It was a time of new things—that winter when I saw the end of my fifteenth year. Then I began to enjoy the finer humours of life in Faraway—to see with understanding; and by God's grace—to feel.
The land of play and fear and fable was now far behind me and I had begun to feel the infinite in the ancient forest' in the everlasting hills, in the deep of heaven, in all the ways of men. Hope Brower was now near woman grown. She had a beauty of face and form that was the talk of the countryside. I have travelled far and seen many a fair face hut never one more to my eye. I have heard men say she was like a girl out of a story-book those days.
Late years something had come between us. Long ago we had fallen out of each other's confidence, and ever since she had seemed to shun me. It was the trip in the sledgehouse that' years after, came up between us and broke our childish intimacy. Uncle Be had told, before company, how she had kissed me that day and bespoke me for a husband, and while the others laughed loudly she had gone out of the room crying. She would have little to say to me then. I began to play with boys and she with girls. And it made me miserable to hear the boys a bit older than I gossip of her beauty and accuse each other of the sweet disgrace of love.
But I must hasten to those events in Faraway that shaped our destinies. And first comes that memorable night when I had the privilege of escorting Hope to the school lyceum where the argument of Jed Feary—poet of the hills—fired my soul with an ambition that has remained with me always.
Uncle Be suggested that I ask Hope to go with me.
'Prance right up to her,' he said, 'an' say you'd be glad of the pleasure of her company.
It seemed to me a very dubious thing to do. I looked thoughtful and turned red in the face.
'Young man,' he continued, 'the boy thet's 'fraid o' women'll never hev whiskers.'
'How's that?' I enquired.
'Be scairt t' death,' he answered,' 'fore they've hed time t' start Ye want t' step right up t' the rack jes' if ye'd bought an' paid fer yerself an' was proud o' yer bargain.'
I took his advice and when I found Hope alone in the parlour I came and asked her, very awkwardly as I now remember, to go with me.
She looked at me, blushing, and said she would ask her mother.
And she did, and we walked to the schoolhouse together that evening, her hand holding my arm, timidly, the most serious pair that ever struggled with the problem of deportment on such an occasion. I was oppressed with a heavy sense of responsibility in every word I uttered.
Ann Jane Foster, known as 'Scooter Jane', for her rapid walk and stiff carriage, met us at the corners on her way to the schoolhouse.
'Big turn out I guess,' said she. 'Jed Feary 'n' Squire Town is comin' over from Jingleville an' all the big guns'll be there. I love t' hear Jed Feary speak, he's so techin'.'
Ann Jane was always looking around for some event likely to touch her feelings. She went to every funeral in Faraway and, when sorrow was scarce in her own vicinity, journeyed far in quest of it.
'Wouldn't wonder 'f the fur flew when they git t' going',' she remarked, and then hurried on, her head erect, her body motionless, her legs flying. Such energy as she gave to the pursuit of mourning I have never seen equalled in any other form of dissipation.
The schoolhouse was nearly full of people when we came in. The big boys were wrestling in the yard; men were lounging on the rude seats, inside, idly discussing crops and cattle and lapsing into silence, frequently, that bore the signs both of expectancy and reflection. Young men and young women sat together on one side of the house whispering and giggling. Alone among them was the big and eccentric granddaughter of Mrs Bisnette, who was always slapping some youngster for impertinence. Jed Feary and Squire Town sat together behind a pile of books, both looking very serious. The long hair and beard of the old poet were now white and his form bent with age. He came over and spoke to us and took a curl of Hope's hair in his stiffened fingers and held it to the lamplight.
'What silky gold!' he whispered.' 'S a skein o' fate, my dear girl!'
Suddenly the schoolteacher rapped on the desk and bade us come to order and Ransom Walker was called to the chair.
'Thet there is talent in Faraway township,' he said, having reluctantly come to the platform, 'and talent of the very highest order, no one can deny who has ever attended a lyceum at the Howard schoolhouse. I see evidences of talent in every face before me. And I wish to ask what are the two great talents of the Yankee—talents that made our forefathers famous the world over? I pause for an answer.'
He had once been a schoolmaster and that accounted for his didactic style.
'What are the two great talents of the Yankee?' he repeated, his hands clasped before him.
'Doughnuts an' pie,' said Uncle Be who sat in a far corner.
