Except on Sunday mornings, breakfast at the farm in summer came at six. The Old Squire himself was often astir at four; and we boys were supposed to get up at five, so as to have milking done and other barn chores off, ready to go into the field from the breakfast table. Gram and the girls also rose at five, to get breakfast, take care of the milk and look after the poultry. Everybody, in fact, rose with the birds in that rural community. But often I was scarcely more than half awake at breakfast; Ellen and Wealthy, too, were in much the same case.
On one of these early mornings when I had been there about three weeks, our drowsiness at the breakfast table was dispelled by the arrival of two early callers—each on business.
Gram was pouring the coffee, when the outer door opened and a tall, sallow, dark-complexioned woman entered, the same whom I had met on the Meadow Brook bridge, while leading Little Dagon. She wore a calico gown and sun-bonnet, and may have been fifty years of age; and she walked in quite as a matter of course, saying, "How do you do, Joseph, how do you do, Ruth?" to the Old Squire and Gram.
"Why, how do you do, Olive?" said Gram, but not in the most cordial of tones. "Will you have some breakfast with us?"
"I have been to breakfast, Ruth," replied this visitor, throwing back her sun-bonnet and thereby displaying a forehead and brow that for height andbreadth was truly Websterian. "I came to get my old dress that I left here when I cleaned house for you last spring, and I should also like that dollar that's owing me."
"Olive," rejoined Gram severely, "I do not owe you a dollar."
"Ruth," replied the caller with equal severity, "you do owe me a dollar."
She proceeded, as one quite familiar in the house, to the kitchen closet and took therefrom an old soiled gingham gown.
"Olive," said the Old Squire, "are you quite sure that there is a dollar due you here?"
"Joseph," replied the lofty-browed woman, "do you think I would say so, if I did not know it?"
"No, Olive, I don't think you would," said the Old Squire.
"It's no such thing, Olive," cried Gram, looking somewhat heated. "I always paid you up when you cleaned house for me and when you spun for me."
"Always but that one time, Ruth. Then you did not—into a dollar," replied the sallow woman, positively.
An argument ensued. It appeared that the debated dollar was a matter of three or four years standing. There was little doubt that both were equally honest in their convictions concerning it, pro and con. Still, they were a dollar apart, somehow. Furthermore, it came out, that "Olive" when she felt periodically poor, or out of sorts, was in the habit of calling and dunning Gram for that dollar, much to the old lady's displeasure.
The Old Squire sat uneasily and listened to the talk, with growing disfavor. At last he pulled out his pocketbook. "I will pay you the dollar, Olive," he said, "if only to stop the dispute about it."
"You shan't do it, Joseph!" exclaimed Gram. "There's no dollar due her."
But the Old Squire persisted in handing the woman a dollar.
"I do not care whether it is due or not!" he exclaimed. "I have heard altogether too much of this."
"I thank you, Joseph, for doing me justice of my hard-handed employer," said the tall woman, austerely.
"Now did ever anybody hear the like!" Gram exclaimed, pink from vexation. "Oh, Olive, you—you—you bold thing, to say that of me!"
"There, there!" cried the Old Squire. "Peace, women folks. Remember that you are both Christians and public professors."
Gram sat and fanned herself, fast and hard. Our visitor folded the dress into a bundle and marched slowly and austerely out.
"Olive, I hope your conscience is clear," Gram called after her severely.
"Ruth, I hope your conscience is as clear as mine," the departing one called back in calm tones, from the yard outside.
She left an awkward silence behind her; breakfast had come to a standstill; and I improved the elemental sort of hush, to whisper to Theodora, who had been at the farm a year, and ask who this portentous disturber of the family credit really was.
"Oh, it is only 'Aunt Olive,'" Theodora whispered back. "She comes here to help us every spring and fall."
"Is she our actual aunt?" I asked in some dismay.
"No, she isn't our real, kindred aunt," said Theodora, "but folks call her Aunt Olive. She is a sister to Elder Witham; and they say she can quote more Scripture than the Elder himself.
"And I'm sort of glad that Gramp gave her the dollar," Theodora added, in a still lower whisper. "Maybe Gram did forget to pay her, once."
