"Oh, dear Kentucky,The Hunters of Kentucky;Dear old Kentucky,The Hunters of Kentucky."
"Oh, dear Kentucky,The Hunters of Kentucky;Dear old Kentucky,The Hunters of Kentucky."
And she had even repeated the five stirring verses without making a single mistake:—
"You've read I reckon, in the prints,How Pakenham attemptedTo make Old Hickory winceBut soon his scheme repented;For we with rifles ready cocked,Thought such occasion lucky;And soon around our general flockedThe Hunters of Kentucky."The British felt so very sureThe battle they would win it,Americans could not endureThe battle not a minute;And Pakenham he made his bragIf he in fight was lucky,He'd have the girls and cotton bagsIn spite of old Kentucky."But Jackson he was wide awakeAnd not scared at trifles,For well he knew what aim to takeWith our Kentucky rifles;He led us to the cypress swamp,The ground was low and mucky,There stood John Bull in martial pompAnd here was old Kentucky."A bank was raised to hide our breast—Not that we thought of dying—But we liked firing from a restUnless the game was flying;Behind it stood our little force,None wished that it were greater,For every man was half a horseAnd half an alligator."They did not our patience tire,Before they showed their faces,We did not choose to waste our fire,So snugly kept our places;But when no more we saw them blinkWe thought it time to stop 'em—It would have done you good, I think,To see Kentucky drop 'em."
"You've read I reckon, in the prints,How Pakenham attemptedTo make Old Hickory winceBut soon his scheme repented;For we with rifles ready cocked,Thought such occasion lucky;And soon around our general flockedThe Hunters of Kentucky.
"The British felt so very sureThe battle they would win it,Americans could not endureThe battle not a minute;And Pakenham he made his bragIf he in fight was lucky,He'd have the girls and cotton bagsIn spite of old Kentucky.
"But Jackson he was wide awakeAnd not scared at trifles,For well he knew what aim to takeWith our Kentucky rifles;He led us to the cypress swamp,The ground was low and mucky,There stood John Bull in martial pompAnd here was old Kentucky.
"A bank was raised to hide our breast—Not that we thought of dying—But we liked firing from a restUnless the game was flying;Behind it stood our little force,None wished that it were greater,For every man was half a horseAnd half an alligator.
"They did not our patience tire,Before they showed their faces,We did not choose to waste our fire,So snugly kept our places;But when no more we saw them blinkWe thought it time to stop 'em—It would have done you good, I think,To see Kentucky drop 'em."
Then gentle Miss Judy, repeating these lines, used to grow almost bloodthirsty in trying to repeat the things which she had heard her father say about this,—the part played by the hunters of Kentucky at the battle of New Orleans,—as having been the first recognition of marksmanship in warfare. Miss Judy had no clear understanding of what her father had meant, but she usually repeated what he had said about the sharpshooting of the hunters whenever she spoke of the battle. She thrilled with patriotism every time she touched the cannon-ball. It was so big that both her little hands were required to roll it into the hollow which it had worn in the floor of the passage.
Miss Sophia obeyed the solemn rumble of the cannon-ball as she always obeyed everything that she understood—docile little soul. She was almost as slow of mind as of body. A round, heavy, dark, uninteresting old woman, utterly unlike her sister, except in gentleness and goodness. On Miss Sophia's side of the bed were three stout steps, forming a sort of dwarf stairway, and down this she now came slowly, backwards and in perfect safety. But Miss Sophia's getting to the floor was yet a long way from being ready for breakfast. It was hard to see how so small a body, so simply clothed, could get into such an intricate tangle of strings and hooks and buttons on every morning of her life. Miss Judy's sweet patience never wavered. She never knew that she was called upon to exercise any toward Miss Sophia. The possibility of hurrying Miss Sophia did not enter her mind even on that urgent occasion, when her need of the far-off spectacles made it uncommonly hard to wait. Finally, there being no indication of Miss Sophia's progress, other than the subdued sounds of the struggle through which she was passing, Miss Judy timidly approached the door of the bedroom. It was open, but she delicately turned her head away as she tapped upon it to attract Miss Sophia's attention, before asking permission to come in. Miss Sophia invited her to enter, giving the permission as formally as Miss Judy had asked it. Miss Judy apologized as she accepted the invitation, saying that she hoped Miss Sophia would pardon her for keeping her back turned, which she was very, very careful to continue to do. She did not say what it was that she wanted to get out of the top drawer. The far-off spectacles were rarely mentioned between the sisters, and Miss Sophia never questioned anything that her sister wished to do.
Still scrupulously averting her gaze, Miss Judy found what she wanted, and sidled softly from the room, thanking Miss Sophia and holding the spectacles down at her side, hidden in the folds of her skirt. Stepping out on the door-stone, she looked cautiously up and down the big road. It was still deserted, not a human being was in sight. Only a solitary cow went soberly past, with her bell clanging not unmusically on the stillness. Nevertheless, Miss Judy gave another glance of precaution, surveying the highway from end to end from the tavern on the north to Sidney Wendall's on the south. As the little lady's eyes rested for a moment upon the house on the hillside, a girl came out as though the wistful gaze had drawn her forth. Miss Judy's blue eyes could barely make out the slender young figure standing in the dazzling sunlight; but she knew that it was Doris, and she did not need the sight of her sweet old eyes to see the wafting of the kiss which the girl threw. Miss Judy's own little hands flew up to throw two kisses in return. She straightway forgot all about the spectacles. She no longer cared how large the huge frames might look on her small face, nor how old they might make her appear.
It was always so. At the sight of Doris, Miss Judy always ceased to be an old maid and became a young mother. For there is a motherhood of the spirit as well as the motherhood of the flesh, and the one may be truer than the other.
It is among the sad things of many good lives, that those who love each other most often understand each other least.
No mother was ever truer than Sidney Wendall, so far as her light led. None ever tried harder to do her whole duty by her children, and none, perhaps, could have come nearer doing it by Billy and Kate, given no better opportunities than Sidney had.
It was Doris, the eldest child, and the one whom she loved best and was proudest of—the darling of her heart, the very apple of her eye—that Sidney never knew what to do with. From the very cradle she had found Doris utterly unmanageable. Not that the child was unruly or self-willed; she was ever the gentlest and most obedient of the three children. It was only that the mother and the child could not understand one another. That was all; but it was enough to send Sidney, whom few difficulties daunted, to Miss Judy, almost in tears and quite in despair, while Doris was hardly beyond babyhood.
"You can always tell a body in trouble what to do," she appealed to Miss Judy. "Maybe you can even tell me what to do with that child. I know how rough I am, but I don't know how to help it. I'm bound to bounce around and make a noise. I don't know any other way of getting along. And then there are Billy and Kate. They won't do a thing they're told unless they're stormed at. Yet if I shout at them, there's Doris turning white, and shaking, and looking as if she'd surely die. I tell you, Miss Judy, I feel as if I'd been given a fine china cup to tote and might break it any minute."
