"Whereunto is money good?Who has it not wants hardihood.Who has it has much trouble and care,Who once has had it has despair."LONGFELLOW.From the German.
It was the middle of winter. One day Hugh and Fleda had come home from their walk. They dashed into the parlour, complaining that it was bitterly cold, and began unrobing before the glowing grate, which was a mass of living fire from end to end. Mrs. Rossitur was there in an easy chair, alone, and doing nothing. That was not a thing absolutely unheard of, but Fleda had not pulled off her second glove before she bent down towards her, and in a changed tone tenderly asked if she did not feel well.
Mrs. Rossitur looked up in her face a minute, and then drawing her down, kissed the blooming cheeks, one and the other, several times. But as she looked off to the fire again, Fleda saw that it was through watering eyes. She dropped on her knees by the side of the easy chair, that she might have a better sight of that face, and tried to read it as she asked again what was the matter; and Hugh, coming to the other side, repeated her question. His mother passed an arm round each, looking wistfully from one to the other, and kissing them earnestly, but she said only, with a very heart-felt emphasis, "Poor children!"
Fleda was now afraid to speak, but Hugh pressed his inquiry.
"Why 'poor', Mamma? what makes you say so?"
"Because you are poor really, dear Hugh. We have lost everything we have in the world."
"Mamma! What do you mean?"
"Your father has failed."
"Failed! But, Mamma, I thought he wasn't in business?"
"So I thought," said Mrs. Rossitur; "I didn't know people could fail that were not in business; but it seems they can. He was a partner in some concern or other, and it's all broken to pieces, and your father with it, he says!"
Mrs. Rossitur's face was distressful. They were all silent for a little, Hugh kissing his mother's wet cheeks. Fleda had softly nestled her head in her bosom. But Mrs. Rossitur soon recovered herself.
"How bad is it, mother?" said Hugh.
"As bad as can possibly be."
"Is everything gone?"
"Everything!"
"You don't mean the house, Mamma?"
"The house, and all that is in it."
The children's hearts were struck, and they were silent again, only a trembling touch of Fleda's lips spoke sympathy and patience, if ever a kiss did.
"But, Mamma," said Hugh, after he had gathered breath for it, "do you mean to say that everything, literally everything, is gone? Is there nothing left?"
"Nothing in the world not a sou."
"Then what are we going to do?"
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head, and had no words.
Fleda looked across to Hugh to ask no more, and putting her arms around her aunt's neck, and laying cheek to cheek, she spoke what comfort she could.
"Don't, dear aunt Lucy! there will be some way things always turn out better than at first, I dare say we shall find out it isn't so bad by and by. Don't you mind it, and then we wont. We can be happy anywhere together."
If there was not much in the reasoning, there was something in the tone of the words, to bid Mrs. Rossitur bear herself well. Its tremulous sweetness, its anxious love, was without a taint of self-recollection; its sorrow was for her. Mrs. Rossitur felt that she must not show herself overcome. She again kissed and blessed, and pressed closer in her arms, her little comforter, while her other hand was given to Hugh.
"I have only heard about it this morning. Your uncle was here telling me just now a little while before you came in. Don't say anything about it before him."
Why not? The words struck Fleda disagreeably.
"What will be done with the house, Mamma?" said Hugh.
"Sold sold, and everything in it."
"Papa's books, Mamma! and all the things in the library!" exclaimed Hugh, looking terrified.
Mrs. Rossitur's face gave the answer; do it in words she could not.
The children were a long time silent, trying hard to swallow this bitter pill; and still Hugh's hand was in his mother's, and Fleda's head lay on her bosom. Thought was busy, going up and down, and breaking the companionship they had so long held with the pleasant drawing-room, and the tasteful arrangements among which Fleda was so much at home; the easy chairs in whose comfortable arms she had had so many an hour of nice reading; the soft rug, where, in the very wantonness of frolic, she had stretched herself to play with King; that very luxurious bright grateful of fire, which had given her so often the same warm welcome home an apt introduction to the other stores of comfort which awaited her above and below stairs; the rich-coloured curtains and carpet, the beauty of which had been such a constant gratification to Fleda's eye; and the exquisite French table and lamps they had brought out with them, in which her uncle and aunt had so much pride, and which could nowhere be matched for elegance they must all be said "good-bye" to; and as yet fancy had nothing to furnish the future with; it looked very bare.
King had come in, and wagged himself up close to his mistress, but even he could obtain nothing but the touch of most abstracted finger-ends. Yet, though keenly recognised, these thoughts were only passing compared with the anxious and sorrowful ones that went to her aunt and uncle; for Hugh and her, she judged, it was less matter. And Mrs. Rossitur's care was most for her husband; and Hugh's was for them all. His associations were less quick, and his tastes less keen, than Fleda's, and less a part of himself. Hugh lived in his affections; with a salvo to them he could bear to lose anything and go anywhere.
"Mamma," said he, after a long time "will anything be done with Fleda's books?"
A question that had been in Fleda's mind before, but which she had patiently forborne just then to ask.
"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Rossitur, pressing Fleda more closely, and kissing in a kind of rapture the sweet, thoughtful face "not yours, my darling; they can't touch anything that belongs to you I wish it was more and I don't suppose they will take anything of mine either."
"Ah, well!" said Fleda, raising her head, "you have got quite a parcel of books, aunt Lucy, and I have a good many how well it is I have had so many given me since I have been here! That will make quite a nice little library, both together, and Hugh has some; I thought perhaps we shouldn't have one at all left, and that would have been rather bad."
"Rather bad!" Mrs. Rossitur looked at her, and was dumb.
"Only don't you wear a sad face for anything!" Fleda went on earnestly; "we shall be perfectly happy if you and uncle Rolf only will be."
"My dear children!" said Mrs. Rossitur, wiping her eyes, "it is for you I am unhappy you and your uncle; I do not think of myself."
"And we do not think of ourselves, Mamma," said Hugh.
"I know it; but having good children don't make one care less about them," said Mrs. Rossitur, the tears fairly raining over her fingers.
Hugh pulled the fingers down and again tried the efficacy of his lips.
"And you know Papa thinks most of you, Mamma."
"Ah, your father!" said Mrs. Rossitur shaking her head; "I am afraid it will go hard with him! But I will be happy as long as I have you two, or else I should be a very wicked woman. It only grieves me to think of your education and prospects"
"Fleda's piano, Mamma!" said Hugh, with sudden dismay.
