 'em taken in to another deestrick. +They used to come down at night with their hands full o' +'ward o' merit cards. Do you s'pose I thought they got 'em +for good behavior, or for knowin' their lessons? Then aunt Hitty +told me some question or other Rube had asked examination day. +Since when has Rube Hobson 'tended examinations, thinks I. And +when I see the girl, a red-and-white paper doll that wouldn't know +whether to move the churn-dasher up 'n' down or round 'n' round, +I made up my mind that bein' a man he'd take her for certain, +and not his next-door neighbor of a sensible age and a house 'n' +farm 'n' cow 'n' buggy!" + +"Sure enough," agreed Hannah Sophia, "though that don't +account for Eunice's queer actions, 'n' the pa'cels 'n' +the fruit cake." + +"When I make out a case," observed Mrs. Bascom modestly, +"I ain't one to leave weak spots in it. If I guess at all, +I go all over the ground 'n' stop when I git through. +Now, sisters or no sisters, Maryabby Emery ain't spoke to Eunice sence +she moved to Salem. But if Eunice has ben bringin' pa'cels home, +Maryabby must 'a' paid for what was in 'em; and if she's ben bakin' +fruit cake this hot day, why Maryabby used to be so font o' +fruit cake her folks were afraid she'd have fits 'n' die. +I shall be watchin' here as usual to-morrow morning', 'n' +if Maryabby don't drive int' Eunice's yard before noon I won't +brag any more for a year to come." + +Hannah Sophia gazed at old Mrs. Bascom with unstinted admiration. +"You do beat all," she said; "and I wish I could stay all night 'n' see +how it turns out, but Almiry is just comin' over the bridge, 'n' I must +start 'n' meet her. Good-by. I'm glad to see you so smart; you always +look slim, but I guess you'll tough it out's long 's the rest of us. +I see your log was all right, last time I was down side o' the river." + + +"They say it 's jest goin' to break in two in the middle, +and fall into the river," cheerfully responded Lucinda. +"They say it's just hanging' on by a thread. Well, that's what +they 've ben sayin' about me these ten years, 'n' here I be +still hanging! It don't make no odds, I guess, whether it's +a thread or a rope you 're hangin' by, so long as you hang." + +* * * + + +The next morning, little Mote Hobson, who had stayed all night +with his uncle in Union, was walking home by the side of the river. +He strolled along, the happy, tousle-headed, barefooted youngster, +eyes one moment on the trees in the hope of squirrels and birds'-nests, +the next on the ground in search of the first blueberries. +As he stooped to pick up a bit of shining quartz to add to the collection +in his ragged trousers' pockets he glanced across the river, +and at that very instant Lucinda's log broke gently in twain, +rolled down the bank, crumbling as it went, and, dropping in like a +tired child, was carried peacefully along on the river's breast. + +Mote walked more quickly after that. It was quite a feather +in his cap to see, with his own eyes, the old landmark +slip from its accustomed place and float down the stream. +The other boys would miss it and say, "It's gone!" +He would say, "I saw it go!" + +Grandpa Bascom was standing at the top of the hill. His white locks +were uncovered, and he was in his shirt-sleeves. Baby Jot, as usual, +held fast by his shaking hand, for they loved each other, these two. +The cruel stroke of the sun that had blurred the old man's brain had spared +a blessed something in him that won the healing love of children. + +"How d' ye, Mote?" he piped in his feeble voice. "They say +Lucindy's dead. . . . Jot says she is, 'n' Diademy says she is, +'n' I guess she is. . . . It 's a dretful thick year for fol'age; +. . . some o' the maples looks like balls in the air." + +Mote looked in at the window. The neighbors were hurrying to and fro. +Diadema sat with her calico apron up to her face, sobbing; and for the first +morning in thirty years, old Mrs. Bascom's high-backed rocker was empty, +and there was no one sitting in the village watch-tower. + + +--------------------------------------------------------------- + + +TOM O' THE BLUEB'RY PLAINS. + + +The sky is a shadowless blue; the noon-day sun glows fiercely; +a cloud of dust rises from the burning road whenever the hot +breeze stirs the air, or whenever a farm wagon creaks along, +its wheels sinking into the deep sand. + +In the distance, where the green of the earth joins the blue of the sky, +gleams the silver line of a river. + +As far as the eye an reach, the ground is covered +with blueberry bushes; red leaves peeping among green ones; +bloom of blue fruit hanging in full warm clusters,--spheres of +velvet mellowed by summer sun, moistened with crystal dew, +spiced with fragrance of woods. + +In among the blueberry bushes grow huckleberries, +"choky pears," and black-snaps. + +Gnarled oaks and stunted pines lift themselves out +of the wilderness of shrubs. They look dwarfed and gloomy, +as if Nature had been an untender mother, and denied +them proper nourishment. + +The road is a little-traveled one, and furrows of feathery grasses +grow between the long, hot, sandy stretches of the wheel-ruts. + +The first goldenrod gleams among the loose stones at the foot +of the alder bushes. Whole families of pale butterflies, +just out of their long sleep, perch on the brilliant stalks +and tilter up and down in the sunshine. + +Straggling processions of wooly brown caterpillars wend their way +in the short grass by the wayside, where the wild carrot and the purple +bull-thistle are coming into bloom. + +The song of birds is seldom heard, and the blueberry plains +are given over to silence save for the buzzing of gorged flies, +the humming of bees, and the chirping of crickets that stir +the drowsy air when the summer begins to wane. + +It is so still that the shuffle-shuffle of a footstep can be heard +in the distance, the tinkle of a tin pail swinging musically to and fro, +the swish of an alder switch cropping the heads of the roadside weeds. +All at once a voice breaks the stillness. Is it a child's, a woman's, +or a man's? Neither yet all three. + + +"I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, +An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly +--swain." + +Everybody knows the song, and everybody knows the cracked voice. +The master of this bit of silent wilderness is coming home: +it is Tom o' the blueb'ry plains. + +He is more than common tall, with a sandy beard, +and a mop of tangled hair straggling beneath his torn straw hat. +A square of wet calico drips from under the back of the hat. +His gingham shirt is open at the throat, showing his tanned neck +and chest. Warm as it is, he wears portions of at least three coats +on his back. His high boots, split in foot and leg, are mended +and spliced and laced and tied on with bits of shingle rope. +He carries a small tin pail of molasses. It has a bail of rope, +and a battered cover with a knob of sticky newspaper. +Over one shoulder, suspended on a crooked branch, hangs a +bundle of basket stuff,--split willow withes and the like; +over the other swings a decrepit, bottomless, three-legged chair. + + +I call him the master of the plains, but in faith he had no legal +claim to the title. If he owned a habitation or had established a home +on any spot in the universe, it was because no man envied him what he took; +for Tom was one of God's fools, a foot-loose pilgrim in this world +of ours, a poor addle-pated, simple-minded, harmless creature,-- +in village parlance, a "softy." + +Mother or father, sister or brother, he had none, nor ever had, +so far as any one knew; but how should people who had to work from sun-up +to candlelight to get the better of the climate have leisure to discover +whether or no Blueb'ry Tom had any kin? + +At some period in an almost forgotten past there +had been a house on Tom's particular patch of the plains. +It had long since tumbled into ruins and served for fire-wood +and even the chimney bricks had disappeared one by one, +as the monotonous seasons came and went. + +Tom had settled himself in an old tool-shop, corn-house, or rude +out-building of some sort that had belonged to the ruined cottage. +Here he had set up his house-hold gods; and since no one else +had ever wanted a home in this dreary tangle of berry bushes, +where the only shade came from stunted pines that flung shriveled +arms to the sky and dropped dead cones to the sterile earth, +here he remained unmolested. + +In the lower part of the hut he kept his basket stuff +and his collection of two-legged and three-legged chairs. +In the course of evolution they never sprouted another leg, +those chairs; as they were given to him, so they remained. +The upper floor served for his living-room, and was reached +by a ladder from the ground, for there was no stairway inside. + +No one had ever been in the little upper chamber. +When a passer-by chanced to be-think him that Tom's +hermitage was close at hand, he sometimes turned in his +team by a certain clump of white birches and drove nearer +to the house, intending to remind Tom that there was a chair +to willow-bottom the next time he came to the village. +But at the noise of the wheels Tom drew in his ladder; +and when the visitor alighted and came within sight, +it was to find the inhospitable host standing in the opening +of the second-story window, a quaint figure framed +in green branches, the ladder behind him, and on his face +a kind of impenetrable dignity, as he shook his head and said, +"Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle." + +There was something impressive about his way of repelling callers; +it was as effectual as a door slammed in the face, and yet there +was a sort of mendacious courtesy about it. No one ever cared +to go further; and indeed there was no mystery to tempt the curious, +and no spoil to attract the mischievous or the malicious. +Any one could see, without entering, the straw bed in the far corner, +the beams piled deep with red and white oak acorns, the strings +of dried apples and bunches of everlastings hanging from the rafters, +and the half-finished baskets filled with blown bird's-eggs, +pine cones, and pebbles. + +No home in the village was better loved than Tom's +retreat in the blueberry plains. Whenever he approached it, +after a long day's tramp, when he caught the first sight +of the white birches that marked the gateway to his estate +and showed him where to turn off the public road into his own +private grounds, he smiled a broader smile than usual, +and broke into his well-known song: + + +"I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding, +An' hear the whis-sle of the jol-ly +--swain." + +Poor Tom could never catch the last note. He had sung +the song for more than forty years, but the memory of this +tone was so blurred, and his cherished ideal of it so high +(or so low, rather), that he never managed to reach it. + +Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better +supper than ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need +of sleeping under roof nor of lighting candles to grope his way +to pallet of straw, when he might have the blue vault of heaven +arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, and for a bed +a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine needles. +There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished +spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year, +another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed. +Flinging his tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head +in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn +sigh of pleasure,--there, haunted by no past and harassed +by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a child. + +Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well! + +But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer, +and the gaunt pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor +Tom's mattress, there came a change in the aspect of things. +He still made his way to the village, seeking chairs to mend; +but he was even more unkempt than of old, his tall figure was bent, +and his fingers trembled as he wove the willow strands in and out, +and over and under. + +There was little work to do, moreover, for the village had altogether +retired from business, and was no longer in competition with its neighbors: +the dam was torn away, the sawmills were pulled down; husbands and fathers +were laid in the churchyard, sons and brothers and lovers had gone West, and +mothers and widows and spinsters stayed on, each in her quiet house alone. +"'T ain't no hardship when you get used to it," said the Widow Buzzell. +"Land sakes! a lantern 's 's good 's a man any time, if you only think so, +'n' 't ain't half so much trouble to keep it filled up!" + +But Tom still sold a basket occasionally, and the children +always gathered about him for the sake of hearing him repeat +his well-worn formula,--Tom allers puts two handles on baskets: +one to take 'em up by, one to set 'em down by." +This was said with a beaming smile and a wise shake of the head, +as if he were announcing a great discovery to an expectant world. +And then he would lay down his burden of basket stuff, +and, sitting under an apple-tree in somebody's side yard, +begin his task of willow-bottoming an old chair. It was a pretty +sight enough, if one could keep back the tears,--the kindly, +simple fellow with the circle of children about his knees. +Never a village fool without a troop of babies at his heels. +They love him, too, till we teach them to mock. + +When he was younger, he would sing, + +"Rock-a-by, baby, on the treetop," + +and dance the while, swinging his unfinished basket to and fro for a cradle. +He was too stiff in the joints for dancing nowadays, but he still sang +the "bloomin' gy-ar-ding" when ever they asked him, particularly if +some apple-cheeked little maid would say, "Please, Tom!" +He always laughed then, and, patting the child's hand, said, "Pooty gal,-- +got eyes!" The youngsters dance with glee at this meaningless phrase, +just as their mothers had danced years before when it was said to them. + +Summer waned. In the moist places the gentian uncurled +its blue fringes; purple asters and gay Joe Pye waved their +colors by the roadside; tall primroses put their yellow +bonnets on, and peeped over the brooks to see themselves; +and the dusty pods of the milkweed were bursting with +their silky fluffs, the spinning of the long summer. +Autumn began to paint the maples red and the elms yellow, +for the early days of September brought a frost. +Some one remarked at the village store that old Blueb'ry Tom +must not be suffered to stay on the plains another winter, +now that he was getting so feeble,--not if the "_se_leckmen" had +to root him out and take him to the poor-farm. He would surely +starve or freeze, and his death would be laid at their door. + +Tom was interviewed. Persuasion, logic, sharp words, all failed +to move him one jot or tittle. He stood in his castle door, +with the ladder behind him, smiling, always smiling +(none but the fool smiles always, nor always weeps), and saying +to all visitors, "Tom ain't ter hum; Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle; +Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm." + +November came in surly. + +The cheerful stir and bustle of the harvest were over, the corn +was shocked, the apples and pumpkins were gathered into barns. +The problem of Tom's future was finally laid before the selectmen; +and since the poor fellow's mild obstinancy had defeated all attempts +to conquer it, the sheriff took the matter in hand. + +The blueberry plains looked bleak and bare enough now. It had rained +incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. +The sun came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,-- +like a duty smile,--as if light, not heat, were its object. +A keen wind blew the dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance +that had no merriment in it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel +by the wayside, and, ruffling himself into a ball, remarked despondently +that feathers were no sort of protection in this kind of climate. +A snowbird, flying by, glanced in at the barrel, and observed that +anybody who minded a little breeze like that had better join the woodcocks, +who were leaving for the South by the night express. + +The blueberry bushes were stripped bare of green. The stunted +pines and sombre hemlocks looked in tone with the landscape now; +where all was dreary they did not seem amiss. + +"Je-whilikins!" exclaimed the sheriff as he drew up his coat collar. +"A madhouse is the place for the man who wants to live ou'doors in +the winter time; the poor-farm is too good for him." + +But Tom was used to privation, and even to suffering. +"Ou'doors" was the only home he knew, and with all its rigors he loved it. +He looked over the barren plains, knowing, in a dull sort of way, +that they would shortly be covered with snow; but he had three coats, +two of them with sleeves, and the crunch-crunch of the snow +under his tread was music to his ears. Then, too, there were +a few hospitable firesides where he could always warm himself; +and the winter would soon be over, the birds would come again,-- +new birds, singing the old songs,--the sap would mount in the trees, +the buds swell on the blueberry bushes, and the young ivory +leaves push their ruddy tips through the softening ground. +The plains were fatherland and mother-country, home and kindred, to Tom. +He loved the earth that nourished him, and he saw through all +the seeming death in nature the eternal miracle of the resurrection. +To him winter was never cruel. He looked underneath her white mantle, +saw the infant spring hidden in her warm bosom, and was content to wait. +Content to wait? Content to starve, content to freeze, if only +he need not be carried into captivity. + +The poor-farm was not a bad place, either, if only Tom +had been a reasonable being. To be sure, when Hannah Sophia +Palmer asked old Mrs. Pinkham how she liked it, she answered, +with a patient sigh, that "her 'n' Mr. Pinkham hed lived +there goin' on nine year, workin' their fingers to the bone +'most, 'n' yet they hadn't been able to lay up a cent!" +If this peculiarity of administration was its worst feature, +it was certainly one that would have had no terrors for Tom o' +the blueb'ry plains. Terrors of some sort, nevertheless, +the poor-farm had for him; and when the sheriff's party +turned in by the clump of white birches and approached +the cabin, they found that fear had made the simple wise. +Tom had provished the little upper chamber, and, in place +of the piece of sacking that usually served him for a door +in winter, he had woven a defense of willow. In fine, +he had taken all his basket stuff, and, treating the opening +through which he entered and left his home precisely as +if it were a bottomless chair, he had filled it in solidly, +weaving to and fro, by night as well as by day, till he felt, +poor fool, as safely intrenched as if he were in the heart +of a fortress. + +The sheriff tied his horse to a tree, and Rube Hobson and Pitt Packard +got out of the double wagon. Two men laughed when they saw the pathetic +defense, but the other shut his lips together and caught his breath. +(He had been born on a poor-farm, but no one knew it at Pleasant River.) +They called Tom's name repeatedly, but no other sound broke the silence +of the plains save the rustling of the wind among the dead leaves. + +"Numb-head!" muttered the sheriff, pounding on the side +of the cabin with his whip-stock. "Come out and show yourself! +We know you're in there, and it's no use hiding!" + +At last in response to a deafening blow from Rube Hobson's hard fist, +there came the answering note of a weak despairing voice. + +"Tom ain't ter hum," it said; "Tom's gone to Bonny Eagle." + +"That's all right!" guffawed the men; "but you've got to go some more, +and go a diff'rent way. It ain't no use fer you to hold back; we've got +a ladder, and by Jiminy! you go with us this time!" + +The ladder was put against the side of the hut, and Pitt Packard +climbed up, took his jack-knife, slit the woven door from top to bottom, +and turned back the flap. + +The men could see the inside of the chamber now. They were humorous +persons who could strain a joke to the snapping point, but they felt, +at last, that there was nothing especially amusing in the situation. +Tom was huddled in a heap on the straw bed in the far corner. +The vacant smile had fled from his face, and he looked, for the first +time in his life, quite distraught. + +"Come along, Tom," said the sheriff kindly; +"we 're going to take you where you can sleep in a bed, +and have three meals a day." + +"I'd much d'ruth-er walk in the bloom-in' gy-ar-ding," + +sang Tom quaveringly, as he hid his head in a paroxysm of fear. + +"Well, there ain't no bloomin' gardings to walk in jest now, +so come along and be peaceable." + +"Tom don' want to go to the poor-farm," he wailed piteously. + +But there was no alternative. They dragged him off the bed +and down the ladder as gently as possible; then Rube Hobson held him +on the back seat of the wagon, while the sheriff unhitched the horse. +As they were on the point of starting, the captive began to wail +and struggle more than ever, the burden of his plaint being a wild +and tremulous plea for his pail of molasses. + +"Dry up, old softy, or I'll put the buggy robe over your head!" +muttered Rube Hobson, who had not had much patience when he started +on the trip, and had lost it all by this time. + +"By thunder! he shall hev his molasses, if he thinks he wants it!" +said Pitt Packard, and he ran up the ladder and brought it down, +comforting the shivering creature thus, for he lapsed into a submissive +silence that lasted until the unwelcome journey was over. + +Tom remained at the poorhouse precisely twelve hours. +It did not enter the minds of the authorities that any one so fortunate +as to be admitted into that happy haven would decline to stay there. +The unwilling guest disappeared early on the morrow of his arrival, and, +after some search, they followed him to the old spot. He had climbed +into his beloved retreat, and, having learned nothing from experience, +had mended the willow door as best he could, and laid him down in peace. +They dragged him out again, and this time more impatiently; +for it was exasperating to see a man (even if he were a fool) +fight against a bed and three meals a day. + +The second attempt was little more successful than the first. +As a place of residence, the poor-farm did not seem any more desirable +or attractive on near acquaintance than it did at long range. +Tom remained a week, because he was kept in close confinement; +but when they judged that he was weaned from his old home, +they loosed his bonds, and--back to the plains he sped, like an arrow +shot from the bow, or like a bit of iron leaping to the magnet. + +What should be done with him? + +Public opinion was divided. Some people declared that +the village had done its duty, and if the "dog-goned lunk-head" +wanted to starve and freeze, it was his funeral, not theirs. +Others thought that the community had no resource but to +bear the responsibility of its irresponsible children, +however troublesome they might be. There was entire +unanimity of view so far as the main issues were concerned. +It was agreed that nobody at the poor-farm had leisure to stand +guard over Tom night and day, and that the sheriff could +not be expected to spend his time forcing him out of his hut +on the blueberry plains. + +There was but one more expedient to be tried, a very simple +and ingenious but radical and comprehensive one, which, in Rube +Hobson's opinion, would strike at the root of the matter. + +Tom had fled from captivity for the third time. + +He had stolen out at daybreak, and, by an unexpected stroke +of fortune, the molasses pail was hanging on a nail by the shed door. +The remains of a battered old bushel basket lay on the wood-pile: bottom +it had none, nor handles; rotundity of side had long since disappeared, +and none but its maker would have known it for a basket. Tom caught it +up in his flight, and, seizing the first crooked stick that offered, +he slung the dear familiar burden over his shoulder and started off +on a jog-trot. + +Heaven, how happy he was! It was the rosy dawn of an Indian summer day,-- +a warm jewel of a day, dropped into the bleak world of yesterday without +a hint of beneficent intention; one of those enchanting weather surprises +with which Dame Nature reconciles us to her stern New England rule. + +The joy that comes of freedom, and the freedom +that comes of joy, unbent the old man's stiffened joints. +He renewed his youth at every mile. He ran like a lapwing. +When his feet first struck the sandy soil of the plains, he broke +into old song of the "bloom-in' gy-ar-ding" and the "jolly swain," +and in the marvelous mental and spiritual exhilaration +born of the supreme moment he almost grasped that impossible +last note. His heard could hardly hold its burden of rapture +when he caught the well-known gleam of the white birches. +He turned into the familiar path, boy's blood thumping in old +man's veins. The past week had been a dreadful dream. +A few