'No sir,' Mr Walker answered, 'there's some hev a talent fer sawin' wood, but we don't count that. It's war an' speakin', they are the two great talents of the Yankee. But his greatest talent is the gift o' gab. Give him a chance t' talk it over with his enemy an' he'll lick 'im without a fight. An' when his enemy is another Yankee—why, they both git licked, jest as it was in the case of the man thet sold me lightnin' rods. He was sorry he done it before I got through with him. If we did not encourage this talent in our sons they would be talked to death by our daughters. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me pleasure t' say that the best speakers in Faraway township have come here t' discuss the important question:
'Resolved, that intemperance has caused more misery than war?
'I call upon Moses Tupper to open for the affirmative.'
Moses, as I have remarked, had a most unlovely face with a thin and bristling growth of whiskers. In giving him features Nature had been generous to a fault. He had a large red nose, and a mouth vastly too big for any proper use. It was a mouth fashioned for odd sayings. He was well to do and boasted often that he was a self-made man. Uncle Be used to say that if Mose Tupper had had the 'makin' uv himself he'd oughter done it more careful.'
I remember not much of the speech he made, but the picture of him, as he rose on tiptoe and swung his arms like a man fighting bees, and his drawling tones are as familiar as the things of yesterday.
'Gentlemen an' ladies,' said he presently, 'let me show you a pictur'. It is the drunkard's child. It is hungry an' there ain't no food in its home. The child is poorer'n a straw-fed hoss. 'Tain't hed a thing t' eat since day before yistiddy. Pictur' it to yourselves as it comes cryin' to its mother an' says:
'“Ma! Gi' me a piece o' bread an' butter.”
'She covers her face with her apron an' says she, “There am none left, my child.”
'An' bime bye the child comes agin' an' holds up its poor little han's an' says: “Ma! please gi' me a piece O' cake.”
'An' she goes an' looks out O' the winder, er mebbe pokes the fire, an' says: “There am' none left, my child.”
'An' bime bye it comes agin' an' it says: “Please gi' me a little piece O' pie.”
'An' she mebbe flops into a chair an' says, sobbin', “There ain' none left, my child.”
'No pie! Now, Mr Chairman!' exclaimed the orator, as he lifted both hands high above his head, 'If this ain't misery, in God's name, what is it?
'Years ago, when I was a young man, Mr President, I went to a dance one night at the village of Migleyville. I got a toothache, an' the Devil tempted me with whiskey, an' I tuk one glass an' then another an' purty soon I began t' thank I was a mighty hefty sort of a character, I did, an' I stud on a corner an' stumped everybody t' fight with me, an' bime bye an accomanodatin' kind of a chap come along, an' that's all I remember O' what happened. When I come to, my coat tails had been tore off, I'd lost one leg O' my trousers, a bran new silver watch, tew dollars in money, an a pair O' spectacles. When I stud up an' tried t' realise what hed happened I felt jes' like a blind rooster with only one leg an' no tail feathers.'
A roar of laughter followed these frank remarks of Mr Tupper and broke into a storm of merriment when Uncle Eb rose and said:
'Mr President, I hope you see that the misfortunes of our friend was due t' war, an' not to intemperance.'
Mr Tupper was unhorsed. For some minutes he stood helpless or shaking with the emotion that possessed all. Then he finished lamely and sat down.
The narrowness of the man that saw so much where there was so little in his own experience and in the trivial events of his own township was what I now recognise as most valuable to the purpose of this history. It was a narrowness that covered a multitude of people in St Lawrence county in those days.
Jed Feary was greeted with applause and then by respectful silence when he rose to speak. The fame of his verse and his learning had gone far beyond the narrow boundaries of the township in which he lived. It was the biggest thing in the county. Many a poor sinner who had gone out of Faraway to his long home got his first praise in the obituary poem by Jed Feary. These tributes were generally published in the county paper and paid for by the relatives of the deceased at the rate of a dollar a day for the time spent on them, or by a few days of board and lodging glory and consolation that was, alas! too cheap, as one might see by a glance at his forlorn figure. I shall never forget the courtly manner, so strangely in contrast with the rude deportment of other men in that place, with which he addressed the chairman and the people. The drawling dialect of the vicinity that flavoured his conversation fell from him like a mantle as he spoke and the light in his soul shone upon that little company a great light, as I now remember, that filled me with burning thoughts of the world and its mighty theatre of action. The way of my life lay clear before me, as I listened, and its days of toil and the sweet success my God has given me, although I take it humbly and hold it infinitely above my merit. I was to get learning and seek some way of expressing what was in me.