Miss Judy, the comforter of all the afflicted and the adviser of all the troubled, said what she could to help Sidney. Doriswasdifferent from other children. There was no doubt about that and about its being difficult to know how to deal with such a sensitive nature. Miss Judy said that she did not believe, however, that any other mother would have done any better than Sidney had—which comforted Sidney inexpressibly. The little body could not think of anything to advise. She did not know much about children, and she had not much confidence in her own judgment in matters concerning them. So that, at last, after a long talk and for lack of a clearer plan, Miss Judy proposed that Sidney should bring Doris the next morning when setting out on her professional round, and should leave the little one with Miss Sophia and herself. Miss Sophia might think of the very thing to do; without living in the house with Miss Sophia it was impossible to know how sound and practical her judgment was—so Miss Judy told Sidney. The kind proposal lightened Sidney's heart and she accepted it at once. She had her own opinion as to the value of Miss Sophia's ideas, but she responded as she knew would please Miss Judy; and she was sure at all events that Miss Judy, who was just such another sensitive plant, would know what to do with Doris.
Miss Judy on her side was not nearly so confident. When Sidney had gone and she began to realize what she had undertaken, she was a good deal frightened. She not only knew almost nothing about children, as she had confessed to this troubled poor mother; but she had always been rather afraid of them. It had always seemed to her an appalling responsibility to assume the forming of one of these impressionable little souls; she had often wondered tremblingly at the lightness with which many mothers assumed it. And hereshewas—rushing voluntarily into the very responsibility which she had always regarded with awe—almost with terror. More and more disturbed and perplexed as she thought of her foolish rashness, she nevertheless mechanically set about getting ready for taking charge of Doris during the next day, and perhaps for many other days, until she had at least tried to see what she could do for the child. As a first step in the preparation she climbed the steep stairs to the loft, which she had not entered for years, and brought down an old doll of Miss Sophia's, and dusted it and straightened its antiquated clothes; putting it in readiness for the ordeal of Doris on the following morning.
"She can sit on the home-made rug, you know, sister Sophia," said Miss Judy, nervously.
"Just so, sister Judy," promptly and firmly responded Miss Sophia, who never noticed where anybody sat.
"And don't you think it would be a good idea to have Merica make a pig and a kitten out of gingerbread? They might perhaps amuse the child, and keep her from crying. A half pint of flour would be quite enough, and wehaveto have the fire anyway because it's ironing day. Then Merica picked up a big basket of chips behind the cabinet-maker's shop this morning."
"Just so, sister Judy," answered Miss Sophia, who left all provision for fire and for everything else wholly to her sister. "And she might makeussome gingerbread too, while she's about it."
"To be sure!" exclaimed Miss Judy, looking at Miss Sophia in loving admiration. "So she can. How quick you are to see the right way, sister Sophia. I never seem to think of things as you do."
But even as she spoke, a thought flashed uneasily across her mind, causing her sweet old face to beam less brightly. What if the child wouldnotsit on the home-made rug? She had never been used to carpets—poor little thing. What if she crumbled the gingerbread all over everything, as Miss Judy had seen children do, time and again! The thought of such desecration of the carpet that her mother had made, for which she had carded the wool and spun the warp and woven the woof, all with her own dear little hands, made Miss Judy feel almost faint. The risk of such danger threw her into more and more of a panic. She hardly slept that night, troubled by dread of what she had so thoughtfully undertaken. She was pale and trembling with fright when Sidney brought Doris and left her early on the following day.
But the child sat quite still on the rug where her mother had placed her; and she did not cry when Sidney went away, as Miss Judy feared she would, although her lips quivered. She soon turned to look at the doll, which Miss Judy hastened to give her to divert her attention,—looking at it as tender little mothers look at afflicted babies. Then she gave her attention to the gingerbread kitten, and, later, to the gingerbread pig; and Miss Judy was pleased, though she could hardly have told why, to notice that Doris ate the pig first and hesitated some time before eating the kitten.
Miss Judy gave an involuntary sigh of relief when both the pig and the kitten had disappeared without leaving a crumb. She instinctively turned toward Miss Sophia with a pardonable little air of triumph, and was disappointed to find her asleep in her chair. Thus Miss Judy and Doris were left alone together, and presently the quiet child lifted her grave brown eyes to the little lady's anxious blue ones and they exchanged a first long, bashful look. Doris was not old enough to remember what she thought of Miss Judy at that time; but Miss Judy always remembered how Doris looked—such a wonderfully beautiful, gentle little creature—as she sat there so gravely, looking up with her mites of hands folded on her lap. After a time, as Miss Sophia slumbered peacefully on, the shy child and the shyer old lady began to make timid advances to one another. Doris undressed the forlorn old doll with cautious delight, and Miss Judy dressed it again with exquisite care while Doris leaned on her knee, hardly knowing what she did, so intense was her breathless interest in what Miss Judy was doing. The shyest are always the most trusting, if they trust at all. When Sidney, returning from her rounds, came by at nightfall to take Doris home, the child was no longer in the least afraid of Miss Judy; and Miss Judy was not nearly so much frightened as she had been at first.
Yet it was, after all, surprising, considering how timid they both were, that they should so soon have become tenderly and deeply attached to each other. But every day that Sidney brought Doris and left her, she was happier to come and more willing to stay; and erelong the day on which she had not come would have been an empty one and dull indeed for Miss Judy. One bright morning they had been very, very happy together. Miss Sophia nodded as usual in her low rocking-chair, and Miss Judy was darning her sister's stockings while Doris played at her feet.
"Miss Dudy," the child said suddenly, raising her large, serious eyes to Miss Judy's sweet face with a puzzled look; "was it you or my mammy that borned me?"
Miss Judy started,—blushing, smiling, looking like a beautiful girl,—and bending down she gathered the little one in her arms and held her for a long time very, very close. From that moment her love for Doris assumed a different character.
It was a love which grew with the child's growth; which watched and fostered every new beauty of character as the girl blossomed into early womanhood, beautiful and sweet as a tall white flower. Gradually Doris became as the sun and the moon to Miss Judy, the first object when she arose in the morning, her last thought when she lay down at night. Yet this devotion to Doris, and absorption in the girl's interests and future, did not lessen in the least her devotion to Miss Sophia, her ceaseless watchfulness over her welfare, her tender care for her happiness. Her love for Doris never touched her love for her sister at any point. The two loves were so distinct, so unlike, so widely apart that there could be no conflict. It is true that Miss Judy's love for Miss Sophia was also strongly and tenderly maternal. But Miss Judy's gentle heart was so full of this mother-love—single and simple—that some of it might have been given to the whole human race. Her love for Doris was something much more exclusive, something infinitely more subtle than this, which is shared in a measure by every womanly woman. It was the romantic, poetic love which is given by loving age to lovable youth when it recalls life's dawn-light to the twilight of a life which has never known the full sunrise.