But Gram was both incensed and humiliated. Sheresumed the interrupted coffee pouring and handed the Old Squire his cup, with a look of deep reproach.
Partly to change the unpleasant subject, perhaps, he said to us briskly, "Boys, if we have good luck and get our haying work along, so we can, we will all make a trip over to Norridgewock and see Father Rasle's monument.
"Ruth, wouldn't you like to take a good long drive over to Norridgewock, after the grain is in?" he asked in pacificatory tones.
"Joseph!" replied Gram, "you make me smile! You have been talking of driving over to Norridgewock to visit Father Rasle's monument, and of going to Lovewell's Pond, ever since I first knew you! But you never have been, and I haven't a thought that you ever will go!"
"Well, but something has always come up to prevent it, Ruth," Gramp replied hastily.
"Yes, Joseph, and something will come up to prevent it this year, too."
It was at this point that the second early caller had his arrival announced. Little Wealthy, who had stolen out to watch Aunt Olive's departure and then gone to the barn to see to her own small brood of chicks, came running in headlong and cried, "Oh, Gram! Gram! a great big fox has got one of your geese—on his back—and is running away!"
"What!" exclaimed Gram, setting the heavy coffee-pot down again with a roiling bump. "Oh, Lord, what a morning. Where, child, where?"
"Out beyond the west barn!" cried Wealthy; but by this time Addison, Halse and I were out of doors, in pursuit.
Beyond the west barn, there was a little hollow, or swale, where a spring issued; and a few rods below the spring, a dam had been constructed across the swale to form a goose-pond for Gram's flock. It was a muddy, ill-smelling place; but hither the geesewould always waddle forth of a summer morning, and spend most of the day, wading and swimming, with occasional loud outcries.
As we turned the corner of the barn, we met the flock—minus one—beating a retreat to the goose-shed. But the fox was not in sight.
"Which way did he go, Wealth?" cried Addison, for Wealthy had run after us, full of her important news.
"Right across the west field," she exclaimed. "He had the old goose on his back, and it was trying to squall, but couldn't."
"Get the gun, Halse!" exclaimed Addison. "No, it isn't loaded! Bother! But come on. The fox cannot run far with one of those heavy geese, without resting. He is probably behind the pasture wall."
We set off at speed across the field and heard Gram calling out to us, "Chase him, boys! Chase the old thief. You may make him drop it."
Away through the grass, laden with dew and "hopper spits," we careered, and came on the trail of the fox where he had brushed off the dew as he ran. But the rogue was not behind the pasture wall.
"Keep on," cried Addison, "he cannot run fast." We crossed the pasture and entered the sugar maple grove between the pasture and the Aunt Hannah Lot. As it chanced, the fox was lurking in the high brakes here, having stopped to rest, no doubt, as Addison had conjectured. We did not come upon him here, however; for warned probably by the noise which we made, the goose-hunter stole out silently on the farther side and ran on across the open fields of the Aunt Hannah Lot. As we emerged from the belt of woodland, we caught sight of him, toiling up a hillside beyond the fields, fifty or sixty rods away.
"It is of no use to chase him any further," said Addison, pulling up. "He will reach the woods in a few minutes more."
By this time we were all three badly out of breath. The fox had the best of the race. We could distinguish plainly the white goose across his back, in contrast to his butter-colored coat and great bushy tail.
"Wouldn't Gram fume to see that!" Halse exclaimed. "Her best old goose is taking its last ride."
"I think I know where that fox is going," remarked Addison. "I was in those woods, gunning, one day last fall, and I came to a fox burrow, in the side of a knoll, among trees. There was no end of yellow dirt, dug out, and there seemed to be two or three holes, leading back into the side-hill. I told the Old Squire about it. He said it was a fox-hole, and that there had been one there for years. When he was a young man, he once saw six foxes playing around that knoll, and, first and last, he trapped a number there."
We went back to our interrupted breakfast. Gram heard our tidings with much vexation. Gramp laughed. "If the foxes got every goose, I shouldn't cry," said he. "Nasty creatures! Worse than a parcel of pigs about the farm."
"But you like to put your head on a soft pillow as well as any one," replied Gram calmly. "If you know of anything that makes better pillows thanlivegeese feathers, I shall be glad to hear about it."
