"I am sure we can, aunt Miriam. Aunt Lucy's the easiest person in the world to please; and I'll try and keep her away from uncle Rolf. I think we can get along. I know Barby used to like me."
"But then Barby knows nothing about French cooking, my child; she can do nothing but the common, country things. What will your uncle and aunt say to that?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, "but anything is better than nothing. I must try and do what she can't do. I'll come up and get you to teach me, aunt Miriam."
Aunt Miriam hugged and kissed her before speaking.
"I'll teach you what I know, my darling: and now we'll go right off and see Barby we shall catch her just in a good time."
It was a poor little unpainted house, standing back from the road, and with a double row of' boards laid down to serve as a path to it. But this board walk was scrubbed perfectly clean. They went in without knocking. There was nobody there but an old woman seated before the fire, shaking all over with the St. Vitus's Dance. She gave them no salutation, calling instead on "Barby!" who presently made her appearance from the inner door.
"Barby! who's this?"
"That's Mis' Plumfield, mother," said the daughter, speaking loud as to a deaf person.
The old lady immediately got up and dropped a very quick and what was meant to be a very respect-showing courtesy, saying at the same time, with much deference, and with one of her involuntary twitches, "I ' 'maun ' to know!" The sense of the ludicrous and the feeling of pity together, were painfully oppressive. Fleda turned away to the daughter, who came forward and shook hands with a frank look of pleasure at the sight of her elder visitor.
"Barby," said Mrs. Plumfield, "this is little Fleda Ringgan do you remember her?"
"I 'mind to know!" said Barby, transferring her hand to Fleda's, and giving it a good squeeze. "She's growed a fine gal, Mis' Plumfield. You ha'n't lost none of your good looks - ha' you kept all your old goodness along with 'em?"
Fleda laughed at this abrupt question, and said she didn't know.
"If you ha'n't, I wouldn't give much for your eyes," saidBarby, letting go her hand.
Mrs. Plumfield laughed too at Barby's equivocal mode of complimenting.
"Who's that young gal, Barby?" inquired Mrs. Elster.
"That's Mis' Plumfield's niece, mother."
"She's a handsome little creetur, aint she?"
They all laughed at that, and Fleda's cheeks growing crimson, Mrs. Plumfield stepped forward to ask after the old lady's health; and while she talked and listened, Fleda's eyes noted the spotless condition of the room the white table, the nice rag-carpet, the bright many-coloured patchwork counterpane on the bed, the brilliant cleanliness of the floor, where the small carpet left the boards bare, the tidy look of the two women; and she made up her mind that she could get along with Miss Barbara very well. Barby was rather tall, and in face decidedly a fine-looking woman, though her figure had the usual scantling proportions which nature or fashion assigns to the hard-working dwellers in the country. A handsome, quick, gray eye, and the mouth, were sufficiently expressive of character, and perhaps of temper, but there were no lines of anything sinister or surly; you could imagine a flash, but not a cloud.
"Barby, you are not tied at home any longer, are you?" said. Mrs. Plumfield, coming back from the old lady and speaking rather low; "now that Hetty is here, can't your mother spare you?"
"Well, I reckon she could, Mis' Plumfield, if I could work it so that she'd be more comfortable by my being away."
"Then you'd have no objection to go out again?"
"Where to?"
"Fleda's uncle, you know, has taken my brother's old place, and they have no help. They want somebody to take the whole management just you, Barby. Mrs. Rossitur isn't strong."
"Nor don't want to be, does she? I've heerd tell of her, Mis' Plumfield I should despise to have as many legs and arms as other folks, and not be able to help myself!"
"But you wouldn't despise to help other folks, I hope," saidMrs. Plumfield, smiling.
"People that want you very much, too," said Fleda; for she quite longed to have that strong hand and healthy eye to rely upon at home. Barby looked at her with a relaxed face, and, after a little consideration, said she guessed "she'd try."
"Mis' Plumfield," cried the old lady, as they were moving"Mis' Plumfield, you said you'd send me a piece of pork."
"I haven't forgotten it, Mrs. Elster you shall have it."
"Well, you get it out for me yourself," said the old woman, speaking very energetically "don't you send no one else to the barrel for't, because I know you'll give me the biggest piece."
Mrs. Plumfield laughed and promised.
"I'll come up and work it out some odd day," said the daughter, nodding intelligently, as she followed them to the door.
"We'll talk about that," said Mrs. Plumfield.
"She was wonderful pleased with the pie," said Barby, "and so was Hetty; she ha'n't seen anything so good, she says, since she quit Queechy."
"Well, Barby," said Mrs. Plumfield, as she turned and grasped her hand, "did you remember your thanksgiving over it?"
"Yes, Mis' Plumfield," and the fine grey eyes fell to the floor; "but I minded it only because it had come from you. I seemed to hear you saying just that out of every bone I picked."
"You minded my message," said the other, gently.
"Well, I don't mind the things I had ought to most," said Barby, in a subdued voice "never! 'cept mother I aint very apt to forget her."
Mrs. Plumfield saw a tell-tale glittering beneath the drooping eyelid. She added no more but a sympathetic strong squeeze of the hand she held, and turned to follow Fleda who had gone on ahead.
"Mis' Plumfield," said Barby, before they had reached the stile that led into the road, where Fleda was standing, "will I be sure of having the money regular down yonder? You know, I hadn't ought to go otherways, on account of mother."
"Yes, it will be sure," said Mrs. Plumfield, "and regular;" adding quietly, "I'll make it so."
There was a bond for the whole amount in aunt Miriam's eyes; and, quite satisfied, Barby went back to the house.
"Will she expect to come to our table, aunt Miriam'? saidFleda, when they had walked a little way.
"No, she will not expect that; but Barby will want a different kind of managing from those Irish women of yours. She wont bear to be spoken to in a way that don't suit her notions of what she thinks she deserves; and perhaps your aunt and uncle will think her notions rather high I don't know."
"There is no difficulty with aunt Lucy," said Fleda; "and I guess I can manage uncle Rolf I'll try.Ilike her very much."
"Barby is very poor," said Mrs. Plumfield; "she has nothing but her own earnings to support herself and her old mother, and now, I suppose, her sister and her child; for Hetty is a poor thing never did much, and now I suppose does nothing."
"Are those Finns poor, aunt Miriam?"
"O no not at all they are very well off."
"So I thought they seemed to have plenty of everything, and silver spoons and all. But why then do they go out to work?"
"They are a little too fond of getting money, I expect," said aunt Miriam. "And they are a queer sort of people rather the mother is queer, and the children are queer they aint like other folks exactly never were."
"I am very glad we are to have Barby, instead of that Lucy Finn," said Fleda. "Oh, aunt Miriam! you can't think how much easier my heart feels."
