We went back to our work again shortly, the sweetness and the bitterness of life fresh in our remembrance. When we came back, 'hook an' line', for another vacation, the fields were aglow with colour, and the roads where Dr Bigsby had felt the sting of death that winter day were now over drifted with meadow-music and the smell of clover. I had creditably taken examination for college, where I was to begin my course in the fall, with a scholarship. Hope had made remarkable progress in music and was soon going to Ogdensburg for instruction.
A year had gone, nearly, since Jed Feary had cautioned me about falling in love. I had kept enough of my heart about me 'to do business with', but I had continued to feel an uncomfortable absence in the region of it. Young men at Hillsborough—many of whom, I felt sure, had a smarter look than I—had bid stubbornly for her favour. I wondered, often, it did not turn her head—this tribute of rustic admiration. But she seemed to be all unconscious of its cause and went about her work with small conceit of herself. Many a time they had tried to take her from my arm at the church door—a good-natured phase of youthful rivalry there in those days—but she had always said, laughingly, 'No, thank you,' and clung all the closer to me. Now Jed Feary had no knowledge of the worry it gave me, or of the peril it suggested. I knew that, if I felt free to tell him all, he would give me other counsel. I was now seventeen and she a bit older, and had I not heard of many young men and women who had been engaged—aye, even married—at that age? Well, as it happened, a day before she left us, to go to her work in Ogdensburg, where she was to live with her uncle, I made an end of delay. I considered carefully what a man ought to say in the circumstances, and I thought I had near an accurate notion. We were in the garden—together—the playground of our childhood.
'Hope, I have a secret to tell you,' I said.
'A secret,' she exclaimed eagerly. 'I love secrets.'
'A great secret,' I repeated, as I felt my face burning.
'Why—it must be something awful!'
'Not very,' I stammered. Having missed my cue from the beginning, I was now utterly confused.
'William!' she exclaimed, 'what is the matter of you.'
'I—I am in love,' said I, very awkwardly.
'Is that all?' she answered, a trace of humour in her tone. 'I thought it was bad news.'
I stooped to pick a rose and handed it to her.
'Well,' she remarked soberly, but smiling a little, as she lifted the rose to her lips, 'is it anyone I know?'
I felt it was going badly with me, but caught a sudden inspiration.
'You have never seen her,' I said.
If she had suspected the truth I had turned the tables on her, and now she was guessing. A quick change came into her face, and, for a moment, it gave me confidence.
'Is she pretty?' she asked very seriously as she dropped the flower and looked down crushing it beneath her foot.
'She is very beautiful—it is you I love, Hope.'
A flood of colour came into her cheeks then, as she stood a moment looking down at the flower in silence.
'I shall keep your secret,' she said tenderly, and hesitating as she spoke, 'and when you are through college—and you are older—and I am older—and you love me as you do now—I hope—I shall love you, too—as—I do now.'
Her lips were trembling as she gave me that sweet assurance—dearer to me—far dearer than all else I remember of that golden time—and tears were coursing down her cheeks. For myself I was in a worse plight of emotion. I dare say she remembered also the look of my face in that moment.
'Do not speak of it again,' she said, as we walked away together on the shorn sod of the orchard meadow, now sown with apple blossoms, 'until we are older, and, if you never speak again, I shall know you—you do not love me any longer.'
The dinner horn sounded. We turned and walked slowly back
'Do I look all right?' she asked, turning her face to me and smiling sweetly.
'All right,' I said. 'Nobody would know that anyone loved you—except for your beauty and that one tear track on your cheek.'
She wiped it away as she laughed.
'Mother knows anyway,' she said, 'and she has given me good advice. Wait!' she added, stopping and turning to me. 'Your eyes are wet!'
I felt for my handkerchief.
'Take mine,' she said.
Elder Whitmarsh was at the house and they were all sitting down to dinner as we came in.
'Hello!' said Uncle Eb. 'Here's a good-lookin' couple. We've got a chicken pie an' a Baptis' minister fer dinner an' both good. Take yer pew nex' t' the minister,' he added as he held the chair for me.
Then we all bowed our heads and I felt a hearty amen for the elder's words:
'O Lord, may all our doing and saying and eating and drinking of this day be done, as in Thy sight, for our eternal happiness—and for Thy glory. Amen.'
We have our secrets, but, guard them as we may, it is not long before others have them also. We do much talking without words. I once knew a man who did his drinking secretly and his reeling in public, and thought he was fooling everybody. That shows how much easier it is for one to fool himself than to fool another. What is in a man's heart is on his face, and is shortly written all over him. Therein is a mighty lesson.