It would ill become me to try to repeat the words of this venerable seer, but he showed that intemperance was an individual sin, while war was a national evil. That one meant often the ruin of a race; the other the ruin of a family; that one was as the ocean, the other as a single drop in its waters. And he told us of the fall of empires and the millions that had suffered the oppression of the conqueror and perished by the sword since Agamemnon.
After the debate a young lady read a literary paper full of clumsy wit, rude chronicles of the countryside, essays on 'Spring', and like topics—the work of the best talent of Faraway. Then came the decision, after which the meeting adjourned.
At the door some other boys tried 'to cut me out'. I came through the noisy crowd, however, with Hope on my arm and my heart full of a great happiness.
'Did you like it?' she asked.
'Very much,' I answered.
'What did you enjoy most?'
'Your company,' I said, with a fine air of gallantry.
'Honestly?'
'Honestly. I want to take you to Rickard's sometime?'
That was indeed a long cherished hope.
'Maybe I won't let you,' she said.
'Wouldn't you?'
'You'd better ask me sometime and see.'
'I shall. I wouldn't ask any other girl.'
'Well,' she added, with a sigh, 'if a boy likes one girl I don't think he ought to have anything to do with other girls. I hate a flirt.'
I happened to hear a footfall in the snow behind us, and looking back saw Ann Jane Foster going slow in easy hearing. She knew all, as we soon found out.
'I dew jes love t' see young folks enjoy themselves,' said she, 'it's entrancin'.'
Coming in at our gate I saw a man going over the wall back of the big stables. The house was dark.
'Did you see the night man?' Elizabeth Brower whispered as I lit the lamp. 'Went through the garden just now. I've been watching him here at the window.'
The love of labour was counted a great virtue there in Faraway. As for myself I could never put my heart in a hoe handle or in any like tool of toil. They made a blister upon my spirit as well as upon my hands. I tried to find in the sweat of my brow that exalted pleasure of which Mr Greeley had visions in his comfortable retreat on Printing House Square. But unfortunately I had not his point of view.
Hanging in my library, where I may see it as I write, is the old sickle of Uncle Eb. The hard hickory of its handle is worn thin by the grip of his hand. It becomes a melancholy symbol when I remember how also the hickory had worn him thin and bent him low, and how infinitely better than all the harvesting of the sickle was the strength of that man, diminishing as it wore the wood. I cannot help smiling when I look at the sickle and thank of the soft hands and tender amplitude of Mr Greeley.
The great editor had been a playmate of David Brower when they were boys, and his paper was read with much reverence in our home.
'How quick ye can plough a ten-acre lot with a pen,' Uncle Eb used to say when we had gone up to bed after father had been reading aloud from his Tribune.
Such was the power of the press in that country one had but to say of any doubtful thing, 'Seen it in print,' to stop all argument. If there were any further doubt he had only to say that he had read it either in the Tribune or the Bible, and couldn't remember which. Then it was a mere question of veracity in the speaker. Books and other reading were carefully put away for an improbable time of leisure.
'I might break my leg sometime,' said David Brower, 'then they'll come handy.' But the Tribune was read carefully every week.
I have seen David Brower stop and look at me while I have been digging potatoes, with a sober grin such as came to him always after he had swapped 'hosses' and got the worst of it. Then he would show me again, with a little impatience in his manner, how to hold the handle and straddle the row. He would watch me for a moment, turn to Uncle Eb, laugh hopelessly and say: 'Thet boy'll hev to be a minister. He can't work.'
But for Elizabeth Brower it might have gone hard with me those days. My mind was always on my books or my last talk with Jed Feary, and she shared my confidence and fed my hopes and shielded me as much as possible from the heavy work. Hope had a better head for mathematics than I, and had always helped me with my sums, but I had a better memory and an aptitude in other things that kept me at the head of most of my classes. Best of all at school I enjoyed the 'compositions'—I had many thoughts, such as they were, and some facility of expression, I doubt not, for a child. Many chronicles of the countryside came off my pen—sketches of odd events and characters there in Faraway. These were read to the assembled household. Elizabeth Brower would sit looking gravely down at me, as I stood by her knees reading, in those days of my early boyhood. Uncle Eb listened with his head turned curiously, as if his ear were cocked for coons. Sometimes he and David Brower would slap their knees and laugh heartily, whereat my foster mother would give them a quick glance and shake her head. For she was always fearful of the day when she should see in her children the birth of vanity, and sought to put it off as far as might be. Sometimes she would cover her mouth to hide a smile, and, when I had finished, look warningly at the rest, and say it was good, for a little boy. Her praise never went further, and indeed all those people hated flattery as they did the devil and frowned upon conceit She said that when the love of flattery got hold of one he would lie to gain it.