"Poor child!" said aunt Miriam, looking at her. "But it isn't best, Fleda, to have things work too smooth in this world."
"No, I suppose not," said Fleda, sighing. "Isn't it very strange, aunt Miriam, that it should make people worse instead of better to have everything go pleasantly with them?"
"It is because they are apt then to be so full of the present, that they forget the care of the future."
"Yes, and forget there is anything better than the present, I suppose," said Fleda.
"So we mustn't fret at the ways our Father takes to keep us from hurting ourselves," said aunt Miriam, cheerfully.
"O no!" said Fleda, looking up brightly, in answer to the tender manner in which these words were spoken; "and I didn't mean thatthisis much of a trouble only I am very glad to think that somebody is coming to-morrow."
Aunt Miriam thought that gentle unfretful face could not stand in need of much discipline.
"Wise men alwayAffyrme and say,That best is for a manDiligently,For to apply,The business that he can." MORE
Fleda waited for Barby's coming the next day with a little anxiety. The introduction and installation, however, were happily got over. Mrs. Rossitur, as Fleda knew, was most easily pleased, and Barby Elster's quick eye was satisfied with the unaffected and universal gentleness and politeness of her new employer. She made herself at home in half an hour; and Mrs. Rossitur and Fleda were comforted to perceive, by unmistakable signs, that their presence was not needed in the kitchen, and they might retire to their own premises and forget there was another part of the house. Fleda had forgotten it utterly, and deliciously enjoying the rest of mind and body, she was stretched upon the sofa, luxuriating over some volume from her remnant of a library, when the inner door was suddenly pushed open far enough to admit of the entrance of Miss Elster's head.
"Where's the soft soap?"
Fleda's book went down, and her heart jumped to her mouth, for her uncle was sitting over by the window. Mrs. Rossitur looked up in amaze, and waited for the question to be repeated.
"I say, where's the soft soap?"
"Soft soap!" said Mrs. Rossitur "I don't know whether there is any Fleda, do you know?"
"I was trying to think, aunt Lucy I don't believe there is any."
"Whereis it?" said Barby.
"There is none, I believe," said Mrs. Rossitur
"Wherewasit, then?"
"Nowhere there has not been any in the house," said Fleda, raising herself up to see over the back of her sofa.
"There ha'n't been none!" said Miss Elster, in a tone more significant than her words, and shutting the door as abruptly as she had opened it.
"What upon earth does the woman mean?" exclaimed Mr. Rossitur, springing up and advancing towards the kitchen door. Fleda threw herself before him.
"Nothing at all, uncle Rolf she doesn't mean anything at all she doesn't know any better."
"I will improve her knowledge get out of the way, Fleda."
"But, uncle Rolf, just hear me one moment please don't! she didn't mean any harm these people don't know any manners just let me speak to her, please, uncle Rolf!" said Fleda, laying both hands upon her uncle's arms "I'll manage her."
Mr. Rossitur's wrath was high, and he would have run over or knocked down anything less gentle that had stood in his way; hut even the harshness of strength shuns to set itself in array against the meekness that does notoppose;if the touch of those hands had been a whit less light, or the glance of her eye less submissively appealing, it would have availed nothing. As it was, he stopped and looked at her, at first scowling, but then with a smile.
"Youmanage her!" said he.
"Yes," said Fleda, laughing, and now exerting her force, she gently pushed him back towards the seat he had quitted "yes, uncle Rolf, you've enough else to manage, don't undertake our 'help.' Deliver over all your displeasure upon me when anything goes wrong I will be the conductor to carry it off safely into the kitchen, and discharge it just at that point where I think it will do most execution. Now, will you, uncle Rolf? Because we have got a new-fashioned piece of fire-arms in the other room, that I am afraid will go off unexpectedly if it is meddled with by an unskilful hand; and that would leave us without arms, you see, or with only aunt Lucy's and mine, which are not reliable."
"You saucy girl!" said her uncle, who was laughing partly at and partly with her, "I don't know what you deserve exactly. Well, keep this precious new operative of yours out of my way, and I'll take care to keep out of hers. But mind, you must manage not to have your piece snapping in my face in this fashion, for I wont stand it."
And so, quieted, Mr. Rossitur sat down to his book again; andFleda, leaving hers open, went to attend upon Barby.
"There ain't much yallow soap neither," said this personage, "if this is all. There's one thing if we ha'n't got it, we can make it. I must get Mis' Rossitur to have a leach-tub sot up right away. I'm a dreadful hand for havin' plenty o' soap."
"What is a leach-tub?" said Fleda.
"Why, a leach-tub, for to leach ashes in. That's easy enough. I'll fix it, afore we're any on us much older. If Mr. Rossitur 'll keep me in good hard wood, I sha'n't cost him hardly anything for potash."
"I'll see about it," said Fleda; "and I will see about having the leach-tub, or whatever it is, put up for you. And, Barby, whenever you want anything, will you just speak to me about it? and if I am in the other room, ask me to come out here; because my aunt is not strong, and does not know where things are as well as I do; and when my uncle is in there, he sometimes does not like to be disturbed with hearing any such talk. If you'll tell me, I'll see and have everything done for you."
"Well you get me a leach sot up that's all I'll ask of you just now," said Barby, good-humouredly, "and help me to find the soap-grease, if there is any. As to the rest, I don't want to see nothin' o' him in the kitchen, so I'll relieve him if he don't want to see much o' me in the parlour. I shouldn't wonder if there wa'n't a speck of it in the house."
Not a speck was there to be found.
"Your uncle's pockets must ha' had a good hole in 'em by this time," remarked Barby, as they came back from the cellar. "However, there never was a crock so empty it couldn't be filled. You get me a leach-tub sot up, and I'll find work for it."
From that time, Fleda had no more trouble with her uncle and Barby. Each seemed to have a wholesome appreciation of the other's combative qualities, and to shun them. With Mrs. Rossitur, Barby was soon all-powerful. It was enough that she wanted a thing, if Mrs. Rossitur's own resources could compass it. For Fleda, to say that Barby had presently a perfect understanding with her, and joined to that, a most affectionate, careful regard, is not, perhaps, saying much; for it was true of every one, without exception, with whom Fleda had much to do. Barby was to all of them a very great comfort and stand-by.
It was well for them that they had her within doors to keep things, as she called it, "right and tight;" for abroad the only system in vogue was one of fluctuation and uncertainty. Mr. Rossitur's Irishman, Donohan, staid his year out, doing as little good, and as much, at least, negative harm, as he well could; and then went, leaving them a good deal poorer than he found them. Dr. Gregory's generosity had added to Mr. Rossitur's own small stock of ready money, giving him the means to make some needed outlays on the farm. But the outlay, ill-applied, had been greater than the income; a scarcity of' money began to be more and more felt; and the comfort of the family accordingly drew within more and more narrow bounds. The temper of the head of the family suffered in at least equal degree.