With ineffable tenderness Miss Judy yearned to lead Doris toward the best, the finest, the highest, toward all that she herself had reached, and toward much which she had missed. The quaint, the antiquated, the absurd, the enchanting things that the little lady taught the little child, the young maiden! There was nothing so coarse as Shakespeare and nothing so commonplace as the musical glasses. Shakespeare seemed to Miss Judy, who knew him only by hearsay, as being a little too decided, a little too distinctively masculine. It was her theory of manners that girls should learn only purely feminine things. The musical glasses she would have deemed rather undesirable as being less modish than the guitar, and consequently not so well adapted to the high polishing of a young lady of quality, of such fine breeding as she had determined that Doris's should be. The guitar which led Miss Judy to this conclusion had belonged to her mother. Its faded blue ribbon, tied in an old-fashioned bow, still bore the imprint of her vanished fingers. The ribbon smelt of dried rose leaves, as the old music-books did too, when Miss Judy got them out of the cabinet in the darkened parlor, and gave them to Doris, smiling a little sadly, as she always smiled when thinking of her mother. Miss Judy preferred Tom Moore's songs, because they were very sentimental, and also because they were the only ones that she knew. She had never been able to sing, but she had very high ideals of what she called "expression," and she could play the guitar after a pretty, airy, tinkling old fashion. So that Doris, having a low, sweet voice of much natural music and some real talent for the art, learned easily enough through even Miss Judy's methods of teaching; and came erelong to sing of "Those endearing young charms" and "The heart that has truly loved" in a bewitchingly heart-broken way; while the faded blue ribbon fell round her lovely young shoulders.
It was really a pity that no one except Miss Sophia saw or heard those lessons—which must have been so well worth seeing and hearing. Miss Judy and Doris were both so entirely in earnest in all that they were doing. Both were so thoroughly convinced that the things being taught and learned were precisely the things which a young gentlewoman should know. Yet nobody but poor Miss Sophia, who was asleep most of the time, ever had so much as a glimpse of all that was constantly going on in this forming of a young lady of quality. It was another part of Miss Judy's theory of manners that everything concerning a gentlewoman, young or old, must be strictly private. When, therefore, it came to such delicate matters as walking and courtesying—as a young lady of quality should walk and courtesy—not even Miss Sophia was permitted to be present. Miss Judy took Doris into the darkened parlor and raised the shades only a cautious inch or two, so that, while they could see to move about, no living eye might behold the charming scene which was taking place. And there in this dim light, the dainty old lady and the graceful young girl would take delicate steps and make wonderful courtesies—grave as grave could be—all up and down, and up and down that sad old room.
Let nobody think, however, that Miss Judy thought only of accomplishments, while she was thus throwing her whole heart and mind and soul into the rearing and the training of this child of her spirit. The substantial branches of education were not neglected. Miss Judy tried untiringly to help Doris in gaining a store of really useful knowledge. She did not know so well how to go about this as she did about the music and the courtesy. She knew little if any more of the hard prosaic side of the world than Doris herself knew—which was nothing at all. But she had a few good old books. Her father had been a true lover of the best in literature, and her mother had been as fond of sentiment in fiction as in real life. These books, thick, stubby old volumes bound in leather, gathered by them, were Miss Judy's greatest pride and delight. She therefore led Doris to them in due time, impressing her with proper reverence, and thus the girl became in a measure acquainted with a very few of the few really great in letters, and learned to know them as they may be known to an old lady and a young girl who have never had a glimpse of the world.
Miss Judy had but one book which was less than a half century in age. That one book, however, was very, very new indeed and so remarkable that Miss Judy held it to be worthy of a place with the old great ones. She had already read it several times, and yet, strange to say, she had not given it to Doris to read. Of course she had told her about it as soon as it came from the thoughtful friend in Virginia who had sent it. But, for certain reasons which were not quite clear to herself, she was doubtful about its being the kind of a book best calculated to be really improving to Doris. She had read it aloud to Miss Sophia (who tried her best to keep awake), and she was confidently relying upon her judgment, which she considered so much sounder and more practical than her own, in making the decision. It was quite a serious matter, and Miss Judy was still earnestly though silently considering it after breakfast on that morning in March.
"The more I think of it the surer I feel that the main trouble with Becky was that she had no proper bringing up, poor thing;" remarked Miss Judy suddenly and rather absently, as if speaking more to herself than to her sister.
They sat side by side in their little rocking-chairs as they loved to sit, and they were busily engaged in sorting garden seeds. That is, Miss Judy was sorting the seeds while Miss Sophia held the neat little calico bags which Miss Judy had made in the fall, while Miss Sophia held the calico. Still, Miss Sophia's coöperation, slight as it seemed, really required a good deal of effort and very close attention. It was all she could do to keep the bags on her round little knees; nature, who is niggardly in many things, having denied the poor lady a lap.
"Who?" asked Miss Sophia, staring, and struggling with the seed-bags. "WhatBetty?"
"Why, Becky Sharp, of course," said Miss Judy.
She was much surprised, and a little hurt that Miss Sophia should so soon have forgotten Becky, when they had talked about her until they had gone to bed on the night before, to say nothing of many other times. But she was only a bit hurt, she was never offended by anything that Miss Sophia did or said, and she went on as if she had not been even disappointed. "We must make up our minds as to the advisability of giving Doris the book to read before long. I was just wondering whetheryouthought as I think, sister Sophia, that if Becky's mother had lived she would have been taught better than to do those foolish things, which were so shockingly misunderstood. I firmly believe that if Becky had been properly brought up, poor thing, she might have made a good woman. I have been waiting for a good opportunity to askyouropinion. What wouldwehave been, without our dear mother?" she urged, as though pleading with Miss Sophia not to be too hard on Becky. "And she was always so poor, too. Mercifullywe'venever had actual poverty to contend with, as—poor Becky had. Most of the trouble came from that—Becky herself said it did, you remember, sister Sophia."
"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, warmly, and without a shade of reserve, although she had but the haziest notion of who Becky was, or had been, or might be; and speaking with such firm decision that Miss Judy felt as if the matter were really about decided at last.
There is much more in the way that a thing is said than we are apt to realize. Miss Sophia always repeated her vague and unvaried formula, whenever Miss Judy seemed to expect a response, and she always did it with such an effect of firm conviction as renewed Miss Judy's confidence in the soundness of her judgment and value of her advice. In this satisfactory manner the little sisters were again discussing the new book several weeks later, when the spring was well advanced. They had thus debated the serious question of Doris's being or not being permitted to read the new novel, for an hour or more; and they might have gone on discussing it indefinitely, as they did most things, had not Sidney Wendall come in quite unexpectedly.