I can see this slender, blue-eyed woman as I write. She is walking up and down beside her spinning-wheel. I can hear the dreary buz-z-z-z of the spindle as she feeds it with the fleecy ropes. That loud crescendo echoes in the still house of memory. I can hear her singing as she steps forward and slows the wheel and swings the cradle with her foot:
'On the other side of Jordan,In the sweet fields of Eden,Where the tree of Life is blooming,There is rest for you.
She lays her hand to the spokes again and the roar of the spindle drowns her voice.
All day, from the breakfast hour to supper time, I have heard the dismal sound of the spinning as she walked the floor, content to sing of rest but never taking it.
Her home was almost a miracle of neatness. She could work with no peace of mind until the house had been swept and dusted. A fly speck on the window was enough to cloud her day. She went to town with David now and then—not oftener than once a quarter—and came back ill and exhausted. If she sat in a store waiting for David, while he went to mill or smithy, her imagination gave her no rest. That dirt abhorring mind of hers would begin to clean the windows, and when that was finished it would sweep the floor and dust the counters. In due course it would lower the big chandelier and take out all the lamps and wash the chimneys with soap and water and rub them till they shone. Then, if David had not come, it would put in the rest of its time on the woodwork. With all her cleaning I am sure the good woman kept her soul spotless. Elizabeth Brower believed in goodness and the love of God, and knew no fear. Uncle Eb used to say that wherever Elizabeth Brower went hereafter it would have to be clean and comfortable.
Elder Whitmarsh came often to dinner of a Sunday, when he and Mrs Brower talked volubly about the Scriptures, he taking a sterner view of God than she would allow. He was an Englishman by birth, who had settled in Faraway because there he had found relief for a serious affliction of asthma.
He came over one noon in the early summer, that followed the event of our last chapter, to tell us of a strawberry party that evening at the White Church.
'I've had a wonderful experience,' said he as he took a seat on the piazza, while Mrs Brower came and sat near him. 'I've discovered a great genius—a wandering fiddler, and I shall try to bring him to play for us.'
'A fiddler! why, Elder!' said she, 'you astonish me!'
'Nothing but sacred music,' he said, lifting his hand. 'I heard him play all the grand things today—“Rock of Ages”, “Nearer My God, to Thee”, “The Marseillaise” and “Home, Sweet Home”. Lifted me off my feet! I've heard the great masters in New York and London, but no greater player than this man.'
'Where is he and where did he come from?'
'He's at my house now,' said the good man. 'I found him this morning. He stood under a tree by the road side, above Northrup's. As I came near I heard the strains of “The Marseillaise”. For more than an hour I sat there listening. It was wonderful, Mrs Brower, wonderful! The poor fellow is eccentric. He never spoke to me. His clothes were dusty and worn. But his music went to my heart like a voice from Heaven. When he had finished I took him home with me, gave him food and a new coat, and left him sleeping. I want you to come over, and be sure to bring Hope. She must sing for us.'
'Mr Brower will be tired out, but perhaps the young people may go,' she said, looking at Hope and me.
My heart gave a leap as I saw in Hope's eyes a reflection of my own joy. In a moment she came and gave her mother a sounding kiss and asked her what she should wear.
'I must look my best, mother,' she said.
'My child,' said the elder, 'it's what you do and not what you wear that's important.'
'They're both important, Elder,' said my foster mother. You should teach your people the duty of comeliness. They honour their Maker when they look their best.'
The spirit of liberalism was abroad in the sons of the Puritans. In Elizabeth Brower the ardent austerity of her race had been freely diluted with humour and cheerfulness and human sympathy. It used to be said of Deacon Hospur, a good but lazy man, that he was given both to prayer and profanity. Uncle Eb, who had once heard the deacon swear, when the latter had been bruised by a kicking cow, said that, so far as he knew, the deacon never swore except when 'twas necessary. Indeed, most of those men had, I doubt not, too little of that fear of God in them that characterised their fathers. And yet, as shall appear, there were in Faraway some relics of a stern faith.
Hope came out in fine feather, and although I have seen many grand ladles, gowned for the eyes of kings, I have never seen a lovelier figure than when, that evening, she came tripping down to the buggy. It was three miles to the white Church, and riding over in the twilight I laid the plan of my life before her. She sat a moment in silence after I had finished.
'I am going away, too,' she remarked, with a sigh.
