a little maid of ticonderoga by alice turner curtis author of "a little maid of province town" "a little maid of massachusetts colony" "a little maid of narragansett bay" "a little maid of bunker hill" "a little maid of old connecticut" "a little maid of old philadelphia" "a little maid of old maine" "a little maid of old new york" "a little maid of virginia" illustrated by wuanita smith the penn publishing company philadelphia 1929 copyright 1917 by the penn publishing company a little maid of ticonderoga [illustration: "my name is ethan allen"] introduction this is the story of a little girl whose home was among the green mountains of vermont, then known as "the wilderness," at the beginning of the american revolution; and at the time when ethan allen and his brave soldiers were on guard to defend their rights. ethan allen was the friend of faith, the heroine of the story, whose earnest wish to be of help is fulfilled. she journeys from her wilderness home across lake champlain to ticonderoga, and spends a winter with her aunt and cousin near fort ticonderoga. here she learns a secret about the fort that is of importance later to ethan allen's "green mountain boys." there are two very interesting bears in this story. like the earlier volumes of this series, "a little maid of province town," "a little maid of massachusetts colony," "a little maid of narragansett bay," and "a little maid of bunker hill"--the present volume introduces the heroes of american history and tells of famous deeds and places of which all american children should know. contents i. esther and bruin 9 ii. faith makes a promise 22 iii. more mischief 33 iv. a new plan 42 v. kashaqua 51 vi. the journey 59 vii. new friends 70 viii. the shoemaker's daughter 81 ix. louise 90 x. the major's daughters 100 xi. a day of adventure 110 xii. secrets 119 xiii. louise makes a present 129 xiv. a birthday 140 xv. new adventures 150 xvi. louise disappears 161 xvii. faith again visits the fort 172 xviii. home again 184 xix. faith writes a letter 194 xx. the capture of the fort 208 a little maid of ticonderoga chapter i esther and bruin faith carew was ten years old when esther eldridge came to visit her. faith lived in a big comfortable log cabin on one of the sloping hillsides of the green mountains. below the cabin was her father's mill; and to faith it always seemed as if the mill-stream had a gay little song of its own. she always listened for it when she awoke each morning. "i wonder if esther will hear what the brook sings?" thought faith as she drew on her moccasin slippers and dressed as quickly as she could, for her mother had already called her twice, and faith had just reached the top of the stairs when the third call of, "faith! faith! i shall not keep your porridge hot another instant," sounded from the kitchen. "i'm coming, mother dear," the little girl called back, and hurried down the stairs, wondering to herself why grown people who could always do exactly as they pleased should think it best to rise before the sun was really up. "your father was off to the mill an hour ago," said mrs. carew, setting a bowl of steaming porridge on the end of the table beside a narrow window, "so you will have to eat your porridge alone." faith sat down at the table, looking out through the open window toward the mill. "i do hope esther eldridge and her father will come to-day," she said. "do you think they will, mother dear?" "yes, child; they will probably arrive before sunset. your father expected them yesterday. it will be a fine thing for you to have a little girl for a companion. but she is a village child, and may not be happy in the wilderness," responded mrs. carew. "why, of course she will like being here! just think, she has never seen wheat ground into flour! and she can see that in our mill; and she has always walked on real roads, and here she will not even see a road; and i know many pleasant paths where we can walk, and i can tell her the names of different trees and flowers. i'm sure she will think the wilderness a fine place," said faith, nodding her head so that her yellow curls seemed to dance about her face. "i hope they make the journey from brandon safely. your father has been told that the indians have been troublesome to the settlers near lake dunmore; and besides that, there are many bears coming out into the clearings these fine autumn days. but mr. eldridge is a good shot, and i am seeking trouble in naming indians or bears. finish your breakfast, faithie, and run to the garden and bring me in the ripest of the pumpkins; for i must make some cakes for our company." the carews lived in a log house on a slope of cleared ground running down to the mill-stream. there were no roads, only rough trails, and they had no near neighbors. faith's father had a large grant of land, a "new hampshire grant," it was called, which ran toward the eastern shore of lake champlain. faith had no playmates, and when mr. eldridge, of the town of brandon, had sent word that he was coming to see mr. carew on business and would bring his small daughter with him, faith had been overjoyed and had made many plans of what she would do to entertain her visitor. faith finished her breakfast, and helped her mother clear the table and wash the dishes, and then went up the slope to where a number of fine pumpkins and squashes, growing among the corn, were ripening in the early september sunshine. she looked about carefully, and selected a yellow pumpkin. "this is about as large as my head," she said aloud, "and i guess it is about the same color," and she ran back to the house carrying the pumpkin, which mrs. carew set to bake in the brick oven beside the fireplace. "when it is baked may i fix the shell for a work-basket for esther?" asked faith. "yes, indeed," answered mrs. carew smilingly. "your aunt prissy was greatly pleased with the one you gave her when she visited here last autumn." "i wish i could go to ticonderoga and visit aunt prissy," said faith. "why, so you shall some day. but 'tis a troublesome journey, since one must be set across the strait," replied her mother. "but look, child! can it be that mr. eldridge has arrived at this early hour?" "yes, indeed. i see his little girl! look, mother! father has lifted her down from the horse; and mr. eldridge is walking, too! oh, mother! see the fine hat she has on!" and faith ran to the open door to get a better look at the little girl who was walking so slowly up the path to the log house. in a moment the little girl looked up toward the open door and faith waved her hand. "she didn't wave back, mother dear," exclaimed faith, and then the travelers were close at hand, and mrs. carew was greeting the tall, grave-faced man and welcoming esther. "my little girl was so tired that we stopped for the night at your neighbor stanley's house, five miles east," said mr. eldridge; "and that is why we are in good season this morning." while mr. eldridge was speaking esther held fast to her father's hand, her large black eyes fixed on mrs. carew. faith looked at her admiringly, wishing that her own eyes were black, and that her feet were small like esther's, and that she had a hat with a wide scarlet ribbon. "esther, this is faith," she heard her mother say, "and she will try and make you so happy here that you will wish to stay all winter." the two little girls smiled shyly, and esther let go her clasp on her father's hand and followed mrs. carew into the pleasant kitchen. faith watched her eagerly; she wondered why esther looked about the big room with such a curious expression. "almost as if she did not like it," thought faith. the little gray kitten came bouncing out from behind the big wood-box and esther gave a startled exclamation. "it's just 'bounce,'" said faith, picking up the kitten and smoothing its pretty head. "i named it 'bounce' because it never seems to walk. it just bounces along." esther smiled again, but she did not speak. faith noticed that she was very thin, and that her hands looked almost like little brown shadows. "are you tired?" she asked, suddenly remembering that she had heard her father say that "mr. eldridge's little maid was not well, and he thought the change would do her good." esther nodded. "yes, i'm always tired," she answered, sitting down in the low wooden rocker beside the light stand. "for pity's sake, child, we must see to it that you are soon as strong and well as faith," said mrs. carew, untying the broad scarlet ribbon and taking off esther's hat. she smoothed back the dark hair with a tender hand, remembering that esther's own mother was not well, and resolving to do her best for this delicate child. "i think the pumpkin is cooked by this time, faithie. i'll set it in the window to cool and then you can take out the pulp and i'll make the cakes," said mrs. carew. bounce jumped up in esther's lap, and faith sat down on the braided rug beside her. "i'm going to make the pumpkin shell into a work-basket for you," said faith. "did you ever see a pumpkin-shell work-basket?" esther shook her head. she did not seem much interested. but she asked eagerly: "are the pumpkin cakes sweet?" "yes, indeed. you shall have one as soon as they are baked; may she not, mother dear?" "why, yes; only if esther is not well it may not be wise for her to eat between meals," responded mrs. carew. "oh! but i eat cakes whenever i want them," declared esther, "and i love sweets. i had a fine cake when i left home and i ate it all before we got to lake dunmore." mrs. carew thought to herself that she did not wonder esther was always tired and not strong. esther did not say that the "fine cake" had been sent as a gift to faith. but her face flushed a little, and she added, "i meant to bring the cake as a present; but i was hungry." "of course you were," agreed faith quickly. "is not the pumpkin cool enough to cut, mother dear?" asked faith. "yes," replied her mother, setting the yellow pumpkin on the table. "come and see me do it, esther," said faith, and esther, with a little sigh, left the comfortable chair and came and leaned against the table. with a sharp knife faith cut a circle about the stem of the pumpkin and took it off, a little round, with the stem in the center. "that will be the work-box cover," she explained, laying it carefully on a wooden plate. then she removed the seeds and the pulp, putting the pulp in a big yellow bowl, and scraping the inside of the pumpkin shell. "there! now when it dries a bit 'twill be a fine work-box, and it is for you, esther," she said; but esther was watching mrs. carew, who was beating up eggs with the pumpkin pulp. "do you put spices in the cakes?" she questioned eagerly. "how long before they will be baked?" faith stood holding the yellow pumpkin shell, and looking at her visitor wonderingly. "all she cares about is something to eat," thought faith, a little scornfully, setting the fine pumpkin shell on the table. esther's face brightened as she listened to mrs. carew's description of pumpkin cakes, and of pumpkin pies sweetened with maple syrup. "i think i must teach you to cook, esther. i am sure you would soon learn," said mrs. carew. "i guess i wouldn't be strong enough," responded esther in a listless tone, going back to the rocking-chair, without even a glance at faith's present. "come, esther, let's go down to the mill. i'll show you the big wheel, and how father raises the water-gate," suggested faith, who was beginning to think that a visitor was not such a delightful thing, after all. esther left her chair with a regretful sigh, and followed faith out-of-doors. "listen!" said faith. "that rippling, singing noise is the brook." esther laughed. "you're funny," she said. "why should i listen to a noisy old mill-stream?" "i thought perhaps you'd like to hear it. i do. sometimes, just as i go to sleep, i hear it singing about the stars, and about little foxes who come down to drink, and about birds...." faith stopped suddenly, for esther was laughing; and as faith turned to look at her she realized that esther cared nothing about the music of the stream. "i do believe you are silly," esther responded. "do you think your mother will bake the cakes and pies while we are away?" "yes," replied faith dully. only that morning she had said to herself how nice it would be to have a girl friend to talk with, but if esther thought she was "silly"--why, of course, she must not talk. "i'll let her talk," resolved faith. for a few moments the two little girls walked on in silence, then esther said suddenly: "does your mother ever let you boil down maple molasses for candy?" "sometimes," replied faith. esther slipped her little brown hand under faith's arm. "ask her to let us make candy this afternoon. do. tell her it will keep me from being lonesome. for my father will be going to ticonderoga as soon as dinner is over; he will be gone for days. will you ask her, faith?" "yes, i'll ask her," faith answered. "i know i'm going to have a fine visit," declared esther, with more interest than she had shown since her arrival. "does your mother ever bake little pies, in saucers, for you?" "no," said faith, still resolved to say no more than was necessary. "oh! doesn't she? that's too bad. i wish i had asked her to. then we could play keep-house in the afternoon, and have the pies to eat. will your mother make pies again to-morrow?" "i don't know," said faith. esther did not care much about the mill. she hardly glanced at the big water-wheel, and was eager to get back to the house. several times she reminded faith of her promise about the maple candy. faith had expected that she and esther would be the best of friends, but the time before dinner seemed very long to both the children. soon after dinner mr. eldridge went on his way. he left his horse in mr. carew's care, as he was to walk to the shore of lake champlain and trust to good fortune to find a canoe or boat in which he could cross the narrow strait to ticonderoga. he would not return for a week, and he seemed greatly pleased that his little daughter was so contented to be left with her new friends. "she is an only child, like your own little maid," he said to mrs. carew, "and i am glad they are to be friends." they all walked down the slope with him, and watched him striding off along the rough path. "he's going to fetch me some rock-candy," said esther as they turned back to the house. mrs. carew stopped at the mill, and the two little girls went back to the house. "we'll make the maple candy now, shan't we?" said esther, as they reached the kitchen door. "see, the kettle is all clean, and i know where the molasses jug is," and before faith could remind her that she had not yet asked permission, esther was dragging the heavy jug from the pantry. "oh, look out, esther. you'll spill it," cautioned faith, running to help her. "no, i won't. here, help me turn it into the kettle and get it over the fire before your mother comes back," urged esther, and the two girls lifted the jug and turned the maple syrup into the kettle. "there, that will make a lot of candy," said esther. "you stir up the fire and put on more wood." faith obeyed. she hardly knew what else she could do, although she was sure that her mother would not want them to use all the syrup for candy. as she piled on the wood, she heard a scrambling noise at the door, and a sudden scream from esther: "faith! faith! a bear! a bear!" and looking over her shoulder she saw a big brown bear coming in through the kitchen door. chapter ii faith makes a promise for a second faith was too frightened to move. then pulling one of the newly kindled sticks from the fire she hurled it at the big creature and ran for the stairs, up which esther was already hurrying. the flaming brand halted the bear for a second only, but the little girls had reached the upper floor before he was well into the kitchen, and, sniffing the molasses, he turned toward the empty jug and the full kettle. "what shall we do? what shall we do?" sobbed esther. "he will come up here and eat us. i know he will." "we must get out of the window and run to the mill," whispered faith. "we mustn't wait a minute, for mother dear may be on her way to the house. come," and she pushed esther before her toward the window. "here, just take hold and swing yourself down," she said. "i can't, oh, i can't," sobbed esther. "you must. i'll go first, then;" and in a moment faith was swinging from the windowsill, had dropped to the ground, and was speeding down the path to the mill, while esther, frightened and helpless, leaned out screaming at the top of her voice. mrs. carew was just leaving the mill when she saw faith racing toward her. "a bear! a bear in our kitchen," she called. "hugh!" called mrs. carew, and mr. carew came running from the mill to hear the story. "it's lucky i keep a musket at the mill," he said. "here, you take faith into the mill and fasten the door on the inside. i'll attend to the bear," and he was off, racing toward the house, while mrs. carew hurried faith into the mill and shut the heavy door. "i do hope esther will stay in the chamber until your father gets there," said mrs. carew anxiously. "i do not believe the bear will venture up the stairs." "he was after the syrup," said faith, "and if he tried the stairs esther could drop out of the window." it was not long before they heard the loud report of the musket. "mayn't we open the door now, mother dear?" asked faith. "not yet, faithie. we'll wait a little," and faith realized that her mother's arm trembled as she drew the girl to her side. there was silence for what seemed a very long time to mrs. carew and faith, and then they heard mr. carew calling; "all right, open the door. here is esther safe and sound." esther, sobbing and trembling, clung to mrs. carew, and faith held tight to her father's hand while he told the story. the bear, with his nose in the kettle of syrup, had not even heard mr. carew's approach, and had been an easy mark. "you'll find your kitchen in a sad state, lucy," said mr. carew, as he finished. "i have dragged the bear outside, and he will furnish us some fine steaks, and a good skin for a rug; but your kettle of syrup is all over the floor." "kettle of syrup?" questioned mrs. carew. "why, there was no kettle of syrup." neither of the little girls offered any explanation. mr. carew looked about the clearing to see if any other bear was in the neighborhood, but it was evident that the creature had come alone. "'tis not often they are so bold," said mr. carew, as they neared the cabin, "although last year an old bear and two cubs came down by the mill, but they were off before i could get a shot at them." mrs. carew looked about her kitchen with a little feeling of dismay. the kettle had been overturned, and what syrup the bear had not eaten was smeared over the hearth and floor. the little rocking-chair was tipped over and broken, and everything was in disorder. esther looked into the kitchen, but mrs. carew cautioned her not to enter. "you and faith go to the front door and go into the sitting-room," she said. "there is nothing that either of you can do to help;" so faith led the way and pushed open the heavy door which led directly into a big comfortable room. the lower floor of the cabin was divided into two rooms, the sitting-room and kitchen, and over these were two comfortable chambers. the stairs led up from the kitchen. faith thought the sitting-room a very fine place. there was a big fireplace on one side of the room, and the walls were ceiled, or paneled, with pine boards. on one side of the fireplace was a broad wooden settle, covered with a number of fur robes, and several big cushions. between the two front windows stood a table of dark wood, and on the table were two tall brass candlesticks. a small narrow gilt-framed mirror hung over the table. there were several strongly-made comfortable wooden chairs with cushions. the floor was of pine, like the ceiled walls, and was now a golden brown in color. there were several bearskin rugs on the floor, for mr. carew, like all the men of the "wilderness," was a hunter; and when not busy in his mill or garden was off in the woods after deer, or wild partridge, or larger game, as these fine skins proved. "what a funny room," exclaimed esther, with a little giggle. "our sitting-room has beautiful paper on the walls, and we have pictures, and a fine carpet on the floor. what are you going to tell your mother about that maple syrup?" she concluded sharply. "i don't know," responded faith. "well, don't tell her anything," suggested esther. "i guess that i shall have to tell her," said faith. "you mean about me? that i teased you to make candy? well, if you do that i'll get my father to take me home with him instead of staying until he comes next month," declared esther. "i shan't tell anything about you," answered faith. esther looked at her a little doubtfully. "of course i shan't," repeated faith. "you are my company. no matter what you did i wouldn't talk about it. why, even the indians treat visitors politely, and give them the best they have, and that's what i shall do," and faith stood very straight and looked at esther very seriously. "truly? truly? what is the 'best' you have? and when will you give it to me?" demanded esther, coming close to her and clasping her arm. "is it beads? oh! i do hope it is beads! and you can't back out after what you have said," and esther jumped up and down in delight at the thought of a possible string of fine beads. for a moment it seemed as if faith would burst into tears. she had meant to tell esther that she would do her best to be kind and polite to her because esther was a guest, and now esther was demanding that faith should do exactly as she had promised and give her "the best she had." and it happened that faith's dearest possession was a string of fine beads. aunt priscilla scott, who lived in ticonderoga, had brought them as a gift on her last visit. they were beautiful blue beads,--like the sky on a june day,--and faith wore them only on sundays. they were in a pretty little wooden box in the sitting-room closet. suddenly esther let go of faith's arm. "i knew you didn't mean it," she said scornfully. faith made no reply. she walked across the room and pushed a brass knob set in one of the panels. the panel opened, and there was a closet. the little wooden box that held the beads was on the middle shelf. faith took it up, closed the door, and turned toward esther. "here! this is the best thing i have in all the world, the prettiest and the dearest. and it is beads. take them," and she thrust the box into esther's eager hands and ran out of the room. she forgot the dead bear, the wasted syrup, the danger and fright of so short a time ago; all she could think of was to get away from esther eldridge. she ran across the clearing and along a narrow path that circled behind the mill into the woods. she ran on and on until she could no longer hear the sound of the brook, and the path began to grow rocky and difficult. then, tired and almost breathless, faith sat down on a big rock and looked about her. for a few moments she could think of nothing but her lost beads, and of the disagreeable visitor. then gradually she realized that she had never before been so far along this rough path. all about her rose huge, towering pines. looking ahead the path seemed to end in a dense thicket. she heard the rustle of some little forest animal as it moved through the vines behind her, and the call of birds near at hand. faith began to recall the happenings of the morning: the excitement of esther's arrival, the sudden appearance of the bear in the kitchen doorway, her terror lest her mother should come before she could be warned; and then, again, esther and the loss of her beads. she began to cry. she felt very tired and unhappy. she felt esther was to blame for everything, even for the appearance of the bear. never before had a bear dared come to the house. faith leaned back against a friendly tree with a tired little sigh. she would rest, and then go home, she thought, and closed her eyes. when she awoke, she thought she must still be dreaming; for, standing a little way down the path, was a tall man leaning on a musket. he wore a flannel blouse, and his homespun trousers were tucked into high leathern gaiters. the man smiled and nodded. "do not be frightened, little maid," he said in a friendly voice. "i did not want to leave you here in the woods until i was sure that you could make your way home. are you miller carew's little girl?" "yes, sir," answered faith, wondering who this tall, dark-eyed man, who knew her father, could be, and then adding, "my name is faith." the tall man smiled again, and took off his leather cap. "my name is ethan allen," he responded; "it may be that you have heard your father speak of me." "yes, sir! you are a green mountain boy; and you help the settlers to keep their 'grants,'" faith replied quickly; for she had often heard her father and mother speak of the trouble the settlers were having to prove their titles to land taken under the "new hampshire grants," and she remembered hearing her father say that ethan allen would help any man defend his rights. she wished that she could tell him all about esther eldridge and the blue beads, but she remembered her promise. "i guess there are times when people don't have any rights," she decided, and was quite unconscious that she had spoken aloud until she heard her companion say very clearly: "there can never be such a time as that. people would be slaves indeed not to uphold their just and rightful claims. but why is a small maid like yourself troubling about 'rights'?" "i have company at my house----" began faith. "i see, i see!" interrupted colonel allen. "of course you have to let the guest do whatever she pleases," and he smiled and nodded, as if he understood all about it. "and now we had best start toward your father's mill, for it is well toward sunset." "sunset? have i slept all the afternoon!" exclaimed faith, jumping up. as they walked down the path ethan allen asked faith many questions about the people who came along the trail from the settlements on their way to lake champlain. when they reached the clearing where the mill stood faith's father and mother came running to meet them. they welcomed mr. allen, and said that they had been sadly worried about faith. "but where is esther?" asked mrs. carew. "is she not with you, faith?" "i left her in the sitting-room, hours ago!" answered the little girl. chapter iii more mischief "'hours ago,'" repeated mrs. carew. "why, dear child, it is only an hour since esther came up from the mill with the dishes." faith looked so bewildered that her mother exclaimed: "why, child! have you forgotten that you and esther had your dinner at the mill?" "but i did not have any dinner," declared faith. "it was not dinner time when i ran off and left esther in the sitting-room. i----" and then faith stopped suddenly. she resolved that she would not tell her mother that she had given esther the blue beads,--not until esther was found. "well, i declare. esther came into the kitchen just as i was preparing dinner, and asked if you girls could not have a picnic dinner at the mill, and i was well pleased to let you. i put some cold meat and bread, a good half of pumpkin pie and some of the pumpkin cakes in a basket, and gave her a pitcher of milk, and off she went. an hour ago she came in to ask for a lunch and i gave her a good piece of molasses cake. your father was busy skinning the bear, and we gave but little thought to you children. but when i called your name, and found neither of you at the mill, i became alarmed. but where can esther be now?" concluded mrs. carew, looking anxiously about the clearing. "go back to the house with faith and give the child something to eat. colonel allen and i will search the mill again," said mr. carew. "i'm tired," said faith, as they reached the house, "and i don't like esther." "hush, faithie. she is your guest. and if she has wandered into any harm or danger i do not know what we can say to mr. eldridge," responded her mother; "but i do not understand about the food," she added, half to herself, wondering if esther could really have eaten it all. faith looked about the kitchen. "it looks just the same. just as if the bear had not come in," she said. mrs. carew brought her a bowl of milk and a plate of corn bread, and another plate with two of the pumpkin cakes. "i'll run back to the mill while you eat your supper, faithie, and see if esther has been found. when i come back you must tell me what you were turning syrup into the kettle for." faith was hungry, but as she ate her bread and milk she felt very unhappy. she remembered her promise to esther not to tell mrs. carew about the syrup. "i don't know what i shall do," she said aloud. "i guess i'll go and rest on the settle until mother dear comes," so she opened the door and entered the sitting-room. as she lay back among the cushions of the settle she heard a faint noise from the further side of the room. "i guess it's 'bounce,'" she thought. then the noise came again: "gr-r-r! gr-rrr!" faith sat up quickly. she wondered if another bear had made its way into the house. the big black bearskin rug in front of the table was moving; it was standing up, and coming toward the settle. "it's you, esther eldridge! you can't frighten me," said faith, and esther dropped the rug from her shoulders and came running toward the settle. her black eyes were dancing, and she was laughing. "oh! i've had the greatest fun! i ate all your dinner, and i hid under that bearskin and your mother and father hunted everywhere for me. where have you been?" concluded esther, looking down at faith. the little girls did not notice that, just as esther began speaking, mrs. carew had opened the sitting-room door. "i've been way off in the woods, and my mother has asked me to tell her about the maple syrup," replied faith accusingly. "well, esther!" both the girls gave an exclamation of surprise at the sound of mrs. carew's voice. "you may go to the mill and tell mr. carew that you are safe, and then come directly back," she said a little sternly, and stood by the door until esther was on her way. then she crossed over to the settle and sat down beside faith. "i will not ask you about the syrup, faithie dear," she said, smoothing faith's ruffled hair. "and you had best go up-stairs to bed. i will have a talk with esther, and then she will go to bed. it has been a difficult day, has it not, child? but to-morrow i trust everything will go pleasantly, without bears or trouble of any sort." "but esther will be here," said faith. "never mind; i think esther has made mischief enough to-day to last all her visit," responded mrs. carew; and faith, very tired, and greatly comforted, went up to her pleasant chamber which esther was to share. she wondered to herself just what her mother would say to esther. but she did not stay long awake, and when esther came up-stairs shortly after, very quietly, and feeling rather ashamed of herself after listening to mrs. carew, faith was fast asleep. but esther did not go to sleep. she wondered to herself what her father would say if mrs. carew told him of her mischief, and began to wish that she had not deceived mrs. carew about the dinner. she could feel her face flush in the darkness when she remembered what mrs. carew had said to her about truthfulness. esther's head ached, and she felt as if she was going to be ill. down-stairs she could hear the murmur of voices. ethan allen would sleep on the settle, and be off at an early hour the next morning. it seemed a long time before the voices ceased, and she heard mr. and mrs. carew come up the stairs. esther began to wish that she had not eaten the fine pumpkin pie and all the cakes. it was nearly morning before she fell asleep, and she was awake when faith first opened her eyes. "it's time to get up. it always is the minute i wake up," said faith sleepily. esther answered with a sudden moan: "i can't get up. i'm sick," she whispered. faith sat up in bed and looked at esther a little doubtfully. but esther's flushed face and the dark shadows under her eyes proved that she spoke the truth. "i'll tell mother. don't cry, esther. mother will make you well before you know it," said faith, quickly slipping out of bed and running into the little passage at the head of the stairs. in a few moments mrs. carew was standing beside the bed. she said to herself that she did not wonder that esther was ill. but while faith dressed and got ready for breakfast mrs. carew smoothed out the tumbled bed, freshened the pillows and comforted their little visitor. "run down and eat your porridge, faithie, and then come back and sit with esther," said mrs. carew. when faith returned mrs. carew went down and brewed some bitter herbs and brought the tea for esther to drink. the little girl swallowed the unpleasant drink, and shortly after was sound asleep. she had not awakened at dinner time, and mrs. carew was sure that she would sleep off her illness. "the child must be taught not to crave sweet foods," she said, as she told faith to run down to the mill and amuse herself as she pleased. "only don't go out of sight of the mill, faithie," she cautioned, and faith promised and ran happily off down the path. she was eager to ask her father about mr. ethan allen. mr. carew was busy grinding wheat. there were few mills in the wilderness, and nearly every day until midwinter settlers were coming and going from the mill, bringing bags of wheat or corn on horseback over the rough trail and carrying back flour or meal. when mr. carew had tied up the bag of meal and his customer had ridden away, he came to where faith was sitting close by the open door and sat down beside her. "why do you call mr. allen a 'green mountain boy'?" asked the little girl, after she had answered his questions about esther; "he is a big man." mr. carew smiled down at faith's eager face, and then pointed to the green wooded hills beyond the clearing. "it's because he, and other men of these parts, are like those green hills,--strong, and sufficient to themselves," he answered. "every settler in the wilderness knows that ethan allen will help them protect their homes; and no man knows this part of the country better than colonel allen." "why do you call him 'colonel'?" asked faith. "because the bennington people have given him that title, and put him in command of the men of the town that they may be of service to defend it in case king george's men come over from new york," replied her father; "but i do not know but the bears are as dangerous as the 'yorkers.' do you think esther will be quite well to-morrow?" concluded mr. carew. faith was quite sure that esther would soon be as well as ever. she did not want to talk about esther. she wanted to hear more about her friend colonel allen. "i heard him tell mother that he slept in a cave one night on his way here," she said. "oh, yes; he can sleep anywhere. but you must talk of him no more to-day, faithie," answered mr. carew; "and here is 'bounce' looking for you," he added, as the little gray kitten jumped into faith's lap. chapter iv a new plan esther was much better the next morning, but she was not well enough to come down-stairs for several days, and when her father appeared he agreed with mrs. carew that the little girl was not fit to undertake the journey on horseback along the rough trail to brandon. mrs. carew was able to assure him, however, that he need not be anxious about his little daughter, and he decided to go directly home, leaving esther to regain health and strength in mrs. carew's charge. "i will come for you the first monday in october, three weeks from to-day," he told esther, "and you must mind mrs. carew in everything she bids you." esther promised tearfully. she did not want to stay, but she resolved to herself, as she watched her father ride away, that she would do everything possible to please mrs. carew and make friends with faith. she could hardly bear to think of the first day of her visit. as she lay on the settle comfortably bolstered up with the soft pillows, and a little fire crackling on the hearth, esther looked about the sitting-room and began to think it a very pleasant place. faith brought all her treasures to entertain her little visitor. chief of these was a fine book called "pilgrim's progress," with many pictures. there was a doll,--one that faith's aunt priscilla had brought her from new york. this doll was a very wonderful creature. she wore a blue flounced satin dress, and the dress had real buttons, buttons of gilt; and the doll wore a beautiful bonnet. faith watched esther a little anxiously as she allowed her to take lady amy, as the doll was named. but esther was as careful as faith herself, and declared that she did not believe any little girl that side of bennington had such a beautiful doll. "i think your aunt priscilla is the best aunt that ever was. she gave you this lovely doll, and your blue beads----" esther stopped suddenly. she had lost the beads, and she did not want to tell faith. she had resolved to hunt for them as soon as possible, and give them back. she was sure she could find them when she could run about again. faith did not look at esther. she wished esther had not reminded her of the beads. but esther had been so grateful for everything that mrs. carew and faith did for her that they had almost forgotten her mischief, and were beginning to like their little visitor. "yes, my aunt prissy is lovely," said faith. "she is a young aunt. her hair is yellow and her eyes are blue; she can run as fast as i can," and faith smiled, remembering the good times she always had when aunt prissy came for a visit to the log cabin. "when i go to visit her i shall see the fort where the english soldiers are," she added. "colonel ethan allen could take the fort away from them if he wanted to; my father said so," boasted esther; and faith was quite ready to agree to this, for it seemed to her that the tall, dark-eyed colonel could accomplish almost anything. "how would you and faithie like to have your supper here by the fire?" asked mrs carew, coming in from the kitchen. "faith can bring in the light stand and use her own set of dishes. and i will make you a fine dish of cream toast." both the little girls were delighted at the plan. and faith ran to the kitchen and, with her mother's help, brought in the stand and put it down in front of the settle. she spread a white cloth over it, and then turned to the closet, from which she had taken the blue beads, and brought out her treasured tea-set. there was a round-bodied, squatty teapot with a high handle, a small pitcher, a round sugar-bowl, two cups and saucers, and two plates. the dishes were of delicate cream-tinted china covered with crimson roses and delicate buds and faint green leaves. one by one faith brought these treasures to the little table, smiling with delight at esther's exclamations of admiration. "my grandmother who lives in connecticut sent me these for my last birthday present," said faith. "my grandmother carew, whom i have never seen. and they came from across the big salt ocean, from england." "to think that a little girl in a log cabin should have such lovely things!" exclaimed esther. "i have a silver mug with my name on it," she added. mrs. carew brought them in the fine dish of cream toast, and filled the china teapot with milk so they could play that it was a real tea-party. there were baked apples to eat with the toast, and although esther longed for cake she did not speak of it, and, bolstered up with cushions, and faith sitting in a high-backed chair facing her, she began really to enjoy herself. "my father made this little table," said faith, helping esther to a second cup of "tea," "and he made these chairs and the settle. he came up here with mr. stanley years ago, and cut down trees and built this house and the barn and the mill; then he went way back where my grandmother lives and brought my mother here. some day i am to go to connecticut and go to school." "why don't you come to brandon and go to school?" suggested esther. "oh, do! faith, ask your mother to let you go home with me and go to school this winter. that would be splendid!" and esther sat up so quickly that she nearly tipped over her cup and saucer. "i guess i couldn't," replied faith. "my mother would be lonesome." but esther thought it would be a fine idea; and while faith carried the dishes to the kitchen, washed them with the greatest care, and replaced them on the closet shelf, esther talked of all the attractions of living in a village and going to school with other little girls. "i feel as well as ever," declared esther as the two little girls went to bed that night; "but i do wish your mother thought sweet things would be good for me. at home i have all i want." "mother says that is the reason you are not well," answered faith. "hear the brook, esther! doesn't it sound as if it was saying, 'hurry to bed! hurry to bed!' and in the morning it is 'time to get up! time to get up!'" "you are the queerest girl i ever knew. the idea that a brook could say anything," replied esther; but her tone was friendly. "i suppose it's because you live way off here in the woods. now if you lived in a village----" "i don't want to live in a village if it will stop my hearing what the brook says. and i can tell you what the robins say to the young robins; and what little foxes tell their mothers; and i know how the beavers build their homes under water," declared faith, with a little laugh at esther's puzzled expression. "tell me about the beavers," said esther, as they snuggled down in the big feather-bed. "every house a beaver builds has two doors," began faith, "and it has an up-stairs and down-stairs. one of the doors to the beaver's house opens on the land side, so that they can get out and get their dinners; and the other opens under the water--way down deep, below where ice freezes." "how do you know?" questioned esther, a little doubtfully. "father told me. and i have seen their houses over in the mill meadow, where the brook is as wide as this whole clearing." before faith had finished her story of how beavers could cut down trees with their sharp teeth, and of the dams they built across streams, esther was fast asleep. faith lay awake thinking over all that esther had said about school; about seeing little girls and boys of her own age, and of games and parties. then with a little sigh of content she whispered to herself: "i guess i'd be lonesome without father and mother and the brook." mrs. carew had heard esther's suggestion about faith going to brandon to go to school, and after the little girls had gone to bed she spoke of it to faith's father, as they sat together before the fire. "perhaps we ought to send faithie where she could go to school and be with other children," said mr. carew, "but i hardly know how we could spare her." there was a little silence, for the father and mother knew that their pleasant home on the slope of the hillside would be a very different place without their little maid. "but of course we would not think of brandon," continued faith's father. "if we must let her go, why, her aunt priscilla will give her a warm welcome and take good care of the child; and the school at ticonderoga is doubtless a good one." "esther seems sorry for her mischief, but i should not wish faith to be with her so far from home. perhaps we had best send some word to priscilla by the next traveler who goes that way, and ask her if faith may go to her for the winter months," said mrs. carew. so, while faith described the beaver's home to the sleepy esther, it was settled that as soon as it could be arranged she should go to stay with her aunt priscilla in the village of ticonderoga, across lake champlain, and go to school. "if 'twere not that some stray indians might happen along and make a bonfire of our house and mill we might plan for a month's visit ourselves," said mr. carew. "we must not think of it," responded his wife. for the log cabin home was very dear to her, and at that time the indians, often incited by the british in command of the forts at ticonderoga and crown point, burned the homes of settlers who held their land through grants given by the new hampshire government. "more settlers are coming into this region every year. we shall soon have neighbors near at hand, and can have a school and church," said mr. carew hopefully. "colonel allen is not journeying through the wilderness for pleasure. he has some plan in mind to make this region more secure for all of us. well, tell faithie, if she has aught to say of going to brandon, that she is soon to visit aunt priscilla. i doubt not 'twill be best for the child." chapter v kashaqua esther did not find the blue beads; and when her father came for her she had not said a word to faith about them. mr. eldridge found his little daughter fully recovered from her illness, and in better health than when she came to the wilderness. when she said good-bye faith was really sorry to have her go, but she wondered a little that esther made no mention of the beads, for esther had been a model visitor since her illness. she had told mrs. carew the full story of the attempt to make maple candy, which the bear had interrupted, and she had claimed the pumpkin-shell work-box with evident delight. all these things had made faith confident that esther would return the beads before starting for home, and she was sadly disappointed to have esther depart without a word about them. esther had asked mrs. carew if faith might not go to brandon, and so mrs. carew had told the little girls of the plan for faith to go to her aunt priscilla in ticonderoga for the winter and attend school there. "oh! but that's new york. why, the 'yorkers' want to take all the wilderness. i shouldn't want to go to school with 'yorkers,'" esther had responded, a little scornfully. for she had often heard her father and his friends talk of the attempts made by the english officials of new york to drive the settlers on the new hampshire grants from their homes. "'tis not the people of new york who would do us harm," mrs. carew had answered. "and faith will make friends, i hope, with many of her schoolmates." it was a beautiful october morning when esther, seated in front of her father on the big gray horse, with the pumpkin-shell work-box wrapped in a safe bundle swinging from the front of the saddle, started for brandon. their way for most of the journey led over a rough trail. they would pass near the homes of many settlers, then over the lower slopes of mooselamoo mountain, and skirt lake dunmore, and would then find themselves on a smoother road for the remainder of their journey. faith walked beside the travelers to the edge of the wood and then the two little girls said good-bye. "i'll come again in the spring," esther called back. faith stood watching them until the branches of the trees hid them from sight. the maples seemed to be waving banners of scarlet leaves, and the slopes of the green mountains were beautiful in the glory of autumn foliage. the sun shone brightly, the sky was as blue as summer, and as faith turned to run swiftly along the path to the mill she almost wished that she too was starting for a day's journey through the woods. the path ran along beside the mill-stream. it seemed to faith that the brook was traveling beside her like a gay companion, singing as it went. the little girl had had so few companions, none except an occasional visitor, that she had made friends with the birds and small woodland animals, and found companionship in the rippling music of the stream. there was a fine family of yellow-hammers just below the mill that faith often visited, and she was sure that they knew her quite well. she had watched them build their nest in the early spring; had seen them bring food to the young birds, and had sat close by the nest while the young birds made their first efforts to fly. she knew where a fine silver-coated fox made its home on the rocky hillside beyond the garden-slope, and had told her father that "silver-nose," as she had named the fox, knew that she was his friend, and would lie quite still at the entrance to its hole, while she would sit on a big rock not far distant. but faith was not thinking of these woodland friends as she ran along toward the mill; she was thinking of what she had heard her father say to mr. eldridge that morning. "tell colonel allen the men of the wilderness will be ready whenever he gives the word," mr. carew had said; and mr. eldridge had answered that it would not be long. faith wondered what her father had meant, and if colonel allen would again visit the mill. she hoped he would, for he had seemed to know all about the woodland creatures, and had told faith a wonderful story about the different months of the year. she thought of it now as she felt the warmth of the october sunshine. "october is stirring the fire now," she called to her father, who was watching her from the door of the mill. "what do you mean by that, child?" asked her father, smiling down at faith's tanned face and bright eyes. "'tis what colonel allen told me about the months. all twelve, every one of the year, sit about the fire. and now and then one of them stirs the fire, and that makes all the world warmer. july and august, when it is their turn, make it blaze; but the other months do not care so much about it. but once in a while each month takes its turn," answered faith. "that's what colonel allen told me." "'tis a good story," said mr. carew. "did your mother tell you that i have sent word to your aunt priscilla about your going to her house as soon as some trustworthy traveler going to ticonderoga passes this way?" "yes, father. but i am learning a good deal at home. mother says i read as well as she did when she was my age. and i can figure in fractions, and write neatly. i do not care much about school," answered faith; for to be away from her mother and father all winter began to seem too great an undertaking. "yes, indeed; your mother tells me you learn quickly. but 'tis best for you to become acquainted with children of your own age. and you have never seen your cousins. three boy cousins. think of that. why, your aunt prissy says that donald is nearly as tall as you are; and he is but eight years old. and hugh is six, and philip four. then there are neighbor children close at hand. you will play games, and have parties, and enjoy every day; besides going to school," responded her father encouragingly. then he told her of his own pleasant school days in the far-off connecticut village where grandmother carew lived; and when mrs. carew called them to dinner faith had begun to think that it would really be a fine thing to live with aunt priscilla and become acquainted with her little cousins, and all the pleasant, well-behaved children that her father described, with whom she would go to school and play games. "it is nearly time for kashaqua's yearly visit," said mrs. carew. "i have knit a scarf for her of crimson yarn. she generally comes before cold weather. don't let her see your blue beads, faith." faith did not make any answer. kashaqua was an indian woman who had appeared at the cabin every fall and spring ever since the carews had settled there. when faith was a tiny baby she had come, bringing a fine beaver skin as a gift for the little girl. she always came alone, and the family looked upon her as a friend, and always made a little feast for her, and sent her on her way laden with gifts. not all the indians of the wilderness were friendly to settlers; and the carews were glad to feel that kashaqua was well disposed toward them. she often brought gifts of baskets, or of bright feathers or fine moccasins for faith. "i hope she will come before i go to aunt prissy's," said faith. "i like kashaqua." "kashaqua likes little girl." even mr. carew jumped at these words and the sudden appearance of the indian woman standing just inside the kitchen door. she seemed pleased by their warm welcome, and sat down before the fire, while faith hastened to bring her a good share of their simple dinner. faith sat down on the floor beside her, greatly to kashaqua's satisfaction, and told her about esther eldridge's visit, about the bear coming into the kitchen, and of how she had jumped from the window and run to the mill to tell her father. kashaqua grunted her approval now and then. "and what do you think, kashaqua! i am to go to my aunt priscilla scott, to ticonderoga, and stay all winter," she concluded. "ticonderoga? when?" questioned kashaqua, dipping a piece of corn bread in the dish of maple syrup. "i am to go just as soon as some one goes over the trail who will take me," answered faith. "i take you. i go to ticonderoga to-morrow. i take you," said kashaqua. chapter vi the journey "mother dear, mother dear! did you hear what kashaqua says: that she will take me to aunt prissy's to-morrow?" said faith. the indian woman had turned quickly, and her sharp little eyes were fixed on mrs. carew's face. "you 'fraid let little girl go with kashaqua?" she said, a little accusing note in her voice. "no, indeed. kashaqua would take good care of faith. i know that. but to-morrow----" mrs. carew spoke bravely, but both faith's father and mother were sadly troubled. to offend the indian woman would mean to make enemies of the tribe to which she belonged; and then neither their lives nor their property would be safe; and she would never forgive them if they doubted her by refusing to let faith make the journey to ticonderoga in her care. it was faith who came to the rescue by declaring: "oh, i'd rather go with kashaqua than anybody. mother dear, you said aunt prissy would see about my shoes and dresses. i don't have to wait to get ready," and faith ran to her mother eager for her consent, thinking it would be a fine thing to go on a day's journey through the woods with the indian woman, and quite forgetting for the moment that it meant a long absence from home. nothing could have pleased kashaqua more than faith's pleading. the half-angry expression faded from her face, and she nodded and smiled, grunting her satisfaction, and taking from one of her baskets a pair of fine doeskin moccasins, which she gave to faith. "present," she said briefly. "they are the prettiest pair i ever had!" said faith, looking admiringly at their fringed tops, and the pattern of a vine that ran from the toes to insteps, stitched in with thread-like crimson and blue thongs. "it is a fine chance for faith to go to her aunt priscilla," said mr. carew. "do you know where philip scott lives, across champlain?" "me know. not great ways from fort," responded kashaqua. "me take little girl safe to scott's wigwam." "that's right, kashaqua," said mr. carew. "then me come back to mill and get meal an' get pie," said kashaqua. "of course. i will make you the finest pie you ever tasted," said mrs. carew, with a little sigh of relief. for she had wondered how long it would be before they could get news that kashaqua had kept her promise, and that faith had reached her aunt's house in safety. in the surprise and excitement of this new decision neither faith nor her parents had much time to think about their separation. although aunt priscilla was to see that faith was well provided with suitable dresses, shoes, hat, and all that a little girl would need to wear to school and to church, there was, nevertheless, a good deal to do to prepare and put in order such things as she would take with her. beside that mrs. carew meant to give the squaw a well-filled luncheon basket; so the remainder of the day went very quickly. faith helped her mother, and talked gaily with kashaqua of the good time they would have on the journey; while kashaqua smoked and nodded, evidently quite satisfied and happy. when night came the indian woman made her preparations to sleep before the kitchen fire, and the carews went up-stairs to bed. the mother and father lay long awake that night. while they assured each other that faith would be perfectly safe, and that the indian woman would defend the little girl from all danger, they could not but feel an uncertainty. "we can trust the strength and love that has protected us always to go with our little maid," said mr. carew; "perhaps kashaqua is the safest person we could find." "we must hope so; but i shall not draw a good breath until she is here again, and tells me faithie is safe with priscilla," responded mrs. carew. the little household was awake at an early hour the next morning. faith was to wear the new moccasins. she wore her usual dress of brown homespun linen. faith had never had a hat, or a pair of leather shoes, and only the simplest of linen and wool dresses. she had never before been away from home, except for a day's visit at the house of some neighboring settler. she knew that when she got to aunt prissy's she would have a hat, probably like the one esther eldridge had worn, ribbons to tie back her yellow curls, shining leather shoes, and many things that she had never before seen. she had thought a good deal about these things when planning for the journey, but now that the time was so near when she must say good-bye to her mother and father she forgot all about the good times in store, and wished with all her heart that she were not going. "don't let kashaqua see you cry, child," her father whispered, seeing faith's sad face; so she resolutely kept back her tears. breakfast was soon over. kashaqua had stowed faith's bundle of clothing in one of her baskets and swung it over her shoulder. the basket of luncheon also was secured by stout thongs and hung across her back, and they were ready to start. "be a good child, faithie, dear," whispered mrs. carew. "i'll fetch you home when it is april's turn to stir the fire," said her father smilingly, and faith managed to smile back, and to say good-bye bravely, as she trudged down the path holding tight to kashaqua's brown hand. "i be back to-morrow night," kashaqua called back, knowing that would be a word of comfort to the white woman who was letting her only child go from home. neither faith nor kashaqua spoke for some little time. at last faith stopped suddenly and stood still, evidently listening. "i can't hear the brook," she said. kashaqua nodded, and the two walked on through the autumn woods. but now kashaqua began to talk. she told faith stories of the wild animals of the woods; of the traps she set along the streams to catch the martens and otters; and of a bear cub that the children of her village had tamed. but it had disappeared during the summer. "the papooses catch birds and feed them," she continued, "tame birds so they know their name, and come right to wigwam." faith listened eagerly, and began to think that an indian village must be a very pleasant place to live. "where is your village, kashaqua?" she asked. "you not know my village? way back 'cross mooselamoo," answered kashaqua. "perhaps i can go there some time," suggested faith. but kashaqua shook her head. for several hours they walked steadily on through the autumn woods. they climbed several rocky ridges, crossed brooks, and carefully made their way over a swampy stretch of ground. faith was very tired when kashaqua finally swung the baskets and bundles from her shoulders and declared that it was time to eat. the trail had led them up a hill, and as faith, with a little tired sigh, seated herself on a moss-covered rock, she looked about with a little exclamation of wonder. close beside the trail was a rough shelter made of the boughs of spruce and fir trees, and near at hand was piled a quantity of wood ready for a fire. there was a clearing, and the rough shelter was shaded by two fine oak trees. "does somebody live here?" asked faith. "traveler's wigwam," explained kashaqua, who was unpacking the lunch basket with many grunts of satisfaction. "white men going down the trail to big road to shoreham sleep here," she added, holding up a fine round molasses cake in one hand and a roasted chicken in the other. faith was hungry as well as tired, and the two friends ate with good appetite. kashaqua repacked the basket with what remained of the food, and with a pleasant nod to faith declared she would "sleep a little," and curled herself up near the shelter. faith looked about the rough camp, and peered down the trail. she decided she too would sleep a little, and stretched herself out close beside kashaqua, thinking that it was a wonderful thing to be so far from home,--nearly in sight of lake champlain, kashaqua had told her, with an indian woman for her guide and protector; and then her eyes closed and she was sound asleep. it seemed to faith that she had not slept a minute before she awakened suddenly, and found that kashaqua had disappeared. but she heard a queer scrambling sound behind her and sat up and looked around. for a moment she was too frightened to speak, for a brown bear was clawing the remainder of their luncheon from the basket, grunting and sniffing, as if well pleased with what he found. as faith looked at him she was sure that this creature had dragged kashaqua off into the woods, and that he might turn and seize her as soon as he had finished with the basket. "kashaqua! kashaqua!" she called hopelessly. "what shall i do? what shall i do?" there was a rustle of leaves close behind her and the indian woman darted into the clearing. without a word to faith she ran straight to where the bear was crouched over the basket. faith could hardly believe what she saw, for kashaqua had seized the basket and pushed it out of the bear's reach, and was now belaboring him with a stout piece of wood that she had seized from the pile by the shelter. as she hit the bear she called out strange words in the indian tongue, whose meaning faith could not imagine, but which the bear seemed to understand. the creature accepted the blows with a queer little whimper which made faith laugh in spite of her fear. and when kashaqua had quite finished with him he crept along beside her, looking up as if pleading for forgiveness. "oh, kashaqua! is it the bear that your papooses tamed?" exclaimed faith, remembering the story told her on the way. kashaqua nodded, at the same time muttering words of reproach to the bear. "he like bad indian, steal from friends," she explained to faith. "his name nooski," she added. nooski was quite ready to make friends with faith, but she was not yet sure of his good-nature. it seemed to the little girl that the bear understood every word kashaqua uttered; and when they went on their way down the trail nooski followed, or kept close beside them. it was still early in the afternoon when they reached level ground and faith had her first glimpse of the blue waters of lake champlain and saw the heights of ticonderoga on the opposite shore. for a moment she forgot nooski and kashaqua, and stood looking at the sparkling waters and listening to the same sound of "chiming waters" that had made the early french settlers call the place "carillon." she wondered if she should ever see the inside of the fort of which she had heard so much, and then heard kashaqua calling her name. "canoe all ready, faith." the indian woman had drawn the birch-bark canoe from its hiding-place in the underbrush, and the light craft now rested on the waters of the lake. the baskets and bundles were in the canoe, and kashaqua, paddle in hand, stood waiting for her little companion. "where's nooski?" asked faith, looking about for the young bear. kashaqua pointed toward the distant range of mountains which they had left behind them. "he gone home," she said. kashaqua told her how to step into the canoe, and how to sit, and cautioned her not to move. faith felt as if the day had been a wonderful dream. as kashaqua with swift strokes of her paddle sent the canoe over the water faith sat silent, with eyes fixed on the looming battlements of the fort, on the high mountain behind it, and thought to herself that no other little girl had ever taken such a journey. kashaqua landed some distance below the fort; the canoe was again safely hidden, and after a short walk across a field they reached a broad, well-traveled road. "'most to philip scott's house," grunted kashaqua. "you be glad?" and she looked down at the little girl with a friendly smile. chapter vii new friends "an indian woman and a little girl with yellow hair are coming across the road, mother," declared donald scott, rushing into the sitting-room, where his mother was busy with her sewing. mrs. scott hastened to the front door. "oh, aunt prissy," called faith, running as fast as her tired feet could carry her, and hardly seeing the brown-haired little cousin standing by his mother's side. aunt prissy welcomed her little niece, whom she had not expected to see for weeks to come, and then turned to thank kashaqua. but the indian woman had disappeared. the bundle containing faith's clothing lay on the door-step, but there was no trace of her companion. long afterward they discovered that kashaqua had started directly back over the trail, and had reached the carews' cabin, with her message of faith's safe arrival at her aunt's house, early the next morning. "come in, dear child. you are indeed welcome. your father's letter reached me but yesterday," said aunt prissy, putting her arm about faith and leading her into the house. "i know you are tired, and you shall lie down on the settle for a little, and then have your supper and go straight to bed." faith was quite ready to agree. as she curled up on the broad sofa her three little cousins came into the room. they came on tiptoe, very quietly, donald leading the two younger boys. their mother had told them that cousin faith was tired after her long journey, and that they must just kiss her and run away. faith smiled up at the friendly little faces as they bent over to welcome her. "i know i shan't be lonesome with such dear cousins," she said, and the boys ran away to their play, quite sure that it was a fine thing to have a girl cousin come from the wilderness to visit them. faith slept late the next morning, and awoke to hear the sound of rain against the windows. it was a lonesome sound to a little girl so far from her mother and father, and faith was already thinking to herself that this big house, with its shining yellow floors, its white window curtains, and its nearness to a well-traveled road, was a very dreary place compared to her cabin home, when her chamber door opened and in came her aunt prissy, smiling and happy as if a rainy day was just what she had been hoping for. "we shall have a fine time to-day, faithie dear," she declared, as she filled the big blue wash-basin with warm water. "there is nothing like a rainy day for a real good time. your uncle philip and the boys are waiting to eat breakfast with you, and i have a great deal to talk over with you; so make haste and come down," and aunt prissy, with a gay little nod, was gone, leaving faith greatly cheered and wondering what the "good time" would be. uncle philip scott was waiting at the foot of the stairs. "so here is our little maid from the wilderness! well, it is a fine thing to have a girl in the house," he declared, leading faith into the dining-room and giving her a seat at the table beside his own. "did you have any adventures coming over the trail?" he asked, after faith had greeted her little cousins. faith told them of "nooski's" appearance, greatly to the delight of her boy cousins, who asked if the indian woman had told faith the best way to catch bear cubs and tame them. "come out to the shop, boys," said mr. scott as they finished breakfast, "and help me repair the cart, and fix 'ginger's' harness. perhaps cousin faith will come, too, later on in the morning." "we'll see. faithie and i have a good deal to do," responded mrs. scott. the boys ran off with their father, chattering gaily, but at the door donald turned and called back: "you'll come out to the shop, won't you, cousin faith?" "if aunt prissy says i may," answered faith. "yes; she will come," added aunt prissy, with her ready smile. it seemed to faith that aunt prissy was always smiling. "i don't believe she could be cross," thought the little girl. she helped her aunt clear the table and wash the dishes, just as she had helped her mother at home; and as they went back and forth in the pleasant kitchen, with the dancing flames from the fireplace brightening the walls and making the tins shine like silver, faith quite forgot that the rain was pouring down and that she was far from home. "i am going to begin a dress for you this very day. it is some material i have in the house; a fine blue thibet, and i shall put ruffles on the skirt. that will be your sunday dress," said aunt priscilla, "and your father wrote me you were to have the best shoes that the shoemaker can make for you. we'll see about the shoes to-morrow. did you bring your blue beads, faithie? but of course you did. they will be nice to wear with your blue frock. and i mean you to have a warm hood of quilted silk for sunday wear." faith drew a long breath as her aunt finished. she wondered what aunt prissy would say if she told her about giving the blue beads to esther eldridge. but in the exciting prospect of so many new and beautiful things she almost forgot the lost beads. she had brought "lady amy," carefully packed in the stout bundle, and aunt prissy declared that the doll should have a dress and hood of the fine blue thibet. "when shall i go to school, aunt prissy?" asked faith. "i think the school begins next week, and you shall be all ready. i mean to make you a good dress of gray and scarlet homespun for school wear," replied her aunt. "the schoolhouse is but a half-mile walk from here; a fine new cabin, and you and donald may go together. i declare, the rain has stopped. 'rain before seven, clear before eleven' is a true saying." faith ran to the window and looked out. "yes, indeed. the sky is blue again," she said. "you'd best run out to the shop a while now, faithie. i'll call you when 'tis time," said her aunt. faith opened the kitchen door to step out, but closed it quickly, and looked around at her aunt with a startled face. "there's a little bear right on the door-step," she whispered. "a bear! oh, i forgot. you have not seen 'scotchie,' our dog," said aunt prissy. "no wonder you thought he was a bear. but he is a fine fellow, and a good friend. i often wish your dear father had just such a dog," and she opened the door and called "scotchie! scotchie!" the big black newfoundland dog came slowly into the room. "put your hand on his head, faith," said aunt prissy, "and i'll tell him who you are, and that he is to take care of you. he went to school with donald all last spring, and we knew he would take care of him. here, 'scotchie,' go to the shop with faith," she concluded. faith started for the square building on the further side of the yard, and the big dog marched along beside her. donald and little philip came running to meet her. "i'm going to make you a bow and some arrows, cousin faith," said donald, pushing open the shop door. "i have a fine piece of ash, just right for a bow, and some deerskin thongs to string it with. i made bows for hugh and philip." the workshop seemed a very wonderful place to faith, and she looked at the forge, with its glowing coals, over which her uncle philip was holding a bar of iron, at the long work-bench with its tools, and at the small bench, evidently made for the use of her little cousins. the boys were eager to show her all their treasures. they had a box full of bright feathers, with which to tip their arrows. "we'll show you how to make an arrow, cousin faith," said donald. "first of all, you must be sure the piece of wood is straight, and has no knots," and donald selected a narrow strip of wood and held it on a level with his eyes, squinting at its length, just as he had seen his father do. "this is a good straight piece. here, you use my knife, and whittle it down until it's about as big as your finger. and then i'll show you how to finish it." but before faith had whittled the wood to the required size, they heard the sound of a gaily whistled tune, and donald ran toward the door and called out: "hallo, nathan," and a tall, pleasant-faced boy of about fifteen years appeared in the doorway. he took off his coonskin cap as he entered. "good-morning, mr. scott," he said, and then turned smilingly to speak to the boys. "faith, this is nathan beaman," said donald, and the tall boy bowed again, and faith smiled and nodded. "i've been up to the fort to sell a basket of eggs," explained nathan, turning again to mr. scott. "you are a great friend of the english soldiers, are you not, nathan?" responded mr. scott. "no, sir!" the boy answered quickly. "i go to the fort when my errands take me. but i know well enough what those english soldiers are there for; all the shoreham folk know that. i wish the green mountain boys held ticonderoga," he concluded. mr. scott rested a friendly hand on the boy's shoulder. "best not say that aloud, my boy; but i am glad the redcoats have not made you forget that american settlers have a right to defend their homes." "i hear there's a reward offered for the capture of ethan allen," said the boy. mr. scott laughed. "yes, but he's in small danger. colonel allen may capture the fort instead of being taken a prisoner," he answered. nathan now turned toward the children, and donald showed him the bow he was making for his cousin. "i'll string it for you," offered nathan; and donald was delighted to have the older boy finish his work, for he was quite sure that anything nathan beaman did was a little better than the work of any other boy. "who wants to capture colonel allen?" faith asked. "the 'yorkers.' the english," responded the boy carelessly; "but it can't be done," he added. "why, every man who holds a new hampshire grant would defend him. and colonel allen isn't afraid of the whole english army." "i know him. he was at my father's house just a few weeks ago," said faith. "don't tell anybody," said nathan. "some of the people at the fort may question you, but you mustn't let them know that you have ever seen colonel allen." donald had been busy sorting out feathers for the new arrows, and now showed nathan a number of bright yellow tips, which the elder boy declared would be just what were needed. nathan asked faith many questions about her father's mill, and about ethan allen's visit. and faith told him of the big bear that had entered their kitchen and eaten the syrup. when mrs. scott called them to dinner she felt that she was well acquainted with the good-natured boy, whom mrs. scott welcomed warmly. "i believe nathan knows as much about fort ticonderoga as the men who built it," she said laughingly, "for the soldiers have let him play about there since he was a little boy." "and nathan made his own boat, too. the boat he comes over from shoreham in," said donald. for nathan beaman lived on the further side of the strip of water which separated ticonderoga from the new hampshire grants. that afternoon faith and her aunt worked on the fine new blue dress. the next day mrs. scott took her little niece to the shoemaker, who measured her feet and promised to have the shoes ready at the end of a week. as they started for the shoemaker's mrs. scott said: "the man who will make your shoes is a great friend of the english soldiers. your uncle thinks that he gathers up information about the american settlers and tells the english officers. do not let him question you as to what your father thinks of american or english rule. for i must leave you there a little while to do an errand at the next house." faith began to think that it was rather a serious thing to live near an english fort. chapter viii the shoemaker's daughter the shoemaker was the smallest man faith had ever seen. she thought to herself that she was glad he was not an american. when he stood up to speak to mrs. scott faith remembered a picture in one of her mother's books of an orang-outang. for the shoemaker's hair was coarse and black, and seemed to stand up all over his small head, and his face was nearly covered by a stubbly black beard. his arms were long, and he did not stand erect. his eyes were small and did not seem to see the person to whom he was speaking. but he greeted his customers pleasantly, and as faith sat on a little stool near his bench waiting for her aunt's return, he told her that he had a little daughter about her own age, but that she was not very well. "perhaps your aunt will let you come and see her some day?" he said. "i'll ask her," replied faith, and before they had time for any further conversation the door opened and a tall man in a scarlet coat, deerskin trousers and high boots entered the shop. "any news?" he asked sharply. "no, captain. nothing at all," replied the shoemaker. "you're not worth your salt, andy," declared the officer. "i'll wager this small maid here would have quicker ears for news." faith wished that she could run away, but did not dare to move. "well, another summer we'll put the old fort in order and have a garrison that will be worth while. now, what about my riding boots?" he added, and after a little talk the officer departed. it was not long before mrs. scott called for her little niece and the two started for home. faith told her aunt what the shoemaker had said about his little girl, and noticed that aunt prissy's face was rather grave and troubled. "do i have to go, aunt prissy?" she asked. "we'll see, my dear. but now we must hurry home, and sew on the new dresses," replied aunt prissy, and for a few moments they walked on in silence. faith could hear the musical sound of the falls, and was reminded of the dancing mill-stream, of the silver fox and of her own dear "bounce." every hour since her arrival at aunt prissy's had been so filled with new and strange happenings that the little girl had not had time to be lonely. "what is the name of the shoemaker's little girl, aunt prissy?" she asked, as they came in sight of home, with donald and philip, closely followed by "scotchie," coming to meet them. "her name is louise trent, and she is lame. she is older than you, several years older," answered aunt prissy, "and i fear she is a mischievous child. but the poor girl has not had a mother to care for her for several years. she and her father live alone." "does she look like her father?" questioned faith, resolving that if such were the case she would not want louise for a playmate. "oh, no. louise would be pretty if she were a neat and well-behaved child. she has soft black hair, black eyes, and is slenderly built. too slender, i fear, for health," replied mrs. scott, who often thought of the shoemaker's motherless little girl, whose father seemed to resent any effort to befriend her. "why, that sounds just the way esther eldridge looks. only esther isn't lame," responded faith; and, in answer to her aunt's questions, faith described esther's visit to the cabin, omitting, however, the fact that she had given esther the blue beads. faith did not think to speak of the red-coated soldier until the family were gathered about the supper-table that night. then she suddenly remembered what he had said, and repeated it to her uncle, who was asking her about her visit to mr. trent's shop. "so that's their plan. more soldiers to come another summer! 'twas a careless thing for an officer to repeat. but they are so sure that none of us dare lift a hand to protect ourselves that they care not who knows their plans. i'll see to it that ethan allen and the men at bennington get word of this," said mr. scott, and then asked faith to repeat again exactly what the officer had said. in a few days both of faith's new dresses were finished; and, greatly to her delight, aunt prissy had made her a pretty cap of blue velvet, with a partridge's wing on one side. she was trying on the cap before the mirror in the sitting-room one afternoon when she heard a queer noise on the porch and then in the front entry. aunt prissy was up-stairs, and the boys were playing outdoors. "i wonder what it is?" thought faith, running toward the door. as she opened it she nearly exclaimed in surprise, for there, leaning on a crutch, was the queerest little figure she had ever imagined. a little girl whose black hair straggled over her forehead, and whose big dark eyes had a half-frightened expression, stood staring in at the pleasant room. an old ragged shawl was pinned about her shoulders, and beneath it faith could see the frayed worn skirt of gray homespun. but on her feet were a pair of fine leather shoes, well fitting and highly polished. "i brought your shoes," said this untidy visitor, swinging herself a step forward nearer to faith, and holding out a bundle. "father doesn't know i've come," she added, with a little smile of satisfaction. "but i wanted to see you." "won't you sit down?" said faith politely, pulling forward a big cushioned chair. louise trent sat down as if hardly knowing if she dared trust the chair or not. "your aunt didn't let you come to see me, did she? i knew she wouldn't," continued louise. "what you got?" she questioned, looking at the pretty cap with admiring eyes. "it's new. and i never had one before," answered faith. "well, i've never had one, and i never shall have. you wouldn't let me try that one on, would you?" said louise, looking at faith with such a longing expression in her dark eyes that faith did not hesitate for a moment. "of course i will," she answered quickly, and taking off the cap placed it carefully on louise's untidy black hair. "if your hair was brushed back it would look nice on you," declared faith. "you wait, and i'll get my brush and fix your hair," and before louise could reply faith was running up the stairs. she was back in a moment with brush and comb, and louise submitted to having her hair put in order, and tied back with one of the new hair ribbons that aunt prissy had given faith. while faith was thus occupied louise looked about the sitting-room, and asked questions. "there," said faith. "now it looks nice on you. but what makes you wear that old shawl?" louise's face clouded, and she raised her crutch as if to strike faith. "don't you make fun of me. i have to wear it. i don't have nothing like other girls," she exclaimed, and dropping the crutch, she turned her face against the arm of the chair and began to sob bitterly. for a moment faith looked at her in amazement, and then she knelt down beside the big chair and began patting the shoulder under the ragged shawl. "don't cry, louise. don't cry. listen, i'll ask my aunt to make you a cap just like mine. i know she will." "no. she wouldn't want me to have a cap like yours," declared louise. "isn't your father good to you?" questioned faith. and this question made louise sit up straight and wipe her eyes on the corner of the old shawl. "good to me! of course he is. didn't he make me these fine shoes?" she answered, pointing to her feet. "but how could he make me a pretty cap or a dress? and he doesn't want to ask anybody. but you needn't think he ain't good to me!" she concluded, reaching after the crutch. "don't go yet, louise. see, that's my doll over on the sofa. her name is 'lady amy,'" and faith ran to the sofa and brought back her beloved doll and set it down in louise's lap. "i never touched a doll before," said louise, almost in a whisper. "you're real good to let me hold her. are you going to live here?" "i'm going to school," replied faith. "i've never been to school." "neither have i," said louise. "i s'pose you know your letters, don't you?" "oh, yes. of course i do. i can read and write, and do fractions," answered faith. "i can't read," declared louise. just then mrs. scott entered the room. if she was surprised to see the shoemaker's daughter seated in her easy chair, wearing faith's new cap and holding "lady amy," she did not let the little girls know it, but greeted louise cordially, took faith's new shoes from their wrapping and said they were indeed a fine pair of shoes. then she turned to louise, with the pleasant little smile that faith so admired, and said: "you are the first little girl who has come to see my little niece, so i think it would be pleasant if you two girls had a taste of my fruit cake that i make just for company," and she started toward the dining-room and soon returned with a tray. "just bring the little table from the corner, faithie, and set it in front of louise and 'lady amy,'" she said, and faith hastened to obey. aunt prissy set the tray on the table. "i'll come back in a little while," she said, and left the girls to themselves. the tray was very well filled. there was a plate of the rich dark cake, and beside it two dainty china plates and two fringed napkins. there was a plate of thin slices of bread and butter, a plate of cookies, and two glasses filled with creamy milk. "isn't this lovely?" exclaimed faith, drawing a chair near the table. "it's just like a party, isn't it? i'm just as glad as i can be that you brought my shoes home, louise. we'll be real friends now, shan't we?" chapter ix louise "i must go home," said louise, with a little sigh at having to end the most pleasant visit she ever remembered. the two little girls had finished the lunch, and had played happily with "lady amy." mrs. scott had left them quite by themselves, and not even the small cousins had come near the sitting-room. as louise spoke she took off the blue velvet cap, which she had worn all the afternoon, and began to untie the hair ribbon. "oh, louise! don't take off that hair ribbon. i gave it to you. it's a present," exclaimed faith. louise shook her head. "father won't let me keep it," she answered. "he wouldn't like it if he knew that i had eaten anything in this house. he is always telling me that if people offer to give me anything i must never, never take it." before faith could speak aunt prissy came into the room. "tell your father i will come in and pay him for faith's shoes to-morrow, louise," she said pleasantly, "and you must come and see faith again." "yes'm. thank you," responded louise shyly, and nodding to faith with a look of smiling understanding, the crippled child made her way quickly from the room. "aunt prissy, i like louise trent. i don't believe she is a mischievous girl. just think, she never had a doll in her life! and her father won't let her take presents!" faith had so much to say that she talked very rapidly. "i see," responded her aunt, taking up the rumpled hair ribbon which louise had refused. "i am glad you were so kind to the poor child," she added, smiling down at her little niece. "tell me all you can about louise. perhaps there will be some way to make her life happier." so faith told her aunt that louise could not read. that she had never before tasted fruit cake, and that she had no playmates, and had never had a present. "why do you suppose she came to see me, aunt prissy?" she concluded. "i cannot imagine. unless it was because you are a stranger," replied aunt prissy. "i have an idea that i can arrange with mr. trent so that he will be willing for me to make louise a dress, and get for her the things she ought to have. for the shoemaker is no poorer than most of his neighbors. how would you like to teach louise to read?" "i'd like to! oh, aunt prissy, tell me your plan!" responded faith eagerly. "wait until i am sure it is a good plan, faithie dear," her aunt replied. "i'll go down and see mr. trent to-morrow. i blame myself that i have not tried to be of use to that child." "may i go with you?" urged faith. "why, yes. you can visit louise while i talk with her father, since he asked you to come." "has the witch gone?" called donald, running into the room. "didn't you know that all the children call the trent girl a witch?" he asked his mother. "no, donald. but if they do they ought to be ashamed. she is a little girl without any mother to care for her. and now she is your cousin's friend, and we hope to see her here often. and you must always be polite and kind to her," replied mrs. scott. donald looked a little doubtful and puzzled. "you ought to be more kind to her than to any other child, because she is lame," said faith. "all right. but what is a 'witch,' anyway?" responded donald. "it is a wicked word," answered his mother briefly. "see that you do not use it again." faith's thoughts were now so filled with louise that she nearly lost her interest in the new dresses and shoes, and was eager for the next day to come so that she could again see her new friend. faith had been taught to sew neatly, and she wondered if she could not help make louise a dress. "and perhaps aunt prissy will teach her how to make cake," she thought; for never to taste of cake seemed to faith to be a real misfortune. for the first night since her arrival at her aunt's home faith went to sleep without a homesick longing for the cabin in the wilderness, and awoke the next morning thinking about all that could be done for the friendless little girl who could not accept a present. "we will go to mr. trent's as soon as our morning work is finished," said aunt prissy, "and you shall wear your new shoes and cap. and i have a blue cape which i made for you before you came. the morning is chilly. you had best wear that." "i don't look like faith carew, i am so fine," laughed the little girl, looking down at her shoes, and touching the soft cloth of the pretty blue cape. as they walked along faith told aunt prissy of her plans to teach louise to sew, as well as to read. "and perhaps you'll show her how to make cake! will you, aunt prissy?" "of course i will, if i can get the chance," replied her aunt. the shoemaker greeted them pleasantly. before mrs. scott could say anything of her errand he began to apologize for his daughter's visit. "she slipped off without my knowing it. it shan't happen again," he said. "but faith will be very sorry if it doesn't happen again," replied aunt prissy. "can she not run in and see louise while i settle with you for the shoes?" the shoemaker looked at her sharply for a moment, and then motioned faith to follow him, leading the way across the shop toward a door on the further side of the room. the shop occupied the front room of the shoemaker's house. the two back rooms, with the chambers above, was where louise and her father made their home. mr. trent opened the door and said: "you'll find her in there," and faith stepped into the queerest room that she had ever seen, and the door closed behind her. louise was standing, half-hidden by a clumsy wooden chair. the shawl was still pinned about her shoulders. "this ain't much like your aunt's house, is it? i guess you won't ever want to come again. and my father says i can't ever go to see you again. he says i don't look fit," said louise. but faith's eyes had brightened, and she was looking at the further side of the room and smiling with delight. "oh, louise! why didn't you tell me that you had a gray kitten? and it looks just like 'bounce,'" and in a moment she had picked up the pretty kitten, and was sitting beside louise on a roughly made wooden seat, telling her of her own kitten, while louise eagerly described the cleverness of her own pet. "what's its name?" asked faith. "just 'kitten,'" answered louise, as if surprised at the question. "but it must have a real name," insisted faith, and it was finally decided that it should be named "jump," the nearest approach to the name of faith's kitten that they could imagine. the floor of the room was rough and uneven, and not very clean. there was a table, the big chair and the wooden seat. although the morning was chilly there was no fire in the fireplace, although there was a pile of wood in one corner. there was but one window, which looked toward the lake. "come out in the kitchen, where it's warm," suggested louise, after a few moments, and faith was glad to follow her. "don't you want to try on my new cape?" asked faith, as they reached the kitchen, a much pleasanter room than the one they had left. louise shook her head. "i daresn't," she replied. "father may come in. and he'd take my head off." "you are coming to see me, louise. aunt prissy is talking to your father about it now," said faith; but louise was not to be convinced. "he won't let me. you'll see," she answered mournfully. "_i_ know. he'll think your aunt is 'charity.' why, he won't make shoes any more for the minister because his wife brought me a dress; and i didn't wear the dress, either." but there was a surprise in store for louise, for when mrs. scott and mr. trent entered the kitchen the shoemaker was smiling; and it seemed to faith that he stood more erect, and did not look so much like the picture of the orang-outang. "louise, mrs. scott and i have been making a bargain," he said. "i am going to make shoes for her boys, and she is going to make dresses for my girl. exchange work; i believe that's right, isn't it, ma'am?" and he turned to mrs. scott with a little bow. "yes, it is quite right. and i'll send you the bill for materials," said aunt prissy. "of course. well, louise, i warrant you're old enough to have proper dresses. and mrs. scott will take you home to stay with her until you are all fixed up as fine as this little maid," and the shoemaker nodded to faith. "do you mean i'm to stay up there?" asked louise, pointing in the direction of the scotts' house. "i can't. who'd take care of you, father?" mr. trent seemed to stand very straight indeed as louise spoke, and faith was ashamed that she had ever thought he resembled the ugly picture in her mother's book. "she's a good child," he said as if whispering to himself; but he easily convinced louise that, for a few days, he could manage to take care of himself; and at last louise, happy and excited over this change in her fortunes, hobbled off beside mrs. scott and faith, while her father stood in the shop doorway looking after them. it was a very differently dressed little daughter who returned to him at the end of the following week. she wore a neat brown wool dress, with a collar and cuffs of scarlet cloth, a cape of brown, and a cap of brown with a scarlet wing on one side. these, with her well-made, well-fitting shoes, made louise a very trim little figure in spite of her lameness. her hair, well brushed and neatly braided, was tied back with a scarlet ribbon. a bundle containing underwear, aprons, handkerchiefs, and hair ribbons of various colors, as well as a stout cotton dress for louise to wear indoors, arrived at the shoemaker's house with the little girl. her father looked at her in amazement. "why, flibbertigibbet, you are a pretty girl," he declared, and was even more amazed at the gay laugh with which louise answered him. "i've learned a lot of things, father! i can make a cake, truly i can. and i'm learning to read. i'm so glad faith carew is going to live in ticonderoga. aren't you, father?" mr. trent looked at his daughter again, and answered slowly: "why, yes, flibbertigibbet, i believe i am." chapter x the major's daughters the day that school began faith returned home to find that a letter from her mother and father had arrived. it was a long letter, telling the little girl of all the happenings since her departure at the pleasant cabin in the wilderness. her father had shot a deer, which meant a good supply of fresh meat. kashaqua had brought the good news of faith's arrival at her aunt's house; and, best of all, her father wrote that before the heavy snows and severe winter cold began he should make the trip to ticonderoga to be sure that his little daughter was well and happy. but there was one sentence in her mother's letter that puzzled faith. "your father will bring your blue beads," her mother had written, and faith could not understand it, for she was sure esther had the beads. she had looked in the box in the sitting-room closet after esther's departure, hoping that esther might have put them back before starting for home, but the box had been empty. "who brought my letter, uncle phil?" she questioned, but her uncle did not seem to hear. "father got it from a man in a canoe when we were down at the shore. the man hid----" "never mind, hugh. you must not repeat what you see, even at home," said mr. scott. so faith asked no more questions. she knew that the green mountain boys sent messengers through the wilderness; and that americans all through the colonies were kept notified of what the english soldiers stationed in those northern posts were doing or planning. she was sure that some such messenger had brought her letter; and, while she wondered if it might have been her friend ethan allen, she had learned since her stay in her uncle's house that he did not like to be questioned in regard to his visitors from across the lake. "i'll begin a letter to mother dear this very night, so it will be all ready when father comes," she said, thinking of all she longed to tell her mother about louise, the school and her pretty new dresses. "so you did not bring your beads," said aunt prissy, as she read mrs. carew's letter. "did you forget them?" faith could feel her face flush as she replied: "no, aunt prissy." she wished that she could tell her aunt just why she had felt obliged to give them to esther eldridge, and how puzzled she was at her mother's reference to the beads. faith was already discovering that a secret may be a very unpleasant possession. as she thought of esther, she recalled that her aunt had spoken of louise as "mischievous," and faith was quite sure that louise would never have accepted the beads or have done any of the troublesome things that had made the first days of esther's visit so difficult. "louise isn't mischievous," she declared suddenly. "what made you think she was, aunt prissy?" aunt prissy was evidently surprised at this sudden change of subject, but she replied pleasantly: "i ought not to have said such a thing; but louise has improved every day since you became her friend. how does she get on in her learning to read?" for faith stopped at the shoemaker's house every day on her way home from school to teach louise; and "flibbertigibbet," as her father generally called her, was making good progress. "she learns so quickly," replied faith, "and she is learning to write. i do wish she would go to school, aunt prissy," for louise had become almost sullen at the suggestion. faith did not know that louise had appeared at the schoolhouse several years before, and had been so laughed at by some of the rough children of the village that she had turned on them violently and they had not dared come near her since. they had vented their spite, however, in calling, "witch! witch! fly home on your broomstick," as louise hobbled off toward home, vowing that never again would she go near a school, and sobbing herself to sleep that night. aunt prissy had heard something of the unfortunate affair, and was glad that louise, when next she appeared at school, would have some little knowledge to start with and a friend to help her. "perhaps she will go next term, now that she has a girl friend to go with her," responded mrs. scott. faith was making friends with two girls whose seats in the schoolroom were next her own. their names were caroline and catherine young. faith was quite sure that they were two of the prettiest girls in the world, and wondered how it was possible for any one to make such beautiful dresses and such dainty white ruffled aprons as these two little girls wore to school. the sisters were very nearly of an age, and with their soft black curls and bright brown eyes, their flounced and embroidered dresses with dainty collars of lace, they looked very different from the more suitably dressed village children. caroline was eleven, and catherine nine years old. but they were far in advance of the other children of the school. they lost no time in telling faith that their father was an english officer, stationed at fort ticonderoga; and this made faith look at them with even more interest. both the sisters were rather scornful in their manner toward the other school children. as faith was a newcomer, and a stranger, they were more cordial to her. "you must come to the fort with us some day," caroline suggested, when the little girls had known each other for several weeks; and faith accepted the invitation with such eagerness that the sisters looked at her approvingly. their invitations to some of the other children had been rudely refused, and the whispered "tories" had not failed to reach their ears. "we like you," caroline had continued in rather a condescending manner, "and we have told our mother about you. could you go to the fort with us to-morrow? it's saturday." "oh, yes; i'm sure i may. i have wanted to go to the fort ever since i came. you are real good to ask me," faith had responded gratefully, to the evident satisfaction of the english girls who felt that this new little girl knew the proper way to receive an invitation. it was settled that they would call for faith early on saturday afternoon. "i may go, mayn't i, aunt prissy?" faith asked, as she told her aunt of the invitation, and was rather puzzled to find that aunt prissy seemed a little doubtful as to the wisdom of permitting faith visiting the fort with her new friends. "it is a mile distant, and while that is not too long a walk, i do not like you to go so far from home with strangers," she said; but on faith's declaring that the sisters were the best behaved girls in school, and that she had promised to go, mrs. scott gave her consent; and faith was ready and waiting when caroline and catherine arrived, soon after dinner on saturday. "is your father an officer?" asked caroline, as the little girls started off. faith walked between her new friends, and looked from one to the other with admiring eyes. "no, my father is a miller. and he owns a fine lot of land, too," she answered smilingly. "our father is a major. he will go back to albany in the spring, and that is a much better place to live than this old frontier town," said catherine. "we shan't have to play with common children there." faith did not quite know what catherine meant, so she made no response, but began telling them of her own journey through the wilderness and across the lake. but her companions did not seem much interested. "your uncle is just a farmer, isn't he?" said caroline. "yes, he is a farmer," faith replied. she knew it was a fine thing to be a good farmer, so she answered smilingly. but before the fort was reached she began to feel that she did not like the sisters as well as when they set out together. they kept asking her questions. did her mother have a silver service? and why did her aunt not have servants? as they neared the fort catherine ran to her sister's side and whispered in her ear. after that they kept close together, walking a little way ahead of faith. at the entrance to the fort faith was somewhat alarmed to find a tall soldier, musket in hand. but he saluted the little girls, and faith followed her companions along the narrow passageway. she wondered to herself what she had done to offend them, for they responded very stiffly to whatever she had to say. the narrow passage led into a large open square, surrounded by high walls. faith looked about with wondering eyes. there were big cannons, stacks of musketry, and many strange things whose name or use she could not imagine. there were little groups of soldiers in red coats strolling about. "where is your father, catherine?" she asked, and then looked about half fearfully; for both her companions had vanished. none of the soldiers seemed to notice faith for a moment she looked about with anxious eyes, and then decided that her friends must have turned back to the entrance for some reason. "and they probably think that i am right behind them," she thought, running toward an arched passageway which she believed was the one by which she had entered the fort. but it seemed much longer than when she came in a moment before. she began running, expecting to see the sisters at every step. suddenly she found that she was facing a heavy door at the end of the passage, and realized that she had mistaken her way. but faith was not frightened. "all i have to do is to run back," she thought, and turned to retrace her steps. but there were two passageways opening behind her at right angles. for an instant she hesitated, and then ran along the one to the right. "i'm sure this is the way i came," she said aloud. but as she went on the passageway seemed to curve and twist, and to go on and on in an unfamiliar way. it grew more shadowy too. faith found that she could not see very far ahead of her, and looking back it seemed even darker. she began to feel very tired. "i'm sure caroline and catherine will come and find me," she thought, leaning against the damp wall of the passage. "i'll just rest a minute, and then i'll call so they will know which way to turn to find me." chapter xi a day of adventure "caroline! caroline!" called faith, and the call echoed back to her astonished ears from the shadowy passage. "i'd better go back! i'm sure the other was the right way," she finally decided; and very slowly she retraced her steps, stopping now and then to call the names of the girls who had deserted her. it seemed a long time to faith before she was back to where the big solid door had blocked the first passage. she was sure now that the other way would lead her back to the square where she had last seen her companions. but as she stood looking at the door she could see that it was not closed. it swung a little, and faith wondered to herself if this door, after all, might not open near the entrance so that she could find her way to the road, and so back to aunt prissy. she could just reach a big iron ring that swung from the center of the door; and she seized this and pulled with all her might. as the door slowly opened, letting in the clear october sunlight, faith heard steps coming down the passage. the half-opened door nearly hid her from sight, and she looked back expecting to see either caroline or catherine, and, in the comfort of the hope of seeing them, quite ready to accept any excuse they might offer. but before she could call out she heard a voice, which was vaguely familiar, say: "i did leave that door open. lucky i came back," and nathan beaman, the shoreham boy, was close beside her. when he saw a little girl still grasping the iron ring, he seemed too surprised to speak. "i'm lost!" faith whispered. "i'm so glad you came. major young's little girls asked me to come to the fort, and then ran away and left me," and faith told of her endeavors to find her companions. "lucky i came back," said nathan again, but this time his voice had an angry tone. "it was a mean trick. those girls----" then nathan stopped suddenly. "well, they're tories," he concluded. "i was afraid it was night," said faith. "no, but you might have wandered about in these passageways until you were tired out. or you might have fallen from that door. look out, but hold close to the door," said nathan. faith came to the doorway and found herself looking straight down the face of a high cliff to the blue waters of the lake. lifting her eyes she could look across and see the distant wooded hills of the green mountains, and could hear the "chiming waters" of the falls. "it's lovely. but what do they have a door here for?" faith asked. and then nathan explained what forts were for. that a door like that gave the soldiers who held the fort a chance to look up and down the lake in order to see the approach of an enemy by water. "and gives them a chance to scramble down the cliff and get away if the enemy captures the fort from the other side." then he showed faith the two big cannon that commanded the lake and any approach by the cliff. "but come on. i must take you home," he declared, moving as if to close the door. "could we get out any other way than by going back through that passage?" asked faith, who thought that she never wanted to see the two sisters again, and now feared they might be waiting for her. "certainly we could. that is, if you are a good climber," replied nathan. "i'll tell you something, that is, if you'll never tell," he added. "i won't," faith declared earnestly. "well, i can go down that cliff and up, too, just as easily as i can walk along that passage. and the soldiers don't pay much attention to this part of the fort. there's a sentry at the other end of the passage, but he doesn't mind how i get in and out. if you'll do just as i say i'll take you down the cliff. my boat is hidden down by willow point, and i'll paddle you alongshore. 'twill be easier than walking. that is, if you're not afraid," concluded nathan. "no, i'm not afraid," said faith, thinking to herself that here was another secret, and almost wishing that she had not agreed to listen to it. "come on, then," said nathan, stepping outside the door, and holding tightly to the door-frame with one hand and reaching the other toward faith. "hold tight to my hand and don't look down," he said. "look to the right as you step out, and you'll see a chance for your feet. i've got a tight hold. you can't fall." faith clutched his hand and stepped out. there was room toward the right for her to stand. she heard the big door clang behind her. "i had to shut it," nathan said, as he cautiously made his way a step down the face of the cliff. faith followed cautiously. she noticed just how nathan clung to the outstanding rocks, how slowly and carefully he made each movement. she knew if she slipped that she would push him as well as herself off into the lake. "i mustn't slip! i mustn't," she said over and over to herself. nathan did not speak, except to tell her where to step. at last they were safely down, standing on a narrow rocky ledge which hardly gave them a foothold. along this they crept to a thick growth of alder bushes where a clumsy wooden punt was fastened. faith followed nathan into the punt, and as he pushed the boat off from the bushes she gave a long sigh of relief. "that was great!" declared nathan triumphantly. "say, you're the bravest girl i know. i've always wondered if i could bring anybody down that cliff, and now i know i can. but you mustn't tell any one how we got out of the fort. you won't, will you?" and faith renewed her promise not to tell. nathan paddled the boat out around the promontory on which the fort was built. he kept close to the shore. "does major young stay at the fort?" questioned faith. "not very long at a time. he comes and goes, like all spies," replied nathan scornfully. "i wish the green mountain boys would take this fort and send the english back where they belong. they keep stirring the indians up against the settlers, so that people don't know when they are safe." it was the last day of october, and the morning had been bright and sunny. the sun still shone, but an east wind was ruffling the waters of the lake, and faith began to feel chilly. "i'll warrant you don't know when this lake was discovered?" said nathan; and faith was delighted to tell him that samuel de champlain discovered and gave the lake his name in 1609. "the indians used to call it 'pe-ton-boque,'" she added. but when nathan asked when the fort was built she could not answer, and the boy told her of the brave frenchmen who built ticonderoga in 1756, bringing troops and supplies from canada. "the old fort has all sorts of provisions, and guns and powder that the english have stored there. i wish the american troops had them. if i were ethan allen or seth warner i'd make a try, anyway, for this fort and for crown point, too," said nathan. the rising wind made it rather difficult for the boy to manage his boat, and he finally landed some distance above the point where kashaqua had reached shore. faith was sure that she could go over the fields and find her way safely home, and nathan was anxious to cross the lake to shoreham before the wind became any stronger. faith felt very grateful to him for bringing her from the fort. "you'll be as brave as colonel allen when you grow up," she said, as she stood on the shore and watched him paddle off against the wind. he nodded laughingly. "so will you. remember your promise," he called back. the wind seemed to blow the little girl before it as she hurried across the rough field. she held tight to her velvet cap, and, for the first time, wondered if she had torn or soiled the pretty new dress in her scramble down the cliff. her mind was so full of the happenings of the afternoon that she did not look ahead to see where she was going, and suddenly her foot slipped and she fell headlong into a mass of thorn bushes, which seemed to seize her dress in a dozen places. by the time faith had fought her way clear her hands were scratched and bleeding and her dress torn in ragged ugly tears that faith was sure could never be mended. she began to cry bitterly. "it's all the fault of those hateful girls," she sobbed aloud. "if they had not run off and left me i should be safe at home. what will aunt prissy say?" faith reached the road without further mishap, and was soon walking up the path. there was no one in sight; not even scotchie was about. a sudden resolve entered her mind. she would slip up-stairs, change her dress, and not tell her aunt about the torn dress. "perhaps i can mend it, after all," she thought. as she changed her dress hurriedly, she wondered where all the family could be, for the house was very quiet. but she bathed her hands and face, smoothed her ruffled hair, and then looked for a place to hide the blue dress until she could find a chance to mend it. she peered into the closet. a small hair-covered trunk stood in the far corner and faith lifted the top and thrust her dress in. at that moment she heard donald's voice, and then her aunt's, and she started to go down-stairs to meet them. chapter xii secrets "did you see all the fort, and the guns, and the soldiers?" asked donald eagerly, running to meet his cousin as she came slowly into the sitting-room. "why, your hand is all scratched!" he added in a surprised tone. faith tried to cover the scratched hand with a fold of her skirt. aunt prissy noticed that the little girl wore her every-day dress. "didn't you wear your blue dress, faithie?" and without waiting for an answer said: "well, perhaps this one was just as well, for you might have hurt your blue dress." faith sat down on the big sofa thinking to herself that she could never be happy again. first, and worst of all, was the ruined dress. then the remembrance of the way she had been treated by caroline and catherine; and, last of all, her _secrets_!--every one a little more important and dreadful than the other. first the blue beads; then nathan's knowledge of a hidden entrance to fort ticonderoga; and then the dress. she was so taken up with her unhappy thoughts that she did not realize she had not answered donald, or spoken to her aunt, until donald, who was standing directly in front of her, demanded: "what's the matter, cousin faith? does your tooth ache?" faith shook her head. "i'm tired. i didn't have a good time at all. i don't like those girls," and, greatly to donald's alarm, she put her head on the arm of the sofa and began to cry. in an instant she felt aunt prissy's arm about her, and heard the kind voice say: "never mind, dear child. don't think about them." after a little aunt prissy persuaded faith to lie down and rest until supper time. "i'll sit here with my sewing and keep you company," said aunt prissy. "it's an hour to candle-light." donald tiptoed out of the room, but was back in a moment standing in the doorway and beckoning his mother; and mrs. scott went quietly toward him, closing the door softly behind her. "it's those girls. the ones faith went with to the fort," donald explained in a whisper. "they're on the door-step." caroline and catherine were standing, very neat and demure, at the front door. "has your little girl got home?" inquired catherine in her most polite manner; "she ran off and left us," added caroline. "faith is safe at home," responded mrs. scott in a pleasant voice. "why didn't you ask them to supper, mother? you said you were going to," demanded donald, as he watched the sisters walk down the path. "your cousin is too tired for company," said his mother, who had planned a little festivity for faith and her friends on their return, but had quickly decided that her little niece would be better pleased not to see the sisters again that day. "all the more cake for us then," said donald cheerfully, for he had seen a fine cake on the dining-room table; "there comes the shoemaker's girl," he added. "shall you ask her to stay, mother?" "yes, indeed," and mrs. scott turned to give louise a cordial welcome. "faith is resting on the sofa, but you may go right in, louise. i know she will be glad to see you," she said, smiling down at the dark-eyed little girl. "when are you coming to make us another visit?" "father said i might stay all night if you asked me," responded louise, who now felt sure that mrs. scott was her friend. "we shall be glad indeed to have you, my dear. let me take your cap and cape. and go in and cheer up faithie, for i fear she has had an unhappy time," said mrs. scott. louise's smile faded. she had never had a friend until faith carew came to ticonderoga, and the thought that any one had made faith unhappy made her ready to inflict instant punishment on the offenders. "oh, louise! i'm so glad it's you!" exclaimed faith, as she heard the sound of louise's crutch stubbing across the floor. louise sat down beside the crumpled little figure on the sofa. "what did they do, faith?" she demanded. faith told the story of the walk to the fort; of the disagreeable manner of both caroline and catherine toward her, and of their disappearance as soon as they were inside the fort. but she did not tell of her efforts to find them, nor of nathan beaman's appearance. "they are hateful things!" louise declared, "but it won't be long before they'll go to albany with their father. oh!" she ended a little fearfully. "i ought not to have told that. it's a secret," she added quickly. "no, it isn't. they told me," answered faith, "and if it were a secret i shouldn't want to know it. i hate and despise secrets." louise looked at her friend with a little nod of comprehension. "that's because you have a secret," she said. "how did you know, louise?" and faith wondered if it were possible louise could know about the blue dress. "i know," said louise. "it's dreadful to know secrets. i can stay all night. my father has gone to the fort. oh!" and again she put her hand over her mouth. "i ought not to have told that. he doesn't want any one to know." faith leaned back against the sofa with a little sigh of discouragement. it seemed to her there was nothing but secrets. she wished she was with her mother and father in her pleasant cabin home, where everybody knew about everything. "where's 'lady amy'?" asked louise, quite sure that such a beautiful doll would comfort any trouble. and her question made faith remember that louise was a guest. "i'll get her," she said, and in a few moments "lady amy" was sitting on the sofa between the two little friends, and faith was displaying the new dresses that aunt prissy had helped her make for the doll. "father says he will buy me a doll," louise announced, "and he's going to get me a fine string of beads, too, when he goes away again;" for the shoemaker went away frequently on mysterious business. many of the settlers were quite sure that he carried messages for the british officers to other forts; but he came and went so stealthily that as yet no proof was held against him. "i have some blue beads. my father is going to bring them when he comes to see me," said faith. "i hope yours will be just like them." louise shook her head a little doubtfully. "i may never get them, after all. father forgets things," she said. before supper time faith was in a much happier state of mind. she had helped louise with her reading lesson; they had played that the sofa was a throne and lady amy a queen, and that they were lady amy's daughters; and the unpleasantness of the early afternoon had quite vanished when the candles were lighted, and supper on the table. the supper seemed a feast to the shoemaker's daughter. every time she came to visit faith louise tasted some new dish, so daintily prepared that she was at once eager to learn to make it. faith was hungry, too, and, as no reference was made to her trip to the fort, she enjoyed her supper; and not until it was finished was she reminded of her troubles. "to-morrow louise may go to church with us, and you may wear your blue dress that you are so careful of," aunt prissy said. faith made no response. she did not know what to do or say. she was so quiet that her aunt was sure her little niece was overtired, and soon after supper sent the little girls off to bed. "what is the matter, faith?" questioned louise, when they were safely in the big chamber, with its high white bed, curtained windows, and comfortable chairs, and which to louise seemed the finest bedroom in all the world. faith threw herself face down on the bed. "i don't know what to do! i don't know what to do! i've spoiled my blue dress!" she sobbed. there! that was one secret the less, she thought. and louise would never tell. "i can't go to church. i don't dare tell aunt prissy about the dress. it was to be my best dress all winter," she added. "what shall i do, louise?" louise shook her head. that faith carew, who seemed to her to be the most fortunate girl in all the world, should be in trouble was a far more dreadful thing to louise than any trouble of her own. "let me see the dress," she said; "perhaps it isn't very bad." faith opened the trunk and pulled out the blue dress, which only that morning had been so fresh and dainty. now it was rumpled, soiled and torn. faith's tears flowed afresh as she held it out for louise to see. "i guess you'd better tell your aunt," louise said soberly. "tell her now, this minute," she added quickly; "the sooner the better." faith looked at her in surprise. she wondered at herself that she had hidden the dress, or even thought of not telling aunt prissy. "i'll go now," she said, and, still holding the dress, walked out of the room. she no longer felt afraid. as she went down the stairs she thought over all aunt prissy's goodness toward her. "i'll tell her that i can wear my other dress for best," she decided. the boys were already in bed; mr. scott was attending to the evening chores, and aunt prissy was alone in the sitting-room when faith appeared in the doorway. "aunt prissy, look! i tore my dress coming home to-day, and i was afraid to tell you! oh, aunt prissy!" for her aunt had taken faith and the blue dress into her arms, and held the little girl closely as she said: "why, dear child! how could you ever be afraid of me? about a dress, indeed! a torn dress is nothing. nothing at all." "louise, you are my very best friend," faith declared happily, as she came running into the room a few minutes later. "i am so glad you made me tell." louise looked at faith with shining eyes. she wished there was some wonderful thing that she could do for faith as a return for all the happiness her friendship had brought into her life. the clouds had lifted. faith had disposed of one secret, and felt the others would not matter very much. the two little friends snuggled down in the big feather bed and were soon fast asleep. chapter xiii louise makes a present the week following faith's visit to the fort proved rather a difficult one for her at school. caroline and catherine seemed to think they had played a fine joke, and accused her of running home when they were waiting for her. faith had resolved not to quarrel with them, but apparently the sisters meant to force her into trouble, if sneering words and ridicule could do it. "you're an american, so you don't dare talk back," sneered catherine one day when faith made no reply to the assertion that faith had meant to run home from the fort alone. "americans are not afraid," replied faith quickly. catherine jumped up and down with delight at having made faith angry. "oh, yes they are. my father says so. another summer the english soldiers are going to take all the farms, and all you rebels will be our servants," declared catherine. "another summer the green mountain boys will send the english soldiers where they will behave themselves," declared faith. "ethan allen is braver than all the men in that fort." "i don't care what you say. we're not going to play with you any more, are we, caroline?" said catherine. "you play with that horrid little lame girl." "she isn't horrid. she is much better than you are. she wouldn't say or do the things you do!" responded faith, now too angry to care what she said, "and she is my very best friend. i wouldn't play with you anyway. you're only tory children," and faith walked off with her head lifted very proudly, feeling she had won the battle; as indeed she had, for the sisters looked after her in silent horror. to be called "only" tory children was a new point of view, and for several days they let faith wholly alone. then one morning they appeared at school with the news that it would be their last appearance there. "we're going to albany, and never coming back to this rough common place," catherine said. "i am glad of it," faith replied sharply; "perhaps you will learn to be polite in albany." some of the other children overheard these remarks, and a little titter of amusement and satisfaction followed faith's words. for the sisters had made no effort to be friendly with their schoolmates, and not one was sorry to see the last of them. faith awoke each morning hoping that her father would come that day, but it was toward the last of november before he appeared. there had been several light falls of snow; the ground was frozen and ice formed along the shores of the lake. the days were growing shorter, and mrs. scott had decided that it was best for faith to come straight home from school at night, instead of stopping in to help louise with her lessons. but both the little girls were pleased with the new plan that mrs. scott suggested, for louise to come home with faith on tuesdays and fridays and stay all night. louise was learning a good deal more than to read and write. mrs. scott was teaching her to sew neatly, and faith had taught her to knit. she was always warmly welcomed by donald and the two younger boys, and these visits were the bright days of the week for louise. at last, when faith had begun to think her father might not come after all, she returned from school one night to find him waiting for her. it was difficult to tell which of the two, father or daughter, was the happier in the joy of seeing each other. mr. carew had arrived in the early afternoon, and aunt prissy was now busy preparing the evening meal and faith and her father had the sitting-room to themselves. there was so much to say that faith hardly knew where to begin, after she had listened to all her father had to tell her of her mother. "i would have come before, but i have been waiting for kashaqua to come and stay with your mother," said mr. carew. "she appeared last night, and will stay until i return. and your mother could have no better protector. kashaqua is proud enough since we proved our confidence in her by sending you here in her charge." faith told him about louise, and was surprised to see her father's face grave and troubled. for mr. carew had heard of the shoemaker, and was sure that he was an english spy, and feared that his daughter's friendship with faith might get the scotts into some trouble. "she is my dearest friend. i tell her everything," went on faith. "i'm afraid her father is not a friend to the settlers about here," replied mr. carew. "be careful, dear child, that you do not mention any of the visitors who come to your uncle's house. your friend would mean no harm, but if she told her father great harm might come of it," for mr. scott was doing his best to help the americans. messengers from connecticut and massachusetts with news for the settlers came to his house, and mr. scott found ways to forward their important communications to the men on the other side of lake champlain. "aunt prissy likes louise; we all do," pleaded faith; so her father said no more, thinking that perhaps he had been overanxious. "your mother sent your blue beads. i expect you would have been scolded a little for being a careless child if you had been at home, for she found them under the settle cushion the very day you left home," said mr. carew, handing faith two small packages. "the larger package is one that came from esther eldridge a few weeks ago," he added, in answer to faith's questioning look. "i wonder what it can be," said faith; but before she opened esther's package she had taken the blue beads from the pretty box and put them around her neck, touching them with loving fingers, and looking down at them with delight. then she unfastened the wrapping of the second package. "here is a letter!" she exclaimed, and began reading it. as she read her face brightened, and at last she laughed with delight. "oh, father! read it! esther says to let you and mother read it. and she has sent me another string of beads!" and now faith opened the other box, a very pretty little box of shining yellow wood with "faith" cut on the top, and took out another string of blue beads, so nearly like her own that it was difficult to tell them apart. mr. carew read esther's letter. she wrote that she had lost faith's beads, and had been afraid to tell her. "now i am sending you another string that my father got on purpose. i think you were fine not to say a word to any one about how horrid i was to ask for your beads. please let your mother and father read this letter, so they will know how polite you were to company." "so it was esther who lost the beads! well, now what are you going to do with two strings of beads?" said her father smilingly. when aunt prissy came into the room faith ran to show her esther's present and the letter, and told her of what had happened when she had so rashly promised to give esther anything she might ask for. "i am so glad to have my own beads back again. and most of all i am glad not to have the secret," she said, thinking to herself that life was much happier when father and mother and aunt prissy could know everything that she knew. then, suddenly, faith recalled the fort, and the difficult climb down the cliff. "but that's not my secret. it's something outside. something that i ought not to tell," she thought, with a little sense of satisfaction. "but which string of beads did esther send you? i can't tell them apart," she heard aunt prissy say laughingly. when the time came for mr. carew to start for home faith was sure that she wanted to go home with him. and it was only when her father had promised to come after her early in march, "or as soon as march stirs the fire, and gives a good warm day," he said, that faith could be reconciled and persuaded to let him go without her. she was glad indeed that it was a tuesday, and that louise would come to stay all night. faith was eager to tell louise the story of the blue beads, and to show her those esther had sent, and those that aunt prissy had given her. faith was sure that she herself could tell the beads apart, and equally sure that no one else could do so. louise was waiting at the gate when faith came from school. at the first sight of her faith was hardly sure that it was louise; for the little girl at the gate had on a beautiful fur coat. it was made of otter skins, brown and soft. on her head was a cap of the same fur; and, as faith came close, she saw that louise wore fur mittens. "oh, louise! your coat is splendid," she exclaimed. "and you look so pretty in it; and the cap and mittens." and faith looked at louise, smiling with delighted admiration. louise nodded happily. "my father sent to albany for them. a man brought them last night," she said. "you do truly like them?" she questioned, a little anxiously. "of course! any girl would think they were beautiful. aunt prissy will be just as glad as i am," declared faith. "what's in that big bundle?" she added, as louise lifted a big bundle from beside the gate. but if louise heard she made no reply, and when faith offered to carry the package she shook her head laughingly. faith thought it might be something that louise wanted to work on that evening, and was so intent on telling of her father's visit, the blue beads, and the promised visit to her own dear home in march, that she did not really give much thought to the package. aunt prissy was at the window watching for the girls, with the three little boys about her. they all came to the door, and aunt prissy exclaimed, just as faith had done, over the beauty of louise's new possessions. "but what is in that big bundle, louise?" she asked, when the little lame girl had taken off coat, cap and mittens, and stood smiling up at her good friend. "once you said to me that a present was something that any one ought to be very happy to receive," she said. "yes, i remember. and i know you are happy over your father's gift," replied mrs. scott. louise nodded, and began unwrapping the bundle. "this is my present to faith," she said, struggling to untie the heavy string. "let me, louise; let me," and donald was down on his knees and in a moment the bundle was opened, and donald exclaimed: "my! it's a coat exactly like louise's." "there's a cap too, and mittens," said louise eagerly. "do try it on." donald stood holding the coat; and faith, as excited and happy as louise, slipped on the coat, put the cap on her head and held out her hands for the mittens. "oh, louise! they are lovely. i may keep them, mayn't i, aunt prissy?" she asked, turning about for her aunt to see how nicely the coat fitted. neither of the little girls noticed that mrs. scott looked grave and a little troubled, for she was thinking that this was almost too fine a present for her little niece to accept from the shoemaker's daughter. but she knew that to refuse to let faith accept it would not only make both the girls very unhappy, but that mr. trent would forbid louise coming to the house, and so stop all her friendly efforts to help louise; so she added her thanks to those of faith, and the two little friends were as happy as it is possible to be over giving and receiving a beautiful gift. faith even forgot her blue beads in the pleasure of possessing the pretty coat and cap. chapter xiv a birthday "can you skate, cousin faith?" asked donald, on their way to school one morning in late december. there had been a week of very cold weather, and the ice of the lake glittered temptingly in the morning sun. "no, i never had any skates, and there wasn't a very good chance for skating at home," answered faith regretfully; for many of the school children were eager for the sport, and told her of their good times on the ice. "mother has a pair of skates for you; i heard her say so; and father is going to teach you to skate," responded donald. "i can skate," he added, "and after you learn we'll have a fine time. nat beaman comes across the lake on the ice in no time." it was rather difficult for faith to pay attention to her studies that day. she wondered when aunt prissy would give her the skates, and uncle phil teach her how to use them. and when the schoolmaster announced that there would be no school for the remainder of the week faith felt that everything was planned just right for her. now, she thought, she could begin the very next day, if only the cold, clear weather would continue. the sun set clear and red that night, and the stars shone brightly. faith was sure the next day would be pleasant. donald found a chance to tell faith that the skates were a "secret." "but i didn't know it until just a few minutes ago," he explained, adding briefly: "i hate secrets." faith agreed heartily. if the skates were a secret who could tell when aunt prissy would give them to her? she went to bed a little despondent, thinking to herself that as soon as she was clear of one secret another seemed ready to interfere with her happiness. but she was soon asleep, and woke up to find the sun shining in at her windows, and aunt prissy starting the fire with a shovelful of coals from the kitchen hearth. and what were those shining silver-like objects swinging from the bed-post? "skates! my skates!" she exclaimed, sitting up in bed. "oh, aunt prissy! i did want them so to-day." "they are your birthday present from your father and mother," said aunt prissy, coming to the side of the bed, and leaning over to kiss her little niece. "eleven years old to-day! and you had forgotten all about it!" "why, so i am! why, so i did!" said faith. "well, i like secrets that end this way. may i go skating right away, aunt prissy?" "breakfast first!" laughed aunt prissy, and was out of the room before faith had noticed that lying across the foot of her bed was a dress of pretty plaided blue and brown wool. a slip of paper was pinned to it: "for faith to wear skating," she read. "lovely! lovely!" exclaimed faith, as she hastened to dress in front of the blazing fire. "why, here are new stockings, too," she said, as she discovered a pair of warm knit brown and blue stockings. she came running into the dining-room, skates in hand, to be met by her uncle and little cousins with birthday greetings. donald had at last finished the bow and arrows that he had promised her weeks before, and now gave them to her; hugh had made a "quiver," a little case to hold the arrows, such as the indians use, of birch bark, and little philip had a dish filled with molasses candy, which he had helped to make. it was a beautiful morning for faith, and the broiled chicken and hot corn cake gave the breakfast an added sense of festivity. soon after breakfast mr. scott, donald and faith were ready to start for the lake. donald took his sled along. "so we can draw cousin faith home, if she gets tired," he explained, with quite an air of being older and stronger than his cousin. aunt prissy watched them start off, thinking to herself that faith had never looked so pretty as she did in the fur coat and cap, with her skates swinging from her arm, the bright steel catching the rays of sunlight. they crossed the road, and went down the field to the shore. the hard crust gave faith and donald a fine coast down the slope, and both the children exclaimed with delight when mr. scott, running and sliding, reached the shore almost as soon as they did. mr. scott fastened on faith's skates, and held up by her uncle on one side and donald on the other, faith ventured out on the dark, shining ice. after a few lurches and tumbles, she found that she could stand alone, and in a short time could skate a little. "father, are those indians?" asked donald, pointing to a number of dark figures coming swiftly down the lake from the direction of the fort. mr. scott looked, and answered quickly: "yes. they have seen us; so we will skate toward them. they will probably be friendly." but he told faith to sit down on the sled, and took fast hold of donald's hand. in a few moments the flying figures of the indians were close at hand. there were six of them, young braves, and evidently racing either for sport, or bound on some errand of importance, for they sped straight past the little group, with a friendly call of salutation. "i wonder what that means," said mr. scott, turning to watch them. "it may be they are on their way to albany as messengers from the fort," he added, as if speaking to himself. "what kind of a message, uncle philip?" asked faith. "heaven knows, child. perhaps for troops enough to crush the american settlers, and drive them from their homes," replied mr. scott. for news of the trouble in boston, the blockade of the port, and the lack of supplies, had reached the men of the wilderness; and mr. scott knew that the english were planning to send a larger body of troops to fort ticonderoga and crown point, and the sight of these speeding indians made him wonder if they might not be english messengers. "couldn't we stop them, uncle?" asked faith, so earnestly that her uncle looked down at her in smiling surprise. "couldn't we? it will be dreadful to leave our homes," said faith. mr. scott swung the little girl gently around. "look!" he said, pointing down the lake. already the indians were but dark specks in the distance. "if trouble comes there are brave americans ready," he said; "and now we had best be going toward home, or you will be too tired to come out this afternoon." faith and donald were surprised to find that it was dinner time. they had a great deal to tell aunt prissy of their morning's adventures. "could a little girl do anything to help, aunt prissy, if the english do try to drive us away?" faith asked, as she helped her aunt clear the dining-room table. "who knows?" responded mrs. scott, cheerfully. "a brave girl might be of great service. but i do not believe the tories will dare go much farther. at all events, we will be ready for them. run to the door, faithie; there comes louise." louise was as pleased over faith's presents as faith herself, and delighted at the prospect of going to the lake with faith and donald that afternoon. faith and donald promised to draw her on the sled, and aunt prissy was to be their companion. "mother can skate like a bird," donald declared admiringly. louise was no longer the sullen, sad-faced child whom faith had first seen. she knew that she had friends; she was included in all the pleasant happenings with faith; her father seemed to take pride in her appearance; and best of all, she thought, she was to begin school when the spring term opened. to-day as they started off for the lake she was as full of happiness as any child could be. there were a number of children and young people on the ice, skating and sliding. a number of boys had built a bonfire on the shore, where they could warm their chilled toes and fingers. nathan beaman was there, circling about in skilful curves, or darting off with long swift strokes, greatly to the admiration of the other children. he was quite ready to take the sled rope and give louise a fine ride up the lake toward the fort, and back to the fire, and to guide faith in her clumsy efforts to skate. faith and louise were warming their fingers at the fire when they heard loud voices and a commotion on the ice. "what is it? indians?" exclaimed faith, looking around, for the settlers never knew at what moment the indians might become mischievous. "no! soldiers. soldiers from the fort," replied aunt prissy, drawing the little girls away from the fire. "perhaps they are only coming to warm their fingers." two red-coated soldiers came swinging close to the shore. they were talking loudly, and as they neared the fire they called out: "clear away from that fire. we'll have no fires built on this shore. 'tis too good a way to send messages across the lake." with a couple of stout sticks they beat out the flame, kicking snow over the coals, and extinguishing the last bit of fire. mrs. scott had helped louise toward the ice, but faith had lingered a moment. as one of the soldiers turned from the fire he found himself facing a little fur-clad figure with flushed cheeks and angry eyes. "that was our fire. you had no business to put it out," faith declared. "oh, ho! what's this?" laughed the soldier. "do you own this lake? or perhaps you are our new captain?" "it is a mean thing to spoil our fire," continued faith; "we wouldn't do you any harm." "i'm not so sure about that," replied the soldier. "you have a pretty fierce expression," and with another kick at the fire, and a "good-bye, little rebel," to faith, the two soldiers started back to the fort. the skaters now, troubled and angry by the unfriendly interference, were taking off their skates and starting for home. "i wish american soldiers were in that fort," said nat beaman. "why don't you ask colonel allen to come and take it?" asked faith earnestly; she was quite sure that ethan allen could do anything he attempted. "ask him yourself," responded nathan laughingly. "i guess i will," faith thought to herself, as she followed aunt prissy up the field toward home. "perhaps that would be doing something to help americans." the more faith thought about this the stronger became her resolve to ask colonel allen to take possession of fort ticonderoga. she was so silent all the way home that her companions were sure she was overtired. louise had to return to her own home, and soon after supper faith was ready to go to bed. "i've got a real secret now; even if i don't like secrets," she thought to herself. for she realized that she could not tell any one of her determination to find some way to ask ethan allen to capture ticonderoga and send the troublesome english soldiers back to their own homes. chapter xv new adventures "it will be a good day to put a quilt in the frame," said aunt prissy, the morning after faith's birthday. "you and donald can help me with it right after breakfast; then while you children are off to the lake i will mark the pattern." "can't i help mark the pattern?" asked faith, who had sometimes helped her mother, and thought it the most interesting part of the quilting. the quilting-frame, four long strips of wood, was brought into the sitting-room and rested on the backs of four stout wooden chairs, forming a square. the frame was held firmly together at the corners by clamps and screws, so that it could be changed and adjusted to fit the quilt. this quilt was a very pretty one, faith thought, as she watched aunt prissy fasten it to the frame with stout linen thread. it was made of bits of bright woolen cloth. there were pieces of faith's new dresses, and of the dresses made for louise, and they were neatly stitched together in a diamond-shaped pattern. faith had made a good many of these, and so had louise in the evenings as they sat with aunt prissy before the open fire. first of all aunt prissy had fastened the lining for the quilt to the frame. over this she spread an even layer of soft wool, and then over this the bright patchwork was spread and fastened. and now it was ready to mark the quilting pattern. aunt prissy took a ball of firm twine and rubbed it well with white chalk. the cord was fastened tightly across the surface of the quilt. "now," said aunt prissy, and faith took the tight cord up and "snap" it went when her fingers released their hold, leaving a straight white mark across the quilt. back and forth they stretched the cord and "snapped" the line, until the quilt was marked in a checkerboard pattern of white lines, which the quilters would follow with their neat stitches. "i believe i'll have a quilting bee to-morrow," said aunt prissy. "when you and donald start out you can go down and ask the minister's wife, and be sure and say that we shall expect mr. fairbanks to tea. then ask neighbor willis and her husband, and mrs. tuttle. i think that will be a pleasant number." "may i help quilt?" asked faith. "of course you may. tell mrs. tuttle to bring her daughter. and now, my dear, in what manner will you ask our friends to the quilting party and to tea?" asked aunt prissy, looking down at her little niece with her pretty smile. "i shall rap at the minister's door first, of course; and when mrs. fairbanks opens the door i shall make my best curtsy, like this:" and faith took a bit of her skirt in each hand, and bent in a very pretty curtsy indeed; "and i shall say: 'good-morning, mrs. fairbanks. my aunt prissy will be very happy if you and the minister will come to her quilting bee to-morrow afternoon and stay to tea.'" aunt prissy nodded approvingly. "i think that will do very nicely indeed. now put on your things and run along. donald is waiting." donald and "scotchie" were at the door when faith was ready to start. the big dog barked his delight at being allowed to go with the children. "i'd like to harness him to the sled; he could draw us both," suggested donald, but faith was sure that "scotchie" would upset the sled; so her cousin gave up the project. "we can go on the lake just below mrs. tuttle's house, and skate along the shore home; can't we, cousin faith?" asked donald, after they had stopped at mrs. willis' house and that of the clergyman. "let's call and get louise," suggested faith. "oh, there won't be time. look, there goes an english soldier into the shoemaker's now. the boys all say that the shoemaker is an english spy," answered donald. they were nearly in front of mr. trent's shop now, and faith noticed that the soldier was the one who had been on the lake the previous day, and who had called her "a little rebel." "come to the back door, donald. just a moment, while i speak to louise. and make 'scotchie' keep still," said faith, turning into the path leading to the back door. "scotchie" was barking fiercely as if he resented the sight of the redcoat. the soldier turned quickly. "stop that dog before i put a bullet into him," he called. "he's afraid," donald whispered to faith, with a word to "scotchie," and faith ran up the path and entered the house. donald and "scotchie" stood waiting, the dog growling now and then, whenever the soldier moved about on the door-step. it was evident that the shoemaker was not at home, for no answer came to the raps. in a moment louise appeared at the door and told the man that her father was not at home. "send that boy with the dog about his business," said the soldier. "'tis the public road, sir; and 'tis not likely he'd mind what i might say," responded louise smilingly, as she closed the door. donald rested his mittened hand on "scotchie's" head. "you needn't be afraid. i won't let him hurt you," donald called. the soldier came down the path scowling. "i've a great mind to kick the beast," he said. "you'd better not," said donald. evidently the man agreed, for he went past as quickly as possible. donald watched him with a little scornful smile. the boy was not old enough to realize, as faith did, the difference between these hired soldiers of england, and the brave americans who were ready to undertake any sacrifice to secure the freedom of their country, but he was a brave boy, and thought poorly of this soldier's courage. louise listened to faith's hurried account of the proposed quilting party. "and you must come too, louise," she concluded, "and come early." louise promised. she had never been to a quilting party, and was sure that it would be a great experience. she could not go to the lake, for she must not leave the house until her father returned. when faith rejoined donald he told her of the soldier's evident fear of the dog. "i don't see what made 'scotchie' growl so," added donald. "i'm glad he did," responded faith. "come on; let's hurry, or we won't have much time on the ice," so off they went across the field. but as they reached the shore they looked at each other questioningly. the lake seemed to be in the possession of the redcoats. at least half the garrison of the fort were on the ice; skating, racing, and evidently enjoying themselves. "we had better go home," said faith, and donald made no objections. the two children, disappointed of their morning's sport, went slowly back toward home. "that's the way they take everything," declared faith, renewing her promise to herself to try in some way to let ethan allen know how easy it would be to drive the english from ticonderoga. "i am glad you did not venture on the ice," aunt prissy said when donald and faith told their story. "the english become less friendly every day. well, we will not think of them when there is so much to do as we have before us." "i asked louise to come to the quilting," said faith. "that's right; and i am going to send donald to ask a number of your schoolmates to come in the evening. the moon will be full to light them home, and you children can have the kitchen to yourselves after supper, and make molasses candy," said aunt prissy. this seemed a very delightful idea to both faith and donald. the thought of making candy reminded faith of esther eldridge, and of the bear's sudden appearance at the kitchen door. mr. carew had promised faith to ask esther's father to bring her to visit faith on her return home, and faith often thought of how much she and esther would have to tell each other. that afternoon faith helped her aunt prissy in preparing for the quilting. aunt prissy was cooking a ham, and the brick oven held some of the spiced cakes that the children liked so well. donald cracked a big dish full of hickory-nuts, while faith rubbed the pewter plates and pitchers until they shone like silver. the two younger boys ran in and out of the kitchen, thinking a quilting party must be a great affair. mr. scott had been cutting wood at the edge of the forest, and did not return until nearly dusk; and when he arrived there was a man with him--evidently a traveler, for there was a pack on his back, and he was tired. faith heard her aunt prissy call the stranger by name, and welcome him. "why, it is esther's father. of course it is!" she exclaimed suddenly. mr. eldridge told her all about esther, and promised that his little daughter should again visit the wilderness cabin. faith wondered what business it was that took mr. eldridge through the wilderness and up and down the lakes. long afterward she discovered that he was one of the trusted messengers of the american leaders, and through him the american settlers along the lake shores and through the new hampshire grants were kept informed of what the english were doing. she did not know that he underwent constant danger. the little boys went early to bed that night, but faith was not sleepy. the firelight in the sitting-room made dancing pictures on the wall, as she sat in a small chair at the end of the sofa. the sound of aunt prissy's knitting needles made her think of the silvery tinkle of the mill-stream under the winter ice in her wilderness home. mr. eldridge and her uncle were talking quietly. she heard her uncle say that: "ticonderoga was the lock to the gate of the country," and mr. eldridge respond that until crown point and ticonderoga were taken by the americans that none of the colonies could be safe. "if there were any way to get into fort ticonderoga," said mr. eldridge. "they say there's a secret passageway." faith was all attention at this. she quite forgot that she was listening to conversation not intended for her ears, as she heard her uncle answer: "there is such a door, but no way for an american to find it. if some one could get entrance to the fort in that way, discover just the plan of the place, and escape, it would be of the greatest service to the americans when the right time came to take the fort." "time for bed, faithie," said aunt prissy, and, very reluctantly, the little girl went up-stairs. she was thinking of all that her uncle and mr. eldridge had said, and of the unguarded door opening on the cliff at the fort. she wondered if she could make her way up that steep cliff as easily as nathan had declared he had so often done. "perhaps nathan will help capture the fort," she thought. "anyway he could show the green mountain boys the way. if i were at home i would put a note in that cave near lake dunmore and tell ethan allen about nathan." only ethan allen and a few of his friends knew of this mountain cave, and it was there messages were left for him by the men of the wilderness. chapter xvi louise disappears the guests for the quilting party arrived at an early hour in the afternoon. all that morning faith and aunt prissy were busy. dishes filled with red apples were brought up from the cellar; cakes were made ready, and the house in order before dinner time. only one little girl, jane tuttle, had been asked to come in the early afternoon. jane was about faith's age, and at school they were in the same classes. she was not very tall, and was very fat. jane was one of the children whom caroline and catherine young had taken especial delight in teasing. "jane, jane! fat and plain; with a button nose and turned-in toes," they would call after her, until the little girl dreaded the very sight of them. when faith had proved that she was not afraid of the sisters jane tuttle became her steadfast admirer, and was greatly pleased to come in the afternoon with her mother. but she was surprised to find louise trent there before her, and evidently very much at home. however, she was too kind-hearted a child not to be pleasant and polite to the lame girl, and louise was now as ready to make friends as, before knowing faith, she had been sullen and unfriendly. each of the girls was encouraged to set a few neat stitches in the quilt. then, on the arrival of mrs. fairbanks and mrs. lewis, aunt prissy told faith that if she wanted to take the little girls to her own room she might do so. there was a glowing fire on the hearth, and faith was pleased for jane to see her pleasant chamber, and to introduce "lady amy." "i wish i had brought my doll," said jane, as the little girls gathered in front of the fire. "mine is one my mother made for me." "there, louise! we could make you a doll!" exclaimed faith, knowing how much her friend had always wished for a doll of her own. but louise shook her head. "i guess i am too old for dolls; i'm twelve," she said slowly, "and i don't have time to make dresses for dolls now that i'm learning to read and write. you see," and she turned to jane, "i keep house for my father." jane looked at louise, wondering to herself why she had ever imagined that louise trent was a girl that she could not have for a friend. why, louise was really pretty! thought fat little jane, looking admiringly at the smooth black hair, and the neat and pretty dress. and so nearly grown-up, too. twelve years old! jane resolved to go and see louise, and to ask her to come for a visit. "i shall always play with dolls," she heard faith declare. "i'd like to have a regiment of dolls, and play games with them. wouldn't it be fun to have dolls that we could make up names for, and then have them do all sorts of things?" louise and jane agreed that would be a fine game. "we could dress up the pillows on your bed for dolls," suggested louise. "yes, and put my dresses on them," responded faith eagerly, running to the closet and bringing out the blue dress, a skirt and a small shawl. it was not long before two "cushiony" figures, as large as jane, were seated on the bed. "let's put our coats and caps on them, faith; and when the other girls come this evening we'll make them think the pillows are company," suggested louise. jane jumped about the room with delight as faith and louise adjusted the caps and fur coats. "we'll introduce them as annie snow and mary white," said faith. "it will be fun to see what the girls will say." four little girls were expected, and several boy friends of donald's. aunt prissy wondered a little at faith's eagerness to take the girls directly up-stairs on their arrival, but she was greatly pleased to see that louise, jane and faith were evidently having a delightful time. it was nearly dusk when the little visitors arrived, and faith's room was rather dim and shadowy. the little girls coming in were rather surprised to find that there were strangers, evidently just arrived, sitting on faith's bed. "girls, these are two of my best friends, annie snow and mary white," said faith, trying hard not to laugh, as her schoolmates bowed politely and greeted the stout figures on the bed, who, apparently, did not hear the introductions. jane, giggling with delight, circled around the newcomers; while louise seated herself on the bed and began talking to annie snow. faith endeavored to make the newcomers at ease, and it was not long before she had to run down-stairs to help her aunt with the supper, leaving louise and jane to carry on the game. the children were to have their supper in the kitchen. the tables for young and old had been spread before the arrival of any of the guests, so there was but little for aunt prissy and faith to do before calling the guests to supper. louise was the last one to enter the kitchen, her face radiant with fun and delight at the success of "annie snow" and "mary white." she found a chance to tell faith that "annie" and "mary" had managed to say that they didn't feel like eating supper, and that the girls had not yet discovered the joke. "we'll bring them down after supper," faith whispered. "are your friends from the wilderness?" asked peggy tibbetts, the oldest girl of the party, as faith sat down beside her. "no," faith answered slowly. "they are both coming down after supper, and i know you will be surprised when i tell you that they live right in this house." peggy tibbetts was surprised. she looked almost frightened, and lost no time in whispering this information to the other girls; so that when faith announced that she would run up-stairs and ask "annie" and "mary" to come down there was an anxious silence. faith asked jane to go with her, and in a few moments they returned with the two clumsy "girls." in the brightly-lit kitchen the dressed-up figures could no longer be mistaken, and the children were greatly pleased and amused by "annie" and "mary," who were established in straight-backed chairs, and urged to share in the supper. there was so much laughter and merriment in the kitchen that aunt prissy looked in for a moment. "faithie dear, who are the little girls in the corner?" she asked. to louise and jane this seemed a triumph indeed, and when aunt prissy, entering into the spirit of the affair, insisted upon being introduced to "annie" and "mary," and said she was very glad to see them, the children danced about, greatly pleased with this unexpected fun. when the clock struck nine the grown people and children were all ready to start for home. louise was to stay all night with faith. as the children said their good-byes and stepped out into the snow-trodden path they called back messages to "annie" and "mary." the full moon shone down so brightly that the path could be plainly seen, and in the distance the dark line of the forest, and the heights of ticonderoga. "it's the best time i ever had in all my life," declared jane, as she trotted off holding fast to her mother's hand. and faith said the same as she bade aunt prissy good-night. "it's fun to have parties, isn't it, aunt prissy," she said, "and all the girls are so pleasant." "that is what makes the good time, isn't it?" responded her aunt. "i hope it won't storm to-morrow," louise said, as the two girls prepared for bed. "what makes you think of a storm?" questioned faith. "there was a ring around the moon," said louise; "that's one sign, and the air felt like snow." but faith was too happy over the evening to think about weather signs. she had, for that night, quite forgotten about the english soldiers and her resolve to send a message to ethan allen. louise's predictions proved right; for when the morning came snow was falling steadily, and great drifts were heaped up against the walls and fences. a chill east wind came sweeping across the ice-bound lake, and it was plain that there would be no more skating for many days. for nearly a week trails and roads were impassable. mr. trent, knowing that louise was safe and happy with her friends, made no effort to reach her; and the scotts were glad to keep indoors, safe from the fierce cold and wind. donald and hugh dug a tunnel to the shop, and mr. scott kept a path open to the barn, while indoors aunt prissy kept the two girls busy and happy. she declared that she had been hoping for a day to dye some recently woven blankets, and asked faith what color she thought would be best. "but how can you make any color you like, aunt prissy?" asked faith. "perhaps not 'any color i like,' but i have a good lot of colors to choose from," replied aunt prissy. "people who live in the wilderness need only to step outdoors to find almost anywhere some plant that furnishes dye, and i gather my dye-plants and roots every summer, as i am sure your own mother does." "i know mother always gathers the dogwood roots to make a scarlet dye. kashaqua told her about that," answered faith. "the indians use it for their feathers." "and i am sure your mother dyed your brown dress with the shells of the hickory-nut," said aunt prissy, "and the yellow root is what i used to color the covers on the chair cushions in your room." this was all new to louise, and she listened eagerly, thinking to herself that she would color the faded quilts on her own bed; and that another summer she would gather a good supply of the roots and plants of which mrs. scott spoke. "the pokeweed berries will color a good red," continued mrs. scott; "but for scarlet we must use the dogwood roots." then mrs. scott showed the little girls her bundles of dyestuffs, each plant and root tied up and marked carefully with its name and use. a large number of the dogwood roots were put into a huge iron kettle, the kettle filled with water, and hung over the fire. when it had boiled for several hours there would be a good scarlet dye in which the new blankets would be dipped. then they would be hung to dry in the shed. the next day the sun came out and shone brightly down on a white and glistening world, and that afternoon mr. trent came to take louise home. he would not come in, but waited at the door until she was ready to go. but he thanked mrs. scott for all her kindness to his little daughter. faith was quite sure that mr. trent must be sorry to be a tory instead of a loyal american. "but i suppose he can't help it," she decided, and always thought of her friend's father as unfortunate. faith and louise always had so many things to talk about that they seldom spoke of the redcoats; and when they did louise seemed to dislike them more than faith herself. faith and donald both had snow-shoes, and on their way to school, a few days later, faith stopped at the shoemaker's door. but there was no response to her knock, and when she tried the door it would not open. she wondered where louise and her father could be, but not until the next day did she hear that the shoemaker and louise had left their home, apparently not to return. they had gone with a number of english families, on sledges, down the river, without a good-bye to the kind friends who had grown to love the little lame girl. "i know louise couldn't help it," faith declared, when aunt prissy told her the news. "she will write to me, i know she will," but it was a long time before any word came to her from her little friend. and now faith became more and more eager for march to come, that she might once more see her father and mother, and make some attempt to send a message to ethan allen. chapter xvii faith again visits the fort the night after hearing that louise had gone faith felt more nearly homesick than at any time since her arrival at her aunt's house. everything seemed to remind her of her friend. even "lady amy" made her remember that louise had never owned a doll of her own. "and i had meant to give louise one of my strings of blue beads just as soon as i had asked aunt prissy," she thought, regretfully, holding up the pretty beads, and recalling how much louise had admired them. "aunt prissy," she called, running down the stairs and into the sitting-room, "may i not give louise one of my bead necklaces?" aunt prissy looked up in amazement. "but how can you, faithie, dear? we do not know where she is," she answered. "we shall know some time. of course we shall. and when we do, may i? i meant to ask you the day of the quilting," said faith. "of course you may, child. i was sure that you would want to when esther sent the beads. i only hope you may have a chance to give them to louise at an early day," responded aunt prissy. this decision proved a comfort to faith. as the weeks went by, and no news of the shoemaker and his little daughter was received, she would often look at the string of blue beads which she meant to give her friend. "i wish i had given them to her on my birthday," she thought regretfully, "but she shall have them some time," for faith was quite sure that it could not be very long before louise would find a way to let them know where she was. march came, "stirring the fire" vigorously from the day of its arrival. the ice in the lake broke up rapidly, the snow melted, and by the middle of the month faith began to expect her father. nathan beaman, in his clumsy boat, had crossed from shoreham a number of times. he often teasingly reminded faith of her plan to ask ethan allen to come and take possession of fort ticonderoga. "you'd better hurry. the british will be sending men down from canada by early summer, and then 'twill be of no use for the green mountain boys to try to capture the fort," he said. "how do you always know so much about what the english are going to do?" asked faith. the children were all in the shop. nathan was helping donald in the construction of a small boat, and faith and the two younger boys had been filling a basket with chips and shavings to carry into the house. "can't help knowing," answered nathan. "i hear the men at the fort talking about all their fine plans to own all this country every time i go there." "nathan," and faith lowered her voice so that the other children would not hear, "you know i promised not to tell about the door at the fort?" nathan nodded; he was looking at her sharply, and half feared that she was about to tell him that she had broken the promise. "well, of course i shan't tell. but if my telling some american would help send the soldiers away, mayn't i tell then?" and faith's face was very serious as she waited for his response. "yes. i meant you weren't to tell louise trent, or those young girls," said nathan. "and don't tell any one unless you are sure it will be of some use. you see i may tell, if it comes to that." faith drew a long breath. "thank you, nathan," she said, in so serious a tone that the boy laughed aloud. "you are as grave about that old fort as my father and the shoreham men are. you ought to hear my father tell about the big fight here in 1758. he was a young man then, and the french held the fort, and the english were after it." donald had stopped his work, and he and hugh were listening eagerly. "tell us, tell us about it," said donald. "father says there'll never be anything like it again. all the colonies sent men, and lord howe brought thousands of english soldiers. england was our friend then," said nathan. "they had thousands of boats, and rafts to carry their big guns. they had big flags, and music; and they didn't lurk or skulk about. their boats came right down the lake in fine shape; they landed, and marched toward the fort. but the french were ready for them, and beat them back. however, the next year the english and americans drove the french out." "i guess the english are brave," donald ventured, returning to his work. "of course they are. why, we're all english ourselves," declared nathan, "and that's why we won't stand being treated so unfairly. we can't stand it." "i'm not english. i'm an american," said faith; "and when the americans take ticonderoga that will be american too." "that's the way to talk, little maid," said a gruff voice, and the children turned quickly toward the door. "i didn't mean to listen," and a tall man, dressed in deerskin jacket and trousers, with moccasins, and wearing a fur cap, stepped into the shop, resting his musket against the wall near the door. "shouldn't have dared come in if i had not heard i was in good company," he said laughingly, his sharp eyes looking carefully about the shop. nathan, with a half-muttered word of good-bye to the children, had started toward the door; but the newcomer's hand grasped his arm. "wait a minute!" he said, swinging the boy about. "i'm not so sure about letting you start off so smart. you may head straight for the fort, for all i know. what's your name?" nathan stood silent. his face flushed, but he looked the newcomer steadily in the face. "let go of nathan!" said donald sturdily, clutching at the man's arm, and kicking at his legs. "this isn't your shop. you let go of him." "i guess i'd better," laughed the man, taking a firm hold of donald and looking at both his captives in evident amusement. "well, philip scott, what sort of a hornet's nest have you here?" he called out, and faith turned around to see her uncle philip standing in the doorway. "i'll not let go these men until you promise to defend me," continued the stranger. "you are safe, phelps," responded mr. scott, coming forward and, as nathan and donald were released, giving the stranger a cordial welcome. nathan vanished without a word, but on mr. scott's saying that he was the son of mr. beaman of shoreham, the stranger was reassured. it was evident he did not wish his arrival to become known at the fort. faith heard the stranger say that he had come from hartford, and that he would cross to the new hampshire grants as soon as he could safely do so. "i'd like to look in at fort ticonderoga if i could without the soldiers knowing it," she heard him say, and her uncle replied that it would be impossible. faith was sure that this stranger was on some errand to the green mountain boys, for he spoke of remember baker, and seth warner. "i'd like to take colonel allen a plan of the fort," she heard him say, as she helped aunt prissy prepare an early dinner for their visitor. faith wished that she was grown up. then, she was sure, she would dare to tell this stranger of the way up the cliff to the unguarded entrance. "he could go up this evening, and then he could tell colonel allen all about it," she thought, and before dinner was over she had resolved to find a way to tell him. but after a talk with mr. scott the visitor had declared he must get a few hours sleep. he said that he had been on the trail since very early that morning, and must be off again soon after sunset. "run in the sitting-room, faithie, and fix a cushion for mr. phelps," said aunt prissy, and the little girl started obediently. "i'll tell him now," she resolved, and as the tall man followed her she said quickly: "i know how you can get into the fort and no one see you. it's a secret. i'll show you. but uncle phil won't let me if you tell him." "i'll not tell him. you are a brave child. tell me quickly," responded the tall stranger. "there's a canoe under the big willow at the bottom of the field----" began faith, but he interrupted. "yes! yes! i know. i am to cross the lake in it. but how can i get into the fort?" "i could show you. i can't tell you," answered faith. "then 'tis of small use. harm might come to you, child," he answered, stretching himself out on the long settle with a tired sigh. faith went slowly back to the kitchen. here was the very chance she had so long hoped for, and this stranger would not let her attempt it. all that afternoon faith was very quiet. she walked across the fields to the shore and looked at the big willow tree where the canoe was concealed. she looked off toward mount defiance, and mount hope, rising clearly against the sky, as if standing sentinels for fort ticonderoga. "i'll try, anyway," she said to herself, as she turned toward home. after supper she went early up-stairs. but she did not undress. she knew that her uncle would not go to the lake shore with his visitor, for that might attract the attention of some hunter or fisherman. it would not be long before mr. phelps would start. there was no time to lose. she put on her fur cap, and a knit jacket, and then peered out of the window. the sky was clear, and the moon made it almost as light as day. the sound of the falls came clearly through the quiet air. "he could find his way up the cliff as plainly as if it were daylight," thought faith, as she turned from the window. she opened her door and closed it silently behind her. her cousins were in bed, her uncle and aunt in the sitting-room with their visitor. faith would have to pass the sitting-room door and go through the kitchen; the slightest noise would betray her. she had put on her moccasins, the ones kashaqua had given her, and she stepped cautiously, without a sound. in a few moments she was safely out-of-doors and running across the field. she crouched down in the canoe and waited. faith did not hear or see the stranger as he came toward the shore--not until he grasped the canoe to push it into the water. "king of britain!" he whispered under his breath, when faith spoke his name. "what are you doing here?" "i'm going to show you the way into the fort. yes! 'twill take not more than an hour or two. then you can leave me here. 