As the Oldfield front doors set open all day, there was not much ceremony in the announcement of visitors. The caller usually tapped on the door and entered the house forthwith, going on to seek the family wherever the members of it were most likely to be found. Sidney now gave the tap required by politeness, and then, hearing the murmur of voices, went straight through the passage and into the room in which the sisters were sitting. They both glanced up with a look of pleased surprise as Sidney's tall form darkened the doorway. Miss Judy could not rise to receive Sidney on account of having an apronful of late garden-seeds. Her sister was holding the calico bags, as usual; and then Miss Sophia's getting out of a chair and on her feet was always a matter of time and difficulty. But their faces beamed a warm welcome, and Miss Judy called Merica away from the ironing-table in the kitchen to fetch the parlor rocking-chair for Sidney to sit in, which was in itself a distinguished attention, such as could not but be flattering to any guest. And when Sidney was seated, Merica was requested to draw a bucket of water fresh from the well, so that Sidney might have a nice cool drink.
Sidney, whom no one ever thought of calling Mrs. Wendall, was a large, lean, angular woman. She had come in knitting. She always knitted as she walked, carrying the big ball of yarn under her strong left arm. Her calico sunbonnet was always worn far back on her head. She took it off that day as soon as she sat down, and hung it on the knob of the chair. Then she removed the horn comb from her hair, let it drop, shook it out, twisted it up again with a swish—into a very tight knot—and thrust the comb back in place with singular emphasis. Everybody in Oldfield knew what those gestures meant. Nobody seemed to notice what wonderful hair she had. It was long, thick, silky, rippling, and of the color of the richest gold. It was most beautiful hair—rich and dazzling enough to crown a young queen—and most strangely out of place on Sidney's homely, middle-aged head; with its plain sallow face, its pale shrewd eyes, its grotesquely long nose, its expression of whimsical humor, and its wide jester's mouth.
The Oldfield people were so well used to seeing Sidney take her hair down, and twist it up again, even in the middle of the big road, that they had long since ceased to observe the hair itself. It was the meaning of the gestures that instantly caught and held the eager interest of the entire community. For, whenever Sidney took off her bonnet, and let down her hair and shook it vigorously and swished it up again into a tighter knot, and put the comb back with a certain degree of emphasis, everybody knew that there was something interesting in the wind. Poor Miss Sophia, who was not quick to understand many things, knew whatthosesigns meant, and when she saw them that day she straightened up suddenly, wide awake, and breathing hard as she always was when trying her best to keep the track of what was going on, and forgetting all about the seed-bags, which abruptly slid over the precipice, wholly unheeded. Even Miss Judy, who so disliked gossip, could not help feeling somewhat agreeably excited and turning quite pink, as she remembered that she had never known Sidney's news to do any harm, to wound any one, to injure any one, or to make mischief of any description. She had often wondered how Sidneycouldtalk all day long, day after day, year in and year out, going constantly from house to house without doing harm sometimes through sheer inadvertence. She now looked at Sidney in smiling expectancy, turning a rosier pink from growing anticipation.
The mere fact of an unexpected visit from Sidney was enough to throw any Oldfield household into a state of delightful excitement. Sidney's visits were like visits of Royalty; they always had to be arranged for in advance, and they always had to be paid for afterwards. It was clearly understood by everybody that Sidney went nowhere without a formal invitation given some time in advance, and an explicit and sufficient inducement. Yet there was nothing in this to her discredit; she was far from being the mere sordid mercenary that Royalty seems now and then to be. Sidney was an open, upright worker in life's vineyard, and did nothing discreditable in holding herself worthy of her hire. It was necessary for her to earn a living for five needy souls; for her three children, her husband's brother, and herself. There were not many avenues open to women-workers in any part of the world in the day of Sidney's direst need. There were fewer where she lived than almost anywhere else throughout the civilized earth. She did what she might do; she learned to earn bread for her family by the only honorable means in her power. She studied to amuse the people of the village who had no other source of entertainment. She raised her adopted profession until it became an art. It is probable that she had the comedian's talent to begin with. She certainly possessed the comic actor's mouth. And then she doubtless soon learned, as most of us learn sooner or later, that it is more profitable to make the world laugh than to make it weep. At all events the part that she played was nearly always a merry one. Only once, indeed, during the whole of her long professional career, was she ever known to come close to tragedy; but those who were present at the time never forgot what she said, how she said it, nor how she looked while saying it.
It happened one night at old lady Gordon's, over the supper table. The party had been a gay one, and Sidney had been the life of it, as she always was of every gathering in Oldfield. She had told her best stories, she had given out her latest news, she had said many witty and amusing things, until the whole table was in what the ladies of Oldfield would have described as a "regular gale." It was not until they were rising from the supper, still laughing at Sidney's jokes, that she said, in an off-hand way—as if upon second thought—that she would like to have some of the dainties, with which the table was laden, to take home to her children. Before old lady Gordon had time to say, "Certainly, I'll fix up the basket," as everybody always said whenever Sidney made that expected remark, Miss Pettus blazed out:—
"Howcanyou!" she cried, turning in her fiery way upon Sidney. "How can you sit here, eating, laughing, and spinning yarns, when you know your children are hungry at home—and never think of them till now?" Her little black eyes were flashing, and she looked Sidney straight in the face, meaning every word that she said.
The very breath was taken out of the company. The ladies were stricken speechless with amazement and dismay. Even old lady Gordon had not a thing ready to say. Sidney, too, stood still and silent for a moment, resting her hand on the back of her chair. She turned white, standing very erect, looking taller than ever, and very calm—a figure of great dignity.
"I think of my children first, last, and all the time," she said quietly and slowly after an instant's strained silence. Her cool, pale eyes met Miss Pettus's hot black eyes steadily.
"But I don't think it best to talk about them too much;" she went on calmly. "Do any of you ladies think my children would get their supper any sooner if I came here whining about how hungry they were? Would you ever invite me to come again if I did that—even once? Would you, Mrs. Gordon? Would you invite me toyourparties, Miss Pettus? Wouldn't you, and you, and all of you"—turning from one to another—"begin right away to regard me as a tiresome beggar and my children as paupers? I am afraid you would. It would only be human nature. I'm not blaming anybody. But—I don't intend to risk it. I think things are better as they stand now. I amuse you and you help me. I give you what you like in exchange for what my children need. It's a fair trade; you're all bound by it to regard me and my children with respect."
Miss Pettus was crying as if her heart would break long before Sidney was done speaking. She fairly flew at her and, throwing her arms around Sidney's neck, begged her forgiveness with a humility such as no one ever knew that hasty, hot-tempered, well-meaning little woman to show over any other of her many mistakes. Never afterward would she allow Sidney to be criticised in her presence. She quarrelled fiercely with the doctor's wife for saying that she really could not see how Sidney got her news, and for quoting the doctor's opinion that it must come over the grapevine telegraph. Miss Pettus would have had her brother send Sidney's children a portion of everything that his store contained. But Sidney would not accept from any one a pennyworth more than she earned. If Miss Pettus wished to send the Wendall family a pound of candles after Sidney had supped with her, spicing the meal with news and anecdote, all very well and good. Or if, after Sidney's making a special effort to enliven one of Miss Pettus's dinner parties in the middle of the day, that lady suggested giving Uncle Watty a pair of her brother's trousers, Sidney was glad and even thankful. To get her brother-in-law's clothes was, indeed, the hardest problem she had to solve. And then, when Uncle Watty had done with the trousers, they could be cut down for her son, Billy. Under such proper circumstances, Sidney accepted all sorts of things from everybody—anything, indeed, that she chanced to want—with as complete independence and as entire freedom from any feeling of obligation, as any artist accepts his fee for entertaining the public.