From the first of Barby's coming, poor Fleda had done her utmost to prevent the want of Mons. Emile from being felt. Mr. Rossitur's table was always set by her careful hand, and all the delicacies that came upon it were, unknown to him, of her providing even the bread. One day, at breakfast, Mr. Rossitur had expressed his impatient displeasure at that of Miss Elster's manufacture. Fleda saw the distressed shade that came over her aunt's face, and took her resolution. It was the last time. She had followed her plan of sending for the receipts, and she studied them diligently, both at home and under aunt Miriam. Natural quickness of eye and hand came in aid of her affectionate zeal, and it was not long before she could trust herself to undertake any operation in the whole range of her cookery-book. But, meanwhile, materials were growing scarce, and hard to come by. The delicate French rolls which were now always ready for her uncle's plate in the morning, had sometimes nothing to back them, unless the unfailing water-cress from the good little spring in the meadow. Fleda could not spare her eggs, for, perhaps, they might have nothing else to depend upon for dinner. It was no burden to her to do these things; she had a sufficient reward in seeing that her aunt and Hugh ate the better, and that her uncle's brow was clear; but it was a burden when her hands were tied by the lack of means, for she knew the failure of the usual supply was bitterly felt, not for the actual want, but for that other want which it implied and prefigured.
On the first dismissal of Donohan, Fleda hoped for a good turn of affairs. But Mr. Rossitur, disgusted with his first experiment, resolved this season to be his own head man; and appointed Lucas Springer the second in command, with a possé of labourers to execute his decrees. It did not work well. Mr. Rossitur found he had a very tough prime minister, who would have every one of his plans to go through a kind of winnowing process by being tossed about in an argument. The arguments were interminable, until Mr. Rossitur not unfrequently quit the field with, "Well, do what you like about it!" not conquered, but wearied. The labourers, either from want of ready money, or of what they called "manners" in their employer, fell off at the wrong times, just when they were most wanted. Hugh threw himself then into the breach and wrought beyond his strength; and that tried Fleda worst of all. She was glad to see haying and harvest pass over; but the change of seasons seemed to bring only a change of disagreeableness, and she could not find that hope had any better breathing-time in the short days of winter than in the long days of summer. Her gentle face grew more gentle than ever, for under the shade of sorrowful patience, which was always there, now its meekness had no eclipse.
Mrs. Rossitur was struck with it one morning. She was coming down from her room and saw Fleda standing on the landing-place gazing out of the window. It was before breakfast one cold morning in winter. Mrs. Rossitur put her arms round her softly and kissed her.
"What are you thinking about, dear Fleda? you ought not to be standing here."
"I was looking at Hugh," said Fleda, and her eye went back to the window. Mrs. Rossitur's followed it. The window gave them a view of the ground behind the house; and there was Hugh, just coming in with a large armful of heavy wood which he had been sawing.
"He isn't strong enough to do that, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, softly.
"I know it," said his mother, in a subdued tone, and not moving her eye, though Hugh had disappeared.
"It is too cold for him; he is too thinly clad to bear this exposure," said Fleda, anxiously.
"I know it," said his mother, again.
"Can't you tell uncle Rolf? can't you get him to do it? I am afraid Hugh will hurt himself, aunt Lucy."
"I did tell him the other day I did speak to him about it," said Mrs. Rossitur; "but he said there was no reason why Hugh should do it there were plenty of other people "
"But how can he say so when he knows we never can ask Lucas to do anything of the kind, and that other man always contrives to be out of the way when he is wanted? Oh, what is he thinking of?" said Fleda, bitterly, as she saw Hugh again at his work.
It was so rarely that Fleda was seen to shed tears, that they always were a signal of dismay to any of the household. There was even agony in Mrs. Rossitur's voice as she implored her not to give way to them. But, notwithstanding that, Fleda's tears came this time from too deep a spring to be stopped at once.
"It makes me feel as if all was lost, Fleda, when I see you do so."
Fleda put her arms about her neck, and whispered that "she would not" that "she should not "
Yet it was a little while before she could say any more.
"But, aunt Lucy, he doesn't know what he is doing."
"No; and I can't make him know. I cannot say anything more, Fleda it would do no good. I don't know what is the matter he is entirely changed from what he used to be."
"I know what is the matter," said Fleda, now turning comforter in her turn, as her aunt's tears fell more quietly, because more despairingly, than her own "I know what it is he is not happy; that is all. He has not succeeded well in these farm doings, and he wants money, and he is worried it is no wonder if he don't seem exactly as he used to."
"And oh, that troubles me most of all!" said Mrs. Rossitur. "The farm is bringing in nothing, I know he don't know how to get along with it I was afraid it would be so; and we are paying nothing to uncle Orrin and it is just a dead weight on his hands; and I can't bear to think of it! And what will it come to?"
Mrs. Rossitur was now in her turn surprised into showing the strength of her sorrows and apprehensions. Fleda was fain to put her own out of sight, and bend her utmost powers to soothe and compose her aunt, till they could both go down to the breakfast-table. She had got ready a nice little dish that her uncle was very fond of; but her pleasure in it was all gone; and indeed it seemed to be thrown away upon the whole table. Half the meal was over before anybody said a word.
"I am going to wash my hands of these miserable farm affairs," said Mr. Rossitur.
"Are you?" said his wife.
"Yes of all personal concern in them; that is, I am wearied to death with the perpetual annoyances and vexations, and petty calls upon my time life is not worth having at such a rate! I'll have done with it."
"You will give up the entire charge to Lucas?" said Mrs.Rossitur.
"Lucas! No! I wouldn't undergo that man's tongue for another year if he would take out his wages in talking. I could not have more of it in that case than I have had the last six months. After money, the thing that man loves best is certainly the sound of his own voice; and a most insufferable egotist! No I have been talking with a man who wants to take the whole farm for two years upon shares that will clear me of all trouble."
There was sober silence for a few minutes, and then Mrs.Rossitur asked who it was.
"His name is Didenhover."
"Oh, uncle Rolf, don't have anything to do with him!" exclaimed Fleda.
"Why not?"
"Because he lived with grandpa a great while ago, and behaved very ill. Grandpa had a great deal of trouble with him."
"How old were you then?"
"I was young to be sure," said Fleda, hanging her head, "but I remember very well how it was."
"You may have occasion to remember it a second time," said Mr.Rossitur, drily, "for the thing is done. I have engaged him."
Not another word was spoken.