'Going away!' I said with some surprise, for in all my plans I had secretly counted on returning in grand style to take her back with me.
'Going away,' said she decisively.
'It isn't nice for girls to go away from home,' I said.
'It isn't nice for boys, either,' said she.
We had come to the church, its open doors and windows all aglow with light. I helped her out at the steps, and hitched my horse under the long shed. We entered together and made our way through the chattering crowd to the little cloakroom in one corner. Elder Whitmarsh arrived in a moment and the fiddler, a short, stout, stupid-looking man, his fiddle in a black box under his arm, followed him to the platform that had been cleared of its pulpit The stranger stood staring vacantly at the crowd until the elder motioned him to a chair, when he obeyed with the hesitating, blind obedience of a dog. Then the elder made a brief prayer, and after a few remarks flavoured with puns, sacred and immemorial as the pulpit itself, started a brief programme of entertainment. A broad smile marked the beginning of his lighter mood. His manner seemed to say: 'Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will give good heed, you shall see I can be witty on occasion.'
Then a young man came to the platform and recited, after which Hope went forward and sang 'The Land o' the Leal' with such spirit that I can feel my blood go faster even now as I thank of it, and of that girlish figure crowned with a glory of fair curls that fell low upon her waist and mingled with the wild pink roses at her bosom. The fiddler sat quietly as if he heard nothing until she began to sing, when he turned to look at her. The elder announced, after the ballad, that he had brought with him a wonderful musician who would favour them with some sacred music. He used the word 'sacred' because he had observed, I suppose, that certain of the 'hardshells' were looking askance at the fiddle. There was an awkward moment in which the fiddler made no move or sign of intelligence. The elder stepped near him and whispered. Getting no response, he returned to the front of the platform and said: 'We shall first resign ourselves to social intercourse and the good things the ladies have provided.'
Mountains of frosted cake reared their snowy summits on a long table, and the strawberries, heaped in saucers around them, were like red foothills. I remember that while they were serving us Hope and I were introduced to one Robert Livingstone—a young New Yorker, stopping at the inn near by, on his way to the big woods. He was a handsome fellow, with such a fine air of gallantry and so prig in fashionable clothes that he made me feel awkward and uncomfortable.
'I have never heard anything more delightful than that ballad,' he said to Hope. 'You must have your voice trained—you really must. It will make a great name for you.'
I wondered then why his words hurt me to the soul. The castle of my dreams had fallen as he spoke. A new light came into her face—I did not know then what it meant.
'Will you let me call upon you before I leave—may I?' He turned to me while she stood silent. 'I wish to see your father,' he added.
'Certainly,' she answered, blushing, 'you may come—if you care to come.
The musician had begun to thrum the strings of his violin. We turned to look at him. He still sat in his chair, his ear bent to the echoing chamber of the violin. Soon he laid his bow to the strings and a great chord hushed every whisper and died into a sweet, low melody, in which his thought seemed to be feeling its way through sombre paths of sound. The music brightened, the bow went faster, and suddenly 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' came rushing off the strings. A look of amazement gathered on the elder's face and deepened into horror. It went from one to another as if it had been a dish of ipecac. Ann Jane Foster went directly for her things, and with a most unchristian look hurried out into the night. Half a dozen others followed her, while the unholy music went on, its merry echoes rioting in that sacred room, hallowed with memories of the hour of conviction, of the day of mourning, of the coming of the bride in her beauty.
Deacon Hospur rose and began to drawl a sort of apology, when the player stopped suddenly and shot an oath at him. The deacon staggered under the shock of it. His whiskers seemed to lift a bit like the hair of a cat under provocation. Then he tried to speak, but only stuttered helplessly a moment as if his tongue were oscillating between silence and profanity, and was finally pulled down by his wife, who had laid hold of his coat tails. If it had been any other man than Deacon Hospur it would have gone badly with the musician then and there, but we boys saw his discomfiture with positive gratitude. In a moment all rose, the dishes were gathered up, and many hurried away with indignant glances at the poor elder, who was busy taking counsel with some of the brethren.
I have never seen a more pathetic figure than that of poor Nick Goodall as he sat there thrumming the strings of which he was a Heaven-born master. I saw him often after that night—a poor, halfwitted creature, who wandered from inn to inn there in the north country, trading music for hospitality. A thoroughly intelligible sentence never passed his lips, but he had a great gift of eloquence in music. Nobody knew whence he had come or any particular of his birth or training or family. But for his sullen temper, that broke into wild, unmeaning profanity at times, Nick Goodall would have made fame and fortune.
