diff options
Diffstat (limited to '936.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 936.txt | 4624 |
1 files changed, 4624 insertions, 0 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,4624 @@ +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 + +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. 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. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +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 + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. |