Mr. Rossitur went out after breakfast, and Mrs. Rossitur busied herself with the breakfast cups and a tub of hot water a work she never would let Fleda share with her, and which lasted in consequence long enough, Barby said, to cook and eat three breakfasts. Fleda and Hugh sat looking at the floor and the fire respectively.
"I am going up the hill to get a sight of aunt Miriam," saidFleda, bringing her eyes from the fire upon her aunt.
"Well, dear, do. You have been shut up long enough by the snow. Wrap yourself up well, and put on my snow-boots."
"No, indeed!" said Fleda. "I shall just draw on another pair of stockings over my shoes, within my India-rubbers I will take a pair of Hugh's woollen ones."
"What has become of your own?" said Hugh.
"My own what? Stockings?"
"Snow-boots."
"Worn out, Mr. Rossitur! I have run them to death, poor things! Is that a slight intimation that you are afraid of the same fate for your socks?"
"No," said Hugh, smiling in spite of himself, at her manner"I will lend you anything I have got, Fleda."
His tone put Fleda in mind of the very doubtful pretensions of the socks in question to be comprehended under the term she was silent a minute.
"Will you go with me, Hugh?"
"No, dear, I can't; I must get a little ahead with the wood while I can; it looks as if it would snow again, and Barby isn't provided for more than a day or two."
"And how for this fire?"
Hugh shook his head, and rose up to go forth into the kitchen. Fleda went too, linking her arm in his, and bearing affectionately upon it; a sort of tacit saying, that they would sink or swim together. Hugh understood it perfectly.
"I am very sorry you have to do it, dear Hugh; oh, that woodshed! If it had only been made "
"Never mind can't help it now we shall get through the winter by and by."
"Can't you get uncle Rolf to help you a little?" whisperedFleda; "It would do him good."
But Hugh only shook his head.
"What are we going to do for dinner, Barby?" said Fleda, still holding Hugh there before the fire.
"Aint much choice," said Barby. "It would puzzle anybody to spell much more out of it than pork and ham. There's plenty of them.Isha'n't starve this some time."
"But we had ham yesterday, and pork the day before yesterday, and ham Monday," said Fleda. "There is plenty of vegetables, thanks to you and me, Hugh," she said, with a little reminding squeeze of his arm. "I could make soups nicely, if I had anything to make them of!"
"There's enough to be had for the catching," said Barby. "If I hadn't a man-mountain of work upon me, I'd start out and shoot or steal something."
"Youshoot, Barby!" said Fleda, laughing.
"I guess I can do most anything I set my hand to. If I couldn't, I'd shoot myself. It wont do to kill no more o' them chickens."
"O no, now they are laying so finely. Well, I am going up the hill, and when I come home I'll try and make up something, Barby."
"Earl Douglass 'll go out in the woods now and then, of a day, when he ha'n't no work particular to do, and fetch hum as many pigeons and woodchucks as you could shake a stick at."
"Hugh, my dear," said Fleda, laughing, "it's a pity you aren't a hunter I would shake a stick at you with great pleasure. Well, Barby, we will see when I come home."
"I was just a-thinkin'," said Barby; "Mis' Douglass sent round to know if Mis' Rossitur would like a piece of fresh meat Earl's been killing a sheep there's a nice quarter, she says, if she'd like to have it."
"A quarter of mutton!" said Fleda, "I don't know no, I think not, Barby; I don't know when we should be able to pay it back again. And yet, Hugh do you think uncle Rolf will kill another sheep this winter?"
"I am sure he will not," said Hugh; "there have so many died."
"If he only knowed it, that is a reason for killing more," said Barby "and have the good of them while he can."
"Tell Mrs. Douglass we are obliged to her, but we do not want the mutton, Barby."
Hugh went to his chopping, and Fleda set out upon her walk the lines of her face settling into a most fixed gravity so soon as she turned away from the house. It was what might be called a fine winter's day cold and still, and the sky covered with one uniform grey cloud. The snow lay in uncompromising whiteness, thick over all the world a kindly shelter for the young grain and covering for the soil; but Fleda's spirits, just then in another mood, saw in it only the cold refusal to hope, and the barren check to exertion. The wind had cleared the snow from the trees and fences, and they stood in all their unsoftened blackness and nakedness, bleak and stern. The high grey sky threatened a fresh fall of snow in a few hours; it was just now a lull between two storms; and Fleda's spirits, that sometimes would have laughed in the face of nature's soberness, to-day sank to its own quiet. Her pace neither slackened nor quickened till she reached aunt Miriam's house, and entered the kitchen.
Aunt Miriam was in high tide of business over a pot of boiling lard, and the enormous bread-tray by the side of the fire was half-full of very tempting light-brown cruller, which, however, were little more than a kind of sweet bread for the workmen. In the bustle of putting in and taking out, aunt Miriam could give her visitor but a word and a look. Fleda pulled off her hood, and sitting down, watched in unusual silence the old lady's operations.
"And how are they all at your house to-day?" aunt Miriam asked, as she was carefully draining her cruller out of the kettle.
Fleda answered that they were as well as usual, but a slight hesitation and the tell-tale tone of her voice made the old lady look at her more narrowly. She came near and kissed that gentle brow, and looking in her eyes, asked her what the matter was?
"I don't know; " said Fleda, eyes and voice wavering alike"I am foolish, I believe "
Aunt Miriam tenderly put aside the hair from her forehead, and kissed it again, but the cruller was burning, and she went back to the kettle.
"I got down-hearted somehow this morning," Fleda went on, trying to steady her voice and school herself.
"Youdown-hearted, dear! About what?"
There was a world of sympathy in these words, in the warmth of which Fleda's shut-up heart unfolded itself at once.
"It's nothing new, aunt Miriam only somehow I felt it particularly this morning I have been kept in the house so long by this snow, I have got dumpish, I suppose "
Aunt Miriam looked anxiously at the tears which seemed to come involuntarily, but she said nothing.
"We are not getting along well at home."
"I supposed that," said Mrs. Plumfield, quietly. "But anything new?"
"Yes uncle Rolf has let the farm only think of it! he has let the farm to that Didenhover."
"Didenhover!"
"For two years."
"Did you tell him what you knew about him?"
"Yes, but it was too late the mischief was done."
Aunt Miriam went on skimming out her cruller with a very grave face.
"How came your uncle to do so without learning about him first?"
"Oh, I don't know! he was in a hurry to do anything that would take the trouble of the farm off his hands; he don't like it."
"On what terms has he let him have it?"
"On shares and I know, I know under that Didenhover it will bring us in nothing, and it has brought us in nothing all the time we have been here; and I don't know what we are going to live upon "
"Has your uncle nor your aunt no property at all left?"
"Not a bit except some waste lands in Michigan? I believe, that were left to aunt Lucy a year or two ago; but they are as good as nothing."