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head again and covered her eyes, while Fleda stretching across to Hugh, gave him, by look and touch, an earnest admonition to let that subject alone. And then, with a sweetness and gentleness like nothing but the breath of the south wind, she wooed her aunt to hope and resignation. Hugh held back, feeling or thinking that Fleda could do it better than he, and watching her progress, as Mrs. Rossitur took her hand from her face and smiled, at first mournfully, and then really mirthfully, in Fleda's face, at some sally that nobody but a nice observer would have seen was got up for the occasion; and it was hardly that, so completely had the child forgotten her own sorrow in ministering to that of another. "Blessed are the peacemakers!" It is always so.
"You are a witch or a fairy," said Mrs. Rossitur, catching her again in her arms "nothing else! You must try your powers of charming upon your uncle."
Fleda laughed without any effort; but as to trying her slight wand upon Mr. Rossitur, she had serious doubts. And the doubts became certainty when they met at dinner; he looked so grave that she dared not attack him. It was a gloomy meal, for the face that should have lighted the whole table cast a shadow there.
Without at all comprehending the whole of her husband's character, the sure magnetism of affection had enabled Mrs. Rossitur to divine his thoughts. Pride was his ruling passion; not such pride as Mr. Carleton's, which was rather like exaggerated self-respect, but wider and more indiscriminate in its choice of objects. It was pride in his family name; pride in his own talents, which were considerable; pride in his family, wife, and children, and all of which he thought did him honour if they had not, his love for them assuredly would have known some diminishing; pride in his wealth, and in the attractions with which it surrounded him; and, lastly, pride in the skill, taste, and connoisseurship which enabled him to bring those attractions together. Furthermore, his love for both literature and art was true and strong; and for many years he had accustomed himself to lead a life of great luxuriousness, catering for body and mind in every taste that could be elegantly enjoyed; and again proud of the elegance of every enjoyment. The change of circumstances which touched his pride, wounded him at every point where he was vulnerable at all.
Fleda had never felt so afraid of him. She was glad to see Dr. Gregory come in to tea. Mr. Rossitur was not there. The Doctor did not touch upon affairs, if he had heard of their misfortune; he went on as usual in a rambling cheerful way all tea-time, talking mostly to Fleda and Hugh. But after tea he talked no more, but sat still and waited till the master of the house came in.
Fleda thought Mr. Rossitur did not look glad to see him. But how could he look glad about anything? He did not sit down, and for a few minutes there was a kind of meaning silence. Fleda sat in the corner with the heartache, to see her uncle's gloomy tramp up and down the rich apartment, and her aunt Lucy's gaze at him.
"Humph! well! So!" said the Doctor, at last, "You've all gone overboard with a smash, I understand?"
The walker gave him no regard.
"True, is it?" said the doctor.
Mr. Rossitur made no answer, unless a smothered grunt might be taken for one.
"How came it about?"
"Folly and devilry."
"Humph! bad capital to work upon. I hope the principal is gone with the interest. What's the amount of your loss?"
"Ruin."
"Humph! French ruin, or American ruin? because there's a difference. What do you mean?"
"I am not so happy as to understand you, Sir; but we shall not pay seventy cents, on the dollar."
The old gentleman got up, and stood before the fire, with his back to Mr. Rossitur, saying, "That was rather bad."
"What are you going to do?"
Mr. Rossitur hesitated a few moments for an answer, and then said
"Pay the seventy cents, and begin the world anew with nothing."
"Of course," said the doctor. "I understand that; but where and how? What end of the world will you take up first?."
Mr. Rossitur writhed in impatience or disgust, and after again hesitating, answered drily, that he had not determined.
"Have you thought of anything in particular?"
"Zounds! no, Sir, nothing except my misfortune. That's enough for one day."
"And too much," said the old doctor, "unless you can mix some other thought with it. That's what I came for. Will you go into business?"
Fleda was startled by the vehemence with which her uncle said,"No, never!" and he presently added, "I'll do nothing here."
"Well, well," said the doctor to himself; "will you go into the country?"
"Yes! anywhere! the further the better."
Mrs. Rossitur startled, but her husband's face did not encourage her to open her lips.
"Ay; but on a farm, I mean?"
"On anything, that will give me a standing."
"I thought that, too," said Dr. Gregory, now whirling about. "I have a fine piece of land that wants a tenant. You may take it at an easy rate, and pay me when the crops come in. I shouldn't expect so young a farmer, you know, to keep any closer terms."
"How far is it?"
"Far enough up in Wyandot County."
"How large?"
"A matter of two or three hundred acres of so. It is very fine, they say. It came into a fellow's hands that owed me what I thought was a bad debt: so, for fear he would never pay me, I thought best to take it and pay him; whether the place will ever fill my pockets again remains to be seen doubtful, I think."
"I'll take it, Dr. Gregory, and see if I cannot bring that about."
"Pooh, pooh! fill your own. I am not careful about it; the less money one has the more it jingles, unless it gets too low, indeed."
"I will take it, Dr. Gregory, and feel myself under obligation to you."
"No, I told you, not till the crops come in. No obligation is binding till the term is up. Well, I'll see you further about it."
"But Rolf!" said Mrs. Rossitur, "stop a minute; uncle, don't go yet; Rolf don't know anything in the world about the management of a farm; neither do I."
"The 'faire Una' can enlighten you," said the doctor, waving his hand towards his little favourite in the corner. "But I forgot! Well, if you don't know, the crops wont come in; that's all the difference."
But Mrs. Rossitur looked anxiously at her husband. "Do you know exactly what you are undertaking, Rolf!" she said.
"If I do not, I presume I shall discover in time."
"But it may be too late," said Mrs. Rossitur, in the tone of sad remonstrance that had gone all the length it dared.
"It can not be too late!" said her husband, impatiently. "If I do not know what I am taking up, I know very well what I am laying down; and it does not signify a straw what comes after if it was a snail-shell, that would cover my head!"
"Hum " said the old doctor, "the snail is very well in his way, but I have no idea that he was ever cut out for a farmer."
"Do you think you will find it a business you would like, Mr.Rossitur?" said his wife, timidly.
"I tell you," said he, facing about, "it is not a question of liking. I will like anything that will bury me out of the world."
Poor Mrs. Rossitur! She had not yet come to wishing herself buried alive, and she had small faith in the permanence of her husband's taste for it. She looked desponding.
"You don't suppose," said Mr. Rossitur, stopping again in the middle of the floor, after another turn and a half "you do not suppose that I am going to take the labouring of the farm upon myself? I shall employ some one, of course, who understands the matter, to take all that off my hands."
The doctor thought of the old proverb, and the alternative the plough presents to those who would thrive by it; Fleda thought of Mr. Didenhover; Mrs. Rossitur would fain have suggested that such an important person must be well paid; but neither of them spoke.