The Old Squire not having any proper substitute to offer, Gram went on to say that she wished some of us possessed the energy (I believe she saidspunk) to make an end of that fox; for now that it had achieved the capture of a goose from her flock, it would be quite likely to come back for another, in the course of a day or two.
This appeal stirred our pride, and after we had gone out to hoe corn that forenoon, Addison asked the Old Squire whether he thought it likely we could unearth the fox, if, as we suspected, it had its haunt in the burrow on the hillside of the Aunt Hannah Lot.
"Maybe," replied the Old Squire, "by digging hard enough and long enough. But 'tis no easy job."
Addison did not say anything more for ten or fifteen minutes, when he observed that as Gram seemed a good deal disturbed, he for one would not mind an hour or two of digging, if it would save her geese.
"Oh, I have nothing against her geese, boys," replied the old gentleman with a kind of apologetic laugh. "I like to hear her stand up for them once in a while.
"I wanted to get this corn hoed by to-morrow," he continued. "Let's see, to-morrow is Saturday. We will take the crowbar and some shovels and make a little trip over to that burrow, later this afternoon. Don't say anything about it at dinner; for likely as not we shall not find the fox there."
After we had hoed for some time longer, Addison said, "What if we have Halse run over to Edwardses', right after dinner, and ask Tom to take a bar, or shovel, and go with us. Tom is a good hand at digging,—and that fox may trouble them, too."
The Old Squire laughed. "You are a pretty crafty boy, Addison," said he.
Ad looked a little confused. "I knew Tom would like to go first rate," said he; "and as there may be considerable hard digging before us, I thought it would be all right to have somebody who could take his turn at it."
"Quite right," replied Gramp, still laughing. "Craft is a good thing and often helps along famously. But don't grow too crafty.
"I am quite willing for you to send for Thomas," he added. "I think it is a good idea."
Accordingly, at noon Halse went to the Edwards homestead, bearing an invitation to a fox-digging bee. They, too, were busy with their hoeing, but Mr. Edwards, who was a very good-humored man, gave Thomas permission to join us at two o'clock.When we went out from dinner to our own hoeing, we took along an axe, two spades, a hog-hook to pull out the fox, and a crowbar, also the gun; and after working two hours in the corn-field, we set off across the fields and pastures for the fox burrow, just as Thomas came running across lots to join us.
"Mother's glad to have me go," said he. "She lost a turkey last week; and father says there's a fox over in that burrow, this summer, no mistake. Father gets up at half-past three every morning now, and he says he has heard a fox bark over that way at about sunrise for a fortnight. But we will end his fun for him."
Thomas was such a resolute boy that it was always a treat to hear him talk.
Crossing the pasture, we climbed the hillside of the Aunt Hannah lot, and again entering the maple woods, went on for forty or fifty rods over rather rough ground.
"That's the knoll," said Addison, pointing to a hillock among the trees.
"Yes, that's the place," the Old Squire corroborated.
On the side of the knoll next us as we drew near, there was a large hole, leading downwards and backwards into the bank side. A quantity of yellow earth had been thrown out quite recently, looking as if dogs had tried to dig out the fox. Tom looked into the hole.
"Yes, siree," he exclaimed. "There's a fox lives here; I know by these flies in the mouth of the hole. You'll always see two or three of these flies at a hole where there's a fox or a wood-chuck."
Farther around the knoll there were two other holes, one beside a rock and the other under a birch-tree root, which manifestly led into the same burrow, deep back in the knoll.
"And only look here!" cried Addison. "See these bones and these feathers."
"Oho!" said the Old Squire. "'Tis a female fox with her cubs that has taken up her abode in the old burrow this summer. That accounts for her raids on the turkeys and geese; she's got a young family to look out for."
After some discussion, it was agreed to begin our assault at the hole where the bones and feathers had been brought out; and while Addison and I went to block up the entrance to the other two holes with stones, the Old Squire threw off his coat, and seizing the crowbar, commenced to break down the rooty ground over the hole, while Thomas and Halse cleared it away with their shovels. We worked by turns, or all together, as opportunity offered. It was no light task for a warm June afternoon, and we were soon perspiring freely. Gradually we removed the top of the knoll, following the hole inward, and came to the intersection of this one with another farther around to the west side. There was a considerable cavity here, matted underfoot with feathers and small bones. From this point the burrow crooked around a large rock down in the ground.