steps more and he would be within sight, +within touch of home,--home at last! No--what was wrong? +He must have gone beyond it, in his reckless haste! +Strange that he could have forgotten the beloved spot! +Can lover mistake the way to sweetheart's window? +Can child lose the path to mother's knee? + +He turned,--ran hither and thither, like one distraught. +A nameless dread flitted through his dull mind, chilling his +warm blood, paralyzing the activity of the moment before. +At last, with a sob like that of a frightened child +who flies from some imagined evil lurking in darkness, +he darted back to the white birches and started anew. +This time he trusted to blind instinct; his feet knew the path, +and, left to themselves, they took him through the tangle +of dry bushes straight to his-- + +It had vanished! + +Nothing but ashes remained to mark the spot,--nothing but ashes! +And these, ere many days, the autumn winds would scatter, +and the leafless branches on which they fell would shake them +off lightly, never dreaming that they hid the soul of a home. +Nothing but ashes! + +Poor Tom o' the blueb'ry plains! + + +--------------------------------------------------------------- + + +THE NOONING TREE. + + +The giant elm stood in the centre of the squire's fair green meadows, +and was known to all the country round about as the "Bean ellum." +The other trees had seemingly retired to a respectful distance, +as if they were not worthy of closer intimacy; and so it stood alone, +king of the meadow, monarch of the village. + +It shot from the ground for a space, straight, strong, and superb, +and then bust into nine splendid branches, each a tree in itself, +all growing symmetrically from the parent trunk, and casting +a grateful shadow under which all the inhabitants of the tiny +village might have gathered. + +It was not alone its size, its beauty, its symmetry, its density +of foliage, that made it the glory of the neighborhood, but the low +grown of its branches and the extra-ordinary breadth of its shade. +Passers-by from the adjacent towns were wont to hitch their teams +by the wayside, crawl through the stump fence and walk +across the fields, for a nearer view of its magnificence. +One man, indeed, was known to drive by the tree every day during +the summer, and lift his hat to it, respectfully, each time he passed; +but he was a poet and his intellect was not greatly esteemed +in the village. + +The elm was almost as beautiful in one season as in another. +In the spring it rose from moist fields and mellow ploughed ground, +its tiny brown leaf buds bursting with pride at the thought +of the loveliness coiled up inside. In summer it stood +in the midst of a waving garden of buttercups and whiteweed, +a towering mass of verdant leafage, a shelter from the sun +and a refuge from the storm; a cool, splendid, hospitable dome, +under which the weary farmer might fling himself, and gaze +upward as into the heights and depths of an emerald heaven. +As for the birds, they made it a fashionable summer resort, +the most commodious and attractive in the whole country; with no +limit to the accommodations for those of a gregarious turn of mind, +liking the advantages of select society combined with country air. +In the autumn it held its own; for when the other elms changed +their green to duller tints, the nooning tree put on +a gown of yellow, and stood out against the far background +of sombre pine woods a brilliant mass of gold and brown. +In winter, when there was no longer dun of upturned sod, +nor waving daisy gardens, nor ruddy autumn grasses, +it rose above the dazzling snow crust, lifting its bare, +shapely branches in sober elegance and dignity, and seeming +to say, "Do not pity me; I have been, and, please God, +I shall be!" + +Whenever the weather was sufficiently mild, it was used as a "nooning" +tree by all the men at work in the surrounding fields; but it was in haying +time that it became the favorite lunching and "bangeing" place for Squire +Bean's hands and those of Miss Vilda Cummins, who owned the adjoining farm. +The men congregated under the spreading branches at twelve o' the clock, +and spent the noon hour there, eating and "swapping" stories, as they +were doing to-day. + +Each had a tin pail, and each consumed a quantity of "flour food" +that kept the housewives busy at the cook stove from morning till night. +A glance at Pitt Packard's luncheon, for instance, might suffice +as an illustration, for, as Jabe Slocum said, "Pitt took after +both his parents; one et a good deal, 'n' the other a good while." +His pail contained four doughnuts, a quarter section of pie, +six buttermilk biscuits, six ginger cookies, a baked cup custard, +and a quart of cold coffee. This quantity was a trifle unusual, +but every man in the group was lined throughout with pie, +cemented with buttermilk bread, and riveted with doughnuts. + +Jabe Slocum and Brad Gibson lay extended slouchingly, +their cowhide boots turned up to the sky; Dave Milliken, +Steve Webster, and the others leaned back against the tree-trunk, +smoking clay pipes, or hugging their knees and chewing blades +of grass reflectively. + +One man sat apart from the rest, gloomily puffing rings of smoke +into the air. After a while he lay down in the grass with his head +buried in his hat, sleeping to all appearances, while the others talked +and laughed; for he had no stories, though he put in an absent-minded word +or two when he was directly addressed. This was the man from Tennessee, +Matt Henderson, dubbed "Dixie" for short. He was a giant fellow,-- +a "great gormin' critter," Samantha Ann Milliken called him; +but if he had held up his head and straightened his broad shoulders, +he would have been thought a man of splendid presence. + +He seemed a being from another sphere instead of from another +section of the country. It was not alone the olive tint of the skin, +the mass of wavy dark hair tossed back from a high forehead, +the sombre eyes, and the sad mouth,--a mouth that had never grown +into laughing curves through telling Yankee jokes,--it was not these +that gave him what the boys called a "kind of a downcasted look." +The man from Tennessee had something more than a melancholy temperament; +he had, or physiognomy was a lie, a sorrow tugging at his heart. + +"I'm goin' to doze a spell," drawled Jabe Slocum, pulling his +straw hat over his eyes. "I've got to renew my strength like +the eagle's, 'f I'm goin' to walk to the circus this afternoon. +Wake me up, boys, when you think I'd ought to sling that scythe +some more, for if I hev it on my mind I can't git a wink o' sleep." + +This was apparently a witticism; at any rate, it elicited +roars of laughter. + +"It's one of Jabe's useless days; he takes 'em from his +great-aunt Lyddy," said David Milliken. + +"You jest dry up, Dave. Ef it took me as long to git +to workin' as it did you to git a wife, I bate this hay wouldn't +git mowed down to crack o' doom. Gorry! ain't this a tree! +I tell you, the sun 'n' the airth, the dew 'n' the showers, +'n' the Lord God o' creation jest took holt 'n' worked together +on this tree, 'n' no mistake!" + +"You're right, Jabe." (This from Steve Webster, who was absently +cutting a _D_ in the bark. He was always cutting _D_'s these days.) +"This ellum can't be beat in the State o' Maine, nor no other state. +My brother that lives in California says that the big redwoods, +big as they air, don't throw no sech shade, nor ain't so han'some, +'specially in the fall o' the year, as our State o' Maine trees; +'assiduous trees,' he called 'em." + +"_Assidyus_ trees? Why don't you talk United States while +you're about it, 'n' not fire yer long-range words round here? +_Assidyus!_ What does it mean, anyhow?" + +"Can't prove it by me. That's what he called 'em, 'n' +I never forgot it." + +"Assidyus--assidyus--it don't sound as if it meant nothing', to me." + +"Assiduous means 'busy,'" said the man from Tennessee, +who had suddenly waked from a brown study, and dropped +off into another as soon as he had given the definition. + +"Busy, does it? Wall, I guess we ain't no better off +now 'n we ever was. One tree's 'bout 's busy as another, +as fur 's I can see." + +"Wall, there is kind of a meanin' in it to me, but it'sturrible far +fetched," remarked Jabe Slocum, rather sleepily. +"You see, our ellums and maples 'n' all them trees spends part o' +the year in buddin' 'n' gittin' out their leaves 'n' hangin' +em all over the branches; 'n' then, no sooner air they full grown +than they hev to begin colorin' of 'em red or yeller or brown, +'n' then shakin' 'em off; 'n' this is all extry, you might say, +to their every-day chores o' growin' 'n' cirkerlatin' sap, 'n' spreadin' +'n' thickenin' 'n' shovin' out limbs, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother; +'n' it stan's to reason that the first 'n' hemlocks 'n' them +California redwoods, that keeps their clo'es on right through the year, +can't be so busy as them that keeps a-dressin' 'n' ondressin' +all the time." + +"I guess you're 'bout right," allowed Steve, +"but I shouldn't never 'a' thought of it in the world. +What yer takin' out o' that bottle, Jabe? I thought you +was a temperance man." + +"I guess he 's like the feller over to Shandagee schoolhouse, +that said he was in favor o' the law, but agin its enforcement!" +laughed Pitt Packard. + +"I ain't breakin' no law; this is yarb bitters," Jabe answered, +with a pull at the bottle. + +"It's to cirkerlate his blood," said Ob Tarbox; +"he's too dog-goned lazy to cirkerlate it himself." + +"I'm takin' it fer what ails me," said Jabe oracularly; +"the heart knoweth its own bitterness, 'n' it 's a wise child +that knows its own complaints 'thout goin' to a doctor." + +"Ain't yer scared fer fear it'll start yer growth, Laigs?" asked little +Brad Gibson, looking at Jabe's tremendous length of limb and foot. +"Say, how do yer git them feet o' yourn uphill? Do yer start one ahead, +'n' side-track the other?" + +The tree rang with the laughter evoked by this sally, +but the man from Tennessee never smiled. + +Jabe Slocum's imperturbable good humor was not shaken in the very least +by these personal remarks. "If I thought 't was a good growin' +medicine, I'd recommend it to your folks, Brad," he replied cheerfully. +"Your mother says you boys air all so short that when you're diggin' +potatoes, yer can't see her shake the dinner rag 'thout gittin' +up 'n' standing on the potato hills! If I was a sinikitin feller like you, +I wouldn't hector folks that had made out to grow some." + +"Speakin' o' growin'," said Steve Webster, "who do you guess +I seen in Boston, when I was workin' there? That tall Swatkins +girl from the Duck Pond, the one that married Dan Robinson. +It was one Sunday, in the Catholic meetin'-house. I'd allers wanted +to go to a Catholic meetin', an' I declare it's about the solemnest +one there is. I mistrusted I was goin' to everlastin'ly giggle, +but I tell yer I was the awedest cutter yer ever see. +But anyway, the Swatkins girl--or Mis' Robinson, she is now-- +was there as large as life in the next pew to me, jabberin' +Latin, pawin' beads, gettin' up 'n' kneelin' down, 'n' crossin' +herself north, south, east, 'n' west, with the best of 'em. Poor Dan! +'Grinnin' Dan,' we used to call him. Well, he don't grin nowadays. +He never was good for much, but he 's hed more 'n his comeuppance!" + +"Why, what 's the matter with him? Can't he git work in Boston?" + +"Matter? Why, his wife, that I see makin' believe be so +dreadful pious in the Catholic meetin', she 's carried on wuss 'n +the Old Driver for two years, 'n' now she 's up 'n' left him,-- +gone with a han'somer man." + +Down on Steve Webster's hand came Jabe Slocum's immense +paw with a grasp that made him cringe. + +"What the"--began Steve, when the man from Tennessee took up +his scythe and slouched away from the group by the tree. + +"Didn't yer know no better 'n that, yer thunderin' fool? Can't yer +see a hole in a grindstun 'thout it's hung on yer nose?" + +"What hev I done?" asked Steve, as if dumfounded. + +"Done? Where 've yer ben, that yer don't know Dixie's wife +'s left him?" + +"Where 've I ben? Hain't I ben workin' in Boston fer +a year; 'n' since I come home last week, hain't I ben tendin' +sick folks, so 't I couldn't git outside the dooryard? +I never seen the man in my life till yesterday, in the field, +'n' I thought he was one o' them dark-skinned Frenchies from +Guildford that hed come up here fer hayin'." + +"Mebbe I spoke too sharp," said Jabe apologetically; +"but we 've ben scared to talk wives, or even women folks, +fer a month o' Sundays, fer fear Dixie 'd up 'n' tumble on his scythe, +or do somethin' crazy. You see it's this way (I'd ruther +talk than work; 'n' we ain't workin' by time to-day, anyway, +on account of the circus comin'): 'Bout a year 'n' a half ago, +this tall, han'some feller turned up here in Pleasant River. +He inhailed from down South somewheres, but he didn't +like his work there, 'n' drifted to New York, 'n' then +to Boston; 'n' then he remembered his mother was a State o' +Maine woman, 'n' he come here to see how he liked. +We didn't take no stock in him at first,--we never hed one o' +that nigger-tradin' secedin' lot in amongst us,--but he was +pleasant spoken 'n' a square, all-round feller, 'n' didn't +git off any secesh nonsense, 'n' it ended in our likin' +him first-rate. Wall, he got work in the cannin' fact'ry over on +the Butterfield road, 'n' then he fell in with the Maddoxes. +You 've hearn tell of 'em; they're relation to Pitt here." + + +"I wouldn't own 'em if I met 'em on Judgement Bench!" +exclaimed Pitt Packard hotly. "My stepfather's second wife married Mis' +Maddox's first husband after he got divorced from her, 'n' that's +all there is to it; they ain't no bloody-kin o' mine, 'n' I don't +call 'em relation." + +"Wall, Pitt's relations or not, they're all wuss 'n the Old Driver, +as yer said 'bout Dan Robinson's wife. Dixie went to board there. +Mis Maddox was all out o' husbands jest then,--she 'd jest +disposed of her fourth, somehow or 'nother; she always hed +a plenty 'n' to spare, though there's lots o' likely women +folks round here that never hed one chance, let alone four. +Her daughter Fidelity was a chip o' the old block. Her father +hed named her Fidelity after his mother, when she wa'n't nothin' +but a two-days-old baby, 'n' he didn't know how she was goin' to turn out; +if he 'd 'a' waited two months, I believe I could 'a' told him. +_In_fidelity would 'a' ben a mighty sight more 'propriate; but either +of 'em is too long fer a name, so they got to callin' her Fiddy. +Wall, Fiddy didn't waste no time; she was nigh onto eighteen years +old when Dixie went there to board, 'n' she begun huneyfuglin' +him's soon as ever she set eyes on him. Folks warned him, +but 't wa'n't no use; he was kind o' bewitched with her from the first. +She wa'n't so han'some, neither. Blamed 'f I know how they do it; +let 'em alone, 'f yer know when yer 're well off, 's my motter. +She was red-headed, but her hair become her somehow when she curled +'n' frizzed it over a karosene lamp, 'n' then wound it round 'n' +round her head like ropes o' carnelian. She hedn't any particular +kind of a nose nor mouth nor eyes, but gorry! when she looked at yer, +yer felt kind as if yer was turnin' to putty inside." + +"I know what yer mean," said Steve interestedly. + +"She hed a figger jest like them fashion-paper pictures you +'ve seen, an' the very day any new styles come to Boston Fiddy +Maddox would hev 'em before sundown; the biggest bustles 'n' +the highest hats 'n' the tightest skirts 'n' the longest tails +to 'em; she'd git 'em somehow, anyhow! Dixie wa'n't out o' +money when he come here, an' a spell afterwards there was +more 'n a thousand dollars fell to him from his father's +folks down South. Well, Fiddy made that fly, I tell you! +Dixie bought a top buggy 'n' a sorrel hoss, 'n' they was on the road +most o' the time when he wa'n't to work; 'n' when he was, +she 'd go with Lem Simmons, 'n' Dixie none the wiser. +Mis Maddox was lookin' up a new husband jest then, so 't she +didn't interfere"-- + +"She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow," interpolated Ob Tarbox. + +"Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded +you can't anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, +nor a husband 'n' young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; +the least wind blows 'em here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. +As time went on, the widder got herself a beau now 'n' then; +but as fast as she hooked 'em, Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her. +You see she 'd gethered in most of her husbands afore Fiddy was old +enough to hev her finger in the pie; but she cut her eye-teeth early, +Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of a feller come to set up +with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab him, if she hed +any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I tell yer. +But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He could +n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain." + +"He hed warnin's enough," put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Slocum +never needed any assistance in spinning a yarn. + +"Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist +minister went so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' +was the text. 'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. +If he hadn't 'a' heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done +him no good to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble +many in the congregation, 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' +'n' heedin', but it rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. +He 'n' Fiddy was seen over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, +'n' they didn't come back for a week." + +"'He gin her his hand, +And he made her his own,'" + +sang little Brad Gibson. + +"He hed gin her his hand, but no minister nor +trial-jestice nor eighteen-carat ring nor stificate could 'a' +made Fiddy Maddox anybody's own 'ceptin' the devil's, an' +he wouldn't 'a' married her; she'd 'a' ben too near kin. +We'd never 'spicioned she 'd git 's fur 's marryin' anybody, 'n' she +only married Dixie 'cause he told her he 'd take her to the +Wareham House to dinner, 'n' to the County Fair afterwards; +if any other feller hed offered to take her to supper, +'n' the theatre on top o' that, she 'd 'a' married him instid." + +"How 'd the old woman take it?" asked Steve. + +"She disowned her daughter _punctilio:_ in the first place, +fer runnin' away 'stid o' hevin' a church weddin'; 'n' second place, +fer marryin' a pauper (that was what she called him; 'n' it was true, +for they 'd spent every cent he hed); 'n' third place, fer alienatin' +the 'fections of a travelin' baker-man she hed her eye on fer herself. +He was a kind of a flour-food peddler, that used to drive a cart round +by Hard Scrabble, Moderation, 'n' Scratch Corner way. Mis' Maddox used +to buy all her baked victuals of him, 'specially after she found +out he was a widower beginnin' to take notice. His cart used +to stand at her door so long everybody on the rout would complain o' +stale bread. But bime bye Fiddy begun to set at her winder when +he druv up, 'n' bime bye she pinned a blue ribbon in her collar. +When she done that, Mis' Maddox alles hed to take a back seat. +The boys used to call it a danger signal. It kind o' drawed yer +'tention to p'ints 'bout her chin 'n' mouth 'n' neck, 'n' one thing +'n' 'nother, in a way that was cal'lated to snarl up the thoughts o' +perfessors o' religion 'n' turn 'em earthways. There was a spell +I hed to say, '_Remember_ _Rhapseny!_ _Remember_ _Rhapseny!_' +over to myself whenever Fiddy put on her blue ribbons. Wall, as I say, +Fiddy set at the winder, the baker-man seen the blue ribbons, +'n' Mis' Maddox's cake was dough. She put on a red ribbon; +but land! her neck looked 's if somebody 'd gone over it with a harrer! +Then she stomped round 'n' slat the dish-rag, but 't wa'n't no use. +'Gracious, mother,' says Fiddy, 'I don't do nothin' but set at +the winder. The sun shines for all.' 'You're right it does,' +says Mis' Maddox, ''n' that's jest what I complain of. +I'd like to get a change to shine on something myself.' + +"But the baker-man kep' on comin', though when he got +to the Maddoxes' doorsteps he couldn't make change for a +quarter nor tell pie from bread; an' sure 's you're born, +the very day Fiddy went away to be married to Dixie, that mornin' +she drawed that everlastin' numhead of a flour-food peddler +out into the orchard, 'n' cut off a lock o' her hair, +'n' tied it up with a piece o' her blue ribbon, 'n' give it +to him; an' old Mis' Bascom says, when he went past her house +he was gazin' at it 'n' kissin' of it, 'n' his horse meanderin' +on one side the road 'n' the other, 'n' the door o' the cart +open 'n' slammin' to 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies spillin' +out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next morning' +('t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way +when Fiddy's ribbon was pullin' t'other); an' when he found +out she 'd gone with Dixie, he cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took +on like a loontic; an' when Mis' Maddox hinted she was ready +to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, he stomped 'n' cussed +wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her a hombly +old trollop, an' fired the bread loaves all over the dooryard, +he was so crazy at bein' cheated. + +"Wall, to go back to Dixie--I'll be comin' right along, boys." +(This to Brad Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink of ginger tea +preparatory to beginning work.) + +"I pity you, Steve!" exclaimed Brad, between deep swallows. +"If you 'd known when you was well off, you 'd 'a' stayed in Boston. +If Jabe hed a story started, he 'd talk three days after he was dead." + +"Go 'long; leave me be! Wall, as I was sayin', Dixie brought Fiddy home +('Dell,' he called her), an' they 'peared bride 'n' groom at meetin' +next Sunday. The last hundred dollars he hed in the world hed gone into +the weddin' tower 'n' on to Fiddy's back. He hed a new suit, 'n' he looked +like a major. You ain't got no idea what he was, 'cause his eyes is dull now, +'n' he 's bowed all over, 'n' ain't shaved nor combed, hardly; but they was +the han'somest couple that ever walked up the broad aisle. She hed on a green +silk dress, an' a lace cape that was like a skeeter nettin' over her neck an' +showed her bare skin through, an' a hat like an apple orchard in full bloom, +hummin'-bird an' all. Dixie kerried himself as proud as Lucifer. +He didn't look at the minister 'n' he didn't look at the congregation; +his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' +of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long +'s the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, +though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated +housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git +his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. +Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. +Them secesh fellers'll wait on women folks long as they can stan' up. + +"Then bime bye the baby come along; but that made +things wuss 'stid o' better. She didn't pay no more +'tention to it than if it hed belonged to the town. +She 'd go off to dances, an' leave Dixie to home tendin' +cradle; but that wa'n't no hardship to him for he was 'bout +as much wropped up in the child as he was in Fiddy. +Wall, sir, 'bout a month ago she up 'n' disappeared off the face o' +the airth 'thout sayin' a word or leavin' a letter. +She took her clo'es, but she never thought o' takin' the baby; +one baby more or less didn't make no odds to her s' long 's she +hed that skeeter-nettin' cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an' +low fer a fortnight, but after that he give it up as a bad job. +He found out enough, I guess, to keep him pretty busy thinkin' +what he 'd do next. But day before yesterday the same circus +that plays here this afternoon was playin' to Wareham. +A lot of us went over on the evenin' train, an' we coaxed +Dixie into goin', so 's to take his mind off his trouble. +But land! he didn't see nothin'. He 'd walk right up +the lions 'n' tigers in the menagerie as if they was cats +'n' chickens, an' all the time the clown was singin' +he looked like a dumb animile that 's hed a bullet put in him. +There was lots o' side shows, mermaids 'n' six-legged calves 'n' +spotted girls, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, an' there was one o' +them whirligig machines with a mess o' rocking'-hosses goin' +round 'n' round, 'n' an organ in the middle playin' like sixty. +I wish we 'd 'a' kept clear o' the thing, but as bad luck would +hev it, we stopped to look, an' there on top o' two high-steppin' +white wooden hosses, set Mis' Fiddy an' that dod-gasted +light-complected baker-man! If ever she was suited to a dot, +it was jest then 'n' there. She could 'a' gone prancin' +round that there ring forever 'n' forever, with the whoopin' +'n' hollerin' 'n' whizzin' 'n' whirlin' soundin' in her ears, +'n' the music playin' like mad, 'n' she with nothin' +to do but stick on 