"Of course," said Mr. Rossitur, haughtily, as he went on with his walk, "I do not expect, any more than you, to live in the back woods the life we have been leading here. That is at an end."
"Is it a very wild country?" asked Mrs. Rossitur of the doctor.
"No wild beasts, my dear, if that is your meaning and I do not suppose there are even many snakes left by this time."
"No, but, dear uncle, I mean, is it in all unsettled state?"
"No, my dear, not at all perfectly quiet."
"Ah! but do not play with me," exclaimed poor Mrs. Rossitur, between laughing and crying; "I mean, is it far from any town, and not among neighbours?"
"Far enough to be out of the way of morning calls," said the doctor; "and when your neighbours come to see you, they will expect tea by four o'clock. There are not a great many near by, but they don't mind coming from five or six miles off."
Mrs. Rossitur looked chilled, and horrified. To her he had described a very wild country indeed. Fleda would have laughed if it had not been for her aunt's face; but that settled down into a doubtful anxious look that pained her. It pained the old doctor too.
"Come," said he, touching her pretty chin with his fore-finger "what are you thinking of? folks may be good folks, and yet have tea at four o'clock, mayn't they?"
"When do they have dinner!" said Mrs. Rossitur.
"I really don't know. When you get settled up there, I'll come and see."
"Hardly," said Mrs. Rossitur. "I don't believe it would be possible for Emile to get dinner before the tea-time; and I am sure I shouldn't like to propose such a thing to Mrs. Renney."
The doctor fidgeted about a little on the hearth-rug, and looked comical, perfectly understood by one acute observer in the corner.
"Are you wise enough to imagine, Lucy," said Mr. Rossitur, sternly, "that you can carry your whole establishment with you? What do you suppose Emile and Mrs. Renney would do in a farmhouse?"
"I can do without whatever you can," said Mrs. Rossitur, meekly. "I did not know that you would be willing to part with Emile, and I do not think Mrs. Renney would like to leave us."
"I told you before, it is no more a question of liking," answered he.
"And if it were," said the doctor, "I have no idea thatMonsieur Emile and Madame Renney would be satisfied with thestyle of a country kitchen, or think the interior ofYankeeland a hopeful sphere for their energies."
"What sort of a house is it?" said Mrs. Rossitur.
"A wooden-frame house, I believe."
"No, but, dear uncle, do tell me."
"What sort of a house? Humph large enough, I am told. It will accommodate you in one way."
"Comfortable?"
"I don't know," said the doctor, shaking his head "depends on who's in it. No house is that per se. But I reckon there isn't much plate glass. I suppose you'll find the doors all painted blue, and every fireplace with a crane in it."
"A crane!" said Mrs. Rossitur, to whose imagination the word suggested nothing but a large water-bird with a long neck.
"Ay!" said the doctor. "But it's just as well. You wont want hanging lamps there and candelabra would hardly be in place either, to hold tallow candles."
"Tallow candles!" exclaimed Mrs. Rossitur. Her husband winced, but said nothing.
"Ay," said the doctor, again "and make them yourself, if you are a good housewife. Come, Lucy," said he, taking her hand, "do you know how the wild fowl do on the Chesapeake? duck and swim under water till they can show their heads with safety. 'T wont spoil your eyes to see by a tallow candle."
Mrs. Rossitur half smiled, but looked anxiously towards her husband.
"Pooh, pooh! Rolf wont care what the light burns that lights him to independence and when you get there, you may illuminate with a whole whale if you like. By the way, Rolf, there is a fine water power up yonder, and a saw-mill in good order, they tell me, but a short way from the house. Hugh might learn to manage it, and it would be fine employment for him."
"Hugh!" said his mother, disconsolately. Mr. Rossitur neither spoke nor looked an answer. Fleda sprang forward.
"A saw-mill! Uncle Orrin! where is it?"
"Just a little way from the house, they say. You can't manage it, fair Saxon! though you look as if you would undertake all the mills in creation, for a trifle."
"No, but the place, uncle Orrin; where is the place?"
"The place? Hum why it's up in Wyandot County some five or six miles from the Montepoole Spring what's this they call it? Queechy! By the way!" said he, reading Fleda's countenance, "it is the very place where your father was born! it is! I didn't think of that before."
Fleda's hands were clasped.
"Oh, I am very glad!" she said. "It's my old home. It is the most lovely place, aunt Lucy! most lovely and we shall have some good neighbours there too. Oh, I am very glad! The dear old saw-mill! "
"Dear old saw-mill!" said the doctor, looking at her. "Rolf, I'll tell you what, you shall give me this girl. I want her. I can take better care of her, perhaps, now, than you can. Let her come to me when you leave the city it will be better for her than to help work the saw-mill; and I have as good a right to her as anybody, for Amy before her was like my own child."
The doctor spoke not with his usual light jesting manner, but very seriously. Hugh's lips parted Mrs. Rossitur looked with a sad thoughtful look at Fleda Mr. Rossitur walked up and down looking at nobody. Fleda watched him.
"What does Fleda herself say?" said he, stopping short suddenly. His face softened, and his eye changed as it fell upon her, for the first time that day. Fleda saw her opening; she came to him, within his arms, and laid her head upon his breast.
"What does Fleda say?" said he, softly kissing her.
Fleda's tears said a good deal, that needed no interpreter. She felt her uncle's hand passed more and more tenderly over her head so tenderly that it made it all the more difficult for her to govern herself and stop her tears. But she did stop them, and looked up at him then with such a face so glowing through smiles and tears it was like a very rainbow of hope upon the cloud of their prospects. Mr. Rossitur felt the power of the sunbeam wand; it reached his heart; it was even with a smile that he said, as he looked at her
"Will you go to your uncle Orrin, Fleda?"
"Not if uncle Rolf will keep me."
"Keep you!" said Mr. Rossitur; "I should like to see who wouldn't keep you! There, Dr. Gregory, you have your answer."
"Hum! I might have known," said the doctor, "that the 'faire Una' would abjure cities. Come here, you Elf!" and he wrapped her in his arms so tight she could not stir "I have a spite against you for this. What amends will you make me for such an affront?"
"Let me take breath," said Fleda, laughing, "and I'll tell you. You don't want any amends, uncle Orrin."
"Well," said he, gazing with more feeling than he cared to show into that sweet face, so innocent of apology-making you shall promise me that you will not forget uncle Orrin, and the old house in Bleecker Street."
Fleda's eyes grew more wistful.
"And will you promise me that if ever you want anything, you will come, or send straight there?"
"If ever I want anything I can't get nor do without," saidFleda.