Listening now at this opening, we could hear faint sounds farther back in the earth, and an occasional slight sneeze.
"Digging to get away, or get out!" exclaimed Thomas.
While we were resting and listening, a sharp, querulous bark came suddenly to our ears from out in the woods behind us.
"'Tis the old fox!" said Addison. "She's been away. She isn't in the hole. But she has come back in sight, and she don't like the looks of us here." He seized the gun and went cautiously off in the direction of the sound, but could not again catch sight of the fox.
We resumed our digging, and soon broke into a still larger cavity, leading off from which were three passages. Fresh earth was flying back out of one of them.
"We are close hauls on the fox inside!" cried Thomas. "Stand ready with the gun, Ad; he may make a bolt out by us."
The Old Squire plied the crowbar again, and breaking down a part of the bank over the passage, we caught sight of three fox cubs, all making the dirt fly, digging away for dear life, to get farther back. As the bank broke down and the light fell in upon them, they turned for a moment from their labors, and casting a foxy eye up at us, "yapped" sharply and bristled themselves.
"Oh, the little rogues!" cried Addison. "Only look at them! Look at their little paws and their little noses all covered with yellow dirt! There they go at it again, digging!"
"Aren't they cunning!" exclaimed Thomas. "Fox all over, too. Regular little rascals. See the white of those eyes, will you, when they turn them up at us! Isn't that a rogue's eye now?"
"We will catch them and carry them home, and put them in a pen," said Addison. "By next November their skins will be worth something."
"They will make you lots of work, to tend them and get meat for them," said the Old Squire. "Their pelts will not half pay you for your trouble."
These cubs were several weeks old, I suppose, but they were not larger than half-grown kittens.
"It won't answer for you to grab them with your bare hands," the Old Squire warned us. "I did that once, when a boy, and found that a fox cub is sharp-bitten."
They were of rather lighter yellow tint than a full-grown fox, but otherwise much like, although their legs, we thought, were not yet as long in proportionas they would become; nor yet were their tails in full bush.
It was not quite as far across lots to the Edwards farm as it was to the Old Squire's, and at length Addison and Thomas set off to go there for a basket to put the foxes in, and some old thick gloves with which to catch them.
Meantime the rest of us remained hard by, to watch the burrow, lest the cubs should escape. Once, while the boys were gone, we heard the mother fox bark. Halse went after her with the gun; she was evidently lingering about, but he could not catch sight of her.
The boys returned with a bushel basket and an old potato sack, to tie over the top of it. A little more of the bank was then broken down, when Addison, reaching in with his hands, protected by a pair of buckskin gloves, seized first one, then another, of the snapping, snarling little vulpines and popped them into the basket. It was agreed that Thomas should have one of them; and in furtherance of this division of the spoils, Halse and Addison went around by way of the Edwards farm, with Tom and the basket, while the Old Squire and I loaded ourselves with the tools and took the direct route homeward.
Supper was ready and Theodora had been blowing the horn for us, long and loud; in fact, we met her by the corn-field, whither she had at length come in search of us. I hastily told her of the capture, but the Old Squire said, "Don't tell your grandmother till the boys come with the cubs, then we will show them to her."
So we went into the house and leisurely got ready for supper. At length, Addison and Halse came to the kitchen door with their basket; and Gramp said, "Come here, Ruth, and see two little fellows who helped eat your old goose."
Gram came out looking pretty stern at the word goose, and when Ad pulled the bag partly away andshowed the two fox cubs, casting up the whites of their roguish eyes at her, she exclaimed harshly, "Ah, you little scamps!"
"But, oh, aren't they cunning! Aren't they pretty!" exclaimed Theodora and Ellen.
"Well, they are sort of pretty," admitted Gram, softening a little as she looked at them. "I suppose they are not to blame for their sinful natures, more than the rest of us."
We then told her of our exploit, digging them out of the burrow. The Old Squire thought that the mother fox would not trouble the farm-yard further, now that her family was disposed of.