'n' let some feller foot the bills. +Somebody must 'a' ben thinkin' o' Fiddy Maddox when the invented +them whirl-a-go-rounds. She was laughin' 'n' carryin' +on like the old Scratch; her apple-blossom hat dome off, +'n' the baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, +'n' pulled her ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; +an' that was jest the blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. +I pulled Dixie off, but I was too late. He give a groan I shall +remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then he plunged out o' the crowd +'n' through the gate like a streak o' lightnin'. We follered, +but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I set here, +I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; +I forgot all about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. +If it wa'n't no attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated +it needed a father all the more. Anyhow, he turned up +in the field yesterday mornin', ready for work, but lookin' +as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead put +in the place of it." + +"I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back +so near him," said Steve. + +"Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' +at a circus over Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she +didn't care if the whole town seen her. She wanted +to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it. +Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox +wa'n't one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, +that she done, from the time she was knee high to a grasshopper. +I've seen her set down by a peck basket of apples, 'n' take +a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then heave it fur 's she +could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then another; +'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly +spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. +Doxy Morton, now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, +'n' then count the seeds 'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, +'n' get up 'n' put the core in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands +on the roller towel, 'n' take up her sewin' agin; 'n' if you +'ve got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' writin' +of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin' +for the last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' +_D_'s not _F_'s, like Dixie there!" + +* * * + + +It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work +and gone to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition +where it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, +no man would have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay +when there was a circus in the neighborhood. + +Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle +something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the song +it is singing to the grasses. + + +"Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, +Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; +Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, +Hush, they sing to the clover deep; +Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,-- +Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. +Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging +Over the clover, over the grass." + + +And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,-- +heart sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense +and present certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool +shade of the nooning tree, and buried his face in his hands. +He was glad to be left alone with his miseries,-- +glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them to be, +had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them +for hours to come. + +How clearly he could conjure up the scene +that they were enjoying with such keen relish! +Only two days before, he had walked among the same tents, +staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons +as one who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now +saw at last lit up all the rest as with a lightning flash, +and burned the scene forever on his brain and heart. +It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had promised +to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before. +How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; +they had ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching +their stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, +he thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within +full vision, but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; +and then, in an unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! +He could swear she had loved him that night, if never again. + +But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle +with the caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous +creak of the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. +As first the thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, +into which there presently crept form and order. +. . . A boy who had cried to get on, and was now crying to get off. +. . . Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube looking white +and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly by the +prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. +. . . Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; +she too timid to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling +close to him in one of the circling seats. The, good Got!-- +Dell! sitting on a prancing white horse, with the man he knew, +the man he feared, riding beside her; a man who kept holding on her +hat with fingers that trembled,--the very hat she "'peared bride in" +a man who brushed a grasshopper from her shoulder with an air +of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, +even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's cheek,-- +before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! +The horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,-- +a whirl of happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play +loud enough to drown the creak of the machinery, in which one +soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and the rest laugh; +but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once mounted, +there is no getting off, unless . . . + +There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! +The river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, +swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, +rushing to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it +was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping from its present bonds; +it would never have to pass over these same jagged rocks again. +"On, on to the unknown!" called the river. "I come! I come!" +he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke +in upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain; +not a real voice,--the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail +that had added fresh misery to his night's vigil,--the baby! + +But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water +as it dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. +If he could only close his ears to it! But it still called-- +called still--the river! And still the child's voice +pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute note, +until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, +answering each other antiphonally. The river --the baby-- +the river--the baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, +there spun the whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting +wooden horses, its discordant organ, and its creaking machinery. + +But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, +and as he heard it more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, +till at last, thank God! they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, +and the tempest in his brain were lulled into silence, +as under a "Peace, be still!" and, worn out with the contest, +the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful shade +of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over +exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, +the sudden darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, +the frightened twitter of the birds, passed unnoticed. +A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage and fell on +his face, but the storm within had been too fierce for him +to heed the storm without. He slept on. + +* * * + + +Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant +River was on the way to the circus,--Boomer's Grand Six-in-One +Universal Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed +Stars shining in the same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies +of World-Famous Equestrian Artists; the biggest elephants, +the funniest clowns, the pluckiest riders, the stubbornest mules, +the most amazing acrobats, the tallest man and the shortest man, +the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, on the habitable globe; +and no connection with any other show on earth, especially Sypher's +Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State. + +If the advertisements setting forth these attractions were +couched in language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, +there were few persons calm enough to perceive it, when once +the glamour of the village parade and the smell of the menagerie +had intoxicated the senses. + +The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. +Jot Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic +news of its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort +of town crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, +he would go over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what +were its immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every +one of the neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of news. +He was an attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at every wedding, +in the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and town and county fair. +When more pressing duties did not hinder, he endeavored to meet the two +daily trains that passed through Milliken's Mills, a mile or two from +Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on all journeys entailing +serving of papers and other embarrassing duties common to the law. +On one occasion, when the two lawyers of the village held an investigation +before Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited an hour because Jot +Bascom did not come. They knew that something was amiss, but it was +only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was not indispensable. +He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never missed a town meeting. +He knew all the conditions attending any swapping of horses that +occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of the trade +and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and who owed +the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them. +In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence +could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot Bascom. +That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home duties, +when overborne by press of public service, was true. When Diadema Bascom +wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, or the pigs fed, +she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk. + +All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One +Show had, therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden +and unambitious persons who tied themselves to their own +wood-piles or haying-fields. + +These were the bulletins issues:-- + +The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, +in the same place where the old one had been,--the old one, +viewed with awe for five years by all the village small boys. + +The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, +had arrived and gone to the tavern. + +An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed! + +The elephant had stepped through the floor!! + +The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come! + +And the "Cheriot"!! + +This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, +to prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating +over the fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped +short under the elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. +He pinched the twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure +himself that he was alive and in his right mind. The precious coin +had been the result of careful saving, and his hot, excited hands +had almost worn it thin. But alas for the vanity of human hopes! +When the magnificent red-and-gold "Cheriot" was uncovered, +that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the door opened, +and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead +the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. +Little Jim gave one panic-stricken look as they leaped over +the chariot steps, and then fled to the barn chamber, whence he had +to be dragged by his mother, and cuffed into willingness to attend +the spectacle that had once so dazzled his imagination. + +On the eventful afternoon of the performance the road +was gay with teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in +Miss Cummin's neat carryall, two children on the back seat, +a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl held down by a serious boy. +Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his mother's buggy. +Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, +and scores of others were riding "shank's mare," as they +would have said. + +It had been a close, warm day, and as the afternoon wore away it grew +hotter and closer. There was a dead calm in the air, a threatening blackness +in the west that made the farmers think anxiously of their hay. Presently the +thunderheads ran together into big black clouds, which melted in turn into +molten masses of smoky orange, so that the heavens were like burnished brass. +Drivers whipped up their horses, and pedestrians hastened their steps. +Steve Webster decided not to run even the smallest risk of injuring so +precious a commodity as Doxy Morton by a shower of rain, so he drove into +a friend's yard, put up his horse, and waited till the storm should pass by. +Brad Gibson stooped to drink at a wayside brook, and as he bent over +the water he heard a low, murmuring, muttering sound that seemed to make +the earth tremble. + +Then from hill to hill "leapt the live thunder." +Even the distant mountains seemed to have "found a tongue." +A zigzag chain of lightning flashed in the lurid sky, +and after an appreciable interval another peal, louder than +the first, and nearer. + +The rain began to fall, the forked flashes of flame darted hither +and thither in the clouds, and the boom of heaven's artillery grew heavier +and heavier. The blinding sheets of light and the tumultuous roar of sound +now followed each other so quickly that they seemed almost simultaneous. +Flash--crash--flash--crash--flash--crash; blinding and deafening eye and ear +at once. Everybody who could find a shelter of any sort hastened to it. +The women at home set their children in the midst of feather beds, +and some of them even huddled there themselves, their babies clinging +to them in sympathetic fear, as the livid shafts of light illuminated +the dark rooms with more than noonday glare. + +The air was full of gloom; a nameless terror lurked +within it; the elements seemed at war with each other. +Horses whinnied in the stables, and colts dashed about the pastures. +The cattle sought sheltered places; the cows ambling clumsily towards +some refuge, their full bags dripping milk as they swung heavily +to and fro. The birds flew towards the orchards and the deep woods; +the swallows swooped restlessly round the barns, and hid themselves +under the eaves or in the shadow of deserted nests. + +The rain now fell in sheets. + +"Hurry up 'n' git under cover, Jabe," said Brad Gibson; +"you're jest the kind of a pole to draw lightnin'!" + +"You hain't, then!" retorted Jabe. "There ain't enough o' +you fer lightnin' to ketch holt of!" + +Suddenly a ghastly streak of light leaped out of a cloud, +and then another, till the sky seemed lit up by cataracts +of flame. A breath of wind sprang into the still air. +Then a deafening crash, clap, crack, roar, peal! and as Jabe +Slocum looked out of a protecting shed door, he saw a fiery +ball burst from the clouds, shooting brazen arrows as it fell. +Within the instant the meeting-house steeple broke into a tongue +of flame, and then, looking towards home, he fancied +that the fireball dropped to earth in Squire Bean's meadow. + +The wind blew more fiercely now. There was a sudden +crackling of wood, falling of old timers, and breaking of glass. +The deadly fluid ran in a winding course down a great maple +by the shed, leaving a narrow charred channel through the bark +to tell how it passed to earth. A sombre pine stood up, +black and burned, its heart gaping through a ghastly wound +in the split trunk. + +The rain now subsided; there was only an occasional faint +rumbling of thunder, as if it were murmuring over the distant sea; +the clouds broke away in the west; the sun peeped out, as if to see +what had been going on in the world since he hid himself an hour before. +A delicate rainbow bridge stretched from the blackened church +steeple to the glittering weathercock on the squire's barn; +and there, in the centre of the fair green meadows from which it +had risen in glorious strength and beauty for a century or more, +lay the nooning tree. + +The fireball, if ball of fire indeed there were, had struck +in the very centre of its splendid dome, and ploughed its way +from feather tip to sturdy root, riving the tree in twain, +cleaving its great boughs left and right, laying one +majestic half level with the earth, and bending the other till +the proud head almost touched the grass. + +The rainbow was reflected in the million drops glittering +upon the bowed branches, turning each into a tear of liquid opal. +The birds hopped on the prone magnificence, and eyed timorously +a strange object underneath. + +There had been one swift, pitiless, merciful stroke! +The monarch of the meadow would never again feel the magic +thrill of the sap in its veins, nor the bursting of brown bud +into green leaf. + +The birds would build their nests and sing their idyls in other boughs. +The "time of pleasure and love" was over with the nooning tree; over too, +with him who slept beneath; for under its fallen branches, with the light +of a great peace in his upturned face, lay the man from Tennessee. + + +--------------------------------------------------------------- + + +THE FORE-ROOM RUG. + + +Diadema, wife of Jot Bascom, was sitting at the window +of the village watch-tower, so called because it commanded +a view of nearly everything that happened in Pleasant River; +those details escaping the physical eye being supplied by faith +and imagination working in the light of past experience. +She sat in the chair of honor, the chair of choice, the high-backed +rocker by the southern window, in which her husband's mother, +old Mrs. Bascom, had sat for thirty years, applying a still more +powerful intellectual telescope to the doings of her neighbors. +Diadema's seat had formerly been on the less desirable side of +the little light-stand, where Priscilla Hollis was now installed. + +Mrs. Bascom was at work on a new fore-room rug, the former one having +been transferred to Miss Hollis's chamber; for, as the teacher at the brick +schoolhouse, a graduate of a Massachusetts normal school, and the daughter +of a deceased judge, she was a boarder of considerable consequence. +It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, and the two women were alone. +It was a pleasant, peaceful sitting-room, as neat as wax in every part. +The floor was covered by a cheerful patriotic rag carpet woven entirely +of red, white, and blue rags, and protected in various exposed localities +by button rugs,--red, white, and blue disks superimposed one on the other. + +Diadema Bascom was a person of some sentiment. When her old father, +Captain Dennett, was dying, he drew a wallet from under his pillow, +and handed her a twenty-dollar bill to get something to remember him by. +This unwonted occurrence burned itself into the daughter's imagination, +and when she came as a bride to the Bascom house she refurnished +the sitting-room as a kind of monument to the departed soldier, +whose sword and musket were now tied to the wall with neatly hemmed bows +of bright red cotton. + +The chair cushions were of red-and-white glazed patch, +the turkey wings that served as hearth brushes were hung against +the white-painted chimney-piece with blue skirt braid, and the white +shades were finished with home-made scarlet "tossels." +A little whatnot in one corner was laden with the trophies of battle. +The warrior's brass buttons were strung on a red picture cord and hung +over his daguerreotype on the upper shelf; there was a tarnished +shoulder strap, and a flattened bullet that the captain's jealous +contemporaries swore _he_ never stopped, unless he got it in the rear +when he was flying from the foe. There was also a little tin +canister in which a charge of powder had been sacredly preserved. +The scoffers, again, said that "the cap'n put it in his musket +when he went into the war, and kep' it there till he come out." +These objects were tastefully decorated with the national colors. +In fact, no modern aesthete could have arranged a symbolic symphony +of grief and glory with any more fidelity to an ideal than Diadema Bascom, +in working out her scheme of red, white, and blue. + +Rows of ripening tomatoes lay along the ledges of the windows, +and a tortoise-shell cat snoozed on one of the broad sills. +The tall clock in the corner ticked peacefully. Priscilla Hollis +never tired of looking at the jolly red-cheeked moon, the group +of stars on a blue ground, the trig little ship, the old house, +and the jolly moon again, creeping one after another across the open +space at the top. + +Jot Bascom was out, as usual, gathering statistics of +the last horse trade; little Jot was building "stickin'" houses +in the barn; Priscilla was sewing long strips for braiding; +while Diadema sat at the drawing-in frame, hook in hand, +and a large basket of cut rags by her side. + +Not many weeks before she had paid one of her periodical +visits to the attic. No housekeeper in Pleasant River save +Mrs. Jonathan Bascom would have thought of dusting a garret, +washing the window and sweeping down the cobwebs once a month, +and renewing the camphor bags in the chests twice a year; +but notwithstanding this zealous care the moths had made their +way into one of her treasure-houses, the most precious of all,-- +the old hair trunk that had belonged to her sister Lovice. +Once ensconced there, they had eaten through its hoarded relics, +and reduced the faded finery to a state best described by Diadema +as "reg'lar riddlin' sieves." She had brought the tattered +pile down in to the kitchen, and had spent a tearful afternoon +in cutting the good pieces from the perforated garments. +Three heaped-up baskets and a full dish-pan were the result; +and as she had snipped and cut and sorted, one of her sentimental +projects had entered her mind and taken complete possession there. + +"I declare," she said, as she drew her hooking-needle +in and out, "I wouldn't set in the room with some folks and work +on these pieces; for every time I draw in a scrap of cloth +Lovice comes up to me for all the world as if she was settin' +on the sofy there. I ain't told you my plan, Miss Hollis, +and there ain't many I shall tell; but this rug is going to be +a kind of a hist'ry of my life and Lovey's wrought in together, +just as we was bound up in one another when she was alive. +Her things and mine was laid in one trunk, and the moths sha'n't +cheat me out of 'em altogether. If I can't look at 'em wet Sundays, +and shake 'em out, and have a good cry over 'em, I'll make 'em +up into a kind of dumb show that will mean something to me, +if it don't to anybody else. + +"We was the youngest of thirteen, Lovey and I, +and we was twins. There 's never been more 'n half o' +me left sence she died. We was born together, played and +went to school together, got engaged and married together, +and we all but died together, yet we wa'n't a mite alike. +There was an old lady come to our house once that used to say, +'There's sister Nabby, now: she 'n' I ain't no more alike +'n if we wa'n't two; she 's jest as diff'rent as I am t' +other way.' Well, I know what I want to put into my rag story, +Miss Hollis, but I don't hardly know how to begin." + +Priscilla dropped her needle, and bent over the frame with interest. + +"A spray of two roses in the centre,--there 's the beginning; +why, don't you see, dear Mrs. Bascom?" + +"Course I do," said Diadema, diving to the bottom of +the dish-pan. "I've got my start now, and don't you say a word +for a minute. The two roses grow