"Has he let Didenhover have the saw-mill too?"
"I don't know he didn't say if he has, there will be nothing at all left for us to live upon. I expect nothing from Didenhover, his face is enough. I should have thought it might have been for uncle Rolf. Oh, if it wasn't for aunt Lucy and Hugh, I shouldn't care!"
"What has your uncle been doing all this year past?"
"I don't know, aunt Miriam he can't bear the business, and he has left the most of it to Lucas, and I think Lucas is more of a talker than a doer. Almost nothing has gone right. The crops have been ill-managed I do not know a great deal about it, but I know enough for that; and uncle Rolf did not know anything about it but what he got from books. And the sheep are dying off Barby says it is because they were in such poor condition at the beginning of winter, and I dare say she is right."
"He ought to have had a thorough good man at the beginning, to get along well."
"O yes! but he hadn't, you see, and so we have just been growing poorer every month. And now, aunt Miriam, I really don't know from day to day what to do to get dinner. You know, for a good while after we came we used to have our marketing brought every few days from Albany, but we have run up such a bill there already at the butcher's as I don't know when in the world will get paid, and aunt Lucy and I will do anything before we will send for any more; and if it wasn't for her and Hugh I wouldn't care, but they haven't much appetite, and I know that all this takes what little they have away this, and seeing the effect it has upon uncle Rolf "
"Does he think so much more of eating than of anything else?" said aunt Miriam.
"O no, it is not that," said Fleda, earnestly, "it is not that at all he is not a great eater but he can't bear to have things different from what they used to be, and from what they ought to be O no, don't think that! I don't know whether I ought to have said what I have said, but I couldn't help it "
Fleda's voice was lost for a little while.
"He is changed from what he used to be a little thing vexes him now, and I know it is because he is not happy; he used to be so kind and pleasant, and he is still sometimes; but aunt Lucy's face Oh, aunt Miriam!"
"Why, dear?" said aunt Miriam, tenderly.
"It is so changed from what it used to be!"
Poor Fleda covered her own, and aunt Miriam came to her side to give softer and gentler expression to sympathy than words could do, till the bowed face was raised again and hid in her neck.
"I can't see thee do so, my child my dear child! Hope for brighter days, dear Fleda."
"I could bear it," said Fleda, after a little interval, "if it wasn't for aunt Lucy and Hugh oh, that is the worst!"
"What about Hugh?" said aunt Miriam, soothingly.
"Oh, he does what he ought not to do, aunt Miriam, and there is no help for it and he did last summer, when we wanted men; and in the hot haying-time he used to work, I know, beyond his strength, and aunt Lucy and I did not know what to do with ourselves."
Fleda's head, which had been raised, sunk again and more heavily.
"Where was his father?" said Mrs. Plumfield.
"Oh, he was in the house he didn't know it he didn't think about it."
"Didn't think about it?"
"No oh, he didn't think Hugh was hurting himself, but he was; he showed it for weeks afterward. I have said what I ought not now," said Fleda, looking up, and seeming to check her tears, and the spring of them at once.
"So much security any woman has in a man without religion," said aunt Miriam, going back to her work. Fleda would have said something if she could; she was silent; she stood looking into the fire, while the tears seemed to come as it were by stealth, and ran down her face unregarded.
"Is Hugh not well?"
"I don't know," said Fleda, faintly; "he is not ill, but he never was very strong, and he exposes himself now, I know, in a way he ought not. I am sorry I have just come and troubled you with all this now, aunt Miriam," she said, after a little pause; "I shall feel better by and by I don't very often get such a fit."
"My dear little Fleda!" and there was unspeakable tenderness in the old lady's voice, as she came up, and drew Fleda's head again to rest upon her "I would not let a rough wind touch thee if I had the holding of it. But we may be glad the arranging of things is not in my hand I should be a poor friend after all, for I do not know what is best. Canst thou trust Him who does know, my child?"
"I do, aunt Miriam oh, I do," said Fleda, burying her face in her bosom "I don't often feel so as I did to-day."
"There comes not a cloud that its shadow is not wanted," said aunt Miriam. "I cannot see why, but it is that thou mayest bloom the brighter, my dear one."
"I know it" Fleda's words were hardly audible "I will try."
"Remember his own message to every one under a cloud 'Cast all thy care upon him, for he careth for thee;' thou mayest keep none of it; and then the peace that passeth understanding shall keep thee. 'So he giveth his beloved sleep.' "
Fleda wept for a minute on the old lady's neck, and then she looked up, dried her tears, and sat down with a face greatly quieted and lightened of its burden, while aunt Miriam once more went back to her work. The one wrought and the other looked on in silence.
The cruller were all done at last the great bread-trough was filled and set away the remnant of the fat was carefully disposed of, and aunt Miriam's handmaid was called in to "take the watch." She herself and her visitor adjourned to the sitting-room.
"Well," said Fleda., in a tone again steady and clear, "I must go home to see about getting up a dinner. I am the greatest hand at making something out of nothing, aunt Miriam, that ever you saw. There is nothing like practice. I only wish the man uncle Orrin talks about would come along once in a while."
"Who was that?" said aunt Miriam.
"A man that used to go about from house to house," said Fleda, laughing, "when the cottagers were making soup, with a ham- bone to give it a relish, and he used to charge them so much for a dip, and so much for a wallop."
"Come, come, I can do as much for you as that," said aunt Miriam, proceeding to her store pantry "see here wouldn't this be as good as a ham-bone?" said she, bringing out of it a fat fowl; "how would a wallop of this do?"
"Admirably! only the ham-bone used to come out again, andI am confident this never would."
"Well, I guess I'll stand that," said aunt Miriam, smiling "you wouldn't mind carrying this under your cloak, would you?"
"I have no doubt I shall go home lighter with it than without it, Ma'am, thank you, dear aunty! dear aunt Miriam!"
There was a change of tone, and of eye, as Fleda sealed each thank with a kiss.
"But how is it? does all the charge of the house come upon you, dear?"
"Oh, this kind of thing, because aunt Lucy doesn't understand it, and can't get along with it so well. She likes better to sew, and I had quite as lief do this."
"And don't you sew, too?"
"Oh, a little. She does as much as she can," said Fleda, gravely.
"Where is your other cousin?" said Mrs. Plumfield, abruptly.
"Marion? she is in England, I believe we don't hear from her very often."
"No, no I mean the one who is in the army?"
"Charlton! Oh, he is just ordered off to Mexico," saidFleda, sadly, "and that is another great trouble to aunt Lucy.This miserable war!"
"Does he never come home?"
"Only once since we came from Paris while we were in NewYork. He has been stationed away off at the West."
"He has a captain's pay now, hasn't he?"