The obligation commonly imposed by hospitality had consequently no weight whatever with Sidney, and in this, also, she was not unlike some other celebrities. She did not hesitate to express her opinion of old lady Gordon, whose supper she had eaten on the previous evening, when Miss Judy, knowing about it and wishing to start the conversational ball rolling, now asked how things passed off. Sidney had swapped her spiciest stories for old lady Gordon's richest food. Old lady Gordon was perfectly free to think and to say what she pleased about those stories (provided she never mentioned them before Miss Judy); and Sidney, on her side, held herself equally free to think and to say what she thought of her hostess and of the supper too, had that been open to criticism—which old lady Gordon's suppers never were.
"That old woman is a regularHessian," was Sidney's reply to Miss Judy's innocent inquiry.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Judy, quite startled and rather shocked. "Really, Sidney, I don't think you should call anybody such a name as that."
"Well, I'd like to know what else a body is to call an old woman who hasn't got a mite of natural feeling."
"But we have no right to say that either of anybody. We can't tell," pleaded gentle Miss Judy.
She was wondering, nevertheless, as she spoke, what could have occurred at old lady Gordon's on the night before. It was plain that the news which Sidney was holding back for an effective bringing forth must have had something to do with the visit. However, it was always useless to try to make Sidney tell what she had to tell, until she was quite ready. Even Miss Sophia was well aware of this peculiarity of Sidney's, and, breathing harder than ever in the intensity of her curiosity and suspense, she leaned forward, doing her utmost to understand what was being said in leading up to the news. Miss Judy, of course, understood Sidney's methods perfectly, through long and intimate acquaintance with them; and then, aside from the fact that Sidney could not be hurried, Miss Judy always tried anyway to turn the talk away from unpleasant themes.
"Did you remember to ask Mrs. Gordon about Mr. Beauchamp?" Miss Judy now inquired, adroitly bending Sidney's thoughts toward a delightful subject in which they were both deeply interested. "Did she know whether he used to be a dancing-master in his own country, as we have understood? I do hope you haven't changed your mind," she added earnestly. "It is really most important for Doris to learn to dance."
"No, I haven't changed it a bit. I've got the same Hard-shell, Whiskey Baptist mind that I've had for the last forty years. But it isn't asIthink about dancing, or anything else that Doris is concerned in. It's as you think—"
"No—no, you mustn't say that," protested Miss Judy.
"I do say it, I mean it, and I intend to abide by it," declared Sidney, laying her knitting on her lap and loosing rings of yarn from her big ball and holding them out at arm's length. "You've always known better what was good for Doris than I ever have. When it comes to a difference of opinion I'm bound to give up."
Miss Judy blushed and looked distressed. "It is really such an important matter," she urged timidly. "A young lady cannot possibly learn how to walk and how to carry herself with real grace, without being taught dancing. If I only had some one to play the tune, I might teach Doris the rudiments myself; or sister Sophia might, if she hadn't that shortness of breath, and if I could play any instrumental piece on the guitar except the Spanish fandango. That tune, however, is not very well suited to the minuet, which is the only dance that we ever learned. Mother taught us the minuet, because she thought it necessary for all well brought up girls to learn it just for deportment, though she knew we should probably never have an opportunity to dance it in society."
Thus reminded of the many things that they had missed, Miss Judy turned and smiled a little sadly at Miss Sophia, as though it were the sweetest and most natural thing in the world to speak of Miss Sophia's dancing the minuet,—poor, little, round, slow Miss Sophia! And Miss Sophia also thought it sweet and natural, her dull gaze meeting her sister's bright one with confiding love as she murmured the usual vague assent.
"And did you think to ask Mrs. Gordon whether Mr. Beauchamp—" Miss Judy hesitated at the Frenchman's name, which she pronounced as the English pronounce it, and delicately touched her forehead.
"She said he was perfectly sane except upon that one subject, and the kindest, honestest soul alive," said Sidney, whisking the ball from under her arm and reeling off more yarn.
Miss Judy's sweet old face and soft blue eyes wore the dreamy look which always came over them when her imagination was stirred. "How romantic it is and how touching, that he should have believed, through all these years of hard work and a menial life, that he is Napoleon's son, the real King of Rome."
"Well, it don't do any harm," Sidney, the practical, said. "He don't dance with his head. It seems to me, too, I've heard that lots of crazy folks were great dancers. Anyway, you may tell him, as soon as you like, that I'll knit his summer socks to pay him for showing Doris how to dance, and you may say that I'll throw in the cotton to boot. I always like to pay the full price for whatever I get. If he still thinks that isn't enough, you might tell him I'm willing to knit his winter ones too, but he's got to furnish the yarn—there's reason in all things."
"You are sure that Mr. Beauchamp used to be a dancing-master?" asked Miss Judy.
"Old lady Gordon told me she had heard something of the kind, but she said she had never paid any attention. She never does pay any attention to anything unless she means to eat it," Sidney said.
"Poor old lady Gordon," sighed Miss Judy. "She hasn't much except her mealstoattend to or think about. She must be very, very lonely, all alone in the world."
"I've never seen any sign of her being sorry for herself," responded Sidney, knitting faster, as she always did when warming to her subject. "I never heard of her making any such sign when her son and only child went away and died without coming back. I never heard or saw her show any anxiety abouthisson and only child, that she's never laid her eyes on, though he's now a grown man. I never heard a hint from her about him last night—till she had eaten the last ounce of the pound-cake; and drunk the last drop of the blackberry cordial. Then she remembered to tell me that this only grandson of hers is coming at last."
Here was the news! Miss Sophia settled back in her chair with a deep breath of satisfaction. Miss Judy exclaimed in interested surprise. Very few strangers came to Oldfield, consequently the advent of a young gentleman from a distant city was an event indeed. No wonder that Sidney had made as much of it as she could. Miss Judy, and even Miss Sophia, felt the high compliment paid them in being the first to whom Sidney had taken the thrilling intelligence. It was, in fact, the highest expression of Sidney's gratitude to Miss Judy, and fully recognized as such by both the little sisters, who appreciated it accordingly.