Of all people I ever knew Elizabeth Brower had the surest eye for looking into one's soul, and I, myself, have some gift of penetration. I knew shortly that Mrs Brower—wise and prudent woman that she was—had suspected my love for Hope and her love for me, and had told her what she ought to say if I spoke of it.
The maturity of judgement in Hope's answer must have been the result of much thought and counsel, it seemed to me.
'If you do not speak again I shall know you do not love me any longer,' she had said. They were brave words that stood for something very deep in the character of those people—a self-repression that was sublime, often, in their women. As I said them to myself, those lonely summer days in Faraway, I saw in their sweet significance no hint of the bitterness they were to bring. But God knows I have had my share of pleasure and no more bitterness than I deserved.
It was a lonely summer for me. I had letters from Hope—ten of them—which I still keep and read, often with something of the old pleasure—girlish letters that told of her work and friends, and gave me some sweet counsel and much assurance between the lines.
I travelled in new roads that vacation time. Politics and religion, as well as love, began to interest me. Slavery was looming into the proportion of a great issue, and the stories of cruelty and outrage on the plantations of the South stirred my young blood and made it ready for the letting of battle, in God's time. The speeches in the Senate were read aloud in our sitting-room after supper—the day the Tribune came—and all lent a tongue to their discussion. Jed Feary was with us one evening, I remember, when our talk turned into long ways, the end of which I have never found to this day. Elizabeth had been reading of a slave, who, according to the paper, had been whipped to death.
'If God knows 'at such things are bein' done, why don't he stop 'em?' David asked.
'Can't very well,' said Jed Feary.
'Can, if he's omnipotent,' said David.
'That's a bad word—a dangerous one,' said the old poet, dropping his dialect as he spoke. 'It makes God responsible for evil as well as good. The word carries us beyond our depth. It's too big for our boots. I'd ruther think He can do what's doable an' know what's knowable. In the beginning he gave laws to the world an' these laws are unchangeable, or they are not wise an' perfect. If God were to change them He would thereby acknowledge their imperfection. By this law men and races suffer as they struggle upward. But if the law is unchangeable, can it be changed for a better cause even than the relief of a whipped slave? In good time the law shall punish and relieve. The groans of them that suffer shall hasten it, but there shall be no change in the law. There can be no change in the law.'
'Leetle hard t' tell jest how powerful God is,' said Uncle Eb. 'Good deal like tryin' t' weigh Lake Champlain with a quart pail and a pair o' steelyards.'
'If God's laws are unchangeable, what is the use of praying?' I asked.
'He can give us the strength to bear, the will to obey him an' light to guide us,' said the poet. 'I've written out a few lines t' read t' Bill here 'fore he goes off t' college. They have sumthin' t' say on this subject. The poem hints at things he'd ought 'o learn purty soon—if he don't know 'em now.'
The old poet felt in his pockets as he spoke, and withdrew a folded sheet of straw-coloured wrapping paper and opened it. I was 'Bill'-plain 'Bill'—to everybody in that country, where, as you increased your love of a man, you diminished his name. I had been called Willie, William and Billy, and finally, when I threw the strong man of the township in a wrestling match they gave me this full token of confidence. I bent over the shoulder of Jed Feary for a view of the manuscript, closely written with a lead pencil, and marked with many erasures.
'Le's hear it,' said David Brower.
Then I moved the lamp to his elbow and he began reading:
'A talk with William Brower on the occasion of his going away to college and writ out in rhyme for him by his friend Jedediah Feary to be a token of respect.