He stared at the thinning crowd as if he had begun dimly to comprehend the havoc he had wrought. Then he put on his hat, came down off the platform, and shuffled out of the open door, his violin in one hand, its box in the other. There were not more than a dozen of us who followed him into the little churchyard. The moon was rising, and the shadows of lilac and rose bush, of slab and monument lay long across the green mounds. Standing there between the graves of the dead he began to play. I shall never forget that solemn calling of the silver string:
'Come ye disconsolate where'er ye languish.'
It was a new voice, a revelation, a light where darkness had been, to Hope and to me. We stood listening far into the night, forgetful of everything, even the swift flight of the hours.
Loud, impassioned chords rose into the moonlit sky and sank to a faint whisper of melody, when we could hear the gossip of the birds in the belfry and under the eaves; trembling tones of supplication, wailing notes of longing and regret swept through the silent avenues of the churchyard, thrilling us with their eloquence. For the first time we heard the music of Handel, of Mendelssohn, of Paganini, and felt its power, then knowing neither name nor theme. Hour by hour he played on for the mere joy of it. When we shook hands with the elder and tiptoed to the buggy he was still playing. We drove slowly and listened a long way down the road. I could hear the strains of that ballad, then new to me, but now familiar, growing fainter in the distance:
O ye'll tak' the high road an' I'll tak' the low road An' I'll be in Scotland afore ye; But me an' me true love will never meet again On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond.
what connection it may have had with the history of poor Nick Goodall [*1] I have often wondered.
[*1] Poor Nick Coodall died in the almshouse of JeffersonCounty some thirty years ago. A better account of thisincident was widely printed at that time.
As the last note died into silence I turned to Hope, and she was crying.
'Why are you crying?' I asked, in as miserable a moment as I have ever known.
'It's the music,' she said.
We both sat in silence, then, hearing only the creak of the buggy as it sped over the sandy road. Well ahead of us I saw a man who suddenly turned aside, vaulting over the fence and running into the near woods.
'The night man!' I exclaimed, pulling up a moment to observe him.
Then a buggy came in sight, and presently we heard a loud 'hello' from David Brower, who, worried by our long stay, had come out in quest of us.
Hope's love of music became a passion after that night. Young Mr Livingstone, 'the city chap' we had met at the church, came over next day. His enthusiasm for her voice gave us all great hope of it. David Brower said he would take her away to the big city when she was older. They soon decided to send her in September to the big school in Hillsborough.
'She's got t' be a lady,' said David Brower, as he drew her into his lap the day we had all discussed the matter. 'She's learnt everything in the 'rithinetic an' geography an' speller. I want her t' learn somethin' more scientific.'
'Now you're talkin',' said Uncle Eb. 'There's lots o' things ye can't learn by cipherin'. Nuthin's too good fer Hope.'
'I'd like t' know what you men expect of her anyway,' said Elizabeth Brower.
'A high stepper,' said Uncle Eb. 'We want a slick coat, a kind uv a toppy head, an a lot O' ginger. So't when we hitch 'er t' the pole bime bye we shan't be 'shamed o' her.'
'Eggzac'ly,' said David Brower, laughing. 'An' then she shall have the best harness in the market.'
Hope did not seem to comprehend all the rustic metaphors that had been applied to her. A look of puzzled amusement came over her face, and then she ran away into the garden, her hair streaming from under her white sun-bonnet.
'Never see sech a beauty! Beats the world,' said Uncle Eb in a whisper, whereat both David and Elizabeth shook their heads.
'Lord o' mercy! Don't let her know it,' Elizabeth answered, in a low tone. 'She's beginning to have-'
Just then Hope came by us leading her pet filly that had been born within the month. Immediately Mrs Brower changed the subject.
'To have what?' David enquired as soon as the girl was out of hearing.
'Suspicions,' said Elizabeth mournfully. 'Spends a good deal of her time at the looking-glass. I think the other girls tell her and then that young Livingstone has been turning her head.'
'Turning her head!' he exclaimed.
'Turning her head,' she answered. 'He sat here the other day and deliberately told her that he had never seen such a complexion and such lovely hair.'
Elizabeth Brower mocked his accent with a show of contempt that feebly echoed my own emotions.
'That's the way o' city folks, mother,' said David.
'It's a bad way,' she answered. 'I do not thank he ought to come here. Hope's a child yet, and we mustn't let her get notions.'