'twill do me no harm, and you will tell colonel allen about the fort," said faith, in a whisper. the man slid the canoe into the water. "you are well-named, faith," he responded. "well, 'tis a chance, and no man will harm a little maid," and with a stroke of his paddle he sent the canoe clear of the willows and headed toward the fort. "keep close to the shore," whispered faith, peering anxiously ahead. several hours later faith stepped from the canoe, and said a whispered good-bye to the stranger, and watched the canoe dart off straight toward shoreham. he had scaled the cliff, while faith kept the canoe close under the alder bushes, entered the door of the fort, and skilfully made his way about the fortifications, determining the right place for an attack and assuring himself that the fortress contained valuable stores. as faith stepped from the canoe the man tried to thank her. "some day your uncle scott will hear of this, and be proud indeed of so brave a child," he said, "and i shall tell colonel allen your name, and of your courage. be sure of that. you have helped the american cause more than a regiment of soldiers." faith said over his words as she made her way across the fields. she recalled her first visit to the fort. "i'm glad those girls ran off that day," she thought, as she gently tried the back door. it was securely fastened. a low warning growl from "scotchie" made her fear to lift a window. he would arouse the household. she stood on the steps, shivering a little in the sharp march wind. "i must get in without making a noise," she thought. but she could think of no way to accomplish it. in spite of her silence "scotchie" realized that some one was outside. he barked, growled, and once or twice threw himself against the door. then suddenly his growls stopped, and, before faith had time to move, the kitchen door opened slightly and she heard her uncle say, "who's there?" and knew that, musket in hand, he was awaiting her answer. chapter xviii home again "scotchie's" warning growl turned to a joyful greeting as faith spoke his name. "great cã¦sar! faith!" exclaimed her uncle, drawing her into the kitchen. "what on earth are you doing out-of-doors at this time of night?" "you locked the door," whimpered faith. "but why did you not call out? we thought you went straight to bed," said her uncle. "i went down to the shore----" began faith, and then stopped suddenly. "well, go straight to bed, and tell your aunt about it in the morning. she is fast asleep now." faith was glad to obey. she was too tired and sleepy to be greatly troubled by what would happen in the morning. she had resolved that if aunt prissy questioned her she would tell the truth. but she hoped earnestly that in some way the secret could be kept even from her aunt and uncle, until mr. phelps should tell them. when she came down to breakfast it appeared that her uncle had only told aunt prissy that faith had run out after supper, and, instead of calling and knocking until some one opened the door, had waited until "scotchie's" bark had brought him to the door. aunt prissy was more surprised and alarmed at this news than faith had expected. she cautioned faith never to go out without telling some one of the family. "why, some wolf or wildcat might have been about; or a party of indians might have happened along and taken you off," she said. "and we should never have known what had become of you." faith promised never again to leave the house without her aunt's permission, and was glad indeed that she had escaped without telling of her journey to the fort. "aunt prissy! do you know what day this is?" she asked, so soberly that her aunt looked at her a little anxiously. "it is the very last day of march; it has been a warm and pleasant month, and my father has not come for me." "and are you so anxious to say good-bye to us, faithie? you know that instead of your making a visit home your father has decided it is best for you to stay; not come back unless for a visit, until another autumn," responded aunt prissy. "yes, i know. but why does he not come?" persisted faith. "perhaps to-day will bring him," aunt prissy answered hopefully. faith came and stood close beside aunt prissy's chair. she wanted to say that she loved her cousins and uncle and aunt prissy very dearly; to tell her that she had been happy; and that it had been a beautiful visit; but that now she wanted to see her own dear mother more than anything else. but how could she say all this so that aunt prissy would understand? aunt prissy put down her knitting and drew the little girl into her lap. "there! now tell me all about it, dear," she said, resting her face against faith's yellow curls. and faith told her all that she had been thinking; all that she had thought would be so difficult. and aunt prissy listened, saying, "of course," and "yes, indeed," from time to time, and understanding even more than faith found words to tell. "why, aunt prissy, it's almost like having two homes," concluded faith. before aunt prissy could answer there was the sound of voices in the kitchen, and donald, closely followed by mr. carew, came into the room. "it's the very last day of march!" faith reminded him. "and i came near not getting here to-day," her father replied, as faith drew him to the big chair near the window, and climbed to a seat on his knees. "i was held up on the trail by a tall fellow, from connecticut, as it proved. he was bound to make me own up that i was an english spy. i told him my name, and my errand, and when i spoke faith's name, why, he was at once my best friend, told me of his visit at this house, and could not say enough in praise of my little daughter," responded mr. carew. "the americans seem to be gaining courage," said aunt prissy. "the men of the wilderness do not mean to let the other colonies do all the fighting, i'm sure." "indeed we'll do our part, priscilla," her brother assured her. faith told her father of the disappearance of mr. trent and louise; of the quilting party, and of all the happenings since his november visit. but she did not tell him of guiding the connecticut man to the pathway up the cliff to fort ticonderoga. it was evident that mr. phelps had kept the secret for some purpose of his own; so, much as she wanted her father to know, faith resolved that she would not tell him. this secret did not worry and trouble her as the others had done. "i guess it's because this secret means helping somebody, and the others were just--well, just mean secrets," faith decided, as she thought it over. the next morning faith and her father were ready to start at an early hour. uncle phil, aunt prissy, the boys and "scotchie" walked with them to the shore. "you will come back when summer comes, won't you, cousin faith?" said donald. "you'll come for a visit even if you don't stay and go to school." "i will if i can," faith promised, "and when louise comes back give her the blue beads, aunt prissy." "yes, indeed, dear child," responded her aunt, wondering to herself if louise and her father would ever again be seen in that vicinity. then there were messages for faith's mother, and not until she was in the canoe were the good-byes really said. the little group stood on the shore watching the canoe for some minutes, and then turned back toward the house. they were all very quiet, but as they reached the road donald called out: "there's somebody on our door-step! why, it is louise! yes, it is," and with a gay call he was off, running swiftly toward the house while the others hurried after him. "where is faith?" louise asked eagerly, when mrs. scott had welcomed her, and they were in the big kitchen. "she's gone home," said donald, before his mother could answer. but mrs. scott told the little girl of how much faith had missed her, and of the string of blue beads that she had left to be given to louise. it was evident that louise was greatly disappointed to find that her friend had gone. but she fastened the beads about her neck, and touched them with loving fingers. "faith was my very first friend," she said. "my father says that we have come back to stay," she added, "and perhaps faith will come in the summer?" there was such a pleading, questioning look in the girl's dark eyes that mrs. scott felt a new tenderness and sympathy for her, and put her arm about louise as she answered: "perhaps she will. but you must come often and see me; for we shall both miss her very much." "oh, may i, mrs. scott? i was afraid you wouldn't want me to come," and louise's face brightened. "why, i am to help you with your studies, and donald is to call for you when you begin school. faith arranged all that," responded mrs. scott smilingly. faith was silent as the canoe went swiftly across the lake, and they had nearly reached the shore before she began asking questions about "bounce," whom her father declared to be now a "grown-up cat," and about all the familiar things about the house and mill. "listen, father!" she said, as they landed, and he drew the canoe to its hiding-place in the alder bushes. "hear the falls!" and for a moment the two stood quietly hearkening to the "chiming waters." then mr. carew adjusted the pack, containing faith's belongings, picked up his musket, without which no woodsman dared travel in those days, and they started up the trail. everywhere were evidences that spring was near at hand. many trees and shrubs were showing the delicate gray green of coming buds; and now and then the fragrance of the wild arbutus was in the air. birds were busy; wood-thrushes and pewees were calling; now and then a golden-throated warbler sounded his clear note. the air was soft and warm for the season, and faith was so happy in the thought of being really on her way home that she forgot for a time that mr. phelps had said that no american settler's home in the wilderness could be safe until fort ticonderoga was held by american soldiers. "it's lovely to be going home, isn't it, father?" she said; and mr. carew smiled down at his little daughter, and agreed with her that nothing better could be desired. "we shall see with glad surprise lilies spring, and verdure rise; and soon, amidst the wilds, we'll hear murmuring waters falling clear,"-sang mr. carew softly. "oh, that is mother's song," exclaimed faith. "it just means home, doesn't it?" and again her father was quite ready to agree. they walked slowly up the rocky trail and when they reached the top of the first ridge they stopped to rest and eat the excellent lunch that aunt prissy had prepared for them. but faith declared that she was not tired. it seemed to her that she could run all the way if her father would only permit. and when in the early afternoon she first heard the sound of the mill-stream she did run, until, out of breath, she had to rest on a moss-grown stump for her father to catch up with her. and then, in a short time, they were standing on the edge of the clearing. the brook was dancing and singing as if eager to welcome faith; the sun shone warmly down on mill and cabin and running down the path came mrs. carew; while standing near the cabin was kashaqua, in her gayest feathers, grunting and smiling. "mother dear! mother dear!" called faith, as she ran forward and was held close in her mother's arms. chapter xix faith writes a letter kashaqua was evidently delighted to see faith safely at home once more. she had brought a present for her little friend; and after faith had talked to her mother, and yet, as she declared, had "not begun to tell her" all she had to tell, kashaqua unrolled a soft bundle and spread out the skin of a black bear cub. it was hardly larger than the skin of a good-sized puppy; but the fur was so soft and glossy that faith and her mother exclaimed admiringly over its beauty, and faith said that she would take the greatest care of it. she questioned kashaqua about "nooski," the tame bear which had followed them on their journey to ticonderoga. "gone!" replied kashaqua, and had no more to tell of the wild creature that she had tamed, and, suddenly, kashaqua disappeared in her usual silent fashion without a sign or word of farewell. faith was tired, and quite satisfied to rest on the big settle and talk to her mother, while "bounce," steady and well-behaved, curled up on the hearth rug. faith told her mother about louise; about caroline and catherine and their mischief, and of the quilting party. she told her about nathan beaman, and of the skating on the lake, and how the english soldiers had extinguished the fire and spoiled their fun. but she did not tell her of the evening when she had guided mr. phelps up the moonlit lake to the foot of the cliff, and told him how to make his way into the fort. some time, she resolved, her mother should know all about it; but she still felt that she must keep it a secret. mrs. carew asked many questions about the fort. "there is more travel over the trails than ever before," she told the little girl, "and we hardly know who are our friends. the english are sending their spies everywhere. be very cautious, faithie, and say nothing to any stranger that you have ever been near fort ticonderoga. this part of the country will not be safe until american soldiers take the place of the english in the fort." "oh, mother dear, i hope they will soon. i wish that i could help take the fort." "who knows but you may help in some way, when the right time comes," her mother responded, smiling at her little daughter's eagerness. "now, i am going out to get something for you. something that you will like very much," she added, and left faith alone. faith closed her eyes, wondering happily what it was that her mother would bring. she thought of the caraway cookies, of the little round pies made of the dried pumpkin, and then a noise at the door made her open her eyes. for an instant she believed that she must be asleep and dreaming, for esther eldridge was standing in the door--esther grown taller and stronger, with red cheeks and shining eyes. "yes, it's really esther," mrs. carew called over the little girl's shoulder, and esther ran toward the settle as faith started forward to meet her. "isn't this a fine surprise?" esther exclaimed. "i was so afraid you would hear about our living here before you got home." "living here?" questioned faith, looking so puzzled that both mrs. carew and esther laughed aloud. "yes! yes, indeed! my father and mother and i," answered esther delightedly. "but where? i have been up-stairs, and all over the house and i didn't see anybody, or anything," said faith. "oh, we live in our own house--a house just like this; or it will be just like this when it is all finished," and esther told of her father's decision to bring his family to the wilderness to live. he had purchased a grant of land adjoining that held by mr. carew soon after esther's visit in september. the timber for the cabin had been cut early in the winter, and the cabin begun, and now it was nearly finished. "we moved last week," said esther, "and you can see our house from your back door." faith forgot all about being tired and ran to the back door to look. yes, there it was; the big new cabin, near the path down which ethan allen had led her home, when, angry at esther, she had run off to the woods. "isn't it splendid! oh, esther, it is the very best thing that ever happened," faith declared; "isn't it, mother dear?" mrs. carew was quite ready to agree with her little daughter. "good neighbors was the only thing we really lacked," she agreed, "and perhaps others will come when there is better protection for their safety." the two little friends had much to tell each other, and when esther started for home faith walked with her as far as the mill. from the mill the new cabin could be clearly seen. "do you remember asking me if i listened to the brook?" esther asked laughingly, as they stood looking at the dancing waters of the stream. "well, i know now just what you meant. it's company, isn't it?" then faith told her of the "chiming waters" of ticonderoga, and of some of the old tales of the lake that her aunt and nathan had related. "did you see the english soldiers?" questioned esther. "oh, yes." and faith described the skating party on the lake that the redcoats had interfered with. "i wish i could see ethan allen, as i did that day in september, and tell him all about the fort and the soldiers, and ask him to drive the english away. my father says that colonel allen could drive them away," said faith. "of course he could! my father says so, too," agreed esther. "would it not be a fine thing for us to send him a letter, faith, and ask him?" "oh, esther! that's just what i thought of. but we ought to do it right away, for more soldiers are coming to the fort, nathan beaman says, and then it won't be so easy," responded faith. the two little girls talked earnestly. they both knew of the cave on the rocky slope near lake dunmore, and that messages were sometimes left there for the settlers. but lake dunmore was a long distance away. "it would take all day to go and get back," said esther, "and our mothers would never let us go; you know they wouldn't." "one of us ought to go to-morrow," answered faith, "but how can we plan it?" "i know! i know!" declared esther. "i'll ask your mother if you may come for a visit, and then you'll go home at night. some time you can tell her all about it," concluded esther as she noticed faith's serious and doubtful expression. "and what will you do? don't you mean to go with me?" asked faith. "oh, yes! i'll tell my mother i am going to spend the day with you. then we'll start off in good season, and we'll get home before our mothers miss us," said esther. "faith! faith!" and mrs. carew's voice sounded through the clear air. "i must run back now. i'll write the letter to-night and be over near your house as early as i can in the morning," said faith. "hide behind the big pine," said esther, and the two friends, greatly excited over their project, separated and ran toward their respective homes. it was not easy for faith to write the letter, for she would have to ask her mother for the quill pen, and the bottle of ink, made from the juice of the pokeberry. but in the early evening, while her mother was busy, faith secured the quill and ink and a sheet of the treasured paper and wrote her letter: "dear mr. colonel ethan allen," she wrote. "will you please send the english soldiers away from fort ticonderoga? nathan beaman, who lives at shoreham, will show you how to get in. please send them soon, or more will come. "respectfully your friend, "faith carew." she had time to fold and seal the letter with the big stick of red wax, softening the wax before the sitting-room fire. a moment later and her mother came in, saying she had best go to bed and get a good night's rest. "may i spend to-morrow, all day, with esther?" asked faith, as her mother went up-stairs with her, and feeling her face flush with the consciousness of not telling her mother all the truth. "your very first day at home, dear child! why, i should be running over to mrs. eldridge's every hour to make sure that you were really within reach," responded her mother. "oh, mother, you wouldn't!" said faith, so earnestly that mrs. carew smiled reassuringly and said: "well, perhaps not every hour. but if you want to spend the day with esther you may. 'tis not as if you were going back to aunt prissy in a week." "and you won't come to mrs. eldridge's at all, will you, mother dear?" pleaded faith. "i'll be safe, and i'll come home early." "you shall do as you like, dear child. i know you will do nothing but what will please me," and mrs. carew leaned over to kiss faith good-night. "oh, dear," faith whispered to herself guiltily, as her mother went down the stairs. "here is another secret, the biggest of all. but i can't tell mother." the song of the brook seemed louder than ever before to the little girl that night, as she lay watching the april stars shine through her window. she remembered that her mother had said that perhaps a little girl could help. "mother dear is sure to be glad when she knows that colonel allen had to be told about nathan," thought faith; and then the brook's song grew softer and softer and she was fast asleep. faith was down-stairs the next morning almost as soon as her father and mother. she had on her brown dress and her moccasins, and the letter was safely hidden in her pocket. she could hardly keep still long enough to eat her breakfast. "esther wanted me to come early, mother dear, and i promised," she urged; so her mother bade her be off, and stood in the door and watched the little girl run down the slope, feeling a little disappointed that faith should be so eager to be with esther instead of remaining at home. but early as it was faith found esther waiting for her. "did you bring anything to eat?" asked esther. "i never thought of it!" replied faith, "and i don't believe i could, anyway." "well, i thought of it. i have a fine square of corn cake, a piece of cold venison, and a square of molasses cake," said esther, holding up a small basket. "now, creep along on the edge of the trail until we are well up the ridge. then we can walk as we please." faith obeyed. she thought to herself how fortunate it was that esther had come to live in the wilderness, and that she was ready to help carry the message. "isn't it lovely in the woods!" said esther, as they reached the summit of the ridge, and turned to look back down the winding trail. "father said this morning that the spring was early, and 'tis surely warm as summer." as they rested for a little while on a bank of firm green moss faith told esther of "nooski's" sudden appearance when she and kashaqua were on their journey to the lake. "goodness!" exclaimed esther, peering anxiously into the underbrush. "i hope we shan't see any bears to-day, not even a tame one." the sun was high in the april skies when the two little girls came in sight of lake dunmore. the trail led near the lake; and esther was very sure that she knew just where to look for the cave. "it's near a big pine tree, and you can only see rocks. father showed me when we came from brandon," she said. the little girls were very tired and hungry, and faith suggested that they should eat their luncheon and rest before searching for the cave. "i wish i had brought more corn bread," said esther, when they had finished the last morsel of the food. "it's lucky you brought as much as you did," responded faith. "we'd better begin looking for the cave now." it was hard work climbing up the rocky hillside, and it did not seem such an easy matter to locate the cave as esther had expected. they peered under rocks, and climbed over ledges, and were nearly discouraged when a sudden noise made faith grasp esther's arm with a whispered "hush"; for almost in front of them, apparently coming directly out of the hillside, appeared the head and shoulders of a man. but they were too near to conceal themselves or to try and run away. "great cã¦sar's ghost!" exclaimed the man, crawling out from the cave. "two little maids! where did you come from?" faith's hold on esther's arm tightened. "don't tell. don't answer his questions," she whispered, remembering her mother's caution about strangers, and thinking perhaps this might be an english spy who had discovered the cave. "where are the others?" asked the man. esther looked questioningly at faith, but neither of them spoke. the man's stern face softened as he looked at the two little figures. he realized they must be the children of some settler in the wilderness--perhaps children who had wandered too far from home and lost their way. "you need not be afraid to speak," he said smilingly. "perhaps i know your fathers. tell me your names." faith was quite sure that this was a question which could be safely answered, so both the little girls spoke their names, and instantly the man responded by saying: "then you," and he nodded to faith, "are miller carew's daughter. i know your father well. tell him seth warner has been in salisbury and is now starting back to bennington. but how come you this distance from home?" both faith and esther knew that seth warner was a friend of the settlers, and before he had finished speaking faith was quite ready to tell him their errand and to give the note for colonel allen into his hands. he listened in evident amazement to the story of their morning's journey, for he well knew the dangers of the wilderness trail. "i will go with you to within sight of your homes," insisted their new friend, "and i shall not forget to tell colonel allen of your courage." "will he come soon and take the fort?" asked faith. "more quickly for your help than without it, little maid. but go not so far from home again," mr. warner answered, with a kindly smile. it was sunset, and mr. carew was starting to bring faith home from her visit to esther, when he saw his little daughter coming down the path. she walked so slowly that her father hastened to meet her. "i'm so tired, father," she said. "couldn't you carry me home?" "of course i can," and he lifted her in his arms and, anxious and worried by her pale face and evident fatigue, hurried toward the house. chapter xx the capture of the fort it was noon the next day when faith awoke; and although she was quite ready to dress and go down-stairs, her mother thought it best for her to stay in bed. faith wondered to herself if esther's feet ached as hers did; and, more than this, she was anxious to know if their parents had any idea of where she and esther had spent the previous day. "there will be so much for me to tell mother," she thought, a little uneasily, hoping that soon she would again have no secrets to conceal. when faith came down-stairs she found esther waiting to see her; and, in response to faith's questioning look, she nodded and smiled reassuringly. esther had brought over her english grammar, for it had been decided that the two little girls were to study together two hours each day; one day at faith's house, and the next at esther's. "it's all right; our mothers don't know. but what made you so tired?" said esther, as soon as the girls were alone. faith shook her head. "i don't know. i do hope we can tell all about it soon. i've a great mind to tell mother now." "you mustn't. don't you remember? mr. warner said that soon he would tell our fathers, and they would be proud of us. but if we tell them now they won't be proud; they will be vexed, and maybe punish us. wait until colonel allen tells them that you helped him. then 'twill be all right," advised esther, and faith agreed, a little doubtfully. it was difficult for the two little girls to fix their minds on their lessons that day, and for many days to come. they both watched the trail, each day expecting to see some messenger who would bring news that colonel allen was in possession of fort ticonderoga; but april passed, and esther declared that she did not believe the americans wanted the fort. "i am going to tell my mother everything. all about our going to lake dunmore, and my letter, and something else," declared faith. it was one day early in may, and she and esther were coming up from beaver meadow, where they had been watching the little creatures, who were very active and did not seem to fear the two little figures at the edge of the woods. the beavers were building a dam; they had dragged trees to the side of the stream, and it seemed a very wonderful thing to esther when she saw the beavers sink one end of these stakes, while others raised and fastened the other end, twisting in the small branches of the trees, and plastering mud over all with their feet and tails. she was thinking to herself that there were more strange things to see in the wilderness in one day than in a whole year in a village, when she felt faith seize her arm and say laughingly: "you haven't heard a word. now, listen! i am going to tell my mother." the little girls were now in sight of the clearing, and, before esther could answer, faith stopped suddenly and exclaimed: "look, esther! there's a man just leaving the mill, and running up the trail as fast as he can go. a stranger." quite forgetting beavers and secrets the two little girls ran toward the house. "there's my father," said esther as they reached the door. mr. and mrs. eldridge were both in the kitchen of the carew house, and none of the elder people appeared to notice the two girls. mr. carew was loading his musket, and faith's mother was packing a knapsack with provisions. "here are the children," said mrs. eldridge, as she turned toward the door; and then esther saw that her father was waiting for mr. carew. "faithie dear, your father is going to castleton," said mrs. carew, fastening the knapsack, and in a moment faith was held close in her father's arms, and then the two men were off, striding down the trail. "are they going to take ticonderoga?" faith questioned eagerly. the two women looked at her in surprise, but mrs. carew answered quickly: "of course they are. americans are guarding the trail, so we are safe enough at present. but neither of you girls must go beyond the clearing." "when shall we know about the fort, mother? when will we know?" asked faith. "soon, i hope, child. but talk not of it now," responded her mother. but after a little mrs. eldridge told them that a messenger had come from bennington, summoning the settlers to castleton to meet colonel allen. faith and esther listened to the story of the far-off battle of lexington, in massachusetts, the news of which had determined the green mountain boys to make an immediate attack on the fort. these men were the settlers of the new hampshire grants, living long distances apart, and obliged to travel over rough trails, through deep forests, across rivers and mountains. there were no smooth roads or fleet horses to help them on their way; there was little time for preparation when allen's summons came; they had no uniforms, no strains of music; but no truer soldiers ever faced danger than the green mountain boys. that night faith told her mother the story of her adventure in the fort, when nathan had rescued her and taken her down the cliff. she told of the evening in march when she had guided mr. phelps along the moonlit shore of the lake and told him of the entrance to the fort; and last of all she described her journey with esther over the trail to lake dunmore, and the letter to ethan allen which she had given to seth warner. mrs. carew listened in amazement; but she had no word of blame for faith. she realized the dangers the child had so unknowingly faced with a sense that her little girl had been guarded by a protection greater than any by which she could have surrounded her; and she wondered, too, if it were not possible that faith might not really have helped in the great undertaking for which her father was ready to give all that he had to give. "mother dear, i despise secrets," faith whispered, as she finished the story, "and i mean never to have another one." three days later mr. carew came swinging across the clearing. he waved his cap in the air as faith came running to meet him. "ticonderoga is ours," he called, "and the english prisoners are on their way to hartford. and so it was you, little maid, who helped phelps to a plan of the fort, and told ethan allen of young beaman!" "did it help, father? did it help?" faith asked eagerly. "help? indeed it did. young beaman led the way to the fort, and we were in without firing a shot. and colonel allen and his men hold the fort," replied mr. carew. he could stay for but a few hours, as he was carrying the news to the settlements. it was several days before he was at home again, and told them more fully of allen's triumph, and of the capture of crown point by seth warner and his followers. toward the last of may aunt prissy, accompanied by nathan beaman, arrived at the log cabin, and faith heard the story of louise's arrival at ticonderoga. "her father has been taken a prisoner to hartford, and louise will stay with me," aunt prissy said. "i will adopt her for my own daughter if her father consents." "i do hope he will," said faith, glad indeed to know that her friend was safe. "and so my little faith did help take the fort after all, thanks to nathan," said aunt prissy, smiling down at her little niece. "'twas faith who really helped, for she told colonel allen about me," nathan added handsomely. all this made faith a very happy little girl; but when, a few weeks later, a messenger brought her a letter from ethan allen himself, she felt that no other little girl in all the american colonies could be as proud as faith carew. she confessed to her mother that, after all, some secrets were worth keeping. colonel allen invited her to make a visit to the fort, and it was arranged that her father should take her to ticonderoga and that she should stay for a few days with aunt prissy. so once again she went over the trail and crossed the lake, and on a pleasant june morning with her father and aunt prissy, she stood again at the entrance to fort ticonderoga. this time she was not left alone, as on her first visit, a frightened deserted child. for it was colonel allen himself, tall and handsome, who met the little party at the entrance and escorted them about the fortifications. "'faith,'" he said kindly, as he bade them good-bye, "'tis indeed the best of names for a little american girl; a name that i shall ever remember." faith was very quiet as they walked toward home. she was thinking to herself of all the happy experiences of the past weeks; and not until she saw louise waiting for her at aunt prissy's gate did her face lose its serious expression. she ran ahead of the others and called out: "louise! louise! you will be aunt prissy's little girl, won't you? because then you'll really be an american." louise nodded happily. "yes; and father is going to be an american, too. didn't aunt prissy tell you?" she responded; "and it's all because you were my friend, faith," she added more soberly, as the two girls entered the house, and stood hand in hand at the door where, but a few months ago, louise had entered a ragged, unhappy child. "we'll always be friends, shan't we!" said faith, and louise earnestly responded: "always." the stories in this series are: a little maid of province town a little maid of massachusetts colony a little maid of narragansett bay a little maid of bunker hill a little maid of ticonderoga a little maid of old connecticut a little maid of old maine a little maid of old new york a little maid of old philadelphia a little maid of virginia a little maid of maryland a little maid of mohawk valley a little maid of monmouth a little maid of nantucket a little maid of vermont transcriber's note: minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent. the s. w. f. club by caroline e. jacobs author of _joan of jupiter inn_, _joan's jolly vacation_, _patricia_, etc. the goldsmith publishing co. cleveland, ohio george w. jacobs & company 1912 contents chapter i pauline's flag ii the maples iii uncle paul's answer iv beginnings v bedelia vi personally conducted vii hilary's turn viii snap-shots ix at the manor x the end of summer chapter i pauline's flag pauline dropped the napkin she was hemming and, leaning back in her chair, stared soberly down into the rain-swept garden. overhead, patience was having a "clarin' up scrape" in her particular corner of the big garret, to the tune of "there's a good time coming." pauline drew a quick breath; probably, there was a good time coming--any number of them--only they were not coming her way; they would go right by on the main road, they always did. "'there's a good time coming,'" patience insisted shrilly, "'help it on! help it on!'" pauline drew another quick breath. she would help them on! if they would none of them stop on their own account, they must be flagged. and--yes, she would do it--right now. getting up, she brought her writing-portfolio from the closet, clearing a place for it on the little table before the window. then her eyes went back to the dreary, rain-soaked garden. how did one begin a letter to an uncle one had never seen; and of whom one meant to ask a great favor? but at last, after more than one false start, the letter got itself written, after a fashion. pauline read it over to herself, a little dissatisfied pucker between her brows:-_mr. paul almy shaw, new york city, new york_. my dear uncle paul: first, i should like you to understand that neither father nor mother know that i am writing this letter to you; and that if they did, i think they would forbid it; and i should like you to believe, too, that if it were not for hilary i should not dream of writing it. you know so little about us, that perhaps you do not remember which of us hilary is. she comes next to me, and is just thirteen. she hasn't been well for a long time, not since she had to leave school last winter, and the doctor says that what she needs is a thorough change. mother and i have talked it over and over, but we simply can't manage it. i would try to earn some money, but i haven't a single accomplishment; besides i don't see how i could leave home, and anyway it would take so long, and hilary needs a change now. and so i am writing to ask you to please help us out a little. i do hope you won't be angry at my asking; and i hope very, very much, that you will answer favorably. i remain, very respectfully, pauline almy shaw. winton, vt., may sixteenth. pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an envelope and addressed it. it wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it would serve her purpose. tucking the letter into her blouse, pauline ran down-stairs to the sitting-room, where her mother and hilary were. "i'm going down to the post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?" "my dear, in this rain?" "there won't be any mail for us, paul," hilary said, glancing listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get all wet and uncomfortable for nothing." pauline's gray eyes were dancing; "no," she agreed, "i don't suppose there will be any mail for us--to-day; but i want a walk. it won't hurt me, mother. i love to be out in the rain." and all the way down the slippery village street the girl's eyes continued to dance with excitement. it was so much to have actually started her ball rolling; and, at the moment, it seemed that uncle paul must send it bounding back in the promptest and most delightful of letters. he had never married, and somewhere down at the bottom of his apparently crusty, old heart he must have kept a soft spot for the children of his only brother. thus pauline's imagination ran on, until near the post-office she met her father. the whole family had just finished a tour of the west in mr. paul shaw's private car--of course, he must have a private car, wasn't he a big railroad man?--and pauline had come back to winton long enough to gather up her skirts a little more firmly when she saw mr. shaw struggling up the hill against the wind. "pauline!" he stopped, straightening his tall, scholarly figure. "what brought you out in such a storm?" with a sudden feeling of uneasiness, pauline wondered what he would say if she were to explain exactly what it was that had brought her out. with an impulse towards at least a half-confession, she said hurriedly, "i wanted to post a letter i'd just written; i'll be home almost as soon as you are, father." then she ran on down the street. all at once she felt her courage weakening; unless she got her letter posted immediately she felt she should end by tearing it up. when it had slipped from her sight through the narrow slit labeled "letters," she stood a moment, almost wishing it were possible to get it back again. she went home rather slowly. should she confess at once, or wait until uncle paul's answer came? it should be here inside of a week, surely; and if it were favorable--and, oh, it must be favorable--would not that in itself seem to justify her in what she had done? on the front piazza, patience was waiting for her, a look of mischief in her blue eyes. patience was ten, a red-haired, freckled slip of a girl. she danced about pauline now. "why didn't you tell me you were going out so i could've gone, too? and what have you been up to, paul shaw? something! you needn't tell me you haven't." "i'm not going to tell you anything," pauline answered, going on into the house. the study door was half open, and when she had taken off her things, pauline stood a moment a little uncertainly outside it. then suddenly, much to her small sister's disgust, she went in, closing the door behind her. mr. shaw was leaning back in his big chair at one corner of the fireplace. "well," he asked, looking up, "did you get your letter in in time, my dear?" "oh, it wasn't the time." pauline sat down on a low bench at the other end of the fireplace. "it was that i wanted to feel that it was really mailed. did you ever feel that way about a letter, father? and as if, if you didn't hurry and get it in--you wouldn't--mail it?" something in her tone made her father glance at her more closely; it was very like the tone in which patience was apt to make her rather numerous confessions. then it occurred to him, that, whether by accident or design, she was sitting on the very stool on which patience usually placed herself at such times, and which had gained thereby the name of "the stool of penitence." "yes," he answered, "i have written such letters once or twice in my life." pauline stooped to straighten out the hearth rug. "father," she said abruptly; "i have been writing to uncle paul." she drew a sharp breath of relief. "you have been writing to your uncle paul! about what, pauline?" and pauline told him. when she had finished, mr. shaw sat for some moments without speaking, his eyes on the fire. "it didn't seem very--wrong, at the time," pauline ventured. "i had to do something for hilary." "why did you not consult your mother, or myself, before taking such a step, pauline?" "i was afraid--if i did--that you would--forbid it; and i was so anxious to do something. it's nearly a month now since dr. brice said hilary must have a change. we used to have such good times together--hilary and i--but we never have fun anymore--she doesn't care about anything; and to-day it seemed as if i couldn't bear it any longer, so i wrote. i--i am sorry, if you're displeased with me, father, and yet, if uncle paul writes back favorably, i'm afraid i can't help being glad i wrote." mr. shaw rose, lighting the low reading-lamp, standing on the study table. "you are frank enough after the event, at least, pauline. to be equally so, i am displeased; displeased and exceedingly annoyed. however, we will let the matter rest where it is until you have heard from your uncle, i should advise your saying nothing to your sisters until his reply comes. i am afraid you will find it disappointing." pauline flushed. "i never intended telling hilary anything about it unless i had good news for her; as for patience--" out in the hall again, with the study door closed behind her, pauline stood a moment choking back a sudden lump in her throat. would uncle paul treat her letter as a mere piece of school-girl impertinence, as father seemed to? from the sitting-room came an impatient summons. "paul, will you never come!" "what is it, hilary?" pauline asked, coming to sit at one end of the old sofa. "that's what i want to know," hilary answered from the other end. "impatience says you've been writing all sorts of mysterious letters this afternoon, and that you came home just now looking like---" "well, like what?" "like you'd been up to something--and weren't quite sure how the grown-ups were going to take it," patience explained from the rug before the fire. "how do you know i have been writing--anything?" pauline asked. "there, you see!" patience turned to hilary, "she doesn't deny it!" "i'm not taking the trouble to deny or confirm little girl nonsense," pauline declared. "but what makes you think i've been writing letters?" "oh, 'by the pricking of my thumbs'!" patience rolled over, and resting her sharp little chin in her hands, stared up at her sisters from under her mop of short red curls. "pen! ink! paper! and such a lot of torn-up scraps! it's really very simple!" but pauline was on her way to the dining-room. "terribly convincing, isn't it?" her tone should have squelched patience, but it didn't. "you can't fool me!" that young person retorted. "i know you've been up to something! and i'm pretty sure father doesn't approve, from the way you waited out there in the hall just now." pauline did not answer; she was busy laying the cloth for supper. "anything up, paul?" hilary urged, following her sister out to the dining-room. "the barometer--a very little; i shouldn't wonder if we had a clear day to-morrow." "you are as provoking as impatience! but i needn't have asked; nothing worth while ever does happen to us." "you know perfectly well, pauline almy shaw!" patience proclaimed, from the curtained archway between the rooms. "you know perfectly well, that the ev'dence against you is most in-crim-i-na-ting!" patience delighted in big words. "hilary," pauline broke in, "i forgot to tell you, i met mrs. dane this morning; she wants us to get up a social--'if the young ladies at the parsonage will,' and so forth." "i hate socials! besides, there aren't any 'young ladies' at the parsonage; or, at any rate, only one. i shan't have to be a young lady for two years yet." "most in-crim-i-na-ting!" patience repeated insistently; "you wrote." pauline turned abruptly and going into the pantry began taking down the cups and saucers for the table. as soon as hilary had gone back to the sitting-room, she called softly, "patty, o patty!" patience grinned wickedly; she was seldom called patty, least of all by pauline. "well?" she answered. "come here--please," and when patience was safely inside the pantry, pauline shut the door gently--"now see here, impatience--" "that isn't what you called me just now!" "patty then--listen, suppose--suppose i have been--trying to do something to--to help hilary to get well; can't you see that i wouldn't want her to know, until i was sure, really sure, it was going to come to something?" patience gave a little jump of excitement. "how jolly! but who have you been writing to--about it, paul!" "i haven't said that--" "see here, paul, i'll play fair, if you do; but if you go trying to act any 'grown-up sister' business i'll--" and pauline capitulated. "i can't tell you about it yet, patty; father said not to. i want you to promise not to ask questions, or say anything about it, before hilary. we don't want her to get all worked up, thinking something nice is going to happen, and then maybe have her disappointed." "will it be nice--very nice?" "i hope so." "and will i be in it?" "i don't know. i don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be." "oh, dear! i wish you did. i can't think who it is you wrote to, paul. and why didn't father like your doing it?" "i haven't said that he--" "paul, you're very tiresome. didn't he know you were going to do it?" pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering. "then he didn't," patience observed. "does mother know about it?" "i mean to tell her as soon as i get a good chance," pauline said impatiently, going back to the dining-room. when she returned a few moments later, she found patience still in the pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket. "i know," patience announced triumphantly. "you've been writing to uncle paul!" pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member of the shaw family. on the whole, patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took to send a letter to new york and get an answer. "that depends considerably upon the promptness with which the party written to answers the letter," mr. shaw told her. "a week?" patience questioned. "probably--if not longer." patience sighed. "have _you_ been writing a letter to someone in new york?" her father asked. "no, indeed," the child said gravely, "but," she looked up, answering his glance. "paul didn't tell me, father; i--guessed. uncle paul does live in new york, doesn't he?" "yes," mr. shaw answered, almost sharply. "now run to bed, my dear." but when the stairs were reached. patience most certainly did not run. "i think people are very queer," she said to herself, "they seem to think _ten_ years isn't a bit more grown-up than six or seven." "mummy," she asked, when later her mother came to take away her light, "father and uncle paul are brethren, aren't they?" "my dear! what put that into your head?" "aren't they?" "certainly, dear." "then why don't they 'dwell together in unity'?" "patience!" mrs. shaw stared down at the sharp inquisitive little face. "why don't they?" patience persisted. if persistency be a virtue, patience was to be highly commended. "my dear, who has said that they do not?" patience shrugged; as if things had always to be said. "but, mummy--" "go to sleep now, dear." mrs. shaw bent to kiss her good-night. "all the same," patience confided to the darkness, "i know they don't." she gave a little shiver of delight--something very mysterious was afoot evidently. out on the landing, mrs. shaw found pauline waiting for her. "come into your room, mother, please, i've started up the fire; i want to tell you something." "i thought as much," her mother answered. she sat down in the big armchair and pauline drew up before the fire. "i've been expecting it all the evening." pauline dropped down on the floor, her head against her mother's knee. "this family is dreadfully keen-sighted. mother dear, please don't be angry--" and pauline made confession. when she had finished, mrs. shaw sat for some moments, as her husband had done, her eyes on the fire. "you told him that we could not manage it, pauline?" she said at last. "my dear, how could you!" "but, mother dear, i was--desperate; something has to be done for--hilary, and i had to do it!" "do you suppose your father and i do not realize that quite as well as you do, pauline?" "you and i have talked it over and over, and father never says--anything." "not to you, perhaps; but he is giving the matter very careful consideration, and later he hopes--" "mother dear, that is so indefinite!" pauline broke in. "and i can't see--father is uncle paul's only brother! if i were rich, and hilary were not and needed things, i would want her to let me know." "it is possible, that under certain conditions, hilary would not wish you to know." mrs. shaw hesitated, then she said slowly, "you know, pauline, that your uncle is much older than your father; so much older, that he seemed to stand--when your father was a boy--more in the light of a father to him, than an older brother. he was much opposed to your father's going into the ministry, he wanted him to go into business with him. he is a strong-willed man, and does not easily relinquish any plan of his own making. it went hard with him, when your father refused to yield; later, when your father received the call to this parish, your uncle quite as strongly opposed his accepting it--burying himself alive in a little out-of-the-way hole, he called it. it came to the point, finally, on your uncle's insisting on his making it a choice between himself and winton. he refused to ever come near the place and the two or three letters your father wrote at first remained unanswered. the breach between them has been one of the hardest trials your father has had to bear." "oh," pauline cried miserably, "what a horrid interfering thing father must think me! rushing in where i had no right to! i wish i'd known--i just thought--you see, father speaks of uncle paul now and then--that maybe they'd only--grown apart--and that if uncle paul knew! but perhaps my letter will get lost. it would serve me right; and yet, if it does, i'm afraid i can't help feeling somewhat disappointed--on hilary's account." her mother smiled. "we can only wait and see. i would rather you said nothing of what i have been telling you to either hilary or patience, pauline." "i won't, mother shaw. it seems i have a lot of secrets from hilary. and i won't write any more such letters without consulting you or father, you can depend on that." mr. paul shaw's answer did not come within the allotted week. it was the longest week pauline had ever known; and when the second went by and still no word from her uncle, the waiting and uncertainty became very hard to bear, all the harder, that her usual confidant, hilary, must not be allowed to suspect anything. the weather had turned suddenly warm, and hilary's listlessness had increased proportionately, which probably accounted for the dying out of what little interest she had felt at first in patience's "mysterious letter." patience, herself, was doing her best to play fair; fortunately, she was in school the greater part of the day, else the strain upon her powers of self-control might have proved too heavy. "mother," pauline said one evening, lingering in her mother's room, after hilary had gone to bed, "i don't believe uncle paul means answering at all. i wish i'd never asked him to do anything." "so do i, pauline. still it is rather early yet for you to give up hope. it's hard waiting, i know, dear, but that is something we all have to learn to do, sooner or later." "i don't think 'no news is good news,'" pauline said; then she brightened. "oh, mother shaw! suppose the letter is on the way now, and that hilary is to have a sea voyage! you'd have to go, too." "pauline, pauline, not so fast! listen, dear, we might send hilary out to the maples for a week or two. mrs. boyd would be delighted to have her; and it wouldn't be too far away, in case we should be getting her ready for that--sea voyage." "i don't believe she'd care to go; it's quieter than here at home." "but it would be a change. i believe i'll suggest it to her in the morning." but when mrs. shaw did suggest it the next morning, hilary was quite of pauline's opinion. "i shouldn't like it a bit, mother! it would be worse than home--duller, i mean; and mrs. boyd would fuss over me so," she said impatiently. "you used to like going there, hilary." "mother, you can't want me to go." "i think it might do you good, hilary. i should like you to try it." "please, mother, i don't see the use of bothering with little half-way things." "i do, hilary, when they are the only ones within reach." the girl moved restlessly, settling her hammock cushions; then she lay looking out over the sunny garden with discontented eyes. it was a large old-fashioned garden, separated on the further side by a low hedge from the old ivy-covered church. on the back steps of the church, sextoness jane was shaking out her duster. she was old and gray and insignificant looking; her duties as sexton, in which she had succeeded her father, were her great delight. the will with which she sang and worked now seemed to have in it something of reproach for the girl stretched out idly in the hammock. nothing more than half-way things, and not too many of those, had ever come sextoness jane's way. yet she was singing now over her work. hilary moved impatiently, turning her back on the garden and the bent old figure moving about in the church beyond; but, somehow, she couldn't turn her back on what that bent old figure had suddenly come to stand for. fifteen minutes later, she sat up, pushing herself slowly back and forth. "i wish jane had chosen any other morning to clean the church in, mother shaw!" she protested with spirit. her mother looked up from her mending. "why, dear? it is her regular day." "couldn't she do it, i wonder, on an irregular day! anyhow, if she had, i shouldn't have to go to the maples this afternoon. must i take a trunk, mother?" "hilary! but what has jane to do with your going?" "pretty nearly everything, i reckon. must i, mother?" "no, indeed, dear; and you are not to go at all, unless you can do it willingly." "oh, i'm fairly resigned; don't press me too hard, mother shaw. i think i'll go tell paul now." "well," pauline said, "i'm glad you've decided to go, hilary. i--that is, maybe it won't be for very long." chapter ii the maples that afternoon pauline drove hilary out to the big, busy, pleasant farm, called the maples. as they jogged slowly down the one principal street of the sleepy, old town, pauline tried to imagine that presently they would turn off down the by-road, leading to the station. through the still air came the sound of the afternoon train, panting and puffing to be off with as much importance as the big train, which later, it would connect with down at the junction. "paul," hilary asked suddenly, "what are you thinking about?" pauline slapped the reins lightly across old fanny's plump sides. "oh, different things--traveling for one." suppose uncle paul's letter should come in this afternoon's mail! that she would find it waiting for her when she got home! "so was i," hilary said. "i was wishing that you and i were going off on that train, paul." "where to?" paul asked. after all, it couldn't do any harm--hilary would think it one of their "pretend" talks, and it would he nice to have some definite basis to build on later. "anywhere," hilary answered. "i would like to go to the seashore somewhere; but most anywhere, where there were people and interesting things to do and see, would do." "yes," pauline agreed. "there's josie," hilary said, and her sister drew rein, as a girl came to the edge of the walk to speak to them. "going away?" she asked, catching sight of the valise. "only out to the boyds'," pauline told her, "to leave hilary." josie shifted the strap of school-books under her arm impatiently. "'only!'" she repeated. "well, i just wish i was going, too; it's a deal pleasanter out there, than in a stuffy school room these days." "it's stupid--and you both know it," hilary protested. she glanced enviously at josie's strap of hooks. "and when school closes, you'll be through for good, josie brice. we shan't finish together, after all, now." "oh, i'm not through yet," josie assured her. "father'll be going out past the maples saturday morning, i'll get him to take me along." hilary brightened. "don't forget," she urged, and as she and pauline drove on, she added, "i suppose i can stick it out for a week." "well, i should think as much. _will_ you go on, fanny!" pauline slapped the dignified, complacent fanny with rather more severity than before. "she's one great mass of laziness," she declared. "father's spoiled her a great deal more than he ever has any of us." it was a three-mile drive from the village to the maples, through pleasant winding roads, hardly deserving of a more important title than lane. now and then, from the top of a low hill, they caught a glimpse of the great lake beyond, shining in the afternoon sunlight, a little ruffled by the light breeze sweeping down to it from the mountains bordering it on the further side. hilary leaned back in the wide shaded gig; she looked tired, and yet the new touch of color in her cheeks was not altogether due to weariness. "the ride's done you good," pauline said. "i wonder what there'll be for supper," hilary remarked. "you'll stay, paul?" "if you promise to eat a good one." it was comforting to have hilary actually wondering what they would have. they had reached the broad avenue of maples leading from the road up to the house. it was a long, low, weather-stained house, breathing an unmistakable air of generous and warm-hearted hospitality. pauline never came to it, without a sense of pity for the kindly elderly couple, who were so fond of young folks, and who had none of their own. mrs. boyd had seen them coming, and she came out to meet them, as they turned into the dooryard. and an old dog, sunning himself on the doorstep, rose with a slow wag of welcome. "mother's sent you something she was sure you would like to have," pauline said. "please, will you take in a visitor for a few days?" she added, laying a hand on hilary's. "you've brought hilary out to stop?" mrs. boyd cried delightedly. "now i call that mighty good of your mother. you come right 'long in, both of you: you're sure you can't stop, too, pauline?" "only to supper, thank you." mrs. boyd had the big valise out from under the seat by now. "come right 'long in," she repeated. "you're tired, aren't you, hilary? but a good night's rest'll set you up wonderful. take her into the spare room, pauline. dear me, i must have felt you was coming, seeing that i aired it out beautiful only this morning. i'll go call mr. boyd to take fanny to the barn." "isn't she the dearest thing!" pauline declared, as she and hilary went indoors. the spare room was back of the parlor, a large comfortable room, with broad windows facing south and west, and a small vine-covered porch all its own on the south side of the room. pauline pulled forward a great chintz-cushioned rocker, putting her sister into it, and opened the porch door. beyond lay a wide, sloping meadow and beyond the meadow, the lake sparkled and rippled in the sunshine. "if you're not contented here, hilary shaw!" pauline said, standing in the low doorway. "suppose you pretend you've never been here before! i reckon you'd travel a long ways to find a nicer place to stay in." "i shouldn't doubt it if you were going to stay with me, paul; i know i'm going to be homesick." pauline stretched out a hand to captain, the old dog, who had come around to pay his compliments. captain liked visitors--when he was convinced that they really were visitors, not peddlers, nor agents, quite as well as his master and mistress did. "you'd be homesick enough, if you really were off on your travels--you'd better get used to it. hadn't she, captain?" pauline went to unpack the valise, opening the drawers of the old-fashioned mahogany bureau with a little breath of pleasure. "lavender! hilary." hilary smiled, catching some of her sister's enthusiasm. she leaned back among her cushions, her eyes on the stretch of shining water at the far end of the pasture. "i wish you were going to be here, paul, so that we could go rowing. i wonder if i'll ever feel as if i could row again, myself." "of course you will, and a great deal sooner than you think." pauline hung hilary's dressing-gown across the foot of the high double bed. "now i think you're all settled, ma'am, and i hope to your satisfaction. isn't it a veritable 'chamber of peace,' hilary?" through the open door and windows came the distant tinkle of a cow bell, and other farm sounds. there came, too, the scent of the early may pinks growing in the borders of mrs. boyd's old-fashioned flower beds. already the peace and quiet of the house, the homely comfort, had done hilary good; the thought of the long simple days to come, were not so depressing as they had seemed when thought of that morning. "bless me, i'd forgotten, but i've a bit of news for you," mrs. boyd said, coming in, a moment or so later; "the manor's taken for the summer." "really?" pauline cried, "why it's been empty for ever and ever so long." the manor was an old rambling stone house, standing a little back from a bit of sandy beach, that jutted out into the lake about a mile from the maples. it was a pleasant place, with a tiny grove of its own, and good-sized garden, which, year after year, in spite of neglect, was bright with old-fashioned hardy annuals planted long ago, when the manor had been something more than an old neglected house, at the mercy of a chance tenant. "just a father and daughter. they've got old betsy todd to look after them," mrs. boyd went on. "the girl's about your age, hilary. you wasn't looking to find company of that sort so near, was you?" hilary looked interested. "no," she answered. "but, after all, the manor's a mile away." "oh, she's back and forth every day--for milk, or one thing or another; she's terribly interested in the farm; father's taken a great notion to her. she'll be over after supper, you'll see; and then i'll make you acquainted with her." "are they city people?" pauline asked. "from new york!" mrs. boyd told her proudly. from her air one would have supposed she had planned the whole affair expressly for hilary's benefit. "their name's dayre." "what is the girl's first name?" pauline questioned. "shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking." "is she pretty?" pauline went on. "not according to my notions; father says she is. she's thin and dark, and i never did see such a mane of hair--and it ain't always too tidy, neither--but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking. looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman." "she sounds--interesting," pauline said, and when mrs. boyd had left them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, pauline turned eagerly to hilary. "you're in luck, hilary shaw! the newest kind of new people; even if it isn't a new place!" "how do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" hilary asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows, "or i her? we haven't seen her yet. paul, do you suppose mrs. boyd would mind letting me have supper in here?" "oh, hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room! i heard her doing it. she'd be ever so disappointed." "well," hilary said, "come on then." out in the living-room, they found mr. boyd waiting for them, and so heartily glad to see them, that hilary's momentary impatience vanished. to pauline's delight, she really brought quite an appetite to her supper. "you should've come out here long ago, hilary," mr. boyd told her, and he insisted on her having a second helping of the creamed toast, prepared especially in her honor. before supper was over. captain's deep-toned bark proclaimed a newcomer, or newcomers, seeing that it was answered immediately by a medley of shrill barks, in the midst of which a girl's voice sounded authoritively--"quiet, phil! pat, i'm ashamed of you! pudgey, if you're not good instantly, you shall stay at home to-morrow night!" a moment later, the owner of the voice appeared at the porch door, "may i come in, mrs. boyd?" she asked. "come right in, miss shirley. i've a couple of young friends here, i want you should get acquainted with," mrs. boyd cried. "you ain't had your supper yet, have you, miss shirley?" mr. boyd asked. "father and i had tea out on the lake," shirley answered, "but i'm hungry enough again by now, for a slice of mrs. boyd's bread and butter." and presently, she was seated at the table, chatting away with paul and hilary, as if they were old acquaintances, asking mr. boyd various questions about farm matters and answering mrs. boyd's questions regarding betsy todd and her doings, with the most delightful air of good comradeship imaginable. "oh, me!" pauline pushed hack her chair regretfully, "i simply must go, it'll be dark before i get home, as it is." "i reckon it will, deary," mrs. boyd agreed, "so i won't urge you to stay longer. father, you just whistle to colin to bring fanny 'round." hilary followed her sister into the bedroom. "you'll be over soon, paul?" pauline, putting on her hat before the glass, turned quickly. "as soon as i can. hilary, don't you like her?" hilary balanced herself on the arm of the big, old-fashioned rocker. "i think so. anyway, i love to watch her talk; she talks all over her face." they went out to the gig, where mr. and mrs. boyd and shirley were standing. shirley was feeding fanny with handfuls of fresh grass. "isn't she a fat old dear!" she said. "she's a fat old poke!" pauline returned. "mayn't i give you a lift? i can go 'round by the manor road 's well as not." shirley accepted readily, settling herself in the gig, and balancing her pail of milk on her knee carefully. "good-by," pauline called. "mind, you're to be ever and ever so much better, next time i come, hilary." "your sister has been sick?" shirley asked, her voice full of sympathetic interest. "not sick--exactly; just run down and listless." shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear evening air. "i don't see how anyone can ever get run down--here, in this air; i'm hardly indoors at all. father and i have our meals out on the porch. you ought to have seen betsy todd's face, the first time i proposed it. 'ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she asked. "betsy todd's a queer old thing," pauline commented. "father has the worst time, getting her to come to church." "we were there last sunday," shirley said. "i'm afraid we were rather late; it's a pretty old church, isn't it? i suppose you live in that square white house next to it?" "yes," pauline answered. "father came to winton just after he was married, so we girls have never lived anywhere else nor been anywhere else--that counted. any really big city, i mean. we're dreadfully tired of winton--hilary, especially." "it's a mighty pretty place." "i suppose so." pauline slapped old fanny impatiently. "will you go on!" fanny was making forward most reluctantly; the boyd barn had been very much to her liking. now, as the three dogs made a swift rush at her leaping and barking around her, she gave a snort of disgust, quickening her pace involuntarily. "don't call them off, please!" pauline begged shirley. "she isn't in the least scared, and it's perfectly refreshing to find that she can move." "all the same, discipline must be maintained," shirley insisted; and at her command the dogs fell behind. "have you been here long?" pauline asked. "about two weeks. we were going further up the lake--just on a sketching trip,--and we saw this house from the deck of the boat; it looked so delightful, and so deserted and lonely, that we came back from the next landing to see about it. we took it at once and sent for a lot of traps from the studio at home, they aren't here yet." pauline looked her interest. it seemed a very odd, attractive way of doing things, no long tiresome plannings of ways and means beforehand. suppose--when uncle paul's letter came--they could set off in such fashion, with no definite point in view, and stop wherever they felt like it. "i can't think," shirley went on, "how such a charming old place came to be standing idle." "isn't it rather--run down?" "not enough to matter--really. i want father to buy it, and do what is needed to it, without making it all new and snug looking. the sunsets from that front lawn are gorgeous, don't you think so?" "yes," pauline agreed, "i haven't been over there in two years. we used to have picnics near there." "i hope you will again, this summer, and invite father and me. we adore picnics; we've had several since we came--he and i and the dogs. the dogs do love picnics so, too." pauline had given up wanting to hurry fanny; what a lot she would have to tell her mother when she got home. she was sorry when a turn in the road brought them within sight of the old manor house. "there's father!" shirley said, nodding to a figure coming towards them across a field. the dogs were off to meet him directly, with shrill barks of pleasure. "may i get down here, please?" shirley asked. "thank you very much for the lift; and i am so glad to have met you and your sister, miss shaw. you'll both come and see me soon, won't you?" "we'd love to," pauline answered heartily; "'cross lots, it's not so very far over here from the parsonage, and," she hesitated, "you--you'll be seeing hilary quite often, while she's at the maples, perhaps?" "i hope so. father's on the lookout for a horse and rig for me, and then she and i can have some drives together. she will know where to find the prettiest roads." "oh, she would enjoy that," pauline said eagerly, and as she drove on, she turned more than once to glance back at the tall, slender figure crossing the field. shirley seemed to walk as if the mere act of walking were in itself a pleasure. pauline thought she had never before known anyone who appeared so alive from head to foot. "go 'long, fanny!" she commanded; she was in a hurry to get home now, with her burden of news. it seemed to her as if she had been away a long while, so much had happened in the meantime. at the parsonage gate, pauline found patience waiting for her. "you have taken your time, paul shaw!" the child said, climbing in beside her sister. "fanny's time, you mean!" "it hasn't come yet!" patience said protestingly. "i went for the mail myself this afternoon, so i know!" "oh, well, perhaps it will to-morrow," pauline answered, with so little of real concern in her voice, that patience wondered. "suppose you take fanny on to the barn. mother's home, isn't she?" patience glanced at her sharply. "you've got something--particular--to tell mother! o paul, please wait 'til i come. is it about--" "you're getting to look more like an interrogation point every day, impatience!" pauline told her, getting down from the gig. patience sniffed. "if nobody ever asked questions, nobody'd ever know anything!" she declared. "is mother home?" pauline asked again. "who's asking things now!" patience drew the reins up tightly and bouncing up and down on the carriage seat, called sharply--"hi yi! hi yi!" it was the one method that never failed to rouse fanny's indignation, producing, for the moment, the desired effect; still, as pauline said, it was hardly a proceeding that hilary or she could adopt, or, least of all, their father. as she trotted briskly off to the barn now, the very tilt of fanny's ears expressed injured dignity. dignity was fanny's strong point; that, and the ability to cover less ground in an afternoon than any other horse in winton. the small human being at the other end of those taut reins might have known she would have needed no urging barnwards. "maybe you don't like it," patience observed, "but that makes no difference--'s long's it's for your good. you're a very unchristiany horse, fanny shaw. and i'll 'hi yi' you every time i get a chance; so now go on." however patience was indoors in time to hear all but the very beginning of pauline's story of her afternoon's experience. "i told you," she broke in, "that i saw a nice girl at church last sunday--in mrs. dobson's pew; and mrs. dobson kept looking at her out of the corner of her eyes all the tune, 'stead of paying attention to what father was saying; and miranda says, ten to one. sally dobson comes out in--" "that will do, patience," her mother said, "if you are going to interrupt in this fashion, you must run away." patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive. "isn't it nice for hilary, mother? now she'll be contented to stay a week or two, don't you think?" pauline said. "i hope so, dear. yes, it is very nice." "she was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know." "mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'" "perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled mrs. shaw. "mayn't i, please, go with paul and hilary when they go to call on that girl?" "on whom, patience?" patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. "on paul's and hilary's new friend, mummy." "not the first time, patience; possibly later--" patience shrugged. "by and by," she observed, addressing the room at large, "when paul and hilary are married, i'll be miss shaw! and then--" the thought appeared to give her considerable comfort. "and maybe, towser," she confided later, as the two sat together on the side porch, "maybe--some day--you and i'll go to call on them on our own account. i'm not sure it isn't your duty to call on those dogs--you lived here first, and i can't see why it isn't mine--to call on that girl. father says, we should always hasten to welcome the stranger; and they sound dreadfully interesting." towser blinked a sleepy acquiescence. in spite of his years, he still followed blindly where patience led, though the consequences were frequently disastrous. it was the next afternoon that pauline, reading in the garden, heard an eager little voice calling excitedly, "paul, where are you! it's come! it's come! i brought it up from the office myself!" pauline sprang up. "here i am, patience! hurry!" "well, i like that!" patience said, coming across the lawn. "hurry! haven't i run every inch of the way home!" she waved the letter above her head--"'miss pauline a. shaw!' it's type-written! o paul, aren't you going to read it out here!" for pauline, catching the letter from her, had run into the house, crying--"mother! o mother shaw!" chapter iii uncle paul's answer "mother! o mother, where are you!" pauline cried, and on mrs. shaw's answering from her own room, she ran on up-stairs. "o mother shaw! it's come at last!" she announced breathlessly. "so i thought--when i heard patience calling just now. pauline, dear, try not to be too disappointed if--" "you open it, mother--please! now it's really come, i'm--afraid to." pauline held out her letter. "no, dear, it is addressed to you," mrs. shaw answered quietly. and pauline, a good deal sobered by the gravity with which her mother had received the news, sat down on the wide window seat, near her mother's chair, tearing open the envelope. as she spread out the heavy businesslike sheet of paper within, a small folded enclosure fell from it into her lap. "oh, mother!" pauline caught up the narrow blue slip. she had never received a check from anyone before. "mother! listen!" and she read aloud, "'pay to the order of miss pauline a. shaw, the sum of twenty-five dollars.'" twenty-five dollars! one ought to be able to do a good deal with twenty-five dollars! "goodness me!" patience exclaimed. she had followed her sister up-stairs, after a discreet interval, curling herself up unobtrusively in a big chair just inside the doorway. "can you do what you like with it, paul?" but pauline was bending over the letter, a bright spot of color on each cheek. presently, she handed it to her mother. "i wish--i'd never written to him! read it, mother!" and mrs. shaw read, as follows- new york city, may 31, 19--. _miss pauline a. shaw, winton, vt._ my dear niece: yours of may 16th to hand. i am sorry to learn that your sister hilary appears to be in such poor health at present. such being the case, however, it would seem to me that home was the best place for her. i do not at all approve of this modern fashion of running about the country, on any and every pretext. also, if i remember correctly, your father has frequently described winton to me as a place of great natural charms, and peculiarly adapted to those suffering from so-called nervous disorders. altogether, i do not feel inclined to comply with your request to make it possible for your sister to leave home, in search of change and recreation. instead, beginning with this letter, i will forward you each month during the summer, the sum of twenty-five dollars, to be used in procuring for your sisters and yourself--i understand, there is a third child--such simple and healthful diversions as your parents may approve, the only conditions i make, being, that at no time shall any of your pleasure trips take you further than ten miles from home, and that you keep me informed, from time to time, how this plan of mine is succeeding. trusting this may prove satisfactory, very respectfully, paul a. shaw. "what do you think, mother?" pauline asked, as mrs. shaw finished reading. "isn't it a very--queer sort of letter?" "it is an extremely characteristic one, dear." "i think," patience could contain herself no longer, "that you are the inconsideratest persons! you know i'm perfectly wild to know what's in that letter!" "run away now, patience," her mother said. "you shall hear about it later," and when patience had obeyed--not very willingly, mrs. shaw turned again to pauline. "we must show this to your father, before making any plans in regard to it, dear." "he's coming now. you show it to him, please, mother." when her mother had gone down-stairs, pauline still sat there in the window seat, looking soberly out across the lawn to the village street, with its double rows of tall, old trees. so her flag had served little purpose after all! that change for hilary was still as uncertain, as much a vague part of the future, as it had ever been. it seemed to the girl, at the moment, as if she fairly hated winton. as though hilary and she did not already know every stick and stone in it, had not long ago exhausted all its possibilities! new people might think it "quaint" and "pretty" but they had not lived here all their lives. and, besides, she had expressly told uncle paul that the doctor had said that hilary needed a change. she was still brooding over the downfall of her hopes, when her mother called to her from the garden. pauline went down, feeling that it mattered very little what her father's decision had been--it could make so little difference to them, either way. mrs. shaw was on the bench under the old elm, that stood midway between parsonage and church. she had been rereading uncle paul's letter, and to pauline's wonder, there was something like a smile of amusement in her eyes. "well, mother?" the girl asked. "well, dear, your father and i have talked the matter over, and we have decided to allow you to accept your uncle's offer." "but that--hateful condition! how is hilary to get a chance--here in winton?" "who was it that i heard saying, only this morning, pauline, that even if uncle paul didn't agree, she really believed we might manage to have a very pleasant summer here at home?" "i know--but still, now that we know definitely--" "we can go to work definitely to do even better." "but how, mother!" "that is what we must think over. suppose you put your wits to work right now. i must go down to jane's for a few moments. after all, pauline, those promised twenty-fives can be used very pleasantly--even in winton." "but it will still be winton." "winton may develop some unexplored corners, some new outlooks." pauline looked rather doubtful; then, catching sight of a small dejected-looking little figure in the swing, under the big cherry-tree at the foot of the lawn, she asked, "i suppose i may tell patience now, mother? she really has been very good all this time of waiting." "she certainly has. only, not too many details, pauline. patience is of such a confiding disposition." "patience," pauline called, "suppose we go see if there aren't some strawberries ripe?" patience ran off for a basket. strawberries! as if she didn't know they were only a pretext. grown people were assuredly very queer--but sometimes, it was necessary to humor, their little whims and ways. "i don't believe they are ripe yet," she said, skipping along beside her sister. "o paul, is it--nice?" "mother thinks so!" "don't you?" "maybe i will--after a while. hilary isn't to go away." "is that what you wrote and asked uncle paul? and didn't you ask for us all to go?" "certainly not--we're not sick," said pauline, laughing. "miranda says what hilary needs is a good herb tonic!" "miranda doesn't know everything." "what is uncle paul going to do then?" "send some money every month--to have good times with at home." "one of those blue paper things?" "i suppose so," pauline laughed. "and _you_ don't call that _nice_! well of all the ungratefullest girls! is it for us _all_ to have good times with? or just hilary?" "all of us. of course, hilary must come first." patience fairly jumped up and down with excitement. "when will they begin, and what will they be like? o paul, just think of the good times we've had _without_ any money 't all! aren't we the luckiest girls!" they had reached the strawberry-bed and patience dropped down in the grass beside it, her hands clasped around her knees. "good times in winton will be a lot better than good times anywhere else. winton's such a nice sociable place." pauline settled herself on the top rail of the fence bordering the garden at the back. patience's enthusiasm was infectious. "what sort of good times do you mean?" she asked. "picnics!" "we have such a lot of picnics--year after year!" "a nice picnic is always sort of new. miranda does put up such beautiful lunches. o paul, couldn't we afford chocolate layer cake _every_ time, now?" "you goosey!" pauline laughed again heartily. "and maybe there'll be an excursion somewhere's, and by'n'by there'll be the town fair. paul, there's a ripe berry! and another and--" "see here, hold on, impatience!" pauline protested, as the berries disappeared, one after another, down patience's small throat. "perhaps, if you stop eating them all, we can get enough for mother's and father's supper." "maybe they went and hurried to get ripe for to-night, so we could celebrate," patience suggested. "paul, mayn't i go with you next time you go over to the maples?" "we'll see what mother says." "i hate 'we'll see's'!" patience declared, reaching so far over after a particularly tempting berry, that she lost her balance, and fell face down among them. "oh, dear!" she sighed, as her sister came to her assistance, "something always seems to happen clean-apron afternoon! paul, wouldn't it be a 'good time,' if miranda would agree not to scold 'bout perfectly unavoidable accidents once this whole summer?" "who's to do the deciding as to the unavoidableness?" pauline asked. "come on, patience, we've got about all the ripe ones, and it must be time for you to lay the supper-table." "not laying supper-tables would be another good time," patience answered. "we did get enough, didn't we? i'll hull them." "i wonder," pauline said, more as if speaking to herself, "whether maybe mother wouldn't think it good to have jane in now and then--for extra work? not supper-tables, young lady." "jane would love it. she likes to work with miranda--she says miranda's such a nice lady. do you think she is, paul?" "i'm thinking about other things just now." "i don't--there's mother. goodness, miranda's got the cloth on!" and away sped the child. to patience's astonishment, nothing was said at supper, either of uncle paul's letter, or the wonderful things it was to lead to. mr. shaw kept his wife engaged with parish subjects and pauline appeared lost in thoughts of her own. patience fidgeted as openly as she dared. of all queer grown-ups--and it looked as though most grown-ups were more or less queer--father was certainly the queerest. of course, he knew about the letter; and how could he go on talking about stupid, uninteresting matters--like the ladies' aid and the new hymn books? even the first strawberries of the season passed unnoticed, as far as he was concerned, though mrs. shaw gave patience a little smiling nod, in recognition of them. "mother," pauline exclaimed, the moment her father had gone back to his study, "i've been thinking--suppose we get hilary to pretend--that coming home is coming to a _new_ place? that she is coming to visit us? we'll think up all the interesting things to do, that we can, and the pretty places to show her." "that would be a good plan, pauline." "and if she's company, she'll have to have the spare room," patience added. "jolly for you, patience!" pauline said. "only, mother, hilary doesn't like the spare room; she says it's the dreariest room in the house." "if she's company, she'll have to pretend to like it, it wouldn't be good manners not to," patience observed. the prospect opening out ahead of them seemed full of delightful possibilities. "i hope miranda catches on to the game, and gives us pound-cake and hot biscuits for supper ever so often, and doesn't call me to do things, when i'm busy entertaining 'the company.'" "mother," pauline broke in--"do keep quiet. impatience--couldn't we do the spare room over--there's that twenty-five dollars? we've planned it so often." "we might make some alterations, dear--at least." "we'll take stock the first thing to-morrow morning. i suppose we can't really start in before monday." "hardly, seeing that it is friday night." they were still talking this new idea over, though patience had been sent to bed, when mr. shaw came in from a visit to a sick parishioner. "we've got the most beautiful scheme on hand, father," pauline told him, wheeling forward his favorite chair. she hoped he would sit down and talk things over with them, instead of going on to the study; it wouldn't be half as nice, if he stayed outside of everything. "new schemes appear to be rampant these days," mr. shaw said, but he settled himself comfortably in the big chair, quite as though he meant to stay with them. "what is this particular one?" he listened, while pauline explained, really listened, instead of merely seeming to. "it does appear an excellent idea," he said; "but why should it be hilary only, who is to try to see winton with new eyes this summer? suppose we were all to do so?" pauline clapped her hands softly. "then you'll help us? and we'll all pretend. maybe uncle paul's thought isn't such a bad one, after all." "paul always believed in developing the opportunities nearest hand," mr. shaw answered. he stroked the head towser laid against his knee. "your mother and i will be the gainers--if we keep all our girls at home, and still achieve the desired end." pauline glanced up quickly. how could she have thought him unheeding--indifferent? "somehow, i think it will work out all right," she said. "anyhow, we're going to try it, aren't we. mother shaw? patience thinks it the best idea ever, there'll be no urging needed there." pauline went up to bed that night feeling strangely happy. for one thing the uncertainty was over, and if they set to work to make this summer full of interest, to break up the monotony and routine that hilary found so irksome, the result must be satisfactory. and lastly, there was the comforting conviction, that whatever displeasure her father had felt at first, at her taking the law into her own hands in such unforeseen fashion, had disappeared now; and he was not going to stay "outside of things," that was sure. the next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, pauline ran up-stairs to the spare room. she threw open the shutters of the four windows, letting in the fresh morning air. the side windows faced west, and looked out across the pleasant tree-shaded yard to the church; those at the front faced south, overlooking the broad village street. in the bright sunlight, the big square room stood forth in all its prim orderliness. "it is ugly," pauline decided, shaking her head disapprovingly, but it had possibilities. no room, with four such generous windows and--for the fire-board must come out--such a wide deep fireplace, could be without them. she turned, as her mother came in, duly attended by patience. "it is hideous, isn't it, mother? the paper, i mean--and the carpet isn't much better. it did very well, i suppose, for the visiting ministers--probably they're too busy thinking over their sermons to notice--but for hilary--" mrs. shaw smiled. "perhaps you are right, dear. as to the unattractiveness of the paper--" "we must repaper--that's sure; plain green, with a little touch of color in the border, and, oh, mother shaw, wouldn't a green and white matting be lovely?" "and expensive, pauline." "it wouldn't take all the twenty-five, i'm sure. miranda'll do the papering, i know. she did the study last year. mother, couldn't we have jane in for the washing and ironing this week, and let miranda get right at this room? i'll help with the ironing, too." "i suppose so, dear. miranda is rather fussy about letting other people do her regular work, you know." "i'll ask her." "and remember, pauline, each day is going to bring new demands--don't put all your eggs into one basket." "i won't. we needn't spend anything on this room except for the paper and matting." half an hour later, pauline was on her way down to the village store for samples of paper. she had already settled the matter with miranda, over the wiping of the breakfast dishes. miranda had lived with the shaws ever since pauline was a baby, and was a very important member of the family, both in her own and their opinion. she was tall and gaunt, and somewhat severe looking; however, in her case, looks were deceptive. it would never have occurred to miranda that the shaws' interests were not her interests--she considered herself an important factor in the upbringing of the three young people. if she had a favorite, it was probably hilary. "hmn," she said, when pauline broached the subject of the spare room, "what put that notion in your head, i'd like to know! that paper ain't got a tear in it!" so pauline went further, telling her something of uncle paul's letter and how they hoped to carry his suggestion out. miranda stood still, her hands in the dish water--"that's your pa's own brother, ain't it?" pauline nodded. "and miranda--" "i reckon he ain't much like the minister. well, me an' sarah jane ain't the least bit alike--if we are sisters. i guess i can manage 'bout the papering. but it does go 'gainst me, having that sexton woman in. still, i reckon you can't be content, 'till we get started. looking for the old gentleman up, later, be you?" "for whom?" pauline asked. "your pa's brother. the minister's getting on, and the other one's considerable older, i understand." "i don't think he will be up," pauline answered; she hadn't thought of that before. suppose he should come! she wondered what he would be like. half way down the street, pauline was overtaken by her younger sister. "are you going to get the new things now, paul?" she asked eagerly. "of course not, just get some samples." "there's always such a lot of getting ready first," patience sighed. "paul, mother says i may go with you to-morrow afternoon." "all right," pauline agreed. "only, you've got to promise not to 'hi yi' at fanny all the way." "i won't--all the way." "and--impatience?" "yes?" "you needn't say what we want the new paper for, or anything about what we are planning to do--in the store i mean." "mr. ward would be mighty interested." "i dare say." "miranda says you're beginning to put on considerable airs, since you've been turning your hair up, paul shaw. when i put my hair up, i'm going on being just as nice and friendly with folks, as before, you'll see." pauline laughed, which was not at all to patience's liking. "all the same, mind what i say," she warned. "can i help choose?" patience asked, as they reached the store. "if you like." pauline went through to the little annex devoted to wall papers and carpetings. it was rather musty and dull in there, patience thought; she would have liked to make a slow round of the whole store, exchanging greetings and various confidences with the other occupants. the store was a busy place on saturday morning, and patience knew every man, woman and child in winton. they had got their samples and pauline was lingering before a new line of summer dressgoods just received, when the young fellow in charge of the post-office and telegraph station called to her: "i say, miss shaw, here's a message just come for you." "for me--" pauline took it wonderingly. her hands were trembling, she had never received a telegram before--was hilary? then she laughed at herself. to have sent a message, mr. boyd would have first been obliged to come in to winton. out on the sidewalk, she tore open the envelope, not heeding patience's curious demands. it was from her uncle, and read-"have some one meet the afternoon train saturday, am sending you an aid towards your summer's outings." "oh," pauline said, "do hurry, patience. i want to get home as fast as i can." chapter iv beginnings sunday afternoon, pauline and patience drove over to the maples to see hilary. they stopped, as they went by, at the postoffice for pauline to mail a letter to her uncle, which was something in the nature of a very enthusiastic postscript to the one she had written him friday night, acknowledging and thanking him for his cheque, and telling him of the plans already under discussion. "and now," patience said, as they turned out of the wide main street, "we're really off. i reckon hilary'll be looking for us, don't you?" "i presume she will," pauline answered. "maybe she'll want to come back with us." "oh, i don't believe so. she knows mother wants her to stay the week out. listen, patty--" patience sat up and took notice. when people pattied her, it generally meant they had a favor to ask, or something of the sort. "remember, you're to be very careful not to let hilary suspect--anything." "about the room and--?" "i mean--everything." "won't she like it--all, when she does know?" "well, rather!" patience wriggled excitedly. "it's like having a fairy godmother, isn't it? and three wishes? if you'd had three wishes, paul, wouldn't you've chosen--" "you'd better begin quieting down, patience, or hilary can't help suspecting something." patience drew a long breath. "if she knew--she wouldn't stay a single day longer, would she?" "that's one reason why she mustn't know." "when will you tell her; or is mother going to?" "i don't know yet. see here, patience, you may drive--if you won't hi yi." "please, paul, let me, when we get to the avenue. it's stupid coming to a place, like fanny'd gone to sleep." "not before--and only once then," pauline stipulated, and patience possessed her soul in at least a faint semblance of patience until they turned into the avenue of maples. then she suddenly tightened her hold on the reins, bounced excitedly up and down, crying sharply--"hi yi!" fanny instantly pricked up her ears, and, what was more to the purpose, actually started into what might almost have been called a trot. "there! you see!" patience said proudly, as they turned into the yard. hilary came down the porch steps. "i heard impatience urging her rosinante on," she laughed. "why didn't you let her drive all the way, paul? i've been watching for you since dinner." "we've been pretty nearly since dinner getting here, it seems to me," patience declared. "we had to wait for paul to write a letter first to--" "are you alone?" pauline broke in hurriedly, asking the first question that came into her mind. hilary smiled ruefully. "not exactly. mr. boyd's asleep in the sitting-room, and mrs. boyd's taking a nap up-stairs in her own room." "you poor child!" pauline said. "jump out, patience!" "_have_ you brought me something to read? i've finished both the books i brought with me, and gone through a lot of magazines--queer old things, that mrs. boyd took years and years ago." "then you've done very wrong," pauline told her severely, leading fanny over to a shady spot at one side of the yard and tying her to the fence--a quite unnecessary act, as nothing would have induced fanny to take her departure unsolicited. "guess!" pauline came back, carrying a small paper-covered parcel. "father sent it to you. he was over at vergennes yesterday." "oh!" hilary cried, taking it eagerly and sitting down on the steps. "it's a book, of course." even more than her sisters, she had inherited her father's love of books, and a new book was an event at the parsonage. "oh," she cried again, taking off the paper and disclosing the pretty tartan cover within, "o paul! it's 'penelope's progress.' don't you remember those bits we read in those odd magazines josie lent us? and how we wanted to read it all?" pauline nodded. "i reckon mother told father about it; i saw her following him out to the gig yesterday morning." they went around to the little porch leading from hilary's room, always a pleasant spot in the afternoons. "why," patience exclaimed, "it's like an out-door parlor, isn't it?" there was a big braided mat on the floor of the porch, its colors rather faded by time and use, but looking none the worse for that, a couple of rockers, a low stool, and a small table, covered with a bit of bright cretonne. on it stood a blue and white pitcher filled with field flowers, beside it lay one or two magazines. just outside, extending from one of the porch posts to the limb of an old cherry tree, hung hilary's hammock, gay with cushions. "shirley did it yesterday afternoon," hilary explained. "she was over here a good while. mrs. boyd let us have the things and the chintz for the cushions, shirley made them, and we filled them with hay." pauline, sitting on the edge of the low porch, looked about her with appreciative eyes. "how pleasant and cozy it is, and after all, it only took a little time and trouble." hilary laid her new book on the table. "how soon do you suppose we can go over to the manor, paul? i imagine the dayres have fixed it up mighty pretty. mr. dayre was over here, last night. he and shirley are ever so--chummy. he's shirley putnam dayre, and she's shirley putnam dayre, junior. so he calls her 'junior' and she calls him 'senior.' they're just like brother and sister. he's an artist, they've been everywhere together. and, paul, they think winton is delightful. mr. dayre says the village street, with its great overhanging trees, and old-fashioned houses, is a picture in itself, particularly up at our end, with the church, all ivy-covered. he means to paint the church sometime this summer." "it would make a pretty picture," pauline said thoughtfully. "hilary, i wonder--" "so do i," hilary said. "still, after all, one would like to see different places--" "and love only one," pauline added; she turned to her sister. "you are better, aren't you--already?" "i surely am. shirley's promised to take me out on the lake soon. she's going to be friends with us, paul--really friends. she says we must call her 'shirley,' that she doesn't like 'miss dayre,' she hears it so seldom." "i think it's nice--being called 'miss,'" patience remarked, from where she had curled herself up in the hammock. "i suppose she doesn't want it, because she can have it--i'd love to be called 'miss shaw.'" "hilary," pauline said, "would you mind very much, if you couldn't go away this summer?" "it wouldn't do much good if i did, would it?" "the not minding would--to mother and the rest of us--" "and if you knew what--" patience began excitedly. "don't you want to go find captain, impatience?" pauline asked hastily, and patience, feeling that she had made a false move, went with most unusual meekness. "know what?" hilary asked. "i--shouldn't wonder, if the child had some sort of scheme on hand," pauline said, she hoped she wasn't--prevaricating; after all, patience probably did have some scheme in her head--she usually had. "i haven't thought much about going away the last day or so," hilary said. "i suppose it's the feeling better, and, then, the getting to know shirley." "i'm glad of that." pauline sat silent for some moments; she was watching a fat bumble bee buzzing in and out among the flowers in the garden. it was always still, over here at the farm, but to-day, it seemed a different sort of stillness, as if bees and birds and flowers knew that it was sunday afternoon. "paul," hilary asked suddenly, "what are you smiling to yourself about?" "was i smiling? i didn't know it. i guess because it is so nice and peaceful here and because--hilary, let's start a club--the 's. w. f. club.'" "the what?" "the 's. w. f. club.' no, i shan't tell you what the letters stand for! you've got to think it out for yourself." "a real club, paul?" "indeed, yes." "who's to belong?" "oh, lots of folks. josie and tom, and you and i--and i think, maybe, mother and father." "father! to belong to a club!" "it was he who put the idea into my head." hilary came to sit beside her sister on the step. "paul, i've a feeling that there is something--up! and it isn't the barometer!" "where did you get it?" "from you." pauline sprang up. "feelings are very unreliable things to go by, but i've one just now--that if we don't hunt impatience up pretty quick--there will be something doing." they found patience sitting on the barn floor, utterly regardless of her white frock. a whole family of kittens were about her. "aren't they dears!" patience demanded. "mrs. boyd says i may have my choice, to take home with me," hilary said. the parsonage cat had died the fall before, and had had no successor as yet. patience held up a small coal-black one. "choose this, hilary! miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we needed any black cats to bring--" "i like the black and white one," pauline interposed, just touching patience with the tip of her shoe. "maybe mrs. boyd would give us each one, that would leave one for her," patience suggested cheerfully. "i imagine mother would have something to say to that," pauline told her. "was josie over yesterday, hilary?" hilary nodded. "in the morning." as they were going back to the house, they met mr. boyd, on his way to pay his regular weekly visit to the far pasture. "going to salt the colts?" patience asked. "please, mayn't i come?" "there won't be time, patience," pauline said. "not time!" mr. boyd objected, "i'll be back to supper, and you girls are going to stay to supper." he carried patience off with him, declaring that he wasn't sure he should let her go home at all, he meant to keep her altogether some day, and why not to-night? "oh, i couldn't stay to-night," the child assured him earnestly. "of course, i couldn't ever stay for always, but by'n'by, when--there isn't so much going on at home--there's such a lot of things keep happening at home now, only don't tell hilary, please--maybe, i could come make you a truly visit." indoors, pauline and hilary found mrs. boyd down-stairs again from her nap. "you ain't come after hilary?" she questioned anxiously. "only to see her," pauline answered, and while she helped mrs. boyd get supper, she confided to her the story of uncle paul's letter and the plans already under way. mrs. boyd was much interested. "bless me, it'll do her a heap of good, you'll see, my dear. i'm not sure, i don't agree with your uncle, when all's said and done, home's the best place for young folks." just before pauline and patience went home that evening, mrs. boyd beckoned pauline mysteriously into the best parlor. "i always meant her to have them some day--she being my god-child--and maybe they'll do her as much good now, as any time, she'll want to fix up a bit now and then, most likely. shirley had on a string of them last night, but not to compare with these." mrs. boyd was kneeling before a trunk in the parlor closet, and presently she put a little square shell box into pauline's bands. "box and all, just like they came to me--you know, they were my grandmother's--but hilary's a real careful sort of girl." "but, mrs. boyd--i'm not sure that mother would--" pauline knew quite well what was in the box. "that's all right! you just slip them in hilary's top drawer, where she'll come across them without expecting it. deary me, i never wear them, and as i say, i've always meant to give them to her some day." "she'll be perfectly delighted--and they'll look so pretty. hilary's got a mighty pretty neck, i think." pauline went out to the gig, the little box hidden carefully in her blouse, feeling that patience was right and that these were very fairy-story sort of days. "you'll be over again soon, won't you?" hilary urged. "we're going to be tre-men-dous-ly busy," patience began, but her sister cut her short. "as soon as i can, hilary. mind you go on getting better." by monday noon, the spare room had lost its look of prim order. in the afternoon, pauline and her mother went down to the store to buy the matting. there was not much choice to be had, and the only green and white there was, was considerably beyond the limit they had allowed themselves. "never mind," pauline said cheerfully, "plain white will look ever so cool and pretty--perhaps, the green would fade. i'm going to believe so." over a low wicker sewing-chair, she did linger longingly; it would look so nice beside one of the west windows. she meant to place a low table for books and work between those side windows. in the end, prudence won the day, and surely, the new paper and matting were enough to be grateful for in themselves. by the next afternoon the paper was on and the matting down. pauline was up garret rummaging, when she heard someone calling her from the foot of the stairs. "i'm here, josie," she called back, and her friend came running up. "what are you doing?" she asked. pauline held up an armful of old-fashioned chintz. "oh, how pretty!" josie exclaimed. "it makes one think of high-waisted dresses, and minuets and things like that." pauline laughed. "they were my great-grandmother's bed curtains." "goodness! what are you going to do with them?" "i'm not sure mother will let me do anything. i came across them just now in looking for some green silk she said i might have to cover hilary's pin-cushion with." "for the new room? patience has been doing the honors of the new paper and matting--it's going to be lovely, i think." pauline scrambled to her feet, shaking out the chintz: "if only mother would--it's pink and green--let's go ask her." "what do you want to do with it, pauline?" mrs. shaw asked. "i haven't thought that far--use it for draperies of some kind, i suppose," the girl answered. they were standing in the middle of the big, empty room. suddenly, josie gave a quick exclamation, pointing to the bare corner between the front and side windows. "wouldn't a cozy corner be delightful--with cover and cushions of the chintz?" "may we, mother?" pauline begged in a coaxing tone. "i suppose so, dear--only where is the bench part to come from?" "tom'll make the frame for it, i'll go get him this minute," josie answered. "and you might use that single mattress from up garret," mrs. shaw suggested. pauline ran up to inspect it, and to see what other treasures might be forthcoming. the garret was a big, shadowy place, extending over the whole house, and was lumber room, play place and general refuge, all in one. presently, from under the eaves, she drew forward a little old-fashioned sewing-chair, discarded on the giving out of its cane seat. "but i could tack a piece of burlap on and cover it with a cushion," pauline decided, and bore it down in triumph to the new room, where tom brice was already making his measurements for the cozy corner. josie was on the floor, measuring for the cover. "isn't it fun, paul? tom says it won't take long to do his part." tom straightened himself, slipping his rule into his pocket. "i don't see what you want it for, though," he said. "'yours not to reason why--'" pauline told him. "we see, and so will hilary. don't you and josie want to join the new club--the 's. w. f. club'?" "society of willing females, i suppose?" tom remarked. "it sounds like some sort of sewing circle," josie said. pauline sat down in one of the wide window places. "i'm not sure it might not take in both. it is--'the seeing winton first club.'" josie looked as though she didn't quite understand, but tom whistled softly. "what else have you been doing for the past fifteen years, if you please, ma'am?" he asked quizzically. pauline laughed. "one ought to know a place rather thoroughly in fifteen years, i suppose; but--i'm hoping we can make it seem at least a little bit new and different this summer--for hilary. you see, we shan't be able to send her away, and so, i thought, perhaps, if we tried looking at winton--with new eyes--" "i see," josie cried. "i think it's a splendiferous ideal" "and, i thought, if we formed a sort of club among ourselves and worked together--" "listen," josie interrupted again, "we'll make it a condition of membership, that each one must, in turn, think up something pleasant to do." "is the membership to be limited?" tom asked. pauline smiled. "it will be so--necessarily--won't it?" for winton was not rich in young people. "there will be enough of us," josie declared hopefully. "like the model dinner party?" her brother asked. "not less than the graces, nor more than the muses." and so the new club was formed then and there. there were to be no regular and formal meetings, no dues, nor fines, and each member was to consider himself, or herself, an active member of the programme committee. tom, as the oldest member of their immediate circle of friends, was chosen president before that first meeting adjourned; no other officers were considered necessary at the time. and being president, to him was promptly delegated the honor--despite his vigorous protests--of arranging for their first outing and notifying the other members--yet to be. "but," he expostulated, "what's a fellow to think up--in a hole like this?" "winton isn't a hole!" his sister protested. it was one of the chief occupations of josie's life at present, to contradict all such heretical utterances on tom's part. he was to go away that fall to commence his studies for the medical profession, for it was dr. brice's great desire that, later, his son should assist him in his practice. but, so far, tom though wanting to follow his father's profession, was firm in his determination, not to follow it in winton. "and remember," pauline said, as the three went down-stairs together, "that it's the first step that counts--and to think up something very delightful, tom." "it mustn't be a picnic, i suppose? hilary won't be up to picnics yet awhile." "n-no, and we want to begin soon. she'll be back friday, i think," pauline answered. by wednesday night the spare room was ready for the expected guest. "it's as if someone had waved a fairy wand over it, isn't it?" patience said delightedly. "hilary'll be so surprised." "i think she will and--pleased." pauline gave one of the cushions in the cozy corner a straightening touch, and drew the window shades--miranda had taken them down and turned them--a little lower. "it's a regular company room, isn't it?" patience said joyously. the minister drove over to the maples himself on friday afternoon to bring hilary home. "remember," patience pointed a warning forefinger at him, just as he was starting, "not a single solitary hint!" "not a single solitary one," he promised. as he turned out of the gate. patience drew a long breath. "well, he's off at last! but, oh, dear, however can we wait 'til he gets back?" chapter v bedelia it was five o'clock that afternoon when patience, perched, a little white-clad sentry, on the gate-post, announced joyously--"they're coming! they're coming!" patience was as excited as if the expected "guest" were one in fact, as well as name. it was fun to be playing a game of make-believe, in which the elders took part. as the gig drew up before the steps, hilary looked eagerly out. "will you tell me," she demanded, "why father insisted on coming 'round the lower road, by the depot--he didn't stop, and he didn't get any parcel? and when i asked him, he just laughed and looked mysterious." "he went," pauline answered, "because we asked him to--company usually comes by train--real out-of-town company, you know." "like visiting ministers and returned missionaries," patience explained. hilary looked thoroughly bewildered. "but are you expecting company? you must be," she glanced from one to another, "you're all dressed up," "we were expecting some, dear," her mother told her, "but she has arrived." "don't you see? you're it!" patience danced excitedly about her sister. "i'm the company!" hilary said wonderingly. then her eyes lighted up. "i understand! how perfectly dear of you all." mrs. shaw patted the hand hilary slipped into hers. "you have come back a good deal better than you went, my dear. the change has done you good." "and it didn't turn out a stupid--half-way affair, after all," hilary declared. "i've had a lovely time. only, i simply had to come home, i felt somehow--that--that--" "we were expecting company?" pauline laughed. "and you wanted to be here?" "i reckon that was it," hilary agreed. as she sat there, resting a moment, before going up-stairs, she hardly seemed the same girl who had gone away so reluctantly only eight days before. the change of scene, the outdoor life, the new friendship, bringing with it new interests, had worked wonders, "and now," pauline suggested, taking up her sister's valise, "perhaps you would like to go up to your room--visitors generally do." "to rest after your journey, you know," patience prompted. patience believed in playing one's part down to the minutest detail. "thank you," hilary answered, with quite the proper note of formality in her voice, "if you don't mind; though i did not find the trip as fatiguing as i had expected." but from the door, she turned back to give her mother a second and most uncompany-like hug. "it is good to be home, mother shaw! and please, you don't want to pack me off again anywhere right away--at least, all by myself?" "not right away," her mother answered, kissing her. "i guess you will think it is good to be home, when you know--everything," patience announced, accompanying her sisters up-stairs, but on the outside of the banisters. "patty!" pauline protested laughingly--"was there ever such a child for letting things out!" "i haven't!" the child exclaimed, "only now--it can't make any difference." "there is mystery in the very air!" hilary insisted. "oh, what have you all been up to?" "you're not to go in there!" patience cried, as hilary stopped before the door of her own and pauline's room. "of course you're not," pauline told her. "it strikes me, for company--you're making yourself very much at home! walking into peoples' rooms." she led the way along the hall to the spare room, throwing the door wide open. "oh!" hilary cried, then stood quite still on the threshold, looking about her with wide, wondering eyes. the spare room was grim and gray no longer. hilary felt as if she must be in some strange, delightful dream. the cool green of the wall paper, with the soft touch of pink in ceiling and border, the fresh white matting, the cozy corner opposite--with its delicate old-fashioned chintz drapery and big cushions, the new toilet covers--white over green, the fresh curtains at the windows, the cushioned window seats, the low table and sewing-chair, even her own narrow white bed, with its new ruffled spread, all went to make a room as strange to her, as it was charming and unexpected. "oh," she said again, turning to her mother, who had followed them up-stairs, and stood waiting just outside the door. "how perfectly lovely it all is--but it isn't for me?" "of course it is," patience said. "aren't you company--you aren't just hilary now, you're 'miss shaw' and you're here on a visit; and there's company asked to supper to-morrow night, and it's going to be such fun!" hilary's color came and went. it was something deeper and better than fun. she understood now why they had done this--why pauline had said that--about her not going away; there was a sudden lump in the girl's throat--she was glad, so glad, she had said that downstairs----about not wanting to go away. and when her mother and patience had gone down-stairs again and pauline had begun to unpack the valise, as she had unpacked it a week ago at the maples, hilary sat in the low chair by one of the west windows, her hands folded in her lap, looking about this new room of hers. "there," pauline said presently, "i believe that's all now--you'd better lie down, hilary--i'm afraid you're tired." "no, i'm not; at any rate, not very. i'll lie down if you like, only i know i shan't be able to sleep." pauline lowered the pillow and threw a light cover over her. "there's something in the top drawer of the dresser," she said, "but you're not to look at it until you've lain down at least half an hour." "i feel as if i were in an enchanted palace,", hilary said, "with so many delightful surprises being sprung on me all the while." after pauline had gone, she lay watching the slight swaying of the wild roses in the tall jar on the hearth. the wild roses ran rampant in the little lane leading from the back of the church down past the old cottage where sextoness jane lived. jane had brought these with her that morning, as her contribution to the new room. to hilary, as to patience, it seemed as if a magic wand had been waved, transforming the old dull room into a place for a girl to live and dream in. but for her, the name of the wand was love. there must be no more impatient longings, no fretful repinings, she told herself now. she must not be slow to play her part in this new game that had been originated all for her. the half-hour up, she slipped from the bed and began unbuttoning her blue-print frock. being company, it stood to reason she must dress for supper. but first, she must find out what was in the upper drawer. the first glimpse of the little shell box, told her that. there were tears in hilary's gray eyes, as she stood slipping the gold beads slowly through her fingers. how good everyone was to her; for the first time some understanding of the bright side even of sickness--and she had not been really sick, only run-down--and, yes, she had been cross and horrid, lots of times--came to her. "i'll go over just as soon as i can and thank her," the girl thought, clasping the beads about her neck, "and i'll keep them always and always." a little later, she came down-stairs all in white, a spray of the pink and white wild roses in her belt, her soft, fair hair freshly brushed and braided. she had been rather neglectful of her hair lately. there was no one on the front piazza but her father, and he looked up from his book with a smile of pleasure. "my dear, how well you are looking! it is certainly good to see you at home again, and quite your old self." hilary came to sit on the arm of his chair. "it is good to be at home again. i suppose you know all the wonderful surprises i found waiting me?" "supper's ready," patience proclaimed from the doorway. "please come, because--" she caught herself up, putting a hand into hilary's, "i'll show you where to sit, miss shaw." hilary laughed. "how old are you, my dear?" she asked, in the tone frequently used by visiting ministers. "i'm a good deal older than i'm treated generally," patience answered. "do you like winton?" "i am sure i shall like it very much." hilary slipped into the chair patience drew forward politely. "the company side of the table--sure enough," she laughed. "it isn't proper to say things to yourself sort of low down in your voice," patience reproved her, then at a warning glance from her mother subsided into silence as the minister took his place. for to-night, at least, miranda had amply fulfilled patience's hopes, as to company suppers. and she, too, played her part in the new game, calling hilary "miss," and never by any chance intimating that she had seen her before. "did you go over to the manor to see shirley?" patience asked. hilary shook her head. "i promised her pauline and i would be over soon. we may have fanny some afternoon, mayn't we, father?" patience's blue eyes danced. "they can't have fanny, can they, father?" she nodded at him knowingly. hilary eyed her questioningly. "what is the matter, patience?" "nothing is the matter with her," pauline said hurriedly. "don't pay any attention to her." "only, if you would hurry," patience implored. "i--i can't wait much longer!" "wait!" hilary asked. "for what?" patience pushed back her chair. "for--well, if you just knew what for, hilary shaw, you'd do some pretty tall hustling!" "patience!" her father said reprovingly. "may i be excused, mother?" patience asked. "i'll wait out on the porch." and mrs. shaw replied most willingly that she might. "is there anything more--to see, i mean, not to eat?" hilary asked. "i don't see how there can be." "are you through?" pauline answered. "because, if you are, i'll show you." "it was sent to paul," patience called, from the hall door. "but she says, of course, it was meant for us all; and i think, myself, she's right about that." "is it--alive?" hilary asked. "'it' was--before supper," pauline told her. "i certainly hope nothing has happened to--'it' since then." "a dog?" hilary suggested. "wait and see; by the way, where's that kitten?" "she's to follow in a few days; she was a bit too young to leave home just yet." "i've got the sugar!" patience called. hilary stopped short at the foot of the porch steps. patience's remark, if it had not absolutely let the cat out of the bag, had at least opened the bag. "paul, it can't be--" "in the shaw's dictionary, at present, there doesn't appear to be any such word as can't," pauline declared. "come on---after all, you know, the only way to find out--is to find out." patience had danced on ahead down the path to the barn. she stood waiting for them now in the broad open doorway, her whole small person one animated exclamation point, while towser, just home from a leisurely round of afternoon visits, came forward to meet hilary, wagging a dignified welcome. "if you don't hurry, i'll 'hi yi' you, like i do fanny!" patience warned them. she moved to one side, to let hilary go on into the barn. "now!" she demanded, "isn't that something more?" from the stall beside fanny's, a horse's head reached inquiringly out for the sugar with which already she had come to associate the frequent visits of these new friends. she was a pretty, well-made, little mare, light sorrel, with white markings, and with a slender, intelligent face. hilary stood motionless, too surprised to speak. "her name's bedelia," patience said, doing the honors. "she's very clever, she knows us all already. fanny hasn't been very polite to her, and she knows it--bedelia does, i mean--sometimes, when fanny isn't looking, i've caught bedelia sort of laughing at her--and i don't blame her one bit. and, oh, hilary, she can go--there's no need to 'hi yi' her." "but--" hilary turned to pauline. "uncle paul sent her," pauline explained. "she came last saturday afternoon. one of the men from uncle paul's place in the country brought her. she was born and bred at river lawn--that's uncle paul's place--he says." hilary stroked the glossy neck gently, if pauline had said the sultan of turkey, instead of uncle paul, she could hardly have been more surprised. "uncle paul--sent her to you!" she said slowly. "to _us_." "bless me, that isn't all he sent," patience exclaimed. it seemed to patience that they never would get to the end of their story. "you just come look at this, hilary shaw!" she ran on through the opening connecting carriage-house with stable. "oh!" hilary cried, following with pauline. beside the minister's shabby old gig, stood the smartest of smart traps, and hanging on the wall behind it, a pretty russet harness, with silver mountings. hilary sat down on an old saw horse; she felt again as though she must be dreaming. "there isn't another such cute rig in town, jim says so," patience said. jim was the stable boy. "it beats bell ward's all to pieces." "but why--i mean, how did uncle paul ever come to send it to us?" hilary said. of course one had always known that there was--somewhere--a person named uncle paul; but he had appeared about as remote and indefinite a being as--that same sultan of turkey, for instance. "after all, why shouldn't he?" pauline answered. "but i don't believe he would've if paul had not written to him that time," patience added. "maybe next time i tell you anything, you'll believe me, hilary shaw." but hilary was staring at pauline. "you didn't write to uncle paul?" "i'm afraid i did." "was--was that the letter--you remember, that afternoon?" "i rather think i do remember." "paul, how did you ever dare?" "i was in the mood to dare anything that day." "and did he answer; but of course he did." "yes--he answered. though not right away." "was it a nice letter? did he mind your having written? paul, you didn't ask him to send you--these," hilary waved her hand rather vaguely. "hardly--he did that all on his own. it wasn't a bad sort of letter, i'll tell you about it by and by. we can go to the manor in style now, can't we--even if father can't spare fanny. bedelia's perfectly gentle, i've driven her a little ways once or twice, to make sure. father insisted on going with me. we created quite a sensation down street, i assure you." "and mrs. dane said," patience cut in, "that in her young days, clergymen didn't go kiting 'bout the country in such high-fangled rigs." "never mind what mrs. dane said, or didn't say," pauline told her. "miranda says, what mrs. dane hasn't got to say on any subject, wouldn't make you tired listening to it." "patience, if you don't stop repeating what everyone says, i shall--" "if you speak to mother--then you'll be repeating," patience declared. "maybe, i oughtn't to have said those things before--company." "i think we'd better go back to the house now," pauline suggested. "sextoness jane says," patience remarked, "that she'd have sure admired to have a horse and rig like that, when she was a girl. she says, she doesn't suppose you'll be passing by her house very often." "and, now, please," hilary pleaded, when she had been established in her hammock on the side porch, with her mother in her chair close by, and pauline sitting on the steps, "i want to hear--everything. i'm what miranda calls 'fair mazed.'" so pauline told nearly everything, blurring some of the details a little and getting to that twenty-five dollars a month, with which they were to do so much, as quickly as possible. "o paul, really," hilary sat up among her cushions--"why, it'll be--riches, won't it?" "it seems so." "but--oh, i'm afraid you've spent all the first twenty-five on me; and that's not a fair division--is it, mother shaw?" "we used it quite according to hoyle," pauline insisted. "we got our fun that way, didn't we, mother shaw?" their mother smiled. "i know i did." "all the same, after this, you've simply got to 'drink fair, betsy,' so remember," hilary warned them. "bedtime, patience," mrs. shaw said, and patience got slowly out of her big, wicker armchair. "i did think--seeing there was company,--that probably you'd like me to stay up a little later to-night." "if the 'company' takes my advice, she'll go, too," her mother answered. "the 'company' thinks she will." hilary slipped out of the hammock. "mother, do you suppose miranda's gone to bed yet?" "i'll go see," patience offered, willing to postpone the inevitable for even those few moments longer. "what do you want with miranda?" pauline asked. "to do something for me." "can't i do it?" "no--and it must be done to-night. mother, what are you smiling over?" "i thought it would be that way, dear." "miranda's coming," patience called. "she'd just taken her back hair down, and she's waiting to twist it up again. she's got awful funny back hair." "patience! patience!" her mother said reprovingly. "i mean, there's such a little--" "go up-stairs and get yourself ready for bed at once." miranda was waiting in the spare room. "you ain't took sick, hilary?" hilary shook her head. "please, miranda, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, will you bring pauline's bed in here?" "i guessed as much," miranda said, moving hilary's bed to one side. "hilary--wouldn't you truly rather have a room to yourself--for a change?" pauline asked. "i have had one to myself--for eight days--and, now i'm going back to the old way." sitting among the cushions of the cozy corner, hilary superintended operations, and when the two single white beds were standing side by side, in their accustomed fashion, the covers turned back for the night, she nodded in satisfied manner. "thank you so much, miranda; that's as it should be. go get your things, paul. to-morrow, you must move in regularly. upper drawer between us, and the rest share and share alike, you know." patience, who had hit upon the happy expedient of braiding her hair--braids, when there were a lot of them, took a long time--got slowly up from the hearth rug, her head a sight to behold, with its tiny, hornlike red braids sticking out in every direction. "i suppose i'd better be going. i wish i had someone to talk to, after i'd gone to bed." and a deep sigh escaped her. pauline kissed the wistful little face. "never mind, old girl, you know you'd never stay awake long enough to talk to anyone." she and hilary stayed awake talking, however, until pauline's prudence got the better of her joy in having her sister back in more senses than one. it was so long since they had had such a delightful bedtime talk. "seeing winton first club," hilary said musingly. "paul, you're ever so clever. shirley insisted those letters stood for 'suppression of woman's foibles club'; and mr. dayre suggested they meant, 'sweet wild flowers.'" "you've simply got to go to sleep now, hilary, else mother'll come and take me away." hilary sighed blissfully. "i'll never say again--that nothing ever happens to us." tom and josie came to supper the next night. shirley was there, too, she had stopped in on her way to the post-office with her father that afternoon, to ask how hilary was, and been captured and kept to supper and the first club meeting that followed. hilary had been sure she would like to join, and shirley's prompt and delighted acceptance of their invitation proved her right. "i've only got five names on my list," tom said, as the young folks settled themselves on the porch after supper. "i suppose we'll think of others later." "that'll make ten, counting us five, to begin with," pauline said. "bell and jack ward," tom took out his list, "the dixon boys and edna ray. that's all." "i'd just like to know where i come in, tom brice!" patience demanded, her voice vibrant with indignation. "upon my word! i didn't suppose--" "i am to belong! ain't i, paul?" "but patty--" "if you're going to say no, you needn't patty me!" "we'll see what mother thinks," hilary suggested. "you wouldn't want to be the only little girl to belong?" "i shouldn't mind," patience assured her, then feeling pretty sure that pauline was getting ready to tell her to run away, she decided to retire on her own account. that blissful time, when she should be "miss shaw," had one drawback, which never failed to assert itself at times like these--there would be no younger sister subject to her authority. "have you decided what we are to do?" pauline asked tom, when patience had gone. "i should say i had. you'll be up to a ride by next thursday, hilary? not a very long ride." "i'm sure i shall," hilary answered eagerly. "where are we going?" "that's telling." "he won't even tell me," josie said. tom's eyes twinkled. "you're none of you to know until next thursday. say, at four o'clock." "oh," shirley said, "i think it's going to be the nicest club that ever was." chapter vi personally conducted "am i late?" shirley asked, as pauline came down the steps to meet her thursday afternoon. "no, indeed, it still wants five minutes to four. will you come in, or shall we wait out here? hilary is under bond not to make her appearance until the last minute." "out here, please," shirley answered, sitting down on the upper step. "what a delightful old garden this is. father has at last succeeded in finding me my nag, horses appear to be at a premium in winton, and even if he isn't first cousin to your bedelia, i'm coming to take you and hilary to drive some afternoon. father got me a surrey, because, later, we're expecting some of the boys up, and we'll need a two-seated rig." "we're coming to take you driving, too," pauline said. "just at present, it doesn't seem as if the summer would be long enough for all the things we mean to do in it." "and you don't know yet, what we are to do this afternoon?" "only, that it's to be a drive and, afterwards, supper at the brices'. that's all josie, herself, knows about it. tom had to take her and mrs. brice into so much of his confidence." through the drowsy stillness of the summer afternoon, came the notes of a horn, sounding nearer and nearer. a moment later, a stage drawn by two of the hotel horses turned in at the parsonage drive at a fine speed, drawing up before the steps where pauline and shirley were sitting, with considerable nourish. beside the driver sat tom, in long linen duster, the megaphone belonging to the school team in one hand. along each side of the stage was a length of white cloth, on which was lettered- seeing winton stage as the stage stopped, tom sprang down, a most businesslike air on his boyish face. "this is the shaw residence, i believe?" he asked, consulting a piece of paper. "i--i reckon so," pauline answered, too taken aback to know quite what she was saying. "all right!" tom said. "i understand--" "then it's a good deal more than i do," pauline cut in. "that there are several young people here desirous of joining our little sight-seeing trip this afternoon." from around the corner of the house at that moment peeped a small freckled face, the owner of which was decidedly very desirous of joining that trip. only a deep sense of personal injury kept patience from coming forward,--she wasn't going where she wasn't wanted--but some day--they'd see! shirley clapped her hands delightedly. "how perfectly jolly! oh, i am glad you asked me to join the club." "i'll go tell hilary!" pauline said. "tom, however--" "i beg your pardon, miss?" pauline laughed and turned away. "oh, i say, paul," tom dropped his mask of pretended dignity, "let the imp come with us--this time." pauline looked doubtful. she, as well as tom, had caught sight of that small flushed face, on which longing and indignation had been so plainly written. "i'm not sure that mother will--" she began, "but i'll see." "tell her--just this first time," tom urged, and shirley added, "she would love it so." "mother says," pauline reported presently, "that patience may go _this_ time--only we'll have to wait while she gets ready." from an upper window came an eager voice. "i'm most ready now!" "she'll never forget it--as long as she lives," shirley said, "and if she hadn't gone she would never've forgotten _that_." "nor let us--for one while," pauline remarked--"i'd a good deal rather work with than against that young lady." hilary came down then, looking ready and eager for the outing. she had been out in the trap with pauline several times; once, even as far as the manor to call upon shirley. "why," she exclaimed, "you've brought the folly! tom, how ever did you manage it?" "beg pardon, miss?" hilary shrugged her shoulders, coming nearer for a closer inspection of the big lumbering stage. it had been new, when the present proprietor of the hotel, then a young man, now a middle-aged one, had come into his inheritance. fresh back from a winter in town, he had indulged high hopes of booming his sleepy little village as a summer resort, and had ordered the stage--since christened the folly--for the convenience and enjoyment of the guests--who had never come. a long idle lifetime the folly had passed in the hotel carriage-house; used so seldom, as to make that using a village event, but never allowed to fall into disrepair, through some fancy of its owner. as tom opened the door at the back now, handing his guests in with much ceremony, hilary laughed softly. "it doesn't seem quite--respectful to actually sit down in the poor old thing. i wonder, if it's more indignant, or pleased, at being dragged out into the light of day for a parcel of young folks?" "'butchered to make a roman holiday'?" shirley laughed. at that moment patience appeared, rather breathless--but not half as much so as miranda, who had been drawn into service, and now appeared also--"you ain't half buttoned up behind, patience!" she protested, "and your hair ribbon's not tied fit to be seen.--my sakes, to think of anyone ever having named that young one _patience_!" "i'll overhaul her, miranda," pauline comforted her. "come here, patience." "please, i am to sit up in front with you, ain't i, tom?" patience urged. "you and i always get on so beautifully together, you know." tom relaxed a second time. "i don't see how i can refuse after that," and the over-hauling process being completed, patience climbed up to the high front seat, where she beamed down on the rest with such a look of joyful content that they could only smile back in response. from the doorway, came a warning voice. "not too far, tom, for hilary; and remember, patience, what you have promised me." "all right, mrs. shaw," tom assured her, and patience nodded her head assentingly. from the parsonage, they went first to the doctor's. josie was waiting for them at the gate, and as they drew up before it, with horn blowing, and horses almost prancing--the proprietor of the hotel had given them his best horses, in honor of the folly--she stared from her brother to the stage, with its white placard, with much the same look of wonder in her eyes as pauline and hilary had shown. "miss brice?" tom was consulting his list again. "so that's what you've been concocting, tom brice!" josie answered. tom's face was as sober as his manner. "i am afraid we are a little behind scheduled time, being unavoidably delayed." "he means they had to wait for me to get ready," patience explained. "you didn't expect to see me along, did you, josie?" and she smiled blandly. "i don't know what i did expect--certainly, not this." josie took her place in the stage, not altogether sure whether the etiquette of the occasion allowed of her recognizing its other inmates, or not. but pauline nodded politely. "good afternoon. lovely day, isn't it?" she remarked, while shirley asked, if she had ever made this trip before. "not in this way," josie answered. "i've never ridden in the folly before. have you, paul?" "once, from the depot to the hotel, when i was a youngster, about impatience's age. you remember, hilary?" "of course i do. uncle jerry took me up in front." uncle jerry was the name the owner of the stage went by in winton. "he'd had a lot of boston people up, and had been showing them around." "this reminds me of the time father and i did our own new york in one of those big 'seeing new york' motors," shirley said. "i came home feeling almost as if we'd been making a trip 'round some foreign city." "tom can't make winton seem foreign," josie declared. there were three more houses to stop at, lower down the street. from windows and porches all along the route, laughing, curious faces stared wonderingly after them, while a small body-guard of children sprang up as if by magic to attend them on their way. this added greatly to the delight of patience, who smiled condescendingly down upon various intimates, blissfully conscious of the envy she was exciting in their breasts. it was delightful to be one of the club for a time, at least. "and now, if you please, ladies and gentlemen," tom had closed the door to upon the last of his party, "we will drive first to the vermont house, a hostelry well known throughout the surrounding country, and conducted by one of vermont's best known and honored sons." "hear! hear!" jack ward cried. "i say, tom, get that off again where uncle jerry can hear it, and you'll always be sure of his vote." they had reached the rambling old hotel, from the front porch of which uncle jerry himself, surveyed them genially. "ladies and gentlemen," standing up, tom turned to face the occupants of the stage, his megaphone, carried merely as a badge of office, raised like a conductor's baton, "i wish to impress upon your minds that the building now before you--liberal rates for the season--is chiefly remarkable for never having sheltered the father of his country." "now how do you know that?" uncle jerry protested. "ain't that north chamber called the 'washington room'?" "oh, but that's because the first proprietor's first wife occupied that room--and she was famous for her washington pie," tom answered readily. "i assure you, sir, that any and all information which i shall have the honor to impart to these strangers within our gates may be relied upon for its accuracy." he gave the driver the word, and the folly continued on its way, stopping presently before a little story-and-a-half cottage not far below the hotel and on a level with the street. "this cottage, my young friends," tom said impressively, "should be--and i trust is--enshrined deep within the hearts of all true wintonites. latterly, it has come to be called the barker cottage, but its real title is 'the flag house'; so called, because from that humble porch, the first stars and stripes ever seen in winton flung its colors to the breeze. the original flag is still in possession of a lineal descendant of its first owner, who is, unfortunately, not an inhabitant of this town." the boyish gravity of tone and manner was not all assumed now. no one spoke for a moment; eleven pairs of young eyes were looking out at the little weather-stained building with new interest. "i thought," bell ward said at last, "that they called it the _flag_ place, because someone of that name had used to live there." "so did i," hilary said. as the stage moved on, shirley leaned back for another look. "i shall get father to come and sketch it," she said. "isn't it the quaintest old place?" "we will now proceed," tom announced, "to the village green, where i shall have the pleasure of relating to you certain anecdotes regarding the part it played in the early life of this interesting old village." "not too many, old man," tracy dixon suggested hurriedly, "or it may prove a one-sided pleasure." the green lay in the center of the town,--a wide, open space, with flagstaff in the middle; fine old elms bordered it on all four sides. the vermont house faced it, on the north, and on the opposite side stood the general store, belonging to mr. ward, with one or two smaller places of business. "the business section" of the town, tom called it, and quite failed to notice tracy's lament that he had not brought his opera glasses with him. "really, you know," tracy explained to his companions, "i should have liked awfully to see it. i'm mighty interested in business sections." "cut that out," his brother bob commanded, "the chap up in front is getting ready to hold forth again." they were simple enough, those anecdotes, that "the chap up in front" told them; but in the telling, the boy's voice lost again all touch of mock gravity. his listeners, sitting there in the june sunshine, looking out across the old green, flecked with the waving tree shadows, and bright with the buttercups nodding here and there, seemed to see those men and boys drilling there in the far-off summer twilights; to hear the sharp words of command; the sound of fife and drum. and the familiar names mentioned more than once, well-known village names, names belonging to their own families in some instances, served to deepen the impression. "why," edna ray said slowly, "they're like the things one learns at school; somehow, they make one realize that there truly was a revolutionary war. wherever did you pick up such a lot of town history, tom?" "that's telling," tom answered. back up the broad, main street they went, past the pleasant village houses, with their bright, well-kept dooryards, under the wide-spreading trees beneath which so many generations of young folks had come and gone; past the square, white parsonage, with its setting of green lawn; past the old stone church, and on out into the by-roads of the village, catching now and then a glimpse of the great lake beyond; and now and then, down some lane, a bit of the street they had left. they saw it all with eyes that for once had lost the indifference of long familiarity, and were swift to catch instead its quiet, restful beauty, helped in this, perhaps, by shirley's very real admiration. the ride ended at dr. brice's gate, and here tom dropped his mantle of authority, handing all further responsibility as to the entertainment of the party over to his sister. hilary was carried off to rest until supper time, and the rest scattered about the garden, a veritable rose garden on that june afternoon, roses being dr. brice's pet hobby. "it must be lovely to _live_ in the country," shirley said, dropping down on the grass before the doctor's favorite _la france_, and laying her face against the soft, pink petals of a half-blown bud. edna eyed her curiously. she had rather resented the admittance of this city girl into their set. shirley's skirt and blouse were of white linen, there was a knot of red under the broad sailor collar, she was hatless and the dark hair,--never kept too closely within bounds--was tossed and blown; there was certainly nothing especially cityfied in either appearance or manner. "that's the way i feel about the city," edna said slowly, "it must be lovely to live _there_." shirley laughed. "it is. i reckon just being alive anywhere such days as these ought to content one. you haven't been over to the manor lately, have you? i mean since we came there. we're really getting the garden to look like a garden. reclaiming the wilderness, father calls it. you'll come over now, won't you--the club, i mean?" "why, of course," edna answered, she thought she would like to go. "i suppose you've been over to the forts?" "lots of times--father's ever so interested in them, and it's just a pleasant row across, after supper." "i have fasted too long, i must eat again," tom remarked, coming across the lawn. "miss dayre, may i have the honor?" "are you conductor, or merely club president now?" shirley asked. "oh, i've dropped into private life again. there comes hilary--doesn't look much like an invalid, does she?" "but she didn't look very well the first time i saw her," shirley answered. the long supper table was laid under the apple trees at the foot of the garden, which in itself served to turn the occasion into a festive affair. "you've given us a bully send-off, mr. president," bob declared. "it's going to be sort of hard for the rest of us to keep up with you." "by the way," tom said, "dr. brice--some of you may have heard of him--would like to become an honorary member of this club. any contrary votes?" "what's an honorary member?" patience asked. patience had been remarkably good that afternoon--so good that pauline began to feel worried, dreading the reaction. "one who has all the fun and none of the work," tracy explained, a merry twinkle in his brown eyes. patience considered the matter. "i shouldn't mind the work; but mother won't let me join regularly--mother takes notions now and then--but, please mayn't i be an honorary member?" "onery, you mean, young lady!" tracy corrected. patience flashed a pair of scornful eyes at him. "father says punning is the very lowest form of--" "never mind, patience," pauline said, "we haven't answered tom yet. i vote we extend our thanks to the doctor for being willing to join." "he isn't a bit more willing than i am," patience observed. there was a general laugh among the real members, then tom said, "if a shaw votes for a brice, i don't very well see how a brice can refuse to vote for a shaw." "the motion is carried," bob seconded him. "subject to mother's consent," pauline added, a quite unnecessary bit of elder sisterly interference, patience thought. "and now, even if it is telling on yourself, suppose you own up, old man?" jack ward turned to tom. "you see we don't in the least credit you with having produced all that village history from your own stores of knowledge." "i never said you need to," tom answered, "even the idea was not altogether original with me." patience suddenly leaned forward, her face all alight with interest. "i love my love with an a," she said slowly, "because he's an--author." tom whistled. "well, of all the uncanny young ones!" "it's very simple," patience said loftily. "so it is, imp," tracy exclaimed; "i love him with an a, because he's an--a-m-e-r-i-c-a-n!" "i took him to the sign of the apple tree," bell took up the thread. "and fed him (mentally) on subjects--antedeluvian, or almost so," hilary added. "what _are_ you talking about?" edna asked impatiently. "mr. allen," pauline told her. "i saw him and tom walking down the back lane the other night," patience explained. patience felt that she had won her right to belong to the club now--they'd see she wasn't just a silly little girl. "father says he--i don't mean tom--" "we didn't suppose you did," tracy laughed. "knows more history than any other man in the state; especially, the history of the state." "mr. allen!" shirley exclaimed. "t. c. allen! why, father and i read one of his books just the other week. it's mighty interesting. does he live in winton?" "he surely does," bob grinned, "and every little while he comes up to school and puts us through our paces. it's his boast that he was born, bred and educated right in vermont. he isn't a bad old buck--if he wouldn't pester a fellow with too many questions." "he lives out beyond us," hilary told shirley. "there's a great apple tree right in front of the gate. he has an old house-keeper to look after him. i wish you could see his books--he's literally surrounded with them." "not storybooks," patience added. "he says, they're books full of stories, if one's a mind to look for them." "please," edna protested, "let's change the subject. are we to have badges, or not?" "pins," bell suggested. "pins would have to be made to order," pauline objected, "and would be more or less expensive." "and it's an unwritten by-law of this club, that we shall go to no unnecessary expense," tom insisted. "but--" bell began. "oh, i know what you're thinking," tom broke in, "but uncle jerry didn't charge for the stage--he said he was only too glad to have the poor thing used--'twas a dull life for her, shut up in the carriage-house year in and year out." "the folly isn't a she," patience protested. "folly generally is feminine," tracy said, "and so--" "and he let us have the horses, too--for our initial outing," tom went on. "said the stage wouldn't be of much use without them." "three cheers for uncle jerry!" bob dixon cried. "let's make him an honorary member." "but the badges," edna said. "i never saw such people for going off at tangents." "ribbon would be pretty," shirley suggested, "with the name of the club in gilt letters. i can letter pretty well." her suggestion was received with general acclamation, and after much discussion, as to color, dark blue was decided on. "blue goes rather well with red," tom said, "and as two of our members have red hair," his glance went from patience to pauline. "i move we adjourn, the president's getting personal," pauline pushed back her chair. "who's turn is it to be next?" jack asked. they drew lots with blades of grass; it fell to hilary. "i warn you," she said, "that i can't come up to tom." then the first meeting of the new club broke up, the members going their various ways. shirley went as far as the parsonage, where she was to wait for her father. "i've had a beautiful time," she said warmly. "and i've thought what to do when my turn comes. only, i think you'll have to let father in as an honorary, i'll need him to help me out." "we'll be only too glad," pauline said heartily. "this club's growing fast, isn't it? have you decided, hilary?" hilary shook her head, "n-not exactly; i've sort of an idea." chapter vii hilary's turn pauline and hilary were up in their own room, the "new room," as it had come to be called, deep in the discussion of certain samples that had come in that morning's mail. uncle paul's second check was due before long now, and then there were to be new summer dresses, or rather the goods for them, one apiece all around. "because, of course," pauline said, turning the pretty scraps over, "mother shaw's got to have one, too. we'll have to get it--on the side--or she'll declare she doesn't need it, and she does." "just the goods won't come to so very much," hilary said. "no, indeed, and mother and i can make them." "we certainly got a lot out of that other check, or rather, you and mother did," hilary went on. "and it isn't all gone?" "pretty nearly, except the little we decided to lay by each month. but we did stretch it out in a good many directions. i don't suppose any of the other twenty-fives will seem quite so big." "but there won't be such big things to get with them," hilary said, "except these muslins." "it's unspeakably delightful to have money for the little unnecessary things, isn't it?" pauline rejoiced. that first check had really gone a long ways. after buying the matting and paper, there had been quite a fair sum left; enough to pay for two magazine subscriptions, one a review that mr. shaw had long wanted to take, another, one of the best of the current monthlies; and to lay in quite a store of new ribbons and pretty turnovers, and several yards of silkaline to make cushion covers for the side porch, for pauline, taking hint from hilary's out-door parlor at the farm, had been quick to make the most of their own deep, vine-shaded side porch at the parsonage. the front piazza belonged in a measure to the general public, there were too many people coming and going to make it private enough for a family gathering place. but the side porch was different, broad and square, only two or three steps from the ground; it was their favorite gathering place all through the long, hot summers. with a strip of carpet for the floor, a small table resurrected from the garret, a bench and three wicker rockers, freshly painted green, and hilary's hammock, rich in pillows, pauline felt that their porch was one to be proud of. to patience had been entrusted the care of keeping the old blue and white canton bowl filled with fresh flowers, and there were generally books and papers on the table. and they might have done it all before, pauline thought now, if they had stopped to think. "have you decided?" hilary asked her, glancing at the sober face bent over the samples. "i believe i'd forgotten all about them; i think i'll choose this--" pauline held up a sample of blue and white striped dimity. "that _is_ pretty." "you can have it, if you like." "oh, no, i'll have the pink." "and the lavender dot, for mother shaw?" "yes," hilary agreed. "patience had better have straight white, it'll be in the wash so often." "why not let her choose for herself, paul?" hilary suggested. "hilary! oh, hilary shaw!" patience called excitedly, at that moment from downstairs. "up here!" hilary called back, and patience came hurrying up, stumbling more than once in her eagerness. the next moment, she pushed wide the door of the "new room." "see what's come! it's addressed to you, hilary--it came by express--jed brought it up from the depot!" jed was the village expressman. she deposited her burden on the table beside hilary. it was a good-sized, square box, and with all that delightful air of mystery about it that such packages usually have. "what do you suppose it is, paul?" hilary cried. "why, i've never had anything come unexpectedly, like this, before." "a whole lot of things are happening to us that never've happened before," patience said. "see, it's from uncle paul!" she pointed to the address at the upper left-hand corner of the package. "oh, hilary, let me open it, please, i'll go get the tack hammer." "tell mother to come," hilary said. "maybe it's books, paul!" she added, as patience scampered off. pauline lifted the box. "it doesn't seem quite heavy enough for books." "but what else could it be?" pauline laughed. "it isn't another bedelia, at all events. it could be almost anything. hilary, i believe uncle paul is really glad i wrote to him." "well, i'm not exactly sorry," hilary declared. "mother can't come yet," patience explained, reappearing. "she says not to wait. it's that tiresome mrs. dane; she just seems to know when we don't want her, and then to come--only, i suppose if she waited 'til we did want to see her, she'd never get here." "mother didn't say that. impatience, and you'd better not let her hear you saying it," pauline warned. but patience was busy with the tack hammer. "you can take the inside covers off," she said to hilary. "thanks, awfully," hilary murmured. "it'll be my turn next, won't it?" patience dropped the tack hammer, and wrenched off the cover of the box--"go ahead, hilary! oh, how slow you are!" for hilary was going about her share of the unpacking in the most leisurely way. "i want to guess first," she said. "such a lot of wrappings! it must be something breakable." "a picture, maybe," pauline suggested. patience dropped cross-legged on the floor. "then i don't think uncle paul's such a very sensible sort of person," she said. "no, not pictures!" hilary lifted something from within the box, "but something to get pictures with. see, paul!" "a camera! oh, hilary!" "and not a little tiny one." patience leaned over to examine the box. "it's a three and a quarter by four and a quarter. we can have fun now, can't we?" patience believed firmly in the cooperative principle. "tom'll show you how to use it," pauline said. "he fixed up a dark room last fall, you know, for himself." "and here are all the doings." patience came to investigate the further contents of the express package. "films and those funny little pans for developing in, and all." inside the camera was a message to the effect that mr. shaw hoped his niece would be pleased with his present and that it would add to the summer's pleasures, "he's getting real uncley, isn't he?" patience observed. then she caught sight of the samples pauline had let fall. "oh, how pretty! are they for dresses for us?" "they'd make pretty scant ones, i'd say," pauline, answered. "silly!" patience spread the bright scraps out on her blue checked gingham apron. "i just bet you've been choosing! why didn't you call me?" "to help us choose?" pauline asked, with a laugh. but at the present moment, her small sister was quite impervious to sarcasm. "i think i'll have this," she pointed to a white ground, closely sprinkled with vivid green dots. "carrots and greens!" pauline declared, glancing at her sister's red curls. "you'd look like an animated boiled dinner! if you please, who said anything about your choosing?" "you look ever so nice in all white, patty," hilary said hastily. "have you and paul chosen all white?" "n-no." "then i shan't!" she looked up quickly, her blue eyes very persuasive. "i don't very often have a brand new, just-out-of-the-store dress, do i?" pauline laughed. "only don't let it be the green then. good, here's mother, at last!" "mummy, is blue or green better?" patience demanded. mrs. shaw examined and duly admired the camera, and decided in favor of a blue dot; then she said, "mrs. boyd is down-stairs, hilary." "how nice!" hilary jumped up. "i want to see her most particularly." "bless me, child!" mrs. boyd exclaimed, as hilary came into the sitting-room, "how you are getting on! why, you don't look like the same girl of three weeks back." hilary sat down beside her on the sofa. "i've got a most tremendous favor to ask, mrs. boyd." "i'm glad to hear that! i hear you young folks are having fine times lately. shirley was telling me about the club the other night." "it's about the club--and it's in two parts; first, won't you and mr. boyd be honorary members?--that means you can come to the good times if you like, you know.--and the other is--you see, it's my turn next--" and when pauline came down, she found the two deep in consultation. the next afternoon, patience carried out her long-intended plan of calling at the manor. mrs. shaw was from home for the day, pauline and hilary were out in the trap with tom and josie and the camera. "so there's really no one to ask permission of, towser," patience explained, as they started off down the back lane. "father's got the study door closed, of course that means he mustn't be disturbed for anything unless it's absolutely necessary." towser wagged comprehendingly. he was quite ready for a ramble this bright afternoon, especially a ramble 'cross lots. shirley and her father were not at home, neither--which was even more disappointing--were any of the dogs; so, after a short chat with betsy todd, considerably curtailed by that body's too frankly expressed wonder that patience should've been allowed to come unattended by any of her elders, she and towser wandered home again. in the lane, they met sextoness jane, sitting on the roadside, under a shady tree. she and patience exchanged views on parish matters, discussed the new club, and had an all-round good gossip. "my sakes!" jane said, her faded eyes bright with interest, "it must seem like christmas all the time up to your house." she looked past patience to the old church beyond, around which her life had centered itself for so many years. "there weren't ever such doings at the parsonage--nor anywhere else, what i knowed of--when i was a girl. why, that bedelia horse! seems like she give an air to the whole place--so pretty and high-stepping--it's most's good's a circus--not that i've ever been to a circus, but i've hear tell on them--just to see her go prancing by." "i think," patience said that evening, as they were all sitting on the porch in the twilight, "i think that jane would like awfully to belong to our club." "have you started a club, too?" pauline teased. patience tossed her red head. "'the s. w. f. club,' i mean; and you know it, paul shaw. when i get to be fifteen, i shan't act half so silly as some folks." "what ever put that idea in your head?" hilary asked. it was one of hilary's chief missions in life to act as intermediary between her younger and older sister. "oh, i just gathered it, from what she said. towser and i met her this afternoon, on our way home from the manor." "from where, patience?" her mother asked quickly, with that faculty for taking hold of the wrong end of a remark, that patience had had occasion to deplore more than once. and in the diversion this caused, sextoness jane was forgotten. "here comes mr. boyd, hilary!" pauline called from the foot of the stairs. hilary finished tying the knot of cherry ribbon at her throat, then snatching up her big sun-hat from the bed, she ran down-stairs. before the side door, stood the big wagon, in which mr. boyd had driven over from the farm, its bottom well filled with fresh straw. for hilary's outing was to be a cherry picnic at the maples, with supper under the trees, and a drive home later by moonlight. shirley had brought over the badges a day or two before; the blue ribbon, with its gilt lettering, gave an added touch to the girls' white dresses and cherry ribbons. mr. dayre had been duly made an honorary member. he and shirley were to meet the rest of the party at the farm. as for patience h. m., as tom called her, she had been walking very softly the past few days. there had been no long rambles without permission, no making calls on her own account. there _had_ been a private interview between herself and mr. boyd, whom she had met, not altogether by chance, down street the day before. the result was that, at the present moment, patience--white-frocked, blue-badged, cherry-ribboned--was sitting demurely in one corner of the big wagon. mr. boyd chuckled as he glanced down at her; a body'd have to get up pretty early in the morning to get ahead of that youngster. though not in white, nor wearing cherry ribbons, mr. boyd sported his badge with much complacency. winton was looking up, decidedly. 'twasn't such a slow old place, after all. "all ready?" he asked, as pauline slipped a couple of big pasteboard boxes under the wagon seat, and threw in some shawls for the coming home. "all ready. good-by, mother shaw. remember, you and father have got to come with us one of these days. i guess if mr. boyd can take a holiday you can." "good-by," hilary called, and patience waved joyously. "this'll make two times," she comforted herself, "and two times ought to be enough to establish what father calls 'a precedent.'" they stopped at the four other houses in turn; then mr. boyd touched his horses up lightly, rattling them along at a good rate out on to the road leading to the lake and so to the maples. there was plenty of fun and laughter by the way. they had gone picnicking together so many summers, this same crowd, had had so many good times together. "and yet it seems different, this year, doesn't it?" bell said. "we really aren't doing new things--exactly, still they seem so." tracy touched his badge. "these are the 'blue ribbon brand,' best goods in the market." "come to think of it, there aren't so very many new things one can do," tom remarked. "not in winton, at any rate," bob added. "if anyone dares say anything derogatory to winton, on this, or any other, outing of the 's. w. f. club,' he, or she, will get into trouble," josie said sternly. mrs. boyd was waiting for them on the steps, shirley close by, while a glimpse of a white umbrella seen through the trees told that mr. dayre was not far off. "it's the best cherry season in years," mrs. boyd declared, as the young folks came laughing and crowding about her. she was a prime favorite with them all. "my, how nice you look! those badges are mighty pretty." "where's yours?" pauline demanded. "it's in my top drawer, dear. looks like i'm too old to go wearing such things, though 'twas ever so good in you to send me one." "hilary," pauline turned to her sister, "i'm sure mrs. boyd'll let you go to her top drawer. not a stroke of business does this club do, until this particular member has her badge on." "now," tom asked, when that little matter had been attended to, "what's the order of the day?" "i hope you've worn old dresses?" mrs. boyd said. "i haven't, ma'am," tracy announced. "order!" bob called. "eat all you like--so long's you don't get sick--and each pick a nice basket to take home," mrs. boyd explained. there were no cherries anywhere else quite so big and fine, as those at the maples. "you to command, we to obey!" tracy declared. "boys to pick, girls to pick up," tom ordered, as they scattered about among the big, bountifully laden trees. "for cherry time, is merry time," shirley improvised, catching the cluster of great red and white cherries jack tossed down to her. even more than the rest of the young folks, shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. she had never known anything before like it. it was very different, certainly, from the studio life in new york, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. they were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again--some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up. and her father was content, too, else how could she have been so? it was doing him no end of good. painting a little, sketching a little, reading and idling a good deal, and through it all, immensely amused at the enthusiasm with which his daughter threw herself into the village life. "i shall begin to think soon, that you were born and raised in winton," he had said to her that very morning, as she came in fresh from a conference with betsy todd. betsy might be spending her summer in a rather out-of-the-way spot, and her rheumatism might prevent her from getting into town--as she expressed it--but very little went on that betsy did not hear of, and she was not one to keep her news to herself. "so shall i," shirley had laughed back. she wondered now, if pauline or hilary would enjoy a studio winter, as much as she was reveling in her winton summer? she decided that probably they would. cherry time _was_ merry time that afternoon. of course. bob fell out of one of the trees, but bob was so used to tumbling, and the others were so used to having him tumble, that no one paid much attention to it; and equally, of course, patience tore her dress and had to be taken in hand by mrs. boyd. "every rose must have its thorns, you know, kid," tracy told her, as she was borne away for this enforced retirement. "we'll leave a few cherries, 'gainst you get back." patience elevated her small freckled nose, she was an adept at it. "i reckon they will be mighty few--if you have anything to do with it." "you're having a fine time, aren't you, senior?" shirley asked, as mr. dayre came scrambling down from his tree; he had been routed from his sketching and pressed into service by his indefatigable daughter. "scrumptious! shirley, you've got a fine color--only it's laid on in spots." "you're spattery, too," she retorted. "i must go help lay out the supper now." "will anyone want supper, after so many cherries?" mr. dayre asked. "will they?" pauline laughed. "well, you just wait and see." some of the boys brought the table from the house, stretching it out to its uttermost length. the girls laid the cloth, mrs. boyd provided, and unpacked the boxes stacked on the porch. from the kitchen came an appetizing odor of hot coffee. hilary and bell went off after flowers for the center of the table. "we'll put one at each place, suggestive of the person--like a place card," hilary proposed. "here's a daisy for mrs. boyd," bell laughed. "let's give that to mr. boyd and cut her one of these old-fashioned spice pinks," hilary said. "better put a bit of pepper-grass for the imp," tracy suggested, as the girls went from place to place up and down the long table. "paul's to have a pansy," hilary insisted. she remembered how, if it hadn't been for pauline's "thought" that wet may afternoon, everything would still be as dull and dreary as it was then. at her own place she found a spray of belated wild roses, tom had laid there, the pink of their petals not more delicate than the soft color coming and going in the girl's face. "we've brought for-get-me-not for you, shirley," bell said, "so that you won't forget us when you get back to the city." "as if i were likely to!" shirley exclaimed. "sound the call to supper, sonny!" tom told bob, and bob, raising the farm dinner-horn, sounded it with a will, making the girls cover their ears with their hands and bringing the boys up with a rush. "it's a beautiful picnic, isn't it?" patience said, reappearing in time to slip into place with the rest. "and after supper, i will read you the club song," tracy announced. "are we to have a club song?" edna asked. "we are." "read it now, son--while we eat," tom suggested. tracy rose promptly--"mind you save me a few scraps then. first, it isn't original--" "all the better," jack commented. "hush up, and listen- "'a cheerful world?--it surely is. and if you understand your biz you'll taboo the worry worm, and cultivate the happy germ. "'it's a habit to be happy, just as much as to be scrappy. so put the frown away awhile, and try a little sunny smile.'" there was a generous round of applause. tracy tossed the scrap of paper across the table to bell. "put it to music, before the next round-up, if you please." bell nodded. "i'll do my best." "we've got a club song and a club badge, and we ought to have a club motto," josie said. "it's right to your hand, in your song," her brother answered. "'it's a habit to be happy.'" "good!" pauline seconded him, and the motto was at once adopted. chapter viii snap-shots bell ward set the new song to music, a light, catchy tune, easy to pick up. it took immediately, the boys whistled it, as they came and went, and the girls hummed it. patience, with cheerful impartiality, did both, in season and out of season. it certainly looked as though it were getting to be a habit to be happy among a good many persons in winton that summer. the spirit of the new club seemed in the very atmosphere. a rivalry, keen but generous, sprang up between the club members in the matter of discovering new ways of "seeing winton," or, failing that, of giving a new touch to the old familiar ones. there were many informal and unexpected outings, besides the club's regular ones, sometimes amongst all the members, often among two or three of them. frequently, shirley drove over in the surrey, and she and pauline and hilary, with sometimes one of the other girls, would go for long rambling drives along the quiet country roads, or out beside the lake. shirley generally brought her sketch-book and there were pleasant stoppings here and there. and there were few days on which bedelia and the trap were not out, bedelia enjoying the brisk trots about the country quite as much as her companions. hilary soon earned the title of "the kodak fiend," josie declaring she took pictures in her sleep, and that "have me; have my camera," was hilary's present motto. certainly, the camera was in evidence at all the outings, and so far, hilary had fewer failures to her account than most beginners. her "picture diary" she called the big scrap-book in which was mounted her record of the summer's doings. those doings were proving both numerous and delightful. mr. shaw, as an honorary member, had invited the club to a fishing party, which had been an immense success. the doctor had followed it by a moonlight drive along the lake and across on the old sail ferry to the new york side, keeping strictly within that ten-mile-from-home limit, though covering considerably more than ten miles in the coming and going. there had been picnics of every description, to all the points of interest and charm in and about the village; an old-time supper at the wards', at which the club members had appeared in old-fashioned costumes; a strawberry supper on the church lawn, to which all the church were invited, and which went off rather better than some of the sociables had in times past. as the winton _weekly news_ declared proudly, it was the gayest summer the village had known in years. mr. paul shaw's theory about developing home resources was proving a sound one in this instance at least. hilary had long since forgotten that she had ever been an invalid, had indeed, sometimes, to be reminded of that fact. she had quite discarded the little "company" fiction, except now and then, by way of a joke. "who'd want to be company?" she protested. "i'd rather be one of the family these days." "that's all very well," patience retorted, "when you're getting all the good of being both. you've got the company room." patience had not found her summer quite as cloudless as some of her elders; being an honorary member had not meant _all_ of the fun in her case. she wished very much that it were possible to grow up in a single night, thus wiping out forever that drawback of being "a little girl." still, on the whole, she managed to get a fair share of the fun going on and quite agreed with the editor of the _weekly news_, going so far as to tell him so when she met him down street. she had a very kindly feeling in her heart for the pleasant spoken little editor; had he not given her her full honors every time she had had the joy of being "among those present"? there had been three of those checks from uncle paul; it was wonderful how far each had been made to go. it was possible nowadays to send for a new book, when the reviews were more than especially tempting. there had also been a tea-table added to the other attractions of the side porch, not an expensive affair, but the little japanese cups and saucers were both pretty and delicate, as was the rest of the service; while miranda's cream cookies and sponge cakes were, as shirley declared, good enough to be framed. even the minister appeared now and then of an afternoon, during tea hour, and the young people, gathered on the porch, began to find him a very pleasant addition to their little company, he and they getting acquainted, as they had never gotten acquainted before. sextoness jane came every week now to help with the ironing, which meant greater freedom in the matter of wash dresses; and also, to sextoness jane herself, the certainty of a day's outing every week. to sextoness jane, those tuesdays at the parsonage were little short of a dissipation. miranda, unbending in the face of such sincere and humble admiration, was truly gracious. the glimpses the little bent, old sextoness got of the young folks, the sense of life going on about her, were as good as a play, to quote her own simile, confided of an evening to tobias, her great black cat, the only other inmate of the old cottage. "i reckon uncle paul would be rather surprised," pauline said one evening, "if he could know all the queer sorts of ways in which we use his money. but the little easings-up do count for so much." "indeed they do," hilary agreed warmly, "though it hasn't all gone for easings-ups, as you call them, either." she had sat down right in the middle of getting ready for bed, to revel in her ribbon box; she so loved pretty ribbons! the committee on finances, as pauline called her mother, hilary, and herself, held frequent meetings. "and there's always one thing," the girl would declare proudly, "the treasury is never entirely empty." she kept faithful account of all money received and spent; each month a certain amount was laid away for the "rainy day"--which meant, really, the time when the checks should cease to come---"for, you know, uncle paul only promised them for the _summer_," pauline reminded the others, and herself, rather frequently. nor was all of the remainder ever quite used up before the coming of the next check. "you're quite a business woman, my dear," mr. shaw said once, smiling over the carefully recorded entries in the little account-book she showed him. "we must have named you rightly." she wrote regularly to her uncle; her letters unconsciously growing more friendly and informal from week to week. they were bright, vivid letters, more so than pauline had any idea of. through them, mr. paul shaw felt himself becoming very well acquainted with these young relatives whom he had never seen, and in whom, as the weeks went by, he felt himself growing more and more interested. without realizing it, he got into the habit of looking forward to that weekly letter; the girl wrote a nice clear hand, there didn't seem to be any nonsense about her, and she had a way of going right to her point that was most satisfactory. it seemed sometimes as if he could see the old white parsonage and ivy-covered church; the broad tree-shaded lawns; the outdoor parlor, with the young people gathered about the tea-table; bedelia, picking her way along the quiet country roads; the great lake in all its moods; the manor house. sometimes pauline would enclose one or two of hilary's snap-shots of places, or persons. at one of these, taken the day of the fishing picnic, and under which hilary had written "the best catch of the season," mr. paul shaw looked long and intently. somehow he had never pictured phil to himself as middle-aged. if anyone had told him, when the lad was a boy, that the time would come when they would be like strangers to each other--mr. paul shaw slipped the snap-shot and letter back into their envelope. it was that afternoon that he spent considerable time over a catalogue devoted entirely to sporting goods; and it was a fortnight later that patience came flying down the garden path to where pauline and hilary were leaning over the fence, paying a morning call to bedelia, sunning herself in the back pasture. "you'll never guess what's come _this_ time! and jed says he reckons he can haul it out this afternoon if you're set on it! and it's addressed to the 'misses shaw,' so that means it's _mine, too_!" patience dropped on the grass, quite out of breath. the "it" proved to be a row-boat with a double set of oar-locks, a perfect boat for the lake, strong and safe, but trig and neat of outline. hilary named it the "surprise" at first sight, and tom was sent for at once to paint the name in red letters to look well against the white background and to match the boat's red trimmings. its launching was an event. some of the young people had boats over at the lake, rather weather-beaten, tubby affairs, bell declared them, after the coming of the "surprise." a general overhauling took place immediately, the girls adopted simple boating dresses--red and white, which were their boating colors. a new zest was given to the water picnics, bedelia learning to know the lake road very well. august had come before they fairly realized that their summer was more than well under way. in little more than a month the long vacation would be over. tom and josie were to go to boston to school; bell to vergennes. "there'll never be another summer quite like it!" hilary said one morning. "i can't bear to think of its being over." "it isn't--yet," pauline answered. "tom's coming," patience heralded from the gate, and hilary ran indoors for hat and camera. "where are you off to this morning?" pauline asked, as her sister came out again. "out by the cross-roads' meeting-house," tom answered. "hilary has designs on it, i believe." "you'd better come, too, paul," hilary urged. "it's a glorious morning for a walk." "i'm going to help mother cut out; perhaps i'll come to meet you with bedelia 'long towards noon. you wait at meeting-house hill." "_i'm_ not going to be busy this morning," patience insinuated. "oh, yes you are, young lady," pauline told her. "mother said you were to weed the aster bed." patience looked longingly after the two starting gayly off down the path, their cameras swung over their shoulders, then she looked disgustedly at the aster bed. it was quite the biggest of the smaller beds.--she didn't see what people wanted to plant so many asters for; she had never cared much for asters, she felt she should care even less about them in the future. tiresome, stiff affairs! by the time tom and hilary reached the old cross-roads' meeting-house that morning, after a long roundabout ramble, hilary, for one, was quite willing to sit down and wait for pauline and the trap, and eat the great, juicy blackberries tom gathered for her from the bushes along the road. it had rained during the night and the air was crisp and fresh, with a hint of the coming fall. "summer's surely on the down grade," tom said, throwing himself on the bank beside hilary. "so paul and i were lamenting this morning. i don't suppose it matters as much to you folks who are going off to school." "still it means another summer over," tom said soberly. he was rather sorry that it was so--there could never be another summer quite so jolly and carefree. "and the breaking up of the club, i suppose?" "i don't see why we need call it a break--just a discontinuance, for a time." "and why that, even? there'll be a lot of you left, to keep it going." "y-yes, but with three, or perhaps more, out, i reckon we'll have to postpone the next installment until another summer." tom went off then for more berries, and hilary sat leaning back against the trunk of the big tree crowning the top of meeting-house hill, her eyes rather thoughtful. from where she sat, she had a full view of both roads for some distance and, just beyond, the little hamlet scattered about the old meeting-house. before the gate of one of the houses stood a familiar gig, and presently, as she sat watching, dr. brice came down the narrow flower-bordered path, followed by a woman. at the gate both stopped; the woman was saying something, her anxious, drawn face seeming out of keeping with the cheery freshness of the morning and the flowers nodding their bright heads about her. as the doctor stood listening, his old shabby medicine case in his hand, with face bent to the troubled one raised to his, and bearing indicating grave sympathy and understanding, hilary reached for her camera. "upon my word! isn't the poor pater exempt?" tom laughed, coming back. "i want it for the book josie and i are making for you to take away with you, 'winton snap-shots.' we'll call it 'the country doctor.'" tom looked at the gig, moving slowly off down the road now. he hated to say so, but he wished hilary would not put that particular snap-shot in. he had a foreboding that it was going to make him a bit uncomfortable--later--when the time for decision came; though, as for that, he had already decided--beyond thought of change. he wished that the pater hadn't set his heart on his coming back here to practice--and he wished, too, that hilary hadn't taken that photo. "paul's late," he said presently. "i'm afraid she isn't coming." "it's past twelve," tom glanced at the sun. "maybe we'd better walk on a bit." but they had walked a considerable bit, all the way to the parsonage, in fact, before they saw anything of pauline. there, she met them at the gate. "have you seen any trace of patience--and bedelia?" she asked eagerly. "patience and bedelia?" hilary repeated wonderingly. "they're both missing, and it's pretty safe guessing they're together." "but patience would never dare--" "wouldn't she!" pauline exclaimed. "jim brought bedelia 'round about eleven and when i came out a few moments later, she was gone and so was patience. jim's out looking for them. we traced them as far as the lake road." "i'll go hunt, too," tom offered. "don't you worry, paul; she'll turn up all right--couldn't down the imp, if you tried." "but she's never driven bedelia alone; and bedelia's not fanny." however, half an hour later, patience drove calmly into the yard, towser on the seat beside her, and if there was something very like anxiety in her glance, there was distinct triumph in the way she carried her small, bare head. "we've had a beautiful drive!" she announced, smiling pleasantly from her high seat, at the worried, indignant group on the porch. "i tell you, there isn't any need to 'hi-yi' this horse!" "my sakes!" miranda declared. "did you ever hear the beat of that!" "get down, patience!" mrs. shaw said, and patience climbed obediently down. she bore the prompt banishment to her own room which followed, with seeming indifference. certainly, it was not unexpected; but when hilary brought her dinner up to her presently, she found her sitting on the floor, her head on the bed. it was only a few days now to shirley's turn and it was going to be such a nice turn. patience felt that for once patience shaw had certainly acted most unwisely. "patty, how could you!" hilary put the tray on the table and sitting down on the bed, took the tumbled head on her knee. "we've been so worried! you see, bedelia isn't like fanny!" "that's why i wanted to get a chance to drive her by myself for once! she went beautifully! out on the lake road i just let her loose!" for the moment, pride in her recent performance routed all contrition from patience's voice--"i tell you, folks i passed just stared!" "patience, how--" "i wasn't scared the least bit; and, of course, bedelia knew it. uncle jerry says they always know when you're scared, and if mr. allen is the most up in history of any man in vermont, uncle jerry is the most in horses." hilary felt that the conversation was hardly proceeding upon the lines her mother would have approved of, especially under present circumstances. "that has nothing to do with it, you know, patience," she said, striving to be properly severe. "i think it has--everything. i think it's nice not being scared of things. you're sort of timid 'bout things, aren't you, hilary?" hilary made a movement to rise. "oh, please," patience begged. "it's going to be such a dreadful long afternoon--all alone." "but i can't stay, mother would not want--" "just for a minute. i--i want to tell you something. i--coming back, i met jane, and i gave her a lift home--and she did love it so--she says she's never ridden before behind a horse that really went as if it enjoyed it as much as she did. that was some good out of being bad, wasn't it? and--i told you--ever'n' ever so long ago, that i was mighty sure jane'd just be tickled to death to belong to our club. i think you might ask her--i don't see why she shouldn't like seeing winton, same's we do--she doesn't ever have fun--and she'll be dead pretty soon. she's getting along, jane is--it'd make me mad's anything to have to die 'fore i'd had any fun to speak of. jane's really very good company--when you draw her out--she just needs drawing out--jane does. seems to me, she remembers every funeral and wedding and everything--that's ever taken place in winton." patience stopped, sheer out of breath, but there was an oddly serious look on her little eager face. hilary stroked back the tangled red curls. "maybe you're right, patty; maybe we have been selfish with our good times. i'll have to go now, dear. you--i may tell mother--that you are sorry--truly, patty?" patience nodded. "but i reckon, it's a good deal on account of shirley's turn," she explained. hilary bit her lip. "you don't suppose you could fix that up with mother? you're pretty good at fixing things up with mother, hilary." "since how long?" hilary laughed, but when she had closed the door, she opened it again to stick her head in. "i'll try, patty, at any rate," she promised. she went down-stairs rather thoughtful. mrs. shaw was busy in the study and pauline had gone out on an errand. hilary went up-stairs again, going to sit by one of the side windows in the "new room." over at the church, sextoness jane was making ready for the regular weekly prayer meeting; never a service was held in the church that she did not set all in order. through one of the open windows, hilary caught sight of the bunch of flowers on the reading-desk. jane had brought them with her from home. presently, the old woman herself came to the window to shake her dust-cloth, standing there a moment, leaning a little out, her eyes turned to the parsonage. pauline was coming up the path, shirley and bell were with her. they were laughing and talking, the bright young voices making a pleasant break in the quiet of the garden. it seemed to hilary, as if she could catch the wistful look in jane's faded eyes, a look only half consciously so, as if the old woman reached out vaguely for something that her own youth had been without and that only lately she had come to feel the lack of. a quick lump came into the girl's throat. life had seemed so bright and full of untried possibilities only that very morning, up there on meeting-house hill, with the wind in one's face; and then had come that woman, following the doctor down from the path. life was surely anything but bright for her this crisp august day--and now here was jane. and presently--at the moment it seemed very near indeed to hilary--she and paul and all of them would be old and, perhaps, unhappy. and then it would be good to remember--that they had tried to share the fun and laughter of this summer of theirs with others. hilary thought of the piece of old tapestry hanging on the studio wall over at the manor--of the interwoven threads--the dark as necessary to the pattern as the bright. perhaps they had need of sextoness jane, of the interweaving of her life into theirs--of the interweaving of all the village lives going on about them--quite as much as those more sober lives needed the brightening touch of theirs. "hilary! o hilary!" pauline called. "i'm coming," hilary answered, and went slowly down to where the others were waiting on the porch. "has anything happened?" pauline asked. "i've been having a think--and i've come to the conclusion that we're a selfish, self-absorbed set." "mother shaw!" pauline went to the study window, "please come out here. hilary's calling us names, and that isn't polite." mrs. shaw came. "i hope not very bad names," she said. hilary swung slowly back and forth in the hammock. "i didn't mean it that way--it's only--" she told what patience had said about jane's joining the club, and then, rather reluctantly, a little of what she had been thinking. "i think hilary's right," shirley declared. "let's form a deputation and go right over and ask the poor old soul to join here and now." "i would never've thought of it," bell said. "but i don't suppose i've ever given jane a thought, anyway." "patty's mighty cute--for all she's such a terror at times," pauline admitted. "she knows a lot about the people here--and it's just because she's interested in them." "come on," shirley said, jumping up. "we're going to have another honorary member." "i think it would be kind, girls," mrs. shaw said gravely. "jane will feel herself immensely flattered, and i know of no one who upholds the honor of winton more honestly or persistently." "and please, mrs. shaw," shirley coaxed, "when we come back, mayn't patience shaw, h. m., come down and have tea with us?" "i hardly think--" "please, mother shaw," hilary broke in; "after all--she started this, you know. that sort of counterbalances the other, doesn't it?" "well, we'll see," her mother laughed. pauline ran to get one of the extra badges with which shirley had provided her, and then the four girls went across to the church. sextoness jane was just locking the back door--not the least important part of the afternoon's duties with her--as they came through the opening in the hedge. "good afternoon," she said cheerily, "was you wanting to go inside?" "no," pauline answered, "we came over to invite you to join our club. we thought, maybe, you'd like to?" "my land!" jane stared from one to another of them. "and wear one of them blue-ribbon affairs?" "yes, indeed," shirley laughed. "see, here it is," and she pointed to the one in pauline's hand. sextoness jane came down the steps. "me, i ain't never wore a badge! not once in all my life! oncet, when i was a little youngster, 'most like patience, teacher, she got up some sort of may doings. we was all to wear white dresses and red, white and blue ribbons--very night before, i come down with the mumps. looks like i always come down when i ought to've stayed up!" "but you won't come down with anything this time," pauline pinned the blue badge on the waist of jane's black and white calico. "now you're an honorary member of 'the s. w. f. club.'" jane passed a hand over it softly. "my land!" was all she could say. she was still stroking it softly as she walked slowly away towards home. my, wouldn't tobias be interested! chapter ix at the manor "'all the names i know from nurse: gardener's garters, shepherd's purse, bachelor's buttons, lady's smock, and the lady hollyhock,'" patience chanted, moving slowly about the parsonage garden, hands full of flowers, and the big basket, lying on the grass beyond, almost full. behind her, now running at full speed, now stopping suddenly, back lifted, tail erect, came lucky, the black kitten from the maples. lucky had been an inmate of the parsonage for some weeks now and was thriving famously in her adopted home. towser tolerated her with the indifference due such a small, insignificant creature, and she alternately bullied and patronized towser. "we haven't shepherd's purse, nor lady's smock, that i know of, lucky," patience said, glancing back at the kitten, at that moment threatening battle at a polite nodding sweet william, "but you can see for yourself that we have hollyhocks, while as for bachelor's buttons! just look at that big, blue bunch in one corner of the basket." it was the morning of the day of shirley's turn and pauline was hurrying to get ready to go over and help decorate the manor. she was singing, too; from the open windows of the "new room" came the words- "'a cheerful world?