The man that loses faith in God, ye'll find out every time,Has found a faith in his own self that's mighty nigh sublime.He knows as much as all the saints an' calls religion flighty,An' in his narrow world assumes the place o' God Almighty.But don't expect too much o' God, it wouldn't be quite fairIf fer everything ye wanted ye could only swap a prayer;I'd pray fer yours an' you fer mine an' Deacon Henry HospurHe wouldn't hev a thing t' do but lay a-bed an' prosper.If all things come so easy, Bill, they'd hev but little worth,An' someone with a gift O' prayer 'ud mebbe own the earth.It's the toil ye give t' git a thing—the sweat an' blood an' troubleWe reckon by—an' every tear'll make its value double.There's a money O' the soul, my boy, ye'll find in after years,Its pennies are the sweat drops an' its dollars are the tears;An' love is the redeemin' gold that measures what they're worth,An' ye'll git as much in Heaven as ye've given out on earth.Fer the record o' yer doin'—I believe the soul is plannedWith an automatic register t, tell jest how ye stand,An' it won't take any cipherin' t' show that fearful day,If ye've multiplied yer talents well, er thrown 'em all away.When yer feet are on the summit, an' the wide horizon clears,An' ye look back on yer pathway windin' thro' the vale o' tears;When ye see how much ye've trespassed an' how fur ye've gone astray,Ye'll know the way o' Providence ain't apt t' be your way.God knows as much as can be known, but I don't think it's trueHe knows of all the dangers in the path o' me an' you.If I shet my eyes an' hurl a stone that kills the King o' Siam,The chances are that God'll be as much surprised as I am.If ye pray with faith believin', why, ye'll certnly receive,But that God does what's impossible is more than I'll believe.If it grieves Him when a sparrow falls, it's sure as anything,He'd hev turned the arrow if He could, that broke the sparrow's wing.Ye can read old Nature's history thet's writ in rocks an' stones,Ye can see her throbbin' vitals an' her mighty rack o' hones.But the soul o' her—the livin' God, a little child may knowNo lens er rule o' cipherin' can ever hope t' show.There's a part o' Cod's creation very handy t' yer view,Al' the truth o' life is in it an' remember, Bill, it's you.An' after all yer science ye must look up in yer mind,An' learn its own astronomy the star o' peace t' find.There's good old Aunt Samanthy Jane thet all her journey longHas led her heart to labour with a reveille of song.Her folks hev robbed an' left her but her faith in goodness grows,She hasn't any larnin', but I tell ye Bill, she knows!She's hed her share o' troubles; I remember well the dayWe took her t' the poorhouse—she was singin' all the way;Ye needn't be afraid t' come where stormy Jordan flows,If all the larnin' ye can git has taught ye halfshe knows.'
I give this crude example of rustic philosophy, not because it has my endorsement—God knows I have ever felt it far beyond me—but because it is useful to those who may care to know the man who wrote it. I give it the poor fame of these pages with keen regret that my friend is now long passed the praise or blame of this world.
The horse played a part of no small importance in that country. He was the coin of the realm, a medium of exchange, a standard of value, an exponent of moral character. The man that travelled without a horse was on his way to the poorhouse. Uncle Eb or David Brower could tell a good horse by the sound of his footsteps, and they brought into St Lawrence County the haughty Morgans from Vermont. There was more pride in their high heads than in any of the good people. A Northern Yankee who was not carried away with a fine horse had excellent self-control. Politics and the steed were the only things that ever woke him to enthusiasm, and there a man was known as he traded. Uncle Eb used to say that one ought always to underestimate his horse 'a leetle fer the sake of a reputation'.
We needed another horse to help with the haying, and Bob Dean, a tricky trader, who had heard of it, drove in after supper one evening, and offered a rangy brown animal at a low figure. We looked him over, tried him up and down the road, and then David, with some shrewd suspicion, as I divined later, said I could do as I pleased. I bought the horse and led him proudly to the stable. Next morning an Irishman, the extra man for the haying, came in with a worried look to breakfast.
'That new horse has a chittern' kind of a coff,' he said.
'A cough?' said I.
''Tain't jist a coff, nayther,' he said, 'but a kind of toom!'
With the last word he obligingly imitated the sound of the cough. It threw me into perspiration.
'Sounds bad,' said Uncle Eb, as he looked at me and snickered.
''Fraid Bill ain't much of a jockey,' said David, smiling.
'Got a grand appetite—that hoss has,' said Tip Taylor.
After breakfast Uncle Eb and I hitched him to the light buggy and touched him up for a short journey down the road. In five minutes he had begun to heave and whistle. I felt sure one could have heard him half a mile away. Uncle Eb stopped him and began to laugh.
'A whistler,' said he, 'sure's yer born. He ain't wuth a bag o' beans. But don't ye never let on. When ye git licked ye musn't never fin' fault. If anybody asks ye 'bout him tell 'em he's all ye expected.'
We stood waiting a moment for the horse to recover himself. A team was nearing us.
'There's Bob Dean,' Uncle Eb whispered. 'The durn scalawag! Don't ye say a word now.
'Good-mornin'!' said Dean, smiling as he pulled up beside us.
'Nice pleasant mornin'!' said Uncle Eb, as he cast a glance into the sky.
'What ye standin' here for?' Dean asked.
Uncle Eb expectorated thoughtfully.