'I'll tell him not t' come any more,' said David, as he and Uncle Eb rose to go to their work.'
'I'm 'fraid she ought not to go away to school for a year yet,' said Elizabeth, a troubled look in her face.
'Pshaw, mother! Ye can't keep her under yer wing alwus,' said he. 'Well, David, you know she is very young and uncommonly—' she hesitated.
'Han'some,' said he, 'we might as well own up if she is our child.'
'If she goes away,' continued Elizabeth, 'some of us ought t' go with her.'
Then Uncle Eb and David went to their work in the fields and I to my own task That very evening they began to talk of renting the farm and going to town with the children.
I had a stent of cording wood that day and finished it before two o'clock Then I got my pole of mountain ash, made hook and line ready, dug some worms and went fishing. I cared not so much for the fishing as for the solitude of the woods. I had a bit of think to do. In the thick timber there was a place where Tinkle brook began to hurry and break into murmurs on a pebble bar, as if its feet were tickled. A few more steps and it burst into a peal of laughter that lasted half the year as it tumbled over narrow shelves of rock into a foamy pool. Many a day I had sat fishing for hours at the little fall under a birch tree, among the brakes and moss. No ray of sunlight ever got to the dark water below me—the lair of many a big fish that had yielded to the temptation of my bait. Here I lay in the cool shade while a singular sort of heart sickness came over me. A wild partridge was beating his gong in the near woods all the afternoon. The sound of the water seemed to break in the tree-tops and fall back upon me. I had lain there thinking an hour or more when I caught the jar of approaching footsteps. Looking up I saw Jed Feary coming through the bushes, pole in hand.
'Fishin'?' he asked.
'Only thinking,' I answered.
'Couldn't be in better business,' said he as he sat down beside me.
More than once he had been my father confessor and I was glad he had come.
'In love?' he asked. 'No boy ever thinks unless he's in love.'
'In trouble,' said I.
'Same thing,' he answered, lighting his pipe. 'Love is trouble with a bit of sugar in it—the sweetest trouble a man can have. What's the matter?'
'It's a great secret,' I said, 'I have never told it. I am in love.'
'Knew it,' he said, puffing at his pipe and smiling in a kindly way. 'Now let's put in the trouble.'
'She does not love me,' I answered.
'Glad of it,' he remarked. 'I've got a secret t, tell you.'
'What's that?' I enquired.
'Wouldn't tell anybody else for the world, my boy,' he said, 'it's between you an' me.'
'Between you an' me,' I repeated.
'Well,' he said, you're a fool.'
'That's no secret,' I answered much embarrassed.
'Yes it is,' he insisted, 'you're smart enough an' ye can have most anything in this world if ye take the right road. Ye've grown t' be a great big strapping fellow but you're only—sixteen?'
'That's all,' I said mournfully.
'Ye're as big a fool to go falling in love as I'd be. Ye're too young an' I'm too old. I say to you, wait. Ye've got to go t' college.'
'College!' I exclaimed, incredulously.
'Yes! an' thet's another secret,' said he. I tol' David Brower what I thought o' your writing thet essay on bugs in pertickier—an' I tol' 'im what people were sayin' o' your work in school.'
'What d' he say?' I asked.
'Said Hope had tol' him all about it—that she was as proud o' you as she was uv her curls, an' I believe it. “Well,” says I, “y' oughter sen' that boy t' college.” “Goin' to,” says he. “He'll go t' the 'Cademy this fall if he wants to. Then he can go t' college soon's he's ready.” Threw up my hat an' shouted I was that glad.'
As he spoke the old man's face kindled with enthusiasm. In me he had one who understood him, who saw truth in his thought, music in his verse, a noble simplicity in his soul. I took his hand in mine and thanked him heartily. Then we rose and came away together.
'Remember,' he said, as we parted at the corner, 'there's a way laid out fer you. In God's time it will lead to every good thing you desire. Don't jump over the fence. Don't try t' pass any milestun 'fore ye've come to it. Don't mope. Keep yer head cool with philosophy, yer feet warm with travel an' don't worry bout yer heart. It won't turn t' stun if ye do keep it awhile. Allwus hev enough of it about ye t' do business with. Goodbye!'