"Yes, but he doesn't know at all how things are at home; he hasn't an idea of it and he will not have. Well, good-bye, dear aunt Miriam I must run home to take care of my chicken."
She ran away; and if her eyes many a time on the way down the hill filled and overflowed, they were not bitter nor dark tears; they were the gushings of high and pure and generous affections, weeping for fullness, not for want.
That chicken was not wasted in soup; it was converted into the nicest possible little fricassee, because the toast would make so much more of it; and to Fleda's own dinner, little went beside the toast, that a greater portion of the rest might be for her aunt and Hugh.
That same evening, Seth Plumfield came into the kitchen, whileFleda was there.
"Here is something belongs to you, I believe," said he, with a covert smile, bringing out from under his cloak the mate to Fleda's fowl "mother said somethin' had run away with t'other one, and she didn't know what to do with this one alone. Your uncle at home?"
The next news that Fleda heard was, that Seth had taken a lease of the saw-mill for two years.
Mr. Didenhover did not disappoint Fleda's expectations. Very little could be got from him, or the farm under him, beyond the immediate supply wanted for the use of the family; and that in kind, not in cash. Mrs. Rossitur was comforted by knowing, that some portion of rent had also gone to Dr. Gregory how large or how small a portion, she could not find out. But this left the family in increasing straits, which narrowed and narrowed during the whole first summer and winter of Didenhover's administration. Very straitened they would have been, but for the means of relief adopted by the twochildren, as they were always called. Hugh, as soon as the spring opened, had a quiet hint through Fleda, that if he had a mind to take the working of the saw-mill he might, for a consideration merely nominal. This offer was immediately and gratefully closed with; and Hugh's earnings were thenceforward very important at home. Fleda had her own ways and means. Mr. Rossitur, more low-spirited and gloomy than ever, seemed to have no heart to anything. He would have worked, perhaps, if he could have done it alone; but to join Didenhover and his men, or any other gang of workmen, was too much for his magnanimity. He helped nobody but Fleda. For her he would do anything, at any time; and in the garden, and among her flowers in the flowery courtyard, he might often be seen at work with her. But nowhere else.
"Some bring a capon, some a rurall cake,Some nuts, some apples; some that thinke they makeThe better cheeses, bring 'hem; or else sendBy their ripe daughters, whom they would commendThis way to husbands; and whose baskets beareAn embleme of themselves in plum or pears."BEN JOHNSON.
So the time walked away for this family was not now of those "whom time runneth withal" to the second summer of Mr. Didenhover's term.
One morning Mrs. Rossitur was seated in the breakfast-room at her usual employment, mending and patching no sinecure now. Fleda opened the kitchen door and came in, folding up a calico apron she had just taken off.
"You are tired, dear," said Mrs. Rossitur, sorrowfully; you look pale."
"Do I?" said Fleda, sitting down. "I am a little tired!"
"Why do you do so?"
"Oh, it's nothing," said Fleda, cheerfully; "I haven't hurt myself. I shall be rested again in a few minutes."
"What have you been doing?"
"Oh, I tired myself a little before breakfast in the garden, I suppose. Aunt Lucy, don't you think I had almost a bushel of pease? and there was a little over a half bushel last-time, so I shall call it a bushel. Isn't that fine?"
"You didn't pick them all yourself?"
"Hugh helped me a little while; but he had the horse to get ready, and I was out before him this morning poor fellow, he was tired from yesterday, I dare say."
Mrs. Rossitur looked at her, a look between remonstrance and reproach, and cast her eves down without saying a word, swallowing a whole heartful of thoughts and feelings. Fleda stooped forward till her own forehead softly touched Mrs. Rossitur's, as gentle a chiding of despondency as a very sunbeam could have given.
"Now, aunt Lucy! what do you mean? Don't you know it's good for me? And do you know, Mr. Sweet will give me four shillings a bushel? and, aunt Lucy, I sent three dozen heads of lettuce this morning besides. Isn't that doing well? and I sent two dozen day before yesterday. It is time they were gone, for they are running up to seed, this set; I have got another fine set almost ready."
Mrs. Rossitur looked at her again, as if she had been a sort of terrestrial angel.
"And how much will you get for them?"
"I don't know exactly threepence, or sixpence, perhaps I guess not so much they are so easily raised; though I don't believe there are so fine as mine to be seen in this region. If I only had somebody to water the strawberries! we should have a great many. Aunt Lucy, I am going to send as many as I can without robbing uncle Rolf he sha'n't miss them; but the rest of us don't mind eating rather fewer than usual? I shall make a good deal by them. And I think these morning rides do Hugh good; don't you think so?"
"And what have you been busy about ever since breakfast,Fleda?"
"Oh two or three things," said Fleda, lightly.
"What?"
"I had bread to make and then I thought, while my hands were in, I would make a custard for uncle Rolf."
"You needn't have done that, dear, it was not necessary."
"Yes it was, because, you know, we have only fried pork for dinner to-day; and while we have the milk and eggs, it doesn't cost much the sugar is almost nothing. He will like it better, and so will Hugh. As for you," said Fleda, gently touching her forehead again, "you know it is of no consequence!"
"I wish you would think yourself of some consequence," saidMrs. Rossitur.
"Don't I think myself of consequence?" said Fleda, affectionately. "I don't know how you'd all get on without me. What do you think I have a mind to do now, by way of resting myself?"
"Well?" said Mrs. Rossitur, thinking of something else.
"It is the day for making presents to the minister, you know?"
"The minister? "
"Yes, the new minister they expect him to-day; you have heard of it; the things are all to be carried to his house to- day. I have a great notion to go and see the fun If I only had anything in the world I could possibly take with me "
"Aren't you too tired, dear?"
"No it would rest me; it is early yet; if I only had something to take! I couldn't go without taking something "
"A basket of eggs?" said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Can't, aunt Lucy I can't spare them; so many of the hens are setting now. A basket of strawberries! that's the thing! I've got enough picked for that and to-night too. That will do!"
Fleda's preparations were soon made, and with her basket on her arm she was ready to set forth.
"If pride had not been a little put down in me," she said, smiling, "I suppose I should rather stay at home than go with such a petty offering. And no doubt every one that sees it or hears of it will lay it to anything but the right reason. So much the world knows about the people it judges! It is too bad to leave you all alone, aunt Lucy."
Mrs. Rossitur pulled her down for a kiss a kiss in which how much was said on both sides! and Fleda set forth, choosing, as she very commonly did, the old-time way through the kitchen.
"Off again?" said Barby, who was on her knees scrubbing the great flag-stones of the hearth.
"Yes, I am going up to see the donation party."
"Has the minister come?"
"No, but he is coming to-day, I understand."
"He ha'n't preached for 'em yet, has he?"