"Pshaw!" said the doctor, letting her go, but laughing at the same time. " Mind my words, Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur if ever that girl takes the wrong bit in her mouth Well, well! I'll go home."
Home he went. The rest drew together particularly near, round the fire Hugh at his father's shoulder, and Fleda kneeling on the rug, between her uncle and aunt, with a hand on each; and there was not one of them whose gloom was not lightened by her bright face and cheerful words of hope, that, in the new scenes they were going to, "they would all be so happy."
The days that followed were gloomy, but Fleda's ministry was unceasing. Hugh seconded her well, though more passively. Feeling less pain himself, he perhaps for that very reason was less acutely alive to it in others not so quick to foresee and ward off, not so skilful to allay it. Fleda seemed to have intuition for the one and a charm for the other. To her there was pain in every parting; her sympathies clung to whatever wore the livery of habit. There was hardly any piece of furniture, there was no book or marble or picture, that she could take leave of without a pang. But it was kept to herself; her sorrowful good-byes were said in secret; before others, in all those weeks, she was a very Euphrosyne light, bright, cheerful of eye, and foot, and hand a shield between her aunt and every annoyance that she could take instead a good little fairy, that sent her sunbeam wand, quick as a flash, where any eye rested gloomily. People did not always find out where the light came from, but it was her witchery.
The creditors would touch none of Mrs. Rossitur's things, her husband's honourable behaviour had been so thorough. They even presented him with one or two pictures, which he sold for a considerable sum; and to Mrs. Rossitur they gave up all the plate in daily use, a matter of great rejoicing to Fleda, who knew well how sorely it would have been missed. She and her aunt had quite a little library, too, of their own private store; a little one it was indeed, but the worth of every volume was now trebled in her eyes. Their furniture was all left behind; and in its stead went some of neat light painted wood, which looked to Fleda deliciously countrified. A promising cook and housemaid were engaged to go with them to the wilds, and about the first of April they turned their backs upon the city.
"The thresher's weary flinging-treeThe lee-lang day had tired me:And whan the day had closed his e'e,Far i' the west,Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,I gaed to rest."BURNS.
Queechy was reached at night. Fleda had promised herself to beoff almost with the dawn of light the next morning to see auntMiriam, but a heavy rain kept her fast at home the whole day.It was very well; she was wanted there.
Despite the rain and her disappointment it was impossible for Fleda to lie abed from the time the first grey light began to break in at her windows those old windows that had rattled their welcome to her all night. She was up and dressed, and had had a long consultation with herself over matters and prospects before anybody else had thought of leaving the indubitable comfort of a feather bed for the doubtful contingency of happiness that awaited them down stairs. Fleda took in the whole length and breadth of it, half wittingly and half through some finer sense than that of the understanding.
The first view of things could not strike them pleasantly; it was not to be looked for. The doors did not happen to be painted blue; they were a deep chocolate colour doors and wainscot. The fire-places were not all furnished with cranes, but they were all uncouthly wide and deep. Nobody would have thought them so indeed in the winter, when piled up with blazing hickory logs; but in summer they yawned uncomfortably upon the eye. The ceilings were low; the walls rough papered or rougher whitewashed; the sashes not hung; the rooms, otherwise well enough proportioned, stuck with little cupboards, in recesses and corners, and out-of-the-way places, in a style impertinently suggestive of housekeeping, and fitted to shock any symmetrical set of nerves. The old house had undergone a thorough putting in order, it is true; the chocolate paint was just dry, and the paper-hangings freshly put up; and the bulk of the new furniture had been sent on before and unpacked, though not a single article of it was in its right place. The house was clean and tight that is, as tight as it ever was. But the colour had been unfortunately chosen perhaps there was no help for that; the paper was very coarse and countrified; the big windows were startling, they looked so bare, without any manner of drapery; and the long reaches of wall were unbroken by mirror or picture-frame. And this to eyes trained to eschew ungracefulness and that abhorred a vacuum as much as nature is said to do! Even Fleda felt there was something disagreeable in the change, though it reached her more through the channel of other people's sensitiveness than her own. To her it was the dear old house still, though her eyes had seen better things since they loved it. No corner or recess could have a pleasanter filling, to her fancy, than the old brown cupboard or shelves which had always been there. But what would her uncle say to them! and to that dismal paper! and what would aunt Lucy think of those rattling window sashes! this cool raw day, too, for the first!
Think as she might, Fleda did not stand still to think. She had gone softly all over the house, taking a strange look at the old places and the images with which memory filled them, thinking of the last time, and many a time before that and she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long before anybody else was down stairs; the two tired servants were just rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen, and speculating themselves awake. Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a decent breakfast (by the way she grudged them the old kitchen), Fleda set about trying what her wand could do towards brightening the face of affairs in the other part of the house. It was quite cold enough for a fire, luckily. She ordered one to be made, and meanwhile busied herself with the various stray packages and articles of wearing apparel that lay scattered about, giving the whole place a look of discomfort. Fleda gathered them up, and bestowed them in one or two of the impertinent cupboards, and then undertook the labour of carrying out all the wrong furniture that had got into the breakfast-room, and bringing in that which really belonged there from the hall and the parlour beyond, moving like a mouse that she might not disturb the people up stairs. A quarter of an hour was spent in arranging to the best advantage these various pieces of furniture in the room; it was the very same in which Mr. Carleton and Charlton Rossitur had been received the memorable day of the roast-pig dinner, but that was not the uppermost association in Fleda's mind. Satisfied at last that a happier effect could not be produced with the given materials, and well pleased too, with her success, Fleda turned to the fire. It was made, but not by any means doing its part to encourage the other portions of the room to look their best. Fleda knew something of wood fires from old times; she laid hold of the tongs, and touched and loosened and coaxed a stick here and there, with a delicate hand, till, seeing the very opening it had wanted without which neither fire nor hope can keep its activity the blaze sprang up energetically, crackling through all the piled oak and hickory, and driving the smoke clean out of sight. Fleda had done her work. It would have been a misanthropical person indeed that could have come into the room then, and not felt his face brighten. One other thing remained setting the breakfast-table; and Fleda would let no hands but hers do it this morning; she was curious about the setting of tables. How she remembered or divined where everything had been stowed; how quietly and efficiently her little fingers unfastened hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table- linen was found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid in most exquisite order on the table. State Street never saw better. Fleda stood and looked at it then, in immense satisfaction, seeing that her uncle's eye would miss nothing of its accustomed gratification. To her the old room, shining with firelight and new furniture, was perfectly charming. If those great windows were staringly bright, health and cheerfulness seemed to look in at them. And what other images of association, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," looked at her out of the curling flames in the old wide fire- place! And one other angel stood there unseen the one whose errand it is to see fulfilled the promise, "Give, and it shall be given to you; full measure, and pressed down, and heaped up, and running over."