--it surely is and if you understand your biz you'll taboo the worry worm, and cultivate the happy germ.'" to which piece of good advice, patience promptly whistled back the gay refrain. on the back porch, sextoness jane--called in for an extra half-day--was ironing the white dresses to be worn that afternoon. and presently, patience, her basket quite full and stowed away in the trap waiting before the side door, strolled around to interview her. "i suppose you're going this afternoon?" she asked. jane looked up from waxing her iron. "well, i was sort of calculating on going over for a bit; miss shirley having laid particular stress on my coming and this being the first reg'lar doings since i joined the club. i told her and pauline they mustn't look for me to go junketing 'round with them all the while, seeing i'm in office--so to speak--and my time pretty well taken up with my work. i reckon you're going?" "i--" patience edged nearer the porch. behind jane stood the tall clothes-horse, with its burden of freshly ironed white things. at sight of a short, white frock, very crisp and immaculate, the blood rushed to the child's face, then as quickly receded.--after all, it would have had to be ironed for sunday and--well, mother certainly had been very non-committal the past few days--ever since that escapade with bedelia, in fact--regarding her youngest daughter's hopes and fears for this all-important afternoon. and patience had been wise enough not to press the matter. "but, oh, i do wonder if hilary has--" patience went back to the side porch. hilary was there talking to bedelia. "you--you have fixed it up?" the child inquired anxiously. hilary looked gravely unconscious. "fixed it up?" she repeated. "about this afternoon--with mother?" "oh, yes! mother's going; so is father." patience repressed a sudden desire to stamp her foot, and hilary, seeing the real doubt and longing in her face, relented. "mother wants to see you, patty. i rather think there are to be conditions." patience darted off. from the doorway, she looked back--"i just knew you wouldn't go back on me, hilary! i'll love you forever'n' ever." pauline came out a moment later, drawing on her driving gloves. "i feel like a story-book girl, going driving this time in the morning, in a trap like this. i wish you were coming, too, hilary." "oh, i'm like the delicate story-book girl, who has to rest, so as to be ready for the dissipations that are to come later. i look the part, don't i?" pauline looked down into the laughing, sun-browned face. "if uncle paul were to see you now, he might find it hard to believe i hadn't--exaggerated that time." "well, it's your fault--and his, or was, in the beginning. you've a fine basket of flowers to take; patience has done herself proud this morning." "it's wonderful how well that young lady can behave--at times." "oh, she's young yet! when i hear mother tell how like her you used to be, i don't feel too discouraged about patty." "that strikes me as rather a double-edged sort of speech," pauline gathered up the reins. "good-by, and don't get too tired." shirley's turn was to be a combination studio tea and lawn-party, to which all club members, both regular and honorary, not to mention their relatives and friends, had been bidden. following this, was to be a high tea for the regular members. "that's senior's share," shirley had explained to pauline. "he insists that it's up to him to do something." mr. dayre was on very good terms with the "s. w. f. club." as for shirley, after the first, no one had ever thought of her as an outsider. it was hard now, pauline thought, as she drove briskly along, the lake breeze in her face, and the sound of bedelia's quick trotting forming a pleasant accompaniment to her, thoughts, very hard, to realize how soon the summer would be over. but perhaps--as hilary said--next summer would mean the taking up again of this year's good times and interests,--shirley talked of coming back. as for the winter--pauline had in mind several plans for the winter. those of the club members to stay behind must get together some day and talk them over. one thing was certain, the club motto must be lived up to bravely. if not in one way, why in another. there must be no slipping back into the old dreary rut and routine. it lay with themselves as to what their winter should be. "and there's fine sleighing here, bedelia," she said. "we'll get the old cutter out and give it a coat of paint." bedelia tossed her head, as if she heard in imagination the gay jingling of the sleighbells. "but, in the meantime, here is the manor," pauline laughed, "and it's the prettiest august day that ever was, and lawn-parties and such festivities are afoot, not sleighing parties." the manor stood facing the lake with its back to the road, a broad sloping lawn surrounded it on three sides, with the garden at the back. for so many seasons, it had stood lonely and neglected, that pauline never came near it now, without rejoicing afresh in its altered aspect. even the sight of betsy todd's dish towels, drying on the currant bushes at one side of the back door, added their touch to the sense of pleasant, homely life that seemed to envelop the old house nowadays. shirley came to the gate, as pauline drew up, phil, pat and pudgey in close attention. "i have to keep an eye on them," she told pauline. "they've just had their baths, and they're simply wild to get out in the middle of the road and roll. i've told them no self-respecting dog would wish to come to a lawn-party in anything but the freshest of white coats, but i'm afraid they're not very self-respecting." "patience is sure towser's heart is heavy because he is not to come; she has promised him a lawn-party on his own account, and that no grown-ups shall be invited. she's sent you the promised flowers, and hinted--more or less plainly--that she would have been quite willing to deliver them in person." "why didn't you bring her? oh, but i'm afraid you've robbed yourself!" "oh, no, we haven't. mother says, flowers grow with picking." "come on around front," shirley suggested. "the boys have been putting the awning up." "the boys" were three of mr. dayre's fellow artists, who had come up a day or two before, on a visit to the manor. one of them, at any rate, deserved shirley's title. he came forward now. "looks pretty nice, doesn't it?" he said, with a wave of the hand towards the red and white striped awning, placed at the further edge of the lawn. shirley smiled her approval, and introduced him to pauline, adding that miss shaw was the real founder of their club. "it's a might jolly sort of club, too," young oram said. "that is exactly what it has turned out to be," pauline laughed. "are the vases ready, shirley?" shirley brought the tray of empty flower vases out on the veranda, and sent harry oram for a bucket of fresh water. "harry is to make the salad," she explained to pauline, as he came back. "before he leaves the manor he will have developed into a fairly useful member of society." "you've never eaten one of my salads, miss shaw," harry said. "when you have, you'll think all your previous life an empty dream." "it's much more likely her later life will prove a nightmare,--for a while, at least," shirley declared. "still, paul, harry does make them rather well. betsy todd, i am sorry to say, doesn't approve of him. but there are so many persons and things she doesn't approve of; lawn-parties among the latter." pauline nodded sympathetically; she knew betsy todd of old. her wonder was, that the dayres had been able to put up with her so long, and she said so. "'hobson's choice,'" shirley answered, with a little shrug. "she isn't much like our old thã¨rese at home, is she, harry? but nothing would tempt thã¨rese away from her beloved new york. 'vairmon! nevaire have i heard of zat place!' she told harry, when he interviewed her for us. senior's gone to vergennes--on business thoughts intent, or i hope they are. he's under strict orders not to 'discover a single bit' along the way, and to get back as quickly as possible." "you see how beautifully she has us all in training?" harry said to pauline. pauline laughed. suddenly she looked up from her flowers with sobered face. "i wonder," she said slowly, "if you know what it's meant to us--you're being here this summer, shirley? sometimes things do fit in just right after all. it's helped out wonderfully this summer, having you here and the manor open." "pauline has a fairy-story uncle down in new york," shirley turned to harry. "you've heard of him--mr. paul shaw." "well,--rather! i've met him, once or twice--he didn't strike me as much of a believer in fairy tales." "he's made us believe in them," pauline answered. "i think senior might have provided me with such a delightful sort of uncle," shirley observed. "i told him so, but he says, while he's awfully sorry i didn't mention it before, he's afraid it's too late now." "uncle paul sent us bedelia," pauline told the rather perplexed-looking harry, "and the row-boat and the camera and--oh, other things." "because he wanted them to have a nice, jolly summer," shirley explained. "pauline's sister had been sick and needed brightening up." "you don't think he's looking around for a nephew to adopt, do you?" harry inquired. "a well-intentioned, intelligent young man--with no end of talent." "for making salads," shirley added with a sly smile. "oh, well, you know," harry remarked casually, "these are what senior calls my 'salad days.'" whereupon shirley rose without a word, carrying off her vases of flowers. the party at the manor was, like all the club affairs, a decided success. never had the old place looked so gay and animated, since those far-off days of its early glory. the young people coming and going--the girls in their light dresses and bright ribbons made a pleasant place of the lawn, with its background of shining water. the tennis court, at one side of the house, was one of the favorite gathering spots; there were one or two boats out on the lake. the pleasant informality of the whole affair proved its greatest charm. mr. allen was there, pointing out to his host the supposed end of the subterranean passage said to connect the point on which the manor stood with the old ruined french fort over on the new york side. the minister was having a quiet chat with the doctor, who had made a special point of being there. mothers of club members were exchanging notes and congratulating each other on the good comradeship and general air of contentment among the young people. sextoness jane was there, in all the glory of her best dress--one of mrs. shaw's handed-down summer ones--and with any amount of items picked up to carry home to tobias, who was certain to expect a full account of this most unusual dissipation on his mistress's part. even betsy todd condescended to put on her black woolen--usually reserved for church and funerals--and walk about among the other guests; but always, with an air that told plainly how little she approved of such goings on. the boyds were there, their badges in full evidence. and last, though far from least, in her own estimation, patience was there, very crisp and white and on her best behavior,--for, setting aside those conditions mother had seen fit to burden her with, was the delightful fact that shirley had asked her to help serve tea. the principal tea-table was in the studio, though there was a second one, presided over by pauline and bell, out under the awning at the edge of the lawn. patience thought the studio the very nicest room she had ever been in. it was long and low--in reality, the old dancing-hall, for the manor had been built after the pattern of its first owner's english home; and in the deep, recessed windows, facing the lake, many a bepatched and powdered little belle of colonial days had coquetted across her fan with her bravely-clad partner. mr. dayre had thrown out an extra window at one end, at right angles to the great stone fireplace, banked to-day with golden rod, thereby securing the desired north light. on the easel, stood a nearly finished painting,--a sunny corner of the old manor kitchen, with betsy todd in lilac print gown, peeling apples by the open window, through which one caught a glimpse of the tall hollyhocks in the garden beyond. before this portrait, patience found sextoness jane standing in mute astonishment. "betsy looks like she was just going to say--'take your hands out of the dish!' doesn't she?" patience commented. betsy had once helped out at the parsonage, during a brief illness of miranda's, and the young lady knew whereof she spoke. "i'd never've thought," jane said slowly, "that anyone'd get that fond of sister todd--as to want a picture of her!" "oh, it's because she's such a character, you know," patience explained serenely. jane was so good about letting one explain things. "'a perfect character,' i heard one of those artist men say so." jane shook her head dubiously. "not what i'd call a 'perfect' character--not that i've got anything against sister todd; but she's too fond of finding out a body's faults." patience went off then in search of empty tea-cups. she was having a beautiful time; at present only one cloud overshadowed her horizon. already some tiresome folks were beginning to think about going. there was the talk of chores to be done, suppers to get, and with the breaking up, must come an end to her share in the party. for mother, though approached in the most delicate fashion, had proved obdurate regarding the further festivity to follow. had mother been willing to consider the matter, patience would have cheerfully undertaken to procure the necessary invitation. shirley was a very obliging girl. "and really, my dears," she said, addressing the three p's collectively, "it does seem a pity to have to go home before the fun's all over. and i could manage it--bob would take me out rowing--if i coaxed--he rows very slowly. i don't suppose, for one moment, that we would get back in time. i believe--" for fully three minutes, patience sat quite still in one of the studio window seats, oblivious of the chatter going on all about her; then into her blue eyes came a look not seen there very often--"no," she said sternly, shaking her head at phil, much to his surprise, for he wasn't doing anything. "no--it wouldn't be _square_--and there would be the most awful to-do afterwards." when a moment or two later, mrs. shaw called to her to come, that father was waiting, patience responded with a very good grace. but mr. dayre caught the wistful look in the child's face. "bless me," he said heartily. "you're not going to take patience home with you, mrs. shaw? let her stay for the tea--the young people won't keep late hours, i assure you." "but i think--" mrs. shaw began very soberly. "sometimes, i find it quite as well not to think things over," mr. dayre suggested. "why, dear me, i'd quite counted on patience's being here. you see, i'm not a regular member, either; and i want someone to keep me in countenance." so presently, hilary felt a hand slipped eagerly into hers. "i'm staying! i'm staying!" an excited little voice announced. "and oh, i just love mr. dayre!" then patience went back to her window seat to play the delightful game of "making believe" she hadn't stayed. she imagined that instead, she was sitting between father and mother in the gig, bubbling over with the desire to "hi-yi" at fanny, picking her slow way along. the studio was empty, even the dogs were outside, speeding the parting guests with more zeal than discretion. but after awhile harry oram strolled in. "i'm staying!" patience announced. she approved of harry. "you're an artist, too, aren't you?" she remarked. "so kind of you to say so," harry murmured. "i have heard grave doubts expressed on the subject by my too impartial friends." "i mean to be one when i grow up," patience told him, "so's i can have a room like this--with just rugs on the floor; rugs slide so nicely--and window seats and things all cluttery." "may i come and have tea with you? i'd like it awfully." "it'll be really tea--not pretend kind," patience said. "but i'll have that sort for any children who may come. hilary takes pictures--she doesn't make them though. made pictures are nicer, aren't they?" "some of them." harry glanced through the open doorway, to where hilary sat resting. she was "making" a picture now, he thought to himself, in her white dress, under the big tree, her pretty hair forming a frame about her thoughtful face. taking a portfolio from a table near by, he went out to where hilary sat. "your small sister says you take pictures," he said, drawing a chair up beside hers, "so i thought perhaps you'd let me show you these--they were taken by a friend of mine." "oh, but mine aren't anything like these! these are beautiful!" hilary bent over the photographs he handed her; marveling over their soft tones. they were mostly bits of landscape, with here and there a water view and one or two fleecy cloud effects. it hardly seemed as though they could be really photographs. "i've never done anything like these!" she said regretfully. "i wish i could--there are some beautiful views about here that would make charming pictures." "she didn't in the beginning," harry said, "she's lame; it was an accident, but she can never be quite well again, so she took this up, as an amusement at first, but now it's going to be her profession." hilary bent over the photographs again. "and you really think--anyone could learn to do it?" "no, not anyone; but i don't see why the right sort of person couldn't." "i wonder--if i could develop into the right sort." "may i come and see what you have done--and talk it over?" harry asked. "since this friend of mine took it up, i'm ever so interested in camera work." "indeed you may," hilary answered. she had never thought of her camera holding such possibilities within it, of its growing into something better and more satisfying than a mere playmate of the moment. "rested?" pauline asked, coming up. "supper's nearly ready." "i wasn't very tired. paul, come and look at these." supper was served on the lawn; the pleasantest, most informal, of affairs, the presence of the older members of the party serving to turn the gay give and take of the young folks into deeper and wider channels, and shirley's frequent though involuntary--"do you remember, senior?" calling out more than one vivid bit of travel, of description of places, known to most of them only through books. later, down on the lower end of the lawn, with the moon making a path of silver along the water, and the soft hush of the summer night over everything, shirley brought out her guitar, singing for them strange folk-songs, picked up in her rambles with her father. afterwards, the whole party sang songs that they all knew, ending up at last with the club song. "'it's a habit to be happy,'" the fresh young voices chorused, sending the tune far out across the lake; and presently, from a boat on its further side, it was whistled back to them. "who is it, i wonder?" edna said, "give it up," tom answered. "someone who's heard it--there've been plenty of opportunities for folks to hear it." "well it isn't a bad gospel to scatter broadcast," bob remarked. "and maybe it's someone who doesn't live about here, and he will go away taking our tune with him, for other people to catch up," hilary suggested. "but if he only has the tune and not the words," josie objected, "what use will that be?" "the spirit of the words is in the tune," pauline said. "no one could whistle or sing it and stay grumpy." "they'd have to 'put the frown away awhile, and try a little sunny smile,' wouldn't they?" patience observed. patience had been a model of behavior all the evening. mother would be sure to ask if she had been good, when they got home. that was one of those aggravating questions that only time could relieve her from. no one ever asked paul, or hilary, that--when they'd been anywhere. as mr. dayre had promised, the party broke up early, going off in the various rigs they had come in. tom and josie went in the trap with the shaws. "it's been perfectly lovely--all of it," josie said, looking back along the road they were leaving. "every good time we have seems the best one yet." "you wait 'til my turn comes," pauline told her. "i've such a scheme in my head." "am i in it?" patience begged. she was in front, between tom, who was driving, and hilary, then she leaned forward, they were nearly home, and the lights of the parsonage showed through the trees. "there's a light in the parlor--there's company!" pauline looked, too. "and one up in our old room, hilary. goodness, it must be a visiting minister! i didn't know father was expecting anyone." "i bet you!" patience jumped excitedly up and down. "i just bet it isn't any visiting minister--but a visiting--uncle! i feel it in my bones, as miranda says." "nonsense!" pauline declared. "maybe it isn't nonsense, paul!" hilary said. "i feel it in my bones," patience repeated. "i just _knew_ uncle paul would come up--a story-book uncle would be sure to." "well, here we are," tom laughed. "you'll know for certain pretty quick." chapter x the end of summer it was uncle paul, and perhaps no one was more surprised at his unexpected coming, than he himself. that snap-shot of hilary's had considerable to do with it; bringing home to him the sudden realization of the passing of the years. for the first time, he had allowed himself to face the fact that it was some time now since he had crossed the summit of the hill, and that under present conditions, his old age promised to be a lonely, cheerless affair. he had never had much to do with young people; but, all at once, it seemed to him that it might prove worth his while to cultivate the closer acquaintance of these nieces of his. pauline, in particular, struck him as likely to improve upon a nearer acquaintance. and that afternoon, as he rode up broadway, he found himself wondering how she would enjoy the ride; and all the sights and wonders of the great city. later, over his solitary dinner, he suddenly decided to run up to winton the next day. he would not wire them, he would rather like to take phil by surprise. so he had arrived at the parsonage, driving up in jed's solitary hack, and much plied with information, general and personal, on the way, just as the minister and his wife reached home from the manor. "and, oh, my! doesn't father look tickled to death!" patience declared, coming in to her sisters' room that night, ostensibly to have an obstinate knot untied, but inwardly determined to make a third at the usual bedtime talk for that once, at least. it wasn't often they all came up together. "he looks mighty glad," pauline said. "and isn't it funny, bearing him called phil?" patience curled herself up in the cozy corner. "i never've thought of father as phil." hilary paused in the braiding of her long hair. "i'm glad we've got to know him--uncle paul, i mean--through his letters, and all the lovely things he's done for us; else, i think i'd have been very much afraid of him." "so am i," pauline assented. "i see now what mr. oram meant--he doesn't look as if he believed much in fairy stories. but i like his looks--he's so nice and tall and straight." "he used to have red hair, before it turned gray," hilary said, "so that must be a family trait; your chin's like his, paul, too,--so square and determined." "is mine?" patience demanded. "you cut to bed, youngster," pauline commanded. "you're losing all your beauty sleep; and really, you know--" patience went to stand before the mirror. "maybe i ain't--pretty--yet; but i'm going to be--some day. mr. dayre says he likes red hair, i asked him. he says for me not to worry; i'll have them all sitting up and taking notice yet." at which pauline bore promptly down upon her, escorting her in person to the door of her own room. "and you'd better get to bed pretty quickly, too, hilary," she advised, coming back. "you've had enough excitement for one day." mr. paul shaw stayed a week; it was a busy week for the parsonage folk and for some other people besides. before it was over, the story-book uncle had come to know his nieces and winton fairly thoroughly; while they, on their side, had grown very well acquainted with the tall, rather silent man, who had a fashion of suggesting the most delightful things to do in the most matter-of-fact manner. there were one or two trips decidedly outside that ten-mile limit, including an all day sail up the lake, stopping for the night at a hotel on the new york shore and returning by the next day's boat. there was a visit to vergennes, which took in a round of the shops, a concert, and another night away from home. "was there ever such a week!" hilary sighed blissfully one morning, as she and her uncle waited on the porch for bedelia and the trap. hilary was to drive him over to the maples for dinner. "or such a summer altogether," pauline added, from just inside the study window. "then winton has possibilities?" mr. shaw asked. "i should think it has; we ought to be eternally grateful to you for making us find them out," pauline declared. mr. shaw smiled, more as if to himself. "i daresay they're not all exhausted yet." "perhaps," hilary said slowly, "some places are like some people, the longer and better you know them, the more you keep finding out in them to like." "father says," pauline suggested, "that one finds, as a rule, what one is looking for." "here we are," her uncle exclaimed, as patience appeared, driving bedelia. "do you know," he said, as he and hilary turned out into the wide village street, "i haven't seen the schoolhouse yet?" "we can go around that way. it isn't much of a building," hilary answered. "i suppose it serves its purpose." "it is said to be a very good school for the size of the place." hilary turned bedelia up the little by-road, leading to the old weather-beaten schoolhouse, standing back from the road in an open space of bare ground. "you and pauline are through here?" her uncle asked. "paul is. i would've been this june, if i hadn't broken down last winter." "you will be able to go on this fall?" "yes, indeed. dr. brice said so the other day. he says, if all his patients got on so well, by not following his advice, he'd have to shut up shop, but that, fortunately for him, they haven't all got a wise uncle down in new york, to offer counter-advice." "each in his turn," mr. shaw remarked, adding, "and pauline considers herself through school?" "i--i suppose so. i know she would like to go on--but we've no higher school here and--she read last winter, quite a little, with father. pauline's ever so clever." "supposing you both had an opportunity--for it must be both, or neither, i judge--and the powers that be consented--how about going away to school this winter?" hilary dropped the reins. "oh!" she cried, "you mean--" "i have a trick of meaning what i say," her uncle said, smiling at her. "i wish i could say--what i want to--and can't find words for--" hilary said. "we haven't consulted the higher authorities yet, you know." "and--oh, i don't see how mother could get on without us, even if--" "mothers have a knack at getting along without a good many things--when it means helping their young folks on a bit," mr. shaw remarked. "i'll have a talk with her and your father to-night." that evening, pacing up and down the front veranda with his brother, mr. shaw said, with his customary abruptness, "you seem to have fitted in here, phil,--perhaps, you were in the right of it, after all. i take it you haven't had such a hard time, in some ways." the minister did not answer immediately. looking back nearly twenty years, he told himself, that he did not regret that early choice of his. he had fitted into the life here; he and his people had grown together. it had not always been smooth sailing and more than once, especially the past year or so, his narrow means had pressed him sorely, but on the whole, he had found his lines cast in a pleasant place, and was not disposed to rebel against his heritage. "yes," he said, at last, "i have fitted in; too easily, perhaps. i never was ambitious, you know." "except in the accumulating of books," his brother suggested. the minister smiled. "i have not been able to give unlimited rein even to that mild ambition. fortunately, the rarer the opportunity, the greater the pleasure it brings with it--and the old books never lose their charm." mr. paul shaw flicked the ashes from his cigar. "and the girls--you expect them to fit in, too?" "it is their home." a note the elder brother knew of old sounded in the younger man's voice. "don't mount your high horse just yet, phil," he said. "i'm not going to rub you up the wrong way--at least, i don't mean to; but you were always an uncommonly hard chap to handle--in some matters. i grant you, it is their home and not a had sort of home for a girl to grow up in." mr. shaw stood for a moment at the head of the steps, looking off down the peaceful, shadowy street. it had been a pleasant week; he had enjoyed it wonderfully. he meant to have many more such. but to live here always! already the city was calling to him; he was homesick for its rush and bustle, the sense of life and movement. "you and i stand as far apart to-day, in some matters, phil, as we did twenty--thirty years ago," he said presently, "and that eldest daughter of yours--i'm a fair hand at reading character or i shouldn't be where i am to-day, if i were not--is more like me than you." "so i have come to think--lately." "that second girl takes after you; she would never have written that letter to me last may." "no, hilary would not have at the time--" "oh, i can guess how you felt about it at the time. but, look here, phil, you've got over that--surely? after all, i like to think now that pauline only hurried on the inevitable." mr. paul shaw laid his hand on the minister's shoulder. "nearly twenty years is a pretty big piece out of a lifetime. i see now how much i have been losing all these years." "it has been a long time, paul; and, perhaps, i have been to blame in not trying more persistently to heal the breach between us. i assure you that i have regretted it daily." "you always did have a lot more pride in your make-up than a man of your profession has any right to allow himself, phil. but if you like, i'm prepared to point out to you right now how you can make it up to me. here comes lady shaw and we won't waste time getting to business." that night, as pauline and hilary were in their own room, busily discussing, for by no means the first time that day, what uncle paul had said to hilary that morning, and just how he had looked, when he said it, and was it at all possible that father would consent, and so on, _ad libitum_, their mother tapped at the door. pauline ran to open it. "good news, or not?" she demanded. "yes, or no, mother shaw?" "that is how you take it," mrs. shaw answered. she was glad, very glad, that this unforeseen opportunity should be given her daughters; and yet--it meant the first break in the home circle, the first leaving home for them. mr. paul shaw left the next morning. "i'll try and run up for a day or two, before the girls go to school," he promised his sister-in-law. "let me know, as soon as you have decided _where_ to send them." patience was divided in her opinion, as to this new plan. it would be lonesome without paul and hilary; but then, for the time being, she would be, to all intents and purposes, "miss shaw." also, bedelia was not going to boarding-school--on the whole, the arrangement had its advantages. of course, later, she would have her turn at school--patience meant to devote a good deal of her winter's reading to boarding-school stories. she told sextoness jane so, when that person appeared, just before supper time. jane looked impressed. "a lot of things keep happening to you folks right along," she observed. "nothing's ever happened to me, 'cept mumps--and things of that sort; you wouldn't call them interesting. the girls to home?" "they're 'round on the porch, looking at some photos mr. oram's brought over; and he's looking at hilary's. hilary's going in for some other kind of picture taking. i wish she'd leave her camera home, when she goes to school. do you want to speak to them about anything particular?" "i'll wait a bit," jane sat down on the garden-bench beside patience. "there, he's gone!" the latter said, as the front gate clicked a few moments later. "o paul!" she called, "you're wanted, paul!" "you and hilary going to be busy tonight?" jane asked, as pauline came across the lawn. "not that i know of." "i ain't," patience remarked. "well," jane said, "it ain't prayer-meeting night, and it ain't young peoples' night and it ain't choir practice night, so i thought maybe you'd like me to take my turn at showing you something. not all the club--like's not they wouldn't care for it, but if you think they would, why, you can show it to them sometime." "just we three then?" pauline asked. "hilary and i can go." "so can i--if you tell mother you want me to," patience put in. "is it far?" her sister questioned jane. "a good two miles--we'd best walk--we can rest after we get there. maybe, if you like, you'd better ask tom and josie. your ma'll be better satisfied if he goes along, i reckon. i'll come for you at about half-past seven." "all right, thank you ever so much," pauline said, and went to tell hilary, closely pursued by patience. however, mrs. shaw vetoed pauline's proposition that patience should make one of the party. "not every time, my dear," she explained. promptly at half-past seven jane appeared. "all ready?" she said, as the four young people came to meet her. "you don't want to go expecting anything out of the common. like's not, you've all seen it a heap of times, but maybe not to take particular notice of it." she led the way through the garden to the lane running past her cottage, where tobias sat in solitary dignity on the doorstep, down the lane to where it merged in to what was nothing more than a field path. "are we going to the lake?" hilary asked. jane nodded. "but not out on the water," josie said. "you're taking us too far below the pier for that." jane smiled quietly. "it'll be on the water--what you're going to see," she was getting a good deal of pleasure out of her small mystery, and when they reached the low shore, fringed with the tall sea-grass, she took her party a few steps along it to where an old log lay a little back from the water. "i reckon we'll have to wait a bit," she said, "but it'll be 'long directly." they sat down in a row, the young people rather mystified. apparently the broad expanse of almost motionless water was quite deserted. there was a light breeze blowing and the soft swishing of the tiny waves against the bank was the only sound to break the stillness; the sky above the long irregular range of mountains on the new york side, still wore its sunset colors, the lake below sending hack a faint reflection of them. but presently these faded until only the afterglow was left, to merge in turn into the soft summer twilight, through which the stars began to glimpse, one by one. the little group had been mostly silent, each busy with his or her thoughts; so far as the young people were concerned, happy thoughts enough; for if the closing of each day brought their summer nearer to its ending, the fall would bring with it new experiences, an entering of new scenes. "there!" sextoness jane broke the silence, pointing up the lake, to where a tiny point of red showed like a low-hung star through the gathering darkness. moment by moment, other lights came into view, silently, steadily, until it seemed like some long, gliding sea-serpent, creeping down towards them through the night. "a tow!" josie cried under her breath. they had all seen it, times without number, before. the long line of canal boats being towed down the lake to the canal below; the red lanterns at either end of each boat showing as they came. but to-night, infected perhaps, by the pride, the evident delight, in jane's voice, the old familiar sight held them with the new interest the past months had brought to bear upon so many old, familiar things. "it is--wonderful," pauline said at last. "it might be a scene from--fairyland, almost." "me--i love to see them come stealing long like that through the dark," jane said slowly and a little hesitatingly. it was odd to be telling confidences to anyone except tobias. "i don't know where they come from, nor where they're a-going to. many's the night i walk over here just on the chance of seeing one. mostly, this time of year, you're pretty likely to catch one. when i was younger, i used to sit and fancy myself going aboard on one of them and setting off for strange parts. i wasn't looking to settle down here in winton all my days; but i reckon, maybe, it's just's well--anyhow, when i got the freedom to travel, i'd got out of the notion of it--and perhaps, there's no telling, i might have been terribly disappointed. and there ain't any hindrance 'gainst my setting off--in my own mind--every time i sits here and watches a tow go down the lake. i've seen a heap of big churches in my travels--it's mostly easier 'magining about them--churches are pretty much alike i reckon, though i ain't seen many, i'll admit." no one answered for a moment, but jane, used to tobias for a listener, did not mind. then in the darkness, hilary laid a hand softly over the work-worn ones clasped on jane's lap. it was hard to imagine jane young and full of youthful fancies and longings; yet years ago there had been a jane--not sextoness jane then--who had found winton dull and dreary and had longed to get away. but for her, there had been no one to wave the magic wand, that should transform the little vermont village into a place filled with new and unexplored charms. never in all jane's many summers, had she known one like this summer of theirs; and for them--the wonder was by no means over--the years ahead were bright with untold possibilities. hilary sighed for very happiness, wondering if she were the same girl who had rocked listlessly in the hammock that june morning, protesting that she didn't care for "half-way" things. "tired?" pauline asked. "i was thinking," her sister answered. "well, the tow's gone." jane got up to go. "i'm ever so glad we came, thank you so much, jane," pauline said heartily. "i wonder what'll have happened by the time we all see our next tow go down," josie said, as they started towards home. "we may see a good many more than one before the general exodus," her brother answered. "but we won't have time to come watch for them. oh, paul, just think, only a little while now--" tom slipped into step with hilary, a little behind the others. "i never supposed the old soul had it in her," he said, glancing to where jane trudged heavily on ahead. "still, i suppose she was young--once; though i've never thought of her being so before." "yes," hilary said. "i wonder,--maybe, she's been better off, after all, right, here at home. she wouldn't have got to be sextoness jane anywhere else, probably." tom glanced at her quickly. "is there a hidden meaning--subject to be carefully avoided?" hilary laughed. "as you like." "so you and paul are off on your travels, too?" "yes, though i can hardly believe it yet." "and just as glad to go as any of us." "oh, but we're coming back--after we've been taught all manner of necessary things." "edna'll be the only one of you girls left behind; it's rough on her." "it certainly is; we'll all have to write her heaps of letters." "much time there'll be for letter-writing, outside of the home ones," tom said. "speaking of time," josie turned towards them, "we're going to be busier than any bee ever dreamed of being, before or since dr. watts." they certainly were busy days that followed. so many of the young folks were going off that fall that a good many of the meetings of "the s. w. f. club" resolved themselves into sewing-bees, for the girl members only. "if we'd known how jolly they were, we'd have tried them before," bell declared one morning, dropping down on the rug pauline had spread under the trees at one end of the parsonage lawn. patience, pulling bastings with a business-like air, nodded her curly head wisely. "miranda says, folks mostly get 'round to enjoying their blessings 'bout the time they come to lose them." "has the all-important question been settled yet, paul?" edna asked, looking up from her work. she might not be going away to school, but even so, that did not debar one from new fall clothes at home. "they're coming to vergennes with me," bell said. "then we can all come home together friday nights." "they're coming to boston with me," josie corrected, "then we'll be back together for thanksgiving." shirley, meekly taking her first sewing lessons under pauline's instructions, and frankly declaring that she didn't at all like them, dropped the hem she was turning. "they're coming to new york with me; and in the between-times we'll have such fun that they'll never want to come home." pauline laughed. "it looks as though hilary and i would have a busy winter between you all. it is a comfort to know where we are going." "remember!" she warned, when later the party broke up. "four o'clock friday afternoon! sharp!" "are we going out in a blaze of glory?" bell questioned. "you might tell us where we are going, now, paul," josie urged. pauline shook her head. "you wait until friday, like good little girls. mind, you all bring wraps; it'll be chilly coming home." pauline's turn was to be the final wind-up of the club's regular outings. no one outside the home folks, excepting tom, had been taken into her confidence--it had been necessary to press him into service. and when, on friday afternoon, the young people gathered at the parsonage, all but those named were still in the dark. besides the regular members, mrs. shaw, mr. dayre, mr. allen, harry oram and patience were there; the minister and dr. brice had promised to join the party later if possible. as a rule, the club picnics were cooperative affairs; but to-day the members, by special request, arrived empty-handed. mr. paul shaw, learning that pauline's turn was yet to come, had insisted on having a share in it. "i am greatly interested in this club," he had explained. "i like results, and i think," he glanced at hilary's bright happy face, "that the 's. w. f. club' has achieved at least one very good result." and on the morning before the eventful friday, a hamper had arrived from new york, the watching of the unpacking of which had again transformed patience, for the time, from an interrogation to an exclamation point. "it's a beautiful hamper," she explained to towser. "it truly is--because father says, it's the inner, not the outer, self that makes for real beauty, or ugliness; and it certainly was the inside of that hamper that counted. i wish you were going, towser. see here, suppose you follow on kind of quietly to-morrow afternoon--don't show up too soon, and i guess i can manage it." which piece of advice towser must have understood. at any rate, he acted upon it to the best of his ability, following the party at a discreet distance through the garden and down the road towards the lake; and only when the halt at the pier came, did he venture near, the most insinuating of dogs. and so successfully did patience manage it, that when the last boat-load pushed off from shore, towser sat erect on the narrow bow seat, blandly surveying his fellow voyagers. "he does so love picnics," patience explained to mr. dayre, "and this is the last particular one for the season. i kind of thought he'd go along and i slipped in a little paper of bones." from the boat ahead came the chorus. "we're out on the wide ocean sailing." "not much!" bob declared. "i wish we were--the water's quiet as a mill-pond this afternoon." for the great lake, appreciating perhaps the importance of the occasion, had of its many moods chosen to wear this afternoon its sweetest, most beguiling one, and lay, a broad stretch of sparkling, rippling water, between its curving shores. beyond, the range of mountains rose dark and somber against the cloud-flecked sky, their tops softened by the light haze that told of coming autumn. and presently, from boat to boat, went the call, "we're going to port edward! why didn't we guess?" "but that's not _in_ winton," edna protested. "of it, if not in it," jack ward assured them. "do you reckon you can show us anything new about that old fort, paul shaw?" tracy demanded. "why, i could go all over it blindfolded." "not to show the new--to unfold the old," pauline told him. "that sounds like a quotation." "it is--in substance," pauline looked across her shoulder to where mr. allen sat, imparting information to harry oram. "so that's why you asked the old fellow," tracy said. "was that kind?" they were rounding the slender point on which the tall, white lighthouse stood, and entering the little cove where visitors to the fort usually beached their boats. a few rods farther inland, rose the tall, grass-covered, circular embankment, surrounding the crumbling, gray walls, the outer shells of the old barracks. at the entrance to the enclosure, tom suddenly stepped ahead, barring the way. "no passing within this fort without the counter-sign," he declared. "martial law, this afternoon." it was bell who discovered it. "'it's a habit to be happy,'" she suggested, and tom drew back for her to enter. but one by one, he exacted the password from each. inside, within the shade of those old, gray walls, a camp-fire had been built and camp-kettle swung, hammocks had been hung under the trees and when cushions were scattered here and there the one-time fort bore anything but a martial air. but something of the spirit of the past must have been in the air that afternoon, or perhaps, the spirit of the coming changes; for this picnic--though by no means lacking in charm--was not as gay and filled with light-hearted chaff as usual. there was more talking in quiet groups, or really serious searching for some trace of those long-ago days of storm and stress. with the coming of evening, the fire was lighted and the cloth laid within range of its flickering shadows. the night breeze had sprung up and from outside the sloping embankment they caught the sound of the waves breaking on the beach. true to their promise, the minister and dr. brice appeared at the time appointed and were eagerly welcomed by the young people. supper was a long, delightful affair that night, with much talk of the days when the fort had been devoted to far other purposes than the present; and the young people, listening to the tales mr. allen told in his quiet yet strangely vivid way, seemed to hear the slow creeping on of the boats outside and to be listening in the pauses of the wind for the approach of the enemy. "i'll take it back, paul," tracy told her, as they were repacking the baskets. "even the old fort has developed new interests." "and next summer the 's. w. f. club' will continue its good work," jack said. going back, pauline found herself sitting in the stern of one of the boats, beside her father. the club members were singing the club song. but pauline's thoughts had suddenly gone back to that wet may afternoon. she could see the dreary, rain-swept garden, hear the beating of the drops on the window-panes. how long ago and remote it all seemed; how far from the hopeless discontent, the vague longings, the real anxiety of that time, she and hilary had traveled. she looked up impulsively. "there's one thing," she said, "we've had one summer that i shall always feel would be worth reliving. and we're going to have more of them." "i am glad to hear that," mr. shaw said. pauline looked about her--the lanterns at the ends of the boats threw dancing lights out across the water, no longer quiet; overhead, the sky was bright with stars. "everything is so beautiful," the girl said slowly. "one seems to feel it more--every day." "'the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the lord hath made even both of them,'" her father quoted gravely. pauline drew a quick breath. "the hearing ear and the seeing eye"--it was a good thought to take with them--out into the new life, among the new scenes. one would need them everywhere--out in the world, as well as in winton. and then, from the boat just ahead, sounded patience's clear treble,--"'there's a good time coming.'" understood betsy by dorothy canfield author of "the bent twig," etc. illustrations by ada c. williamson [illustration: uncle henry looked at her, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one spectacle glass. (page 34)] contents i aunt harriet has a cough ii betsy holds the reins iii a short morning iv betsy goes to school v what grade is betsy? vi if you don't like conversation in a book skip this chapter! vii elizabeth ann fails in an examination viii betsy starts a sewing society ix the new clothes fail x betsy has a birthday xi "understood aunt frances" illustrations uncle henry looked at her, eying her sidewise over the top of one spectacle-glass frontispiece elizabeth ann stood up before the doctor. "do you know," said aunt abigail, "i think it's going to be real nice, having a little girl in the house again" she had greatly enjoyed doing her own hair. "oh, he's asking for more!" cried elizabeth ann betsy shut her teeth together hard, and started across "what's the matter, molly? what's the matter?" betsy and ellen and the old doll he had fallen asleep with his head on his arms never were dishes washed better! betsy was staring down at her shoes, biting her lips and winking her eyes chapter i aunt harriet has a cough when this story begins, elizabeth ann, who is the heroine of it, was a little girl of nine, who lived with her great-aunt harriet in a medium-sized city in a medium-sized state in the middle of this country; and that's all you need to know about the place, for it's not the important thing in the story; and anyhow you know all about it because it was probably very much like the place you live in yourself. elizabeth ann's great-aunt harriet was a widow who was not very rich or very poor, and she had one daughter, frances, who gave piano lessons to little girls. they kept a "girl" whose name was grace and who had asthma dreadfully and wasn't very much of a "girl" at all, being nearer fifty than forty. aunt harriet, who was very tender-hearted, kept her chiefly because she couldn't get any other place on account of her coughing so you could hear her all over the house. so now you know the names of all the household. and this is how they looked: aunt harriet was very small and thin and old, grace was very small and thin and middle-aged, aunt frances (for elizabeth ann called her "aunt," although she was really, of course, a first-cousin-once-removed) was small and thin and if the light wasn't too strong might be called young, and elizabeth ann was very small and thin and little. and yet they all had plenty to eat. i wonder what was the matter with them? it was certainly not because they were not good, for no womenkind in all the world had kinder hearts than they. you have heard how aunt harriet kept grace (in spite of the fact that she was a very depressing person) on account of her asthma; and when elizabeth ann's father and mother both died when she was a baby, although there were many other cousins and uncles and aunts in the family, these two women fairly rushed upon the little baby-orphan, taking her home and surrounding her henceforth with the most loving devotion. they had said to themselves that it was their manifest duty to save the dear little thing from the other relatives, who had no idea about how to bring up a sensitive, impressionable child, and they were sure, from the way elizabeth ann looked at six months, that she was going to be a sensitive, impressionable child. it is possible also that they were a little bored with their empty life in their rather forlorn, little brick house in the medium-sized city, and that they welcomed the occupation and new interests which a child would bring in. but they thought that they chiefly desired to save dear edward's child from the other kin, especially from the putney cousins, who had written down from their vermont farm that they would be glad to take the little girl into their family. but "anything but the putneys!" said aunt harriet, a great many times. they were related only by marriage to her, and she had her own opinion of them as a stiffnecked, cold-hearted, undemonstrative, and hard set of new englanders. "i boarded near them one summer when you were a baby, frances, and i shall never forget the way they were treating some children visiting there! ... oh, no, i don't mean they abused them or beat them ... but such lack of sympathy, such perfect indifference to the sacred sensitiveness of child-life, such a starving of the child-heart ... no, i shall never forget it! they had chores to do ... as though they had been hired men!" aunt harriet never meant to say any of this when elizabeth ann could hear, but the little girl's ears were as sharp as little girls' ears always are, and long before she was nine she knew all about the opinion aunt harriet had of the putneys. she did not know, to be sure, what "chores" were, but she took it confidently from aunt harriet's voice that they were something very, very dreadful. there was certainly neither coldness nor hardness in the way aunt harriet and aunt frances treated elizabeth ann. they had really given themselves up to the new responsibility, especially aunt frances, who was very conscientious about everything. as soon as the baby came there to live, aunt frances stopped reading novels and magazines, and re-read one book after another which told her how to bring up children. and she joined a mothers' club which met once a week. and she took a correspondence course in mothercraft from a school in chicago which teaches that business by mail. so you can see that by the time elizabeth ann was nine years old aunt frances must have known all that anybody can know about how to bring up children. and elizabeth ann got the benefit of it all. she and her aunt frances were simply inseparable. aunt frances shared in all elizabeth ann's doings and even in all her thoughts. she was especially anxious to share all the little girl's thoughts, because she felt that the trouble with most children is that they are not understood, and she was determined that she would thoroughly understand elizabeth ann down to the bottom of her little mind. aunt frances (down in the bottom of her own mind) thought that her mother had never really understood her, and she meant to do better by elizabeth ann. she also loved the little girl with all her heart, and longed, above everything in the world, to protect her from all harm and to keep her happy and strong and well. and yet elizabeth ann was neither very strong nor well. and as to her being happy, you can judge for yourself when you have read all this story. she was very small for her age, with a rather pale face and big dark eyes which had in them a frightened, wistful expression that went to aunt frances's tender heart and made her ache to take care of elizabeth ann better and better. aunt frances was afraid of a great many things herself, and she knew how to sympathize with timidity. she was always quick to reassure the little girl with all her might and main whenever there was anything to fear. when they were out walking (aunt frances took her out for a walk up one block and down another every single day, no matter how tired the music lessons had made her), the aunt's eyes were always on the alert to avoid anything which might frighten elizabeth ann. if a big dog trotted by, aunt frances always said, hastily: "there, there, dear! that's a nice doggie, i'm sure. i don't believe he ever bites little girls. ... mercy! elizabeth ann, don't go near him! ... here, darling, just get on the other side of aunt frances if he scares you so" (by that time elizabeth ann was always pretty well scared), "and perhaps we'd better just turn this corner and walk in the other direction." if by any chance the dog went in that direction too, aunt frances became a prodigy of valiant protection, putting the shivering little girl behind her, threatening the animal with her umbrella, and saying in a trembling voice, "go away, sir! go away!" or if it thundered and lightened, aunt frances always dropped everything she might be doing and held elizabeth ann tightly in her arms until it was all over. and at night--elizabeth ann did not sleep very well--when the little girl woke up screaming with a bad dream, it was always dear aunt frances who came to her bedside, a warm wrapper over her nightgown so that she need not hurry back to her own room, a candle lighting up her tired, kind face. she always took the little girl into her thin arms and held her close against her thin breast. "tell aunt frances all about your naughty dream, darling," she would murmur, "so's to get it off your mind!" she had read in her books that you can tell a great deal about children's inner lives by analyzing their dreams, and besides, if she did not urge elizabeth ann to tell it, she was afraid the sensitive, nervous little thing would "lie awake and brood over it." this was the phrase she always used the next day to her mother when aunt harriet exclaimed about her paleness and the dark rings under her eyes. so she listened patiently while the little girl told her all about the fearful dreams she had, the great dogs with huge red mouths that ran after her, the indians who scalped her, her schoolhouse on fire so that she had to jump from a third-story window and was all broken to bits--once in a while elizabeth ann got so interested in all this that she went on and made up more awful things even than she had dreamed, and told long stories which showed her to be a child of great imagination. but all these dreams and continuations of dreams aunt frances wrote down the first thing the next morning, and, with frequent references to a thick book full of hard words, she tried her best to puzzle out from them exactly what kind of little girl elizabeth ann really was. there was one dream, however, that even conscientious aunt frances never tried to analyze, because it was too sad. elizabeth ann dreamed sometimes that she was dead and lay in a little white coffin with white roses over her. oh, that made aunt frances cry, and so did elizabeth ann. it was very touching. then, after a long, long time of talk and tears and sobs and hugs, the little girl would begin to get drowsy, and aunt frances would rock her to sleep in her arms, and lay her down ever so quietly, and slip away to try to get a little nap herself before it was time to get up. at a quarter of nine every weekday morning aunt frances dropped whatever else she was doing, took elizabeth ann's little, thin, white hand protectingly in hers, and led her through the busy streets to the big brick school-building where the little girl had always gone to school. it was four stories high, and when all the classes were in session there were six hundred children under that one roof. you can imagine, perhaps, the noise there was on the playground just before school! elizabeth ann shrank from it with all her soul, and clung more tightly than ever to aunt frances's hand as she was led along through the crowded, shrieking masses of children. oh, how glad she was that she had aunt frances there to take care of her, though as a matter of fact nobody noticed the little thin girl at all, and her very own classmates would hardly have known whether she came to school or not. aunt frances took her safely through the ordeal of the playground, then up the long, broad stairs, and pigeonholed her carefully in her own schoolroom. she was in the third grade,--3a, you understand, which is almost the fourth. then at noon aunt frances was waiting there, a patient, never-failing figure, to walk home with her little charge; and in the afternoon the same thing happened over again. on the way to and from school they talked about what had happened in the class. aunt frances believed in sympathizing with a child's life, so she always asked about every little thing, and remembered to inquire about the continuation of every episode, and sympathized with all her heart over the failure in mental arithmetic, and triumphed over elizabeth ann's beating the schmidt girl in spelling, and was indignant over the teacher's having pets. sometimes in telling over some very dreadful failure or disappointment elizabeth ann would get so wrought up that she would cry. this always brought the ready tears to aunt frances's kind eyes, and with many soothing words and nervous, tremulous caresses she tried to make life easier for poor little elizabeth ann. the days when they had cried they could neither of them eat much luncheon. after school and on saturdays there was always the daily walk, and there were lessons, all kinds of lessons--piano-lessons of course, and nature-study lessons out of an excellent book aunt frances had bought, and painting lessons, and sewing lessons, and even a little french, although aunt frances was not very sure about her own pronunciation. she wanted to give the little girl every possible advantage, you see. they were really inseparable. elizabeth ann once said to some ladies calling on her aunts that whenever anything happened in school, the first thing she thought of was what aunt frances would think of it. "why is that?" they asked, looking at aunt frances, who was blushing with pleasure. "oh, she is so interested in my school work! and she understands me!" said elizabeth ann, repeating the phrases she had heard so often. aunt frances's eyes filled with happy tears. she called elizabeth ann to her and kissed her and gave her as big a hug as her thin arms could manage. elizabeth ann was growing tall very fast. one of the visiting ladies said that before long she would be as big as her auntie, and a troublesome young lady. aunt frances said: "i have had her from the time she was a little baby and there has scarcely been an hour she has been out of my sight. i'll always have her confidence. you'll always tell aunt frances everything, won't you, darling?" elizabeth ann resolved to do this always, even if, as now, she often had to invent things to tell. aunt frances went on, to the callers: "but i do wish she weren't so thin and pale and nervous. i suppose it is the exciting modern life that is so bad for children. i try to see that she has plenty of fresh air. i go out with her for a walk every single day. but we have taken all the walks around here so often that we're rather tired of them. it's often hard to know how to get her out enough. i think i'll have to get the doctor to come and see her and perhaps give her a tonic." to elizabeth ann she added, hastily: "now don't go getting notions in your head, darling. aunt frances doesn't think there's anything very much the matter with you. you'll be all right again soon if you just take the doctor's medicine nicely. aunt frances will take care of her precious little girl. she'll make the bad sickness go away." elizabeth ann, who had not known before that she was sick, had a picture of herself lying in the little white coffin, all covered over with white. ... in a few minutes aunt frances was obliged to excuse herself from her callers and devote herself entirely to taking care of elizabeth ann. so one day, after this had happened several times, aunt frances really did send for the doctor, who came briskly in, just as elizabeth ann had always seen him, with his little square black bag smelling of leather, his sharp eyes, and the air of bored impatience which he always wore in that house. elizabeth ann was terribly afraid to see him, for she felt in her bones he would say she had galloping consumption and would die before the leaves cast a shadow. this was a phrase she had picked up from grace, whose conversation, perhaps on account of her asthma, was full of references to early graves and quick declines. and yet--did you ever hear of such a case before?--although elizabeth ann when she first stood up before the doctor had been quaking with fear lest he discover some deadly disease in her, she was very much hurt indeed when, after thumping her and looking at her lower eyelid inside out, and listening to her breathing, he pushed her away with a little jerk and said: "there's nothing in the world the matter with that child. she's as sound as a nut! what she needs is ..."--he looked for a moment at aunt frances's thin, anxious face, with the eyebrows drawn together in a knot of conscientiousness, and then he looked at aunt harriet's thin, anxious face with the eyebrows drawn up that very same way, and then he glanced at grace's thin, anxious face peering from the door waiting for his verdict--and then he drew a long breath, shut his lips and his little black case very tightly, and did not go on to say what it was that elizabeth ann needed. of course aunt frances didn't let him off as easily as that, you may be sure. she fluttered around him as he tried to go, and she said all sorts of fluttery things to him, like "but, doctor, she hasn't gained a pound in three months ... and her sleep ... and her appetite ... and her nerves ..." [illustration: elizabeth ann stood up before the doctor.] the doctor said back to her, as he put on his hat, all the things doctors always say under such conditions: "more beefsteak ... plenty of fresh air ... more sleep ... she'll be all right ..." but his voice did not sound as though he thought what he was saying amounted to much. nor did elizabeth ann. she had hoped for some spectacular red pills to be taken every half-hour, like those grace's doctor gave her whenever she felt low in her mind. and just then something happened which changed elizabeth ann's life forever and ever. it was a very small thing, too. aunt harriet coughed. elizabeth ann did not think it at all a bad-sounding cough in comparison with grace's hollow whoop; aunt harriet had been coughing like that ever since the cold weather set in, for three or four months now, and nobody had thought anything of it, because they were all so much occupied in taking care of the sensitive, nervous little girl who needed so much care. and yet, at the sound of that little discreet cough behind aunt harriet's hand, the doctor whirled around and fixed his sharp eyes on her, with all the bored, impatient look gone, the first time elizabeth ann had ever seen him look interested. "what's that? what's that?" he said, going over quickly to aunt harriet. he snatched out of his little bag a shiny thing with two rubber tubes attached, and he put the ends of the tubes in his ears and the shiny thing up against aunt harriet, who was saying, "it's nothing, doctor ... a little teasing cough i've had this winter. and i meant to tell you, too, but i forgot it, that that sore spot on my lungs doesn't go away as it ought to." the doctor motioned her very impolitely to stop talking, and listened very hard through his little tubes. then he turned around and looked at aunt frances as though he were angry at her. he said, "take the child away and then come back here yourself." and that was almost all that elizabeth ann ever knew of the forces which swept her away from the life which had always gone on, revolving about her small person, exactly the same ever since she could remember. you have heard so much about tears in the account of elizabeth ann's life so far that i won't tell you much about the few days which followed, as the family talked over and hurriedly prepared to obey the doctor's verdict, which was that aunt harriet was very, very sick and must go away at once to a warm climate, and aunt frances must go, too, but not elizabeth ann, for aunt frances would need to give all her time to taking care of aunt harriet. and anyhow the doctor didn't think it best, either for aunt harriet or for elizabeth ann, to have them in the same house. grace couldn't go of course, but to everybody's surprise she said she didn't mind, because she had a bachelor brother, who kept a grocery store, who had been wanting her for years to go and keep house for him. she said she had stayed on just out of conscientiousness because she knew aunt harriet couldn't get along without her! and if you notice, that's the way things often happen to very, very conscientious people. elizabeth ann, however, had no grocer brother. she had, it is true, a great many relatives, and of course it was settled she should go to some of them till aunt frances could take her back. for the time being, just now, while everything was so distracted and confused, she was to go to stay with the lathrop cousins, who lived in the same city, although it was very evident that the lathrops were not perfectly crazy with delight over the prospect. still, something had to be done at once, and aunt frances was so frantic with the packing up, and the moving men coming to take the furniture to storage, and her anxiety over her mother--she had switched to aunt harriet, you see, all the conscientiousness she had lavished on elizabeth ann--nothing much could be extracted from her about elizabeth ann. "just keep her for the present, molly!" she said to cousin molly lathrop. "i'll do something soon. i'll write you. i'll make another arrangement ... but just now...." her voice was quavering on the edge of tears, and cousin molly lathrop, who hated scenes, said hastily, "yes, oh, yes, of course. for the present ..." and went away, thinking that she didn't see why she should have all the disagreeable things to do. when she had her husband's tyrannical old mother to take care of, wasn't that enough, without adding to the household such a nervous, spoiled, morbid young one as elizabeth ann! elizabeth ann did not of course for a moment dream that cousin molly was thinking any such things about her, but she could not help seeing that cousin molly was not any too enthusiastic about taking her in; and she was already feeling terribly forlorn about the sudden, unexpected change in aunt frances, who had been so wrapped up in her and now was just as much wrapped up in aunt harriet. do you know, i am sorry for elizabeth ann, and, what's more, i have been ever since this story began. well, since i promised you that i was not going to tell about more tears, i won't say a single word about the day when the two aunts went away on the train, for there is nothing much but tears to tell about, except perhaps an absent look in aunt frances's eyes which hurt the little girl's feelings dreadfully. and then cousin molly took the hand of the sobbing little girl and led her back to the lathrop house. but if you think you are now going to hear about the lathrops, you are quite mistaken, for just at this moment old mrs. lathrop took a hand in the matter. she was cousin molly's husband's mother, and, of course, no relation at all to elizabeth ann, and so was less enthusiastic than anybody else. all that elizabeth ann ever saw of this old lady, who now turned the current of her life again, was her head, sticking out of a second-story window; and that's all that you need to know about her, either. it was a very much agitated old head, and it bobbed and shook with the intensity with which the imperative old voice called upon cousin molly and elizabeth ann to stop right there where they were on the front walk. "the doctor says that what's the matter with bridget is scarlet fever, and we've all got to be quarantined. there's no earthly sense bringing that child in to be sick and have it, and be nursed, and make the quarantine twice as long!" "but, mother!" called cousin molly, "i can't leave the child in the middle of the street!" elizabeth ann was actually glad to hear her say that, because she was feeling so awfully unwanted, which is, if you think of it, not a very cheerful feeling for a little girl who has been the hub round which a whole household was revolving. "you don't have to!" shouted old mrs. lathrop out of her second-story window. although she did not add "you gump!" aloud, you could feel she was meaning just that. "you don't have to! you can just send her to the putney cousins. all nonsense about her not going there in the first place. they invited her the minute they heard of harriet's being so bad. they're the natural ones to take her in. abigail is her mother's own aunt, and ann is her own first-cousin-once-removed ... just as close as harriet and frances are, and much closer than you! and on a farm and all ... just the place for her!" "but how under the sun, mother!" shouted cousin molly back, "can i get her to the putneys'? you can't send a child of nine a thousand miles without ..." old mrs. lathrop looked again as though she were saying "you gump!" and said aloud, "why, there's james, going to new york on business in a few days anyhow. he can just go now, and take her along and put her on the right train at albany. if he wires from here, they'll meet her in hillsboro." and that was just what happened. perhaps you may have guessed by this time that when old mrs. lathrop issued orders they were usually obeyed. as to who the bridget was who had the scarlet fever, i know no more than you. i take it, from the name, she was the cook. unless, indeed, old mrs. lathrop made her up for the occasion, which i think she would have been quite capable of doing, don't you? at any rate, with no more ifs or ands, elizabeth ann's satchel was packed, and cousin james lathrop's satchel was packed, and the two set off together, the big, portly, middle-aged man quite as much afraid of his mother as elizabeth ann was. but he was going to new york, and it is conceivable that he thought once or twice on the trip that there were good times in new york as well as business engagements, whereas poor elizabeth ann was being sent straight to the one place in the world where there were no good times at all. aunt harriet had said so, ever so many times. poor elizabeth ann! chapter ii betsy holds the reins you can imagine, perhaps, the dreadful terror of elizabeth ann as the train carried her along toward vermont and the horrible putney farm! it had happened so quickly--her satchel packed, the telegram sent, the train caught--that she had not had time to get her wits together, assert herself, and say that she would not go there! besides, she had a sinking notion that perhaps they wouldn't pay any attention to her if she did. the world had come to an end now that aunt frances wasn't there to take care of her! even in the most familiar air she could only half breathe without aunt frances! and now she was not even being taken to the putney farm! she was being sent! she shrank together in her seat, more and more frightened as the end of her journey came nearer, and looked out dismally at the winter landscape, thinking it hideous with its brown bare fields, its brown bare trees, and the quick-running little streams hurrying along, swollen with the january thaw which had taken all the snow from the hills. she had heard her elders say about her so many times that she could not stand the cold, that she shivered at the very thought of cold weather, and certainly nothing could look colder than that bleak country into which the train was now slowly making its way. the engine puffed and puffed with great laboring breaths that shook elizabeth ann's diaphragm up and down, but the train moved more and more slowly. elizabeth ann could feel under her feet how the floor of the car was tipped up as it crept along the steep incline. "pretty stiff grade here?" said a passenger to the conductor. "you bet!" he assented. "but hillsboro is the next station and that's at the top of the hill. we go down after that to rutland." he turned to elizabeth ann--"say, little girl, didn't your uncle say you were to get off at hillsboro? you'd better be getting your things together." poor elizabeth ann's knees knocked against each other with fear of the strange faces she was to encounter, and when the conductor came to help her get off, he had to carry the white, trembling child as well as her satchel. but there was only one strange face there,--not another soul in sight at the little wooden station. a grim-faced old man in a fur cap and heavy coat stood by a lumber wagon. "this is her, mr. putney," said the conductor, touching his cap, and went back to the train, which went away shrieking for a nearby crossing and setting the echoes ringing from one mountain to another. there was elizabeth ann alone with her much-feared great-uncle henry. he nodded to her, and drew out from the bottom of the wagon a warm, large cape, which he slipped over her shoulders. "the women folks were afraid you'd git cold drivin'," he explained. he then lifted her high to the seat, tossed her satchel into the wagon, climbed up himself, and clucked to his horses. elizabeth ann had always before thought it an essential part of railway journeys to be much kissed at the end and asked a great many times how you had "stood the trip." she sat very still on the high lumber seat, feeling very forlorn and neglected. her feet dangled high above the floor of the wagon. she felt herself to be in the most dangerous place she had ever dreamed of in her worst dreams. oh, why wasn't aunt frances there to take care of her! it was just like one of her bad dreams--yes, it was horrible! she would fall, she would roll under the wheels and be crushed to ... she looked up at uncle henry with the wild, strained eyes of nervous terror which always brought aunt frances to her in a rush to "hear all about it," to sympathize, to reassure. uncle henry looked down at her soberly, his hard, weather-beaten old face quite unmoved. "here, you drive, will you, for a piece?" he said briefly, putting the reins into her hands, hooking his spectacles over his ears, and drawing out a stubby pencil and a bit of paper. "i've got some figgering to do. you pull on the left-hand rein to make 'em go to the left and t'other way for t'other way, though 'tain't likely we'll meet any teams." elizabeth ann had been so near one of her wild screams of terror that now, in spite of her instant absorbed interest in the reins, she gave a queer little yelp. she was all ready with the explanation, her conversations with aunt frances having made her very fluent in explanations of her own emotions. she would tell uncle henry about how scared she had been, and how she had just been about to scream and couldn't keep back that one little ... but uncle henry seemed not to have heard her little howl, or, if he had, didn't think it worth conversation, for he ... oh, the horses were certainly going to one side! she hastily decided which was her right hand (she had never been forced to know it so quickly before) and pulled furiously on that rein. the horses turned their hanging heads a little, and, miraculously, there they were in the middle of the road again. elizabeth ann drew a long breath of relief and pride, and looked to uncle henry for praise. but he was busily setting down figures as though he were getting his 'rithmetic lesson for the next day and had not noticed ... oh, there they were going to the left again! this time, in her flurry, she made a mistake about which hand was which and pulled wildly on the left line! the horses docilely walked off the road into a shallow ditch, the wagon tilted ... help! why didn't uncle henry help! uncle henry continued intently figuring on the back of his envelope. elizabeth ann, the perspiration starting out on her forehead, pulled on the other line. the horses turned back up the little slope, the wheel grated sickeningly against the wagonbox--she was sure they would tip over! but there! somehow there they were in the road, safe and sound, with uncle henry adding up a column of figures. if he only knew, thought the little girl, if he only knew the danger he had been in, and how he had been saved...! but she must think of some way to remember, for sure, which her right hand was, and avoid that hideous mistake again. and then suddenly something inside elizabeth ann's head stirred and moved. it came to her, like a clap, that she needn't know which was right or left at all. if she just pulled the way she wanted them to go--the horses would never know whether it was the right or the left rein! it is possible that what stirred inside her head at that moment was her brain, waking up. she was nine years old, and she was in the third a grade at school, but that was the first time she had ever had a whole thought of her very own. at home, aunt frances had always known exactly what she was doing, and had helped her over the hard places before she even knew they were there; and at school her teachers had been carefully trained to think faster than the scholars. somebody had always been explaining things to elizabeth ann so industriously that she had never found out a single thing for herself before. this was a very small discovery, but an original one. elizabeth ann was as excited about it as a mother-bird over the first egg that hatches. she forgot how afraid she was of uncle henry, and poured out to him her discovery. "it's not right or left that matters!" she ended triumphantly; "it's which way you want to go!" uncle henry looked at her attentively as she talked, eyeing her sidewise over the top of one spectacle-glass. when she finished--"well, now, that's so," he admitted, and returned to his arithmetic. it was a short remark, shorter than any elizabeth ann had ever heard before. aunt frances and her teachers always explained matters at length. but it had a weighty, satisfying ring to it. the little girl felt the importance of having her statement recognized. she turned back to her driving. the slow, heavy plow horses had stopped during her talk with uncle henry. they stood as still now as though their feet had grown to the road. elizabeth ann looked up at the old man for instructions. but he was deep in his figures. she had been taught never to interrupt people, so she sat still and waited for him to tell her what to do. but, although they were driving in the midst of a winter thaw, it was a pretty cold day, with an icy wind blowing down the back of her neck. the early winter twilight was beginning to fall, and she felt rather empty. she grew very tired of waiting, and remembered how the grocer's boy at home had started his horse. then, summoning all her courage, with an apprehensive glance at uncle henry's arithmetical silence, she slapped the reins up and down on the horses' backs and made the best imitation she could of the grocer's boy's cluck. the horses lifted their heads, they leaned forward, they put one foot before the other ... they were off! the color rose hot on elizabeth ann's happy face. if she had started a big red automobile she would not have been prouder. for it was the first thing she had ever done all herself ... every bit ... every smitch! she had thought of it and she had done it. and it had worked! now for what seemed to her a long, long time she drove, drove so hard she could think of nothing else. she guided the horses around stones, she cheered them through freezing mud-puddles of melted snow, she kept them in the anxiously exact middle of the road. she was quite astonished when uncle henry put his pencil and paper away, took the reins from her hands, and drove into a yard, on one side of which was a little low white house and on the other a big red barn. he did not say a word, but she guessed that this was putney farm. two women in gingham dresses and white aprons came out of the house. one was old and one might be called young, just like aunt harriet and aunt frances. but they looked very different from those aunts. the dark-haired one was very tall and strong-looking, and the white-haired one was very rosy and fat. they both looked up at the little, thin, white-faced girl on the high seat, and smiled. "well, father, you got her, i see," said the brown-haired one. she stepped up to the wagon and held up her arms to the child. "come on, betsy, and get some supper," she said, as though elizabeth ann had lived there all her life and had just driven into town and back. and that was the arrival of elizabeth ann at putney farm. the brown-haired one took a long, strong step or two and swung her up on the porch. "you take her in, mother," she said. "i'll help father unhitch." the fat, rosy, white-haired one took elizabeth ann's skinny, cold little hand in her soft warm fat one, and led her along to the open kitchen door. "i'm your aunt abigail," she said. "your mother's aunt, you know. and that's your cousin ann that lifted you down, and it was your uncle henry that brought you out from town." she shut the door and went on, "i don't know if your aunt harriet ever happened to tell you about us, and so ..." elizabeth ann interrupted her hastily, the recollection of all aunt harriet's remarks vividly before her. "oh yes, oh yes!" she said. "she always talked about you. she talked about you a lot, she ..." the little girl stopped short and bit her lip. if aunt abigail guessed from the expression on elizabeth ann's face what kind of talking aunt harriet's had been, she showed it only by a deepening of the wrinkles all around her eyes. she said, gravely: "well, that's a good thing. you know all about us then." she turned to the stove and took out of the oven a pan of hot baked beans, very brown and crispy on top (elizabeth ann detested beans), and said, over her shoulder, "take your things off, betsy, and hang 'em on that lowest hook back of the door. that's your hook." the little girl fumbled forlornly with the fastenings of her cape and the buttons of her coat. at home, aunt frances or grace had always taken off her wraps and put them away for her. when, very sorry for herself, she turned away from the hook, aunt abigail said: "now you must be cold. pull a chair right up here by the stove." she was stepping around quickly as she put supper on the table. the floor shook under her. she was one of the fattest people elizabeth ann had ever seen. after living with aunt frances and aunt harriet and grace the little girl could scarcely believe her eyes. she stared and stared. aunt abigail seemed not to notice this. indeed, she seemed for the moment to have forgotten all about the newcomer. elizabeth ann sat on the wooden chair, her feet hanging (she had been taught that it was not manners to put her feet on the rungs), looking about her with miserable, homesick eyes. what an ugly, low-ceilinged room, with only a couple of horrid kerosene lamps for light; and they didn't keep any girl, evidently; and they were going to eat right in the kitchen like poor people; and nobody spoke to her or looked at her or asked her how she had "stood the trip"; and here she was, millions of miles away from aunt frances, without anybody to take care of her. she began to feel the tight place in her throat which, by thinking about hard, she could always turn into tears, and presently her eyes began to water. aunt abigail was not looking at her at all, but she now stopped short in one of her rushes to the table, set down the butter-plate she was carrying, and said "there!" as though she had forgotten something. she stooped--it was perfectly amazing how spry she was--and pulled out from under the stove a half-grown kitten, very sleepy, yawning and stretching, and blinking its eyes. "there, betsy!" said aunt abigail, putting the little yellow and white ball into the child's lap. "there is one of old whitey's kittens that didn't get given away last summer, and she pesters the life out of me. i've got so much to do. when i heard you were coming, i thought maybe you would take care of her for me. if you want to, enough to bother to feed her and all, you can have her for your own." elizabeth ann bent her thin face over the warm, furry, friendly little animal. she could not speak. she had always wanted a kitten, but aunt frances and aunt harriet and grace had always been sure that cats brought diphtheria and tonsilitis and all sorts of dreadful diseases to delicate little girls. she was afraid to move for fear the little thing would jump down and run away, but as she bent cautiously toward it the necktie of her middy blouse fell forward and the kitten in the middle of a yawn struck swiftly at it with a soft paw. then, still too sleepy to play, it turned its head and began to lick elizabeth ann's hand with a rough little tongue. perhaps you can imagine how thrilled the little girl was at this! she held her hand perfectly still until the kitten stopped and began suddenly washing its own face, and then she put her hands under it and very awkwardly lifted it up, burying her face in the soft fur. the kitten yawned again, and from the pink-lined mouth came a fresh, milky breath. "oh!" said elizabeth ann under her breath. "oh, you darling!" the kitten looked at her with bored, speculative eyes. elizabeth ann looked up now at aunt abigail and said, "what is its name, please?" but the old woman was busy turning over a griddle full of pancakes and did not hear. on the train elizabeth ann had resolved not to call these hateful relatives by the same name she had for dear aunt frances, but she now forgot that resolution and said, again, "oh, aunt abigail, what is its name?" aunt abigail faced her blankly. "name?" she asked. "whose ... oh, the kitten's? goodness, child, i stopped racking my brain for kitten names sixty years ago. name it yourself. it's yours." elizabeth ann had already named it in her own mind, the name she had always thought she would call a kitten by, if she ever had one. it was eleanor, the prettiest name she knew. aunt abigail pushed a pitcher toward her. "there's the cat's saucer under the sink. don't you want to give it some milk?" elizabeth ann got down from her chair, poured some milk into the saucer, and called: "here, eleanor! here, eleanor!" aunt abigail looked at her sharply out of the corner of her eye and her lips twitched, but a moment later her face was immovably grave as she carried the last plate of pancakes to the table. elizabeth ann sat on her heels for a long time, watching the kitten lap the milk, and she was surprised, when she stood up, to see that cousin ann and uncle henry had come in, very red-cheeked from the cold air. "well, folks," said aunt abigail, "don't you think we've done some lively stepping around, betsy and i, to get supper all on the table for you?" elizabeth ann stared. what did aunt abigail mean? she hadn't done a thing about getting supper! but nobody made any comment, and they all took their seats and began to eat. elizabeth ann was astonishingly hungry, and she thought she could never get enough of the creamed potatoes, cold ham, hot cocoa, and pancakes. she was very much relieved that her refusal of beans caused no comment. aunt frances had always tried very hard to make her eat beans because they have so much protein in them, and growing children need protein. elizabeth ann had heard this said so many times she could have repeated it backward, but it had never made her hate beans any the less. however, nobody here seemed to know this, and elizabeth ann kept her knowledge to herself. they had also evidently never heard how delicate her digestion was, for she never saw anything like the number of pancakes they let her eat. all she wanted! she had never heard of such a thing! they still did not ask her how she had "stood the trip." they did not indeed ask her much of anything or pay very much attention to her beyond filling her plate as fast as she emptied it. in the middle of the meal eleanor came, jumped into her lap, and curled down, purring. after this elizabeth ann kept one hand on the little soft ball, handling her fork with the other. after supper--well, elizabeth ann never knew what did happen after supper until she felt somebody lifting her and carrying her upstairs. it was cousin ann, who carried her as lightly as though she were a baby, and who said, as she sat down on the floor in a slant-ceilinged bedroom, "you went right to sleep with your head on the table. i guess you're pretty tired." aunt abigail was sitting on the edge of a great wide bed with four posts, and a curtain around the top. she was partly undressed, and was undoing her hair and brushing it out. it was very curly and all fluffed out in a shining white fuzz around her fat, pink face, full of soft wrinkles; but in a moment she was braiding it up again and putting on a tight white nightcap, which she tied under her chin. "we got the word about your coming so late," said cousin ann, "that we didn't have time to fix you up a bedroom that can be warmed. so you're going to sleep in here for a while. the bed's big enough for two, i guess, even if they are as big as you and mother." elizabeth ann stared again. what queer things they said here. she wasn't nearly as big as aunt abigail! "mother, did you put shep out?" asked cousin ann; and when aunt abigail said, "no! there! i forgot to!" cousin ann went away; and that was the last of her. they certainly believed in being saving of their words at putney farm. elizabeth ann began to undress. she was only half-awake; and that made her feel only about half her age, which wasn't very great, the whole of it, and she felt like just crooking her arm over her eyes and giving up! she was too forlorn! she had never slept with anybody before, and she had heard ever so many times how bad it was for children to sleep with grown-ups. an icy wind rattled the windows and puffed in around the loose old casings. on the window-sill lay a little wreath of snow. elizabeth ann shivered and shook on her thin legs, undressed in a hurry, and slipped into her night-dress. she felt just as cold inside as out, and never was more utterly miserable than in that strange, ugly little room, with that strange, queer, fat old woman. she was even too miserable to cry, and that is saying a great deal for elizabeth ann! she got into bed first, because aunt abigail said she was going to keep the candle lighted for a while and read. "and anyhow," she said, "i'd better sleep on the outside to keep you from rolling out." elizabeth ann and aunt abigail lay very still for a long time, aunt abigail reading out of a small, worn old book. elizabeth ann could see its title, "essays of emerson." a book with, that name had always laid on the center table in aunt harriet's house, but that copy was all new and shiny, and elizabeth ann had never seen anybody look inside it. it was a very dull-looking book, with no pictures and no conversation. the little girl lay on her back, looking up at the cracks in the plaster ceiling and watching the shadows sway and dance as the candle flickered in the gusts of cold air. she herself began to feel a soft, pervasive warmth. aunt abigail's great body was like a stove. it was very, very quiet, quieter than any place elizabeth ann had ever known, except church, because a trolley-line ran past aunt harriet's house and even at night there were always more or less hangings and rattlings. here there was not a single sound except the soft, whispery noise when aunt abigail turned over a page as she read steadily and silently forward in her book. elizabeth ann turned her head so that she could see the round, rosy old face, full of soft wrinkles, and the calm, steady old eyes which were fixed on the page. and as she lay there in the warm bed, watching that quiet face, something very queer began to happen to elizabeth ann. she felt as though a tight knot inside her were slowly being untied. she felt--what was it she felt? there are no words for it. from deep within her something rose up softly ... she drew one or two long, half-sobbing breaths.... [illustration: "do you know," said aunt abigail, "i think it's going to be real nice, having a little girl in the house again."] aunt abigail laid down her book and looked over at the child. "do you know," she said, in a conversational tone, "do you know, i think it's going to be real nice, having a little girl in the house again." oh, then the tight knot in the little unwanted girl's heart was loosened indeed! it all gave way at once, and elizabeth ann burst suddenly into hot tears--yes, i know i said i would not tell you any more about her crying; but these tears were very different from any she had ever shed before. and they were the last, too, for a long, long time. aunt abigail said, "well, well!" and moving over in bed took the little weeping girl into her arms. she did not say another word then, but she put her soft, withered old cheek close against elizabeth ann's, till the sobs began to grow less, and then she said: "i hear your kitty crying outside the door. shall i let her in? i expect she'd like to sleep with you. i guess there's room for three of us." she got out of bed as she spoke and walked across the room to the door. the floor shook under her great bulk, and the peak of her nightcap made a long, grotesque shadow. but as she came back with the kitten in her arms elizabeth ann saw nothing funny in her looks. she gave eleanor to the little girl and got into bed again. "there, now, i guess we're ready for the night," she said. "you put the kitty on the other side of you so she won't fall out of bed." she blew the light out and moved over a little closer to elizabeth. ann, who immediately was enveloped in that delicious warmth. the kitten curled up under the little girl's chin. between her and the terrors of the dark room loomed the rampart of aunt abigail's great body. elizabeth ann drew a long, long breath ... and when she opened her eyes the sun was shining in at the window. chapter iii a short morning aunt abigail was gone, eleanor was gone. the room was quite empty except for the bright sunshine pouring in through the small-paned windows. elizabeth ann stretched and yawned and looked about her. what funny wall-paper it was--so old-fashioned looking! the picture was of a blue river and a brown mill, with green willow-trees over it, and a man with sacks on his horse's back stood in front of the mill. this picture was repeated a great many times, all over the paper; and in the corner, where it hadn't come out even, they had had to cut it right down the middle of the horse. it was very curious-looking. she stared at it a long time, waiting for somebody to tell her when to get up. at home aunt frances always told her, and helped her get dressed. but here nobody came. she discovered that the heat came from a hole in the floor near the bed, which opened down into the room below. from it came a warm breath of baking bread and a muffled thump once in a while. the sun rose higher and higher, and elizabeth ann grew hungrier and hungrier. finally it occurred to her that it was not absolutely necessary to have somebody tell her to get up. she reached for her clothes and began to dress. when she had finished she went out into the hall, and with a return of her aggrieved, abandoned feeling (you must remember that her stomach was very empty) she began to try to find her way downstairs. she soon found the steps, went down them one at a time, and pushed open the door at the foot. cousin ann, the brown-haired one, was ironing near the stove. she nodded and smiled as the child came into the room, and said, "well, you must feel rested!" "oh, i haven't been asleep!" explained elizabeth ann. "i was waiting for somebody to tell me to get up." "oh," said cousin ann, opening her black eyes a little. "were you?" she said no more than this, but elizabeth ann decided hastily that she would not add, as she had been about to, that she was also waiting for somebody to help her dress and do her hair. as a matter of fact, she had greatly enjoyed doing her own hair--the first time she had ever tried it. it had never occurred to aunt frances that her little baby-girl had grown up enough to be her own hairdresser, nor had it occurred to elizabeth ann that this might be possible. but as she struggled with the snarls she had had a sudden wild idea of doing it a different way from the pretty fashion aunt frances always followed. elizabeth ann had always secretly envied a girl in her class whose hair was all tied back from her face, with one big knot in her ribbon at the back of her neck. it looked so grown-up. and this morning she had done hers that way, turning her neck till it ached, so that she could see the coveted tight effect at the back. and still--aren't little girls queer?--although she had enjoyed doing her own hair, she was very much inclined to feel hurt because cousin ann had not come to do it for her. [illustration: she had greatly enjoyed doing her own hair.] cousin ann set her iron down with the soft thump which elizabeth ann had heard upstairs. she began folding a napkin, and said: "now reach yourself a bowl off the shelf yonder. the oatmeal's in that kettle on the stove and the milk is in the blue pitcher. if you want a piece of bread and butter, here's a new loaf just out of the oven, and the butter's in that brown crock." elizabeth ann followed these instructions and sat down before this quickly assembled breakfast in a very much surprised silence. at home it took the girl more than half an hour to get breakfast and set the table, and then she had to wait on them besides. she began to pour the milk out of the pitcher and stopped suddenly. "oh, i'm afraid i've taken more than my share!" she said apologetically. cousin ann looked up from her rapidly moving iron, and said, in an astonished voice: "your share? what do you mean?" "my share of the quart," explained elizabeth ann. at home they bought a quart of milk and a cup of cream every day, and they were all very conscientious about not taking more than their due share. "good land, child, take all the milk you want!" said cousin ann, as though she found something shocking in what the little girl had just said. elizabeth ann thought to herself that she spoke as though milk ran out of a faucet, like water. she was very fond of milk, and she made a very good breakfast as she sat looking about the low-ceilinged room. it was unlike any room she had ever seen. it was, of course, the kitchen, and yet it didn't seem possible that the same word could be applied to that room and the small, dark cubby-hole which had been grace's asthmatical kingdom. this room was very long and narrow, and all along one side were windows with white, ruffled curtains drawn back at the sides, and with small, shining panes of glass, through which the sun poured a golden flood of light on a long shelf of potted plants that took the place of a window-sill. the shelf was covered with shining white oil-cloth, the pots were of clean reddish brown, the sturdy, stocky plants of bright green with clear red-and-white flowers. elizabeth ann's eyes wandered all over the kitchen from the low, white ceiling to the clean, bare wooden floor, but they always came back to those sunny windows. once, back in the big brick school-building, as she had sat drooping her thin shoulders over her desk, some sort of a procession had gone by with a brass band playing a lively air. for some queer reason, every time she now glanced at that sheet of sunlight and the bright flowers she had a little of the same thrill which had straightened her back and gone up and down her spine while the band was playing. possibly aunt frances was right, after all, and elizabeth ann was a very impressionable child. i wonder, by the way, if anybody ever saw a child who wasn't. at one end, the end where cousin ann was ironing, stood the kitchen stove, gleaming black, with a tea-kettle humming away on it, a big hot-water boiler near it, and a large kitchen cabinet with lots of drawers and shelves and hooks and things. beyond that, in the middle of the room, was the table where they had had supper last night, and at which the little girl now sat eating her very late breakfast; and beyond that, at the other end of the room, was another table with an old dark-red cashmere shawl on it for a cover. a large lamp stood in the middle of this, a bookcase near it, two or three rocking-chairs around it, and back of it, against the wall, was a wide sofa covered with bright cretonne, with three bright pillows. something big and black and woolly was lying on this sofa, snoring loudly. as cousin ann saw the little girl's fearful glance alight on this she explained: "that's step, our old dog. doesn't he make an awful noise! mother says, when she happens to be alone here in the evening, it's real company to hear shep snore--as good as having a man in the house." although this did not seem at all a sensible remark to elizabeth ann, who thought soberly to herself that she didn't see why snoring made a dog as good as a man, still she was acute enough (for she was really quite an intelligent little girl) to feel that it belonged in the same class of remarks as one or two others she had noted as "queer" in the talk at putney farm last night. this variety of talk was entirely new to her, nobody in aunt harriet's conscientious household ever making anything but plain statements of fact. it was one of the "queer putney ways" which aunt harriet had forgotten to mention. it is possible that aunt harriet had never noticed it. when elizabeth ann finished her breakfast, cousin ann made three suggestions, using exactly the same accent for them all. she said: "wouldn't you better wash your dishes up now before they get sticky? and don't you want one of those red apples from the dish on the side table? and then maybe you'd like to look around the house so's to know where you are." elizabeth ann had never washed a dish in all her life, and she had always thought that nobody but poor, ignorant people, who couldn't afford to hire girls, did such things. and yet (it was odd) she did not feel like saying this to cousin ann, who stood there so straight in her gingham dress and apron, with her clear, bright eyes and red cheeks. besides this feeling, elizabeth ann was overcome with embarrassment at the idea of undertaking a new task in that casual way. how in the world did you wash dishes? she stood rooted to the spot, irresolute, horribly shy, and looking, though she did not know it, very clouded and sullen. cousin ann said briskly, holding an iron up to her cheek to see if it was hot enough: "just take them over to the sink there and hold them under the hot-water faucet. they'll be clean in no time. the dish-towels are those hanging on the rack over the stove." elizabeth ann moved promptly over to the sink, as though cousin ann's words had shoved her there, and before she knew it, her saucer, cup, and spoon were clean and she was wiping them on a dry checked towel. "the spoon goes in the side-table drawer with the other silver, and the saucer and cup in those shelves there behind the glass doors where the china belongs," continued cousin ann, thumping hard with her iron on a napkin and not looking up at all, "and don't forget your apple as you go out. those northern spies are just getting to be good about now. when they first come off the tree in october you could shoot them through an oak plank." now elizabeth ann knew that this was a foolish thing to say, since of course an apple never could go through a board; but something that had always been sound asleep in her brain woke up a little, little bit and opened one eye. for it occurred dimly to elizabeth ann that this was a rather funny way of saying that northern spies were very hard when you first pick them in the autumn. she had to figure it out for herself very slowly, because it was a new idea to her, and she was half-way through her tour of inspection of the house before there glimmered on her lips, in a faint smile, the first recognition of humor in all her life. she felt a momentary impulse to call down to cousin ann that she saw the point, but before she had taken a single step toward the head of the stairs she had decided not to do this. cousin ann, with her bright, dark eyes, and her straight back, and her long arms, and her way of speaking as though it never occurred to her that you wouldn't do just as she said--elizabeth ann was not very sure that she liked cousin ann, and she was very sure that she was afraid of her. so she went on, walking from one room to another, industriously eating the red apple, the biggest she had ever seen. it was the best, too, with its crisp, white flesh and the delicious, sour-sweet juice which made elizabeth ann feel with each mouthful like hurrying to take another. she did not think much more of the other rooms in the house than she had of the kitchen. there were no draped "throws" over anything; there were no lace curtains at the windows, just dotted swiss like the kitchen; all the ceilings were very low; the furniture was all of dark wood and very old-looking; what few rugs there were were of bright-colored rags; the mirrors were queer and old, with funny old pictures at the top; there wasn't a brass bed in any of the bedrooms, just old wooden ones with posts, and curtains round the tops; and there was not a single plush portiere in the parlor, whereas at aunt harriet's there had been two sets for that one room. she was relieved at the absence of a piano and secretly rejoiced that she would not need to practice. in her heart she had not liked her music lessons at all, but she had never dreamed of not accepting them from aunt frances as she accepted everything else. also she had liked to hear aunt frances boast about how much better she could play than other children of her age. she was downstairs by this time, and, opening a door out of the parlor, found herself back in the kitchen, the long line of sunny windows and the bright flowers giving her that quick little thrill again. cousin ann looked up from her ironing, nodded, and said: "all through? you'd better come in and get warmed up. those rooms get awfully cold these january days. winters we mostly use this room so's to get the good of the kitchen stove." she added after a moment, during which elizabeth ann stood by the stove, warming her hands: "there's one place you haven't seen yet--the milk-room. mother's down there now, churning. that's the door--the middle one." elizabeth ann had been wondering and wondering where in the world aunt abigail was. so she stepped quickly to the door, and went dawn the cold dark stairs she found there. at the bottom was a door, locked apparently, for she could find no fastening. she heard steps inside, the door was briskly cast open, and she almost fell into the arms of aunt abigail, who caught her as she stumbled forward, saying: "well, i've been expectin' you down here for a long time. i never saw a little girl yet who didn't like to watch butter-making. don't you love to run the butter-worker over it? i do, myself, for all i'm seventy-two!" "i don't know anything about it," said elizabeth ann. "i don't know what you make butter out of. we always bought ours." "well, for goodness' sakes!" said aunt abigail. she turned and called across the room, "henry, did you ever! here's betsy saying she don't know what we make butter out of! she actually never saw anybody making butter!" uncle henry was sitting down, near the window, turning the handle to a small barrel swung between two uprights. he stopped for a moment and considered aunt abigail's remark with the same serious attention he had given to elizabeth ann's discovery about left and right. then he began to turn the churn over and over again and said, peaceably: "well, mother, you never saw anybody laying asphalt pavement, i'll warrant you! and i suppose betsy knows all about that." elizabeth ann's spirits rose. she felt very superior indeed. "oh, yes," she assured them, "i know all about that! didn't you ever see anybody doing that? why, i've seen them hundreds of times! every day as we went to school they were doing over the whole pavement for blocks along there." aunt abigail and uncle henry looked at her with interest, and aunt abigail said: "well, now, think of that! tell us all about it!" "why, there's a big black sort of wagon," began elizabeth ann, "and they run it up and down and pour out the black stuff on the road. and that's all there is to it." she stopped, rather abruptly, looking uneasy. uncle henry inquired: "now there's one thing i've always wanted to know. how do they keep that stuff from hardening on them? how do they keep it hot?" the little girl looked blank. "why, a fire, i suppose," she faltered, searching her memory desperately and finding there only a dim recollection of a red glow somewhere connected with the familiar scene at which she had so often looked with unseeing eyes. "of course a fire," agreed uncle henry. "but what do they burn in it, coke or coal or wood or charcoal? and how do they get any draft to keep it going?" elizabeth ann shook her head. "i never noticed," she said. aunt abigail asked her now, "what do they do to the road before they pour it on?" "do?" said elizabeth ann. "i didn't know they did anything." "well, they can't pour it right on a dirt road, can they?" asked aunt abigail. "don't they put down cracked stone or something?" elizabeth ann looked down at her toes. "i never noticed," she said. "i wonder how long it takes for it to harden?" said uncle henry. "i never noticed," said elizabeth ann, in a small voice. uncle henry said, "oh!" and stopped asking questions. aunt abigail turned away and put a stick of wood in the stove. elizabeth ann did not feel very superior now, and when aunt abigail said, "now the butter's beginning to come. don't you want to watch and see everything i do, so's you can answer if anybody asks you how butter is made?" elizabeth ann understood perfectly what was in aunt's abigail's mind, and gave to the process of butter-making a more alert and aroused attention than she had ever before given to anything. it was so interesting, too, that in no time she forgot why she was watching, and was absorbed in the fascinations of the dairy for their own sake. she looked in the churn as aunt abigail unscrewed the top, and saw the thick, sour cream separating into buttermilk and tiny golden particles. "it's gathering," said aunt abigail, screwing the lid back on. "father'll churn it a little more till it really comes. and you and i will scald the wooden butter things and get everything ready. you'd better take that apron there to keep your dress clean." wouldn't aunt frances have been astonished if she could have looked in on elizabeth ann that very first morning of her stay at the hateful putney farm and have seen her wrapped in a gingham apron, her face bright with interest, trotting here and there in the stone-floored milk-room! she was allowed the excitement of pulling out the plug from the bottom of the churn, and dodged back hastily to escape the gush of buttermilk spouting into the pail held by aunt abigail. and she poured the water in to wash the butter, and screwed on the top herself, and, again all herself (for uncle henry had gone off as soon as the butter had "come"), swung the barrel back and forth six or seven times to swish the water all through the particles of butter. she even helped aunt abigail scoop out the great yellow lumps--her imagination had never conceived of so much butter in all the world! then aunt abigail let her run the curiously shaped wooden butter-worker back and forth over the butter, squeezing out the water, and then pile it up again with her wooden paddle into a mound of gold. she weighed out the salt needed on the scales, and was very much surprised to find that there really is such a thing as an ounce. she had never met it before outside the pages of her arithmetic book and she didn't know it lived anywhere else. after the salt was worked in she watched aunt abigail's deft, wrinkled old hands make pats and rolls. it looked like the greatest fun, and too easy for anything; and when aunt abigail asked her if she wouldn't like to make up the last half-pound into a pat for dinner, she took up the wooden paddle confidently. and then she got one of the surprises that putney farm seemed to have for her. she discovered that her hands didn't seem to belong to her at all, that her fingers were all thumbs, that she didn't seem to know in the least beforehand how hard a stroke she was going to give nor which way her fingers were going to go. it was, as a matter of fact, the first time elizabeth ann had tried to do anything with her hands except to write and figure and play on the piano, and naturally she wasn't very well acquainted with them. she stopped in dismay, looking at the shapeless, battered heap of butter before her and holding out her hands as though they were not part of her. aunt abigail laughed, took up the paddle, and after three or four passes the butter was a smooth, yellow ball. "well, that brings it all back to me!" she said? "when _i_ was a little girl, when my grandmother first let me try to make a pat. i was about five years old--my! what a mess i made of it! and i remember? doesn't it seem funny--that she laughed and said her great-aunt elmira had taught her how to handle butter right here in this very milk-room. let's see, grandmother was born the year the declaration of independence was signed. that's quite a while ago, isn't it? but butter hasn't changed much, i guess, nor little girls either." elizabeth ann listened to this statement with a very queer, startled expression on her face, as though she hadn't understood the words. now for a moment she stood staring up in aunt abigail's face, and yet not seeing her at all, because she was thinking so hard. she was thinking! "why! there were real people living when the declaration of independence was signed--real people, not just history people--old women teaching little girls how to do things--right in this very room, on this very floor--and the declaration of independence just signed!" to tell the honest truth, although she had passed a very good examination in the little book on american history they had studied in school, elizabeth ann had never to that moment had any notion that there ever had been really and truly any declaration of independence at all. it had been like the ounce, living exclusively inside her schoolbooks for little girls to be examined about. and now here aunt abigail, talking about a butter-pat, had brought it to life! of course all this only lasted a moment, because it was such a new idea! she soon lost track of what she was thinking of; she rubbed her eyes as though she were coming out of a dream, she thought, confusedly: "what did butter have to do with the declaration of independence? nothing, of course! it couldn't!" and the whole impression seemed to pass out of her mind. but it was an impression which was to come again and again during the next few months. chapter iv betsy goes to school elizabeth ann was very much surprised to hear cousin ann's voice calling, "dinner!" down the stairs. it did not seem possible that the whole morning had gone by. "here," said aunt abigail, "just put that pat on a plate, will you, and take it upstairs as you go. i've got all i can do to haul my own two hundred pounds up, without any half-pound of butter into the bargain." the little girl smiled at this, though she did not exactly know why, and skipped up the stairs proudly with her butter. dinner was smoking on the table, which was set in the midst of the great pool of sunlight. a very large black-and-white dog, with a great bushy tail, was walking around and around the table, sniffing the air. he looked as big as a bear to elizabeth ann; and as he walked his great red tongue hung out of his mouth and his white teeth gleamed horribly. elizabeth ann shrank back in terror, clutching her plate of butter to her breast with tense fingers. cousin. ann said, over her shoulder: "oh, bother! there's old shep, got up to pester us begging for scraps! shep! you go and lie down this minute!" to elizabeth ann's astonishment and immense relief, the great animal turned, drooping his head sadly, walked back across the floor, got upon the couch again, and laid his head down on one paw very forlornly, turning up the whites of his eyes meekly at cousin ann. aunt abigail, who had just pulled herself up the stairs, panting, said, between laughing and puffing: "i'm glad i'm not an animal on this farm. ann does boss them around so." "well, somebody has to!" said cousin ann, advancing on the table with a platter. this proved to have chicken fricassee on it, and elizabeth ann's heart melted in her at the smell. she loved chicken gravy on hot biscuits beyond anything in the world, but chickens are so expensive when you buy them in the market that aunt harriet hadn't had them very often for dinner. and there was a plate of biscuits, golden brown, just coming out of the oven! she sat down very quickly, her mouth watering, and attacked with extreme haste the big plateful of food which cousin ann passed her. at aunt harriet's she had always been aware that everybody watched her anxiously as she ate, and she had heard so much about her light appetite that she felt she must live up to her reputation, and had a very natural and human hesitation about eating all she wanted when there happened to be something she liked very much. but nobody here knew that she "only ate enough to keep a bird alive," and that her "appetite was so capricious!" nor did anybody notice her while she stowed away the chicken and gravy and hot biscuits and currant jelly and baked potatoes and apple pie--when did elizabeth ann ever eat such a meal before! she actually felt her belt grow tight. in the middle of the meal cousin ann got up to answer the telephone, which was in the next room. the instant the door had closed behind her uncle henry leaned forward, tapped elizabeth ann on the shoulder, and nodded toward the sofa. his eyes were twinkling, and as for aunt abigail she began to laugh silently, shaking all over, her napkin at her mouth to stifle the sound. elizabeth ann turned wonderingly and saw the old dog cautiously and noiselessly letting himself down from the sofa, one ear cocked rigidly in the direction of cousin ann's voice in the next room. "the old tyke!" said uncle henry. "he always sneaks up to the table to be fed if ann goes out for a minute. here, betsy, you're nearest, give him this piece of skin from the chicken neck." the big dog padded forward across the room, evidently in such a state of terror about cousin ann that elizabeth ann felt for him. she had a fellow-feeling about that relative of hers. also it was impossible to be afraid of so abjectly meek and guilty an animal. as old shep came up to her, poking his nose inquiringly on her lap, she shrinkingly held out the big piece of skin, and though she jumped back at the sudden snap and gobbling gulp with which the old dog greeted the tidbit, she could not but sympathize with his evident enjoyment of it. he waved his bushy tail gratefully, cocked his head on one side, and, his ears standing up at attention, his eyes glistening greedily, he gave a little, begging whine. "oh, he's asking for more!" cried elizabeth ann, surprised to see how plainly she could understand dog-talk. "quick, uncle henry, give me another piece!" uncle henry rapidly transferred to her plate a wing-bone from his own, and aunt abigail, with one deft swoop, contributed the neck from the platter. as fast as she could, elizabeth ann fed these to shep, who woofed them down at top speed, the bones crunching loudly under his strong, white teeth. how he did enjoy it! it did your heart good to see his gusto! [illustration: "oh, he's asking for more'" cried elizabeth ann] there was the sound of the telephone receiver being hung up in the next room--and everybody acted at once. aunt abigail began drinking innocently out of her coffee-cup, only her laughing old eyes showing over the rim; uncle henry buttered a slice of bread with a grave face, as though he were deep in conjectures about who would be the next president; and as for old shep, he made one plunge across the room, his toe-nails clicking rapidly on the bare floor, sprang up on the couch, and when cousin ann opened the door and came in he was lying in exactly the position in which she had left him, his paw stretched out, his head laid on it, his brown eyes turned up meekly so that the whites showed. i've told you what these three did, but i haven't told you yet what elizabeth ann did. and it is worth telling. as cousin ann stepped in, glancing suspiciously from her sober-faced and abstracted parents to the lamb-like innocence of old shep, little elizabeth ann burst into a shout of laughter. it's worth telling about, because, so far as i know, that was the first time she had ever laughed out heartily in all her life. for my part, i'm half surprised to know that she knew how. of course, when she laughed, aunt abigail had to laugh too, setting down her coffee-cup and showing all the funny wrinkles in her face screwed up hard with fun; and that made uncle henry laugh, and then cousin ann laughed and said, as she sat down, "you are bad children, the whole four of you!" and old shep, seeing the state of things, stopped pretending to be meek, jumped down, and came lumbering over to the table, wagging his tail and laughing too; you know that good, wide dog-smile! he put his head on elizabeth ann's lap again and she patted it and lifted up one of his big black ears. she had quite forgotten that she was terribly afraid of big dogs. after dinner cousin ann looked up at the clock and said: "my goodness! betsy'll be late for school if she doesn't start right off." she explained to the child, aghast at this sudden thunderclap, "i let you sleep this morning as long as you wanted to, because you were so tired from your journey. but of course there's no reason for missing the afternoon session." as elizabeth ann continued sitting perfectly still, frozen with alarm, cousin ann jumped up briskly, got the little coat and cap, helped her up, and began inserting the child's arms into the sleeves. she pulled the cap well down over elizabeth ann's ears, felt in the pocket and pulled out the mittens. "there," she said, holding them out, "you'd better put them on before you go out, for it's a real cold day." as she led the stupefied little girl along toward the door aunt abigail came after them and put a big sugar-cookie into the child's hand. "maybe you'll like to eat that for your recess time," she said. "i always did when i went to school." elizabeth ann's hand closed automatically about the cookie, but she scarcely heard what was said. she felt herself to be in a bad dream. aunt frances had never, no never, let her go to school alone, and on the first day of the year always took her to the new teacher and introduced her and told the teacher how sensitive she was and how hard to understand; and then she stayed there for an hour or two till elizabeth ann got used to things! she could not face a whole new school all alone--oh, she couldn't, she wouldn't! she couldn't! horrors! here she was in the front hall--she was on the porch! cousin ann was saying: "now run along, child. straight down the road till the first turn to the left, and there in the cross-roads, there you are." and now the front door closed behind her, the path stretched before her to the road, and the road led down the hill the way cousin ann had pointed. elizabeth ann's feet began to move forward and carried her down the path, although she was still crying out to herself, "i can't! i won't! i can't!" are you wondering why elizabeth ann didn't turn right around, open the front door, walk in, and say, "i can't! i won't! i can't!" to cousin ann? the answer to that question is that she didn't do it because cousin ann was cousin ann. and there's more in that than you think! in fact, there is a mystery in it that nobody has ever solved, not even the greatest scientists and philosophers, although, like all scientists and philosophers, they think they have gone a long way toward explaining something they don't understand by calling it a long name. the long name is "personality," and what it means nobody knows, but it is perhaps the very most important thing in the world for all that. and yet we know only one or two things about it. we know that anybody's personality is made up of the sum total of all the actions and thoughts and desires of his life. and we know that though there aren't any words or any figures in any language to set down that sum total accurately, still it is one of the first things that everybody knows about anybody else. and that is really all we know! so i can't tell you why elizabeth ann did not go back and cry and sob and say she couldn't and she wouldn't and she couldn't, as she would certainly have done at aunt harriet's. you remember that i could not even tell you why it was that, as the little fatherless and motherless girl lay in bed looking at aunt abigail's old face, she should feel so comforted and protected that she must needs break out crying. no, all i can say is that it was because aunt abigail was aunt abigail. but perhaps it may occur to you that it's rather a good idea to keep a sharp eye on your "personality," whatever that is! it might be very handy, you know, to have a personality like cousin ann's which sent elizabeth ann's feet down the path; or perhaps you would prefer one like aunt abigail's. well, take your choice. you must not, of course, think for a moment that elizabeth ann had the slightest intention of obeying cousin ann. no indeed! nothing was farther from her mind as her feet carried her along the path and into the road. in her mind was nothing but rebellion and fear and anger and oh, such hurt feelings! she turned sick at the very thought of facing all the staring, curious faces in the playground turned on the new scholar as she had seen them at home! she would never, never do it! she would walk around all the afternoon, and then go back and tell cousin ann that she couldn't! she would explain to her how aunt frances never let her go out of doors without a loving hand to cling to. she would explain to her how aunt frances always took care of her! ... it was easier to think about what she would say and do and explain, away from cousin ann, than it was to say and do it before those black eyes. aunt frances's eyes were soft, light blue. oh, how she wanted aunt frances to take care of her! nobody cared a thing about her! nobody understood her but aunt frances! she wouldn't go back at all to putney farm. she would just walk on and on till she was lost, and the night would come and she would lie down and freeze to death, and then wouldn't cousin ann feel ... someone called to her, "isn't this betsy?" she looked up astonished. a young girl in a gingham dress and a white apron like those at putney farm stood in front of a tiny, square building, like a toy house. "isn't this betsy?" asked the young girl again. "your cousin ann said you were coming to school today and i've been looking out for you. but i saw you going right by, and i ran out to stop you." "why, where is the school?" asked betsy, staring around for a big brick, four-story building. the young girl laughed and held out her hand. "this is the school," she said, "and i am the teacher, and you'd better come right in, for it's time to begin." she led betsy into a low-ceilinged room with geraniums at the windows, where about a dozen children of different ages sat behind their desks. at the first sight of them betsy blushed crimson with fright and shyness, and hung down her head; but, looking out the corners of her eyes, she saw that they, too, were all very red-faced and scared-looking and hung down their heads, looking at her shyly out of the corners of their eyes. she was so surprised by this that she forgot all about herself and looked inquiringly at the teacher. "they don't see many strangers," the teacher explained, "and they feel very shy and scared when a new scholar comes, especially one from the city." "is this my grade?" asked elizabeth, thinking it the very smallest grade she had ever seen. "this is the whole school," said the teacher. "there are only two or three in each class. you'll probably have three in yours. miss ann said you were in the third grade. there, that's your seat." elizabeth sat down before a very old desk, much battered and hacked up with knife marks. there was a big h. p. carved just over the inkwell, and many other initials scattered all over the top. the teacher stepped back to her desk and took up a violin that lay there. "now, children, we'll begin the afternoon session by singing 'america,'" she said. she played the air over a little very sweetly and stirringly, and then as the children stood up she came down close to them, standing just in front of betsy. she drew the bow across the strings in a big chord, and said, "now," and betsy burst into song with the others. the sun came in the windows brightly, the teacher, too, sang as she played, and all the children, even the littlest ones, opened their mouths wide and sang lustily. chapter v what grade is betsy? after the singing the teacher gave elizabeth ann a pile of schoolbooks, some paper, some pencils, and a pen, and told her to set her desk in order. there were more initials carved inside, another big h. p. with a little a. p. under it. what a lot of children must have sat there, thought the little girl as she arranged her books and papers. as she shut down the lid the teacher finished giving some instructions to three or four little ones and said, "betsy and ralph and ellen, bring your reading books up here." betsy sighed, took out her third-grade reader, and went with the other two up to the battered old bench near the teacher's desk. she knew all about reading lessons and she hated them, although she loved to read. but reading lessons...! you sat with your book open at some reading that you could do with your eyes shut, it was so easy, and you waited and waited and waited while your classmates slowly stumbled along, reading aloud a sentence or two apiece, until your turn came to stand up and read your sentence or two, which by that time sounded just like nonsense because you'd read it over and over so many times to yourself before your chance came. and often you didn't even have a chance to do that, because the teacher didn't have time to get around to you at all, and you closed your book and put it back in your desk without having opened your mouth. reading was one thing elizabeth ann had learned to do very well indeed, but she had learned it all by herself at home from much reading to herself. aunt frances had kept her well supplied with children's books from the nearest public library. she often read three a week--very different, that, from a sentence or two once or twice a week. when she sat down on the battered old bench she almost laughed aloud, it seemed so funny to be in a class of only three. there had been forty in her grade in the big brick building. she sat in the middle, the little girl whom the teacher had called ellen on one side, and ralph on the other. ellen was very pretty, with fair hair smoothly braided in two little pig-tails, sweet, blue eyes, and a clean blue-and-white gingham dress. ralph had very black eyes, dark hair, a big bruise on his forehead, a cut on his chin, and a tear in the knee of his short trousers. he was much bigger than ellen, and elizabeth ann thought he looked rather fierce. she decided that she would be afraid of him, and would not like him at all. "page thirty-two," said the teacher. "ralph first." ralph stood up and began to read. it sounded very familiar to elizabeth ann, for he did not read at all well. what was not familiar was that the teacher did not stop him after the first sentence. he read on and on till he had read a page, the teacher only helping him with the hardest words. "now betsy," said the teacher. elizabeth ann stood up, read the first sentence, and paused, like a caged lion pausing when he comes to the end of his cage. "go on," said the teacher. elizabeth ann read the next sentence and stopped again, automatically. "go on," said the teacher, looking at her sharply. the next time the little girl paused the teacher laughed out good-naturedly. "what is the matter with you, betsy?" she said. "go on till i tell you to stop." so elizabeth ann, very much surprised but very much interested, read on, sentence after sentence, till she forgot they were sentences and just thought of what they meant. she read a whole page and then another page, and that was the end of the selection. she had never read aloud so much in her life. she was aware that everybody in the room had stopped working to listen to her. she felt very proud and less afraid than she had ever thought she could be in a schoolroom. when she finished, "you read very well!" said the teacher. "is this very easy for you?" "oh, yes!" said elizabeth ann. "i guess, then, that you'd better not stay in this class," said the teacher. she took a book out of her desk. "see if you can read that." elizabeth ann began in her usual school-reading style, very slow and monotonous, but this didn't seem like a "reader" at all. it was poetry, full of hard words that were fun to try to pronounce, and it was all about an old woman who would hang out an american flag, even though the town was full of rebel soldiers. she read faster and faster, getting more and more excited, till she broke out with "halt!" in such a loud, spirited voice that the sound of it startled her and made her stop, fearing that she would be laughed at. but nobody laughed. they were all listening, very eagerly, even the little ones, with their eyes turned toward her. "you might as well go on and let us see how it came out," said the teacher, and betsy finished triumphantly. "well," said the teacher, "there's no sense in your reading along in the third reader. after this you'll recite out of the seventh reader with frank and harry and stashie." elizabeth ann could not believe her ears. to be "jumped" four grades in that casual way! it wasn't possible! she at once thought, however, of something that would prevent it entirely, and while ellen was reading her page in a slow, careful little voice, elizabeth ann was feeling miserably that she must explain to the teacher why she couldn't read with the seventh-grade children. oh, how she wished she could! when they stood up to go back to their seats she hesitated, hung her head, and looked very unhappy. "did you want to say something to me?" asked the teacher, pausing with a bit of chalk in her hand. the little girl went up to her desk and said, what she knew it was her duty to confess: "i can't be allowed to read in the seventh reader. i don't write a bit well, and i never get the mental number-work right. i couldn't do anything with seventh-grade arithmetic!" the teacher looked a little blank and said: "_i_ didn't say anything about your number-work! i don't know anything about it! you haven't recited yet." she turned away and began to write a list of words on the board. "betsy, ralph, and ellen study their spelling," she said. "you little ones come up for your reading." two little boys and two little girls came forward as elizabeth ann began to con over the words on the board. at first she found she was listening to the little, chirping voices, as the children straggled with their reading, instead of studying "doubt, travel, cheese," and the other words in her lesson. but she put her hands over her ears, and her mind on her spelling. she wanted to make a good impression with that lesson. after a while, when she was sure she could spell them all correctly, she began to listen and look around her. she always "got" her spelling in less time than was allowed the class, and usually sat idle, looking out of the window until that study period was over. but now the moment she stopped staring at the board and moving her lips as she spelled to herself the teacher said, just as though she had been watching her every minute instead of conducting a class, "betsy, have you learned your spelling?" "yes, ma'am, i think so," said elizabeth ann, wondering very much why she was asked. "that's fine," said the teacher. "i wish you'd take little molly over in that corner and help her with her reading. she's getting on so much better than the rest of the class that i hate to have her lose her time. just hear her read the rest of her little story, will you, and don't help her unless she's really stuck." elizabeth ann was startled by this request, which was unheard of in her experience. she was very uncertain of herself as she sat down on a low chair in the corner of the schoolroom away from the desks, with the little child leaning on her knee. and yet she was not exactly afraid, either, because molly was such a shy little roly-poly thing, with her crop of yellow curls, and her bright blue eyes very serious as she looked hard at the book and began: "once there was a rat. it was a fat rat." no, it was impossible to be frightened of such a funny little girl, who peered so earnestly into the older child's face to make sure she was doing her lesson right. elizabeth ann had never had anything to do with children younger than herself, and she felt very pleased and important to have anybody look up to her! she put her arm around molly's square, warm, fat little body and gave her a squeeze. molly snuggled up closer; and the two children put their heads together over the printed page, elizabeth ann correcting molly very gently indeed when she made a mistake, and waiting patiently when she hesitated. she had so fresh in her mind her own suffering from quick, nervous corrections that she took the greatest pleasure in speaking quietly and not interrupting the little girl more than was necessary. it was fun to teach, lots of fun! she was surprised when the teacher said, "well, betsy, how did molly do?" "oh, is the time up?" said elizabeth ann. "why, she does beautifully, i think, for such a little thing." "do you suppose," said the teacher thoughtfully, just as though betsy were a grown-up person, "do you suppose she could go into the second reader, with eliza? there's no use keeping her in the first if she's ready to go on." elizabeth ann's head whirled with this second light-handed juggling with the sacred distinction between the grades. in the big brick schoolhouse nobody ever went into another grade except at the beginning of a new year, after you'd passed a lot of examinations. she had not known that anybody could do anything else. the idea that everybody took a year to a grade, no matter what! was so fixed in her mind that she felt as though the teacher had said: "how would you like to stop being nine years old and be twelve instead! and don't you think molly would better be eight instead of six?" however, just then her class in arithmetic was called, so that she had no more time to be puzzled. she came forward with ralph and ellen again, very low in her mind. she hated arithmetic with all her might, and she really didn't understand a thing about it! by long experience she had learned to read her teachers' faces very accurately, and she guessed by their expression whether the answer she gave was the right one. and that was the only way she could tell. you never heard of any other child who did that, did you? they had mental arithmetic, of course (elizabeth ann thought it just her luck!), and of course it was those hateful eights and sevens, and of course right away poor betsy got the one she hated most, 7x8. she never knew that one! she said dispiritedly that it was 54, remembering vaguely that it was somewhere in the fifties. ralph burst out scornfully, "56!" and the teacher, as if she wanted to take him down for showing off, pounced on him with 9 x 8. he answered, without drawing breath, 72. elizabeth ann shuddered at his accuracy. ellen, too, rose to the occasion when she got 6 x 7, which elizabeth ann could sometimes remember and sometimes not. and then, oh horrors! it was her turn again! her turn had never before come more than twice during a mental arithmetic lesson. she was so startled by the swiftness with which the question went around that she balked on 6 x 6, which she knew perfectly. and before she could recover ralph had answered and had rattled out a 108 in answer to 9 x 12; and then ellen slapped down an 84 on top of 7 x 12. good gracious! who could have guessed, from the way they read, they could do their tables like this! she herself missed on 7 x 7 and was ready to cry. after this the teacher didn't call on her at all, but showered questions down on the other two, who sent the answers back with sickening speed. after the lesson the teacher said, smiling, "well, betsy, you were right about your arithmetic. i guess you'd better recite with eliza for a while. she's doing second-grade work. i shouldn't be surprised if, after a good review with her, you'd be able to go on with the third-grade work." elizabeth ann fell back on the bench with her mouth open. she felt really dizzy. what crazy things the teacher said! she felt as though she was being pulled limb from limb. "what's the matter?" asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered fact. "why--why," said elizabeth ann, "i don't know what i am at all. if i'm second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am i?" the teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. "you aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. you're just yourself, aren't you? what difference does it make what grade you're in! and what's the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don't know your multiplication table?" "well, for goodness' sakes!" ejaculated elizabeth ann, feeling very much as though somebody had stood her suddenly on her head. "why, what's the matter?" asked the teacher again. this time elizabeth ann didn't answer, because she herself didn't know what the matter was. but i do, and i'll tell you. the matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. she had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. of course, she didn't really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the way you do when you're learning to skate and somebody pulls away the chair you've been leaning on and says, "now, go it alone!" the teacher waited a minute, and then, when elizabeth ann didn't say anything more, she rang a little bell. "recess time," she said, and as the children marched out and began putting on their wraps she followed them into the cloak-room, pulled on a warm, red cap and a red sweater, and ran outdoors herself. "who's on my side!" she called, and the children came darting out after her. elizabeth ann had dreaded the first recess time with the strange children, but she had no time to feel shy, for in a twinkling she was on one end of a long rope with a lot of her schoolmates, pulling with all her might against the teacher and two of the big boys. nobody had looked at her curiously, nobody had said anything to her beyond a loud, "come on, betsy!" from ralph, who was at the head on their side. they pulled and they pulled, digging their feet into the ground and bracing themselves against the rocks which stuck up out of the playground. sometimes the teacher's side yanked them along by quick jerks, and then they'd all set their feet hard when ralph shouted out, "now, all together!" and they'd slowly drag the other side back. and all the time everybody was shouting and yelling together with the excitement. betsy was screaming too, and when a wagon passing by stopped and a big, broad-shouldered farmer jumped down laughing, put the end of the rope over his shoulder, and just walked off with the whole lot of them till he had pulled them clear off their feet, elizabeth ann found herself rolling over and over with a breathless, squirming mass of children, her shrill laughter rising even above the shouts of merriment of the others. she laughed so she could hardly get up on her feet again, it was such an unexpected ending to the contest. the big farmer was laughing too. "you ain't so smart as you think you are, are you!" he jeered at them good-naturedly. then he started, yelling "whoa there!" to his horses, which had begun to walk on. he had to run after them with all his might, and just climbed into the back of the wagon and grabbed the reins the very moment they broke into a trot. the children laughed, and ralph shouted after him, "hi, there, uncle nate! who's not so smart as he thinks he is, now!" he turned to the little girls near him. "they 'most got away from him that time!" he said. "he's awful foolish about leaving them standing while he's funning or something. he thinks he's awful funny, anyhow. some day they'll run away on him and then where'll he be?" elizabeth ann was thinking to herself that this was one of the queerest things that had happened to her even in this queer place. never, why never once, had any grown-up, passing the playground of the big brick building, dreamed of such a thing as stopping for a minute to play. they never even looked at the children, any more than if they were in another world. in fact she had felt the school was in another world. "ralph, it's your turn to get the water," said the teacher, handing him a pail. "want to go along?" said ralph gruffly to ellen and betsy. he led the way and the little girls walked after him. now that she was out of a crowd elizabeth ann felt all her shyness come down on her like a black cloud, drying up her mouth and turning her hands and feet cold as ice. into one of these cold hands she felt small, warm fingers slide. she looked down and there was little molly trotting by her side, turning her blue eyes up trustfully. "teacher says i can go with you if you'll take care of me," she said. "she never lets us first-graders go without somebody bigger to help us over the log." as she spoke they came to a small, clear, swift brook, crossed by a big white-birch log. elizabeth ann was horribly afraid to set foot on it, but with little molly's hand holding tightly to hers she was ashamed to say she was afraid. ralph skipped across, swinging the pail to show how easy it was for him. ellen followed more slowly, and then--oh, don't you wish aunt frances could have been there!--betsy shut her teeth together hard, put molly ahead of her, took her hand, and started across. as a matter of fact molly went along as sure-footed as a little goat, having done it a hundred times, and it was she who steadied elizabeth ann. but nobody knew this, molly least of all. ralph took a drink out of a tin cup standing on a stump near by, dipped the pail into a deep, clear pool, and started back to the school. ellen took a drink and offered the cup to betsy, very shyly, without looking up. after they had all three had a drink they stood there for a moment, much embarrassed. then ellen said, in a very small voice, "do you like dolls with yellow hair the best?" now it happened that elizabeth ann had very positive convictions on this point which she had never spoken of, because aunt frances didn't really care about dolls. she only pretended to, to be company for her little niece. "no, i don't!" answered the little girl emphatically. "i get just sick and tired of always seeing them with that old, bright-yellow hair! i like them to have brown hair, just the way most little girls really do!" ellen lifted her eyes and smiled radiantly. "oh, so do i!" she said. "and that lovely old doll your folks have has got brown hair. will you let me play with her some time?" "my folks?" said elizabeth ann blankly. "why yes, your aunt abigail and your uncle henry." "have they got a doll?" said betsy, thinking this was the very climax of putney queerness. "oh my, yes!" said molly, eagerly. "she's the one mrs. putney had when she was a little girl. and she's got the loveliest clothes! she's in the hair-trunk under the eaves in the attic. they let me take her down once when i was there with mother. and mother said she guessed, now a little girl had come there to live, they'd let her have her down all the time. i'll bring mine over next saturday, if you want me to. mine's got yellow hair, but she's real pretty anyhow. if father's going to mill that day, he can leave me there for the morning." [illustration with caption: betsy shut her teeth together hard, and started across.] elizabeth ann had not understood more than one word in five of this, but just then the school-bell rang and they went back, little molly helping elizabeth ann over the log and thinking she was being helped, as before. they ran along to the little building, and there i'm going to leave them, because i think i've told enough about their school for one while. it was only a poor, rough, little district school anyway, that no superintendent of schools would have looked at for a minute, except to sniff. chapter vi if you don't like conversation in a book skip this chapter! betsy opened the door and was greeted by her kitten, who ran to her, purring and arching her back to be stroked. "well," said aunt abigail, looking up from the pan of apples in her lap, "i suppose you're starved, aren't you? get yourself a piece of bread and butter, why don't you? and have one of these apples." as the little girl sat down by her, munching fast on this provender, she asked: "what desk did you get?" elizabeth ann thought for a moment, cuddling eleanor up to her face. "i think it is the third from the front in the second row." she wondered why aunt abigail cared. "oh, i guess that's your uncle henry's desk. it's the one his father had, too. are there a couple of h. p.'s carved on it?" betsy nodded. "his father carved the h. p. on the lid, so henry had to put his inside. i remember the winter he put it there. it was the first season mother let me wear real hoop skirts. i sat in the first seat on the third row." betsy ate her apple more and more slowly, trying to take in what aunt abigail had said. uncle henry and his father--why moses or alexander the great didn't seem any further back in the mists of time to elizabeth ann than did uncle henry's father! and to think he had been a little boy, right there at that desk! she stopped chewing altogether for a moment and stared into space. although she was only nine years old, she was feeling a little of the same rapt wonder, the same astonished sense of the reality of the people who have gone before, which make a first visit to the roman forum such a thrilling event for grown-ups. that very desk! after a moment she came to herself, and finding some apple still in her mouth, went on chewing meditatively. "aunt abigail," she said, "how long ago was that?" "let's see," said the old woman, peeling apples with wonderful rapidity. "i was born in 1844. and i was six when i first went to school. that's sixty-six years ago." elizabeth ann, like all little girls of nine, had very little notion how long sixty-six years might be. "was george washington alive then?" she asked. the wrinkles around aunt abigail's eyes deepened mirthfully, but she did not laugh as she answered, "no, that was long after he died, but the schoolhouse was there when he was alive." "it was!" said betsy, staring, with her teeth set deep in an apple. "yes, indeed. it was the first house in the valley built of sawed lumber. you know, when our folks came up here, they had to build all their houses of logs to begin with." "they did!" cried betsy, with her mouth full of apple. "why yes, child, what else did you suppose they had to make houses out of? they had to have something to live in, right off. the sawmills came later." "i didn't know anything about it," said betsy. "tell me about it." "why you knew, didn't you--your aunt harriet must have told you--about how our folks came up here from connecticut in 1763, on horseback! connecticut was an old settled place then, compared to vermont. there wasn't anything here but trees and bears and wood-pigeons. i've heard 'em say that the wood-pigeons were so thick you could go out after dark and club 'em out of the trees, just like hens roosting in a hen-house. there always was cold pigeon-pie in the pantry, just the way we have doughnuts. and they used bear-grease to grease their boots and their hair, bears were so plenty. it sounds like good eating, don't it! but of course that was just at first. it got quite settled up before long, and by the time of the revolution, bears were getting pretty scarce, and soon the wood-pigeons were all gone." "and the schoolhouse--that schoolhouse where i went today--was that built then?" elizabeth ann found it hard to believe. "yes, it used to have a great big chimney and fireplace in it. it was built long before stoves were invented, you know." "why, i thought stoves were always invented!" cried elizabeth ann. this was the most startling and interesting conversation she had ever taken part in. aunt abigail laughed. "mercy, no, child! why, _i_ can remember when only folks that were pretty well off had stoves and real poor people still cooked over a hearth fire. i always thought it a pity they tore down the big chimney and fireplace out of the schoolhouse and put in that big, ugly stove. but folks are so daft over new-fangled things. well, anyhow, they couldn't take away the sun-dial on the window-sill. you want to be sure to look at that. it's on the sill of the middle window on the right hand as you face the teacher's desk." "sun-dial," repeated betsy. "what's that?" "why to tell the time by, when--" "why didn't they have a clock?" asked the child. aunt abigail laughed. "good gracious, there was only one clock in the valley for years and years, and that belonged to the wardons, the rich people in the village. everybody had sun-dials cut in their window-sills. there's one on the window-sill of our pantry this minute. come on, i'll show it to you." she got up heavily with her pan of apples, and trotted briskly, shaking the floor as she went, over to the stove. "but first just watch me put these on to cook so you'll know how." she set the pan on the stove, poured some water from the tea-kettle over the apples, and put on a cover. "now come on into the pantry." they entered a sweet-smelling, spicy little room, all white paint, and shelves which were loaded with dishes and boxes and bags and pans of milk and jars of preserves. "there!" said aunt abigail, opening the window. "that's not so good as the one at school. this only tells when noon is." elizabeth ann stared stupidly at the deep scratch on the window-sill. "don't you see?" said aunt abigail. "when the shadow got to that mark it was noon. and the rest of the time you guessed by how far it was from the mark. let's see if i can come anywhere near it now." she looked at it hard and said: "i guess it's half-past four." she glanced back into the kitchen at the clock and said: "oh pshaw! it's ten minutes past five! now my grandmother could have told that within five minutes, just by the place of the shadow. i declare! sometimes it seems to me that every time a new piece of machinery comes into the door some of our wits fly out at the window! now i couldn't any more live without matches than i could fly! and yet they all used to get along all right before they had matches. makes me feel foolish to think i'm not smart enough to get along, if i wanted to, without those little snips of pine and brimstone. here, betsy, take a cooky. it's against my principles to let a child leave the pantry without having a cooky. my! it does seem like living again to have a young one around to stuff!" betsy took the cooky, but went on with the conversation by exclaiming, "how could any-body get along without matches? you have to have matches." aunt abigail didn't answer at first. they were back in the kitchen now. she was looking at the clock again. "see here," she said; "it's time i began getting supper ready. we divide up on the work. ann gets the dinner and i get the supper. and everybody gets his own breakfast. which would you rather do, help ann with the dinner, or me with the supper?" elizabeth ann had not had the slightest idea of helping anybody with any meal, but, confronted unexpectedly with the alternative offered, she made up her mind so quickly that she didn't want to help cousin ann, and declared so loudly, "oh, help you with the supper!" that her promptness made her sound quite hearty and willing. "well, that's fine," said aunt abigail. "we'll set the table now. but first you would better look at that apple sauce. i hear it walloping away as though it was boiling too fast. maybe you'd better push it back where it won't cook so fast. there are the holders, on that hook." elizabeth ann approached the stove with the holder in her hand and horror in her heart. nobody had ever dreamed of asking her to handle hot things. she looked around dismally at aunt abigail, but the old woman was standing with her back turned, doing something at the kitchen table. very gingerly the little girl took hold of the handle of the saucepan, and very gingerly she shoved it to the back of the stove. and then she stood still a moment to admire herself. she could do that as well as anybody! "why," said aunt abigail, as if remembering that betsy had asked her a question. "any man could strike a spark from his flint and steel that he had for his gun. and he'd keep striking it till it happened to fly out in the right direction, and you'd catch it in some fluff where it would start a smoulder, and you'd blow on it till you got a little flame, and drop tiny bits of shaved-up dry pine in it, and so, little by little, you'd build your fire up." "but it must have taken forever to do that!" "oh, you didn't have to do that more than once in ever so long," said aunt abigail, briskly. she interrupted her story to say: "now you put the silver around, while i cream the potatoes. it's in that drawer--a knife, a fork, and two spoons for each place--and the plates and cups are up there behind the glass doors. we're going to have hot cocoa again tonight." and as the little girl, hypnotized by the other's casual, offhand way of issuing instructions, began to fumble with the knives and forks she went on: "why, you'd start your fire that way, and then you'd never let it go out. everybody that amounted to anything knew how to bank the hearth fire with ashes at night so it would be sure to last. and the first thing in the morning, you got down on your knees and poked the ashes away very carefully till you got to the hot coals. then you'd blow with the bellows and drop in pieces of dry pine--don't forget the water-glasses--and you'd blow gently till they flared up and the shavings caught, and there your fire would be kindled again. the napkins are in the second drawer." betsy went on setting the table, deep in thought, reconstructing the old life. as she put the napkins around she said, "but sometimes it must have gone out ..." "yes," said aunt abigail, "sometimes it went out, and then one of the children was sent over to the nearest neighbor to borrow some fire. he'd take a covered iron pan fastened on to a long hickory stick, and go through the woods--everything was woods then--to the next house and wait till they had their fire going and could spare him a pan full of coals; and then--don't forget the salt and pepper--he would leg it home as fast as he could streak it, to get there before the coals went out. say, betsy, i think that apple sauce is ready to be sweetened. you do it, will you? i've got my hands in the biscuit dough. the sugar's in the left-hand drawer in the kitchen cabinet." "oh, my!" cried betsy, dismayed. "_i_ don't know how to cook!" aunt abigail laughed and put back a strand of curly white hair with the back of her floury hand. "you know how to stir sugar into your cup of cocoa, don't you?" "but how much shall i put in?" asked elizabeth ann, clamoring for exact instruction so she wouldn't need to do any thinking for herself. "oh, till it tastes right," said aunt abigail, carelessly. "fix it to suit yourself, and i guess the rest of us will like it. take that big spoon to stir it with." elizabeth ann took off the lid and began stirring in sugar, a teaspoonful at a time, but she soon saw that that made no impression. she poured in a cupful, stirred it vigorously, and tasted it. better, but not quite enough. she put in a tablespoonful more and tasted it, staring off into space under bended brows as she concentrated her attention on the taste. it was quite a responsibility to prepare the apple sauce for a family. it was ever so good, too. but maybe a little more sugar. she put in a teaspoonful and decided it was just exactly right! "done?" asked aunt abigail. "take it off, then, and pour it out in that big yellow bowl, and put it on the table in front of your place. you've made it; you ought to serve it." "it isn't done, is it?" asked betsy. "that isn't all you do to make apple sauce!" "what else could you do?" asked aunt abigail. "well...!" said elizabeth ann, very much surprised. "i didn't know it was so easy to cook!" "easiest thing in the world," said aunt abigail gravely, with the merry wrinkles around her merry old eyes all creased up with silent fun. when uncle henry came in from the barn, with old shep at his heels, and cousin ann came down from upstairs, where her sewing-machine had been humming like a big bee, they were both duly impressed when told that betsy had set the table and made the apple sauce. they pronounced it very good apple sauce indeed, and each sent his saucer back to the little girl for a second helping. she herself ate three saucerfuls. her own private opinion was that it was the very best apple sauce ever made. after supper was over and the dishes washed and wiped, betsy helping with the putting-away, the four gathered around the big lamp on the table with the red cover. cousin ann was making some buttonholes in the shirt-waist she had constructed that afternoon, aunt abigail was darning socks, and uncle henry was mending a piece of harness. shep lay on the couch and snored until he got so noisy they couldn't stand it, and cousin ann poked him in the ribs and he woke up snorting and gurgling and looking around very sheepishly. every time this happened it made betsy laugh. she held eleanor, who didn't snore at all, but made the prettiest little tea-kettle-singing purr deep in her throat, and opened and sheathed her needle-like claws in betsy's dress. "well, how'd you get on at school?" asked uncle henry. "i've got your desk," said elizabeth ann, looking at him curiously, at his gray hair and wrinkled, weather-beaten face, and trying to think what he must have looked like when he was a little boy like ralph. "so?" said uncle henry. "well, let me tell you that's a mighty good desk! did you notice the deep groove in the top of it?" betsy nodded. she had wondered what that was used for. "well, that was the lead-pencil desk in the old days. when they couldn't run down to the store to buy things, because there wasn't any store to run to, how do you suppose they got their lead-pencils!" elizabeth ann shook her head, incapable even of a guess. she had never thought before but that lead-pencils grew in glass show-cases in stores. "well, sir," said uncle henry, "i'll tell you. they took a piece off the lump of lead they made their bullets of, melted it over the fire in the hearth down at the schoolhouse till it would run like water, and poured it in that groove. when it cooled off, there was a long streak of solid lead, about as big as one of our lead-pencils nowadays. they'd break that up in shorter lengths, and there you'd have your lead-pencils, made while you wait. oh, i tell you in the old days folks knew how to take care of themselves more than now." "why, weren't there any stores?" asked elizabeth ann. she could not imagine living without buying things at stores. "where'd they get the things to put in a store in those days?" asked uncle henry, argumentatively. "every single thing had to be lugged clear from albany or from connecticut on horseback." "why didn't they use wagons?" asked elizabeth ann. "you can't run a wagon unless you've got a road to run it on, can you?" asked uncle henry. "it was a long, long time before they had any roads. it's an awful chore to make roads in a new country all woods and hills and swamps and rocks. you were lucky if there was a good path from your house to the next settlement." "now, henry," said aunt abigail, "do stop going on about old times long enough to let betsy answer the question you asked her. you haven't given her a chance to say how she got on at school." "well, i'm awfully mixed up!" said betsy, complainingly. "i don't know what i am! i'm second-grade arithmetic and third-grade spelling and seventh-grade reading and i don't know what in writing or composition. we didn't have those." nobody seemed to think this very remarkable, or even very interesting. uncle henry, indeed, noted it only to say, "seventh-grade reading!" he turned to aunt abigail. "oh, mother, don't you suppose she could read aloud to us evenings?" aunt abigail and cousin ann both laid down their sewing to laugh! "yes, yes, father, and play checkers with you too, like as not!" they explained to betsy: "your uncle henry is just daft on being read aloud to when he's got something to do in the evening, and when he hasn't he's as fidgety as a broody hen if he can't play checkers. ann hates checkers and i haven't got the time, often." "oh, i love to play checkers!" said betsy. "well, now ..." said uncle henry, rising instantly and dropping his half-mended harness on the table. "let's have a game." "oh, father!" said cousin ann, in the tone she used for shep. "how about that piece of breeching! you know that's not safe. why don't you finish that up first?" uncle henry sat down again, looking as shep did when cousin ann told him to get up on the couch, and took up his needle and awl. "but i could read something aloud," said betsy, feeling very sorry for him. "at least i think i could. i never did, except at school." "what shall we have, mother?" asked uncle henry eagerly. "oh, i don't know. what have we got in this bookcase?" said aunt abigail. "it's pretty cold to go into the parlor to the other one." she leaned forward, ran her fat fore-finger over the worn old volumes, and took out a battered, blue-covered book. "scott?" "gosh, yes!" said uncle henry, his eyes shining. "the staggit eve!" at least that was the way it sounded to betsy, but when she took the book and looked where aunt abigail pointed she read it correctly, though in a timid, uncertain voice. she was very proud to think she could please a grown-up so much as she was evidently pleasing uncle henry, but the idea of reading aloud for people to hear, not for a teacher to correct, was unheard-of. the stag at eve had drunk his fill where danced the moon on monan's rill, she began, and it was as though she had stepped into a boat and was swept off by a strong current. she did not know what all the words meant, and she could not pronounce a good many of the names, but nobody interrupted to correct her, and she read on and on, steadied by the strongly-marked rhythm, drawn forward swiftly from one clanging, sonorous rhyme to another. uncle henry nodded his head in time to the rise and fall of her voice and now and then stopped his work to look at her with bright, eager, old eyes. he knew some of the places by heart evidently, for once in a while his voice would join the little girl's for a couplet or two. they chanted together thus: a moment listened to the cry that thickened as the chase drew nigh, then, as the headmost foes appeared, with one brave bound, the copse he cleared. at the last line uncle henry flung his arm out wide, and the child felt as though the deer had made his great leap there, before her eyes. "i've seen 'em jump just like that," broke in uncle henry. "a two-three-hundred-pound stag go up over a four-foot fence just like a piece of thistledown in the wind." "uncle henry," asked elizabeth ann, "what is a copse?" "i don't know," said uncle henry indifferently. "something in the woods, must be. underbrush most likely. you can always tell words you don't know by the sense of the whole thing. go on." and stretching forward, free and far, the child's voice took up the chant again. she read faster and faster as it got more exciting. uncle henry joined in on for, jaded now and spent with toil, embossed with foam and dark with soil, while every gasp with sobs he drew, the laboring stag strained full in view. the little girl's heart beat fast. she fled along through the next lines, stumbling desperately over the hard words but seeing the headlong chase through them clearly as through tree-trunks in a forest. uncle henry broke in in a triumphant shout: the wily quarry shunned the shock and turned him from the opposing rock; then dashing down a darksome glen, soon lost to hound and hunter's ken, in the deep trossach's wildest nook his solitary refuge took. "oh my!" cried elizabeth ann, laying down the book. "he got away, didn't he? i was so afraid he wouldn't!" "i can just hear those dogs yelping, can't you?" said uncle henry. yelled on the view the opening pack. "sometimes you hear 'em that way up on the slope of hemlock mountain back of us, when they get to running a deer." "what say we have some pop-corn!" suggested aunt abigail. "betsy, don't you want to pop us some?" "i never did," said the little girl, but in a less doubtful tone than she had ever used with that phrase so familiar to her. a dim notion was growing up in her mind that the fact that she had never done a thing was no proof that she couldn't. "i'll show you," said uncle henry. he reached down a couple of ears from a big yellow cluster hanging on the wall, and he and betsy shelled them into the popper, popped it full of snowy kernels, buttered it, salted it, and took it back to the table. it was just as she was eating her first ambrosial mouthful that the door opened and a fur-capped head was thrust in. a man's voice said: "evenin', folks. no, i can't stay. i was down at the village just now, and thought i'd ask for any mail down our way." he tossed a newspaper and a letter on the table and was gone. the letter was addressed to elizabeth ann and it was from aunt frances. she read it to herself while uncle henry read the newspaper. aunt frances wrote that she had been perfectly horrified to learn that cousin molly had not kept elizabeth ann with her, and that she would never forgive her for that cruelty. and when she thought that her darling was at putney farm...! her blood ran cold. it positively did! it was too dreadful. but it couldn't be helped, for a time anyhow, because aunt harriet was really very sick. elizabeth ann would have to be a dear, brave child and endure it as best she could. and as soon ... oh, as soon as ever she could, aunt frances would come and take her away from them. "don't cry too much, darling ... it breaks my heart to think of you there! try to be cheerful, dearest! try to bear it for the sake of your distracted, loving aunt frances." elizabeth ann looked up from this letter and across the table at aunt abigail's rosy, wrinkled old face, bent over her darning. uncle henry laid the paper down, took a big mouthful of pop-corn, and beat time silently with his hand. when he could speak he murmured: an hundred dogs bayed deep and strong, clattered an hundred steeds along. old shep woke up with a snort and aunt abigail fed him a handful of pop-corn. little eleanor stirred in her sleep, stretched, yawned, and nestled down into a ball again on the little girl's lap. betsy could feel in her own body the rhythmic vibration of the kitten's contented purr. aunt abigail looked up: "finished your letter? i hope harriet is no worse. what does frances say?" elizabeth ann blushed a deep red and crushed the letter together in her hand. she felt ashamed and she did not know why. "aunt frances says, ... aunt frances says, ..." she began, hesitating. "she says aunt harriet is still pretty sick." she stopped, drew a long breath, and went on, "and she sends her love to you." now aunt frances hadn't done anything of the kind, so this was a really whopping fib. but elizabeth ann didn't care if it was. it made her feel less ashamed, though she did not know why. she took another mouthful of pop-corn and stroked eleanor's back. uncle henry got up and stretched. "it's time to go to bed, folks," he said. as he wound the clock betsy heard him murmuring: but when the sun his beacon red.... chapter vii elizabeth ann fails in an examination i wonder if you can guess the name of a little girl who, about a month after this, was walking along through the melting snow in the woods with a big black dog running circles around her. yes, all alone in the woods with a terrible great dog beside her, and yet not a bit afraid. you don't suppose it could be elizabeth ann? well, whoever she was, she had something on her mind, for she walked more and more slowly and had only a very absent-minded pat for the dog's head when he thrust it up for a caress. when the wood road led into a clearing in which there was a rough little house of slabs, the child stopped altogether, and, looking down, began nervously to draw lines in the snow with her overshoe. you see, something perfectly dreadful had happened in school that day. the superintendent, the all-important, seldom-seen superintendent, came to visit the school and the children were given some examinations so he could see how they were getting on. now, you know what an examination did to elizabeth ann. or haven't i told you yet? well, if i haven't, it's because words fail me. if there is anything horrid that an examination didn't do to elizabeth ann, i have yet to hear of it. it began years ago, before ever she went to school, when she heard aunt frances talking about how she had dreaded examinations when she was a child, and how they dried up her mouth and made her ears ring and her head ache and her knees get all weak and her mind a perfect blank, so that she didn't know what two and two made. of course elizabeth ann didn't feel all those things right off at her first examination, but by the time she had had several and had rushed to tell aunt frances about how awful they were and the two of them had sympathized with one another and compared symptoms and then wept about her resulting low marks, why, she not only had all the symptoms aunt frances had ever had, but a good many more of her own invention. well, she had had them all and had them hard this afternoon, when the superintendent was there. her mouth had gone dry and her knees had shaken and her elbows had felt as though they had no more bones in them than so much jelly, and her eyes had smarted, and oh, what answers she had made! that dreadful tight panic had clutched at her throat whenever the superintendent had looked at her, and she had disgraced herself ten times over. she went hot and cold to think of it, and felt quite sick with hurt vanity. she who did so well every day and was so much looked up to by her classmates, what must they be thinking of her! to tell the truth, she had been crying as she walked along through the woods, because she was so sorry for herself. her eyes were all red still, and her throat sore from the big lump in it. and now she would live it all over again as she told the putney cousins. for of course they must be told. she had always told aunt frances everything that happened in school. it happened that aunt abigail had been taking a nap when she got home from school, and so she had come out to the sap-house, where cousin ann and uncle henry were making syrup, to have it over with as soon as possible. she went up to the little slab house now, dragging her feet and hanging her head, and opened the door. cousin ann, in a very short old skirt and a man's coat and high rubber boots, was just poking some more wood into the big fire which blazed furiously under the broad, flat pan where the sap was boiling. the rough, brown hut was filled with white steam and that sweetest of all odors, hot maple syrup. cousin ann turned her head, her face very red with the heat of the fire, and nodded at the child. "hello, betsy, you're just in time. i've saved out a cupful of hot syrup for you, all ready to wax." betsy hardly heard this, although she had been wild about waxed sugar on snow ever since her very first taste of it. "cousin ann," she said unhappily, "the superintendent visited our school this afternoon." "did he!" said cousin ann, dipping a thermometer into the boiling syrup. "yes, and we had examinations!" said betsy. "did you?" said cousin ann, holding the thermometer up to the light and looking at it. "and you know how perfectly awful examinations make you feel," said betsy, very near to tears again. "why, no," said cousin ann, sorting over syrup tins. "they never made me feel awful. i thought they were sort of fun." "fun!" cried betsy, indignantly, staring through the beginnings of her tears. "why, yes. like taking a dare, don't you know. somebody stumps you to jump off the hitching-post, and you do it to show 'em. i always used to think examinations were like that. somebody stumps you to spell 'pneumonia,' and you do it to show 'em. here's your cup of syrup. you'd better go right out and wax it while it's hot." elizabeth ann automatically took the cup in her hand, but she did not look at it. "but supposing you get so scared you can't spell 'pneumonia' or anything else!" she said feelingly. "that's what happened to me. you know how your mouth gets all dry and your knees ..." she stopped. cousin ann had said she did not know all about those things. "well, anyhow, i got so scared i could hardly stand up! and i made the most awful mistakes--things i know just as well! i spelled 'doubt' without any b and 'separate' with an e, and i said iowa was bounded on the north by wisconsin, and i ..." "oh, well," said cousin ann, "it doesn't matter if you really know the right answers, does it? that's the important thing." this was an idea which had never in all her life entered betsy's brain and she did not take it in at all now. she only shook her head miserably and went on in a doleful tone. "and i said 13 and 8 are 22! and i wrote march without any capital m, and i ..." "look here, betsy, do you want to tell me all this?" cousin ann spoke in the quick, ringing voice she had once in a while which made everybody, from old shep up, open his eyes and get his wits about him. betsy gathered hers and thought hard; and she came to an unexpected conclusion. no, she didn't really want to tell cousin ann all about it. why was she doing it? because she thought that was the thing to do. "because if you don't really want to," went on cousin ann, "i don't see that it's doing anybody any good. i guess hemlock mountain will stand right there just the same even if you did forget to put a b in 'doubt.' and your syrup will be too cool to wax right if you don't take it out pretty soon." she turned back to stoke the fire, and elizabeth ann, in a daze, found herself walking out of the door. it fell shut after her, and there she was under the clear, pale-blue sky, with the sun just hovering over the rim of hemlock mountain. she looked up at the big mountains, all blue and silver with shadows and snow, and wondered what in the world cousin ann had meant. of course hemlock mountain would stand there just the same. but what of it? what did that have to do with her arithmetic, with anything? she had failed in her examination, hadn't she? she found a clean white snow-bank under a pine-tree, and, setting her cup of syrup down in a safe place, began to pat the snow down hard to make the right bed for the waxing of the syrup. the sun, very hot for that late march day, brought out strongly the tarry perfume of the big pine-tree. near her the sap dripped musically into a bucket, already half full, hung on a maple-tree. a blue-jay rushed suddenly through the upper branches of the wood, his screaming and chattering voice sounding like noisy children at play. elizabeth ann took up her cup and poured some of the thick, hot syrup out on the hard snow, making loops and curves as she poured. it stiffened and hardened at once, and she lifted up a great coil of it, threw her head back, and let it drop into her mouth. concentrated sweetness of summer days was in that mouthful, part of it still hot and aromatic, part of it icy and wet with melting snow. she crunched it all together with her strong, child's teeth into a delicious, big lump and sucked on it dreamily, her eyes on the rim of hemlock mountain, high above her there, the snow on it bright golden in the sunlight. uncle henry had promised to take her up to the top as soon as the snow went off. she wondered what the top of a mountain would be like. uncle henry had said the main thing was that you could see so much of the world at once. he said it was too queer the way your own house and big barn and great fields looked like little toy things that weren't of any account. it was because you could see so much more than just the.... she heard an imploring whine, and a cold nose was thrust into her hand! why, there was old shep begging for his share of waxed sugar. he loved it, though it did stick to his teeth so! she poured out another lot and gave half of it to shep. it immediately stuck his jaws together tight, and he began pawing at his mouth and shaking his head till betsy had to laugh. then he managed to pull his jaws apart and chewed loudly and visibly, tossing his head, opening his mouth wide till betsy could see the sticky, brown candy draped in melting festoons all over his big white teeth and red gullet. then with a gulp he had swallowed it all down and was whining for more, striking softly at the little girl's skirt with his forepaw. "oh, you eat it too fast!" cried betsy, but she shared her next lot with him too. the sun had gone down over hemlock mountain by this time, and the big slope above her was all deep blue shadow. the mountain looked much higher now as the dusk began to fall, and loomed up bigger and bigger as though it reached to the sky. it was no wonder houses looked small from its top. betsy ate the last of her sugar, looking up at the quiet giant there, towering grandly above her. there was no lump in her throat now. and, although she still thought she did not know what in the world cousin ann meant by saying that about hemlock mountain and her examination, it's my opinion that she had made a very good beginning of an understanding. she was just picking up her cup to take it back to the sap-house when shep growled a little and stood with his ears and tail up, looking down the road. something was coming down that road in the blue, clear twilight, something that was making a very queer noise. it sounded almost like somebody crying. it was somebody crying! it was a child crying. it was a little, little girl. ... betsy could see her now ... stumbling along and crying as though her heart would break. why, it was little molly, her own particular charge at school, whose reading lesson she heard every day. betsy and shep ran to meet her. "what's the matter, molly? what's the matter?" betsy knelt down and put her arms around the weeping child. "did you fall down? did you hurt you? what are you doing 'way off here? did you lose your way?" "i don't want to go away! i don't want to go away!" said molly over and over, clinging tightly to betsy. it was a long time before betsy could quiet her enough to find out what had happened. then she made out between molly's sobs that her mother had been taken suddenly sick and had to go away to a hospital, and that left nobody at home to take care of molly, and she was to be sent away to some strange relatives in the city who didn't want her at all and who said so right out.... oh, elizabeth ann knew all about that! and her heart swelled big with sympathy. for a moment she stood again out on the sidewalk in front of the lathrop house with old mrs. lathrop's ungracious white head bobbing from a window, and knew again that ghastly feeling of being unwanted. oh, she knew why little molly was crying! and she shut her hands together hard and made up her mind that she would help her out! [illustration: "what's the matter, molly? what's the matter?"] do you know what she did, right off, without thinking about it? she didn't go and look up aunt abigail. she didn't wait till uncle henry came back from his round of emptying sap buckets into the big tub on his sled. as fast as her feet could carry her she flew back to cousin ann in the sap-house. i can't tell you (except again that cousin ann was cousin ann) why it was that betsy ran so fast to her and was so sure that everything would be all right as soon as cousin ann knew about it; but whatever the reason was it was a good one, for, though cousin ann did not stop to kiss molly or even to look at her more than one sharp first glance, she said after a moment's pause, during which she filled a syrup can and screwed the cover down very tight: "well, if her folks will let her stay, how would you like to have molly come and stay with us till her mother gets back from the hospital? now you've got a room of your own, i guess if you wanted to you could have her sleep with you." "oh, molly, molly, molly!" shouted betsy, jumping up and down, and then hugging the little girl with all her might. "oh, it will be like having a little sister!" cousin ann sounded a dry, warning note: "don't be too sure her folks will let her. we don't know about them yet." betsy ran to her, and caught her hand, looking up at her with shining eyes. "cousin ann, if you go to see them and ask them, they will!" this made even cousin ann give a little abashed smile of pleasure, although she made her face grave again at once and said: "you'd better go along back to the house now, betsy. it's time for you to help mother with the supper." the two children trotted back along the darkening wood road, shep running before them, little molly clinging fast to the older child's hand. "aren't you ever afraid, betsy, in the woods this way?" she asked admiringly, looking about her with timid eyes. "oh, no!" said betsy, protectingly; "there's nothing to be afraid of, except getting off on the wrong fork of the road, near the wolf pit." "oh, ow!" said molly, cringing. "what's the wolf pit? what an awful name!" betsy laughed. she tried to make her laugh sound brave like cousin ann's, which always seemed so scornful of being afraid. as a matter of fact, she was beginning to fear that they had made the wrong turn, and she was not quite sure that she could find the way home. but she put this out of her mind and walked along very fast, peering ahead into the dusk. "oh, it hasn't anything to do with wolves," she said in answer to molly's question; "anyhow, not now. it's just a big, deep hole in the ground where a brook had dug out a cave. ... uncle henry told me all about it when he showed it to me ... and then part of the roof caved in; sometimes there's ice in the corner of the covered part all the summer, aunt abigail says." "why do you call it the wolf pit?" asked molly, walking very close to betsy and holding very tightly to her hand. "oh, long, ever so long ago, when the first settlers came up here, they heard a wolf howling all night, and when it didn't stop in the morning, they came up here on the mountain and found a wolf had fallen in and couldn't get out." "my! i hope they killed him!" said molly. "oh, gracious! that was more than a hundred years ago," said betsy. she was not thinking of what she was saying. she was thinking that if they were on the right road they ought to be home by this time. she was thinking that the right road ran down hill to the house all the way, and that this certainly seemed to be going up a little. she was wondering what had become of shep. "stand here just a minute, molly," she said. "i want ... i just want to go ahead a little bit and see ... and see ..." she darted on around a curve of the road and stood still, her heart sinking. the road turned there and led straight up the mountain! for just a moment the little girl felt a wild impulse to burst out in a shriek for aunt frances, and to run crazily away, anywhere so long as she was running. but the thought of molly standing back there, trustfully waiting to be taken care of, shut betsy's lips together hard before her scream of fright got out. she stood still, thinking. now she mustn't get frightened. all they had to do was to walk back along the road till they came to the fork and then make the right turn. but what if they didn't get back to the turn till it was so dark they couldn't see it...? well, she mustn't think of that. she ran back, calling, "come on, molly," in a tone she tried to make as firm as cousin ann's. "i guess we have made the wrong turn after all. we'd better ..." but there was no molly there. in the brief moment betsy had stood thinking, molly had disappeared. the long, shadowy wood road held not a trace of her. then betsy was frightened and then she did begin to scream, at the top of her voice, "molly! molly!" she was beside herself with terror, and started back hastily to hear molly's voice, very faint, apparently coming from the ground under her feet. "ow! ow! betsy! get me out! get me out!" "where are you?" shrieked betsy. "i don't know!" came molly's sobbing voice. "i just moved the least little bit out of the road, and slipped on the ice and began to slide and i couldn't stop myself and i fell down into a deep hole!" betsy's head felt as though her hair were standing up straight on end with horror. molly must have fallen down into the wolf pit! yes, they were quite near it. she remembered now that big white-birch tree stood right at the place where the brook tumbled over the edge and fell into it. although she was dreadfully afraid of falling in herself, she went cautiously over to this tree, feeling her way with her foot to make sure she did not slip, and peered down into the cavernous gloom below. yes, there was molly's little face, just a white speck. the child was crying, sobbing, and holding up her arms to betsy. "are you hurt, molly?" "no. i fell into a big snow-bank, but i'm all wet and frozen and i want to get out! i want to get out!" betsy held on to the birch-tree. her head whirled. what should she do! "look here, molly," she called down, "i'm going to run back along to the right road and back to the house and get uncle henry. he'll come with a rope and get you out!" at this molly's crying rose to a frantic scream. "oh, betsy, don't leave me here alone! don't! don't! the wolves will get me! betsy, don't leave me alone!" the child was wild with terror. "but i can't get you out myself!" screamed back betsy, crying herself. her teeth were chattering with the cold. "don't go! don't go!" came up from the darkness of the pit in a piteous howl. betsy made a great effort and stopped crying. she sat down on a stone and tried to think. and this is what came into her mind as a guide: "what would cousin ann do if she were here? she wouldn't cry. she would think of something." betsy looked around her desperately. the first thing she saw was the big limb of a pine-tree, broken off by the wind, which half lay and half slantingly stood up against a tree a little distance above the mouth of the pit. it had been there so long that the needles had all dried and fallen off, and the skeleton of the branch with the broken stubs looked like ... yes, it looked like a ladder! that was what cousin ann would have done! "wait a minute! wait a minute, molly!" she called wildly down the pit, warm all over in excitement. "now listen. you go off there in a corner, where the ground makes a sort of roof. i'm going to throw down something you can climb up on, maybe." "ow! ow, it'll hit me!" cried poor little molly, more and more frightened. but she scrambled off under her shelter obediently, while betsy struggled with the branch. it was so firmly imbedded in the snow that at first she could not budge it at all. but after she cleared that away and pried hard with the stick she was using as a lever she felt it give a little. she bore down with all her might, throwing her weight again and again on her lever, and finally felt the big branch perceptibly move. after that it was easier, as its course was down hill over the snow to the mouth of the pit. glowing, and pushing, wet with perspiration, she slowly maneuvered it along to the edge, turned it squarely, gave it a great shove, and leaned over anxiously. then she gave a great sigh of relief! just as she had hoped, it went down sharp end first and stuck fast in the snow which had saved molly from broken bones. she was so out of breath with her work that for a moment she could not speak. then, "molly, there! now i guess you can climb up to where i can reach you." molly made a rush for any way out of her prison, and climbed, like the little practiced squirrel that she was, up from one stub to another to the top of the branch. she was still below the edge of the pit there, but betsy lay flat down on the snow and held out her hands. molly took hold hard, and, digging her toes into the snow, slowly wormed her way up to the surface of the ground. it was then, at that very moment, that shep came bounding up to them, barking loudly, and after him cousin ann striding along in her rubber boots, with a lantern in her hand and a rather anxious look on her face. she stopped short and looked at the two little girls, covered with snow, their faces flaming with excitement, and at the black hole gaping behind them. "i always told father we ought to put a fence around that pit," she said in a matter-of-fact voice. "some day a sheep's going to fall down there. shep came along to the house without you, and we thought most likely you'd taken the wrong turn." betsy felt terribly aggrieved. she wanted to be petted and praised for her heroism. she wanted cousin ann to realize ... oh, if aunt frances were only there, she would realize...! "i fell down in the hole, and betsy wanted to go and get mr. putney, but i wouldn't let her, and so she threw down a big branch and i climbed out," explained molly, who, now that her danger was past, took betsy's action quite as a matter of course. "oh, that was how it happened," said cousin ann. she looked down the hole and saw the big branch, and looked back and saw the long trail of crushed snow where betsy had dragged it. "well, now, that was quite a good idea for a little girl to have," she said briefly. "i guess you'll do to take care of molly all right!" she spoke in her usual voice and immediately drew the children after her, but betsy's heart was singing joyfully as she trotted along clasping cousin ann's strong hand. now she knew that cousin ann realized. ... she trotted fast, smiling to herself in the darkness. "what made you think of doing that?" asked cousin ann presently, as they approached the house. "why, i tried to think what you would have done if you'd been there," said betsy. "oh!" said cousin ann. "well ..." she didn't say another word, but betsy, glancing up into her face as they stepped into the lighted room, saw an expression that made her give a little skip and hop of joy. she had pleased cousin ann. that night, as she lay in her bed, her arm over molly cuddled up warm beside her, she remembered, oh, ever so faintly, as something of no importance, that she had failed in an examination that afternoon. chapter viii betsy starts a sewing society betsy and molly had taken deborah to school with them. deborah was the old wooden doll with brown, painted curls. she had lain in a trunk almost ever since aunt abigail's childhood, because cousin ann had never cared for dolls when she was a little girl. at first betsy had not dared to ask to see her, much less to play with her, but when ellen, as she had promised, came over to putney farm that first saturday she had said right out, as soon as she landed in the house, "oh, mrs. putney, can't we play with deborah?" and aunt abigail had answered: "why yes, of course! i knew there was something i've kept forgetting!" she went up with them herself to the cold attic and opened the little hair-trunk under the eaves. there lay a doll, flat on her back, looking up at them brightly out of her blue eyes. "well, debby dear," said aunt abigail, taking her up gently. "it's a good long time since you and i played under the lilac bushes, isn't it? i expect you've been pretty lonesome up here all these years. never you mind, you'll have some good times again, now." she pulled down the doll's full, ruffled skirt, straightened the lace at the neck of her dress, and held her for a moment, looking down at her silently. you could tell by the way she spoke, by the way she touched deborah, by the way she looked at her, that she had loved the doll very dearly, and maybe still did, a little. when she put deborah into betsy's arms, the child felt that she was receiving something very precious, almost something alive. she and ellen looked with delight at the yards and yards of picot-edged ribbon, sewed on by hand to the ruffles of the skirt, and lifted up the silk folds to admire the carefully made, full petticoats and frilly drawers, the pretty, soft old kid shoes and white stockings. aunt abigail looked at them with an absent smile on her lips, as though she were living over old scenes. [illustration: betsy and ellen and the old doll.] finally, "it's too cold to play up here," she said, coming to herself with a long breath. "you'd better bring deborah and the trunk down into the south room." she carried the doll, and betsy and ellen each took an end of the old trunk, no larger than a modern suitcase. they settled themselves on the big couch, back of the table with the lamp. old shep was on it, but betsy coaxed him off by putting down some bones cousin ann had been saving for him. when he finished those and came back for the rest of his snooze, he found his place occupied by the little girls, sitting cross-legged, examining the contents of the trunk, all spread out around them. shep sighed deeply and sat down with his nose resting on the couch near betsy's knee, following all their movements with his kind, dark eyes. once in a while betsy stopped hugging deborah or exclaiming over a new dress long enough to pat shep's head and fondle his ears. this was what he was waiting for, and every time she did it he wagged his tail thumpingly against the floor. after that deborah and her trunk were kept downstairs where betsy could play with her. and often she was taken to school. you never heard of such a thing as taking a doll to school, did you? well, i told you this was a queer, old-fashioned school that any modern school superintendent would sniff at. as a matter of fact, it was not only betsy who took her doll to school; all the little girls did, whenever they felt like it. miss benton, the teacher, had a shelf for them in the entry-way where the wraps were hung, and the dolls sat on it and waited patiently all through lessons. at recess time or nooning each little mother snatched her own child and began to play. as soon as it grew warm enough to play outdoors without just racing around every minute to keep from freezing to death, the dolls and their mothers went out to a great pile of rocks at one end of the bare, stony field which was the playground. there they sat and played in the spring sunshine, warmer from day to day. there were a great many holes and shelves and pockets and little caves in the rocks which made lovely places for playing keep-house. each little girl had her own particular cubby-holes and "rooms," and they "visited" their dolls back and forth all around the pile. and as they played they talked very fast about all sorts of things, being little girls and not boys who just yelled and howled inarticulately as they played ball or duck-on-a-rock or prisoner's goal, racing and running and wrestling noisily all around the rocks. there was one child who neither played with the girls nor ran and whooped with the boys. this was little six-year-old 'lias, one of the two boys in molly's first grade. at recess time he generally hung about the school door by himself, looking moodily down and knocking the toe of his ragged, muddy shoe against a stone. the little girls were talking about him one day as they played. "my! isn't that 'lias brewster the horridest-looking child!" said eliza, who had the second grade all to herself, although molly now read out of the second reader with her. "mercy, yes! so ragged!" said anastasia monahan, called stashie for short. she was a big girl, fourteen years old, who was in the seventh grade. "he doesn't look as if he ever combed his hair!" said betsy. "it looks just like a wisp of old hay." "and sometimes," little molly proudly added her bit to the talk of the older girls, "he forgets to put on any stockings and just has his dreadful old shoes on over his dirty, bare feet." "i guess he hasn't got any stockings half the time," said big stashie scornfully. "i guess his stepfather drinks 'em up." "how can he drink up stockings!" asked molly, opening her round eyes very wide. "sh! you mustn't ask. little girls shouldn't know about such things, should they, betsy?" "no indeed," said betsy, looking mysterious. as a matter of fact, she herself had no idea what stashie meant, but she looked wise and said nothing. some of the boys had squatted down near the rocks for a game of marbles now. "well, anyhow," said molly resentfully, "i don't care what his stepfather does to his stockings. i wish 'lias would wear 'em to school. and lots of times he hasn't anything on under those horrid old overalls either! i can see his bare skin through the torn places." "i wish he didn't have to sit so near me," said betsy complainingly. "he's so dirty." "well, i don't want him near me, either!" cried all the other little girls at once. ralph glanced up at them frowning, from where he knelt with his middle finger crooked behind a marble ready for a shot. he looked as he always did, very rough and half-threatening. "oh, you girls make me sick!" he said. he sent his marble straight to the mark, pocketed his opponent's, and stood up, scowling at the little mothers. "i guess if you had to live the way he does you'd be dirty! half the time he don't get anything to eat before he comes to school, and if my mother didn't put up some extra for him in my box he wouldn't get any lunch either. and then you go and jump on him!" "why doesn't his own mother put up his lunch?" betsy challenged their critic. "he hasn't got any mother. she's dead," said ralph, turning away with his hands in his pockets. he yelled to the boys, "come on, fellers, beat-che to the bridge and back!" and was off, with the others racing at his heels. "well, anyhow, i don't care; he is dirty and horrid!" said stashie emphatically, looking over at the drooping, battered little figure, leaning against the school door, listlessly kicking at a stone. but betsy did not say anything more just then. the teacher, who "boarded 'round," was staying at putney farm at that time, and that evening, as they all sat around the lamp in the south room, betsy looked up from her game of checkers with uncle henry and asked, "how can anybody drink up stockings?" "mercy, child! what are you talking about?" asked aunt abigail. betsy repeated what anastasia monahan had said, and was flattered by the instant, rather startled attention given her by the grown-ups. "why, i didn't know that bud walker had taken to drinking again!" said uncle henry. "my! that's too bad!" "who takes care of that child anyhow, now that poor susie is dead?" aunt abigail asked of everybody in general. "is he just living there alone, with that good-for-nothing stepfather? how do they get enough to eat?" said cousin ann, looking troubled. apparently betsy's question had brought something half forgotten and altogether neglected into their minds. they talked for some time after that about 'lias, the teacher confirming what betsy and stashie had said. "and we sitting right here with plenty to eat and never raising a hand!" cried aunt abigail. "how you will let things slip out of your mind!" said cousin ann remorsefully. it struck betsy vividly that 'lias was not at all the one they blamed for his objectionable appearance. she felt quite ashamed to go on with the other things she and the little girls had said, and fell silent, pretending to be very much absorbed in her game of checkers. "do you know," said aunt abigail suddenly, as though an inspiration had just struck her, "i wouldn't be a bit surprised if that elmore pond might adopt 'lias if he was gone at the right way." "who's elmore pond?" asked the schoolteacher. "why, you must have seen him--that great, big, red-faced, good-natured-looking man that comes through here twice a year, buying stock. he lives over bigby way, but his wife was a hillsboro girl, matey pelham--an awfully nice girl she was, too. they never had any children, and matey told me the last time she was back for a visit that she and her husband talked quite often about adopting a little boy. seems that mr. pond has always wanted a little boy. he's such a nice man! 