out of one stalk; they'll be +Lovey and me, though I'm consid'able more like a potato blossom. +The stalk 's got to be green, and here is the very green silk mother +walked bride in, and Lovey and I had roundabouts of it afterwards. +She had the chicken-pox when we was about four years old, +and one of the first things I can remember is climbing up and +looking over mother's footboard at Lovey, all speckled. +Mother had let her slip on her new green roundabout +over her nightgown, just to pacify her, and there she set +playing with the kitten Reuben Granger had brought her. +He was only ten years old then, but he 'd begun courting Lovice. + +"The Grangers' farm joined ours. They had eleven children, +and mother and father had thirteen, and we was always playing together. +Mother used to tell a funny story about that. We were all little young +ones and looked pretty much alike, so she didn't take much notice +of us in the daytime when we was running out 'n' in; but at night when +the turn-up bedstead in the kitchen was taken down and the trundle-beds +were full, she used to count us over, to see if we were all there. +One night, when she 'd counted thirteen and set down to her sewing, +father come in and asked if Moses was all right, for one of the neighbors +had seen him playing side of the river about supper-time. Mother knew she +'d counted us straight, but she went round with a candle to make sure. +Now, Mr. Granger had a head as red as a shumac bush; and when she +carried the candle close to the beds to take another tally, +there was thirteen children, sure enough, but if there wa'n't a +red-headed Granger right in amongst our boys in the turn-up bedstead! +While father set out on a hunt for our Moses, mother yanked the sleepy +little red-headed Granger out o' the middle and took him home, and father +found Moses asleep on a pile of shavings under the joiner's bench. + +"They don't have such families nowadays. One time when measles +went all over the village, they never came to us, and Jabe Slocum said +there wa'n't enough measles to go through the Dennett family, so they +didn't start in on 'em. There, I ain't going to finish the stalk; +I'm going to draw in a little here and there all over the rug, +while I'm in the sperit of plannin' it, and then it will be plain +work of matching colors and filling out. + +"You see the stalk is mother's dress, and the outside green +of the moss roses is the same goods, only it 's our roundabouts. +I meant to make 'em red, when I marked the pattern, +and then fill out round 'em with a light color; but now I +ain't satisfied with anything but white, for nothing will do +in the middle of the rug but our white wedding dresses. +I shall have to fill in dark, then, or mixed. Well, that won't +be out of the way, if it 's going to be a true rag story; +for Lovey's life went out altogether, and mine hasn't been +any too gay. + +"I'll begin on Lovey's rose first. She was the prettiest and +the liveliest girl in the village, and she had more beaux than you +could shake a stick at. I generally had to take what she left over. +Reuben Granger was crazy about her from the time she was knee-high; +but when he went away to Bangor to study for the ministry, +the others had it all their own way. She was only seventeen; +she hadn't ever experienced religion, and she was mischeevous +as a kitten. + +"You remember you laughed, this morning, when Mr. Bascom told +about Hogshead Jowett? Well, he used to want to keep company +with Lovey; but she couldn't abide him, and whenever he come to court +her she clim' into a hogshead, and hid till after he 'd gone. +The boys found it out, and used to call him 'Hogshead Jowett." +He was the biggest fool in Foxboro' Four Corners; and that 's +saying consid'able, for Foxboro' is famous for its fools, +and always has been. There was thirteen of 'em there one year. +They say a man come out from Portland, and when he got as fur +as Foxboro' he kep' inquiring the way to Dunstan; and I declare +if he didn't meet them thirteen fools, one after another, +standing in their front dooryards ready to answer questions. +When he got to Dunstan, says he, 'For the Lord's sake, +what kind of a village is that I've just went through? +Be they _all_ fools there?' + +"Hogshead was scairt to death whenever he come to see Lovice. +One night, when he 'd been there once, and she 'd hid, as she +always done, he come back a second time, and she went to the door, +not mistrusting it was him. 'Did you forget anything?' +says she, sparkling out at him through a little crack. +He was all taken aback by seeing her, and he stammered out, +'Yes, I forgot my han'k'chief; but it don't make no odds, +for I didn't pay out but fifteen cents for it two year ago, +and I don't make no use of it 'ceptins to wipe my nose on.' +How we did laugh over that! Well, he had a conviction of sin +pretty soon afterwards, and p'r'aps it helped his head some; +at any rate he quit farming, and become a Bullockite preacher. + +"It seems odd, when Lovice wa'n't a perfessor herself, +she should have drawed the most pious young men in the village, +but she did: she had good Orthodox beaux, Free and Close Baptists, +Millerites and Adventists, all on her string together; +she even had one Cochranite, though the sect had mostly died out. +But when Reuben Granger come home, a full-feathered-out minister, +he seemed to strike her fancy as he never had before, though they +were always good friends from children. He had light hair +and blue eyes and fair skin (his business being under cover kep' +him bleached out), and he and Lovey made the prettiest couple +you ever see; for she was dark complected, and her cheeks no +otherways than scarlit the whole durin' time. She had a change +of heart that winter; in fact she had two of 'em, for she +changed hers for Reuben's, and found a hope at the same time. +'T was a good honest conversion, too, though she did say to me +she was afraid that if Reuben hadn't taught her what love +was or might be, she 'd never have found out enough about it +to love God as she 'd ought to. + +"There, I've begun both roses, and hers is 'bout finished. +I sha'n't have more 'n enough white alapaca. It's lucky +the moths spared one breadth of the wedding dresses; +we was married on the same day, you know, and dressed just alike. +Jot wa'n't quite ready to be married, for he wa'n't any +more forehanded 'bout that than he was 'bout other things; +but I told him Lovey and I had kept up with each other from +the start, and he 'd got to fall into line or drop out o' +the percession.--Now what next?" + +"Wasn't there anybody at the wedding but you and Lovice?" +asked Priscilla, with an amused smile. + +"Land, yes! The meeting-house was cram jam full. Oh, to be sure! +I know what you 're driving at! Well, I have to laugh to think +I should have forgot the husbands! They'll have to be worked +into the story, certain; but it'll be consid'able of a chore, +for I can't make flowers out of coat and pants stuff, and there +ain't any more flowers on this branch anyway." + +Diadema sat for a few minutes in rapt thought, +and then made a sudden inspired dash upstairs, where Miss +Hollis presently heard her rummaging in an old chest. +She soon came down, triumphant. + +"Wa'n't it a providence I saved Jot's and Reuben's wedding ties! +And here they are,--one yellow and green mixed, and one brown. +Do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to draw in a butterfly +hovering over them two roses, and make it out of the neckties,-- +green with brown spots. That'll bring in the husbands; and land! +I wouldn't have either of 'em know it for the world. I'll take +a pattern of that lunar moth you pinned on the curtain yesterday." + +Miss Hollis smiled in spite of herself. "You have some +very ingenious ideas and some very pretty thoughts, Mrs. Bascom, +do you know it?" + +"It's the first time I ever heard tell of it," +said Diadema cheerfully. "Lovey was the pretty-spoken, +pretty-appearing one; I was always plain and practical. While I think +of it, I'll draw in a little mite of this red into my carnation pink. +It was a red scarf Reuben brought Lovey from Portland. +It was the first thing he ever give her, and aunt Hitty said +if one of the Abel Grangers give away anything that cost money, +it meant business. That was all fol-de-rol, for there never +was a more liberal husband, though he was a poor minister; +but then they always _are_ poor, without they're rich; +there don't seem to be any halfway in ministers. + +"We was both lucky that way. There ain't a stingy bone in Jot +Bascom's body. He don't make much money, but what he does make goes +into the bureau drawer, and the one that needs it most takes it out. +He never asks me what I done with the last five cents he give me. +You 've never been married Miss Hollis, and you ain't engaged, +so you don't know much about it; but I tell you there 's a heap o' +foolishness talked about husbands. If you get the one you like yourself, +I don't know as it matters if all the other women folks in town don't +happen to like him as well as you do; they ain't called on to do that. +They see the face he turns to them, not the one he turns to you. +Jot ain't a very good provider, nor he ain't a man that 's much +use round a farm, but he 's such a fav'rite I can't blame him. +There 's one thing: when he does come home he 's got something to say, +and he 's always as lively as a cricket, and smiling as a basket of chips. +I like a man that 's good comp'ny, even if he ain't so forehanded. +There ain't anything specially lovable about forehandedness, when you +come to that. I shouldn't ever feel drawed to a man because +he was on time with his work. He 's got such pleasant ways, Jot has! +The other afternoon he didn't get home early enough to milk; +and after I done the two cows, I split the kindling and brought +in the wood, for I knew he 'd want to go to the tavern and tell +the boys 'bout the robbery up to Boylston. There ain't anybody +but Jot in this village that has wit enough to find out what 's +going on, and tell it in an int'resting way round the tavern fire. +And he can do it without being full of cider, too; he don't need +any apple juice to limber _his_ tongue! + +"Well, when he come in, he see the pails of milk, +and the full wood-box, and the supper laid out under the screen +cloth on the kitchen table, and he come up to me at the sink, +and says he, 'Diademy, you 're the best wife in this county, +and the brightest jewel in my crown,--that 's what _you_ are!' +(He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) +Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't +is to have a man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, +and then set round the stove looking as doleful as a last +year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: +get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you +a husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, +when he ain't too busy; it smooths things consid'able +round the house. + +"There, I got so int'rested in what I was saying, I've went +on and finished the carnation, and some of the stem, too. +Now what comes next? Why, the thing that happened next, +of course, and that was little Jot. + +"I'll work in a bud on my rose and one on Lovey's, +and my bud'll be made of Jot's first trousers. The goods +ain't very appropriate for a rosebud, but it'll have to do, +for the idee is the most important thing in this rug. +When I put him into pants, I hadn't any cloth in the house, +and it was such bad going Jot couldn't get to Wareham to buy +me anything; so I made 'em out of an old gray cashmere skirt, +and lined 'em with flannel." + +"Buds are generally the same color as the roses, +aren't they?" ventured Priscilla. + +"I don't care if they be," said Diadema obstinately. +"What's to hender this bud's bein' grafted on? Mrs. Granger +was as black as an Injun, but the little Granger children +were all red-headed, for they took after their father. +But I don't know; you've kind o' got me out o' conceit with it. +I s'pose I could have taken a piece of his baby blanket; +but the moths never et a mite o' that, and it's too good to cut up. +There's one thing I can do: I can make the bud up with a long stem, +and have it growing right up alongside of mine,--would you?" + +"No, it must be stalk of your stalk, bone of your bone, +flesh of your flesh, so to speak. I agree with you, the idea +is the first thing. Besides, the gray is a very light shade, +and I dare say it will look like a bluish white." + +"I'll try it and see, but I wish to the land the moths +_had_ eat the pinning-blanket, and then I could have used it. +Lovey worked the scallops on the aidge for me. +My grief! what int'rest she took in my baby clothes! +Little Jot was born at Thanksgiving time, and she come over +from Skowhegan, where Reuben was settled pastor of his first church. +I shall never forget them two weeks to the last day of my life. +There was deep snow on the ground. I had that chamber there, +with the door opening into the setting-room. Mother and father +Bascom kep' out in the dining-room and kitchen, where the work +was going on, and Lovey and the baby and me had the front +part of the house to ourselves, with Jot coming in on tiptoe, +heaping up wood in the fireplace so 't he 'most roasted us out. +He don't forget his chores in time o' sickness. + +"I never took so much comfort in all my days. +Jot got one of the Billings girls to come over and help +in the housework, so 't I could lay easy 's long as I +wanted to; and I never had such a rest before nor since. +There ain't any heaven in the book o' Revelations that 's any +better than them two weeks was. I used to lay quiet in my good +feather bed, fingering the pattern of my best crochet quilt, +and looking at the fire-light shining on Lovey and the baby. +She 'd hardly leave him in the cradle a minute. When I did +n't want him in bed with me, she 'd have him in her lap. +Babies are common enough to most folks, but Lovey was diff'rent. +She 'd never had any experience with children, either, for we +was the youngest in our family; and it wa'n't long before we +come near being the oldest, too, for mother buried +seven of us before she went herself. Anyway, I never saw +nobody else look as she done when she held my baby. +I don't mean nothing blasphemious when I say 't was for all +the world like your photograph of Mary, the mother of Jesus. + +"The nights come in early, so it was 'most dark +at four o'clock. The little chamber was so peaceful! +I could hear Jot rattling the milk-pails, but I'd draw a deep +breath o' comfort, for I knew the milk would be strained +and set away without my stepping foot to the floor. +Lovey used to set by the fire, with a tall candle on the light-stand +behind her, and a little white knit cape over her shoulders. +She had the pinkest cheeks, and the longest eyelashes, and a mouth +like a little red buttonhole; and when she bent over the baby, +and sung to him,--though his ears wa'n't open, I guess for his +eyes wa'n't,--the tears o' joy used to rain down my cheeks. +It was pennyrial hymns she used to sing mostly, and the one I +remember best was + + +"'Daniel's wisdom may I know, +Stephen's faith and spirit show; +John's divine communion feel, +Moses' meekness, Joshua's zeal, +Run like the unwearied Paul, +Win the day and conquer all. + + +"'Mary's love may I possess, +Lydia's tender-heartedness, +Peter's fervent spirit feel, +James's faith by works reveal, +Like young Timothy may I +Every sinful passion fly.' + + +"'Oh Diademy,' she 'd say, 'you was always the best, +and it 's nothing more 'n right the baby should have come to you. +P'r'aps God will think I'm good enough some time; and if he does, +Diademy, I'll offer up a sacrifice every morning and every evening. +But I'm afraid,' says she, 'he thinks I can't stand any more happiness, +and be a faithful follower of the cross. The Bible says we 've +got to wade through fiery floods before we can enter the kingdom. +I don't hardly know how Reuben and I are going to find any way +to wade through; we're both so happy, they 'd have to be consid'able +hot before we took notice,' says she, with the dimples all breaking +out in her cheeks. + +"And that was true as gospel. She thought everything Reuben done +was just right, and he thought everything she done was just right. +There wa'n't nobody else; the world was all Reuben 'n' all Lovey to them. +If you could have seen her when she was looking for him to come +from Skowhegan! She used to watch at the attic window; and when she +seen him at the foot of the hill she 'd up like a squirrel, and run down +the road without stopping for anything but to throw a shawl over her head. +And Reuben would ketch her up as if she was a child, and scold her for +not putting a hat on, and take her under his coat coming up the hill. +They was a sight for the neighbors, I must confess, but it wa'n't one you +could hardly disapprove of, neither. Aunt Hitty said it was tempting +Providence and couldn't last, and God would visit his wrath on 'em +for making idols of sinful human flesh. + +"She was right one way,--it didn't last; but nobody +can tell me God was punishing of 'em for being too happy. +I guess he 'ain't got no objection to folks being happy here below, +if they don't forget it ain't the whole story. + +"Well, I must mark in a bud on Lovey's stalk now, +and I'm going to make it of her baby's long white cloak. +I earned the money for it myself, making coats, and put four +yards of the finest cashmere into it; for three years after +little Jot was born I went over to Skowhegan to help +Lovey through her time o' trial. Time o' trial! I thought I +was happy, but I didn't know how to be as happy as Lovey did; +I wa'n't made on that pattern. + +"When I first showed her the baby (it was a boy, +same as mine), her eyes shone like two evening stars. +She held up her weak arms, and gathered the little bundle o' +warm flannen into 'em; and when she got it close she shut +her eyes and moved her lips, and I knew she was taking +her lamb to the altar and offering it up as a sacrifice. +Then Reuben come in. I seen him give one look at the two +dark heads laying close together on the white piller, +and then go down on his knees by the side of the bed. +'T wa'n't no place for me; I went off, and left 'em together. +We didn't mistrust it then, but they only had three days +more of happiness, and I'm glad I give 'em every minute." + +The room grew dusky as twilight stole gently over +the hills of Pleasant River. Priscilla's lip trembled; +Diadema's tears fell thick and fast on the white rosebud, +and she had to keep wiping her eyes as she followed the pattern. + + +"I ain't said as much as this about it for five years," she went on, +with a tell-tale quiver in her voice, "but now I've got going I can't stop. +I'll have to get the weight out o' my heart somehow. + +"Three days after I put Lovey's baby into her arms the Lord +called her home. 'When I prayed so hard for this little +new life, Reuben,' says she holding the baby as if she could never let +it go, 'I didn't think I'd got to give up my own in place of it; +but it's the first fiery flood we've had, dear, and though it burns +to my feet I'll tread it as brave as I know how.' + +"She didn't speak a word after that; she just faded +away like a snowdrop, hour by hour. And Reuben and I stared +at one another in the face as if we was dead instead of her, +and we went about that house o' mourning like sleep-walkers +for days and says, not knowing whether we et or slept, +or what we done. + +"As for the baby, the poor little mite didn't live +many hours after its mother, and we buried 'em together. +Reuben and I knew what Lovey would have liked. She gave her life +for the baby's, and it was a useless sacrifice, after all. +No, it wa'n't neither; it _could_n't have been! +You needn't tell me God'll let such sacrifices as that come +out useless! But anyhow, we had one coffin for 'em both, +and I opened Lovey's arms and laid the baby in 'em. +When Reuben and I took our last look, we thought she +seemed more 'n ever like Mary, the mother of Jesus. +There never was another like her, and there never will be. +'Nonesuch,' Reuben used to call her." + +There was silence in the room, broken only by the ticking +of the old clock and the tinkle of a distant cowbell. +Priscilla made an impetuous movement, flung herself down by the +basket of rags, and buried her head in Diadema's gingham apron. + +"Dear Mrs. Bascom, don't cry. I'm sorry, as the children say." + +"No, I won't more 'n a minute. Jot can't stand it to see +me give way. You go and touch a match to the kitchen fire, +so 't the kettle will be boiling, and I'll have a minute to myself. +I don't know what the neighbors would think to ketch me crying over my +drawing-in frame; but the spell's over now, or 'bout over, and when I +can muster up courage I'll take the rest of the baby's cloak and put +a border of white everlastings round the outside of the rug. +I'll always mean the baby's birth and Lovey's death to me; +but the flowers will remind me it 's life everlasting for both +of 'em, and so it's the most comforting end I can think of." + +It was indeed a beautiful rug when it was finished and laid +in front of the sofa in the fore-room. Diadema was very choice of it. +When company was expected she removed it from its accustomed place, +and spread it in a corner of the room where no profane foot could possibly +tread on it. Unexpected callers were managed by a different method. +If they seated themselves on the sofa, she would fear they did not "set easy" +or "rest comfortable" there, and suggest their moving to the stuffed +chair by the window. The neighbors thought this solicitude merely +another sign of Diadema's "p'ison neatness," excusable in this case +as there was so much white in the new rug. + +The fore-room blinds were ordinarily closed, and the chillness +of death pervaded the sacred apartment; but on great occasions, +when the sun was allowed to penetrate the thirty-two tiny panes +of glass in each window, and a blaze was lighted in the fire-place, +Miss Hollis would look in as she went upstairs, and muse +a moment over the pathetic little romance of rags, the story +of two lives worked into a bouquet of old-fashioned posies, +whose gay tints were brought out by a setting of sombre threads. +Existence had gone so quietly in this remote corner of the world that +all its important events, babyhood, childhood, betrothal, marriage, +motherhood, with all their mysteries of love and life and death, +were chronicled in this narrow space not two yards square. + +Diadema came in behind the little school-teacher one afternoon. + +"I cal'late," she said, "that being kep' in a dark room, and never +being tread on, it will last longer 'n I do. If it does, Priscilla, +you know that white crepe shawl of mine I wear to meeting hot Sundays: +that would make a second row of everlastings round the border. +You could piece out the linings good and smooth on the under side, +draw in the white flowers, and fill 'em round with black to set 'em off. +The rug would be han'somer than ever then, and the story-- +would be finished." + + +--------------------------------------------------------------- + + +A VILLAGE STRADIVARIUS. + +I. + + +"Goodfellow, Puck and goblins, +Know more than any book. +Down with your doleful problems, +And court the sunny brook. +The south-winds are quick-witted, +The schools are sad and slow, +The masters quite omitted +The lore we care to know." + +Emerson's _April._ + + + +"Find the 317th page, Davy, and begin at the top of +the right-hand column." + +The boy turned the leaves of the old instruction book obediently, and +then began to read in a sing-song, monotonous tone:-- + +"'One of Pag-pag'"-- + +"Pag-a-ni-ni's." + +"'One of Paggernyner's' (I wish all the fellers in your stories +didn't have such tough old names!) 'most dis-as-ter-ous triumphs +he had when playing at Lord Holland's.' (Who was Lord Holland, +uncle Tony?) 