After supper, Addison gathered up boards about the premises and built a pen out behind the west barn, in which to inclose the young foxes. As nearly as I can now remember, the pen was about fifteen feet long by perhaps six feet in width, with board sides four feet high. We also covered the top of it with boards upon which we laid stones. A pan for water was set inside the pen, and we gave them, for food, the various odds and ends of meat and other waste from the kitchen. For a day or two we enjoyed watching them very much.
They did not thrive well, but grew poor and mangy; and I may as well go on to relate what became of them. After we had kept them in the pen about a month, a dog, or else a fox, came around one night and dug under the side of the pen, as if making an attempt to get in and attack them. The outsider, apparently, was not successful in breaking in, and probably went away after a time, but it had dug a sufficiently large hole for the two young foxes to escape; they were discovered to be missing in the morning. Addison thought that it might possibly have been the mother fox.
One of these cubs—as we believed—came back to the pen under singular circumstances eight ornine months later. Having no use either for the old boards, or for the ground on which the pen stood, it was not taken away, but remained there throughout the autumn and following winter.
One day in April we heard two hounds baying, and as it proved, they were out hunting on their own account and had started a fox. We heard them from noon till near four in the afternoon, when Ellen, who was in the kitchen at one of the back windows, saw them, and, at a distance of twenty rods or less in advance of them, a small fox, coming at speed across the field, heading toward the west barn.
Addison and I were working up fire-wood in the yard at the time, and Ellen ran out to tell us what she had seen. We now heard the hounds close behind the barn, and getting the gun, ran out there. The fox, hard pressed evidently, had run straight to that old pen and taken refuge in it, through a hole in the top where the covering boards were off. But before we reached the spot, one of the hounds had also got in and shaken the life out of the refugee.
We could not positively identify the fox, yet it was a young fox, and we all thought that it resembled one of the cubs which we had kept in the pen. I am inclined to think that, finding itself in sore straits, it came to the old pen where, though a captive, it had once been safe from dogs which came about the place.
A few days later—I think it was June 15th—Gram's constant, urgent reminders prevailed, and directly after the noontide meal we all set off for the village, to have our pictures taken. The old lady had never ceased to mourn the fact that there were two of her sons whose photographs had not been taken before they enlisted. This was not so unusual an omission in those days as it would be at present; having one's photograph taken was then a much less common occurrence. Indeed, the photograph proper had hardly begun to be made, at least, not in the rural districts. The ambrotype was still the popular variety of portrait.
Personally, I confess to a lingering liking for the old ambrotype, the likeness taken on a glazed plate, on which the lights are represented in silver, and the shades are produced by a dark background. I like, too, the respectful privacy of the little inclosing case which you opened to gaze on the face of your friend. Best of all, I like its great durability and fadelessness. The name itself is a passport to favor in a picture, fromambrotos, immortal, andtupos, type, or impression: the immortal-type. Your pasteboard photograph so soon grows yellowed, dog-eared and stale! For certain purposes I would be glad to see the dear old ambrotype revived and coming back in fashion. True, you had to squint at it at a certain angle to see what it was; but when you obtained the right view, it was wonderfully lifelike and comforting.
One obstacle and another had delayed the trip for several weeks, but on that sunny June day the word to go was given. With much care and attention to clean faces, and hair, our best clothes were donned, for to have one's picture taken was then one of the great occasions of a youngster's life. There was earnest advice given on all sides in regard to "smiling expressions." Little Wealthy, especially, was exhorted so much in this respect, that she actually shed tears before we started. A "smiling expression" sometimes comes hard. Nor was she alone in her anxiety. I remember being a good deal worried about it, and that I had secretly resolved—since the sitting was said to occupy less than a minute—to draw a long breath, set my teeth together hard, and hold on to my "smiling expression" for that one minute, at least, if I died for it afterwards.
Indeed, the young folks of this later generation will hardly be able to understand what an ordeal it was to sit for an ambrotype, in 1866.
Ambrotypes were the kind of pictures which Gram had in view. Moreover, she had no notion of investing in more than one likeness apiece for each of us. This ambrotype was to be kept in the family archives, for the benefit of generations to come; the idea of having a dozen taken, or even half a dozen, to give away to one's friends, had not at that time entered the minds of country people in that portion of New England.
