CHAPTER IV.
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UNCLE PETER was quite recovered, but
in compliment to his late severe illness he
kept his chamber most of the time, and adhered
pertinaciously to morning gown and slippers.
Poor Aunt Sally could not get over the conviction
that Mr. Throckmorton's nerves had
sustained a shock from which they would
never entirely recover; day by day she saw
him drifting unconsciously nearer and nearer
to a visionary tomb. Every now and then
I observed her making her way into some
closet, or behind some curtain, benevolently to
conceal her tears from the doomed victim.
She might have spared herself the trouble, or
have wept on her own account; good, dear
woman! it was she who was doomed — there
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was a tomb a little way before her, but not
for him she loved so much more than herself.
“My dear ward, I think I could take a
sandwich and a glass of wine,” said Uncle
Peter, lifting his eyes toward Rose, who sat
reading, apparently oblivious of everything
but her book. I waited a moment, and seeing
that she did not avail herself of the opportunity
of serving him, hastened to do so myself.
“Thank you, Rose,” he said, when I sat
down the salver. Uncle Peter either would
not, or could not believe that I was capable
of doing him a favor.
“My ward, a little more sugar.”
I hastened to bring it, while Rose continued
to read on, undisturbed.
“Now, my dear Rosy! another spoon,” still
seeming deceived.
“Yes, Uncle Samuel Peter,” she answered,
closing her book over one of her fingers, and
leaving the room, with a sly nod at me. As
she did not return with the spoon, I presently
followed, and found her waiting me at the
foot of the staircase, with our hoods concealed
beneath her apron.
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“Do let us get out of this atmosphere for a
while, if we can,” she said; “it affects me
disagreeably;” and with a nod, that said
come on, she went out. I lingered a moment,
questioning whether it was quite right to steal
away thus, and as I did so, heard Aunt Sally
struggling with a little faint cough, which she
seemed trying to suppress, lest the noise
should annoy Mr. Throckmorton. She was
coming down herself for the teaspoon. My
conscience smote me, and I stole after Rose,
who stood, archly smiling, behind a lilac bush,
and repeating to Uncle Peter, who saw her
from the window, “One lean goose upturned
a slanting eye.”
So we turned aside from the window—
strolled through the garden—then leisurely
under the apple boughs, trembling and whispering
together—crossed a green meadow,
and struck into a narrow path leading by a
long hedge, and worn deep and smooth.
“Where are you going, Rose?” I said, at
last; for skipping and singing, and tossing up
and catching her bonnet, she kept before,
while I, in silence, followed, thinking of Aunt
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Sally's pale face and hollow cough, and wondering
whether Uncle Peter would not scold
on our return.
“Where am I going? why, I do n't know
or care—any where—wherever this path
leads; I guess it will take us to some good
place—do n't you think so?”
I shook my head, for it was not in my
nature to anticipate finding a good place at
any time. We had gone a mile, or more,
Rose often stopping to admire the landscape,
which, she said, did set off the Hall beautifully,
when the path terminated in a gap, and
we found ourselves in a green, quiet lane,
bordered with cedars, and spicewood, and
gray mullen stalks, all starry with flowers.
I thought Rose would return now, but she
ran laughingly on, saying she knew we should
come to something good, and the prospect
seemed to justify her words. Away and
away the lane stretched, till it was lost in
thick woods, and not a human habitation
was visible; but when we gained a green
eminence, half a mile from the road along
which run the path and the hedge, we saw
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lying immediately beneath us, insulated with
hills, the prettiest little homestead we had
ever beheld. We could only catch glimpses
of the white walls of what seemed a very
small house, so closely grew the trees and
shrubs about it. A plump cow, with breath
smelling sweet as the clover which she ate,
lifted her head over the lane fence, as if to
give us welcome, and the chickens cackled,
dividing from our path as we approached the
porch, before which glistened bright tin pans
and all other dairy garniture. Everything
looked pleasant and cheerful; the very pinks
along the garden beds grew up in trim, thrifty
bunches, as though they were just as sweet
smelling as any other flowers, and enjoyed
just as much of the glad sunshine. The white
curtains at the open windows fluttered, as it
were with a lively satisfaction, and the birds
chirped and twittered along the low eaves, as
though they were that morning rehearsing an
opera.
Dividing away the bushes, that sometimes
hung almost across the path, Rose made her
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way right to the porch, as if assured of a
welcome.
“Do n't Rose,” I said once or twice; “do
let us go back; what will you say?”
“Oh, I don't know,” she answered gaily;
“when I see whom I shall see, I shall be able
to tell what to say.”
“Bless my life! your faces look good to a
body; how is Aunt Sally, and Uncle Peter,
and all?”
It was a familiar voice that accosted us,
and, peering through a rose bush, we saw the
tidy little person of Mrs. Perrin, standing
beneath a cherry tree, a little apart from the
door, and making her morning's butter. We
helped her to churn—it seemed easy work—
while she sat by, chatting as fast and as lively
as the birds. When the butter making was
ended, she must pull some weeds from the
garden beds, and we assisted at this, too; then
she prepared vegetables for the dinner, and
kindled a fire, which crackled and blazed up
the chimney, as if glad to obey her will, and
when the lid of the dinner pot began to dance
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over the steam, Mrs. Perrin untied her checked
apron, and hanging it over the coffee-mill, and
exchanging her plain cap for one with black
ribbons in the border, took up her sewing
work, and sat down on the shady porch, looking
as neat as though fresh from a dressing
room. The folds of the ironing were in her
dark dress, and her cap ribbon had none of
the rusty look which mourning ribbons are
apt to have. Her shoes squeaked as she
walked, and had a new look, and though
her face was wrinkled, and her hair grey,
her heart seemed as fresh and joyous as all
the smiling nature about us.
“It looks rather too shiftless,” she said, “to
see two great girls like you, big enough to
be married, sitting idle,” and she hastened to
supply us with sewing, telling us she was
particular, and it must be neat.
Rose laughed at the idea of being big
enough to be married, and said she feared
she was not wise enough to choose a husband,
though one should offer, which was not likely.
“Just let me tell you,” said Mrs. Perrin,
putting down her work, “there is no choosing
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about it—first thing you know there will be
somebody in your heart that all the world
could n't buy, and that will be the right one—
no matter whether he is rich or poor—no
matter about nothing else.” And Mrs. Perrin
seemed to glide away back into the distance,
and for a moment a shadow came over her countenance;
but she presently resumed her sewing,
with a quicker stitch, if possible, saying, as a
smile struggled with the shadow, “It's of no
use for a body to be bringing up their melancholy
feelings.”
I looked at her kindly face and neat mourning
dress, with new interest. She had been
young, perhaps pretty sometime, and had had
a lover — he was gone now, and the mourning
dress linked him in our thoughts with the
grave; but in the widow's heart there was
a memory of blessedness, and this it was
which kept it young, for through the ages
of eternity the affections of some will not
grow old. Try as she would, the old lady
could not quite recover her accustomed cheerfulness,
till, with a sudden energy, she threw
down her work, and brought out the breakfast
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table to the shady porch, when the clatter of
the dishes had the effect of restoring her
spirits. “If a body don't want to get lonesome,
a body must not take time,” she said;
and I have often thought since, that she
understood the true art of life. Rust wears
away the iron that is not kept bright with use,
and the moth frets out the idle garment.
A pleasant dinner we had on the shady
porch with good Mrs. Perrin, and when it was
concluded, she asked if we would like to take
a little walk with her; she had some work to
do, which it was lonely doing alone.