'Some one asked him to im-pro-vise on the violin +the story of a son who kills his father, runs a-way, becomes +a highway-man, falls in love with a girl who will not listen to him; +so he leads her to a wild country site, suddenly jumping with her +from a rock into an a-b-y-double-s'"-- + +"Abyss." + +"'--a-- rock--into--an--abyss, were they disappear forever. +Paggernyner listened quietly, and when the story was at an end +he asked that all the lights should be distinguished.'" + +"Look closer, Davy." + +"'Should be extinguished. He then began playing, and so terrible was the +musical in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the idea which had been given him that several +of the ladies fainted, and the sal-salon-s_a_lon, when relighted, looked like +a battle-field.' Cracky! Wouldn't you like to have been there, uncle Tony? +But I don't believe anybody ever played that way, do you?" + +"Yes," said the listener, dreamily raising his sightless eyes +to the elm-tree that grew by the kitchen door. "I believe it, +and I can hear it myself when you read the story to me. +I feel that the secret of everything in the world that is beautiful, +or true, or terrible, is hidden in the strings of my violin, +Davy, but only a master can draw it from captivity." + +"You make stories on your violin, too, uncle Tony, +even if the ladies don't faint away in heaps, and if the kitchen +doesn't look like a battle-field when you 've finished. +I'm glad it doesn't, for my part, for I should have more +housework to do than ever." + +"Poor Davy! you couldn't hate housework any worse if you were a woman; +but it is all done for to-day. Now paint me one of your pictures, laddie; +make me see with your eyes." + +The boy put down the book and leaped out of the open door, +barely touching the old millstone that served for a step. +Taking a stand in the well-worn path, he rested his hands +on his hips, swept the landscape with the glance of an eagle, +and began like a young improvisator:-- + +"The sun is just dropping behind Brigadier Hill." + +"What color is it?" + +"Red as fire, and there isn't anything near it,--it 's almost alone +in the sky; there 's only teenty little white feather clouds here and there. +The bridge looks as if it was a silver string tying the two sides +of the river together. The water is pink where the sun shines into it. +All the leaves of the trees are kind of swimming in the red light,-- +I tell you, nunky, just as if I was looking through red glass. +The weather vane on Squire Bean's barn dazzles so the rooster seems +to be shooting gold arrows into the river. I can see the tip top of +Mount Washington where the peak of its snow-cap touches the pink sky. +The hen-house door is open. The chickens are all on their roost, +with their heads cuddled under their wings." + +"Did you feed them?" + +The boy clapped his hand over his mouth with a comical gesture +of penitence, and dashed into the shed for a panful of corn, which he +scattered over the ground, enticing the sleepy fowls by insinuating calls +of "Chick, chick, chick, chick!" _Come,_ biddy, biddy, biddy, biddy! +_Come,_ chick, chick, chick, chick, chick!" + +The man in the doorway smiled as over the misdemeanor of somebody very +dear and lovable, and rising from his chair felt his way to a corner shelf, +took down a box, and drew from it a violin swathed in a silk bag. +He removed the covering with reverential hands. The tenderness of +the face was like that of a young mother dressing or undressing her child. +As he fingered the instrument his hands seemed to have become all eyes. +They wandered caressingly over the polished surface as if enamored +of the perfect thing that they had created, lingering here and there +with rapturous tenderness on some special beauty,--the graceful arch +of the neck, the melting curves of the cheeks, the delicious swell +of the breasts. + +When he had satisfied himself for the moment, he took the bow, +and lifting the violin under his chin, inclined his head fondly +toward it and began to play. + +The tune at first seemed muffled, but had a curious bite, +that began in distant echoes, but after a few minutes' the playing +grew firmer and clearer, ringing out at last with velvety richness +and strength until the atmosphere was satiated with harmony. +No more ethereal note ever flew out of a bird's throat than Anthony +Croft set free from this violin, his _liebling_, his "swan song," +made in the year he had lost his eyesight. + +Anthony Croft had been the only son of his mother, and she a widow. +His boyhood had been exactly like that of all the other boys +in Edgewood, save that he hated school a trifle more, if possible, +than any of the others; though there was a unanimity of aversion in this +matter that surprised and wounded teachers and parents. + +The school was the ordinary "deestrick" school of that time; there were +not enough scholars for what Cyse Higgins called a "degraded" school. +The difference between Anthony and the other boys lay in the reason as well +as the degree of his abhorrence. + +He had come into the world a naked, starving human soul; he longed +to clothe himself, and he was hungry and ever hungrier for knowledge; +but never within the four walls of the village schoolhouse could he get +hold of one fact that would yield him its secret sense, one glimpse +of clear light that would shine in upon the "darkness which may be felt" +in his mind, one thought or word that would feed his soul. + +The only place where his longings were ever stilled, +where he seemed at peace with himself, where he understood +what he was made for, was out of doors in the woods. +When he should have been poring over the sweet, +palpitating mysteries of the multiplication table, +his vagrant gaze was always on the open window near which he sat. +He could never study when a fly buzzed on the window-pane; +he was always standing on the toes of his bare feet, +trying to locate and understand the buzz that puzzled him. +The book was a mute, soulless thing that had no relation +to his inner world of thought and feeling. He turned ever +from the dead seven-times-six to the mystery of life about him. + +He was never a special favorite with his teachers; that was scarcely +to be expected. In his very early years, his pockets were gone through +with every morning when he entered the school door, and the contents, +when confiscated, would comprise a jew's-harp, a bit of catgut, +screws whittled out of wood, tacks, spools, pins, and the like. +But when robbed of all these he could generally secrete a piece of elastic, +which, when put between his teeth and stretched to its utmost capacity, +would yield a delightful twang when played upon with the forefinger. +He could also fashion an interesting musical instrument in his desk by means +of spools and catgut and bits of broken glass. The chief joy of his life +was an old tuning-fork that the teacher of the singing school had +given him, but, owing to the degrading and arbitrary censorship of pockets +that prevailed, he never dared bring it into the schoolroom. There were ways, +however, of evading inexorable law and circumventing base injustice. +He hid the precious thing under a thistle just outside the window. +The teacher had sometimes a brief season of apathy on hot afternoons, +when she was hearing the primer class read, "_I see a pig. The pig is big. +The big pig can dig;_" which stirring in phrases were always punctuated +by the snores of the Hanks baby, who kept sinking down on his fat +little legs in the line and giving way to slumber during the lesson. +At such a moment Anthony slipped out of the window and snapped +the tuning-fork several times,--just enough to save his soul from death,-- +and then slipped in again. He was caught occasionally, but not often; +and even when he was, there were mitigating circumstances, +for he was generally put under the teacher's desk for punishment. +It was a dark, close, sultry spot, but when he was well seated, and had grown +tied of looking at the triangle of elastic in the teacher's congress boot, +and tired of wishing it was his instead of hers, he would tie one end +of a bit of thread to the button of his gingham shirt, and, carrying it +round his left ear several times, make believe he was Paganini languishing +in prison and playing on a violin with a single string. + +As he grew older there was no marked improvement, and Tony +Croft was by general assent counted the laziest boy in the village. +That he was lazy in certain matters merely because he was in +a frenzy of industry to pursue certain others had nothing to do +with the case, of course. + +If any one had ever given him a task in which he could +have seen cause working to effect, in which he could have found +by personal experiment a single fact that belonged to him, +his own by divine right of discovery, he would have counted +labor or study all joy. + +He was one incarnate Why and How, one brooding wonder and +interrogation point. "Why does the sun drive away the stars? +Why do the leaves turn red and gold? What makes the seed swell in the earth? +>From whence comes the life hidden in the egg under the bird's breast? +What holds the moon in the sky? Who regulates her shining? +Who moves the wind? Who made me, and what am I? Who, why, how whither? +If I came from God but only lately, teach me his lessons first, +put me into vital relation with life and law, and then give me your dead +signs and equivalents for real things, that I may learn more and more, +and ever more and ever more." + +There was no spirit in Edgewood bold enough to conceive +that Tony learned anything in the woods, but as there was never +sufficient school money to keep the village seat of learning +open more than half the year the boy educated himself at +the fountain head of wisdom, and knowledge of the other half. +His mother, who owned him for a duckling hatched from a hen's egg, +and was never quite sure he would not turn out a black sheep +and a crooked stick to boot, was obliged to confess that Tony +had more useless information than any boy in the village. +He knew just where to find the first Mayflowers, and would bring +home the waxen beauties when other people had scarcely begun to +think about the spring. He could tell where to look for the rare +fringed gentian, the yellow violet, the Indian pipe. +There were clefts in the rocks of the Indian Cellar where, +when every one else failed, he could find harebells and columbines. + +When his tasks were done, and the other boys were amusing +themselves each in his own way, you would find Tony lying +flat on the pine needles in the woods, listening to the notes +of the wild birds, and imitating them patiently, til you could +scarcely tell which was boy and which was bird; and if you could, +the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed the bobolinks +and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head and chirp +to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing +about the building of nests with which he was not familiar. +He could have taken hold and helped if the birds had not been so shy, +and if he had had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. +He would sit near a beehive for hours without moving, +or lie prone in the sandy road, under the full glare of +the sun, watching the ants acting out their human comedy; +sometimes surrounding a favorite hill with stones, that the comedy +might not be turned into a tragedy by a careless footfall. +The cottage on the river road grew more and more +to resemble a museum and herbarium as the years went by, +and the Widow Croft's weekly house-cleaning was a matter +that called for the exercise of Christian grace. + +Still, Tony was a good son, affectionate, considerate, and obedient. +His mother had no idea that he would ever be able, or indeed willing, +to make a living; but there was a forest of young timber growing up, +a small hay farm to depend upon, and a little hoard that would keep him +out of the poorhouse when she died and left him to his own devices. +It never occurred to her that he was in any way remarkable. +If he were difficult to understand, it reflected more upon his eccentricity +than upon her density. What was a woman to do with a boy of twelve who, +when she urged him to drop the old guitar he was taking apart and hurry off +to school, cried, "Oh, mother! when there is so much to learn in this world, +it is wicked, wicked to waste time in school." + +About this period Tony spent hours in the attic +arranging bottles and tumblers into a musical scale. +He also invented an instrument made of small and great, +long and short pins, driven into soft board to different depths, +and when the widow passed his door on the way to bed she +invariable saw this barbaric thing locked up to the boy's breast, +for he often played himself to sleep with it. + +At fifteen he had taken to pieces and put together again, +strengthened, soldered, tinkered, mended, and braced +every accordion, guitar, melodeon, dulcimer, and fiddle +in Edgewood, Pleasant River, and the neighboring villages. +There was a little money to be earned in this way, but very little, +as people in general regarded this "tinkering" as a pleasing diversion +in which they could indulge him without danger. As an example +of this attitude, Dr. Berry's wife's melodeon had lost two stops, +the pedals had severed connection with the rest of the works, +it wheezed like an asthmatic, and two black keys were missing. +Anthony worked more than a week on its rehabilitation, +and received in return Mrs. Berry's promise that the doctor +would pull a tooth for him some time! This, of course, +was a guerdon for the future, but it seemed pathetically distant +to the lad who had never had a toothache in his life. +He had to plead with Cyse Higgins for a week before that prudent +young farmer would allow him to touch his five-dollar fiddle. +He obtained permission at last only because by offering to give +Cyse his calf in case he spoiled the violin. "That seems square," +said Cyse doubtfully, "but after all, you can't play on a calf!" +"Neither will your fiddle give milk, if you keep it long enough," +retorted Tony; and this argument was convincing. + +So great was his confidence in Tony's skill +that Squire Bean trusted his father's violin to him, +one that had been bought in Berlin seventy years before. +It had been hanging on the attic wall for a half century, +so that the back was split in twain, the sound-post lost, +the neck and the tailpiece cracked. The lad took it home, +and studied it for two whole evenings before the open fire. +The problem of restoring it was quite beyond his abilities. +He finally took the savings of two summers' "blueberry money" +and walked sixteen miles to Portland, where he bought a book +called The Practical Violinist. The Supplement proved +to be a mine of wealth. Even the headings appealed to his +imagination and intoxicated him with their suggestions,-- +On Scraping, Splitting, and Repairing Violins, Violin Players, +Great Violinists, Solo Playing, etc.; and at the very end +a Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, Repair, +and Improvement of the Violin, by Jacob Augustus Friedheim, +Instrument Maker to the Court of the Archduke of Weimar. + +There was a good deal of moral advice in the preface that +sadly puzzled the boy, who was always in a condition of chronic +amazement at the village disapprobation of his favorite fiddle. +That the violin did not in some way receive the confidence +enjoyed by other musical instruments, he perceived from various +paragraphs written by the worthy author of The Practical Violinist, +as for example:-- + +"Some very excellent Christian people hold a strong +prejudice against the violin because they have always +known it associated with dancing and dissipation. +Let it be understood that your violin is 'converted,' +and such an obligation will no longer lie against it. +. . . Many delightful hours may be enjoyed by a young man, +if he has obtained a respectable knowledge of his instrument, +who otherwise would find the time hang heavy on his hands; +or, for want of some better amusement, would frequent the +dangerous and destructive paths of vice and be ruined forever. +. . . I am in hopes, therefore, my dear young pupil, +that your violin will occupy your attention at just those +very times when, if you were immoral or dissipated, you would +be at the grogshop, gaming-table, or among vicious females. +Such a use of the violin, notwithstanding the prejudices +many hold against it, must contribute to virtue, and furnish +abundance of innocent and entirely unobjectionable amusement. +These are the views with which I hope you have adopted it, +and will continue to cherish and cultivate it." + +II. + + +"There is no bard in all the choir, +. . . . . . . +Not one of all can put in verse, +Or to this presence could rehearse +The sights and voices ravishing +The boy knew on the hills in spring, +When pacing through the oaks he heard +Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, +The heavy grouse's sudden whir, +The rattle of the kingfisher." + +Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Now began an era of infinite happiness, of days that were never +long enough, of evenings when bedtime came all too soon. +Oh that there had been some good angel who would have taken in hand +Anthony Croft the boy, and, training the powers that pointed so +unmistakably in certain directions, given to the world the genius of +Anthony Croft, potential instrument maker to the court of St. Cecilia; +for it was not only that he had the fingers of a wizard; his ear +caught the faintest breath of harmony or hint of discord, as + + +"Fairy folk a-listening +Hear the seed sprout in the spring, +And for music to their dance +Hear the hedge-rows wake from trance; +Sap that trembles into buds +Sending little rhythmic floods +Of fairy sound in fairy ears. +Thus all beauty that appears +Has birth as sound to finer sense +And lighter-clad intelligence." + + +As the universe is all mechanism to one man, all form and +color to another, so to Anthony Croft the world was all melody. +Notwithstanding all these gifts and possibilities, +the doctor's wife advised the Widow Croft to make a plumber +of him, intimating delicately that these freaks of nature, +while playing no apparent part in the divine economy, +could sometimes be made self-supporting. + +The seventeenth year of his life marked a definite epoch +in his development. He studied Jacob Friedheim's treatise until +he knew the characteristics of all the great violin models, +from the Amatis, Hieronymus, Antonius, and Nicolas, to those +of Stradivarius, Guarnerius, and Steiner. + +It was in this year, also, that he made a very precious discovery. +While browsing in the rubbish in Squire Bean's garret to see +if he could find the missing sound-post of the old violin, +he came upon a billet of wood wrapped in cloth and paper. +When unwrapped, it was plainly labeled "Wood from the Bean +Maple at Pleasant Point; the biggest maple in York County, +and believed to be one of the biggest in the State of Maine." +Anthony found that the oldest inhabitant of Pleasant River remembered +the stump of the tree, and that the boys used to jump over it +and admire its proportions whenever they went fishing at the Point. +The wood, therefore, was perhaps eighty or ninety years old. +The squire agreed willingly that it should be used to mend the old violin, +and told Tony he should have what was left for himself. +When, by careful calculation, he found that the remainder would make +a whole violin, he laid it reverently away for another twenty years, +so that he should be sure it had completed its century of patient +waiting for service, and falling on his knees by his bedside said, +"I thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for this precious gift, and I promise +from this moment to gather the most beautiful wood I can find, +and lay it by where it can be used some time to make perfect violins, +so that if any creature as poor and helpless as I am needs the wherewithal +to do good work, I shall have helped him as Thou hast helped me." +And according to his promise so he did, and the pieces of richly +curled maple, of sycamore, and of spruce began to accumulate. +They were cut from the sunny side of the trees, in just the right +season of the year, split so as to have a full inch thickness +towards the bark, and a quarter inch towards the heart. +They were then laid for weeks under one of the falls in Wine Brook, +where the musical tinkle, tinkle of the stream fell on the wood already +wrought upon by years of sunshine and choruses of singing birds. + + +This boy, toiling not alone for himself, but with full +and conscious purpose for posterity also, was he not worthy +to wear the mantle of Antonius Stradivarius? + + +"That plain white-aproned man who stood at work +Patient and accurate full fourscore years, +Cherished his sight and touch by temperance, +And since keen sense is love of perfectness, +Made perfect violins, the needed paths +For inspiration and high mastery." + +And as if the year were not full enough of glory, the school-teacher +sent him a book with a wonderful poem in it. + +That summer's teaching had been the freak of a college student, who had +gone back to his senior year strengthened by his experience of village life. +Anthony Croft, who was only three or four years his junior, had been his +favorite pupil and companion. + +"How does Tony get along?" asked the Widow Croft when the teacher +came to call. + +"Tony? Oh, I can't teach him anything." + +Tears sprang to the mother's eyes. + +"I know he ain't much on book learning," she said apologetically, +"but I'm bound he don't make you no trouble in deportment." + +"I mean," said the school-teacher gravely, "that I can show +him how to read a little Latin and do a little geometry, +but he knows as much in one day as I shall ever know in a year." + +Tony crouched by the old fireplace in the winter evenings, +dropping his knife or his compasses a moment to read aloud to his mother, +who sat in the opposite corner knitting:-- + + +"Of old Antonio Stradivari,--him +Who a good quarter century and a half ago +Put his true work in the brown instrument, +And by the nice adjustment of its frame +Gave it responsive life, continuous +With the master's finger-tips, and perfected +Like them by delicate rectitude of use." + + +The mother listened with painful intentness. "I like the sound of it," +she said, "but I can't hardly say I take in the full sense." + +"Why mother," said the lad, in a rare moment of self-expression, +"you know the poetry says he cherished his sight and touch by temperance; +that an idiot might see a straggling line and be content, +but he had an eye that winced at false work, and loved the true. +When it says his finger-tips were perfected by delicate rectitude +of use, I think it means doing everything as it is done in heaven, +and that anybody who wants to make a perfect violin must +keep his eye open to all the beautiful things God has made, +and his ear open to all the music he has put into the world, +and then never let his hands touch a piece of work that is crooked +or straggling or false, till, after years and years of rightness, +they are fit to make a violin like the squire's, a violin that can +say everything, a violin that an angel wouldn't be ashamed +to play on." + +Do these words seem likely ones to fall from the lips +of a lad who had been at the tail of his class ever since his +primer days? Well, Anthony was seventeen now, and he was +"educated," in spite of sorry recitations,--educated, the Lord +knows how! Yes, in point of fact the Lord does know how! +He knows how the drill and pressure of the daily task, +still more the presence of the high ideal, the inspiration +working from within, how these educate us. + +The blind Anthony Croft sitting in the kitchen doorway had +seemingly missed the heights of life he might have trod, and had walked +his close on fifty years through level meadows of mediocrity, a witch +in every finger-tip waiting to be set to work, head among the clouds, +feet stumbling, eyes and ears open to hear God's secret thought; +seeing and hearing it, too, but lacking force to speak it forth again; +for while imperious genius surmounts all obstacles, brushes laws and +formulas from its horizon, and with its own free soul sees its "path +and the outlets of the sky," potential genius forever needs an angel +of deliverance to set it free. + +Poor Anthony Croft, or blessed Anthony Croft, I know not which,-- +God knows! Poor he certainly was, yet blessed after all. +"One thing I do," said Paul. "One thing I do," said Anthony. +He was not able to realize his ideals, but he had the "angel aim" +by which he idealized his reals. + +O waiting heart of God! how soon would thy kingdom +come if we all did our allotted tasks, humble or splendid, +in this consecrated fashion! + +III. + + +"Therein I hear the Parcae reel +The threads of man at their humming wheel, +The threads of life and power and pain, +So sweet and mournful falls the strain." + +Emerson's _Harp._ + + +Old Mrs. Butterfield had had her third stroke of paralysis, +and died of a Sunday night. She was all alone in her little +cottage on the river bank, with no neighbor nearer +than Croft's, and nobody there but a blind man and a small boy. +Everybody had told her it was foolish to live alone in a house +on the river road, and everybody was pleased in a discreet +and chastened fashion of course, that it had turned out exactly +as they had predicted. + +Aunt Mehitable Tarbox was walking up to Milliken's Mills, +with her little black reticule hanging over her arm, +and noticing that there was no smoke coming out of the chimney, +and that the hens were gathered about the kitchen door clamoring +for their breakfast, she thought it best to stop and knock. +No response followed the repeated blows from her hard knuckles. +She then tapped smartly on Mrs. Butterfield's bedroom window +with her thimble finger. This proving of no avail, she was +obliged to pry open the kitchen shutter, split open a mosquito +netting with her shears, and crawl into the house over the sink. +This was a considerable feat for a somewhat rheumatic elderly lady, +but this one never grudged trouble when she wanted to find +out anything. + +When she discovered that her premonitions were correct, +and that old Mrs. Butterfield was indeed dead, her grief +at losing a pleasant acquaintance was largely mitigated +by her sense of importance at being first on the spot, +and chosen by Providence to take command of the situation. +There were no relations in the village; there was no woman +neighbor within a mile: it was therefore her obvious Christian +duty not only to take charge of the remains, but to conduct +such a funeral as the remains would have wished for herself. + +The fortunate Vice-President suddenly called upon by destiny +to guide the ship of state, the general who sees a possible +Victoria Cross in a hazardous engagement, can have a faint +conception of aunt Hitty's feeling on this momentous occasion. +Funerals were the very breath of her life. There was no ceremony, +either of public or private import, that, to her mind, +approached a funeral in real satisfying interest. +Yet, with distinct talent in this direction, she had always +been "cabined, cribbed, confined" within hopeless limitations. +She had assisted in a secondary capacity at funerals in the families +of other people, but she would have reveled in personally +conducted ones. The members of her own family stubbornly +refused to die, however, even the distant connections living +on and on to a ridiculous old age; and if they ever did die, +by reason of a falling roof, shipwreck, or conflagration, +they generally died in Texas or Iowa, or some remote State where +aunt Hitty could not follow the hearse in the first carriage. +This blighted ambition was a heart sorrow of so deep and sacred +a character that she did not even confess it to "Si," as her +appendage of a husband was called. + +Now at last her chance for planning a funeral had come. +Mrs. Butterfield had no kith or kin save her niece, Lyddy Ann, +who lived in Andover, or Lawrence, or Haverhill Massachusetts,-- +aunt Hitty couldn't remember which, and hoped nobody else could. +The niece would be sent for when they found out where she lived; +meanwhile the funeral could not be put off. + +She glanced round the house preparatory to locking it +up and starting to notify Anthony Croft. She would just run +over and talk to him about ordering the coffin; then she could +attend to all other necessary preliminaries herself. +The remains had been well-to-do, and there was no occasion for +sordid economy, so aunt Hitty determined in her own mind to have +the latest fashion in everything, including a silver coffin plate. +The Butterfield coffin plates were a thing to be proud of. +They had been sacredly preserved for years and years, and the +entire collection--numbering nineteen in all had been framed, +and adorned the walls of the deceased lady's best room. +They were not of solid silver, it is true, but even so it was a +matter of distinction to have belonged to a family that could +afford to have nineteen coffin plates of any sort. + +Aunt Hitty planned certain dramatic details as she +walked town the road to Croft's. It came to her in a burst +of inspiration that she would have two ministers: one for +the long prayer, and one for the short prayer and the remarks. +She hoped that Elder Weeks would be adequate in the latter +direction. She knew she couldn't for the life of her think +of anything interesting about Mrs. Butterfield, save that she +possessed nineteen coffin plates, and brought her hens to +Edgewood every summer for their health; but she had heard Elder +Weeks make a moving discourse out of less than that. +To be sure, he needed priming, but she was equal to that. +There was Ivory Brown's funeral: how would that have gone on +if it hadn't been for her? Wasn't the elder ten minutes late, +and what would his remarks have amounted to without her suggestions? +You might almost say she was the author of the discourse, +for she gave him all the appropriate ideas. As she had helped him +out of the wagon she had said: "Are you prepared? I thought not; +but there's no time to lose. Remember there are aged parents; +two brothers living, one railroading in Spokane Falls, +the other clerking in Washington, D. C. Don't mention +the Universalists,--there's ben two in the fam'ly; nor insanity,-- +there 's ben one o' them. The girl in the corner by the clock +is the one that the remains has been keeping comp'ny with. +If you can make some genteel allusions to her, it'll be much +appreciated by his folks." + +As to the long prayer, she knew that the Rev. Mr. Ford could be relied +on to pray until aunt Becky Burnham should twitch him by the coat tails. +She had done it more than once. She had also, on one occasion, +got up and straightened his ministerial neckerchief, which he had gradually +"prayed" around his saintly neck until it was behind the right ear. + +These plans proved so fascinating to aunt Hitty that she walked +quite half a mile beyond Croft's, and was obliged to retrace her steps. +She conceived bands of black alpaca for the sleeves and hats +of the pallbearers, and a festoon of the same over the front gate, +if there should be any left over. She planned the singing by the choir. +There had been no real choir-singing at any funeral in Edgewood since +the Rev. Joshua Beckwith had died. She would ask them to open with-- + + +Rebel mourner, cease your weepin'. +You too must die. + +This was a favorite funeral hymn. The only difficulty +would be in keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it +in a key where nobody but a soprano skylark, accustomed to +warble at a great height, could possibly sing it. +It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; +but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder always +looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief +over his head before beginning the twenty-seven verses. +After the long prayer, she would have Almira Berry give +for a solo-- + + +This gro-o-oanin' world 's too dark and +dre-e-ar for the saints' e - ter - nal rest, + +This hymn, if it did not wholly reconcile one to death, +enabled one to look upon life with sufficient solemnity. +It was a thousand pities, she thought, that the old hearse was +so shabby and rickety, and that Gooly Eldridge, who drove it, +would insist on wearing a faded peach-blow overcoat. +It was exasperating to think of the public spirit at Egypt, +and contrast it with the state of things at Pleasant River. +In Egypt they had sold the old hearse house for a sausage shop, +and now they were having hearse sociables every month +to raise money for a new one. + +All these details flew through aunt Hitty's mind in +fascinating procession. There shouldn't be "a hitch" anywhere. +There had been a hitch at her last funeral, but she had been +only an assistant there. Matt Henderson had been struck +by lightning at the foot of Squire Bean's old nooning tree, +and certain circumstances combined to make the funeral one +of unusual interest, so much so that fat old Mrs. Potter +from Deerwander created a sensation at the cemetery. +She was so anxious to get where she could see everything +to the best advantage that she crowded too near the bier, +stepped on the sliding earth, and pitched into the grave. +As she weighed over two hundred pounds, and was in a position +of some disadvantage, it took five men to extricate her from +the dilemma, and the operation made a long and somewhat +awkward break in the religious services. Aunt Hitty always +said of this catastrophe, "If I'd 'a' ben Mis' Potter, I'd 'a' +ben so mortified I believe I'd 'a' said, 'I wa'n't plannin' +to be buried, but now I'm in here I declare I'll stop!'" + +Old Mrs. Butterfield's funeral was not only voted +an entire success by the villagers, but the seal of professional +approval was set upon it by an undertaker from Saco, +who declared that Mrs. Tarbox could make a handsome living +in the funeral line anywhere. Providence, who always assists +those who assist themselves, decreed that the niece Lyddy Ann +should not arrive until the aunt was safely buried; so, there being +none to resist her right or grudge her the privilege aunt Hitty, +for the first time in her life, rode in the next buggy to +the hearse. Si, in his best suit, a broad weed and weepers, +drove Cyse Higgins's black colt, and aunt Hitty was dressed in +deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's crape veil over her face, +and in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a black ribbon. +Her comment to Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that night, was: +"It was an awful dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in it. +It would 'a' ben perfect if there' ben anybody to shed tears. +I come pretty nigh it myself, though I ain't no relation, +when Elder Weeks said, 'You'll go round the house, my sisters, +and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the orchard, +and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' +the barn and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' +the shed, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' +the hencoop, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there!' +That would 'a' drawed tears from a stone most, 'specially sence Mis' +Butterfield set such store by her hens." + +And this is the way that Lyddy Butterfield came into +her kingdom, a little lone brown house on the river's brim. +She had seen it only once before when she had driven out from Portland, +years ago, with her aunt. Mrs. Butterfield lived in Portland, +but spent her summers in Edgewood on account of her chickens. +She always explained that the country was dreadful dull for her, +but good for the hens; they always laid so much better in +the winter time. + +Lyddy liked the place all the better for its loneliness. +She had never had enough of solitude, and this quiet home, +with the song of the river for company, if one needed more +company than chickens and a cat, satisfied all her desires, +particularly as it was accompanied by a snug little income +of two hundred dollars a year, a meagre sum that seemed to open +up mysterious avenues of joy to her starved, impatient heart. + +When she was a mere infant, her brother was holding +her on his knee before the great old-fashioned fireplace +heaped with burning logs. A sudden noise startled him, +and the crowing, restless baby gave an unexpected lurch, and slipped, +face downward, into the glowing embers. It was a full minute +before the horror-stricken boy could extricate the little creature +from the cruel flame that had already done its fatal work. +The baby escaped with her life, but was disfigured forever. +As she grew older, the gentle hand of time could not entirely +efface the terrible scars. One cheek was wrinkled and crimson, +while one eye and the mouth were drawn down pathetically. +The accident might have changed the disposition of any child, +but Lyddy chanced to be a sensitive, introspective bit of feminine +humanity, in whose memory the burning flame was never quenched. +Her mother, partly to conceal her own wounded vanity, and partly +to shield the timid, morbid child, kept her out of sight as much +as possible; so that at sixteen, when she was left an orphan, +she had lived almost entirely in solitude. + +She became, in course of time, a kind of general nursery +governess in a large family of motherless children. +The father was almost always away from home; his sister kept the house, +and Lyddy stayed in the nursery, bathing the brood and putting +them to bed, dressing them in the morning, and playing with them +in the safe privacy of the back garden or the open attic. +They loved her, disfigured as she was, for the child despises +mere externals, and explores the heart of things to see whether it +be good or evil,--but they could never induce her to see strangers, +nor to join any gathering of people. + +The children were grown and married now, and Lyddy was nearly +forty when she came into possession of house and lands and fortune; +forty, with twenty years of unexpended feeling pent within her. +Forty, that is rather old to be interesting, but age is a relative matter. +Haven't you seen girls of four-and-twenty who have nibbled and been +nibbled at ever since they were sixteen, but who have neither caught +anything nor been caught? They are old, if you like, but Lyddy was +forty and still young, with her susceptibilities cherished, not dulled, +and with all the "language of passion fresh and rooted as the lovely +leafage about a spring." + +IV. + + +"He shall daily joy dispense +Hid in song's sweet influence." + +Emerson's _Merlin._ + + +Lyddy had very few callers during her first month +as a property owner in Edgewood. Her appearance would +have been against her winning friends easily in any case, +even if she had not acquired the habits of a recluse. +It took a certain amount of time, too, for the community +to get used to the fact that old Mrs. Butterfield was dead, +and her niece Lyddy Ann living in the cottage on the river road. +There were numbers of people who had not yet heard that old +Mrs. Butterfield had bought the house from the Thatcher boys, +and that was fifteen years ago; but this was not strange, for, +notwithstanding aunt Hitty's valuable services in disseminating +general information, there was a man living on the Bonny Eagle +road who was surprised to hear that Daniel Webster was dead, +and complained that folks were not so long-lived as they +used to be. + +Aunt Hitty thought Lyddy a Goth and a Vandal because she took down +the twenty silver coffin plates and laid them reverently away. +"Mis' Butterfield would turn in her grave," she said, "if she knew it. +She ain't much of a housekeeper, I guess," she went on, as she cut +over Dr. Berry's old trousers into briefer ones for Tommy Berry. +"She gives considerable stuff to her hens that she'd a sight better heat +over and eat herself, in these hard times when the missionary societies can't +hardly keep the heathen fed and clothed and warmed--no, I don't mean warmed, +for most o' the heathens live in hot climates, somehow or 'nother. +My back door's jest opposite hers; it's across the river, to be sure, +but it's the narrer part, and I can see everything she does as plain +as daylight. She washed a Monday, and she ain't taken her clothes in yet, +and it's Thursday. She may be bleachin' of 'em out, but it looks slack. +I said to Si last night I should stand it till 'bout Friday,--seein' 'em lay +on the grass there, but if she didn't take 'em in then, I should go +over and offer to help her. She has a fire in the settin'-room 'most +every night, though we ain't had a frost yet; and as near's I can +make out, she's got full red curtains hangin' up to her windows. +I ain't sure, for she don't open the blinds in that room till I +get away in the morning, and she shuts 'em before I get back at night. +Si don't know red from green, so he's useless in such matters. +I'm going home late to-night, and walk down on that side o' the river, +so't I can call in after dark and see what makes her house light up +as if the sun was settin' inside of it." + +As a matter of fact, Lyddy was reveling in house-furnishing +of a humble sort. She had a passion for color. There was +a red-and-white straw matting on the sitting-room floor. +Reckless in the certain possession of twenty dollars a month, +she purchased yards upon yards of turkey red cotton; +enough to cover a mattress for the high-backed settle, for long +curtains at the windows, and for cushions to the rockers. +She knotted white fringes for the table covers and curtains, +painted the inside of the fireplace red, put some pots, +of scarlet geraniums on the window-sills, filled newspaper +rack with ferns and tacked it over an ugly spot in the wall, +edged her work-basket with a tufted trimming of scarlet worsted, +and made an elaborate photograph case of white crash and red +cotton that stretched the entire length of the old-fashioned +mantelshelf, and held pictures of Mr. Reynolds, Miss +Elvira Reynolds, George, Susy, Anna, John, Hazel, Ella, +and Rufus Reynolds, her former charges. When all this was done, +she lighted a little blaze on the hearth, took the red curtains +from their hands, let them fall gracefully to the floor, +and sat down in her rocking-chair, reconciled to her existence +for absolutely the first time in her forty years. + +I hope Mrs. Butterfield was happy enough in Paradise to appreciate +and feel Lyddy's joy. I can even believe she was glad to have died, +since her dying could bring such content to any wretched living human soul. +As Lydia sat in the firelight, the left side of her poor face +in shadow, you saw that she was distinctly harmonious. Her figure, +clad in plain black-and-white calico dress, was a graceful, womanly one. +She had beautifully sloping shoulders and a sweet wrist. Her hair was +soft and plentiful, and her hands were fine, strong, and sensitive. +This possibility of rare beauty made her scars and burns more pitiful, +for if a cheap chrome has smirch across its face, we think it a matter +of no moment, but we deplore the smallest scratch or blur on any +work of real art. + +Lydia felt a little less bitter and hopeless about life when she +sat in front of her own open fire, after her usual twilight walk. +It was her habit to wander down the wooded road after her simple +five-o'clock supper, gatherings ferns or goldenrod or frost flowers +for her vases; and one night she heard, above the rippling of the river, +the strange, sweet, piercing sound of Anthony Croft's violin. + +She drew nearer, and saw a, middle-aged man sitting in the kitchen +doorway, with a lad of ten or twelve years leaning against his knees. +She could tell little of his appearance, save that he had a high forehead, +and hair that waved well back from it in rather an unusual fashion. +He was in his shirt-sleeves, but the gingham was scrupulously clean, +and he had the uncommon refinement of a collar and necktie. +Out of sight herself, Lyddy drew near enough to hear; and this she +did every night without recognizing that the musician was blind. +The music had a curious effect upon her. It was a hitherto unknown influence +in her life, and it interpreted her, so to speak, to herself. +As she sat on the bed of brown pine needles, under a friendly tree, +her head resting against its trunk, her eyes half closed, the tone of +Anthony's violin came like a heavenly message to a tired, despairing soul. +Remember that in her secluded life she had heard only such harmony as Elvira +Reynolds evoked from her piano or George Reynolds from his flute, +and the Reynolds temperament was distinctly inartistic. + +Lyddy lived through a lifetime of emotion in these twilight concerts. +Sometimes she was filled with an exquisite melancholy from which there was +no escape; at others, the ethereal purity of the strain stirred her heart with +a strange, sweet vision of mysterious joy; joy that she had never possessed, +would never possess; joy whose bare existence she never before realized. +When the low notes sank lower and lower with their soft wail of delicious woe, +she bent forward into the dark, dreading that something would be lost +in the very struggle of listening; then, after a, pause, a pure human tone +would break the stillness, and soaring, bird-like, higher and higher, +seem to mount to heaven itself, and, "piercing its starry floors," +lift poor scarred Lydia's soul to the very grates of infinite bliss. +In the gentle moods that stole upon her in those summer twilights she +became a different woman, softer in her prosperity than she had ever +been in her adversity; for some plants only blossom in sunshine. +What wonder if to her the music and the musician became one? +It is sometimes a dangerous thing to fuse the man and his talents +in this way; but it did no harm here, for Anthony Croft was his music, +and the music was Anthony Croft. When he played on his violin, it was +as if the miracle of its fashioning were again enacted; as if the bird +on the quivering bough, the mellow sunshine streaming through the lattice +of green leaves, the tinkle of the woodland stream, spoke in every tone; +and more than this, the hearth-glow in whose light the patient hands +had worked, the breath of the soul bending itself in passionate prayer +for perfection, these, too, seemed to have wrought their blessed influence +on the willing strings until the tone was laden with spiritual harmony. +One might indeed have sung of this little red violin--that looked to Lyddy, +in the sunset glow, as if it were veneered with rubies--all that +Shelley sang of another perfect instrument:-- + + +"The artist who this viol wrought +To echo all harmonious thought, +Fell'd a tree, while on the steep +The woods were in their winter sleep, +Rock'd in that repose divine +Of the wind-swept Apennine; +And dreaming, some of Autumn past, +And some of Spring approaching fast, +And some of April buds and showers, +And some of songs in July bowers, +And all of love; and so this tree-- +O that such our death may be!-- +Died in sleep, and felt no pain, +To live in happier form again." + +The viol "whispers in enamoured tone:"-- + + +"Sweet oracles of woods and dells, +And summer windy ill sylvan cells; . . +The clearest echoes of the hills, +The softest notes of falling rills, +The melodies of birds and bees, +The murmuring of summer seas, +And pattering rain, and breathing dew, +And airs of evening; all it knew.... +--All this it knows, but will not tell + To those who cannot question well +The spirit that inhabits it; ... +But, sweetly as its answers will +Flatter hands of perfect skill, +It keeps its highest, holiest tone +For one beloved Friend alone." + + +Lyddy heard the violin and the man's voice as he talked to the child,-- +heard them night after night; and when she went home to the little +brown house to light the fire on the hearth and let down the warm +red curtains, she fell into sweet, sad reveries; and when she blew +out her candle for the night, she fell asleep and dreamed new dreams, +and her heart was stirred with the rustling of new-born hopes that rose +and took wing like birds startled from their nests. + +V. + + +"Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind, +A poet or a friend to find: +Behold, he watches at the door! +Behold his shadow on the floor!" + +Emerson's _Saadi._ + + +Lyddy Butterfield's hen turkey was of a roving disposition. +She had never appreciated her luxurious country quarters in Edgewood, and was +seemingly anxious to return to the modest back yard in her native city. +At any rate, she was in the habit of straying far from home, and the habit +was growing upon her to such an extent that she would even lead her docile +little gobblers down to visit Anthony Croft's hens and share their corn. + +Lyddy had caught her at it once, and was now pursuing her to that +end for the second time. She paused in front of the house, +but there were no turkeys to be seen. Could they have wandered up +the hill road,--the discontented, "traipsing," exasperating things? +She started in that direction, when she heard a crash in the Croft kitchen, +and then the sound of a boy's voice coming from an inner room,-- +a weak and querulous voice, as if the child were ill. + +She drew nearer, in spite of her dread of meeting people, +or above all of intruding, and saw Anthony Croft standing over the stove, +with an expression of utter helplessness on his usually placid face. +She had never really seen him before in the daylight, +and there was something about his appearance that startled her. +The teakettle was on the floor, and a sea of water was flooding +the man's feet, yet he seemed to be gazing into vacancy. +Presently he stooped, and fumbled gropingly for the kettle. +It was too hot to be touched with impunity, and he finally left it +in a despairing sort of way, and walked in the direction of a shelf, +from under which a row of coats was hanging. The boy called again in a +louder and more insistent tone, ending in a whimper of restless pain. +This seemed to make the man more nervous than ever. +His hands went patiently over and over the shelf, then paused +at each separate nail. + +"Bless the poor dear!" thought Lyddy. "Is he trying to find +his hat, or what is he trying to do? I wonder if he is music mad?" +and she drew still nearer the steps. + +At this moment he turned and came rapidly toward the door. +She looked straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: +he was blind. The magician who had told her through his violin +secrets that she had scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had set +her heart to throbbing and aching and longing as it had never +throbbed and ached and longed before, the being who had worn a halo +of romance and genius to her simple mind, was stone-blind! A wave +of impetuous anguish, as sharp and passionate as any she had ever +felt for her own misfortunes, swept over her soul at the spectacle +of the man's helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her like a blow. +But there was no time to lose. She was directly in his path: +if she stood still he would certainly walk over her, and if she +moved he would hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave +a nervous cough and said, "Good-morning, Mr. Croft." + +He stopped short. "Who is it?" he asked. + +"I am--it is--I am--your new neighbor," said Lyddy, +with a trembling attempt at cheerfulness. + +"Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see +you before this if it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. +But I am a good-for-nothing neighbor, as you have doubtless heard. +Nobody expects anything of me." + +("Nobody expects anything of me." Her own plaint, +uttered in her own tone!) + +"I don't know about that," she answered swiftly. +"You've given