A little while Fleda sat contentedly eyeing her work; then a new idea struck her and she sprang up. In the next meadow, only one fence between, a little spring of purest water ran through from the woodland; water-cresses used to grow there. Uncle Rolf was very fond of them. It was pouring with rain; but no matter. Her heart beating between haste and delight, Fleda slipped her feet into galoches, and put an old cloak of Hugh's over her head, and ran out through the kitchen, the old accustomed way. The servants exclaimed and entreated, but Fleda only flashed a bright look at them from under her cloak as she opened the door, and ran off, over the wet grass, under the fence, and over half the meadow, till she came to the stream. She was getting a delicious taste of old times; and though the spring water was very cold, and with it and the rain one-half of each sleeve was soon thoroughly wetted, she gathered her cresses, and scampered back with a pair of eyes and cheeks that might have struck any city belle chill with envy.
"Then, but that's a sweet girl!" said Mary the cook to Jane the housemaid.
"A lovely countenance she has," answered Jane, who was refined in her speech.
"Take her away, and you've taken the best of the house, I'm a thinking."
"Mrs. Rossitur is a lady," said Jane, in a low voice.
"Ay, and a very proper behaved one she is, and him the same, that is, for a gentleman I mean; but Jane; I say, I'm thinking he'll have eat too much sour bread lately! I wish I knowed how they'd have their eggs boiled till I'd have them ready."
"Sure it's on the table itself they'll do 'em," said Jane."They've an elegant little fixture in there for the purpose."
"Is that it!"
Nobody found out how busy Fleda's wand had been in the old breakfast-room. But she was not disappointed; she had not worked for praise. Her cresses were appreciated; that was enough. She enjoyed her breakfast the only one of the party that did. Mr. Rossitur looked moody; his wife looked anxious; and Hugh's face was the reflection of theirs. If Fleda's face reflected anything, it was the sunlight of heaven.
"How sweet the air is after New York!" said she.
They looked at her. There was a fresh sweetness of another kind about that breakfast-table. They all felt it, and breathed more freely.
"Delicious cresses!' said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Yes; I wonder where they came from," said her husband. "Who got them?"
"I guess Fleda knows," said Hugh.
"They grow in a little stream of spring water over here in the meadow," said Fleda, demurely.
"Yes, but you don't answer my question," said her uncle, putting his hand under her chin, and smiling at the blushing face he brought round to view. "Who got them?"
"I did."
"You have been out in the rain?"
"Oh, Queechy rain don't hurt me, uncle Rolf."
"And don't it wet you either?"
"Yes, Sir a little."
"How much?"
"My sleeves oh, I dried them long ago."
"Don't you repeat that experiment, Fleda," said he, seriously, but with a look that was a good reward to her, nevertheless.
"It is a raw day!" said Mrs. Rossitur, drawing her shoulders together, as an ill-disposed window-sash gave one of its admonitory shakes.
"What little panes of glass for such big windows!" said Hugh.
"But what a pleasant prospect through them," said Fleda "look, Hugh! worth all the Batteries and Parks in the world."
"In the world! in New York, you mean," said her uncle. "Not better than the Champs Elysées?"
"Better to me," said Fleda.
"For to-day I must attend to the prospect in-doors," said Mrs.Rossitur.
"Now, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, "you are just going to put yourself down in the corner, in the rocking-chair there, with your book, and make yourself comfortable; and Hugh and I will see to all these things. Hugh and I and Mary and Jane that makes quite an army of us, and we can do everything without you, and you must just keep quiet. I'll build you up a fine fire, and then, when I don't know what to do, I will come to you for orders. Uncle Rolf, would you be so good as just to open that box of books in the hall, because I am afraid Hugh isn't strong enough. I'll take care of you, aunt Lucy."
Fleda's plans were not entirely carried out, but she contrived pretty well to take the brunt of the business on her own shoulders. She was as busy as a bee the whole day. To her all the ins and outs of the house, its advantages and disadvantages, were much better known than to anybody else; nothing could be done but by her advice; and, more than that, she contrived by some sweet management to baffle Mrs. Rossitur's desire to spare her, and to bear the larger half of every burden that should have come upon her aunt. What she had done in the breakfast-room, she did or helped to do in the other parts of the house; she unpacked boxes and put away clothes and linen, in which Hugh was her excellent helper; she arranged her uncle's dressing-table with a scrupulosity that left nothing uncared-for; and the last thing before tea she and Hugh dived into the book-box to get out some favourite volumes to lay upon the table in the evening, that the room might not look to her uncle quite so dismally bare. He had been abroad, notwithstanding the rain, near the whole day.
It was a weary party that gathered round the supper-table that night weary, it seemed, as much in mind as in body; and the meal exerted its cheering influence over only two of them; Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur sipped their cups of tea abstractedly.
"I don't believe that fellow, Donohan, knows much about his business," remarked the former at length.
"Why don't you get somebody else, then?" said his wife.
"I happen to have engaged him, unfortunately."
A pause.
"What doesn't he know?"
Mr. Rossitur laughed, not a pleasant laugh.
"It would take too long to enumerate. If you had asked me what part of his business he does understand, I could have told you shortly that I don't know."
"But you do not understand it very well yourself. Are you sure?"
"Am I sure of what?"
"That this man does not know his business?"
"No further sure than I can have confidence in my own common sense."
"What will you do?" said Mrs. Rossitur, after a moment.
A question men are not fond of answering, especially when they have not made up their minds. Mr. Rossitur was silent, and his wife too, after that.
"If I could get some long-headed Yankee to go along with him," he remarked again, balancing his spoon on the edge of his cup, in curious illustration of his own mental position at the moment Donohan being the only fixed point, and all the rest wavering in uncertainty. There were a few silent minutes before anybody answered.
"If you want one, and don't know of one, uncle Rolf," saidFleda, "I dare say cousin Seth might."
That gentle modest speech brought his attention round upon her. His face softened.
"Cousin Seth? who is cousin Seth?"
"He is aunt Miriam's son," said Fleda. "Seth Plumfield. He's a very good farmer, I know; grandpa used to say he was; and he knows everybody."
"Mrs. Plumfield," said Mrs. Rossitur, as her husband's eyes went inquiringly to her "Mrs. Plumfield was Mr. Ringgan's sister, you remember. This is her son."