We said yes, she provided herself with a
garden-knife, and we set out together, Rose
and I wondering very much what it was she
proposed to do. We struck across the fields,
going further and further from home, and
gradually nearing the woods. At last, when
we had gone nearly a mile, Mrs. Perrin said,
“Yonder, where you see the man at work—
there is where I am going.” And looking
across to the next hill, where a thin growth
of maple trees cast their dark shadows, we
saw a tall, slender young man, who wore
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neither coat nor hat, digging in the ground.
We could not think what our friend proposed
to do, but as we climbed the hill we saw it
was a grave-yard that we approached, and
that the young man had been cutting away.
the weeds, and tending the flowers. Hearing
our voices, he desisted and came forward,
shaking hands with Mrs. Perrin, and bowing
politely to us; she introduced us as girls
from the Hall, and before she named him,
I recognized the brother of Doctor Graham—
not so handsome, certainly, as he, but with
a strong family likeness.
I said so, and this person, whom Mrs.
Perrin called Henry, evidently felt it to be a
compliment, for with a color a little heightened,
and an almost grateful look, he at once
resumed his coat, which had previously hung
over a white marble tombstone, and smoothed
his yellow curls, as if in complasiance to
me.
“I came over to see how my grave was
looking, but you have kept all so nice, I do n't
think there is much to do;” and Mrs. Perrin
bent her steps toward a mound, a little apart
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from the two others: there were only three
in all.
“It is the grave of her husband,” said
Henry, looking toward the woman, as she
pulled the weeds from among the flowers
about it.
“Strange, she has no headstone,” said I;
but Rose answered, “No! only she cares
where he lies, and she can find her way to
the place without such a guide.”
“Yes,” said Henry, “even through that
dark place she will find her way to him, I
hope,” and he turned away, and plucked
weeds, busily, from a little green hillock,
over which lay a marble slab, on which was
sculptured an angel, leading by the hand a
child.
Where the shadow fell most darkly on the
green earth, and the flowers seemed to flourish
most brightly, stood a simple, white stone, with
the name of “Nellie,” surrounded with a
wreath of roses.
Now and then Henry would cease work,
and say to us some pleasant thing; but there
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seemed a gloom settling, rather than settled,
in his face, and he stooped slightly, as though
used to some burthen.
I liked him, in part for his kindly smile,
and in part for the amiable work he was
doing. I felt that he must be good, and
that he was not happy, and wished to say or
do something for his pleasure; but, while
I meditated what it might be, Rose fell
to assisting him, and they were soon talking
cheerfully, if not gaily, together. Now and
then, however, the gloomy look came back, and
whenever it did, I observed that he turned his
eyes in the direction of the house in sight,
which I supposed to be his home.
“Well, well,” said Mrs. Perrin, wiping the
sweat from her forehead, “that will do, now,
I guess, and in another year, if I should n't be
here, some of you children will keep the weeds
down, and set a flower or two in another place,
may be.”
“Somebody has been at work there,” she
continued, looking at Henry, “and I don't
think it was Stafford;” and I remarked then,
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and afterward, that she never said Doctor
Graham, except with such an emphasis, as
made it seem a jest.
She had boxed his ears many a time, and
how could she call him Doctor Graham, “in
good earnest.”
When the work was finished, Henry leaned
against the tombstone of “Nellie,” and seemed
loth to turn his steps homeward; at last he
said, “Won't you go with me?” but though
he had appeared anxious to be very polite
to us, I thought that he would have preferred
our answering, No.
We looked to Mrs. Perrin, and she accepted
the invitation; she had not seen Mrs. Graham
for a long while, and would like right well to
have a chat with her. Mr. Graham said his
wife would be glad of our company, but the
words struck me as without much meaning.
Mrs. Perrin talked fluently as we passed
along, clipping the top of a weed now and
then, from the mere habit of being busy.
She found something to admire every where—
now the cows in the meadow; now the
bright water-spring overflowing its stony
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border and making a strip of green down
the valley; now some highly cultivated field
that she thought would more than pay the
labor it had cost; and now a fine tree that
would make such nice fire-wood. Only one
thing she saw to find fault with — a hedge
of willows along the brook: she could n't see
what good they did.
“Oh, they beautify the landscape,” answered
Henry.
“What do they do?” asked the old woman,
with a puzzled look.
“It is a foolish fancy of mine to leave them
there: that is all;” and falling back a little,
Henry said something to Rosalie about never
being understood, and concluded, with a sigh
which escaped him ere he was aware, and
which he attempted to make her believe was
only a mockery, “I do n't know — perhaps I
never understood myself.”
We were now coming near the house, and
Henry walked slower and slower, and looking
on the ground, became silent.
Close by our path (we were now within the
door-yard), grew a willow, its branches trailing
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almost to the ground; suddenly a pale little
face peered out from the shadow they made;
and a smile of peculiar and quiet beauty expressed
more joy even than the words, “Oh,
father!” This was all the child said, and seeing
strangers, she retired within the shadow.
“It's my little girl,” said Henry, and his
face grew radiant; “come out, Nell, and let
them see you;” and he parted the boughs,
but not till he had taken his daughter's hand,
and almost forcibly led her, would she come
out; and when she did, her great brown eyes
had a beseeching, almost a tearful expression,
as she held her torn and unfastened dress together
with her hand, as if saying, “Do not
blame me—it is not my fault.”
The father tried to smooth away the curly
tangles of her abundant hair with his hand;
but it defied his skill, and with a “Never
mind, my dear,” he pinned the untidy dress
over the thin and sun-burnt shoulders of the
girl, remarking, “We will go in, and see if we
can't improve your toilet a little.”
“No, father!” said Nellie, “I will stay here.”
“Why, my child?”
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“Jimmy is here, asleep,” she said.
“Oh, we will wake him up;” but Nellie
prevented her father from doing so, by pulling
his head down to hers, and whispering something
in his ear, of which I caught the meaning
sufficiently to know she had been charged
by her mother to keep the baby out of her
sight all the afternoon.
“Well, then,” said the father, letting go
her hand, as if there were no appeal, “but it
seems to me Jimmy ought not to lie on the
damp ground.”
“Mother says it won't hurt him,” answered
the little girl; “but I have spread my apron
on the grass, and I keep his head on my lap
a'most all the time.”
“Well,” he said again, and we left her
there.
I felt uncomfortable, and could not keep the
delicate and sweet-faced creature out of my
mind; she had an air, as if meekly yielding to
a hard destiny, that I had never seen on the
face of a child till then, and her unkempt hair,
bare feet, and untidy garments, attested the
negligence with which she was treated.
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The doors and windows of the house stood
open, and it had a dusty and empty look,
as though the mistress were dead, or gone on a
journey. With no work-basket, no easy-chair,
no flowers, the stiff old-fashioned furniture had
the appearance of having been bought a century
before, and of having remained all that
time in the position in which it was placed
at first, without renovation, without dusting,
even. Flies darkened the windows, and frequent
holes in the faded Turkey carpet showed
an accumulation of dirt beneath which might
have been useful in the garden.
After considerable search, through kitchen,
cellar, and the premises in general, Henry
succeeded in finding a sluttish, ill-bred girl,
supposed to be a servant, whom he dispatched
in quest of Mrs. Graham.
This young woman, who answered to the
name of Jo, returned, after an absence of
unreasonable length, and informed us that the
lady would see us in her own room. In
response to Mr. Graham's direction to show
us up, she grinned, and slapped the wall with
a dish-cloth, as she led the way.
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The apartments seemed pitched together,
one a little above another, and there were
many corners, and points, and turnings, so
that we could form no idea where our journey
was likely to terminate, till the brown-armed
maid suddenly wheeled about, and kicking
backward, forced a door open, when, saying
“She is in there,” she retreated, beating the
wall again with her wet and dirty napkin.