When Sidney was gone on her way to distribute the great news at the various points which promised the largest results, Miss Judy went into the darkened parlor, the other of the two large rooms which the house contained. It was rarely opened, and never used except when, at long and rare intervals, a formal caller, of whom there were not many in that country, was invited to enter it and to feel the way to a chilly, slippery seat. There were two good reasons for the room's disuse. One was that social preëminence in the Pennyroyal Region demanded a dark and disused parlor, although it did not militate against a bed in the living room. Formal visitors expected to grope their way through impenetrable gloom to invisible seats. Accidents sometimes happened, it is true, as when, upon one occasion, old lady Gordon, in calling upon Miss Judy shortly before Major Bramwell left for Virginia, sat down in a large chair, without being aware that it was already occupied by the major, who was a very small man. The second good reason for the room's not being used was that in cool weather Miss Judy could not get fuel for another fire. It was all that Merica could do, all the year round, to find enough wood for one fire; the stray sticks dropped from passing wagons, an occasional branch fallen from the old locust trees which lined the big road, and the regular basket of chips picked up behind the cabinet-maker's shop, barely sufficing to keep up a small blaze in the corner of the fireplace in the living room, which was also the sisters' bedroom.
Miss Judy groped her way cautiously through the darkness of the chilly parlor, and raised the shades far enough to let in a slender shaft of sunlight. She looked around the room with a soft sigh. It was so full of sad and tender memories, and so empty of everything else. The portraits of her father and mother, painted very young, hung side by side over the tall mantelpiece. The intelligent force of her father's face and the soft beauty of her mother's came back to Miss Judy anew whenever she looked at their likenesses. On the opposite walls hung the portraits of her paternal grandfather and grandmother, painted when they were very old. The old gentleman, a judge under the crown in Virginia, had been painted in his wig and gown. His fine face was hard and stern, and Miss Judy often wondered whether he ever had forgiven his son for fighting against the king and the mother country. The old lady's face was as sweet and gentle as Miss Judy's own, and there was a charming resemblance between the pictured and the living features. But the grandmother's face wore an expression of unhappiness, and the granddaughter's was never unhappy, although it was sometimes sad for the unhappiness of others and the pain of the world.
The portraits had been taken out of their frames, so that they might be brought over the Alleghanies with less difficulty. They had never been reframed, and there was something inexpressibly melancholy in their hanging thus, quite unshielded, against the rough, whitewashed logs. Melancholy, vague and far-off, pervaded indeed the whole atmosphere of the shadowed room. It floated out from a broken vase of parian marble which was filled with dried rose leaves, brown and crumbling, yet still sending forth that sweetest, purest, loneliest, and saddest of scents. It clung about the angular, empty arms of the few old chairs, dim with brocade of faded splendor. It lay on the long old sofa—with its high back and its sunken springs—like the wan ghost of some bright dream that had never come true. But the tenderest and subtlest sadness came from the fading sampler which Miss Judy's mother had worked in those endless days of exile in the wilderness. Ah, the silent suffering, the patient endurance, the uncomplaining disappointment, wrought into those numberless stitches! And yet, with all, perhaps bits of brightness too,—a touch of rose-color here, and a hint of gold there—such as a sweet woman weaves into the grayest fabric of life.
Miss Judy, sighing again, although she could not have told why she always sighed on entering the darkened parlor, now knelt down beside the sofa, and drew a small box from beneath it. But she did not open the box at once; instead, she seated herself on the floor and sat still for a space holding the box in her hand, as if she shrank from seeing its contents. At length, slowly untying the discolored cord that bound the box, she lifted the cover, and took out a pair of satin slippers. They had once been white, but they were now as yellow as old ivory, and the narrow ribbon intended to cross over the instep and to tie around the ankle had deepened almost into the tint of the withered primrose. The slippers were heel-less, and altogether of an antiquated fashion, but Miss Judy did not know that they were. She was doubtful only about the size, for they seemed very small even to her; and she thought, with tender pride, how much taller Doris was than she had ever been, even before she had begun to stoop a little in the shoulders. Turning the slippers this way and that, she regarded them anxiously, with her curly head on one side, until she at last made up her mind that Doris could wear them. They might be rather a snug fit, but they would stay on, while Doris was dancing, all the better for fitting snugly. Yet Miss Judy still sat motionless, holding the slippers, and looking down at them, long after reaching this conclusion. The most unselfish of women, she was, nevertheless, a truly womanly woman. She could not surrender the last symbol of a wasted youth without many lingering pangs.
The slippers had belonged to a white dress which Miss Judy used to call her book-muslin party coat, and this treasure was already in Doris's possession. It had been very fine in its first soft whiteness, and now, mellowed by time, as the slippers were, into the hue of old ivory, and darned all over, it was like some rare and exquisite old lace. Doris thought it the prettiest thing that she had ever seen; certainly it was the prettiest that she had ever owned. When, therefore, the slippers came to join it as a complete surprise, she took the party coat out of its careful wrappings, and, after a close search, was delighted to find one or two gauzy spaces still undarned. It was a delight merely to touch the old muslin. She held it against her cheek—which was softer and fairer still, though Doris thought nothing of that—giving it a loving little pat before laying it down. There were household duties to be done ere Doris would be free to get her invisible needle and her gossamer thread, and to begin the airy weaving of the cobwebs.
There was only one room and a loft to be put in order, but Doris always did it while her mother was busy in the kitchen, getting ready for the day's professional round. Sidney was exceedingly particular about the cleaning of her house, insisting that the "rising sun" of the red and yellow calico quilt should always be precisely in the middle of the feather bed, and that the gorgeous border of sun-rays should be even all around the edges. The long, narrow pillow-cases, ruffled across the ends, must also hang just so far down the bed's sides—and no farther. The home-made rug, too, had its exact place, and there must never be a speck of dust anywhere.
The house was said to be the cleanest in Oldfield, where all the houses were clean. Some people believed that Sidney scrubbed the log walls inside and outside every spring, before whitewashing them within and without. Be that as it may, the poor home had, at all events, the fresh neatness which invests even poverty with refinement.
Doris slighted nothing that morning, although she was naturally impatient to go back to the book-muslin. Yet it seemed to take longer to get the house in perfect order than ever before. The trundle-bed in which Kate and Billy slept was particularly contrary, and it really looked, for a time, as if Doris would never be able to get it entirely out of sight under the big bed. It was settled at last, however, and she had taken up the party coat and had seated herself beside the window, when her mother entered the room.
Sidney cast a sharp glance at the white cotton window curtain to see if it were drawn exactly to the middle of the middle pane, or rather to the hair line, which the middle of the middle pane would have reached, had Doris not put the sash up. Sidney, rigid in her rudimentary ideas of propriety, considered it improper for a young girl to sit unshielded before a window in full view from the highway. It made no difference to Sidney that nobody ever passed the window, except as the neighbors went to and fro, or an occasional farmer came to the village on business. Sidney was firm, and Doris, the gentle and yielding, did as she was told to do. The coarse white curtain was accordingly now in its proper place. Sidney noted the fact, as she cast a sweeping glance around the room, seeking the speck of dust which she seldom found and which never escaped her keen eyes. Doris put the book-muslin aside and arose as her mother came in, and she now stood awaiting directions for the management of the household during the day. Sidney's professional absences lasted from nine in the morning until six in the evening every day, winter and summer, the whole year round, Sunday alone excepted. During these prolonged absences the care of the family rested upon Doris's young shoulders, and had done so ever since she could remember. It may have been this which gave her the little air of dignity which set so charmingly on her radiant youth. She now listened to her mother's directions, gravely, attentively, respectfully, as she always did.