me, for one, a great deal of pleasure with your +wonderful music. I often hear you as you play after supper, +and it has kept me from being lonesome. That isn't very much, +to be sure." + +"You are fond of music, then?" + +"I didn't know I was; I never heard any before," said Lyddy simply; +"but it seems to help people to say things they couldn't say for themselves, +don't you think so? It comforts me even to hear it, and I think it must +be still more beautiful to make it." + +Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no sooner uttered this +commonplace speech than the reflection darted through +her mind like a lightning flash that she had never spoken +a bit of her heart out like this in all her life before. +The reason came to her in the same flash: she was not being +looked at; her disfigured face was hidden. This man, at least, +could not shrink, turn away, shiver, affect indifference, +fix his eyes on hers with a fascinated horror, as others had done. +Her heart was divided between a great throb of pity and sympathy +for him and an irresistible sense of gratitude for herself. +Sure of protection and comprehension, her lovely soul +came out of her poor eyes and sat in the sunshine. +She spoke her mind at ease, as we utter sacred things sometimes +under cover of darkness. + +"You seem to have had an accident; what can I do to help you?" she asked. + +"Nothing, thank you. The boy has been sick for some days, +but he seems worse since last night. Nothing is in its right +place in the house, so I have given up trying to find anything, +and am just going to Edgewood to see if somebody will help me +for a few days." + +"Uncle Tony! Uncle To-ny! where are you? Do give me another drink, +I'm so hot!" came the boy's voice from within. + +"Coming, laddie! I don't believe he ought to drink so much water, +but what can I do? He is burning up with fever." + +"Now look here, Mr. Croft," and Lydia's tone was cheerfully decisive. +"You sit down in that rocker, please, and let me command the ship +for a while. This is one of the cases where a woman is necessary. +First and foremost, what were you hunting for?" + +"My hat and the butter," said Anthony meekly, +and at this unique combination they both laughed. +Lyddy's laugh was particularly fresh, childlike, and pleased; +one that would have astonished the Reynolds children. +She had seldom laughed heartily since little Rufus had cried +and told her she frightened him when she twisted her face so. + +"Your hat is in the wood-box, and I'll find the butter in the twinkling +of an eye, though why you want it now is more than--My patience, Mr. Croft, +your hand is burned to a blister!" + +"Don't mind me. Be good enough to look at the boy and tell +me what ails him; nothing else matters much." + +"I will with pleasure, but let me ease you a little first. +Here's a rag that will be just the thing," and Lyddy, +suiting the pretty action to the mendacious worn, took a +good handkerchief from her pocket and tore it in three strips, +after spreading it with tallow from a candle heated over the stove. +This done, she hound up the burned hand skillfully, and, crossing the +dining-room, disappeared within the little chamber door beyond. +She came out presently, and said half hesitatingly, +"Would you--mind going out in the orchard for an hour or so? +You seem to be rather in the way here, and I should like +the place to myself, if you'll excuse me for saying so. +I'm ever so much more capable than Mrs. Buck; won't you +give me a trial, sir? Here's your violin and your hat. +I'll call you if you can help or advise me." + +"But I can't let a stranger come in and do my housework," he objected. +"I can't, you know, though I appreciate your kindness all the same." + +"I am your nearest neighbor, and your only one, for that matter," +said Lyddy firmly; "its nothing more than right that I should look after that +sick child, and I must do it. I haven't got a thing to do in my own house. +I am nothing but a poor lonely old maid, who's been used to children +all her life, and likes nothing better than to work over them." + +A calm settled upon Anthony's perturbed spirit, as he sat under +the apple-trees and heard Lyddy going to and fro in the cottage. +"She isn't any old maid," he thought; "she doesn't step like one; +she has soft shoes and a springy walk. She must be a very +handsome woman, with a hand like that; and such a voice! +I knew the moment she spoke that she didn't belong in this village." + +As a matter of fact, his keen ear had caught the melody in +Lyddy's voice, a voice full of dignity, sweetness, and reserve power. +His sense of touch, too, had captured the beauty of her hand, +and held it in remembrance,--the soft palm, the fine skin, +supple fingers, smooth nails, and firm round wrist. +These charms would never have been noted by any seeing +man in Edgewood, but they were revealed to Anthony Croft +while Lyddy, like the good Samaritan, bound up his wounds. +It is these saving stars that light the eternal darkness +of the blind. + +Lyddy thought she had met her Waterloo when, with arms akimbo, +she gazed about the Croft establishment, which was a scene +of desolation for the moment. Anthony's cousin from +Bridgton was in the habit of visiting him every two months +for a solemn house-cleaning, and Mrs. Buck from Pleasant +River came every Saturday and Monday for baking and washing. +Between times Davy and his uncle did the housework together; +and although it was respectably done, there was no pink-and-white +daintiness about it, you may be sure. + +Lyddy came out to the apple-trees in about an hour, +laughing a little nervously as she said, "I'm sorry to +have taken a mean advantage of you, Mr. Croft, but I know +everything you've got in your house, and exactly where it is. +I couldn't help it, you see, when I was making things tidy. +It would do you good to see the boy. His room was too light, +and the flies were devouring him. I swept him and dusted him, +put on clean sheets and pillow slips, sponged him with bay rum, +brushed his hair, drove out the flies, and tacked a green +curtain up to the window. Fifteen minutes after he was sleeping +like a kitten. He has a sore throat and considerable fever. +Could you--can you--at least, will you, go up to my house +on an errand?" + +"Certainly I can. I know it inside and out as well as my own." + +"Very good. On the clock shelf in the sitting-room there +is a bottle of sweet spirits of nitre; it's the only bottle there, +so you can't make any mistake. It will help until the doctor comes. +I wonder you didn't send for him yesterday?" + +"Davy wouldn't have him," apologized his uncle. + +"Wouldn't he ?" said Lyddy with cheerful scorn. +"He has you under pretty good control, hasn't he? +But children are unmerciful tyrants." + +"Couldn't you coax him into it before you go home?" asked Anthony +in a wheedling voice. + +"I can try; but it isn't likely I can +influence him, if you can't. Still, if we both fail, I really don't +see what 's to prevent our sending for the doctor in spite of him. +He is as weak as a baby, you know, and can't sit up in bed: +what could he do? I will risk the consequences, if you will! " + +There was a note of such amiable and winning sarcasm in all this, +such a cheery, invincible courage, such a friendly neighborliness +and cooperation, above all such a different tone from any +he was accustomed to hear in Edgewood, that Anthony Croft felt +warmed through to the core. + +As he walked quickly along the road, he conjured up a vision +of autumn beauty from the few hints nature gave even to her sightless +ones on this glorious morning,--the rustle of a few fallen leaves under +his feet, the clear wine of the air, the full rush of the swollen river, +the whisking of the squirrels in the boughs, the crunch of their teeth +on the nuts, the spicy odor of the apples lying under the trees. +He missed his mother that morning more than he had missed her for years. +How neat she was, how thrifty, how comfortable, and how comforting! +His life was so dreary and aimless; and was it the best or the right one +for Davy, with his talent and dawning ambition? Would it not be better +to have Mrs. Buck live with them altogether, instead of coming twice a week, +as heretofore ? No; he shrank from that with a hopeless aversion born +of Saturday and Monday dinners in her company. He could hear her pour +her coffee into the saucer; hear the scraping of the cup on the rim, +and know that she was setting it sloppily down on the cloth. He could +remember her noisy drinking, the weight of her elbow on the table, +the creaking of her calico dress under the pressure of superabundant flesh. +Besides, she had tried to scrub his favorite violin with sapolio. +No, anything was better than Mrs. Buck as a constancy. + +He took off his hat unconsciously as he entered Lyddy's sitting-room. +A gentle breeze blew one of the full red curtains towards him till +it fluttered about his shoulders like a frolicsome, teasing hand. +There was a sweet, pungent odor of pine boughs, a canary sang in the window, +the clock was trimmed with a blackberry vine; he knew the prickles, +and they called up to his mind the glowing tints he had loved so well. +His sensitive hand, that carried a divining rod in every finger-tip, +met a vase on the shelf, and, traveling upward, touched a full branch +of alder berries tied about with a ribbon. The ribbon would be red; +the woman who arranged this room would make no mistake; for in one morning +Anthony Croft had penetrated the secret of Lyddy's true personality, +and in a measure had sounded the shallows that led to the depths +of her nature. + +Lyddy went home at seven o'clock that night rather reluctantly. +The doctor had said Mr. Croft could sit up with the boy unless he grew +much worse, and there was no propriety in her staying longer unless +there was danger. + +"You have been very good to me," Anthony said gravely, +as he shook her hand at parting,--"very good." + +They stood together on the doorstep. A distant bell, +called to evening prayer-meeting; the restless murmur of the river +and the whisper of the wind in the pines broke the twilight stillness. +The long, quiet day together, part of it spent by the sick child's bedside, +had brought the two strangers curiously near to each other. + +"The house hasn't seemed so sweet and fresh since my mother died," +he went on, as he dropped her hand, "and I haven't had so many flowers +and green things in it since I lost my eyesight." + +"Was it long ago?" + +"Ten years. Is that long?" + +"Long to bear a burden." + +"I hope you know little of burden-bearing?" + +"I know little else." + +"I might have guessed it from the alacrity with which +you took up Davy's and mine. You must be very happy to have +the power to make things straight and sunny and wholesome; +to breathe your strength into helplessness such as mine. +I thank you, and I envy you. Good-night." + +Lyddy turned on her heel without a word; her mind was beyond +and above words. The sky seemed to have descended upon, enveloped her, +caught her up into its heaven, as she rose into unaccustomed heights +of feeling, like Elijah in his chariot of fire. She very happy! +She with power, power to make things straight and sunny and wholesome! +She able to breathe strength into helplessness, even a consecrated, +Godsmitten helplessness like his! She not only to be thanked, but envied! + +Her house seemed strange to her that night. +She went to bed in the dark, dreading even the light of a candle; +and before she turned down her counterpane she flung herself +on her knees, and poured out her soul in a prayer that had +been growing, waiting, and waited for, perhaps, for years:-- + +"O Lord, I thank Thee for health and strength and life. +I never could do it before, but I thank Thee to-night for life +on any terms. I thank Thee for this home; for the chance +of helping another human creature, stricken like myself; +for the privilege of ministering to a motherless child. +Make me to long only for the beauty of holiness, and to be +satisfied if I attain to it. Wash my soul pure and clean, +and let that be the only mirror in which I see my face. +I have tried to be useful. Forgive me if it always seemed +so hard and dreary a life. Forgive me if I am too happy because +for one short day I have really helped in a beautiful way, +and found a friend who saw, because he was blind, the real +me underneath; the me that never was burned by the fire; +the me that isn't disfigured, unless my wicked discontent +has done it; the me that has lived on and on and on, +starving to death for the friendship and sympathy and love +that come to other women. I have spent my forty years in +the wilderness, feeding on wrath and bitterness and tears. +Forgive me, Lord, and give me one more vision of the blessed +land of Canaan, even if I never dwell there." + +VI. + + +"Nor less the eternal poles +Of tendency distribute souls. +There need no vows to bind +Whom not each other seek, but find." + +Emerson's _Celestial Love._ + + +Davy's sickness was a lingering one. Mrs. Buck came for two or +three hours a day, but Lyddy was the self-installed angel of the house; +and before a week had passed the boy's thin arms were around her neck, +his head on her loving shoulder, and his cheek pressed against hers. +Anthony could hear them talk, as he sat in the kitchen busy at +his work. Musical instruments were still brought him to repair, +though less frequently than of yore, and he could still make +many parts of violins far better than his seeing competitors. +A friend and pupil sat by his side in the winter evenings +and supplemented his weakness, helping and learning alternately, +while his blind master's skill filled him with wonder and despair. +The years of struggle for perfection had not been wasted; +and though the eye that once detected the deviation of a hair's +breadth could no longer tell the true from the false, yet nature +had been busy with her divine work of compensation. +The one sense stricken with death, she poured floods of new life and +vigor into the others. Touch became something more than the stupid, +empty grasp of things we seeing mortals know, and in place of the two +eyes he had lost he now had ten in every finger-tip. As for odors, +let other folks be proud of smelling musk and lavender, but let him +tell you by a quiver of the nostrils the various kinds of so-called +scentless flowers, and let him bend his ear and interpret secrets +that the universe is ever whispering to us who are pent in partial +deafness because, forsooth, we see. + +He often paused to hear Lydia's low, soothing tones and the boy's +weak treble. Anthony had said to him once, "Miss Butterfield is very +beautiful, isn't she, Davy? You haven't painted me a picture of her yet. +How does she look ?" + +Davy was stricken at first with silent embarrassment. +He was a truthful child, but in this he could no more have +told the whole truth than he could have cut off his hand. +He was knit to Lyddy by every tie of gratitude and affection. +He would sit for hours with his expectant face pressed against +the window-pane, and when he saw her coming down the shady +road he was filled with a sense of impending comfort and joy. + +"NO," he said hesitatingly, "she isn't pretty, nunky, but she's sweet +and nice and dear, Everything on her shines, it's so clean; and when she +comes through the trees, with her white apron and her purple calico dress, +your heart jumps, because you know she's going to make everything pleasant. +Her hair has a pretty wave in it, and her hand is soft on your forehead; +and it's most worth while being sick just to have her in the house." + +Meanwhile, so truly is "praise our fructifying sun," Lydia bloomed +into a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. +A sly sense of humor woke into life, and a positive talent for conversation, +latent hitherto because she had never known any one who cared +to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. +When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's sofa, +his thin hand in hers, and talk with Anthony about books and flowers +and music, and about the meaning of life, too,--its burdens and mistakes, +and joys and sorrows; groping with him in the darkness to find +a clue to God's purposes. + +Davy had long afternoons at Lyddy's house as the autumn +grew into winter. He read to her while she sewed rags +for a new sitting-room carpet, and they played dominoes +and checkers together in the twilight before supper time,-- +suppers that were a feast to the boy, after Mrs. Buck's cookery. +Anthony brought his violin sometimes of an evening, +and Almira Berry, the next neighbor on the road to the Mills, +would drop in and join the little party. Almira used to sing +Auld Robin Gray, What Will You Do, Love, and Robin Adair, +to the great enjoyment of everybody; and she persuaded Lyddy +to buy the old church melodeon, and learn to sing alto in Oh, +Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast, Gently, Gently Sighs the Breeze, +and I know a Bank. Nobody sighed for the gayeties and advantages +of a great city when, these concerts being over, Lyddy would +pass crisp seedcakes and raspberry shrub, doughnuts and cider, +or hot popped corn and molasses candy. + +"But there, she can afford to," said aunt Hitty Tarbox; +"she's pretty middlin' wealthy for Edgewood. And it's lucky she +is, for she 'bout feeds that boy o' Croft's. No wonder +he wants her to fill him up, after six years of the Widder +Buck's victuals. Aurelia Buck can take good flour and sugar, +sweet butter and fresh eggs, and in ten strokes of her hand she +can make 'em into something the very hogs 'll turn away from. +I declare, it brings the tears to my eyes sometimes +when I see her coming out of Croft's Saturday afternoons, +and think of the stone crocks full of nasty messes she's +left behind her for that innocent man and boy to eat up.... +Anthony goes to see Miss Butterfield consid'able often. +Of course it's awstensibly to walk home with Davy, +or do an errand or something, but everybody knows better. +She went down to Croft's pretty nearly every day when his cousin +from Bridgton come to house-clean. She suspicioned something, +I guess. Anyhow, she asked me if Miss Butterfield's two hundred +a year was in gov'ment bonds. Anthony's eyesight ain't good, +but I guess he could make out to cut cowpons off.... It +would be strange if them two left-overs should take an' +marry each other; though, come to think of it, I don't +know's 't would neither. He's blind, to be sure, and can't +see her scarred face. It's a pity she ain't deef, +so't she can't hear his everlastin' fiddle. She's lucky +to get any kind of a husband; she's too humbly to choose. +I declare, she reminds me of a Jack-o'-lantern, though +if you look at the back of her, or see her in meetin' +with a thick veil on, she's about the best appearin' woman in +Edgewood.... I never see anybody stiffen up as Anthony has. +He had me make him three white shirts and three gingham ones, +with collars and cuffs on all of 'em. It seems as if six +shirts at one time must mean something out o' the common!" + +Aunt Hitty was right; it did mean something out of the common. +It meant the growth of an all-engrossing, grateful, +divinely tender passion between two love-starved souls. +On the one hand, Lyddy, who though she had scarcely known +the meaning of love in all her dreary life, yet was as full +to the brim of all sweet, womanly possibilities of loving +and giving as any pretty woman; on the other, the blind +violin-maker, who had never loved any woman but his mother, +and who was in the direst need of womanly sympathy and affection. + +Anthony Croft, being ministered unto by Lyddy's kind hands, +hearing her sweet voice and her soft footstep, saw her as God sees, +knowing the best; forgiving the worst, like God, and forgetting it, +still more like God, I think. + +And Lyddy? There is no pen worthy to write of Lyddy. +Her joy lay deep in her heart like a jewel at the bottom of a clear pool, +so deep that no ripple or ruffle on the surface could disturb +the hidden treasure. If God had smitten these two with one hand, +he had held out the other in tender benediction. + +There had been a pitiful scene of unspeakable solemnity +when Anthony first told Lyddy that he loved her, and asked her +to be his wife. He had heard all her sad history by this time, +though not from her own lips, and his heart went out to her +all the more for the heavy cross that had been laid upon her. +He had the wit and wisdom to put her affliction quite out +of the question, and allude only to her sacrifice in marrying +a blind man, hopelessly and helplessly dependent on her sweet +offices for the rest of his life, if she, in her womanly mercy, +would love him and help him bear his burdens. + +When his tender words fell upon Lyddy's dazed brain +she sank beside his chair, and, clasping his knees, sobbed: +"I love you, I cannot help loving you, I cannot help +telling you I love you! But you must hear the truth; +you have heard it from others, but perhaps they softened it. +If I marry you, people will always blame me and pity you. +You would never ask me to be your wife if you could see my face; +you could not love me an instant if you were not blind." + +"Then I thank God unceasingly for my infirmity," said Anthony Croft, +as he raised her to her feet. + + + . . . . . . + + +Anthony and Lyddy Croft sat in the apple orchard, +one warm day in late spring. + +Anthony's work would have puzzled a casual on-looker. Ten stout +wires were stretched between two trees, fifteen or twenty feet apart, +and each group of five represented the lines of the musical staff. +Wooden bars crossed the wires at regular intervals, dividing the staff +into measures. A box with many compartments sat on a stool beside him, +and this held bits of wood that looked like pegs, but were in reality whole, +half, quarter, and eighth notes, rests, flats, sharps, and the like. +These were cleft in such a way that he could fit them on the wires +almost as rapidly as his musical theme came to him, and Lyddy had learned +to transcribe with pen and ink the music she found in wood and wire, +He could write only simple airs in this way, but when he played +them on the violin they were transported into a loftier region, +such genius lay in the harmony, the arabesque, the delicate lacework +of embroidery with which the tune was inwrought; now high, now low, +now major, now minor, now sad, now gay, with the one thrilling, +haunting cadence recurring again and again, to be watched for, longed for, +and greeted with a throb of delight. + +Davy was reading at the window, his curly head buried +in a well-worn Shakespeare opened at Midsummer Night's Dream. +Lyddy was sitting under her favorite pink apple-tree, a mass +of fragrant bloom, more beautiful than Aurora's morning gown. +She was sewing; lining with snowy lawn innumerable pockets in a +square basket that she held in her lap. The pockets were small, +the needles were fine, the thread was a length of cobweb. +Everything about the basket was small except the hopes that she +was stitching into it; they were so great that her heart +could scarcely hold them. Nature was stirring everywhere. +The seeds were springing in the warm earth. The hens +were clucking to their downy chicks just out of the egg. +The birds were flying hither and thither in the apple boughs, +and there was one little home of straw so hung that Lyddy could +look into it and see the patient mother brooding her nestlings. +The sight of her bright eyes, alert for every sign of danger, +sent a rush of feeling through Lyddy's veins that made her long +to clasp the little feathered mother to her own breast. + +A sweet gravity and consecration of thought possessed her, +and the pink blossoms falling into her basket were not more delicate +than the rose-colored dreams that flushed her soul. + +Anthony put in the last wooden peg, and taking up his violin called, +"Davy, lad, come out and tell me what this means!" + +Davy was used to this; from a wee boy he had been asked +to paint the changing landscape of each day, and to put into +words his uncle's music. + +Lyddy dropped her needle, the birds stopped to listen, +and Anthony played. + +"It is this apple orchard in May time," said Davy; +"it is the song of the green things growing, isn't it?" + +"What do you say, dear?" asked Anthony, turning to his wife. + +Love and hope had made a poet of Lyddy. "I think Davy is right," +she said. "It is a dream of the future, the story of all new and +beautiful things growing out of the old. It is full of the sweetness +of present joy, but there is promise and hope in it besides. +It is like the Spring sitting in the lap of Winter, and holding +a baby Summer in her bosom." + +Davy did not quite understand this, though he thought it pretty; +but Lyddy's husband did, and when the boy went back to his books, +he took his wife in his arms and kissed her twice,--once for herself, +and then once again. + + +--------------------------------------------------------------- + + +THE EVENTFUL TRIP OF THE MIDNIGHT CRY. + + +In the little villages along the Saco River, +in the year 1850 or thereabouts, the arrival and departure +of the stage-coach was the one exciting incident of the day. +It did not run on schedule time in those days, but started +from