'Jest a lookin' at the scenery,' said he. 'Purty country, right here! AIwus liked it.'
'Nice lookin' hoss ye got there,' said Dean.
'Grand hoss!' said Uncle Eb, surveying him proudly. 'Most reemarkable hoss.'
'Good stepper, too,' said Dean soberly.
'Splendid!' said Uncle Eb. 'Can go a mile without ketchin' his breath.'
'Thet so?' said Dean.
'Good deal like Lucy Purvis,' Uncle Eb added. 'She can say the hull mul'plication table an' only breathe once. Ye can learn sumthin' from a hoss like thet. He's good as a deestric' school—thet hoss is.'
Yes, sir, thet hoss is all right,' said Dean, as he drove away.
'Righter'n I expected,' Uncle Eb shouted, and then he covered his mouth, shaking with suppressed laughter.
'Skunk!' he said, as we turned the animal and started to walk him home. 'Don't min' bein' beat, but I don't like t' hev a man rub it in on me. I'll git even with him mebbe.'
And he did. It came about in this way. We turned our new purchase into the pasture, and Uncle Eb and I drove away to Potsdam for a better nag. We examined all the horses in that part of the country. At last we chanced upon one that looked like the whistler, save that he had a white stocking on one hind foot.
'Same age, too,' said Uncle Eb, as he looked into his mouth.
'Can pass anything on the road,' said his owner.
'Can he?' said Uncle Eb, who had no taste for slow going. 'Hitch him up an' le's see what he can do.'
He carried us faster than we had ever ridden before at a trot, and coming up behind another team the man pulled out, let the reins loose on his back, and whistled. If anyone had hit him with a log chain the horse could not have moved quicker. He took us by the other team like a flash, on the dead run and three in the buggy.
'He'll do all right,' said Uncle Eb, and paid for the horse.
It was long after dark when we started home, leading him behind, and near midnight when we arrived.
In the morning I found Uncle Eb in the stable showing him to the other help. To my surprise the white stocking had disappeared.
'Didn't jes' like that white stockin',' he said, as I came in. 'Wondered how he'd look without it.'
They all agreed this horse and the whistler were as much alike as two peas in appearance. Breakfast over Uncle Eb asked the Irishman to hitch him up.
'Come Bill,' said he, 'le's take a ride. Dean'll be comm' 'long bym bye on his way t' town with that trotter o' his'n. 'Druther like to meet him.'
I had only a faint idea of his purpose. He let the horse step along at top speed going up the road and when we turned about he was breathing heavily. We jogged him back down the road a mile or so, and when I saw the blazed face of Dean's mare, in the distance, we pulled up and shortly stopped him. Dean came along in a moment.
'Nice mornin'!' said he.
'Grand!' said Uncle Eb.
'Lookin' at the lan'scape ag'in?'
'Yes; I've jes' begun t' see what a putty country this is,' said Uncle Eb.
'How's the boss?'
'Splendid! Gives ye time t' think an' see what yer passin'. Like t' set 'n think once in a while. We don't do enough thinkin' here in this part o' the country.'
'Yd orter buy this mare an learn how t' ride fast,' said Dean.
'Thet one,' said Uncle Eb, squinting at the mare, 'why she can't go fast 'nough.'
'She can't, hey?' said Dean, bridling with injured pride. 'I don't think there's anything in this town can head her.'
'Thunder!' said Uncle Eb, 'I can go by her with this ol' plug easy 'twixt here an' our gate. Ye didn't know what ye was sellin'.'
'If ye pass her once I'll give her to ye,' said he.
'Mean it?' said Uncle Eb.
'Sartin,' said he, a little redder in the face.
'An' if I don't I'll give ye the whistler,' said Uncle Eb as he turned about.
The mare went away, under the whip, before we had fairly started. She was going a fifty shot but in a moment we were lapping upon her hind wheel. Dean threw a startled glance over his shoulder. Then he shouted to the mare. She quickened her pace a little but we kept our position. Uncle Eb was leaning over the dasher his white locks flying. He had something up his sleeve, as they say, and was not yet ready to use it. Then Dean began to shear over to cut us off—a nasty trick of the low horseman. I saw Uncle Eb glance at the ditch ahead. I knew what was coming and took a firm hold of the seat. The ditch was a bit rough, but Uncle Eb had no lack of courage. He turned the horse's head, let up on the reins and whistled. I have never felt such a thrill as then. Our horse leaped into the deep grass running like a wild deer.
'Hi there! hi there!' Uncle Eb shouted, bouncing in his seat, as we went over stones and hummocks going like the wind.