"Everything is spick and span in the kitchen," Sidney said, setting the broom on end behind the door and rolling down the sleeves over her strong arms. "Make the children stay in the back yard till the school bell rings. Don't let them go in the kitchen. They clutter up things like two little pigs. And don't let them get at the cake that Anne Watson sent. We'll keep that for Sunday dinner. It's mighty light and nice. It lays awful heavy on my conscience, though. I really ought to go to see poor Tom this very day. I ought to go there every day and try to cheer him up. But I've got so many places engaged that I actually don't know where to go first. Remember—don't let the children touch the cake. Give 'em a slice apiece of that pie of Miss Pettus's. And there will be plenty of Kitty Mills's cold ham for them and for Uncle Watty too."
"Yes'm," answered Doris, assenting to everything which her mother told her to do or not to do. Trained by Miss Judy, she would no more have thought of speaking to an older person or to any one whom she respected, without saying "sir" or "madam," than a well-bred French girl would think of doing such a thing. Miss Judy and Doris had never heard of its being "servile" to do this. They both considered it an essential part of good manners and gentle breeding. Many old-fashioned folks in the Pennyroyal Region still think so.
Untying her gingham apron, and hanging it beside the broom, Sidney put on her sunbonnet, and, firmly settling her ball of yarn under her left arm, began to knit as she left the door-step on which Doris stood looking after her.
Sidney paused for a moment at the gate after dropping the loop of string over the post, and looked up at the little window in the loft.
"It would, I reckon, be better to let your Uncle Watty sleep as long as he likes. He's kinder out of the way up there, and better off asleep than awake, poor soul, when he hasn't got any red cedar to whittle. I noticed yesterday that he had whittled up his last stick. He never knows what to do with himself when he's out of cedar. I'll try to get him some. Maybe old lady Gordon's black gardener Enoch Cotton will fetch some from the woods, if I promise to knit him a pair of socks."
An expression flitted over Doris's face, telling her thoughts. Sidney, seeing it, felt in duty bound to rebuke it.
"Now, Doris—mind what I say—as young folks do old folks, so other young folks will do them when their turn comes. I never knew it to fail. We all get what we give, no more, no less. It always works even in the end, though it may not seem so as we go along. See that your Uncle Watty's breakfast is real nice and hot. Make him some milk toast out of Mrs. Alexander's salt-rising—if it's too hard for his gums. Old lady Gordon said she would have Eunice fetch me a bucket of milk every day. You won't forget?"
Doris again said "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" in the proper place, listening throughout with the greatest attention and respect, and trying very hard not to think about the book-muslin party coat.
Sidney twitched the string which held the gate to the post, to make sure that it was firmly tied. "That crumpled-horn of Colonel Fielding's could pick a lock with her horns. Now remember about Uncle Watty. He's had a hard time, poor old man, ever since his leg was broken. If Dr. Alexander had been here, it would have been different. I should just like to give that fool of a travelling doctor a piece of my mind. Him a-pretending to know what he was about, and a-setting your poor Uncle Watty's broken leg east andwest, instead of north andsouth!"
Doris's cheek dimpled, but she answered dutifully as before. She had her own opinion as to how much the latitude or longitude of Uncle Watty's left leg had to do with his general disability. She could remember him before the leg was broken, and she had never known him to do anything except whittle a stick of red cedar. Youth, at its gentlest, is apt to be hard in its judgment of age's shortcomings. Doris knew how good her mother was as she watched her walking down the big road, with her long, free, swinging stride, with her sunbonnet on the back of her head, and her knitting-needles flashing in the sun. But she wondered if there were no other way. She hated to see her set out on these rounds, she had hated it ever since she could remember, and had gone on hating it as vehemently as it was in her gentle nature to hate anything. The mother never had been able to make Doris see from her own point of view, and Doris had never been able to make her mother understand the intensity of her own sensitiveness, or the soreness of her silent pride. Many a day, as Doris sat sewing beside the window in seeming contentment, she was restlessly seeking some means of escape; almost continually she was trying to find a way to lift the burden from her mother—striving to see something wholly different that she herself might do. Going back to her book-muslin on that morning, she was wondering whether Mrs. Watson or Mrs. Alexander might not need some needle-work done. Perhaps she could earn a little money in that way, and they could live on very little. But hers was not a brooding disposition, and she was soon singing over the old party coat. Then the school bell reminded her that the children's faces and hands must be washed before they went to school; and by the time they were sent off down the big road, Uncle Watty was ready for his breakfast. Doris carried out her mother's directions to the letter. She poured his coffee, and sat respectfully waiting until he had finished eating, and then she washed the dishes, and put them away.
Returning to her seat by the window, she glanced now and then at Uncle Watty, who had seated himself under the blossoming plum tree to enjoy a leisurely, luxurious pipe of tobacco, having recently swapped a butter paddle, which he had whittled out of red cedar, for a fine old "hand" of the precious weed. It was, however, most unusual for Uncle Watty's whittling to assume any useful shape, or, indeed, any shape at all. Every morning, except Sunday, he hobbled off down the big road, to take his seat before the store door on an empty goods-box, with his pocket-knife and his stick of red cedar, ready for whittling. Year after year, the box and Uncle Watty were always in the same spot, moving only to follow the sun in winter and the shade in summer; and the heap of red cedar shavings always grew steadily, ever undisturbed save as the winds scattered them, and the rains beat them into the earth. When Uncle Watty finally came hobbling around the corner of the house that day, and went away in the direction of the store, Doris looked after him, wondering—rather carelessly, and a little harshly, after the manner of the young and untried—what could be the meaning of an existence which left a trail of red cedar shavings as the sole mark of its path through life. But that perplexing thought also passed as the other had done. She began thinking of the dancing lessons, growing more and more absorbed in the darning of the party coat. She wished she knew whether Miss Judy had ever worn it to a real dancing party. She had never heard of one's being given in Oldfield, excepting of course the famous ball at the Fielding's, near the jail, on the night that the prisoner escaped; long, long before she was born. Most of the Oldfield people thought it a sin to dance. Miss Judy must have looked very pretty in the book-muslin. Doris laid it on her lap, and, turning to the window, gave the curtain an impatient toss, pushing it to one side. There was no use in keeping it half drawn when never a soul ever went by. And the sun was shining, almost with the warmth of midsummer, on this glorious May-day. When the spring was still farther advanced, when the leaves were larger on the two tall silver poplars standing beside the gate, lifting a shimmering white screen from the soft green earth to the softer blue sky; when the climbing roses, already blooming all over the snowy walls, were more thickly festooned; when the Italian honeysuckle hung its rich bronze garlands and its fragrant bloom from the very eaves of the mossy roof—then Doris might push the curtain farther back, but not before, no matter how brilliantly the sun shone or how entirely deserted the big road was. As Doris sat sewing and thinking, it seemed to her that her mother was unnecessarily strict. She had even thought it wrong to allow her to learn to dance. Miss Judy had found much difficulty in persuading her. However, she had consented at last, and presently Doris, all alone in the old house, began singing blithely, oblivious of everything except the anticipation of the dancing lessons and the pleasure of darning the party coat. The song was one of Allan Ramsay's, a languishing love-song which Miss Judy's mother had sung. But as Doris's thoughts danced to inaudible music, and her needle flew daintily in and out of the soft old muslin, the words and the tune soon tripped to a gayer measure than they had, perhaps, ever known before.