The room we entered, though Mrs. Graham's
own, presented no better aspects; it
had the same glaring, staring, dirty, and
empty air. Soiled towels, in strings, were over
the chair-backs; basins half full of water,
which seemed to have been dipped from
some stagnant pool, and pitchers with their
gilding mostly concealed under greasy accumulations,
garnished the seats and floor;
bundles of dirty clothes protruded from
beneath the bed; night-caps and old hats
hung over the pictures; spider-webs were
about the cornices and windows; dishes of
fruits and parings, soup-plates, and spoons, and
bottles of oil, and pill boxes, added to the various
confusion. The book-case was open, and its
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contents were piled in a sort of wall, around
the great chair in which Mrs. Annette Graham,
mistress of Woodside, sat, enveloped,
for the most part, in a bed blanket. Having
removed various obstacles, and dusted one of
the chairs, Mrs. Perrin seated herself, glancing
about in a way that seemed to say, “I expected
to find things bad enough, but this
surpasses the ideas I had formed even of your
slovenliness.”
Not at all discomposed was Mrs. Graham
by these astonished and reproving looks;
scarcely, indeed, did she lift her eyes from
the jeweled fingers that locked themselves
together on her lap.
She had no energy, she said, and had lost
the hope of ever regaining that she once had;
she was quite reconciled to her prison, withal,
from which she hardly expected ever to go
out again.
Her eyes looked purposeless out from their
black setting; her hair was quite gray; and
her face lifeless and inanimate.
“Do you want to read all these books?”
said Mrs. Perrin; and yielding to a natural
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impulse, she began to replace them, one by
one, in the case, dusting them as she did so.
“No,” said Mrs. Graham, in the same impassive
tone, “I have been turning them over
a little.”
“Why, can't you find anything to do to
amuse yourself?” asked the dame, sharply.
“I am not well enough to work,” she replied,
“and I don't know anything worth
doing, if I were.”
Mrs. Perrin's look grew more compassionate;
perhaps she is really ill, she thought,
and by way of awakening her interest, if anything
could, she spoke of her children, saying
how pretty Nellie was, and how pale the baby
looked, as if he were falling away.
“I don't know as Nell is pretty; her hair
is like her father's;” answered the mother;
and there was a little more energy in this
than anything she had said.
“Well, her father has fine hair, I am sure,”
said Mrs. Perrin, emphatically; “it's just the
color John's was, when we were married.”
“It's well enough,” replied Annette, and
removing a ring from one of her fingers, idly,
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she tossed it with an unwonted effort toward
some spot upon the wall.”
“Lord! have mercy,” cried Mrs. Perrin;
“is that the wedding ring?”
“I don't know; it's quite immaterial,”
she replied, and locked her fingers together,
as before. Mrs. Perrin stood still, in astonishment.
The door opened softly, and Nellie,
putting her face into the room, asked if she
might come in.
“To be sure,” said Mrs. Perrin; “I hope
you don't have to ask to come into your own
mother's room?”
“She is so sick, you know,” answered
Nellie, “I don't like to disturb her.” And,
bent with the burden of a three years old
helpless child, she came timidly in.
“Bless his little soul!” said the kind
woman; and, relieving Nellie of her little
brother, she expressed her feelings in the
most endearing caresses.
The poor child drooped his head on his
bosom quite resignedly, and indifferent, as it
appeared, to all the affection she could display
for him.
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She held him erect and tried to make him
smile; but he fell back on her bosom, and
never smiled at all. “What are you doing
for him?” she asked, addressing the mother;
but her attention seemed to be following a
cloud seen far off through the window, and
she did not hear. “I say, don't you give him
no medicine, nor nothing?” she repeated, in a
louder voice.
“No, he don't need medicine; he is always
just so quiet.”
“I wish he wasn't, mother; I would rather
he played, and was more trouble,” and Nellie
pulled the hair over her eyes to hide tears
that would come into them.
“And has he never more color?” inquired
Mrs. Perrin, trying to kiss some into his
cheeks.
“I don't know; I have not noticed him
lately,” said the mother, lifting her eyes
languidly, but evincing no new interest.
“He don't seem to notice anything,” Mrs.
Perrin said, and laid the boy on the lap
of his mother. He uttered a feeble and distressed
cry, but she spoke not to quiet him,
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and with a little purposeless moving of one
hand, as though it sought something, but without
touching his mother's bosom, he stretched
himself across her lap, clasped his white
fingers together, and moaning to himself, fell
asleep.
“Nell,” said Mrs. Graham, at last.
The daughter, who had been standing
meekly apart, with hands locked behind her,
waiting in the hope to receive some notice,
came forward with a flush of joy in her face,
and a smile, which illuminated it as when she
said “Father.”
The mother motioned her away, as though
her animated movement disturbed her, and
said calmly, “Take this boy to your grandma,
and ask if she thinks he is ill: I have not
seen her these ten days or a fortnight.”
Nellie took him up fondly and softly, and
went away from the room meekly and quietly
as she had come into it.
Mrs. Perrin, who till now, with that housewifely
art she understood so well, had been
endeavoring to put the place in order, suddenly
desisted from the task, and taking up
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her garden knife, gave a cut in the air with it,
as though saying “It's no use: I can't stand it
any longer;” and with the words, “Come children!”
and an abrupt “Good bye,” was gone.
I made my courtesy at the door, but the eyes
of Mrs. Graham had not followed me.
“Woodside!” exclaimed Mrs. Perrin, as
she descended the broad stair-case: “a fine
place to have a name, to be sure! I might as
well name my little house Goodside.”
“Why, yes, Mrs. Perrin, and with a good
deal more propriety,” answered Rosalie, and
laughed, as she always did, at everything,
informing the dame that she had felt on
setting out as if she was to find something
good that day, but that her discoveries had
beggared all anticipations.
Mrs. Perrin also laughed, in spite of her
momentary vexation, and tied the bonnet
strings which she had indignantly flung back
over her shoulders.
“Well,” she said, “if there is any better
place about here, suppose we try to find it.”
We were at the foot of the stairs now, and
Jo presenting herself, Mrs. Perrin asked to be
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shown into the room of the elder Mrs. Graham.
“You can go if you want to,” said the girl,
pointing in the direction of a door near by,
“but she is as cross as an old bear, and don't
want to see anybody; may be though she will
pretend to be good as honey; so, go in if
you want to; that's her den.” Our rap was
answered by a sweet “Come in.” It was not
honeyed, however, as Jo had prophesied, but
grated a little as though it had been dipped
in sugar on the instant. Madam's face took
upon itself an expression which was meant
to be one of glad surprise, and in the same
accents assured us that she had been expecting
to see something very pleasant, but not
exactly the Millenium.
Nellie was gone, with the sick baby; the
grandmother had not found it ill, I suppose,
for she was bestowing a large amount of fondness
on a cat and three kittens, which she held
in her lap.
“Sweet little retreat, this, isn't it, dears?”
she said, looking round her den admiringly.
“I have been in it these twenty years!”
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I know not how to describe her or the
medley about her. She was seventy years
old now, and seemed to have been heedless
and slatternly ever since she was born; and
both herself and her sweet little retreat looked
as much worse than the younger Mrs. Graham
and her apartment, as her forty years
more of experience in habits of slovenliness
could make them. Mrs. Perrin kept her dress
tucked from contact with anything about her,
and well she might do so. We declined an
invitation, though it was in the sweetest
phrases, to take a cup of tea, and left her,
while she was telling us of what a lovely
disposition her daughter Annette was, and
how beautifully they all lived together. She
called Jo, as we were retreating, and ordered
her to show us the nursery, and the beautiful
and elegant rooms occupied by her dear
sonny, Stafford.
Sullenly that young woman proceeded to
execute this commission. The nursery demanded
our first admiration, and such a
collection of cheese crumbs, spoons, gingerbread,
rattles, cradles, broken chairs, and
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dishes, as were strewn over the molassessmeared
carpet, I never expect to see again.