Limington or Saco, as the case might be, at about or +somewhere near a certain hour, and arrived at the other end +of the route whenever it got there. There were no trains to meet +(the railway popularly known as the "York and Yank'em" was not built +till 1862); the roads were occasionally good and generally bad; +and thus it was often dusk, and sometimes late in the evening, +when the lumbering vehicle neared its final destination +and drew up to the little post-offices along the way. +However late it might be, the village postmaster had to be on hand +to receive and open the mailbags; after which he distributed +the newspapers and letters in a primitive set of pine +pigeon-holes on the wall, turned out the loafers, "banked up" +the fire, and went home to bed. + +"Life" Lane was a jolly good fellow,--just the man to sit on the box +seat and drive the three horses through ruts and "thank-you-ma'ams," +slush and mud and snow. There was a perennial twinkle in his eye, +his ruddy cheeks were wrinkled with laughter, and he had a good story +forever on the tip of his tongue. He stood six feet two in his stockings +(his mother used to say she had the longest Life of any woman in the +State o' Maine); his shoulders were broad in proportion, and his lungs +just the sort to fill amply his noble chest. Therefore, when he had +what was called in the vernacular "turrible bad goin'," and when any other +stage-driver in York County would have shrunk into his muffler and snapped +and snarled on the slightest provocation, Life Lane opened his great +throat when he passed over the bridges at Moderation or Bonny Eagle, +and sent forth a golden, sonorous "Yo ho! halloo!" into the still air. +The later it was and the stormier it was, the more vigor he put into +the note, and it was a drowsy postmaster indeed who did not start +from his bench by the fire at the sound of that ringing halloo. +Thus the old stage-coach, in Life Lane's time, was generally called "The +Midnight Cry," and not such a bad name either, whether the term was derisively +applied because the stage was always late; or whether Life's "Yo ho!" +had caught the popular fancy. + +There was a pretty girl in Pleasant River (and, alas! another in +Bonny Eagle) who went to bed every night with the chickens, but stayed awake +till she heard first the rumble of heavy wheels on a bridge, then a faint, +bell-like tone that might have come out of the mouth of a silver horn; +whereupon she blushed as if it were an offer of marriage, and turned +over and went to sleep. + +If the stage arrived in good season, Life would have a few minutes +to sit on the loafers' beach beside the big open fire; and what a +feature he was, with his tales culled from all sorts of passengers, +who were never so fluent as when sitting beside him "up in front!" +There was a tallow dip or two, and no other light save that of the fire. +Who that ever told a story could wish a more inspiring auditor than +Jacob Bean, a literal, honest old fellow who took the most +vital interest in every detail of the stories told, looking upon +their heroes and their villains as personal friends or foes. +He always sat in one corner of the fireplace, poker in hand, +and the crowd tacitly allowed him the role of Greek chorus. +Indeed, nobody could have told a story properly without Jake Bean's +parentheses and punctuation marks poked in at exciting junctures. + +"That 's so every time!" he would say, with a lunge at the forestick. +"I'll bate he was glad then!" with another stick flung on in just +the right spot. "Golly! but that served 'em right!" with a thrust +at the backlog. + +The New England story seemed to flourish under these conditions: +a couple of good hard benches in a store or tavern, where you could +not only smoke and chew but could keep on your hat (there was not a man +in York County in those days who could say anything worth hearing +with his hat off); the blazing logs to poke; and a cavernous fireplace +into which tobacco juice could be neatly and judiciously directed. +Those were good old times, and the stage-coach was a mighty thing +when school children were taught to take off their hats and make +a bow as the United States mail passed the old stage tavern. + +Life Lane's coaching days were over long before this story begins, +but the Midnight Cry was still in pretty fair condition, and was driven +ostensibly by Jeremiah Todd, who lived on the "back-nippin'" road from +Bonny Eagle to Limington. + +When I say ostensibly driven, I but follow the lead of +the villagers, who declared that, though Jerry held the reins, +Mrs. Todd drove the stage, as she drove everything else. +As a proof of this lady's strong individuality, she was still +generally spoken of as "the Widder Bixby," though she had been +six years wedded to Jeremiah Todd. The Widder Bixby, then, +was strong, self-reliant, valiant, indomitable. Jerry Todd was, +to use his wife's own characterization, so soft you could +stick a cat's tail into him without ruffling the fur. +He was always alluded to as "the Widder Bixby's husband;" +but that was no new or special mortification, for he had been +known successively as Mrs. Todd's youngest baby, the Widder +Todd's only son, Susan Todd's brother, and, when Susan Todd's +oldest boy fought at Chapultepec, William Peck's uncle. + +The Widder Bixby's record was far different. +She was the mildest of the four Stover sisters of Scarboro, +and the quartette was supposed to have furnished more kinds +of temper than had ever before come from one household. +When Peace, the eldest, was mad, she frequently kicked the churn +out of the kitchen door, cream and all,--and that lost +her a husband. + +Love, the second, married, and according to local tradition once +kicked her husband all the way up Foolscap Hill with a dried cod-fish. +Charity, the third, married too, -- for the Stovers of Scarboro were +handsome girls, but she got a fit mate in her spouse. She failed +to intimidate him, for he was a foeman worthy of her steel; +but she left his bed and board, and left in a manner that kept up +the credit of the Stover family of Scarboro. + +They had had a stormy breakfast one morning before he started +to Portland with a load of hay. "Good-by," she called, +as she stood in the door, "you've seen the last of me!" +"No such luck!" he said, and whipped up his horse. +Charity baked a great pile of biscuits, and left them +on the kitchen table with a pitcher of skimmed milk. +(She wouldn't give him anything to complain of, not she!) +She then put a few clothes in a bundle, and, tying on her shaker, +prepared to walk to Pleasant River, twelve miles distant. +As she locked the door and put the key in its accustomed place +under the mat, a pleasant young man drove up and explained +that he was the advance agent of the Sypher's Two-in-One +Menagerie and Circus, soon to appear in that vicinity. +He added that he should be glad to give her five tickets +to the entertainment if she would allow him to paste a few +handsome posters on that side of her barn next the road; +that their removal was attended with trifling difficulty, +owing to the nature of a very superior paste invented by himself; +that any small boy, in fact, could tear them off in an hour, +and be well paid by the gift of a ticket. + +The devil entered into Charity (not by any means for the first +time), and she told the man composedly that if he would give her +ten tickets he might paper over the cottage as well as the barn, +for they were going to tear it down shortly and build a larger one. +The advance agent was delighted, and they passed a pleasant +hour together; Charity holding the paste-pot, while the talkative +gentleman glued six lions and an elephant on the roof, +a fat lady on the front door, a tattooed man between the windows, +living skeletons on the blinds, and ladies insufficiently +clothed in all the vacant spaces and on the chimneys. +Nobody went by during the operation, and the agent remarked, +as he unhitched his horse, that he had never done a neater job. +"Why, they'll come as far to see your house as they will +to the circus!" he exclaimed. + +"I calculate they will," said Charity, as she latched the gate +and started for Pleasant River. + +I am not telling Charity Stover's story, so I will only add +that the bill-poster was mistaken in the nature of his paste, +and greatly undervalued its adhesive properties. + +The temper of Prudence, the youngest sister, now Mrs. Todd, +paled into insignificance beside that of the others, but it was +a very pretty thing in tempers nevertheless, and would have been +thought remarkable in any other family in Scarboro. + +You may have noted the fact that it is a person's virtues +as often as his vices that make him difficult to live with. +Mrs. Todd's masterfulness and even her jealousy might have +been endured, by the aid of fasting and prayer, but her neatness, +her economy, and her forehandedness made a combination that +only the grace of God could have abided with comfortably, +so that Jerry Todd's comparative success is a matter of +local tradition. Punctuality is a praiseworthy virtue enough, +but as the years went on, Mrs. Todd blew her breakfast horn +at so early an hour that the neighbors were in some doubt +as to whether it might not herald the supper of the day before. +They also predicted that she would have her funeral before she +was fairly dead, and related with great gusto that when she +heard there was to be an eclipse of the sun on Monday, +the 26th of July, she wished they could have it the 25th, +as Sunday would be so much more convenient than wash-day. + +She had oilcloth on her kitchen to save the floor, and oilcloth +mats to save the oilcloth; yet Jerry's boots had to be taken off +in the shed, and he was required to walk through in his stocking feet. +She blackened her stove three times a day, washed her dishes in the woodhouse, +in order to keep her sink clean, and kept one pair of blinds open +in the sitting-room, but spread newspapers over the carpet wherever +the sun shone in. + +It was the desire of Jerry's heart to give up the +fatigues and exposures of stage-driving, and "keep store," +but Mrs. Todd deemed it much better for him to be in the open +air than dealing out rum and molasses to a roystering crew. +This being her view of the case, it is unnecessary to state +that he went on driving the stage. + +"Do you wear a flannel shirt, Jerry?" asked Pel Frost once. +"I don' know," he replied, "ask Mis' Todd; she keeps the books." + +"Women-folks" (he used to say to a casual passenger), "like all +other animiles, has to be trained up before they're real good comp'ny. +You have to begin with 'em early, and begin as you mean to hold out. +When they once git in the habit of takin' the bit in their teeth and +runnin', it's too late for you to hold 'em in." + +It was only to strangers that he aired his convictions +on the training of "womenfolks," though for that matter +he might safely have done it even at home; for everybody +in Limington knew that it would always have been too late +to begin with the Widder Bixby, since, like all the Stovers +of Scarboro, she had been born with the bit in her teeth. +Jerry had never done anything he wanted to since he had +married her, and he hadn't really wanted to do that. +He had been rather candid with her on this point (as candid +as a tender-hearted and obliging man can be with a woman who is +determined to marry him, and has two good reasons why she should +to every one of his why he shouldn't), and this may have been +the reason for her jealousy. Although by her superior force +she had overborne his visible reluctance, she, being a woman, +or at all events of the female gender, could never quite forget +that she had done the wooing. + +Certainly his charms were not of the sort to tempt women from the strict +and narrow path, yet the fact remained that the Widder Bixby was jealous, +and more than one person in Limington was aware of it. + +Pelatiah, otherwise "Pel" Frost, knew more about the matter than most +other folks, because he had unlimited time to devote to general culture. +Though not yet thirty years old, he was the laziest man in York County. +(Jabe Slocum had not then established his record; and Jot Bascom had ruined +his by cutting his hay before it was dead in the summer of '49, always alluded +to afterwards in Pleasant River as the year when gold was discovered +and Jot Bascom cut his hay.) + +Pel was a general favorite in half a dozen villages, +where he was the life of the loafers' bench. An energetic +loafer can attend properly to one bench, but it takes +genius as well as assiduity to do justice to six of them. +His habits were decidedly convivial, and he spent a good deal +of time at the general musters, drinking and carousing with +the other ne'er-do-weels. You may be sure he was no favorite +of Mrs. Todd's; and she represented to him all that is most +undesirable in womankind, his taste running decidedly to rosy, +smiling, easy-going ones who had no regular hours for meals, +but could have a dinner on the table any time in fifteen +minutes after you got there. + +Now, a certain lady with a noticeable green frock and a white +"drawn-in" cape bonnet had graced the Midnight Cry on its journey +from Limington to Saco on three occasions during the month of July. +Report said that she was a stranger who had appeared at the post-office +in a wagon driven by a small, freckled boy. + +The first trip passed without comment; the second +provoked some discussion; on the occasion of the third, +Mrs. Todd said nothing, because there seemed nothing to say, +but she felt so out-of-sorts that she cut Jerry's hair close +to his head, though he particularly fancied the thin fringe +of curls at the nape of his neck. + +Pel Frost went over to Todd's one morning to borrow an axe, +and seized a favorable opportunity to ask casually, "Oh, Mis' +Todd, did Jerry find out the name o' that woman in a green dress +and white bunnit that rid to Saco with him last week?" + +"Mr. Todd's got something better to do than get acquainted +with his lady passengers," snapped Mrs. Todd, "'specially as they +always ride inside." + +"I know they gen'ally do," said Pel, shouldering the axe +(it was for his mother's use), but this one rides up in front part o' +the way, so I thought mebbe Jerry 'd find out something 'bout her. +She's han'some as a picture, but she must have a good strong back +to make the trip down 'n' up in one day." + +Nothing could have been more effective or more +effectual than this blow dealt with consummate skill. +Having thus driven the iron into Mrs. Todd's soul, +Pel entertained his mother with an account of the interview +while she chopped the kindling-wood. He had no special end +in view when, Iago-like, he dropped his first poisoned seed +in Mrs. Todd's fertile mind, or, at most, nothing worse +than the hope that matters might reach an unendurable point, +and Jerry might strike for his altars and his fires. +Jerry was a man and a brother, and petticoat government must +be discouraged whenever and wherever possible, or the world would +soon cease to be a safe place to live in. Pel's idea grew upon +him in the night watches, and the next morning he searched his +mother's garret till he found a green dress and a white bonnet. +Putting them in a basket, he walked out on the road a little +distance till he met the stage, when, finding no passengers inside, +he asked Jerry to let him jump in and "ride a piece." +Once within, he hastily donned the green wrapper and tell-tale +headgear, and, when the Midnight Cry rattled down the stony hill +past the Todd house, Pel took good care to expose a large green +sleeve and the side of a white bonnet at the stage window. +It was easy enough to cram the things back into the basket, +jump out, and call a cordial thank you to the unsuspecting Jerry. +He was rewarded for his ingenuity and enterprise at night, +when he returned Mrs. Todd's axe, for just as he reached +the back door he distinctly heard her say that if she saw +that green woman on the stage again, she would knock her off +with a broomstick as sure as she was a Stover of Scarboro. +As a matter of fact she was equal to it. Her great-grandmother +had been born on a soil where the broomstick is a prominent +factor in settling connubial differences; and if it occurred +to her at this juncture, it is a satisfactory proof of the +theory of atavism. + +Pel intended to see this domestic tragedy through to the end, +and accordingly took another brief trip in costume the very next week, +hoping to be the witness of a scene of blood and carnage. +But Mrs. Todd did not stir from her house, although he was confident +she had seen "my lady green-sleeves" from her post at the window. +Puzzled by her apathy, and much disappointed in her temper, +he took off the dress, and, climbing up in front, rode to Moderation, +where he received an urgent invitation to go over to the county fair +at Gorham. The last idea was always the most captivating to Pel, +and he departed serenely for a stay of several days without +so much luggage as a hairbrush. His mother's best clothespin basket, +to say nothing of its contents, appeared at this juncture to be +an unexpected incumbrance; so on the spur of the moment he handed +it up to Jerry just as the stage was starting, saying, "If Mis' +Todd has a brash to-night, you can clear yourself by showing +her this basket, but for massy sakes don't lay it on to me! +You can stan' it better'n I can,--you 're more used to it!" + +Jerry took the basket, and when he was well out on the road +he looked inside and saw a bright green calico wrapper, a white +cape bonnet, a white "fall veil," and a pair of white cotton gloves. +He had ample time for reflection, for it was a hot day, +and though he drove slowly, the horses were sweating at every pore. +Pel Frost, then, must have overheard his wife's storm of reproaches, +perhaps even her threats of violence. It had come to this, +that he was the village laughing-stock, a butt of ridicule at +the store and tavern. + +Now, two years before this, Jerry Todd had for the first +and only time in his married life "put his foot down." +Mrs. Todd had insisted on making him a suit of clothes +much against his wishes. When finished she put them +on him almost by main force, though his plaintive appeals +would have melted any but a Stover-of-Scarboro heart. +The stuff was a large plaid, the elbows and knees came +in the wrong places, the seat was lined with enameled cloth, +and the sleeves cut him in the armholes. + +Mr. Todd said nothing for a moment, but the pent-up +slavery of years stirred in him, and, mounting to his brain, +gave him a momentary courage that resembled intoxication. +He retired, took off the suit, hung it over his arm, and, stalking +into the sitting-room in his undergarments, laid it on the table +before his astonished spouse, and, thumping it dramatically, +said firmly, "I--will--not--wear--them--clo'es!" whereupon +he fell into silence again and went to bed. + +The joke of the matter was, that, all unknown to himself, +he had absolutely frightened Mrs. Todd. If only he could have realized +the impressiveness and the thorough success of his first rebellion! +But if he had realized it he could not have repeated it often, +for so much virtue went out of him on that occasion that he felt +hardly able to drive the stage for days afterward. + +"I shall have to put down my foot agin," he said to himself +on the eventful morning when Pel presented him with the basket. +"Dern my luck, I've got to do it agin, when I ain't hardly got +over the other time." So, after an hour's plotting and planning, +he made some purchases in Biddeford and started on his return trip. +He was very low in his mind, thinking, if his wife really meditated +upon warfare, she was likely to inspect the stage that night, +but giving her credit in his inmost heart for too much common sense +to use a broomstick,--a woman with her tongue! + +The Midnight Cry rattled on lumberingly. Its route had been shortened, +and Mrs. Todd wanted its name changed to something less outlandish, +such as the Rising Sun, or the Breaking Dawn, or the High Noon, +but her idea met with no votaries; it had been, was, and ever should be, +the Midnight Cry, no matter what time it set out or got back. +It had seen its best days, Jerry thought, and so had he, for that matter. +Yet he had been called "a likely feller" when he married the Widder Bixby, +or rather when she married him. Well, the mischief was done; +all that remained was to save a remnant of his self-respect, +and make an occasional dash for liberty. + +He did all his errands with his usual care, dropping a blue +ribbon for Doxy Morton's Sunday hat, four cents' worth of +gum-camphor for Almira Berry, a spool of cotton for Mrs. Wentworth, +and a pair of "galluses" for Living Bean. He finally turned into +the "back-nippin'" road from Bonny Eagle to Limington, and when he was +within forty rods of his own house he stopped to water his horses. +If he feared a scene he had good reason, for as the horses climbed +the crest of the long hill the lady in green was by his side on the box. +He looked anxiously ahead, and there, in a hedge of young alder bushes, +he saw something stirring, and, unless he was greatly mistaken, +a birch broom lay on the ground near the hedge. + +Notwithstanding these danger signals, Jerry's arm encircled +the plump waist of the lady in green, and, emboldened by the shades +of twilight, his lips sought the identical spot under the white +"fall veil" where her incendiary mouth might be supposed to lurk, +quite "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." This done, +he put on the brake and headed his horses toward the fence. +He was none too soon, for the Widder Bixby, broom in hand, darted out +from the alders and approached the stage with objurgations which, +had she rated them at their proper value, needed no supplement +in the way of blows. Jerry gave one terror-stricken look, +wound his reins round the whipstock, and, leaping from his seat, +disappeared behind a convenient tree. + +At this moment of blind rage Mrs. Todd would have preferred to +chastise both her victims at once; but, being robbed of one by Jerry's +cowardly flight, her weapon descended upon the other with double force. +There was no lack of courage here at least. Whether the lady in green +was borne up by the consciousness of virtue, whether she was too +proud to retreat, or whatever may have been her animating reason, +the blow fell, yet she stood her ground and gave no answering shriek. +Enraged as much by her rival's cool resistance as by her own sense +of injury, the Widder Bixby aimed full at the bonnet beneath +which were the charms that had befuddled Jerry Todd's brain. +To blast the fatal beauty that had captivated her wedded husband +was the Widder Bixby's idea, and the broom descended. +A shower of seeds and pulp, a copious spattering of pumpkin juice, +and the lady in green fell resistlessly into her assailant's arms; +her straw body, her wooden arms and pumpkin head, decorating the earth +at her feet! Mrs. Todd stared helplessly at the wreck she had made, +not altogether comprehending the ruse that had led to her discomfiture, +but fully conscious that her empire was shaken to its foundations. +She glanced in every direction, and then hurling the hateful +green-and-white livery into the stage, she gathered up all traces +of the shameful fray, and sweeping them into her gingham apron ran +into the house in a storm of tears and baffled rage. + +Jerry stayed behind the tree for some minutes, and when the coast +was clear he mounted the seat and drove to the store and the stable. +When he had put up his horses he went into the shed, took +off his boots as usual, but, despite all his philosophy, broke into +a cold sweat of terror as he crossed the kitchen threshold. +"I can't stand many more of these times when I put my foot down," +he thought, "they're too weakening!" + +But he need not have feared. There was a good supper under the +mosquito netting on the table, and, most unusual luxury, a pot of hot tea. +Mrs. Todd had gone to bed and left him a pot of tea! + +Which was the more eloquent apology! + +Jerry never referred to the lady in green, then or afterwards; +he was willing to let well enough alone; but whenever his spouse +passed a certain line, which, being a Stover of Scarboro, +she was likely to do about once in six months, he had only to summon +his recreant courage and glance meaningly behind the kitchen door, +where the birch broom hung on a nail. It was a simple remedy to +outward appearances, but made his declining years more comfortable. +I can hardly believe that he ever took Pel Frost into his confidence, +but Pel certainly was never more interesting to the loafers' +bench than when he told the story of the eventful trip of the Midnight +Cry and "the breaking in of the Widder Bixby." + + + + + + +NOTES: +1. On page 20, reentered is spelled with diaeresis over the second "e". +2. On pages 153 & 154 the verses beginning respectively "Rebel mourner" +and "This gro-o-oanin' world" are accompanied with staves of music in +the treble clef. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Village Watch-Tower by Wiggin + diff --git a/old/vilwt10.zip b/old/vilwt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8d034df --- /dev/null +++ b/old/vilwt10.zip |