'Go, ye brown devil!' he yelled, his hat flying off as he shook the reins.
The mare lost her stride; we flashed by and came up into the road. Looking back I saw her jumping up and down a long way behind us and Dean whipping her. Uncle Eb, his hands over the dasher, had pulled down to a trot Ahead of us we could see our folks—men and women—at the gate looking down the road at us waving hats and handkerchiefs. They had heard the noise of the battle. Uncle Eb let up on the reins and looked back snorting with amusement. In a moment we pulled up at our gate. Dean came along slowly.
'Thet's a putty good mare,' said Uncle Eb.
'Yer welcome to her,' said Dean sullenly.
'Wouldn't hev her,' said Uncle Eb.
'Why not?' said the trader a look of relief coming over his face.
'Can't go fast enough for my use,' Uncle Eb answered. 'Ye can jest hitch her in here awhile an' the first day ye come over with a hundred dollars ye can hev her 'n the whistler, both on 'em. Thet whistler's a grand hoss! Can hold his breath longer'n any hoss I ever knew!'
The sum named was that we had paid him for the highly accomplished animal. Dean had the manhood to pay up then and there and said he would send for the other horse, which he never did.
'Guess he won't bother us any more when we stop t' look at the scenery,' said Uncle Eb, laughing as Dean drove away. 'Kind o' resky business buyin' hosses,' he added. 'Got t' jedge the owner as well as the hoss. If there's anything the matter with his conscience it'll come out in the hoss somewhere every time. Never knew a mean man t' own a good hoss. Remember, boy, 's a lame soul thet drives a limpin' hoss.'
'No use talkin'; Bill ain' no jedge uv a hoss' said David Brower. 'He'll hev t' hev an education er he'll git t' the poorhouse someday sartin.'
'Wall he's a good jedge o' gals anyway,' said Uncle Eb.
As for myself I was now hopelessly confirmed in my dislike of farming and I never traded horses again.
Late in August Uncle Eb and I took our Black Hawk stallion to the fair in Hillsborough and showed him for a prize. He was fit for the eye of a king when we had finished grooming him, that morning, and led him out, rearing in play, his eyes flashing from under his broad plume, so that all might have a last look at him. His arched neck and slim barrel glowed like satin as the sunlight fell upon him. His black mane flew, he shook the ground with his hoofs playing at the halter's end. He hated a harness and once in it lost half his conceit. But he was vainest of all things in Faraway when we drove off with him that morning.
All roads led to Hillsborough fair time. Up and down the long hills we went on a stiff jog passing lumber wagons with generations enough in them to make a respectable genealogy, the old people in chairs; light wagons that carried young men and their sweethearts, backswoodsmen coming out in ancient vehicles upon reeling, creaking wheels to get food for a year's reflection—all thickening the haze of the late summer with the dust of the roads. And Hillsborough itself was black with people. The shouts of excited men, the neighing of horses, the bellowing of cattle, the wailing of infants, the howling of vendors, the pressing crowd, had begun to sow the seed of misery in the minds of those accustomed only to the peaceful quietude of the farm. The staring eye, the palpitating heart, the aching head, were successive stages in the doom of many. The fair had its floral hall carpeted with sawdust and redolent of cedar, its dairy house, its mechanics' hall sacred to farming implements, its long sheds full of sheep and cattle, its dining-hall, its temporary booths of rough lumber, its half-mile track and grandstand. Here voices of beast and vendor mingled in a chorus of cupidity and distress. In Floral Hall Sol Rollin was on exhibition. He gave me a cold nod, his lips set for a tune as yet inaudible. He was surveying sundry examples of rustic art that hung on the circular railing of the gallery and trying to preserve a calm breast. He was looking at Susan Baker's painted cow that hung near us.
'Very descriptive,' he said when I pressed him for his notion of it. 'Rod Baker's sister Susan made thet cow. Gits tew dollars an' fifty cents every fair time—wish I was dewin 's well.'
'That's one of the most profitable cows in this country,' I said.
'Looks a good deal like a new breed.'
'Yes,' he answered soberly, then he set his lips, threw a sweeping glance into the gallery, and passed on.
Susan Baker's cow was one of the permanent features of the county fair, and was indeed a curiosity not less remarkable than the sacred ox of Mr Barnum.
Here also I met a group of the pretty girls who had been my schoolmates. They surrounded me, chattering like magpies.
'There's going to be a dance at our house tonight,' said one of them, 'and you must come.'