"Not yet; I suppose he will next Sunday."
"They are in a mighty hurry to give him a donation party!" said Barby. "I'd a' waited till he was here first. I don't believe they'd be quite so spry with their donations if they had paid the last man up as they ought. I'd rather give a man what belongs to him, and make him presents afterwards."
"Why, so I hope they will, Barby," said Fleda, laughing. ButBarby said no more.
The parsonage-house was about a quarter of a mile, a little more, from the saw-mill, in a line at right angles with the main road. Fleda took Hugh from his work, to see her safe there. The road ran north, keeping near the level of the mid- hill, where it branched off a little below the saw-mill; and as the ground continued rising towards the east, and was well clothed with woods, the way, at this hour, was still pleasantly shady. To the left, the same slope of ground carried down to the foot of the hill gave them an uninterrupted view over a wide plain or bottom, edged in the distance with a circle of gently swelling hills. Close against the hills, in the far corner of the plain, lay the little village of Queechy Run, hid from sight by a slight intervening rise of ground. Not a chimney showed itself in the whole spread of country. A sunny landscape just now; but rich in picturesque associations of hay-cocks and win-rows, spotting it near and far; and close by below them was a field of mowers at work; they could distinctly hear the measured rush of the scythes through the grass, and then the soft clink of the rifles would seem to play some old delicious tune of childish days. Fleda made Hugh stand still to listen. It was a warm day, but "the sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets" could hardly be more sweet than the air which, coming to them over the whole breadth of the valley, had been charged by the new-made hay.
"How good it is, Hugh," said Fleda, "that one can get out of doors, and forget everything that ever happened or ever will happen within four walls!"
"Do you?" said Hugh, rather soberly.
"Yes, I do even in my flower-patch, right before the house- door; but here" said Fleda, turning away, and swinging her basket of strawberries as she went, "I have no idea I ever did such a thing as make bread, and how clothes get mended I do not comprehend in the least!"
"And have you forgotten the pease and the asparagus too?"
"I am afraid you haven't, dear Hugh," said Fleda, linking her arm within his. "Hugh I must find some way to make money."
"More money!" said Hugh, smiling.
"Yes this garden business is all very well, but it doesn't come to any very great things after all, if you are aware of it; and Hugh, I want to get aunt Lucy a new dress. I can't bear to see her in that old merino, and it isn't good for her. Why, Hugh, she couldn't possibly see anybody, if anybody should come to the house."
"Who is there to come?" said Hugh.
"Why, nobody; but still, she ought not to be so."
"What more can you do, dear Fleda? You work a great deal too hard already," said Hugh, sighing. "You should have seen the way father and mother looked at you last night when you were asleep on the sofa."
Fleda stifled her sigh, and went on.
"I am sure there are things that might be done things for the booksellers translating, or copying, or something I don't know exactly I have heard of people's doing such things. I mean to write to uncle Orrin, and ask him. I am sure he can manage it for me."
"What were you writing the other night?" said Hugh, suddenly.
"When!"
"The other night when you were writing by the fire-light? I saw your pencil scribbling away at a furious rate over the paper, and you kept your hand up carefully between me and your face, but I could see it was something very interesting. Ha!" said Hugh, laughingly trying to get another view of Fleda's face which was again kept from him. "Send that to uncle Orrin, Fleda; or show it to me first, and then I will tell you."
Fleda made no answer; and at the parsonage-door Hugh left her.
Two or three wagons were standing there, but nobody to be seen. Fleda went up the steps and crossed the broad piazza, brown and unpainted, but picturesque still, and guided by the sound of tongues turned to the right, where she found a large low room, the very centre of the stir. But the stir had not by any means reached the height yet. Not more than a dozen people were gathered. Here were aunt Syra and Mrs. Douglass, appointed a committee to receive and dispose the offerings as they were brought in.
"Why, there is not much to be seen yet," said Fleda. "I did not know I was so early."
"Time enough," said Mrs. Douglass. "They'll come the thicker when they do come. Good morning, Dr. Quackenboss! I hope you're a-going to give us something else besides a bow? and I wont take none of your physic neither."
"I humbly submit," said the doctor, graciously, "that nothing ought to be expected of gentlemen that a are so unhappy as to be alone; for they really a have nothing to give but themselves."
There was a shout of merriment.
"And suppos'n that's a gift that nobody wants?" said Mrs.Douglass's sharp eye and voice at once.
"In that case," said the doctor, "I really Miss Ringgan, mayI a may I relieve your hand of this fair burden?"
"It is not a very fair burden, Sir," said Fleda, laughing, and relinquishing her strawberries.
"Ah, but, fair, you know, I mean we speak in that sense Mrs. Douglass, here is by far the most elegant offering that your hands will have the honour of receiving this day."
"I hope so," said Mrs. Douglass, "or there wont be much to eat for the minister. Did you never take notice how elegant things somehow made folks grow poor?"
"I guess he'd as lieve see something a little substantial," said aunt Syra.
"Well, now," said the doctor, "here is Miss Ringgan, who is unquestionably a elegant! and I am sure nobody will say that she looks poor."
In one sense, surely not! There could not be two opinions. But with all the fairness of health, and the flush which two or three feelings had brought to her cheeks, there was a look as if the workings of the mind had refined away a little of the strength of the physical frame, and as if growing poor in Mrs. Douglass's sense that is, thin, might easily be the next step.
"What's your uncle going to give us, Fleda?" said aunt Syra.
But Fleda was saved replying; for Mrs. Douglass, who, if she was sharp, could be good-natured too, and had watched to see how Fleda took the double fire upon elegance and poverty, could bear no more trial of that sweet gentle face. Without giving her time to answer, she carried her off to see the things already stored in the closet, bidding the doctor, over her shoulder, "be off after his goods, whether he had got 'em or no."
There was certainly a promising beginning made for the future minister's comfort. One shelf was already completely stocked with pies, and another showed a quantity of cake, and biscuits enough to last a good-sized family for several meals.
"That is always the way," said Mrs. Douglass; "it's the strangest thing that folks has no sense! Now, one half o' them pies 'll be dried up afore they can eat the rest; 't aint much loss, for Mis' Prin sent 'em down, and if they are worth anything, it's the first time anything ever come out of her house that was. Now look at them biscuit!"
"How many are coming to eat them?" said Fleda.
"How?"
"How large a family has the minister?"
"He ha'n't a bit of a family! He ain't married."
"Not!"
At the grave way in which Mrs. Douglass faced round upon her and answered, and at the idea of a single mouth devoted to all that closetful Fleda's gravity gave place to most uncontrollable merriment.
"No," said Mrs. Douglass, with a curious twist of her mouth, but commanding herself, "he aint, to be sure, not yet. He ha'n't any family but himself and some sort of a housekeeper, I suppose; they'll divide the house between 'em."