In the midst of all, brushing the flies from
the face of the baby, sat little Nellie,
meek and patient, with the child who lay
straight, just as he had done across his
mother's knees, and with his hands clasped
on his bosom just as we had seen them there.
“Don't you get tired, darling?” asked Mrs.
Perrin.
A smile illumined her face; she had not
been called darling often, perhaps; and she
answered, “No, my arms ache a little sometimes,
but I don't get much tired;” and so
we left her. We next visited the beautiful
and elegant apartments consecrated to the use
of Stafford, and here were agreeably surprised
to find order and cleanliness. How it was
created or preserved in the midst of so much
filth I know not, but it had been, for there
everything was nice and polished, shining
right in our faces and demanding astonishment
as well as admiration; pots of flowers,
geological specimens, books, writing implements,
music, and various other things, all
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tastefully arranged, and over all an air which
evinced refinement, pride and exclusiveness
on the part of their master, as plainly as
words could have done.
No particle of the spirit of disorder which
ruled other portions of the house had apparently
ever entered that door. We did not
feel at liberty to remain there long enough to
take very particular cognizance of things;
something seemed to inquire of us whether
we had any especial business there, and we
withdrew, feeling very much as if we had
been intruders.
As we passed through the yard toward the
garden, where the flowers bloomed attractively,
we saw sitting on a bench in the sunshine an
old man, silent and very thoughtful. A small
basket of fruit was beside him, in the grass,
and Mrs. Perrin, taking it up, exclaimed,
“Why, Mr. Furniss, where in the world did
you get such beautiful apples?” He had not
seemed to notice us till then, and a slow smile
broke over his face as he said, “I brought
them from home, Mrs. Perrin, in the hope that
Annette would like them, but she says she
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don't eat apples any more; so it appears nothing
I can do will please anybody.”
“Hi! hi! don't say that, Mr. Furniss, now
this basket of apples would please me right
well, and if you will go home with me I will
fill it up with another sort.”
The old man looked solemn again; he might
as well walk along toward town; he couldn't
do her any good that he knew of; Annette
had not come down stairs to see him, though
he had walked so far to see her; and he
continued, “Well, it's no matter; I shall soon
be out of the way; I am old and worthless.”
“So be I old,” replied Mrs. Perrin; “but I
am not worthless, nor no more be you.”
The old man smiled again; and seeing
Henry busy in the garden we went forward—
Rose and I—to join him, leaving the two elder
people to conclude their conversation at leisure.
Mr. Henry Graham showed us through the
grounds, gathering flowers for us, and explaining
many things about horticulture which we
had not known.
“But it costs you so much pains,” said
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Rosalie, looking about the plats, and avenues,
that were kept so nicely.
“Yes, but work is the best thing for me; I
must keep busy;” and with an energy that
had in it something irritable, desponding, and
nervous, he resumed his tasks, saying in an
under tone, “Thank Heaven for the consolations
of work!”
Mrs. Perrin joined us now; she had Mr.
Furniss with her; and it seemed to me that
he looked considerably younger than when I
first saw him sitting on the stone bench. Mrs.
Perrin told us that if we preferred to go home
by the nearest route our ways would be
separate; she would like to have us accompany
her, but she thought it right to tell us this,
as we did n't know the ways so well as she.
“I do n't think I do know the ways quite so
well,” said Rose, archly; and she beckoned
me to follow her.
We were soon in the woods, for Rose protested
that she felt inclined to explore the
country, and preferred to return by a circuitous
route. The dry leaves made a rustling
beneath our feet; the undergrowth was thick
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here and there; and Rose said if we should
get lost it would complete a day's odd adventures.
We wandered about so long, gathering
flowers, and talking of our life at Uncle
Peter's, and of the “example” he had made
of himself, at which she laughed a great deal,
that I became tired, for I was never very
strong, and we sat down on a mossy log
together.
It was cloudy, and almost twilight in the
woods, now, and I said we had better go
home; but Rose demurred; she did not believe
it would rain; she was sure it would
be a good day to us; thus far she had had
nothing to regret, except our failure to see
that exemplary young man, Doctor Graham;
and I too wished in my heart we had seen
him, for his smile lingered in my memory,
and I felt that I would like if possible to
correct the unfavorable impression which I
was sure I had left upon his mind. Not a
straw cared Rose what notions he had carried
home of her; but what was to her a jest, was
a serious matter to me.
“My sentimental sister,” she said, seeing
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that I looked thoughtful, and playfully but
vainly trying to make dimples in my cheek,
“rest here a little while, and I will go and
see if I can't find a flower like one I have lost,
and then we will go home.”
I said I would wait, but she must not be
long absent; and leaning my head against a
tree listened to a bird that sung in the
branches above me; it was a quiet monotonous
song, in keeping with the silence and
the dusky shadows. Presently I was aware
that the notes grew fainter; the bird was
flying away I thought, and all was a blank
till I awoke from sleep, startled and afraid.
Rose had not returned, and the wood was
darker than when she left me.
I could not tell how long I had slept; it
might have been a great while, and firght
made me think it had been. Rose must be
lost, was my first thought; and, throwing
down my carefully gathered flowers, I started
in search of her. Now and then I called, but
only echo answered; the woods grew gloomier
every minute; it would rain presently, and I
could not tell which way I was going. If I
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had paused to reason I should not have been
alarmed so much; but I did not; I was lost,
and Rose was lost; it was near night, and
raining; these were all the facts I knew. I
thought once I heard the bark of a dog, and
the laugh of Rosalie, but listening I heard
only the rustling of winds through the trees,
and the plashing of large drops of rain.
I could not restrain my tears; Rose was
nowhere to be found, and for her I cried more
than for myself. All at once I crossed a footpath—
hesitated a moment—struck into it—
and dashed forward with all my might.
The rain fell heavily now, and I could have
heard nothing but the roar in the woods if I
had listened ever so long; so, with the thunder
howling behind me, and the lightning flashing
right it my face, I hurried on and on. It
seemed to look a little lighter before me, and
lighter yet. I was not mistaken; there was a
small clearing in the woods; I saw a log house
now, and the smoke crowding its way up into
the rain. I leaped the low fence almost at a
bound, and paused beneath a shed that kept
dry a huge brick oven, and, a little more
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calm, surveyed the premises. A large kettle,
which had probably been boiling at the commencement
of the rain, stood steaming a little
apart from the door; some chickens were
holding a social meeting under the shed, and
one cock, defying the storm, stood boldly out,
but with tail sadly out of trim, and dripping
together. He elevated his head, to atone for
the disarray of his feathers, and crowed right in
the face of the thunder, evidently confident
that he had made the loudest noise. A pig-pen
ornamented one corner of the door-yard,
and a dozen squealing inmates were either
elevated on their hind legs and enjoying the
spectacle of the storm, or putting their noses
through the cracks of their well-ventilated
habitation; and a long-legged colt, to be compensated
for the pitiless peltings he was obliged
to endure, leaned his head far over the fence
and gnawed the bark from a young apple tree.
A glance round sufficed for these observations,
and they were just completed, when a great
brindled dog placed himself, erect, in the open
door, and barked at me furiously. The noise
brought two children to the door, and a woman
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whom I at once recognized as my friend Mrs.
Muggins.
“By the living hokeys!” she exclaimed,
“if here ain't one of the young gals from old
Pete's. Come in, little gal, you look like a
drownded rat!”
She turned me around, viewing me from
head to foot—dripping hair, muddy stockings,
garments wringing wet—and the more
she looked the more her surprise was manifest.