'I cannot, I must go home,' I said.
'Of course!' said a red-cheeked saucy miss. 'The stuck-up thing! He wouldn't go anywhere unless he could have his sister with him.'
Then they went away laughing.
I found Ab Thomas at the rifle range. He was whittling as he considered a challenge from Tip Taylor to shoot a match. He turned and 'hefted' the rifle, silently, and then he squinted over the barrel two or three times.
'Dunno but what I'll try ye once,' he said presently, 'jes t' see.'
Once started they grew red in their faces and shot themselves weary in a reckless contest of skill and endurance. A great hulking fellow, half drunk and a bit quarrelsome, came up, presently, and endeavoured to help Ab hold his rifle. The latter brushed him away and said nothing for a moment. But every time he tried to take aim the man jostled him.
An looked up slowly and calmly, his eyebrows tilted for his aim, and said, 'Go off I tell ye.' Then he set himself and took aim again.
'Le'me hold it,' said the man, reaching for the barrel. 'Shoot better if I do the aimin'.' A laugh greeted this remark. Ab looked up again. There was a quick start in his great slouching figure.
'Take yer hand off o' thet,' he said a little louder than before.
The man, aching for more applause, grew more impertinent. Ab quietly handed the rifle to its owner. Then something happened suddenly. It was so quickly over I am not quite sure of the order of business, but anyhow he seized the intruder by the shoulders flinging him down so heavily it knocked the dust out of the grass.
'A fight!' somebody shouted and men and boys came runing from all sides. We were locked in a pushing crowd before I could turn. The intruder lay stunned a moment. Then he rose, bare headed, his back covered with dust, pushed his way out and ran.
Ab turned quietly to the range.
'Hedn't orter t' come an' try t' dew my aimin',' he said mildly, by way of protest, 'I won't hev it.'
Then he enquired about the score and calmly took aim again. The stallion show came on that afternoon.
'They can't never beat thet hoss,' Uncle Eb had said to me.
''Fraid they will,' I answered. 'They're better hitched for one thing.'
'But they hain't got the ginger in 'em,' said he, 'er the git up 'n git. If we can show what's in him the Hawk'll beat 'em easy.'
If we won I was to get the prize but I had small hope of winning. When I saw one after another prance out, in sparkling silver harness adorned with rosettes of ribbon—light stepping, beautiful creatures all of them—I could see nothing but defeat for us. Indeed I could see we had been too confident. I dreaded the moment when Uncle Eb should drive down with Black Hawk in a plain leather harness, drawing a plainer buggy. I had planned to spend the prize money taking Hope to the harvest ball at Rickard's, and I had worked hard to put the Hawk in good fettle. I began to feel the bitterness of failure.
'Black Hawk! Where is Black Hawk?' said one of the judges loudly.
'Owned by David Brower o' Faraway,' said another looking at his card.
Where indeed was Uncle Eb? I got up on the fence and looked all about me anxiously. Then I heard a great cheering up the track. Somebody was coming down, at a rapid pace, riding a splendid moving animal, a knee rising to the nose at each powerful stride. His head and flying mane obscured the rider but I could see the end of a rope swinging in his hand. There was something familiar in the easy high stride of the horse. The cheers came on ahead of him like foam before a breaker. Upon my eyes! it was Black Hawk, with nothing but a plain rope halter on his head, and Uncle Eb riding him.
'G'lang there!' he shouted, swinging the halter stale to the shining flank. 'G'lang there!' and he went by, like a flash, the tail of Black Hawk straight out behind him, its end feathering in the wind. It was a splendid thing to see—that white-haired man, sitting erect on the flying animal, with only a rope halter in his hand. Every man about me was yelling. I swung my hat, shouting myself hoarse. When Uncle Eb came back the Hawk was walking quietly in a crowd of men and boys eager to feel his silken sides. I crowded through and held the horse's nose while Uncle Eb got down.
'Thought I wouldn't put no luther on him,' said Uncle Eb, 'God's gin' 'im a good 'nuff harness.'
The judges came and looked him over.
'Guess he'll win the prize all right,' said one of them.
And he did. When we came home that evening every horse on the road thought himself a trotter and went speeding to try his pace with everything that came up beside him. And many a man of Faraway, that we passed, sent up a shout of praise for the Black Hawk.
But I was thinking of Hope and the dance at Rickard's. I had plenty of money now and my next letter urged her to come home at once.
Hope returned for a few days late in August. Invitations were just issued for the harvest dance at Rickard's.