The birds, too, were lilting gayly on that perfect May morning. A couple of flycatchers were breakfasting in mid-air. It is impossible to conceive of a daintier way to satisfy hunger; as a Kentucky poet has said: "It is, apparently, all color and rhythm—with green boughs and violet sky for canopy, the pure air for a table—and in its midst the sweet bouquet of the woods." And the flycatcher was but one of many beautiful melodious creatures thronging between heaven and earth. Brown thrashers by twos and fours flitted back and forth across the big road, leaving one green wheat-field for another of still richer verdure. A happy pair of orioles, flashing orange and black, were darting—bright as flame and light as smoke—through the tallest silver poplar, building an air-castle almost as wonderful, and nearly as fragile, as those that young human lovers build. With the fetching of each fine fibre, the husband fairly turned upside down, and hung by his feet, while singing his pride and delight. The wife, more modestly happy, quietly rested her soft breast on the unstable nest—with all a woman's trust—as though the home were founded upon a rock, as all homes should be, and hung not by a frail thread at the hazardous tip of an unsteady bough as—alas!—so many homes do. It was steady enough just now, when love was new and the spring was mild, and only the southern breeze stirred the white-lined leaves with a silken rustle. The soft cooing of the unseen doves sounded far off. The bees merely murmured among the honeysuckle blooms. The humming-bird, which was raying rubies and emeralds from the hearts of the roses, came and went as softly as the south wind.
Doris smiled at the sylvan housekeeping of the orioles, which she watched for awhile, letting her sewing rest on her lap. But tiring soon of the little drama of the silver poplar, as we always tire of the happiness of others, the girl's eyes wandered wistfully through the fragrant loneliness to the wooded hills which gently folded the drowsy village. The trees, delicately green, almost silver gray, in their tender foliage, were still fringed by the snow of the dogwood, and the misty beauty of the red buds; and the cool, leafy vistas, sloping gently down toward the village, met the sea of blossoming orchards, breaking in wide, deep waves of pink and white foam at the foot of the hills. But Doris had seen those same trees, and hillsides, and orchards every May-time of her eighteen years, and sameness, however grateful to older eyes, has never a great charm for youth.
Doris's eyes came back to the book-muslin with a keener interest. As she sat there, sewing and singing, in the soft light that filtered through the old curtain, the girl was beautiful, almost tragically beautiful, for her uncertain place in the world. Her slender throat, like the stem of a white flower, arose from the faded brown of her dress as an Easter lily unfolds from its dull sheath. Her radiant hair, yellow as new-blown marigolds, clustered thick and soft about her fair forehead, as the rich pollen falls on the lily's satin. Her delicate brows were dark and straight; and her curling lashes, darker still, threw bewitching shadows around her large, brown eyes. Her face was pale with a warm pallor infinitely fairer than any mere fairness. Her lips, which were a little full, but exquisite in shape and sweetness, were tinted as delicately as blush roses. Her small, white hands, with their rosy palms and tapering fingers, bore no traces of hard work. But Doris was not thinking of her hands as, without turning her head, she put out one of them for another length of thread. The spool was a very small one, and it stood rather unsteadily on the uneven ledge of the window, and it rolled when Doris touched it. Instinctively she tried to catch it, and to keep it from falling to the ground outside the window. She had been reared to neatness and order, and to economy which valued even a reel of cotton too much to see it needlessly soiled. Of course Doris tried to catch the falling spool,—and that was the way everything began! It was all as simple and natural and purely accidental as anything could have been. And yet at the same time it was one of those inscrutable happenings which make the steadiest of us seem but feathers in the wind of destiny.
Only a moment before that foolish little spool began to roll, the big road seemed entirely deserted. Not a human being was in sight—Doris was sure that there was not, because she had looked and looked in vain, and had longed and longed that there might be. Nevertheless, as the little reel started to fall, and Doris darted after it as suddenly and swiftly as a swallow, there was a young man on horseback directly in front of the window, appearing as strangely and as unexpectedly as if he had sprung out of the earth. And, moreover, he was looking straight at Doris, with hardly more than a couple of rods between them, when she burst into full view in the broad light of day, appearing like some beautiful bacchante. The white curtain fell behind her radiant head as the breeze caught and loosed the golden strands of her hair, and the sun flashed a greater radiance upon its dazzling crown. She saw him, too, with a startled uplifting of her great shadowy dark eyes as she bent forward—while her exquisite face was still smiling at her own innocent thoughts, and her rose-red lips were still a little apart with the singing of the old love-song.
The white curtain then swung again into place. It was full of thin spots which Doris could see through; but she was so startled, and her heart was beating so fast at first, that she shrunk back without trying to look. How right her mother had been, after all. That was her first feeling. When she recovered self-possession enough to peep out, she saw that the young man's horse was curveting back and forth across the big road in a most alarming manner. This continued for a surprising length of time before Doris observed that, whenever the horse seemed about to stop, the rider touched him with the spur. Such a flash of indignation went over Doris then as quite swept away the last trace of embarrassment. How could he do such a cruel and such a meaningless thing! She wondered still more why he dismounted, and, throwing the bridle reins over his arm, began walking up and down in front of the window, gazing closely at the ground as though looking for something that he had lost. Doris noticed that he glanced at the window every time he passed it, and she knew that she ought to go out and help him find what he had lost. That was a matter of course in Oldfield manners. It is the way of most country people to take a keen and helpful interest in everything that a neighbor does; and city people deserve less credit than they claim for their indifference to their neighbor's affairs, which is too often mere selfishness disguised. Notwithstanding this local social law Doris did not stir, held motionless by an influence which she could not understand. She had known at once who the young man was. Too few strangers came to Oldfield for her to fail to place him immediately as the grandson of old lady Gordon, the young gentleman from Boston, whose coming everybody was talking about. She noted through the worn places in the old curtain how tall he was and how dark and how handsome. She could not decide what kind of clothes his riding clothes were. At last he mounted his horse and galloped up the hill, and then Doris returned serenely to the darning of the book-muslin party coat.