"And the biscuits, I hope," said Fleda. "But what will he do with all the other things, Mrs. Douglass?"
"Sell 'em if he don't want 'em," said Mrs. Douglass, quizzically. "Shut up, Fleda, I forget who sent them biscuit somebody that calculated to make a show for a little, I reckon. My sakes! I believe it was Mis' Springer herself! she didn't hear me though," said Mrs. Douglass, peeping out of the half-open door. "It's a good thing the world aint all alike; there's Mis' Plumfield stop now, and I'll tell you all she sent; that big jar of lard, there's as good as eighteen or twenty pound and that basket of eggs, I don't know how many there is and that cheese, a real fine one, I'll be bound, she wouldn't pick out the worst in her dairy; and Seth fetched down a hundred weight of corn meal, and another of rye flour; now, that's what I call doing things something like; if everybody else would keep up their end as well as they keep up their'n, the world wouldn't be quite so one-sided as it is. I never see the time yet when I couldn't tell where to find Mis' Plumfield."
"No, nor anybody else," said Fleda, looking happy.
"There's Mis' Silbert couldn't find nothing better to send than a kag of soap," Mrs. Douglass went on, seeming very much amused; "Iwasbeat when I saw that walk in! I should think she'd feel streaked to come here by and by, and see it a- standing between Mis' Plumfield's lard and Mis' Clavering's pork that's a handsome kag of pork, aint it? What's that man done with your strawberries? I'll put 'em up here, afore somebody takes a notion to 'em. I'll let the minister know who he's got to thank for 'em," said she, winking at Fleda. "Where's Dr. Quackenboss?"
"Coming, Ma'am!" sounded from the hall, and forthwith, at the open door, entered the doctor's head, simultaneously with a large cheese, which he was rolling before him, the rest of the doctor's person being thrown into the background in consequence a curious natural representation of a wheelbarrow, the wheel being the only artificial part.
"Oh! that's you, doctor, is it?" said Mrs. Douglass.
"This is me, Ma'am," said the doctor, rolling up to the closet door; "this has the honour to be a myself, bringing my service to the feet of Miss Ringgan."
" 'Tain't very elegant," said the sharp lady.
Fleda thought if his service was at her feet, her feet should be somewhere else, and accordingly stepped quietly out of the way, and went to one of the windows, from whence she could have a view both of the comers and the come; and by this time, thoroughly in the spirit of the thing, she used her eyes upon both with great amusement. People were constantly arriving now, in wagons and on foot; and stores of all kinds were most literally pouring in. Bags, and even barrels of meal, flour, pork, and potatoes; strings of dried apples, salt, hams, and beef; hops, pickles, vinegar, maple-sugar and molasses; rolls of fresh butter, cheese, and eggs; cake, bread, and pies, without end. Mr. Penny, the storekeeper, sent a box of tea. Mr. Winegar, the carpenter, a new ox-sled. Earl Douglass brought a handsome axe-helve of his own fashioning; his wife, a quantity of rolls of wool. Zan Finn carted a load of wood into the wood-shed, and Squire Thornton another. Home-made candles, custards, preserves, and smoked liver, came in a batch from two or three miles off, up on the mountain. Half-a- dozen chairs from the factory-man; half-a-dozen brooms from the other storekeeper at the Deepwater settlement; a carpet for the best room from the ladies of the township, who had clubbed forces to furnish it and a home-made concern it was, from the shears to the loom.
The room was full now, for every one, after depositing his gift, turned aside to see what others had brought and were bringing; and men and women, the young and old, had their several circles of gossip in various parts of the crowd. Apart from them all Fleda sat in her window, probably voted "elegant" by others than the doctor, for they vouchsafed her no more than a transitory attention, and sheered off to find something more congenial. She sat watching the people, smiling very often as some odd figure, or look, or some peculiar turn of expression or tone of voice, caught her ear or her eye.
Both ear and eye were fastened by a young countryman, with a particularly fresh face, whom she saw approaching the house. He came up on foot, carrying a single fowl slung at his back by a stick thrown across his shoulder, and, without stirring hat or stick, he came into the room, and made his way through the crowd of people, looking to the one hand and the other, evidently in a maze of doubt to whom he should deliver himself and his chicken, till brought up by Mrs. Douglass's sharp voice.
"Well, Philetus, what are you looking for?"
"Do, Mis' Douglass!" it is impossible to express the abortive attempt at a bow which accompanied this salutation "I want to know if the minister 'll be in town to-day."
"What do you want of him?"
"I don't want nothin' of him. I want to know if he'll be in town to-day?"
"Yes; I expect he'll be along directly. Why, what then?"
" 'Cause I've got teu chickens for him here, and mother said they hadn't ought to be kept no longer, and if he wan't to hum, I were to fetch 'em back, straight."
"Well, he'll be here, so let's have 'em," said Mrs. Douglass, biting her lips.
"What's become o' t'other one?" said Earl, as the young man's stick was brought round to the table: "I guess you've lost it, ha'n't you?"
"My gracious!" was all Philetus's powers were equal to. Mrs. Douglass went off into fits, which rendered her incapable of speaking, and left the unlucky chicken-bearer to tell his story his own way, but all he brought forth was, "Du tell! Iambeat!"
"Where's t'other one?" said Mrs. Douglass, between paroxysms.
"Why, I ha'n't done nothin' to it," said Philetus, dismally; "there was teu on 'em afore I started, and I took and tied 'em together, and hitched 'em onto the stick, and that one must ha' loosened itself off some way I believe the darned thing did it o' purpose."
"I guess your mother knowed that one wouldn't keep till it got here," said Mrs. Douglass.
The room was now all one shout, in the midst of which poor Philetus took himself off as speedily as possible. Before Fleda had dried her eyes, her attention was taken by a lady and gentleman who had just got out of a vehicle of more than the ordinary pretension, and were coming up to the door. The gentleman was young the lady was not; both had a particularly amiable and pleasant appearance; but about the lady there was something that moved Fleda singularly, and, somehow, touched the spring of old memories, which she felt stirring at the sight of her. As they neared the house she lost them; then they entered the room and came through it slowly, looking about them with an air of good-humoured amusement. Fleda's eye was fixed, but her mind puzzled itself in vain to recover what, in her experience, had been connected with that fair and lady-like physiognomy, and the bland smile that was overlooked by those acute eyes. The eyes met hers, and then seemed to reflect her doubt, for they remained as fixed as her own, while the lady, quickening her steps, came up to her.
"I am sure," she said, holding out her hand, and with a gentle graciousness that was very agreeable, "I am sure you are somebody I know. What is your name?"
"Fleda Ringgan."