'twould be a lovely home for a child." "but goodness!" said the teacher. "nobody would want to adopt such an awful-looking little ragamuffin as that 'lias. he looks so meeching, too. i guess his stepfather is real mean to him, when he's been drinking, and it's got 'lias so he hardly dares hold his head up." the clock struck loudly. "well, hear that!" said cousin ann. "nine o'clock and the children not in bed! molly's most asleep this minute. trot along with you, betsy! trot along, molly. and, betsy, be sure molly's nightgown is buttoned up all the way." so it happened that, although the grown-ups were evidently going on to talk about 'lias brewster, betsy heard no more of what they said. she herself went on thinking about 'lias while she was undressing and answering absently little molly's chatter. she was thinking about him even after they had gone to bed, had put the light out, and were lying snuggled up to each other, back to front, their four legs, crooked at the same angle, fitting in together neatly like two spoons in a drawer. she was thinking about him when she woke up, and as soon as she could get hold of cousin ann she poured out a new plan. she had never been afraid of cousin ann since the evening molly had fallen into the wolf pit and betsy had seen that pleased smile on cousin ann's firm lips. "cousin ann, couldn't we girls at school get together and sew--you'd have to help us some--and make some nice, new clothes for little 'lias brewster, and fix him up so he'll look better, and maybe that mr. pond will like him and adopt him?" cousin ann listened attentively and nodded her head. "yes, i think that would be a good idea," she said. "we were thinking last night we ought to do something for him. if you'll make the clothes, mother'll knit him some stockings and father will get him some shoes. mr. pond never makes his spring trip till late may, so we'll have plenty of time." betsy was full of importance that day at school and at recess time got the girls together on the rocks and told them all about the plan. "cousin ann says she'll help us, and we can meet at our house every saturday afternoon till we get them done. it'll be fun! aunt abigail telephoned down to the store right away, and mr. wilkins says he'll give the cloth if we'll make it up." betsy spoke very grandly of "making it up," although she had hardly held a needle in her life, and when the saturday afternoon meetings began she was ashamed to see how much better ellen and even eliza could sew than she. to keep her end up, she was driven to practising her stitches around the lamp in the evenings, with aunt abigail keeping an eye on her. cousin ann supervised the sewing on saturday afternoons and taught those of the little girls whose legs were long enough how to use the sewing machine. first they made a little pair of trousers out of an old gray woolen skirt of aunt abigail's. this was for practice, before they cut into the piece of new blue serge that the storekeeper had sent up. cousin ann showed them how to pin the pattern on the goods and they each cut out one piece. those flat, queer-shaped pieces of cloth certainly did look less like a pair of trousers to betsy than anything she had ever seen. then one of the girls read aloud very slowly the mysterious-sounding directions from the wrapper of the pattern about how to put the pieces together, cousin ann helped here a little, particularly just as they were about to put the sections together wrong-side-up. stashie, as the oldest, did the first basting, putting the notches together carefully, just as they read the instructions aloud, and there, all of a sudden, was a rough little sketch of a pair of knee trousers, without any hem or any waist-band, of course, but just the two-legged, complicated shape they ought to be! it was like a miracle to betsy! then cousin ann helped them sew the seams on the machine, and they all turned to for the basting of the facings and the finishing. they each made one buttonhole. it was the first one betsy had ever made, and when she got through she was as tired as though she had run all the way to school and back. tired, but very proud; although when cousin ann inspected that buttonhole, she covered her face with her handkerchief for a minute, as though she were going to sneeze, although she didn't sneeze at all. it took them two saturdays to finish up that trial pair of trousers, and when they showed the result to aunt abigail she was delighted. "well, to think of that being my old skirt!" she said, putting on her spectacles to examine the work. she did not laugh, either, when she saw those buttonholes, but she got up hastily and went into the next room, where they soon heard her coughing. then they made a little blouse out of some new blue gingham. cousin ann happened to have enough left over from a dress she was making. this thin material was ever so much easier to manage than the gray flannel, and they had the little garment done in no time, even to the buttons and buttonholes. when it came to making the buttonholes, cousin ann sat right down with each one and supervised every stitch. you may not be surprised to know that they were a great improvement over the first batch. then, making a great ceremony of it, they began on the store material, working twice a week now, because may was slipping along very fast, and mr. pond might be there at any time. they knew pretty well how to go ahead on this one, after the experience of their first pair, and cousin ann was not much needed, except as adviser in hard places. she sat there in the room with them, doing some sewing of her own, so quiet that half the time they forgot she was there. it was great fun, sewing all together and chattering as they sewed. a good deal of the time they talked about how splendid it was of them to be so kind to little 'lias. "my! i don't believe most girls would put themselves out this way for a dirty little boy!" said stashie, complacently. "no indeed!" chimed in betsy. "it's just like a story, isn't it--working and sacrificing for the poor!" "i guess he'll thank us all right for sure!" said ellen. "he'll never forget us as long as he lives, i don't suppose." betsy, her imagination fired by this suggestion, said, "i guess when he's grown up he'll be telling everybody about how, when he was so poor and ragged, stashie monahan and ellen peters and elizabeth ann ..." "and eliza!" put in that little girl hastily, very much afraid she would not be given her due share of the glory. cousin ann sewed, and listened, and said nothing. toward the end of may two little blouses, two pairs of trousers, two pairs of stockings, two sets of underwear (contributed by the teacher), and the pair of shoes uncle henry gave were ready. the little girls handled the pile of new garments with inexpressible pride, and debated just which way of bestowing them was sufficiently grand to be worthy the occasion. betsy was for taking them to school and giving them to 'lias one by one, so that each child could have her thanks separately. but stashie wanted to take them to the house when 'lias's stepfather would be there, and shame him by showing that little girls had had to do what he ought to have done. cousin ann broke into the discussion by asking, in her quiet, firm voice, "why do you want 'lias to know where the clothes come from?" they had forgotten again that she was there, and turned around quickly to stare at her. nobody could think of any answer to her very queer question. it had not occurred to any one that there could be such a question. cousin ann shifted her ground and asked another: "why did you make these clothes, anyhow?" they stared again, speechless. why did she ask that? she knew why. finally little molly said, in her honest, baby way, "why, you know why, miss ann! so 'lias brewster will look nice, and mr. pond will maybe adopt him." "well," said cousin ann, "what has that got to do with 'lias knowing who did it?" "why, he wouldn't know who to be grateful to," cried betsy. "oh," said cousin ann. "oh, i see. you didn't do it to help 'lias. you did it to have him grateful to you. i see. molly is such a little girl, it's no wonder she didn't really take in what you girls were up to." she nodded her head wisely, as though now she understood. but if she did, little molly certainly did not. she had not the least idea what everybody was talking about. she looked from one sober, downcast face to another rather anxiously. what was the matter? apparently nothing was really the matter, she decided, for after a minute's silence miss ann got up with entirely her usual face of cheerful gravity, and said: "don't you think you little girls ought to top off this last afternoon with a tea-party? there's a new batch of cookies, and you can make yourselves some lemonade if you want to." they had these refreshments out on the porch, in the sunshine, with their dolls for guests and a great deal of chatter for sauce. nobody said another word about how to give the clothes to 'lias, till, just as the girls were going away, betsy said, walking along with the two older ones, "say, don't you think it'd be fun to go some evening after dark and leave the clothes on 'lias's doorstep, and knock and run away quick before anybody comes to the door?" she spoke in an uncertain voice and smoothed deborah's carved wooden curls. "yes, i do!" said ellen, not looking at betsy but down at the weeds by the road. "i think it would be lots of fun!" little molly, playing with annie and eliza, did not hear this; but she was allowed to go with the older girls on the great expedition. it was a warm, dark evening in late may, with the frogs piping their sweet, high note, and the first of the fireflies wheeling over the wet meadows near the tumble-down house where 'lias lived. the girls took turns in carrying the big paper-wrapped bundle, and stole along in the shadow of the trees, full of excitement, looking over their shoulders at nothing and pressing their hands over their mouths to keep back the giggles. there was, of course, no reason on earth why they should giggle, which is, of course, the very reason why they did. if you've ever been a little girl you know about that. one window of the small house was dimly lighted, they found, when they came in sight of it, and they thrilled with excitement and joyful alarm. suppose 'lias's dreadful stepfather should come out and yell at them! they came forward on tiptoe, making a great deal of noise by stepping on twigs, rustling bushes, crackling gravel under their feet and doing all the other things that make such a noise at night and never do in the daytime. but nobody stirred inside the room with the lighted window. they crept forward and peeped cautiously inside ... and stopped giggling. the dim light coming from a little kerosene lamp with a smoky chimney fell on a dismal, cluttered room, a bare, greasy wooden table, and two broken-backed chairs, with little 'lias in one of them. he had fallen asleep with his head on his arms, his pinched, dirty, sad little figure showing in the light from the lamp. his feet dangled high above the floor in their broken, muddy shoes. one sleeve was torn to the shoulder. a piece of dry bread had slipped from his bony little hand and a tin dipper stood beside him on the bare table. nobody else was in the room, nor evidently in the darkened, empty, fireless house. [illustration: he had fallen asleep with his head on his arms.] as long as she lives betsy will never forget what she saw that night through that window. her eyes grew very hot and her hands very cold. her heart thumped hard. she reached for little molly and gave her a great hug in the darkness. suppose it were little molly asleep there, all alone in the dirty, dismal house, with no supper and nobody to put her to bed. she found that ellen, next her, was crying quietly into the corner of her apron. nobody said a word. stashie, who had the bundle, walked around soberly to the front door, put it down, and knocked loudly. they all darted away noiselessly to the road, to the shadow of the trees, and waited until the door opened. a square of yellow light appeared, with 'lias's figure, very small, at the bottom of it. they saw him stoop and pick up the bundle and go back into the house. then they went quickly and silently back, separating at the cross-roads with no good-night greetings. molly and betsy began to climb the hill to putney farm. it was a very warm night for may, and little molly began to puff for breath. "let's sit down on this rock awhile and rest," she said. they were half-way up the hill now. from the rock they could see the lights in the farmhouses scattered along the valley road and on the side of the mountain opposite them, like big stars fallen from the multitude above. betsy lay down on the rock and looked up at the stars. after a silence little molly's chirping voice said, "oh, i thought you said we were going to march up to 'lias in school and give him his clothes. did you forget about that?" betsy gave a wriggle of shame as she remembered that plan. "no, we didn't forget it," she said. "we thought this would be a better way." "but how'll 'lias know who to thank?" asked molly. "that's no matter," said betsy. yes, it was elizabeth-ann-that-was who said that. and meant it, too. she was not even thinking of what she was saying. between her and the stars, thick over her in the black, soft sky, she saw again that dirty, disordered room and the little boy, all alone, asleep with a piece of dry bread in his bony little fingers. she looked hard and long at that picture, all the time seeing the quiet stars through it. and then she turned over and hid her face on the rock. she had said her "now i lay me" every night since she could remember, but she had never prayed till she lay there with her face on the rock, saying over and over, "oh, god, please, please, please make mr. pond adopt 'lias." chapter ix the new clothes fail all the little girls went early to school the next day, eager for the first glimpse of 'lias in his new clothes. they now quite enjoyed the mystery about who had made them, and were full of agreeable excitement as the little figure was seen approaching down the road. he wore the gray trousers and the little blue shirt; the trousers were a little too long, the shirt a perfect fit. the girls gazed at him with pride as he came on the playground, walking briskly along in the new shoes, which were just the right size. he had been wearing all winter a pair of cast-off women's shoes. from a distance he looked like another child. but as he came closer ... oh! his face! his hair! his hands! his finger-nails! the little fellow had evidently tried to live up to his beautiful new raiment, for his hair had been roughly put back from his face, and around his mouth and nose was a small area of almost clean skin, where he had made an attempt at washing his face. but he had made practically no impression on the layers of encrusted dirt, and the little girls looked at him ruefully. mr. pond would certainly never take a fancy to such a dreadfully grimy child! his new, clean clothes made him look all the worse, as though dirty on purpose! the little girls retired to their rock-pile and talked over their bitter disappointment, ralph and the other boys absorbed in a game of marbles near them. 'lias had gone proudly into the schoolroom to show himself to miss benton. it was the day before decoration day and a good deal of time was taken up with practising on the recitations they were going to give at the decoration day exercises in the village. several of the children from each school in the township were to speak pieces in the town hall. betsy was to recite barbara frietchie, her first love in that school, but she droned it over with none of her usual pleasure, her eyes on little 'lias's smiling face, so unconscious of its dinginess. at noon time the boys disappeared down toward the swimming-hole. they often took a swim at noon and nobody thought anything about it on that day. the little girls ate their lunch on their rock, mourning over the failure of their plans, and scheming ways to meet the new obstacle. stashie suggested, "couldn't your aunt abigail invite him up to your house for supper and then give him a bath afterward?" but betsy, although she had never heard of treating a supper-guest in this way, was sure that it was not possible. she shook her head sadly, her eyes on the far-off gleam of white where the boys jumped up and down in their swimming-hole. that was not a good name for it, because there was only one part of it deep enough to swim in. mostly it was a shallow bay in an arm of the river, where the water was only up to a little boy's knees and where there was almost no current. the sun beating down on it made it quite warm, and even the first-graders' mothers allowed them to go in. they only jumped up and down and squealed and splashed each other, but they enjoyed that quite as much as frank and harry, the two seventh-graders, enjoyed their swooping dives from the spring-board over the pool. they were late in getting back from the river that day and miss benton had to ring her bell hard in that direction before they came trooping up and clattered into the schoolroom, where the girls already sat, their eyes lowered virtuously to their books, with a prim air of self-righteousness. they were never late! betsy was reciting her arithmetic. she was getting on famously with that. weeks ago, as soon as miss benton had seen the confusion of the little girl's mind, the two had settled down to a serious struggle with that subject. miss benton had had betsy recite all by herself, so she wouldn't be flurried by the others; and to begin with had gone back, back, back to bedrock, to things betsy absolutely knew, to the 2x2's and the 3x3's. and then, very cautiously, a step at a time, they had advanced, stopping short whenever betsy felt a beginning of that bewildered "guessing" impulse which made her answer wildly at random. after a while, in the dark night which arithmetic had always been to her, betsy began to make out a few definite outlines, which were always there, facts which she knew to be so without guessing from the expression of her teacher's face. from that moment her progress had been rapid, one sure fact hooking itself on to another, and another one on to that. she attacked a page of problems now with a zest and self-confidence which made her arithmetic lessons among the most interesting hours at school. on that day she was standing up at the board, a piece of chalk in her hand, chewing her tongue and thinking hard how to find out the amount of wall-paper needed for a room 12 feet square with two doors and two windows in it, when her eye fell on little 'lias, bent over his reading book. she forgot her arithmetic, she forgot where she was. she stared and stared, till ellen, catching the direction of her eyes, looked and stared too. little 'lias was clean, preternaturally, almost wetly clean. his face was clean and shining, his ears shone pink and fair, his hands were absolutely spotless, even his hay-colored hair was clean and, still damp, brushed flatly back till it shone in the sun. betsy blinked her eyes a great many times, thinking she must be dreaming, but every time she opened them there was 'lias, looking white and polished like a new willow whistle. somebody poked her hard in the ribs. she started and, turning, saw ralph, who was doing a sum beside her on the board, scowling at her under his black brows. "quit gawking at 'lias," he said under his breath. "you make me tired!" something conscious and shame-faced in his manner made betsy understand at once what had happened. ralph had taken 'lias down to the little boys' wading-place and had washed him all over. she remembered now that they had a piece of yellow soap there. her face broke into a radiant smile and she began to say something to ralph about how nice that was of him, but he frowned again and said, crossly, "aw, cut it out! look at what you've done there! if i couldn't 9 x 8 and get it right!" "how queer boys are!" thought betsy, erasing her mistake and putting down the right answer. but she did not try to speak to ralph again about 'lias, not even after school, when she saw 'lias going home with a new cap on his head which she recognized as ralph's. she just looked at ralph's bare head, and smiled her eyes at him, keeping the rest of her face sober, the way cousin ann did. for just a minute ralph almost smiled back. at least he looked quite friendly. they stepped along toward home together, the first time ralph had ever condescended to walk beside a girl. "we got a new colt," he said. "have you?" she said. "what color?" "black, with a white star, and they're going to let me ride him when he's old enough." "my! won't that be nice!" said betsy. and all the time they were both thinking of little 'lias with his new clothes and his sweet, thin face shining with cleanliness. "do you like spruce gum?" asked ralph. "oh, i love gum!" said betsy. "well, i'll bring you down a chunk tomorrow, if i don't forget it," said ralph, turning off at the cross-roads. they had not mentioned 'lias at all. the next day they were to have school only in the morning. in the afternoon they were to go in a big hay-wagon down to the village to the "exercises." 'lias came to school in his new blue-serge trousers and his white blouse. the little girls gloated over his appearance, and hung around him, for who was to "visit school" that morning but mr. pond himself! cousin ann had arranged it somehow. it took cousin ann to fix things! during recess, as they were playing still-pond-no-more-moving on the playground, mr. pond and uncle henry drew up to the edge of the playground, stopped their horse, and, talking and laughing together, watched the children at play. betsy looked hard at the big, burly, kind-faced man with the smiling eyes and the hearty laugh, and decided that he would "do" perfectly for 'lias. but what she decided was to have little importance, apparently, for after all he would not get out of the wagon, but said he'd have to drive right on to the village. just like that, with no excuse other than a careless glance at his watch. no, he guessed he wouldn't have time, this morning, he said. betsy cast an imploring look up into uncle henry's face, but evidently he felt himself quite helpless, too. oh, if only cousin ann had come! she would have marched him into the schoolhouse double-quick. but uncle henry was not cousin ann, and though betsy saw him, as they drove away, conscientiously point out little 'lias, resplendent and shining, mr. pond only nodded absently, as though, he were thinking of something else. betsy could have cried with disappointment; but she and the other girls, putting their heads together for comfort, told each other that there was time enough yet. mr. pond would not leave town till tomorrow. perhaps ... there was still some hope. but that afternoon even this last hope was dashed. as they gathered at the schoolhouse, the girls fresh and crisp in their newly starched dresses, with red or blue hair-ribbons, the boys very self-conscious in their dark suits, clean collars, new caps (all but ralph), and blacked shoes, there was no little 'lias. they waited and waited, but there was no sign of him. finally uncle henry, who was to drive the straw-ride down to town, looked at his watch, gathered up the reins, and said they would be late if they didn't start right away. maybe 'lias had had a chance to ride in with somebody else. they all piled in, the horses stepped off, the wheels grated on the stones. and just at that moment a dismal sound of sobbing wails reached them from the woodshed back of the schoolhouse. the children tumbled out as fast as they had tumbled in, and ran back, betsy and ralph at their head. there in the woodshed was little 'lias, huddled in the corner behind some wood, crying and crying and crying, digging his fists into his eyes, his face all smeared with tears and dirt. and he was dressed again in his filthy, torn old overalls and ragged shirt. his poor little bare feet shone with a piteous cleanliness in that dark place. "what's the matter? what's the matter?" the children asked him all at once. he flung himself on ralph, burying his face in the other boy's coat, and sobbed out some disjointed story which only ralph could hear ... and then as last and final climax of the disaster, who should come looking over the shoulders of the children but uncle henry and mr. pond! and 'lias all ragged and dirty again! betsy sat down weakly on a pile of wood, utterly disheartened. what was the use of anything! "what's the matter?" asked the two men together. ralph turned, with an angry toss of his dark head, and told them bitterly, over the heads of the children: "he just had some decent clothes. ... first ones he's ever had! and he was plotting on going to the exercises in the town hall. and that darned old skunk of a stepfather has gone and taken 'em and sold 'em to get whiskey. i'd like to kill him!" betsy could have flung her arms around ralph, he looked so exactly the way she felt. "yes, he is a darned old skunk!" she said to herself, rejoicing in the bad words she did not know before. it took bad words to qualify what had happened. she saw an electric spark pass from ralph's blazing eyes to mr. pond's broad face, now grim and fierce. she saw mr. pond step forward, brushing the children out of his way, like a giant among dwarfs. she saw him stoop and pick little 'lias up in his great, strong arms, and, holding him close, stride furiously out of the woodshed, across the playground to the buggy which was waiting for him. "he'll go to the exercises all right!" he called back over his shoulder in a great roar. "he'll go, if i have to buy out the whole town to get him an outfit! and that whelp won't get these clothes, either; you hear me say so!" he sprang into the buggy and, holding 'lias on his lap, took up the reins and drove rapidly forward. they saw little 'lias again, entering the town hall, holding fast to mr. pond's hand. he was magnificent in a whole suit of store clothes, coat and all, and he wore white stockings and neat, low shoes, like a city child! they saw him later, up on the platform, squeaking out his little patriotic poem, his eyes, shining like stars, fixed on one broad, smiling face in the audience. when he finished he was overcome with shyness by the applause, and for a moment forgot to turn and leave the platform. he hung his head, and, looking out from under his eyebrows, gave a quaint, shy little smile at the audience. betsy saw mr. pond's great smile waver and grow dim. his eyes filled so full that he had to take out his handkerchief and blow his nose loudly. and they saw little 'lias once more, for the last time. mr. pond's buggy drove rapidly past their slow-moving hay-wagon, mr. pond holding the reins masterfully in one hand. beside him, very close, sat 'lias with his lap full of toys, oh, full--like christmas! in that fleeting glimpse they saw a toy train, a stuffed dog, a candy-box, a pile of picture-books, tops, paper-bags, and even the swinging crane of the big mechanical toy dredge that everybody said the storekeeper could never sell to anybody because it cost so much! as they passed swiftly, 'lias looked out at them and waved his little hand flutteringly. his other hand was tightly clasped in mr. pond's big one. he was smiling at them all. his eyes looked dazed and radiant. he turned his head as the buggy flashed by to call out, in a shrill, exulting little shout, "good-bye! good-bye! i'm going to live with ..." they could hear no more. he was gone, only his little hand still waving at them over the back of the buggy seat. betsy drew a long, long breath. she found that ralph was looking at her. for a moment she couldn't think what made him look so different. then she saw that he was smiling. she had never seen him smile before. he smiled at her as though he were sure she would understand, and never said a word. betsy looked forward again and saw the gleaming buggy vanishing over the hill in front of them. she smiled back at ralph silently. not a thing had happened the way she had planned; no, not a single thing! but it seemed to her she had never been so happy in her life. chapter x betsy has a birthday betsy's birthday was the ninth day of september, and the necronsett valley fair is always held from the eighth to the twelfth. so it was decided that betsy should celebrate her birthday by going up to woodford, where the fair was held. the putneys weren't going that year, but the people on the next farm, the wendells, said they could make room in their surrey for the two little girls; for, of course, molly was going, too. in fact, she said the fair was held partly to celebrate her being six years old. this would happen on the seventeenth of october. molly insisted that that was plenty close enough to the ninth of september to be celebrated then. this made betsy feel like laughing out, but observing that the putneys only looked at each other with the faintest possible quirk in the corners of their serious mouths, she understood that they were afraid that molly's feelings might be hurt if they laughed out loud. so betsy tried to curve her young lips to the same kind and secret mirth. and, i can't tell you why, this effort not to hurt molly's feelings made her have a perfect spasm of love for molly. she threw herself on her and gave her a great hug that tipped them both over on the couch on top of shep, who stopped snoring with his great gurgling snort, wriggled out from under them, and stood with laughing eyes and wagging tail, looking at them as they rolled and giggled among the pillows. "what dress are you going to wear to the fair, betsy?" asked cousin ann. "and we must decide about molly's, too." this stopped their rough-and-tumble fun in short order, and they applied themselves to the serious question of a toilet. when the great day arrived and the surrey drove away from the wendells' gate, betsy was in a fresh pink-and-white gingham which she had helped cousin ann make, and plump molly looked like something good to eat in a crisp white little dimity, one of betsy's old dresses, with a deep hem taken in to make it short enough for the little butter-ball. because it was betsy's birthday, she sat on the front seat with mr. wendell, and part of the time, when there were not too many teams on the road, she drove, herself. mrs. wendell and her sister filled the back seat solidly full from side to side and made one continuous soft lap on which molly happily perched, her eyes shining, her round cheeks red with joyful excitement. betsy looked back at her several times and thought how very nice molly looked. she had, of course, little idea how she herself looked, because the mirrors at putney farm were all small and high up, and anyhow they were so old and greenish that they made everybody look very queer-colored. you looked in them to see if your hair was smooth, and that was about all you could stand. so it was a great surprise to betsy later in the morning, as she and molly wandered hand in hand through the wonders of industrial hall, to catch sight of molly in a full-length mirror as clear as water. she was almost startled to see how faithfully reflected were the yellow of the little girl's curls, the clear pink and white of her face, and the blue of her soft eyes. an older girl was reflected there also, near molly, a dark-eyed, red-cheeked, sturdy little girl, standing very straight on two strong legs, holding her head high and free, her dark eyes looking out brightly from her tanned face. for an instant betsy gazed into those clear eyes and then ... why, gracious goodness! that was herself she was looking at! how changed she was! how very, very different she looked from the last time she had seen herself in a big mirror! she remembered it well--out shopping with aunt frances in a department store, she had caught sight of a pale little girl, with a thin neck, and spindling legs half-hidden in the folds of aunt frances's skirts. but she didn't look even like the sister of this browned, muscular, upstanding child who held molly's hand so firmly. all this came into her mind and went out again in a moment, for molly caught sight of a big doll in the next aisle and they hurried over to inspect her clothing. the mirror was forgotten in the many exciting sights and sounds and smells of their first county fair. the two little girls were to wander about as they pleased until noon, when they were to meet the wendells in the shadow of industrial hall and eat their picnic lunch together. the two parties arrived together from different directions, having seen very different sides of the fair. the children were full of the merry-go-rounds, the balloon-seller, the toy-venders, and the pop-corn stands, while the wendells exchanged views on the shortness of a hog's legs, the dip in a cow's back, and the thickness of a sheep's wool. the wendells, it seemed, had met some cousins they didn't expect to see, who, not knowing about betsy and molly, had hoped that they might ride home with the wendells. "don't you suppose," mrs. wendell asked betsy, "that you and molly could go home with the vaughans? they're here in their big wagon. you could sit on the floor with the vaughan children." betsy and molly thought this would be great fun, and agreed enthusiastically. "all right then," said mrs. wendell. she called to a young man who stood inside the building, near an open window: "oh, frank, will vaughan is going to be in your booth this afternoon, isn't he?" "yes, ma'am," said the young man. "his turn is from two to four." "well, you tell him, will you, that the two little girls who live at putney farm are going to go home with them. they can sit on the bottom of the wagon with the vaughan young ones." "yes, ma'am," said the young man, with a noticeable lack of interest in how betsy and molly got home. "now, betsy," said mrs. wendell, "you go round to that booth at two and ask will vaughan what time they're going to start and where their wagon is, and then you be sure not to keep them waiting a minute." "no, i won't," said betsy. "i'll be sure to be there on time." she and molly still had twenty cents to spend out of the forty they had brought with them, twenty-five earned by berry-picking and fifteen a present from uncle henry. they now put their heads together to see how they could make the best possible use of their four nickels. cousin ann had put no restrictions whatever on them, saying they could buy any sort of truck or rubbish they could find, except the pink lemonade. she said she had been told the venders washed their glasses in that, and their hands, and for all she knew their faces. betsy was for merry-go-rounds, but molly yearned for a big red balloon; and while they were buying that a man came by with toy dogs, little brown dogs with curled-wire tails. he called out that they would bark when you pulled their tails, and seeing the little girls looking at him he pulled the tail of the one he held. it gave forth a fine loud yelp, just like shep when his tail got stepped on. betsy bought one, all done up neatly in a box tied with blue string. she thought it a great bargain to get a dog who would bark for five cents. (later on, when they undid the string and opened the box, they found the dog had one leg broken off and wouldn't make the faintest squeak when his tail was pulled; but that is the sort of thing you must expect to have happen to you at a county fair.) now they had ten cents left and they decided to have a ride apiece on the merry-go-round. but, glancing up at the clock-face in the tower over agricultural hall, betsy noticed it was half-past two and she decided to go first to the booth where will vaughan was to be and find out what time they would start for home. she found the booth with no difficulty, but william vaughan was not in it. nor was the young man she had seen before. there was a new one, a strange one, a careless, whistling young man, with very bright socks, very yellow shoes, and very striped cuffs. he said, in answer to betsy's inquiry: "vaughan? will vaughan? never heard the name," and immediately went on whistling and looking up and down the aisle over the heads of the little girls, who stood gazing up at him with very wide, startled eyes. an older man leaned over from the next booth and said: "will vaughan? he from hillsboro? well, i heard somebody say those hillsboro vaughans had word one of their cows was awful sick, and they had to start right home that minute." betsy came to herself out of her momentary daze and snatched molly's hand. "hurry! quick! we must find the wendells before they get away!" in her agitation (for she was really very much frightened) she forgot how easily terrified little molly was. her alarm instantly sent the child into a panic. "oh, betsy! betsy! what will we do!" she gasped, as betsy pulled her along the aisle and out of the door. "oh, the wendells can't be gone yet," said betsy reassuringly, though she was not at all sure she was telling the truth. she ran as fast as she could drag molly's fat legs, to the horse-shed where mr. wendell had tied his horses and left the surrey. the horse-shed was empty, quite empty. betsy stopped short and stood still, her heart seeming to be up in her throat so that she could hardly breathe. after all, she was only ten that day, you must remember. molly began to cry loudly, hiding her weeping face in betsy's dress. "what will we do, betsy! what can we do!" she wailed. betsy did not answer. she did not know what they would do! they were eight miles from putney farm, far too much for molly to walk, and anyhow neither of them knew the way. they had only ten cents left, and nothing to eat. and the only people they knew in all that throng of strangers had gone back to hillsboro. "what will we do, betsy?" molly kept on crying out, horrified by betsy's silence and evident consternation. the other child's head swam. she tried again the formula which had helped her when molly fell into the wolf pit, and asked herself, desperately, "what would cousin ann do if she were here!" but that did not help her much now, because she could not possibly imagine what cousin ann would do under such appalling circumstances. yes, one thing cousin ann would be sure to do, of course; she would quiet molly first of all. at this thought betsy sat down on the ground and took the panic-stricken little girl into her lap, wiping away the tears and saying, stoutly, "now, molly, stop crying this minute. i'll take care of you, of course. i'll get you home all right." "how'll you ever do it?" sobbed molly. "everybody's gone and left us. we can't walk!" "never you mind how," said betsy, trying to be facetious and mock-mysterious, though her own under lip was quivering a little. "that's my surprise party for you. just you wait. now come on back to that booth. maybe will vaughan didn't go home with his folks." she had very little hope of this, and only went back there because it seemed to her a little less dauntingly strange than every other spot in the howling wilderness about her; for all at once the fair, which had seemed so lively and cheerful and gay before, seemed now a horrible, frightening, noisy place, full of hurried strangers who came and went their own ways, with not a glance out of their hard eyes for two little girls stranded far from home. the bright-colored young man was no better when they found him again. he stopped his whistling only long enough to say, "nope, no will vaughan anywhere around these diggings yet." "we were going home with the vaughans," murmured betsy, in a low tone, hoping for some help from him. "looks as though you'd better go home on the cars," advised the young man casually. he smoothed his black hair back straighter than ever from his forehead and looked over their heads. "how much does it cost to go to hillsboro on the cars?" asked betsy with a sinking heart. "you'll have to ask somebody else about that," said the young man. "what i don't know about this rube state! i never was in it before." he spoke as though he were very proud of the fact. betsy turned and went over to the older man who had told them about the vaughans. molly trotted at her heels, quite comforted, now that betsy was talking so competently to grown-ups. she did not hear what they said, nor try to. now that betsy's voice sounded all right she had no more fears. betsy would manage somehow. she heard betsy's voice again talking to the other man, but she was busy looking at an exhibit of beautiful jelly glasses, and paid no attention. then betsy led her away again out of doors, where everybody was walking back and forth under the bright september sky, blowing on horns, waving plumes of brilliant tissue-paper, tickling each other with peacock feathers, and eating pop-corn and candy out of paper bags. that reminded molly that they had ten cents yet. "oh, betsy," she proposed, "let's take a nickel of our money for some pop-corn." she was startled by betsy's fierce sudden clutch at their little purse and by the quaver in her voice as she answered: "no, no, molly. we've got to save every cent of that. i've found out it costs thirty cents for us both to go home to hillsboro on the train. the last one goes at six o'clock." "we haven't got but ten," said molly. betsy looked at her silently for a moment and then burst out, "i'll earn the rest! i'll earn it somehow! i'll have to! there isn't any other way!" "all right," said molly quaintly, not seeing anything unusual in this. "you can, if you want to. i'll wait for you here." "no, you won't!" cried betsy, who had quite enough of trying to meet people in a crowd. "no, you won't! you just follow me every minute! i don't want you out of my sight!" they began to move forward now, betsy's eyes wildly roving from one place to another. how could a little girl earn money at a county fair! she was horribly afraid to go up and speak to a stranger, and yet how else could she begin? "here, molly, you wait here," she said. "don't you budge till i come back." but alas! molly had only a moment to wait that time, for the man who was selling lemonade answered betsy's shy question with a stare and a curt, "lord, no! what could a young one like you do for me?" the little girls wandered on, molly calm and expectant, confident in betsy; betsy with a very dry mouth and a very gone feeling. they were passing by a big shed-like building now, where a large sign proclaimed that the woodford ladies' aid society would serve a hot chicken dinner for thirty-five cents. of course the sign was not accurate, for at half-past three, almost four, the chicken dinner had long ago been all eaten and in place of the diners was a group of weary women moving languidly about or standing saggingly by a great table piled with dirty dishes. betsy paused here, meditated a moment, and went in rapidly so that her courage would not evaporate. the woman with gray hair looked down at her a little impatiently and said, "dinner's all over." "i didn't come for dinner," said betsy, swallowing hard. "i came to see if you wouldn't hire me to wash your dishes. i'll do them for twenty-five cents." the woman laughed, looked from little betsy to the great pile of dishes, and said, turning away, "mercy, child, if you washed from now till morning, you wouldn't make a hole in what we've got to do." betsy heard her say to the other women, "some young one wanting more money for the side-shows." now, now was the moment to remember what cousin ann would have done. she would certainly not have shaken all over with hurt feelings nor have allowed the tears to come stingingly to her eyes. so betsy sternly made herself stop doing these things. and cousin ann wouldn't have given way to the dreadful sinking feeling of utter discouragement, but would have gone right on to the next place. so, although betsy felt like nothing so much as crooking her elbow over her face and crying as hard as she could cry, she stiffened her back, took molly's hand again, and stepped out, heart-sick within but very steady (although rather pale) without. she and molly walked along in the crowd again, molly laughing and pointing out the pranks and antics of the young people, who were feeling livelier than ever as the afternoon wore on. betsy looked at them grimly with unseeing eyes. it was four o'clock. the last train for hillsboro left in two hours and she was no nearer having the price of the tickets. she stopped for a moment to get her breath; for, although they were walking slowly, she kept feeling breathless and choked. it occurred to her that if ever a little girl had had a more horrible birthday she never heard of one! "oh, i wish i could, dan!" said a young voice near her. "but honest! momma'd just eat me up alive if i left the booth for a minute!" betsy turned quickly. a very pretty girl with yellow hair and blue eyes (she looked as molly might when she was grown up) was leaning over the edge of a little canvas-covered booth, the sign of which announced that home-made doughnuts and soft drinks were for sale there. a young man, very flushed and gay, was pulling at the girl's blue gingham sleeve. "oh, come on, annie. just one turn! the floor's elegant. you can keep an eye on the booth from the hall! nobody's going to run away with the old thing anyhow!'' "honest, i'd love to! but i got a great lot of dishes to wash, too! you know momma!" she looked longingly toward the open-air dancing floor, out from which just then floated a burst of brazen music. "oh, please!" said a small voice. "i'll do it for twenty cents." betsy stood by the girl's elbow, all quivering earnestness. "do what, kiddie?" asked the girl in a good-natured surprise. "everything!" said betsy, compendiously. "everything! wash the dishes, tend the booth; you can go dance! i'll do it for twenty cents." the eyes of the girl and the man met in high amusement. "my! aren't we up and coming!" said the man. "you're most as big as a pint-cup, aren't you?" he said to betsy. the little girl flushed--she detested being laughed at--but she looked straight into the laughing eyes. "i'm ten years old today," she said, "and i can wash dishes as well as anybody." she spoke with dignity. the young man burst out into a great laugh. "great kid, what!" he said to the girl, and then, "say, annie, why not? your mother won't be here for an hour. the kid can keep folks from walking off with the dope and ..." "i'll do the dishes, too," repeated betsy, trying hard not to mind being laughed at, and keeping her eyes fixed steadily on the tickets to hillsboro. "well, by gosh," said the young man, laughing. "here's our chance, annie, for fair! come along!" the girl laughed, too, out of high spirits. "wouldn't momma be crazy!" she said hilariously. "but she'll never know. here, you cute kid, here's my apron." she took off her long apron and tied it around betsy's neck. "there's the soap, there's the table. you stack the dishes up on that counter." she was out of the little gate in the counter in a twinkling, just as molly, in answer to a beckoning gesture from betsy, came in. "hello, there's another one!" said the gay young man, gayer and gayer. "hello, button! what you going to do? i suppose when they try to crack the safe you'll run at them and bark and drive them away!" molly opened her sweet, blue eyes very wide, not understanding a single word. the girl laughed, swooped back, gave molly a kiss, and disappeared, running side by side with the young man toward the dance hall. betsy mounted on a soap box and began joyfully to wash the dishes. she had never thought that ever in her life would she simply love to wash dishes beyond anything else! but it was so. her relief was so great that she could have kissed the coarse, thick plates and glasses as she washed them. "it's all right, molly; it's all right!" she quavered exultantly to molly over her shoulder. but as molly had not (from the moment betsy took command) suspected that it was not all right, she only nodded and asked if she might sit up on a barrel where she could watch the crowd go by. "i guess you could. i don't know why not," said betsy doubtfully. she lifted her up and went back to her dishes. never were dishes washed better! "two doughnuts, please," said a man's voice behind her. oh, mercy, there was somebody come to buy! whatever should she do? she came forward intending to say that the owner of the booth was away and she didn't know anything about ... but the man laid down a nickel, took two doughnuts, and turned away. betsy gasped and looked at the home-made sign stuck into the big pan of doughnuts. sure enough, it read "2 for 5." she put the nickel up on a shelf and went back to her dishwashing. selling things wasn't so hard, she reflected. as her hunted feeling of desperation relaxed she began to find some fun in her new situation, and when a woman with two little boys approached she came forward to wait on her, elated, important. "two for five," she said in a businesslike tone. the woman put down a dime, took up four doughnuts, divided them between her sons, and departed. [illustration: never were dishes washed better!] "my!" said molly, looking admiringly at betsy's coolness over this transaction. betsy went back to her dishes, stepping high. "oh, betsy, see! the pig! the big ox!" cried molly now, looking from her coign of vantage down the wide, grass-grown lane between the booths. betsy craned her head around over her shoulder, continuing conscientiously to wash and wipe the dishes. the prize stock was being paraded around the fair; the great prize ox, his shining horns tipped with blue rosettes; the prize cows, with wreaths around their necks; the prize horses, four or five of them as glossy as satin, curving their bright, strong necks and stepping as though on eggs, their manes and tails braided with bright ribbon; and then, "oh, betsy, look at the pig!" screamed molly again--the smaller animals, the sheep, the calves, the colts, and the pig, which waddled along with portly dignity. betsy looked as well as she could over her shoulder ... and in years to come she can shut her eyes and see again in every detail that rustic procession under the golden, september light. but she looked anxiously at the clock. it was nearing five. oh, suppose the girl forgot and danced too long! "two bottles of ginger ale and half a dozen doughnuts," said a man with a woman and three children. betsy looked feverishly among the bottles ranged on the counter, selected two marked ginger ale, and glared at their corrugated tin stoppers. how did you get them open? "here's your opener," said the man, "if that's what you're looking for. here, you get the glasses and i'll open the bottles. we're in kind of a hurry. got to catch a train." well, they were not the only people who had to catch a train, betsy thought sadly. they drank in gulps and departed, cramming doughnuts into their mouths. betsy wished ardently that the girl would come back. she was now almost sure that she had forgotten and would dance there till nightfall. but there, there she came, running along, as light-footed after an hour's dancing as when she had left the booth. "here you are, kid," said the young man, producing a quarter. "we've had the time of our young lives, thanks to you." betsy gave him back one of the nickels that remained to her, but he refused it. "no, keep the change," he said royally. "it was worth it." "then i'll buy two doughnuts with my extra nickel," said betsy. "no, you won't," said the girl. "you'll take all you want for nothing ... momma'll never miss 'em. and what you sell here has got to be fresh every day. here, hold out your hands, both of you." "some people came and bought things," said betsy, happening to remember as she and molly turned away. "the money is on that shelf." "well, now!" said the girl, "if she didn't take hold and sell things! say ... "--she ran after betsy and gave her a hug--"you smart young one, i wish't i had a little sister just like you!" molly and betsy hurried along out of the gate into the main street of the town and down to the station. molly was eating doughnuts as she went. they were both quite hungry by this time, but betsy could not think of eating till she had those tickets in her hand. she pushed her quarter and a nickel into the ticket-seller's window and said "hillsboro" in as confident a tone as she could; but when the precious bits of paper were pushed out at her and she actually held them, her knees shook under her and she had to go and sit down on the bench. "my! aren't these doughnuts good?" said molly. "i never in my life had enough doughnuts before!" betsy drew a long breath and began rather languidly to eat one herself; she felt, all of a sudden, very, very tired. she was tireder still when they got out of the train at hillsboro station and started wearily up the road toward putney farm. two miles lay before them, two miles which they had often walked before, but never after such a day as now lay back of them. molly dragged her feet as she walked and hung heavily on betsy's hand. betsy plodded along, her head hanging, her eyes all gritty with fatigue and sleepiness. a light buggy spun round the turn of the road behind them, the single horse trotting fast as though the driver were in a hurry, the wheels rattling smartly on the hard road. the little girls drew out to one side and stood waiting till the road should be free again. when he saw them the driver pulled the horse back so quickly it stood almost straight up. he peered at them through the twilight and then with a loud shout sprang over the side of the buggy. it was uncle henry--oh, goody, it was uncle henry come to meet them! they wouldn't have to walk any further! but what was the matter with uncle henry? he ran up to them, exclaiming, "are ye all right? are ye all right?" he stooped over and felt of them desperately as though he expected them to be broken somewhere. and betsy could feel that his old hands were shaking, that he was trembling all over. when she said, "why, yes, uncle henry, we're all right. we came home on the cars," uncle henry leaned up against the fence as though he couldn't stand up. he took off his hat and wiped his forehead and he said--it didn't seem as though it could be uncle henry talking, he sounded so excited--"well, well--well, by gosh! my! well, by thunder! now! and so here ye are! and you're all right! well!" he couldn't seem to stop exclaiming, and you can't imagine anything stranger than an uncle henry who couldn't stop exclaiming. after they all got into the buggy he quieted down a little and said, "thunderation! but we've had a scare! when the wendells come back with their cousins early this afternoon, they said you were coming with the vaughans. and then when you didn't come and didn't come, we telephoned to the vaughans, and they said they hadn't seen hide nor hair of ye, and didn't even know you were to the fair at all! i tell you, your aunt abigail and i had an awful turn! ann and i hitched up quicker'n scat and she put right out with prince up toward woodford and i took jessie down this way; thought maybe i'd get trace of ye somewhere here. well, land!" he wiped his forehead again. "wa'n't i glad to see you standin' there ... get along, jess! i want to get the news to abigail soon as i can!" "now tell me what in thunder did happen to you!" betsy began at the beginning and told straight through, interrupted at first by indignant comments from uncle henry, who was outraged by the wendells' loose wearing of their responsibility for the children. but as she went on he quieted down to a closely attentive silence, interrupting only to keep jess at her top speed. now that it was all safely over, betsy thought her story quite an interesting one, and she omitted no detail, although she wondered once or twice if perhaps uncle henry were listening to her, he kept so still. "and so i bought the tickets and we got home," she ended, adding, "oh, uncle henry, you ought to have seen the prize pig! he was too funny!" they turned into the putney yard now and saw aunt abigail's bulky form on the porch. "got 'em, abby! all right! no harm done!" shouted uncle henry. aunt abigail turned without a word and went back into the house. when the little girls dragged their weary legs in they found her quietly setting out some supper for them on the table, but she was wiping away with her apron the joyful tears which ran down her cheeks, such white cheeks! it seemed so strange to see rosy aunt abigail with a face like paper. "well, i'm glad to see ye," she told them soberly. "sit right down and have some hot milk. i had some all ready." the telephone rang, she went into the next room, and they heard her saying, in an unsteady voice: "all right, ann. they're here. your father just brought them in. i haven't had time to hear about what happened yet. but they're all right. you'd better come home." "that's your cousin ann telephoning from the marshalls'." she herself went and sat down heavily, and when uncle henry came in a few minutes later she asked him in a rather weak voice for the ammonia bottle. he rushed for it, got her a fan and a drink of cold water, and hung over her anxiously till the color began to come back into her pale face. "i know just how you feel, mother," he said sympathetically. "when i saw 'em standin' there by the roadside i felt as though somebody had hit me a clip right in the pit of the stomach." the little girls ate their supper in a tired daze, not paying any attention to what the grown-ups were saying, until rapid hoofs clicked on the stones outside and cousin ann came in quickly, her black eyes snapping. "now, for mercy's sake, tell me what happened," she said, adding hotly, "and if i don't give that maria wendell a piece of my mind!" uncle henry broke in: "_i_'m going to tell what happened. i want to do it. you and mother just listen, just sit right down and listen." his voice was shaking with feeling, and as he went on and told of betsy's afternoon, her fright, her confusion, her forming the plan of coming home on the train and of earning the money for the tickets, he made, for once, no putney pretense of casual coolness. his old eyes flashed fire as he talked. betsy, watching him, felt her heart swell and beat fast in incredulous joy. why, he was proud of her! she had done something to make the putney cousins proud of her! when uncle henry came to the part where she went on asking for employment after one and then another refusal, cousin ann reached out her long arms and quickly, almost roughly, gathered betsy up on her lap, holding her close as she listened. betsy had never before sat on cousin ann's lap. and when uncle henry finished--he had not forgotten a single thing betsy had told him--and asked, "what do you think of that for a little girl ten years old today?" cousin ann opened the flood-gates wide and burst out, "i think i never heard of a child's doing a smarter, grittier thing ... and i don't care if she does hear me say so!" it was a great, a momentous, an historic moment! betsy, enthroned on those strong knees, wondered if any little girl had ever had such a beautiful birthday. chapter xi "understood aunt frances" about a month, after betsy's birthday, one october day when the leaves were all red and yellow, two very momentous events occurred, and, in a manner of speaking, at the very same time. betsy had noticed that her kitten eleanor (she still thought of her as a kitten, although she was now a big, grown-up cat) spent very little time around the house. she came into the kitchen two or three times a day, mewing loudly for milk and food, but after eating very fast she always disappeared at once. betsy missed the purring, contented ball of fur on her lap in the long evenings as she played checkers, or read aloud, or sewed, or played guessing games. she felt rather hurt, too, that eleanor paid her so little attention, and several times she tried hard to make her stay, trailing in front of her a spool tied to a string or rolling a worsted ball across the floor. but eleanor seemed to have lost all her taste for the things she had liked so much. invariably, the moment the door was opened, she darted out and vanished. one afternoon betsy ran out after her, determined to catch her and bring her back. when the cat found she was being followed, she bounded along in great leaps, constantly escaping from betsy's outstretched hand. they came thus to the horse-barn, into the open door of which eleanor whisked like a little gray shadow, betsy close behind. the cat flashed up the steep, ladder-like stairs that led to the hay-loft. betsy scrambled rapidly up, too. it was dark up there, compared to the gorgeous-colored october day outside, and for a moment she could not see eleanor. then she made her out, a dim little shape, picking her way over the hay, and she heard her talking. yes, it was real talk, quite, quite different from the loud, imperious "miauw!" with which eleanor asked for her milk. this was the softest, prettiest kind of conversation, all little murmurs and chirps and sing-songs. why, betsy could almost understand it! she could understand it enough to know that it was love-talk, and then, breaking into this, came a sudden series of shrill, little, needle-like cries that fairly filled the hay-loft. eleanor gave a bound forward and disappeared. betsy, very much excited, scrambled and climbed up over the hay as fast as she could go. it was all silent now--the piercing, funny little squalls had stopped as suddenly as they began. on the top in a little nest lay eleanor, purring so loudly you could hear her all over the big mow, and so proud and happy she could hardly contain herself. her eyes glistened, she arched her back, rolled over and spread out her paws, disclosing to betsy's astounded, delighted eyes--no, she wasn't dreaming--two dear little kittens, one all gray, just like its mother; one gray with a big bib on his chest. oh! how dear they were! how darling, and cuddly, and fuzzy! betsy put her fingers very softly on the gray one's head and thrilled to feel the warmth of the little living creature. "oh, eleanor!" she asked eagerly. "can i pick one up?" she lifted the gray one gently and held it up to her cheek. the little thing nestled down in the warm hollow of her hand. she could feel its tiny, tiny little claws pricking softly into her palm. "oh, you sweetness! you little, little baby-thing!" she said over and over in a whisper. eleanor did not stop purring, and she looked up with friendly, trusting eyes as her little mistress made the acquaintance of her children, but betsy could feel somehow that eleanor was anxious about her kitten, was afraid that, although the little girl meant everything that was kind, her great, clumsy, awkward human hands weren't clever enough to hold a baby-cat the proper way. "i don't blame you a bit, eleanor," said betsy. "i should feel just so in your place. there! i won't touch it again!" she laid the kitten down carefully by its mother. eleanor at once began to wash its face very vigorously, knocking it over and over with her strong tongue. "my!" said betsy, laughing. "you'd scratch my eyes out, if _i_ were as rough as that!" eleanor didn't seem to hear. or rather she seemed to hear something else. for she stopped short, her head lifted, her ears pricked up, listening very hard to some distant sound. then betsy heard it, too, somebody coming into the barn below, little, quick, uneven footsteps. it must be little molly, tagging along, as she always did. what fun to show molly the kittens! "betsy!" called molly from below. "molly!" called betsy from above. "come up here quick! i've got something up here." there was a sound of scrambling, rapid feet on the rough stairs, and molly's yellow curls appeared, shining in the dusk. "i've got a ..." she began, but betsy did not let her finish. "come here, molly, quick! quick!" she called, beckoning eagerly, as though the kittens might evaporate into thin air if molly didn't get there at once. molly forgot what she was going to say, climbed madly up the steep pile of hay, and in a moment was lying flat on her stomach beside the little family in a spasm of delight that satisfied even betsy and eleanor, both of them convinced that these were the finest kittens the world had ever seen. "see, there are two," said betsy. "you can have one for your very own. and i'll let you choose. which one do you like best?" she was hoping that molly would not take the little all-gray one, because she had fallen in love with that the minute she saw it. "oh, this one with the white on his breast," said molly, without a moment's hesitation. "it's lots the prettiest! oh, betsy! for my very own?" something white fell out of the folds of her skirt on the hay. "oh, yes," she said indifferently. "a letter for you. miss ann told me to bring it out here. she said she saw you streaking it for the barn." it was a letter from aunt frances. betsy opened it, one eye on molly to see that she did not hug her new darling too tightly, and began to read it in the ray of dusty sunlight slanting in through a crack in the side of the barn. she could do this easily, because aunt frances always made her handwriting very large and round and clear, so that a little girl could read it without half trying. and as she read, everything faded away from before her ... the barn, molly, the kittens ... she saw nothing but the words on the page. when she had read the letter through she got up quickly, oh ever so quickly! and went away down the stairs. molly hardly noticed she had gone, so absorbing and delightful were the kittens. betsy went out of the dusky barn into the rich, october splendor and saw none of it. she went straight away from the house and the barn, straight up into the hill-pasture toward her favorite place beside the brook, the shady pool under the big maple-tree. at first she walked, but after a while she ran, faster and faster, as though she could not get there soon enough. her head was down, and one arm was crooked over her face.... and do you know, i'm not going to follow her up there, nor let you go. i'm afraid we would all cry if we saw what betsy did under the big maple-tree. and the very reason she ran away so fast was so that she could be all by herself for a very hard hour, and fight it out, alone. so let us go back soberly to the orchard where the putneys are, and wait till betsy comes walking listlessly in, her eyes red and her cheeks pale. cousin ann was up in the top of a tree, a basket hung over her shoulder half full of striped red northern spies; uncle henry was on a ladder against another tree, filling a bag with the beautiful, shining, yellow-green pound sweets, and aunt abigail was moving around, picking up the parti-colored windfalls and putting them into barrels ready to go to the cider-mill. something about the way betsy walked, and as she drew closer something about the expression of her face, and oh! as she began to speak, something about the tone of her voice, stopped all this cheerful activity as though a bomb had gone off in their midst. "i've had a letter from aunt frances," said betsy, biting her lips, "and she says she's coming to take me away, back to them, tomorrow." there was a big silence; cousin ann stood, perfectly motionless up in her tree, staring down through the leaves at betsy. uncle henry was turned around on his ladder, one hand on an apple as though it had frozen there, staring down at betsy. aunt abigail leaned with both fat hands on her barrel, staring hard at betsy. betsy was staring down at her shoes, biting her lips and winking her eyes. the yellow, hazy october sun sank slowly down toward the rim of hemlock mountain, and sent long, golden shafts of light through the branches of the trees upon this group of people, all so silent, so motionless. [illustration: betsy was staring down at her shoes, biting her lips and winking her eyes.] betsy was the first to speak, and i'm very proud of her for what she said. she said, loyally, "dear aunt frances! she was always so sweet to me! she always tried so hard to take care of me!" for that was what betsy had found up by the brook under the big red maple-tree. she had found there a certainty that, whatever else she did, she must not hurt aunt frances's feelings--dear, gentle, sweet aunt frances, whose feelings were so easily hurt and who had given her so many years of such anxious care. something up there had told her--perhaps the quiet blue shadow of windward mountain creeping slowly over the pasture toward her, perhaps the silent glory of the great red-and-gold tree, perhaps the singing murmur of the little brook--perhaps all of them together had told her that now had come a time when she must do more than what cousin ann would do--when she must do what she herself knew was right. and that was to protect aunt frances from hurt. when she spoke, out there in the orchard, she broke the spell of silence. cousin ann climbed hastily down from her tree, with her basket only partly filled. uncle henry got stiffly off his ladder, and aunt abigail advanced through the grass. and they all said the same thing--"let me see that letter." they read it there, looking over each other's shoulders, with grave faces. then, still silently, they all turned and went back into the house, leaving their forgotten bags and barrels and baskets out under the trees. when they found themselves in the kitchen--"well, it's suppertime, anyhow," said cousin ann hastily, as if ashamed of losing her composure, "or almost time. we might as well get it now." "i'm a-going out to milk," said uncle henry gruffly, although it was not nearly his usual time. he took up the milk pails and marched out toward the barn, stepping heavily, his head hanging. shep woke up with a snort and, getting off the couch, gamboled clumsily up to betsy, wagging his tail and jumping up on her, ready for a frolic. that was almost too much for betsy! to think that after tomorrow she would never see shep again--nor eleanor! nor the kittens! she choked as she bent over shep and put her arms around his neck for a great hug. but she mustn't cry, she mustn't hurt aunt frances's feelings, or show that she wasn't glad to go back to her. that wouldn't be fair, after all aunt frances had done for her! that night she lay awake after she and molly had gone to bed and molly was asleep. they had decided not to tell molly until the last minute, so she had dropped off peacefully, as usual. but poor betsy's eyes were wide open. she saw a gleam of light under the door. it widened; the door opened. aunt abigail stood there, in her night cap, mountainous in her long white gown, a candle shining up into her serious old face. "you awake, betsy?" she whispered, seeing the child's dark eyes gleaming at her over the covers. "i just--i just thought i'd look in to see if you were all right." she came to the edge of the bed and set the candle down on the little stand. betsy reached her arms up longingly and the old woman stooped over her. neither of them said a single word during the long embrace which followed. then aunt abigail straightened up hastily, took her candle very quickly and softly, and heavily padded out of the room. betsy turned over and flung one arm over molly--no molly, either, after tomorrow! she gulped hard and stared up at the ceiling, dimly white in the starlight. a gleam of light shone under the door. it widened, and uncle henry stood there, a candle in his hand, peering into the room. "you awake, betsy?" he said cautiously. "yes. i'm awake, uncle henry." the old man shuffled into the room. "i just got to thinking," he said, hesitating, "that maybe you'd like to take my watch with you. it's kind of handy to have a watch on the train. and i'd like real well for you to have it." he laid it down on the stand, his own cherished gold watch, that had been given him when he was twenty-one. betsy reached out and took his hard, gnarled old fist in a tight grip. "oh, uncle henry!" she began, and could not go on. "we'll miss you, betsy," he said in an uncertain voice. "it's been ... it's been real nice to have you here ..." and then he too snatched up his candle very quickly and almost ran out of the room. betsy turned over on her back. "no crying, now!" she told herself fiercely. "no crying, now!" she clenched her hands together tightly and set her teeth. something moved in the room. somebody leaned over her. it was cousin ann, who didn't make a sound, not one, but who took betsy in her strong arms and held her close and closer, till betsy could feel the quick pulse of the other's heart beating all through her own body. then she was gone--as silently as she came. but somehow that great embrace had taken away all the burning tightness from betsy's eyes and heart. she was very, very tired, and soon after this she fell sound asleep, snuggled up close to molly. in the morning, nobody spoke of last night at all. breakfast was prepared and eaten, and the team hitched up directly afterward. betsy and uncle henry were to drive to the station together to meet aunt frances's train. betsy put on her new wine-colored cashmere that cousin ann had made her, with the soft white collar of delicate old embroidery that aunt abigail had given her out of one of the trunks in the attic. she and uncle henry said very little as they drove to the village, and even less as they stood waiting together on the platform. betsy slipped her hand into his and he held it tight as the train whistled in the distance and came slowly and laboriously puffing up to the station. just one person got off at the little station, and that was aunt frances, looking ever so dressed up and citified, with a fluffy ostrich-feather boa and kid gloves and a white veil over her face and a big blue one floating from her gay-flowered velvet hat. how pretty she was! and how young--under the veil which hid so kindly all the little lines in her sweet, thin face. and how excited and fluttery! betsy had forgotten how fluttery aunt frances was! she clasped betsy to her, and then started back crying--she must see to her suitcase--and then she clasped betsy to her again and shook hands with uncle henry, whose grim old face looked about as cordial and welcoming as the sourest kind of sour pickle, and she fluttered back and said she must have left her umbrella on the train. "oh, conductor! conductor! my umbrella--right in my seat--a blue one with a crooked-over--oh, here it is in my hand! what am i thinking of!" the conductor evidently thought he'd better get the train away as soon as possible, for he now shouted, "all aboard!" to nobody at all, and sprang back on the steps. the train went off, groaning over the steep grade, and screaming out its usual echoing warning about the next road crossing. uncle henry took aunt frances's suitcase and plodded back to the surrey. he got into the front seat and aunt frances and betsy in the back; and they started off. and now i want you to listen to every single word that was said on the back seat, for it was a very, very important conversation, when betsy's fate hung on the curl of an eyelash and the flicker of a voice, as fates often do. aunt frances hugged betsy again and again and exclaimed about her having grown so big and tall and fat--she didn't say brown too, although you could see that she was thinking that, as she looked through her veil at betsy's tanned face and down at the contrast between her own pretty, white fingers and betsy's leather-colored, muscular little hands. she exclaimed and exclaimed and kept on exclaiming! betsy wondered if she really always had been as fluttery as this. and then, all of a sudden it came out, the great news, the reason for the extra flutteriness. aunt frances was going to be married! yes! think of it! betsy fell back open-mouthed with astonishment. "did betsy think her aunt frances a silly old thing?" "oh, aunt frances, no!" cried betsy fervently. "you look just as young, and pretty! lots younger than i remembered you!" aunt frances flushed with pleasure and went on, "you'll love your old aunt frances just as much, won't you, when she's mrs. plimpton!" betsy put her arms around her and gave her a great hug. "i'll always love you, aunt frances!" she said. "you'll love mr. plimpton, too. he's so big and strong, and he just loves to take care of people. he says that's why he's marrying me. don't you wonder where we are going to live?" she asked, answering her own question quickly. "we're not going to live anywhere. isn't that a joke? mr. plimpton's business keeps him always moving around from one place to another, never more than a month anywhere." "what'll aunt harriet do?" asked betsy wonderingly. "why, she's ever and ever so much better," said aunt frances happily. "and her own sister, my aunt rachel, has come back from china, where she's been a missionary for ever so long, and the two old ladies are going to keep house together out in california, in the dearest little bungalow, all roses and honeysuckle. but you're going to be with me. won't it be jolly fun, darling, to go traveling all about everywhere, and see new places all the time!" now those are the words aunt frances said, but something in her voice and her face suggested a faint possibility to betsy that maybe aunt frances didn't really think it would be such awfully jolly fun as her words said. her heart gave a big jump up, and she had to hold tight to the arm of the surrey before she could ask, in a quiet voice, "but, aunt frances, won't i be awfully in your way, traveling around so?" now, aunt frances had ears of her own, and though that was what betsy's words said, what aunt frances heard was a suggestion that possibly betsy wasn't as crazy to leave putney farm as she had supposed of course she would be. they both stopped talking for a moment and peered at each other through the thicket of words that held them apart. i told you this was a very momentous conversation. one sure thing is that the people on the back seat saw the inside of the surrey as they traveled along, and nothing else. red sumac and bronzed beech-trees waved their flags at them in vain. they kept their eyes fixed on each other intently, each in an agony of fear lest she hurt the other's feelings. after a pause aunt frances came to herself with a start, and said, affectionately putting her arm around betsy, "why, you darling, what does aunt frances care about trouble if her own dear baby-girl is happy?" and betsy said, resolutely, "oh, you know, aunt frances, i'd love to be with you!" she ventured one more step through the thicket. "but honestly, aunt frances, won't it be a bother...?" aunt frances ventured another step to meet her, "but dear little girls must be somewhere ..." and betsy almost forgot her caution and burst out, "but i could stay here! i know they would keep me!" even aunt frances's two veils could not hide the gleam of relief and hope that came into her pretty, thin, sweet face. she summoned all her courage and stepped out into the clearing in the middle of the thicket, asking right out, boldly, "why, do you like it here, betsy? would you like to stay?" and betsy--she never could remember afterward if she had been careful enough not to shout too loudly and joyfully--betsy cried out, "oh, i love it here!" there they stood, face to face, looking at each other with honest and very happy eyes. aunt frances threw her arm around betsy and asked again, "are you sure, dear?" and didn't try to hide her relief. and neither did betsy. "i could visit you once in a while, when you are somewhere near here," suggested betsy, beaming. "oh, yes, i must have some of the time with my darling!" said aunt frances. and this time there was nothing in their hearts that contradicted their lips. they clung to each other in speechless satisfaction as uncle henry guided the surrey up to the marble stepping-stone. betsy jumped out first, and while uncle henry was helping aunt frances out, she was dashing up the walk like a crazy thing. she flung open the front door and catapulted into aunt abigail just coming out. it was like flinging herself into a feather-bed.... "oh! oh!" she gasped out. "aunt frances is going to be married. and travel around all the time! and she doesn't really want me at all! can't i stay here? can't i stay here?" cousin ann was right behind aunt abigail, and she heard this. she looked over their shoulders toward aunt frances, who was approaching from behind, and said, in her usual calm and collected voice: "how do you do, frances? glad to see you, frances. how well you're looking! i hear you are in for congratulations. who's the happy man?" betsy was overcome with admiration for her coolness in being able to talk so in such an exciting moment. she knew aunt abigail couldn't have done it, for she had sat down in a rocking-chair, and was holding betsy on her lap. the little girl could see her wrinkled old hand trembling on the arm of the chair. "i hope that means," continued cousin ann, going as usual straight to the point, "that we can keep betsy here with us." "oh, would you like to?" asked aunt frances, fluttering, as though the idea had never occurred to her before that minute. "would elizabeth ann really like to stay?" "oh, i'd like to, all right!" said betsy, looking confidently up into aunt abigail's face. aunt abigail spoke now. she cleared her throat twice before she could bring out a word. then she said, "why, yes, we'd kind of like to keep her. we've sort of got used to having her around." that's what she said, but, as you have noticed before on this exciting day, what people said didn't matter as much as what they looked; and as her old lips pronounced these words so quietly the corners of aunt abigail's mouth were twitching, and she was swallowing hard. she said, impatiently, to cousin ann, "hand me that handkerchief, ann!" and as she blew her nose, she said, "oh, what an old fool i am!" then, all of a sudden, it was as though a great, fresh breeze had blown through the house. they all drew a long breath and began to talk loudly and cheerfully about the weather and aunt frances's trip and how aunt harriet was and which room aunt frances was to have and would she leave her wraps down in the hall or take them upstairs--and, in the midst of this, betsy, her heart ready to burst, dashed out of doors, followed by shep. she ran madly toward the barn. she did not know where she was going. she only knew that she must run and jump and shout, or she would explode. shep ran and jumped because betsy did. to these two wild creatures, careering through the air like bright-blown autumn leaves, appeared little molly in the barn door. "oh, i'm going to stay! i'm going to stay!" screamed betsy. but as molly had not had any notion of the contrary, she only said, "of course, why not?" and went on to something really important, saying, in a very much capitalized statement, "my kitten can walk! it took three steps just now." after aunt frances got her wraps off, betsy took her for a tour of inspection. they went all over the house first, with special emphasis laid on the living-room. "isn't this the loveliest place?" said betsy, fervently, looking about her at the white curtains, the bright flowers, the southern sunshine, the bookcases, and the bright cooking utensils. it was all full to the brim to her eyes with happiness, and she forgot entirely that she had thought it a very poor, common kind of room when she had first seen it. nor did she notice that aunt frances showed no enthusiasm over it now. she stopped for a few moments to wash some potatoes and put them into the oven for dinner. aunt frances opened her eyes at this. "i always see to the potatoes and the apples, the cooking of them, i mean," explained betsy proudly. "i've just learned to make apple-pie and brown betty." then down into the stone-floored milk-room, where aunt abigail was working over butter, and where betsy, swelling with pride, showed aunt frances how deftly and smoothly she could manipulate the wooden paddle and make rolls of butter that weighed within an ounce or two of a pound. "mercy, child! think of your being able to do such things!" said aunt frances, more and more astonished. they went out of doors now, shep bounding by their side. betsy was amazed to see that aunt frances drew back, quite nervously, whenever the big dog frisked near her. out in the barn betsy had a disappointment. aunt frances just balked absolutely at those ladder-like stairs--"oh, i couldn't! i couldn't, dear. do you go up there? is it quite safe?" "why, aunt abigail went up there to see the kittens!" cried betsy, on the edge of exasperation. but her heart softened at the sight of aunt frances's evident distress of mind at the very idea of climbing into the loft, and she brought the kittens down for inspection, eleanor mewing anxiously at the top of the stairs. on the way back to the house they had an adventure, a sort of adventure, and it brought home to betsy once for all how much she loved dear, sweet aunt frances, and just what kind of love it was. as they crossed the barnyard the calf approached them playfully, leaping stiff-legged into the air, and making a pretense of butting at them with its hornless young head. betsy and shep often played with the calf in this way by the half-hour, and she thought nothing of it now; hardly noticed it, in fact. but aunt frances gave a loud, piercing shriek, as though she were being cut into pieces. "help! help!" she screamed. "betsy! oh, betsy!" she had turned as white as a sheet and could not take a single step forward. "it's nothing! it's nothing!" said betsy, rather impatiently. "he's just playing. we often play with him, shep and i." the calf came a little nearer, with lowered head. "get away!" said betsy indifferently, kicking at him. at this hint of masterfulness on betsy's part, aunt frances cried out, "oh, yes, betsy, do make him go away! do make him go away!" it came over betsy that aunt frances was really frightened, yes, really; and all at once her impatience disappeared, never to come back again. she felt toward aunt frances just as she did toward little molly, and she acted accordingly. she stepped in front of aunt frances, picked up a stick, and hit the calf a blow on the neck with it. he moved away, startled and injured, looking at his playfellow with reproachful eyes. but betsy was relentless. aunt frances must not be frightened! "here, shep! here, shep!" she called loudly, and when the big dog came bounding to her she pointed to the calf and said sternly, "take him into the barn! drive him into the barn, sir!" shep asked nothing better than this command, and charged forward, barking furiously and leaping into the air as though he intended to eat the calf up alive. the two swept across the barnyard and into the lower regions of the barn. in a moment shep reappeared, his tongue hanging out, his tail wagging, his eyes glistening, very proud of himself, and mounted guard at the door. aunt frances hurried along desperately through the gate of the barnyard. as it fell to behind her she sank down on a rock, breathless, still pale and agitated. betsy threw her arms around her in a transport of affection. she felt that she understood aunt frances as nobody else could, the dear, sweet, gentle, timid aunt! she took the thin, nervous white fingers in her strong brown hands. "oh, aunt frances, dear, darling aunt frances!" she cried, "how i wish i could always take care of you." the last of the red and gold leaves were slowly drifting to the ground as betsy and uncle henry drove back from the station after seeing aunt frances off. they were not silent this time, as when they had gone to meet her. they were talking cheerfully together, laying their plans for the winter which was so near. "i must begin to bank the house tomorrow," mused uncle henry. "and those apples have got to go to the cider-mill, right off. don't you want to ride over on top of them, betsy, and see 'em made into cider?" "oh, my, yes!" said betsy, "that will be fine! and i must put away deborah's summer clothes and get cousin ann to help me make some warm ones, if i'm going to take her to school in cold weather." as they drove into the yard, they saw eleanor coming from the direction of the barn with something big and heavy in her mouth. she held her head as high as she could, but even so, her burden dragged on the ground, bumping softly against the rough places on the path. "look!" said betsy. "just see that great rat eleanor has caught!" uncle henry squinted his old eyes toward the cat for a moment and laughed. "we're not the only ones that are getting ready for winter," he remarked. betsy did not know what he meant and climbed hastily over the wheel and ran to see. as she approached eleanor, the cat laid her burden down with an air of relief and looked trustfully into her little mistress's face. why, it was one of the kittens! eleanor was bringing it to the house. oh, of course! they mustn't stay out there in that cold hay-loft now the cold weather was drawing near. betsy picked up the little sprawling thing, trying with weak legs to get around over the rough ground. she carried it carefully toward the house, eleanor walking sinuously by her side and "talking" in little singing, purring miauws to explain her ideas of kitten-comfort. betsy felt that she quite understood her. "yes, eleanor, a nice little basket behind the stove with a warm piece of an old blanket in it. yes, i'll fix it for you. it'll be lovely to have the whole family there. and i'll bring the other one in for you." but evidently eleanor did not understand little-girl talk as well as betsy understood cat-talk, for a little later, as betsy turned from the nest she was making in the corner behind the stove, eleanor was missing; and when she ran out toward the barn she met her again, her head strained painfully back, dragging another fat, heavy kitten, who curled his pink feet up as high as he could in a vain effort not to have them knock against the stones. "now, eleanor," said betsy, a little put out, "you don't trust me enough! i was going to get it all right!" "well," said aunt abigail, as they came into the kitchen, "now you must begin to teach them to drink." "goodness!" said betsy, "don't they know how to drink already?" "you try them and see," said aunt abigail with a mysterious smile. so when uncle henry brought the pails full of fragrant, warm milk into the house, betsy poured out some in a saucer and put the kittens up to it. she and molly squatted down on their heels to watch, and before long they were laughing so that they were rolling on the kitchen floor. at first the kittens looked every way but at the milk, seeming to see everything but what was under their noses. then graykin (that was betsy's) absent-mindedly walked right through the saucer, emerging with very wet feet and a very much aggrieved and astonished expression. molly screamed with laughter to see him shake his little pink toes and finally sit down seriously to lick them clean. then white-bib (molly's) put his head down to the saucer. "there! mine is smarter than yours!" said molly. but white-bib went on putting his head down, down, down, clear into the milk nearly up to his eyes, although he looked very frightened and miserable. then he jerked it up quickly and sneezed and sneezed and sneezed, such deliriously funny little baby sneezes! he pawed and pawed at his little pink nose with his little pink paw until eleanor took pity on him and came to wash him off. in the midst of this process she saw the milk, and left off to lap it up eagerly; and in a jiffy she had drunk every drop and was licking the saucer loudly with her raspy tongue. and that was the end of the kittens' first lesson. that evening, as they sat around the lamp, eleanor came and got up in betsy's lap just like old times. betsy was playing checkers with uncle henry and interrupted the game to welcome the cat back delightedly. but eleanor was uneasy, and kept stopping her toilet to prick up her ears and look restlessly toward the basket, where the kittens lay curled so closely together that they looked like one soft ball of gray fur. by and by eleanor jumped down heavily and went back to the basket. she stayed there only a moment, standing over the kittens and licking them convulsively, and then she came back and got up in betsy's lap again. "what ails that cat?" said cousin ann, noting this pacing and restlessness. "maybe she wants betsy to hold her kittens, too," suggested aunt abigail. "oh, i'd love to!" said betsy, spreading out her knees to make her lap bigger. "but i want my own white-bib myself!" said molly, looking up from the beads she was stringing. "well, maybe eleanor would let you settle it that way," said cousin ann. the little girls ran over to the basket and brought back each her own kitten. eleanor watched them anxiously, but as soon as they sat down she jumped up happily into betsy's lap and curled down close to little graykin. this time she was completely satisfied, and her loud purring filled the room with a peaceable murmur. "there, now you're fixed for the winter," said aunt abigail. by and by, after cousin ann had popped some corn, old shep got off the couch and came to stand by betsy's knee to get an occasional handful. eleanor opened one eye, recognized a friend, and shut it sleepily. but the little kitten woke up in terrible alarm to see that hideous monster so near him, and prepared to sell his life dearly. he bristled up his ridiculous little tail, opened his absurd, little pink mouth in a soft, baby s-s-s-, and struck savagely at old shep's good-natured face with a soft little paw. betsy felt her heart overflow with amusement and pride in the intrepid little morsel. she burst into laughter, but she picked it up and held it lovingly close to her cheek. what fun it was going to be to see those kittens grow up! old shep padded back softly to the couch, his toe-nails clicking on the floor, hoisted himself heavily up, and went to sleep. the kitten subsided into a ball again. eleanor stirred and stretched in her sleep and laid her head in utter trust on her little mistress's hand. after that betsy moved the checkers only with her other hand. in the intervals of the game, while uncle henry was pondering over his moves, the little girl looked down at her pets and listened absently to the keen autumnal wind that swept around the old house, shaking the shutters and rattling the windows. a stick of wood in the stove burned in two and fell together with a soft, whispering sound. the lamp cast a steady radiance on uncle henry bent seriously over the checker-board, on molly's blooming, round cheeks and bright hair, on aunt abigail's rosy, cheerful, wrinkled old face, and on cousin ann's quiet, clear, dark eyes.... that room was full to the brim of something beautiful, and betsy knew what it was. its name was happiness. the end. proofreaders hillsboro people by dorothy canfield author of the bent twig, the squirrel cage, etc. with occasional vermont verses by sarah n. cleghorn 1915 contents vermont (poem) hemlock mountain (poem) at the foot of hemlock mountain petunias--that's for remembrance the heyday of the blood as a bird out of the snare the bedquilt portrait of a philosopher flint and fire a saint's hours (poem) in memory of l.h.w. in new new england the deliverer noctes ambrosianae (poem) hillsboro's good luck salem hills to ellis island (poem) avunculus by abana and pharpar (poem) finis a village munchausen the artist who else heard it? (poem) a drop in the bucket the golden tongue of ireland (poem) piper tim adeste fideles! vermont wide and shallow in the cowslip marshes floods the freshet of the april snow. late drifts linger in the hemlock gorges, through the brakes and mosses trickling slow where the mayflower, where the painted trillium, leaf and blow. foliaged deep, the cool midsummer maples shade the porches of the long white street; trailing wide, olympian elms lean over tiny churches where the highroads meet. fields of fireflies wheel all night like stars among the wheat. blaze the mountains in the windless autumn frost-clear, blue-nooned, apple-ripening days; faintly fragrant in the farther valleys smoke of many bonfires swells the haze; fair-bound cattle plod with lowing up the meadowy ways. roaring snows down-sweeping from the uplands bury the still valleys, drift them deep. low along the mountain, lake-blue shadows, sea-blue shadows in the hollows sleep. high above them blinding crystal is the sunlit steep. hemlock mountain by orange grove and palm-tree, we walked the southern shore, each day more still and golden than was the day before. that calm and languid sunshine! how faint it made us grow to look on hemlock mountain when the storm hangs low! to see its rocky pastures, its sparse but hardy corn, the mist roll off its forehead before a harvest morn; to hear the pine-trees crashing across its gulfs of snow upon a roaring midnight when the whirlwinds blow. tell not of lost atlantis, or fabled avalon; the olive, or the vineyard, no winter breathes upon; away from hemlock mountain we could not well forego, for all the summer islands where the gulf tides flow. at the foot of hemlock mountain "in connection with this phase of the problem of transportation it must be remembered that the rush of population to the great cities was no temporary movement. it is caused by a final revolt against that malignant relic of the dark ages, the country village and by a healthy craving for the deep, full life of the metropolis, for contact with the vitalizing stream of humanity."--pritchell's "handbook of economics," page 247. sometimes people from hillsboro leave our forgotten valley, high among the green mountains, and "go down to the city," as the phrase runs, they always come back exclaiming that they should think new yorkers would just die of lonesomeness, and crying out in an ecstasy of relief that it does seem so good to get back where there are some folks. after the desolate isolation of city streets, empty of humanity, filled only with hurrying ghosts, the vestibule of our church after morning service fills one with an exalted realization of the great numbers of the human race. it is like coming into a warmed and lighted room, full of friendly faces, after wandering long by night in a forest peopled only with flitting shadows. in the phantasmagoric pantomime of the city, we forget that there are so many real people in all the world, so diverse, so unfathomably human as those who meet us in the little post-office on the night of our return to hillsboro. like any other of those gifts of life which gratify insatiable cravings of humanity, living in a country village conveys a satisfaction which is incommunicable. a great many authors have written about it, just as a great many authors have written about the satisfaction of being in love, but in the one, as in the other case, the essence of the thing escapes. people rejoice in sweethearts because all humanity craves love, and they thrive in country villages because they crave human life. now the living spirit of neither of these things can be caught in a net of words. all the foolish, fond doings of lovers may be set down on paper by whatever eavesdropper cares to take the trouble, but no one can realize from that record anything of the glory in the hearts of the unconscious two. all the queer grammar and insignificant surface eccentricities of village character may be ruthlessly reproduced in every variety of dialect, but no one can guess from that record the abounding flood of richly human life which pours along the village street. this tormenting inequality between the thing felt and the impression conveyed had vexed us unceasingly until one day simple martin, the town fool, who always says our wise things, said one of his wisest. he was lounging by the watering-trough one sunny day in june, when a carriage-load of "summer folk" from windfield over the mountain stopped to water their horses. they asked him, as they always, always ask all of us, "for mercy's sake, what do you people _do_ all the time, away off here, so far from everything." simple martin was not irritated, or perplexed, or rendered helplessly inarticulate by this question, as the rest of us had always been. he looked around him at the lovely, sloping lines of hemlock mountain, at the necronett river singing in the sunlight, at the familiar, friendly faces of the people in the street, and he answered in astonishment at the ignorance of his questioners, "_do_? why, we jes' _live_!" we felt that he had explained us once and for all. we had known that, of course, but we hadn't before, in our own phrase, "sensed it." we just live. and sometimes it seems to us that we are the only people in america engaged in that most wonderful occupation. we know, of course, that we must be wrong in thinking this, and that there must be countless other hillsboros scattered everywhere, rejoicing as we do in an existence which does not necessarily make us care-free or happy, which does not in the least absolve us from the necessity of working hard (for hillsboro is unbelievably poor in money), but which does keep us alive in every fiber of our sympathy and thrilling with the consciousness of the life of others. a common and picturesque expression for a common experience runs, "it's so noisy i can't hear myself think." after a visit to new york we feel that its inhabitants are so deafened by the constant blare of confusion that they can't feel themselves live. the steady sufferers from this complaint do not realize their condition. they find it on the whole less trouble _not_ to feel themselves live, and they are most uneasy when chance forces them to spend a few days (on shipboard, for instance) where they are not protected by ceaseless and aimless activity from the consciousness that they are themselves. they cannot even conceive the bitter-sweet, vital taste of that consciousness as we villagers have it, and they cannot understand how arid their existence seems to us without this unhurried, penetrating realization of their own existence and of the meaning of their acts. we do not blame city dwellers for not having it; we ourselves lose it when we venture into their maelstrom. like them, we become dwarfed by overwhelming numbers, and shriveled by the incapacity to "sense" the humanity of the countless human simulacra about us. but we do not stay where we cannot feel ourselves live. we hurry back to the shadow of hemlock mountain, feeling that to love life one does not need to be what is usually called happy, one needs only to live. it cannot be, of course, that we are the only community to discover this patent fact; but we know no more of the others than they of us. all that we hear from that part of america which is not hillsboro is the wild yell of excitement going up from the great cities, where people seem to be doing everything that was ever done or thought of except just living. city dwellers make money, make reputations (good and bad), make museums and subways, make charitable institutions, make with a hysteric rapidity, like excited spiders, more and yet more complications in the mazy labyrinths of their lives, but they never make each others' acquaintances ... and that is all that is worth doing in the world. we who live in hillsboro know that they are to be pitied, not blamed, for this fatal omission. we realize that only in hillsboro and places like it can one have "deep, full life and contact with the vitalizing stream of humanity." we know that in the very nature of humanity the city is a small and narrow world, the village a great and wide one, and that the utmost efforts of city dwellers will not avail to break the bars of the prison where they are shut in, each with his own kind. they may look out from the windows upon a great and varied throng, as the beggar munching a crust may look in at a banqueting hall, but the people they are forced to live with are exactly like themselves; and that way lies not only monomania but an ennui that makes the blessing of life savorless. if this does not seem the plainest possible statement of fact take a concrete instance. can a banker in the city by any possibility come to know what kind of an individual is the remote impersonal creature who waits on him in a department store? most bankers recognize with a misguided joy this natural wall between themselves and people who are not bankers, and add to it as many stones of their own quarrying as possible; but they are not shut off from all the quickening diversity of life any more effectually than the college-settlement, boys' sunday-school, brand of banker. the latter may try as hard as he pleases, he simply cannot achieve real acquaintanceship with a "storekeeper," as we call them, any more than the clerk can achieve real acquaintanceship with him. lack of any elements of common life form as impassable a barrier as lack of a common language, whereas with us in hillsboro all the life we have is common. everyone is needed to live it. there can be no city dweller of experience who does not know the result of this herding together of the same kind of people, this intellectual and moral inbreeding. to the accountant who knows only accounts, the world comes to seem like one great ledger, and account-keeping the only vital pursuit in life. to the banker who knows only bankers, the world seems one great bank filled with money, accompanied by people. the prison doors of uniformity are closed inexorably upon them. and then what happens? why, when anything goes wrong with their trumpery account books, or their trashy money, these poor folk are like blind men who have lost their staves. with all the world before them they dare not continue to go forward. we in hillsboro are sorry for the account-keepers who disappear forever, fleeing from all who know them because their accounts have come out crooked, we pity the banker who blows out his brains when something has upset his bank; but we can't help feeling with this compassion an admixture of the exasperated impatience we have for those prussian school boys who jump out of third-story windows because they did not reach a certain grade in their latin examinations. life is not accounts, or banks, or even latin examinations, and it is a sign of inexperience to think it so. the trouble with the despairing banker is that he has never had a chance to become aware of the comforting vastness of the force which animates him in common with all the rest of humanity, to which force a bank failure is no apocalyptic end of creation, but a mere incident or trial of strength like a fall in a slippery road. absorbed in his solitary progress, the banker has forgotten that his business in life is not so much to keep from falling as to get up again and go forward. if the man to whom the world was a bank had not been so inexorably shut away from the bracing, tonic shock of knowing men utterly diverse, to whom the world was just as certainly only a grocery store, or a cobbler's bench, he might have come to believe in a world that is none of these things and is big enough to take them all in; and he might have been alive this minute, a credit to himself, useful to the world, and doubtless very much more agreeable to his family than in the days of his blind arrogance. the pathetic feature of this universal inexperience among city dwellers of real life and real people is that it is really entirely enforced and involuntary. at heart they crave knowledge of real life and sympathy with their fellow-men as starving men do food. in hillsboro we explain to ourselves the enormous amount of novel-reading and play-going in the great cities as due to a perverted form of this natural hunger for human life. if people are so situated they can't get it fresh, they will take it canned, which is undoubtedly good for those in the canning business; but we feel that we who have better food ought not to be expected to treat their boughten canned goods very seriously. we can't help smiling at the life-and-death discussions of literary people about their preferences in style and plot and treatment ... their favorite brand on the can, so to speak. to tell the truth, all novels seem to us badly written, they are so faint and faded in comparison to the brilliant colors of the life which palpitates up and down our village street, called by strangers, "so quaint and sleepy-looking." what does the author of a novel do for you, after all, even the best author? he presents to you people not nearly so interesting as your next-door neighbors, makes them do things not nearly so exciting as what happened to your grandfather, and doles out to you in meager paragraphs snatches of that comprehending and consolatory philosophy of life, which long ago you should have learned to manufacture for yourself out of every incident in your daily routine. of course, if you don't know your next-door neighbors, and have never had time to listen to what happened to your grandfather and are too busy catching trains to philosophize on those subjects if you did know them, no more remains to be said. by all means patronize the next shop you see which displays in its show windows canned romances, adventures, tragedies, farces, and the like line of goods. live vicariously, if you can't at first hand; but don't be annoyed at our pity for your method of passing blindfold through life. and don't expect to find such a shop in our village. to open one there would be like trying to crowd out the great trees on hemlock mountain by planting a noah's ark garden among them. romances, adventures, tragedies, and farces ... why, we are the characters of those plots. every child who runs past the house starts a new story, every old man whom we leave sleeping in the burying-ground by the necronsett river is the ending of another ... or perhaps the beginning of a sequel. do you say that in the city a hundred more children run past the windows of your apartment than along our solitary street, and that funeral processions cross your every walk abroad? true, but they are stories written in a tongue incomprehensible to you. you look at the covers you may even flutter the leaves and look at the pictures but you cannot tell what they are all about. you are like people bored and yawning at a performance of a tragedy by sophocles, because the actors speak in greek. so dreadful and moving a thing as a man's sudden death may happen before your eyes, but you do not know enough of what it means to be moved by it. for you it is not really a man who dies. it is the abstract idea of a man, leaving behind him abstract possibilities of a wife and children. you knew nothing of him, you know nothing of them, you shudder, look the other way, and hurry along, your heart a little more blunted to the sorrows of others, a little more remote from your fellows even than before. all hillsboro is more stirred than that, both to sympathy and active help, by the news that mrs. brownell has broken her leg. it means something unescapably definite to us, about which we not only can, but must take action. it means that her sickly oldest daughter will not get the care she needs if somebody doesn't go to help out; it means that if we do not do something that bright boy of hers will have to leave school, just when he is in the way of winning a scholarship in college; it means, in short, a crisis in several human lives, which by the mere fact of being known calls forth sympathy as irresistibly as sunshine in may opens the leaf buds. just as it is only one lover in a million who can continue to love his mistress during a lifetime of absolute separation from her, so it is one man in a million who can continue his sympathy and interest in his fellow-men without continual close contact with them. the divine feeling of responsibility for the well-being of others is diluted and washed away in great cities by the overwhelming impersonal flood of vast numbers; in villages it is strengthened by the sight, apparent to the dullest eyes, of immediate personal and visible application. in other words, we are not only the characters of our unwritten stories, but also part authors. something of the final outcome depends upon us, something of the creative instinct of the artist is stirred to life within every one of us ... however unconscious of it in our countrified simplicity we may be. the sympathy we feel for a distressed neighbor has none of the impotent sterility of a reader's sympathy for a distressed character in a book. there is always a chance to try to help, and if that fail, to try again and yet again. death writes the only _finis_ to our stories, and since a chance to start over again has been so unfailingly granted us here, we cannot but feel that death may mean only turning over another page. i suppose we do not appreciate the seriousness of fiction-writing, nor its importance to those who cannot get any nearer to real life. and yet it is not that we are unprogressive. our young people, returning from college, or from visits to the city, freshen and bring up to date our ideas on literature as rigorously as they do our sleeves and hats; but after a short stay in hillsboro even these conscientious young missionaries of culture turn away from the feeble plots of ibsen and the tame inventions of bernard shaw to the really exciting, perplexing, and stimulating events in the life of the village grocer. in "ghosts," ibsen preaches a terrible sermon on the responsibility of one generation for the next, but not all his relentless logic can move you to the sharp throb of horrified sympathy you feel as you see nelse pettingrew's poor mother run down the street, her shawl flung hastily over her head, framing a face of despairing resolve, such as can never look at you out of the pages of a book. somebody has told her that nelse has been drinking again and "is beginning to get ugly." for hillsboro is no model village, but the world entire, with hateful forces of evil lying in wait for weakness. who will not lay down "ghosts" to watch, with a painfully beating heart, the progress of this living "mrs. alving" past the house, pleading, persuading, coaxing the burly weakling, who will be saved from a week's debauch if she can only get him safely home now, and keep him quiet till "the fit goes by." at the sight everybody in hillsboro realizes that nelse "got it from his father," with a penetrating sense of the tragedy of heredity, quite as stimulating to self-control in the future as ibsen is able to make us feel in "ghosts." but we know something better than ibsen, for mrs. pettingrew is no "mrs. alving." she is a plain, hard-featured woman who takes in sewing for a living, and she is quite unlettered, but she is a general in the army of spiritual forces. she does not despair, she does not give up like the half-hearted mother in "ghosts," she does not waste her strength in concealments; she stands up to her enemy and fights. she fought the wild beast in nelse's father, hand to hand, all his life, and he died a better man than when she married him. undaunted, she fought it in nelse as a boy, and now as a man; and in the flowering of his physical forces when the wind of his youth blows most wildly through the hateful thicket of inherited weaknesses she generally wins the battle. and this she has done with none of the hard, consistent strength and intelligence of your make-believe heroine in a book, so disheartening an example to our faltering impulses for good. she has been infinitely human and pathetically fallible; she has cried out and hesitated and complained and done the wrong thing and wept and failed and still fought on, till to think of her is, for the weakest of us, like a bugle call to high endeavor. nelse is now a better man than his father, and we shut up "ghosts" with impatience that ibsen should have selected that story to tell out of all the tales there must have been in the village where _he_ lived. now imagine if you can ... for i cannot even faintly indicate to you ... our excitement when nelse begins to look about him for a wife. in the first place, we are saved by our enforced closeness to real people from wasting our energies in the profitless outcry of economists that people like nelse should be prohibited from having children. it occurs to us that perhaps the handsome fellow's immense good-humor and generosity are as good inheritance as the selfishness and cold avarice of priggish young horace gallatin, who never drinks a drop. perhaps at some future date all people who are not perfectly worthy to have children will be kept from it by law. in hillsboro, we think, that after such a decree the human race would last just one generation; but that is not the point now. the question is, will nelse find a wife who will carry on his mother's work, or will he not? if you think you are excited over a serial story because you can't guess if "lady eleanor" really stole the diamonds or not, it is only because you have no idea of what excitement is. you are in a condition of stagnant lethargy compared to that of hillsboro over the question whether nelse will marry ellen brownell, "our ellen," or flossie merton, the ex-factory girl, who came up from albany to wait at the tavern, and who is said to have a taste for drink herself. old mrs. perkins, whom everybody had thought sunk in embittered discontent about the poverty and isolation of her last days, roused herself not long ago and gave ellen her cherished tortoise-shell back-comb, and her pretty white silk shawl to wear to village parties; and racked with rheumatism, as the old woman is, she says she sits up at night to watch the young people go back from choir rehearsal so that she can see which girl nelse is "beauing home." could the most artfully contrived piece of fiction more blessedly sweep the self-centered complainings of old age into generous and vitalizing interest in the lives of others? as for the "pity and terror," the purifying effects of which are so vaunted in greek tragedies, could aeschylus himself have plunged us into a more awful desolation of pity than the day we saw old squire marvin being taken along the street on his way to the insane asylum? all the self-made miseries of his long life were in our minds, the wife he had loved and killed with the harsh violence of a nature he had never learned to control, the children he had adored unreasonably and spoiled and turned against, and they on him with a violence like his own, the people he had tried to benefit with so much egotistic pride mixed in his kindness that his favors made him hated, his vanity, his generosity, his despairing outcries against the hostility he had so well earned ... at the sight of the end of all this there was no heart in hillsboro that was not wrung with a pity and terror more penetrating and purifying even than shakespeare has made the centuries feel for lear. ah, at the foot of hemlock mountain we do not need books to help us feel the meaning of life! nor do we need them to help us feel the meaning of death. you, in the cities, living with a feverish haste in the present only, and clutching at it as a starving man does at his last crust, you cannot understand the comforting sense we have of belonging almost as much to the past and future as to the present. our own youth is not dead to us as yours is, from the lack of anything to recall it to you, and people we love do not slip quickly into that bitter oblivion to which the dead are consigned by those too hurried to remember. they are not remembered perfunctorily for their "good qualities" which are carved on their tombstones, but all the quaint and dear absurdities which make up personality are embalmed in the leisurely, peaceable talk of the village, still enriched by all that they brought to it. we are not afraid of the event which men call death, because we know that, in so far as we have deserved it, the same homely immortality awaits us. every spring, at the sight of the first cowslip, our old people laugh and say to each other, "will you _ever_ forget how aunt dorcas used to take us children out cowslipping, and how she never thought it 'proper' to lift her skirt to cross the log by the mill, and always fell in the brook?" the log has moldered away a generation ago, the mill is only a heap of blackened timbers, but as they speak, they are not only children again, but aunt dorcas lives again for them and for us who never saw her ... dear, silly, kind old aunt dorcas, past-mistress in the lovely art of spoiling children. just so the children we have spoiled, the people we have lived with, will continue to keep us living with them. we shall have time to grow quite used to whatever awaits us after the tangled rosebushes of hillsboro burying-ground bloom over our heads, before we shall have gradually faded painlessly away from the life of men and women. we sometimes feel that, almost alone in the harassed and weary modern world, we love that life, and yet we are the least afraid to leave it. it is usually dark when the shabby little narrow-gauge train brings us home to hillsboro from wanderings in the great world, and the big pond by the station is full of stars. up on the hill the lights of the village twinkle against the blurred mass of hemlock mountain, and above them the stars again. it is very quiet, the station is black and deserted, the road winding up to the village glimmers uncertainly in the starlight, and dark forms hover vaguely about. strangers say that it is a very depressing station at which to arrive, but we know better. there is no feeling in the world like that with which one starts up the white road, stars below him in the quiet pool, stars above him in the quiet sky, friendly lights showing the end of his journey is at hand, and the soft twilight full of voices all familiar, all welcoming. poor old uncle abner rhodes, returning from an attempt to do business in the city, where he had lost his money, his health, and his hopes, said he didn't see how going up to heaven could be so very different from walking up the hill from the station with hemlock mountain in front of you. he said it didn't seem to him as though even in heaven you could feel more than then that you had got back where there are some folks, that you had got back home. sometimes when the stars hang very bright over hemlock mountain and the necronsett river sings loud in the dusk, we remember the old man's speech, and, though we smile at his simplicity, we think, too, that the best which awaits us can only be very much better but not so very different from what we have known here. petunias--that's for remembrance it was a place to which, as a dreamy, fanciful child escaping from nursemaid and governess, virginia had liked to climb on hot summer afternoons. she had spent many hours, lying on the grass in the shade of the dismantled house, looking through the gaunt, uncovered rafters of the barn at the white clouds, like stepping-stones in the broad blue river of sky flowing between the mountain walls. older people of the summer colony called it forlorn and desolate--the deserted farm, lying high on the slope of hemlock mountain--but to the child there was a charm about the unbroken silence which brooded over the little clearing. the sun shone down warmly on the house's battered shell and through the stark skeleton of the barn. the white birches, strange sylvan denizens of door and barnyard, stood shaking their delicate leaves as if announcing sweetly that the kind forest would cover all the wounds of human neglect, and soon everything would be as though man had not lived. and everywhere grew the thick, strong, glistening grass, covering even the threshold with a cushion on which the child's foot fell as noiselessly as a shadow. it used to seem to her that nothing could ever have happened in this breathless spot. now she was a grown woman, she told herself, twenty-three years old and had had, she often thought, as full a life as any one of her age could have. her college course had been varied with vacations in europe; she had had one season in society; she was just back from a trip around the world. her busy, absorbing life had given her no time to revisit the narrow green valley where she had spent so many of her childhood's holidays but now a whim for self-analysis, a desire to learn if the old glamour about the lovely enchanted region still existed for her weary, sophisticated maturity, had made her break exacting social engagements and sent her back alone, from the city, to see how the old valley looked in the spring. her disappointment was acute. the first impression and the one which remained with her, coloring painfully all the vistas of dim woodland aisles and sunlit brooks, was of the meagerness and meanness of the desolate lives lived in this paradise. this was a fact she had not noticed as a child, accepting the country people as she did all other incomprehensible elders. they had not seemed to her to differ noticeably from her delicate, esthetic mother, lying in lavender silk negligã©es on wicker couches, reading the latest book of mallarmã©, or from her competent, rustling aunt, guiding the course of the summer colony's social life with firm hands. there was as yet no summer colony, this week in may. even the big hotel was not open. virginia was lodged in the house of one of the farmers. there was no element to distract her mind from the narrow, unlovely lives of the owners of that valley of beauty. they were grinding away at their stupefying monotonous tasks as though the miracle of spring were not taking place before their eyes. they were absorbed in their barnyards and kitchen sinks and bad cooking and worse dressmaking. the very children, grimy little utilitarians like their parents, only went abroad in the flood of golden sunshine, in order to rifle the hill pastures of their wild strawberries. virginia was no longer a child to ignore all this. it was an embittering, imprisoning thought from which she could not escape even in the most radiant vision of may woods. she was a woman now, with a trained mind which took in the saddening significance of these lives, not so much melancholy or tragic as utterly neutral, featureless, dun-colored. they weighed on her heart as she walked and drove about the lovely country they spoiled for her. what a heavenly country it was! she compared it to similar valleys in switzerland, in norway, in japan, and her own shone out pre-eminent with a thousand beauties of bold skyline, of harmoniously "composed" distances, of exquisitely fairy-like detail of foreground. but oh! the wooden packing-boxes of houses and the dreary lives they sheltered! the pritchard family, her temporary hosts, summed up for her the human life of the valley. there were two children, inarticulate, vacant-faced country children of eight and ten, out from morning till night in the sunny, upland pastures, but who could think of nothing but how many quarts of berries they had picked and what price could be exacted for them. there was gran'ther pritchard, a doddering, toothless man of seventy-odd, and his wife, a tall, lean, lame old woman with a crutch who sat all through the mealtimes speechlessly staring at the stranger, with faded gray eyes. there was mr. pritchard and his son joel, gaunt yankees, toiling with fierce concentration to "get the crops in" after a late spring. finally there was mrs. pritchard, worn and pale, passing those rose-colored spring days grubbing in her vegetable garden. and all of them silent, silent as the cattle they resembled. there had been during the first few days of her week's stay some vague attempts at conversation, but virginia was soon aware that they had not the slightest rudiments of a common speech. a blight was on even those faint manifestations of the esthetic spirit which they had not killed out of their bare natures. the pictures in the house were bad beyond belief, and the only flowers were some petunias, growing in a pot, carefully tended by grandma pritchard. they bore a mass of blossoms of a terrible magenta, like a blow in the face to anyone sensitive to color. it usually stood on the dining-table, which was covered with a red cloth. "crimson! magenta! it is no wonder they are lost souls!" cried the girl to herself. on the last day of her week, even as she was trying to force down some food at the table thus decorated, she bethought herself of her old haunt of desolate peace on the mountainside. she pushed away from the table with an eager, murmured excuse, and fairly ran out into the gold and green of the forest, a paradise lying hard by the pitiable little purgatory of the farmhouse. as she fled along through the clean-growing maple-groves, through stretches of sunlit pastures, azure with bluets, through dark pines, red-carpeted by last year's needles, through the flickering, shadowy-patterned birches, she cried out to all this beauty to set her right with the world of her fellows, to ease her heart of its burden of disdainful pity. but there was no answer. she reached the deserted clearing breathless, and paused to savor its slow, penetrating peace. the white birches now almost shut the house from view; the barn had wholly disappeared. from the finely proportioned old doorway of the house protruded a long, grayed, weather-beaten tuft of hay. the last utilitarian dishonor had befallen it. it had not even its old dignity of vacant desolation. she went closer and peered inside. yes, hay, the scant cutting from the adjacent old meadows, had been piled high in the room which had been the gathering-place of the forgotten family life. she stepped in and sank down on it, struck by the far-reaching view from the window. as she lay looking out, the silence was as insistent as a heavy odor in the air. the big white clouds lay like stepping-stones in the sky's blue river, just as when she was a child. their silver-gleaming brightness blinded her ... "_ã�ber allen gipfeln ist ruh ... warte nur ... balde ... ruhest ... du ..." she began to murmur, and stopped, awed by the immensity of the hush about her. she closed her eyes, pillowed her head on her upthrown arms, and sank into a wide, bright reverie, which grew dimmer and vaguer as the slow changeless hours filed by. she did not know if it were from a doze, or but from this dreamy haze that she was wakened by the sound of voices outside the house, under the window by which she lay. there were the tones of a stranger and those of old mrs. pritchard, but now flowing on briskly with a volubility unrecognizable. virginia sat up, hesitating were they only passing by, or stopping? should she show herself or let them go on? in an instant the question was settled for her. it was too late. she would only shame them if they knew her there. she had caught her own name. they were talking of her. "well, you needn't," said the voice of mrs. pritchard "you can just save your breath to cool your porridge you can't get nothin' out'n her." "but she's traveled 'round so much, seems's though ..." began the other woman's voice. "_don't_ it?" struck in old mrs. pritchard assentingly, "but 'tain't so!" the other was at a loss. "do you mean she's stuck-up and won't answer you?" mrs. pritchard burst into a laugh, the great, resonant good-nature of which amazed virginia. she had not dreamed that one of these sour, silent people could laugh like that. "no, _land_ no, abby! she's as soft-spoken as anybody could be, poor thing! she ain't got nothin' to say. that's all. why, i can git more out'n any pack-peddler that's only been from here to rutland and back than out'n her ... and she's traveled all summer long for five years, she was tellin' us, and last year went around the world." "good land! think of it!" cried the other, awestruck. "china! an' afriky! an' london!" "that's the way we felt! that's the reason we let her come. there ain't no profit in one boarder, and we never take boarders, anyhow. but i thought 'twould be a chance for the young ones to learn something about how foreign folks lived." she broke again into her epic laugh. "why, abby, 'twould ha' made you die to see us the first few days she was there, tryin' to get somethin' out'n her. italy, now ... had she been there? 'oh, yes, she _adored_ italy!'" virginia flushed at the echo of her own exaggerated accent. "well, we'd like to know somethin' about italy. what did they raise there? honest, abby, you'd ha' thought we'd hit her side th' head. she thought and she _thought_, and all she could say was 'olives,' nothing else? 'well, she'd never noticed anything else ... oh, yes, lemons.' well, that seemed kind o' queer vittles, but you can't never tell how foreigners git along, so we thought maybe they just lived off'n olives and lemons; and joel he asked her how they raised 'em, and if they manured heavy or trusted to phosphate, and how long the trees took before they began to bear, and if they pruned much, and if they had the same trouble we do, come harvest time, to hire hands enough to git in th' crop." she paused. the other woman asked, "well, what did she say?" the echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "we might as well ha' asked her 'bout the back side of th' moon! so we gave up on olives and lemons! then eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. were they on land mostly and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how 'bout school tax. did the state pay part o' that? you see town meetin' being so all tore up every year 'bout taxes, eben he thought 'twould be a chance to hear how other folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. good land, abby, i've set there and 'most died, trying to keep from yellin' right out with laugh to see our folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout foreign parts from that woman that's traveled in 'em steady for five years. i bet she was blind-folded and gagged and had cotton in her ears the hull time she was there!" "didn't she tell you anythin' 'bout taxes?" "taxes? you'd ha' thought 'twas bumble-bees' hind legs we was askin' 'bout! she ackshilly seemed s'prised to be asked. land! what had she ever thought 'bout such triflin' things as taxes. she didn't know how they was taxed in italy, or _if_ they was ... nor anywhere else. that what it come down to, every time. she didn't know! she didn't know what kind of schools they had, nor what the roads was made of, nor who made 'em. she couldn't tell you what hired men got, nor _any_ wages, nor what girls that didn't get married did for a living, nor what rent they paid, nor how they 'mused themselves, nor how much land was worth, nor if they had factories, nor if there was any lumberin' done, nor how they managed to keep milk in such awful hot weather without ice. honest, abby, she couldn't even say if the houses had cellars or not. why, it come out she never was _in_ a real house that anybody lived in ... only hotels. she hadn't got to know a single real person that b'longed there. of course she never found out anything 'bout how they lived. her mother was there, she said, and her aunt, and that bilson family that comes to th' village summers, an' the goodriches an' the phippses an' the ... oh, sakes alive, you know that same old crowd that rides 'roun' here summers and thinks to be sociable by sayin' how nice an' yellow your oats is blossomin'! you could go ten times 'roun' the world with them and know less 'bout what folks is like than when you started. when i heard 'bout them being there, i called eben and joel and em'ly off and i says, 'now, don't pester that poor do-less critter with questions any more. how much do the summer folks down to th' village know 'bout the way we live?' well, they burst out laughin', of course. well, then,' i says, ''tis plain to be seen that all they do in winter is to go off to some foreign part and do the same as here,' so i says to them, same's i said to you, abby, a while back, that they'd better save their breath to cool their porridge. but it's awful solemn eatin' now, without a word spoke." the other woman laughed. "why, you don't have to talk 'bout foreign parts or else keep still, do ye?" "oh, it's just so 'bout everythin'. we heard she'd been in washington last winter, so eben he brisked up and tried her on politics. well, she'd never heard of direct primaries, they're raisin' such a holler 'bout in york state; she didn't know what th' 'nsurgent senators are up to near as much as we did, and to judge by the way she looked, she'd only just barely heard of th' tariff." the word was pronounced with true new england reverence. "then we tried bringin' up children, and lumberin' an' roads, an' cookin', an' crops, an' stock, an' wages, an' schools, an' gardenin', but we couldn't touch bottom nowhere. never a word to be had out'n her. so we give up and now we just sit like stotin' bottles, an' eat--an' do our visitin' with each other odd minutes afterward." "why, she don't look to be half-witted," said the other. "she ain't!" cried mrs. pritchard with emphasis. "she's got as good a headpiece, natchilly, as anybody. i remember her when she was a young one. it's the fool way they're brung up! everythin' that's any fun or intrust, they hire somebody else to do it for 'em. here she is a great strappin' woman of twenty-two or three, with nothing in the world to do but to traipse off 'cross the fields from mornin' to night--an' nobody to need her there nor here, nor anywhere. no wonder she looks peaked. sometimes when i see her set and stare off, so sort o' dull and hopeless, i'm so sorry for her i could cry! good land! i'd as lief hire somebody to chew my vittles for me and give me the dry cud to live off of, as do the way those kind of folks do." the distant call of a steam-whistle, silvered by the great distance into a flute-like note, interrupted her. "that's the milk-train, whistling for the millbrook cross in'," she said. "we must be thinkin' of goin' home before long. where be those young ones?" she raised her voice in a call as unexpectedly strong and vibrant as her laugh. "_susie! eddie_! did they answer? i'm gittin' that hard o' hearin' 'tis hard for me to make out." "yes, they hollered back," said the other. "an' i see 'em comin' through the pasture yonder. i guess they got their pails full by the way they carry 'em." "that's good," said mrs. pritchard with satisfaction. "they can get twenty-five cents a quart hulled, off'n summer folks. they're savin' up to help joel go to middletown college in the fall." "they think a lot o' joel, don't they?" commented the other. "oh, the pritchards has always been a family that knew how to set store by their own folks," said the old woman proudly, "and joel he'll pay 'em back as soon as he gets ahead a little." the children had evidently now come up, for virginia heard congratulations over the berries and exclamations over their sun-flushed cheeks. "why, susie, you look like a pickled beet in your face. set down, child, an' cool off. grandma called you an' eddie down to tell you an old-timey story." there was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and mrs. pritchard said deprecatingly, "you know, abby, there never was children yet that wasn't crazy 'bout old-timey stories. i remember how i used to hang onto aunt debby's skirts and beg her to tell me some more. "the story i'm goin' to tell you is about this great-aunt debby," she announced formally to her auditors, "when she was 'bout fourteen years old and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th' rev'lution. there was only just a field or two cleared off 'round it then, and all over th' mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and spruce. great-aunt debby was the oldest one of five children and my grandfather--your great-great-grandfather--was the youngest. in them days there wa'n't but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so when great-aunt debby's father got awful sick a few days after he'd been away to get some grist ground, aunt debby's mother had to send her 'bout six miles through th' woods to the nearest house--it stood where the old perkins barn is now. the man come back with debby, but as soon as he saw great-grandfather he give one yell--'smallpox!'--and lit out for home. folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none. they was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an' scratchin' for dear life. "well, he spread the news, and the next day, while debby was helpin' her mother nurse her father the best she could, somebody called her over toward th' woods. they made her stand still 'bout three rods from 'em and shouted to her that the best they could do was to see that the fam'ly had vittles enough. the neighbors would cook up a lot and leave it every day in the fence corner and debbie could come and git it. "that was the way they fixed it. aunt debby said they was awful faithful and good 'bout it and never failed, rain or shine, to leave a lot of the best stuff they could git in them days. but before long she left some of it there, to show they didn't need so much, because they wasn't so many to eat. "first, aunt debby's father died. her mother an she dug the grave in th' corner of th' clearin', down there where i'm pointin'. aunt debby said she couldn't never forget how her mother looked as she said a prayer before they shoveled the dirt back in. then the two of 'em took care of the cow and tried to get in a few garden seeds while they nursed one of the children--the boy that was next to debby. that turned out to be smallpox, of course, and he died and they buried him alongside his father. then the two youngest girls, twins they was, took sick, and before they died aunt debby's mother fell over in a faint while she was tryin' to spade up the garden. aunt debby got her into the house and put her to bed. she never said another thing, but just died without so much as knowin' debby. she and the twins went the same day, and debby buried 'em in one grave. "it took her all day to dig it, she said. they was afraid of wolves in them days and had to have their graves deep. the baby, the one that was to be my grandfather, played 'round while she was diggin', and she had to stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him. she got the bodies over to the grave, one at a time, draggin' 'em on the wood-sled. when she was ready to shovel the dirt back in, 'twas gettin' to be twilight, and she said the thrushes were beginnin' to sing--she made the baby kneel down and she got on her knees beside him and took hold of his hand to say a prayer. she was just about wore out, as you can think, and scared to death, and she'd never known any prayer, anyhow. all she could think to say was 'lord--lord--lord!' and she made the baby say it, over and over. i guess 'twas a good enough prayer too. when i married and come up here to live, seems as though i never heard the thrushes begin to sing in the evening without i looked down there and could almost see them two on their knees. "well, there she was, fourteen years old, with a two-year-old baby to look out for, and all the rest of the family gone as though she'd dreamed 'em. she was sure she and little eddie--you're named for him, eddie, and don't you never forget it--would die, of course, like the others, but she wa'n't any hand to give up till she had to, and she wanted to die last, so to look out for the baby. so when she took sick she fought the smallpox just like a wolf, she used to tell us. she had to live, to take care of eddie. she gritted her teeth and _wouldn't_ die, though, as she always said, 'twould ha' been enough sight more comfortable than to live through what she did. "some folks nowadays say it couldn't ha' been smallpox she had, or she couldn't ha' managed. i don't know 'bout that. i guess 'twas plenty bad enough, anyhow. she was out of her head a good share of th' time, but she never forgot to milk the cow and give eddie his meals. she used to fight up on her knees (there was a week when she couldn't stand without fallin' over in faint) and then crawl out to the cow-shed and sit down flat on the ground and reach up to milk. one day the fever was so bad she was clear crazy and she thought angels in silver shoes come right out there, in the manure an' all, and milked for her and held the cup to eddie's mouth. "an' one night she thought somebody, with a big black cape on, come and stood over her with a knife. she riz up in bed and told him to '_git out_! she'd _have_ to stay to take care of the baby!' and she hit at the knife so fierce she knocked it right out'n his hand. then she fainted away agin. she didn't come to till mornin', and when she woke up she knew she was goin' to live. she always said her hand was all bloody that morning from a big cut in it, and she used to show us the scar--a big one 'twas, too. but i guess most likely that come from something else. folks was awful superstitious in them days, and aunt debby was always kind o' queer. "well, an' so she did live and got well, though she never grew a mite from that time. a little wizened-up thing she was, always; but i tell you folks 'round here thought a nawful lot of aunt debby! and eddie, if you'll believe it, never took the sickness at all. they say, sometimes, babies don't. "they got a fam'ly to come and work the farm for 'em, and debby she took care of her little brother, same as she always had. and he grew up and got married and come to live in this house and aunt debby lived with him. they did set great store by each other! grandmother used to laugh and say grandfather and aunt debby didn't need no words to talk together. i was eight, goin' on nine--why, susie, just your age--when aunt debby died. i remember as well the last thing she said. somebody asked her if she was afraid. she looked down over the covers--i can see her now, like a old baby she looked, so little and so light on the big feather-bed, and she said, 'is a grain o' wheat scared when you drop it in the ground?' i always thought that wa'n't such a bad thing for a child to hear said. "she'd wanted to be buried there beside the others and grandfather did it so. while he was alive he took care of the graves and kept 'em in good order; and after i married and come here to live i did. but i'm gettin' on now, and i want you young folks should know 'bout it and do it after i'm gone. "now, here, susie, take this pot of petunias and set it out on the head of the grave that's got a stone over it. and if you're ever inclined to think you have a hard time, just you remember aunt debby and shut your teeth and _hang on_! if you tip the pot bottom-side up, and knock on it with a stone, it'll all slip out easy. now go along with you. we've got to be starting for home soon." there was a brief pause and then the cheerful voice went on: "if there's any flower i do despise, it's petunias! but 'twas aunt debby's 'special favorite, so i always start a pot real early and have it in blossom when her birthday comes 'round." by the sound she was struggling heavily to her feet. "yes, do, for goodness' sakes, haul me up, will ye? i'm as stiff as an old horse. i don't know what makes me so rheumaticky. my folks ain't, as a general thing." there was so long a silence that the girl inside the house wondered if they were gone, when mrs. pritchard's voice began again: "i do like to come up here! it 'minds me of him an' me livin' here when we was young. we had a good time of it!" "i never could see," commented the other, "how you managed when he went away t' th' war." "oh, i did the way you do when you _have_ to! i'd felt he ought to go, you know, as much as he did, so i was willin' to put in my best licks. an' i was young too--twenty-three--and only two of the children born then--and i was as strong as a ox. i never minded the work any. 'twas the days after battles, when we couldn't get no news, that was the bad part. why, i could go to the very spot, over there where the butternut tree stands--'twas our garden then--where i heard he was killed at gettysburg." "what did you do?" asked the other. "i went on hoein' my beans. there was the two children to be looked out for, you know. but i ain't mindin' tellin' you that i can't look at a bean-row since without gettin' sick to my stomach and feelin' the goose-pimples start all over me." "how did you hear 'twan't so?" "why, i was gettin' in the hay--up there where the oaks stand was our hay-field. i remember how sick the smell of the hay made me, and when the sweat run down into my eyes i was glad to feel 'em smart and sting--well, abby, you just wait till you hear your nathan'l is shot through the head and you'll know how it was--well, all of a sudden--somebody took the fork out'n my hand an'--an' said--'here, you drive an' i'll pitch '--and there--'twas--'twas----" "why, grandma pritchard! you're----" "no, i ain't, either; i ain't such a fool, i hope! why, see me cry like a old numskull! ain't it ridic'lous how you can talk 'bout deaths and buryin's all right, and can't tell of how somebody come back from the grave without--where in th' nation is my handkerchief! why, abby, things ain't never looked the same to me from that minute on. i tell you--i tell you--_i was real glad to see him_! "good land, what time o' day do you suppose it can be? susie! eddie! come, git your berries and start home!" the two voices began to sound more faintly as the old woman's crutch rang on the stones. "well, abby, when i come up here and remember how i farmed it alone for four years, i say to myself that 'twan't only th' men that set the slaves free. them that stayed to home was allowed to have their share in the good----" the syllables blurred into an indistinguishable hum and there fell again upon the house its old mantle of silence. as if aroused by this from an hypnotic spell, the girl on the hay sat up suddenly, pressing her hands over her eyes; but she did not shut out a thousand thronging visions. there was not a sound but the loud throbbing of the pulses at her temples; but never again could there be silence for her in that spot. the air was thick with murmurs which beat against her ears. she was trembling as she slipped down from the hay and, walking unsteadily to the door, stood looking half-wildly out into the haunted twilight. the faint sound of the brook rose liquid in the quiet evening air. there, where the butternut tree stood, had been the garden! the white birches answered with a rustling stir in all their lightly poised leaves. up there, where the oaks were, had been the hay-field! the twilight darkened. through the forest, black on the crest of the overhanging mountain, shone suddenly the evening star. there, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled! the girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the corner of the clearing. two hermit thrushes, distant in the forest, began to send up their poignant antiphonal evening chant. the heyday of the blood the older professor looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a pile of papers. "farrar, what's the _matter_ with you lately?" he said sharply. the younger man started, "why...why..." the brusqueness of the other's manner shocked him suddenly into confession. "i've lost my nerve, professor mallory, that's what the matter with me. i'm frightened to death," he said melodramatically. "what _of_?" asked mallory, with a little challenge in his tone. the flood-gates were open. the younger man burst out in exclamations, waving his thin, nervous, knotted fingers, his face twitching as he spoke. "of myself...no, not myself, but my body! i'm not well...i'm getting worse all the time. the doctors don't make out what is the matter...i don't sleep ... i worry...i forget things, i take no interest in life...the doctors intimate a nervous breakdown ahead of me...and yet i rest ... i rest...more than i can afford to! i never go out. every evening i'm in bed by nine o'clock. i take no part in college life beyond my work, for fear of the nervous strain. i've refused to take charge of that summer-school in new york, you know, that would be such an opportunity for me ... if i could only sleep! but though i never do anything exciting in the evening ... heavens! what nights i have. black hours of seeing myself in a sanitarium, dependent on my brother! i never ... why, i'm in hell ... that's what the matter with me, a perfect hell of ignoble terror!" he sat silent, his drawn face turned to the window. the older man looked at him speculatively. when he spoke it was with a cheerful, casual quality in his voice which made the other look up at him surprised. "you don't suppose those great friends of yours, the nerve specialists, would object to my telling you a story, do you? it's very quiet and unexciting. you're not too busy?" "busy! i've forgotten the meaning of the word! i don't dare to be!" "very well, then; i mean to carry you back to the stony little farm in the green mountains, where i had the extreme good luck to be born and raised. you've heard me speak of hillsboro; and the story is all about my great-grandfather, who came to live with us when i was a little boy." "your great-grandfather?" said the other incredulously. "people don't remember their great-grandfathers!" "oh, yes, they do, in vermont. there was my father on one farm, and my grandfather on another, without a thought that he was no longer young, and there was 'gran'ther' as we called him, eighty-eight years old and just persuaded to settle back, let his descendants take care of him, and consent to be an old man. he had been in the war of 1812--think of that, you mushroom!--and had lost an arm and a good deal of his health there. he had lately begun to get a pension of twelve dollars a month, so that for an old man he was quite independent financially, as poor vermont farmers look at things; and he was a most extraordinary character, so that his arrival in our family was quite an event. "he took precedence at once of the oldest man in the township, who was only eighty-four and not very bright. i can remember bragging at school about gran'ther pendleton, who'd be eighty-nine come next woodchuck day, and could see to read without glasses. he had been ailing all his life, ever since the fever he took in the war. he used to remark triumphantly that he had now outlived six doctors who had each given him but a year to live; 'and the seventh is going downhill fast, so i hear!' this last was his never-failing answer to the attempts of my conscientious mother and anxious, dutiful father to check the old man's reckless indifference to any of the rules of hygiene. "they were good disciplinarians with their children, and this naughty old man, who would give his weak stomach frightful attacks of indigestion by stealing out to the pantry and devouring a whole mince pie because he had been refused two pieces at the table--this rebellious, unreasonable, whimsical old madcap was an electric element in our quiet, orderly life. he insisted on going to every picnic and church sociable, where he ate recklessly of all the indigestible dainties he could lay his hands on, stood in drafts, tired himself to the verge of fainting away by playing games with the children, and returned home, exhausted, animated, and quite ready to pay the price of a day in bed, groaning and screaming out with pain as heartily and unaffectedly as he had laughed with the pretty girls the evening before. "the climax came, however, in the middle of august, when he announced his desire to go to the county fair, held some fourteen miles down the valley from our farm. father never dared let gran'ther go anywhere without himself accompanying the old man, but he was perfectly sincere in saying that it was not because he could not spare a day from the haying that he refused pointblank to consider it. the doctor who had been taking care of gran'ther since he came to live with us said that it would be crazy to think of such a thing. he added that the wonder was that gran'ther lived at all, for his heart was all wrong, his asthma was enough to kill a young man, and he had no digestion; in short, if father wished to kill his old grandfather, there was no surer way than to drive fourteen miles in the heat of august to the noisy excitement of a county fair. "so father for once said 'no,' in the tone that we children had come to recognize as final. gran'ther grimly tied a knot in his empty sleeve--a curious, enigmatic mode of his to express strong emotion--put his one hand on his cane, and his chin on his hand, and withdrew himself into that incalculable distance from the life about him where very old people spend so many hours. "he did not emerge from this until one morning toward the middle of fair-week, when all the rest of the family were away--father and the bigger boys on the far-off upland meadows haying, and mother and the girls off blackberrying. i was too little to be of any help, so i had been left to wait on gran'ther, and to set out our lunch of bread and milk and huckleberries. we had not been alone half an hour when gran'ther sent me to extract, from under the mattress of his bed, the wallet in which he kept his pension money. there was six dollars and forty-three cents--he counted it over carefully, sticking out his tongue like a schoolboy doing a sum, and when he had finished he began to laugh and snap his fingers and sing out in his high, cracked old voice: "'we're goin' to go a skylarkin'! little jo mallory is going to the county fair with his granther pendleton, an' he's goin' to have more fun than ever was in the world, and he--' "'but, gran'ther, father said we mustn't!' i protested, horrified. "'but i say we _shall_! i was your gre't-gran'ther long before he was your feyther, and anyway i'm here and he's not--so, _march_! out to the barn!' "he took me by the collar, and, executing a shuffling fandango of triumph, he pushed me ahead of him to the stable, where old white peggy, the only horse left at home, looked at us amazed. "'but it'll be twenty-eight miles, and peg's never driven over eight!' i cried, my old-established world of rules and orders reeling before my eyes. "'eight--and--twenty-eight! but i--am--_eighty-eight_!' "gran'ther improvised a sort of whooping chant of scorn as he pulled the harness from the peg. 'it'll do her good to drink some pink lemonade--old peggy! an' if she gits tired comin' home, i'll git out and carry her part way myself!' "his adventurous spirit was irresistible. i made no further objection, and we hitched up together, i standing on a chair to fix the check-rein, and gran'ther doing wonders with his one hand. then, just as we were--gran'ther in a hickory shirt, and with an old hat flapping over his wizened face, i bare-legged, in ragged old clothes--so we drove out of the grassy yard, down the steep, stony hill that led to the main valley road, and along the hot, white turnpike, deep with the dust which had been stirred up by the teams on their way to the fair. gran'ther sniffed the air jubilantly, and exchanged hilarious greetings with the people who constantly overtook old peg's jogging trot. between times he regaled me with spicy stories of the hundreds of thousands--they seemed no less numerous to me then--of county fairs he had attended in his youth. he was horrified to find that i had never been even to one. "'why, joey, how old be ye? 