She had n't done justice to her subject, she
seemed to think, in her first exclamations, and
strove to make what amends she might by
new ejaculations: “Peter, the Hermit! you
look like rag-shag-and-bobtail; now I'll be
darned if you do n't! Lord, help me! I never,
since I was knee-high to a bull-frog, did see
such a sight; it's as good as to go to the
museum; Mart, look at her!” But the individual
thus addressed no sooner complied with
her request, than, apprehensive, perhaps, that
my maiden modesty would be outraged, she
retorted, “You are smart, ain't you? Now
histe yourself up the ladder with you, and let
me take these things off before she gets her
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death of cold. I knowed a woman oncet, and
she had a daughter that just changed her
shoes: she had been used to wearing hoss-hide,
and she put on a pair of dog-skin ones.
They had a great big dog, and his name was
Rover, though they called him Rove mostly,
and one morning they found him dead, and
they allowed how't he'd been poisoned; it
appeared like they could n't give him up, and
the man that buried the dog after he was
dead, took and tanned his skin, he did, and
made a pair of shoes for Annie—that was the
girl's name—and the first time she put them
on she took cold and died, she did. She had
been used to wearing hoss-hide, she had; she
was going to a night meeting; some said she
was engaged to marry Low Dartfoot—do you
know Low Dartfoot?—any way, he took it
awful hard when she died. They said some
of them could n't bear to hear the name of the
dog afterwards; he looked almost just like
our dog, the dog did, only he was about as
big again, and his tail wasn't half as long as
Spot's is, and he was as black as he could be,
and Spot is spotted, and he had white paws,
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he had; some said they was afeard of him as
they would be of a wolf; it was just before
we were married that she died.”
Mart, who was about half-way up the ladder,
seemed at this point overcome with admiration
at the colloquial powers displayed by his wife,
and the easy gracefulness with which she gave
me entertainment, and looking back, fondly
said, “You are one of 'em; some fellers has
got a wife that has a tongue that's fast at one
eend, but I'll be dod-blasted, your 'n is hung
in the middle and runs at both eends!”
The pleased tone, and charmed look that
accompanied it, quite took the edge off from
any severity the speech might have otherwise
possessed; and Rachel, feeling complimented,
replied, that if she knew where to find a good
kettle-maker she would have enough brass
taken out of her husband's face to make a
forty or fifty gallon one, and then he would
have enough left to stare white folks out of
countenance, he would.
“Go it, shoes!” retorted Mart; and then,
addressing me, as I supposed, he said, “If I
had her to get over again, she 'd never be got—
that's all.”
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He had disappeared in the little loft, but
Rachel elevated her voice so that he might be
benefitted as well as I, while she said she had
married him chiefly to get rid of him, for there
was no other way to do it.
Such was the pleasant banter, as the parties
seemed to regard it, that passed while I
exchanged my wet garments for the dry go-tomeeting
ones, rarely, if ever, used for their
nominal purpose of Mrs. Muggins.
“How did you happen in granmam's
woods, any how?” asked my hostess.
I explained all: the visit to Mrs. Perrin,
our parting with her at Mrs. Graham's, and
ramble in the woods where Rose, as I apprehended,
was lost.
This childish fear of mine caused my friends
great amusement; and Mart put his hat on
the head of Spot, as some excuse for his laughter,
and Rachel said she was giggling at the
rain, but she shortly corrected herself, and said
it was at her own thoughts, and she was n't
thinking at all.
Aware however of my real anxiety, they subdued
their mirth, and assured me there was no
possibility of Rose being lost, and Mrs.
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Muggins diverted me by asking if I didn't think
the old man Furniss and Mrs. Perrin would
make a match. She believed it, she said, for
she onct heard Mrs. Perrin say she was sorry
for the old man, and we all knew pity was
kin to love; and she descanted at length on the
probabilities of their happiness, asseverating
over and again, that, for her part, she would
not lay a straw in their way. Some folks, she
said, thought it was a dreadful thing for old
folks to marry, but as far as she was concerned,
she thought that when the children
were all grown up, it wasn't nobody's business.
Mr. Muggins told me not to fret while I
had a ruff over me, and said that as soon as
the rain should stop falling in pitch-forks, he
would bridle his colt and take me home, upon
which I grew more content, and became
more interested in my new acquaintances than
I had previously been. It was twilight now,
and having made a log-heap fire, Martin put
the table-cloth about his shoulders, and went
forth to milk the cow, and Mrs. Muggins,
rocking the cradle with one foot, and having
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two babies on her knees, entertained me with
a continuation of her accumulated gossip.
“Did you see anything of his reverence,
Staff? I suppose he would like to have me
say doctor, but I won't; well, I tell you, he
is a proudy; he used to be so dreadful high
tempered, that grandman herself, was afeard
of him. I call Mrs. Graham grandman because,
you see, she raised me. Well, I don't
know as I ought to say anything, but them
that's lived in places, finds out a heap of
things that them don't know that hain't lived
in places. Now, a stranger wouldn't think,
to see grandman, that she was the awfulest
tyrant and scold that ever lived; but, I tell
you, you had better believe she is. She used
to make Jim jump before a broomstick; he's
dead, poor eretur; he was a fool—no, I
oughtn't to say that—he's dead and gone
now. Henry got him the nicest sort of a
coffin, and put flowers about him, and the
preacher said, at the grave, he had been a
blind little one, or something like that. I
thought he was a'most too flowery in his
remarks, but some liked it. Grandmam never
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shed a tear, but Henry took on like he was
crazy; I told him it wasn't like as if the boy
had had good sense—oh, I forgot!—well,
I didn't say that; it's no difference what I
said; them that's been in places shouldn't
tell everything they have seen in places.
Henry is a man that sees his own trouble;
he calls his own little boy James, I always
thought, in honor of the fool; oh, I didn't
mean nothing at all—things slip off a body's
tongue sometimes;” and she shook her head, as
she continued, “Henry Graham sees trouble;
if their walls had ears they could tell things;
I foreseed them when he married his beautiful
wife; I knew we should see what we should
see. It's no use talking,” she added, after a
moment's silence, “about things that's none
of a body's business, but if two women that I
know of were where the dogs wouldn't bite
them, I wouldn't be the one to cry.” And
then, “Do you believe there is any such thing
as love?” she asked me very abruptly. On
my replying “yes,” she proceeded: “Well,
some marries and don't know what it is, and
that is the reason that some is unhappy—I
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am just fool enough to believe that. But
there is one wuss thing than to marry a man
you don't love;” and having waited for my
curiosity to reach its climax, she added—
“to love one you don't marry, at the same
time.” I said I hoped there were few such
cases. “I know one woman who did that,”
emphatically observed Rachel, “and her name
is Annette Graham; she was in love with
Staff, and she married the tother one. Staff
wouldn't have her, and so she bit off her nose
to spite her face: that is about my notion
of things out thar. When she first come to
Woodside, things went on ever so nice; a new
broom sweeps clean, you know; they rode
about in their carriage, and it was all `My
dear,' and `my love;' but I knowed it couldn't
last, cause there was no foundation; and after
awhile the carriage wasn't used no more, and
Annette sat all day in her room, and was sick
like; and grandmam growled all day in her
den; and Henry sent away the gardener, and
took to hoeing, mostly hisself; it appeared
like he worked to keep hisself company, for
his wife didn't speak to him week in and
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week out; and then Nellie was born, and we
all thought may be Annette would be more
natural like; but she took no more notice of
it than she would of a cat, at first; but when
the baby began to look like her father, it appeared
like she hated the sight of her, and
when she was no more than three years old,
Nellie would sit in the garden, or other place,
alone all day; it seemed like as if she had an
old head on young shoulders. Oh, she's the
best little thing!”
I had noticed her meek, patient look, and
sweet smile, and said so.