"Cousin Seth, eh?" said Mr. Rossitur, dubiously. " Well Why,Fleda, your sweet air don't seem to agree with you, as far asI see; I have not known you look so so triste since weleft Paris. What have you been doing, my child?"
"She has been doing everything, father," said Hugh.
"Oh! it's nothing," said Fleda, answering Mr. Rossitur's look and tone of affection with a bright smile. " I'm a little tired, that's all!"
"A little tired!' She went to sleep on the sofa directly after supper, and slept like a baby all the evening; but her power did not sleep with her; for that quiet, sweet, tired face, tired in their service, seemed to bear witness against the indulgence of anything harsh or unlovely in the same atmosphere. A gentle witness-bearing, but strong in its gentleness. They sat close together round the fire, talked softly, and from time to time cast loving glances at the quiet little sleeper by their side. They did not know that she was a fairy, and that though her wand had fallen out of her hand it was still resting upon them.
"Gon. Here is everything advantageous to life.Ant. True; save means to live." TEMPEST.
Fleda's fatigue did not prevent her being up before sunrise the next day. Fatigue was forgotten, for the light of a fair spring morning was shining in at her windows, and she meant to see aunt Miriam before breakfast. She ran out to find Hugh, and her merry shout reached him before she did, and brought him to meet her.
"Come, Hugh! I'm going off up to aunt Miriam's, and I want you. Come! Isn't this delicious?"
"Hush!" said Hugh. " Father's just here in the barn. I can't go, Fleda."
Fleda's countenance clouded.
"Can't go! what's the matter? can't you go, Hugh?"
He shook his head, and went off into the barn.
A chill came upon Fleda. She turned away with a very sober step. What if her uncle was in the barn, why should she hush? He never had been a check upon her merriment never; what was coming now? Hugh, too, looked disturbed. It was a spring morning no longer. Fleda forgot the glittering wet grass that had set her own eyes a-sparkling but a minute ago; she walked along, cogitating, swinging her bonnet by the strings in thoughtful vibration, till, by the help of sunlight and sweet air, and the loved scenes, her spirits again made head and swept over the sudden hindrance they had met. There were the blessed old sugar maples, seven in number, that fringed the side of the road how well Fleda knew them! Only skeletons now, but she remembered how beautiful they looked after the October frosts; and presently they would be putting out their new green leaves, and be beautiful in another way. How different in their free-born luxuriance from the dusty and city-prisoned elms and willows she had left! She came to the bridge then, and stopped with a thrill of pleasure and pain to look and listen. Unchanged! all but herself. The mill was not going; the little brook went by quietly chattering to itself, just as it had done the last time she saw it, when she rode past on Mr. Carleton's horse. Four and a half years ago! And now how strange that she had come to live there again.
Drawing a long breath, and swinging her bonnet again, Fleda softly went on up the hill, past the saw-mill, the ponds, the factories, the houses of the settlement. The same, and not the same! Bright with the morning sun, and yet, somehow, a little browner and homelier than of old they used to be. Fleda did not care for that she would hardly acknowledge it to herself her affection never made any discount for infirmity. Leaving the little settlement behind her thoughts as behind her back, she ran on now towards aunt Miriam's, breathlessly, till field after field was passed, and her eye caught a bit of the smooth lake, and the old farm-house in its old place. Very brown it looked, but Fleda dashed on, through the garden, and in at the front door.
Nobody at all was in the entrance-room, the common sitting- room of the family. With trembling delight, Fleda opened the well-known door, and stole noiselessly through the little passage-way to the kitchen. The door of that was only on the latch, and a gentle movement of it gave to Fleda's eye the tall figure of aunt Miriam, just before her, stooping down to look in at the open mouth of the oven, which she was at that moment engaged in supplying with more work to do. It was a huge one, and, beyond her aunt's head, Fleda could see in the far end the great loaves of bread, half baked, and more near a perfect squad of pies and pans of gingerbread just going in to take the benefit of the oven's milder mood. Fleda saw all this, as it were, without seeing it; she stood still as a mouse and breathless, till her aunt turned, and then a spring and a half shout of joy, and she had clasped her in her arms, and was crying with her whole heart. Aunt Miriam was taken all aback she could do nothing but sit down and cry too, and forgot her oven-door."
"Aint breakfast ready yet, mother?" said a manly voice coming in. "I must be off to see after them ploughs. Hollo why, mother!"
The first exclamation was uttered as the speaker put the door to the oven's mouth; the second as he turned in quest of the hand that should have done it. He stood wondering, while his mother and Fleda, between laughing and crying, tried to rouse themselves and look up.
"What is all this?"
"Don't you see, Seth?"
"I see somebody that had like to have spoiled your whole baking I don't know who it is yet."
"Don't you now, cousin Seth?" said Fleda, shaking away her tears and getting up.
"I ha'n't quite lost my recollection. Cousin, you must give me a kiss. How do you do! You ha'n't forgot how to colour, I see, for all you've been so long among the pale city folks."
"I hav'n't forgotten anything, cousin Seth," said Fleda, blushing indeed, but laughing and shaking his hand with as hearty good-will.
"I don't believe you have anything that is good," said he."Where have you been all this while?"
"Oh, part of the time in New York, and part of the time inParis, and some other places."
"Well, you ha'n't seen anything better than Queechy, orQueechy bread and butter, have you?"
"No, indeed!"
"Come, you shall give me another kiss for that," said he, suiting the action to the word; "and now sit down and eat as much bread and butter as you can. It's just as good as it used to be. Come, mother, I guess breakfast is ready by the looks of that coffee-pot."
"Breakfast ready!" said Fleda.
"Ay indeed; it's a good half-hour since it ought to ha' been ready. If it aint, I can't stop for it. Them boys will be running their furrows like sarpents if I aint there to start them."
"Which like sarpents," said Fleda, "the furrows or the men?"
"Well, I was thinking of the furrows," said he, glancing at her. "I guess there aint cunning enough in the others to trouble them. Come, sit down, and let me see whether you have forgot a Queechy appetite."
"I don't know," said Fleda, doubtfully; "they will expect me at home."
"I don't care who expects you sit down! you aint going to eat any bread and butter this morning but my mother's you haven't got any like it at your house. Mother, give her a cup of coffee, will you, and set her to work."