'most eight, ain't it? when i was your age i had run away and been to two fairs an' a hangin'.' "'but didn't they lick you when you got home?' i asked shudderingly. "'you _bet_ they did!' cried gran'ther with gusto. "i felt the world changing into an infinitely larger place with every word he said. "'now, this is somethin' _like_!' he exclaimed, as we drew near to granville and fell into a procession of wagons all filled with country people in their best clothes, who looked with friendly curiosity at the little, shriveled cripple, his face shining with perspiring animation, and at the little boy beside him, his bare feet dangling high above the floor of the battered buckboard, overcome with the responsibility of driving a horse for the first time in his life, and filled with such a flood of new emotions and ideas that he must have been quite pale." professor mallory leaned back and laughed aloud at the vision he had been evoking--laughed with so joyous a relish in his reminiscences that the drawn, impatient face of his listener relaxed a little. he drew a long breath, he even smiled a little absently. "oh, that was a day!" went on the professor, still laughing and wiping his eyes. "never will i have such another! at the entrance to the grounds gran'ther stopped me while he solemnly untied the knot in his empty sleeve. i don't know what kind of hairbrained vow he had tied up in it, but with the little ceremony disappeared every trace of restraint, and we plunged head over ears into the saturnalia of delights that was an old-time county fair. "people had little cash in those days, and gran'ther's six dollars and forty-three cents lasted like the widow's cruse of oil. we went to see the fat lady, who, if she was really as big as she looked to me then, must have weighed at least a ton. my admiration for gran'ther's daredevil qualities rose to infinity when he entered into free-and-easy talk with her, about how much she ate, and could she raise her arms enough to do up her own hair, and how many yards of velvet it took to make her gorgeous, gold-trimmed robe. she laughed a great deal at us, but she was evidently touched by his human interest, for she confided to him that it was not velvet at all, but furniture covering; and when we went away she pressed on us a bag of peanuts. she said she had more peanuts than she could eat--a state of unbridled opulence which fitted in for me with all the other superlatives of that day. "we saw the dog-faced boy, whom we did not like at all; gran'ther expressing, with a candidly outspoken cynicism, his belief that 'them whiskers was glued to him.' we wandered about the stock exhibit, gazing at the monstrous oxen, and hanging over the railings where the prize pigs lived to scratch their backs. in order to miss nothing, we even conscientiously passed through the woman's building, where we were very much bored by the serried ranks of preserve jars. "'sufferin' hezekiah!' cried gran'ther irritably 'who cares how gooseberry jel _looks_. if they'd give a felly a taste, now--' "this reminded him that we were hungry, and we went to a restaurant under a tent, where, after taking stock of the wealth that yet remained of gran'ther's hoard, he ordered the most expensive things on the bill of fare." professor mallory suddenly laughed out again. "perhaps in heaven, but certainly not until then, shall i ever taste anything so ambrosial as that fried chicken and coffee ice-cream! i have not lived in vain that i have such a memory back of me!" this time the younger man laughed with the narrator, settling back in his chair as the professor went on: "after lunch we rode on the merry-go-round, both of us, gran'ther clinging desperately with his one hand to his red camel's wooden hump, and crying out shrilly to me to be sure and not lose his cane. the merry-go-round had just come in at that time, and gran'ther had never experienced it before. after the first giddy flight we retired to a lemonade-stand to exchange impressions, and finding that we both alike had fallen completely under the spell of the new sensation, gran'ther said that we 'sh'd keep on a-ridin' till we'd had enough! king solomon couldn't tell when we'd ever git a chance again!' so we returned to the charge, and rode and rode and rode, through blinding clouds of happy excitement, so it seems to me now, such as i was never to know again. the sweat was pouring off from us, and we had tried all the different animals on the machine before we could tear ourselves away to follow the crowd to the race-track. "we took reserved seats, which cost a quarter apiece, instead of the unshaded ten-cent benches, and gran'ther began at once to pour out to me a flood of horse-talk and knowing race-track aphorisms, which finally made a young fellow sitting next to us laugh superciliously. gran'ther turned on him heatedly. "'i bet-che fifty cents i pick the winner in the next race!' he said sportily, "'done!' said the other, still laughing. "gran'ther picked a big black mare, who came in almost last, but he did not flinch. as he paid over the half-dollar he said: 'everybody's likely to make mistakes about _some_ things; king solomon was a fool in the head about women-folks! i bet-che a dollar i pick the winner in _this_ race!' and 'done!' said the disagreeable young man, still laughing. i gasped, for i knew we had only eighty-seven cents left, but gran'ther shot me a command to silence out of the corner of his eyes, and announced that he bet on the sorrel gelding. "if i live to be a hundred and break the bank at monte carlo three times a week," said mallory, shaking his head reminiscently, "i could not know a tenth part of the frantic excitement of that race or of the mad triumph when our horse won. gran'ther cast his hat upon the ground, screaming like a steam-calliope with exultation as the sorrel swept past the judges' stand ahead of all the others, and i jumped up and down in an agony of delight which was almost more than my little body could hold. "after that we went away, feeling that the world could hold nothing more glorious. it was five o'clock and we decided to start back. we paid for peggy's dinner out of the dollar we had won on the race--i say 'we,' for by that time we were welded into one organism--and we still had a dollar and a quarter left. 'while ye're about it, always go the whole hog!' said gran'ther and we spent twenty minutes in laying out that money in trinkets for all the folks at home. then, dusty, penniless, laden with bundles, we bestowed our exhausted bodies and our uplifted hearts in the old buckboard, and turned peg's head toward the mountains. we did not talk much during that drive, and though i thought at the time only of the carnival of joy we had left, i can now recall every detail of the trip--how the sun sank behind indian mountain, a peak i had known before only through distant views; then, as we journeyed on, how the stars came out above hemlock mountain--our own home mountain behind our house, and later, how the fireflies filled the darkening meadows along the river below us, so that we seemed to be floating between the steady stars of heaven and their dancing, twinkling reflection in the valley. "gran'ther's dauntless spirit still surrounded me. i put out of mind doubts of our reception at home, and lost myself in delightful ruminatings on the splendors of the day. at first, every once in a while, gran'ther made a brief remark, such as, ''twas the hind-quarters of the sorrel i bet on. he was the only one in the hull kit and bilin' of 'em that his quarters didn't fall away'; or, 'you needn't tell _me_ that them siamese twins ain't unpinned every night as separate as you and me!' but later on, as the damp evening air began to bring on his asthma, he subsided into silence, only broken by great gasping coughs. "these were heard by the anxious, heart-sick watchers at home, and, as old peg stumbled wearily up the hill, father came running down to meet us. 'where you be'n?' he demanded, his face pale and stern in the light of his lantern. 'we be'n to the county fair!' croaked gran'ther with a last flare of triumph, and fell over sideways against me. old peg stopped short, hanging her head as if she, too, were at the limit of her strength. i was frightfully tired myself, and frozen with terror of what father would say. gran'ther's collapse was the last straw. i began to cry loudly, but father ignored my distress with an indifference which cut me to the heart. he lifted gran'ther out of the buckboard, carrying the unconscious little old body into the house without a glance backward at me. but when i crawled down to the ground, sobbing and digging my fists into my eyes, i felt mother's arms close around me. "'oh, poor, naughty little joey!' she said. 'mother's bad, dear little boy!'" professor mallory stopped short. "perhaps that's something else i'll know again in heaven," he said soberly, and waited a moment before he went on: "well, that was the end of our day. i was so worn out that i fell asleep over my supper, in spite of the excitement in the house about sending for a doctor for gran'ther, who was, so one of my awe-struck sisters told me, having some kind of 'fits,' mother must have put me to bed, for the next thing i remember, she was shaking me by the shoulder and saying, 'wake up, joey your great-grandfather wants to speak to you. he's been suffering terribly all night, and the doctor think's he's dying.' "i followed her into gran'ther's room, where the family was assembled about the bed. gran'ther lay drawn up in a ball, groaning so dreadfully that i felt a chill like cold water at the roots of my hair; but a moment or two after i came in, all at once he gave a great sigh and relaxed, stretching out his legs and laying his arms down on the coverlid. he looked at me and attempted a smile. "well, it was wuth it, warn't it, joey?" he said gallantly, and closed his eyes peacefully to sleep. "did he die?" asked the younger professor, leaning forward eagerly. "die? gran'ther pendleton? not much! he came tottering down to breakfast the next morning, as white as an old ghost, with no voice left, his legs trembling under him, but he kept the whole family an hour and a half at the table, telling them in a loud whisper all about the fair, until father said really he would have to take us to the one next year. afterward he sat out on the porch watching old peg graze around the yard. i thought he was in one of his absent-minded fits, but when i came out, he called me to him, and, setting his lips to my ear, he whispered: "'an' the seventh is a-goin' down-hill fast, so i hear!' he chuckled to himself over this for some time, wagging his head feebly, and then he said: 'i tell ye, joey, i've lived a long time, and i've larned a lot about the way folks is made. the trouble with most of 'em is, they're fraid-cats! as jeroboam warner used to say--he was in the same rigiment with me in 1812--the only way to manage this business of livin' is to give a whoop and let her rip! if ye just about half-live, ye just the same as half-die; and if ye spend yer time half-dyin', some day ye turn in and die all over, without rightly meanin' to at all--just a kind o' bad habit ye've got yerself inter.' gran'ther fell into a meditative silence for a moment. 'jeroboam, he said that the evenin' before the battle of lundy's lane, and he got killed the next day. some live, and some die; but folks that live all over die happy, anyhow! now i tell you what's my motto, an' what i've lived to be eighty-eight on--'" professor mallory stood up and, towering over the younger man, struck one hand into the other as he cried: "this was the motto he told me: 'live while you live, and then die and be done with it!'" as a bird out of the snare after the bargain was completed and the timber merchant had gone away, jehiel hawthorn walked stiffly to the pine-tree and put his horny old fist against it, looking up to its spreading top with an expression of hostile exultation in his face. the neighbor who had been called to witness the transfer of jehiel's woodland looked at him curiously. "that was quite a sight of money to come in without your expectin', wa'n't it?" he said, fumbling awkwardly for an opening to the question he burned to ask. jehiel did not answer. the two old men stood silent, looking down the valley, lying like a crevasse in a glacier between the towering white mountains. the sinuous course of the frozen river was almost black under the slaty sky of march. "seems kind o' providential, havin' so much money come to you just now, when your sister-in-law's jest died, and left you the first time in your life without anybody you got to stay and see to, don't it?" commented the neighbor persistently. jehiel made a vague sign with his head. "i s'pose likely you'll be startin' aout to travel and see foreign parts, same's you've always planned, won't you--or maybe you cal'late you be too old now?" jehiel gave no indication that he had heard. his faded old blue eyes were fixed steadily on the single crack in the rampart of mountains, through which the afternoon train was just now leaving the valley. its whistle echoed back hollowly, as it fled away from the prison walls into the great world. the neighbor stiffened in offended pride. "i bid you good-night, mr. hawthorn," he said severely, and stumped down the steep, narrow road leading to the highway in the valley. after he had disappeared jehiel turned to the tree and leaned his forehead against it. he was so still he seemed a part of the great pine. he stood so till the piercing chill of evening chilled him through, and when he looked again about him it was after he had lived his life all through in a brief and bitter review. it began with the tree and it ended with the tree, and in spite of the fever of unrest in his heart it was as stationary as any rooted creature of the woods. when he was eleven and his father went away to the civil war, he had watched him out of sight with no sorrow, only a burning envy of the wanderings that lay before the soldier. a little later, when it was decided that he should go to stay with his married sister, since she was left alone by her husband's departure to the war, he turned his back on his home with none of a child's usual reluctance, but with an eager delight in the day-long drive to the other end of the valley. that was the longest journey he had ever taken, the man of almost three-score thought, with an aching resentment against fate. still, those years with his sister, filled with labor beyond his age as they were, had been the happiest of his life. in an almost complete isolation the two had toiled together five years, the most impressionable of his life; and all his affection centered on the silent, loving, always comprehending sister. his own father and mother grew to seem far away and alien, and his sister came to be like a part of himself. to her alone of all living souls had he spoken freely of his passion for adventuring far from home, which devoured, his boy-soul. he was six-teen when her husband finally came back from the war, and he had no secrets from the young matron of twenty-six, who listened with such wide tender eyes of sympathy to his half-frantic outpourings of longing to escape from the dark, narrow valley where his fathers had lived their dark, narrow lives. the day before he went back to his own home, now so strange to him, he was out with her, searching for some lost turkey-chicks, and found one with its foot caught in a tangle of rusty wire. the little creature had beaten itself almost to death in its struggle to get away. kneeling in the grass, and feeling the wild palpitations of its heart under his rescuing hand, he had called to his sister, "oh, look! poor thing! it's 'most dead, and yet it ain't really hurt a mite, only desperate, over bein' held fast." his voice broke in a sudden wave of sympathy: "oh, ain't it _terrible_ to feel so!" for a moment the young mother put her little son aside and looked at her brother with brooding eyes. a little later she said with apparent irrelevance, "jehiel, as soon as you're a man grown, i'll help you to get off. you shall be a sailor, if you like, and go around the world, and bring back coral to baby and me." a chilling premonition fell on the lad. "i don't believe it!" he said, with tears in his eyes. "i just believe i've got to stay here in this hole all my life." his sister looked off at the tops of the trees. finally, "surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler," she quoted dreamily. when she came to see him and their parents a few months later, she brought him a little square of crimson silk, on which she had worked in tiny stitches, "surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler." she explained to her father and mother that it was a "text-ornament" for jehiel to hang up over his desk; but she drew the boy aside and showed him that the silk was only lightly caught down to the foundation. "underneath is another text," she said, "and when your day of freedom comes i want you should promise me to cut the stitches, turn back the silk, and take the second text for your motto, so you'll remember to be properly grateful. this is the second text." she put her hands on his shoulders and said in a loud, exultant voice, "my soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. the snare is broken and i am escaped." for answer the boy pulled her eagerly to the window and pointed to a young pine-tree that stood near the house. "sister, that tree's just as old as i be. i've prayed to god, and i've promised myself that before it's as tall, as the ridge-pole of the house, i'll be on my way." as this scene came before his eyes, the white-haired man, leaning against the great pine, looked up at the lofty crown of green wreathing the giant's head and shook his fist at it. he hated every inch of its height, for every inch meant an enforced renunciation that had brought him bitterness and a sense of failure. his sister had died the year after she had given him the double text, and his father the year after that. he was left thus, the sole support of his ailing mother, who transferred to the silent, sullen boy the irresistible rule of complaining weakness with which she had governed his father. it was thought she could not live long, and the boy stood in terror of a sudden death brought on by displeasure at some act of his. in the end, however, she died quietly in her bed, an old woman of seventy-three, nursed by her daughter-in-law, the widow of jehiel's only brother. her place in the house was taken by jehiel's sister-in-law, a sickly, helpless woman, alone in the would except for jehiel, and all the neighbors congratulated him on having a housekeeper ready to his hand. he said nothing. by that time, indeed, he had sunk into a harsh silence on all topics. he went through the exhausting routine of farming with an iron-like endurance, watched with set lips the morning and afternoon trains leave the valley, and noted the growth of the pine-tree with a burning heart. his only recreation was collecting time-tables, prospectuses of steamship companies, and what few books of travel he could afford. the only society he did not shun was that of itinerant peddlers or tramps, and occasionally a returned missionary on a lecture tour. and always the pine-tree had grown, insolent in the pride of a creature set in the right surroundings. the imprisoned man had felt himself dwarfed by its height. but now, he looked up at it again, and laughed aloud. it had come late, but it had come. he was fifty-seven years old, almost three-score, but all his life was still to be lived. he said to himself that some folks lived their lives while they did their work, but he had done all his tasks first, and now he could live. the unexpected arrival of the timber merchant and the sale of that piece of land he'd never thought would bring him a cent--was not that an evident sign that providence was with him. he was too old and broken now to work his way about as he had planned at first, but here had come this six hundred dollars like rain from the sky. he would start as soon as he could sell his stock. the thought reminded him of his evening chores, and he set off for the barn with a fierce jubilation that it was almost the last time he would need to milk. how far he wondered, could he go on that money? he hurried through his work and into the house to his old desk. the faded text-ornament stood on the top shelf, but he did not see it, as he hastily tumbled out all the time tables and sailing-lists. the habit of looking at them with the yearning bitterness of unreconciled deprivation was still so strong on him that even as he handled them eagerly, he hated them for the associations of years of misery they brought back to him. where should he go? he was dazed by the unlimited possibilities before him. to boston first, as the nearest seaport. he had taken the trip in his mind so many times that he knew the exact minute when the train would cross the state line and he would be really escaped from the net which had bound him all his life. from boston to jamaica as the nearest place that was quite quite different from vermont. he had no desire to see europe or england. life there was too much like what he had known. he wanted to be in a country where nothing should remind him of his past. from jamaica where? his stiff old fingers painfully traced out a steamship line to the isthmus and thence to colombia. he knew nothing about that country. all the better. it would be the more foreign. only this he knew, that nobody in that tropical country "farmed it," and that was where he wanted to go. from colombia around the cape to argentina. he was aghast at the cost, but instantly decided that he would go steerage. there would be more real foreigners to be seen that way, and his money would go twice as far. to buenos ayres, then. he did not even attempt to pronounce this name, though its strange, inexplicable look on the page was a joy to him. from there by muleback and afoot over the andes to chile. he knew something about that trip. a woman who had taught in the methodist missionary school in santiago de chile had taken that journey, and he had heard her give a lecture on it. he was the sexton of the church and heard all the lectures free. at santiago de chile (he pronounced it with a strange distortion of the school-teacher's bad accent) he would stay for a while and just live and decide what to do next. his head swam with dreams and visions, and his heart thumped heavily against his old ribs. the clock striking ten brought him back to reality. he stood up with a gesture of exultation almost fierce. "that's just the time when the train crosses the state line!" he said. he slept hardly at all that night, waking with great starts, and imagining himself in strange foreign places, and then recognizing with a scornful familiarity the worn old pieces of furniture in his room. he noticed at these times that it was very cold, and lifelong habit made him reflect that he would better go early to the church because it would be hard to get up steam enough to warm the building before time for service. after he had finished his morning chores and was about to start he noticed that the thermometer stood at four above zero. that was certainly winter temperature; the snow lay like a heavy shroud on all the dead valley, but the strange blind instinct of a man who has lived close to the earth stirred within him. he looked at the sky and the mountains and held up his bare palm. "i shouldn't be surprised if the spring break-up was near," he said. "i guess this is about the last winter day we'll get." the church was icy cold, and he toiled in the cellar, stuffing wood into the flaming maw of the steam-heater, till it was time to ring the bell. as he gave the last stroke, deacon bradley approached him. "jehiel, i've got a little job of repairing i want you should do at my store," he said in the loud, slow speech of a man important in the community. "come to the store to-morrow morning and see about it." he passed on into his pew, which was at the back of the church near a steam radiator, so that he was warm, no matter what the weather was. jehiel hawthorn went out and stood on the front steps in the winter sunshine and his heart swelled exultingly as he looked across at the deacon's store. "i wish i'd had time to tell him i'd do no repairs for him to-morrow, nor any time---that i'm going to travel and see the world." the last comers disappeared in the church and the sound of singing came faintly to jehiel's ears. although he was the sexton he rarely was in church for the service, using his duties as an excuse for absence. he felt that it was not for him to take part in prayer and thanksgiving. as a boy he had prayed for the one thing he wanted, and what had it come to? a penetrating cold wind swept around the corner and he turned to go inside to see about the steam-pipes. in the outer hall he noticed that the service had progressed to the responsive readings. as he opened the door of the church the minister read rapidly, "praised be the lord who hath not given us over for a prey unto their teeth." the congregation responded in a timid inarticulate gabble, above which rose deacon bradley's loud voice,--"our soul is escaped even as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. the snare is broken and we are escaped." he read the responses in a slow, booming roar, at least half a sentence behind the rest, but the minister always waited for him. as he finished, he saw the sexton standing in the open door. "a little more steam, jehiel," he added commandingly, running the words on to the end of the text. jehiel turned away silently, but as he stumbled through the dark, unfinished part of the cellar he thought to himself, "well, that's the last time he'll give me an order for _one_ while!" then the words of the text he had heard came back to his mind with a half-superstitious shock at the coincidence. he had forgotten all about that hidden part of the text-ornament. why, now that had come true! he ought to have cut the stitches and torn off the old text last night. he would, as soon as he went home. he wished his sister were alive to know, and suddenly, there in the dark, he wondered if perhaps she did know. as he passed the door to the rooms of the ladies' auxiliary society he noticed that it was ajar, and saw through the crack that there was a sleeping figure on the floor near the stove--a boy about sixteen. when jehiel stepped softly in and looked at him, the likeness to his own sister struck him even before he recognized the lad as his great-nephew, the son of the child he had helped his sister to care for all those years ago. "why, what's nathaniel doin' here?" he asked himself, in surprise. he had not known that the boy was even in town, for he had been on the point of leaving to enlist in the navy. family matters could not have detained him, for he was quite alone in the world since both his father and his mother were dead and his stepmother had married again. under his great-uncle's gaze the lad opened his eyes with a start and sat up confused. "what's the matter with you, nat?" asked the older man not ungently. he was thinking that probably he had looked like that at sixteen. the boy stared at him a moment, and then, leaning his head on a chair, he began to cry. sitting thus, crouched together, he looked like a child. "why, natty, what's the trouble?" asked his uncle alarmed. "i came off here because i couldn't hold in at home any longer," answered the other between sobs. "you see i can't go away. her husband treats her so bad she can't stay with him. i don't blame her, she says she just _can't!_ so she's come back and she ain't well, and she's goin' to have a baby, and i've got to stay and support her. mr. bradley's offered me a place in his store and i've got to give up goin' to the navy." he suddenly realized the unmanliness of his attitude, rose to his feet, closing his lips tightly, and faced the older man with a resolute expression of despair in his young eyes. "uncle jehiel, it does seem to me i _can't_ have it so! all my life i've looked forward to bein' a sailor and goin' around the world, and all. i just hate the valley and the mountains! but i guess i got to stay. she's only my stepmother, i know, but she was always awful good to me, and she hasn't got anybody else to look after her." his voice broke, and he put his arm up in a crook over his face. "but it's awful hard! i feel like a bird that's got caught in a snare." his uncle had grown very pale during this speech, and at the last words he recoiled with an exclamation of horror. there was a silence in which he looked at his nephew with the wide eyes of a man who sees a specter. then he turned away into the furnace-room, and picking up his lunch-box brought it back. "here, you," he said roughly, "part of what's troublin' you is that you ain't had any breakfast. you eat this and you'll feel better. i'll be back in a minute." he went away blindly into the darkest part of the cellar. it was very black there, but his eyes stared wide before him. it was very cold, but drops of sweat stood on his forehead as if he were in the hay-field. he was alone, but his lips moved from time to time, and once he called out in some loud, stifled exclamation which resounded hollowly in the vault-like place. he was there a long time. when he went back into the furnace cellar, he found nathaniel sitting before the fire. the food and warmth had brought a little color into his pale face, but it was still set in a mask of tragic desolation. as his uncle came in, he exclaimed, "why, uncle jehiel, you look awful bad. are you sick?" "yes, i be," said the other harshly, "but 'tain't nothin'. it'll pass after a while. nathaniel, i've thought of a way you can manage. you know your uncle's wife died this last week and that leaves me without any house keeper. what if your stepmother sh'd come and take care of me and i'll take care of her. i've just sold a piece of timber land i never thought to get a cent out of and that'll ease things up so we can hire help if she ain't strong enough to do the work." nathaniel's face flushed in a relief which died quickly down to a somber hopelessness. he faced his uncle doggedly. "not _much_, uncle jehiel!" he said heavily, "i ain't a-goin' to hear to such a thing. i know all about your wantin' to get away from the valley--you take that money and go yourself and i'll---" hopelessness and resolution were alike struck out of his face by the fury of benevolence with which the old man cut him short. "don't you dare to speak a word against it, boy!" cried jehiel in a labored anguish. "good lord! i'm only doin' it for you because i _have_ to! i've been through what you're layin' out for yourself an' stood it, somehow, an' now i'm 'most done with it all. but 'twould be like beginnin' it all again to see you startin' in." the boy tried to speak, but he raised his voice. "no, i couldn't stand it all over again. 'twould cut in to the places where i've got calloused." seeing through the other's stupor the beginnings of an irresolute opposition, he flung himself upon him in a strange and incredible appeal, crying out, "oh, you must! you _got_ to go!" commanding and imploring in the same incoherent sentence, struggling for speech, and then hanging on nathaniel's answer in a sudden wild silence. it was as though his next breath depended on the boy's decision. it was very still in the twilight where they stood. the faint murmur of a prayer came down from above, and while it lasted both were as though held motionless by its mesmeric monotony. then, at the boom of the organ, the lad's last shred of self-control vanished. he burst again into muffled weary sobs, the light from the furnace glistening redly on his streaming cheeks. "it ain't right, uncle jehiel. i feel as though i was murderin' somethin'! but i can't help it. i'll go, i'll do as you say, but----" his uncle's agitation went out like a wind-blown flame. he, too, drooped in an utter fatigue. "never mind, natty," he said tremulously, "it'll all come out right somehow. just you do as uncle jehiel says." a trampling upstairs told him that the service was over. "you run home now and tell her i'll be over this afternoon to fix things up." he hurried up the stairs to open the front doors, but deacon bradley was before him. "you're late, jehiel," he said severely, "and the church was cold." "i know, deacon," said the sexton humbly, "but it won't happen again. and i'll be around the first thing in the morning to do that job for you." his voice sounded dull and lifeless. "what's the matter?" asked the deacon. "be you sick?" "yes, i be, but 'tain't nothin'. 'twill pass after a while." that evening, as he walked home after service, he told himself that he had never known so long a day. it seemed longer than all the rest of his life. indeed he felt that some strange and racking change had come upon him since the morning, as though he were not the same person, as though he had been away on a long journey, and saw all things with changed eyes. "i feel as though i'd died," he thought with surprise, "and was dead and buried." this brought back to his mind the only bitter word he had spoken throughout the endless day. nathaniel had said, as an excuse for his haste (jehiel insisted on his leaving that night), "you see, mother, it's really a service to uncle jehiel, since he's got nobody to keep house for him." he had added, in the transparent self-justification of selfish youth, "and i'll pay it back to him every cent." at this jehiel had said shortly, "by the time you can pay it back what i'll need most will be a tombstone. git a big one so's to keep me down there quiet." but now, walking home under the frosty stars, he felt very quiet already, as though he needed no weight to lie heavy on his restless heart. it did not seem restless now, but very still, as though it too were dead. he noticed that the air was milder, and as he crossed the bridge below his house he stopped and listened. yes, the fine ear of his experience caught a faint grinding sound. by tomorrow the river would begin to break up. it was the end of winter. he surprised himself by his pleasure in thinking of the spring. before he went into the house after his evening chores were done, he stopped for a moment and looked back at the cleft in the mountain wall through which the railroad left the valley. he had been looking longingly toward that door of escape all his life, and now he said goodby to it. "ah, well, 'twan't to be," he said, with an accent of weary finality; but then, suddenly out of the chill which oppressed his heart there sprang a last searing blast of astonished anguish. it was as if he realized for the first time all that had befallen him since the morning. he was racked by a horrified desolation that made his sturdy old body stagger as if under an unexpected blow. as he reeled he flung his arm about the pine-tree and so stood for a time, shaking in a paroxysm which left him breathless when it passed. for it passed as suddenly as it came. he lifted his head and looked again at the great cleft in the mountains, with new eyes. somehow, insensibly, his heart had been emptied of its fiery draught by more than mere exhaustion. the old bitter pain was gone, but there was no mere void in its place. he felt the sweet, weak light-headedness of a man in his first lucid period after a fever, tears stinging his eyelids in confused thanksgiving for an unrecognized respite from pain. he looked up at the lofty crown of the pine-tree, through which shone one or two of the brightest stars, and felt a new comradeship with it. it was a great tree, he thought, and they had grown up together. he laid his hardened palm on it, and fancied that he caught a throb of the silent vitality under the bark. how many kinds of life there were! under its white shroud, how all the valley lived. the tree stretching up its head to the stars, the river preparing to throw off the icy armor which compressed its heart--they were all awakening in their own way. the river had been restless, like himself, the tree had been tranquil, but they passed together through the resurrection into quiet life. when he went into the house, he found that he was almost fainting with fatigue. he sat down by the desk, and his head fell forward on the pile of pamphlets he had left there. for the first time in his life he thought of them without a sore heart. "i suppose natty'll go to every one of them places," he murmured as he dropped to sleep. he dreamed strange, troubled dreams that melted away before he could seize on them, and finally he thought his sister stood before him and called. the impression was so vivid that he started up, staring at the empty room. for an instant he still thought he heard a voice, and then he knew it was the old clock striking the hour. it was ten o'clock. "natty's just a-crossin' the state line," he said aloud the text-ornament caught his eye. still half asleep, with his sister's long-forgotten voice ringing in his ears, he remembered vaguely that he had meant to bring the second text to light. for a moment he hesitated, and then, "well, it's come true for natty, anyhow," he thought. and clumsily using his heavy jackknife, he began to cut the tiny stitches which had so long hidden from his eyes the joyous exultation of the escaped prisoner. the bedquilt of all the elwell family aunt mehetabel was certainly the most unimportant member. it was in the new england days, when an unmarried woman was an old maid at twenty, at forty was everyone's servant, and at sixty had gone through so much discipline that she could need no more in the next world. aunt mehetabel was sixty-eight. she had never for a moment known the pleasure of being important to anyone. not that she was useless in her brother's family; she was expected, as a matter of course, to take upon herself the most tedious and uninteresting part of the household labors. on mondays she accepted as her share the washing of the men's shirts, heavy with sweat and stiff with dirt from the fields and from their own hard-working bodies. tuesdays she never dreamed of being allowed to iron anything pretty or even interesting, like the baby's white dresses or the fancy aprons of her young lady nieces. she stood all day pressing out a tiresome monotonous succession of dish-cloths and towels and sheets. in preserving-time she was allowed to have none of the pleasant responsibility of deciding when the fruit had cooked long enough, nor did she share in the little excitement of pouring the sweet-smelling stuff into the stone jars. she sat in a corner with the children and stoned cherries incessantly, or hulled strawberries until her fingers were dyed red to the bone. the elwells were not consciously unkind to their aunt, they were even in a vague way fond of her; but she was so utterly insignificant a figure in their lives that they bestowed no thought whatever on her. aunt mehetabel did not resent this treatment; she took it quite as unconsciously as they gave it. it was to be expected when one was an old-maid dependent in a busy family. she gathered what crumbs of comfort she could from their occasional careless kindnesses and tried to hide the hurt which even yet pierced her at her brother's rough joking. in the winter when they all sat before the big hearth, roasted apples, drank mulled cider, and teased the girls about their beaux and the boys about their sweethearts, she shrank into a dusky corner with her knitting, happy if the evening passed without her brother saying, with a crude sarcasm, "ask your aunt mehetabel about the beaux that used to come a-sparkin' her!" or, "mehetabel, how was't when you was in love with abel cummings." as a matter of fact, she had been the same at twenty as at sixty, a quiet, mouse-like little creature, too timid and shy for anyone to notice, or to raise her eyes for a moment and wish for a life of her own. her sister-in-law, a big hearty housewife, who ruled indoors with as autocratic a sway as did her husband on the farm, was rather kind in an absent, offhand way to the shrunken little old woman, and it was through her that mehetabel was able to enjoy the one pleasure of her life. even as a girl she had been clever with her needle in the way of patching bedquilts. more than that she could never learn to do. the garments which she made for herself were the most lamentable affairs, and she was humbly grateful for any help in the bewildering business of putting them together. but in patchwork she enjoyed a tepid importance. she could really do that as well as anyone else. during years of devotion to this one art she had accumulated a considerable store of quilting patterns. sometimes the neighbors would send over and ask "miss mehetabel" for such and such a design. it was with an agreeable flutter at being able to help someone that she went to the dresser, in her bare little room under the eaves, and extracted from her crowded portfolio the pattern desired. she never knew how her great idea came to her. sometimes she thought she must have dreamed it, sometimes she even wondered reverently, in the phraseology of the weekly prayer-meeting, if it had not been "sent" to her. she never admitted to herself that she could have thought of it without other help; it was too great, too ambitious, too lofty a project for her humble mind to have conceived. even when she finished drawing the design with her own fingers, she gazed at it incredulously, not daring to believe that it could indeed be her handiwork. at first it seemed to her only like a lovely but quite unreal dream. she did not think of putting it into execution--so elaborate, so complicated, so beautifully difficult a pattern could be only for the angels in heaven to quilt. but so curiously does familiarity accustom us even to very wonderful things, that as she lived with this astonishing creation of her mind, the longing grew stronger and stronger to give it material life with her nimble old fingers. she gasped at her daring when this idea first swept over her and put it away as one does a sinfully selfish notion, but she kept coming back to it again and again. finally she said compromisingly to herself that she would make one "square," just one part of her design, to see how it would look. accustomed to the most complete dependence on her brother and his wife, she dared not do even this without asking sophia's permission. with a heart full of hope and fear thumping furiously against her old ribs, she approached the mistress of the house on churning-day, knowing with the innocent guile of a child that the country woman was apt to be in a good temper while working over the fragrant butter in the cool cellar. sophia listened absently to her sister-in-law's halting, hesitating petition. "why, yes, mehetabel," she said, leaning far down into the huge churn for the last golden morsels--"why, yes, start another quilt if you want to. i've got a lot of pieces from the spring sewing that will work in real good." mehetabel tried honestly to make her see that this would be no common quilt, but her limited vocabulary and her emotion stood between her and expression. at last sophia said, with a kindly impatience: "oh, there! don't bother me. i never could keep track of your quiltin' patterns, anyhow. i don't care what pattern you go by." with this overwhelmingly, although unconsciously, generous permission mehetabel rushed back up the steep attic stairs to her room, and in a joyful agitation began preparations for the work of her life. it was even better than she hoped. by some heaven-sent inspiration she had invented a pattern beyond which no patchwork quilt could go. she had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at night lest she burn too much candle. it was weeks before the little square began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern. then mehetabel was in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion. she was too conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting as she climbed to the little room. this seemed like a radiant spot to her as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her imagination ranged themselves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her masterpiece. finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the mantelpiece. she was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew in and out with inconceivable rapidity. no one noticed her, a fact which filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to add. as she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling old hands and fell on the table. sophia glanced at it carelessly. "is that the new quilt you're beginning on?" she asked with a yawn. "it looks like a real pretty pattern. let's see it." up to that moment mehetabel had labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her creation would stand the test of publicity. "land sakes!" ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored square. "why, mehetabel elwell, where'd you git that pattern?" "i made it up," said mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride. "no!" exclaimed sophia incredulously. "_did_ you! why, i never see such a pattern in my life. girls, come here and see what your aunt mehetabel is doing." the three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs. "i don't seem to take much interest in patchwork," said one listlessly. "no, nor i neither!" answered sophia; "but a stone image would take an interest in this pattern. honest, mehetabel, did you think of it yourself? and how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start in a-making it? land! look at all those tiny squinchy little seams! why the wrong side ain't a thing _but_ seams!" the girls echoed their mother's exclamations, and mr. elwell himself came over to see what they were discussing. "well, i declare!" he said, looking at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember. "that beats old mis' wightman's quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at the county fair." mehetabel's heart swelled within her, and tears of joy moistened her old eyes as she lay that night in her narrow, hard bed, too proud and excited to sleep. the next day her sister-in-law amazed her by taking the huge pan of potatoes out of her lap and setting one of the younger children to peeling them. "don't you want to go on with that quiltin' pattern?" she said; "i'd kind o' like to see how you're goin' to make the grape-vine design come out on the corner." by the end of the summer the family interest had risen so high that mehetabel was given a little stand in the sitting-room where she could keep her pieces, and work in odd minutes. she almost wept over such kindness, and resolved firmly not to take advantage of it by neglecting her work, which she performed with a fierce thoroughness. but the whole atmosphere of her world was changed. things had a meaning now. through the longest task of washing milk-pans there rose the rainbow of promise of her variegated work. she took her place by the little table and put the thimble on her knotted, hard finger with the solemnity of a priestess performing a sacred rite. she was even able to bear with some degree of dignity the extreme honor of having the minister and the minister's wife comment admiringly on her great project. the family felt quite proud of aunt mehetabel as minister bowman had said it was work as fine as any he had ever seen, "and he didn't know but finer!" the remark was repeated verbatim to the neighbors in the following weeks when they dropped in and examined in a perverse silence some astonishingly difficult _tour de force_ which mehetabel had just finished. the family especially plumed themselves on the slow progress of the quilt. "mehetabel has been to work on that corner for six weeks, come tuesday, and she ain't half done yet," they explained to visitors. they fell out of the way of always expecting her to be the one to run on errands, even for the children. "don't bother your aunt mehetabel," sophia would call. "can't you see she's got to a ticklish place on the quilt?" the old woman sat up straighter and looked the world in the face. she was a part of it at last. she joined in the conversation and her remarks were listened to. the children were even told to mind her when she asked them to do some service for her, although this she did but seldom, the habit of self-effacement being too strong. one day some strangers from the next town drove up and asked if they could inspect the wonderful quilt which they had heard of, even down in their end of the valley. after that such visitations were not uncommon, making the elwells' house a notable object. mehetabel's quilt came to be one of the town sights, and no one was allowed to leave the town without having paid tribute to its worth. the elwells saw to it that their aunt was better dressed than she had ever been before, and one of the girls made her a pretty little cap to wear on her thin white hair. a year went by and a quarter of the quilt was finished, a second year passed and half was done. the third year mehetabel had pneumonia and lay ill for weeks and weeks, overcome with terror lest she die before her work was completed. a fourth year and one could really see the grandeur of the whole design; and in september of the fifth year, the entire family watching her with eager and admiring eyes, mehetabel quilted the last stitches in her creation. the girls held it up by the four corners, and they all looked at it in a solemn silence. then mr. elwell smote one horny hand within the other and exclaimed: "by ginger! that's goin' to the county fair!" mehetabel blushed a deep red at this. it was a thought which had occurred to her in a bold moment, but she had not dared to entertain it. the family acclaimed the idea, and one of the boys was forthwith dispatched to the house of the neighbor who was chairman of the committee for their village. he returned with radiant face, "of course he'll take it. like's not it may git a prize, so he says; but he's got to have it right off, because all the things are goin' to-morrow morning." even in her swelling pride mehetabel felt a pang of separation as the bulky package was carried out of the house. as the days went on she felt absolutely lost without her work. for years it had been her one preoccupation, and she could not bear even to look at the little stand, now quite bare of the litter of scraps which had lain on it so long. one of the neighbors, who took the long journey to the fair, reported that the quilt was hung in a place of honor in a glass case in "agricultural hall." but that meant little to mehetabel's utter ignorance of all that lay outside of her brother's home. the family noticed the old woman's depression, and one day sophia said kindly, "you feel sort o' lost without the quilt, don't you, mehetabel?" "they took it away so quick!" she said wistfully; "i hadn't hardly had one real good look at it myself." mr. elwell made no comment, but a day or two later he asked his sister how early she could get up in the morning. "i dun'no'. why?" she asked. "well, thomas ralston has got to drive clear to west oldton to see a lawyer there, and that is four miles beyond the fair. he says if you can git up so's to leave here at four in the morning he'll drive you over to the fair, leave you there for the day, and bring you back again at night." mehetabel looked at him with incredulity. it was as though someone had offered her a ride in a golden chariot up to the gates of heaven. "why, you can't _mean_ it!" she cried, paling with the intensity of her emotion. her brother laughed a little uneasily. even to his careless indifference this joy was a revelation of the narrowness of her life in his home. "oh, 'tain't so much to go to the fair. yes, i mean it. go git your things ready, for he wants to start to-morrow morning." all that night a trembling, excited old woman lay and stared at the rafters. she, who had never been more than six miles from home in her life, was going to drive thirty miles away--it was like going to another world. she who had never seen anything more exciting than church supper was to see the county fair. to mehetabel it was like making the tour of the world. she had never dreamed of doing it. she could not at all imagine what would be like. nor did the exhortations of the family, as they bade good-by to her, throw any light on her confusion. they had all been at least once to the scene of gayety she was to visit, and as she tried to eat her breakfast they called out conflicting advice to her till her head whirled. sophie told her to be sure and see the display of preserves. her brother said not to miss inspecting the stock, her niece said the fancywork was the only thing worth looking at and her nephews said she must bring them home an account of the races. the buggy drove up to the door, she was helped in, and her wraps tucked about her. they all stood together and waved good-by to her as she drove out of the yard. she waved back, but she scarcely saw them. on her return home that evening she was very pale, and so tired and stiff that her brother had to lift her out bodily, but her lips were set in a blissful smile. they crowded around her with thronging questions, until sophia pushed them all aside, telling them aunt mehetabel was too tired to speak until she had had her supper. this was eaten in an enforced silence on the part of the children, and then the old woman was helped into an easy-chair before the fire. they gathered about her, eager for news of the great world, and sophia said, "now, come, mehetabel, tell us all about it!" mehetabel drew a long breath. "it was just perfect!" she said; "finer even than i thought. they've got it hanging up in the very middle of a sort o' closet made of glass, and one of the lower corners is ripped and turned back so's to show the seams on the wrong side." "what?" asked sophia, a little blankly. "why, the quilt!" said mehetabel in surprise. "there are a whole lot of other ones in that room, but not one that can hold a candle to it, if i do say it who shouldn't. i heard lots of people say the same thing. you ought to have heard what the women said about that corner, sophia. they said--well, i'd be ashamed to _tell_ you what they said. i declare if i wouldn't!" mr. elwell asked, "what did you think of that big ox we've heard so much about?" "i didn't look at the stock," returned his sister indifferently. "that set of pieces you gave me, maria, from your red waist, come out just lovely!" she assured one of her nieces. "i heard one woman say you could 'most smell the red silk roses." "did any of the horses in our town race?" asked young thomas. "i didn't see the races." "how about the preserves?" asked sophia. "i didn't see the preserves," said mehetabel calmly. "you see, i went right to the room where the quilt was and then i didn't want to leave it. it had been so long since i'd seen it. i had to look at it first real good myself and then i looked at the others to see if there was any that could come up to it. and then the people begin comin' in and i got so interested in hearin' what they had to say i couldn't think of goin' anywheres else. i ate my lunch right there too, and i'm as glad as can be i did, too; for what do you think?"--she gazed about her with kindling eyes--"while i stood there with a sandwich in one hand didn't the head of the hull concern come in and open the glass door and pin 'first prize' right in the middle of the quilt!" there was a stir of congratulation and proud exclamation. then sophia returned again to the attack, "didn't you go to see anything else?" she queried. "why, no," said mehetabel. "only the quilt. why should i?" she fell into a reverie where she saw again the glorious creation of her hand and brain hanging before all the world with the mark of highest approval on it. she longed to make her listeners see the splendid vision with her. she struggled for words; she reached blindly after unknown superlatives. "i tell you it looked like----" she said, and paused, hesitating. vague recollections of hymn-book phraseology came into her mind, the only form of literary expression she knew; but they were dismissed as being sacrilegious, and also not sufficiently forcible. finally, "i tell you it looked real _well!_" she assured them, and sat staring into the fire, on her tired old face the supreme content of an artist who has realized his ideal. portrait of a philosopher i the news of professor gridley's death filled middletown college with consternation. its one claim to distinction was gone, for in spite of the excessive quiet of his private life, he had always cast about the obscure little college the shimmering aura of greatness. there had been no fondness possible for the austere old thinker, but middletown village, as well as the college, had been touched by his fidelity to the very moderate attractions of his birthplace. when, as often happened, some famous figure was seen on the streets, people used to say first, "here to see old grid, i suppose," and then, "funny how he sticks here. they say he was offered seven thousand at the university of california." in the absence of any known motive for this steadfastness, the village legend-making instinct had evolved a theory that he did not wish to move away from a state of which his father had been governor, and where the name of gridley was like a patent of nobility. and now he was gone, the last of the race. his disappearance caused the usual amount of reminiscent talk among his neighbors. the older people recalled the bygone scandals connected with his notorious and popular father and intimated with knowing nods that there were plenty of other descendants of the old governor who were not entitled legally to bear the name; but the younger ones, who had known only the severely ascetic life and cold personality of the celebrated scholar, found it difficult to connect him with such a father. in their talk they brought to mind the man himself, his quiet shabby clothes, his big stooping frame, his sad black eyes absent almost to vacancy as though always fixed on high and distant thoughts; and those who had lived near him told laughing stories about the crude and countrified simplicity of his old aunt's housekeeping--it was said that the president of harvard had been invited to join them once in a sunday evening meal of crackers and milk--but the general tenor of feeling was, as it had been during his life, of pride in his great fame and in the celebrated people who had come to see him. this pride warmed into something like affection when the day after his death, came the tidings that he had bequeathed to his college the gino sprague fallã¨res portrait of himself. of course, at that time, no one in middletown had seen the picture, for the philosopher's sudden death had occurred, very dramatically, actually during the last sitting. he had, in fact, had barely one glimpse of it himself, as, according to fallã¨res's invariable rule no one, not even the subject of the portrait, had been allowed to examine an unfinished piece of work. but though middletown had no first-hand knowledge of the picture, there could be no doubt about the value of the canvas. as soon as it was put on exhibition in london, from every art-critic in the three nations who claimed fallã¨res for their own there rose a wail that this masterpiece was to be buried in an unknown college in an obscure village in barbarous america. it was confidently stated that it would be saved from such an unfitting resting-place by strong action on the part of an international committee of artists; but middletown, though startled by its own good fortune, clung with yankee tenacity to its rights. raphael collin, of paris, commenting on this in the _revue des deux mondes_, cried out whimsically upon the woes of an art-critic's life, "as if there were not already enough wearisome pilgrimages necessary to remote and uncomfortable places with jaw-breaking names, which must nevertheless be visited for the sake of a single picture!" and a burlesque resolution to carry off the picture by force was adopted at the dinner in london given in honor of fallã¨res the evening before he set off for america to attend the dedicatory exercises with which middletown planned to install its new treasure. for the little rustic college rose to its one great occasion. bold in their confidence in their dead colleague's name, the college authorities sent out invitations to all the great ones of the country. those to whom gridley was no more than a name on volumes one never read came because the portrait was by fallã¨res, and those who had no interest in the world of art came to honor the moralist whose noble clear-thinking had simplified the intimate problems of modern life. there was the usual residuum of those who came because the others did, and, also as usual, they were among the most brilliant figures in the procession which filed along, one october morning, under the old maples of middletown campus. it was a notable celebration. a bishop opened the exercises with prayer, a united states senator delivered the eulogy of the dead philosopher, the veil uncovering the portrait was drawn away by the mayor of one of america's largest cities, himself an ardent gridleyite, and among those who spoke afterward were the presidents of three great universities. the professor's family was represented but scantily. he had had one brother, who had disappeared many years ago under a black cloud of ill report, and one sister who had married and gone west to live. her two sons, middle-aged merchants from ohio, gave the only personal note to the occasion by their somewhat tongue-tied and embarrassed presence, for gridley's aunt was too aged and infirm to walk with the procession from the gymnasium, where it formed, to the library building, where the portrait was installed. after the inevitable photographers had made their records of the memorable gathering, the procession began to wind its many-colored way back to the assembly hall, where it was to lunch. everyone was feeling relieved that the unveiling had gone off so smoothly, and cheerful at the prospect of food. the undergraduates began lustily to shout their college song, which was caught up by the holiday mood of the older ones. this cheerful tumult gradually died away in the distance, leaving the room of the portrait deserted in an echoing silence. a janitor began to remove the rows of folding chairs. the celebration was over. into the empty room there now limped forward a small, shabby old woman with a crutch. "i'm his aunt, that lived with him," she explained apologetically, "and i want to see the picture." she advanced, peering nearsightedly at the canvas. the janitor continued stacking up chairs until he was stopped by a cry from the newcomer. she was a great deal paler than when she came in. she was staring hard at the portrait and now beckoned him wildly to do the same. "look at it! look at it!" surprised, he followed the direction of her shaking hand. "sure, it's professor grid to the life!" he said admiringly. "look at it! look at it!" she seemed not to be able to find any other words. after a prolonged scrutiny he turned to her with a puzzled line between his eyebrows. "since you've spoken of it, ma'am, i will say that there's a something about the expression of the eyes ... and mouth, maybe ... that ain't just the professor. he was more absent-like. it reminds me of somebody else ... of some face i've seen ..." she hung on his answer, her mild, timid old face drawn like a mask of tragedy. "who? who?" she prompted him. for a time he could not remember, staring at the new portrait and scratching his head. then it came to him suddenly: "why, sure, i ought to ha' known without thinkin', seeing the other picture as often as every time i've swep' out the president's office. and professor grid always looked like him some, anyhow." the old woman leaned against the wall, her crutch trembling in her hand. her eyes questioned him mutely. "why, ma'am, who but his own father, to be sure ... the old governor." ii while they had been duly sensible of the luster reflected upon them by the celebration in honor of their distinguished uncle, professor gridley's two nephews could scarcely have said truthfully that they enjoyed the occasion. as one of them did say to the other, the whole show was rather out of their line. their line was wholesale hardware and, being eager to return to it, it was with a distinct feeling of relief that they waited for the train at the station. they were therefore as much displeased as surprised by the sudden appearance to them of their great-aunt, very haggard, her usual extreme timidity swept away by overmastering emotion. she clutched at the two merchants with a great sob of relief: "stephen! eli! come back to the house," she cried, and before they could stop her was hobbling away. they hurried after her, divided between the fear of losing their train and the hope that some inheritance from their uncle had been found. they were not mercenary men, but they felt a not unnatural disappointment that professor gridley had left not a penny, not even to his aunt, his one intimate. they overtook her, scuttling along like some frightened and wounded little animal. "what's the matter, aunt amelia?" they asked shortly. "we've got to catch this train." she faced them. "you can't go now. you've got to make them take that picture away." "away!" their blankness was stupefaction. she raged at them, the timid, harmless little thing, like a creature distraught. "didn't you see it? didn't you _see_ it?" stephen answered: "well, no, not to have a good square look at it. the man in front of me kept getting in the way." eli admitted: "if you mean you don't see anything in it to make all this hurrah about, i'm with you. it don't look half finished. i don't like that slap-dash style." she was in a frenzy at their denseness. "who did it look like?" she challenged them. "why, like uncle grid, of course. who else?" "yes, yes," she cried; "who else? who else?" they looked at each other, afraid that she was crazed, and spoke more gently: "why, i don't know, i'm sure, who else. like grandfather gridley, of course; but then uncle grid always did look like his father." at this she quite definitely put it out of their power to leave her by fainting away. they carried her home and laid her on her own bed, where one of them stayed to attend her while the other went back to rescue their deserted baggage. as the door closed behind him the old woman came to herself. "oh, stephen," she moaned, "i wish it had killed me, the way it did your uncle." "what _is_ the matter?" asked her great-nephew wonderingly. "what do you think killed him?" "that awful, awful picture! i know it now as plain as if i'd been there. he hadn't seen it all the time he was sitting for it, though he'd already put in his will that he wanted the college to have it, and when he did see it--" she turned on the merchant with a sudden fury: "how _dare_ you say those are your uncle's eyes!" he put his hand soothingly on hers. "now, now, aunt 'melia, maybe the expression isn't just right, but the color is _fine_... just that jet-black his were ... and the artist has got in exact that funny stiff way uncle's hair stood up over his forehead." the old woman fixed outraged eyes upon him. "color!" she said. "and hair! oh, lord, help me!" she sat up on the bed, clutching her nephew's hand, and began to talk rapidly. when, a half-hour later, the other brother returned, neither of them heard him enter the house. it was only when he called at the foot of the stairs that they both started and stephen ran down to join him. "you'll see the president ... you'll fix it?" the old woman cried after him. "i'll see, aunt 'melia," he answered pacifyingly, as he drew his brother out of doors. he looked quite pale and moved, and drew a long breath before he could begin. "aunt amelia's been telling me a lot of things i never knew, eli. it seems that ... say, did you ever hear that grandfather gridley, the governor, was such a bad lot?" "why, mother never said much about her father one way or the other, but i always sort of guessed he wasn't all he might have been from her never bringing us on to visit here until after he died. she used to look queer, too, when folks congratulated her on having such a famous man for father. all the big politicians of his day thought a lot of him. he _was_ as smart as chain-lightning!" "he was a disreputable old scalawag!" cried his other grandson. "some of the things aunt amelia has been telling me make me never want to come back to this part of the country again. do you know why uncle grid lived so poor and scrimped and yet left no money? he'd been taking care of a whole family grandfather had beside ours; and paying back some people grandfather did out of a lot of money on a timber deal fifty years ago; and making it up to a little village in the backwoods that grandfather persuaded to bond itself for a railroad that he knew wouldn't go near it." the two men stared at each other an instant, reviewing in a new light the life that had just closed. "that's why he never married," said eli finally. "no, that's what i said, but aunt amelia just went wild when i did. she said ... gee!" he passed his hand over his eyes with a gesture of mental confusion. "ain't it strange what can go on under your eyes and you never know it? why, she says uncle grid was just like his father." the words were not out of his mouth before the other's face of horror made him aware of his mistake. "no! no! not that! heavens, no! i mean ... made like him ... _wanted_ to be that kind, 'specially drink ..." his tongue, unused to phrasing abstractions, stumbled and tripped in his haste to correct the other's impression. "you know how much uncle grid used to look like grandfather ... the same black hair and broad face and thick red lips and a kind of knob on the end of his nose? well, it seems he had his father's insides, too ... _but his mother's conscience!_ i guess, from what aunt amelia says, that the combination made life about as near tophet for him ...! she's the only one to know anything about it, because she's lived with him always, you know, took him when grandmother died and he was a child. she says when he was younger he was like a man fighting a wild beast ... he didn't dare let up or rest. some days he wouldn't stop working at his desk all day long, not even to eat, and then he'd grab up a piece of bread and go off for a long tearing tramp that'd last 'most all night. you know what a tremendous physique all the gridley men have had. well, uncle grid turned into work all the energy the rest of them spent in deviltry. aunt amelia said he'd go on like that day after day for a month, and then he'd bring out one of those essays folks are so crazy about. she said she never could bear to _look_ at his books ... seemed to her they were written in his blood. she told him so once and he said it was the only thing to do with blood like his." he was silent, while his listener made a clucking noise of astonishment. "my! my! i'd have said that there never was anybody more different from grandfather than uncle. why, as he got on in years he didn't even look like him any more." this reference gave stephen a start. "oh, yes, that's what all this came out for. aunt amelia is just wild about this portrait. it's just a notion of hers, of course, but after what she told me i could see, easy, how the idea would come to her. it looks this way, she says, as though uncle grid inherited his father's physical make-up complete, and spent all his life fighting it ... and won out! and here's this picture making him look the way he would if he'd been the worst old ... as if he'd been like the governor. she says she feels as though she was the only one to defend uncle ... as if it could make any difference to him! i guess the poor old lady is a little touched. likely it's harder for her, losing uncle, than we realized. she just about worshiped him. queer business, anyhow, wasn't it? who'd ha' thought he was like that?" he had talked his unwonted emotion quite out, and now looked at his brother with his usual matter-of-fact eye. "did you tell the station agent to hold the trunk?" the other, who was the younger, looked a little abashed. "well, no; i found the train was so late i thought maybe we could ... you know there's that business to-morrow ...!" his senior relieved him of embarrassment. "that's a good idea. sure we can. there's nothing we could do if we stayed. it's just a notion of aunt 'melia's, anyhow. i agree with her that it don't look so awfully like uncle grid, but, then, oil-portraits are never any good. give me a photograph!" "it's out of our line, anyhow," agreed the younger, looking at his watch. iii the president of middletown college had been as much relieved as pleased by the success of the rather pretentious celebration he had planned. his annoyance was correspondingly keen at the disturbing appearance, in the afternoon reception before the new portrait, of the late professor's aunt, "an entirely insignificant old country woman," he hastily assured m. fallã¨res after she had been half forced, half persuaded to retire, "whose criticisms were as negligible as her personality." the tall, jove-like artist concealed a smile by stroking his great brown beard. when it came to insignificant country people, he told himself, it was hard to draw lines in his present company. he was wondering whether he might not escape by an earlier train. to the president's remark he answered that no portrait-painter escaped unreasonable relatives of his sitters. "it is an axiom with our guild," he went on, not, perhaps, averse to giving his provincial hosts a new sensation, "that the family is never satisfied, and also that the family has no rights. a sitter is a subject only, like a slice of fish. the only question is how it's done. what difference does it make a century from now, if the likeness is good? it's a work of art or it's nothing." he announced this principle with a regal absence of explanation and turned away; but his thesis was taken up by another guest, a new york art-critic. "by jove, it's inconceivable, the ignorance of art in america!" he told the little group before the portrait. "you find everyone so incurably personal in his point of view ... always objecting to a masterpiece because the watch-chain isn't the kind usually worn by the dear departed." someone else chimed in. "yes, it's incredible that anyone, even an old village granny, should be able to look at that canvas and not be struck speechless by its quality." the critic was in middletown to report on the portrait and he now began marshaling his adjectives for that purpose. "i never saw such use of pigment in my life ... it makes the whistler 'carlyle' look like burnt-out ashes ... the luminous richness of the blacks in the academic gown, the masterly generalization in the treatment of the hair, the placing of those great talons of hands on the canvas carrying out the vigorous lines of the composition, and the unforgettable felicity of those brutally red lips as the one ringing note of color. as for life-likeness, what's the old dame talking about! i never saw such eyes! not a hint of meretricious emphasis on their luster and yet they fairly flame." the conversation spread to a less technical discussion as the group was joined by the professor of rhetoric, an ambitious young man with an insatiable craving for sophistication, who felt himself for once entirely in his element in the crowd of celebrities. "it's incredibly good luck that our little two-for-a-cent college should have so fine a thing," he said knowingly. "i've been wondering how such an old skinflint as gridley ever got the money loose to have his portrait done by--" a laugh went around the group at the idea. "it was mackintosh, the sugar king, who put up for it. he's a great gridleyite, and persuaded him to sit." "_persuade_ a man to sit to fallã¨res!" the rhetoric professor was outraged at the idea. "yes, so they say. the professor was dead against it from the first. fallã¨res himself had to beg him to sit. fallã¨res said he felt a real inspiration at the sight of the old fellow ... knew he could make a good thing out of him. he _was_ a good subject!" the little group turned and stared appraisingly at the portrait hanging so close to them that it seemed another living being in their midst. the rhetoric professor was asked what kind of a man the philosopher had been personally, and answered briskly: "oh, nobody knew him personally ... the silent old codger. he was a dry-as-dust, bloodless, secular monk--" he was interrupted by a laugh from the art-critic, whose eyes were still on the portrait. "excuse me for my cynical mirth," he said, "but i must say he doesn't look it. i was prepared for any characterization but that. he looks like a powerful son of the renaissance, who might have lived in that one little vacation of the soul after medievalism stopped hag-riding us, and before the modern conscience got its claws on us. and you say he was a blue-nosed puritan!" the professor of rhetoric looked an uneasy fear that he was being ridiculed. "i only repeated the village notion of him," he said airily. "he may have been anything. all i know is that he was as secretive as a clam, and about as interesting personally." "look at the picture," said the critic, still laughing; "you'll know all about him!" the professor of rhetoric nodded. "you're right, he doesn't look much like my character of him. i never seem to have had a good, square look at him before. i've heard several people say the same thing, that they seemed to understand him better from the portrait than from his living face. there was something about his eyes that kept you from thinking of anything but what he was saying." the critic agreed. "the eyes are wonderful ... ruthless in their power ... fires of hell." he laughed a deprecating apology for his overemphatic metaphor and suggested: "it's possible that there was more to the professorial life than met the eye. had he a wife?" "no; it was always a joke in the village that he would never look at a woman." the critic glanced up at the smoldering eyes of the portrait and smiled. "i've heard of that kind of a man before," he said. "never known to drink, either, i suppose?" "cold-water teetotaler," laughed the professor, catching the spirit of the occasion. "look at the color in that nose!" said the critic. "i fancy that the ascetic moralist--" a very young man, an undergraduate who had been introduced as the junior usher, nodded his head. "yep, a lot of us fellows always thought old grid a little too good to be true." an older man with the flexible mouth of a politician now ventured a contribution to a conversation no longer bafflingly esthetic: "his father, old governor gridley, wasn't he ... well, i guess you're right about the son. no halos were handed down in _that_ family!" the laugh which followed this speech was stopped by the approach of fallã¨res, his commanding presence dwarfing the president beside him. he was listening with a good-natured contempt to the apparently rather anxious murmurs of the latter. "of course i know, mr. fallã¨res, it is a great deal to ask, but she is so insistent ... she won't go away and continues to make the most distressing spectacle of herself ... and several people, since she has said so much about it, are saying that the expression is not that of the late professor. much against my will i promised to speak to you--" his mortified uneasiness was so great that the artist gave him a rescuing hand. "well, mr. president, what can i do in the matter? the man is dead. i cannot paint him over again, and if i could i would only do again as i did this time, choose that aspect which my judgment told me would make the best portrait. if his habitual vacant expression was not so interesting as another not so permanent a habit of his face ... why, the poor artist must be allowed some choice. i did not know i was to please his grandmother, and not posterity." "his aunt," corrected the president automatically. the portrait-painter accepted the correction with his tolerant smile. "his aunt," he repeated. "the difference is considerable. may i ask what it was you promised her?" the president summoned his courage. it was easy to gather from his infinitely reluctant insistence how painful and compelling had been the scene which forced him to action. "she wants you to change it ... to make the expression of the--" for the first time the artist's equanimity was shaken. he took a step backward. "change it!" he said, and although his voice was low the casual chat all over the room stopped short as though a pistol had been fired. "it's not _my_ idea!" the president confounded himself in self-exoneration. "i merely promised, to pacify her, to ask you if you could not do some little thing that would--" the critic assumed the role of conciliator. "my dear sir, i don't believe you quite understand what you are asking. it's as though you asked a priest to make just a little change in the church service and leave out the 'not' in the commandments." "i only wish to know mr. fallã¨res's attitude," said the president stiffly, a little nettled by the other's note of condescension. "i presume he will be willing to take the responsibility of it himself and explain to the professor's aunt that _i_ have done--" the artist had recovered from his lapse from olympian to calm and now nodded, smiling: "dear me, yes, mr. president, i'm used to irate relatives." the president hastened away and the knots of talkers in other parts of the room, who had been looking with expectant curiosity at the group before the portrait, resumed their loud-toned chatter. when their attention was next drawn in the same direction, it was by a shaky old treble, breaking, quavering with weakness. a small, shabby old woman, leaning on a crutch, stood looking up imploringly at the tall painter. "my dear madam," he broke in on her with a kindly impatience, "all that you say about professor gridley is much to his credit, but what has it to do with me?" "you painted his portrait," she said with a simplicity that was like stupidity. "and i am his aunt. you made a picture of a bad man. i know he was a good man." "i painted what i saw," sighed the artist wearily. he looked furtively at his watch. the old woman seemed dazed by the extremity of her emotion. she looked about her silently, keeping her eyes averted from the portrait that stood so vividly like a living man beside her. "i don't know what to do!" she murmured with a little moan. "i can't _bear_ it to have it stay here--people forget so. everybody'll think that gridley looked like _that_! and there isn't anybody but me. he never had anybody but me." the critic tried to clear the air by a roundly declaratory statement of principles. "you'll pardon my bluntness, madam; but you must remember that none but the members of professor gridley's family are concerned in the exact details of his appearance. fifty years from now nobody will remember how he looked, one way or the other. the world is only concerned with portraits as works of art." she followed his reasoning with a strained and docile attention and now spoke eagerly as though struck by an unexpected hope: "if that's all, why put his name to it? just hang it up, and call it anything." she shrank together timidly and her eyes reddened at the laughter which greeted this naã¯ve suggestion. fallã¨res looked annoyed and called his defender off. "oh, never mind explaining me," he said, snapping his watch shut. "you'll never get the rights of it through anybody's head who hasn't himself sweat blood over a composition only to be told that the other side of the sitter's profile is usually considered the prettier. after all, we have the last word, since the sitter dies and the portrait lives." the old woman started and looked at him attentively. "yes," said the critic, laughing, "immortality's not a bad balm for pin-pricks." the old woman turned very pale and for the first time looked again at the portrait. an electric thrill seemed to pass through her as her eyes encountered the bold, evil ones fixed on her. she stood erect with a rigid face, and "immortality!" she said, under her breath. fallã¨res moved away to make his adieux to the president, and the little group of his satellites straggled after him to the other end of the room. for a moment there no one near the old woman to see the crutch furiously upraised, hammer-like, or to stop her sudden passionate rush upon the picture. at the sound of cracking cloth, they turned back, horrified. they saw her, with an insane violence, thrust her hands into the gaping hole that had been the portrait's face and, tearing the canvas from end to end, fall upon the shreds with teeth and talon. all but fallã¨res flung themselves toward her, dragging her away. with a movement as instinctive he rushed for the picture, and it was to him, as he stood aghast before the ruined canvas, that the old woman's shrill treble was directed, above the loud shocked voices of those about her: "there ain't anything immortal but souls!" she cried. flint and fire my husband's cousin had come up from the city, slightly more fagged and sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the bareness and emotional sterility of the lives of our country people. "perhaps they had, a couple of centuries ago, when the puritan hallucination was still strong, a certain fierce savor of religious intolerance; but now that that has died out, and no material prosperity has come to let them share in the larger life of their century, there is a flatness, a mean absence of warmth or color, a deadness to all emotions but the pettiest sorts--" i pushed the pitcher nearer him, clinking the ice invitingly, and directed his attention to our iris-bed as a more cheerful object of contemplation than the degeneracy of the inhabitants of vermont. the flowers burned on their tall stalks like yellow tongues of flame. the strong, sword-like green leaves thrust themselves boldly up into the spring air like a challenge. the plants vibrated with vigorous life. in the field beyond them, as vigorous as they, strode adoniram purdon behind his team, the reins tied together behind his muscular neck, his hands grasping the plow with the masterful sureness of the successful practitioner of an art. the hot, sweet spring sunshine shone down on 'niram's head with its thick crest of brown hair, the ineffable odor of newly turned earth steamed up about him like incense, the mountain stream beyond him leaped and shouted. his powerful body answered every call made on it with the precision of a splendid machine. but there was no elation in the grimly set face as 'niram wrenched the plow around a big stone, or as, in a more favorable furrow, the gleaming share sped steadily along before the plowman, turning over a long, unbroken brown ribbon of earth. my cousin-in-law waved a nervous hand toward the sternly silent figure as it stepped doggedly behind the straining team, the head bent forward, the eyes fixed on the horses' heels. "there!" he said. "there is an example of what i mean. is there another race on earth which could produce a man in such a situation who would not on such a day sing, or whistle, or at least hold up his head and look at all the earthly glories about him?" i was silent, but not for lack of material for speech. 'niram's reasons for austere self-control were not such as i cared to discuss with a man of my cousin's mental attitude. as we sat looking at him the noon whistle from the village blew and the wise old horses stopped in the middle of a furrow. 'niram unharnessed them, led them to the shade of a tree, and put on their nose-bags. then he turned and came toward the house. "don't i seem to remember," murmured my cousin under his breath, "that, even though he is a new-eng-lander, he has been known to make up errands to your kitchen to see your pretty ev'leen ann?" i looked at him hard; but he was only gazing down, rather cross-eyed, on his grizzled mustache, with an obvious petulant interest in the increase of white hairs in it. evidently his had been but a chance shot. 'niram stepped up on the grass at the edge of the porch. he was so tall that he overtopped the railing easily, and, reaching a long arm over to where i sat, he handed me a small package done up in yellowish tissue-paper. without hat-raisings, or good-mornings, or any other of the greetings usual in a more effusive civilization, he explained briefly: "my stepmother wanted i should give you this. she said to thank you for the grape-juice." as he spoke he looked at me gravely out of deep-set blue eyes, and when he had delivered his message he held his peace. i expressed myself with the babbling volubility of one whose manners have been corrupted by occasional sojourns in the city. "oh, 'niram!" i cried protestingly, as i opened the package and took out an exquisitely wrought old-fashioned collar. "oh, 'niram! how _could_ your stepmother give such a thing away? why, it must be one of her precious old relics. i don't _want_ her to give me something every time i do some little thing for her. can't a neighbor send her in a few bottles of grape-juice without her thinking she must pay it back somehow? it's not kind of her. she has never yet let me do the least thing for her without repaying me with something that is worth ever so much more than my trifling services." when i had finished my prattling, 'niram repeated, with an accent of finality, "she wanted i should give it to you." the older man stirred in his chair. without looking at him i knew that his gaze on the young rustic was quizzical and that he was recording on the tablets of his merciless memory the ungraceful abruptness of the other's action and manner. "how is your stepmother feeling to-day, 'niram?" i asked. "worse." 'niram came to a full stop with the word. my cousin covered his satirical mouth with his hand. "can't the doctor do anything to relieve her?" i asked. 'niram moved at last from his indian-like immobility. he looked up under the brim of his felt hat at the skyline of the mountain, shimmering iridescent above us. "he says maybe 'lectricity would help her some. i'm goin' to git her the batteries and things soon's i git the rubber bandages paid for." there was a long silence. my cousin stood up, yawning, and sauntered away toward the door. "shall i send ev'leen ann out to get the pitcher and glasses?" he asked in an accent which he evidently thought very humorously significant. the strong face under the felt hat turned white, the jaw muscles set hard, but for all this show of strength there was an instant when the man's eyes looked out with the sick, helpless revelation of pain they might have had when 'niram was a little boy of ten, a third of his present age, and less than half his present stature. occasionally it is horrifying to see how a chance shot rings the bell. "no, no! never mind!" i said hastily. "i'll take the tray in when i go." without salutation or farewell 'niram purdon turned and went back to his work. the porch was an enchanted place, walled around with starlit darkness, visited by wisps of breezes shaking down from their wings the breath of lilac and syringa, flowering wild grapes, and plowed fields. down at the foot of our sloping lawn the little river, still swollen by the melted snow from the mountains, plunged between its stony banks and shouted its brave song to the stars. we three middle-aged people--paul, his cousin, and i--had disposed our uncomely, useful, middle-aged bodies in the big wicker chairs and left them there while our young souls wandered abroad in the sweet, dark glory of the night. at least paul and i were doing this, as we sat, hand in hand, thinking of a may night twenty years before. one never knows what horace is thinking of, but apparently he was not in his usual captious vein, for after a long pause he remarked, "it is a night almost indecorously inviting to the making of love." my answer seemed grotesquely out of key with this, but its sequence was clear in my mind. i got up, saying: "oh, that reminds me--i must go and see ev'leen ann. i'd forgotten to plan to-morrow's dinner." "oh, everlastingly ev'leen ann!" mocked horace from his corner. "can't you think of anything but ev'leen ann and her affairs?" i felt my way through the darkness of the house, toward the kitchen, both doors of which were tightly closed. when i stepped into the hot, close room, smelling of food and fire, i saw ev'leen ann sitting on the straight kitchen chair, the yellow light of the bracket-lamp beating down on her heavy braids and bringing out the exquisitely subtle modeling of her smooth young face. her hands were folded in her lap. she was staring at the blank wall, and the expression of her eyes so startle and shocked me that i stopped short and would have retreated if it had not been too late. she had seen me, roused herself, and said quietly, as though continuing conversation interrupted the moment before: "i had been thinking that there was enough left of the roast to make hash-balls for dinner"--"hash-balls" is ev'leen ann's decent anglo-saxon name for croquette--"and maybe you'd like a rhubarb pie." i knew well enough she had been thinking of no such thing, but i could as easily have slapped a reigning sovereign on the back as broken in on the regal reserve of ev'leen ann in her clean gingham. "well, yes, ev'leen ann," i answered in her own tone of reasonable consideration of the matter; "that would be nice, and your pie-crust is so flaky that even mr. horace will have to be pleased." "mr. horace" is our title for the sardonic cousin whose carping ways are half a joke, and half a menace in our family. ev'leen ann could not manage the smile which should have greeted this sally. she looked down soberly at the white-pine top of the kitchen table and said, "i guess there is enough sparrow-grass up in the garden for a mess, too, if you'd like that." "that would taste very good," i agreed, my heart aching for her. "and creamed potatoes," she finished bravely, thrusting my unspoken pity from her. "you know i like creamed potatoes better than any other kind," i concurred. there was a silence. it seemed inhuman to go and leave the stricken young thing to fight her trouble alone in the ugly prison, her work-place, though i thought i could guess why ev'leen ann had shut the doors so tightly. i hung near her, searching my head for something to say, but she helped me by no casual remark. niram is not the only one of our people who possesses so the full the supreme gift of silence. finally i mentioned the report of a case of measles in the village, and ev'leen ann responded in kind with the news that her aunt emma had bought a potato-planter. ev'leen ann is an orphan, brought up by a well-to-do spinster aunt, who is strong-minded and runs her own farm. after a time we glided by way of similar transitions to the mention of his name. "'niram purdon tells me his stepmother is no better," i said. "isn't it too bad?" i thought it well for ev'leen ann to be dragged out of her black cave of silence once in a while, even if it could be done only by force. as she made no answer, i went on. "everybody who knows niram thinks it splendid of him to do so much for his stepmother." ev'leen ann responded with a detached air, as though speaking of a matter in china: "well, it ain't any more than what he should. she was awful good to him when he was little and his father got so sick. i guess 'niram wouldn't ha' had much to eat if she hadn't ha' gone out sewing to earn it for him and mr. purdon." she added firmly, after a moment's pause, "no, ma'am, i don't guess it's any more than what 'niram had ought to do." "but it's very hard on a young man to feel that he's not able to marry," i continued. once in a great while we came so near the matter as this. ev'leen ann made no answer. her face took on a pinched look of sickness. she set her lips as though she would never speak again. but i knew that a criticism of 'niram would always rouse her, and said: "and really, i think 'niram makes a great mistake to act as he does. a wife would be a help to him. she could take care of mrs. purdon and keep the house." ev'leen ann rose to the bait, speaking quickly with some heat: "i guess 'niram knows what's right for him to do! he can't afford to marry when he can't even keep up with the doctor's bills and all. he keeps the house himself, nights and mornings, and mrs. purdon is awful handy about taking care of herself, for all she's bedridden. that's her way, you know. she can't bear to have folks do for her. she'd die before she'd let anybody do anything for her that she could anyways do for herself!" i sighed acquiescingly. mrs. purdon's fierce independence was a rock on which every attempt at sympathy or help shattered itself to atoms. there seemed to be no other emotion left in her poor old work-worn shell of a body. as i looked at ev'leen ann it seemed rather a hateful characteristic, and i remarked, "it seems to me it's asking a good deal of 'niram to spoil his life in order that his stepmother can go on pretending she's independent." ev'leen ann explained hastily: "oh, 'niram doesn't tell her anything about--she doesn't know he would like to--he don't want she should be worried--and, anyhow, as 'tis, he can't earn enough to keep ahead of all the: doctors cost." "but the right kind of a wife--a good, competent girl--could help out by earning something, too." ev'leen ann looked at me forlornly, with no surprise. the idea was evidently not new to her. "yes, ma'am, he could. but 'niram says he ain't the kind of man to let his wife go out working." even while she drooped under the killing verdict of his pride she was loyal to his standards and uttered no complaint. she went on, 'niram wants aunt em'line to have things the way she wants 'em, as near as he can give 'em to her--and it's right she should." "aunt emeline?" i repeated, surprised at her absence of mind. "you mean mrs. purdon, don't you?" ev'leen ann looked vexed at her slip, but she scorned to attempt any concealment. she explained dryly, with the shy, stiff embarrassment our country people have in speaking of private affairs: "well, she _is_ my aunt em'line, mrs. purdon is, though i don't hardly ever call her that. you see, aunt emma brought me up, and she and aunt em'line don't have anything to do with each other. they were twins, and when they were girls they got edgeways over 'niram's father, when 'niram was a baby and his father was a young widower and come courting. then aunt em'line married him, and aunt emma never spoke to her afterward." occasionally, in walking unsuspectingly along one of our leafy lanes, some such fiery geyser of ancient heat uprears itself in a boiling column. i never get used to it, and started back now. "why, i never heard of that before, and i've known your aunt emma and mrs. purdon for years!" "well, they're pretty old now," said ev'leen ann listlessly, with the natural indifference of self-centered youth to the bygone tragedies of the preceding generation. "it happened quite some time ago. and both of them were so touchy, if anybody seemed to speak about it, that folks got in the way of letting it alone. first aunt emma wouldn't speak to her sister because she'd married the man she'd wanted, and then when aunt emma made out so well farmin' and got so well off, why, then mrs. purdon wouldn't try to make it up because she was so poor. that was after mr. purdon had had his stroke of paralysis and they'd lost their farm and she'd taken to goin' out sewin'--not but what she was always perfectly satisfied with her bargain. she always acted as though she'd rather have her husband's old shirt stuffed with straw than any other man's whole body. he was a real nice man, i guess, mr. purdon was." there i had it--the curt, unexpanded chronicle of two passionate lives. and there i had also the key to mrs. purdon's fury of independence. it was the only way in which she could defend her husband against the charge, so damning in her world, of not having provided for his wife. it was the only monument she could rear to her husband's memory. and her husband had been all there was in life for her! i stood looking at her young kinswoman's face, noting the granite under the velvet softness of its youth, and divining the flame underlying the granite. i longed to break through her wall and to put my arms about her, and on the impulse of the moment i cast aside the pretense of casualness in our talk. "oh, my dear!" i said. "are you and 'niram always to go on like this? can't anybody help you?" ev'leen ann looked at me, her face suddenly old and gray. "no, ma'am; we ain't going to go on this way. we've decided, 'niram and i have, that it ain't no use. we've decided that we'd better not go places together any more or see each other. it's too--if 'niram thinks we can't"--she flamed so that i knew she was burning from head to foot--"it's better for us not--" she ended in a muffled voice, hiding her face in the crook of her arm. ah, yes; now i knew why ev'leen ann had shut out the passionate breath of the spring night! i stood near her, a lump in my throat, but i divined the anguish of her shame at her involuntary self-revelation, and respected it. i dared do no more than to touch her shoulder gently. the door behind us rattled. ev'leen ann sprang up and turned her face toward the wall. paul's cousin came in, shuffling a little, blinking his eyes in the light of the unshaded lamp, and looking very cross and tired. he glanced at us without comment as he went over to the sink. "nobody offered me anything good to drink," he complained, "so i came in to get some water from the faucet for my nightcap." when he had drunk with ostentation from the tin dipper he went to the outside door and flung it open. "don't you people know how hot and smelly it is in here?" he said, with his usual unceremonious abruptness. the night wind burst in, eddying, and puffed out the lamp with a breath. in an instant the room was filled with coolness and perfumes and the rushing sound of the river. out of the darkness came ev'leen ann's young voice. "it seems to me," she said, as though speaking to herself, "that i never heard the mill brook sound loud as it has this spring." i woke up that night with the start one has at a sudden call. but there had been no call. a profound silence spread itself through the sleeping house. outdoors the wind had died down. only the loud brawl of the river broke the stillness under the stars. but all through the silence and this vibrant song there rang a soundless menace which brought me out of bed and to my feet before i was awake. i heard paul say, "what's the matter?" in a sleepy voice, and "nothing," i answered, reaching for my dressing-gown and slippers. i listened for a moment, my head ringing with all the frightening tales of the morbid vein of violence which runs through the character of our reticent people. there was still no sound. i went along the hall and up the stairs to ev'leen ann room, and i opened the door without knocking. the room was empty. then how i ran! calling loudly for paul to join me, i ran down the two flights of stairs, out of the open door and along the hedged path which leads down to the little river. the starlight was clear. i could see everything as plainly as though in early dawn. i saw the river, and saw--ev'leen ann! there was a dreadful moment of horror, which i shall never remember very clearly, and then ev'leen ann and i--both very wet--stood on the bank, shuddering in each other's arms. into our hysteria there dropped, like a pungent caustic the arid voice of horace, remarking, "well, are you two people crazy, or are you walking in your sleep?" i could feel ev'leen ann stiffen in my arms, and i nearly stepped back from her in astonished admiration as i heard her snatch at the straw thus offered, and still shuddering horribly from head to foot, force herself to say quite connectedly: "why--yes--of course--i've always heard about my grandfather parkman's walking in his sleep. folks _said_ 'twould come out in the family some time." paul was close behind horace--i wondered a little at his not being first--and with many astonished and inane ejaculations, such as people always make on startling occasions, we made our way back into the house to hot blankets and toddies. but i slept no more that night. some time after dawn, however, i did fall into a troubled unconsciousness full of bad dreams, and only awoke when the sun was quite high. i opened my eyes to see ev'leen ann about to close the door. "oh, did i wake you up?" she said. "i didn't mean to. that little harris boy is here with a letter for you." she spoke with a slightly defiant tone of self-possession. i tried to play up to her interpretation of her role. "the little harris boy?" i said, sitting up in bed. "what in the world is he bringing me a letter for?" ev'leen ann, with her usual clear perception of the superfluous in conversation, vouchsafed no opinion on a matter where she had no information, but went downstairs and brought back the note. it was of four lines, and--surprisingly enough--from old mrs. purdon, who asked me abruptly if i would have my husband take me to see her. she specified, and underlined the specification, that i was to come "right off, and in the automobile." wondering extremely at this mysterious bidding i sought out paul, who obediently cranked up our small car and carried me off. there was no sign of horace about the house, but some distance on the other side of the village we saw his tall, stooping figure swinging along the road. he carried a cane and was characteristically occupied in violently switching off the heads from the wayside weeds as he walked. he refused our offer to take him in, alleging that he was out for exercise and to reduce his flesh--an ancient jibe at his bony frame which made him for an instant show a leathery smile. there was, of course, no one at mrs. purdon's to let us into the tiny, three-roomed house, since the bedridden invalid spent her days there alone while 'niram worked his team on other people's fields. not knowing what we might find, paul stayed outside in the car, while i stepped inside in answer to mrs. purdon's "come _in_, why don't you!" which sounded quite as dry as usual. but when i saw her i knew that things were not as usual. she lay flat on her back, the little emaciated wisp of humanity, hardly raising the piecework quilt enough to make the bed seem occupied, and to account for the thin, worn old face on the pillow. but as i entered the room her eyes seized on mine, and i was aware of nothing but them and some fury of determination behind them. with a fierce heat of impatience at my first natural but quickly repressed exclamation of surprise she explained briefly that she wanted paul to lift her into the automobile and take her into the next township to the hulett farm. "i'm so shrunk away to nothin', i know i can lay on the back seat if i crook myself up," she said, with a cool accent but a rather shaky voice. seeming to realize that even her intense desire to strike the matter-of-fact note could not take the place of any and all explanation of her extraordinary request, she added, holding my eyes steady with her own: "emma hulett's my twin sister. i guess it ain't so queer, my wanting to see her." i thought, of course, we were to be used as the medium for some strange, sudden family reconciliation, and went out to ask paul if he thought he could carry the old invalid to the car. he replied that, so far as that went, he could carry so thin an old body ten times around the town, but that he refused absolutely to take such a risk without authorization from her doctor. i remembered the burning eyes of resolution i had left inside, and sent him to present his objections to mrs. purdon herself. in a few moments i saw him emerge from the house with the old woman in his arms. he had evidently taken her up just as she lay. the piecework quilt hung down in long folds, flashing its brilliant reds and greens in the sunshine, which shone so strangely upon the pallid old countenance, facing the open sky for the first time in years. we drove in silence through the green and gold lyric of the spring day, an elderly company sadly out of key with the triumphant note of eternal youth which rang through all the visible world. mrs. purdon looked at nothing, said nothing, seemed to be aware of nothing but the purpose in her heart, whatever that might be. paul and i, taking a leaf from our neighbors' book, held, with a courage like theirs, to their excellent habit of saying nothing when there is nothing to say. we arrived at the fine old hulett place without the exchange of a single word. "now carry me in," said mrs. purdon briefly, evidently hoarding her strength. "wouldn't i better go and see if miss hulett is at home?" i asked. mrs. purdon shook her head impatiently and turned her compelling eyes on my husband, i went up the path before them to knock at the door, wondering what the people in the house would possibly be thinking of us there was no answer to my knock. "open the door and go in," commanded mrs. purdon from out her quilt. there was no one in the spacious, white-paneled hall and no sound in all the big, many-roomed house. "emma's out feeding the hens," conjectured mrs. purdon, not, i fancied, without a faint hint of relief in her voice. "now carry me up-stairs to the first room on the right." half hidden by his burden, paul rolled wildly inquiring eyes at me; but he obediently staggered up the broad old staircase, and, waiting till i had opened the first door to the right, stepped into the big bedroom. "put me down on the bed, and open them shutters," mrs. purdon commanded. she still marshaled her forces with no lack of decision, but with a fainting voice which made me run over to her quickly as paul laid her down on the four-poster. her eyes were still indomitable, but her mouth hung open slackly and her color was startling. "oh, paul, quick! quick! haven't you your flask with you?" mrs. purdon informed me in a barely audible whisper, "in the corner cupboard at the head of the stairs," and i flew down the hallway. i returned with a bottle, evidently of great age. there was only a little brandy in the bottom, but it whipped up a faint color into the sick woman's lips. as i was bending over her and paul was thrusting open the shutters, letting in a flood of sunshine and flecky leaf-shadows, a firm, rapid step came down the hall, and a vigorous woman, with a tanned face and a clean, faded gingham dress, stopped short in the doorway with an expression of stupefaction. mrs. purdon put me on one side, and although she was physically incapable of moving her body by a hair's breadth, she gave the effect of having risen to meet the newcomer. "well, emma, here i am," she said in a queer voice, with involuntary quavers in it. as she went on she had it more under control, although in the course of her extraordinarily succinct speech it broke and failed her occasionally. when it did, she drew in her breath with an audible, painful effort, struggling forward steadily in what she had to say. "you see, emma, it's this way: my 'niram and your ev'leen ann have been keeping company--ever since they went to school together--you know that's well as i do, for all we let on we didn't, only i didn't know till just now how hard they took it. they can't get married because 'niram can't keep even, let alone get ahead any, because i cost so much bein' sick, and the doctor says i may live for years this way, same's aunt hettie did. an' 'niram is thirty-one, an' ev'leen ann is twenty-eight, an' they've had 'bout's much waitin' as is good for folks that set such store by each other. i've thought of every way out of it--and there ain't any. the lord knows i don't enjoy livin' any, not so's to notice the enjoyment, and i'd thought of cutting my throat like uncle lish, but that'd make 'niram and ev'leen ann feel so--to think why i'd done it; they'd never take the comfort they'd ought in bein' married; so that won't do. there's only one thing to do. i guess you'll have to take care of me till the lord calls me. maybe i won't last so long as the doctor thinks." when she finished, i felt my ears ringing in the silence. she had walked to the sacrificial altar with so steady a step, and laid upon it her precious all with so gallant a front of quiet resolution, that for an instant i failed to take in the sublimity of her self-immolation. mrs. purdon asking for charity! and asking the one woman who had most reason to refuse it to her. paul looked at me miserably, the craven desire to escape a scene written all over him. "wouldn't we better be going, mrs. purdon?" i said uneasily. i had not ventured to look at the woman in the doorway. mrs. purdon motioned me to remain, with an imperious gesture whose fierceness showed the tumult underlying her brave front. "no; i want you should stay. i want you should hear what i say, so's you can tell folks, if you have to. now, look here, emma," she went on to the other, still obstinately silent; "you must look at it the way 'tis. we're neither of us any good to anybody, the way we are--and i'm dreadfully in the way of the only two folks we care a pin about--either of us. you've got plenty to do with, and nothing to spend it on. i can't get myself out of their way by dying without going against what's scripture and proper, but--" her steely calm broke. she burst out in a screaming, hysterical voice: "you've just _got_ to, emma hulett! you've just _got_ to! if you don't, i won't never go back to 'niram's house! i'll lie in the ditch by the roadside till the poor-master comes to git me--and i'll tell everybody that it's because my own twin sister, with a house and a farm and money in the bank, turned me out to starve--" a fearful spasm cut her short. she lay twisted and limp, the whites of her eyes showing between the lids. "good god, she's gone!" cried paul, running to the bed. i was aware that the woman in the doorway had relaxed her frozen immobility and was between paul and me as we rubbed the thin, icy hands and forced brandy between the flaccid lips. we all three thought her dead or dying, and labored over her with the frightened thankfulness for one another's living presence which always marks that dreadful moment. but even as we fanned and rubbed, and cried out to one another to open the windows and to bring water, the blue lips moved to a ghostly whisper: "em, listen--" the old woman went back to the nickname of their common youth. "em--your ev'leen ann--tried to drown herself--in the mill brook last night ... that's what decided me--to--" and then we were plunged into another desperate struggle with death for the possession of the battered old habitation of the dauntless soul before us. "isn't there any hot water in the house?" cried paul, and "yes, yes; a tea-kettle on the stove!" answered the woman who labored with us. paul, divining that she meant the kitchen, fled down-stairs. i stole a look at emma hulett's face as she bent over the sister she had not seen in thirty years, and i knew that mrs. purdon's battle was won. it even seemed that she had won another skirmish in her never-ending war with death, for a little warmth began to come back into her hands. when paul returned with the tea-kettle, and a hot-water bottle had been filled, the owner of the house straightened herself, assumed her rightful position as mistress of the situation, and began to issue commands. "you git right in the automobile, and go git the doctor," she told paul. "that'll be the quickest. she's better now, and your wife and i can keep her goin' till the doctor gits here." as paul left the room she snatched something white from a bureau-drawer, stripped the worn, patched old cotton nightgown from the skeleton-like body, and, handling the invalid with a strong, sure touch, slipped on a soft, woolly outing-flannel wrapper with a curious trimming of zigzag braid down the front. mrs. purdon opened her eyes very slightly, but shut them again at her sister's quick command, "you lay still, em'line, and drink some of this brandy." she obeyed without comment, but after a pause she opened her eyes again and looked down at the new garment which clad her. she had that moment turned back from the door of death, but her first breath was used to set the scene for a return to a decent decorum. "you're still a great hand for rick-rack work, em, i see," she murmured in a faint whisper. "do you remember how surprised aunt su was when you made up a pattern?" "well, i hadn't thought of it for quite some time," returned miss hulett, in exactly the same tone of everyday remark. as she spoke she slipped her arm under the other's head and poked the pillow up to a more comfortable shape. "now you lay perfectly still," she commanded in the hectoring tone of the born nurse; "i'm goin' to run down and make you up a good hot cup of sassafras tea." i followed her down into the kitchen and was met by the same refusal to be melodramatic which i had encountered in ev'leen ann. i was most anxious to know what version of my extraordinary morning i was to give out to the world, but hung silent, positively abashed by the cool casualness of the other woman as she mixed her brew. finally, "shall i tell 'niram--what shall i say to ev'leen ann? if anybody asks me--" i brought out with clumsy hesitation. at the realization that her reserve and family pride were wholly at the mercy of any report i might choose to give, even my iron hostess faltered. she stopped short in the middle of the floor, looked at me silently, piteously, and found no word. i hastened to assure her that i would attempt no hateful picturesqueness of narration. "suppose i just say that you were rather lonely here, now that ev'leen ann has left you, and that you thought it would be nice to have your sister come to stay with you, so that 'niram and ev'leen ann can be married?" emma hulett breathed again. she walked toward the stairs with the steaming cup in her hand. over her shoulder she remarked, "well, yes, ma'am; that would be as good a way to put it as any, i guess." 'niram and ev'leen ann were standing up to be married. they looked very stiff and self-conscious, and ev'leen ann was very pale. 'niram's big hands, bent in the crook of a man who handles tools, hung down by his new black trousers. ev'leen ann's strong fingers stood out stiffly from one another. they looked hard at the minister and repeated after him in low and meaningless tones the solemn and touching words of the marriage service. back of them stood the wedding company, in freshly washed and ironed white dresses, new straw hats, and black suits smelling of camphor. in the background, among the other elders, stood paul and horace and i--my husband and i hand in hand; horace twiddling the black ribbon which holds his watch, and looking bored. through the open windows into the stuffiness of the best room came an echo of the deep organ note of midsummer. "whom god hath joined together--" said the minister, and the epitome of humanity which filled the room held its breath--the old with a wonder upon their life-scarred faces, the young half frightened to feel the stir of the great wings soaring so near them. then it was all over. 'niram and ev'leen ann were married, and the rest of us were bustling about to serve the hot biscuit and coffee and chicken salad, and to dish up the ice-cream. afterward there were no citified refinements of cramming rice down the necks of the departing pair or tying placards to the carriage in which they went away. some of the men went out to the barn and hitched up for 'niram, and we all went down to the gate to see them drive off. they might have been going for one of their sunday afternoon "buggy-rides" except for the wet eyes of the foolish women and girls who stood waving their hands in answer to the flutter of ev'leen ann's handkerchief as the carriage went down the hill. we had nothing to say to one another after they left, and began soberly to disperse to our respective vehicles. but as i was getting into our car a new thought suddenly struck me. "why," i cried, "i never thought of it before! however in the world did old mrs. purdon know about ev'leen ann--that night?" horace was pulling at the door, which was badly adjusted and shut hard. he closed it with a vicious slam. "_i_ told her," he said crossly. a saint's hours in the still cold before the sun her lauds her brothers and her sisters small she woke, and washed and dressed each one. and through the morning hours all, prime singing above her broom, she stood and swept the house from hall to hall. at noon she ran with tidings good terce across the field and down the lane to share them with the neighborhood. four miles she walked and home again, sext to sit through half the afternoon and hear a feeble crone complain; but when she saw the frosty moon nones and lakes of shadow on the hill her maiden dreams grew bright as noon. she threw her pitying apron frill vespers over a little trembling mouse when the sleek cat yawned on the sill, in the late hours and drowsy house. compline at last, too tired, beside her bed she fell asleep ... her prayers half said. in memory of l.h.w. he began life characteristically, depreciated and disparaged. when he was a white, thin, big-headed baby, his mother, stripping the suds from her lean arms, used to inveigh to her neighbors against his existence. "wa'n't it just like that _do_-less lem warren, not even to leave me foot-free when he died, but a baby coming!" "_do_-less," in the language of our valley, means a combination of shiftless and impractical, particularly to be scorned. later, as he began to have some resemblance to the appearance he was to wear throughout life, her resentment at her marriage, which she considered the one mistake of her life, kept pace with his growth. "look at him!" she cried to anyone who would listen. "ain't that warren, all over? did any of _my_ folks ever look so like a born fool? shut your mouth, for the lord's sake, lem, and maybe you won't scare folks quite so much." lem had a foolish, apologetic grin with which he always used to respond to these personalities, hanging his head to one side and opening and shutting his big hands nervously. the tumble-down, two-roomed house in which the warrens lived was across the road from the schoolhouse, and mrs. warren's voice was penetrating. lem was accepted throughout his school-life at the home estimate. the ugly, overgrown boy, clad in cast-off, misfit clothing was allowed to play with the other children only on condition that he perform all the hard, uninteresting parts of any game. inside the schoolroom it was the same. he never learned to shut his mouth, and his speech was always halting and indistinct, so that he not only did not recite well in class, but was never in one of the school entertainments. he chopped the wood and brought it in, swept the floor and made the fires, and then listened in grinning, silent admiration while the others, arrayed in their best, spoke pieces and sang songs. he was not "smart at his books" and indeed did not learn even to read very fluently. this may have been partly because the only books he ever saw were old school books, the use of which was given him free on account of his mother's poverty. he was not allowed, of course to take them from the schoolroom. but if he was not good at book-learning he was not without accomplishments. he early grew large for his age, and strong from much chopping of wood and drawing of water for his mother's washings, and he was the best swimmer of all those who bathed in the cold, swift mountain stream which rushes near the schoolhouse. the chief consequence of this expertness was that in the summer he was forced to teach each succeeding generation of little boys to swim and dive. they tyrannized over him unmercifully--as, in fact, everyone did. nothing made his mother more furious than such an exhibition of what she called "lem's meachin'ness." "ain't you got no stand-up _in_ ye?" she was wont to exhort him angrily. "if you don't look out for yourself in this world, you needn't think anybody else is gunto!" the instructions in ethics he received at her hands were the only ones he ever knew, for, up to his fourteenth year, he never had clothes respectable enough to wear to church, and after that he had other things to think of. fourteen years is what we call in our state "over school age." it was a date to which mrs. warren had looked forward with eagerness. after that, the long, unprofitable months of enforced schooling would be over, lem would be earning steady wages, and she could sit back and "live decent." it seemed to her more than she could bear, that, almost upon her son's birthday, she was stricken down with paralysis. it was the first calamity for which she could not hold her marriage responsible, and her bitterness thereupon extended itself to fate in general. she cannot have been a cheerful house-mate during the next ten years, when lem was growing silently to manhood. he was in demand as "help" on the farms about him, on account of his great strength and faithfulness, although the farmers found him exasperatingly slow and, when it was a question of animals, not always sure to obey orders. he could be trusted to be kind to horses, unlike most hired men we get nowadays, but he never learned "how to get the work out of their hide." it was his way, on a steep hill with a heavy load, to lay down the whip, get out, and put his own powerful shoulder to the wheel. if this failed, he unloaded part of the logs and made two trips of it. the uncertainty of his progress can be imagined. the busy and impatient farmer and sawyer at the opposite ends of his route were driven to exhaust their entire vocabulary of objurgation on him. he was, they used to inform him in conclusion, "the most _do_-less critter the lord ever made!" he was better with cows and sheep--"feller-feelin," his mother said scornfully, watching him feed a sick ewe--and he had here, even in comparison with his fellow-men, a fair degree of success. it was indeed the foundation of what material prosperity he ever enjoyed. a farmer, short of cash, paid him one year with three or four ewes and a ram. he worked for another farmer to pay for the rent of a pasture and had, that first year, as everybody admitted, almighty good luck with them. there were several twin lambs born that spring and everyone lived. lem used to make frequent night visits during lambing-time to the pasture to make sure that all was well. i remember as a little girl starting back from some village festivity late one spring night and seeing a lantern twinkle far up on the mountainside. "lem warren out fussin' with his sheep," some one of my elders remarked. later, as we were almost home, we saw the lantern on the road ahead of us and stopped the horses, country-fashion, for an interchange of salutation. looking out from under the shawl in which i was wrapped, i saw his tall figure stooping over something held under his coat. the lantern lighted his weather-beaten face and the expression of his eyes as he looked down at the little white head against his breast. "you're foolish, lem," said my uncle. "the ewe won't own it if you take it away so long the first night." "i--i--know," stuttered lem, bringing out the words with his usual difficulty; "but it's mortal cold up on the mounting for little fellers! i'll bring him up as a cosset." the incident reminded me vaguely of something i had read about, and it has remained in my memory. after we drove on i remember that there were laughing speculations about what language old ma'am warren would use at having another cosset brought to the house. not that it could make any more work for her, since lem did all that was done about the housekeeping. chained to her chair by her paralyzed legs, as she was, she could accomplish nothing more than to sit and cavil at the management of the universe all day, until lem came home, gave her her supper, and put her to bed. badly run as she thought the world, for a time it was more favorable to her material prosperity than she had ever known it. lem's flock of sheep grew and thrived. for years nobody in our valley has tried to do much with sheep because of dogs, and all lem's neighbors told him that some fine morning he would find his flock torn and dismembered. they even pointed out the particular big collie dog who would most likely go "sheep-mad." lena's heavy face drew into anxious, grotesque wrinkles at this kind of talk, and he visited the uplying pasture more and more frequently. one morning, just before dawn, he came, pale and shamefaced, to the house of the owner of the collie. the family, roused from bed by his knocking, made out from his speech, more incoherent than usual, that he was begging their pardon for having killed their dog. "i saw wh-where he'd bit th-the throats out of two ewes that w-was due to lamb in a few days and i guess i--i--i must ha' gone kind o' crazy. they was ones i liked special. i'd brought 'em up myself. they--they was all over blood, you know." they peered at him in the gray light, half-afraid of the tall apparition. "how _could_ you kill a great big dog like jack?" they asked wonderingly. in answer he held out his great hands and his huge corded arms, red with blood up to the elbow. "i heard him worrying another sheep and i--i just--killed him." one of the children now cried out: "but i shut jackie up in the woodshed last night!" someone ran to open the door and the collie bounded out. lem turned white in thankfulness, "i'm _mortal_ glad," he stammered. "i felt awful bad--afterward. i knew your young ones thought a sight of jack." "but what dog did you kill?" they asked. some of the men went back up on the mountain with him and found, torn in pieces and scattered wide in bloody fragments, as if destroyed by some great revenging beast of prey, the body of a big gray wolf. once in a while one wanders over the line from the canada forests and comes down into our woods, following the deer. the hard-headed farmers who looked on that savage scene drew back from the shambling man beside them in the only impulse of respect they ever felt for him. it was the one act of his life to secure the admiration of his fellow-men; it was an action of which he himself always spoke in horror and shame. certainly his marriage aroused no admiration. it was universally regarded as a most addle-pated, imbecile affair from beginning to end. one of the girls who worked at the hotel in the village "got into trouble," as our vernacular runs, and as she came originally from our district and had gone to school there, everyone knew her and was talking about the scandal. old ma'am warren was of the opinion, spiritedly expressed, that "lottie was a fool not to make that drummer marry her. she could have, if she'd gone the right way to work." but the drummer remained persistently absent. one evening lem, starting for his sheep-pasture for his last look for the night, heard someone crying down by the river and then, as he paused to listen, heard it no more. he jumped from the bridge without stopping to set down his lantern, knowing well the swiftness of the water, and caught the poor cowardly thing as she came, struggling and gasping, down with the current. he took her home and gave her dry clothes of his mother's. then leaving the scared and repentant child by his hearth, he set out on foot for the minister's house and dragged him back over the rough country roads. when ma'am warren awoke the next morning, lem did not instantly answer her imperious call, as he had done for so many years. instead, a red-eyed girl in one of mrs. warren's own nightgowns came to the door and said shrinkingly: "lem slept in the barn last night. he give his bed to me; but he'll be in soon. i see him fussin' around with the cow." ma'am warren stared, transfixed with a premonition of irremediable evil. "what you doin' here?" she demanded, her voice devoid of expression through stupefaction. the girl held down her head. "lem and i were married last night," she said. then mrs. warren found her voice. when lem came in it was to a scene of the furious wrangling which was henceforth to fill his house. "... to saddle himself with such trash as you!" his mother was saying ragingly. his wife answered in kind, her vanity stung beyond endurance. "well, you can be sure he'd never have got him a wife any other way! nobody but a girl hard put to it would take up with a drivel-headed fool like lem warren!" and then the bridegroom appeared at the door and both women turned their attention to him. when the baby was born, lottie was very sick. lem took care of his mother, his wife, and the new baby for weeks and weeks. it was at lambing-time, and his flock suffered from lack of attention, although as much as he dared he left his sick women and tended his ewes. he ran in debt, too, to the grocery-stores, for he could work very little and earned almost nothing. of course the neighbors helped out, but it was no cheerful morning's work to care for the vitriolic old woman, and lottie was too sick for anyone but lem to handle. we did pass the baby around from house to house during the worst of his siege, to keep her off lem's hands; but when lottie began to get better it was haying-time; everybody was more than busy, and the baby was sent back. lottie lingered in semi-invalidism for about a year and then died, lem holding her hand in his. she tried to say something to him that last night, so the neighbors who were there reported, but her breath failed her and she could only lie staring at him from eyes that seemed already to look from the other side of the grave. he was heavily in debt when he was thus left with a year-old child not his own, but he gave lottie a decent funeral and put up over her grave a stone stating that she was "charlotte, loved wife of lemuel warren," and that she died in the eighteenth year of her life. he used to take the little girl and put flowers on the grave, i remember. then he went to work again. his sandy hair was already streaked with gray, though he was but thirty. the doctor said the reason for this phenomenon was the great strain of his year of nursing; and indeed throughout that period of his life no one knew when he slept, if ever. he was always up and dressed when anyone else was, and late at night we could look across and see his light still burning and know that he was rubbing lottie's back or feeding little susie. all that was changed now, of course. susie was a strong, healthy child who slept all through the night in her little crib by her stepfather's corded bed, and in the daytime went everywhere he did. wherever he "worked out" he used to give her her nap wrapped in a horse blanket on the hay in the barn; and he carried her in a sling of his own contrivance up to his sheep-pasture. old ma'am warren disliked the pretty, laughing child so bitterly that he was loath to leave her at home; but when he was there with her, for the first time he asserted himself against his mother, bidding her, when she began to berate the child's parentage, to "be still!" with so strange and unexpected an accent of authority that she was quite frightened. susie was very fond of her stepfather at first, but when she came of school age, mixed more with the other children, and heard laughing, contemptuous remarks about him, the frank and devouring egotism of childhood made her ashamed of her affection, ashamed of him with his uncouth gait, his mouth always sagging open, his stammering, ignorant speech, which the other children amused themselves by mocking. though he was prospering again with his sheep, owned the pasture and his house now, and had even built on another room as well as repairing the older part, he spent little on his own adornment. it all went for pretty clothes for susie, for better food, for books and pictures, for tickets for susie to go to the circus and the county fair. susie knew this and loved him by stealth for it, but the intolerably sensitive vanity of her twelve years made her wretched to be seen in public with him. divining this, he ceased going with her to school-picnics and sunday-school parties, where he had been a most useful pack-animal, and, dressing her in her best with his big calloused hands, watched her from the window join a group of the other children. his mother predicted savagely that his "spoilin' on that bad-blooded young one would bring her to no good end," and when, at fifteen, susie began to grow very pretty and saucy and willful and to have beaux come to see her, the old woman exulted openly over lem's helpless anxiety. he was quite gray now, although not yet forty-five, and so stooped that he passed for an old man. he owned a little farm, his flock of sheep was the largest in the township, and susie was expected to make a good marriage in spite of her antecedents. and then frank gridley's oldest son, ed, came back from business college with store clothes and city hats and polished tan shoes, and began idling about, calling on the girls. from the first, he and susie ran together like two drops of water. bronson perkins, a cousin of mine, a big, silent, ruminative lad who had long hung about susie, stood no show at all. one night in county-fair week, susie, who had gone to the fair with a crowd of girl friends, was not at home at ten o'clock. lem, sitting in his doorway and watching the clock, heard the approach of the laughing, singing straw-ride in which she had gone, with a long breath of relief; but the big hay-wagon did not stop at his gate. he called after it in a harsh voice and was told that "ed gridley and she went off to the hotel to get supper. he said he'd bring her home later." lem went out to the barn, hitched up the faster of his two heavy plow-horses and drove from his house to woodville, eight miles and up-hill, in forty-five minutes. when he went into the hotel, the clerk told him that the two he sought had had supper served in a private room. lem ascertained which room and broke the door in with one heave of his shoulders. susie sprang up from the disordered supper-table and ran to him like a frightened child, clinging to him desperately and crying out that ed scared her so! "it's all right now, susie," he said gently, not looking at the man. "poppa's come to take you home." the man felt his dignity wounded. he began to protest boisterously and to declare that he was ready to marry the girl--"_now_, this instant, if you choose!" lem put one arm about susie. "i didn't come to make you marry her. i come to keep you from doin' it," he said, speaking clearly for once in his life. "susie shan't marry a hound that'd do this." and as the other advanced threateningly on him, he struck him a great blow across the mouth that sent him unconscious to the ground. then lem went out, paid for the broken lock, and drove home with susie behind the foundered plow-horse. the next spring her engagement to bronson perkins was announced, though everybody said they didn't see what use it was for folks to get engaged that couldn't ever get married. mr. perkins, bronson's father, was daft, not enough to send him to the asylum, but so that he had to be watched all the time to keep him from doing himself a hurt. he had a horrid way, i remember, of lighting matches and holding them up to his bared arm until the smell of burning flesh went sickeningly through the house and sent someone in a rush to him. of course it was out of the question to bring a young bride to such a home. apparently there were years of waiting before them, and susie was made of no stuff to endure a long engagement. as a matter of fact, they were married that fall, as soon as susie could get her things ready. lem took old mr. perkins into the room susie left vacant. "'twon't be much more trouble taking care of two old people than one," he explained briefly. ma'am warren's comments on this action have been embalmed forever in the delighted memories of our people. we have a taste for picturesque and forceful speech. from that time we always saw the lunatic and the bent shepherd together. the older man grew quieter under lem's care than he had been for years, and if he felt one of his insane impulses overtaking him, ran totteringly to grasp his protector's arm until, quaking and shivering, he was himself again. lem used to take him up to the sheep-pasture for the day sometimes. he liked it up there himself, he said, and maybe 'twould be good for uncle hi. he often reported with pride that the old man talked as sensible as anybody, "get him off where it's quiet." indeed, when mr. perkins died, six years later, we had forgotten that he was anything but a little queer, and he had known many happy, lucid hours with his grandchildren. susie and bronson had two boys--sturdy, hearty children, in whom lem took the deepest, shyest pride. he loved to take them off into the woods with him and exulted in their quick intelligence and strong little bodies. susie got into the way of letting him take a good deal of the care of them. it was lem who first took alarm about the fall that little frank had, down the cellar stairs. he hurt his spine somehow--our local doctor could not tell exactly how--and as the injury only made him limp a little, nobody thought much about it, until he began to have difficulty in walking. then lem sent for a doctor from rutland who, as soon as he examined the child, stuck out his lower lip and rubbed his chin ominously. he pronounced the trouble something with a long name which none of us had ever heard, and said that frank would be a hopeless cripple if it, were not cured soon. there was, he said, a celebrated doctor from europe now traveling in this country who had a wonderful new treatment for this condition. but under the circumstances--he looked about the plain farm sitting-room--he supposed that was out of the question. "what did the doctor from foreign parts ask?" queried bronson, and, being informed of some of the customary prices for major operations, fell back hopeless. susie, her pretty, childish face drawn and blanched into a wan beauty, put her arms about her sick little son and looked at her stepfather. he had never failed her. he did not fail her now. he sold the land he had accumulated field by field; he sold the great flock of sheep, every one of which he could call by name; he mortgaged the house over the protesting head of his now bedridden mother; he sold the horse and cow, and the very sticks of furniture from the room where susie had grown up and where the crazy grandfather of susie's children had known a peaceful old age and death. little frank was taken to new york to the hospital to have the great surgeon operate on him--he is there yet, almost completely recovered and nearly ready to come home. back in hillsboro, lem now began life all over again, hiring out humbly to his neighbors and only stipulating that he should have enough free time to take care of his mother. three weeks ago she had her last stroke of paralysis and, after lying speechless for a few days, passed away, grim to the last, by the expression in her fierce old eyes. the day after her funeral lem did not come to work as he was expected. we went over to his house and found, to our consternation, that he was not out of bed. "be ye sick, lem?" asked my uncle. he looked at us over the bedclothes with his old foolish, apologetic smile. "kind o' lazy, i guess," he whispered, closing his eyes. the doctor was put out by the irregularity of the case. "i can't make out anything _really_ the trouble!" he said. "only the wheels don't go round as fast as they ought. call it failing heart action if you want a label." the wheels ran more and more slowly until it was apparent to all of us that before long they would stop altogether. susie and bronson were in new york with little frank, so that lem's care during his last days devolved on the haphazard services of the neighbors. he was out of his head most of the time, though never violent, and all through the long nights lay flat on his back, looking at the ceiling with bright, blank eyes, driving his ox-team, skidding logs, plowing in stony ground and remembering to favor the off-horse whose wind wasn't good, planting, hoeing, tending his sheep, and teaching obstinate lambs to drink. he used quaint, coaxing names for these, such as a mother uses for her baby. he was up in the mountain-pasture a good deal, we gathered, and at night, from his constant mention of how bright the stars shone. and sometimes, when he was in evident pain, his delusion took the form that susie, or the little boys, had gone up with him, and got lost in the woods. i was on duty the night he died. we thought a change was near, because he had lain silent all day, and we hoped he would come to himself when he awoke from this stupor. near midnight he began to talk again, and i could not make out at first whether he was still wandering or not. "hold on hard, uncle hi," i heard him whisper. a spoon fell out of my hand and clattered against a plate. he gave a great start and tried to sit up. "yes, mother--coming!" he called hoarsely, and then looked at me with his own eyes. "i must ha' forgot about mother's bein' gone," he apologized sheepishly. i took advantage of this lucid interval to try to give him some medicine the doctor had left. "take a swallow of this," i said, holding the glass to his lips. "what's it for?" he asked. "it's a heart stimulant," i explained. "the doctor said if we could get you through to-night you have a good chance." his face drew together in grotesque lines of anxiety. "little frank worse?" "oh, no, he's doing finely." "susie all right?" "why, yes," i said wonderingly. "nothing the matter with her other boy?" "why, no, no," i told him. "everybody's all right here, just take this down." he turned away his head on the pillow and murmured something i did not catch. when i asked him what he said, he smiled feebly as in deprecation of his well-known ridiculous ways. "i'm just as much obliged to you," he said, "but if everybody's all right, i guess i won't have any medicine." he looked at me earnestly. "i'm--i'm real tired," he said. it came out in one great breath--apparently his last, for he did not move after that, and his ugly, slack-mouthed face was at once quite still. its expression made me think of the time i had seen it as a child, by lantern-light, as he looked down at the new-born lamb on his breast. in new new england i. this is a true story, for i have heard it ever so many times from my grandmother. she heard it from her grandmother, who told it about her own mother; and it began and ended right here in our village of hillsboro, vermont, in 1762. probably you think at once of the particular new england old town you know, and imagine hillsboro of that date as an elm-shaded, well-kept street, with big, white, green-shuttered houses, full of shining mahogany furniture and quaint old silver. but my grandmother gives an entirely different picture of old times in this corner of vermont. conditions here, at that time, were more as they had been in connecticut and massachusetts a hundred and forty years before. indeed, the pilgrim fathers endured no more hardships as pioneers in a wild, new country than did the first vermonters. hillsboro had been settled only about fifteen years before this story begins, and the people had had to make for themselves whatever they possessed, since there was no way to reach our dark, narrow valley except by horseback over the ridge of the green mountains. there were no fine houses, because there was no sawmill. there were little, low log cabins of two rooms each, and the furniture, such as it was, was rough-hewn out of native woods. our great-grandfathers were too busy clearing the forest and planting their crops to spend much time designing or polishing table-legs. and the number of things they did not have! no stoves, no matches, no books, no lamps, and very few candles; no doctors, no schools, no clocks, and so nearly no money that what they had is not worth mentioning but the fact that there were no schools did not mean that life was one long vacation for the children. "no, indeedy!" as grandmother always says emphatically. in the urgent bustle of pioneer life, the children could not be spared from work for long school-hours. they picked up what they could from the elders of their families, and worked, as grandmother puts it, "as tight as they could leg it" from morning to night. everybody else worked that same way, so the children did not know that they were being abused. indeed, grandmother seemed to doubt if they were. at any rate, they all ran about as fast as ants in an ant-hill, and the busiest of all was sixteen-year-old hannah sherwin. since she was my grandmother's grand mother's mother, at last the story is really begun. hannah had been a baby of eighteen months when the sherwins came over the mountains from the old home in connecticut, so she knew nothing about any other way of living than what she saw in rough little hillsboro. but her elder sister, ann mary, who was a tall girl of nineteen, remembered--or thought she remembered--big houses that were made all over of sawn planks, and chairs that were so shiny you could see your face in them or else stuffed and cushioned in brocade as soft--"as soft as a feather tick!" she told hannah. her listener, having no idea of what brocade might be, and taking the feather-tick simile literally, must have imagined a very queer kind of chair. hannah was a short, fair, rosy-cheeked child, who passed for good-looking enough; but ann mary was slender and dark and a real beauty, although hillsboro people did not realize it. she looked fragile, as if she could not do much hard work and that is always a serious blemish in feminine beauty to the eyes of pioneers. so far in her life she had not been forced to do any hard work, because hannah had done it all for her. their mother had died when they were both little girls, and their father was so busy outdoors, every minute he was awake, that, for all his affection for them, he did not know or care which of his daughters cooked and washed, and swept and spun, so long as these things were done. and hannah delighted to do them, because she adored ann mary, and could not bear to have her sister troubled with any of the coarse tasks which made up her own happy, busy day. now, all that grandmother ever tells me about the beginning of this story is that when the lovely ann mary was nineteen years old she "fell into a decline," as they called it. she grew pale and thin, never smiled, could not eat or sleep, and lay listlessly on the bed all day, looking sadly at hannah as she bustled about. a great many girls in those days fell into declines and died. of course, nobody knows the reason for most of the cases, but it seems as plain as the nose on my face that ann mary's sickness was entirely hannah's fault for not letting her sister do her share of the household work. there she was--pretty and ignorant and idle--with nothing to interest her, and nothing to look forward to, for in those days marriage was the only thing a girl could look forward to, and in the workaday little world of pioneer hillsboro nobody would dare to think of marrying a girl who looked like a tea-rose and did not know how to make soft soap. no wonder she lost her appetite! it might not have gone any further, however, if hannah, distracted with anxiety, had not run to all the old women in town about her sick sister. every one of them had had a niece, or a daughter--or at least a granddaughter--who had died in a decline; so, of course, they knew just what to do for ann mary, and they came and did it. then poor ann mary was sick, indeed, i promise you! they shut her up in the inner room of the little log house, although it was the end of may, and the weather was fit for the angels. they darkened the one window, and kept the door closed, and put the sick girl to bed between two mountains of feathers. they gave her "sut" (soot) tea and "herb-drink" and steeped butternut bark, and goodness knows what else; and they tiptoed in and out, and stared at her mournfully, and shook their heads and pursed up their lips, until it is a wonder to me that ann mary did not die at once. ii. very likely she would have died, if one day in june there had not come through hillsboro a trader on his way from "over the mountain" up to canada, looking for furs. that morning, when hannah got up, she found the fire in their big fireplace completely extinguished. she snatched up the warming-pan--not a polished brass one with a smooth, turned handle, like those you see in colonial museums, but a common iron pan, fastened to a hickory sapling; and she went as fast as she could, without running--for girls never ran "before folks" in those days--over to the nearest neighbor, to "borrow a handful of fire." the neighbors were just getting up, and their fire was too low to spare any, so hannah had to wait until some hardwood sticks got well to burning. while she waited, the trader, who was staying overnight in that house, went on with a long story about an indian herb-doctor, of whose cures he had heard marvelous tales, three days' journey back. it seemed that the indian's specialty was curing girls who had gone into a decline, and that he had never failed in a single case he had undertaken. you can imagine how hannah's loving, anxious heart leaped up, and how eagerly she questioned the trader about the road to the settlement where the indian lived. it was in a place called heath falls, on the connecticut river, the trader told her; but he could not find words strong enough to advise her against trying the trip. the trail lay through thick woods, filled with all the terrors of early new englanders--bears and wolves and catamounts. and when she got to heath falls, she would find it a very different place from hillsboro, where people took you in gladly for the sake of the news you brought from the outside world. no, the folks in heath falls were very grand. they traveled themselves, and saw more strangers than a little. you had to pay good money for shelter and food, and, of course, the doctor did not cure for nothing. he was a kind man, the trader, and he did his best to keep hannah from a wildly foolish enterprise. but his best was not good enough. she went home and looked at her poor ann mary, as white as a snowdrift, her big dark eyes ringed with black circles, and hannah knew only two things in the world--that there was a doctor who could cure her sister, and that she must get her to him. she was only a child herself; she had no money, no horses, no experience; but nothing made any difference to her. ann mary should go to the doctor, if hannah had to carry her every step! a spirit like that knows no obstacles. although hillsboro held up hands of horror, and implored john sherwin to assert his parental authority and forbid his girl such a rash, unmaidenly, bold undertaking, the end of it was that hannah got her father's permission. he loved his daughters dearly, did john sherwin, and, although he could not see how the thing was to be managed, he told hannah she might go if she could. now it happened that the wife of one of their neighbors had long coveted the two great feather-beds between which ann mary lay sweltering. hannah went to her, and said that she could have them if she would loan her son, a sturdy boy of fourteen, and two horses, for the trip to heath falls. the neighbor-woman hesitated; but when hannah threw in the two pewter candlesticks, which came from her mother's family, she could resist no longer. in her own family they had only spike-iron candlesticks, and it was her one chance of acquiring a pair of fine ones. so she wheedled her husband into agreeing to the bargain; and there was hannah with her transportation provided. as soon as it was definitely settled that she was to make the long journey, people began to; take rather a proud interest in her grit. as everybody liked her, they gave what they could toward helping her get ready--all but the old women, who were furious that ann mary was to be taken away from their care. there was in town a saddle with a pillion back of it, and this was loaned for remember williams, the neighbor's boy, to ride and carry ann mary behind him. hannah folded a blanket across her horse's back, and sat on sideways as best she could. behind her was a big bundle of extra clothing, and food, and an iron pot--or, as she called it, a "kittle"--for cooking their noonday meals. her father brought out all the money he had--one large four-shilling piece--and hannah was sure that so much wealth as that would buy anything in the world. the old women had prophesied that ann mary would not be strong enough to sit upon a horse, even clinging to remember williams's thick waist; but, judging from what grandmother says, i surmise that ann mary, without being really aware of it, was a little sick of being sick. at any rate, she took a great interest in the preparations. she asked over and over again about the girls the herb-doctor had cured; and when the day for their departure came she was quite pleased and excited, and walked out through the crowd of sympathetic neighbors. to be sure, she leaned weakly on her father, but there was a little faint color in her cheeks. "a very bad sign!" the old women whispered. "she'll never live the journey out. if only hannah were not so headstrong and obstinate! but then you can't blame the child for it--all the sherwins are that way!" as for ann mary, she sat up quite straight and looked as pretty as possible when the little company rode off. after all, she had been "declining" only about a month, and people had vigorous constitutions in those days. you may think it odd that she was not afraid to make the long journey, but there are advantages in being of a dependent nature. hannah had always done everything for her, and had kept her safe from harm. hannah was with her now, so there was nothing to fear. she left all that to hannah, who did it, poor child, with the greatest thoroughness! now that the excitement of overcoming hillsboro opposition was passed; now that they were really started, with herself as sole leader and guide, responsibility fell like a black cloud upon her young heart. there was nothing she did _not_ fear--for ann mary, of course--from wolves and indians to fatigue or thunderstorms. a dozen times that day, as they paced slowly over the rough trail, she asked her sister anxiously if she were not too hot or too cold, or too tired or too faint, imitating as best she could the matter and manner of the doctoring old women. however, ann mary surprised herself, as well as hannah, by being none of the uncomfortable things that her sister kept suggesting to her she might very well be. it was perfect june weather, they were going over some of the loveliest country in the world, and ann mary was out of doors for the first time in four weeks or more. she "kept up" wonderfully well, and they made good time, reaching by dusk, as they had hoped to do, a farmer's house on the downward dip of the mountain to the east. here, their story being told, they were hospitably received, and ann mary was clapped into the airless inner room and fed with gruel and dipped toast. but she had had fresh air and exercise all day, and a hearty meal of cold venison and corn bread at their noonday rest, so she slept soundly. the next day they went across a wide, hilly valley, up another range of low mountains, and down on the other side. the country was quite strange to them, and somehow, before they knew it, they were not on the road recommended to them by their hosts of the night before. night overtook them when they were still, as the phrase has come down in our family, "in a miserable, dismal place of wood." hannah's teeth chattered for very terror as she saw their plight; but she spoke cheerfully to ann mary and the boy, who looked to her for courage, and told them that they were to have the fun of sleeping under the stars. boys were the same then as now, and remember williams was partly shivering with dread of bears and indians and things, and partly glowing with anticipatory glory of telling the hillsboro boys all about the adventure. hannah soothed the first and inflamed the second emotion until she had remember strutting about gathering firewood, as brave as a lion. very probably ann mary would have been frightened to death, if she had not been so sleepy from her long day out of doors that she could not keep her eyes open. and then, of course, everything must be all right, because there was hannah! this forlorn terrified little captain wrapped the invalid in all the extra clothing, managed to get a fire started, and cooked a supper of hot cornmeal mush in her big iron "kittle." ann mary ate a great deal of this, sweetened as it was with maple sugar crumbled from the big lump hannah had brought along and immediately afterward she fell sound asleep. soon the soft night air of june was too strong a soporific for remember's desire to keep awake and hear the catamounts scream, as he had heard they did in those woods. hannah was left quite alone to keep watch and to tend the fire, her heart in her mouth, jumping and starting at every shadow cast by the flames. she knew that wild beasts would not come near them if a big fire burned briskly; and all that night she piled on the wood, scraped away the ashes, and watched ann mary to see that she did not grow chilly. hannah does not seem to have been much inclined to talk about her own feelings, and there is no record of what she suffered that night; but i think we may be sure that it seemed a long time to her before the sky began to whiten in the east. as soon as she could see plainly, she cooked a hearty breakfast of broiled bacon and fried mush, and wakened her two charges to eat it. they made a very early start, and there is nothing more to tell about their journey except that at about seven o'clock that evening the two tired horses crept into the main street of heath falls, and a very much excited girl asked the first passer-by where the indian herb-doctor lived. they found him in a little old house of logs--the only one that looked natural to them in the prosperous settlement. when hannah knocked at the door, he opened it himself. he was a small, very old, dark-brown, and prodigiously wrinkled individual, who held up a candle and looked at hannah with the most impassive eyes she had ever seen--like little pools of black water unstirred by any wind. hannah's breath came fast. "is this the indian herb-doctor?" she asked. "aye," he answered. when you remember that hannah was only a little girl, and that she thought she had come to the end of a nightmare of responsibility, it will not surprise you to learn that she now began to cry a little, out of agitation. "i have brought ann mary," she said, "my sister, to be cured. she is in a decline. will you cure her?" the herb-doctor showed no surprise. he set the candle down on the shelf, and went out in the bright starlight to where ann mary clung to remember williams's waist. when he put up his brown old hands to her, she slid down into them and upon the ground. he still held one wrist, and this he continued to do for some moments, looking at the white, drooping girl without moving a muscle of his solemn old face. then he turned to hannah, who had stopped crying and was holding her breath in suspense. "aye," he said. at this hannah caught her sister around the neck, sobbing joyfully: "he will cure you, ann mary; he will cure you!" then she asked the doctor: "and how long will it take? we can stay but a few days, for the boy and the horses must get back soon." the herb-doctor considered for a moment. "it is now the end of june month. by the end of september month she will be cured--not before." i think i know that that was a black moment for hannah. she said nothing at all, but the sick girl fell to weeping. "but, master doctor, we cannot stay--we cannot! and now, after all, i shall not be cured!" hannah could not bear to see her sweet ann mary in tears, and she cried out stoutly: "yes, you shall, too! remember can take the horses back without us, and tell our father. somehow--i can earn--oh, we _must_!" then a new fear sprang into her heart. "oh, sir," she cried to the doctor, "is it dear, your cure? must one have much silver for it?" the stolid little old gnome did not look toward her or change his position as he said: "it costs time--no silver," he moved toward the house. "go to the minister's to-night," he called from his doorstep. "it is the house of brick." just before he closed his door he added: "come here to-morrow morning." when they reached the great brick house, the other two hung back, afraid of so much grandeur; but three days of travel through the dangers of a primitive forest had hardened hannah to the lesser fear of strange people. to the old minister and his wife she told their story very briefly, with a desperate kind of self-possession, so concerned about poor ann mary, tired and hungry, waiting out in the night air, that she did not remember to be afraid of the minister's fine linen and smooth, white hands, or of the laces and dark silk of his handsome, white-haired wife, or of the gold braid and red coat of a dark young man with a quick eye who sat in the corner. the young man said nothing until after the old people had gone out to bring in the wanderers. then: "you must be fond, indeed, of your sister, my little lass," he said kindly. "sir," said hannah, "you should _see_ my sister!" and just then he did see her. ann mary came into the brightly lighted room, her eyes wide and dark from the dusk outside, her long black hair, shaken loose from its fastenings, curling up beautifully with the dew, and making a frame for the pearl-like oval of her face. i have seen a miniature of ann mary in her youth, and i can guess how she must have looked to the young officer that evening. the minister's wife gave them all a hot supper, and hurried them off to bed with motherly authority. for the first time in her life, hannah found herself between linen sheets. she tried to call her sister's attention to this astonishing magnificence, but fell asleep in the middle of the sentence, and did not wake until late the next morning. ann mary had been awake for some time, but did not dare get up, so overcome was she by shyness and reverence for the grandeur of the room and of her hosts. "oh, hannah! would it not be like heaven to live always in such a place?" she said. hannah could not stop to be shy, or to think about how she would like mahogany beds all the time. she had too much on her mind. they must go at once to the herb-doctor's--they should have been there before--and they must hurry through their breakfast. it is, perhaps, worthy of note that both girls came down the stairs backward, ladders having been, up to that time, their only means of reaching elevations. during their breakfast, the dark young man, who turned out to be a cousin of the minister's, sat in a corner, playing with his dog's ears, and looking at ann mary until she was quite abashed, although the younger girl, at whom he glanced smilingly from time to time, thought he looked very good-natured. after this, hannah sent remember williams home with the horses, giving him fresh and elaborate directions about the right road to take. then she marched ann mary to the herb-doctor's. "here, master necronsett," she said, "here is ann mary to be cured!" iii. when the doctor told them about his system, hannah did not like the sound of it at all. not a drop of "sut tea" or herb-drink was mentioned, but the invalid was to eat all the hearty food hannah could earn for her. then, so far from sleeping in a decently tight room, their bed was to stand in a little old shed, set up against master necronsett's house. one side of the shed was gone entirely, so that the wind and the sun would come right in on poor, delicate ann mary, and there was only an awning of woven bark-withes to let down when it rained. but even that was not the worst. hannah listened with growing suspicion while master necronsett explained the rest of it. all his magic consisted in the use of a "witch plant," the whole virtue of which depended on one thing. the sick person must be the only one to handle or care for it, from the seed up to the mature plant. he took them up to his garret, where row after row of dried plants hung, heavy with seed-pods, and with the most careful precautions to avoid touching them himself, or having hannah do so, he directed ann mary to fill a two-quart basin with the seed. "that will plant a piece of ground about six paces square," he said. "that will raise enough seed for you." "but who is to dig the ground, and plant, and weed, and water, and all?" asked hannah. "if i am to be earning all day, when--" "the sick person must do all," said the herb-doctor. hannah could not believe her senses. her ann mary, who could not even brush her own hair without fatigue, she to take a spade in her-"oh, master doctor," she cried, "can i not do it for her?" the old indian turned his opaque black eyes upon her. "nay," he said dryly, "you cannot." and with that he showed them where the witch garden was to be, close before their little sleeping-hut. that was why, he explained, the patient must spend all her time there, so that by night, as well as by day, she could absorb the magical virtues of the growing plant hannah thought those were the first sensible words she had heard him say. she had promised the minister's wife to be back at a certain hour to see about employment, so she dared not stay longer, though it was with a sinking heart that she left her sister to that grim old savage, with his brusque lack of sympathy. however, the minister's wife reassured her with stories of all the other girls from far and near whom he had cured by that same foolish, silly method; so hannah turned all her energies upon the spinning which a neighbor-woman had set her to do. hired workers have been the same from the days of the psalmist down to our own, and hannah, putting her whole heart into her work, accomplished, so her surprised employer told her, twice as much spinning as any serving-girl she had ever hired. "and excellent good thread, too!" she said, examining it. if hannah kept up to _that_, she added, she could have all the work she had time for. she gave the little girl two pennies--two real pennies, the first money hannah had ever earned. with a head spinning with triumph, she calculated that at that rate she could earn fourpence a day! she spent a farthing for some fish a little boy brought up from the river, and a halfpenny for some fresh-baked bread, and a part of her precious four-shilling piece for an iron fry-pan, or "spider." laden with these, she hurried back to see how ann mary had endured the old doctor's roughness. she found her sister very tired, but, proudly anxious to show a little spot, perhaps six feet; square, which she had spaded up with intervals of rest. "the herb-doctor says that i have done well, and that i will finish the spading in a week, or perhaps even less," she said: "and i _like_ master necronsett! he is a good old man, and i know that he will cure me. he makes me feel very rested when he comes near." hannah felt a little pang to think that her sister should not miss her own brooding care, but when ann mary cried out joyfully at the sight of the food, "oh, how hungry i am!" everything but pleasure was immediately swept away from the little sister's loyal heart. they cooked their supper--hannah still had some of the cornmeal and the flitch of bacon their hillsboro friends had given them--and went to bed directly on the queer, hard bed, with a straw tick and no feathers, which dr. necronsett had prescribed, warmly wrapped up in the pair of heavy indian blankets he had loaned them. they were so close to the house that they heard the old doctor moving around inside, and they could see the light of his candle, so they were not afraid. indeed, the two sisters were so sleepy that even if they had been timorous it could scarcely have kept them from the deep slumber into which they fell at once, and which lasted until the sun shone in on them the next morning. iv. that was the first day of that wonderful summer, and most of the days which followed were like it. every morning hannah rose early, made a little open fire, cooked their breakfast, and was off to her spinning. just as her first employer had said, there was no lack of work for a spinner who worked as fast and yet as carefully as if it were for herself. in hannah's thread there were never any thin places which broke as soon as the weaver stretched it on the loom, nor yet any thick lumps where the wool had insisted, in grandmother's phrase, "on going all kim-kam." at first, she went about to people's houses; but, seeing her so neat and careful, the minister's wife loaned her one of her own wheels, and the minister had an old granary cleared out for her workroom. here, day after day, the wheel whirred unceasingly, like a great bee, and hannah stepped back and forth, back and forth, on her tireless young feet, only glancing out through the big door at the bright glories of the summer weather, and never once regretting her imprisonment. indeed, she said, all her life afterward, that she was so happy, that summer, it seemed heaven itself could hold no greater joy for her. of course, first always in her thoughts was ann mary, pulling weeds and tending her witch garden, and growing plump and rosy, and so strong that she laughed and ran about and sang as never in her life before. hannah put very little faith in the agricultural part of the cure. she thought that very probably it was nothing more than a blind, and that master necronsett came out at night and said charms and things over ann mary as she slept. however that might be, she could have kissed his funny, splay feet every time she looked at her sister's bright eyes and red lips; and when she thought of the joy it would be to her father, she could have kissed his ugly, wrinkled old face. but, besides her joy over her sister's health, the summer was for hannah herself a continual feast of delight captain winthrop, the minister's young cousin, was staying in heath falls to recover from an arrow-wound got in a skirmish with the indians in canada. he was very idle, and very much bored by the dullness of the little town, which seemed such a metropolis to the two girls from hillsboro. one day, attracted by hannah's shining face of content, he lounged over to the step of her granary, and began to talk to her through the open doorway. it happened to come out that the little spinner, while she knew her letters from having worked them into a sampler, and could make shift to write her name, could not read or write, and had never had the slightest instruction in any sort of book-learning. thereupon the young officer good-naturedly proposed to be her teacher, if hannah would like. would she _like_! she turned to him a look of such utter ecstasy that he was quite touched, and went off at: once to get an old "a-b, ab" book. that was the beginning of a new world to hannah. she took her young instructor's breath away by the avidity with which she devoured the lessons he set her. by the rapt air of exultation with which hannah recited them, stepping back and forth by her wheel, you would have thought that "c-a-t, cat; r-a-t, rat," was the finest poetry ever written. and in no time at all it was no longer "c-a-t, cat," but "parallel," and "phthisis," and such orthographical atrocities, on which the eager scholar was feeding; for, hannah's mind was as fresh as her round, rosy face, and as vigorous as her stout little body. captain winthrop had several reasons for being interested in hannah; and when he found her so quick at her spelling, he said he was willing to occupy some of his enforced leisure in giving her instruction in other branches. hannah fell to at this feast of knowledge like a young bear in a bee-tree. but there were some difficulties. like the spelling, arithmetic was all very well, since she could do that in her head while she spun; but reading and writing were different. she would not stop her work for them, and so captain winthrop fell into the habit of going over to master necronsett's house in the afternoon with his books, and being there, all ready for a lesson, when hannah came hurrying back after she had finished her day's "stint." as long as there was light to see, she pored over her writing and reading, while the young officer sat by, ready to help, and talking in a low tone to ann mary. after a time there grew up a regular routine for captain winthrop. in the mornings he went out to the granary and read aloud to hannah from a book called "the universal preceptor; being a general grammar of art, science, and useful knowledge." out of this he taught her about "mechanical powers" and "animated nature" and astronomy and history and geography--almost anything that came to his hand. up in our garret we have the very book he used, and modern research and science have proved that there is scarcely a true word in it. but don't waste any pity on hannah for having such a mistaken teacher, for it is likely enough, don't you think, that research and science a hundred years from now will have proved that there is scarcely a word of truth in our school-books of to-day? it really doesn't seem to matter much. at any rate, those were the things of which captain winthrop talked to hannah in the mornings. in the afternoon, he went over to an apple-tree by the edge of the witch garden, and there he found ann mary; and what he talked to her about nobody knew but herself, although master necronsett passed back and forth so often in his herb-gathering that it is likely he may have caught something. it seems not improbable, from what happened afterward, that the young man was telling the young girl things which did not come out of a book, and which are consequently safe from science and research, for they are certainly as true to-day as they were then. once, in her anxiety to have everything exactly right for her sister, hannah asked master necronsett about captain winthrop's being there so much. "master doctor, will not captain winthrop absorb, perchance, some of the great virtue of the plant away from ann mary? will he not hurt her cure?" grandmother never says so, but i have always imagined that even that carven image of an old aborigine must, have smiled a little as he told her: "nay, the young man will not hurt your sister's cure." at the end of september, something tremendously exciting happened to hannah. she had been so busy learning the contents of that old calf-bound book that she had never noticed how a light seemed to shine right through ann mary's lovely face every time captain winthrop looked at her. the little student was the most surprised girl in the world when the young soldier told her, one morning in the granary, that he wanted her sister to marry him, and that ann mary wanted it, too, if hannah would allow it. he laughed a little as he said this last, but he looked anxiously at her, for ann mary, who was as sweet as she was pretty and useless, had felt it to be a poor return for hannah's devotion, now after all, just to go off and desert her. she had said that, if hannah thought she ought to, she would go back to hillsboro, and they would have to wait ever so long. so now captain winthrop looked very nervously at ann mary's little sister. but he did not know hannah. she gave a little cry, as if someone had stabbed her, turned very pale, and, leaving her wheel still whirling, she ran like the wind toward dr. necronsett's. she wanted to see her sister; she wanted to _see_ if this---close to the minister's house she met ann mary, who could not wait any longer, and was coming to meet her. after one glimpse of that beautiful, radiant face, hannah fell a weeping for very joy that her dear ann mary was so happy, and was to marry the grand and learned and goodly captain winthrop. there was not a thought in hannah's mind, then or later, that she must lose ann mary herself. grandmother explains here that the truth is that a heart like hannah's cannot lose anything good; and perhaps that is so. thus, hand in hand, laughing and crying together, the two girls came back to the granary, where ann mary's lover took her in his arms and kissed her many times out of light-heartedness that hannah would put no obstacle in the way. this made little hannah blush and feel very queer. she looked away, and there was her wheel still languidly stirring a little. dear me! how many, many times have i heard the next detail in the story told! "and, without really, so to speak, sensing what she was doing, didn't she put her hand to the rim and start it up again? and when the other two looked around at her, there she was, spinning and smiling, with the tears in her eyes. it had all happened in less time than it takes a spin-wheel to run down." after that day things happened fast. captain winthrop rode off over the mountains to hillsboro, to ask john sherwin if he might marry his daughter; and when he came back, there was john sherwin himself riding along beside him, like an old friend. and when he saw his two dear daughters--ann mary, who had gone away like a lily, now blooming like a rose, and hannah, stout little hannah, with her honest blue eyes shining--when he saw his two daughters, i say--well, i'm sure i have no idea what happened, for at this point grandmother always takes off her glasses, and sniffs hard, and wipes her eyes before she can go on. so there was a wedding at the minister's house, and everybody in heath falls was invited, because hannah said they had been so good to her. everybody came, too, except old master necronsett, and that was nothing, because he never went anywhere except to the woods. i know just what the bride and hannah wore, for we have pieces of the material in our oldest cedar chest; but, of course, as they weren't your own great-great-great-grandmother and aunt, perhaps you wouldn't care to have me tell you all about their costumes. it was a grand occasion, however--that you can take from me; and the family tradition is that ann mary looked like a wonderful combination of an angel and a star. and then captain and mrs. winthrop rode off in one direction, and hannah and her father in another, and there were a great many tears shed, for all everybody; was so happy. vi. hannah went home with her head full of new ideas, and with four books in her saddle-bags--which, for those days, was a large library. these were the bible, the "universal preceptor," a volume of the shakespeare comedies, and plutarch's "lives." armed with these weapons, how she did stir things up in hillsboro! she got the children together into a school, and taught them everything she had learned in heath falls; and that was so much--what with the studying which she always kept up by herself--that from our little scrap of a village three students went down to the college at william's town, in massachusetts, the first year it was started, and there has been a regular procession of them ever since. after a time she married giles wheeler, and began to teach her own children--she had nine--and very well instructed they were. she was too busy, then, to go into the schoolroom to teach; but never, then or later, even when she was an old, old woman, did she take her vigilant eyes and her managing hand off the schools of our county. it was due to her that hillsboro could boast for so long that its percentage of illiterates was zero. if, by chance, anyone grew up without knowing how to read, aunt hannah pounced on him and made him learn, whether he would or not. she loaned about, to anyone who would read them, the books she brought from heath falls; and in time she started a little library. remembering the days when captain winthrop had read aloud to her in the granary, she had her children go about to read aloud to sick people, and to busy seamstresses or spinners who had no time for books. and the number of girls in declines she cured by master necronsett's system! you would not believe it, if i told you. and she had our river named after that wise old heathen, and we think it the prettiest name possible for a river. all this time, ann mary's position was getting grander and grander, for captain winthrop was on the american side when the revolution came, and grew to be a very important man. ann mary dressed in brocade every day and all day, and went to philadelphia, where she met general and mrs. washington, and ever so many more famous people. wherever she went, she was admired and loved for her beauty and gentleness; but she did not forget hannah. nearly every traveler from the south brought a message or a present from madam winthrop to mistress wheeler, and once she and general winthrop came and made a long visit in hillsboro. grandmother's grandmother was old enough, by that time, to remember the visit very clearly; and it was from talk between the two sisters that she learned all about this story. she said she never saw a more beautiful woman than madam winthrop, nor heard a sweeter voice. but how hannah had to hush the unmannerly surprise of her brood of quick-witted youngsters when they found out that elegant aunt ann mary did not know her letters, and had never heard of julius caesar or oliver cromwell! for marriage did not change ann mary very much; but as her husband was perfectly satisfied with her, i dare say it was just as well. however, when the winthrop cousins begin to put on airs, and to talk about autograph letters from benjamin franklin and jefferson addressed to their great-great-great-grandmother, and to show beautiful carved fans and lace handkerchiefs which she carried at state balls in philadelphia and new york, i have to bite my tongue to keep from reminding them that they have no autograph letters of _hers_! then i go up into our garret, and look at hannah's shabby old books, and i ride over to the place on the road where she tended the fire that night, and i think of the number of hillsboro boys and girls to whom she opened the great world of books, and--somehow, i am just as well pleased that it was not the lovely ann mary who came back to our town and became my great-great-great-grandmother. the deliverer "i shall not die, but live; and declare the works of the lord." the great lady pointed with a sigh of pleasure to the canvas hung between a greuze and a watteau! "ah, is there anyone like lemaury! alone in the eighteenth century he had eyes for the world of wood and stream. you poets and critics, why do you never write of him? is it true that no one knows anything of his life?" the young writer hesitated. "i do not think i exaggerate, madame, when i say that i alone in paris know his history. he was a compatriot of mine." "oh, come, mr. everett, lemaury an american! with that name!" "he called himself lemaury after his protector, the man who brought him to france. his real name was everett, like my own. he was cousin to one of my great-grandfathers." "ah, an old family story. that is the best kind. you must tell it to me." "i will write it for you, madame." i at the foot of hemlock mountain spring came late that year, now a century and a half gone by, as it comes late still to the remote back valley, lying high among the green mountains; but when it came it had a savor of enchantment unknown to milder regions. the first day of spring was no uncertain date in hillsboro, then as now. one morning generally about the middle of may, people woke up with the sun shining in their eyes, and the feeling in their hearts that something had happened in the night. the first one of the family dressed, who threw open the