We had at first intended to start by nine in the morning and arrive by ten or eleven, so as to have the benefit of the midday sun—an important requisite for an ambrotype. But it was eleven o'clock before all were properly ready, and Gram then decided to have our noon meal before setting off. We got off a few minutes past noon. All the doors of the farmhouse were locked, or otherwise fastened, the garden gate closed and the horses harnessed. The Old Squirewith Gram led the way in the single wagon, and we six cousins, with Addison driving old "Sol," followed in the express wagon, three on a seat. We were conscious that we presented a curiously holiday appearance and laughed a great deal as we rattled along the road, although secretly each felt not a little anxious.
"Oh, but it's nothing!" Halstead exclaimed over and over. "All you have to do is to sit still a minute; the cammirror is the thing that does the work;"—for he was a little shaky on the pronunciation of the word camera, or the workings of it. To Addison and Theodora's great amusement, he went on to inform the rest of us in a superior tone, that the cammirror took a reflection from a person's face, much as a looking-glass does, and then threw it on a "mess of soft chemical stuff" which the artist had spread on a little pane of glass. "Being soft, the reflection naturally sticks in it," Halse continued. "Then all the fellow has to do is to harden it up—and there you are.
"But he has to be pretty careful, or you come out upside down," Halstead added. "I had a notion of buying one of those cammirrors once, before I came here, and starting in the business. I wish I had now. It is a sight better business than farming. I knew a fellow out at New Orleans that made thirteen dollars in one day, taking pictures."
"I wonder that you didn't get a 'cammirror,' Halse," Addison remarked. "You might have become a rich man in a few years."
"Oh, but it's dreadful unhealthy work," replied Halstead, in an offhand tone. "The chemical stuff they have to mix up gets into the lungs. It smells terribly. There's two kinds. The worst-smelling kind isn't the most unhealthy, though; the other kind you can but just smell at all, but one good whiff of it will about use a man up, if it gets fairly into his lungs. It doesn't answer for the artist fellow to breathe muchwhen he is in the little dark place, where he spreads the chemical stuff on the glass. They generally hold their noses when they are in there."
"If that is true, we had all better be careful how we breathe much this afternoon," Addison observed, feigning a very anxious glance around.
Little Wealthy looked distressed, however, and erelong intimated a desire to ride with Gram in the other wagon. She and Theodora and I rode on the back seat of our wagon; and I heard Theodora whispering to her reassuringly, that Halstead's talk was all nonsense.
On reaching the village we hitched our horses under two of the Congregationalist meeting-house sheds, and then proceeded to the small, low studio, or "saloon," with a large window in the roof, where at that time one Antony Lockett (or else Locke) practised the art of photography. He was a tall, large man of sandy complexion, somewhat slow in his movements and of pleasant manners. Gram opened negotiations with him directly, as to the price of ambrotypes, etc. She was not a little distressed, however, to learn from Mr. Lockett that ambrotypes were somewhat out of fashion, and that a new-fangled thing, called a photograph, represented the highest art and progress of the day. It was expensive, however. Of ambrotypes the artist spoke somewhat apologetically and slightingly. He also talked fluently of "tin-types," a kind of small, inferior likeness on a thin metal plate, without case, or glass. These he offered to make by the dozen at prices which almost shocked us from their cheapness.
As an artist who wished to exercise his vocation to the extent of its possibilities, Mr. Lockett argued adroitly in favor of the new photographs for all of us.
Grandmother was much perplexed. "It appears that times are changing," I heard her say to the Old Squire."I should say times were changing, Ruth!" he replied rather shortly. "If this man is going to charge six dollars apiece for us all, for photographs, I guess we had better get our horses and go home."
"Of course we cannot pay any such money as that, Joseph," Gram concurred. "We shall have to have ambrotypes, as we set out in the first place. I cannot see any better way. But it's a pity fashion has turned against them."
Ambrotypes being declared for, artist Lockett made his preparations, including several trips into his little dark room, the erection of his camera on its tripod, hanging a little pink sock on a hook upon the wall to look at, and setting out a chair with an iron head-rest. He then said, somewhat impressively, "I am ready. Who will sit first?"