Fleda was too willing to comply with the invitation, were it only for the charm of old times. She had not seen such a table for years, and little as the conventionalities of delicate taste were known there, it was not without a comeliness of its own in its air of wholesome abundance and the extreme purity of all its arrangements. If but a piece of cold pork were on aunt Miriam's table, it was served with a nicety that would not have offended the most fastidious; and amid irregularities that the fastidious would scorn, there was a sound excellence of material and preparation that they very often fail to know. Fleda made up her mind she would be wanted at home; all the rather, perhaps, for Hugh's mysterious "hush;" and there was something in the hearty kindness and truth of these friends that she felt particularly genial. And if there was a lack of silver at the board, its place was more than filled with the pure gold of association. They sat down to table, but aunt Miriam's eyes devoured Fleda. Mr. Plumfield set about his more material breakfast with all despatch.
"So Mr. Rossitur has left the city for good?" said auntMiriam. "How does he like it?"
"He hasn't been here but a day, you know, aunt Miriam," saidFleda evasively.
"Is he anything of a farmer?" asked her cousin.
"Not much," said Fleda.
"Is he going to work the farm himself?"
"How do you mean?"
"I mean, is he going to work the farm himself, or hire it out, or let somebody else work it on shares?"
"I don't know," said Fleda "I think he is going to have a farmer, and oversee things himself."
"He'll get sick o' that," said Seth; "unless he's the luck to get hold of just the right hand."
"Has he hired anybody yet?" said aunt Miriam, after a little interval of supplying Fleda with "bread and butter."
"Yes, Ma'am, I believe so."
"What's his name?"
"Donohan an Irishman, I believe; uncle Rolf hired him in NewYork."
"For his head man?" said Seth, with a sufficiently intelligible look.
"Yes," said Fleda. "Why?"
But he did not immediately answer her.
"The land's in poor heart now," said he, "a good deal of it; it has been wasted; it wants first-rate management to bring it in order, and make much of it for two or three years to come. I never see an Irishman's head yet that was worth more than a joke. Their hands are all of 'em that's good for anything."
"I believe uncle Rolf wants to have an American to go with this man," said Fleda.
Seth said nothing; but Fleda understood the shake of his head as he reached over after a pickle.
"Are you going to keep a dairy, Fleda?" said her aunt.
"I don't know, Ma'am I haven't heard anything about it."
"Does Mrs. Rossitur know anything about country affairs?"
"No nothing," Fleda said, her heart sinking perceptibly with every new question.
"She hasn't any cows yet?"
She? any cows! But Fleda only said they had not come; she believed they were coming.
"What help has she got?"
"Two women Irishwomen," said Fleda.
"Mother, you'll have to take hold and learn her," said Mr.Plumfield.
"Teach her?" cried Fleda, repelling the idea "aunt Lucy? she cannot do anything she isn't strong enough; not anything of that kind."
"What did she come here for?" said Seth.
"You know," said his mother, "that Mr. Rossitur's circumstances obliged him to quit New York."
"Ay, but that aint my question. A man had better keep his fingers off anything he can't live by. A farm's one thing or t'other, just as it's worked. The land wont grow specie it must be fetched out of it. Is Mr. Rossitur a smart man?"
"Very," Fleda said, "about everything but farming."
"Well, if he'll put himself to school, maybe he'll learn," Seth concluded, as he finished his breakfast and went off. Fleda rose too, and was standing thoughtfully by the fire, when aunt Miriam came up and put her arms round her. Fleda's eyes sparkled again.
"You're not changed you're the same little Fleda," she said.
"Not quite so little," said Fleda, smiling.
"Not quite so little, but my own darling. The world hasn't spoiled thee yet."
"I hope not, aunt Miriam."
"You have remembered your mother's prayer, Fleda?"
"Always!"
How tenderly aunt Miriam's hand was passed over the bowed headhow fondly she pressed her! And Fleda's answer was as fond.
"I wanted to bring Hugh up to see you, aunt Miriam, with me, but he couldn't come. You will like Hugh. He is so good!"
"I will come down and see him," said aunt Miriam; and then she went to look after her oven's doings. Fleda stood by, amused to see the quantities of nice things that were rummaged out of it. They did not look like Mrs. Renney's work, but she knew from old experience that they were good.
"How early you must have been up to put these things in," saidFleda.
"Put them in! yes, and make them. These were all made this morning, Fleda."
"This morning! before breakfast! Why, the sun was only just rising when I set out to come up the hill, and I wasn't long coming, aunt Miriam."
"To be sure; that's the way to get things done. Before breakfast! What time do you breakfast, Fleda?"
"Not till eight or nine o'clock."
"Eight or nine! Here?"
"There hasn't been any change made yet, and I don't suppose there will be. Uncle Rolf is always up early, but he can't bear to have breakfast early."
Aunt Miriam's face showed what she thought; and Fleda went away with all its gravity and doubt settled like lead upon her heart. Though she had one of the identical apple pies in her hands, which aunt Miriam had quietly said was for "her and Hugh," and though a pleasant savour of old times was about it, Fleda could not get up again the bright feeling with which she had come up the hill. There was a miserable misgiving at heart. It would work off in time.
It had begun to work off, when, at the foot of the hill, she met her uncle. He was coming after her to ask Mr. Plumfield about the desideratum of a Yankee. Fleda put her pie in safety behind a rock, and turned back with him, and aunt Miriam told them the way to Seth's ploughing ground.
A pleasant word or two had set Fleda's spirits a-bounding again, and the walk was delightful. Truly the leaves were not on the trees, but it was April, and they soon would be; there was promise in the light, and hope in the air, and everything smelt of the country and spring-time. The soft tread of the sod, that her foot had not felt for so long, the fresh look of the newly-turned earth; here and there the brilliance of a field of winter grain, and that nameless beauty of the budding trees, that the full luxuriance of summer can never equal Fleda's heart was springing for sympathy. And to her, with whom association was everywhere so strong, there was in it all a shadowy presence of her grandfather, with whom she had so often seen the spring-time bless those same hills and fields long ago. She walked on in silence, as her manner commonly was when deeply pleased; there were hardly two persons to whom she would speak her mind freely then. Mr. Rossitur had his own thoughts.
"Can anything equal the spring-time?" she burst forth at length.
Her uncle looked at her and smiled. "Perhaps not; but it is one thing," said he, sighing, "for taste to enjoy, and another thing for calculation to improve."
"But one can do both, can't one?" said Fleda, brightly.
"I don't know," said he, sighing again. "Hardly."
Fleda knew he was mistaken, and thought the sighs out of place. But they reached her; and she had hardly condemned them before they set her off upon a long train of excuses for him, and she had wrought herself into quite a fit of tenderness by the time they reached her cousin.
They found him on a gentle side-hill, with two other men and teams, both of whom were stepping away in different parts of the field. Mr. Plumfield was just about setting off to work his way to the other side of the lot, when they came up with him.