'You mus' take 'er,' said Uncle Eb, the day she came. 'She's a purty dancer as a man ever see. Prance right up an' tell 'er she mus' go. Don' want 'O let anyone git ahead O' ye.'
'Of course I will go,' she said in answer to my invitation, 'I shouldn't think you were a beau worth having if you did not ask me.'
The yellow moon was peering over Woody Ledge when we went away that evening. I knew it was our last pleasure seeking in Faraway, and the crickets in the stubble filled the silence with a kind of mourning.
She looked so fine in her big hat and new gown with its many dainty accessories of lace and ribbon, adjusted with so much patting and pulling, that as she sat beside me, I hardly dared touch her for fear of spoiling something. When she shivered a little and said it was growing cool I put my arm about her, and, as I drew her closer to my side, she turned her hat, obligingly, and said it was a great nuisance.
I tried to kiss her then, but she put her hand over my mouth and said, sweetly, that I would spoil everything if I did that.
'I must not let you kiss me, William,' she said, 'not—not for all in the world. I'm sure you wouldn't have me do what I think is wrong—would you?'
There was but one answer to such an appeal, and I made myself as happy as possible feeling her head upon my shoulder and her soft hair touching my cheek. As I think of it now the trust she put in me was something sublime and holy.
'Then I shall talk about—about our love,' I said, 'I must do something.'
'Promised I wouldn't let you,' she said. Then she added after a moment of silence, 'I'll tell you what you may do—tell me what is your ideal in a woman—the one you would love best of all. I don't think that would be wicked—do you?'
'I think God would forgive that,' I said. 'She must be tall and slim, with dainty feet and hands, and a pair of big eyes, blue as a violet, shaded with long dark lashes. And her hair must be wavy and light with a little tinge of gold in it. And her cheek must have the pink of the rose and dimples that show in laughter. And her voice—that must have music in it and the ring of kindness and good-nature. And her lips—let them show the crimson of her blood and be ready to give and receive a kiss when I meet her.'
She sighed and nestled closer to me.
'If I let you kiss me just once,' she whispered, 'you will not ask me again—will you?'
'No, sweetheart, I will not,' I answered. Then we gave each other such a kiss as may be known once and only once in a lifetime.
'What would you do for the love of a girl like that?' she whispered.
I thought a moment, sounding depths of undiscovered woe to see if there were anything I should hesitate to suffer and there was nothing.
'I'd lay me doun an' dee,' I said.
And I well remember how, when I lay dying, as I believed, in rain and darkness on the bloody field of Bull Run, I thought of that moment and of those words.
'I cannot say such beautiful things as you,' she answered, when I asked her to describe her ideal. 'He must be good and he must be tall and handsome and strong and brave.'
Then she sang a tender love ballad. I have often shared the pleasure of thousands under the spell of her voice, but I have never heard her sing as to that small audience on Faraway turnpike.
As we came near Rickard's Hall we could hear the fiddles and the calling off.
The windows on the long sides of the big house were open. Long shafts of light shot out upon the gloom. It had always reminded me of a picture of Noah's ark that hung in my bedroom and now it seemed to be floating, with resting oars of gold, in a deluge of darkness. We were greeted with a noisy welcome, at the door. Many of the boys and girls came, from all sides of the big hall, and shook hands with us. Enos Brown, whose long forelocks had been oiled for the occasion and combed down so they touched his right eyebrow, was panting in a jig that jarred the house. His trouser legs were caught on the tops of his fine boots. He nodded to me as I came in, snapped his fingers and doubled his energy. It was an exhibition both of power and endurance. He was damp and apologetic when, at length, he stopped with a mighty bang of his foot and sat down beside me. He said he was badly out of practice when I offered congratulations. The first fiddler was a small man, with a short leg, and a character that was minus one dimension. It had length and breadth but no thickness. He sat with his fellow player on a little platform at one end of the room. He was an odd man who wandered all over the township with his fiddle. He played by ear, and I have seen babies smile and old men dance when his bow was swaying. I remember that when I heard it for the first time, I determined that I should be a fiddler if I ever grew to be a man. But David told me that fiddlers were a worthless lot, and that no wise man should ever fool with a fiddle. One is lucky, I have since learned, if any dream of yesterday shall stand the better light of today or the more searching rays of tomorrow.
'Choose yer partners fer Money Musk!' the caller shouted.