None of us wished for that distinction, and to this day I recall the terrified look in little Wealthy's eye as she sought to make herself invisible behind Theodora's shoulder. The child was really much alarmed, largely from the peculiar odor which pervaded the place, and the stories which Halstead had told on our way down. It was the odor of all ambrotype "saloons" of that date, which can best be described by saying that it resembled what might have been, if the place had long been the haunt of a horde of cats.
"Joseph," said Gram at length, "you had better sit first, you are the oldest."
"I am not so very many months older than you, Ruth," replied the Old Squire, with a twinkle of his eye. "And when I was a young man, it was held to be the proper thing to seat the ladies first."
"Now don't you go to being funny, Joe," replied Gram, fanning herself vigorously. "This is no place for it."
Thus rebuked, and after some hesitation, the old gentleman with a queer expression took his seat in the "chair," and had his iron-gray head adjusted to theround black disks of the head-rest. Gram arranged his front lock with her comb, and said, "Now keep your eye on the little sock, Joseph, and look smilin';"—a superfluous piece of advice, as it proved, for he had already begun grinning awfully.
The artist, who had his head under the black cloth of his camera, now suddenly looked forth and gave different advice. "Not too smilin'. Not so smilin' as that, quite," said he.
But the Old Squire only grinned the more vigorously, showing several teeth.
Gram went around in front by the artist. "Oh, no, Joseph, not near so smilin'!" she exclaimed.
But do their best, they could not get the smile off his face.
"Look more solemn, Joseph," Gram now exhorted him. "You are overdoing it."
But so certain as the artist raised his hand to take off the cap from the camera, the Old Squire's face would begin to pucker again, and the artist was obliged to wait.
We all grew scandalized at his unaccountable levity. Addison sat laughing silently in a chair behind, and Gram at last lost her patience.
"If you were only a little boy, it wouldn't be quite so silly!" she exclaimed. "But an old man, with only a few years more on the earth, to behave so, is all out of character. Think of the shortness of life, Joseph, and the certainty of death."
But still from some nervous perversity, the old gentleman's face drew up in the same inveterate pucker whenever Lockett raised his hand to uncap the camera.
"O Joe, I'm astonished at you! I am for certain!" cried Gram, so vexed and angry that she lost all patience. She rushed to the door and looked out, to control her feelings.
Theodora then drew near the Old Squire's side and whispered, "Think of the War, Grandpa."
The War was then a topic of such terrible sadness for us that the mention of it, ordinarily, was sufficient to unloose the most poignant recollections. To grandfather, as to us all, it had brought a sable cloud of bereavement. But even thoughts of the War did not now long suffice to remove that grin—longer than till the Old Squire saw Lockett's hand raised. Then out jumped the all too "smilin' expression" again.
Gram went out of doors altogether and walked along the sidewalk, in mortification and despite; her feelings were much outraged.
Lockett now essayed to turn the conversation upon a current political topic, namely the nomination of General Grant for the Presidency; and it seemed as if the grin was at last exorcised. Yet when the artist attempted covertly to remove the cap, a hundred puckers gathered about Gramp's eyes again, his chin twitched, and even there were wrinkles on his nose.
With that, Lockett himself walked to the door for a time. Gram now returned, her face very red, and stalking in, surveyed the offender with a look of hard exasperation. "My senses, Joseph, you are the most provoking man I ever set my two eyes on. I do declare you are!"
Lockett returned to his place by the camera, looking somewhat bored. "Well, shall we try again?" said he.
"If he don't keep his face straight now, I'll know the reason!" Gram chimed in.
Yet quite the same when Lockett lifted his hand, after an awful pause, every furrow and pucker reappeared.
"Oh, there!" Gram exclaimed almost in tears, so vexed she had grown. "Take him. Take him, just as he is, the old Chessy-cat!" and again she rushed away to the door and snatched out her pocket handkerchief.
Then Addison, who had sat and laughed till hehad laughed himself tired and sober, came to the rescue, with a stroke of genius. Nodding covertly to Lockett, he approached the Old Squire from behind, and in a tone, as intended only for his private ear, murmured, "Say, Gramp, d'ye know this Lockett charges six dollars an hour for his time!"