Fleda was not ashamed of her aunt Miriam's son, even before such critical eyes as those of her uncle. Farmer-like as were his dress and air, they showed him, nevertheless, a well- built, fine-looking man, with the independent bearing of one who has never recognised any but mental or moral superiority. His face might have been called handsome; there was at least manliness in every line of it; and his excellent dark eye showed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. Let Mr. Plumfield wear what clothes he would, one felt obliged to follow Burns' notable example, and pay respect to the man that was in them.
"A fine day, Sir," he remarked to Mr. Rossitur, after they had shaken hands.
"Yes, and I will not interrupt you but a minute. Mr. Plumfield, I am in want of hands hands for this very business you are about, ploughing and Fleda says you know everybody; so I have come to ask if you can direct me."
" Heads or hands, do you want?" said Seth, clearing his boot- sole from some superfluous soil upon the share of his plough.
"Why both, to tell you the truth. I want bands and teams, for that matter, for I have only two, and I suppose there is no time to be lost. And I want very much to get a person thoroughly acquainted with the business to go along with my man. He is an Irishman, and I am afraid not very well accustomed to the ways of doing things here."
"Like enough," said Seth; " and the worst of 'em is, you can't learn 'em."
"Well! can you help me?"
"Mr. Douglass!" said Seth, raising his voice to speak to one of his assistants who was approaching them "Mr. Douglass! you're holding that 'ere plough a little too obleekly for my grounds."
"Very good, Mr. Plumfield!" said the person called upon, with a quick accent that intimated, "If you don't know what is best, it is not my affair!" the voice very peculiar, seeming to come from no lower than the top of his throat, with a guttural roll of the words.
"Is that Earl Douglass?" said Fleda.
"You remember him?" said her cousin, smiling. "He's just where he was, and his wife too. Well, Mr. Rossitur, 'tain't very easy to find what you want just at this season, when most folks have their hands full, and help is all taken up. I'll see if I can't come down and give you a lift myself with the ploughing, for a day or two, as I'm pretty beforehand with the spring, but you'll want more than that. I ain't sure I haven't more hands than I'll want myself, but I think it is possible Squire Springer may spare you one of his'n. He aint taking in any new land this year, and he's got things pretty snug; I guess he don't care to do any more than common, anyhow, you might try. You know where uncle Joshua lives, Fleda? Well, Philetus what now?"
They had been slowly walking along the fence towards the furthest of Mr. Plumfield's coadjutors, upon whom his eye had been curiously fixed as he was speaking a young man who was an excellent sample of what is called "the raw material." He had just come to a sudden stop in the midst of the furrow when his employer called to him; and he answered, somewhat lack-a- daisically
"Why, I've broke this here clavis: I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing, and it broke right in teu!"
"What do you 'spose 'll be done now?" said Mr. Plumfield, gravely, going up to examine the fracture.
"Well, 't wa'n't none of my doings," said the young man. "I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing, and the mean thing broke right in teu. 'Tain't so handy as the old kind o' plough, by a long jump."
"You go 'long down to the house and ask my mother for a new clavis; and talk about ploughs when you know how to hold 'em," said Mr. Plumfield.
"It don't look so difficult a matter," said Mr. Rossitur, "but I am a novice myself. What is the principal thing to be attended to in ploughing, Mr. Plumfield?"
There was a twinkle in Seth's eye, as he looked down upon a piece of straw he was breaking to bits, which Fleda, who could see, interpreted thoroughly.
"Well," said he, looking up "the breadth of the stitches and the width and depth of the furrow must be regulated according to the nature of the soil and the lay of the ground, and what you're ploughing for. There's stubble-ploughing, and breaking up old leys, and ploughing for fallow crops, and ribbing, where the land has been some years in grass, and so on; and the plough must be geared accordingly, and so as not to take too much land nor go out of the land; and after that the best part of the work is to guide the plough right, and run the furrows straight and even."
He spoke with the most impenetrable gravity, while Mr. Rossitur looked blank and puzzled. Fleda could hardly keep her countenance.
"That row of poles," said Mr. Rossitur, presently, "are they to guide you in running the furrow straight?"
"Yes, Sir, they are to mark out the crown of the stitch. I keep 'em right between the horses, and plough 'em down one after another. It's a kind of way country-folks play at nine- pins," said Seth, with a glance half inquisitive, half sly, at his questioner.
Mr. Rossitur asked no more. Fleda felt a little uneasy again. It was rather a longish walk to uncle Joshua's, and hardly a word spoken on either side.
The old gentleman was "to hum;" and while Fleda went back into some remote part of the house to see "aunt Syra," Mr. Rossitur set forth his errand.
"Well, and so you're looking for help eh?" said uncleJoshua, when he had heard him through.
"Yes, Sir I want help."
"And a team too?"
"So I have said, Sir," Mr. Rossitur answered rather shortly."Can you supply me?"
"Well, I don't know as I can," said the old man, rubbing his hands slowly over his knees. "You ha'n't got much done yet, I s'pose?"
"Nothing. I came the day before yesterday."
"Land's in rather poor condition in some parts, aint it?"
"I really am not able to say, Sir, till I have seen it."
"It ought to be," said the old gentleman, shaking his head, "the fellow that was there last didn't do right by it. He worked the land too hard, and didn't put on it anywhere near what he had ought to; I guess you'll find it pretty poor in some places. He was trying to get all he could out of it, I s'pose. There's a good deal of fencing to be done too, aint there?"
"All that there was, Sir, I have done none since I came."
"Seth Plumfield got through ploughing yet?"
"We found him at it."
"Ay, he's a smart man. What are you going to do, Mr. Rossitur, with that piece of marsh land that lies off to the south east of the barn, beyond the meadow, between the hills? I had just sich another, and I "
"Before I do anything with the wet land, Mr. I am so unhappy as to have forgotten your name "
"Springer, Sir," said the old gentleman, "Springer JoshuaSpringer. That is my name, Sir."
"Mr. Springer, before I do anything with the wet land, I should like to have something growing on the dry; and as that is the present matter in hand, will you be so good as to let me know whether I can have your assistance."
"Well, I don't know," said the old gentleman; "there aint anybody to send but my boy Lucas, and I don't know whether he would make up his mind to go or not."
"Well, Sir!" said Mr. Rossitur, rising, "in that case, I will bid you good morning. I am sorry to have given you the trouble."
"Stop," said the old man, "stop a bit. Just sit down. I'll go in and see about it."
Mr. Rossitur sat down, and uncle Joshua left him to go into the kitchen and consult his wife, without whose counsel, of late years especially, he rarely did anything. They never varied in opinion, but aunt Syra's wits supplied the steel edge to his heavy metal.