house-door, felt the odor of stirring life go to his head, was the reverend mr. everett himself. in the little community of puritans, whose isolation had preserved intact the rigidity of faith which had begun to soften somewhat in other parts of new england, there was no one who openly saluted the miracle of resurrection by more than the brief remark, "warm weather's come"; but sometimes the younger men went back and kissed their wives. it was an event, the first day of spring, in old-time hillsboro. in the year of our lord 1756 this event fell upon a sabbath, a fact which the reverend mr. everett commemorated by a grim look out at the budding trees, and by taking from his store of sermons a different one from that he had intended to preach. it was his duty to scourge natural man out of the flock committed to his charge by an angry and a jealous god, and he had felt deep within him a damnable stirring of sensual pleasure as the perfumed breath of the new season had blown across his face. if the anointed of the lord had thus yielded to the insidious wiles of unregenerate nature what greater dangers lay in wait for the weaklings under his care! the face of his son nathaniel, as he came back from the brook, his slender body leaning sideways from the weight of the dripping bucket, told the shepherd of souls that he must be on his guard against the snares of the flesh. the boy's thin, dark face, so astonishingly like his father's, was lifted toward the sky as he came stumbling up the path, but his eyes were everywhere at once. just before he reached the door, he set the bucket down with a cry of ecstasy and darted to the edge of the garden, where the peas were just thrusting green bowed heads through the crumbling earth. he knelt above them breathless, he looked up to the maple-twigs, over which a faint reddish bloom had been cast in the night, beyond to the lower slopes of the mountain, delicately patterned with innumerable white stems of young birch-trees, and clasped his hands to see that a shimmer of green hung in their tops like a mist. his lips quivered, he laid his hand upon a tuft of grass with glossy, lance-like blades, and stroked it. his father came to the door and called him. "nathaniel!" he sprang up with guilty haste and went toward the house. a shriveling change of expression came over him. the minister began, "a wise son heareth his father's instructions; but a scorner heareth not rebuke." "i hear you, father." "why did you linger in the garden and forget your duty?" "i--i cannot tell you, father." "do you mean you do not know why?" "i cannot say i do not know." "then answer me." nathaniel broke out desperately, "i _cannot_, father--i know no words--i was--it is so warm--the sun shines--the birches are out--i was glad----" the minister bowed his head sadly. "aye, even as i thought. sinful lust of the eye draggeth you down to destruction. you whose salvation even now hangs in the balance, for whose soul i wrestle every night in prayer that you may be brought to the conviction of sin, 'you were glad.' remember the words, 'if i prefer not jerusalem above my chief joy, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.'" nathaniel made no reply. he caught at the door, looking up wretchedly at his father. when the minister turned away without speaking again, he drew a long breath of relief. breakfast was always a silent meal in the everett house, but on sabbath mornings the silence had a heavy significance. the preacher was beginning then to work himself up to the pitch of storming fervor which made his sermons so notable, and his wife and son cowered under the unspoken emanations of the passion which later poured so terribly from the pulpit. the reverend mr. everett always ate very heartily on sabbath mornings, but nathaniel usually pushed his plate away. as a rule he walked to church between his father and his mother, like a little child, although he was now a tall lad of sixteen, but to-day he was sent back for a psalm-book, forgotten in the hurry of their early start. when he set out again the rest of the village folk were all in the meeting-house. the sight of the deserted street, walled in by the forest, lying drowsily in the spring sunshine, was like balm to him. he loitered along, free from observation, his eyes shining. a fat, old negro woman sat on a doorstep in the sun, the only other person not in meeting. she was a worn-out slave, from a connecticut seaport, who had been thrown in for good measure in a sharp bargain driven by the leading man of hillsboro. a red turban-like cloth was bound above her black face, she rested her puffy black arms across her knees and crooned a monotonous refrain. although the villagers regarded her as imbecile, they thought her harmless, and nathaniel nodded to her as he passed. she gave him a rich laugh and a "good morrow, marse natty, _good_ morrow!" a hen clucking to her chicks went across the road before him. the little yellow balls ran briskly forward on their wiry legs, darting at invisible insects, turning their shiny black eyes about alertly and filling the air with their sweet, thin pipings. nathaniel stopped to watch them, and as he noticed the pompously important air with which one of the tiny creatures scratched the ground with his ineffectual little feet, cocking his eye upon the spot afterward as if to estimate the amount of progress made, the boy laughed out loud. he started at the sound and glanced around him hurriedly, moving on to the meeting-house from which there now burst forth a harshly intoned psalm. he lingered for a moment at the door, gazing back at the translucent greens of the distant birches gleaming against the black pines. a gust of air perfumed with shad-blossom blew past him, and with this in his nostrils he entered the whitewashed interior and made his way on tiptoe up the bare boards of the aisle. ii after meeting the women and children walked home to set out the cold viands for the sabbath dinner, while the men stood in a group on the green before the door for a few minutes' conversation. "verily, master everett, the breath of the almighty was in your words this day as never before," said one of them. "one more such visitation of the anger of god and your son will be saved." "how looked he when they bore him out?" asked the minister faintly. his face was very white. the other continued, "truly, reverend sir, your setting forth of the devil lying in wait for the thoughtless, and the lake burning with brimstone, did almost affright me who for many years now have known myself to be of the elect. i could not wonder that terrors melted the soul of your son." "how looked he when they bore him out?" repeated the minister impatiently. the other answered encouragingly, "more like death than life, so the women say." the minister waved the men aside and went swiftly down the street. the hen and chickens fled with shrill cries at his approach, and the old negress stopped her song. after he had passed she chuckled slowly to herself, thrust her head up sideways to get the sun in a new place, and began her crooning chant afresh. "how is the boy?" asked the minister of his wife as he stepped inside the door. "not still screaming out and----" mistress everett shook her head reassuringly. "nay, he is quiet now, up in his room." nathaniel lay on his trundle bed, his eyes fixed on the rafters, his pale lips drawn back. at the sight his father sat down heavily on the edge of the bed. the boy sprang upon him with a cry, "oh, father, i see fire always there--last winter when i burned my finger--oh, always such pain!" the minister's voice broke as he said, "oh, nathaniel, the blessed ease when all this travail is gone by and thou knowest thyself to be of the elect." nathaniel screamed out at this, a fleck of froth showing on his lips. "that is the horrible thing--i know i am not one of the saved. my heart is all full of carnal pleasures and desires. to look at the sun on the hillside--why i love it so that i forget my soul--hell--god--" his father gave a deep shocked groan and put his hand over the quivering lips. "be not a bitterness to him that begot you. hush!" the fever of excitement left the boy and he fell down with his face in the pillow to lie there motionless until his parents went out for second meeting, leaving him alone in the house. "confidence must be rooted out of his tabernacle," said his father sternly. "the spirit of god is surely working in his heart in which i see many of my own besetting sins." nathaniel sprang up, when he heard the door shut, with a distracted idea of escape, now that his jailers were away, and felt an icy stirring in the roots of his hair at the realization that his misery lay within, that the walls of his own flesh and blood shut it inexorably into his heart forever. he threw open the window and leaned out. the old negress came out of the woods at the other end of the street, her turban gleaming red. she moved in a cautious silence past the meeting-house, but when she came opposite the minister's house, thinking herself alone, she burst into a gay, rapid song, the words of which she so mutilated in her barbarous accent that only a final "oh, molly-oh!" could be distinguished. she carried an herb-basket on her arm now, into which, from time to time, she looked with great satisfaction. nathaniel ran down the stairs and out of the door calling. she paused, startled. "how can you sing and laugh and walk so lightly?" he cried out. she cocked her head on one side with her turtle-like motion. "why should she not sing?" she asked in her thick, sweet voice. she had never learned the difference between the pronouns. "she's be'n gatherin' yarbs in the wood, an' th' sun is warm," she blinked at it rapidly, "an' the winter it is pas', marse natty, no mo' winter!" nathaniel came close up to her, laying his thin fingers on her fat, black arm. his voice quivered. "but they say if you love those things and if they make you glad you are damned to everlasting brimstone fire. tell me how you dare to laugh, so that i will dare too." the old woman laughed, opening her mouth so widely that the red lining to her throat showed moistly, and all her fat shook on her bones. "lord love ye, chile, dat's white folks' talk. dat don't scare a old black woman!" she shifted her basket to the other arm and prepared to go on. "you're bleeged to be keerful 'bout losin' yo' soul. black folks ain't got no souls, bless de lord! when _dey_ dies dey _dies_!" she shuffled along, laughing, and began to sing again. nathaniel looked after her with burning eyes. after she had disappeared between the tree trunks of the forest, the breeze bore back to him a last joyous whoop of "_oh_, molly-oh!" he burst into sobs, and shivering, made his way back into his father's darkening, empty house. iii at the breakfast table the next morning his father looked at him neutrally. "this day you shall go to salt the sheep in the miller lot," he announced, "and you may have until the hour before sundown to walk in the wood." "oh, _father_, really!" "that is what i said," repeated the minister dryly, pushing away from the table. after the boy had gone, carrying the bag of salt and the little package of his noonday meal, the minister sighed heavily. "i fear my weak heart inclines me to too great softness to our son." to his wife he cried out a moment later, "oh, that some instance of the wrath of jehovah could come before us now, while our son's spirit is softened. deacon truitt said yesterday that one more visitation would save him." nathaniel walked along soberly, his eyes on the road at his feet, his face quite pale, a sleepless night evidently behind him. he came into the birches without noticing them at first, and when he looked up he was for a moment so taken by surprise that he was transfigured. the valley at his feet shimmered like an opal through the slender white pillars of the trees. the wood was like a many-columned chapel, unroofed and open to the sunlight. nathaniel gave a cry of rapture, and dropped the bag of salt. "oh!" he cried, stretching out his arms, and then again, "oh!" for a moment he stood so, caught into a joy that was almost anguish, and then at a sudden thought he shrank together, his arm crooked over his eyes. he sank forward, still covering his eyes, into a great bed of fern, just beginning to unroll their whitey-green balls into long, pale plumes. there he lay as still as if he were dead. two men came riding through the lane, their horses treading noiselessly over the leaf-mold. they had almost passed the motionless, prostrate figure when the older reined in and pointed with his whip. "what is that, lemaury?" at the unexpected sound the boy half rose, showing a face so convulsed that the other horseman cried out alarmed, "it ees a man crazed! ride on, _mon colonel_!" he put spurs to his horse and sprang forward as he spoke. the old soldier laughed a little, and turned to nathaniel. "why, 'tis the minister his son. i know you by the look of your father in you. what bad dream have we waked you from, you pretty boy?" "you have not waked me from it," cried nathaniel. "i will never wake as long as i live, and when i die--!" "why, lemaury is right. the poor lad is crazed. we must see to this." he swung himself stiffly from the saddle and came limping up to nathaniel. kneeling by the boy he brought him up to a sitting position, and at the sight of the ashen face and white, turned-back eyeballs he sat down hastily, drawing the young head upon his shoulder with a rough tenderness. "why, so lads look under their first fire, when they die of fear. what frights you so?" nathaniel opened great solemn eyes upon him. "i suppose it is the conviction of sin. that is what they call it." for an instant the old man's face was blank with astonishment, and then it wrinkled into a thousand lines of mirth. he began to laugh as though he would never stop. nathaniel had never heard anyone laugh like that. he clutched at the old man. "how dare you laugh!" the other wiped his eyes and rocked to and fro, "i laugh--who would not--that such a witless baby should talk of his sin. you know not what sin is, you silly innocent!" at the kindliness of the tone an aching knot in the boy's throat relaxed. he began to talk hurriedly, in a desperate whisper, his hands like little birds' claws gripping the other's great gauntleted fist. "you do not know how wicked i am--i am so wholly forward the wonder is the devil does not take me at once. i live only in what my father calls the lust of the eye. i--i would rather look at a haw-tree in bloom than meditate on the almighty!" he brought out this awful confession with a gasp at its enormity, but hurried on to a yet more terrible climax. "i cannot be righteous, but many times there are those who cannot--but oh, worse than that, i cannot even _wish_ to be! i can only wish to be a painter." at this unexpected ending the old man gave an exclamation of extreme amazement. "but, boy, lad, what's your name? however did you learn that there are painters in the world, here in this prison-house of sanctity?" nathaniel had burrowed into his protector's coat as though hiding from the imminent wrath of god. he now spoke in muffled tones. "two years ago, when i was but a little child, there came a man to our town, a frenchman, they said, and his horse fell lame, and he stopped two days at my uncle elzaphan's. my uncle elzaphan asked him what business did he in the world, and he said he put down on cloth or paper with brushes and colors all the fair and comely things he saw. and he showed a piece of paper with on it painted the row of willows along our brook. i sat in the chimney-corner and no one heeded me. i saw--oh, then i _knew_! i have no paint, but ever since i have made pictures with burnt sticks on birchbark--though my father says that of all the evil ways of evil men none lead down more swift to the chambers of death and the gates of hell than that. every night i make a vow unto the lord that i will sin no more; but in the morning the devil whispers in my ear and i rise up and sin again--no man knows this--and i am never glad unless i think i have done well with my pictures, and i hate the meeting-house and--" his voice died away miserably. "two years ago, was't?" asked the old man. "and the man was french?" "aye." the old soldier shifted his position, stretched out a stiff knee with a grimace of pain, and pulled the tall lad bodily into his lap like a child. for some time the two were silent, the sun shining down warmly on them through the faint, vaporous green of the tiny leaves. the old horse cropped the young shoots with a contented, ruminative air, once in a while pausing to hang his head drowsily, and bask motionless in the warmth. then the old man began to speak in a serious tone, quite different from his gentle laughter. "young everett, of all the people you have seen, is there one whom you would wish to have even a moment of the tortures of hell?" nathaniel looked at him horrified. "why, no!" he cried indignantly. "then do you think your god less merciful than you?" nathaniel stared long into the steady eyes. "oh, do you mean it is not _true_?" he leaned close in an agony of hope. "sometimes i have thought it _could_ not be true!" the old soldier struck him on the shoulder inspiritingly, his weather-beaten face very grave. "aye, lad, i mean it is not true. i am an old man and i have learned that they lie who say it is true. there is no hell but in our own hearts when we do evil; and we can escape a way out of that by repenting and doing good. there is no devil but our evil desires, and god gives to every man strength to fight with those. there is only good in your love for the fair things god made and put into the world for us to love. no man but only your own heart can tell you what is wrong and what is right. only _do not fear_, for all is well." the scene was never to fade from nathaniel everett's eyes. in all the after crises of his life the solemn words rang in his ears. the old man suddenly smiled at him, all quaint drollery again. "and now wait." he put hand to mouth and hallooed down the lane. "ho there! lemaury!" as the frenchman came into sight, the old man turned to nathaniel, "is this the gentleman who painted your willows?" "oh, aye!" cried nathaniel. the frenchman dismounted near them with sparkling glances of inquiry. "see, lemaury, this is young master everett, whom you have bewitched with your paint-pots. he would fain be an artist--_de gustibus_--! perhaps you have in him an apprentice for your return to france." the artist looked sharply at nathaniel. "eh, so? can young master draw? doth he know aught of _chiaroscuro_?" nathaniel blushed at his ignorance and looked timidly at his protector. "nay, he knows naught of your painter's gibberish. give him a crayon and a bit of white bark and see can he make my picture. i'll lean my head back and fold my hands to sleep." in the long sunny quiet that followed, the old man really slipped away into a light doze, from which he was awakened by a loud shout from lemaury. the frenchman had sprung upon nathaniel and was kissing his cheeks, which were now crimson with excitement. "oh, it is giotto come back again. he shall be anything--watteau." nathaniel broke away and ran toward the old man, his eyes blazing with hope. "what does he mean?" he demanded. "he means that you're to be a painter and naught else, though how a man can choose to daub paint when there are swords to be carried--well, well," he pulled himself painfully to his feet, wincing at gouty twinges, "i will go and see your father about--" "_mais, colonel hall, dites_! how can i arrange not to lose this pearl among artists?" at the name, for he had not understood the title before, pronounced as it was in french, the boy fell back in horrified recognition. "oh! you are colonel gideon hall!" "aye, lad, who else?" the old soldier swung himself up to the saddle, groaning, "oh, damn that wet ground! i fear i cannot sit the nag home." "but then you are the enemy of god--the chosen one of beelzebub----" "do they call me _that_ in polite and pious hillsboro?" the frenchman broke in, impatient of this incomprehensible talk. "see, boy, you--everett--i go back to france now soon. i lie next friday night at woodburn. if you come to me there we will go together to france--to paris--you will be the great artist----" he was silenced by a gesture from the colonel, who now sat very straight on his horse and beckoned to nathaniel. the boy came timorously. "you have heard lies about me, everett. be man enough to trust your own heart." he broke into a half-sad little laugh at nathaniel's face of fascinated repulsion. "you can laugh now," whispered the boy, close at his knee, "but when you come to die? why, even my father trembles at the thought of death. oh, if i could but believe you!" "faugh! to fear death when one has done his best!" he had turned his horse's head, but nathaniel called after him, bringing out the awful words with an effort. "but they say--that you do not believe in god." the colonel laughed again. "why, lad, i'm the only man in this damn town who does." he put his horse into a trot and left nathaniel under the birch-trees, the sun high over his head, the bag of salt forgotten at his feet. iv a little before sundown the next day the minister strode into his house, caught up his bible, and called to his wife, "deborah, the lord hath answered me in my trouble. call nathaniel and bring him after me to the house of gideon hall." mistress everett fell back, her hand at her heart, "to _that_ house?" "aye, even there. he lieth at the point of death. so are the wicked brought into desolation. yesterday, as he rode in the wood, his horse cast him down so that it is thought he may not live till dark. i am sent for by his pious sisters to wrestle with him in prayer. oh, deborah, now is the time to strike the last blow for the salvation of our son. let him see how the devil carries off the transgressor into the fires of hell, or let him see how, at the last, the proudest must make confession of his wicked unbelief----" he hurled himself through the door like a javelin, while his wife turned to explain to nathaniel the reason for the minister's putting on his sabbath voice of a week-day morning. he cried out miserably, "oh, mother, _don't_ make me go there!" "nay, nathaniel, there is naught new. you have been with us before to many a sickbed and seen many a righteous death. this is an ill man, whose terrors at the reward of his unbelief will be like goodly medicine to your sick soul, and teach you to lay hold on righteousness while there is yet time." "but, mother, my uncle elzaphan said--i asked him this morning about colonel hall--that he had done naught but good to all men, that he had fought bravely with french and indians, that the poor had half of his goods, that--" she took him by the hand and dragged him relentlessly out upon the street. "your uncle elzaphan is a man of no understanding, and does not know that the devil has no more subtile lure than a man who does good works but who is not of the true faith. aye, he maketh a worse confusion to the simple than he who worketh iniquity by noonday." she led him through the village street, through a long curving lane where he had never been before, and down an avenue of maple-trees to a house at which he had always been forbidden even to look. various of the neighbor women were hurrying along in the same direction. as they filed up the stairs he trembled to hear his father's voice already raised in the terrible tones of one of his inspired hours. at the entrance to the sick chamber he clung for a moment to the door, gazing at the wild-eyed women who knelt about the room, their frightened eyes fixed on his father. his knees shook under him. he had a qualm of nausea at the slimy images of corruption and decay which the minister was trumpeting forth as the end to all earthly pride. his mother pushed him inexorably forward into the room, and then, across the nightmare of frenzy, he met the calm gaze of the dying man. it was the turning-point of his life. he ran to the bed, falling on his knees, clasping the great knotty hand and searching the eyes which were turned upon him, gently smiling. the minister, well pleased with this evidence of his son's emotion, caught his breath for another flight of eloquence which should sear and blast the pretensions of good works as opposed to the true faith. "see how low the lord layeth the man who thinks to bargain with the almighty, and to ransom his soul from hell by deeds which are like dust and ashes to jehovah." nathaniel crept closer and whispered under cover of his father's thunderings, "oh, you are truly not afraid?" the dying man looked at him, his eyes as steady as when they were in the woods. "nay, little comrade, it is all a part of life." after that he seemed to sink into partial unconsciousness. nathaniel felt his hand grow colder, but he still held it, grasping it more tightly when he felt the fumes of his father's reeking eloquence mount to his brain. the women were all sobbing aloud. a young girl was writhing on the floor, her groans stifled by her mother's hand. the air of the room was stifling with hysteria. the old sister of the dying man called out, "oh, quick, master everett. he is going. exhort him now to give us some token that at the last he repents of his unbelief." the minister whirled about, shaking with his own violence. the sweat was running down his face. "gideon hall, i charge you to say if you repent of your sins." there was a pause. the silence was suffocating. the old man gradually aroused himself from his torpor, although he did not open his eyes. "aye, truly i repent me of my sins," he whispered mildly, "for any unkindness done to any man, or----" the minister broke in, his voice mounting shrilly, "nay, not so, thou subtle mocker. dost thou repent thee of thy unbelief in the true faith?" colonel gideon hall opened his eyes. he turned his head slowly on the pillow until he faced the preacher, and at the sight of his terrible eyes and ecstatic pallor he began to laugh whimsically, as he had laughed in the wood with nathaniel. "why, man, i thought you did but frighten women with it--not yourself too. nay, do not trouble about me. _i_ don't believe in your damned little hell." the smile on his face gradually died away into a still serenity, which was there later, when the minister lifted his son away from the dead man's bed. v the four old men walked sturdily forward with their burden, although at intervals they slipped their tall staves under the corners and rested, wiping their foreheads and breathing hard. as they stood thus silent, where the road passed through a thicket of sumac, a boy came rapidly around the curve and was upon them before he saw that he was not alone. he stopped short and made a guilty motion to hide a bundle that he carried. the old men stared at him, and reassured by this absence of recognition he advanced slowly, looking curiously at the great scarlet flag which hung in heavy folds from their burden. "is this the road to woodburn?" he asked them. "aye," they answered briefly. he had almost passed them when he stopped again, drawing in his breath. "oh, are you--is this colonel--" "aye, lad," said the oldest of the bearers, "this is the funeral procession of the best commander and truest man who ever lived." "but why--" began the boy, looking at the flag. "he's wrapped in the flag of the king that he was a loyal servant to, because the damned psalm-singing hypocrites in the town where he lived of late would not make a coffin for him--no, nor allow ground to bury him--no, nor men to bear him out to his grave! we be men who have served under him in three wars, and we come from over the mountain to do the last service for him. he saved our lives for us more than once--brave colonel gid!" they all uncovered at the name, and the boy shyly and awkwardly took his cap off. "may i--may i see him once again?" he asked, dropping his bundle. "he saved my life too." two men put their gnarled old hands to the flag and drew it down from the head of the bier. the boy did not speak, but he went nearer and nearer with an expression on his face which one of the old men answered aloud. "aye, is he not at peace! god grant we may all look so when the time comes." they let the flag fall over the dead face again, set their shoulders to the bier, and moved forward, bringing down their great staves rhythmically as they walked. the boy stood still looking after them. when they passed out into the sunshine of the open hillside he ran to the edge of the thicket so that he could still follow them with his eyes. they plodded on, growing smaller and smaller in the distance, until as they paused on the crest of the hill only a spot of red could be seen, brilliant against the brilliant sky. the boy went back and picked up his bundle. when he returned to the edge of the thicket the spot of red was disappearing over the hill. he took off his cap and stood there until there was nothing before him but the sun shining on the hillside. then he turned about, and walking steadily, nathaniel everett entered into his own world. noctes ambrosianae from hemlock mountain's barren crest the roaring gale flies down the west and drifts the snow on redmount's breast in hollows dark with pine. full in its path from hill to hill there stands, beside a ruined mill, a lonely house, above whose sill a brace of candles shine. and there an ancient bachelor and maiden sister, full three-score, sit all forgetful of the roar of wind and mountain stream; forgot the wind, forgot the snow, what magic airs about them blow? they read, in wondering voices low, the midsummer night's dream! and, reading, past their frozen hill in charmed woods they range at will and hear the horns of oberon shrill above the plunging tam;- yea, long beyond the cock's first crow in dreams they walk where windflowers blow; late do they dream, and liker grow to charles and mary lamb. hillsboro's good luck when the news of hillsboro's good fortune swept along the highroad there was not a person in the other three villages of the valley who did not admit that hillsboro deserved it. everyone said that in this case providence had rewarded true merit, providence being represented by mr. josiah camden, king of the chicago wheat pit, whose carelessly bestowed bounty meant the happy termination of hillsboro's long and arduous struggles. the memory of man could not go back to the time when that town had not had a public library. it was the pride of the remote village, lost among the green mountains, that long before carnegie ever left scotland there had been a collection of books free to all in the wing of deacon bradlaugh's house. then as now the feat was achieved by the united efforts of all inhabitants. they boasted that the town had never been taxed a cent to keep up the library, that not a person had contributed a single penny except of his own free will; and it was true that the public spirit of the village concentrated itself most harmoniously upon this favorite feature of their common life. political strife might rage in the grocery-stores, religious differences flame high in the vestibule of the church, and social distinctions embitter the ladies' club, but the library was a neutral ground where all parties met, united by a common and disinterested effort. like all disinterested and generous actions it brought its own reward. the great social event of the year, not only for hillsboro, but for all the outlying towns of woodville, greenford, and windfield, was the annual "entertainment for buying new books," as it was named on the handbills which were welcomed so eagerly by the snow-bound, monotony-ridden inhabitants of the necronsett valley. it usually "ran" three nights so that every one could get there, the people from over hemlock mountain driving twenty miles. there was no theater for forty miles, and many a dweller on the hemlock slopes had never seen a nearer approach to one than the town hall of hillsboro on the great nights of the "library show." as for hillsboro itself, the excitement of one effort was scarcely over before plans for the next year's were begun. although the date was fixed by tradition on the three days after candlemas (known as "woodchuck day" in the valley), they had often decided what the affair should be and had begun rehearsals before the leaves had turned in the autumn. there was no corner of the great world of dramatic art they had not explored, borne up to the loftiest regions of endeavor by their touchingly unworldly ignorance of their limitations. as often happens in such cases they believed so ingenuously in their own capacities that their faith wrought miracles. sometimes they gave a cantata, sometimes a nigger-minstrel show. the year the interior of the town hall was changed, they took advantage of the time before either the first or second floor was laid, and attempted and achieved an indoor circus. and the year that an orchestra conductor from albany had to spend the winter in the mountains for his lungs, they presented _il trovatore_. everybody sang, as a matter of course, and those whose best efforts in this direction brought them no glory had their innings the year it was decided to give a play. they had done _east lynne_ and _hamlet, uncle tom's cabin_ and _macbeth_, and every once in a while the local literary man, who was also the undertaker, wrote a play based on local traditions. of course they gave _the village school_ and _memory's garland_, and if you don't remember those delectable home-made entertainments, so much the worse for you. it is true that in the allegorical tableau at the end of _memory's garland_ the wreath, which was of large artificial roses, had been made of such generous proportions that when the muses placed it on the head of slender elnathan pritchett, representing "the poet," it slipped over his ears, down over his narrow shoulders, and sliding rapidly toward the floor was only caught by him in time to hold it in place upon his stomach. that happened only on the first night, of course. the other performances it was perfect, lodging on his ears with the greatest precision. it must not be supposed, however, that the responsibilities of hillsboro for the library ended with the triumphant counting out of the money after the entertainment. this sum, the only actual cash ever handled by the committee, was exclusively devoted to the purchase of new books. it was the pride of the village that everything else was cared for without price, by their own enterprise, public spirit, and ingenuity. when the books, had overflowed the wing of deacon bradlaugh's house, back in 1869, they were given free lodging in the rooms of the then newly established and flourishing post of the g.a.r. in 1896 they burst from this chrysalis into the whole lower floor of the town hall, newly done over for the purpose. from their shelves here the books looked down benignly on church suppers and sociables, and even an occasional dance. it was the center of village life, the big, low-ceilinged room, its windows curtained with white muslin, its walls bright with fresh paper and colored pictures, like any sitting-room in a village home. the firewood was contributed, a load apiece, by the farmers of the country about, and the oil for the lamps was the common gift of the three grocery-stores. there was no carpet, but bright-colored rag rugs lay about on the bare floor, and it was a point of honor with the ladies' aid society of the church to keep these renewed. the expense of a librarian's salary was obviated by the expedient of having no librarian. the ladies of hillsboro took turns in presiding over the librarian's table, each one's day coming about once in three weeks. "library day" was as fixed an institution in hillsboro as "wash day," and there was not a busy housewife who did not look forward to the long quiet morning spent in dusting and caring for the worn old books, which were like the faces of friends to her, familiar from childhood. the afternoon and evening were more animated, since the library had become a sort of common meeting-ground. the big, cheerful, sunlighted room full of grown-ups and children, talking together, even laughing out loud at times, did not look like any sophisticated idea of a library, for hillsboro was as benighted on the subject of the need for silence in a reading-room as on all other up-to-date library theories. if you were so weak-nerved and sickly that the noise kept you from reading, you could take your book, go into elzaphan hall's room and shut the door, or you could take your book and go home, but you could not object to people being sociable. elzaphan hall was the janitor, and the town's only pauper. he was an old g.a.r. man who had come back from the war minus an arm and a foot, and otherwise so shattered that steady work was impossible. in order not to wound him by making him feel that he was dependent on public charity, it had been at once settled that he should keep the fire going in the library, scrub the floor, and keep the room clean in return for his food and lodging. he "boarded round" like the school-teacher, and slept in a little room off the library. in the course of years he had grown pathetically and exasperatingly convinced of his own importance, but he had been there so long that his dictatorial airs and humors were regarded with the unsurprised tolerance granted to things of long standing, and were forgiven in view of his devotion to the best interests of the library, which took the place of a family to him. as for the expenses of cataloguing, no one ever thought of such a thing. catalogue the books? why, as soon hang up a list of the family so that you wouldn't forget how many children you had; as soon draw a plan of the village so that people should not lose their way about. everybody knew what and where the books were, as well as they knew what and where the fields on their farms were, or where the dishes were on the pantry shelves. the money from the entertainment was in hand by the middle of february; by april the new books, usually about a hundred in number, had arrived; and by june any wide-awake, intelligent resident of hillsboro would have been ashamed to confess that he did not know the location of every one. the system of placing on the shelves was simplicity itself. each year's new acquisitions were kept together, regardless of subject, and located by the name of the entertainment which had bought them. thus, if you wished to consult a certain book on geology, in which subject the library was rich, owing to the scientific tastes of squire pritchett, you were told by the librarian for the day, as she looked up from her darning with a friendly smile, that it was in the "uncle tom's cabin section." the shakespeare set, honorably worn and dog's-eared, dated back to the unnamed mass coming from early days before things were so well systematized, and was said to be in the "old times section"; whereas ibsen (for some of hillsboro young people go away to college) was bright and fresh in the "east lynne section." the books were a visible and sincere symbol of hillsboro's past and present. the honest, unpretending people had bought the books they wished to read, and everyone's taste was represented, even a few french legends and pious tales being present as a concession to the roman catholic element among the french canadians. there was a great deal of e.p. roe, there was all of mrs. southworth--is it possible that anywhere else in the world there is a complete collection of that lady's voluminous productions?--but beside them stood the elizabethan dramatists and a translation of dante. the men of the town, who after they were grown up did not care much for fiction, cast their votes for scientific treatises on agriculture, forestry, and the like; and there was an informal history club, consisting of the postmaster, the doctor, and the druggist, who bore down heavily on history books. the school-teacher, the minister, and the priest had each, ex officio, the choice of ten books with nobody to object, and the children in school were allowed another ten with no advice from elders. it would have made a scientific librarian faint, the hillsboro system, but the result was that not a book was bought which did not find readers eager to welcome it. a stranger would have turned dizzy trying to find his way about, but there are no strangers in hillsboro. the arrival even of a new french-canadian lumberman is a subject of endless discussion. it can be imagined, therefore, how electrified was the village by the apparition, on a bright june day, of an automobile creaking and wheezing its slow way to the old tavern. the irritated elderly gentleman who stepped out and began blaming the chauffeur for the delay announced himself to zadok foster, the tavern-keeper, as josiah camden, of chicago, and was electrified in his turn by the calmness with which that mighty name was received. during the two days he waited in hillsboro for the repair of his machine he amused himself first by making sure of the incredible fact that nobody in the village had ever heard of him, and second by learning with an astounded and insatiable curiosity all the details of life in this forgotten corner of the mountains. it was newer and stranger to him than anything he had seen during his celebrated motor-car trip through the soudan. he was stricken speechless by hearing that you could rent a whole house (of only five rooms, to be sure) and a garden for thirty-six dollars a year, and that the wealthiest man in the place was supposed to have inherited and accumulated the vast sum of ten thousand dollars. when he heard of the public library he inquired quickly how much it cost to run _that_? mr. camden knew from experience something about the cost of public libraries. "not a cent," said zadok foster proudly. mr. camden came from chicago and not from missouri, but the involuntary exclamation of amazed incredulity which burst from his lips was, "show _me_!" so they showed him. the denizen of the great world entered the poor, low-ceilinged room, looked around at the dreadful chromos on the walls, at the cheap, darned muslin curtains, at the gaudy rag rugs, at the shabby, worn books in inextricable confusion on the shelves, and listened with gleaming eyes to the account given by the librarian for the day of the years of patient and uncomplaining struggles by which these poverty-stricken mountaineers had secured this meager result. he struck one hand into the other with a clap. "it's a chance in a million!" he cried aloud. when his momentous letter came back from chicago, this was still the recurrent note, that nowadays it is so hard for a poor millionaire to find a deserving object for his gifts, that it is the rarest opportunity possible when he really with his own eyes can make sure of placing his money where it will carry on a work already begun in the right spirit. he spoke in such glowing terms of hillsboro's pathetic endeavors to keep their poor little enterprise going, that hillsboro, very unconscious indeed of being pathetic, was bewildered. he said that owing to the unusual conditions he would break the usual rules governing his benefactions and ask no guarantee from the town. he begged, therefore, to have the honor to announce that he had already dispatched an architect and a contractor to hillsboro, who would look the ground over, and put up a thoroughly modern library building with no expense spared to make it complete in equipment; that he had already placed to the credit of the "hillsboro camden public library" a sufficient sum to maintain in perpetuity a well-paid librarian, and to cover all expenses of fuel, lights, purchase of books, cataloguing, etc.; and that the library school in albany had already an order to select a perfectly well-balanced library of thirty thousand books to begin with. reason recoils from any attempt to portray the excitement of hillsboro after this letter arrived. to say that it was as if a gold mine had been discovered under the village green is the feeblest of metaphors. for an entire week the town went to bed at night tired out with exclaiming, woke in the morning sure it had dreamed it all, rushed with a common impulse to the post-office where the letter was posted on the wall, and fell to exclaiming again. then the architect and contractor arrived, and hillsboro drew back into its shell of somber taciturnity, and acted, the contractor told the architect, as though they were in the habit of having libraries given them three times a week regularly. the architect replied that these mountaineers were like indians. you _couldn't_ throw a shock into them that would make them loosen up any. indeed, this characterization seemed just enough, in view of the passive way in which hillsboro received what was done for it during the months which followed. it was the passivity of stupefaction, however, as one marvel after another was revealed to them. the first evening the architect sketched the plans of a picturesque building in the old norse style, to match the romantic scenery of the lovely valley. the next morning he located it upon a knoll cooled by a steady breeze. the contractor made hasty inquiries about lumber, labor, and houses for his men, found that none of these essentials were at hand, decided to import everything from albany; and by noon of the day after they arrived these two brisk young gentlemen had departed, leaving hillsboro still incredulous of its good fortune. when they returned, ten days later, however, they brought solid and visible proof in the shape of a trainload of building materials and a crowd of italian laborers, who established themselves in a boarding-car on a sidetrack near the station. "we are going," remarked the contractor to the architect, "to make the dirt fly." "we will make things hum," answered the architect, "as they've never hummed before in this benighted spot." and indeed, as up to this time they had never hummed at all, it is not surprising that hillsboro caught its breath as the work went forward like aladdin's palace. the corner-stone was laid on the third of july and on the first of october the building stood complete. by the first of november the books had come already catalogued by the library school and arranged in boxes so that they could be put at once upon the shelves; and the last details of the interior decoration were complete. the architect was in the most naã¯ve ecstasy of admiration for his own taste. the outside was deliciously unhackneyed in design, the only reproduction of a norwegian _stave-kirke_ in america, he reported to mr. camden; and while that made the interior a little dark, the quaint wooden building was exquisitely in harmony with the landscape. as for the interior it was a dream! the reading-room was like the most beautiful drawing-room, an education in itself, done in dark oak, with oriental rugs, mission furniture, and reproductions of old masters on the walls. lace sash-curtains hung at the windows, covered by rich draperies in oriental design, which subdued the light to a delightful soberness. the lamps came from tiffany's. when the young-lady librarian arrived from albany and approved enthusiastically of the stack-room and cataloguing, the architect's cup of satisfaction fairly ran over; and when he went away, leaving her installed in her handsome oak-finished office, he could hardly refrain from embracing her, so exactly the right touch did she add to the whole thing with her fresh white shirt-waist and pretty, business-like airs. there had been no ceremony of opening, because mr. camden was so absorbed in an exciting wheat deal that he could not think of coming east, and indeed the whole transaction had been almost blotted from his mind by a month's flurried, unsteady market. so one day in november the pretty librarian walked into her office, and the hillsboro camden public library was open. she was a very pretty librarian indeed, and she wore her tailor suits with an air which made the village girls look uneasily into their mirrors and made the village boys look after her as she passed. she was moreover as permeated with the missionary fervor instilled into her at the library school as she was pretty, and she began at once to practice all the latest devices for automatically turning a benighted community into the latest thing in culture. when mrs. bradlaugh, wife of the deacon, and president of the ladies' aid society, was confined to the house with a cold, she sent over to the library, as was her wont in such cases, for some entertaining story to while away her tedious convalescence. miss martin sent back one of henry james's novels, and was surprised that mrs. bradlaugh made no second attempt to use the library. when the little girls in school asked for the elsie books, she answered with a glow of pride that the library did not possess one of those silly stories, and offered as substitute, "greek myths for children." squire pritchett came, in a great hurry, one morning, and asked for his favorite condensed handbook of geology, in order to identify a stone. he was told that it was entirely out of date and very incomplete, and the library did not own it, and he was referred to the drawer in the card catalogue relating to geology. for a time his stubbed old fingers rambled among the cards, with an ever-rising flood of baffled exasperation. how could he tell by looking at a strange name on a little piece of paper whether the book it represented would tell him about a stone out of his gravel-pit! finally he appealed to the librarian, who proclaimed on all occasions her eagerness to help inquirers, and she referred him to a handsome great encyclopedia of geology in forty-seven volumes. he wandered around hopelessly in this for about an hour, and in the end retreated unenlightened. miss martin tried to help him in his search, but, half amused by his rustic ignorance, she asked him finally, with an air of gentle patience, "how, if he didn't know _any_ of the scientific names, he expected to be able to look up a subject in an alphabetically arranged book?" squire pritchett never entered the library again. his son elnathan might be caught by her airs and graces, he said rudely enough in the post-office, but he was "too old to be talked down to by a chit who didn't know granite from marble." when the schoolboys asked for "nick carter" she gave them those classics, "the rollo books"; and to the french-canadians she gave, reasonably enough, the acknowledged masters of their language, voltaire, balzac, and flaubert, till the horrified priest forbade from the pulpit any of his simple-minded flock to enter "that temple of sin, the public library." she had little classes in art-criticism for the young ladies in town, explaining to them with sweet lucidity why the botticellis and rembrandts and dã¼rers were better than the chromos which still hung on the walls of the old library, now cold and deserted except for church suppers and sociables. these were never held in the new reading-room, the oriental rugs being much too fine to have doughnut crumbs and coffee spilled on them. after a time, however, the young ladies told her that they found themselves too busy getting the missionary barrels ready to continue absorbing information about botticelli's rhythm and dã¼rer's line. miss martin was not only pretty and competent, but she was firm of purpose, as was shown by her encounter with elzaphan hall, who had domineered over two generations of amateur librarians. the old man had received strict orders to preserve silence in the reading-room when the librarian could not be there, and yet one day she returned from the stack-room to find the place in a most shocking state of confusion. everybody was laughing, elzaphan himself most of all, and they did not stop when she brought her severe young face among them. elzaphan explained, waving his hand at a dark rembrandt looking gloomily down upon them, that elnathan pritchett had said that if _he_ had such a dirty face as that he'd _wash_ it, if he had to go as far as from here to the eagle rock spring to get the water! this seemed the dullest of bucolic wit to miss martin, and she chilled elnathan to the marrow by her sad gaze of disappointment in him. jennie foster was very jealous of miss martin (as were all the girls in town), and she rejoiced openly in elnathan's witticism, continuing to laugh at intervals after the rest of the room had cowered into silence under the librarian's eye. miss martin took the old janitor aside and told him sternly that if such a thing happened again she would dismiss him; and when the old man, crazily trying to show his spirit, allowed a spelling-match to go on, full blast, right in library hours, she did dismiss him, drawing on the endless funds at her disposal to import a young irishman from albany, who was soon playing havoc with the pretty french-canadian girls. elzaphan hall, stunned by the blow, fell into bad company and began to drink heavily, paying for his liquor by exceedingly comic and disrespectful imitations of miss martin's talks on art. it was now about the middle of the winter, and the knoll which in june had been the center of gratefully cool breezes was raked by piercing north winds which penetrated the picturesquely unplastered, wood-finished walls as though they had been paper. the steam-heating plant did not work very well, and the new janitor, seeing fewer and fewer people come to the reading-room, spent less and less time in struggling with the boilers, or in keeping the long path up the hill shoveled clear of snow. miss martin, positively frightened by the ferocity with which winter flings itself upon the high narrow valley, was helpless before the problem of the new conditions, and could think of nothing to do except to buy more fuel and yet more, and to beseech the elusive celt, city-trained in plausible excuses for not doing his duty, to burn more wood. once she remarked plaintively to elnathan pritchett, as she sat beside him at a church supper (for she made a great point of "mingling with the people"), that it seemed to her there must be something the _matter_ with the wood in hillsboro. everybody within earshot laughed, and the saying was repeated the next day with shameless mirth as the best joke of the season. for the wood for the library had had a history distinctly discreditable and as distinctly ludicrous, at which hillsboro people laughed with a conscious lowering of their standards of honesty. the beginning had been an accident, but the long sequence was not. for the first time in the history of the library, the farmer who brought the first load of wood presented a bill for this service. he charged two dollars a cord on the scrawled memorandum, but miss martin mistook this figure for a seven, corrected his total with the kindest tolerance for his faulty arithmetic, and gave the countryman a check which reduced him for a time to a paralyzed silence. it was only on telling the first person he met outside the library that the richness of a grown person knowing no more than that about the price of wood came over him, and the two screamed with laughter over the lady's beautifully formed figures on the dirty sheet of paper. miss martin took the hesitating awkwardness of the next man presenting himself before her, not daring to ask the higher price and not willing to take the lower, for rustic bashfulness, and put him at his ease by saying airily, "five cords? that makes thirty-five dollars. i always pay seven dollars a cord." after that, the procession of grinning men driving lumber-sleds toward the library became incessant. the minister attempted to remonstrate with the respectable men of his church for cheating a poor young lady, but they answered roughly that it wasn't her money but camden's, who had tossed them the library as a man would toss a penny to a beggar, who had now quite forgotten about them, and, finally, who had made his money none too honestly. since he had become of so much importance to them they had looked up his successful career in the chicago wheat pit, and, undazzled by the millions involved, had penetrated shrewdly to the significance of his operations. the record of his colossal and unpunished frauds had put to sleep, so far as he was concerned, their old minute honesty. it was considered the best of satires that the man who had fooled all the west should be fooled in his turn by a handful of forgotten mountaineers, that they should be fleecing him in little things as he had fleeced chicago in great. there was, however, an element which frowned on this shifting of standards, and, before long, neighbors and old friends were divided into cliques, calling each other, respectively, cheats and hypocrites. hillsboro was intolerably dull that winter because of the absence of the usual excitement over the entertainment, and in that stagnation all attention was directed to the new joke on the wheat king. it was turned over and over, forward and back, and refurbished and made to do duty again and again, after the fashion of rustic jokes. this one had the additional advantage of lining the pockets of the perpetrators. they egged one another on to fresh inventions and variations, until even the children, not to be left out, began to have exploits of their own to tell. the grocers raised the price of kerosene, groaning all the time at the extortions of the oil trust, till the guileless guardian of mr. camden's funds was paying fifty cents a gallon for it. the boys charged a quarter for every bouquet of pine-boughs they brought to decorate the cold, empty reading-room. the washer-woman charged five dollars for "doing-up" the lace sash-curtains. as spring came on, and the damages wrought by the winter winds must be repaired, the carpenters asked wages which made the sellers of firewood tear their hair at wasted opportunities. they might have raised the price per cord! the new janitor, hearing the talk about town, demanded a raise in salary and threatened to leave without warning if it were not granted. it was on the fifth of june, a year to a day after the arrival of mr. camden in his automobile, that miss martin yielded to this last extortion, and her action made the day as memorable as that of the year before. the janitor, carried away by his victory, celebrated his good fortune in so many glasses of hard cider that he was finally carried home and deposited limply on the veranda of his boarding-house. here he slept till the cold of dawn awoke him to a knowledge of his whereabouts, so inverted and tipsy that he rose, staggered to the library, cursing the intolerable length of these damn vermont winters, and proceeded to build a roaring fire on the floor of the reading-room. as the varnished wood of the beautiful fittings took light like a well-constructed bonfire, realization of his act came to him, and he ran down the valley road, screaming and giving the alarm at the top of his lungs, and so passed out of hillsboro forever. the village looked out of its windows, saw the wooden building blazing like a great torch, hurried on its clothes and collected around the fire. no effort was made to save the library. people stood around in the chilly morning air, looking silently at the mountain of flame which burned as though it would never stop. they thought of a great many things in that silent hour as the sun rose over hemlock mountain, and there were no smiles or their faces. they are ignorant and narrow people in hillsboro, but they have an inborn capacity unsparingly to look facts in the face. when the last beam had fallen in with a crash to the blackened cellar-hole miss martin, very pale and shaken, stepped bravely forward. "i know how terribly you must be feeling about this," she began in her carefully modulated voice, "but i want to assure you that i _know_ mr. camden will rebuild the library for you if--" she was interrupted by the chief man of the town, squire pritchett, who began speaking with a sort of bellow only heard before in exciting moments in town-meeting. "may i never live to see the day!" he shouted; and from all the tongue-tied villagers there rose a murmur of relief at having found a voice. they pressed about him closely and drank in his dry, curt announcement: "as selectman i shall write mr. camden, tell him of the fire, thank him for his kindness, and inform him that we don't want any more of it" everybody nodded. "i don't know whether his money is what they call tainted or not, but there's one thing sure, it ain't done us any good." he passed his hand over his unshaven jaw with a rasping wipe and smiled grimly as he concluded, "i'm no hand to stir up lawbreakin' and disorder, but i want to say right here that i'll never inform against any hillsboro man who keeps the next automobile out of town, if he has to take a ax to it!" people laughed, and neighbors who had not spoken to one another since the quarrel over the price of wood fell into murmured, approving talk. elnathan pritchett, blushing and hesitating, twitched at his father's sleeve. "but, father--miss martin--we're keeping her out of a position." that young lady made one more effort to reach these impenetrable people. "i was about to resign," she said with dignity. "i am going to marry the assistant to the head of the department of bibliography at albany." the only answer to this imposing announcement was a giggle from jennie foster, to whose side elnathan now fell back, silenced. people began to move away in little knots, talking as they went. elzaphan hall stumped hastily down the street to the town hall and was standing in the open door as the first group passed him. "here, mis' foster, you're forgittin' somethin'," he said roughly, with his old surly, dictatorial air. "this is your day to the library." mrs. foster hesitated, laughing at the old man's manner. "it seems foolish, but i don't know why _not_!" she said. "jennie, you run on over home and bring a broom for elzaphan. the book must be in an _awful_ state!" when jennie came back, a knot of women stood before the door, talking to her mother and looking back at the smoldering ruins. the girl followed the direction of their eyes and of their thoughts. "i don't believe but what we can plant woodbine and things around it so that in a month's time you won't know there's been anything there!" she said hopefully. salem hills to ellis island a single sleighbell, tinkling down the virgin road that skirts the wood, makes poignant to the lonely town its silence and its solitude. a single taper's feeble flare makes darker by its lonely light the cold and empty farmsteads square that blackly loom to left and tight; and she who sews, by that dim flame, the patient quilt spread on her knees, hears from her heirloom quilting-frame the frolic of forgotten bees. yea, all the dying village thrills with echoes of its cheerful past, the golden days of salem hills; its only golden days? its last? ii from salem hills a voiceless cry along the darkened valley rolls. hear it, great ship, and forward ply with thy rich freight of venturous souls. hear it, o thronging lower deck, brave homestead-seekers come from far; and crowd the rail, and crane the neck; in salem hills your homesteads are! where flourish now the brier and thorn, the barley and the wheat shall spring, and valleys standing thick with corn (praise god, my heart!), shall laugh and sing. avunculus i the library of middletown college had been founded, like the college itself, in 1818, and it was a firm article of undergraduate belief that the librarian, mr. j.m. atterworthy, had sat behind his battered desk from that date on to the present time. as a matter of fact, he was but just gliding down-hill from middle age, having behind him the same number of years as the active and high-spirited president of the college. and yet there was ground for the undergraduate conviction that "old j.m." as he was always called, was an institution whose beginnings dated back into the mists of antiquity, for of his sixty years he had spent forty-four in middletown, and forty as librarian of the college. he had come down, a shy, lanky freshman of sixteen, from a little village in the green mountains, and had found the only consolation for his homesick soul in the reading-room of the library. during his sophomore and junior years, there had sprung up in the bookish lad, shrinking from the rough fun of his fellows, the first shoots of that passionate attachment to the library which was later to bind him so irrevocably to the old building. in those early days there was no regular librarian, the professors taking turn and turn about in keeping the reading-room open for a few hours, three or four days a week. in his senior year, "j.m." (even at that time his real name was sunk in the initials, the significance of which he jealously concealed) petitioned the faculty to be allowed to take charge of the reading-room. they gave a shrug of surprise at his eccentricity, investigated briefly his eminently sober-minded college career, and heaved a sigh of relief as they granted his extraordinary request. on the evening of commencement day, j.m. went to the president and made the following statement: he said that his father and his mother had both died during his senior year, leaving him entirely alone in the world, with a small inheritance yielding about fifty dollars a month. he had no leaning to any profession, he shrank with all his being from the savage struggles of the business world, and he could not bear to return to woodville, to find himself lonely and bereaved in the spot where he had had such a cloudlessly happy childhood. in short, middletown was the only place he knew and liked, except woodville, which he loved too poignantly to live there with the soul gone out of things; and the library was the only home he now had. if the president could get the trustees, at their next meeting, to allow him the use of the three rooms in the library tower, and if they would vote him a small nominal salary, say thirty dollars a month, enough to make him a regular member of the college corps, he would like nothing better than to settle down and be the librarian of his _alma mater_ for the rest of his life. the president of that date was, like all the other presidents of middletown college, a florid, hearty old gentleman with more red blood than he knew what to do with, in spite of his seventy years. he was vastly amused at the inexperienced young fellow's simple-minded notion, and, clapping him on the shoulder, said with his cheerfully johnsonian rotundity: "why, my dear young sir, your recent sad bereavement must have temporarily deranged your mental faculties, that at your age you can contemplate adopting such a desiccated mode of existence. your proposition is, however, a highly advantageous one to your college, and i shall see that it is accepted. however, i am willing to lay a wager with you that a year will not be out before you are asking to be freed from your contract." j.m., trembling in suspense, took in nothing of the president's speech beyond the acceptance of his offer, and, pale with relief, he tried to stammer his thanks and his devotion to his chosen cause. he made no attempt to contradict the president's confident prophecies; he only made the greatest possible haste to the tower-rooms which were to be his home. his eyes filled with thankfulness at his lot as he paced about them, and, looking out of the windows upon the campus, he had a prophetic vision of his future, of the simple, harmless, innocent life which was to be his. of the two prophets he proved himself the truer. the head of his college and one generation after another of similar presidents laughed and joked him about the _wanderlust_ which would some day sweep him away from his old moorings, or the sensible girl who would some day get hold of him and make a man of him. he outlasted all these wiseacres, however, watching through mild, spectacled eyes the shifting changes of the college world, which always left him as immovable as the old elms before the library door. he never went away from middletown, except on the most necessary trips to new york or boston on business connected with book-buying for the library. he explained this unheard-of stagnation by saying that the utter metamorphosis of the village after the college life stopped gave him change enough. only once had he gone farther and, to one of the younger professors who had acquired an odd taste for old j.m.'s society, confessed hesitatingly that he did not go away because he had no place to which he could go, except to his childhood home. he said he couldn't bear to go there lest he find it so changed that the sight of it would rob him of his old memories, the dearest--in fact the only possessions of his heart. after a pause he had added to his young listener, who found the little old secular monk a tremendously pathetic figure: "do you know, layton, i sometimes feel that i have missed a great deal in life--and yet not at all what everybody thought i would miss, the stir of active life or the vulgar excitement of being in love. all that kind of thing seems as distasteful to me now as ever." there he stopped and poked the fire until the young professor, overcome with sympathetic curiosity, urged him to go on. he sighed at this, and said: "why, fortune ought not to have made me an only child, although i can't say that i've ever longed for brothers or sisters.... but now i feel that i should like very much to have some nephews and nieces. i never could have stood having children of my own--i should have been crushed under the responsibility; but a nephew, now--a young creature with a brain and soul developing--to whom i could be a help ... i find as i get older that i have an empty feeling as the college year draws to a close. i have kept myself so remote from human life, for fear of being dragged into that feverish center of it which has always so repelled me, that now i do not touch it at all." he ended with a gentle resignation, taking off his glasses and rubbing them sadly: "i suppose i do not deserve anything more, because i was not willing to bear the burdens of common life ... and yet it almost seems that there should be some place for such as i--?" the heart of his young friend had melted within him at this revelation of the submissive isolation of the sweet-tempered, cool-blooded old scholar. carelessly confident, like all the young, that any amount or variety of human affection could be his for the asking, he promised himself to make the dear old recluse a sharer in his own wealth; but the next year he married a handsome, ambitious girl who made him accept an advantageous offer in the commercial world. with his disappearance, the solitary door in the prison walls which kept j.m. remote from his fellows swung shut. he looked so hopelessly dull and becalmed after this that the president was moved to force on him a little outing. stopping one day with his touring-car at the door of the library, he fairly swept the sedentary little man off his feet and out to the machine. j.m. did not catch his breath during the swift flight to the president's summer home in a trim, green, elm-shaded village in the berkshires. when he recovered a little he was startled by the resemblance of the place to his old recollections of woodville. there were the same white houses with green shutters, and big white pillars to the porches, the same green lawns and clumps of peonies and carefully tended rose-gardens, and the same old-new-england air of distance from the hurry and smoky energy of modern commercial life. he spoke of this to the president's wife and she explained that it was no wonder. the village was virtually owned by a summer colony of oldish people who had lived there in their youth and who devoted themselves to keeping the old place just as it had been. "we haven't any children to bother about any more," she said, laughing, "so we take it out in putting knockers on the doors instead of bells and in keeping the grocery-stores out of sight so that the looks of the village green shan't be spoiled." after j.m. returned to deserted middletown, he could not keep out of his mind the vision of the village he had just left, and the thought of the village like it which he had loved so well in his boyhood. it seemed to him that if woodville kept its old aspect at all, he would find it a comfort to try to inspire the people now living there to preserve the old-timey look of it, as the president was doing for his old home. there was positively a thrill for j.m. in the thought of his possibly influencing other people, and before he knew it the plan had made itself the main interest of the interminably long, empty days of the summer vacation. his vague feeling of a lack in his life crystallized about a definite attempt at filling it. he was stirred from his inertia and, leaving word with the registrar of the college, a newcomer who was not at all surprised that the librarian should follow the example of all the rest of the faculty, j.m. made the three hours' journey which had separated him for so many years from the home of his youth. as the train wound along the valley beside the river, and as the familiar outlines of the mountains rose up like the faces of dear, unforgotten friends, j.m. expanded and bloomed with delight in his new idea; but it was a very shriveled and dusty little old scholar who finally arrived at the farther end of the main street of woodville and stood, in the hush of the noon hour, gazing back with a stricken face at the row of slovenly unlovely front yards separating the wretched old houses from the street. he stood before the house that had been his home, and when he looked at it he turned very pale and sat down quickly as though his knees had failed him. apparently the house had not been painted since his childhood, and certainly it had not been repaired. broken, dangling shutters gave it a blear-eyed look which it made him sick to see, and swarms of untidily pin-feathered chickens wandered about over the hard-beaten earth of the yard, which was without a spear of grass, littered with old boxes and crates and unsightly rags, and hung with a flapping, many-legged wash. from the three rural mail-delivery boxes at the gate, he gathered that three families were crowded into the house which had seemed none too large for his father, his mother, and himself. he put on his glasses and read the names shudderingly--jean-baptiste loyette, patrick mccartey, and s. petrofsky. "good heavens!" he observed feebly to the vacant, dusty road beside him, and in answer a whistle from the big, barrack-like building at the other end of the street screamed so stridently that the heavy august air seemed to vibrate about him in hot waves. at once, as if all the houses on the street were toy barometers, every door swung open and a stream of men and boys in dirty shirts and overalls flowed out through the squalid yards along the sidewalks toward the factory. from the house before which the librarian of middletown college sat in a crushed heap of resentment came three men to correspond to the three mail-boxes: one short and red-haired; one dark, thick-set, and grizzle-bearded; and the third tall, clumsily built, with an impassive face and dark, smoldering eyes. they stared at the woebegone old stranger before their gate, but evidently had no time to lose, as their house was the last on the street, and hurried away toward the hideous, many-windowed factory. j.m. gazed after them, shaking his head droopingly, until a second eruption from the house made him look back. the cause of the hard-beaten bare ground of the yard was apparent at once, even to his inexperienced eyes. the old house seemed to be exuding children from a thousand pores--children red-haired and black-haired, and tow-headed, boys and girls, little and big, and apparently yelling on a wager about who owned the loudest voice, all dirty-faced, barelegged, and scantily clothed. j.m. mechanically set himself to counting them, but when he got as high as seventeen, he thought he must have counted some of them twice, and left off. a draggle-tailed woman stepped to a door and threw out a pan of dish-water. j.m. resolved to overcome his squeamish disgust and make a few inquiries before he fled back to the blessed cleanliness and quiet of middletown library. picking his way gingerly through the chickens and puppies and cats and children, the last now smitten into astonished silence by his appearance, he knocked on the door. the woman who came to answer him was dressed in what had been a black and purple percale, wrapper, she had a baby on her arm, and was making vain attempts to fasten up a great coil of hair at the back of her head. no, she told him volubly, she couldn't remember the town when it was any different, though she and pat had lived there ever since they were married and came over from ireland, and that was the whole of sixteen years ago. "oh!" with a sudden gush of sympathy, "and so it was your old home! isn't that interring now! you must come in and sit awhile. pat, git a chair for the gentleman, and molly, take the baby so i can talk better. oh, _won't_ you come in? you'd _better_, now, and have a bite to eat and a sup of tea. i've some ready made." of course, she went on, she knew the house didn't look so nice as in his day.... "it's all along of the children! irish people can't kape so tidy, now, _can_ they, with siven or eight, as yankees can with one--" but it certainly was a grand house, she didn't wonder he came back to look at it. wasn't it fairly like a palace, now, compared with anything her kin back in ireland had, and such a fine big place for the children to play an' all. j.m. broke in to ask a final question, which she answered, making vain attempts to button her buttonless collar about a fat white neck, and following him as he retreated toward the street, through a lively game of baseball among the older boys. no, so far as she knew there wasn't one of the yankees left that had lived here in old times. they had gone away when the factory had come in, she'd heard said. j.m. had expected this answer, but when it came, he turned a little sick for an instant, and felt giddy with the heat of the sun and lack of food and a desolation in his heart sharper and more searching than any emotion he had known since his boyhood. through a mist before his eyes, he saw his hostess make a wild warning gesture, and heard a yell of dismay from the crowd of boys, but before he could turn his head, something cruelly hard struck him in the side. in the instant before he fell, his clearest impression was utter amazement that anything in the world could cause him such incredible pain, but then his head struck heavily against a stone, and he lay quite still in a little crumpled heap under the old elm which had sheltered his boyhood. ii for an instant after he opened his eyes again, all his life after leaving woodville seemed to have melted away, for there at the foot of his bed was the little, many-paned window out of which he had watched the seasons change all through his boyhood, and close above him hung the familiar slanting roof of his own little, old room. however, when he stirred, it was not his mother but a rosy-faced irish woman who stopped her sewing and asked him in a thick, sweet brogue if he needed anything. as he stared at her, recollecting but dimly having seen her glossy brown hair and fair, matronly face before, she exclaimed: "ah, i'm bridget mccartey, you know, an' you were hurted by the lads throwin' a baseball into your ribs. it's lyin' here a week sick you've been, and, savin' your pardon, the sooner you tell me where your folks live the better. they'll be fair wild about you." the sick man closed his eyes again. "i have no family at all," he said. it was the first time in years that the thoroughgoing extent of that fact had been brought home to him. his nurse was moved to sympathy over so awful a fate. "sure an' don't i know how 'tis. pat an' i left every one of our kith behind us, mostly, when we come away, and it's that hungry for thim that i get. i dare say it ill becomes me to say it, but the first thing i says to myself when i see you was how like you are to one of my father's brothers in county kerry. it's been a real comfort to have you here sick, as though i had some of my own kin near. _his_ name was jerry. it's not possible, is't, that the j. on your handkerchief stands for jerry, too?" for the first time since he had left woodville j.m. disclosed the grotesque secret of his initials. in the flaccid indifference of convalescence it flowed from him painlessly. "my name is jeroboam mordecai." "exactly to a hair like uncle jerry's!" cried mrs. mccartey, overjoyed by the coincidence. "except that his j. stood for jeremiah and his m. for michael. if you will tell me your last name, too, i'll try and lambaste the children into callin' you proper. not havin' sorra name to speak of you by, and hearin' me say to pat how you favored my father's brother, haven't they taken to callin' _you_ uncle jerry--more shame to them!" the mention of the children awoke to life j.m.'s old punctilious habits. he tried to sit up. "but you have so little space for all your family--you should not have taken me in; where can the children sleep?" mrs. mccartey pushed him back on the pillow with an affectionate firmness born of "the bringin' up of sivin." "now lay still, uncle jerry, and kape yourself cool." the name slipped out unnoticed in her hospitable fervor "wasn't it the least we could do when 'twas our own mike's ball that came near killin' you? an' the children--the boys, that is, that this is their room--isn't it out in the barn they're sleepin' on the hay? an' that pleased with it. pat and i were thinkin' that now was a good chance to teach them to give up things--when you've no old folks about you, the children are so apt to grow up selfish-like--but they think the barn's better nor the house, bless them, so don't _you_ worry." she pulled the bedclothes straight (j.m. noticed that they were quite clean), settled the pillow, and drew down the shade. "now thin, you've talked enough," she said. "take a sup of sleep for a while." and to j.m.'s feeble surprise he found himself doing exactly as he was told, dozing off with a curious weak-headed feeling of comfort. he came to his strength slowly, the doctor forbidding him to think of taking a journey for a month at least. indeed, j.m., thinking of his isolated tower-rooms in the deserted college town, was in no haste to leave mrs. mccartey's kindly, dictatorial care. he had been very sick indeed, the doctor told him seriously, and he felt it in the trembling weakness of his first attempts at sitting up, and in the blank vacancy of his mind. at first he could not seem to remember for more than an instant at a time how he came to be there, and later, as his capacity for thought came back, he found his surroundings grown insensibly familiar to him. he felt himself somehow to have slipped so completely into the inside of things that it was impossible to recover the remote, hostile point of view which had been his as he had looked over the gate a fortnight ago. for instance, knowing now, not only that the children's faces were scrubbed to a polished redness every morning, but being: cognizant through his window of most of the palpably unavoidable accidents of play which made them dirty half an hour later, he would have resented as unreasonable intolerance any undue emphasis on this phase of their appearance. the first day that he was well enough to sit out on the porch was a great event. the children, who before had made only shy, fleeting visits to his room with "little handfuls of bokays," as their mother said, were as excited and elated over his appearance as though it reflected some credit on themselves. indeed, j.m. found that he was the subject of unaccountable pride to all the family, and one of the first of those decisions of his between mccartey and loyette occurred that very morning. the loyette children insisted on being included in the rejoicing over the convalescent's step forward, and soon pierre, the oldest boy, was haled before j.m. himself to account for his having dared to use the mccartey name for the sick man. "you're _not_ his uncle jerry, _are_ you?" demanded mike mccartey. j.m. thought that now was the time to repress the too exuberant mccartey familiarity. "i'm his uncle jerry just as much as i am yours!" he said severely. it took him a whole day to understand the jubilant triumph of the french-canadians and to realize that he had apparently not only upheld the mccarteys in their preposterous nickname, but that he had added all the black-eyed loyettes to his new family. mrs. mccartey said to him that evening, with an innocent misconception of the situation, "sure an' mustn't it sound fine to you, that name, when you've no kith of your own." j.m. realized that that speech broke down the last bridge of retreat into his forsaken dignity. it is worthy of note that as he lay in bed that evening, meditating upon it, he suddenly broke into a little laugh of utter amusement, such as the assistants at middletown library had never heard from his lips. the rapidity with which he was fitted into the routine of the place took his breath away. at first when he sat on the porch, which was the common ground of all the families, either mrs. mccartey or mrs. loyette sewed near him to keep an eye on the children, but, as his strength came back, they made him, with a sigh of relief, their substitute, and disappeared into the house about neglected housework. "oh, ain't it lovely now!" cried mrs. mccartey to mrs. loyette, "to have an old person of your own about the place that you can leave the children with a half-minute, while you snatch the wash-boiler off the fire or keep the baby from cuttin' her throat with the butcher-knife." mrs. loyette agreed, shaking her sleek black head a great many times in emphasis. "zose pipple," she added, "zose lucky pipple who have all zere old pipple wiz zem, they can _not_ know how hard is eet to be a mozzer, wizout a one grand'mã¨re, or oncle." so j.m. at the end of his first fortnight in woodville found himself undisputed umpire in all the games, discussions, quarrels, and undertakings of seven young, irish-americans and more french-canadian-americans than he could count. he never did find out exactly how many loyettes there were. the untidy front yard, littered with boxes and barrels, assumed a strangely different aspect to him as he learned its infinite possibilities, for games and buildings and imaginations generally. sometimes it was a village with a box as house for each child, ranged in streets and lanes, and then uncle jerry was the mayor and had to make the laws. sometimes the yard foamed and heaved in salt waves as, embarked in caravels, the expedition for the discovery of america (out of the older children's history-books) dashed over the atlantic. it is needless to state that uncle jerry was christopher columbus. both the grateful mothers whom he was relieving cried out that never had there been such peace as since he came, not only because the children could appeal to him for decisions instead of running to their mothers, but because, the spectacular character in every game belonging to him as "company," there were no more quarrels between mike and pierre about the leadership. j.m. could not seem to find his old formal personality for weeks after mike's baseball had knocked it out of him, and in the meantime he submitted, meekly at first and later with an absurd readiness, to being an indian chieftain, and the head of the fire department, and the principal of a big public school, and the colonel of a regiment, and the owner of a cotton factory, and the leader of arctic expeditions, and all the other characters which the fertile minds inhabiting the front yard forced upon him. he realized that he was a changed soul when he found himself rejoicing as the boys came tugging yet another big crate, obtained from the factory, to add to the collection before him. they needed it for the car for the elephant as the circus they were then performing moved from one end of the yard to the other. he was often very, very tired when night came, but he surprised himself by never having a touch of his old enemy, insomnia. at first he went to bed when the children did, but as he progressed out of convalescence, he sat out on the porch with pat and bridget, as they insisted he should call them. it was very quiet then, when the cool summer dusk had hushed all the young life which made each day such an absorbing series of unexpected events. the puppies and kittens slept in their boxes, the hens had gathered the chickens under their wings, the children were sound asleep, and the great elms cast kindly shadows on the porch where the older people sat. the loyettes often came out and joined them, and j.m. listened with an interest which surprised him as they told stories about hard times in their old homes, rejoiced in their present prosperity, and made humbly aspiring plans for their children. for the first time in his life j.m. felt himself to be a person of almost unlimited resources, both of knowledge and wealth, as the pitiful meagerness of his hosts supply of these commodities was revealed to him in these talks, more intimate than any he had known, more vitally human than any he had ever heard. the acquisition of rare first edition, perhaps the most stirring event in his life in middletown, had never aroused him to anything like the eagerness with which he heard the loyettes helplessly bemoaning their inability to do anything for their oldest child, rosalie, a slim girl of seventeen. her drawing-teacher at school had said that the child had an unusual gift for designing, and a manufacturer of wallpaper, who had seen some of her work on a visit to the woodville factory, had confirmed this judgment and said that "something ought to be done for her." "but _what?_" her parents wondered with an utter ignorance of the world outside of woodville which astonished j.m. "why don't you send her to a school of design?" he asked. "vat is _zat_?" asked papa loyette blankly, and "we have no money," sighed maman. j.m. stirred himself, wrote to the director of a school of design in albany, consulted the priest of the parish, sent some of rosalie's work, and asked about scholarships. when a favorable answer came, he hurried to explain the matter to the loyettes and offered to provide the four dollars a week necessary for her board at the catholic home for working girls, of which the priest had told him. he went to bed that night with his heart beating faster from the reflection of their agitated joy than it had done for years. he could not get to sleep for a long time, such a thrill of emotion did he get from each recollection of maman loyette's broad face bathed in tears of gratitude. after this they fell into the way of asking him about all their problems, from the management of difficult children to what to do about an unjust foreman and whether to join the union. the childless, unpractical, academic old bachelor, forced to meditate on these new subjects, gave utterance to advice whose sagacity amazed himself. he had not known it was in him to have such sensible ideas about how to interest a growing boy in athletics to keep him from drinking; and as for the question of unions, he boiled at the memory of some of the half-baked, pedantic theories he had heard promulgated by the professor of political economy in middletown. on the other hand, he stood in wonder at the unconscious but profound wisdom which these ignorant people showed as to the fundamentals of life. "no, we're not much for _clothes!_" said mrs. mccartey, comfortably tucking up her worn and faded sleeves. "haven't we all of us enough good clothes to go to mass in, and that's a'plenty! the rest of pat's money goes to gettin' lots of good food for the children, bless their red faces and fat little bellies! and laying by a dollar or so a week against the rainy day. children can play better, anyhow, with only overalls and shirts. the best times for kids is the cheapest!" j.m. thought of the heavy-eyed, harassed professors of his acquaintance, working nights and sundays at hack work to satisfy the nervous ambitions of their wives to keep up appearances, and gave a sudden swift embrace to the ragged child on his lap, little molly, who had developed an especial cult for him, following him everywhere with great pansy eyes of adoring admiration. on his first expedition out of the yard since his illness, he was touched by the enthusiastic interest which all main street took in his progress. women with babies came down to nearly every gate to pass the time of day with rosalie, on whose arm he leaned, and to say in their varying foreign accents that they were glad to see the sick gentleman able to be out. since j.m. had had a chance at first-hand observation of the variety of occupation forced upon the mother of seven, he was not surprised that they wore more or less dilapidated wrappers and did not marcel-wave their hair. now he noticed the motherly look in their eyes, and the exuberant health of the children laughing and swarming about them. when he returned to the house he sat down on the porch to consider a number of new ideas which were springing up in his mind, beginning to return to its old vigor. mrs. mccartey came out to see how he had stood the fatigue and said: "sure you look smarter than before you went! it inter_est_ed you now, didn't it, to have a chance really to see the old place?" "yes," said j.m., "it did, very much." mrs. mccartey went on: "i've been thinkin' so many times since you come how much luckier you are than most yankees that come back to their old homes. it must seem so good to you to see the houses just swarmin' with young life and to know that the trees and yards and rocks and brooks that give you such a good time when you was a boy, are goin' on givin' good times to a string of other boys." j.m. looked at her with attentive, surprised eyes. "why, do you know," he cried, "it _does_ seem good, to be sure!" the other did not notice the oddness of his accent as she ended meditatively: "you can never get me to believe that it don't make old yankees feel low in their minds to go back to their old homes and find just a few white-headed rheumatickers potterin' around, an' the grass growing over everything as though it was a molderin' graveyard that nobody iver walked in, and sorra sign of life anyway you look up and down the street." j.m.'s mind flew back to the summer home of the president of middletown. "good gracious," he exclaimed, "you're right!" mrs. mccartey did not take in to the full this compliment, her mind being suddenly diverted by the appearance of a tall figure at the door of the farther wing of the house. "say, uncle jerry," she said, lowering her voice, "stefan petrofsky asked me the other day if i thought you would let him talk to you about ivan some evening?" "why, who are they, anyhow?" asked j.m. "i've often wondered why they kept themselves so separate from the rest of us." as he spoke he noticed the turn of his phrase and almost laughed aloud. "petrofsky's wife, poor thing, died since they come here, and now there's only stefan, he's the father, and ivan, he's the boy. he's awful smart they say, and stefan, he's about kilt himself to get the boy through the high school. he graduated this spring and now stefan he says he wants him to get some _more_ education. he says their family, back in russia, was real gentry and he wants ivan to learn a lot so that he can help the poor roosians who come here to do the right thing by the government--" "_ what_?" asked j.m. "i don't seem to catch his idea." "well, no more do i, sorra bit," confessed mrs. mccartey serenely. "not a breath of what he meant got to me, but what he _said_ was that ivan's schoolin' had put queer ideas in his head to be an anarchist or somethin' and he thought that maybe more schoolin' would drive out _thim_ ideas and put in other ones yet. hasn't it a foolish sound, now?" she appealed to j .m. for a sympathy she did not get. "it sounds like the most interesting case i ever heard of," he cried, with a generous looseness of superlative new to him. "is ivan that tall, shy, sad-looking boy who goes with his father to work?" "that's _him_. an' plays the fiddle fit to tear the heart out of your body, and reads big books till god knows what hour in the mornin'. his father, he says _he_ don't know what to do with him ... there's a big, bad devil of a polack down to the works that wants him to join the anarchists in the fall and go to----" j.m. rose to his feet and hurried down the porch toward the petrofsky wing of the house, addressing himself to the tall, grave-faced figure in the doorway. "oh, mr. petrofsky, may i have a few minutes' talk with you about your son?" he said. iii the registrar of middletown college, being a newcomer, saw nothing unusual in the fact that the librarian came to his office on matriculation day to enroll as a freshman a shy, dark-eyed lad with a foreign name; but the president and older professors were petrified into speechlessness by the news that old j.m. had returned from parts unknown with a queer-looking boy, who called the old man uncle. their amazement rose to positive incredulity when they heard that the fastidious, finical old bachelor had actually installed a raw freshman in one of his precious tower-rooms, always before inexorably guarded from the mildest and most passing intrusion on their hallowed quiet. the president made all haste to call on j.m. and see the phenomenon with his own eyes. as discreetly as his raging curiosity would allow him, he fell to questioning the former recluse. when he learned that j.m. had spent six weeks in woodville, no more explanation seemed needed. "oh, of course, your old home?" "yes," said j.m., "my old home." "and you had a warm welcome there, i dare say?" "yes, indeed," said j.m. "found the old town in good condition?" "excellent!" this with emphasis. the president saw it all, explaining it competently to himself. "yes, yes, i see it from here--vacation spent in renewing your youth playing with the children--promised to go back at christmas, i suppose." "oh, yes, of course," said j.m. "children cried when you came away, and gave you dotty little things they'd made themselves?" "just like that," with a reminiscent smile. "well, well," the president got to his feet. "of course, most natural thing in the world to take an interest in your brothers' and sisters' children." j.m. did not contradict the president. he never contradicted the presidents. he outlasted them so consistently that it was not necessary. this time he took off his glasses and rubbed them on an awkwardly fashioned chamois spectacle-wiper made for him by little molly mccartey. he noticed the pattern of the silk in his visitor's necktie and it made him think of one of rosalie loyette's designs. he smiled a little. the president regarded this smiling silence with suspicion. he cocked his eye penetratingly upon his librarian. "but it is very queer, j.m., that as long as i have known you, i never heard that you _had_ any family at all." j.m. put his clean and polished spectacles back on his nose and looked through them into the next room, where ivan petrofsky sat devouring his first lesson in political economy. then he turned, beaming like an amiable sphinx upon his interrogator. "do you know--i never realized it myself until just lately," he said. by abana and pharpar fields, green fields of shining river, lightly left too soon in the stormy equinoctial, in the hunter's moon,- snow-blown fields of shining river i shall once more tread; i shall walk their crested hollows, living or dead. finis to old mrs. prentiss, watching apprehensively each low mountain dawn, the long, golden days of the warm autumn formed a series of blessed reprieves from the loom which hung over her. with her inherited and trained sense of reality, she could not cheat herself into forgetting, even for a moment, that her fate was certain, but, nevertheless, she took a breathless enjoyment in each day, as it passed and did not bring the dreaded change in her life. she spoke to her husband about this feeling as they sat on the front step one october evening, when the air was as mild as in late may, breaking the calm silence, in which they usually sat, by saying, "seems as though this weather was just made for us, don't it, father?" the old man stirred uneasily in his chair. "i dun'no'--seems sometimes to me as though i'd ruther have winter come and be done with it. if we've got to go as soon as cold weather sets in, we might as well go and have it over with. as 'tis, i keep on saying good-by in my mind to things and folks every minute, and then get up in the morning to begin it all again. this afternoon i was down the river where i saved hiram's life when he was a little fellow--the old black whirl-hole. i got to thinking about that time, i never was real sure till then i wouldn't be a coward if it come right down _to_ it. seems as though i'd been more of a man ever since. it's been a real comfort to me to look at that whirl-hole, and that afternoon it come over me that after this there wouldn't be a single thing any more to remind us of anything _good_ or bad, we've ever done. it'll be most as if we hadn't lived at all. i just felt as though i _couldn't_ go away from everything and everybody i've ever known down to hiram's stuffy little flat. and yet i suppose we are real lucky to have such a good son as hiram now the others are all gone. i dun'no' what we'd do if 'tweren't for him." "do!" cried his wife bitterly. "we could go on living right in this valley where we belong, if 'twas only in the poor-house!" the old man answered reasonably, as though trying to convince himself, "well, i suppose it's really flying in the face of providence to feel so. the doctor says your lungs ain't strong enough to stand another of our winters in the mountains, fussing over stove fires, and zero weather and all, and i'm so ailing i probably wouldn't last through, either. he says it's a special dispensation that we've got such a nice place to go where there's steam heat, and warm as summer, day and night." "nathaniel!" exclaimed his wife, attempting to turn her bulky body toward him in the energy of her protest, "how can you talk so! we've visited hiram and we know what an awful place he lives in. i keep a-seeing that little narrow room that's to be all the place you and i'll have, with the one window that gets flapped by the wash of the lord knows who, and that kitchen as big as the closet to my bedroom here, and that long narrow hall--why, it's as much as ever i can walk down that all without sticking fast--and hiram's queer dutch wife--" she stopped, silenced by the scantiness of her vocabulary, but through her mind still whirled wordless outcries of rebellion. her one brief visit to the city rose before her with all the horror of the inexplicable, strange, and repellent life which it had revealed to her. the very conveniences of the compact city apartment were included in her revulsion from all that it meant. the very kindnesses of the pretty, plump german woman who was her daughter-in-law startled and repelled her, as did the familiar, easy, loud-voiced affection of the blond young german-americans who were her grandchildren. even her own son, hiram, become half teutonic through the influence of his business and social relations among the germans, seemed alien and remote to her. the stout, beer-drinking, good-natured and easygoing man seemed another person from the shy, stiff lad who had gone away from them many years ago, looking so like his father at nineteen that his mother choked to see him. she passed in review all the small rooms of her son's home, "strung along the hall like buttons on a string," and thought of the three flights of stairs which were the only escape from them--three long, steep flights, which left her breathless, her knees trembling under her great weight, and which led out on the narrow side street, full of noisy, impertinent children and clattering traffic. beyond that, nothing--a city full of strangers whose every thought and way of life were foreign to her, whose very breath came in hurried, feverish gasps, who exhaled, as they passed her, an almost palpable emanation of hostile indifference to her and her existence. it was no new vision to her. ever since the doctor's verdict had made it impossible longer to resist her son's dutiful urging of his parents to make his home theirs she had spent scarcely an hour without a sudden sick wave of dread of what lay before her; but the picture was the none the less horrifying because of familiarity, and she struck her hands together with a sharp indrawn breath. the gaunt old man turned toward her, a helpless sympathy twisting his seamed and weather-marked face. "it's too _bad_, mother," he said. "i know just how you feel about it. but hiram's a good son, and"--he hesitated, casting about for a redeeming feature--"there's always the natural history museum and the birds." "that's just it, nathaniel," returned the old rebel against fate. "you have something there that's going on with _one_ thing you've done here. you've always noticed birds and studied 'em in the woods, and you can go on doing it in a museum. but there ain't a thing for me! all i've ever done is to live right here in this house ever since i was born, and look out at the mountains and the big meadows and the river and the churchyard, and keep house and take care of you and the children. "now the children are all gone, and i haven't the strength to take care of you the way you need; my life is all done--there ain't no more to it! "it's like a book--there's still a chapter _you_ can write, or one you can finish up; but me--i've come right down to _finis_, only the lord won't write it for me. it's as if somebody wanted to scrawl on the back flyleaf something that hasn't a thing to do with the rest of the book, some scratching stuff in a furrin' language that i can't even understand." her husband did not contradict her. he sighed heavily and they both fell again into a cheerless silence. the moon rose with a strange, eerie swiftness over the wall of mountain before them, and its wavering reflection sprang at once to life in the swirling waters of the black hole in the necronsett on the other side of the meadow. the old woman's heart gave a painful leap in her breast at the sight. it was probably one of the last times she would see it. numberless occasions when she had noted it before hurried through her mind. she felt herself again the little girl who had sat in summer evenings, miles away from the talk of her elders in a happy child's reverie, and who had grown dizzy with watching the swimming reflection in the whirlpool. she had a strange fleeting hallucination that she was again sitting in the moonlight, her cheeks flushed and her strong young pulse beating high to hear nathaniel's footfall draw nearer down the road. she felt again the warm, soft weight of her little son, the first-born, the one who had died young, as she remembered how proud she and nathaniel had been when he first noticed the moon. an odd passion of recollection possessed her. as the moon rose higher she seemed to be living over at one time a thousand hours of her busy, ardent life. she looked at the high, drooping line of the mountains with her childhood's delight in its clear outline against the sky; she saw the white stones of the old graveyard, next door, glimmer through the shadow cast by the church tower, with the half uneasy, fearful pleasure of her romantic girlhood; she felt about her the solidity and permanency of the old house, her father's and her grandfather's home, with the joy in protected security of her young married life; and through it all there ran a heavy sick realization that she was, in fact, a helpless old woman, grown too feeble to conduct her own life, and who was to be forced to die two deaths, one of the spirit and one of the body. "come, mother," said nathaniel, rising, "we'd better go to bed. we both of us get notiony sitting here in the moonlight." he helped her raise her weighty body with the deftness of long practice and they both went dully into the house. the knowledge of the sky and of the signs of weather which was almost an instinct with the descendant of generations of farmers, was put to an anxious use during the days which followed. not since the days when, as a young girl, she had roamed the mountains, as much a part of the forest and fields as any wild inhabitant, had she so scanned the face of the valley which was her world. she had stopped hoping for any release from her sentence. she only prayed now for one more day of grace, and into each day she crowded a fullness of life which was like a renewal of her vigorous youth. of late years, existence had flowed so uniform a passage through the channels of habit that it had become but half sentient. the two old people had lived in almost as harmoniously vacant and vital a silence as the old trees in the forest back of the house. in the surroundings which generations of human use had worn to an exquisite fitness for their needs, and to which a long lifetime had adjusted their every action, they convicted their life with the unthinking sureness of a process of nature. but now the old woman, feeling exile close upon her, drew from every moment of the familiar life an essential savor. she knew there was no hope for her; the repeated visits of the doctor and his decided judgments left her no illusions as to the possibility of escape. "the very first cold snap you must certainly go," he said, with the inflexibility of the young. "mr. prentiss is likely to have one of his bad turns and you simply cannot give him the are he must have. besides, when he is sick, you will have to look after the fires, and the slightest exposure would mean pneumonia. i've just written your son so." he drew on his overcoat. he was so recently from the hospital that it was still of a fashionable cut and texture. "_i_ can't see anyway why you object to going. your son can't afford to keep you both here, and hire somebody to look after you into the bargain. think of the advantages you have there, theaters and museums and the like." mrs. prentiss spoke sharply. "i've never been in a theater in my life and i hope i'll go to my grave without being; and as for museums and things, look at me! i'm so big i can hardly get into the cars, and my city grandchildren are ashamed to go out with me and have all the folks looking at the fat old woman from the country." the doctor laughed involuntarily at this picture as he turned away. "do you think you are so big it takes the whole necronsett valley to hold you?" he called lightly over his shoulder. mrs. prentiss looked after him with burning eyes what did _he_ know about the continuity of human life he had told her himself that he had never lived more than four years in one place. what did he know of ordering your life, not only for yourself, but for your parents and grandparents? she felt often as she looked upon the unchanging line of the mountains guarding the valley, as in her great-grandfather's time, that she saw with the eyes of her ancestors as well as her own. the room in which she stood had been her grandmother's bedroom, and her father had been born there, as she had been herself, and as her children had been. in her childhood she had looked up to the top of the tall chest of drawers as to a mountain peak, and her children had, after her. every inequality in the floor was as familiar to her feet as to those of her great-grandmother. the big chest, where she had always kept her children's clothes, had guarded hers and her mother's, and as often as she had knelt by it, she had so vivid a recollection of seeing her mother and her grandmother in the same attitude, that she seemed to lose for a moment the small and confining sense of individual personality, and to become merged in a noble procession of mothers of the race. she had been an undisciplined girl, called a tomboy in those days, whose farmer forbears had given to her a pagan passion for the soil and the open sky. although brought up with a rigid training in theology, religion had never meant more to her than a certainty of hell as a punishment for misdeeds which neither she nor any of the valley people were likely to commit--murder, suicide, false swearing, and the like. of definite religious feeling, she had none, although the discipline of a hard if happy life had brought her spiritual life in an unconsciously profound form. she had shrunk from that discipline with all the force of her nature, and in her girl's heart had vowed that she would never marry and lead the slave's life of a new england farmer's wife. but then had arrived nathaniel, the big, handsome lad who had taken her wild, shy heart and lost his own when they first met. so, half rebellious, she had begun the life of a wife in the old house from which her mother had just gone to the churchyard next door, and which was yet filled with her brave and gentle spirit. the old woman, looking miserably about her, remembered how at every crisis of her life the old house had spoken to her of the line of submissive wives and mothers which lay back of her, and had tamed her to a happy resignation in the common fate of women. on her mother's bed she had borne the agony of childbirth without a murmur, she whose strong young body had never known pain of any kind. she had been a joyful prisoner to her little children, she who had always roamed so foot-free in her girlhood, and with a patience inspired by the thought of her place in the pilgrimage of her race, she had turned the great strength of her love for her husband toward a contented acceptance of the narrow life which was all he could give her. each smallest detail in the room had a significance running back over years. the ragged cuts in the window-sill moved her to a sudden recollection of how naughty little hiram had cut them with his first knife. with what a repressed intensity she had loved the child while she had reproved him! how could she go away and leave every reminder of her children! with a quick and characteristic turn she caught herself in the flagrant contradiction involved in her reluctance to leave behind her mere senseless reminders of her son when she was going to his actual self. and then, with the despairing clear sight of one in a crisis of life, she knew that, in very fact, hiram was no longer the boy who had left them years ago. away from all that made up her life, under influences utterly foreign and alien, he had spent almost twice as many years as he had with her. not only had the reaction from his severe training carried him to another extreme of laxness, but as result of his continued absence he had lost all contact with her world. he no longer consciously repudiated it, he had crossed the deeper gulf of forgetting it. he was a stranger to her. always before the memories which clung about every corner of the dark old house had helped her, but now she was forced to face a crisis which none of her people had known. it was not one of the hardships of life which were to be accepted, and the hot rebellion of her girlhood burned in her aching old heart. she thought resentfully of the doctor's blind and stony lack of understanding. his last ironic sentence came to her mind and she flamed at the recollection. yes, it did take the whole valley to hold her, the valley which was as much a part of her as her eyes which beheld it. there were moments when she stood under the hazy autumn sky, so acutely conscious of every line and color of the great wall of mountains surrounding her that she grew in very fact to be an indivisible portion of the whole--felt herself as actually rooted to that soil and as permanent under that sky as the great elm before the door. she made no more outcries against fate to her husband, partly because of the anguish which came upon his gentle old face at the sight of her suffering, and partly because she felt herself to have no tangible reason for rebellion. during the last years they had gone drearily around and around the circle which they felt closing so inexorably upon them, and there was no longer any use to wear themselves out in futile discussions of impossible plans. they had both been trained to regard reasonableness as one of the cardinal virtues, and to the mild nature of the old man it was a natural one, so they tried conscientiously to force themselves not only to act, but to feel, "like sensible folks," as they put it bravely to themselves. "other folks have gone to live with their children, and not near such good sons as hiram either, and they didn't make such a fuss about it," said mr. prentiss one evening, out of a long silence, as they sat in front of the hearth. he looked at his wife, hoping for a cheerful response, but her lips were set in a quivering line of pain, and the flickering light showed her fair broad face glistening with tears. "oh, _mother_!" he cried, in a helpless misery of sympathy. "oh, mother, don't! i can't stand it! if i could only do it for you! but we _can't_ stay, you know." the other nodded dumbly, although after a moment she said, "every day i live all my life over again, and my mother's, and all my folks. it has never seemed as though they really died as long as we lived here same as they did. it's like killing them all again to go away and sell the house to strangers." there was a silence and then, "oh, nathaniel, what was that?" she cried, her voice rising in a quaver of apprehension. "the wind," said her husband, stirring the fire. "i know. but _what_ wind? it sounds like the first beginning of the wind over eagle rock, and that means snow!" she hastened heavily to the window, and raised the shade. "there's a ring around the moon as plain as my wedding ring!" and then as she looked there clung to the window-pane a single flake of snow, showing ghastly white in the instant before it melted. "nathaniel, the end has come," she said solemnly. "help me get to bed." the next morning there was a foot of snow and the thermometer was going steadily down. when the doctor arrived, red-nosed and gasping from the knife-like thrusts of the wind over eagle rock, he announced that it was only eight above zero, and he brought a kindly telegram from hiram, saying that he had started for the mountains to accompany his parents back to the city. "i envy you!" said the doctor, blowing on his stiff fingers. "think of the bliss of being where you have only to turn a screw in your steam-radiator to escape from this beastly cold. your son will be here on the evening train, and i'll bring him right over. you'll be ready to start tomorrow, won't you? you've had all the autumn to get packed up in." mrs. prentiss did not answer. she was so irrationally angry with him that she could not trust herself to speak. she stood looking out of the low window at the necronsett, running swift and black between the white banks. she felt a wave of her old obsession that in her still lived the bygone dwellers in the old house, that through her eyes they still saw the infinitely dear and familiar scenes, something in her own attitude reminded her of how her father had looked as he stood every morning at that same window and speculated on the weather. for a moment she had an almost dizzy conviction that he did in all reality stand there again. then she heard the doctor saying, "i'm coming over there myself when you start for the station, to see that you're well wrapped up. the least exposure----" he looked at mrs. prentiss's broad and obstinate back, turned, to her husband, and tapped his chest significantly. after he had gone the room was intensely quiet. mr. prentiss sat by the fire, looking vacantly at his withered old hands on his knees, and his wife did not stir from the window. her heavy, wide figure was immovable, but a veritable whirlwind of despair raged within her. she had supposed she knew all along how bad it was going to be, but it had been a foolish child's play, like shutting your eyes to pretend you were blind. now that utter darkness was upon her, it was as great a shock as though it came with the most extreme and cruel surprise. a thousand furious fancies went through her mind, although she continued to gaze out of the window with the same blank look of stunned incredulity. the whirlpool in the river caught her eye and she had a wild impulse to throw herself into it. even in her frenzy, however, there came the thought, instantly dissuading, of the scandal in the village and family which such an action would cause. no, there was no escape at all, since that simple and obvious one was closed. the valley lay about her, the mountain walls iridescent with snow in sunshine, the river gleaming with its curious, rapid, serpentine life, in all the peaceful death of winter; everything was as it always had been. her mind refused to accept the possibility of her living under other conditions with as irresistible and final a certainty as if she had been called upon to believe she could live with her head separated from her body. and yet, battering at that instinctive feeling, came the knowledge that she was to start for new york the next day. she felt suddenly that she could not. "i can't! i can't!" she cried dumbly. "i can't, even if i _have_ to!" an instant later, like an echo, a fiercer gust than usual swept down off the ledge of rock above the little house, rattled the loose old window, and sent a sharp blade of icy air full in the old woman's eyes. she gasped and started back. and then, all in a breath, her face grew calm and smooth, and her eyes bright with a sudden resolve. without a moment's hesitation, she turned to her husband and said in a tone more like her old self than he had heard for some time, "father, i wish you'd go over to mrs. warner's and take back that pattern. if we're going to leave to-morrow, you know----" the old man rose obediently, and began putting on his wraps. his wife helped him, and hurried him eagerly off. when she was alone, she tore at the fastening of her gown in a fury of haste, baring her wrinkled old throat widely. then without a glance about her, she opened the door to the woodshed, stepped out, and closed it behind her. the cold clutched at her throat like a palpable hand of ice, and her first involuntary gasp set her into a fit of coughing. she sat down on the stump where kindlings were always split and opened her gown wider. she noticed how fair and smooth the skin on her shoulders still was and remembered that her husband had always been proud of her pretty neck. she had worn a low-necked dress when he had told her he loved her. that had been in the garden, into which she could now look as she sat on the stump. she had been picking currants for tea, and he had gone out to see her. the scene came up before her so vividly that she heard his voice, and felt herself turn to him with the light grace of her girlhood and cry again, in an ecstasy of surprised joy, "oh, _nathaniel!_" a gust of wind whirled a handful of snow against her and some of it settled on her bare shoulders. she watched it melt and felt the icy little trickle with a curious aloofness. suddenly she began to shiver, gripped by a dreadful chill, which shook her like a strong hand. after that she was very still again, the death-like cold penetrating deeper and deeper until her breath came in constricted gasps. she did not stir until she heard the front door bang to her husband's return. then she rose with infinite effort and struggled back into the kitchen. when he came in, she was standing by the sink, fumbling idly with the dishes. already her head was whirling, and she scarcely knew what she was doing. in the nightmare of horror which his wife's sudden sickness brought upon him, old mr. prentiss felt that he could bear everything except the sight and sound of his wife's struggles for breath. he hardly saw the neighbor women who filled the house, taking advantage of this opportunity to inspect the furniture with an eye to the auction which would follow the removal of the old people to the city. he hardly heeded the doctor's desperate attempts with all varieties of new-fangled scientific contrivances to stay the hand of death. he hardly knew that his son had come, and in his competent, prosperous way was managing everything for him. he sat in one corner of the sick-room, and agonized over the unconscious sick woman, fighting for every breath. on the third day he was left alone with her, by some chance, and suddenly the dreadful, heaving gasp was still. he sprang to the bedside, sick with apprehension, but his wife looked up at him with recognition in her eyes. "this is the end, nathaniel," she said in so low a whisper that he laid his ear to her lips to hear. "don't let anybody in till i'm gone. i don't want 'em to see how happy i look." her face wore, indeed, an unearthly look of beatitude. "nathaniel," she went on, "i hope there's no life after this--for _me_ anyway. i don't think i ever had very much soul. it was always enough for me to live in the valley with you. when i go back into the ground i'll be where i belong. i ain't fit for heaven, and, anyway, i'm tired. we've lived hard, you and i, nathaniel; we loved hard when we were young, and we've lived all our lives right out to the end. now i want to rest." the old man sat down heavily in a chair by the bed. his lips quivered, but he said nothing. his wife's brief respite from pain had passed as suddenly as it came, and her huge frame began again to shake in the agony of straining breath. she managed to speak between gasps. "don't let a soul in here, nathaniel. i'll be gone in a few minutes. i don't want 'em to see----" the old man stepped to the door and locked it. as he came back, the sick woman motioned him to come closer. "natty, i thought i could keep it, but i never did have a secret from you, and i can't die without telling you, if there _is_ a heaven and hell----oh, natty, i've done a wicked thing and i'm dying without repenting. i'd do it again. that time you went to mrs. warner's with the pattern--this cold i got that day i went out----" her husband interrupted her. for the first time in years he did not call her "mother," but used the pet name of their courtship. the long years of their parenthood had vanished. they had gone back to the days when each had made up all the world to the other. "i know, matey," he said. "i met young warner out in the road and give the pattern to him, and i come right back, and see you sitting out there. i knew what 'twas for." his wife stared at him, amazement silencing her. "i thought it was the only thing left i could do for you, matey, to let you stay there. you know i never wished for anything but that you should have what you wanted." he had spoken in a steady, even tone, which now broke into an irrepressible wail of selfish, human anguish. "but you leave me all _alone_, matey! how can i get on without you! i thought i'd die myself as i sat inside the house watching you. you're all i ever had, matey! all there has ever been in the world for me!" the old woman stopped her gasping by a superhuman effort. "why, natty, i never supposed you thought so much of me still. i thought that had gone when we got old. but, oh, my dear! i'm afraid i've dragged you down with me to destruction. it wa'n't any matter about me, but i'm afraid you've lost your soul. that was a wicked thing for us to do!" her husband lifted his tear-stained, old face and laid it on the pillow beside her. he did not put his arms about her, as a younger lover or one of another country might have done, but because he was a man who had loved deeply all his life, his answer came with the solemn significance and sincerity of a speech before the judgment seat. "i ain't afraid of hell if you're there, matey," he said. his wife turned her head and looked at him, her whole face transfigured. she was no longer a fat old woman on her deathbed. before his very eyes she grew again to be the girl among the currant bushes, and with the same amazed intonation of incredulous joy she cried his name aloud. "oh, nathaniel!" she said, and with the word the longed for _finis_ was written to her life. a village munchausen i when i was a little girl, and lived in hillsboro with my grandparents, there were two decoration days in every year. one was when all we school-children took flowers put to the cemetery and decorated the graves of the soldiers; and the other was when the peonies and syringas bloomed, and grandfather and i went alone to put a bouquet on the grave of old jedediah chillingworth. grandfather did this as a sort of penance for a great mistake he had made, and i think it was with the idea of making an atonement by confession that he used always to tell me the story of his relations with the old man. at any rate, he started his narrative when we left the house and began to walk out to the cemetery, and ended it as he laid the flowers on the neglected grave. i trotted along beside him, faster and faster as he grew more and more interested, and then stood breathless on the other side of the grave as he finished, in his cracked old voice, harsh with emotion. the first part of his story happened a very long time ago, even before grandfather was born, when jedediah chillingworth first began to win for himself the combination title of town-fool and town-liar. by the time grandfather was a half-grown boy, big enough to join in the rough crowd of village lads who tormented jed, the old dizzard had been for years the local butt. of course i never saw him, but i have keard so much about him from all the gossips in the village, and grandfather used to describe him so vividly, that i feel as if i know all about him. for about ten years of his youth jedediah had been way from our little vermont town, wandering in the great world. from his stories, he had been everywhere on he map. in the evening, around the stove in the village post-office, when somebody read aloud from the newspaper a remarkable event, all the loafers turned to jed with wide, malicious grins, to hear him cap it with a yet ore marvelous tale of what had happened to him. they gathered around the simple-minded little old man, their tongues in their cheeks, and drew from him one silly, impossible, boastful story after another. they made him amplify circumstantially by clumsily artful questions, and poked one another in the ribs with delight over his deluded joy in their sympathetic interest. as he grew older, his yarns solidified like folk-lore, into a consecrated and legendary form, which he repeated endlessly without variation. there were many of them--"how i drove a team of four horses over a falling bridge," "how i interviewed the king of portugal," "how i saved big sam harden's life in the forest fire." but the favorite one was, "how i rode the moose into kennettown, massachusetts." this was the particular flaunting, sumptuous yarn which everybody made old jed bring out for company. if a stranger remarked, "old man chillingworth can tell a tale or two, can't he?" everybody started up eagerly with the cry: "oh, but have you heard him tell the story of how he rode the moose into kennettown, massachusetts?" if the answer was negative; all business was laid aside until the withered little old man was found, pottering bout some of the odd jobs by which he earned his living. he was always as pleased as punch to be asked to perform, and laid aside his tools with a foolish, bragging grin on his face, of which grandfather has told me so many times that it seems as if i had really seen it. this is how he told the story, always word for word the same way: "wa'al, sir, i've had queer things happen to me in my time, hain't i, boys?"--at which the surrounding crowd always wagged mocking heads--"but nothin' to beat that. when i was ashore wunst, from one of my long v'y'ges on the sea, i was to kennettown, massachusetts." "how'd ye come to go there, jed?" this was a question never to be omitted. "oh, i had a great sight of money to take to some folks that lived there. the captain of our ship had died at sea, and he give me nine thousand five hundred and seventy-two english gold guineas, to take to his brother and sister." here he always stared around at the company, and accepted credulously the counterfeit coin of grotesquely exaggerated amazement which was given him. "wa'al, sir, i done it. i give the gold to them as it belonged to, and i was to leave town on the noon stagecoach. i was stayin' in the captain's brother's house. it was spang up against the woods, on the edge of town; and, i tell ye, woods _was_ woods in them days. "the mornin' i was to leave i was up early, lookin' out of my window, when what should i see with these mortial eyes but a gre't bull moose, as big as two yoke o' oxen, comin' along toward the house. he sort o' staggered along, and then give a gre't sigh i could hear from my room--i was on the ground floor--fell down on his knees, and laid his head on the ground 's if he was too beat out to go another step. wa'al, sir, i never waited not long enough even to fetch a holler to wake the folks i just dove out o' the window, and made for him as fast as i could lick in. as i went by the wood-pile, i grabbed up a big stick of wood----" "what kind of wood?" everybody asked in chorus. "'twas a big stick of birch-wood, with the white bark on it as clean as writin'-paper. i grabbed that up for a club--'twas the only thing in sight--and when i got to the moose i hit him a clip on the side of the head as hard as i could lay on. he didn't so much as open an eye, but i saw he was still breathing and i climbed up on his back so's to get a good whack at the top of his head. and then, sir, by jupiter! he riz right up like a earthquake under me, and started off at forty miles an hour. he throwed his head back as he run, and ketched me right between his horns, like a nut in a nutcracker. i couldn't have got out of them horns--no, sir, a charge of powder couldn't scarcely have loosened me." there was another pause at this place for the outcries of astonishment and marvel which were never lacking. then jed went on, mumbling his toothless gums in delight over his importance. "wa'al, sir, i dassent tell ye how long we careered around them woods and pastures, for, after a while, he got so plumb crazy that he run right out into the open country. i'd hit him a whack over the head with my stick of wood every chanst i got and he was awful weak anyhow, so he'd kind o' stagger whenever he made a sharp turn. by an' by we got to goin' toward town. somehow he'd landed himself in the road; an', sir, we rid up to the hotel like a coach and four, and he drapped dead in front of the steps, me stickin' as fast between his horns as if i'd 'a' growed to him. yes, sir, they ackchally had to saw one of them horns off'n his head before they got me out." he came to a full stop here, but this was not the end. "what became of the horns, jed? why didn't ye bring 'em along?" "i did take the one they sawed off, to give to my partner, big sam harden. he was the biggest man i ever see, sam harden was. i left th' other horn in kennettown for the captain's sister. she was as smart an' handsome a widow-woman as ever i see, an' i wanted for her to have a keepsake from me." this was really the end. the circle of inquisitors left their unconscious victim nodding and grinning to himself, and went on down the road. grandfather said he still felt mean all over to remember how they laughed among themselves, and how they pointed out to the stranger the high lights in the story. "not only ain't there never been seen a moose in the state of massachusetts, and not only are a moose's horns set too wide to catch a little squinch of a man like jed, but what do you think?--there ain't no kennettown in massachusetts! no, nor in any other state. no, nor never was. old jed just made the town up out of his head, like the moose, an' the money, and the birch-bark and the handsome widow. don't he beat _all_?" ii my grandfather was one of these boys; in fact, he always used to say he was the ringleader, but that may have been another form of his penance. as he grew up he began to work into his father's business of tanning leather, and by and by, when a man grown, he traveled down to a big tannery at newtonville, in massachusetts, to learn some new processes in leather-curing. when grandfather got along to this part of the story he began stretching his long legs faster and faster, until i was obliged to trot along, panting. he always lived the hurried last part over again, and so did i, although it happened so long before i was born. one evening he was asked to tea by the mother of the prettiest girl in the village--she afterward became my grandmother--and was taken into the "best room" to see all the family curiosities. there were wax flowers and silhouettes and relics of every description. mrs. hamilton spared him not one of these wonders. "this," she said, "is the chain that was made of my grandfather's hair. it was finished and brought home on a wednesday, and thursday, the next day, grandfather was burned up in the great tannery fire, and this was all my grandmother had to remember him by. these are the front teeth of a savage that my uncle josiah abijah killed in the south sea islands. uncle josiah abijah always said it was either him or the black man, but i have always felt that it was murder, just the same, and this is the stick of birch-wood that a sailor-man, who came here once to see my mother, killed a bull moose with." my grandmother has told me that never before or since did she see a human face change as did grandfather's. "what?" he shouted, and his voice cracked. "yes, it sounds queer, but it's so. it's the only time a moose was ever seen here, and folks thought the wolves must have chased it till it was crazy or tired out. this sailor-man, who happened to be here, saw it, ran out, snatched up a stick from the wood-pile, and went at that great animal all alone. folks say he was the bravest man this town ever saw. he got right up on its back--" grandmother said grandfather had turned so pale by this time that she thought he was going to faint and he sat down as if somebody had knocked him down. on the dusty road to the cemetery, however, he only strode along the faster, half forgetting the little girl who dragged at his hand, and turned a sympathetically agitated face up to his narrative. mrs. hamilton went on through the whole incident, telling every single thing just the way old jed did. she showed the dark places on the birch-bark where the blood had stained it, and she said the skull of the animal, with its one horn sawed off, was over among the relics in her aunt's home. "my aunt maria was accounted a very good-looking woman in her day, and there were those that thought she might have taken a second husband, if the sailor had been so disposed. he was so brave and so honest, bringing all that money from my uncle, the sea-captain, when goodness knows, he might have run off with every cent of it, and nobody been any the wiser!" at this grandfather gave a loud exclamation and stood up, shaking his head as if he had the ague. he just couldn't believe his ears, he said. "no! no! _no_! it can't be the same!" he said over and over. "why, he said it happened in kennettown." "well, _now_!" said mrs. hamilton, surprised. "where did you ever get hold of _that_ old name? i didn't suppose a soul but some of our old folks remembered that. why, newtonville wasn't named that but six months. folks got mad at the kennetts for being so highfalutin' over having the town named after them, and so 'twas changed back." grandfather said he'd no notion of another word she said after that. when he went back to his room, he found a letter from home, telling him all the news, and mentioning, among other things, that old jedediah chillingworth wasn't expected to live much longer. age had withered the little old man until there wasn't enough of him left to go on living. grandfather usually reached this part of the story just as we arrived under the big maples that stand on each side of the cemetery gate, and always stopped short to say solemnly: "thank the _lord_! i've two things to my credit. i never waited one minute to start back to hillsboro, and from that time on i wanted to do what was right by the old man, even if it did turn out so different." then we went on into the cemetery, and paced slowly along the winding paths as he continued: "i got to hillsboro late one night, and i'd 'most killed my horse to do it. they said jedediah was still alive, but wasn't expected to last till morning. i went right up to his little old shack, without waiting to see my folks or to get a mouthful to eat. a whole lot of the neighbors had come in to watch with him, and even then, with the old dizzard actually dying, they were making a fool of him. "he was half propped up in bed--he wasn't bigger than my fist by that time--with red spots in his cheeks, and his eyes like glass, and he was just ending up that moose story. the folks were laughing and winking and nudging one another in the ribs, just the way i used to. i was done up with my long, hard ride, and some nervous, i guess, for it fair turned my stomach to see them. "i waited till they were all through laughing, and then i broke loose. i just gave them a piece of my mind! 'look-a-here, you fellows!' i said. 'you think you're awful smart, don't you, making fun of poor old jed as he lies a-dying? now, listen to me. i've ridden forty miles over the mountains to get here before he goes, and make every man jack of you beg the old man's pardon. _that story's true_. i've just found out that every word of it is absolutely, literally the way it happened. newtonville, where i'm staying in massachusetts, used to be called kennettown, and jedediah _did_ take the money there--yes, that exact sum we've laughed at all these years. they call him the honestest man in the world over there. they've got the stick of birch-wood, with the bloodstains on it, and the moose's skull, with the horn sawed off, and there are lots of old people who remember all about it. and i'm here to say i believe old jed's been telling the truth, not only about that, but about all his adventures. i don't believe he's ever lied to us!' "i felt so grand and magnanimous," grandfather went on, "to think how i was making it up to the poor old man, and so set up over bringing a piece of news that just paralyzed everybody with astonishment. they all jumped up, yelling and carrying on. '_what_? that story _true_! well, did you ever! wouldn't that beat all? to think old jed's been telling--" "and then we all thought of him, and started toward the bed to say how bad we felt. "i'll never forget how he looked. his eyes were fairly coming out of his head, and his face was as white as paper. but that wasn't the dreadful thing. what always comes back to me whenever i think of him is the expression on his face. you could just see his heart breaking. he was so hurt, so surprised, so ashamed, that it wasn't decent to look at him. but we couldn't look away. we stood there, hanging our heads--i never felt so mean in my life--while he tried to get breath enough to say something. and then he screamed out--'twas dreadful to hear: "'why, didn't you fellers _believe_ me? did you think i was _lyin_?'" here grandfather stopped and blew his nose, and i choked. "those were his last words. he had some kind of a spasm, and never came to enough to know anything before he died. those were the last words he said; and though they told us that in the coffin he looked just as he always had, only more quiet, with the foolish look gone, we were all of us ashamed to look the dead man in the face." here grandfather laid the flowers on the unkempt grave, as if to serve as an "amen" to his confession. after this i always went around and held his hand tightly, and we stood very still. it was the solemnest time of the year. iii all this used to happen, as i said, when i was a little girl; but i, too, grew up, as grandfather grew bent and feeble. when he was an old, old man of eighty-five, and when i had been away from hillsboro several years teaching school, the last of my grandmother's relatives in newtonville died. i was sent for to decide what should be done with the few family relics, and one saturday and sunday i went all through the little old house, looking over the things. in the garret i came across the moose-skull with one horn. it made me feel queer to think what a part it had played in the development of my grandfather's honorable and tender old soul. there were a few sticks of furniture, some daguerrotypes and silhouettes, and a drawerful of yellow papers. the first i sent home to hillsboro to grandmother. i took the papers back to the town where i was teaching, to look over them. among other things was a quaint old diary of my grandmother's great-aunt, she that was the buxom widow of jed's story. it was full of homely items of her rustic occupations; what day she had "sett the broune hen," and how much butter was made the first month she had the "party-colored cowe from over the mount'n." i glanced idly at these faded bits of insignificant news, when i was electrified by seeing the following entry: #this day came to my bro. amos and me, a sea-man, bringeing news of my bro. elijah's the capt'n's dethe, and allso mutch monie in gold, sent to us by our bro. the sea-man is the greatest in size aver i saw. no man in towne his bed can reach so mutch as to his sholder. and comely withal#. the words fairly whirled on the page before my astonished eyes. where was the image of the ill-favored little old jed, so present to my imagination? i read on breathlessly, skipping news of the hen-house and barnyard, until i came upon this, the only other reference, but quite sufficient: this day the sea-man, samuel harden, left us. the self-restrained woman had said nothing of any disappointment she might have felt. the item stood quite alone, however, in a significant isolation. at least on that day she had not noticed the number of eggs. i doubt if grandfather himself had been more excited when he saw the birch-wood club than i was to read those few words. i could hardly wait till the next saturday to rush back to hillsboro, and relieve the poor old man of the burden of remorse he had carried so faithfully and so mistakenly all these years, and to snatch the specious crown of martyrdom from that shameless thief of another man's exploits. and yet, when i finally arrived at hillsboro, i found it not so easy to begin. some strange spell, exhaled from the unchanging aspect of the old house and the old people, fell on me, and, though i tried several times, i could not find a suitable opening. on sunday morning grandfather asked me if i would help him to get out to jed's grave. the peonies and syringas were in bloom, and grandmother had the bouquet made up ready. drawing me aside, she to me that grandfather was really too infirm to try to make the expedition at all, and certainly could not go alone. even then i could find no words to tell her. i thought it might be easier to do so out of doors. it was the middle of a bright spring morning, when we started off, grandfather leaning on his cane and holding to my arm, while i carried the great clump of red peonies and white syringas. the sun was warm, but a cool breeze blew down from the mountains, and grandfather hobbled along bravely. it made me feel like a little girl again to have him begin the story of the moose, and tell it word for word as he always had. he was forced to stop often now, and wait for breath to come back to him. at each of these halts beside the road, which was white in the clear spring sunshine, it was harder and harder to think of breaking in on him with my discovery. as he finally told about jedediah's wounded virtue on his deathbed--that outcry which seemed to me the most brazen part of the whole imposture--suddenly my heart softened, and i, too, believed that by that time of his life old jed was--i really don't know just what it was that i believed, but it was something as comforting as the quiet warmth of the sunshine. we were standing by the sunken old grave when grandfather finished. i looked at him, the sun shining down on his bent figure and bared white head, the flowers reflecting their brightness up into his withered old face, and a lump came into my throat. i could not have told him if i had wished to. "we were ashamed to look the dead man in the face," he said humbly, and laid the flowers down on the young grass. then i went around and held his dear old hand tightly in mine; and we stood very still for a long, long time. the artist "after the sickening stench of personality in theatrical life," the great madame orloff told the doctor with her usual free-handed use of language, "it is like breathing a thin, pure air to be here again with our dear inhuman old vieyra. he hypnotizes me into his own belief that nothing matters--not broken hearts, nor death, nor success, nor first love, nor old age---nothing but the chiaroscuro of his latest acquisition." the picture-dealer looked at her in silence, bringing the point of his white beard up to his chin with a meditative fist. the big surgeon gazed about him with appreciative eyes, touched his mustache to his gold-lined coffee-cup, and sighed contentedly. "you're not the only one, my dear olga," he said, "who finds vieyra's hard heart a blessing. when i am here in his magnificent old den, listening to one of his frank accounts of his own artistic acumen and rejoicing in his beautiful possessions, why the rest of the world--real humanity--seems in retrospect like one great hospital full of shrieking incurables." "oh, humanity----!" the actress thrust it away with one of her startling, vivid gestures. "you think it very clever, my distinguished friends, to discuss me before my face," commented the old picture-dealer indifferently. he fingered the bright-colored decorations on his breast, looking down at them with absent eyes. after a moment he added, "and to show your in-ti-mate knowledge of my character." only its careful correctness betrayed the foreignness of his speech. there was a pause in which the three gazed idly at the fire's reflection in the brass of the superb old andirons then, "haven't you something new to show us?" asked the woman. "some genuine masaccio, picked up in a hill-town monastery--a real ribera?" the small old jew drew a long breath. "yes, i have something new." he hesitated, opened his lips, closed them again and, looking at the fire, "oh yes, very new indeed--new to me." "is it here?" the great surgeon looked about the picture-covered walls. "no; i have it in--you know what you call the inner sanctuary--the light here is not good enough." the actress stood up, her glittering dress flashing a thousand eyes at the fire. "let me see it," she commanded. "certainly i would like to see anything that was new to _you_!" "you shall amuse yourself by identifying the artist without my aid," said old vieyra. he opened a door, held back a portiã¨re, let his guests pass through into a darkened room, turned on a softly brilliant light, and: "whom do you make the artist?" he said. he did not look at the picture. he looked at the faces of his guests, and after a long silent pause, he smiled faintly into his beard. "let us go back to the fire," he said, and clicked them into darkness again. "and what do you say?" he asked as they sat down. "by jove!" cried the doctor. "by jove!" madame orloff turned on the collector the somber glow of her deep-set eyes. "i have dreamed it," she said. "it is real," said vieyra. "you are the first to see it. i wished to observe how----" "it's an unknown vermeer!" the doctor brought his big white hand down loudly on this discovery. "nobody but vermeer could have done the plaster wall in the sunlight. and the girl's strange gray head-dress must be seventeenth-century dutch of some province i don't----" "i am a rich man, for a picture-dealer," said vieyra, "but only national governments can afford to buy vermeers nowadays." "but you picked it up from some corner, some attic, some stable----" "yes, i picked it up from a stable," said the collector. the actress laid her slender, burning fingers on his cool old hand. "tell us--tell us," she urged. "there is something different here." "yes, there is something different," he stirred in his chair and thrust out his lips. "so different that i don't know if you----" "try me! try me!" she assured him ardently. "you have educated me well to your own hard standards all these years." at this he looked at her, startled, frowning, attentive, and ended by shaking off her hand. "no, i will not tell you." "you shall----" her eyes commanded, adjured him. there was a silence. "i will understand," she said under her breath. "you will not understand," he said in the same tone; but aloud he began: "i heard of it first from an american picture-dealer over here scraping up a mock-barbizon collection for a new millionaire. he wanted to get my judgment, he said, on a canvas that had been brought to him by a cousin of his children's governess. i was to be sure to see it when i went to new york--you knew did you not, that i had been called to new york to testify in the prosecution of paullsen for selling a signed copy?" "did you really go?" asked the doctor. "i thought you swore that nothing could take you to america." "i went," said the old man grimly. "paullsen did me a bad turn once, thirty years ago. and while i was there i went to see the unknown canvas. the dealer half apologized for taking my time--said he did not as a rule pay any attention to freak things brought in from country holes by amateurs, but--i remember his wording--this thing, some ways he looked at it, didn't seem bad somehow." the collector paused, passed his tongue over his lips, and said briefly: "then he showed it to me. it was the young girl and kitten in there." "by jove!" cried the doctor. "you have too exciting a profession, my good old dear," said the actress. "some day you will die of a heart failure." "not after living through that!" "what did you tell him?" "i asked for the address of the cousin of his children's governess, of course. when i had it, i bought a ticket to the place, and when i reached there, i found myself at the end of all things--an abomination of desolation, a parched place in the wilderness. do you know america, either of you?" the doctor shook his head. "i have toured there, three times," said the actress. "did you ever hear of a place called vermont?" madame orloff looked blank. "it sounds french, not english. perhaps you do not pronounce it as they do." "heaven forbid that i should do anything as 'they' do! this place, then, call it what you will, is inhabited by a lean, tall, sullenly silent race who live in preposterously ugly little wooden houses of the most naked cleanliness ... god of my fathers! the hideousness of the huddle of those huts where i finally found the cousin! he was a seller of letter-paper and cheap chromos and he knew nothing of the picture except that it was brought to him to sell by the countryman who sold him butter. so i found the address of the butter-maker and drove endless miles over an execrable road to his house, and encountered at last a person who could tell me something of what i wanted to know. it was the butter-maker's mother, a stolid, middle-aged woman, who looked at me out of the most uncanny quiet eyes ... all the people in that valley have extraordinary piercing and quiet eyes ... and asked, 'is it about the picture? for if it is, i don't want you should let on about it to anybody but me. nobody but the family knows he paints 'em!" at this the doctor burst out, "gracious powers! you don't mean to say that the man who painted that picture is alive now ... in 1915!" the actress frowned at the interruption and turned with a lithe petulance on the big briton. "if you want to know, let him alone!" she commanded. "and soon i had it all," the narrator went on. "almost more than i could bear. the old woman could tell me what i wished to know, she said. he was her uncle, the only brother of her mother, and he had brought up her and her brothers and sisters. she knew... oh, she knew with good reason, all of his life. all, that is, but the beginning. she had heard from the older people in the valley that he had been wild in his youth (he has always been, she told me gravely, 'queer') and she knew that he had traveled far in his young days, very, very far." "'to new york?' i ventured. "'oh, no, beyond that. across the water.' "'to paris?' "that she didn't know. it was a foreign country at least, and he had stayed there two, three years, until he was called back by her father's death--his brother-in-law's--to take care of his mother, and his sister and the children. here her mind went back to my question, and she said she had something perhaps i could tell from, where he had been. she kept it in her bible. he had given it to her when she was a child as a reward the day she had kept her little brother from falling in the fire. she brought it out. it was a sketch, hasty, vigorous, suggestive, haunting as the original itself, of the leonardo da vinci ste. anne. "yes, i told her, now i knew where he had been. and they had called him back from there--_here_? "'when my father died,' she repeated, 'my uncle was all my grandmother and my mother had. we were five little children, and the oldest not seven, and we were all very poor,' "'how old was your uncle then?' i asked. "'a young man--he was younger than my mother. perhaps he was twenty-five,' "i looked at the sketch in my hand. twenty-five, and called back from paris--_here_! "'when did he go back to paris?' "'oh, he never went back,' she told me this quite placidly, as she said everything else. 'he never went back at all.' "he had stayed there the rest of his life, and worked the little farm that was all his sister had, and made a living for them--not large, the farm being poor and he not a first-class farmer, but still enough. he had always been kind to them--if he was quite queer and absent. she had heard her grandmother say that at first, the first ten years, perhaps, he had had strange, gloomy savage fits like a person possessed that you read of in the bible; but she herself could never remember him as anything but quiet and smiling. he had a very queer smile unlike anyone else, as i would notice for myself when i went to see him about the picture. you could tell him by that, and by his being very lame. "that brought me back with a start. i rushed at her with questions. 'how about the picture? were there others? were there many? had he always painted? had he never shown them to anyone? was he painting now? "she could not tell me much. it had been a detail of their common life she had but absently remarked, as though she had lived with a man who collected snail-shells, or studied the post-marks on letters. she 'had never noticed'--that was the answer to most of my questions. no, she did not think there were very many now, though he must have painted 'most a million. he was always at it, every minute he could spare from farming. but they had been so poor he had not felt he could afford many canvases. the paints cost a good deal too. so he painted them over and over, first one thing and then another, as he happened to fancy. he painted in the horse-barn. 'had a place rigged up,' in her phrase, in one corner of the room where the hay was stored, and had cut a big window in the roof that was apt to let in water on the hay if the rain came from the north. "'what did he paint?' 'oh, anything. he was queer about that. he'd paint _any_thing! he did one picture of nothing but the corner of the barnyard, with a big white sow and some little pigs in the straw, early in the morning, when the dew was on everything. he had thought quite a lot of that, but he had had to paint over it to make the picture of her little sister with the yellow kittie--the one she'd sent down to the village to try to sell, the one--' "'yes, yes,' i told her, 'the one i saw. but did he never try to sell any himself? did he never even show them to anyone?' "she hesitated, tried to remember, and said that once when they were very poor, and there was a big doctor's bill to pay, he _had_ sent a picture down to new york. but it was sent back. they had made a good deal of fun of it, the people down there, because it wasn't finished off enough. she thought her uncle's feelings had been hurt by their letter. the express down and back had cost a good deal too, and the only frame he had got broken. altogether, she guessed that discouraged him. anyhow, he'd never tried again. he seemed to get so after a while that he didn't care whether anybody liked them or even saw them or not--he just painted them to amuse himself, she guessed. he seemed to get a good real of comfort out of it. it made his face very still and smiling to paint. nobody around there so much as knew he did it, the farm was so far from neighbors. "'twas a real lonely place, she told me, and she had been glad to marry and come down in the valley to live closer to folks. her uncle had given her her wedding outfit. he had done real well by them all, and they were grateful; and now he was getting feeble and had trouble with his heart, they wanted to do something for him. they had thought, perhaps, they could sell some of his pictures for enough to hire a man to help him with the farm work. she had heard that pictures were coming into fashion more than they had been, and she had borrowed that one of her little sister and the kittie, and without her uncle's knowing anything about it, had sent it off. she was about discouraged waiting for somebody down in the city to make up his mind whether he'd buy it or not. "i asked her a thousand other questions but she could answer none of them. the only detail i could get from her being an account of her uncle's habit of 'staring' for sometimes a half an hour at something, without once looking away. she'd seen him stop that way, when he'd be husking corn maybe, and stare at a place where a sunbeam came in on a pile of corn. it put him back quite considerable in his work, that habit, but they had nothing to complain of. he'd done well by them, when you considered they weren't his own children. "'hadn't he ever tried to break away?' i asked her amazed. 'to leave them? to go back?' "she told me: 'oh, no, he was the only support his mother and his sister had, and there were all the little children. he _had_ to stay.'" the actress broke in fiercely: "oh, stop! stop! it makes me sick to hear. i could boil them in oil, that family! quick! you saw him? you brought him away? you--" "i saw him," said vieyra, "yes, i saw him." madame orloff leaned toward him, her eyebrows a line of painful attention. "i drove that afternoon up to a still tinier village in the mountains near where he lived, and there i slept that night--or, at least, i lay in a bed." "of course, you could not sleep," broke in the listening woman; "i shall not to-night." "when dawn came i dressed and went out to wander until people should be awake. i walked far, through fields, and then through a wood as red as red-gold--like nothing i ever saw. it was in october, and the sun was late to rise. when i came out on an uplying heath, the mists were just beginning to roll away from the valley below. as i stood there, leaning against a tree in the edge of the wood, some cows came by, little, pinched, lean cows and a young dog bounding along, and then, after them, slowly, an old man in gray--very lame." the actress closed her eyes. "he did not see me. he whistled to the dog and stroked his head, and then as the cows went through a gate, he turned and faced the rising sun, the light full on his face. he looked at the valley coming into sight through the mists. he was so close to me i could have tossed a stone to him--i shall never know how long he stood there--how long i had that face before me." the narrator was silent. madame orloff opened her eyes and looked at him piercingly. "i cannot tell you--i cannot!" he answered her. 'who can tell of life and death and a new birth? it was as though i were thinking with my finger-nails, or the hair of my head--a part of me i had never before dreamed had feeling. my eyes were dazzled. i could have bowed myself to the earth like moses before the burning bush. how can i tell you--? how can i tell you?" "he was--?" breathed the woman. "hubert van eyck might have painted god the father with those eyes--that mouth--that face of patient power--of selfless, still beatitude.--once the dog, nestling by his side, whimpered and licked his hand. he looked down, he turned his eyes away from his vision, and looked down at the animal and smiled. jehovah! what a smile. it seemed to me then that if god loves humanity, he can have no kinder smile for us. and then he looked back across the valley--at the sky, at the mountains, at the smoke rising from the houses below us--he looked at the world--at some vision, some knowledge--what he saw--what he saw--! "i did not know when he went. i was alone in that crimson wood. "i went back to the village. i went back to the city. i would not speak to him till i had some honor worthy to offer him. i tried to think what would mean most to him. i remembered the drawing of the ste. anne. i remembered his years in paris, and i knew what would seem most honor to him. i cabled drouot of the luxembourg gallery. i waited in new york till he came. i showed him the picture. i told him the story. he was on fire! "we were to go back to the mountains together, to tell him that his picture would hang in the luxembourg, and then in the louvre--that in all probability he would be decorated by the french government, that other pictures of his would live for all time in paris, in london, in brussels--a letter came from the woman, his niece. he was dead." the actress fell back in her chair, her hands over her face. the surgeon stirred wrathfully. "heavens and earth, vieyra, what beastly, ghastly, brutally tragic horror are you telling us, anyhow?" the old jew moistened his lips and was silent. after a moment he said: "i should not have told you. i knew you could not understand." madame orloff looked up sharply. "do you mean--is it possible that _you_ mean that if we had seen him--had seen that look--we would--that he had had all that an artist--" the picture-dealer addressed himself to her, turning his back on the doctor. "i went back to the funeral, to the mountains. the niece told me that before he died he smiled suddenly on them all and said: 'i have had a happy life,' i had taken a palm to lay on his coffin, and after i had looked long at his dead face, i put aside the palm. i felt that if he had lived i could never have spoken to him---could never have told him." the old jew looked down at the decorations on his breast, and around at the picture-covered walls. he made a sweeping gesture. "what had i to offer him?" he said. who else heard it? a lady walking through the square with steamship tickets in her hand, to spend her summer in the alps, her winter in the holy land, heard (or else dreamed), as she passed by the orphan home across the way, a small and clear and wondering voice from out a dormer window say, "and would you really rather climb mont blanc alone, than walk with me out hunting mayflowers in the woods of westerburn and cloverlea? "alas! and would you rather hear cathedral choirs in cities far than one at bedtime, on your lap, say 'twinkle, twinkle, little star'?" "a lonely christmas would you spend by galilee or jordan's tide when a child's stocking you might fill and hang it by your own fireside?" a drop in the bucket there is no need to describe in detail the heroine of this tale, because she represents a type familiar to all readers of the conventional new-england-village dialect story. she was for a long time the sole inhabitant of hillsboro, who came up to the expectations of our visiting friends from the city, on the lookout for mary wilkins characters. we always used to take such people directly to see cousin tryphena, as dwellers in an italian city always take their foreign friends to see their one bit of ruined city wall or the heap of stones which was once an inquisitorial torture chamber, never to see the new water-works or the modern, sanitary hospital. on the way to the other end of the street, where cousin tryphena's tiny, two-roomed house stood, we always laid bare the secrets of her somnolent, respectable, unprofitable life; we always informed our visitors that she lived and kept up a social position on two hundred and fifteen dollars a year, and that she had never been further from home than to the next village. we always drew attention to her one treasure, the fine sheraton sideboard that had belonged to her great-grandfather, old priest perkins; and, when we walked away from the orderly and empty house, we were sure that our friends from the city would always exclaim with great insight into character, "what a charmingly picturesque life! isn't she perfectly delicious!" next door to cousin tryphena's minute, snow-white house is a forlorn old building, one of the few places for rent in our village, where nearly everyone owns his own shelter. it stood desolately idle for some time, tumbling to pieces almost visibly, until, one day, two years ago, a burly, white-bearded tramp stopped in front of it, laid down his stick and bundle, and went to inquire at the neighbor's if the place were for rent, then moved in with his stick and bundle and sent away for the rest of his belongings, that is to say, an outfit for cobbling shoes. he cut a big wooden boot out of the side of an empty box, painted it black with axle-grease and soot, hung it up over the door, and announced himself as ready to do all the cobbling and harness-repairing he could get ... and a fine workman he showed himself to be. we were all rather glad to have this odd new member of our community settle down among us ... all, that is, except cousin tryphena, who was sure, for months afterward, that he would cut her throat some night and steal away her sheraton sideboard. it was an open secret that putnam, the antique-furniture dealer in troy, had offered her two hundred and fifty dollars for it. the other women of the village, however, not living alone in such dangerous proximity to the formidable stranger, felt reassured by his long, white beard, and by his great liking for little children. although, from his name, as from his strong accent, it was evident that old jombatiste belonged, by birth, to our french-canadian colony, he never associated himself with that easy-going, devoutly catholic, law-abiding, and rather unlettered group of our citizens. he allied himself with quite another class, making no secret of the fact that he was an out-and-out socialist, anti-clerical, syndicalist, anarchist, nihilist. ... we in hillsboro are not acute in distinguishing between the different shades of radicalism, and never have been able exactly to place him, except that, beside his smashing, loudly-voiced theories, young arthur robbins' progressivism sounds like old martin pelham's continued jubilation over the hayes campaign. the central article of jombatiste's passionately held creed seemed to be that everything was exactly wrong, and that, while the socialist party was not nearly sweeping enough in its ideas, it was, as yet, the best means for accomplishing the inevitable, righteous overturning of society. accordingly, he worked incessantly, not only at his cobbling, but at any odd job he could find to do, lived the life of an anchorite, went in rags, ate mainly crackers and milk, and sent every penny he could save to the socialist headquarters. we knew about this not only through his own trumpeting of the programme of his life, but because phil latimer, the postmaster, is cousin to us all and often told us about the money-orders, so large that they must have represented almost all the earnings of the fanatical old shoemaker. and yet he was never willing to join in any of our charitable enterprises, although his ardent old heart was evidently as tender as it was hot. nothing threw him into such bellowing fury as cruelty. he became the terror of all our boys who trapped rabbits, and, indeed, by the sole influence of his whirlwind descents upon them, and his highly illegal destruction of their traps, he practically made that boyish pastime a thing of the past in hillsboro. somehow, though the boys talked mightily about how they'd have the law of dirty, hot-tempered old jombatiste, nobody cared really to face him. he had on tap a stream of red-hot vituperation astonishingly varied for a man of his evident lack of early education. perhaps it came from his incessant reading and absorption of socialist and incendiary literature. he took two socialist newspapers, and nobody knows how many queer little inflammatory magazines from which he read aloud selections to anyone who did not run away. naturally enough, from his point of view, he began with his neighbor, fastidious cousin tryphena. what cousin tryphena did not know about the way the world outside of hillsboro was run would have made a complete treatise on modern civilization. she never took a newspaper, only borrowing, once in a while, the local sheet to read the news items from greenford, where she had some distant cousins; and, though she occasionally looked at one of the illustrated magazines, it was only at the pictures. it is therefore plain that old jombatiste could not have found a worse listener for his bellowed statements that ninety per cent. of the money of this country was in the hands of two per cent. of the population; that the franchise was a farce because the government was controlled by a wall street clique; and that any man who could not earn a good living for his family had a moral right to shoot a millionaire. for the most part, cousin tryphena counted her tatting stitches and paid not the least attention to her malcontent neighbor. when she did listen, she did not believe a word he said. she had lived in hillsboro for fifty-five years and she knew what made people poor. it was shiftlessness. there was always plenty of work to be had at the brush-back factory for any man who had the sense and backbone to keep at it. if they _would_ stop work in deer-week to go hunting, or go on a spree town-meeting day, or run away to fish, she'd like to know what business they had blaming millionaires because they lost their jobs. she did not expound her opinions of these points to jombatiste because, in the first place, she despised him for a dirty canuck, and, secondly, because opinions seemed shadowy and unsubstantial things to her. the important matters were to make your starch clear and not to be late to church. it is proverbial that people who are mostly silent often keep for some time a reputation for more wisdom than is theirs. cousin tryphena unconsciously profited in the estimation of her neighbor by this fact of psychology. old jombatiste had thundered his per cents. of the distribution of capital for many months before he discovered that he was on the wrong track. then, one winter day, as cousin tryphena was hanging out her washing, he ran over to her, waving his favorite magazine. he read her a paragraph from it, striking the paper occasionally for emphasis with his horny, blackened, shoemaker's hand, and following her as she moved along the clothes-lines---"and it is thus definitely _proved,_" he shouted in conclusion, "that senator burlingame was in the pay of j.d. darby, when he held up the rouse workingman's bill in the senate committee...." he stopped and glared triumphantly at his neighbor. a rare impulse of perversity rose in cousin tryphena's unawakened heart. she took a clothes-pin out of her mouth and asked with some exasperation, "well, what _of_ it!" a comment on his information which sent the old man reeling back as though she had struck him. in the conversation which followed, old jombatiste, exploring at last cousin tryphena's mind, leaned giddily over the abyss of her ignorance of political economy and sociology, dropping one exploring plummet after another into its depths, only to find them fathomless. he went shakily back to his own house, silenced for once. but, although for the first time he neglected work to do it, he returned to the attack the next day with a new weapon. he made no more remarks about industrial slavery, nor did he begin, as was his wont, with the solemnly enunciated axiom, "wealth comes from labor alone!" he laid down, on the sheraton sideboard, an armful of his little magazines, and settled himself in a chair, observing with a new comprehension how instinctively cousin tryphena reached for her tatting as he began to read aloud. he read the story of a man who was burned to death in molten steel because his employers did not install a rather expensive safety device, and who left a young widow and three children. these tried to earn their livings by making artificial flowers. they could earn, all of them working together, three cents an hour. when the last dollar of the dead father's savings was used up, and there was talk of separating the family so that the children could be put in an asylum, the mother drowned the three little ones and herself after them. cousin tryphena dropped her tatting, her country-bred mind reeling. "didn't she have any _folks_ to help her out?" jombatiste explained that she came from east poland, so that her folks, if indeed she had any, were too far away to be of use. he struck one fist inside his palm with a fierce gesture, such as he used when he caught a boy trapping, and cried, "... and that in a country that produces three times the food it consumes." for the first time, a statistical statement awoke an echo in cousin tryphena's atrophied brain. old jombatiste read on, this time about a girl of seventeen, left by her parents' death in charge of a small brother. she had been paid twenty cents for making crocheted lace which sold for a dollar and a half. by working twelve hours a day, she had been able to make forty-seven cents. seeing her little brother grow pale from lack of food, she had, in desperation, taken the first, the awfully decisive first step downward, and had almost at once thereafter vanished, drawn down by the maelstrom of vice. the little brother, wild with grief over his sister's disappearance, had been taken to an orphan asylum where he had since twice tried to commit suicide. cousin tryphena sat rigid, her tatting fallen to the floor, her breath coming with difficulty. it is impossible for the average modern mind, calloused by promiscuous reading, to conceive the effect upon her primitive organism of this attack from the printed page. she not only did not dream that these stories might not be true, they seemed as real to her as though she had seen the people. there was not a particle of blood in her haggard face. jombatiste read on--the story of a decent, ambitious man, employed in a sweatshop tailoring establishment, who contracted tuberculosis from the foul air, and who dragged down with him, in his agonizing descent to the very depths of misery, a wife and two children. he was now dead, and his wife was living in a corner of a moldy, damp basement, a pile of rags the only bed for her and her children, their only heat what fire the mother could make out of paper and rubbish picked up on the streets. cousin tryphena's horrified eyes fell on her well-blacked stove, sending out the aromatic breath of burning white-birch sticks. she recoiled from it with a shudder. jombatiste read on, the story of the woman who, when her three sons died in an accident due to negligence on their employer's part ... he read no more that day, for cousin tryphena put her gray head down on the center-table and wept as she never had done in her life. jombatiste rose softly and tiptoed out of the room. the tap-tap-tap of his hammer rang loud and fast the rest of that day. he was exulting over having aroused another bourgeois from the sleep of greasy complacency. he had made a convert. to his dire and utter pennilessness, cousin tryphena's tiny income seemed a fortune. he had a happy dream of persuading her to join him in his weekly contributions to the sacred funds! as he stood at midnight, in the open door, for the long draught of fresh air he always took before turning in on his pile of hay, he heard in the wood on the hill back of the house the shrill shriek of a trapped rabbit. he plowed furiously out through the deep snow to find it, gave the tortured animal a merciful death, carried the trap back to the river and threw it in with a furious splash. he strode home under the frosty stars, his dirty shirt open over his corded, old neck, his burning heart almost content. he had done a good day's work. early the next morning, his neighbor came to his door, very white, very hollow-eyed, evidently with a sleepless night back of her, and asked him for the papers he had read from. jombatiste gave them to her in a tactful silence. she took them in one shaking hand, drawing her shawl around her wrinkled face with the other, and went back through the snow to her own house. by noon that day, everyone in the village was thrilling with wild surmise. cousin tryphena had gone over to graham and sanders', asked to use their long-distance telephone and had telephoned to putnam to come and get her sideboard. after this strange act, she had passed albert graham, then by chance alone in the store, with so wild a mien that he had not ventured to make any inquiries. but he took pains to mention the matter, to everyone who happened to come in, that morning; and, by dinner-time, every family in hillsboro was discussing over its pie the possibility that the well-known _queer streak_, which had sent several of cousin tryphena's ancestors to the asylum, was suddenly making its appearance in her. i was detained, that afternoon, and did not reach her house until nearly four; and i was almost the last to arrive. i found cousin tryphena very silent, her usually pale face very red, the center of a group of neighbors who all at once began to tell me what had happened. i could make nothing out of their incoherent explanations. ... "trypheny was crazy ... she'd ought to have a guardeen ... that canuck shoemaker had addled her brains ... there'd ought to be a law against that kind of newspaper. ... trypheny was goin' like her great-aunt, lucilly, that died in the asylum. ..." i appealed directly to cousin tryphena for information as to what the trouble was. "there ain't any trouble 's i know of," she answered in a shaking voice. "i've just heard of a widow-woman, down in the city, who's bringin' up her two children in the corner of a basement where the green mold stands out on the wall, and i'm goin' down to fetch her an' the children up here to live with me ... them an' a little orphan boy as don't like the 'sylum where they've put him----" somebody broke in on her to cry, "why, trypheny, you simple old critter, that's four people! where you goin' to put 'em in this little tucked-up place?" cousin tryphena answered doggedly and pointedly, "your own grandmother, rebecca mason, brought up a family of seven in a house no bigger than this, and no cellar." "but how, ..." another voice exclaimed, "air you goin' to get enough for 'em to eat? you ain't got but barely enough for yourself!" cousin tryphena paled a little, "i'm a good sewer, i could make money sewing ... and i could do washings for city-folks, summer-times...." her set mouth told what a price she paid for this voluntary abandonment of the social standing that had been hers by virtue of her idleness. she went on with sudden spirit, "you all act as though i was doin' it to spite you and to amuse myself! i don't _want_ to! when i think of my things i've kept so nice always, i'm _wild_ ... but how can i help it, now i know about 'em! i didn't sleep a wink last night. i'll go clean crazy if i don't do something! i saw those three children strugglin' in the water and their mother a-holdin' on 'em down, and then jumpin' in herself----why, i give enough milk to the _cat_ to keep a baby ... what else can i do?" i was touched, as i think we all were, by her helpless simplicity and ignorance, and by her defenselessness against this first vision of life, the vision which had been spared her so long, only to burst upon her like a forest-fire. i hid an odd fancy that she had just awakened after a sleep of half a century. "dear cousin tryphena," i said as gently as i could, "you haven't had a very wide experience of modern industrial or city conditions and there are some phases of this matter which you don't take into consideration." then i brought out the old, wordy, eminently reasonable arguments we all use to stifle the thrust of self-questioning: i told her that it was very likely that the editor of that newspaper had invented, or at least greatly exaggerated those stories, and that she would find on investigation that no such family existed. "i don't see how that lets me out of _lookin'_ for them," said cousin tryphena. "well, at least," i urged, "don't be in such a hurry about it. take time to think it over! wait till--" "wait!" cried cousin tryphena. "why, another one may be jumpin' in the river this minute! if i'd ha' had the money, i'd ha' gone on the noon train!" at this point, the man from putnam's came with a team from our livery to carry away the sheraton sideboard. cousin tryphena bore herself like a martyr at the stake, watching, with dry eyes, the departure of her one certificate to dear gentility and receiving with proud indifference the crisp bills of a denomination most of us had never seen before. "you won't need all that just to go down to the city," i remonstrated. she stopped watching the men load her shining old treasure into the wagon and turned her anguished eyes to me. "they'll likely be needing clothes and things." i gave up. she had indeed thought it all out. it was time for us to go home to prepare our several suppers and we went our different ways, shaking our heads over tryphena's queerness. i stopped a moment before the cobbler's open door, watched him briskly sewing a broken halter and telling a folk-tale to some children by his knee. when he finished, i said with some acerbity, "well, jombatiste, i hope you're satisfied with what you've done to poor old miss tryphena ... spoiling the rest of her life for her!" "such a life, madame," said jombatiste dryly, "ought to be spoiled, the sooner the better." "she's going to start for the city to-morrow," i said, supposing of course that he had heard the news. jombatiste looked up very quickly. "for what goes she to the city?" "why ... she's gone daft over those bogie-stories of yours ... she's looked the list over and picked out the survivors, the widow of the man who died of tuberculosis, and so on, and she's going to bring them back here to share her luxurious life." jombatiste bounded into the air as if a bomb had exploded under him, scattering his tools and the children, rushing past me out of the house and toward cousin tryphena's. ... as he ran, he did what i have never seen anyone do, out of a book; he tore at his bushy hair and scattered handfuls in the air. it seemed to me that some sudden madness had struck our dull little village, and i hastened after him to protect cousin tryphena. she opened the door in answer to his battering knocks, frowned, and began to say something to him, but was fairly swept off her feet by the torrent of his reproaches.... "how dare you take the information i give you and use it to betray your fellow-man! how do you _dare_ stand there, so mealy-mouthed, and face me, when you are planning a cowardly attack on the liberty of your country! you call yourself a nurse ... what would you think of a mother who hid an ulcer in her child's side from the doctor because it did not look pretty! what _else_ are you planning to do? what would you think of a nurse who put paint and powder on her patient's face, to cover up a filthy skin disease? what else are you planning to do ... you with your plan to put court-plaster over one pustule in ten million and thinking you are helping cure the patient! you are planning simply to please yourself, you cowardly ... and you are an idiot too ..." he beat his hands on the door-jambs, "... if you had the money of forty millionaires, you couldn't do anything in that way ... how many people are you thinking to help ... two, three ... maybe four! but there are hundreds of others ... why, i could read you a thousand stories of worse--" cousin tryphena's limit had been reached. she advanced upon the intruder with a face as excited as his own. ... "jombatiste ramotte, if you ever dare to read me another such story, i'll go right out and jump in the necronsett river!" the mania which had haunted earlier generations of her family looked out luridly from her eyes. i felt the goose-flesh stand out on my arms, and even jombatiste's hot blood was cooled. he stood silent an instant. cousin tryphena slammed the door in his face. he turned to me with a bewilderment almost pathetic so tremendous was it--"did you hear that ... what sort of logic do you call--" "jombatiste," i counseled him, "if you take my advice you'll leave miss tryphena alone after this." cousin tryphena started off on her crack-brained expedition, the very next morning, on the six-thirty train. i happened to be looking out sleepily and saw her trudging wearily past our house in the bleak gray of our mountain dawn, the inadequate little, yellow flame of her old fashioned lantern like a glowworm at her side. it seemed somehow symbolical of something, i did not know what. it was a full week before we heard from her, and we had begun really to fear that we would never see her again, thinking that perhaps, while she was among strangers, her unsettled mind might have taken some new fancy which would be her destruction. that week jombatiste shut the door to his house. the children reported that he would not even let them in, and that they could see him through the window stitching away in ominous silence, muttering to himself. eight days after cousin tryphena had gone away, i had a telegram from her, which read, "build fires in both my stoves to-morrow afternoon." the dark comes early in the mountains, and so, although i dare say there was not a house in the village without a face at the pane after the late evening train came up, none of us saw anything but our usual impenetrable december darkness. that, too, seemed, to my perhaps overwrought consciousness of the problem, highly suggestive of the usual course of our lives. at least, i told myself, cousin tryphena had taken her absurd little lantern and gone forth. the next morning, soon after breakfast, i set off for the other end of the street. cousin tryphena saw me coming and opened the door. she did not smile, and she was still very pale, but i saw that she had regained her self-control, "come right in," she said, in rather a tense voice, and, as i entered she added, in our rustic phrase for introduction, "make you 'quainted with my friend, mrs. lindstrom. she's come up from the city to stay with me. and this is her little boy, sigurd, and this is the baby." blinking somewhat, i shook hands with a small, stoop-shouldered woman, in a new, ready-made dress, with abundant yellow hair drawn back from the thinnest, palest, saddest little face i had ever seen. she was holding an immaculately clean baby, asleep, its long golden lashes lying on cheeks as white and sunken as her own. a sturdily built boy of about six scrambled up from where he lay on the floor, playing with the cat, and gave me a hand shyly, hanging down his head. his mother had glanced up at me with a quick, shrinking look of fright, the tears starting to her eyes. cousin tryphena was evidently afraid that i would not take her cue and sound the right note, for she went on hastily, "mrs. lindstrom has been real sick and kind o' worried over the baby, so's she's some nervous. i tell her hillsboro air is thought very good for people's nerves. lots of city folks come here in summer time, just for that. don't you think sigurd is a real big boy for only six and a half? he knows his letters too! he's goin' to school as soon as we get settled down. i want you should bring over those alphabet blocks that your peggy doesn't use any more--" the other woman was openly crying now, clinging to her benefactress' hand and holding it against her cheek as she sobbed. my heroic old cousin patted her hair awkwardly, but kept on talking in her matter-of-fact manner, looking at me sternly as though defying me to show, by look or word, any consciousness of anything unusual in the situation; and we fell at once, she and i, into a commonplace conversation about the incidents of the trip up. when i came away, half an hour later, cousin tryphena slipped a shawl over her head and came down the walk with me to the gate. i was much affected by what seemed to me the dramatically fitting outcome of my old kinswoman's quixotism. i saw cousin tryphena picturesquely as the happy fool of old folk-lore, the character who, through his very lack of worldly wisdom, attains without effort all that self-seeking folks try for in vain. the happy ending of her adventure filled me with a cheerful wonder at the ways of providence, which i tried to pass on to her in the exclamation, "why, cousin tryphena, it's like a story-book? you're going to _enjoy_ having those people. the woman is as nice as she can be, and that's the brightest little boy! he's as smart as a whip!" i was aware that the oddness of cousin tryphena's manner still persisted even now that we were alone. she sighed heavily and said, "i don't sleep much better nights now i've done it!" then facing me, "i hadn't ought to have brought them up here! i just did it to please myself! once i saw 'em ... i wanted 'em!" this seemed to me the wildest possible perversion of the puritan instinct for self-condemnation and, half-vexed, i attempted some expostulation. she stopped me with a look and gesture dante might have had, "you ain't seen what i've seen." i was half-frightened by her expression but tried to speak coolly. "why, was it as bad as that paper said?" i asked. she laid her hand on my arm, "child, it was nothing like what the paper said...it was so much worse!" "oh ..." i commented inadequately. "i was five days looking for her...they'd moved from the address the paper give. and, in those five days, i saw so many others..._so many others_..." her face twitched. she put one lean old hand before her eyes. then, quite unexpectedly, she cast out at me an exclamation which made my notion of the pretty picturesqueness of her adventure seem cheap and trivial and superficial. "jombatiste is right!" she cried to me with a bitter fierceness: "everything is wrong! everything is wrong! if i can do anything, i'd ought to do it to help them as want to smash everything up and start over! what good does it do for me to bring up here just these three out of all i saw ..." her voice broke into pitiful, self-excusing quavers, "but when i saw them ...the baby was so sick ... and little sigurd is so cunning ... he took to me right away, came to me the first thing ... this morning he wouldn't pick up his new rubbers off the floor for his mother, but, when i asked him, he did, right off ... you ought to have seen what he had on ... such rags ... such dirt ... and 'twan't her fault either! she's ... why she's like anybody ... like a person's cousin they never happened to see before ...why, they were all _folks_!" she cried out, her tired old mind wandering fitfully from one thing to another. "you didn't find the little boy in the asylum?" i asked. "he was dead before i got there," she answered. "oh ... !" i said again, shocked, and then tentatively, "had he ...?" "i don't know whether he had or not," said cousin tryphena, "i didn't ask. i didn't want to know. i know too much now!" she looked up fixedly at the mountain line, high and keen against the winter sky. "jombatiste is right," she said again unsparingly, "i hadn't ought to be enjoying them ... their father ought to be alive and with them. he was willing to work all he could, and yet he ... here i've lived for fifty-five years and never airned my salt a single day. what was i livin' on? the stuff these folks ought to ha' had to eat ... them and the lord only knows how many more besides! jombatiste is right ... what i'm doin' now is only a drop in the bucket!" she started from her somber reverie at the sound of a childish wail from the house. ... "that's sigurd ...i _knew_ that cat would scratch him!" she told me with instant, breathless agitation, as though the skies were falling, and darted back. after a moment's hesitation i too, went back and watched her bind up with stiff, unaccustomed old fingers the little scratched hand, watched the frightened little boy sob himself quiet on her old knees that had never before known a child's soft weight saw the expression in her eyes as she looked down at the sleeping baby and gazed about the untidy room so full of mire, which had always been so orderly and so empty. she lifted the little boy up higher so that his tousled yellow hair rested against her bosom. he put an arm around her neck and she flushed with pleasure like a girl; but, although she held him close to her with a sudden wistful tenderness, there was in her eyes a gloomy austerity which forbade me to sentimentalize over the picture she made. "but, cousin tryphena," i urged, "it _is_ a drop in the bucket, you know, and that's something!" she looked down at the child on her knee, she laid her cheek against his bright hair, but she told me with harsh, self-accusing rigor, "tain't right for me to be here alive enjoying that dead man's little boy." * * * * * that was eighteen months ago. mrs. lindstrom is dead of consumption; but the two children are rosy and hearty and not to be distinguished from the other little yankees of the village. they are devotedly attached to their aunt tryphena and rule her despotically. and so we live along, like a symbol of the great world, bewildered cousin tryphena toiling lovingly for her adopted children, with the memory of her descent into hell still darkening and confusing her kind eyes; jomatiste clothing his old body in rags and his soul in flaming indignation as he batters hopefully at the ramparts of intrenched unrighteousness ... and the rest of us doing nothing at all. the golden tongue of ireland tongue of spice and salt and wine and honey, magic, mystic, sweet, intemperate tongue! flower of lavish love and lyric fury, mixed on lips forever rash and young, wildly droll and quaintly tender;- hark, the hidden melodies of elfland in the under, in the over tone; clear faint wailing of the far-heard banshee, out of lands where never the sun shone, calling doom on chieftains dying.... piper tim i when moira o'donnell was born, timothy moran was thirty-three years old, a faã«ry number, as he often told himself afterward. when he was forty and she was seven, another mystic number, he dedicated his life to her and she gave him back his lost kingdom of enchantment. it was on the evening of her seventh birthday that she led him to the land of heart's desire he thought he had left forever in green and desolate donegal, and her birthday fell on the seventh of october, and october is the month when the little people are busiest. he never forgot what she did for him that evening, although her part in it was so brief. his own birthday was on the thirteenth of the month, and he often laid his sorrows to that unchancy date. on the seventh he sat on the old round stone, his pipes lying silent beside him, and brooded on his heavy ill. father delancey had just left him and had told him flatly that he had no ills at all. hence he sat, his heart heavier than ever, drooping, under the great maple tree, the road white before him, leading away into the empty, half-translucent shadows of starlight. father delancey had said it was only the faã«ry nonsense in his head that made him miserable, and had marshaled before him the irrefutable blessings of his life. had he not been cared for from the first minute of his landing from ireland, a penniless piper of nineteen, as though the holy saints themselves were about him? had he not gone direct to father delancey, sent by the priest in donegal, and had not father delancey at once placed him in the wilcox family, kindliest, heartiest, and most stirring of new england farmers? and had he not lived in prosperity with them ever since? timothy started at the faã«ry number. "twinty-one years? so 'tis, father--an' more! 