The old gentleman's face suddenly straightened as his ear caught the words, and a look of dignified indignation and incredulity overspread his countenance, observing which the artist removed the cap and the likeness was taken. What the thoughts of death and War failed to accomplish was done by sudden resentment. After a moment or two, Gramp perceived the ruse which Addison had practised on him, and laughed as he rose from the chair. But Gram would not so much as look at him, and she scarcely spoke to him again that day.
The Old Squire did not at the time condescend to offer any explanation of his "smilin' expression;" but years afterwards, on an occasion when he and I were making a journey together, he told me that he never quite understood, himself, what whimsical freak took possession of his mind that day. To have saved his life—he said—he could not have kept a sober face when Lockett raised his hand to the cap. The ambrotype faithfully reproduced the sudden resentful expression on his countenance; and we always spoke of it as the "six dollars an hour expression."
Grandmother sat next, after Theodora and Ellen had arranged or rather rearranged her somewhat ruffled hair and collar. There was no troublesome smile on her countenance that afternoon! The flush of excitement and anger still tinged her cheeks, and her eye looked a little snappy. Theodora tried to modify the severe expression by saying pleasant things while helping seat her in a good position, but only half succeeded; and the picture which we have of her does not do her entire justice, since it gives an impressionof austerity not in keeping with her usual disposition and character.
I think that Addison sat next, and after him Halstead, who assumed a somewhat bumptious air, which was to an extent reflected in his picture.
Theodora had the "smiling expression" naturally, and perhaps added a trifle to it for the occasion. We often said to her afterwards, when looking at the pictures, that her smile was almost as broad as Gramp's irrepressible one. Still, it was a very good likeness of her at fifteen and of the genial, half-amused expression she often wore during those happy years at the farm.
It now came my turn to sit in the chair and have my head put back against the rest. For some reason Addison laughed, and then the others came around in front of me and laughed, too. "Don't he look worried?" cried Halstead. "Get on your 'smiling expression.' Don't stare at that poor little sock so hard, you'll knock it down off the hook! The little sock isn't to blame."
"Smile a little," said the artist gently.
But I had just witnessed what befell Gramp from smiling, and was afraid to risk it. "Oh, now!" whispered Theodora, "you really mustn't look so morose. Think of something pleasant. Think of catching trout."
But it would not come to me. "He can't smile," said Addison. "I'll stump him to smile."
"Oh, but you do look sad!" exclaimed Ellen.
"A regular cast-iron glare," said Halstead.
I grew angry.
"There's going to be a thunder-shower from the looks of his face," Addison remarked. "I'm going to get under cover."
They all took the hint and went away from in front of me. It seemed to me that those iron disks of the head-rest were the only two points on which my entireweight rested. The little pink sock swam up and down; and from somewheres in the rear I heard Halse saying, "He will have a fit in a minute more!"
At that moment Lockett took off the cap. I caught my breath, tried hard to smile just a little and no more, and clenched my fists.Click!the cap was replaced, and Lockett said, "That'll do." I got out of the chair and walked to the door; my ears were singing and both feet had "gone to sleep." The ambrotype subsequently gave evidence that my last effort to smile had materialized to the extent of being faintly visible, like a far-distant nebula on a clear night. The others always hectored me about that "frozen smile."
Ellen sat next and was taken very quickly, while I stood at the door recovering myself; but Wealthy suffered even more than I did, I feel sure. The poor child had stood awestruck and alarmed all the time the others were sitting. What she had seen had by no means tended to reassure her. She actually turned pale when Theodora took her to the chair; her dark eyes looked uncommonly large and wild. The smile which they finally developed on her face was one of fascination rather than pleasure; and when at length the cap was replaced and the artist said, "That'll do," she bounced out of the chair as if made of India-rubber.
We did not get the ambrotypes, in their small, square, black cases, till some weeks subsequently; and I recollect that the entire bill was twelve dollars, also that we all—all except Gram—rode home from the village in very high spirits, as those do who have successfully passed through a perilous ordeal. Gram, indeed, was unable to recover her equanimity till next day.