Gerald Brower, who was a baby when I came to live at Faraway, and was now eleven, had caught a cold in seed time, and he had never quite recovered. His coughing had begun to keep him awake, and one night it brought alarm to the whole household. Elizabeth Brower was up early in the morning and called Uncle Eb, who went away for the doctor as soon as light came. We ate our breakfast in silence. Father and mother and Grandma Bisnette spoke only in low tones and somehow the anxiety in their faces went to my heart. Uncle Eb returned about eight o'clock and said the doctor was coming. Old Doctor Bigsby was a very great man in that country. Other physicians called him far and wide for consultation. I had always regarded him with a kind of awe intensified by the aroma of his drugs and the gleam of his lancet. Once I had been his patient and then I had trembled at his approach. When he took my little wrist in his big hand, I remember with what reluctance I stuck out my quivering tongue, black, as I feared with evidences of prevarication.
He was a picture for a painter man as he came that morning erect in his gig. Who could forget the hoary majesty of his head—his 'stovepipe' tilted back, his white locks flying about his ears? He had a long nose, a smooth-shaven face and a left eye that was a trifle turned. His thoughts were generally one day behind the calendar. Today he seemed to be digesting the affairs of yesterday. He was, therefore, absentminded, to a degree that made no end of gossip. If he came out one day with shoe-strings flying, in his remorse the next he would forget his collar; if one told him a good joke today, he might not seem to hear it, but tomorrow he would take it up in its turn and shake with laughter.
I remember how, that morning after noting the symptoms of his patient, he sat a little in silent reflection. He knew that colour in the cheek, that look in the eye—he had seen so much of it. His legs were crossed and one elbow thrown carelessly over the back of his chair. We all sat looking at him anxiously. In a moment he began chewing hard on his quid of tobacco. Uncle Eb pushed the cuspidor a bit nearer. The doctor expectorated freely and resumed his attitude of reflection. The clock ticked loudly, the patient sighed, our anxiety increased. Uncle Eb spoke to father, in a low tone, whereupon the doctor turned suddenly, with a little grunt of enquiry, and seeing he was not addressed, sank again into thoughtful repose. I had begun to fear the worst when suddenly the hand of the doctor swept the bald peak of benevolence at the top of his head. Then a smile began to spread over his face. It was as if some feather of thought had begun to tickle him. In a moment his head was nodding with laughter that brought a great sense of relief to all of us. In a slow, deliberate tone he began to speak:
'I was over t' Rat Tupper's t'other day,' said he, 'Rat was sitting with me in the door yard. Purty soon a young chap came in, with a scythe, and asked if he might use the grindstun. He was a new hired man from somewhere near. He didn't know Rat, an' Rat didn't know him. So Rat o' course had t' crack one o' his jokes.
'“May I use yer grindstun?” said the young feller.
'“Dunno,” said Rat, “I'm only the hired man here. Go an' ask Mis' Tupper.”
'The ol' lady had overheard him an' so she says t' the young feller, “Yes—ye can use the grindstun. The hired man out there'll turn it fer ye.”
'Rat see he was trapped, an' so he went out under the plum tree, where the stun was, an' begun t' turn. The scythe was dull an' the young feller bore on harder'n wuz reely decent fer a long time. Rat begun t' git very sober lookin'.
'“Ain't ye 'bout done,” said he.
'“Putty nigh,” said the young feller bearin' down a leetle harder all the time.
'Rat made the stun go faster. Putty soon he asked agin, “Ain't ye done yit?”
'“Putty nigh!” says the other, feeling o' the edge.
'“I'm done,” said Rat, an' he let go o' the handle. “I dunno 'bout the scythe but I'm a good deal sharper'n I wuz.”
'“You're the hired man here ain't ye?” said the young feller.
'“No, I ain't,” said Rat. “'D rather own up t' bein' a liar than turn that stun another minnit.”
As soon as he was fairly started with this droll narrative the strain of the situation was relieved. We were all laughing as much at his deliberate way of narration as at the story itself.
Suddenly he turned to Elizabeth Brower and said, very soberly, 'Will you bring me some water in a glass?'
Then he opened his chest of medicine, made some powders and told us how to give them.
'In a few days I would take him into the big woods for a while,' he said. 'See how it agrees with him.'
Then he gathered up his things and mother went with him to the gig.
Humour was one of the specifics of Doctor Bigsby. He was always a poor man. He had a way of lumping his bills, at about so much, in settlement and probably never kept books. A side of pork paid for many a long journey. He came to his death riding over the hills one bitter day not long after the time of which I write, to reach a patient.
The haying over, we made ready for our trip into the woods. Uncle Eb and Tip Taylor, who knew the forest, and myself, were to go with Gerald to Blueberry Lake. We loaded our wagon with provisions one evening and made ready to be off at the break of day.