'tis twinty-one years to-day since i came, aven and true--the seventh day of october. sure, somethin' ought to happen on such a day--oughtn't it?" "happen?" queried father delancey. "the seventh day of october, the twinty-first year and october bein' the month for thim," said timothy, elucidating confidently. father delancey frowned and broke into an angry exclamation, "'tis simple mad ye are, timothy moran, with your faã«ry foolishness, and i've a half a mind to take your pipes away from you as a penance for your ignorant superstition!" "but, father, i'm the seventh son and sure ye must admit 'tis a lonesome country, all this, that looks so like donegal and killarney mountains, an' is so dead-like, wi' no little people to fill up the big gap between the dead an' the livin', an' the good an' the bad. 'tis empty, all this valley." "timothy moran, that are my sister's husband's cousin's son, i'm ashamed of ye, an' i bid ye note that 'twas the hand of the blessed virgin herself that sent ye out o' ireland, for if you'd 'a' stayed in th' ould country you'd 'a' been bewitched long before now--not, savin' us all th' blessed saints, that i belave in any of your nonsense!" timothy smiled at this with an innocent malice. "you see how 'tis, father. you cannot kape yourself from belivin' in thim and you a man o' god." "i do _not_, timothy! tis but a way of speech that i learned in my childhood. an' 'tis lucky for you that i have a knowledge of thim, for any other priest would have driven you out of the parish, you and your stubborn pipes that do naught but play faã«ry music. an' you a man of forty in a trifle of six days, and no wife an' childer to keep you from foolish notions. if ye had, now, you could be livin' in the proper tenant's house for the wilcox's man, instead of michael o'donnell, who has no business livin' up here on the hill so far from his work that he can come home but once a week to look after his poor motherless child. i will say for you, tim, that you do your duty by that bit of a slip of a girl baby, keepin' her so neat and clean an' all, times when mike's not here." timothy did not raise his drooping head at this praise, and something about his attitude struck sharp across the priest's trained observation. the big, shambling, red-headed man looked like a guilty child. there was a moment's silence, while father delancey speculated, and then his experienced instinct sped him to the bull's-eye. "timothy moran, you're not putting your foolish notions in the head of that innocent child o' god, moira o'donnell, are you?" the red head sank lower. "answer me, man! are ye fillin' her mind with your sidhe[a] and your red-hatted little people an' your stories of 'gentle places' an' the leprechaun?" [footnote a: pronounced _shee_ (as in banshee), the fairies.] timothy arose suddenly and flung his long arms abroad in a gesture of revolt. "i am that, father delancey, 'tis th' only comfort of my life, livin' it, as i do, in a dead country--a valley where folks have lived and died for two hundred years such lumps of clay that they niver had wan man sharp enough to see the counts in between heaven and earth." he lapsed again into his listless position on the round stone. "but ye needn't be a-fearin' for her soul, father--her wid th' black hair an' the big gray eyes like wan that cud see thim if she wud! she's as dead a lump as anny of th' rest--as thim meat-eatin' protestants, the wilcoxes, heaven save the kindly bodies, for they've no souls at all, at all." from the stone he picked up a curiously shaped willow whistle with white lines carved on it in an odd criss-cross pattern. "to-day's her seventh birthday, an' i showed her how to make the cruachan whistle, an' when i'd finished she blew on it a loud note that wud ha' wakened the sidhe for miles around in donegal. an' then she looked at me as dumb as a fish, her big gray eyes blank as a plowed field wid nothin' sown in it. she niver has a word to show that she _hears_ me, even, when i tell o' the gentle people." he added in a whisper to himself, "but maybe she's only waiting." "'tis the virgin protectin' her from yer foolishness, tim," returned the priest, rising with a relieved air. "she'll soon be goin' to district school along with all the other hard-headed little yankees, and then your tales can't give her notions." with which triumphant meditation he walked briskly away, leaving timothy to sit alone with his pipes under the maple-tree, flaming with a still heat of burning autumn red, like a faã«ry fire. his head sank heavily in his hands as his heart grew intolerably sad with the lack he felt in all the world, most of all in himself. he had often tried to tell himself what made the world so dully repellant, but he never could get beyond, "'tis as though i was aslape an' yet not quite aslape--just half wakin', an' somethin' lovely is goin' on in the next room, an' i can't wake up to see what 'tis. the trouble's with th' people. they're all _dead_ aslape here, an' there's nobody to wake me up." "piper tim! piper tim!" was breathed close to his ear. he sprang up, with wide, startled eyes. "piper tim," said the little girl gravely, "_i've seen them_." the man stared at her in a breathless silence. "a little wee woman with a red hat and kerchief around her neck, an' she said, 'go straight to piper tim an' tell him to play "the call o' the sidhe" as he sits on the round stone, for this is th' day of the cruachan whistle.'" the child put out her hand, and drew him to the pipes, still keeping her deep eyes fixed on him, "play, piper tim, an' shut your eyes an' i'll see what you should see an' tell you what 'tis." the first notes were quavering as the man's big frame shook, but the little hands across his eyes seemed to steady him, and the final flourish was like a call of triumph. in the silence which followed the child spoke in her high little treble with a grave elation. "they're here, piper tim, all the river fog in the valley is full of them, dancin' and singin' so gay-like to cheer up the poor hills. an' whist! here they come up the road, troops and troops of them, all so bright in the ferlie green; an' sure," with a little catch of merriment, "sure, they've no toes on their feet at all! they've danced them all away. and now, piper tim, hold your breath, for they'll be after comin' by, but all so still, so still! so you won't hear them and maybe think to open your eyes and see them--for that 'ud mean--sh! sh! piper tim, don't stir! _they're here! they're here_!" his eyes ached with the pressure of the strong little hands across them, his ears ached with straining them into the silence which lay about them. his heart beat fast with hope and then with certainty. yes, it was no longer the thin, dead silence of the new england woods he knew so unhappily well. it was the still that comes with activity suspended. it was like the quivering quiet of a dancer, suddenly stricken motionless to listen for the sound of intruding footsteps. there was not the faintest sound, but the silence was full of that rich consciousness of life which marks the first awakening of a profound sleeper. the hands were withdrawn from before his eyes, but he did not open them. he reached blindly for his pipes, and played "the song of angus to the stars," tears of joy running from between his closed eyelids, to recognize in his own music the quality he had been starving for; the sense of the futile, poignant beauty, of the lovely and harmless tragedy, of the sweet, moving, gay sad meaning of things. when he looked about him he was quite alone. moira was gone, and the road lay white and still before him. ii he did not see her all the next day, although he went down to the little house to do the household tasks his big hands performed with so curious a skill. he wished to see her and clear his mind of a weight which the morning's light had put upon him; but she did not come in answer to his call. the little house seemed full of her in its apparent emptiness, and several times he had swung sharply about, feeling her back of him, but always the room had turned a blank face. that evening he was returning late from the upland pastures where he had been searching vainly for a lost cow. his path lay through a thick copse of maple saplings where it was quite dark. as he emerged into a stony pasture, he saw the child standing still in the center of a ring of fern, brown and crumpled by the early frosts. when he appeared she held him motionless by the sudden passion of her gestured appeal for silence. she did not stir after this, her hands laid along her cheeks as though to hold her head quite still, her eyes directed with a smiling eagerness toward a huge rock, looming dimly in the transparent twilight. the silence was oppressive. timothy's blood ran chill as the expectancy grew more and more strained in the child's eyes. he did not dare look at the rock himself. he stared only at the elfin creature before him, and when her hands were finally flung out in a gesture of welcoming ardor, he broke the unearthly silence by crying out loud in a rapid whirl, "god save us. christ save us! the holy virgin guard us! st. patrick defend us! st. columba--" the little girl burst into a storm of tears and sank down on the ferns. timothy stopped his hysterical litany and ran toward her. "don't you come a-near me, bad piper tim!" she sobbed. "you don't dare step on the magic circle anyhow. it 'ud burn your wicked foot!" the big farm laborer drew back in a terror he instantly disguised. "i was just lookin' for you, moira aroon," he said propitiatingly. "i was wishin' to tell you--to tell you--why, that it's all pretend. there aren't any little people really, you know. tis just old tim's nonsense." he shivered at the blasphemy and crossed himself. "or, if there are any, 'tis only in th' ould country." the child rose to her feet, eying him strangely, her eyes like deep pools. he went on conscientiously, with a mental eye on father delancey, "an' if there _are_ any, which they aren't, they're bad things for christians to have aught to do with, because they know neither right nor wrong, and 'tisn't fit that mortals should iver be light an' gay wi' that burden gone! so they're bad for us--an' we shouldn't think of thim, and just cross ourselves wheniver--" the unspoken protest in the child's face was grown so passionate that he interrupted himself to answer it in a burst of sympathy. "och, moira, acushla, sure an' i know how 'tis to ye--" and then with a reaction to virtue, he said sternly, "an' if they're not bad, why do they go when you call on the blessed saints?" at this the child's face twisted again for tears. "och, bad piper tim, to scare them away from me! it's not that they're bad--only that good's too heavy for them. they're such _little_ people! it's too heavy! it's too heavy." she ran away through the dusk, sobbing and calling this over her shoulder reproachfully. in the weeks which followed, old timothy moran, as he was called, could scarcely complain that he was but half awake. he seemed to be making up for the dull apathy of his long exile by the storminess of his days and nights. mrs. wilcox, bustling housewife, hastening about the kitchen, engaged in some late evening task, was moved to a sudden burst of hysterical tears, by the faint sound of tim's pipes, dropping down to her from the round stone in a whirling roulade of ever-ascending merriness. "you, ralph!" she cried angrily through her sobs, to her oldest boy, stricken open-mouthed and silent by his mother's amazing outburst, "you, ralph, run up to the round stone and tell the irishman to stop playing that jig over and over. i'm that tired to-night it drives me wild with nerves!" as she brushed away the tears she said fretfully, "my sakes! when my liver gets to tormenting me so i have the megrims like a girl, it's time to do something." the boy came back to say that old tim had stopped playing "the jig" before he reached him, and was lying sobbing on the stone. moira was as approachable as a barn swallow, swooping into the house for a mouthful of food and off again to the sky apparently. timothy's child-heart was guiltily heavy within him, for all his excitement, and when he finally caught her in the pine woods he spoke briefly and firmly, almost like father delancey himself. "moira, tim was a big fool to tell you lies. there aren't really any little people. tis only a way of talkin'-like, to say how lovely the woods and stars an' all are." "why do you sit on the round stone evenings?" asked moira defiantly. "that's just it! i pretend all kind o' things, but it's really because the moon is like gold, and the white fog comes up in puffs like incense in the church, an' the valley's all bright wi' lamps like the sky wi' stars. that's all anybody means by fairies--just how lovely things are if we can but open our eyes to see thim, an' take time from th' ugly business o' livin' to hear thim, and get a place quiet enough to half see what everything means. i didn't know before, in ireland, but now i'm like one born again to the ferie country, and now i think i know. there aren't any little people really but just in your own head--" moira shook off his hand and faced him, laughing mockingly, her dark eyes wide with an elfin merriment. "are there not, piper tim? are there not? listen! you'll see!" she held up a tiny forefinger to the great man towering above her. as he looked down on her, so pixy-like in the twilight of the pines, he felt his flesh creep. she seemed to be waiting for something infinitely comic which yet should startle her. she was poised, half turned as though for flight, yet hung so, without a quiver in an endless listening pause. the man tried in vain to remember the name of a single saint, so held was he by the breathless expectancy in the eyes of the little hobgoblin. his nerves gave way with a loud snap when she suddenly leaped up at him with snapping fingers and some whispered, half-heard exclamation of "_now! now_!" and turning he plunged down the hill in panic-stricken flight. and the next day father delancey took her down to the valley to begin her schooling. iii upon her return she had adopted the attitude which she never changed during all the years until timothy went away. she would not speak openly, nor allow tim to discuss "their" existence. "they mind their business and we should mind ours," she said, eying him hard; but she made his world over for him. every spring she came back from the valley school and every autumn she went away; and the months in between were golden. after timothy's work was done in the evenings, he left the hot kitchen, redolent of food and fire and kindly human life, took his pipes up on the round stone and played one after another of the songs of the sidhe, until the child's white face shone suddenly from the dusk. then their entertainment varied. sometimes they sat and watched the white river fog rise toward them, translucent and distant at first, and then blowing upon them in gusty, impalpable billows. timothy's tongue was loosened by the understanding in the little girl's eyes and he poured out to her the wise foolishness of his inconsequent and profound faã«ry lore. he told her what was in the fog for him, the souls of mountain people long dead, who came back to their home heights thus. he related long tales of the doings of the leprechaun, with lovely, irrelevant episodes, and told her what he thought was their meaning. some nights the moon rode high and the air was clear and those were not the times for words--only for sitting quite still and playing every air in all the world on the pipes. moira lay beside him, her strange, wide eyes fixed intently on the road and the shadows until she peopled them almost visibly to the musician with the folk of his melodies--with angus, the beautiful and strong, with maive, the sad, the happy, with congal of the frightful vision of war, and mananan, strange wanderer on these mountain tops. sometimes it rained, the long steady downpour of summer nights, and they sat on the steps of michael o'donnell's little cabin, timothy's pipes sounding sweet and shrill against the deep note of the rushing rain. this was the time of the wildest stories, when sheltering walls were close about them; of newly wed wives carried off by the fairies to live happy always, always without a moment of pain, and then to perish utterly on the day of judgment, like a last year's butterfly, for souls cannot live without sorrow; of newly born babes whose souls were carried away by the sidhe because a cock was not killed on the night of their birth, and of the mystic meaning of vicarious sacrifice; of people who had lain down to sleep unaware in a fairy ring and were foolish ever afterward--that is, as people say, foolish, but really wise, for they saw how things are; of homes built unknowingly across a fairy path where the sidhe take their journeys, and how ill luck followed the inhabitants until they moved, and of the strange penalties for living out of harmony with the little-known currents of the soul's life; of how blind men see more than others; of how a fool is one whose mind is so cleared of all futile commonplace traffic that it reflects untroubled and serene the stars and their courses; of how wisdom is folly, and life, death. all these things and many more did timothy say in words and play in music on his pipes, and to all of them moira gave her wide comprehending silence. the best of all was on evenings when the stars came out first, and then as the two sat watching them from the round stone they suddenly began to pale, and the moon flashed into sight, rising swiftly over the mountain moira called "the hill o' delights," because it was from a wide, white door in it that the rushing, light-footed little people came out every evening when the twilight fell and the harsh endeavor of human life was stilled to peace. there was neither talk nor music on those evenings, but a silence full, like the lovely world about them, of unsaid, quivering joy. sometimes timothy would turn after such a long time of deep and cheering mutual knowledge of how fair were all things, and find moira slipped away from beside him; but so impalpable was the companionship she gave him in the strange and sweet confusion of his thoughts that he did not feel himself alone, though she might be already deep in the pines behind him. the girl grew taller, but the cool whiteness of her face was untinged by any flush of young maidenhood. at seventeen she was a slender sprite of a girl, to reach whose unearthly aloofness the warm human hands of her companions strained unavailing. each winter she descended to the valley and to school and church, a silent, remote child, moving like one in a dream. and every spring she came back to the hill, to timothy and his pipes, to the pines and the uplands, to the round stone and the white road in front of it. ralph wilcox, hearty, kindly son of his hearty, kindly parents, tried to speak to her long enough to make her seem real, but she was rarely in the house except during the day and a half of each week when her father was there; and on their casual encounters out of doors she melted from before his eyes like a pixie, knowing the hiding places and turns of his own land better than he. sometimes he caught a glimpse of her afterward, regarding him steadily and curiously from a nook in a hillside, and once as she darted away she had dropped a handkerchief and turned her head in time to see him pick it up; but she did not slacken her pace, or speak to him then or at all. she rarely spoke, even to timothy, but this was no barrier between them. all the winter timothy lived on the thoughts of the spring, and when the arbutus and moira came back he poured out to her the strange treasures he had found in his heart. scarcely to her, for she only gazed silent at the stars as he talked. rather she seemed to unlock in him the rich stores of his own understanding and emotion. he marveled that he could ever have found the valley empty. he felt within him a swelling flood, ever renewed, of significance to fill all his world with a sweet and comforting meaning. and so his red hair grew threaded with white, and his foolish, idle heart happier and happier as the years went on. then, one midwinter day, father delancey climbed the hill to say that timothy's sister's husband was dead, and that timothy was sent for to take his place, hold the nebraska claim, work the land, and be a father to his sister's children. timothy was stunned with horror, but the unbending will of the never-contradicted parish priest bore him along without question. "sure, tim, go! i tell you to! 'tis the only thing _to_ do! and 'twill be a man's work and earn ye many hours out of purgatory. an' 'twill be grand for ye, ye that never would have a family o' your own--here's the blessed virgin pushin' ye into one, ready-made. 'twill be the makin' o' ye, 'twill make ye rale human, an' ye'll have no more time for star-gazin' an' such foolishness. ye can find out what people are in the world for, instead keepin' yerself so outside o' things. sure, yes, man, yes, i'll tell moira ye said good-by to her, an'--yes, i give ye my word, and promise true and true, i'll lave ye now if she moves away or if any harm comes to her." iv his grizzled hair was turned quite white when his sister kissed him good-by, fresh tears in her eyes, scarcely dry from the excitement of her youngest daughter's wedding. she had a moment of divination like his, and said sadly, "there's no use trying to thank ye, timmy, words can't do it. if ye'd been anybody else, i cud ha' said ye got ye'r pay for all these long, hard years in the love the childer bear ye. that's the pay folks get for workin' an' livin' for others--but ye're not folks. is't that ye're the seventh son? is't that ye've second sight? is't that--_what_ is't that makes ye so far away? an' what _is_ ye'r pay, tim? now that it's over and the children all safe and grown up, ye look yerself like a child that's done its lesson an' run out to play. is't all just work or play with ye? can't ye niver just _live_?" in truth her brother's eagerness to be away was scarcely concealed at all from the grateful, wistful irish eyes about him. he was breathless with haste to be off. the long trip to new england was a never-ending nightmare of delay to him, and although he had planned for years to walk up the hill, his trembling old legs dragged in a slow progress maddening to his impatience. a farmer, driving by, offered him a lift, which he accepted gratefully, sitting strained far forward on the high seat. at a turn of the road he looked back and saw that he had passed the cluster of pines where moira had laughed at him, and where he had felt so thick about him the thronging rush of his newly awakened perceptions of the finer meaning of things, the gay, sweet crowd of gentle little people. he stopped the farmer and, leaping down from the high seat, he took his pipes under his arm and fairly ran up the little path. his rheumatic knee creaked a little, but the color came up hard in his tired old face as the twilight of the pines and their pungent, welcoming breath fell about him. he cast him down and buried his face in the rust-red dried needles. he did not weep, but from time to time a long sigh heaved his shoulders. then he turned over and lay on his back, looking at the sunset-yellow sky through the green, thick-clustered needles, noticing how the light made each one glisten as though dipped in molten gold. his hand strayed out to his pipes, lying beside him with mute, gaping mouths. "the gold o' the glamour," he murmured to himself, and as he broke the silence with the old tune faintly blown, he felt the wood peopled about him as of yore with twilight forms. unseen bright eyes gazed at him from behind tree-trunks, and the branches were populous with invisible, kindly listeners. the very hush was symbolic of the consciousness of the wood that he was there again. there was none of the careless commonplace of rustling leaves, and snapping twigs, and indifferent, fearless bird-song. in the death-like still he felt life quivering and observant with a thousand innocent, curious, welcoming eyes. when he had quavered through the last note he let the pipes fall and gazed about him with a smile, like a happy old child. the sun sank behind the mountain as he looked, and he pulled himself heavily up. his way to the farm lay over bare upland pastures where his feet, accustomed for years to the yielding prarie levels, stumbled and tripped among the loose stones. twilight came on rapidly, so that he found himself several times walking blindly through fairy rings of fern. he crossed himself and bowed his head three times to the west, where the evening star now shone pale in the radiance of the glowing sky. between two of the ridges he wandered into a bog where his feet, hot in their heavy boots, felt gratefully the oozing, cool brown water. and then, as he stepped into the lane, dark with dense maple-trees and echoing faintly with the notes of the hermit thrush, he saw the light of the little house glimmer through the trees in so exactly the spot where his hungering eyes sought it that his heart gave a great hammering leap in his breast. he knocked at the door, half doubtfully, for all his eagerness. it might be she lived elsewhere in the parish now. he had schooled himself to this thought so that it was no surprise, although a heavy disappointment, when the door was opened by a small dark man holding a sleeping baby on his arm. timothy lowered his voice and the man gave a brief and hushed answer. he spoke in a strong french-canadian accent. "moira o'donnell? i nevaire heard before. go to ze house on ze hill--mebbe zey know--" he closed the door, and, through the open window, timothy saw him sit down, still holding the baby and looking at it as though the interrupting episode were already forgotten. the old man shivered with a passing eerie sense of being like a ghost knocking vainly at the doors of the living. he limped up the hill, and knocked on the kitchen door of the old wilcox house. to his eyes, dilated with the wide dusk of the early evening, the windows seemed to blaze with light, and when the door was opened to him he shaded his eyes, blinking fast against the rays of a lamp held high in the hand of a round, little woman who looked at him with an impersonal kindness. his heart beat so he could not speak. suddenly from the past rang out his old name, the one he had almost lost in the dreary years of "uncle tim" which lay behind him. "why, piper tim!" cried the woman in a voice of exceeding warmth and affection. "why, it's dear, dear, darling old piper tim come back to visit his old home. i knew ye in a minute by the pipes. come in! come in! there's not a soul livin' or dead that's welcomer in th' house of moira wilcox." the name blazed high through all the confusion of his swimming senses. to his blank look she returned a mellow laugh. "why sure, timmy darlint, hasn't anybody; iver told ye i was married? i'd have written ye myself, only that i knew you couldn't read it, and 'twas hard to tell through other people. though, saints preserve us, 'tis long since i thought anything about it, one way _or_ th' other. 'tis as nat'ral as breathing now." she was pulling him into the warm, light room, taking his cap and pipes from him, and at the last she pushed him affectionately into a chair, and stood looking kindly at his pale agitation, her arms wide in a soft angle as she placed her hands on her rounded hips. "oh, timothy moran, you darlint! moira's that glad to see you! you mind me of the times when i was young and that's comin' to be long ago." she turned and stepped hastily to the stove from which rose an appetizing smell of frying ham. as she bent her plump, flushed face over this, the door opened and two dark-eyed little girls darted in. on seeing a stranger, they were frozen in mid-flight with the shy gaze of country children. "here, childer, 'tis piper tim come back to visit us. piper tim that i've told ye so many tales about--an' the gran' tunes he can play on his pipes. he can play with ye better nor i--he niver has aught else to do!" she smiled a wide, friendly smile on the old man as she said this, to show she meant no harm, and turned the slices of ham deftly so that they sent a puff of blue savory smoke up to her face. "don't th' ham smell good, ye spalpeens, fresh from runnin' th' hills? go an' wash ye'r faces an' hands and call ye'r father an' brothers. i've four," she added proudly to the man by the table watching her with horrified eyes. the fumes of the cooking made him sick, the close air suffocated him. he felt as though he were in some oppressive nightmare, and the talk at the supper-table penetrated but dully to his mind. the cordiality of moira's husband, the shy, curious looks of the children at his pipes, even moira's face rosy from brow to rounded chin, and beaming with indulgent, affectionate interest all melted together into a sort of indistinguishable confusion. this dull distress was rendered acute anguish by moira's talk. in that hot, indoor place, with all those ignorant blank faces about her, she spoke of the pines and the upland bogs, of the fog and the round stone, and desecrated a sacred thing with every word. it would have been a comfort to him if she had even talked with an apostate's yearning bitterness for his betrayed religion, if she had spoken harshly of their old, sweet folly; but she was all kindness and eager, willing reminiscence. just as she spoke his name, his faã«ry name of "piper tim," in a tone that made it worse than "uncle tim," so she blighted one after another of the old memories as she held them up in her firm, assured hands, and laughed gently at their oddity. after supper as tim sat again in the kitchen watching her do the evening work, the tides of revulsion rose strong within him. "we were a queer lot, an' no mistake, piper tim," she said, scraping at a frying pan with a vigorous knife. "an' the childer are just like us. i've thried to tell them some of our old tales, but--i dun'no'--they've kind o' gone from me, now i've such a lot to do. i suppose you were up to the same always, with your nephews an' nieces out west. 'twas fine for ye to have a family of your own that way, you that was always so lonely like." timothy's shuddering horror of protest rose into words at this, incoherent words and bursts of indignation that took his breath away in gasps. "moira! _moira_! what are ye sayin' to me? _me_ wid a family! anyone who's iver had th' quiet to listen to th' blessed little people--_him_ to fill up his ears wid th' clatter of mortial tongues. no? since i lift here i've had no minute o' peace--oh, moira, th' country there--th' great flat hidjious country of thim--an' th' people like it--flat an' fruitful. an' oh, moira, aroon, it's my heart breakin' in me, that now i've worked and worked there and done my mortial task an' had my purgatory before my time, an' i've come back to live again--that ye've no single welcomin' word to bid me stay." the loving irish heart of the woman melted in a misunderstanding sympathy and remorse. "why, poor piper tim, i didn't mean ye should go back to them or their country if ye like it better here. ye're welcome every day of the year from now till judgment tramp. i only meant--why--seem' they were your own folks--and all, that ye'd sort o' taken to thim--the way most do, when it's their own blood." she flowed on in a stream of fumbling, warm-hearted, mistaken apology that sickened the old man's soul. when he finally rose for his great adventure, he spoke timidly, with a wretched foreknowledge of what her answer would be. "och, piper tim, 'tis real sweet of ye to think of it and ask me, an' i'd like fine to go. sure, i've not been on the round stone of an evening--why, not since you went away i do believe! but ralph's goin' to the grange meetin' to-night, an' one of th' childer is restless with a cough, and i think i'll not go. my feet get sort of sore-like, too, after bein' on them all day." v. as he stepped out from the warm, brightly lighted room, the night seemed chill and black, but after a moment his eyes dilated and he saw the stars shining through the densely hanging maple leaves. up by the round stone the valley opened out beneath him. restlessly he looked up and down the road and across the valley with a questing glance which did not show him what he sought. the night for all its dark corners had nothing in it for him beyond what lay openly before him. he put out his hand instinctively for his pipes, remembered that he had left them at the house, and sprang to his feet to return for them. perhaps moira would come out with him now. perhaps the child had gone to sleep. the brief stay in the ample twilight of the hillside had given him a faint, momentary courage to appeal again to her against the narrow brightness of her prison. moira sat by the kitchen table, sewing, her smooth round face blooming like a rose in the light from the open door of the stove. her kindly eyes beamed sweetly on the old man. "ah, piper tim, ye're wise. 'tis a damp night out for ye'r rheumatis. the fog risin' too, likely?" the old piper went to her chair and stood looking at her with a fixed gaze, "moira!" he said vehemently, "moira o'donnell that was, the stars are bright over the round stone, an' th' moon is risin' behind th' hill o' delights, and the first white puffs of incense are risin' from th' whirl-hole of th' river. i've come back for my pipes, and i'm goin' out to play to th' little people--an' oh, shall old piper tim go without moira?" he spoke with a glowing fervor like the leaping up of a dying candle. from the inexorably kind woman who smiled so friendly on him his heart recoiled and puffed itself out into darkness. she surveyed him with the wise, tender pity of a mother for a foolish, much-loved child. "sure, 'tis th' same piper tim ye are!" she said cheerfully, laying down her work, "but, lord save ye, timmy darlint, _moira's grown up_! there's no need for my pretendin' to play any more, is there, when i've got proper childer o' my own to keep it up. _they_ are my little people--an' i don't have to have a quiet place to fancy them up out o' nothin'. they're real! an' they're takin' my place all over again. there's one--the youngest girl--the one that looks so like me as ye noticed--she's just such a one as i was. to-day only (she's seven to-morrow), she minded me of some old tales i had told her about the cruachan whistle for the sidhe on the seventh birthday, an' she'd been tryin' to make one, but i'd clean forgot how the criss-cross lines go. it made me think back on that evening when i was seven--maybe you've forgot, but you was sittin' on the round stone in th'----" timothy's sore heart rebelled at this last rifling of the shrine, and he made for the door. moira's sweet solicitude held him for an instant in check. "oh, tim, ye'd best stay in an' warm your knee by the good fire. i've a pile of mendin' to do, and you'll tell me all about your family in th' west and how you farmed there. it'll be real cozy-like." timothy uttered an outraged sound and snatching up his pipes fled out of the pleasant, low-ceilinged room, up the road, now white as chalk beneath the newly risen moon. at the round stone he sat down and, putting his pipes to his lips, he played resolutely through to the end "the song of angus to the stars." as the last, high, confident note died, he put his pipes down hastily, and dropped his face in his hands with a broken murmur of gaelic lament. when he looked abroad again, the valley was like a great opal, where the moon shot its rays into the transparent fog far below him. the road was white and the shadows black and one was no more devoid of mystery than the other. the sky for all its stars hung above the valley like an empty bowl above an empty vessel, and in his heart he felt no swelling possibilities to fill this void. to the haggard old eyes the face of the world was like a dead thing, which did not return his gaze even with hostility, but blankly--a smooth, thin mask which hid behind it nothing at all. he was startled by the sudden appearance of a dog from out of the shadows, a shaggy collie who trotted briskly down the road, stopping to roll a friendly, inquiring eye on his bent figure. his eyes followed the animal until it vanished in the shadows on the other side. after the sound of its padding footsteps was still, the old man's heart died within him at the silence. he tried vainly to exorcise this anguish by naming it what was it? why did he droop dully now that he was where he had so longed to be? everything was as it had been, the valley, the clean white fog, tossing its waves up to him as he had dreamed of it in the arid days of nebraska; the mountains closing in on him with the line of drooping peace he had never lost from before his eyes during the long, dreary years of exile. only he was changed. his eye fell on his mud-caked boots, and his face contracted. "oh, my! oh, my!" he said aloud, like an anxious old child. "she couldn't ha' liked my tracking bog durt on to her clane kitchen floor!" but as he sat brooding, his hand dropped heavily to the round stone and encountered a small object which he held up to view. it was a willow whistle of curious construction, with white lines criss-cross on it; and beside it lay a jackknife with a broken blade. the old man looked at it, absently at first, then with a start, and finally with a rush of joyful and exultant exclamations. and afterward, quite tranquilly, with a shining face of peace, he played softly on his pipes, "the call of the sidhe to the children." adeste fideles! i. the persuasive agent sought old miss abigail out among her flower-beds and held up to her a tiny chair with roses painted on the back. "i was told to see you about these. they're only four dollars a dozen, and the smallest school children love 'em." miss abigail straightened herself with difficulty. she had been weeding the gladiolus bed. "four dollars," she mused, "i was going to put four dollars into rose-bushes this fall." she put out a strong, earth-stained old hand and took the chair. her affection for her native greenford began to rise through her life-long thrift, a mental ferment not unusual with her. finally, "all right," she said; "send 'em to the schoolhouse, and say they're in memory of all my grandfathers and grandmothers that learned their letters in that schoolhouse." she went back to her digging and the agent clicked the gate back of his retreat. suddenly she stood up without remembering to ease her back. she heard the first shot from the enemy who was to advance so rapidly upon her thereafter. "wait a minute," she called to the agent. as he paused, she made a swift calculation. "i don't believe i want a dozen," she said, much surprised. "i can't think of that many little ones." the agent took his notebook. "how many?" he asked. the ponderous old woman stared at him absently, while she made a mental canvass of the town. she spoke with a gasp. "we don't need any!" she cried. "there ain't a child in school under eleven." "take some now and have them handy," urged the agent. miss abigail's gaze again narrowed in silent calculation. when she spoke her exclamation was not for her listener. she had forgotten him. "good lord of love!" she cried. "there ain't a single one comin' up to sit on those chairs if i should buy 'em!" the agent was utterly blotted from her mind. she did not know when he left her garden. she only knew that there were no children in greenford. there were no children in her town! "why, what's comin' to greenford!" she cried. and yet, even as she cried out, she was aware that she had had a warning, definite, ominous, a few days before, from the lips of molly leonard. at that time she had put away her startled uneasiness with a masterful hand, burying it resolutely where she had laid away all the other emotions of her life, under the brown loam of her garden. but it all came back to her now. her thin, fluttering, little old friend had begun with tragic emphasis, "the roof to the library leaks!" miss abigail had laughed as usual at molly's habit of taking small events with bated breath. "what of it?" she asked. "that roof never was good, even back in the days when 'twas a private house and my great-uncle lived in it." miss molly fluttered still more before the awfulness of her next announcement. "well, the talk is that the town won't vote a cent toward repairs." "they'll have to! you can't get along without a library!" "no, they won't. the talk is that the men won't vote to have the town give a bit of money for shingles. no, nor to pay somebody to take the place of ellen monroe as librarian. she's got work in the print mill at johnsonville and is going to move down there to be near her mother's family." "oh, _talk_!" said miss abigail with the easy contempt she had for things outside her garden hedge. "haven't you heard men talk before?" "but they say really they _won't!_ they say nobody ever goes into it any more when the summer folks go away in the autumn." miss abigail's gesture indicated that the thing was unthinkable. "what's the matter with young folks nowadays, anyhow? they always used to run there and chatter till you couldn't hear yourself think." miss molly lowered her voice like a person coming to the frightening climax of a ghost story. "miss abigail, they _ain't_ any young folks here any more!" "what do you call the pitkin girls!" demanded the other. "they were the very last ones and they and their mother have decided they'll move to johnsonville this fall." miss abigail cried out in energetic disapproval, "what in the lord's world are the pitkinses going to move away from greenford for! they belong here!" miss molly marshaled the reasons with a sad swiftness, "there aren't any music pupils left for the oldest one, the two next have got positions in the print mill and little sarah is too old for the school here any more." miss abigail shook her head impatiently as though to brush away a troublesome gnat. "how about the leavitts? there ought to be enough young ones in that or family to--" "they moved to johnsonville last week, going to rent their house to city folks in the summer, the way all the rest here in the street do. they didn't want to go a bit. eliza felt dreadful about it, but what can they do? ezra hasn't had enough carpentering to do in the last six months to pay their grocery bill, and down in johnsonville they can't get carpenters enough. besides, all the children's friends are there, and they got so lonesome here winters." miss abigail quailed a little, but rallying, she brought out, "what's the matter with the bennetts? the whole kit and b'iling of them came in here the other day to pester me asking about how i grew my lilies." "why, miss abigail! you don't pay any more attention to village news! they've been working in the mills for two years now, and only come home for two weeks in the summer like everybody else." the old woman stirred her weighty person wrathfully. "like everybody else! molly, you talk like a fool! as if there was nobody lived here all the year around!" "but it's _so!_ i don't know what's coming to greenford!" an imperative gesture from the older woman cut her short. "don't chatter so, molly! if it's true, that about the library, we've got to do something!" the interview had ended in an agreement from her, after a struggle with the two passions of her life, to give up the tulip bulbs for which she had been saving so long, and spend the money for repairing the roof. miss molly, having no money to give, since she was already much poorer than she could possibly be and live, agreed, according to miss abigail's peremptory suggestion, to give her time, and keep the library open at least during the afternoons. "you can do it, molly, as well as not, for you don't seem to have half the sewing you used to." "there's nobody here any more to sew _for_--" began the seamstress despairingly, but miss abigail would not listen, bundling her out of the garden gate and sending her trotting home, cheered unreasonably by the old woman's jovial blustering, "no such kind of talk allowed in _my_ garden!" but now, after the second warning, miss abigail felt the need of some cheer for herself as she toiled among the hollyhocks and larkspurs. she would not let herself think of the significance of the visit of the agent for the chairs, and she could not force herself to think of anything else. for several wretched weeks she hung in this limbo. then, one morning as she stood gazing at her speciosums rubrums without seeing them, she received her summons to the front. she had a call from her neighbor, mr. edward horton, whom the rest of the world knows as a sculptor, but whom miss abigail esteemed only because of his orthodox ideas on rose culture. he came in to ask some information about a blight on his red ramblers, although after miss abigail had finished her strong recommendation to use whale oil soap sprayed, and not hellebore, he still lingered, crushing a leaf of lemon verbena between his fingers and sniffing the resultant perfume with thoughtful appreciation. he was almost as enthusiastic a horticulturist as miss abigail, and stood high in her good graces as one of the few individuals of sense among the summer colony. she faced him therefore in a peaceable, friendly mood, glad of the diversion from her thoughts, and quite unprepared for the shock he was about to give her. "i'm on my way to interview the trustees of the church," he remarked. "it is curious that all but one of them now really live in johnsonville, although they still keep their nominal residence here." "what do you want to see _them_ for?" asked miss abigail, with a bluntness caused in part by her wincing at his casual statement of an unwelcome fact. "why, i've had what i flatter myself is an inspiration for everyone concerned. i've got a big commission for part of the decorations of the new state house in montana, and i need a very large studio. it occurred to me the other day that instead of building i'd save time by buying the old church here and using that." miss abigail leaned against the palings. "_buy our church!_" she said, and every letter was a capital. "i didn't know you were a member," said the sculptor, a little surprised. "you don't often go." miss abigail shouted out, "why, my grandfather was minister in that church!" mr. horton received this as a statement of fact. "indeed? i didn't realize the building was so old. i wonder if the foundations are still in good shape." he went on, explanatorily, "i really don't know why i hadn't thought of the plan before. the number who attend church in that great barn of a place could easily be put into someone's parlor, and save the trustees the expense of heating. one of them whom i saw the other day seemed quite pleased with the notion--said they'd been at a loss to know what to do about conditions here." he glanced at his watch. "well, i must be going or i shall miss the train to johnsonville. thank you very much for the hint about the blight." he went down the street, humming a cheerful little tune. to miss abigail it was the bugle call of "forward, charge!" she had been, for the last few weeks, a little paler than usual. now her powerful old face flushed to an angry red. she dashed her trowel to the garden path and clenched her fists. "what's coming to greenford!" she shouted. it was no longer a wail of despair. it was a battle-cry of defiance. ii she had no time to organize a campaign, forced as she was to begin fighting at once. reaching wildly for any weapon at hand, she rushed to the front, as grim-visaged a warrior as ever frightened a peaceable, shiftless non-combatant "joel barney!" she cried, storming up his front steps. "you're a trustee of the church, aren't you? well, if you don't vote against selling the church, i'll foreclose the mortgage on your house so quick you can't wink. and you tell 'lias bennett that if he doesn't do the same, i'll pile manure all over that field of mine near his place, and stink out his summer renters so they'll never set foot here again." she shifted tactics as she encountered different adversaries and tried no blackmail on stubborn miles benton, whom she took pains to see the next time he came back to greenford for a visit. him she hailed as the native-born. "how would you like to have brazen models and nasty statues made in the building where your own folks have always gone to church?" but when the skirmish was over, she realized ruefully that the argument which had brought her her hard-won victory had been the one which, for a person of such very moderate means as hers, reflected the least hope for future battles. at the last, in desperation, she had guaranteed in the name of the ladies' aid society that the church, except for the minister's salary, should thereafter be no expense to the trustees. she had invented that source of authority, remembering that molly leonard had said she belonged to the ladies' aid society, "and i can make molly do anything," she thought, trusting providence for the management of the others. as a matter of fact, when she came to investigate the matter, she found that molly was now the sole remaining member. her dismay was acute, molly's finances being only too well known to her, but she rallied bravely. "they don't do much to a church that costs money," she thought, and, when molly went away, she made out her budget unflinchingly. wood for the furnace, kerosene for the lamps, wages to the janitor, repairs when needed--"well, abigail warner," she told herself, "it means nothing new bought for the garden, and no new microscope--the roof to the library costing more than they said 'twould and all." but the joy of triumphant battle was still swelling her doughty old heart, so that even these considerations did not damp her exultation over her artist neighbor the next time he came to see her. he listened to her boasting with his pleasant, philosophic smile, and, when she finished, delivered himself of a quiet little disquisition or the nature of things which was like ice-water in the face of the hot-blooded old fighter. "my dear miss abigail, your zeal does your heart credit, and your management of the trustees proves you an unsuspected diplomat; but as a friend, and, believe me, a disinterested friend, let me warn you that you are contending against irresistible forces. you can no more resuscitate your old greenford than you can any other dead body. you have kept the church from my clutches, it is true, though for that matter i wouldn't have offered to buy it if i hadn't thought no one cared about it--but what do you mean to do with it now you have it? you cannot bring back the old greenford families from their well-paid work in johnsonville to sit in those rescued pews, or read in your deserted library, or send their children to your empty schoolhouse. you tell me they are loyal to their old home, and love to come back here for visits. is that strange? greenford is a charming village set in the midst of beautiful mountains, and johnsonville is a raw factory town in a plain. but they cannot live on picturesque scenery or old associations. the laws of economics are like all other laws of nature, inevitable in their action and irresistible in--" miss abigail gave the grampus snort which had been her great-grandfather's war-cry. "hoo! you're like all other book folks! you give things such long names you scare yourselves! i haven't got anything to do with economics, nor it with me. it's a plain question as to whether the church my ancestors built and worshipped in is to be sold. there's nothing so inevitable in _that_, let me tell you. laws of nature--fiddlesticks! how about the law of gravity? don't i break that every time i get up gumption enough to raise my hand to my head!" mr. horton looked at the belligerent old woman with the kindest smile of comprehension. "ah, i know how hard it is for you. in another way i have been through the same bitter experience. my home, my real home, where my own people are, is out in a wind-swept little town on the nebraska prairies. but i cannot live there because it is too far from my world of artists and art patrons. i tried it once, but the laws of supply and demand work for all alike. i gave it up. here i am, you see. you can't help such things. you'd better follow on to johnsonville now and not embitter the last of your life with a hopeless struggle." miss abigail fairly shouted at him her repudiation of his ideas. "not while there is a breath in me! my folks were all soldiers." "but even soldiers surrender to overpowering forces." "hoo! hoo! how do they know they're overpowering till they're overpowered! how do they dare surrender till they're dead! how do they know that if they hold out just a little longer they won't get reã«nforcements!" mr. horton was a little impatient of his old friend's unreason. "my dear miss abigail, you have brains. _use_ them! what possible reinforcements can you expect?" the old woman opposed to his arguments nothing but a passionately bare denial. "no! no! no! we're different! it's in your blood to give up because you can reason it all out that you're beaten," she stood up, shaking with her vehemence. "it's in my blood to fight and fight and fight--" "and then what?" asked the sculptor, as she hesitated. "go on fighting!" she cried. iii she was seventy-one years old when she first flew this flag, and for the next four years she battled unceasingly under its bold motto against odds that rapidly grew more overwhelming as the process that had been imperceptibly draining greenford of its population gained impetus with it own action. in the beginning people moved to johnsonville because they could get work in the print mill, but after a time they went because the others had gone. before long there was no cobbler in greenford because there was so little cobbling to do. after that the butcher went away, then the carpenter, and finally the grocery-store was shut up and deserted by the man whose father and grandfather had kept store in the same building for sixty years. it was the old story. he had a large family of children who needed education and "a chance." the well-kept old village still preserved its outer shell of quaintness and had a constantly increasing charm for summering strangers who rejoiced with a shameless egoism in the death-like quiet of the moribund place, and pointed out to visiting friends from the city the tufts of grass beginning to grow in the main street as delightful proofs of the tranquillity of their summer retreat. miss abigail overheard a conversation to this effect one day between some self-invited visitors to her wonderful garden. her heart burned and her face blackened. "you might as well," she told them, "laugh at the funny faces of a person who's choking to death!" the urbane city people turned amused and inquiring faces upon her. "how so?" "roads aren't for grass to grow in!" she fulminated. "they're for folks to use, for men and women and little children to go over to and from their homes." "ah, economic conditions," they began to murmur. "the inevitable laws of supply and--" "get out of my garden!" miss abigail raged at them. "get out!" they had scuttled before her, laughing at her quaint verocity, and she had sworn wrath fully never to let another city dweller inside her gate--a resolution which she was forced to forego as time passed on and she became more and more hard pressed for ammunition. up to this time she had lived in perfect satisfaction on seven hundred dollars a year, but now she began to feel straitened. she no longer dared afford even the tiniest expenditure for her garden. she spaded the beds herself, drew leaf mold from the woods in repeated trips with a child's express wagon, and cut the poles for her sweet-peas with her own hands. when miss molly leonard declared herself on the verge of starvation from lack of sewing to do, and threatened to move to johnsonville to be near her sister annie, miss abigail gave up her "help" and paid miss molly for the time spent in the empty reading-room of the library. but the campaign soon called for more than economy, even the most rigid. when the minister had a call elsewhere, and the trustees of the church seized the opportunity to declare it impossible to appoint his successor, miss abigail sold her woodlot and arranged through the home missionary board for someone to hold services at least once a fortnight. later the "big meadow" so long coveted by a new york family as a building site was sacrificed to fill the empty war chest, and, temporarily in funds, she hired a boy to drive her about the country drumming up a congregation. christmas time was the hardest for her. the traditions of old greenford were for much decorating of the church with ropes of hemlock, and a huge christmas tree in the town hall with presents for the best of the sunday-school scholars. winding the ropes had been, of old, work for the young unmarried people, laughing and flirting cheerfully. by the promise of a hot supper, which she furnished herself, miss abigail succeeded in getting a few stragglers from the back hills, but the number grew steadily smaller year by year. she and miss molly always trimmed the christmas tree themselves. indeed, it soon became a struggle to pick out any child a regular enough attendant at sunday-school to be eligible for a present. the time came when miss abigail found it difficult to secure any children at all for the annual christmas party. the school authorities began to murmur at keeping up the large old schoolhouse for a handful of pupils. miss abigail, at her wit's end, guaranteed the fuel for warming the house, and half the pay of a teacher. examining, after this, her shrunk and meager resources, she discovered she had promised far beyond her means. she was then seventy-three years old, but an ageless valor sprang up in her to meet the new emergency. she focused her acumen to the burning point and saw that the only way out of her situation was to earn some money--an impossible thing at her age. without an instant's pause, "how shall i do it?" she asked herself, and sat frowning into space for a long time. when she rose up, the next development in her campaign was planned. not in vain had she listened scornfully to the silly talk of city folks about the picturesqueness of her old house and garden. it was all grist to her mill, she perceived, and during the next summer it was a grimly amused old miller who watched the antics of abigail warner, arrayed in a pseudo-oldfashioned gown of green-flowered muslin, with a quaintly ruffled cap confining her rebellious white hair, talking the most correct book-brand of down-east jargon, and selling flowers at twenty times their value to automobile and carriage folk. she did not mind sacrificing her personal dignity, but she did blush for her garden, reduced to the most obvious commonplaces of flowers that any child could grow. but by september she had saved the school-teacher's pay, and the martins and the allens, who had been wavering on account of their children, decided to stay another winter at least. that was _something_, miss abigail thought, that christmas, as she and miss molly tortured their rheumatic limbs to play games with the six children around the tree. she had held rigorously to the old tradition of having the christmas tree party in the town hall, and she had heartened miss molly through the long lonely hours they had spent in trimming it; but as the tiny handful of forlorn celebrants gathered about the tall tree, glittering in all the tinsel finery which was left over from the days when the big hall had rung to the laughter of a hundred children and as many more young people, even miss abigail felt a catch in her throat as she quavered through "king _will_yum was king _james's_ son!" when the games were over and the children sat about soberly, eating their ice-cream and cake, she looked over her shoulder into the big empty room and shivered. the children went away and she and miss molly put out the lights in silence. when they came out into the moonlight and looked up and down the deserted street, lined with darkened houses, the face of the younger woman was frankly tear-stained. "oh, miss abigail," she said; "let's give it up!" miss abigail waited an instant, perceptible instant before answering, but, when she did, her voice was full and harsh with its usual vigor. "fiddlesticks! you must ha' been losing your sleep. go tuck yourself up and get a good night's rest and you won't talk such kind of talk!" but she herself sat up late into the night with a pencil and paper, figuring out sums that had impossible answers. that march she had a slight stroke of paralysis, and was in an agony of apprehension lest she should not recover enough to plant the flowers for the summer's market. by may, flatly against the doctor's orders, she was dragging herself around the garden on crutches, and she stuck to her post, smiling and making prearranged rustic speeches all the summer. she earned enough to pay the school-teacher another winter and to buy the fuel for the schoolhouse, and again the martins and the allens stayed over; though they announced with a callous indifference to miss abigail's ideas that they were going down to johnsonville at christmas to visit their relatives there, and have the children go to the tree the ex-greenfordites always trimmed. when she heard this miss abigail set off to the allen farm on the lower slope of hemlock mountain. "wa'n't our tree good enough?" she demanded hotly. "the _tree_ was all right," they answered, "but the children were so mortal lonesome. little katie ann came home crying." miss abigail turned away without answering and hobbled off up the road toward the mountain. things were black before her eyes and in her heart as she went blindly forward where the road led her. she still fought off any acknowledgment of the bitterness that filled her, but when the road, after dwindling to a wood trail and then to a path, finally stopped, she sat down with a great swelling breath. "well, i guess this is the end," she said aloud, instantly thereafter making a pretense to herself that she meant the road. she looked about her with a brave show of interest in the bare november woods, unroofed and open to the sunlight, and was rewarded by a throb of real interest to observe that she was where she had not been for forty years, when she used to clamber over the spur of hemlock mountain to hunt for lady's-slippers in the marshy ground at the head of the gorge. a few steps more and she would be on her own property, a steep, rocky tract of brushland left her by her great-uncle. she had a throb as she realized that, besides her house and garden, this unsalable bit of the mountainside was her only remaining possession. she had indeed come to the end. with the thought came her old dogged defiance to despair. she shut her hands on her crutches, pulled herself heavily up to her feet, and toiled forward through some brush. she would not allow herself to think if thoughts were like that. soon she came out into a little clearing beside the winthrop branch, swirling and fumbling in its headlong descent. the remains of a stone wall and a blackened beam or two showed her that she had hit upon the ruins of the old sawmill her great-grandfather had owned. this forgotten and abandoned decay, a symbol of the future of the whole region, struck a last blow at the remnants of her courage. she sank down on the wall and set herself to a losing struggle with the blackness that was closing in about her. all her effort had been in vain. the fight was over. she had not a weapon left. a last spark of valor flickered into flame within her. she stood up, lifting her head high, and summoning with a loudly beating heart every scattered energy. she was alive; her fight could not be over while she still breathed. for an instant she stood, self-hypnotized by the intensity of her resolution. then there burst upon her ear, as though she had not heard it before, the roar of the water rushing past her. it sounded like a loud voice calling to her. she shivered and turned a little giddy as though passing into a trance, and then, with one bound, the gigantic forces of subconscious self, wrought by her long struggle to a white heat of concentration on one aim, arose and mastered her. for a time--hours perhaps--she never knew how long, old miss abigail was a genius, with the brain of an engineer and the prophetic vision of a seer. iv the next months were the hardest of her life. the long dreary battle against insurmountable obstacles she had been able to bear with a stoical front, but the sickening alternations of emotions which now filled her days wore upon her until she was fairly suffocated. about mail time each day she became of an unendurable irritability, so that poor miss molly was quite afraid to go near her. for the first time in her life there was no living thing growing in her house. "don't you mean to have any service this christmas?" asked miss molly one day. miss abigail shouted at her so fiercely that she retreated in a panic. "why not? why shouldn't we? what makes you think such a thing?" "why, i didn't know of anybody to go but just you and me, and i noticed that you hadn't any flowers started for decorations the way you always do." miss abigail flamed and fulminated as though her timid little friend had offered her an insult. "i've been to service in that church every christmas since i was born and i shall till i die. and as for my not growing any flowers, that's _my_ business, ain't it!" her voice cracked under the outraged emphasis she put on it. her companion fled away without a word, and miss abigail sank into a chair trembling. it came over her with a shock that her preoccupation had been so great that she had _forgotten_ about her winter flowers. the fortnight before christmas was interminable to her. every morning she broke a hobbling path through the snow to the post-office, where she waited with a haggard face for the postmaster's verdict of "nothing." the rest of the day she wandered desolately about her house, from one window to another, always staring, staring up at hemlock mountain. she disposed of the problem of the christmas service with the absent competence of a person engrossed in greater matters. miss molly had declared it impossible--there was no money for a minister, there was no congregation, there was no fuel for the furnace. miss abigail wrote so urgently to the theological seminary of the next state that they promised one of their seniors for the service; and she loaded a hand sled with wood from her own woodshed and, harnessing herself and miss molly to it, drew it with painful difficulty through the empty village street. there was not enough of this fuel to fill even once the great furnace in the cellar, so she decreed that the service should be in the vestibule where a stove stood. the last few days before christmas she spent in sending out desperate appeals to remote families to come. but when the morning arrived, she and miss molly were the only ones there. the young theologian appeared a little before the appointed time, brought in the motor car of a wealthy friend of his own age. they were trying to make a record winter trip, and were impatient at the delay occasioned by the service. when they saw that two shabby old women constituted the congregation, they laughed as they stood warming their hands by the stove and waiting for the hour. they ignored the two women, chatting lightly of their own affairs. it seemed that they were on their way to a winter house party to which the young clergyman-to-be was invited on account of his fine voice--an operetta by amateurs being one of the gayeties to which they looked forward. miss abigail and miss molly were silent in their rusty black, miss molly's soft eyes red with restrained tears, miss abigail's face like a flint. "a pretty place, this village is," said the motorist to the minister. "i have visited the ellerys here. really charming in summer time--so utterly deserted and peaceful." he looked out of the window speculatively. "rather odd we should be passing through it to-day. there's been a lot of talk about it in our family lately." "how so?" asked the minister, beginning cautiously to unwind the wrapping from around his throat. "why, my brother-in-law--peg's husband--don't you remember, the one who sang so fearfully flat in----" he was off on a reminiscence over which both men laughed loudly. finally, "but what did you start to tell me about him?" asked the minister. "i forget, i'm sure. what was it? oh, yes; he owns those print mills in johnsonville--hideous place for peg to live, that town!--and of late he's been awfully put out by the failure of his water-power. there's not much fall there at the best, and when the river's low--and it's low most all the time nowadays--he doesn't get power enough, so he says, to run a churn! he's been wondering what he could do about it, when doesn't he get a tip from some old rube up here that, above this village, there's a whopping water-power--the winthrop branch. i know it--fished it lots of times. he didn't take any stock in it of course at first, but, just on the chance, he sent his engineer up here to look it over, and, by jove, it's true. it'll furnish twice the power he's had in johnsonville lately." "seems queer," said the minister a little skeptically, "that nobody's ever thought of it before." "well, _i_ said that, but pete says that his engineer tells him that there are lots of such unknown water-powers in the east. nobody but farmers live near 'em, you see." the minister was but mildly interested. "i thought the cost of transmitting power was so great it didn't pay for any water-force but niagara." "he isn't going to carry the power to johnsonville. he's going to bring his mill here. a lot of his operators come from around here and most of 'em have kept their old homes, so there won't be any trouble about keeping his help. besides, it seems the old hayseed who wrote him about it owned the land, and offered him land, water-power, right of way--anything!--free, just to 'help the town' by getting the mill up here. that bespeaks the materialistic yankee, doesn't it?--to want to spoil a quiet little paradise like this village with a lot of greasy mill-hands." the minister looked at his watch. "i think i'll begin the service now. there's no use waiting for a congregation to turn up." he felt in one pocket after the other with increasing irritation. "pshaw! i've left my eyeglasses out in the car." the two disappeared, leaving the vestibule echoing and empty. for a moment the two women did not speak. then miss molly cast herself upon her old friend's bosom. "they're coming back!" she cried. "annie and her children!" miss abigail stared over her head. "they are _all_ coming back," she said, "and--we are ready for them. the library's ready--the school is ready--" she got up and opened the door into the great, cold, lofty church, "and--" they looked in silence at the empty pews. "next christmas!" said miss molly. "next christmas--" the young minister bustled in, announcing as he came, "we will open the service by singing hymn number forty-nine." he sat down before the little old organ and struck a resonant chord. "oh, come, all ye faithful!" his full rich voice proclaimed, and then he stopped short, startled by a great cry from miss abigail. looking over his shoulder, he saw that the tears were streaming down her face. he smiled to himself at the sentimentality of old women and turned again to the organ, relieved that his performance of a favorite hymn was not to be marred by cracked trebles. he sang with much taste and expression. "oh, come, all ye faithful!" he chanted lustily, "joyful and triumphant!" american commonwealths. edited by horace e. scudder. [illustration: (map of) vermont to accompany rowland e. robinson's vermont in american commonwealths the matthews-northrup co., buffalo, n. y.] american commonwealths vermont a study of independence by rowland e. robinson [illustration] boston and new york houghton, mifflin and company the riverside press, cambridge 1892 copyright, 1892, by rowland e. robinson. _all rights reserved._ _the riverside press, cambridge, mass., u. s. a._ electrotyped and printed by h. o. houghton & co. contents. chapter page i. the highway of war 1 ii. the wilderness during the french and indian wars 15 iii. occupation and settlement 47 iv. the new hampshire grants 57 v. the green mountain boys 68 vi. the westminster massacre 90 vii. ticonderoga 100 viii. green mountain boys in canada 115 ix. lake champlain 132 x. vermont an independent commonwealth 139 xi. ticonderoga; hubbardton 151 xii. bennington 165 xiii. subsequent operations of vermont troops 179 xiv. the unions 189 xv. the haldimand correspondence 203 xvi. unions dissolved 225 xvii. "the republic of the green mountains" 238 xviii. the new state 254 xix. vermont in the war of 1812 269 xx. old-time customs and industries 292 xxi. religion, education, and temperance 307 xxii. emigration 324 xxiii. "the star that never sets" 333 xxiv. vermont in the war of the rebellion 340 xxv. the vermont people 354 index 367 vermont. chapter i. the highway of war. champlain, in the account of his voyage made in july, 1609, up the lake to which he gave his name, mentions almost incidentally that, "continuing our route along the west side of the lake, contemplating the country, i saw on the east side very high mountains capped with snow. i asked the indians if those parts were inhabited. they answered me yes, and that they were iroquois, and there were in those parts beautiful valleys, and fields fertile in corn as good as any i had ever eaten in the country, with an infinitude of other fruits, and that the lake extended close to the mountains, which were, according to my judgment, fifteen leagues from us." it was doubtless then that the eyes of white men first beheld the lofty landmarks and western bounds of what is now vermont. if the wise and brave explorer gave more thought to the region than is indicated in this brief mention of it, perhaps it was to forecast a future wherein those fertile valleys, wrested by his people from the savagery of the wilderness and the heathen, should be made to blossom like the rose, while the church, of which he was so devout a son that he had said "the salvation of one soul was of more value than the conquest of an empire," should here build its altars, and gather to itself a harvest richer by far than any earthly garner. but this was not to be. his people were never to gain more than a brief and unsubstantial foothold in this land of promise. the hereditary enemies of his nation were to sow and reap where france had only struck a furrow, and were to implant a religion as abhorrent to him as paganism, and a form of government that would have seemed to him as evil as impracticable, and he was only a pioneer on the warpath of the nations. although the indians who accompanied champlain on his inland voyage of discovery told him that the country on the east side of the lake was inhabited by the iroquois, there is no evidence that it was permanently occupied by them, even then, if it ever had been. there are traces of a more than transient residence of some tribe here at some time, but their identity and the date of their occupancy can only be conjectured. the relics found give no clew by which to determine whether they who fashioned here their rude pottery and implements and weapons of stone were iroquois or waubanakee,[1] nor when these beautiful valleys were their home. a fact affording some proof that the iroquois abandoned it very long ago is, that not one stream, lake, mountain, or other landmark within the limits of vermont now bears an iroquois name. of all the indian names that have been preserved, every one is waubanakee; and though many of them are euphonious, and those least so far better than our commonplace and vulgar nomenclature, none of them have the poetic significance of those so frequently bestowed by the iroquois on mountain, lake, rock, and river. it does not seem probable that the warlike nation that conquered all tribes with which it came in contact, having once gained complete possession, should relinquish it. a more reasonable conclusion is, that the country lying east of lake champlain was a debatable ground of these aboriginal tribes in the remote past, as it was more recently of civilized nations and states. quebec, the town which champlain had founded in 1608, did not begin to assume much importance till eighteen years afterward, when its wooden fortifications were rebuilt of stone. nor was the place strong enough three years later to offer any resistance to the english fleet which, under the command of sir david kirk, then appeared before the city and presently took possession of it. the conquest was as lightly valued by king charles i. of england as it had been easily made; and in 1634, by the treaty of st. germain, canada, acadia, and cape breton were restored to france. thenceforward, for more than a hundred years, these regained possessions of the french were a constant menace and danger to the english colonies in america. advances toward the occupation of the country lying between lake champlain and the connecticut river were made slowly by both french and english, though the tide of predatory warfare often ebbed and flowed along the borders of the region and sometimes across it, along the courses of the larger tributary waterways, navigable almost to their narrow and shallow sources by the light birch of the indian while there was open water, and an easy if crooked path for the snowshoe and toboggan when winter had paved the streams with ice. one of the earliest of such french incursions into new england was made after the failure of the attempt of de callieres, the governor of montreal, to capture new york, and all the english colonies in that province, when less important expeditions were organized against the new york and new england frontiers and the sieur hertel went from trois rivières against the english fort at salmon falls in new hampshire. at about the same time, in february, 1690, the expedition under sieurs helene and mantet set forth by the way of lake champlain to destroy schenectady. both expeditions were organized by count frontenac for the purpose of inspiriting the canadians and their indian allies, who were sadly disheartened by the recent descent of the iroquois upon canada when montreal had been sacked and destroyed, and most of the frontier settlements broken up. the wide expanse of pathless woods that lay between the outposts of the hostile colonies gave a false assurance of security to the english settlers, while to their enemies these same solitudes gave almost certain immunity from the chance of a forewarned prey. in the wintry wastes of forest, through which these marauding bands took their way, there ranged no unfriendly scout to spy their stealthy approach, and bear tidings of it to the doomed settlements. unburdened by much weight of provision, or more camp equipage than their blankets and axes, these wolfish packs of canadians and indians (the whites scarcely less hardy than their wild allies nor much less savage, albeit devout christians) marched swiftly along frozen lake and ice-bound stream, through mountain pass and pathless woods, subsisting for the most part on the lean-yarded deer which were easily killed by their hunters. at night they bivouacked, with no shelter but the sky and the lofty arches of the forest, beside immense fires, whose glow, though lighting tree-tops and sky, would not be seen by any foe more dangerous than the wolf and panther. here each ate his scant ration; the frenchman smoked his pipe of rank home-grown tobacco, the waubanakee his milder senhalenac, or dried sumac leaves; the christian commended his devilish enterprise to god; the pagan sought by his rites to bring the aid of a superhuman power to their common purpose. the pious frenchman may have seen in the starlit sky some omen of success; the waubanakee were assured of it when dread wohjahose[2] was passed, and each had tossed toward it his offering of pounded corn or senhalenac, and the awful guardian of petowbowk[3] had sent no voice of displeasure, yelling and groaning after them beneath his icy roof; and each lay down to sleep on his bed of evergreen boughs in an unguarded camp. not till, like panthers crouching for the deadly spring, they drew near the devoted frontier settlement or fort, did they begin to exercise soldierly vigilance, to send out spies, and set guards about their camps. assured of the defenseless condition of the settlers or the carelessness of the garrison, they swooped upon their prey. out of the treacherous stillness of the woods a brief horror of carnage, rapine, and fire burst upon the sleeping hamlet. old men and helpless infants, stalwart men, taken unawares, fighting bravely with any means at hand, women in whatever condition, though it appealed most to humanity, were slaughtered alike. the booty was hastily gathered, and the torch applied by blood-stained hands, and out of the light of the conflagration of newly built homes the spoilers vanished with their miserable captives in the mysterious depths of the forest as suddenly as they had come forth from them. so were conducted the expeditions against salmon falls and schenectady. by the first, thirty of the english were killed, and fifty-four, mostly women and children, taken prisoners and carried to canada. the success of the other expedition spread consternation throughout the province of new york. sixty persons were killed, and nearly half as many made captive. in the same year, 1690, the colonies of new york, massachusetts, and connecticut organized a formidable expedition by land and sea against canada, in which they hoped to be aided by the mother country. having waited till august for the hoped-for arms and ammunition from england which were not sent, the colonies determined to undertake it with such means as they had, massachusetts to furnish the naval force against quebec, new york and connecticut the army to march against montreal. the new york and connecticut troops, commanded by john winthrop of the last named colony, marched early in august to the head of wood creek, with the expectation of being joined there by a large number of the warriors of the five nations, but less than a hundred of them came to the rendezvous. arrived at the place of embarkation on the lake, not half boats enough had been provided for the transportation of the army, nor sufficient provisions for its sustenance. encountered by such discouragements, the army returned to albany. captain john schuyler, however, went forward with twenty-nine christians and one hundred and twenty savages whom he recruited at wood creek as volunteers. in his journal[4] he gives an account of his daily progress and operations; mentions, by names now lost, various points on the lake, such as tsinondrosie, canaghsionie and ogharonde. "the 15th day of august we came one dutch mile above crown point. the 16th ditto we advanced as far as kanondoro and resolved at that place to travel by night, and have that night, had gone onward to near the spot where ambrosio corlear is drowned, and there one of our savages fell in convulsions, charmed and conjured by the devil, and said that a great battle had taken place at quebeck, and that much heavy cannon must have been fired there." about midnight of the 18th, "saw a light fall down from out the sky to the south, of which we were all perplexed what token this might be." on the 23d, having drawn near to la prairie, he attacked the people of the fort, who had gone forth to cut corn. "christians as well as savages fell on with a war-cry, without orders having been given, but they made nineteen prisoners and six scalps, among which were four womenfolk," and "pierced and shot nearly one hundred and fifty head of oxen and cows, and then we set fire to all their houses and barns which we found in the fields, their hay and everything else which would take fire." setting out on their return, "the savages killed two french prisoners because they could not travel on account of their wounds," and on the 30th arrived at albany. * * * * * at nearly the same time the fleet sailed from boston under command of sir william phipps, governor of massachusetts. it consisted of nearly forty vessels, carrying a force of two thousand men. it was not till the 5th of october that it reached quebec. precious time was lost in deliberation while the place was defenseless, and then frontenac, released by the retrograde movement of winthrop's army from the necessity of defending montreal, marched to the relief of quebec with all his forces. after an unsuccessful attack by land and water on the 9th of october, the troops were reëmbarked on the 11th and the storm-scattered fleet straggled back to boston. such were the poor results of an enterprise from which so much had been expected. to remove the unfavorable impression of the english which these failures had made on the indians of the five nations, major schuyler of albany, in the summer of 1691, went through lake champlain with a war party of mohawks, and attacked the french settlements on the richelieu. de callieres opposed him with an army of eight hundred men, and, in the numerous encounters which ensued, schuyler's party killed about three hundred of the enemy, a number exceeding that of their own. in january, 1695, winter being the chosen time for the french invasions, frontenac dispatched an army of six hundred or more french and indians by the way of lake champlain into the country of the mohawks, and inflicted serious injury upon those allies of the english. retreating with nearly three hundred prisoners, they were pursued by schuyler with two hundred volunteers and three hundred indians, and were so harassed by this intrepid partisan leader that most of the prisoners escaped, and they lost more than one hundred of their soldiers in killed and wounded, while schuyler had but eight killed and fourteen wounded. thus, across and along the border of this yet unbroken wilderness, the hostile bands of english and french and their indian allies carried their murderous warfare to many an exposed settlement, and kept all in constant dread of attack. different routes were taken by the predatory bands in their descents upon the frontiers of new england. one was by the st. francis river and lake memphremagog, thence to the passumpsic, and down that river to the connecticut, that gave an easy route to the settlements. another was up the winooski and down white river to the connecticut. another left lake champlain at the mouth of great otter creek; then up its slow lower reaches to where it becomes a swift mountain stream, when the trail led to west river, or wantasticook, emptying into the connecticut. and still another way to west river and the connecticut was from the head of the lake up the pawlet river. of these routes, that by the winooski was so frequently taken that the english named the stream the french river; while that of which otter creek was a part, being the easiest and the nearest to crown point, was perhaps the oftenest used, and was commonly known as the "indian road." all these familiar warpaths to every waubanakee warrior, with every stream and landmark bearing names his fathers had given them, led through vermont, then only known to english-speaking men as "the wilderness." the treaty of peace between england and france in 1697 gave the colonists a brief respite, till in 1702 war was again declared, and in the summer of the next year five hundred french and indians assaulted in detachments the settlers on casco bay, and that part of the new england coast. in the following winter a force of three hundred french and indians commanded by hertel de rouville, a skilled partisan leader, as had been his father, was dispatched by vaudreuil, the governor of canada, against deerfield, then the northernmost settlement on the connecticut. it was february, and champlain was frozen throughout its length. along it they marched as far as the mouth of the winooski, and took this their accustomed path through the heart of the wilderness toward the connecticut. marching above the unseen and unheard flow of the river, over whose wintry silence bent the snow-laden branches of the graceful birch, the dark hemlock, and the fir, or along the hidden trail, an even whiteness except to the trained instinct of the indian, seldom a sound came to them out of the forest save the echo of their own footsteps and voices. sometimes they heard the resonant crack of trees under stress of frost, or the breaking of an over-laden bough, the whir of startled grouse, the sudden retreat of a deer or a giant moose tearing through the undergrowth; and sometimes they heard the stealthy tread of their brothers, the wolves, sneaking from some point of observation near their path, but in this remoteness from human haunts, and this deadness of winter, never a sound to alarm men so accustomed to all strange woodland noises. then they came to the broad connecticut, an open road to lead them to their victims, upon whom they fell in the early morning when the guards were asleep. winter, the frequent ally of the canadian bands, aided them now with snowdrifts heaped to the top of the low ramparts about the garrison houses, and upon them the assailants made entrance. all the inhabitants were slain or captured, the village plundered and set on fire, and an hour after sunrise the victorious party was on its way to canada with its booty and wretched captives.[5] such warfare was waged for years, the french and indians making frequent attacks on the most exposed settlements of the english, and they, at times, retaliating by invasions of the canadian frontier. in 1709 another grand expedition was planned to operate against canada in the same manner as that undertaken in 1690. but the troops, which under nicholson were to advance by the way of lake champlain, got no farther than wood creek, where winthrop's advance had ended nineteen years before, for while they were there awaiting the arrival at boston of the english fleet, with which they were to coöperate, a terrible mortality[6] broke out among them, the fleet never came, and the undertaking was abandoned. in 1711 a still more formidable attempt was made to conquer canada. but the fleet, commanded by sir hovenden walker, with nine thousand troops on board, met with disaster in the st. lawrence, and the land force, which again under nicholson was to invade the french province by lake champlain, was not far beyond albany when news of the fleet's disaster reached it and it was disbanded. thus, as miserably as had the two preceding ones, this third attempt to conquer canada failed, and a heavier cloud of humiliation and discouragement overcast the english colonies. but after the treaty of utrecht the eastern indians made a treaty of peace with the governors of massachusetts and new hampshire which gave some assurance of tranquillity to the long-suffering people of those provinces. footnotes: [1] the indians themselves pronounce the word as here given. it signifies the white land. it has been thought better to follow this, than the more common spelling, abenaki, which has come to us from the french. [2] wohjahose, signifying the forbidder, is the waubanakee name of rock dunder, which was supposed to be the guardian spirit of petowbowk. some dire calamity was certain to befall those who passed his abode without making some propitiatory offering. [3] petowbowk, interpreted by some "alternate land and water," by others, "the water that lies between," is the waubanakee name of lake champlain. [4] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. ii. p. 160. [5] white's _incidents in the early history of new england_. see _the redeemed captive returning to zion_, by rev. john williams, who was one of the deerfield captives. [6] in _summary, historical and political_, by william douglass, m. d., this is said to have been yellow fever. chapter ii. the wilderness during the french and indian wars. by the easiest path, in summer and winter, of the larger streams, the english settlements were pushed into the wilderness, and where the alluvial land gave most promise of fertility the sunlight fell upon the virgin soil of new clearings, the log-houses of the pioneers arose, and families were gathered about new hearthstones. they were soon confronted by the old danger, for the indians, jealous of their encroachments and covertly incited by the governor of canada, presently began hostilities, and the gun again was as necessary an equipment of the husbandman afield as his axe or hoe or scythe, and his wife and children lived in a besetting fear of death, or a captivity almost as dreadful. though england and france were at peace during the time for the five years beginning with 1720, a savage war was waged between the eastern canadian indians and the provinces of massachusetts and new hampshire. it was in these troublous times that the first permanent occupation was made in the unnamed region which is now vermont. in 1723 it was voted by the general court of the province of massachusetts bay, that "it will be of great service to all the western frontiers, both in this and in the neighboring governments of connecticut, to build a block-house above northfield, in the most convenient place on the lands called the 'equivalent lands,'[7] and to post in it forty able men, english and western indians, to be employed in scouting at a good distance up the connecticut river, west river, otter creek, and sometime eastwardly above great monadnock, for the discovery of the enemy coming toward any of the frontier towns, and so much of the said equivalent lands as shall be necessary for a block-house be taken up with the consent of the owners of the said land, together with five or six acres of their interval land to be broken up or ploughed for the present use of the western indians, in case any of them shall think fit to bring their families hither." accordingly a site was chosen in the southeastern part of the present town of brattleboro, and in february, 1724, the work was begun under the superintendence of colonel john stoddard of northampton, by lieutenant timothy dwight, with a force of "four carpenters, twelve soldiers with narrow axes, and two teams." at the beginning of summer the fort was ready for occupancy, and was named fort dummer, in honor of the lieutenant-governor of massachusetts. the fort was built of hewn logs laid horizontally in a square, whose sides were one hundred and eighty feet in length, and outside this was a stockade of square timbers twelve feet in length set upright in the ground. within the inner inclosure, built against the walls, were the "province houses," the habitation of the garrison and other inmates, and themselves capable of stout defense, should its assailants gain entrance to the interior of the fort. in addition to the small-arms of the garrison, fort dummer was furnished with four patereros.[8] there was also a "great gun," used only as a signal, when its sudden thunder rolled through leagues of forest to summon aid or announce good tidings. on the 11th of october following its completion, the fort was attacked by seventy hostile indians, and four or five of its occupants were killed or wounded. scouting parties frequently went out to watch for the enemy, sometimes up the connecticut to the great falls, sometimes up west river, and thence across the wilderness to the same point. sometimes they were sent to the mountains at west river and the great falls, "to lodge on ye top," and from these lofty watch-towers the keen eyes of the rangers scanned the mapped expanse of forest, when it was green with summer leafage, or gorgeous as a parterre with innumerable autumnal hues, or veiled in the soft haze of indian summer, or gray with the snows of winter and the ramage of naked branches, "viewing for smoaks" of hostile camp-fires. in july, 1725, captain wright, with a volunteer force of sixty men, scouted up the connecticut to wells river, and some distance up that stream, thence to the winooski, which they followed till they came within sight of lake champlain, when, having penetrated the heart of the wilderness farther than any english force had previously done, the scantiness of their provisions compelled a return. by the authority of the general court of massachusetts, a "truck house," or trading house, was established at fort dummer in 1728, and the indians finding that they could make better bargains here than at the french trading-posts, flocked hither with their peltry, moose-skins, and tallow. when, seventeen years after the erection of fort dummer, the boundary line was run between massachusetts and new hampshire, the fort fell within the limits of the latter state, whose government was appealed to by massachusetts to maintain it, but declined to do so, on the ground that its own frontier was better protected by a stronger fort at number four; also that it was more to the interest of massachusetts than of new hampshire to continue its support. governor wentworth urged upon a new assembly the safer and more generous policy, but to no purpose, and such a maintenance as fort dummer continued to receive was given by massachusetts. after pushing their fortified posts up the richelieu and to isle la motte, where they built fort st. anne in 1665, the french made a long stride toward the head of the lake, where in 1730 they built a small fort and began a settlement on chimney point, called by them point à la chevalure, and the next year began the erection of a more considerable work on the opposite headland of crown point, a position of much greater natural strength. in the building of this fortress of st. frederic, which was for many years to remain a close and constant menace to the english colonies, they were opposed only by feeble protest of the government of new york, though that of massachusetts urged more active opposition. the fort was completed, and the french held the key to the "gate of the country," as the iroquois had so fitly named lake champlain. seigniories were granted on both sides of the lake, and in that of sieur hocquart, which extended three leagues along the lake and five leagues back therefrom, was this settlement on point à la chevalure. northward from the fort the habitants built their cabins of logs in close neighborhood along the street, and sowed wheat, planted corn and fruit-trees on their narrow holdings. flowers new to the wilderness bloomed beside doorways, and the fragrance of foreign herbs was mingled with the balsamic odors of the woods. where only the glare of camp-fires had briefly illumined the bivouac of armed men, the blaze of the hearth was kindled to shine on happy households; where had been heard no sound of human voice but the sentinel's challenge, the stern, sharp call of military command, or the devilish yell of the savage, now arose the voice of the mother crooning to her babe, the prattle of children at play, the gabble of gossiping dames, and the laughter of the gay habitant; while from the protecting fort flaunted the lilies of france, an assurance to these simple people of the permanency of their newly founded homes. here the canadians tilled their little fields, and shared of the lake's abundance with the fish-hawks and the otter, hunted the deer and moose, and trapped the fur-bearing animals in the broad forest, and at the bidding of their masters went forth with their painted allies, the waubanakees, on bloody forays against the english. when in 1744 war was again declared between england and france, the english frontier settlements soon began to suffer from the advantage their enemies possessed in a stronghold from which they were so easily reached. during the next year they were frequently harassed by small parties, and in august, 1746, vaudreuil set forth from fort st. frederic with an army of seven hundred french and indians to attack fort massachusetts, then the most advanced post in the province, whose name had been given it.[9] there were but thirty-three persons in the garrison, including women and children, but colonel hawkes bravely defended the place with his insignificant force for twenty-eight hours, when the supply of ammunition was exhausted and he surrendered, with the stipulation that none of his people should be delivered to the indians. yet in spite of this, soon after the capitulation, vaudreuil gave up one half of them to the savages, who thereupon at once killed a prisoner who was unable to travel. after the capture of louisburg by the force of new england troops which he had organized, governor shirley of massachusetts proposed a plan for the conquest of canada, in which a fleet and army promised by the mother country were to attack quebec, while the colonial troops were to march against fort st. frederic. while active preparations for this enterprise were being made, the colonies were alarmed by news of the arrival at nova scotia of a french fleet and army so formidable as to threaten the conquest of all their seaboard, and all their efforts were turned toward defense. when storm and shipwreck had scattered and destroyed the fleet and frustrated its objects, shirley proposed a winter campaign in which the new hampshire troops were to go up the connecticut and destroy the waubanakee village of st. francis, and the massachusetts, connecticut, and new york troops, advancing by the way of lake george, were to attack fort st. frederic; but connecticut declining to take part in it, the project was abandoned. the english had continued to extend their settlements upon the connecticut, and had built several small forts on the west side of the river. these so-called forts were block-houses, built of hewn logs, with a projecting upper story and pierced with loopholes for muskets. such was bridgman's fort in what is now vernon, and which was twice attacked by indians, and in the second attack was destroyed. some years afterward, in july, 1755, a party of indians, who were lurking near the fort, now rebuilt, waylaid three settlers as they were returning from their work, and killed one caleb howe. another was drowned in attempting to cross the river, and one escaped. the indians gained entrance to the fort, whose only inmates were the wives and children of the three men, by making the customary signal, which they had learned by observation. after plundering the fort, and taking the helpless inmates captive, they proceeded through the wilderness to crown point, and from thence to canada. their prisoners suffered there a long captivity, but were at length mostly redeemed.[10] the most northerly settlement now on the river was at number four, on the east side of the connecticut. three years after its settlement, in 1743, a fort was built under the direction of colonel stoddard, the builder of fort dummer. it was similar to that fortification in size and construction, but was stockaded only on the north side. it inclosed, as "province houses," the dwellings previously built by five of the settlers, and one built at the same time with the fort. the settlers continued here for three years thereafter, during which they suffered frequent assaults from marauding bands of indians, in which eight of the soldiers and inhabitants were killed and three taken prisoners. when the massachusetts troops which for a while had garrisoned the place were withdrawn, the helpless people abandoned their newly made homes, and for months the divested fort remained as silent and desolate as the wintry wastes of forests that surrounded it. in response to representations made to him of the expediency of such a measure, governor shirley ordered captain phineas stevens, with thirty men, to march to and occupy the fort at number four. arriving there on the 27th of march, 1747, captain stevens found the place in good condition, and was heartily welcomed to it by an old dog and cat which had been left behind in the hurry of the autumnal departure. the garrison had been in possession but a few days when they were attacked by french and indians commanded by m. debeline, who opened a musketry fire upon the fort on all sides. failing to take it in this way, the enemy attempted to burn it by setting fire to the fences and houses near it, by discharging flaming arrows upon the roof, and then by pushing a cart loaded with burning brush[11] against the walls. stevens thus describes the ingenious device by which he prevented the firing of the wooden walls by the enemy: "those who were not employed in firing at the enemy were employed in digging trenches under the bottom of the fort. we dug no less than eleven of them, so deep that a man could go and stand upright on the outside and not endanger himself; so that when these trenches were finished we could wet all the outside of the fort, which we did, and kept it wet all night. we drew some hundreds of barrels of water, and to undergo all this hard service there were but thirty men."[12] all the attempts of the enemy were baffled, fair promises and dire threats alike set at naught by the brave defenders of the fort. on the third day of the siege debeline offered to withdraw if stevens would sell them provisions. stevens refused, but offered to give them five bushels of corn for every hostage that should be given him to be held till an english captive could be brought from canada, whereupon, after firing a few more shots, the besiegers withdrew to fort st. frederic.[13] no other expeditions were afterward undertaken by the french while the war lasted, but the indians in small parties continued to harry the settlements till after its close in 1748. to guard against these incursions, scouting parties, led by brave and experienced partisans, frequently went out from the frontier forts to watch the motions of the enemy, when oftentimes their perilous adventures and heroic deeds were such that the story of them is more like a tale from an old romance than like a page of history. one memorable incident of this service took place on vermont soil in the summer of the next year after the gallant defense of number four, when captain humphrey hobbs, stevens's second in command at that post, being on a scout toward fort shirley in massachusetts, with forty men, for four hours held at bay and finally beat off an indian force more than four times outnumbering his own. it was a brush fight, wherein the scouts had no shelter but such forest cover as their assailants also took advantage of. but three of the scouts were killed; the loss of the indians, though great, was never known, as when one fell his nearest comrade crept to the body and attached a line to it, by which it was withdrawn to cover. during the fight, the scouts frequently beheld the ghastly sight of a dead indian gliding away and fading from view in the haze of undergrowth, as if drawn thither by some superhuman power.[14] until the beginning of another french and english war in 1754, and while the colonies were endeavoring to form a union for their better defense, while elsewhere were occurring such events as braddock's defeat and monckton's and winslow's conquest of acadia, there is little of consequence to record of affairs in this quarter till colonel william johnson, with an army of 4,000 or more, began an advance against fort st. frederic. the french had occupied ticonderoga, and begun to fortify the point, which soon became far more important than the older fortress of st. frederic; and their army of 2,000 regulars, canadians and indians, under baron dieskau, taking the offensive, moved against johnson and attacked his fortified camp at lake george in september, 1755. the french were defeated with severe loss;[15] but johnson did not follow up his success, and the enemy retreated to ticonderoga unmolested but by the impetuous attack of captain mcginnis of new hampshire, with a force of 200 men. yet in england his barren victory seemed of such importance that he was honored with a baronetcy. now, while an army of more than two thousand regulars, under lord loudon, was lying at albany, and winslow was at lake george with 7,000 provincial troops, montcalm besieged oswego, which presently surrendered with all its garrison, arms, stores, and munitions of war. montcalm continued actively on the offensive, and in march, 1757, undertook the capture of fort william henry, which was held by colonel monroe with a garrison of 2,500 men. his surrender was at once demanded, but he refused, and defended the fort with great bravery, being confident general webb would presently send him relief from fort edward. but though frequently entreated, no help came from webb, only a letter protesting his inability to aid him, and advising him to surrender on the best terms obtainable. this fell into the hands of montcalm, and with renewed demands of surrender was sent by him to monroe. thus abandoned, after holding out for more than a week, he signed the articles of capitulation, by the terms of which his paroled army was to be escorted to fort edward, his sick and wounded to be cared for by montcalm, and given up when sufficiently recovered. the story of the perfidious violation of these terms, and the horrors of the carnage when the defenseless prisoners, of whatever age or sex, or sick or wounded, were butchered by the savage allies of the frenchmen, some of whom stood passive witnesses of the massacre, raising neither hand nor voice to stay it, is a dark and blood-stained page of american history, and an ineffaceable blot on the name of montcalm. webb, with increased alarm for his own safety, sent swift messengers to the provinces for reinforcements, which were at once raised and forwarded to him; but montcalm did not return from ticonderoga to attack him, and the recruits were not long kept in service. loudon at new york was engaged in a controversy with the government of massachusetts concerning the quartering of british troops, and threatening to send an army to that province if his demands were not speedily complied with, and so the campaign ended without honor or advantage to the english. its poor results were chiefly due to the inefficiency of the british ministry, and the incapacity of the british commanders to carry on this unaccustomed warfare of the wilderness, and their unwillingness to avail themselves of the experience of the colonial officers, whom they despised, thus leaving to their alert and active enemy all the advantage of familiarity with its methods. so universal was the complaint in england and her american colonies caused by this and the preceding campaigns that the formation of a new ministry became necessary, and william pitt was appointed secretary of state. in his plan of the american campaign, which was soon to be vigorously undertaken, one army of 12,000 men was to attempt the conquest of louisburg; another, still larger, that of the french forts on lake champlain; and a third, that of fort du quesne, at the head of the ohio river. the expedition against louisburg was commanded by general amherst, under whom were generals wolfe, whitmore, and lawrence. the naval force, commanded by admiral boscawen, sailed for america early in the spring, and in may, 1758, the whole armament of 157 sail was gathered at halifax. sailing thence on the 28th, a part of the transports arrived near louisburg, and on the 8th of june the troops, under general wolfe, disembarked and invested the city. louisburg was garrisoned by 2,500 regulars, 300 militia, and later by a reinforcement of 350 canadians and indians, and the harbor was defended by 11 french ships of war. after a siege of several weeks, during which the french warships were destroyed, the place surrendered to general amherst on the 26th of july. in the beginning of the same month general forbes set forth from philadelphia on his difficult march to fort du quesne. obstacles which delayed and reverses which checked his progress did not discourage him, although he was so debilitated by a mortal sickness that for much of the distance he was carried on a litter; and in november he took possession of the fort, which had been dismantled and abandoned by the french, and gave it the name of fort pitt. while these undertakings of amherst and forbes were progressing, general abercrombie began his movement upon ticonderoga with a well-appointed army of more than six thousand regular and nearly ten thousand provincial troops. the army embarked on lake george in more than a thousand batteaux and whaleboats; and as the flotilla moved down the lake, with glittering arms and gaudy uniforms and flaunting banners shining in the july sunshine, their splendor repeated in innumerable broken reflections on the ruffled waters, this wilderness had never seen such pomp and circumstance of war; nor had its solitudes been stirred by such martial strains as now burst from trumpet, fife, drum, and highland pipe, and echoed from shore and crag in multitudinous reverberations. having landed next day without opposition at the lower end of the lake, the troops began their advance in four columns. an advanced guard of one battalion of the enemy, after firing their tents, retreated from their fortified camp on the approach of the english, but afterward engaged in a skirmish with the left column, when the troops had fallen into some disorder in their march through the dense woods. it was in this engagement that the english suffered its first severe loss in the death of lord howe, a gallant young general, who had especially endeared himself to the provincials by his kindly manners, by sharing their hardships and perils, and by easily accommodating himself to the exigencies of this new service. israel putnam, then a major of the rangers, in which branch of the service he had distinguished himself by his coolness and daring, was a conspicuous actor in this affair. after the death of howe, putnam and the troops with him attacked the french with such fury that more than four hundred of them were killed and taken prisoners. but the army having fallen into great disorder in its passage through the woods, it was deemed advisable to withdraw it to the place where it had disembarked. next day, the sawmill on the outlet of lake george was taken possession of by a detachment under colonel bradstreet, the bridge there which the enemy had destroyed was rebuilt, and the army again began its advance on ticonderoga. montcalm had strengthened his position by throwing up a breastwork across the neck of the peninsula on which the fort stood, and by hedging this with an almost impenetrable abatis. yet the engineer whom abercrombie had sent to examine the enemy's position was of the opinion that it might be successfully stormed; and as the prisoners taken reported that large reinforcements were likely to arrive soon, it was determined to assault the works at once. the attacking columns were met by a scathing fire of artillery and musketry, but rushed on to the abatis, through which they vainly endeavored to make their way, murray's regiment of highlanders hewing at the bristling barrier of pointed branches with their claymores, while a murderous fire from the breastworks thinned the ranks of the brave clansmen. again and again the assailants were swept back by the pelting storm of bullets, and again they returned to the assault; the few who struggled through the abatis were slain before they reached the intrenchments, or only reached them to be made prisoners, and of the highland regiment twenty-five of the officers and half the privates fell. with persistent but unavailing valor, the attack was continued for more than four hours, and then a retreat was ordered, and the defeated army sullenly fell back to the camp which it had occupied the night before. early next morning it was reëmbarked, and the torn and decimated regiments continued their retreat up the lake. general abercrombie's defeat did not discourage him from making further efforts against the enemy. he sent general stanwix to build a fort at oneida and dispatched colonel bradstreet with 3,000 men against fort frontenac on the st. lawrence, and both successfully performed their allotted duties. general amherst returned from louisburg, assumed command, and in the summer of 1757 began a movement for the reduction of ticonderoga and crown point, which was a part of this year's campaign. moving forward by the same route that abercrombie had taken, he reached the neighborhood of ticonderoga without encountering any opposition from the enemy, and made preparations to besiege this fortress; but the french made only a brief defense, in which, however, colonel townshend and a few soldiers were killed, and then, leaving the french flag flying and a match burning in the magazine to blow up the fort, evacuated it and retired to crown point the night of the 27th of july. an hour after their departure came the thunder of the explosion, which destroyed one bastion and set the barracks on fire. they presently abandoned crown point and retired to the isle aux noix, while amherst was repairing and strengthening the fortifications of ticonderoga. so at last, with but slight resistance to the tide of conquest that was now overwhelming their northern possessions in america, the french abandoned the strongholds that guarded the "gate of the country." for more than a quarter of a century fort st. frederic had been the point from which marauding bands of indians and their scarcely less ferocious white associates had set forth on errands of rapine and murder, which had made as dangerous and insecure as a crater's brink every frontier settlement of a wide region. here had been plotted their forays; here they had returned from them with captives, scalps, and plunder; here found safety from pursuit. the two forts had held civilization at bay on the border of this land of "beautiful valleys and fields fertile in corn," and to all the inhabitants of the new england frontier their fall was a deliverance from an ever-threatening danger. the french held the isle aux noix, their last remaining post on lake champlain, with a force of 3,500 regular troops and canadian militia, and had also on the lake four large armed vessels, commanded by experienced officers of the french navy. the presence of this naval force made it necessary for amherst to build vessels that might successfully oppose it, and while this work was in progress the british general dispatched a body of rangers against the indians of st. francis, who for fifty years had been active and relentless foes of the new england colonies. early in the century many members of the different tribes of waubanakees in the eastern part of new england had been induced by the governor of canada to remove to that province, and since then had lived on the st. francis river, and were commonly known as the st. francis tribe, though they gave themselves the name of "zooquagese," the people who withdrew from the others, or literally "the little people."[16] their intimate knowledge of the region, which had been the home of many generations of their people, and their familiarity with every waterway and mountain pass that gave easiest access to the english frontiers, made them as valuable instruments, as their hatred of the english made them willing ones for the hostile purposes of the french. from none of their enemies had the frontier settlements suffered more, and toward none did they bear greater enmity. the wrongs which these tribes had suffered from the english, since their earliest contact with them, gave cause for vengeful retaliation, and its atrocities were such as might be expected of savages accustomed by usage and tradition to inflict on their enemies and receive from them the cruelest tortures that could be devised, and whose religion taught no precept of mercy; but for those christians, boasting the highest civilization of the world, the french, who encouraged the barbarous warfare and seldom attempted to check its horrors, there can be no excuse. amherst chose major robert rogers to lead the expedition against st. francis, and he could not have chosen one better fitted to carry out the scheme of vengeance than this wary, intrepid, and unscrupulous ranger. to him it was a light achievement to creep within the lines of a french camp, and he could slay and scalp an enemy with as little compunction as would an indian,[17] while the men whom he led had seen or suffered enough of indian barbarity to make them as unrelenting as he in the infliction of any measure of punishment on these scourges of the border. rogers left crown point on the night of the 12th of september with a detachment of 200, embarked in batteaux, and went cautiously down the lake. his force was reduced by one fourth on the fifth day out by the explosion of a keg of powder, which wounded several of his men and made it necessary to send them with an escort back to crown point. arrived at the head of missisco bay, the boats and sufficient provisions for the return voyage were concealed, and left in charge of two trusty indians, when the little army began its march across the country through the wilderness toward the indian town. two days later it was overtaken by the boat guard, bringing to rogers the alarming news of the discovery of the boats by a force of french and indians, four hundred strong, fifty of whom had been sent away with the batteaux, while the others, still doubly outnumbering his force, were following him in hot pursuit. rogers kept his own counsel, and alone formed the plans that he at once acted upon. he dispatched a lieutenant with eight men to crown point to acquaint general amherst with the turn of affairs, and ask him to send provisions to coos, on the connecticut, to which place it now seemed that soon or late he must make his way. the only question was, whether he should do so now, or attempt to strike the contemplated blow before his pursuers could overtake him. it was characteristic of the man to decide upon the bolder course, and he marched his men, as enduring as the enemy and as accustomed to such difficult marching, with such celerity that the pursuing force was left well behind when, on the evening of the 4th of october, the neighborhood of the town was reached. while his men halted for rest and refreshment, he, disguised as an indian and accompanied by two of his officers, went forward and entered the village. the indians, unsuspicious of danger, were celebrating some rite with a grand dance, which quite engrossed their attention while rogers and his companions thoroughly reconnoitred the place. returning to his troops some hours before daylight, he marched them within a few hundred yards of the town, and at daybreak, the dance being over and the indians asleep, the onslaught was made. amherst's orders to rogers, after reminding him of the "barbarities committed by the enemy's indian scoundrels," and bidding him to "take his revenge," had enjoined that "no women or children shall be killed or hurt;" but if this command was heeded at first, it was presently disregarded. if there was any touch of mercy in the hearts of the rangers when the assault began, the last vestige of it was swept away when daylight revealed hundreds of scalps of their own people displayed on poles, silvered locks of age, tresses of women's hair, golden ringlets of childhood, all ghastly trophies of new england raids. old and young, warrior, squaw, and pappoose, alike suffered their vengeance, till of the three hundred inhabitants two thirds were killed and twenty taken prisoners, fifteen of whom were soon "let go their way." the church, adorned with plate and an image of silver, and the well-furnished dwellings, were plundered and burned, and the morning sun shone upon a scene of desolation as complete as these savages themselves had ever wrought. when the work of destruction was finished, rogers assembled his men, of whom only one had been killed and six slightly wounded, and after an hour's rest began the return march with the prisoners, five recaptured english captives, and what provisions and booty could be carried. the route taken was up the st. francis and to the eastward of lake memphremagog, the objective point being the coos meadows, where it was expected that the relief party with provisions would be met. they were followed by the enemy, and had lost seven men by their attacks, when rogers formed an ambuscade upon his own track, into which they fell and suffered so severely that they desisted from further pursuit. when ten days had elapsed, and rogers and his men had come some distance within the bounds of what is now vermont, they began to suffer much from lack of food, and it was thought best to divide the force into small parties, each to make its way as best it could to the expected succor at coos, or to the english settlements farther down the connecticut. while its autumnal glories faded and the primeval forest grew bare and bleak, the little bands struggled bravely on over rugged mountains, through tangled windfalls, and swamps whose miry pools were treacherously hidden beneath the fallen leaves, fighting hour after hour and day after day against fatigue and famine, foes more persistent, insidious, and unrelenting than awahnock[18] and waubanakee. such small game as they could kill, and the few edible roots that they found, were their only subsistence; and they would gladly have bartered the silver image and the golden candlesticks brought from the church, and all their booty, for one day's supply of the coarsest food. they buried the treasure, with scant hope that they might ever unearth it, and cast away unheeded the useless burdens of less valuable plunder. at night they cowered around their camp-fires and shivered out the miserable hours of darkness, then arose unrefreshed, and staggered on the way that each day stretched more wearily and hopelessly before them. some could go no farther, but fell down and died, and were left unburied by comrades too weak to give them the rudest sepulchre, and some in the delirium of famine wandered away from their companions to become hopelessly lost in the pathless wilderness and die alone. the officer whom rogers had dispatched to crown point performed the difficult journey in nine days, and general amherst at once sent a lieutenant with three men to number four, to proceed thence up the connecticut with provisions to the appointed place. the relief party embarked in two canoes laden with provisions, which they safely landed on an island near the mouth of the passumpsic; but though ordered to remain there as long as there was any hope of the coming of those whom they were sent to succor, when only two days had passed they became impatient of waiting, or were seized by a panic, and hastily departed with all the supplies. rogers and those who remained with him, following the passumpsic down to the connecticut, came at last to the place where they hoped to find relief, but only to find it abandoned, and that so recently that the camp-fire of the relief party was still freshly burning. these men were yet so near that they heard the guns which rogers fired to recall them, but which, supposed by them to be fired by the enemy, only served to hasten their retreat. rogers says: "it is hardly possible to describe the grief and consternation of those of us who came to the cohasse intervales."[19] sorely distressed by this shameful desertion but not discouraged, the brave commander left his worn out and starving men at the passumpsic in charge of a lieutenant, whom he instructed in the method of preparing ground nuts and lily roots for food, and set forth down the river on a raft with captain ogden, one ranger, and a captive indian boy, in a final endeavor to reach number four and obtain relief. at white river falls the raft was wrecked, and rogers, too weak to cut trees for another, burned them down and into proper lengths, while ogden and the ranger hunted red squirrels for food. a second raft was then built, and, after a voyage that would have been perilous to men in the fullness of strength, they at last reached number four. rogers at once dispatched a canoe with supplies to his starving men, which reached them on the tenth day after he had left them, as he had promised. two days later he himself went up the river with canoes, manned by some of the inhabitants whom he had hired, and laden with provisions for those who might come in by the same route, and he sent expresses to towns on the merrimac that relief parties might be sent up that river. on the 1st of december he returned to crown point with what remained of his force, having lost, since beginning the retreat from st. francis, three lieutenants and forty-six non-commissioned officers and privates. notwithstanding its losses and dire hardships, the expedition was successful in the infliction of a chastisement that the indians of st. francis never recovered from and never forgot, and which relieved the new england frontier from the continual dread of the bloody incursions that it had so long suffered. throughout the whole of it, in leading it to victory and in retreat, in sharing their hardships and in heroic efforts to succor and save his men, rogers's conduct was such as should make his name honorably remembered in spite of the suspicions which tarnished it in after years. while rogers's expedition was in progress, a sloop of sixteen guns and a raft carrying six guns were built at ticonderoga. with these and a brigantine, captain loring sailed down the lake and engaged the french vessels, sinking two of them and capturing a third, which was repaired and brought away after being run aground and deserted by its crew, leaving to the enemy but one schooner on these waters. amherst at the same time embarked his whole army in batteaux, and began his advance against isle aux noix, but, being delayed by storms and adverse winds, deemed it best to abandon for this season the attempt, and returned to crown point, arriving there on the 27th of october. he now began the erection of a new and larger fortress and three new outworks there; completed the road between crown point and ticonderoga, and began another from the latter fort to number four. meanwhile events of great moment had occurred elsewhere. in july, after the death of general prideaux, who commanded the army besieging niagara, sir william johnson had defeated the french army sent to its relief, and the fort had surrendered to him. on the 13th of september wolfe, on the heights of abraham, had given his life for imperishable renown; and six days later quebec, the most impregnable stronghold of the french in america, was surrendered to the enemy, whose attempts to reduce it had for seventy years been unsuccessful. all the english colonies in america rejoiced in its fall, for the conquest of canada was now assured, and the day of their deliverance from french and indian invasion had dawned. levis's attempt to recapture quebec had failed, though sickness and death had sorely weakened murray's garrison, and now at montreal the french were to make the last stand against english conquest. amherst was to advance upon it down the st. lawrence, murray from quebec, and haviland from the south, to break the last bar of the "gate of the country," held by bougainville at isle aux noix. on the 15th of july murray embarked with nearly 2,500 men. he met no great opposition from the superior forces of bourlamaque and dumas, which on either shore of the river withdrew slowly toward montreal as the fleet advanced. he issued a proclamation promising safety of person and property to all the inhabitants who remained peaceably at home, and threatening to burn the houses of all who were in arms. he kept his word to the letter in the protection and in the punishment, and the result was the rapid dwindling away of bourlamaque's army. toward the end of august he encamped below the town on the island of ste. therese, and awaited the arrival of the other english armies. a regiment of new hampshire men commanded by colonel goffe opened the road which amherst had ordered to be made from number four to crown point, and performed the labor in such good time that on the 31st of july they arrived, and, turned drovers as well as pioneers, brought with them a herd of cattle for the supply of the army there.[20] this road ran from wentworth's ferry, near charlestown, up the right bank of black river to the present township of ludlow, thence across the mountains to otter creek, and down that stream to a station opposite crown point, to which it ran across the country. that part of the road across and on the west side of the mountains was begun and nearly completed in the previous year, under the supervision of colonel zadok hawks and captain john stark; stark and 200 rangers being employed on the western portion.[21] haviland embarked at crown point on the 12th of august with 3,400 regulars, provincials, and indians in whaleboats and batteaux, which, under sunny skies and on quiet waters, came in four days to isle aux noix. cannon were planted in front and rear of bougainville's position. the largest vessel of his naval force was cut adrift by a cannon-shot and drifted into the hands of the english; and the others, endeavoring to escape to st. john's, ran aground and were taken by the rangers, who swam out and boarded one, tomahawk in hand, when the others presently surrendered.[22] bougainville, abandoning the island, made a difficult night retreat to st. john's, and from thence fell back with roquemaure to the st. lawrence. haviland was soon opposite montreal, and in communication with murray, and both awaited the coming of amherst's army. this force had assembled at oswego in july, and numbered something more than 10,000 men, exclusive of about 700 indians under sir william johnson, and had embarked on lake ontario on the 10th of august, and within five days reached oswigatchee. after the capture by five gunboats of a french armed brig that threatened the destruction of the batteaux and whaleboats, the army continued its advance to fort levis, near the head of the rapids. amherst invested the fort, and opened fire upon it from land and water; and when for three days rocky islet and wooded shore had been shaken by the thunder of the cannon that splintered the wooden walls, the french commandant, pouchot, was compelled to surrender the ruined works and his garrison. johnson's indians were so enraged at not being allowed to kill the prisoners that three fourths of them went home.[23] there was no further resistance from the french, but there was yet a terrible enemy to be encountered in the long and dangerous rapids that must be descended. several were passed with but slight loss; but in the most perilous passage of the last three, forty-seven boats were wrecked, several damaged, some artillery, ammunition, and stores lost, and eighty-four men drowned in the angry turmoil of wild waters. when these perils were past, an uneventful and unopposed voyage ensued, till on the 6th of september the army landed at lachine, and, marching to the city, encamped before its walls. the defenses of montreal were too weak to resist a siege; the troops, abandoned by the militia, too few to give battle to the three armies that hemmed them in; and there was nothing left for vaudreuil but surrender. some of the terms of capitulation proposed by him were rejected by amherst, who demanded that "the whole garrison of montreal and all the french troops in canada must lay down their arms, and shall not serve again during the war." in answer to the remonstrances of vaudreuil and his generals he said: "i am fully resolved, for the infamous part the troops of france have acted in exciting the savages to perpetrate the most horrid and unheard-of barbarities in the whole progress of the war, and for other open treacheries and flagrant breaches of faith, to manifest to all the world, by this capitulation, my detestation of such practices."[24] vaudreuil yielded, as perforce he must, and on the 8th of september signed the capitulation by which canada passed into the possession of england. the french officers, civil and military, the troops and sailors, were to be sent to france, and the inhabitants were to be protected in their property and religion. the indian allies of the english, and those who had lately been the allies of the french but were now as ready to turn against them as they had been to serve, were held in such firm restraint that not a person suffered any injury from them more than from the soldiers of the victorious armies. the long struggle was over, the conquest of canada was accomplished, and great was the rejoicing of the people of all the english colonies, especially those of new england. the toilsome march through the savage forest, the cheerless bivouac on remote and lonely shores, were no longer to be endured; nor the deadly ambuscade dreaded by the home-loving husbandman, who for love of home had turned soldier; nor was his family to live in the constant fear of the horrors of nightly attack, massacre, or captivity that had made anxious every hour of day and night. footnotes: [7] massachusetts gave 107,793 acres of land to connecticut as _equivalent_ for as many acres she had previously granted that were found to be south of the boundary between the two provinces, and which she wished to retain. one section of these "equivalent lands" was on the west bank of connecticut river, within the present towns of putney, dummerston, and brattleboro'. (_colonial boundaries mass_, vol. iii.) this fell to the share of william dummer, anthony stoddard, william brattle, and john white. "the equivalent lands" were sold at public vendue at hartford, in 1716, for a little more than a farthing per acre. the proceeds were given to yale college. (hall's _history of eastern vermont_.) [8] light pieces of ordnance mounted on swivels, and sometimes charged with old nails and like missiles, or, upon a pinch, even with stones; hence sometimes called "stone pieces." [9] this fort was situated in what is now williamstown. [10] dr. dwight's _travels_, vol. ii. p. 82. [11] williams's _history of vermont_. [12] captain stevens's letter to colonel williams. [13] stevens's bravery was so much admired by sir charles knowles, an officer of high rank in the british navy, that he presented him a handsome sword, and in honor of the donor the township was named charlestown. for captain stevens's account of this siege see _history of charlestown_, p. 34. [14] this fight took place on sunday, june 26, 1748, about twelve miles northwest of fort dummer, in the present township of marlboro'. [15] johnson's "account of battle of lake george," _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. ii. p. 402. [16] from john wadno, an intelligent indian of st. francis. [17] for some reports of his scouts, see _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 169 _et seq._ [18] awahnock, = frenchman. [19] rogers's journal. [20] belknap's _history of new hampshire_. [21] sanderson's _history of charlestown_, p. 87. [22] parkman's _montcalm and wolfe_. [23] parkman's _montcalm and wolfe_, vol. ii. p. 370. [24] parkman. chapter iii. occupation and settlement. now that canada was conquered and the french armies withdrawn from ticonderoga and crown point, all the country lying between lake champlain and the connecticut, commonly called the wilderness, was open to settlement. in 1696, long before the granting of french seigniories on lake champlain, godfrey dellius, a dutch clergyman of albany, had purchased of the mohawks, who claimed all this territory, an immense tract, extending from saratoga along both sides of the hudson river and wood creek, and on the east side of lake champlain, twenty miles north of crown point. the purchase was confirmed by new york, but three years later was repealed, "as an extravagant favor to one subject." in 1732 colonel john henry lydius purchased of the mohawks a large tract of land situated on "the otter creek, which emptieth itself into lake champlain in north america, easterly from and near crown point." the deed was confirmed by governor shirley of massachusetts in 1744. this tract embraced nearly the whole of the present counties of addison and rutland. it was divided into townships, and most of it sold by lydius to a great number of purchasers,[25] some of whom settled upon it. the township of durham was originally settled under this grant, but the settlers, finding the title imperfect, applied for and obtained letters patent under new york.[26] the french colony at point à chevalure vanished with the shadow of the banner of france. the young forest soon repossessed the fields where almost the only trace of husbandry was the rank growth of foreign weeds. house walls were crumbling about cold hearthstones and smokeless chimneys, and thresholds untrodden but by the nightly prowling beast or the foot of the curious hunter. there was no remembrance of the housewife's hand but the self-sown lilies and marigolds that mingled their strange bloom with native asters and goldenrods above the graves of forsaken homes. from where the sluggish waters of the narrow channel are first stirred by wood creek, to where the waves of champlain break on canadian shores, there was not one settlement on its eastern border, nor any inhabitant save where some trapper had built his cabin in the solitude of the woods, and dwelt hermit-like for a time while he plied his lonely craft. the wilderness had not long rested in the silence of peace when it was invaded by a throng of pioneers, who came to wrest its soil from the ancient domination of the forest, and upon it to build their homes. farmers and sons of farmers, while serving in the colonial armies, had noted during their painful marches through it what goodly soil slept in the shadow of this wilderness; keen-eyed rangers, chosen from hunters and trappers for their skill in woodcraft, when on their perilous errands had penetrated its depths wherever led an indian trail or wound a stream to float a canoe, and knew what it held for men of their craft, and each had planned, when peace should come, to return to the land that gave such promise of fruitful fields or the easier garner of peltry. lumbermen, too, knew its wealth of great pines; and speculators were casting greedy eyes upon the region, and plotting for its acquisition. as the soldiers who guarded its posts, or crossed and recrossed the savage wilderness, were of new england origin, it naturally followed that most of the actual settlers came from the same provinces. thus, from the very first, each little community of hardy and industrious pioneers was clearly stamped with the new england character. such inspiration, such love of home, as glows in the hearts of all mountaineers, they drew from the grand companionship of the stern and steadfast mountains, the crouching lion, mansfield, ascutney, whose heavenward-reaching peaks shone white with snow when winter reigned, or summer came or lingered in the valleys,--landmarks enduring as the world, that stand while nations are born and flourish and pass away. sometimes the pioneer left his family in the older settlements while he, with a neighbor or two, or often alone, went into the wilderness to make the beginning of a new home. a pitch was located, and the herculean task of making a clearing begun, the apparently hopeless warfare of one puny hand against a countless army of giants that towered above him. yet one by one the great trees toppled and fell before his valiant strokes. the trunks of some were built into a log-house, with a puncheon floor and roof of bark; more were rolled into heaps and burned, and the first patch of cleared soil was planted with corn or sown with wheat. after weeks and months of this toil and hardship and loneliness, perhaps not once broken by the sight of a fellow-being, when the tasseled corn and the nodding wheat hid the blackened stumps of the scant clearing, the giants still hemmed him in, their lofty heads the horizon of his little world, the bounds of his briefly sunlit sky. when his crops were housed, and the woods were gaudy with a thousand autumnal tints to where the glory of the deciduous trees was bounded by the dark wall of "black growth" on the mountains whose peaks were white with snow, he shouldered axe and gun and went southward, following the army of crows that raised a clamor of amazement at this intrusion on their immemorial domain. while the little clearing slept under the snow, and the silent cabin made the wintry loneliness of the forest more lonely, he spent a winter of content among old friends and neighbors, and in the spring set forth on horseback, or with an ox-team, with wife and children or newly wedded bride, and scant outfit of household stuff, to take permanent possession of the new home, where, if the burden of loneliness was lightened, the weariness of toil, privation, and anxiety was not lessened. nature was the only neighbor of the new-comers, kind or unkind, according to her impartial mood to all her children, now a friend and consoler, with sunshine and timely shower, flowers and birdsong and hymns of wind-swept pines, now relentless, assailing with storm and bitter stress of cold. miles of weary forest path marked only by blazed trees, or miles of toilsome waterway, lay between them and their kind, or help or sympathy in whatever trouble might befall them. such consolation as religion might give must be sought at the fountain-head of all religion, since church and gospel ministrations were left behind. the old warpaths became the ways of peace, and on lake and river, that before had borne none but warlike craft, now fared the settler's boat, laden with his family and household goods, skirting the quiet shore or up the slow current of a stream, through intervales whose fat soil as yet nourished only a luxuriant verdure of the forest. from afar the eternal roar of a cataract boomed in swelling thunder along the green walls of the lane of waters, foretelling the approaching toil of a portage. but no foeman lurked behind the green thicket, and the voyagers were startled by no sound more alarming than the sudden uprising of innumerable waterfowl, the plunge of an otter disturbed in his sport, or the mellow cadence of the great owl's solemn note. the granting of lands, which had been interrupted by the war, was again begun by the governor of new hampshire, benning wentworth, and in different parts of the region surveyors were busy running the lines of townships and lots. there was a flavor of discovery and adventure in their weary toil that gave it zest, as, with no guide but the compass, they were led through sombre depths of the primeval forest, where the footsteps of civilized man had never before fallen, and set the bounds of ownership where had never been sign of possession but the mark of the patient beaver's tooth, bark frayed by the claw of the bear, the antler of the moose, and the brands of the brief camp-fire of the savage. at night they bivouacked where with the fading of daylight their labors ended, prepared their rude supper by the fire that summoned a host of weird and grotesque shadows to surround them, and slept to the grewsome serenade of the wolf's long howl and the panther's scream. the conditions of the grants or charters were, that every grantee should plant and cultivate five acres within five years for every fifty acres granted; that all white and other pine trees fit for masting the royal navy should be reserved for that use, and none felled without royal license; that after ten years a yearly rent of one shilling for each hundred acres, also for a town lot of one acre, which was set to each proprietor, a yearly tribute of one ear of indian corn, both to be paid on christmas day. in each township that he granted, the thrifty governor had five hundred acres set apart to himself, still known as the governor's lot, and marked on the old township maps, drawn on the backs of the charters, with the initials "b. w." in each township one share of two hundred acres was set apart for the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, one for a glebe for the church of england, one for the first settled minister, and one for a school in said town. the isolated townships constituted little commonwealths, with governments of their own, every inhabitant and freeholder having liberty to vote in the town-meetings, and the three or five selectmen being invested with the chief authority. naturally the proprietors to whom the township was granted were the most potent factors in its welfare and government, and, if actual settlers, took the most prominent part in its affairs. frequently they offered bounties for the building of gristmills and sawmills, and the forty dollars bounty offered induced the building of such mills, that in their turn failed not to attract settlers; for it was not unusual for pioneers to go twenty miles on foot with a grist to the nearest mill, or to make as tedious journeys for a load of boards, the more tedious that all the environing forest was full of unattainable lumber. many of the towns now most populous and important were then uninhabited and unnamed. bennington, the first township granted by new hampshire, had its hamlet, its principal building, the green mountain tavern, conspicuous for its sign, a stuffed catamount. here the fathers of the unborn state often sat in council, moistening their dry deliberations with copious mugs of flip served by their confrère, landlord stephen fay. brattleboro, within whose limits fort dummer was built and the first permanent settlement made, although it boasted the only store in the state, was of less importance; while westminster, with its court-house and jail, assumed more. but at vergennes, then known as the first falls of otter creek, where the beavers had scarcely quit building their lodges on the driftwood that choked the head of the fall, there lived only donald mcintosh, the stout old soldier of the pretender's futile array and of wolfe's victorious army, and half a dozen other settlers, whose cabins clustered about the frequently harried mills. where now is the beautiful city of burlington, the unbroken forest sloped to the placid shores of petowbowk; and the winooski, from its torrential source to where its slow current crawls through the broad intervales to the lake, turned no mills, and, but for its one block-house and the infrequent cabins of adventurous pioneers, was as wild as when its devious course was but the warpath of the waubanakee. thence to canada stretched the wilderness, its solitude as supreme as when, a century and a half before, the french explorer first beheld its snow-clad mountain peaks. oftener than human voice, the sonorous call of the moose, the wolf's long howl, the panther's cry, awoke its echoes, and the thud of the axe was a stranger sound than the rarest voice of nature. the eagle, swinging in majestic survey of the region, beheld far beneath him to the southward, here and there, a clustering hamlet and settlements creeping slowly upon his domain; here and there a mill, where a stream had been stayed in its idle straying; and here and there on the green bosom of the forest the unhealed wound of a new clearing, the bark roof of a settler's cabin, and the hazy upward drift of its chimney smoke; then to the northward, as far as his telescopic vision ranged, no break in the variegated verdure but the silver gleam of lake and stream, or the rugged barrenness of mountain tops. although the settlement of the newly opened region did not progress with anything like the marvelous rapidity that has marked the occupation of new territories and states in later times, yet it was remarkable, in consideration of the tedious journeys that must be made to the new pitch, with slow ox-cart or sled, or on horseback, where, if there were roads at all, they were of the worst, or they were made by weary oar or waft of unstable wind. furthermore, there was but comparatively slight overflow of population from the older provinces, or influx of immigration to american shores. the settlers in the wilderness soon found their peaceable possession obstructed by an obstacle which they had scarcely foreseen,--not by the harassments of a foreign or savage foe, which now seemed hardly possible, nor by the inert and active forces of nature that had always to be taken into account, but by the jealous rivalry and greed of two provincial governments, both claiming the same territory, and both deriving their authority from the same royal source. this controversy between new hampshire and new york, concerning their respective boundaries, began with the first english settlement of the region, and continued till after the close of the revolution. it constitutes the most unique feature of the history of the commonwealth; and though it retarded its settlement, and afterward for years its admission into the union, it was the real cause of its becoming an independent state. for undoubtedly, if the claims of either province had been undisputed by the other, the region would have quietly taken its place as part of that, and have had no individual existence. but the aggressions which the people were compelled to resist schooled them to a spirit of independence that most naturally led them to establish a separate government. footnotes: [25] in an indenture made 30th december, 1761, colonel lydius grants to thomas robinson, merchant, of newport, in the colony of rhode island, one sixtieth of the township no. 24, called danvis, for the "sum of one shilling money one peppercorn each year for seventy years (if demanded) and after twenty years five shillings sterling annually, forever, on the feast day of st. michael the archangel, for each hundred acres of arable land." [26] petition of colonel spencer and others. _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 575. chapter iv. the new hampshire grants. as early as 1749, a dispute concerning the boundaries of their provinces had arisen between the governments of new hampshire and new york, when governor benning wentworth of new hampshire had communicated to governor clinton of new york his intention of granting unimproved lands within his government under instructions received from his majesty king george second, and inclosed his majesty's description of the province of new hampshire.[27] in 1740 the king had determined "that the northern boundary of massachusetts be a similar curve line pursuing the course of the merrimack river at three miles distance on the north side thereof, beginning at the atlantic ocean and ending at a point due north of a place called pautucket falls, and by a straight line drawn from thence due west till it meets with his majesty's other governments." by this decision, reaffirmed in governor wentworth's commission, the government of new hampshire held that its jurisdiction extended as far west as that of massachusetts, which was to a line twenty miles east of hudson river. furthermore, the king had repeatedly recommended to new hampshire the support of fort dummer, as having now fallen within its limits, and which was well known to be west of the connecticut.[28] but it was ordered by the governor's council of new york "that his excellency do acquaint governor wentworth that this province is bounded eastward by connecticut river, the letters patent from king charles the second to the duke of york expressly granting all the lands from the west side of connecticut river to the east side of delaware bay."[29] governor wentworth had already, in january, 1749, granted one township west of the connecticut, which in his honor was named bennington, but he now promised for the present to make no further grants on the western frontier of his government that might have the least probability of interfering with that of new york. later he agreed, by the advice of his council, to lay the matter before the king and await his decision, which his government would "esteem it their duty to acquiesce in without further dispute," and furthermore agreed to exchange with the government of new york copies of the representation made to the king.[30] this the council of new york reported in november, 1753, that he had failed to do. this wrangling of governors and councils continued till the beginning of the war in 1754 stopped for the time applications for grants, when the mutterings of the inter-provincial quarrel were drowned by the thunder of the more momentous contest of nations. with the subjugation of canada, the granting of lands in the debatable ground was resumed. governor wentworth had a survey made sixty miles up the connecticut, and three lines of townships were laid out on each side of the river. during the next year sixty townships were granted on the west side of the river, and within two years 108 grants were made, extending to a line twenty miles east of the hudson, and north of that to the eastern shore of lake champlain. it was reported in new york that a party of new hampshire surveyors, who were laying out lands on the east side of the lake in september, 1762, asserted that crown point was in the limits of their government. in december, 1763, lieutenant-governor colden issued a proclamation reiterating the claim of new york to the connecticut as her eastern boundary, still basing it on the grant to the duke of york, and also on the description of the eastern boundary of new hampshire as given in the letters-patent of his majesty dated july 3, 1741. he commands the civil officers of his government to exercise jurisdiction as far as the banks of the connecticut river, and the high sheriff of the county of albany to return the names of all persons who, under the grants of new hampshire, shall hold possession of any lands westward of connecticut river, that they may be proceeded against according to law. this was followed by a proclamation of governor wentworth on march 13, 1764, in which he reviews and denies the claim of new york. he says: "at present the boundaries of new york to the northward are unknown, and as soon as it shall be his majesty's pleasure to determine them, new hampshire will pay a ready and cheerful obedience thereunto, not doubting but that all grants made by new hampshire that are fulfilled by the grantees will be confirmed to them if it should be his majesty's pleasure to alter the jurisdiction." he encouraged the grantees under his government to be industrious in clearing and cultivating their lands, and commanded all civil officers within his province to be diligent in exercising jurisdiction as far westward as grants had been made by his government, and deal with all persons who "may presume to interrupt the settlers on said lands as to law and justice doth appertain."[31] though the claims of new york had thus far been founded on the grant to the duke of york, she now sought to establish it on a less doubtful tenure, and made application to the crown for a confirmation of the same grant. this was supported by a petition representing that it would be greatly for the advantage of the settlers on the new hampshire grants to be annexed to new york. to this were appended the names of many such inhabitants, who afterwards asserted that it was done without their knowledge.[32] in response came a royal order declaring "the western bank of the connecticut, from where it enters the province of massachusetts bay as far north as the 45th degree of northern latitude, to be the boundary line between the said two provinces of new hampshire and new york." though this decision was not in accordance with the wishes of many of the inhabitants of the grants, it gave them no uneasiness concerning the validity of their titles. they had obtained their lands under grants from the crown, and had no fear that under the same authority they would or could be compelled to relinquish or repurchase them. governor wentworth remonstrated against the change of jurisdiction, but finally by proclamation, "recommended to the proprietors and settlers due obedience to the authorities and laws of the colony of new york."[33] but the government of new york chose to construe his majesty's order as annulling the grants made by governor wentworth west of the connecticut. it divided its newly confirmed territory into four counties, annexing the southwestern part to the county of albany, which was termed by the new hampshire grantees the "unlimited county of albany." north of this was the county of charlotte, east of it the county of cumberland, and north of this the county of gloucester. the new hampshire grantees were required to surrender their charters, and repurchase their lands under new york grants. some complied, and paid the excessive fees demanded by the new york officials, which were twenty fold greater than those exacted by the government of new hampshire;[34] but for the most part the settlers were not men of the metal to submit to what seemed to them rank injustice, and they refused to comply with the demand. thereupon new york re-granted their lands to others, and actions of ejectment were brought against them. it was an easy matter to obtain judgments in the county of albany against the settlers, but the execution of them was met by stubborn resistance, in which the people soon associated for mutual protection. a convention of representatives from the towns on the west side of the mountains was called, and by it samuel robinson of bennington was appointed as agent to present the grievances of the settlers to the british government, and obtain, if possible, a confirmation of new hampshire grants. the mission of robinson[35] was so far successful that the governor of new york was commanded by his majesty "to make no grant whatever of any part of the lands in dispute until his majesty's pleasure should be further known" (july 24, 1767). but the governor's council of new york decided that this order did not restrain the granting of any land formerly claimed by new hampshire, but not already granted by that government; and the governor continued to make grants, and writs of ejectment were issued as before, returnable to the supreme court at albany. it was decided in this court that authenticated copies of the royal orders to the governor of new hampshire, and the grants made in pursuance thereof, should not be used in evidence. ethan allen, soon to become one of the most prominent actors in this controversy, was attending suits at albany when this decision was made. being urged by some of the officials there to use his influence with the settlers to induce them to make the best terms they could with their new york landlords, and reminded that "might often prevails against right," allen replied, in the scriptural language which he was so fond of employing, that "the gods of the valleys were not the gods of the hills;" and when asked by the attorney-general to explain his meaning, answered that, "if he would accompany him to bennington hill, it would be made plain to him."[36] thus debarred from obtaining justice in the courts, the people, assembled in convention at bennington, "resolved to support their rights and property in the new hampshire grants against the usurpations and unjust claims of the governor and council of new york by force, as law and justice were denied them."[37] a more thoroughly organized resistance was now opposed to all attempts of the new york officers to make arrests or serve writs of ejectment. surveyors who undertook to run the lines of new york grants across lands already granted by new hampshire were compelled to desist. a sheriff could not come so secretly that vigilant eyes did not discover his approach, nor with so strong a posse that, when he attempted to execute his duties, he did not find a formidable force gathered to resist him. if he persisted, he was, in allen's quaint phrase, "severely chastised with twigs of the wilderness," though the "blue beech" rod, whose efficacy in reducing a refractory ox to submission had been so often proved by the rough yeomen of the grants, and which they now applied to the backs of their oppressors, could hardly be termed a twig. this mode of punishment, with grim humor, they termed the "beech seal." a proclamation was issued by the governor of new york for apprehending some of the principal actors, and in the january (1770) term of the court at albany several of the inhabitants of bennington were indicted as rioters, but none of them were arrested. each party in the quarrel accused the other of being incited by the greed of the land-jobber and speculator, and no doubt there was some foundation for the charge, even on the part of the new hampshire grantees. but with them, as against an aristocracy of monopolists, were the sympathies of the yeomen of new york, who, when called upon to enforce the authority of their own officers against their brethren of the grants, held aloof, or feebly rendered their perfunctory aid. sheriff ten eyck, being required to serve a writ of ejectment on james breckenridge of bennington, called to his aid, by order of the governor, a posse of 750 armed militia. about 300 of the settlers, being apprised of his coming, assembled to oppose him. nineteen of them were posted in the house; the others, divided in two forces of about equal number, were concealed along the road by which the sheriff and his men were advancing, and behind a ridge within gunshot of the house. unsuspicious of their presence, the sheriff and his men marched to the house and were within the ambuscade. on threatening to make forcible entry, the sheriff was answered by those within, "attempt it and you are a dead man." the ambuscading forces now made their presence known, and, displaying their hats upon the muzzles of their guns, made a show of twice their actual strength. the sheriff and his posse became aware of their dangerous position, and as one of the first historians of vermont, ira allen, quaintly remarks, "not being interested in the dispute," and mr. ten eyck remembering that important business required his immediate presence in albany,[38] they discreetly withdrew without a shot being fired on either side.[39] the new york officers were not always so easily vanquished, nor so unsuccessful in their attempts. the doughty esquire john munro, who held lands in the grants under a new york title, and lived upon them among his tenants in shaftsbury, was a justice of the peace for the county of albany. he was a man of other metal than sheriff ten eyck, whom he assisted to arrest silas robinson, of bennington, at his own door; and though the house wherein they lodged with their prisoner the night thereafter was surrounded by forty armed men who demanded his release, they carried him to albany. robinson was there indicted as a rioter in january, 1771, and held in jail till the next october, when he was released on bail. upon another occasion, munro, accompanied by the deputy sheriff and twelve men whom he called to his aid, demanded entrance to the house of isaiah carpenter, to serve a writ of ejectment upon him. carpenter threatened to blow out the brains of any one who should attempt to enter, whereupon the deputy and his men forced the door, and munro, entering alone, seized carpenter with his gun in his hand. two other men were found in the house, and two guns in a corner, "one loaded with powder and bullets and the other with powder and kidney beans." the new york claimants now sought to draw some of the prominent persons of the grants to their interest by offers of new york titles on favorable terms, and by the bestowal of offices upon them, and they induced people of their own province to settle upon unoccupied new hampshire grants. by such means they hoped to smother the unmanageable element which had so far thwarted their attempts to gain control of the coveted region, and insidiously overcome the turbulent faction termed by them the "bennington mob." committees of safety were organized in several towns of the grants, and a convention of the settlers decreed that no new york officer should be allowed to take any person out of the district without permission of the committee of safety, and that no surveys should be made there, nor lines run, nor settlements made, under the authority of new york. the punishment for violation of this decree was to be discretionary with a court formed by the committee of safety. civil officers, however, were permitted to perform their proper functions in the collection of debts, and in other matters not connected with the controversy.[40] thus the inhabitants of the grants established a crude but efficient civil government of their own. footnotes: [27] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. pp. 331, 332. [28] williams's _hist. of vt._ vol. ii. pp. 12, 13. [29] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 332. [30] _ibid._ p. 333. [31] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 353. [32] slade's _state papers_, p. 62. [33] _state papers_, p. 20. [34] the fees to the governor of new hampshire for granting a township were about $100. under the government of new york, they generally amounted to $2,000, or $2,600. williams's _hist. vt._ vol. ii. p. 9. [35] governor moore sneers at him as "a driver of an ox-cart for the sutlers." _doc. hist. n. y._ [36] thompson's _vermont_, part ii. p. 21. [37] slade's _state papers_, p. 21. [38] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 422. [39] thompson's _vermont_, part ii. p. 22. [40] thompson's _vermont_, p. 22. chapter v. the green mountain boys. a military force was organized, of which ethan allen was colonel commandant, and his active coadjutors, warner, baker, cockran, sunderland, and others, were captains. of the name which they assumed, and which vermonters are always proud to bear, ira allen says: "the governor of new york had threatened to drive the military (his opponents) into the green mountains, from which circumstance they took the name of green mountain boys."[41] the necessities of backwoods life accustomed every man of this force to the use of the musket, the long smooth-bore, or the rifle, and most were expert marksmen with any of these weapons, while many, from ranger service in the late war, were accomplished bush-fighters. inured to hardship and toil, they could not but be enduring, and, to face the dangers that ever beset the pioneer, they must be brave. rough but kindly and honest backwoods yeomen, they were of the same spirit, as they were of the same race and generation, as the men who fought at lexington and bunker hill. they were occasionally mustered for practice and drill. esquire munro informed governor tryon in 1772 that the company in bennington, commanded by john warner,[42] was on new year's day "received and continued all day fireing at marks," and again that "the rioters had brought to bennington two pieces of cannon and a mortar piece from the small fort at east hoseck with powder and ball." ethan allen was the chosen as well as the self-appointed leader of the people in their resistance to the claims of new york and its attempts to enforce them. early in the controversy, he, with four of his brothers, came from connecticut, and taking up lands under grants from new hampshire in the southern part of the territory, west of the green mountains, very naturally espoused the cause of the new hampshire grantees. his rude eloquence was of the sort to fire the hearts of the uncultivated backwoodsmen, whether he harangued them from the stump of a clearing, or, addressing a larger audience in the gray pages of his ill-printed pamphlets, he recited their wrongs and exhorted them to defend their rights. his interests and sympathy, his hearty good-fellowship and rough manners, though upon occasion he could assume the deportment of the fine gentleman, brought him into the most intimate relations with them; while his undoubted bravery, his commanding figure, and herculean strength set this rough-cast hero apart to the chieftaincy which his self-asserting spirit was not slow to assume. his brother ira afterwards became a man of great note and influence in the young commonwealth, but was more distinguished for civil than military service, though he was a lieutenant in warner's regiment, and afterward captain, colonel, and major-general of militia. seth warner was of a commanding presence, "rising six feet in height, erect and well-proportioned, his countenance, attitude, and movements indicative of great strength and vigor of body and mind," says daniel chipman, who in his boyhood had often seen him.