“Yes,” said Rachel, “she smiles like her
Uncle Staff, and he smiles as sweet as an
angel, though he has a divel in him as big as
an ox; and yet I don't blame him so much
sometimes, nuther; they're just like ile and
water, all of them: they won't mix. Henry,
he takes to work, and has a plainer nater,
somehow; and Annette was proud and high
flying at first, and I guess she thought somethings
would make up for others; but you
can't make a silk pus out of sow's ear, and
there ain't no use in trying; and you couldn't
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make nothing of Henry, but Henry, if you
had put a king's crown on his head. Oh, I
have hearn that woman say things to that man,
that she might just as well have put a knife
into his heart; this was along before the baby
was born.” She lowered her voice to a
whisper as she said these last words, and
added in a loud tone, by way of explanation to
the children, “before the doctor-man brought
little Jim to her.”
“Did the doctor man bring us to you,
Rache?” asked Jackson, his curiosity excited
by his mother's concluding observation.
“You musn't ask questions,” she answered.
“I say, Rache, if you don't tell me, I'll set
Spot onto you.”
Mrs. Muggins whispered me that she didn't
mean her children should know anything, and
she thought it better that they should believe
a whopping big lie than know anything; after
which she stated to Master Jackson, that an
old man with a blanket on his shoulders, let
him down out of the sky in a bucket, by a
rope a thousand miles long, to which the
young gentleman replied: “Yes, in a horn;”
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and added presently, for he seemed disposed
to trace things to first causes, as all children
are; “where did tothers come from?”
“I found one of them in an old hollow
stump in the woods,” said Rachel; “and
tother, the ugliest old critter that ever lived
in the world brought to me one midnight
when the lightning was going faster than a
hoss could trot.”
“How was she ugly, Rache?” asked the
boy, enforcing his mother's attention by a
sharp blow with a stick: “tell me, Rache, tell
me; how was she ugly?”
“Oh, Lord! how you do torment a body!
She was ugly, cause she had eyes as big as
the moon; and cause her mouth was a good
deal like yourn, and cause she had a body
like a snake, and crawled, and was speckled
and spotted, only her face and hands, and they
was white.”
“Oh, mommy, wasn't she ugly!” exclaimed
the boy, frightened into something like filial
affection; “if ever she comes again, let me
see her; didn't she skeer you? I'll knock
her down with an axe, and I'll shoot her with
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a pop gun; I'll shoot her to death, I will;
and I'll kill her, and I'll chuck her into the
pond,” and brandishing his stick he rushed
out to do battle with the old cow, or the hens,
or the pig-pen.
“It appears to me,” said Rachel, musingly,
“to be sure I hain't got no book learning nor
nothing, and I may be mistakend; but, it
appears like some folks are just pizen to
others, and the more they are together, the
more pizen they are. I've heard them say
that there was some things that was good in
themselves, and other things that was good to
themselves, that when they was put together
and mixed up, made rank pizen — I heard
Doctor Snakeroot say that; and onct I heard
a preacher say perty much the same thing;
and often when I've seen grandmam's folks,
I've thought of that. Grandmam, you see,
was rich in the first place, and a real gentleman
that was poor as a church mouse married
her, and brought her to Woodside; and, for
the most part, he left her there, while he
travelled about all over the world, as you may
say. I suppose he had seen almost everything
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that is on this earth; but he was restless, like,
and took sick of a fever and died; and the
children seemed to take half after him and
half after her, and not to be right no way.
The youngest of 'em was a perfect fool—
powerful weak in his jints, and no better in
his head. Poor Jim! he had a mighty fine
coffin.
“Well,” Rachel continued, “whatever it
was fust, or whatever it was last, you see how
it is now; the old woman's turned bear, and
Nette has turned to stone, and Staff, they say,
is like his father; and though he seems so
proud and hateful, I've seen him try to make
of Hen, and his mother, too; but it appeared
they wouldn't be made of, and something in
him wouldn't let him make of them long;
and some times, it appeared, like he was, was
ashamed of them. Poor Henry! he has more
goodness in him than twenty Staffs; but I
don't know how it was, something ailded him,
that he couldn't be one thing nor tother.
And now, Nellie has come into this neck
of woods, and it appears like it is only to suffer;
she minds little Jim as good and motherly as
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can be, and never troubles her mother from one
week's end to another; I've always thought
she would be took, she is so good; but, may-be,
the baby will go fust. They say he likes
cow's milk—queer, ain't it? Fool like,” concluded
the little woman, “I have been saying
what was none of my business; but them that
are in a house as I was in that house, learn a
heap of things that outsiders don't know
nothing about;” and rising, she tied the baby
to a chair with her husband's pocket handkerchief,
and shaking off the other child, told him
to scratch for hisself a time, while she began
to prepare the supper.
“That's the way!” exclaimed Martin, setting
down his milk pail: “she has been a
gabbing all this while; she gabs more, she
does, than any woman in four states. Now,
just see at her, how long she will be getting
the grub; I wish I had my courting days to
come over again.”
I can't explain by what process of interpretation,
but the inference I drew was altogether
favorable to the excellent qualities of
Mrs. Muggins; in short, that Mr. Martin
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Muggins would not exchange, barter, sell, or otherwise
convey away Mrs. Rachel Muggins, for
any other woman in the world.
Rachel replied, that she wished to goodness
their courting days was to come over, and she
would chuck a turnip in his mouth when he
teased her to say “Yes,” for that he would
have to take “No” for an answer, that was as
sure as rolling off a log, if she had it to say
agen; which, also, being interpreted, signified
that Mrs. Rachel Muggins would be exceedingly
averse to the aforesaid barter, sale, or
conveyance.
“He is always just so funny,” said she,
when Martin had gone down to the brook to
sharpen her butcher-knife on some accommodating
stone.
“May be we would not have got along so
well, but you see we had not the first red
cent to begin with, and it was, Root, pig, or
die—that's the way him and me begun;” and
she looked proudly about her house, as though
all her ambition had been amply gratified.
Against the rough wall hung a side-saddle,
which she said was a weddin' gift from
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grandmam; some pegs, and an oak chest which he
had made—he was so handy — held the
clothes of herself and children; a bedstead,
which she said cost five silver dollars, a table,
some chairs, and a few shelves, containing the
Bible, hymn-book, a volume of famous murder
cases, and the dishes, constituted most of the
furniture.
Martin speedily returned, and by way of
thanks, Rachel told him she thought he had
stayed to make a knife; and he replied, if I
would just see at her, now, I'd find how lazy
and good-for-nothing she was. Having thus
called my attention to the quickness and industry
of his better half, Mr. Muggins threw
himself on the bed to sleep an hour or two, as
he said, while he was waiting for the grub.
The rain had ceased falling, and the scent
of the near onion bed came on the breeze to
the open door, where lay the wet and shaggy
Spot. The baby folded itself together over
the handkerchief with which it was tied to
the chair, and was quiet; the second boy
mounted his father's foot and rode to grandmam
Graham's, that being, no doubt, the only
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point embraced in his geography; and Rachel,
having made two or three dives and pitches,
gave the table a push with one foot which
landed it in the middle of the floor, rattled
down some knives forks and tea-plates, flung
up the chairs in a twinkling, snuffed the
candle with her fingers, carried the blazing
wick to the door and threw it out, and asked the
second boy, still furiously riding towards grandmam's,
to pull his father's nose, by way of
announcing that supper was ready.
I would have been glad to go home, but
they would not hear of it until I had partaken
of their fare. A substantial meal of bacon,
eggs, milk, and tea, was spread before me, to
which I should have done more justice, perhaps,
but for my uneasiness about Rose. I
feared she was wandering about the woods,
and felt that it was wicked to eat or smile
while her fate remained unsolved.