Hope and I got into line, the music started, the circles began to sway. Darwin Powers, an old but frisky man, stood up beside the fiddlers, whistling, with sobriety and vigour, as they played. It was a pleasure to see some of the older men of the neighbourhood join the dizzy riot by skipping playfully in the corners. They tried to rally their unwilling wives, and generally a number of them were dancing before the night was over. The life and colour of the scene, the fresh, young faces of the girls some of them models of rustic beauty—the playful antics of the young men, the merrymaking of their fathers, the laughter, the airs of gallantry, the glances of affection—there is a magic in the thought of it all that makes me young again.
There were teams before and behind us when we came home, late at night, so sleepy that the stars went reeling as we looked at them.
'This night is the end of many things,' I remarked.
'And the beginning of better ones, I hope,' was her answer.
'Yes, but they are so far away,' I said, 'you leave home to study and I am to be four years in college-possibly I can finish in three.'
'Perfectly terrible!' she said, and then she added the favourite phrase and tone of her mother: 'We must be patient.'
'I am very sorry of one thing,' I said. 'What's that?'
'I promised not to ask you for one more kiss.'
'Well then,' said she, 'you—you—needn't ask me.' And in a moment I helped her out at the door.
David Brower had prospered, as I have said before, and now he was chiefly concerned in the welfare of his children. So, that he might give us the advantages of the town, he decided either to lease or sell his farm—by far the handsomest property in the township. I was there when a buyer came, in the last days of that summer. We took him over the smooth acres from Lone Pine to Woody Ledge, from the top of Bowman's Hill to Tinkie Brook in the far valley. He went with us through every tidy room of the house. He looked over the stock and the stables.
'Wall! what's it wuth?' he said, at last, as we stood looking down the fair green acres sloping to the sugar bush.
David picked up a stick, opened his knife, and began to whittle thoughtfully, a familiar squint of reflection in his face. I suppose he thought of all it had cost him—the toil of many years, the strength of his young manhood, the youth and beauty of his wife, a hundred things that were far better than money.
'Fifteen thousan' dollars,' he said slowly—'not a cent less.' The man parleyed a little over the price.
'Don' care t' take any less t'day,' said David calmly. 'No harm done.'
'How much down?'
David named the sum.
'An' possession?'
'Next week'
'Everything as it stan's?'
'Everything as it stan's 'cept the beds an' bedding.'
'Here's some money on account,' he said. 'We'll close t'morrer?'
'Close t'morrer,' said David, a little sadness in his tone, as he took the money.
It was growing dusk as the man went away. The crickets sang with a loud, accusing, clamour. Slowly we turned and went into the dark house, David whistling under his breath. Elizabeth was resting in her chair. She was humming an old hymn as she rocked.
'Sold the farm, mother,' said David.
She stopped singing but made no answer. In the dusk, as we sat down, I saw her face leaning upon her hand. Over the hills and out of the fields around us came many voices—the low chant in the stubble, the baying of a hound in the far timber, the cry of the tree toad—a tiny drift of odd things (like that one sees at sea) on the deep eternal silence of the heavens. There was no sound in the room save the low creaking of the rocker in which Elizabeth sat. After all the going, and coming, and doing, and saying of many years here was a little spell of silence and beyond lay the untried things of the future. For me it was a time of reckoning.
'Been hard at work here all these years, mother,' said David. 'Oughter be glad t' git away.'
'Yes,' said she sadly, 'it's been hard work. Years ago I thought I never could stan' it. But now I've got kind o' used t' it.'
'Time ye got used t' pleasure 'n comfort,' he said. 'Come kind o' hard, at fast, but ye mus' try t' stan' it. If we're goin' t' hev sech flin in Heaven as Deacon Hospur tells on we oughter begin t' practice er we'll be 'shamed uv ourselves.'
The worst was over. Elizabeth began to laugh.
At length a strain of song came out of the distance.
'Maxwelton's braes are bonnie where early falls the dew.'
'It's Hope and Uncle Eb,' said David while I went for the lantern. 'Wonder what's kep' 'em s' late.'
When the lamps were lit the old house seemed suddenly to have got a sense of what had been done. The familiar creak of the stairway as I went to bed had an appeal and a protest. The rude chromo of the voluptuous lady, with red lips and the name of Spring, that had always hung in my chamber had a mournful, accusing look. The stain upon her cheek that had come one day from a little leak in the roof looked now like the path of a tear drop. And when the wind came up in the night and I heard the creaking of Lone Pine it spoke of the doom of that house and its own that was not far distant.
We rented a new home in town, that week, and were soon settled in it. Hope went away to resume her studies the same day I began work in college.