I felt but little less wretched when, at last,
Mr. Muggins took down the side-saddle from
its peg, and said he would carry me to old
Throck's in the crack of a cow's thumb. The
donkey which I had seen Mrs. Muggins ride,
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and the colt that ate the apple-tree, were soon
led beside a stump, and, dressed in the illfitting
clothes of Rachel, and with my own in
a wet bundle on the saddle-horn, I rode away,
Mrs. Muggins having invited me some fifty
times to visit her again, and saying to Mr.
Muggins she hoped that was the last she
should ever see of him.
“My wife,” said Martin, “speaking very
loud, so that she might hear him, “sours all
the vinegar in the neighborhood;” and with
these parting salutations, the loving couple
separated for an hour.
A woful picture I made as we rode into the
broad light at the door of Uncle Peter's, “accoutered”
as I was, and with my red eyes
and anxious face.
A merry laugh was the greeting in reserve
for me. Rose had been home for hours, her
dress as neat and orderly as when we set out,
and her face radiant with a beauty that I had
never seen in it before. Uncle Peter said I
was very stupid to lose myself in an acre of
woodland, and Aunt Sally kissed me, when
he did not see it, and told me, in a whisper, I
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had better go to bed; it would be best for
myself, she thought it would be best for the
good nature of her husband; and I affected
to believe her, and obeyed.
“Mrs. Throckmorton,” I heard him say, as I
left the room, “I wish you would repeat my
order to Westley.”
“What order, my dear? I did not hear
any.”
“You astonish me, Mrs. Throckmorton: my
order about the easy-chair.”
“Oh, I believe I did hear it,” said Aunt
Sally; “did you want it brought up, my
love?”
Now, Uncle Peter had no easy-chair, nor
had he given Westley any orders about one,
and Aunt Sally knew it, nevertheless she believed
she had heard such a direction; and I
heard her feebly supporting herself along the
stair-case, and keeping down her cough, as
she went in search of the myth.
That was a lonesome night to me. Hours,
it seemed, I lay, striving with my tears, before
Rose joined me. What could she be about?
and why did she not come to tell me how she
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had got home, and what she had thought
about me? At last she came, humming to
herself, and apparently not thinking of me
at all.
“Oh, Rose!” I said, “I was so afraid you
were lost; you can't think how I have suffered.”
“Foolish child!” she said, “why, I never
had a fear about you; look at me close, now,”
and she stood at the bed-side, “and be sure
that I am Rose, and that I am not lost.” She
was merry, as she spoke, it seemed to me mockingly,
and I turned my face to the wall. She
had never called me a foolish child before,
and she had never seemed so far away from
me. I could not yet believe she was Rose, or
that she was not lost.
She saw that I was pained, but without
saying so, put her arms about me, and asked
me to tell her about my adventures, and where
I had found that queer old dress I wore home.
The words were well enough, but I could
not help thinking they had lost their common
meaning. I stifled my emotion, and related
all that had befallen me, she laughing all the
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time at my fears, and saying I was the sweetest
and best sister in the world.
“Does she say so,” I said to myself, “because
she really thinks so, or is it that she
would offer me some atonement?” And yet I
could accuse her of no designed inattention;
why, then, should I feel that there was anything
to atone? I could not tell, but reason
as I would, I felt that I was injured.
She said never a word, when I had concluded
my story, of the way she came home,
or of any uneasiness she had suffered on my
account.
I sighed myself asleep, at last, but awoke
again and again, frightened, and still thinking
her lost, and not even when I found her, in
reaching about the bed, could I be quite sure
it was she. I could not interpret her; I only
knew that I had never felt so alone; I only
knew that even when my arms were about
her she seemed lost.
The moon looked through the broken clouds,
now and then, and silently and fearfully I
raised myself on my pillow, and peered about
lest some strange person might be in the room.
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Who I expected to see, or why any one should
be there, I did not know. If the dog barked,
I was awake, and if Aunt Sally coughed, ever
so faintly, I heard it. Rose, I thought was
much awake, too, though she lay quite still,
as if her thoughts were sweeter than mine. I
was glad when the morning came, but I could
not rid myself of the disagreeable impression
the previous day had left.
“What a foolish child you are!” Rose said,
when I told her of my emotion. She said
“child” again, and I counted how much I was
younger than she; it was not two years, yet
she seemed in the last day to have become a
woman, while I was still a child.
Two or three days after this we were sitting
in the shadow of a tree, near the main road,
Rose reading, and I fringing napkins for our
aunt, when Doctor Graham, who was riding
in his handsome phæton, accosted us. He
had heard of my exposure to the rain; hoped
I had not suffered; and complimented me by
saying the inquiry was superfluous. He smiled
kindly while he asked his questions, but the
smiling seemed not for me. To Rose, he paid
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no compliments, but when he spoke to her,
there was a deference in his manner, which
outweighed a thousand pretty things, though
he had said so many to me.
“And so you did n't think my flowers worth
coming for,” he remarked to her.
“Oh!” she replied, ingenuously, “I forget
all about them!”
This was not very flattering; yet so far was
he from being offended that he gave her a
look of the sweetest tenderness, and asked if
he should have the pleasure of bringing them.
Oh, no! Rosalie would not trouble him; she
would go to Woodside another day. Doctor
Graham was often in the woods with his dogs;
would she oblige him by saying when she
might be expected? She was no authority for
herself, just then: it might be that day—it
might not be for a week. If she found herself
at leisure, his carriage was quite at her
service; he only regretted that it would not
accommodate a third person — bowing to me.
I was very grateful, but had promised Aunt
Sally to fringe her napkins, and could not
have gone, though it had been twice as large.
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I stumbled upon this excuse, though I see not
that I could have done better.
“Tell Uncle Peter,” said Rose, “that he
must pardon my running away; I have an
opportunity of bringing him, from Woodside,
some of the fairest flowers in the world.”
And in her simple dress, ungloved hands,
and hood of blue, she was sitting beside the
proudest man in all that part of the country.
I remained in the shadow, at my task, as
long as I could see the carriage, and the feeling
that Rose was my fond sister no more, came to
me, if not so turbulently, at least as solemnly,
as when I found myself alone in the woods,
and heard the thunder muttering in the
darkness. I could not bear to stay by
myself, and returning to the house, repeated
Rose's apology to Uncle Peter.
“Bless her, what a dear girl she is!” he
replied, rubbing his hands, assured that she
was gone especially for his pleasure.
“Some has one way, and some another, of
showing a good heart,” said Aunt Sally,
meekly; “now Orpha stays at home and
helps me.”
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[figure description] Page 315.[end figure description]
“Poh!” said Uncle Peter.
“Well, you know if I didn't talk, I wouldn't
say anything,” replied my aunt, deprecatingly,
and as though she had been guilty of saying a
very foolish thing.
I bowed my head lower and lower over my
fringing, that Uncle Peter might not see how
much I was affected by his words, and Aunt
Sally, quietly leaving the room, beckoned me
to follow. I might, she said, if I chose, go
over to Mrs. Perrin's, and carry her a tea
cake; she had some fresh ones, and the old
lady was fond of them; “But don't say anything,”
she enjoined, “to anybody;” by which,
I understood, that I must not tell Uncle Peter
that I had taken Mrs. Perrin the cake. She,
good woman, thought it would amuse me, but
feared to do good, except by stealth, lest it
might displease her master.
“Mrs. Throckmorton!” he called.
“Yes, my love!” she replied, in her most
obedient tone.
“Just look round the house, a little, and see
if I haven't dropped my handkerchief,” exclaimed
the authoritative man.
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[figure description] Page 316.[end figure description]
“Yes, darling, right away.”
I dissuaded her with a motion of my hand,
and went down myself. I searched diligently,
but no handkerchief was to be found. She
was waiting at the landing, and when I had
communicated my want of success, she descended
herself, but in vain. Uncle Peter
held the lost handkerchief in his hand; but
Aunt Sally attached no blame to him; she
blamed herself for having been so stupid as
not to look about a little up stairs before going
down. The exercise and the worry brought
back the troublesome cough; but she said it
was nothing; she had always been troubled
with it more or less.
It was a lonesome walk to Mrs. Perrin's. I
missed Rosalie all the way; it seemed that
we should never be one again as we had been
when we played in the sugar camp.
My long shadow went beside me, for it was
near sun-set, but my thoughts, which had been
sombre enough, took a more cheerful color
when I saw Mrs. Perrin's windows ablaze, and
the smoke drifting from the chimney in fantastic
curls; it was as if nothing melancholy
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[figure description] Page 317.[end figure description]
could come near her home. I saw her passing
in and out, and up and down, and it seemed
to me that she looked more youthful and
happy than I had ever seen her. She was
spreading the table in the porch, and I saw at
once that it was in holiday style, and for two.
She was “dreadfully obleeged for the teacake,”
she said; it came all in good time;
she happened to have an old friend, a very
old friend, to drink tea with her; it had not
been his intention to stay so long, she supposed,
but they had got to talking about old
times, and the first thing either of them knew,
it was sunset, and then he had said that as he
had hindered her so long; he would try and
help a little, and he was accordingly at that
very moment milking her cow for her, which
Mrs. Perrin was sure was very good of him.
Presently the old friend made his appearance,
steadily carrying the milk pail, brimming
full. The wo-begone look which I had
noticed at first, seemed to have been unsettled
in his face, and a smile was struggling for
existence there, for the visitor was none other
than Mr. Furniss, whom I had last seen
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[figure description] Page 318.[end figure description]
carrying Mrs. Perrin's little fruit-basket. She introduced
him by saying he was the father of
Annette Graham, and at Woodside very often;
and when he was so near, she didn't know as
it was any harm for him to come over and see
her. But some folks, she supposed, could
make a good deal of talk about it, if they
chose.
“Why, Polly,” said Mr. Furniss, “let folks
talk, if they will: we are both of age, ain't
we?”
Mrs. Perrin seemed not very well to like
this allusion to age. “As for being so terribly
old, I have known older folks than either of us
begin life anew, as it were.” And as she said
this, she suddenly disappeared into the cellar,
with her milk pail. Mr. Furniss thought she
would, perhaps, be afraid there, alone, and so
followed her down, which I thought exceedingly
kind of him. I heard them chattering
like two magpies, but distinguished nothing
except the words Richard and Polly, which
seemed to be in frequent use.
When they came up, Mrs. Perrin told me
her friend (he was a very old friend, and came
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[figure description] Page 319.[end figure description]
often to see her) had been so good as to
examine some turnips which she had proposed
putting out as seedlings. She had known
Annette Graham's father for twenty years,
and it was nothing uncommon for him to do
such little favors for her. She was afraid it
might have appeared a good while to me, that
they remained away, though she supposed
they had not really been more than three
minutes.
“There is a difference in the length of
minutes, Polly,” said Mr. Furniss; “I have
not seen them so short as they have been to
day, not since I was left alone.”
“Too much of one thing is good for nothing,”
replied Mrs. Perrin, “and you and me
have both been alone more than has done any
good.”
Mr. Furniss looked at Mrs. Perrin as if she
had said a very wise thing, and the longer he
looked, the more his admiration seemed to
grow. At last he said, “Why, Polly, you
don't seem to me to have grown a day older,
these twenty years.”
“Oh, yes, I have, though I'm just as smart
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[figure description] Page 320.[end figure description]
to work, and everything; but you, Richard,
look young enough to go to see the girls.”
“Why, Polly Perrin!” replied Mr. Furniss,
evidently well pleased; “I know I look older
than you, though I believe I have kept my
years pretty well. I will leave it to this little
girl here, now;” and he placed his chair close
to “Polly's” and his face so against hers, that
I wondered she didn't remove a little. I had
never been arbiter in so important a case, and
in my distrust of myself, referred them to the
looking-glass, to which, with their faces in the
same close relation they resorted.
“Mercy, Richard!” exclaimed Mrs. Perrin,
“you seem to have the feelings of a young
man, at any rate; if I had thought of such a
thing, I wouldn't have come to the looking-glass
with you,” and she returned to the porch
in a flurry, and held up one hand in quite a
girlish manner, as if saying, “Now, Richard
Furniss, repeat that, or even come one inch
nearer, if you dare.” Nobody likes that “if-you-dare”
insinuation, and Mr. Furniss was
no exception, and at once braved the prohibition
by sidling up to the widow, and
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[figure description] Page 321.[end figure description]
remarking, as he exhibited some turnip sprouts with
which he had been dallying, “They are
pretty, ain't they, Polly: almost like artifical
flowers?”
She had evidently never thought them so
curious and pretty till then.
“They would do to trim your cap, wouldn't
they?” and he twined the pale and delicate
sprouts among the black ribbon.
“Oh, you make me look like a bride!”
“And if you were to look like one,” replied
Richard Furniss, “you would only look like
what you might be, if you were a mind to.”
Mrs. Perrin didn't suppose there was a man
in the world that would have her.
“Why, Polly, you don't say what you
think;” and the look of real admiration which
he bestowed said very plainly that he did not
suppose there was a man in the world so great
a fool as not to marry her if he had an opportunity.
Mrs. Perrin received from his eyes
some such meaning as this, I think, for she
hastened to ask me if Rose were well, and why
she had not come with me. I explained that
she had gone to Woodside.
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[figure description] Page 322.[end figure description]
“Woodside! how did she happen to go
there?”
What would be impertinence in some persons,
was only the manifestation of kindly interest
in her; so I explained the whole matter.
She thought a little while with a pleased expression
on her face, and then asked how I
should like to be left to dance in the pig-pen.
I said I should not like it, for I did not
understand her meaning, till she continued:
“Yes, yes; you will lose Rose — the young
doctor will carry her off — how will you like
him for a brother, do you think?”
The mist cleared away; I understood now
why Rose had seemed so far from me; there
was something she had not confided to me;
she had gone into a new world; she was,
indeed, lost. I felt wronged and grieved, yet
did not blame her. I, too, could have loved
him, but with my life's devotion I could not
have purchased that which her carelessness
had secured — which she claimed as her right,
or stooped to receive.
I was young, and had always been a child
till my mother died; but when I left the
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[figure description] Page 323.[end figure description]
homestead I seemed to have left my childhood
behind me, and when I saw Stafford
Graham my heart had stirred as it never did
before. I had longed to please him, even to
be noticed by him; and though I could not,
at the time, define my own feelings, nor
suspect, as I sat on the rustic porch with Mrs.
Perrin and her friend, why the sky looked so
black, and why the world seemed so wide and
dreary, I understood it all now.
I tried to divert my thoughts from myself,
by recalling what Rachel had said of the
“match” Mrs. Perrin would probably make.
I tried to listen to the conversation of the
ancient beau and the awakener of his memories
and emotion, as they recalled how such
an one had gone to school with them; how he
or she had lived his or her life, and was dead
long ago. Most of their mates were gone, they
said; they had grown old faster than they; and
while they did not seem to think the cutting
off of their own friends untimely, they regarded
themselves as only in the middle of
the race.
I have thought often that it is one of the
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most beautiful provisions of God, that to ourselves
and to those we love, we never grow
old. The aged man talks of the boys that are
old men, and the husband sees in the wrinkled
face of the wife, the beauty of the girl of long
ago.
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Cary, Alice, 1820-1871 [1856], Married, not mated, or, How they lived at Woodside and Throckmorton Hall. (Derby and Jackson, New York) [word count] [eaf492T].