[43] but he was cast in a finer mould than was his more renowned compatriot, ethan allen. modest and unassuming, he was no less brave, and with no lack of firmness, energy, and promptness to act, his bravery was tempered with a coolness, deliberation, and good judgment which made him a safe and trusted leader. he was no pamphleteer. in the public documents to which his name is appended with those of his associates, allen's peculiar style is most apparent, yet his letters show that he could express himself with ease, clearness, and force. he too was of connecticut birth, and removed with his father to bennington in 1763, when he was twenty years of age. the abundant game of the region gave a first direction to his adventurous spirit, and he became a skillful hunter, expert in marksmanship and woodcraft. the same spirit presently led him to take an active part in the controversy respecting the grants, and he soon took his place among the leaders of the opponents of new york. remember baker, the kinsman of both, was a native of connecticut. he was killed early in the war of the revolution while with the army invading canada he was reconnoitring the enemy's position at st. john's. ira allen says: "he was a curious marksman, and always kept his musket in the best possible order," which was the cause of his death, for he had so over-nicely sharpened his flint that it caught, and prevented his firing so quickly as did the indian who killed him. robert cockran was another of the border captains, and made himself particularly obnoxious to the government of new york by his active resistance to its encroachments. he served during the revolution first in a connecticut, then in a new york regiment, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel.[44] peleg sunderland, who in peaceful times was a wood-ranger, hunting moose in the loneliest depths of the wilderness and setting his beaver-traps on streams that were strange to the eyes of white men, was another leader of the green mountain boys, prominent enough to suffer outlawry. when, under the encouragement of the new york claimants, settlements were made on the western border of the grants, though armed to defend themselves, the new-comers were driven away, their log-houses torn down and burned by allen, baker, cockran, and six others. for their apprehension as rioters, warrants were thereupon issued. but the justice who issued them gave it as his opinion that no officer could arrest them, and recommended that a reward be offered to induce "some person of their own sort" to "artfully betray them." accordingly governor tryon offered a reward of twenty pounds each for their apprehension.[45] thereupon allen, baker, and cockran issued a proclamation offering a reward of fifteen pounds and ten pounds respectively for the apprehension and delivery at the catamount tavern in bennington of james duane and john kemp, two new york officials who were conspicuously active in pushing their claims to lands in the disputed territory. and one proclamation was as effective as the other. however, some months later esquire munro was impelled to undertake the capture of remember baker at his home in arlington, and in the early morning of march 22, 1772, with a dozen of his friends and dependents at his back, forcibly entered baker's house. in the fray that ensued, baker and his wife and boy were all severely wounded by sword-cuts, and he being overcome and bound was thrown into a sleigh and driven with all speed toward albany. but the triumph of his captors was brief, for before reaching the hudson they were overtaken by a rescue party that followed on horseback in swift pursuit upon the first alarm, and abandoning their bleeding and exhausted prisoner, they fled into the woods, and baker, after being cared for by his friends, was triumphantly carried to his home. munro also attempted the arrest of seth warner, who while riding with a friend was met by the squire and several adherents. seizing the bridle of warner's horse, munro called on the others to aid him. when, in spite of all entreaty, he would not desist, warner struck him to the ground with a blow from a dull cutlass delivered on his head, and went his way. the pugnacious squire had now had enough of the barren honors of his magistracy. "what can a justice do," he asks, "when the whole country combines against him?" and begs governor tryon to excuse his acting any longer. he gave his neighbors of the green mountains no further trouble, and in 1777 fled to the army of burgoyne. his property was confiscated, and he was one of those who were forever proscribed by the vermont act of february 26, 1779.[46] the green mountain boys were ready to resist more formidable attempts to bring them to submission. when news came to bennington that governor tryon was ascending the hudson with a considerable force to invade their territory, the committee of safety and the officers convened and resolved that it was "their duty to oppose governor tryon and his troops to the utmost of their power." accordingly the fighting men of bennington and the neighboring towns were assembled. the cannon, mortar, and ammunition were brought out. sharpshooters were to ambuscade the narrow passes of the road by which tryon's force must approach, and cripple the invaders by picking off his officer. while this warlike preparation was in progress a messenger, who had been sent to albany to gain information of the strength and intended march of the enemy, returned with the news that the troops, which were wind-bound somewhere below that town, were not coming to invade the grants, but to garrison the lake forts. in fact, during this season of alarm, governor tryon was contemplating a milder policy than had so far been pursued, and presently dispatched a letter "to rev. mr. dewy and the inhabitants of bennington and the adjacent country on the east side of hudson's river." though he censured their acts of violence, and warned them that a continuance of such acts would bring the "exertions of the powers of government" against them, and reasserted the claim of new york to the connecticut as its eastern boundary, his tone was conciliatory, and he invited them to lay before his government the causes of their illegal proceedings, which should be examined with "deliberation and candor," and such relief given as the circumstances would justify. to accomplish this, such persons as they might choose to send to new york were promised safe conduct and protection, excepting ethan allen, warner, baker, cockran, and sevil. this was briefly replied to by those to whom it was addressed, and at more length by allen, warner, baker, and cockran.[47] in both replies the validity of the titles given by new hampshire was maintained, and allen and his associates declared their resistance had not been to the government of new york, but to land-jobbers and speculators who were endeavoring to deprive them of their property. these were delivered by the settlers' appointed agents, captain stephen fay and his son, and were laid before his council by governor tryon. upon due consideration, the council recommended that all prosecutions in behalf of the crown, for crimes with which the settlers were charged, should be suspended till his majesty's pleasure should be known, and that owners of contested lands under grants from new york should stop all civil suits concerning the same during the like period, and agree with the settlers for the purchase thereof on moderate terms, on condition that the inhabitants concerned in the late disorders should conform to the law of new york that settlers on both sides in the controversy should continue undisturbed, and such as had been dispossessed, or forced by threats or other means, to desert their farms, should in future enjoy their possessions unmolested. this report was approved by the governor. when the agents, returning with it, laid it before the committee of safety and the people assembled in the meeting-house at bennington, there was great rejoicing over it. there was a universal expression of a desire for peace. the "whole artillery of bennington, and the small arms," thundered and rattled salutes in honor of the governor and council of new york, and healths to the king, to governor tryon, and to the council were drunk "by sundry respectable gentlemen." unfortunately for the continuance of this promising condition of affairs, news had come before the return of the agents that a surveyor employed by the new york claimants was surveying lands for them in some of the townships to the northward. thereupon ethan allen, with a small party, went in pursuit of him, took him prisoner, and returned with him to castleton, where he was tried and sentenced to banishment, under pain of death if again found within the limits of the grants. upon learning the favorable progress of the negotiations with new york, his judges revoked the rigorous decree and set him at liberty. making the most of their time while in pursuit of the surveyor, allen and his men halted at the first falls of otter creek, in the present city of vergennes, to dispossess the tenants of colonel reid, who had himself previously dispossessed persons who, under a new hampshire grant issued in 1761, had settled there and built a sawmill. allen's party drove the intruders away, burned their log-houses, and broke the stones of the gristmill reid had built, and reëstablished the new hampshire grantee in his sawmill. governor tryon was soon informed of the summary proceedings of the mountaineers, and in a letter dated august 11, 1772, he sharply reprimanded the people of the grants for "so manifest a breach of public confidence," and, to "insure a continuance of his friendly intentions," required their assistance to reinstate in their possessions the persons who had been ejected. to this an answer was returned by the committees of safety of bennington and ten other towns, in which they denied that any breach of faith had been committed in the seizure of the surveyor, or the dispossession of reid's tenants, as at that time the proposals of governor tryon had not been accepted or even received, and asserted that not they but reid and the surveyor who was acting for the land-jobbers were the aggressors, and they declined giving any aid in reinstating reid's tenants in possession so unjustly obtained.[48] they respectfully asked a reply, but it does not appear that any was vouchsafed them, or that further advances were made by the government of new york. colonel john reid, who had been lieutenant-colonel of the forty-second or royal highland regiment, held to the purpose of maintaining his settlement on otter creek, and in the summer following he repaired thither with a company of his countrymen lately arrived in america. the new hampshire settlers were again ousted, the gristmill was made serviceable by hooping the stones, and the scotchmen were installed in their wilderness home, with orders to hold possession against all claimants. ira allen chanced soon after to come that way, at nightfall of a stormy day, on his return from an exploration of lands on the winooski with a view to settlement there. the wet and weary traveler sought admittance at a log-house, whose cheerful firelight promised such welcome as had before been given him there. he was met instead by the savage thrust of a highlander's skene dhu, delivered through the scarcely opened door, and was questioned, not in the familiar drawl of his compatriots, but in such broad scotch dialect as unaccustomed ears could scarcely comprehend. he was grudgingly permitted to enter, and then discovered who his unwilling hosts were. he was given shelter for the night, and then went his way to bennington with the news of this latest intrusion of the "yorkers." ethan allen and seth warner then mustered a force of sixty green mountain boys, and set forth for otter creek. arriving there after a march of four days, they at once set about dispossessing the scotchmen and their families, burned their houses after their effects had been removed, and destroyed their corn by turning their horses loose in the fields. allen's party was joined next morning by remember baker, with a force nearly as large, when they completed the work of destruction by tearing down the mill, breaking the millstones past all mending, and throwing the pieces into the river. with his sword baker cut the bolt-cloth into pieces, which he distributed among his men to wear in their hats as cockades. when the sturdy miller, john cameron, demanded by what authority or law he and his men committed such acts, baker answered, "we live out of the bounds of the law," and, holding up his gun, said, "this is my law."[49] cameron told him that with twenty good men he would have undertaken to defend his house and mill, though there were a hundred and ten of them, and was answered that he and his countrymen were all for the broadsword, but they were for bush fighting! perhaps it was in admiration of his brave scotch spirit that they offered him a gift of land if he would join them, an offer which he rejected, while it may be that donald mcintosh, who had fought at culloden and under wolfe at quebec, at least took the proposal into canny consideration, for his house was not molested, nor he forced to leave it. cameron deposed that he was informed some three weeks later by one irwin, who lived on the east shore of the lake not far from crown point, that baker and eight others had lain in wait a whole day near the mouth of otter creek, with the intention of murdering colonel reid and his boat's company on their way to crown point, and would have done so, had not reid departed a day sooner than expected. the story seems unlikely, as the green mountain boys, who had come so far to enforce their laws of the green wood, could have had no means of gaining information of colonel reid's intended movements, even had they desired to take his life. they retaliated with hard and unrelenting hand the oppressive acts and the encroachments of new york, but never, though the opportunities were frequent and the chances of retribution few, did they, in all the course of this bitter feud, take the life of one of their opponents,[50] even when their leaders were outlawed and a price set upon their heads. having destroyed six houses, the mill, and most of the growing and harvested crops, the "bennington mob" departed from the desolated settlement, thompson says to build a block-house at the lower falls of the winooski, to prevent the intrusion of new york claimants there, but it was not reported to the new york government that such fortifications had been built at that place and at otter creek till september of the next year. the controversy engaged the attention of the british government in a direction favorable to the new hampshire grantees, the board of trade, in a report to his majesty's privy council, proposing measures[51] which, if carried out, would have confirmed the rights of settlers under the grants of new hampshire. it is worthy of notice that in this report the board spoke with considerable severity of the conduct of the governor of new york in passing patents of confirmation of townships before granted by new hampshire, and in granting other lands within the district, and in like manner called attention to the exorbitant fees exacted for grants by the governor, secretary, and surveyor of new york, which were more than double those established by an ordinance of 1710. added to these were unauthorized fees taken by other officers, making "the whole amount of these fees upon a grant of one thousand acres of land in many instances not far short of the real value of the fee simple." it was in consideration of these emoluments, the board supposed, "that his majesty's governors of new york have of late years taken upon themselves the most unwarrantable pretenses to elude the restrictions contained in his majesty's instructions with regard to the quantity of land to be granted to any one person," by the insertion in one grant of numbers of fictitious or borrowed names, for the purpose of conveying to one person a grant of from twenty thousand to forty thousand acres. they recommended that his majesty be advised to give the most positive instructions to the governor of new york that the granting of lands should be attended by no fees to the attorney-general, the receiver-general, or the auditor; and that neither the governor, the secretary, nor the surveyor-general should take any fees but those prescribed by the ordinance of 1710, which were greater than those taken by the same officers for similar service in any other colony.[52] that portion of the report proposing a method of settling the dispute was transmitted by lord dartmouth to governor tryon, who in a lengthy reply set forth the impossibility of an adjustment upon the plan proposed. no further conciliatory measures were proposed or entertained by either party in the quarrel, which after this brief respite grew more bitter. new york attempted to make herself friends in the grants by appointing some of the prominent settlers to office. to prevent the success of this policy, the committees of safety assembled in convention decreed that no inhabitant of the grants should hold or accept any office of honor or profit under the government of new york, and all civil and military officers who had acted under the authority of that government were required to "suspend their functions on pain of being viewed." it was further decreed that no person should take grants or the confirmation of them under the government of new york. the punishment for violation of these decrees was to be discretionary with the court, except that for the first offense it must not be capital.[53] banishment from the grants was a frequent punishment, and as frequent was the application of the "beech seal." as may be imagined, when the spirit of the times and the rough character of a backwoods community are considered, this was often inflicted with cruel severity. yet it must be remembered in extenuation that the whipping-post was then a common adjunct of justice, and that, by the sentence of properly constituted courts, the scourge was mercilessly applied for the correction of very venial crimes. the chastisement of offenders was sometimes more ridiculous than severe. a dr. adams of arlington, who made himself obnoxious to the green mountain boys by his persistent sympathy with their enemies, suffered at bennington, according to his sentence, only the indignity of being suspended in an armchair for two hours beneath the famous green mountain tavern sign, whereon stood the stuffed hide of a great panther, a tawny monster that grinned a menace to all intruders from the country of the hated "yorkers." not long after allen's raid on the lower falls of otter creek, he and his men appeared in durham and socialborough, whose inhabitants were for the most part friendly to new york, some of them having accepted office under that government. the officials sought safety within its established bounds at crown point and albany, flooding courts and council with depositions, complaints, and petitions. those who remained were obliged to recognize the validity of the new hampshire titles. by the advice of his council, governor tryon requested general haldimand, the commander-in-chief of his majesty's forces, to order a sufficient number of regular troops to ticonderoga and crown point to aid the civil authorities in enforcing the laws, but the general declined on the ground that, in the present state of american affairs, the employment of regular troops to suppress "a few lawless vagabonds" would have a bad tendency as an acknowledgment of the weakness of the civil government; also that "crown point, being entirely destroyed, and unprovided for the quartering of troops, and ticonderoga being in a most ruinous state, such troops as might be sent thither would not be able to stay a sufficient time to render them of much utility." if the request was persisted in, however, he wished to know what force would be deemed sufficient. the council thought that 200 men at ticonderoga might be enough,--a very modest demand upon the commander-in-chief, but not on the individuals of a force so insignificant that it might as well have undertaken to level the green mountains as to attempt to subdue in their fastnesses these accomplished bush-fighters of the grants. the requisition was not approved by the king, and the troops were not sent. in consideration of the representations and petitions laid before it, a committee of the general assembly of new york resolved that the governor be requested to issue a proclamation offering a reward of fifty pounds each for the apprehension, and securing in his majesty's gaol at albany, of ethan allen, warner, baker, and five others, and that a bill be brought in more effectually to suppress the riotous proceedings and bring the offenders to condign punishment. these resolutions having come to the grants in the columns of the "new york mercury," the committees of the towns on the west side of the mountains met at manchester and made answer thereto. they said that in consequence of the report of the british board of trade, so favorable to them, they were in daily expectation of a royal confirmation of the new hampshire grants, and declared themselves loyal and devoted subjects of his majesty; that the government of new york was more rebellious than they, in that it had acted in direct opposition to the orders of the king; that they had purchased their lands of one of his majesty's governors on the good faith of the crown of great britain, and would maintain those grants against all opposition, till his majesty's pleasure should be known, and recommended to the governor of new york to await the same before proceeding to the harsh measures proposed, "to prevent the unhappy consequences that may result from such an attempt." they resolved to defend with their lives and fortunes their neighbors and friends who should be indicted as rioters, and that the inhabitants would hold themselves "in readiness to aid and defend such friends of ours who, for their merit to the great and general cause, are falsely denominated rioters," but they would act only on the defensive, and would "encourage execution of the law in civil cases, and in criminal prosecutions that were so indeed."[54] but before this answer was approved by the general committee, the new york assembly had enacted a law (march 9, 1774) as stringent as its committee could have urged, or its report had foreshadowed, and with it or following close upon its passage was issued governor tryon's proclamation of a reward of one hundred pounds each for the arrest of ethan allen and remember baker, and fifty pounds for the apprehension of seth warner and five others. some of the provisions of this extraordinary law were, that if three or more persons, "being unlawfully, riotously, and tumultuously assembled within the counties of charlotte and albany," did not disperse when commanded to do so by proclamation made by a justice, sheriff, or coroner, they should upon conviction suffer twelve months' imprisonment without bail; and any person opposing, letting, hindering, or hurting the person making or going to make such proclamation, should be adjudged a felon, and suffer death without benefit of clergy. it should also be adjudged felony without benefit of clergy for an unauthorized person to assume judicial powers, or for any person to assist them, or to execute their sentences, or to seize, detain, or assault and beat any magistrate or civil officer, to compel him to resign his office, or to prevent his discharging its duties; or to burn or destroy the grain or hay of any other person; or to demolish or pull down any dwelling-house, barn, stable, or gristmill, sawmill, or outhouse within either of the said counties. when the persons named in the governor's proclamation, or any other persons, were indicted for any offense committed after the passage of this act, and made capital by it or any other law, did not, within seventy days after the publication of the governor's command to do so, surrender themselves to one of his majesty's justices of the peace for either of the said counties, they were to be adjudged guilty of the offense for which they had been indicted; and if for a capital offense thereafter to be perpetrated, they should be convicted and attainted of felony, and should suffer death, as in the case of persons so convicted by verdict and judgment, without benefit of clergy; and it should be lawful for the supreme court of new york, or the courts of oyer and terminer or general gaol delivery, to award execution against such offenders as if they had been convicted in such courts. it was provided that, as it was impracticable to bring offenders to justice within the county of charlotte, all persons committed within its limits should be proceeded against by any grand jury of the county of albany, and tried in that county by a jury thereof, as if the crime or offense had been perpetrated therein.[55] here was indeed an "exertion of the powers of government," but it was barren of any result but to strengthen the spirit of opposition in those against whom it was directed, and, instead of terrorizing them into abject submission, as its authors had confidently expected, it served rather to unite them in more stubborn resistance. in response, allen and his proscribed associates put forth a manifesto and an address "to the people of the counties of albany and charlotte which inhabit to the westward, and are situated contiguous to the new hampshire grants," wherein, for the most part, the case is forcibly stated in allen's peculiar style, and closes with the declaration that "we are under the necessity of resisting even unto blood every person who may attempt to take us as felons or rioters as aforesaid, for in this case it is not resisting law, but only opposing force by force; therefore, inasmuch as, by the oppressions aforesaid, the new hampshire settlers are reduced to the disagreeable state of anarchy and confusion; in which state we hope for wisdom, patience, and fortitude till the happy hour his majesty shall graciously be pleased to restore us to the privileges of englishmen." not many times, if ever, thereafter, was the authority of the king invoked by those who set their names to this paper: but little more than a year had elapsed when most of them were engaged in wresting from the crown its strongholds on lake champlain. now, however, a scheme was set on foot to withdraw the grants from the hated jurisdiction of new york by erecting them, and that part of new york east of the hudson, into a separate royal government. colonel philip skene, who lived in considerable state in skenesborough house on his estate at the head of lake champlain, was engaged in it, probably with a view to the governorship of the new province, and he went to england to further the project. whatever his success may have been, it came to nothing with the breaking out of the revolution.[56] the people of the grants maintained their attitude of defiance and resistance. the stinging imprint of the beech seal was still set as relentlessly on the backs of justices who yet dared to act under the authority of new york, and their stern judges sent them "toward the city of new york, or to the westward of the grants," with duly signed certificates that they had received full punishment for their crimes. lieutenant-governor colden, now acting governor, as tryon "had been called home to give lights on the points in dispute," applied to general gage at boston for a force of 200 men to aid the civil officers in the county of charlotte, but gage declined, as haldimand had done; and the attempts of new york to enforce its authority continued as futile as ever, while the rob roys of the new world highlands as boldly went their way as if no price was set upon their heads. footnotes: [41] _hist. vt._ p. 345. [42] meaning _seth_ warner. [43] chipman's _memoirs of seth warner_. [44] he died among his former enemies, the yorkers, at sandy hill, n. y., in 1812. [45] 1771. [46] _governor and council_, p. 149. [47] _state papers_, p. 22. [48] _state papers_, pp. 29, 30. [49] baker showed james henderson the stump of a lost thumb, as his commission (possibly given by esquire munro), for performing this "very disagreeable work." [50] _doc. hist._ vol. iv. pp. 512-516. [51] _ibid._ p. 488. [52] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. p. 493. [53] thompson's _vermont_, part ii. p. 25. [54] _state papers_, p. 42. [55] _state papers._ [56] williams's _history_; thompson's _vermont_. chapter vi. the westminster massacre. while the western portion of the new hampshire grants was involved in this turmoil of incipient warfare, most of the settlers to the eastward of the green mountains held aloof from the strife, for many of them had surrendered their original charters, taking new ones under new york and submitting quietly to its jurisdiction. yet they were not lacking in the spirit of patriotism that was now warming all their countrymen into a new life, and presently there came an event which welded them into closer affiliation with their brethren of the western grants, and brought them into active opposition to the imperious government of new york. on the 16th of may, 1774, a committee of correspondence was formed in the city of new york, with the object of learning the sentiments of the people concerning the measures of the british government respecting its american colonies. a letter, addressed by its chairman to the supervisors of cumberland county, was kept secret by them, and no action taken upon it at their june session; but its receipt in some way became known to dr. jones of rockingham and captain wright of westminster, who notified their towns; and a committee for the purpose being appointed in each, the supervisors were called on at their september session for any papers received by them which should be laid before the towns of the county. the letter was unwillingly produced, a copy was sent to each town, and a county convention was called to meet at westminster on the 19th of october. delegates from twelve towns met accordingly, and passed resolutions similar in spirit to those of the continental congress. when the action of congress in declaring the rights of the colonies, and in adopting the "articles of association," became known, another convention was called, which met at westminster on the 30th of october, "and did adopt all the resolves of the continental congress as their resolves, promising religiously to adhere to that agreement or association." but a motion to choose a "committee of inspection" to observe whether any person violated the articles of association was defeated by the opposition of two tory members. the town of dummerston, however, whose good people, "tired of diving after redress in a legal way," had set lieutenant spaulding free from the jail to which he had been committed on a charge of high treason for saying that, "if the king had signed the quebec bill, it was his opinion he had broken his coronation oath," at a town-meeting held in january following chose such a committee. this body removed two assessors from office for refusing to execute an order of the town to assess a tax, payable in potash salts, for the purpose of procuring 100 pounds of powder, 200 pounds of lead, and 300 flints, for the town use; suspended another town officer till by his conduct he proved himself a whig; and disarmed a suspected tory. the example of this town was generally followed by others, without waiting the action of a convention. the general assembly of new york had refused to adopt the resolves and articles of association of the continental congress, and the courts of justice were continued in that province, while elsewhere they were almost universally suspended. affairs were at this pass, causing great dissatisfaction among the patriots of the grants, when the time for the session of the king's court of cumberland county, to be holden at westminster the 14th of march, 1775, drew near. a deputation of forty citizens of the county waited upon the chief judge, colonel chandler, at chester, and endeavored to dissuade him from holding the court. he admitted that it would be better to hold no court in the present state of affairs, but said there was a case of murder which it was necessary to try, after which, if not agreeable to the people, no other cases should come on. in answer to the objections of one of their number, that the sheriff would be present with an armed posse and there would be bloodshed, he assured them that no arms should be brought against them, and dismissed them with thanks for their civility. after considerable discussion of methods to prevent the sitting of the court, it was decided that it should be permitted to come together, when the objections to its proceeding should be laid before it, "thinking," says the "relation of the proceedings," "they were men of such sense that they would hear them."[57] it presently became known that the court intended to take possession of the court-house the day before its session was to begin, and hold it with a strong guard against the intrusion of those opposed to its opening. to forestall this purpose, about 100 men, armed only with clubs that the stalwart men of rockingham took from a neighboring woodpile, entered the court-house late in the afternoon of that day, with the intention of holding it till the judges should hear their grievances. they had not been long within it when the sheriff, with a strong posse of armed men and attended by the officers of the court, came marching up the level street of the little town. halting near the door, he demanded entrance, but received no answer. he then read the king's proclamation in a loud voice, commanding all persons unlawfully assembled to disperse, adding with an oath that, if they did not do so within fifteen minutes, "he would blow a lane through them." they answered that they would not disperse, but would admit the sheriff and the others if they would lay aside their arms, and asked if they had come for war; declaring they themselves had come for peace, and would be glad to hold a parley with them. upon this the clerk of the court drew his pistol, and, holding it up, swore that "only by it would he hold parley with such damned rascals," and would give no more friendly reply to any overtures. judge chandler, however, came to them when the sheriff's posse had gone for refreshments, and declared that the arms were brought without his consent, and said that those who held the house might continue to do so undisturbed till morning, when the court should come in without arms, and hear what they had to say before it. with little fear of molestation now, yet taking the precaution to post a sentry at the door, the garrison of the court-house held the place. the curving crest of hills that half encircle the town, touching the river above and below it, grew dim against the darkening sky, and the last gleam of daylight faded from the ice-bound reaches of the broad connecticut. the pallid dusk of the starless winter night blurred houses and threshold trees into indistinct forms, and fused the half-surrounding wall of forest-clad hills with the sky, till they seemed a part of it creeping down upon the little hamlet. one by one the lights went out, save where some housewife waited her husband's coming, and where the glare of the inn's hospitable fire fell in broad bars of flickering light across the snowy street. the sentinel at the door paced his short beat. of those whose guard he kept, some fell asleep on the hard benches, some gathered in groups to listen to the discourse of oracular politicians, or discuss the all-absorbing topic of the hour. some of the younger men crowded into the charmed circle wherein some gray and garrulous veteran of the old wars discoursed of bush fights and indian ambuscades, the siege of number four or ticonderoga's woeful day of slaughter and defeat, where he fought so hotly for the sovereign whom he now denounced. some sat apart silently brooding, and taking no heed of the buzz of conversation, but grimly awaited the struggle they felt was impending. all became suddenly alert when, about midnight, the sentinel discovered armed men approaching, and gave the word to man the doors. the sheriff and his men were coming, with courage reinforced by potations of flip and fiery rum. they marched to within ten rods of the door and halted. in a moment the order was given to fire, and three shots were reluctantly delivered. the order was repeated with curses, which incited the posse to a deadlier volley that killed william french almost outright, fatally wounded daniel houghton, and severely injured several others. the assailants then rushed in on the men, who had only clubs to defend themselves with, made several prisoners and took them to the jail. one of these was the dying man, whom "they dragged as one would a dog, and would mock at as he lay gasping," and "did wish there were forty more in the same case." lying on the jail-room floor, his five wounds undressed, french, not yet twenty-two, died in the early morning of the 14th. houghton survived his wounds nine days. thus in a remote frontier town was shed the first blood of the momentous conflict that gave birth to a nation. in the darkness and confusion all the rest of the whigs escaped, some fighting their way out with their clubs; one, philip safford, laying about him so lustily that eight or ten of the sheriff's posse went down beneath the blows of his cudgel. the court party came out of the mêlée victorious for the present, and without serious injury to any of their number, though in the "state of the facts," prepared next day by the judges and other officers of the court, two were reported as wounded by pistol shots, which, if indeed so, must have been fired by their friends, for the others declared that they had not so much as a pistol among them, having come with the expectation of gaining their object without violence. some did now go home for their guns, but did not return to renew the fray. more hastened away to carry the woeful tidings of bloodshed to the whigs of all the country around, and with such dispatch was this done that, before noon of the next day, two hundred armed men had arrived from new hampshire. before night every one known to have been concerned in the killing of french was seized and kept under strong guard. the next day an inquest was held, and a verdict given that french came to his death at the hands of the sheriff, and certain others of his posse. armed men continued to come from the southern part of the county and from massachusetts, till by the following morning five hundred "good martial soldiers, well equipped for war," thronged the one street of the little town. on that day all the people who had come assembled, and voted to choose a large committee to act for the whole, to be composed in part of citizens of cumberland county, and in part of those residing outside its limits. after an examination of the evidence, this committee voted to commit those most implicated in the killing of french to the jail at northampton, mass., there to await a fair trial, while those who seemed less guilty should be put under bonds to appear at the next court. the bonds of those admitted to bail were taken next day, and the others were conducted under a strong guard to northampton jail, but it does not appear that any of them were ever brought to trial, these cases being lost sight of in the thickening whirl of revolutionary events. such is substantially the account of the affair as given by the committee chosen by the people. the accounts given by the officers of the court in their "state of the facts," and by members of the sheriff's posse in their deposition, make it appear that the so-called rioters were the first violent aggressors, beating the sheriff with clubs when he first attempted to force his way in; that three shots were then fired by his order above the heads of those who held the court-house, who at once returned the fire by a discharge of guns and pistols, one pistol-shot being fired at such close quarters that the powder burned a large hole in the breast of his coat, and yet the wearer was not hurt; that only four or five shots were fired into the court-house by the sheriff's party, and yet by this volley french was struck by five bullets, houghton received a fatal wound, and several others were hurt. according to these accounts, robert cockran and others proposed such atrocities as burning the court-house and all within it, or firing volleys through it, and were only restrained by the new hampshire men from doing so.[58] but there is nothing of this in the relation of the committee, which is quite as likely to impress the unbiased inquirer with its truthfulness. governor colden, in his report to lord dartmouth of what he calls this "dangerous insurrection," does not attribute it to any dispute concerning land titles, but only to the example of massachusetts; nor does he charge the bennington rioters with being implicated in it, though he foresaw that it would draw to the common cause of resistance to new york the people of the eastern grants with their brethren of the western. he wrote to general gage of this affair in cumberland, and hoped that by his assistance he might soon be able to hold a court of oyer and terminer in that county; but the british general had weightier affairs upon his hands at boston, and could give him no help. in a convention held at westminster on the 11th of april, it was voted "that it is the duty of the inhabitants to wholly renounce and resist the administration of the government of new york till such time as the lives and property of these inhabitants may be secured by it, or till such time as they can have opportunity to lay their grievances before his most gracious majesty in council," with an humble petition "to be taken out of so offensive jurisdiction, and either annexed to some other government or erected and incorporated into a new one, as may appear best to said inhabitants, to the royal wisdom and clemency, and till such time as his majesty shall settle this controversy." colonel john hazletine, charles phelps, and colonel ethan allen were appointed to prepare the remonstrance and petition that were to be presented. never again did any representative body of the grants give an expression of loyalty to the king. not many days later came the news of lexington fight, and presently the mountaineers were all in as open revolt against king george as any had ever been against his royal government of the province of new york. men grown so accustomed to resistance of the tyranny of the lesser power, as were the persecuted settlers of the western grants, were not apt to be laggards in opposing the greater when its encroachments became as unendurable, and for a time the petty warfare of provincial bounds and jurisdiction was hidden from their sight in the over-spreading cloud of the grander struggle that involved the liberties of every american. footnotes: [57] _governor and council_, vol. i. p. 332. [58] _doc. hist. n. y._ vol. iv. pp. 547, 549. chapter vii. ticonderoga. those ruthless destroyers, time and man, have wrought sad havoc on the once formidable fortress of ticonderoga. one wall of solid masonry has withstood their assaults, and still rears its sharp-cut angles and massive front, gray with age and scaled with lichens of a century, as grimly now as in the days of yore, above the broad expanse of fields that stretch away to the southwest. across the neck of the peninsula, in the shadow of great oaks that were but saplings then, may be seen the well-preserved breastworks against which the storm of abercrombie's assault so vainly beat, and within them green mounds show the position of old outworks. but the fort itself is a desolate ruin. ditches choked with brambles and rubbish, grass-grown ramparts, crumbling bastion, and barrack walls, fallen-in bomb-proof and magazine, mark the sight of a stronghold once deemed worth the blood and treasure of nations to hold or gain. amherst's useless fort of crown point, built with lavish expense, has not suffered such complete decay. the barracks are in ruin, but the almost unbroken ramparts rear their walled and grassy steeps high above the long incline of the shrub-grown glacis, and the hoary walls of the outworks have stoutly withstood the ravages of almost seven-score years. the older french fort of st. frederic; its citadel within whose walls commandant, priest, and fierce waubanakee plotted raids on the frontier hamlets of the heretics, in whose dungeons english captives languished; its chapel, where masses were said in celebration of savage deeds, while white-coated soldier of france, rough-clad habitant, and painted indian knelt together before the black-robed priest; its water-gate, bastions, scarps, and counter-scarps,--all have fallen into the desolation of utter ruin. the conquest of canada accomplished, it was no longer of vital importance that the forts on lake champlain should be maintained; consequently the elaborately planned fortifications of crown point were never completed, and they, with those of ticonderoga, fell into such neglect that in september, 1773, the first one was reported by general haldimand to be entirely destroyed, and the other in a most ruinous state. and though it does not appear that they were dismantled or quite abandoned, for years they were held by garrisons too insignificant to defend them against any vigorous attack. in such defenseless condition they continued, as if too remote from the great centres of revolt to be of consequence to england, while the threatening attitude of her american colonies daily grew more menacing. but while the appeal to arms was yet impending, the importance of these posts became apparent to some active patriots of the new england colonies. in march, 1775, john brown of pittsfield, massachusetts, who had recently passed through the new hampshire grants on a secret mission to canada, wrote from montreal to samuel adams and dr. warren, the committee of correspondence in boston, mentioning one thing to be kept a profound secret. "the fort at ticonderoga must be seized as soon as possible, should hostilities be committed by the king's troops. the people in the new hampshire grants have engaged to do this business, and in my opinion they are the most proper persons for this job. this will effectually curb this province, and all the troops that may be sent here." thus it appears that so early as february, 1775, the capture of the fort was contemplated by the leaders of the green mountain boys, and that they were committed to the enterprise. yet, when confronted by the actual outbreak of war, they were sorely perplexed. self-interest inclined them to hold aloof from a rupture with the mother country when king and privy council were considering, with apparent favor to them, their controversy with new york; while on the other hand the ties of birth strongly bound them to their brethren of new england, and every impulse of patriotism impelled them to espouse the cause of their common country. soon after receiving the news of the battle of lexington, which ethan allen says almost distracted them, the principal officers of the green mountain boys, and other prominent leaders, met at bennington, and in the council chamber of the catamount tavern "attempted to explore futurity;" though they "found it to be unfathomable,"[59] they resolved to unite with their countrymen, whom they doubted not would, in the event of a successful issue of the conflict, freely accord to them the rights which they demanded. without any knowledge of what was already brewing in the grants, some gentlemen of connecticut, who on the 26th of april met benedict arnold on his way to cambridge with a company of volunteers, learned from him the defenseless condition of ticonderoga and the great number of cannon there, and at once formed a plan for its capture. to carry it out, they procured £300 from the treasury of connecticut. this was given to noah phelps and bernard romans, who immediately set forward toward the grants, where it was thought best most of the men should be raised. just after their departure, captain mott arrived at hartford and proposed the same enterprise, to procure artillery and stores for the people of boston, and being apprised of what was already on foot, agreed to join in the expedition. he set forth next day with five others, and at salisbury was joined by eleven more. arrived at pittsfield it was determined, by the advice of colonel easton and john brown, just returned from his canadian mission, to raise a number of men before reaching the grants, where it was thought the scarcity of provisions and the poverty of the inhabitants would make it difficult to raise and equip a sufficient number. accordingly about forty men were recruited and made ready to march, in jericho and williamstown, by colonel easton and captain mott, while the others went on to bennington. when, after this service, easton and mott were on their way to the same place, they were met in the evening by an express from their people with the news that ticonderoga was reinforced and its garrison alert, and with the advice that, as it could not be surprised, the men recruited would better be dismissed. the news was discredited, the advice unheeded, and the colonel and the captain held forward for bennington, rejoining their companions and finding the leading men of the grants there in conclave. captain mott told his hesitating friends that the "account they had would not do to go back with and tell in hartford;" and his friends mr. halsey and mr. bull declared they would go back for no story till they had seen the fort for themselves.[60] it was decided that the attempt to capture the fort should not be abandoned. two agents were dispatched to albany to purchase and forward provisions for the troops, and trusty men were sent to waylay all the roads leading from the grants to skenesborough, lake george, and the champlain forts, to prevent any intelligence of the movement from reaching those points. then, going on to castleton, the committee, of which captain mott was chairman, arranged there the plan of operations. a party of thirty men under captain herrick were to go to skenesborough and capture major skene and his men, and go down the lake in the night with his boats to shoreham to transport the men assembled there across the water; while captain douglass was sent to crown point to concoct a scheme with his brother-in-law, who lived there, to hire the king's boats, on some plausible pretense, to assist in getting the men over to the new york shore. meanwhile captain phelps of connecticut had gone to spy out the condition of ticonderoga. in the guise of a simple backwoodsman, he easily gained admission to the fort on the pretext of getting shaved, and, after taking careful note of all that could be seen in the place, returned to castleton and reported to his friends. agreeable to a promise made to the men when engaged that they should be commanded by their own officers, colonel ethan allen was given the command of the force which was to attack ticonderoga. after receiving his orders from the committee, and dispatching major gershom beach of rutland to rally the green mountain boys, he went on to shoreham, where they were to assemble. major beach performed the almost incredible feat of making on foot the journey of sixty miles in twenty-four hours, over rough by-paths marked only by blazed trees, and along the wretched roads of the new country. the forest-walled highway led him to the hamlets of rutland, pittsford, brandon, and middlebury, whose fighting men were quickly summoned. along its course, he turned aside here and there to warn an isolated settler, to whose betterments he was guided by the songs of the earliest bobolink rejoicing over the discovery of a new meadow, by the sound of axe-strokes, by the drift of smoke climbing through the greening tree-tops from log-heap or potashery. each man, as summoned, left his task unfinished,--the chopper his axe struck deep in the half-felled tree; the grimy logger his smoking pile; the sawyer his silenced mill with the saw stopped in its half-gnawed course through the great log; the potash-maker left the fire to smoulder out beneath the big kettles; and the farmer, though hickory leaves as large as a squirrel's foot calendared the time of corn-planting, exchanged the hoe for the gun. each took his firelock, bullet pouch, and powder horn from their hooks above the fireplace, and, bidding brief farewell to homefolk, set forth to the appointed meeting place. in little bands, by threes and twos and singly, scarred and grizzled veterans who had scouted the wilderness with rogers, putnam, and stark, men in their prime who had seen no service but in raids on the yorkers, and beardless boys hot with untried youthful valor, took their way toward the lake. most of them plodded the unmistakable course of the muddy highways till they struck amherst's road leading to crown point; but some, with consummate faith in their woodcraft, took the shortest ways through the forest, now breasting the eastern slope of ledges whose dun incline of last year's leaves was dappled thick with the white bloom of moose-flowers and green tufts of fresh forest verdure, now scrambling down the sheer western wall of diluvian shores, now wading the mire of a gloomy morass, and now thridding the intricate tangle of a windfall. on the evening of the 9th of may, 1775, they had come to the appointed place of meeting, a little cove about two miles north of ticonderoga, where the mustering force was quite hidden from the observation of voyagers along the lake, and where the camp-fires might blaze behind the wide screen of newly leafing woods unseen by the garrisons of the two forts. here the green mountain boys were met by their adored leader, and awaited the arrival of the boats and their comrades coming from the southward. allen had just left castleton when benedict arnold arrived there, and demanded the command of the expedition by authority of a colonel's commission just received from the massachusetts committee of safety, with orders to raise 400 men for the reduction of ticonderoga. the committee in charge of the enterprise, in consideration of the conditions under which the men had engaged, refused to give him the command. but he persisted in demanding it, and at once set forward to overtake allen, whom he found no more disposed to yield to his demand than the committee had been, nor would his men consent to follow another leader. upon this, arnold joined the force as a volunteer. by the evening of the 9th, 270 men, all but forty of whom were green mountain boys, had assembled on the shore of the little creek in shoreham now known as hand's cove, which is in summer a level expanse of sedgy marsh threaded by a narrow sluggish channel, but during the spring floods is a broad cove of the lake, its waters over-running the roots of the trees that grow upon the banks. here the force anxiously awaited transportation, for the seemingly well-laid plans for securing boats had not proved successful. it was not till near morning that the watchers, often deceived by the cries of strange waterfowl, the sudden plunge of the muskrat, or his long wake gleaming in the light of the camp-fires, at last heard the unmistakable splash of oars, and saw the boats coming in among buttressed trunks of the great elms and water-maples that stood ankle-deep in the spring flood. when scows, skiffs, dugouts, and yawls had crushed through the drift of dead waterweeds and made a landing, it was found that there were not enough of the motley craft collected to transport half the force. allen, easton, arnold, and eighty others at once embarked, and, crossing the lake, landed a little north of willow point, on the new york shore, when the boats returned to bring over those who, under warner, remained at the cove. day was now dawning, the rugged horizon line of forest and mountain becoming each moment more distinct against the eastern sky, and it became evident that, if the attack was much longer delayed, there would be no chance of surprising the garrison. allen, therefore, determined to move forward at once, without waiting to be joined by those who remained on the other shore. briefly addressing his men, who were drawn up in three ranks, he called on those who would voluntarily follow him to poise their firelocks. every musket was poised, the order was given to right face, and allen placed himself at the head of the centre file; but when he gave the order to march, arnold again asserted his right to take command, and swore that he would be first to enter the fort. allen as stoutly maintained his right, and, when the dispute waxed hotter, turned to one of his officers and asked, "what shall i do with the damned rascal? shall i put him under guard?" the officer, amos callender of shoreham, advised them to compromise the untimely dispute by agreeing to enter the fort side by side, to which they both assented, and the little column at once moved forward in silence, guided by a youth named beeman, who, living near by, and having spent many of his idle hours in the fort, was well acquainted with the entrances and all the interior appointments. captain delaplace and his little garrison of a lieutenant and forty-two uncommissioned officers and privates[61] were sleeping in careless security, not dreaming of an enemy near, while two or three sentinels kept listless guard. the drowsy sentry at the sallyport, now come upon so suddenly by the attacking party that he forgot to challenge or give an alarm, aimed his musket at the leader and pulled trigger. the piece missed fire, and, allen running toward him with raised sword, the soldier retreated into the parade, when he gave a loud halloo and ran under a bomb-proof. the green mountain boys now swiftly entered the fort, and, forming in the parade in two ranks facing the east and west rows of barracks, gave three lusty cheers. a sentry made a thrust with his bayonet at one of the officers, and allen dealt him a sword cut on the head that would have killed him, had not the force of the blow been broken by a comb which kept his hair in place.[62] he threw down his gun and asked for quarter. allen demanded to be shown the apartment of the commandant, and was directed to a flight of stairs leading to the second story of the west row of barracks. mounting to the door at their head, allen ordered captain delaplace to "come forth instantly, or he would sacrifice the whole garrison." the bewildered commandant came to the door with his breeches in his hand, when allen demanded the immediate surrender of the fort, "by whose authority do you demand it?" asked delaplace, and allen answered, "in the name of the great jehovah and the continental congress." delaplace attempted to parley, but allen cut him short, and, with his drawn sword over his head, again demanded an immediate surrender. having no choice but to comply, captain delaplace at once ordered his men to parade without arms, and ticonderoga with all its cannon and military stores was surrendered to the green mountain boys. warner presently arrived with the remainder of the force, and after some convivial celebration of the almost bloodless conquest was dispatched by allen, with about one hundred men, to take possession of crown point, which was held by a sergeant and twelve men, and on the 12th warner and peleg sunderland reported its capture on the previous day to the governor and council of connecticut. captain remember baker, who had received orders to come with his company from the winooski and join the force, after meeting and capturing two small boats on their way to st. john's with the alarming news of the surrender, arrived at crown point nearly at the same time with colonel warner.[63] skenesborough was taken possession of by captain herrick, major skene made prisoner, and his schooner seized. callender was sent with a small party to seize the fort at the head of lake george, an exploit easily accomplished, as its sole occupants were a man and woman. thus, by no heroic feat of arms, but by well-laid plans so secretly and promptly executed that they remained unsuspected till their purpose was accomplished, the two strongholds that guarded the passage to the head of the lake fell into the hands of the americans, with 200 cannon, some mortars and swivels, and a quantity of military stores, all of which were of incalculable value to the ill-supplied patriot army. allen at once sent a report of the capture of ticonderoga to the albany committee, and asked that provisions and a reinforcement of 500 men might be sent to the fort, as he was apprehensive that general carleton would immediately attempt its recapture. he also reported the capture to the massachusetts government, and on the 12th sent the prisoners under guard to connecticut, at the same time apprising governor trumbull of the preparations being made to take a british armed sloop then lying at st. john's. ticonderoga had not been many hours in possession of its captors when arnold again attempted to assume command, as no other officer had orders to show. but the soldiers refused to serve under him, declaring that they would go home rather than do so. to settle the question of authority, the committee issued a written order to colonel allen directing him to keep the command of said garrison for the use of the american colonies till further orders from the colony of connecticut or from the continental congress. the capture of the english sloop was now undertaken. arnold, in command of the schooner taken at skenesborough and now armed with a few light guns, and allen of a batteau, set forth on this enterprise, favored by a brisk south wind, more propitious to arnold than to his coadjutor, for it wafted his schooner so much more swiftly onward that he reached st. john's, made an easy capture of the larger and more heavily armed sloop, made prisoners of a sergeant and twelve men, and still favored by the wind, which now shifted to the north, was well on his way up the lake with his prize when he met allen's sluggish craft, some distance south of st. john's, and saluted him with a discharge of cannon. after responding with a rattling volley of small arms, allen and his party went on board the sloop, and further celebrated the successful issue of the expedition by toasting congress and the cause of the colonies in bumpers furnished forth from the ample stores of his majesty's navy. the vessels then pursued their way up the lake, past unfamiliar headlands and islands whose fringe of dark cedars was now half veiled in the misty green of the opening deciduous leaves, now sailing in mid-channel with low shores on either hand, on this la motte and grand isle, on that the pine-clad plains and valcour, the scene of arnold's future desperate naval fight, and now, when the isles of the four winds and solitary wajahose, far astern, hung between lake and sky, they hugged the cleft promontory of sobapsqua[64] and the rugged walls of the western shore, till bullwagga bay was opened and the battlements of crown point arose before them and their present voyage ended. the americans now had complete control of the lake, the only armed vessels afloat upon its waters, and all the forts except st. john's. yet for a time a greater value seemed to be attached to the cannon and stores received than to the military importance of the forts taken. after the capture of ticonderoga and crown point, more than a month passed in a wrangle of the commanders for the supremacy, and dissatisfaction and insubordination of the men, before the garrisons were effectively strengthened by a force of a thousand men under colonel hinman, who was put in command of the posts by the government of connecticut, to which, in the division of affairs, this quarter had been relegated. footnotes: [59] ethan allen. [60] mott's journal in chittenden's _capture of ticonderoga_. [61] allen's own accounts of the number do not agree. in his report to the albany committee he gives the number of prisoners taken as one captain and a lieutenant and forty-two men, while in his _narrative_ it "consisted of the said commander, a lieutenant, feltham, a conductor of artillery, a gunner, two sergeants, and forty-four rank and file." the first number, given in the report made on the day following the capture, is probably the correct one. [62] goodhue's _hist. of shoreham_. [63] ira allen's _history of vermont_. [64] "pass through the rock," split rock. chapter viii. green mountain boys in canada. on the 23d of june, 1775, the continental congress, recognizing the services of allen and his associates, voted to pay the men who had been employed in the taking and garrisoning of crown point and ticonderoga, and "recommended to the convention of new york that they, consulting with general schuyler, employ in the army to be raised for the defense of america, those called green mountain boys, under such officers as said green mountain boys shall choose." with a copy of these resolutions, and a letter from john hancock in his official capacity as president of congress, allen and warner presented themselves before the convention on the 4th of july. they were admitted in spite of the opposition of their old enemies, the speculators. acting upon this recommendation of congress, the convention ordered that an independent body of troops, not exceeding five hundred men including officers, be forthwith raised of those called green mountain boys, under officers of their own election. when this order, forwarded by general schuyler, was received in the grants, a convention of the town committees was called, which met at the house of mr. cephas kent, innholder, in the township of dorset, on the 26th of july, and, after electing a chairman and clerk, at once proceeded to elect the officers of the regiment. ethan allen, who had previously proposed to the new york convention a list of officers in which his name appeared first, followed next by warner's, now offered himself as a candidate for the lieutenant-colonelcy, which was the rank of the commander. but he received only five votes, while warner was given forty-one. as may well be imagined, he was greatly mortified by the result, which he charged to the old farmers who did not incline to go to war, while with the young green mountain boys he claimed to be a favorite.[65] though it seemed like a slight to the acknowledged leader of the green mountain boys to elect his junior and subordinate to the command of this regiment, if not an act of calm and dispassionate judgment, it was one of which future events proved the wisdom; for the less impetuous but no less brave warner was the safer commander in regular military operations. it is noticeable that neither baker, cockran, nor sunderland, allen's intimate associates in resistance to new york, was elected by the dorset convention, though they were on his list of proposed captains. a copy of the proceedings was forwarded to general schuyler, with a letter briefly setting forth that this action had been taken in compliance with the orders of congress and general schuyler's recommendation, in no wise acknowledging the authority of new york, but as independently as other colonies contributing a military force to the continental army. there were then no more regular troops in canada than served to garrison the posts, and the governor, general carleton, attempted to raise an army of canadians and indians for offensive operations, for the equipment of which 20,000 stand of arms had been sent from england. but the habitants had no stomach for fighting, and, though martial law was proclaimed, refused to arm for the invasion of the southern provinces, while they declared their willingness to defend their own. the governor urged the bishop of quebec to exercise his ecclesiastical authority to effect this purpose, but the prelate adroitly excused himself. an attempt was made, through the influence of the son of the late sir william johnson, to engage the indians in the contest, but they prudently declined to take part in it. of all the canadians, only the french _noblesse_ showed any willingness to support the governor, and they were too few to be of much account. the americans, apprised of these futile attempts, determined to invade canada before reinforcements should arrive from england. two thousand men were to be raised in new york and new england, and commanded by generals schuyler and montgomery. among the prizes secured by the capture of ticonderoga and crown point was a quantity of materials for boat-building, which now became available. with ready yankee aptitude, the soldiers turned their hands to the construction of batteaux for the transportation of the troops down the lake, and the surrounding forests rang for many a summer day with the busy stroke of axe and hammer. montgomery reached crown point in august, and upon receiving news that carleton was preparing for offensive operations, and had several armed vessels at st. john's ready to transport his forces up the lake, at once set forth with what troops had arrived. with sweep and sail, the lazy flotilla of batteaux was urged down the lake to isle la motte, where montgomery was joined by schuyler, who though ill had hastened on from albany. they then moved on to isle aux noix, and there so disposed their forces as to prevent the passage of the enemy's vessels. from this point they issued a proclamation to the canadians, assuring them that their army was not in any way directed against them, but against the british, and inviting them to join in the struggle for liberty. ethan allen, whose patriotic ardor had not been cooled by his recent rebuff, had, by invitation of the generals, accompanied them to isle aux noix. he held no commission, but was considered as an officer, and was upon occasion to be given the command of detachments. he was now employed, with major brown and accompanied by interpreters, to distribute this proclamation among the canadians, and satisfactorily performed the duties assigned him. on the 6th of september, the american army, not more than a thousand strong, advanced toward st. john's, and landed a mile and a half from the fort. this they found too strong to warrant an assault, and after a reconnoissance, in which they were attacked by a party of indians, and suffered a slight loss while inflicting a somewhat greater one, they withdrew next morning to the isle aux noix, to await the arrival of artillery and reinforcements. it was during these operations that the brave captain remember baker was killed. he was held in great esteem by his friends, and his death, being the first that occurred in the military operations in this quarter, created more stir, says ira allen, than the death of a thousand later in the war. montgomery's reinforcements having arrived, he again moved upon st. john's on the 17th, and laid siege to the place, but, with his undisciplined troops and slender supply of ammunition, his progress was slow. parties were sent out through the country, and were favorably received by the canadians, who contributed men and provisions, the latter the more valuable contribution. at this time, much against his wishes, for he would rather have taken part in the siege, ethan allen was dispatched by montgomery on a mission similar to that in which he was previously engaged. with a guard of about eighty men, mostly canadians, he passed through the parishes on the richelieu and up the st. lawrence to longueuil, "preaching politics," as he says, and meeting "with good success as an itinerant." on his way thence to la prairie, he fell in with major brown, who was out on the same errand, and now proposed to allen that they should attempt the capture of montreal. his plan was, that allen should return to longueuil, and, there procuring canoes, cross his men to the island of montreal, a little below the town; while brown, with about 200 men, should cross above it. allen readily fell in with it, and, making haste back to longueuil, obtained a few boats and collected about thirty recruits. in the course of the night he got his party across the river, and, setting a guard between his position and the town, with orders to let no one pass, awaited the signal which brown was to give when he had effected a crossing. allen waited with growing impatience, while daylight grew and sunrise came. all the world began to be astir, and yet brown made no sign. unsupported as he now found himself, he was in sorry plight, and would have recrossed the river, but he had only boats enough to transport a third of his force at a time, and the attempt would certainly result in the capture of the other two thirds. he determined to maintain his ground if possible, and that, in any event, all should fare alike. he dispatched messengers to brown at la prairie, and to l'assomption, to a mr. walker, who was in the interest of the americans, urging them to hasten to his aid. montreal was already alarmed, and the governor and his party were preparing to retire on board the vessels of war, when a spy, who had escaped from allen's guards, brought them information of allen's condition. upon this, carleton marched out to attack the presumptuous invader, with forty regulars and "a mixed multitude" of canadians, english, and indians, numbering nearly 500, and allen perceived that it would be a "day of trouble if not of rebuke."[66] about two o'clock in the afternoon, the british force began firing from the cover of woodpiles, ditches, and buildings, allen's men returning the fusillade from positions quite as favorable, till near half the enemy began a flank movement on their right. observing this, allen dispatched half his force, under a volunteer named dugan, to occupy a ditch on their flank; but dugan took the opportunity to escape with his detachment, as did one young, posted on the other flank with a small force, and allen was left with only forty-five men, some of whom were wounded. he began a hopeless retreat, which was continued for a while. an officer pressing close upon the rear fired his gun at allen, the ball whistling past his head. allen's shot in turn missed his enemy, as both were out of breath with running. allen now offered to surrender if assured of quarter for himself and his men, which was promised by this officer. whereupon allen gave up his sword and surrendered his party, dwindled to thirty-eight, seven of whom were wounded. a painted and half-naked indian rushed toward them, and within a few yards aimed his gun at allen, who, seizing the officer to whom he had delivered his sword, made a shield of him, and kept him spinning around, as the indian swiftly circled about the two, in a vain attempt to fire a shot that should kill only the green mountain boy. another indian then took part in the attack, and allen's shrift would have been short, had not an irishman and a canadian come to his rescue. he was then well treated by his captors, walking to the town between a british officer and a french gentleman, who, though he had lost an eyebrow in the action, "was very merry and facetious." but when general prescott, who throughout the war never missed an opportunity of exhibiting his brutality, met them at the barracks and learned that the prisoner was the captor of ticonderoga, he showered a torrent of abuse upon him, while he shook his cane over his head. allen shook his fist at the general, and told him "that was the beetle of mortality for him if he offered to strike." an officer whispered to prescott that it was inconsistent with his honor to strike a prisoner. prescott turned his wrath upon the canadians, and ordered a sergeant's guard to kill thirteen of them; and when allen had somewhat dramatically but successfully interposed to save their lives, prescott roared at him, with an oath, "i will not execute you now, but you shall grace a halter at tyburn!" by prescott's orders he was taken on board a vessel of war and manacled like a common felon, and presently, with other prisoners, was sent to england. landing at falmouth, clad in the fawn-skin jacket and red woolen cap that he wore when taken, his strange appearance excited a curiosity that not a little gratified him. from his capture till he was exchanged in 1778, he suffered on shipboard and in prison, with brief intervals of kinder treatment, a hard and cruel captivity, from which he emerged, however, with a spirit unsubdued, and unswerving loyalty to his country's cause. the attempt upon montreal has generally been characterized as rash; yet, if brown had not, for some unexplained reason, failed to perform his part in it, it is more than probable the undertaking would have succeeded. it was one of those daring enterprises which if successful receive the highest praise, if unsuccessful are scouted as foolhardy. meanwhile the siege of st. john's progressed slowly, principally through lack of ammunition. but on the 18th of october the fort at chambly, further down the river, and garrisoned by about 100 men of the british seventh regiment, surrendered to majors brown and livingston, and among the most important of its captured stores were 120 barrels of gunpowder, which enabled montgomery to push the siege with more vigor. as gratifying if not as useful was the capture of the colors of the regiment, the first trophy of the kind received by the continental congress. general carleton was making all possible efforts for the relief of st. john's, whose garrison of 500 regulars and about 200 other troops was bravely defending it. he had collected a force of 800 regulars, militia, and indians, which he embarked at montreal, with the design of landing at longueuil and joining colonel mclean at the mouth of the richelieu, where that officer was posted with a few hundred scotch emigrants and some canadians. colonel seth warner with 300 green mountain boys was keeping close watch of carleton's movements, and when the flotilla drew near the south shore of the st. lawrence, the rangers poured upon it a destructive volley of small-arms and a shower of grapeshot from a four-pounder. carleton's force retired in confusion, and when mclean's canadians got news of the disaster they took french leave of him, and he with his scotchmen retired in haste to quebec. left now without hope of relief, st. john's capitulated on the 3d of november, and a considerable number of cannon, a quantity of military stores, and 600 prisoners fell into the hands of the americans. the prisoners were sent by way of ticonderoga into the interior of new england. montgomery now marched to montreal, which carleton had secretly quitted the night before. the inhabitants proposed a capitulation, which montgomery refused, as they were incapable of making any defense. promising them perfect protection of person and property, he marched his army into the place, and took peaceable possession on the 13th. colonel easton had been sent with a detachment to the mouth of the richelieu, where he erected a battery of two guns, and, being reinforced by a gunboat from st. john's on the 17th, he captured, as they attempted to pass on their way to quebec, eleven sail of armed vessels freighted with provisions and military stores, and having on board general prescott and 120 officers and privates. the term of enlistment of warner's men having now expired, they presently returned to their homes, not long after to be recalled, with their leader, in the stress of the northern winter, by the urgent appeal of the commander of the army in canada. during the occurrence of these events, arnold was engaged in his memorable expedition against quebec by way of the kennebec. arriving at the mouth of that river on the 20th of september, he set forth with an army of 1,100 men, embarked in heavy batteaux, to voyage up the wild stream where hitherto had floated only the light craft of the indian, the scout, and the hunter. battling with dogged persistence against the angry rush of rapids, and now dragging their bulky craft over portages of swamp or rugged steeps, they made their slow and weary progress through the heart of the pitiless wilderness at the rate, at best, of little more than four miles a day. through constant strain of toil and hardship many fell sick, and in the passage of the rapids much of their provisions was lost, so that the horror of starvation was added to the heavy measure of their suffering. men killed and ate their dogs, or gnawed their shoes and the leather of their cartouch boxes, to allay the pangs of hunger. when the head of the kennebec was reached, colonel enos, who was ordered to send back the sick, himself went off with three companies, a council of his officers having decided that it was impossible to proceed, for lack of provisions. but arnold, with his remaining force, held on his way with desperate determination, and, coming to the chaudière, followed it till on the 3d of november they came to the first house that they had seen for a month, and there procured some supplies. at sortigan, the first village reached, they were kindly received by the canadians and bountifully supplied with provisions. a proclamation prepared by washington was distributed among the canadians. it invited them to join the americans and assured them protection of person, property, and religion, and was well received by them. with the aid which these people afforded, arnold made an easy march to point levi, arriving there on the 9th with about 700 men. twenty-four hours passed before his coming was known in quebec. there was such dissension among the british inhabitants in consequence of the opposition of the english merchants to the quebec bill, that the city was in no condition for defense. the french citizens had no inclination to take up arms against the americans; and had arnold the means of transportation across the broad st. lawrence, it is probable that he might easily have taken the city. three days later colonel mclean arrived there with 170 of his regiment of scotch emigrants, and at nine in the evening of the next day arnold began embarking his men in canoes. by four in the morning 500 were landed at wolfe's cove, whence they marched to the plains of abraham. when arnold's landing became known in the city, sailors were brought on shore from the ships to man the guns of the fortifications; the loyal citizens became more confident of making a successful defense, and when arnold sent a flag with a summons to surrender, it was fired upon. he was not strong enough to strike; he could but menace; and when menace failed to intimidate the enemy, there was nothing for him but to retire. therefore he withdrew to pointe aux trembles, seven leagues above quebec, on the left bank of the st. lawrence. there, on the 1st of december, he was joined by montgomery, who had marched his little force of 300 men with all possible celerity through the half-frozen mire of roads wretched at best, and in the blinding snowstorms of a winter already rigorous in that climate. three armed schooners had also arrived with ammunition, clothing, and provisions. on the 5th the little army, less than a thousand strong, appeared before quebec, now garrisoned by more than 1,500 men of mclean's regiment, regulars, seamen, marines, and militia. montgomery opened an ineffectual fire on the town from two small batteries of mortar and cannon. an assault was determined upon, and on the last day of the year, under the thick veil of a downfall of snow, the troops made the assault in four columns at as many points. the attack of two columns was a feint against the upper town. montgomery and arnold led the actual assault of the other two against the lower town, and gained some advantages. montgomery was killed, and his corps of 200 swept back by a storm of grape and musket balls poured upon them from the second barrier. arnold was carried from the field with a leg shattered in a successful attack upon a battery, and his column of 300, after a desperate fight of three hours, was overwhelmed by the whole force of the british now turned upon it, and it was obliged to surrender. the command now devolved upon arnold, and the troops, reduced to 400, withdrew three miles from the city, and there maintained a partial blockade of it.[67] general wooster, in command at montreal, sent expresses to washington, schuyler, and congress, and on the 6th of january wrote to colonel warner urging him to raise and send on the more readily available green mountain boys, "by tens, twenties, thirties, forties, or fifties, as fast as they could be collected." the response to his call was prompt. in eleven days warner mustered his men, and despite the rigors of the northern winter, whose bitterness they had so often tasted, they marched in snow and pinching cold to the assistance of their brethren in canada, and their alacrity called forth the approval of washington and schuyler.[68] the offensive operations of the americans in canada were thereafter feeble and ineffectual. reinforcements had arrived, but smallpox was raging in the camp, so that when general thomas took command on the 14th of may there were less than 900 men fit for duty. in this condition, and with only three days' provisions remaining, an immediate retreat was decided upon by a council of war. this became precipitate when three english ships of war arrived and landed more than a thousand marines and regulars, and general carleton marched out with 800 regulars against the americans, already in retreat. artillery, stores, and baggage were abandoned, and the troops scattered in flight, the general being able to collect no more than 300 of them. by day and night they retreated nearly fifty miles before they halted, when, being beyond immediate reach of the enemy, they rested a few days and then marched to sorel, in sorry plight, worn with disease, fatigue, and hunger. for the most part, the canadians proved but fair-weather friends, and gave them little aid now that the fortune of war no longer favored them. general thomas died here of smallpox, and general sullivan took command. after the cowardly surrender by major beadle of his force of nearly 400 posted at the cedars, a small fort on the st. lawrence, to captain foster, with a detachment of 40 regulars, 100 canadians, and 500 indians, without artillery, and the disastrous failure of general thompson with 1,800 men to surprise the british advance at trois rivières, all the american troops began a retreat from canada, where an army of 13,000 english and german troops were now arrived. arnold, who had been in command at montreal since the 1st of april, crossed the st. lawrence at longueuil on the 15th of june, and marched to chambly, whence the army continued its retreat in good order, first to isle aux noix and then to crown point. during the withdrawal of the army from canada, the services of warner and his green mountain boys again became conspicuous. following in the rear, but little in advance of the pursuing enemy, he was chiefly employed in gathering up the sick and wounded. some straggling in the woods, some sheltered in the garlick-reeking cabins of the least unfriendly habitants, he succeeded in bringing a great number of them to isle aux noix. thence embarked, in leaky open boats, the wretched invalids voyaged to crown point, their misery mocked by the brightness of the june skies, the beauty of the shores clad in the luxuriant leafage of early summer, and the glitter of the sunlit waters. the condition of the broken army gathered at crown point was miserable in the extreme. more than half of the 5,200 men were sick, and those reported fit for duty were weak and half clad, broken in spirit and discipline. a few were in tents, some in poor sheds, while the greater part had only the shelter of bush huts. colonel trumbull says: "i did not look into a tent or hut in which i did not find either a dead or dying man." more than 300 new-made graves marked the brief tarry of the troops at crown point. those whom colonel warner did not succeed in bringing off, and who fell into general carleton's hands, were treated by him with the greatest kindness. so closed this unprofitable campaign, in whose prosecution such heroism had been expended in vain, such valuable lives wasted. beginning with a series of successes, it ended in disaster, and was fortunate only in that it did not achieve the conquest of a province to hold which would have required the presence of an army that could ill be spared elsewhere,--a province which was chiefly peopled by a race alien in language and religion, too abject to strike for its own freedom, and so priest-ridden and steeped in ignorance that its incorporation with it could prove but a curse to the young republic. footnotes: [65] _governor and council_, vol. i. p. 6. [66] allen's _narrative_. [67] williams, vol. ii. [68] hall's _early history of vermont_. chapter ix. lake champlain. general gates having been appointed to the command of the northern army, general sullivan resigned it to him on the 12th of july, receiving the thanks of his officers and the approval of congress for the ability with which he had conducted the retreat. in conformity to the decision of a council of war, general gates withdrew his troops from crown point, where not a cannon was mounted, to ticonderoga, and began strengthening the works there and erecting new ones upon a hill on the opposite side of the lake. while this new work, a star fort, was in progress, news came of the declaration of independence, and in honor of the event the place was named mount independence. the smallpox patients were removed to a hospital at fort george, and the recruits, now coming in considerable numbers, were assembled at skenesborough. the construction of vessels of war, wherewith to keep control of the lake, was now entered upon. in spite of the difficulties attending their construction in a place so remote from all supplies but timber, and that green in the forest, the work was pushed so vigorously that before the end of august one sloop, three schooners, and five gondolas were ready for service, mounting fifty-five, twelve, nine, and six pounders and seventy swivels. these were manned by 395 men, old sea-dogs drifted to inland waters, and unsalted navigators of lakes and rivers, "a miserable set," arnold wrote to gates. in the latter part of august the fleet sailed down the lake under the command of arnold, and, when soon after reinforced by a cutter, three galleys, and three gunboats, amounted to fifteen sail. at the north end of the lake, the british were as busy in constructing and assembling a fleet. six armed vessels, built in england especially for this service, could not be got over the rapids at chambly, and were taken to pieces, transported above this obstruction, and reconstructed. the largest of these, the intrepid, was completed in twenty-eight days from the laying of the keel. several gondolas,--a sort of long, narrow, flat-bottomed craft,--thirty longboats, and 400 batteaux were hauled up the rapids by the amphibious canadians, with an immense expenditure of toil and vociferous jabber. by the 1st of october the fleet was ready to enter the lake, and consisted of the inflexible, carrying eighteen guns; the schooners, maria and carleton, carrying fourteen and twelve respectively; and the thunderer, a floating battery of raft-like construction, mounting six twenty-fours, as many sixes, and two howitzers; with a number of gondolas, gunboats, and longboats, each carrying one gun. it was manned by 700 experienced seamen, and commanded by captain pringle. in opposing this formidable fleet, so vastly superior in all its appointments, in everything but the bravery of officers and men, the odds were fearfully against the americans, but the intrepid arnold did not hesitate to accept the chances. the sails of the british squadron were whitening the lake beyond cumberland head when arnold disposed his vessels behind the island of valcour, where, screened from sight of the main channel by woods whose gorgeous leafage was yet unthinned by the frosty touch that painted it, he awaited the approach of the enemy. sailing past the island, the british discovered the little fleet of the americans, and, conscious of their own superiority, at once advanced to the attack from the southward; but the wind, which before had favored them, was now against them. the flagship inflexible, and some others of the larger vessels, could not be brought into action, and the carleton and the gunboats took the brunt of the battle. for four hours the fierce fight raged, sustained with the utmost bravery by both combatants. the forests were shaken with the unwonted thunder, whose roar was heard at crown point, forty miles away, and the autumnal haze grew thick with sulphurous smoke. general waterbury, commanding the washington galley, was in the hottest of it, and only brought his shattered vessel out of the fight when all but two of his officers were killed or wounded. one of the american schooners was burnt, a gondola sunk, and several other vessels much injured; while the british had two gondolas sunk, and one blown up with sixty men on board. toward nightfall, captain pringle withdrew the vessels engaged, and anchored his whole fleet across the channel to prevent the escape of the americans. escape was all that arnold hoped for now, and in the darkness of night he silently got his vessels around the north end of valcour,[69] and, making all speed southward, was out of sight of his enemy when daylight came. the british gave chase, and overtaking the americans at split rock, about noon of the 13th, at once began firing on them. the sorely crippled washington was forced to strike her colors after receiving a few broadsides. arnold fought his flagship, the congress galley, with desperate courage, while, within musket-shot, the inflexible poured broadsides into her, and two schooners raked her from astern. he effectually covered the retreat of his escaping vessels with the congress and four gondolas, and then ran ashore in the shoal head of a little bay on the eastern side of the lake. he set fire to the vessels, and keeping his flag flying on the congress, which he did not quit till she was enveloped in flames, got all his men landed but one wounded lieutenant, who, forgotten in the confusion, was blown up with his vessel. of the american fleet, only two galleys, two schooners, a sloop, and gondola had escaped; and toward ticonderoga, whither these had fled, arnold retreated with his stranded crews, barely escaping an indian ambuscade. joined by the few and now defenseless settlers, they toiled along the rough forest road, behind them rolling the irregular boom of the cannon, exploding as the fire heated them, and at intervals the thunder of a bursting magazine. throughout that long, unequal combat, as in many another in the same good cause, arnold bore himself with cool, intrepid valor, still preserved by an unkind fate from honorable death to achieve everlasting infamy. the land-locked bay, where may yet be seen the oaken skeletons of his brave little craft,[70] bears his name, nowhere else honorably commemorated in all his native land. general carleton, who accompanied the british fleet, gave orders that the prisoners taken should be treated with the greatest kindness. he himself praised their bravery, and sent them home on parole. by this politic course he so won their esteem, that it was deemed impolitic to permit them to mingle with the troops at ticonderoga, and they were sent on to skenesborough. following close on the heels of the victorious fleet came the swarming transports bearing general carleton's army, with the intention of moving at once upon ticonderoga. crown point was no longer an obstacle, for when news of the disaster of their fleet was brought to that post, the americans set fire to the place, destroyed everything that could not be removed, and withdrew to the main army holding ticonderoga. but the wind, which had been a fickle ally of the english since they began this invasion, again turned against them from the south on the 14th, and held stiffly in that quarter for eight days. general carleton's transports could make no headway against it up the narrow waterway, and he was obliged to land his forces at crown point. thence he sent reconnoitring parties on both sides of the lake toward ticonderoga, and some vessels up the channel, sounding it within cannon-shot of the fort. meanwhile gates's army made most of the time given by the kindly autumnal gale. the works were strengthened and surrounded by an abatis. in these eight days, carriages were built for forty-seven pieces of cannon and the guns mounted; while reinforcements that came in, and sick men recovered, swelled the army to 1,200 strong. carleton's opportunity for an easy conquest of ticonderoga was past, and his reconnoissances gave him no encouragement to attempt an assault. therefore, after tarrying at the fire-scathed fortress till past the middle of november, when the wild geese were flying southward over the gray and desolate forests, and the herbage of the clearings was seared by the touch of many frosts, he reëmbarked his army and returned to canada. general gates at once dismissed the militia, active military operations ceased in this quarter, and the northern armies of america and great britain began their hibernation. footnotes: [69] there are conflicting statements concerning arnold's course in eluding the british fleet. according to some authorities he slipped directly through the enemy's line under cover of thick darkness; others state circumstantially that he escaped around the north end of valcour, and this unobstructed course certainly seems the one which would naturally be taken, instead of attempting the almost impossible feat of passing through a fleet that guarded the channel, barely half a mile in width. [70] years afterward, a brass gun was raised from one of these wrecks, and played its part in gaining the naval victory at plattsburgh. chapter x. vermont an independent commonwealth. at the beginning of the revolution, the people of the new hampshire grants were without a regular form of government, for the greater part of them had long refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the royal government of new york, and were now as little disposed to compromise their asserted rights by acknowledging the authority of that province when it had taken its place among the united colonies in revolt against great britain. such government as existed was vested in committees of safety, but these, whether of greater or lesser scope, were without recognized power to enforce their decrees upon the respectable minority which still adhered to new york. under these circumstances a convention, warned by the committee of safety of arlington, met at dorset, january 16, 1776, at the "house of cephas kent, innholder." persons were appointed to represent the case of the grants before congress by a "remonstrance and petition." this stated that inhabitants of the grants were willing, as heretofore, to do all in their power for the common cause, but were not willing to act under the authority of new york, lest it might be deemed an acknowledgment of its claims and prejudicial to their own, and desired to perform military service as inhabitants of the grants instead of new york. upon the return of heman allen, who duly presented the memorial to congress, a second convention was held in july at the same place, thirty-two towns being represented by forty-nine delegates. allen reported that congress, after hearing their petition, ordered it to lie upon the table for further consideration, but that he withdrew it, lest the opposing new york delegates should bring the matter to final decision when no delegate from the grants was present. several members of congress and other gentlemen, in private conversation, advised the people of the grants to do their utmost to repel invasions of the enemy, but by no means to act under the authority of new york; while the committee of congress to whom the matter was referred, while urging them to the same exertions, advised them, for the present, to submit to new york, saying this submission ought not to prejudice their right to the lands in question. the convention resolved at once "that application be made to the inhabitants of said grants, to form the same into a separate district." the convention laconically declared that "the spirited conflict," which had so long continued between the grants and new york, rendered it "inconvenient in many respects to associate with that province." but, to prove their readiness to join in the common defense of america, they, with one exception only, subscribed to the following association: "we the subscribers inhabitants of that district of land, commonly called and known by the name of the new hampshire grants, do voluntarily and solemnly engage under all the ties held sacred amongst mankind at the risque of our lives and fortunes to defend, by arms, the united american states against the hostile attempts of the british fleets and armies, until the present unhappy controversy between the two countries shall be settled." the convention invited all the inhabitants to subscribe to this "association," and resolved that any who should unite with a similar one under the authority of new york should be deemed an enemy to the cause of the grants. persons were appointed to procure the signature of every male inhabitant of sixteen years upwards, both on the east and west sides of the green mountains. thus the convention took the first formal steps toward severing the connection with new york, and uniting all the towns within the grants in a common league. only one town on the east side of the mountains was represented in this meeting; but pains were taken to confer with those inhabitants, and at the adjourned session, in september, ten eastern towns were represented. at this session it was voted that the inhabitants should be governed by the resolves of this or a similar convention "not repugnant to the resolves of congress," and that in future no law or direction received from new york should be accepted or obeyed. the power was assumed of regulating the militia, and furnishing troops for the common defense. for the especial safe-keeping of tories, a jail was ordered to be built at manchester. it was to be constructed with double walls of logs, eighteen inches apart, the space to be filled with earth to the height of seven feet, "floored with logs double." the convention appointed a "committee of war," vested with power to call out the militia for the defense of the grants or any part of the continent. fines were exacted from every officer and private who should not comply with the orders of the convention; and each non-commissioned officer and private was required to "provide himself with a suitable gun and one pound of powder, four pounds of bullets fit for his gun, six flints, a powder horn, cartouch box or bullet pouch, a sword, bayonet, or tomahawk." the convention adjourned to meet at westminster on the 30th of october. when that day arrived, the country was in great alarm from the disaster to the american fleet on lake champlain, and carleton's advance toward ticonderoga. the militia was hurrying to the defense of that fortress, and many delegates were kept at home by the impending need of protection for their families. owing to these circumstances, the few who met could not be informed of the minds of the people, and it adjourned to the 15th of january, 1777. during this interim, the popular sentiment had so rapidly ripened for the proposed separation that, when the convention met, little time was spent in debate before the adoption of a declaration of the independence of the new hampshire grants. as revised for publication it is as follows: "we will at all times hereafter, consider ourselves as a free and independent state, capable of regulating our internal police in all and every respect whatsoever, and that the people on said grants have the sole and exclusive and inherent right of ruling and governing themselves in such manner and form as in their own wisdom they shall think proper, not inconsistent or repugnant to any resolve of the honorable continental congress. "furthermore, we declare by all the ties which are held sacred among men, that we will firmly stand by and support one another in this our declaration of a state, and in endeavoring as much as in us lies to suppress all unlawful routs and disturbances whatever. also we will endeavor to secure to every individual his life, peace, and property against all unlawful invaders of the same. "lastly, we hereby declare, that we are at all times ready, in conjunction with our brethren in the united states of america, to do our full proportion in maintaining and supporting the just war against the tyrannical invasions of the ministerial fleets and armies, as well as any other foreign enemies, sent with express purpose to murder our fellow brethren and with fire and sword to ravage our defenseless country. "the said state hereafter to be called by the name of new connecticut." this bold and decisive act, by which a free and independent commonwealth was erected, was with eminent fitness consummated in the court-house at westminster, a place already consecrated to the cause of liberty by the blood of william french, who, less than two years before, had fallen there in defense of the people's rights. a "declaration and petition," announcing the step taken and asking that the new state might be "ranked among the free and independent american states," was prepared and sent to congress. the action of the people of the grants was received in a not unfriendly spirit by the new england states; but new york at once made an earnest protest to congress against it, and demanded the recall of the commission of colonel warner authorizing him to raise a continental regiment in the disaffected district, emphasizing the demand by reminding congress of warner's outlawry by the "late government." considering the attitude of congress and all the colonies toward the royal source of the "late government" of new york, this seems an absurd argument for the recall of warner's commission. fortunately for the cause which that brave officer so faithfully and efficiently served, the insolent demand was not complied with. the adjourned convention met at windsor in june with seventy-two delegates from fifty towns. one of their earliest transactions was to relieve the young state from the ridiculous name which was first bestowed upon it. it was discovered that a district lying on the susquehanna was already known as new connecticut, whereupon the convention rechristened the infant state "vermont." this most befitting name was suggested by dr. thomas young of philadelphia, a firm friend of the defenders of the grants. in the previous april he had addressed a circular letter to them, advising them to act in accordance with a resolution of congress passed in may, 1776, which recommended to the respective assemblies of the united colonies, where no sufficient government had been established, to adopt such government as should appear to the representatives of the people most conducive to the happiness and safety of their constituents. he advised a general convention of delegates from all the towns to form a constitution for the state, to choose a committee of safety, and also delegates to congress, declaring congress could not refuse to admit their delegates. "you have," said he, "as good a right to say how you will be governed, and by whom, as they had." dr. young's letter called forth another earnest protest from new york to congress, and that body declared that the action of the people of the grants was not countenanced by any of its acts. the petition of vermont was dismissed, the commission of warner apologized for, and dr. young censured for a "gross misrepresentation of the resolution of congress" referred to in his letter. dr. young recommended to the new commonwealth, as a model for a constitution, that of pennsylvania, an instrument whose essential features originated in penn's "frame of government" of that province. his advice was followed, and a very similar constitution was adopted early in july, 1777. when, for this purpose, after a short adjournment, the convention met at the windsor meeting-house, all vermont was in alarm at the british invasion which was sweeping upon its western border. almost at first the attention of the delegates was called to the impending peril of ticonderoga by an appeal for aid from colonel warner. this was at once forwarded to the assembly of new hampshire, and such measures as seemed best, which elicited the warm thanks of general st. clair, were taken by the convention for the relief of the threatened fortress. some of the members, among whom was the president, the patriotic joseph bowker of rutland, whose families were in exposed situations, were now anxious for an adjournment; but a furious thunder-storm came roaring up the connecticut valley, and the storm-bound convention took up its appointed work, reading and adopting, one by one, the articles of the constitution amid the turmoil of the tempest. to the first section of the declaration of rights, which announced that "glittering generality," the natural rights of man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, this specific clause was added: "therefore no male person born in this country, or brought from over sea, ought to be holden by law to serve any person as a servant, slave, or apprentice after he arrives to the age of twenty-one years, nor female in like manner after she arrives to the age of eighteen years, unless they are bound by their own consent after they arrive to such age, or bound by law for the payment of debts, damages, fines, costs, or the like." "vermont was thus the first of the states to prohibit slavery by constitutional provision, a fact of which vermonters may well be proud," says hiland hall in his "early history." religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press, were also established. the form of government was thoroughly democratic. every man of the full age of twenty-one years, who had resided in the state for one year, was given the elective franchise, and was eligible to any office in the state. the legislative power was vested in a single assembly of members chosen annually by ballot. each town was to have one representative, and towns having more than eighty taxable inhabitants were entitled to two. the executive authority was in a governor, lieutenant-governor, and twelve councillors, elected annually by all the freemen in the state. they had no negative power, but it was provided that "all bills of a public nature should be laid before them, for their perusal and proposals of amendment," before they were finally debated in the general assembly. such bills were to be printed for the information of the people, and not to be enacted into laws until the next session of the assembly. "temporary acts" in cases of "sudden emergency" might, however, be passed without this delay. compliance with this article was found so difficult that nearly all laws were treated as temporary, and declared permanent at the next session. bills could originate in the council as well as in the house of assembly; and in cases of disagreement between the two bodies upon any measure, it was usually discussed in grand committee composed of both, the governor presiding. the final disposition of a measure was according to the pleasure of the house, but the advisory power of the governor and council was a strong check upon hasty legislation. in 1786 the provision for printing and postponing the passage of laws was expunged, and the governor and council were authorized to suspend the operation of a bill until the next session of the legislature, when, to become a law, it must again be passed by the assembly. judges of inferior courts, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and judges of probate were elected by the freemen of the respective counties, to hold office during good behavior, removable by the assembly on proof of maladministration. the mode of choosing judges of superior courts was left to the discretion of the legislature, and they were elected annually by joint ballot of the council and assembly. when the constitution was revised in 1786, it was provided that county officers should be annually chosen in the same manner. the constitution provided for an election, by the freemen of the state, of a council of censors, consisting of thirteen members, first to be chosen on the last wednesday of march, 1785, and thereafter on the same day in every seventh year. it was the duty of this body to inquire whether the constitution had been preserved inviolate, and whether the legislature and executive branches of government had performed their duty as guardians of the people, or had assumed greater powers than they were constitutionally entitled to. they were to inquire whether public taxes had been justly laid and collected, in what manner the public moneys had been disposed of, and whether the laws had been duly executed. the council was also empowered to call a convention, to meet within two years after their sitting, if there appeared to them an absolute necessity of any change in the constitution, the proposed changes to be promulgated at least six months before the election of such convention, for the previous consideration of the people. this provision of the constitution, though useless if no worse, was nevertheless a great favorite of the people of vermont, and remained a prominent and unique feature of that instrument till 1870, when it was abrogated by the last convention called by a council of censors. "this frame of government," writes hiland hall of the early constitution, "continued in operation long after the state had become a member of the federal union, furnishing the people with as much security for their persons and property as was enjoyed by those of other states, and allowing to each individual citizen all the liberty which was consistent with the welfare of others." such are the main features of the vermont constitution established by the windsor convention. an election of state officers was ordered to be held in the ensuing december, to be followed by a meeting of the legislature in january, and a council of safety was appointed to manage the affairs of the state during the intervening time. chapter xi. ticonderoga; hubbardton. notwithstanding all that sir guy carleton had accomplished in driving the american army from canada, and regaining control of lake champlain as far as ticonderoga, his management of the campaigns had not fully satisfied the ministry. he was blamed for dismissing his indian allies when he found it impossible to prevent their killing and scalping of prisoners; and he was blamed that, with a well-appointed army of invincible britons, he had not in one campaign utterly destroyed or dispersed the rabble rout of colonial rebels. consequently the command of the army in canada, designed for offensive operations, was given to sir john burgoyne, a court favorite; while carleton, the far abler general, was left in command only of the 3,700 troops reserved for the defense of the province. in june, burgoyne's army of more than 7,000 regular troops embarked at st. john's, and made undisputed progress up the lake to the mouth of the bouquet. here it encamped on the deserted estate of william gilliland, who had bought an immense tract in this region and made a settlement at the falls of the bouquet in 1765, but was obliged to abandon it during the war. at this place the indians were assembled, iroquois and waubanakees gathered under one banner, and alike hungry for scalps and plunder. burgoyne addressed them in a grandiloquent speech, modeled in the supposed style of aboriginal eloquence, exhorting them to deeds of valor, to be tempered with a humanity impossible to the savages, and was briefly answered by an old chief of the iroquois. moving forward to crown point, the army briefly rested there before advancing upon ticonderoga. the general issued a proclamation to the inhabitants, inviting all who would to join him, and offering protection to such as remained quietly at their homes, and in no way obstructed the operations of his army, or assisted his enemies; while those who did not accept his clemency were threatened with the horrors of indian warfare. having delivered himself of speech and proclamation, burgoyne continued his advance on ticonderoga. the post was not in the best condition for defense, as general schuyler, now commanding the northern department, discovered when visiting it while burgoyne was airing his eloquence at the bouquet. the old french lines had been somewhat strengthened, and block-houses built on the right and left of them. more labor had been expended on the defenses of mount independence, a water battery erected at the fort, and another battery half way up the declivity. communication between the forts was maintained by a bridge thrown across the lake, consisting of twenty-two piers, connected by floats fifty feet long and twenty wide. on the lower side, this bridge was protected by a boom of immense timbers fastened together by double chains of inch and a half square iron. to garrison these extensive works, general st. clair, now the commander of ticonderoga, had but few more than 2,500 continental troops, and 900 poorly armed and equipped militia. he had been unwilling to call in more of the militia, for fear of a failure of supplies. but a danger more potent than the weakness of the garrison lurked in the silent heights of sugar loaf hill, now better known as mount defiance, that, westward from ticonderoga, and overlooking it and all its outworks, bars the horizon with rugged steeps of rock and sharp incline of woodland. colonel john trumbull, of revolutionary and artistic fame, had suggested to general gates the advisability of fortifying it, saying that it commanded both ticonderoga and mount independence. the idea was ridiculed, and he obtained leave to test the truth of his assertion. a shot from a twelve-pounder on mount independence struck half way up the mountain, and a six-pound shot fired from the glacis of ticonderoga struck near the summit. yet the americans did not occupy it then, nor now, though a consultation was held concerning it. it was decided that there were not men enough to spare for the purpose from the fortifications already established. st. clair hoped, moreover, that burgoyne would choose rather to assault than besiege his position, and an assault he thought he might successfully repel. the general convention now sitting at windsor sent colonel mead, james mead, ira allen, and captain salisbury to consult with the commander of ticonderoga on the defense of the frontier. while this committee was there, general burgoyne advanced up the lake, and during his stay at crown point sent a force of 300, most of whom were indians, to the mouth of otter creek to raid upon the settlers. the committee was refused any troops for the defense of the frontiers, but colonel warner was allowed to go with them, and presently raised men enough to repel this invasion. on the 1st of july warner wrote from rutland to the convention that the enemy had come up the lake with seventeen or eighteen gunboats, two large ships, and other craft, and an attack was expected every hour; that he was ordered to call out the militia of vermont, massachusetts, and new hampshire, to join him as soon as possible, and desired them to call out the militia on the east side of the mountain, and to send forty or fifty head of beef cattle for ticonderoga. "i shall be glad," he writes in conclusion, "if a few hills of corn unhoed should not be a motive sufficient to detain men at home, considering the loss of such an important post might be irretrievable." in view of the impending invasion of the british, the convention appointed a day of fasting and prayer, but this pious measure had no apparent effect on the movements of the enemy, and burgoyne continued to advance. his army moved forward on either side of the lake, the war-craft to an anchorage just out of range of the guns of ticonderoga and mount independence. the americans abandoned and set on fire the block-houses and sawmills towards lake george, with which the communications were now cut off. on the 2d of july a british force of 500, commanded by frazier, attacked and drove in the american pickets, and, the right wing moving up, took possession of mount hope. st. clair expected an assault, and ordered his men to conceal themselves behind the breastworks, and reserve their fire. frazier's force, not perceiving the position of the americans, screened as it was by bushes, continued to advance till an american soldier fired his musket, when the whole line delivered a random volley, followed by a thunderous discharge of artillery, all without orders, and without effect but to kill one of the assailants, and raise a cloud of smoke that hung in the hot, breathless air till the assailants had escaped behind it out of range. the possibilities of mount defiance had not escaped the eyes of the british engineers, and they were at once accepted. general phillips set himself to the task of making a road up the rocky declivities, over which heavy siege guns were already being hauled. when, on the morning of the 5th of july, the sun's first rays shot far above the shadowed valley, they lighted to a ruddier glow the scarlet uniforms of a swarm of british soldiers on the bald summit, busy in the construction of a battery. st. clair called a council of his officers, and it was decided that it was impossible to hold the place, and the only safety of the army was in immediate evacuation. this was undertaken that night. the baggage, stores, and all the artillery that could be got away, embarked on 200 batteaux, set forth for skenesborough under the convoy of five galleys. the main army was to march to castleton, and thence to skenesborough. at two o'clock on the morning of the 6th of july, st. clair moved out of ticonderoga. sorrowfully the green mountain boys relinquished, with almost as little bloodshed as two years before they had gained it, the fortress that guarded the frontier of their country. the troops fled across the bridge in silence to the eastern shore, and an hour later the garrison of mount independence began moving out. so far, the doleful work of evacuation had progressed with such secrecy that the british were unaware of any movement. just then a french officer of the garrison, zealous to destroy what he could not save, set fire to his house. the sun-dried wooden structure was ablaze in an instant, lighting up with a lurid glare all the works of the place, the hurrying troops, the forest border with ghastly ranks of towering tree-trunks, the bridge still undulating with the tread of just-departed marching columns, and the slow throb of waves pulsing across the empty anchorage and breaking against deserted shores. all was revealed to the british on the heights of mount defiance, and this sudden discovery of their movements threw the americans into great confusion, many hurrying away in disorderly retreat. but about four o'clock colonel francis of massachusetts brought off the rear in good order, and some of the other regiments were soon recovered from the panic into which they had fallen. at hubbardton the army halted for a rest of two hours, during which time many stragglers came in, then st. clair with the main body pressed on to castleton, six miles distant. on that same day hubbardton had already been raided by captain sherwood and a party of indians and tories. of the nine families that composed the entire population of the town, most of the men had been taken prisoners, and the defenseless women and children left to whatever fate might befall them in their plundered homes, or to make their forlorn way through the wilderness to the shelter of the older settlements. to warner was again committed the covering of a retreat. he was here put in command of the rear-guard, consisting of his own, francis's, and hale's regiments, with orders to remain till all stragglers should have come in, and then follow a mile and a half in the rear of the main army. when the retreat of the americans was discovered, general frazier set forth in hot pursuit with his brigade, presently followed by general riedesel with the greater part of the brunswickers. frazier kept his force on the march all through the hot summer day, in burning sunshine and breathless shade of the woods till nightfall, when, learning that the american rear was not far in advance, he ordered a halt till morning. pushing forward again at daybreak, he came up with his enemy at five o'clock, and advanced to within sixty yards of the american line of battle, formed across the road and in the adjacent fields. colonel hale of new hampshire, with falstaffian valor, had prudently withdrawn his regiment, leaving warner and francis with not more than 800 men, to bear the brunt of the impending battle. the action began at seven with a volley delivered by these two regiments upon the british, who returned it as hotly. the men of the massachusetts border and the mountaineers of vermont had no lead to waste in aimless firing, and held rifle and musket straight on the advancing columns of the enemy. trained to cut off a partridge's head with a single ball at thirty yards, they did not often miss the burly form of a briton at twice the distance, and their volleys made frightful gaps in the scarlet line. it wavered and broke. warner and francis cheered on their men, francis still leading his regiment after a ball had struck him in the right arm. the british line closed up, and charged upon the americans, throwing them into disorder till warner rallied them, and checked the british advance. while the fluctuating chances of the fight favored the americans, francis fell, pierced by a bullet in the breast, and, seeing him fall, his men faltered and began to retreat. when warner saw them scattering in disorderly flight, he was overcome with wrath. he dropped upon a log, and poured forth a storm of curses upon the fugitives.[71] but it did not stop them, nor, if it had, would it have availed to avert defeat. riedesel came up with his brunswickers, who had toiled onward in the burning heat for nine hours as bravely as if they were conquering the country for themselves. they at once engaged in the action, and the americans were everywhere routed, fleeing across a little brook, and scattering in the shelter of the woods beyond it. collecting most of his regiment, with his accustomed cool intrepidity, warner retreated to castleton. the others made their way to fort edward. hale in his retreat had fallen in with a small detachment of the enemy, to which he surrendered with a number of his regiment without firing a shot. learning that he was charged with cowardice, he asked to be exchanged, that he might have an opportunity to disprove the charge, but he died while a prisoner on long island. st. clair sent no assistance to his friends. writing to general schuyler of the affair, he said, "the rear-guard stopped rather imprudently six miles short of the main body," when in fact warner remained at hubbardton as ordered, while st. clair himself advanced beyond supporting distance. in this first battle of the revolution on vermont soil, the americans lost francis, an officer whose bravery was acknowledged by friend and foe, and whose early death was mourned by both. in killed, wounded, and prisoners, their loss was 324. the loss of the british force,--about 2,000 strong,--in killed and wounded, was not less than 183. ethan allen, in his narrative, sets the enemy's loss, as learned from confessions of their own officers, at 300. among these was the brave major grant, who, while reconnoitring the position of the americans from the top of a stump, was picked off by a yankee rifleman. "i heard them likewise complain that the green mountain boys took sight," allen tells us. meanwhile burgoyne was busy on the lake. by nine o'clock on the morning of the evacuation, the unfinished boom and the bridge were cut asunder; the gunboats and the two frigates passed these obstructions, and, with several regiments on board, went up the channel in rapid pursuit of the american vessels. at three in the afternoon the gunboats got within range of the galleys, not far from skenesborough, and opened fire upon them. this was returned with some warmth till the frigates were brought into action, when the galleys were abandoned, three were blown up, and the other two fell into the hands of the enemy. having neither the men nor defenses here to offer any effectual opposition, the americans set fire to the fort, mills, and batteaux, and fled up wood creek toward fort anne. they were pursued by colonel hill with the ninth british regiment, upon whom they turned, and attacked furiously in front with part of their force, while the other was sent to assail his rear. hill withdrew to an eminence, whither the attack followed so hotly that his complete defeat seemed almost certain, when a large party of indians came up. they made the woods ring with the terrible warwhoop, which the british answered with three lusty cheers, and the uproar of rejoicing convinced the americans that a strong reinforcement was at hand; whereupon they drew off, and, again marking the course of their retreat with conflagration by setting fire to fort anne, retired to fort edward. on the 12th, here also st. clair joined the main army under schuyler, after a weary march over wretched roads. england was exultant over the fall of famous ticonderoga. the king rushed into the queen's apartments, shouting, "i have beaten them! i have beaten all the americans!" and such was the universal feeling in the mother country. in america was as universal consternation, which only found relief in storms of abuse poured upon st. clair and upon schuyler, who, as commander of the northern army, received his full share of blame, though both had done the best their circumstances permitted. yet it proved not such a disaster to the americans, nor such an advantage to the british, as it then appeared to each. burgoyne was obliged to weaken his army by leaving an eighth of it to garrison a post that proved to be of no especial value to him, when, after a rapid and an almost unopposed advance to the head of the lake, he began to encounter serious hindrances to his progress. for some days he continued at skenesborough, and issued thence a second proclamation to the people of the grants, offering to those who should meet colonel skene at castleton "terms by which the disobedient may yet be spared." schuyler addressed a counter proclamation to the same people, warning them that, if they made terms with the enemy, they would be treated as traitors; and he continually urged them to remove all cattle and carriages beyond reach of the enemy. schuyler had two brigades of militia and continentals busily employed in destroying bridges, and obstructing roads by felling huge trees across them, and, in all ways that expert axemen and woodsmen could devise, making difficult the passage of an army. having accomplished this, schuyler abandoned fort edward, which was in no condition for defense, and fell back to stillwater, thirty miles above albany. when burgoyne began to advance toward fort edward, his progress was slow and tedious. the obstructed channel of wood creek was cleared to fort anne, roads cleared and repaired, and forty bridges rebuilt, before, at the snail's pace of a mile in twenty-four hours, he reached fort edward. when, on the 30th of july, he established his headquarters here on the hudson, there was great rejoicing in his army; for now it was thought all serious obstacles were past, and the safe and easy path to albany lay open before them. the fall of ticonderoga and the almost unchecked invasion of their country created a panic among the settlers of western vermont. burgoyne's threat of turning loose his indian allies upon the obdurate incensed most and alarmed all who were exposed to the horrors of such cruel warfare. a few half-hearted whigs, who became known as protectioners,--a name but little less opprobrious than tory,--availed themselves of his proffered clemency, and sought the protection of his army; and a few tories seized the opportunity now offered to take the side to which they had always inclined. all the farms in the exposed region were abandoned, the owners carrying away such of their effects as could be hastily removed on horseback and in their few carts and wagons, and, driving their stock before them, hurried toward a place of refuge. the main highways leading southward--at fords, bridges, and the almost impassable mudholes that were common to the new-country roads--were choked with horsemen, footmen, lumbering vehicles heavily laden with women, children, and house-gear, and with struggling and straying flocks and herds. footnotes: [71] chipman's _life of warner_. chapter xii. bennington. when the convention adjourned at windsor, july 8, 1877, ticonderoga had fallen; burgoyne's splendid army was advancing along the western border of vermont; warner had made his brave but ineffectual stand at hubbardton, and was now with the remnant of his regiment at manchester. hither the council of safety at once proceeded, and, with thomas chittenden as its president, began its important labors. it issued a call to all officers of militia to send on all the men they could possibly raise, as they had learned that a "large scout of the enemy are disposed to take a tour to this post," and their aim seemed to be the continental stores at bennington. on the same day, ira allen, as secretary, sent the alarming news to general schuyler, with an appeal for aid; but schuyler, as a continental officer, declined to "notice a fourteenth state unknown to the confederacy," and could send no men but the militia under colonel simmonds, whom he had ordered to join colonel warner at manchester. allen also wrote to the new hampshire council of safety for assistance in making a stand against the enemy in vermont, which might as well be made there as in new hampshire; for, "notwithstanding its infancy, the state was as well supplied with provisions for victualling an army as any country on the continent." meshech weare, president of that state, replied that new hampshire had already determined to send assistance, and one fourth of her militia was to be formed into three battalions, under command of brigadier-general john stark, and sent forthwith into vermont. president weare requested the convention of vermont to send some suitable person to number four, to confer with general stark as to the route and disposition of the troops; and two trusty persons were accordingly sent by colonel warner. on the 19th, stark received his orders to repair to number four, and take command of the force there mustering. influenced by a miserable spirit of jealousy or favoritism, congress had slighted this veteran of the late war, passing over him in the list of promotions. resenting such injustice, he went home, but was now ready to unsheathe his sword in the service of his state, though he refused to act under continental officers. ira allen, the secretary and youngest member of the vermont council, strongly advocated the raising of a regiment for the defense of the state, while the majority could not see the way clear to raise more than two companies of sixty men each; nor could they, in the unorganized condition of the new state, a third of whose inhabitants were in the confusion of an exodus, see how more than this meagre force could be maintained, and the day was spent in fruitless discussion of the vexed question. at last a member moved that allen be requested to devise means for paying the bounties and wages of his proposed regiment, and to report at sunrise on the morrow. the astute young secretary was equal to the occasion, and when the council met next morning, at an hour that finds modern legislators in their first sleep, he was ready with his plan of support. this was, that commissioners of sequestration should be appointed, with authority to seize the goods and chattels of all persons who had joined or should join the common enemy; and that all property so seized should be sold at public vendue, and the proceeds be paid to the treasurer of the council of safety, for the purpose of paying the bounties and wages of a regiment forthwith to be raised for the defense of the state. "this was the first instance in america of seizing and selling the property of the enemies of american independence," says its originator, in his "history of vermont."[72] these "turbulent sons of freedom," as stark afterward termed them, were indeed foremost in many aggressive measures. the council at once adopted the plan, and appointed a commissioner of sequestration. samuel herrick was appointed to the command of the regiment, his commission being signed on the 15th of july by thomas chittenden, president. the men were enlisted and their bounties paid within fifteen days. the colonels of the state militia were ordered to march half their regiments to bennington, "without a moment's loss of time," and the fugitives, who since the invasion had been removing their families to the southward, were exhorted to return and assist in the defense of the state.[73] stark was collecting his men at charlestown, and sending them forward to warner at manchester as rapidly as they could be supplied with kettles, rum, and bullets. there was great lack of all three of these essentials of a campaign, especially of the last, for there was but one pair of bullet-moulds in the town, and there were frequent and urgent calls for lead. when the lead was forthcoming, the one pair of moulds was kept hot and busy. but at last, on the 7th of august, stark was at the mountain-walled hamlet of manchester with 1,400 new hampshire men and green mountain boys, ready to follow wherever the brave old ranger should lead. schuyler was anxious to concentrate all the available troops in front of burgoyne, to prevent his advance upon albany, and urged stark to join him with his mountaineers; but, considering the terms on which he had engaged, stark felt under no obligations to put himself under the orders of a continental officer, and had, moreover, opinions of his own as to the most effective method of retarding burgoyne's advance, which he thought might best be done by falling upon his rear when an opportunity offered. therefore he declined to comply with schuyler's demands, though he assured him he would lay aside all personal resentment when it seemed opposed to the public good, and would join him when it was deemed a positive necessity. schuyler's dutch name, honored as it was by his own good deeds and those of his ancestors, had a smack of new york patroonism that was unpleasant to new england men, especially those of the grants, and he was no favorite with any of them. they were jubilant when he was superseded in command of the northern department by the incompetent gates, who accomplished nothing himself, but managed to repose serenely on the laurels that others had gathered. schuyler complained to congress of stark's refusal, and that body censured him and the new hampshire government under which he was acting. general lincoln was at manchester, whither he had come on august 2d, to take command of the eastern militia. the force of the enemy, which for some time had remained at castleton, menacing manchester and all the country to the eastward, had marched to join burgoyne on the hudson; and stark moved forward to bennington with the purpose, now, of joining schuyler. he was accompanied by colonel warner, who left his regiment at manchester under command of lieutenant-colonel safford. at the earnest request of the council, already at bennington, who apprehended an attack on that place, stark encamped his brigade there and awaited the movements of the enemy. the council was established at captain fay's[74] famous "catamount tavern," and during these fateful days sat in the low-browed room above whose wide fireplace was carved the words "council chamber." here these faithful guardians of the young commonwealth consulted with stark and warner, and sent forth orders to colonels of militia and appeals to the valiant men of berkshire. provisions were becoming scant in the army of burgoyne, and he determined to seize for his use the stores which the americans had collected at bennington. to accomplish this, he dispatched colonel baum, a german officer of tried valor, with 300 dismounted dragoons who had won reputation on european fields, and whom it was a part of the plan of operations to provide with horses. there were also a body of marksmen under captain frazer, colonel peters's corps of tories, some canadian volunteers, and 100 indians,--in all amounting to nearly 800 men, with two light field-pieces. colonel skene accompanied the german colonel, by request of burgoyne, to give him the benefit of his knowledge of the country, and to use his influence in drawing the supposedly numerous loyalists to the support of the british. lieutenant-colonel breyman was ready to support baum, if occasion required, with a veteran force of brunswickers, 620 strong, with two more field-pieces. on the 13th of august baum set forth with his "mixed multitude," and on the same day reached cambridge, sixteen miles from bennington, and next day arrived at sancoick, on a branch of the walloomsac river. here a party of americans was posted in a mill, which they abandoned on his approach. the brunswickers had had a sharp taste of the quality of yankee valor at hubbardton, yet baum held his present adversaries in supreme contempt, and expected no serious opposition from them. he wrote to burgoyne, on the head of a barrel in the mill, that prisoners taken agreed there were fifteen to eighteen hundred men at bennington, "but are supposed to leave on our approach." being first apprised of the appearance of a party of indians at cambridge, general stark sent lieutenant-colonel gregg with 200 men to oppose them, but he was presently informed that a more formidable force was closely following the indians and tending towards bennington, and he sent at once to manchester for colonel warner's regiment and all the militia of the adjacent country to come to his support. early on the morning of the 14th he set forward with his brigade, accompanied by colonels warner, williams, herrick, and brush, and after marching about five miles met gregg retreating from sancoick, closely pursued by the enemy. stark formed his troops in line of battle, but baum, perceiving the strength of the americans, halted his force in a commanding position on a hill, and stark fell back a mile to a farm, where he encamped. baum's position was on the west side of the walloomsac, a branch of the hoosic, nearly everywhere fordable. most of his germans were posted on a wooded hill north of the road, which here crossed the river. for the defense of the bridge, a breastwork was thrown up and one of the field-pieces placed in it, and two smaller breastworks on opposite sides of the road were manned by frazer's marksmen. the canadians were posted in some log-huts standing on both sides of the stream, the tories under pfister on a hill east of the stream and south of the wood, while near their position was the other field-piece manned by german grenadiers. a hill hid the hostile encampments from each other, though they were scarcely two miles apart. that night rain began falling, increasing to such a steady downpour as often marks the capricious weather of dogdays. some of the berkshire militia had come up under colonel simonds, and among them was parson allen of pittsfield, who complained to stark that the berkshire people had often been called out to no purpose, and would not turn out again if not allowed to fight now. stark asked if he would have them fall to, while it was dark as pitch and raining buckets. "not just at this moment," the parson admitted. "then," said the old warrior, "as soon as the lord sends us sunshine, if i do not give you fighting enough, i'll never ask you to come out again." all the next day the rain continued to pour down from the leaden sky. baum employed the time in strengthening his position, keeping his men busy with axe and spade, piling higher and extending his works, in the drenching downfall. at the same time, stark with his officers and the council of safety was planning an attack. next morning broke in splendor. innumerable raindrops glittered on forest, grass-land, fields of corn, and ripening wheat; clouds of rising vapor were glorified in the level sunbeams that turned the turbid reaches of the swollen walloomsac to a belt of gold. so quiet and peaceful was the scene that it seemed to glich, a german officer who described it, as if there could be no enemy there to oppose them. but the mountaineers were already astir. three hundred under nichols were making a wide circuit to the north of baum's position, to attack his rear on the left; while herrick with his rangers and brush's militia made a similar movement to the rear of his right, and hobart and stickney with 300 of stark's brigade were marching in the same direction. while these movements were in progress, baum was diverted by a threatened attack in front. at three in the afternoon nichols had gained his desired position and began firing, quickly followed by herrick, stickney, and hobart, while stark assailed the tory breastwork and the bridge with a portion of his brigade, the berkshire and the vermont militia. "those redcoats are ours to-day, or molly stark's a widow!" he called to his mountaineers, and, following him, they dashed through the turbulent stream in pursuit of the scattering tories and canadians. the despised yankee farmers, un-uniformed for the most part, wearing no badge but a cornhusk or a green twig in the hatband, fighting in their shirtsleeves,--for the sun poured down its scalding rays with intense fervor,--closed in on all sides and showered their well-aimed volleys upon the brunswick veterans, who fought with intrepid but unavailing bravery. the indians fled in affright, stealing away in single file, thankful to get off with their own scalps and without plunder, for "the woods were full of yankees," they said. parson allen, mounting a stump, exhorted the enemy to lay down their arms, but received only the spiteful response of musketry. clambering down from his perch, he exchanged his bible for a gun, and his gunpowder proved more effective than his exhortations. the fire was furious, and every musket and rifle shot, every thunderous roar of the rapidly served cannon, was repeated in multitudinous echoes by the hills. for two hours the roar of the conflict was, said stark, "like a continuous clap of thunder." he had been in the storm of fire that swept down abercrombie's assaulting columns at ticonderoga, had fought at bunker hill, trenton, and princeton, yet he declared that this fight was the hottest he had ever seen. warner, who was in the thickest of it with him, well knew every foot of the ground they were fighting over, and the value of his aid and advice was generously acknowledged by stark. the cannoneers were shot down and the guns taken; an ammunition wagon exploded and the assailing yankees swarmed over the breastworks, charging with bayonetless guns upon the valiant brunswickers, many of whom were killed, many taken prisoners, while a few escaped. the victory of the americans was complete, and when the prisoners had been sent to bennington town under a sufficient guard, the militia dispersed over the blood-stained field in quest of spoil. but they were soon brought together again by the alarm that another british force was coming up, and was only two miles away. the rattle of their drums and the screech of their fifes could be heard shaking and piercing the sultry air. it was breyman's force of german veterans. early in the fight, baum had sent an express to hasten breyman's advance, which had been delayed by the violent rainstorm of the preceding day, and the consequent wretched condition of the roads, now continuous wallows of mire; but they were close at hand, and the scattered militiamen were ill-prepared to oppose them. fortunately, the remnant of warner's regiment, from manchester, just then came up, led by lieutenant-colonel safford. there were only 140 of them, but they were a host in steadfast valor, and they took a position in front, forming a rallying point for the militia which now came hurrying in. the americans fell back slowly before breyman, who advanced up the road, firing his field-pieces with more noise than effect, till a body of militia of sufficient strength to make a stand was collected. then the germans were attacked in front and flank, the deadliest fire raining upon them from a wooded hill on their left. the engagement was hotly maintained till after sunset, when, having lost many men and his artillery horses, breyman abandoned his cannon and beat a precipitate retreat. stark pushed the pursuit till it was impossible to aim a gun or distinguish friend from foe in the gathering gloom, and then withdrew his men. in his official report he said, "with one hour more of daylight, we should have captured the whole body." as it was, breyman escaped with less than 100 men. the present fruits of the double victory were four brass field-pieces, 1,000 stand of arms, four ammunition wagons, 250 sabres, and more than 650 prisoners. among these were baum and pfister, both of whom received mortal wounds and died a few days later, and 207 were left dead on the field. the american loss was 30 killed and 40 wounded. its more important results were the inspiriting effect upon the whole country, and the depressing influence of the defeat upon the enemy. washington considered it decisive of the fate of burgoyne, who four days later wrote a gloomy account to the british minister of his situation resulting from this disaster. he had lost faith in the tories, and said, "the great bulk of the country is undoubtedly with the congress.... their measures are executed with a secrecy and dispatch that are not to be equaled. wherever the king's forces point, militia to the amount of three or four thousand assemble in twenty-four hours. they bring with them their subsistence; the alarm over, they return to their farms. the hampshire grants in particular, a country unpeopled and almost unknown in the last war, now abounds in the most active and most rebellious race of the continent, and hangs like a gathering storm on my left." congress hastened to revoke its censure of the insubordinate new hampshire colonel, and made him a brigadier of the army. in stark's report of the battle to gates he says: "too much honor cannot be given to the brave officers and soldiers for gallant behavior; they fought through the midst of fire and smoke, mounted two breastworks that were well fortified and supported with cannon. i cannot particularize any officer, as they all behaved with the greatest spirit and bravery. colonel warner's superior skill in the action was of extraordinary service to me." he gave the "honorable council the honor of exerting themselves in the most spirited manner in that most critical time," and he presented that body "a hessian gun with bayonet, a brass berriled drum, a grenadier's cap, and a hessian broad sword," to be kept in the council chamber as a "memorial in commemoration of the glorious action fought at walloomsaik, august 16, 1777, in which case the exertions of said council was found to be exceedingly serviceable."[75] two of the cannon taken from the hessians stand in the vestibule of the capitol at montpelier. footnotes: [72] november 27, 1777, four months after the vermont council of safety had adopted this measure, congress recommended the same course to all the states.--_journals of congress_, vol. iii. p. 423. [73] _hartford courant_, august 17, 1777. [74] this same landlord fay had five sons in bennington battle, one of whom was killed. [75] williams's _history of vermont_; hiland hall's _history of vermont_; ira allen's _history of vermont_; _account of battle of bennington_, by glich; _ibid._, by breyman; _official reports, historical soc. coll._ vol. i.; _centennial exercises_, 1877. chapter xiii. subsequent operations of vermont troops. general lincoln determined to make a demonstration in burgoyne's rear, and moved forward from manchester to pawlet. on the 13th of september he dispatched colonel brown[76] with herrick's regiment and some militia to cross the lake, and take the outposts of ticonderoga and the works on lake george. colonel warner was ordered to move toward mount independence with a detachment of massachusetts militia, and colonel woodbridge, with another detachment, was sent against skenesborough and fort anne. captain ebenezer allen, with a party of rangers, was to take mount defiance, and then rejoin brown and herrick to attack ticonderoga together with warner. brown crossed the lake in the night, and pushed over the mountain to the foot of lake george, arriving there the day before the contemplated attack. here he captured an armed sloop, 200 longboats, and several gunboats, with 293 soldiers and 100 american prisoners taken at hubbardton. these were provided with arms just captured, and they took their place in the ranks of their compatriots. as the americans moved forward in the darkness of the following evening, they were guided by three hoots of an owl, repeated at intervals from various points. this was the preconcerted signal of the sentinels, who so well simulated the mournful notes of the bird of night that the british sentries only wondered why so many were abroad, and the noiselessly moving troops sometimes thought the owls had conspired to lead them astray. brown gained possession of mount hope and a block-house near the old french lines. captain allen and his men scaled the steeps of mount defiance till a cliff was reached which they could not climb. allen ordered one of his men to stoop, and, stepping on his back, got to the top, where only eight men could stand without being discovered by the enemy. his men swarmed after him "like a stream of hornets to the charge," he wrote, and all the garrison fled but one man, who attempted to discharge a cannon at the storming party. "kill the gunner, damn him!" shouted allen, and the man fled, match in hand, with his comrades down the mountain road, and all were captured by major wait, posted at the foot to intercept them. allen, who had never fired a cannon, now tried his hand and eye at this unaccustomed warfare, with good effect. he trained a piece of ordnance on a distant barrack and killed a man, then drove a ship from its moorings in the lake, and proclaimed himself commander of mount defiance. colonel warner reached the neighborhood of mount independence early next morning.[77] joining his force with brown's, they demanded the surrender of ticonderoga, but the commander, general powel, declared his determination to defend it to the last. the americans opened fire upon the fort, and for four days ineffectually hammered the walls with cannon-shot. it is not easy to understand why the position they had gained on mount defiance did not prove as advantageous to them as it had been to the british. they withdrew to the foot of lake george, and then, embarking on the captured gunboats, attacked diamond island, where a quantity of stores was guarded by two companies of british regulars and several gunboats. the americans were repulsed with some loss. they retreated to the east shore, where they burned their boats, and then crossed the mountains to lake champlain, and presently rejoined lincoln at pawlet. until the regular organization of the government of the state in the following march, the council of safety, in whom rested all the authority of the state, attended faithfully to the varied necessities that arose during those troubled times. it was diligent in forwarding to the generals of the army all information, received through scouts and spies, of the condition and movements of the enemy, and always, by word and deed, was ready to aid the common cause by every means in its power. when general gates urged reinforcements, his letter was dispatched by expresses to all parts of the state where men could be raised, and in response the recruits flocked in to swell the force which was encircling the doomed army of burgoyne. september 24, president chittenden wrote gates: "several companies have passed this place this morning on their march to your assistance," and desired to be informed of any wants the council might relieve. the british army was at saratoga, ill-supplied with provisions, and unable to advance or retreat. without hope of relief, on the 13th of october burgoyne made overtures to general gates which resulted on the 17th in the surrender of his entire army, reduced since its departure from canada to less than 6,500 men, including more than 500 sick and wounded. when the news reached ticonderoga, the troops stationed there at once prepared to retreat to canada. the barracks and houses there and at mount independence were burned. all the boats not needed for the embarkation of the troops were sunk with their cargoes, and the cannon spiked or broken. it was gloomy autumnal weather when, in a few open boats, the garrison slunk back through the "gate of the country." the present plight of the poor remnant of burgoyne's splendid army was a sorry contrast to the proud advance of the gallant host that had passed these portals in the brightness of summer. no beat of drum nor strain of martial music now marked their passage, but in silent haste they pursued their way, in constant fear of attack whenever they approached the shores, that now were as sombre in their scant and faded leafage as the dreary november sky that overhung them. the doughty and aggressive captain ebenezer allen harassed their rear whenever opportunity was given for striking a blow. with a little force of fifty men of herrick's rangers, he took forty-nine prisoners, more than a hundred horses, twelve yokes of oxen, three boats, and a considerable quantity of stores. among the chattels taken by him were a slave woman, dinah mattis, and her child. faithful to his convictions of the injustice of slavery, he set them free, having first obtained the consent of his green mountain boys, among whom all captured property was to be divided. herrick's regiment was dismissed with the thanks of the council for "good services to this and the united states," and warm acknowledgment of its services from general gates. warner and his continental regiment were on the hudson with gates's army, and vermont was again without an armed force. ticonderoga, during the abortive planning of a canadian invasion, was occupied for a time by a small garrison under colonel udney hay. otherwise the dismantled fortress remained for months in the desolation of ruin and desertion. no longer menaced by the presence of the enemy, the inhabitants of vermont, who had fled on burgoyne's approach, returned to their homes, and made a late harvest of such crops as had not been destroyed, gathering, in almost winter weather, the scant remnants of their corn and hay. the people who had been driven from their homes were so destitute of grain, both for food and for seed, that the council prohibited, under heavy penalties, the transportation of any wheat, rye, indian corn, flour, or meal out of the state without a permit, excepting continental stores. suffering privations that can now be scarcely understood, these people struggled through the long and bitter winter, never losing hope nor courage, though the gaunt wolf of hunger was often at their doors, and the future was as vague as the storm-veiled border of the encircling forest. the council of safety was kept busily employed in providing for the defense of the frontier; in passing judgment upon tories who were imprisoned, banished, or fined; in issuing orders for the disposal of their property, and permits to persons under suspicion to remain on their farms, or to visit certain points and return,--to some who had taken "the oath of fidellity," the liberty of the town, or a permit to pass to another place, they "to behave as becometh." "comfort canfield is permitted to go to arlington to see his sick wife and return in thirty hours;" another is to go and "take care of his children and to return within six days;" henry batterman, a german soldier, is allowed to go to colonel simonds till further orders; henry bulls, who had joined the enemy in "infamous captain samuel adams's company," is permitted, on taking the oath of allegiance to the states of america, to pass to his farm in manchester, there to remain, "he behaving as becometh a friend to his country." there are orders to procure sides of leather from "marshes fratts;"[78] to transport "berrils of flour" to colonel herrick's regiment; to the commissioners of sequestration to seize the property of "enimical persons," and sell the same at vendue. mary reynolds is permitted to send for her "gray horse and keep him till further orders." the wives of captain adams and captain sherwood are allowed to pass to their husbands at ticonderoga, "necessary clothing and beds" allowed. captain nathan smith is to "march to pawlet on horseback with the men under his command and there receive a horse load of flours to each man and horse;" and captain wood is ordered to take charge of the same, and "without one minute's loss of time" proceed to pawlet and thence to colonel warner. when he returns he is to take "especial care that the horses and bags be returned to their proper owners." it appears that two of the men did not return the horses, and were apprehended for horse-stealing, and were sentenced by the council to be made a public example of, "to deter people from such vicious practices," each to receive thirty-nine lashes on the naked back, at the liberty pole. this sentence was revoked and a fine substituted upon their making restitution. five teams are dispatched to bring off the plunder secured by colonel brown. colonel herrick receives the thanks of the council for his spirited behavior in "his late noble enterprise," and in the same letter is informed there are thirty pairs of shoes ready for him at shaftsbury. one order directs benjamin fassett to repair to pownal, and bring from some of the tories who had gone to the enemy, or otherwise proved themselves enemies of the country, "a load of saus for the use of the hundred prisoners" at bennington. he is "to leave sufficient for their families," and it appears that the tories were generally treated with quite as much leniency as they deserved. among the many curious orders is one issued in january, 1778, on application of general stark to captain samuel robinson, overseer of tories, "to detail ten effective men under proper officers, to march in two distinct files from this place through the green mountains to col. wm. williams dwelling-house in draper alias wilmington within this state who are to march & tread the snow in s^d road to suitable width for a sleigh or sleighs with a span of horses on each sleigh, and order them to return marching in the same manner to this place with all convenient speed."[79] a midwinter invasion of canada was contemplated by gates, to be commanded by general lafayette. the vermont council of safety took active measures to raise 300 men for this expedition, or one to act in conjunction with it under general stark. a bounty or "encouragement" of ten dollars was offered to each man enlisting to serve till the last day of april following unless sooner discharged. colonel herrick was to command the force, and the officers were to be from those who had served in his regiment of rangers. the council also engaged to furnish twenty-five sleighs for the use of the expedition, and to afford every assistance in its power in "collecting hay, provisions and transporting flour." but while the unrecognized state of vermont responded so promptly to the call, the project fell through for lack of men. not more than 1,200 could be collected, most of whom were poorly clad and as poorly armed. when the news of its abandonment was received by the council, orders were issued to stop enlistments; yet those already engaged were requested to "take a short tour for the defense of the frontiers;" and almost the last act of the council was to instruct captain ebenezer allen "to take post with such recruits at new haven fort,[80] to keep out proper scouts to reconoitre the woods, to watch the movement of the enemy and report them to this council or officer commanding the troops in the northern department." on the 12th of march, 1778, while the council of safety was holding its last session, a brave little band of green mountain boys was defending a block-house in shelburne against the attack of a party of indians commanded by a british captain named larama. there were but sixteen of the vermonters, including their captain, thomas sawyer, and moses pierson, to protect whose possessions here they had marched ninety miles through the wintry wilderness, while their assailants numbered fifty-seven. the block-house was set on fire by the enemy, but lieutenant barnabas barnum went outside and extinguished the flames, though the daring act cost him his life. one of the defenders, who was struck in the arm by a ball, was so exasperated by the hurt that, when he had bound up the wound with a handkerchief and again taken his place at a loophole, he would at every discharge of his gun give it a spiteful push, as if to accelerate the speed of the ball, while he roared, "take that for my arm!" after a hot fight of two hours, the enemy retreated, were pursued, and two of them captured. twelve were killed, among whom were the british captain and an indian chief; and three of the vermonters fell in the gallant defense. footnotes: [76] the same officer who so unaccountably failed ethan allen at montreal. he was one of the first to plan the capture of ticonderoga, an ardent patriot, and an officer of unquestioned bravery. [77] ira allen, who never misses the chance of a fling at his brave kinsman, says, "he moved so extremely slow that he saved his own men, and hurt none of the enemy." [78] vats. [79] _governor and council_, by e. p. walton. [80] the block-house built by ethan allen at the lower falls on otter creek in 1773. chapter xiv. the unions. owing to the continual disturbance and partial depopulation of the state caused by the presence of the enemy, the election of state officers was deferred by a convention in december till the 12th of march, 1778. it was held on that day, and the government took regular form under the constitution. thomas chittenden, who had for some time been prominent in the political affairs of the forming commonwealth, was elected governor. he was born in guilford, conn., in 1730. in early manhood he began pioneer life in salisbury, conn., where he lived twenty-six years, prosperous, and a man of consequence in the town. then the pioneer spirit, that lusty begetter of new states, again laid hold of him, and he purchased a tract in the wilderness lying upon the fertile borders of the winooski, in the town of williston. in 1774 he took his family to this wild region, but was scarcely established when the retreat of the american army from canada left the northern settlers exposed to the enemy, and they retired to the southern part of the grants. living at times in danby, pownal, and arlington, chittenden remained till 1787, when he returned to williston. he had not long been an inhabitant of the grants when he naturally took his place among the leading men of the district. he was one of the committee that drafted the vermont declaration of independence, and of the one that framed the government, and was president of that council of safety which exercised all the powers of the government until it was constitutionally organized, when he was elected governor, in which office, with the exception of one year, he was continued for eighteen years. his educational advantages had been slight, but he was possessed of a natural sagacity which enabled him to penetrate the character and designs of others, and to perceive, without the process of reasoning, the best course to pursue in any emergency. he was a masterful man, yet carried his points without appearing to force them, and seemed to fall into the ways of others while in fact he led them imperceptibly into his own. his calm, strong features expressed the kindness of heart that his acts were full of, such as refusing to sell for cash the abundant yield of his acres, but reserving it for the relief of the people in a foreseen time of need. among the people with whom he had cast his lot, his lack of polished manners was no discredit. hearty friendship was a better key to their affections, and his tall, athletic figure commended him to the favor of the stalwart green mountain boys.[81] governor chittenden was eminently fitted for the times upon which he fell, and for the place to which he was appointed, and he wisely guided the young state through its turbulent infancy. the first legislature met at windsor in march, 1778, when a new trouble arose. sixteen towns east of connecticut river applied for admission to the new state of vermont, on the frivolous plea that as new hampshire, under the original grant to john mason, extended only sixty miles inland from the sea, and its extension to the westward of this line had been made by royal commissions to the governor of that province, the royal authority being now overthrown, the people of the region were at liberty to elect what jurisdiction they would be under; but, as afterward became evident, the real object was to establish the seat of government on the connecticut river. at first there was little disposition to accede to this petition, but it was also warmly urged by some of the vermont river towns, that threatened in case of refusal to unite with the new hampshire towns in establishing a new state. whereupon the legislature submitted the subject to the consideration of the people, who should instruct their representatives how to act upon it at the adjourned session of the assembly to be held at bennington in june. a few days before this session, ethan allen arrived at bennington, his once burly form gaunt and worn by the cruel captivity from which he had just been released, but his bold spirit as robust as ever. the people thronged into the little hamlet to greet their old leader, and, though powder was scarce and precious, the rusty old cannon that had been brought from hoosic fort years before to repel the rumored invasion of governor tryon was roundly charged, and thundered forth a welcoming salute of thirteen guns for the united states, and one for young vermont. in response to a letter from washington, commending allen's unabated zeal in the cause of his country, congress conferred upon him a brevet commission of colonel. but he appears to have thought his services more needed by his state than by the country, for he found the land speculators of new york as rapacious under the republican governor clinton as they were under the royal governors; and, after his return, he took no active part in the military operations of the united states. he was made brigadier-general of the militia of vermont, a position that he held till 1780, when, being accused of traitorous correspondence with the enemy, he indignantly resigned it, at the same time declaring his willingness to render the state any service within his power, a promise he faithfully fulfilled during the few remaining years of his eventful life. in the time afforded by the adjournment of the assembly, the friends of the proposed union managed to secure a majority of the legislature, and when it met at bennington thirty-seven of the forty-nine towns represented were found in favor of the union. an act was passed authorizing the sixteen towns to elect members to the assembly, and it was resolved that other towns might be similarly admitted. new hampshire protested to governor chittenden against the union, and instructed her delegates in congress to seek the aid of that body in opposing it. at the same time vermont sent ethan allen to congress to learn its views concerning the union. he reported the proceeding was regarded with such disapprobation that, if vermont did not at once recede, the whole power of congress would be exerted to annihilate her, and establish the rights of new hampshire. thus vermont became aware that she had not only incurred the enmity of the new hampshire government, until now so friendly that it tacitly acknowledged the independence of the young state, but had also strengthened the unfavorable feeling of congress toward her. if the wily politicians of new york had intrigued to accomplish these ends, they could hardly have devised a more successful method. the action of the succeeding legislature was unfriendly to the union, and in february, 1779, it was finally dissolved. as all the continental troops were withdrawn from vermont, and as the state was unable of itself to maintain a force sufficient to guard its extended frontier, the frontier line was established at pittsford, and castleton, where forts warren and vengeance were held by small garrisons. fort ranger at rutland was more strongly garrisoned, and made the headquarters of the state forces, and the inhabitants to the northward on otter creek were directed to come within this frontier line. when a captain of militia was called upon to furnish a certain number of men for guarding the frontier or for other duty, it was provided by law that he should divide his company into as many classes as there were men required. each class was obliged to furnish one man; and if it failed to do so, the captain was empowered to hire one, and each member of the class was obliged to bear his proportion of the expense. this method met with general approval, but in the southeast part of the state there were many malcontents, always unfriendly to the government of vermont. they were in constant correspondence with governor clinton, who urged them to maintain a "firm and prudent resistance to the draughting of men, the raising of taxes, and the exercise of any acts of government under the ideal vermont state." he issued commissions for the formation of a regiment, in which about 500 men were enlisted. in response to a request from general james clinton, commanding the northern department, the board of war[82] ordered a levy of men "for service of the state and the united states in guarding the frontier." writing to general washington concerning this levy, governor chittenden calls his attention to the destitute condition of the families of the soldiers. in consequence of the late encroachments of the enemy, they had been unable to harvest the crops already grown, or to sow the "winter grain on which they have ever had their greatest dependence since the first settlement of this part of the country. they are therefore principally reduced to an indian cake in scant proportion to the number of their families, & by the destruction of their sheep by the enemy, their loss of them otherwise as well as their flax, their backs & their bellies have become co-sufferers. in this deplorable situation," he continues, "they remain firm and unshaken, and ready on the shortest notice to face their inveterate foe undaunted;" but considering their circumstances, he hopes they may not be kept in service during the summer. in compliance with the order of the board of war, the captain of a company in putney divided his men into classes, in one of which was comprised captain james clay and two others, all known to be active partisans of new york. they refused to furnish their man, or the sum required to pay the man obtained to represent them. upon this the sergeant of the company, having the proper warrant, seized two cows belonging to these persons, and posted them for sale. on the day of sale, a hundred of the adherents of new york, under the lead of their colonel, rescued the cattle, and returned them to their owners. the colonel soon learned that news of the affair had gone to the council at arlington, and apprehended that ethan allen and his green mountain boys might be sent to enforce the authority of the state, and he wrote to governor clinton for advice and aid. the governor gave the one, and made promises of the other, but never fulfilled them. indeed, it would have been very difficult to raise a military force for that purpose among the inhabitants of the new york border, who were more in sympathy with the people of vermont than with their own aristocratic government. the men who refused to submit to the rule of vermont had not been called on by new york to render any military service, nor to pay for any. if they were exempted from service under vermont, they would contribute nothing to the common cause, and their exemption would encourage all who wished to escape these burdens to join the opponents of vermont, thus weakening it and the whole country. vermont acted promptly in the matter. ethan allen was ordered to raise 100 men in bennington county, and march to the county of cumberland, there to join his force with the militia of that county under colonel fletcher, and assist the sheriff in enforcing the law. the order was duly executed. most of the leaders of the opposition to vermont in the county, and the principal officers of the new york regiment, were arrested, taken to westminster, where the court was in session, and tried as rioters. most of them were fined, and upon payment of the fines, which were light, and satisfying the costs, were soon discharged. complaint was, of course, made to governor clinton, and he in turned complained to congress; and while new york was pressing upon that body its grievances, and its claims to the grants, new hampshire presented a counter-claim to the same region. congress appointed a committee of five to visit the district, to confer with the people and learn their reasons for refusing to submit to the claiming states, and to promote an amicable adjustment of the dispute. only two of the committee visited vermont, and though they conferred with governor chittenden, and exerted themselves to bring about a reconciliation, their report to congress was not acted upon, as they did not constitute a quorum of the committee. massachusetts now set up a claim to the southern portion of vermont, founded on an ancient grant of the plymouth company. congress urged the three contesting states to submit the matter to itself for adjustment, though vermont, whose very life was at stake, was to have a hearing, but no voice in the settlement of the difficulty. its unacknowledged government was enjoined to make no more grants of unoccupied lands, and to exercise no authority over those inhabitants who did not recognize it, while it patiently and silently awaited such dismemberment of its territory as congress should decree. new hampshire and new york promptly passed acts submitting the matter to congress, but massachusetts failed to take such action. vermont refused to submit to the jurisdiction of the three claiming states, and to an arbitrament that ignored her existence, but resolved to "support their right to independence at congress and to all the world," and to make grants of her unappropriated lands. by direction of the governor and council, two pamphlets, strongly setting forth the right of vermont to independence, were prepared and sent to leading men of the country, to generals of the army, and members of congress. one was ethan allen's "vindication of the opposition of the inhabitants of vermont to the government of new york, and their right to form an independent state." the other was "vermont's appeal to the candid and impartial world," by stephen r. bradley, in which it is vigorously stated that vermont could not submit to a plan believed to be started by neighboring states; that congress had no right to meddle with the internal government of vermont; that the state existed independent of any of the thirteen united states, and was not accountable to them for liberty, the gift of god; that it was not represented in congress, and could not submit to resolutions passed without its consent or knowledge when all of value to it was at stake; that it was and ever had been ready to share the burdens of the war, but after four years of war with great britain, in which it had expended so much blood and treasure, "it was not so lost to all sense and honor as to now give up everything worth fighting for, the right of making their own laws and choosing their own form of government, to the arbitrament and determination of any man or body of men under heaven." ira allen was sent to the legislatures of new jersey, pennsylvania, delaware, and maryland to interest them in favor of vermont. though congress in september, 1779, had resolved to hear and determine the dispute in the following february, when the time arrived this business was postponed, and so on various pretexts it was for a long time deferred. in fact, congress did not dare to take a decided step concerning it in any direction, fearing that by the one it might incur the enmity of the claiming states, that by the other it might force the warlike green mountain boys into armed opposition to its authority. to lose the support of the first, or to be obliged to spend the strength that could ill be spared to subdue the latter, would alike be ruinous to the common cause. there is reason to believe that about this time a plot was brewing by new york and new hampshire to divide the bone of contention when congress should decide in favor of the first, as was confidently expected it would. the line of the green mountains was to be the boundary between these states; but the plan fell through in the new york assembly, where mr. townshend opposed it in behalf of those adherents of new york living east of the proposed line, who would thereby be placed beyond the limits of their chosen government. on the 2d of june congress resolved that the acts of "the people of the grants were highly unwarrantable, and subversive of the peace and welfare of the united states, and that they be strictly required to forbear from any acts of authority over those of the people who professed allegiance to other states." in reply to these resolutions, vermont declared that they were subversive of her rights, and incompatible with the principles on which congress grounded the right of the united states to independence, and tended to endanger the liberties of america; that vermont as an independent state denied the authority of congress to judge of her jurisdiction, and boldly declared that, as she was refused a place among the united states, she was at liberty, if necessitated, to offer or accept terms of a cessation of hostilities with great britain, with whom she had no motive to continue hostilities and maintain an important frontier for the benefit of the united states, if she were not to be one of them, but only to be divided between her covetous neighbors. thus was foreshadowed the policy which vermont was soon forced to adopt for her own preservation. the declaration closed with saying that, "from a principle of virtue, and a close attachment, to the cause of liberty, she was induced once more to offer union with the united states of america." in september some attempt was made in congress to decide the contest. new hampshire and new york presented their claims, denying the right of vermont to independence. ira allen and stephen r. bradley were present as agents of vermont, but were not treated by congress as representatives of a state, or of a people invested with legislative authority. they were permitted to attend congress on the hearing of the question, and protested against the manner of investigation which gave vermont no hearing as a state. they declared her readiness to submit this dispute to the legislatures of one or more disinterested states, but protested congress had no right to determine it by virtue of authority derived from the acts of one or more states who were but one party in the controversy. congress heard the evidence of both new york and new hampshire, and again postponed consideration of the troublesome question. but the action of congress did not discourage or intimidate the young commonwealth. she now assumed as aggressive an attitude as her neighbors had borne towards her. reaching to the eastward, she again drew to herself that portion of new hampshire whose people still desired the union which vermont on the disapproval of congress had dissolved. then she stretched forth a welcoming hand to the people of that part of new york lying east of the hudson, who, left defenseless by their own government, desired the better protection afforded by that of vermont. this bold grasp on the territory of new hampshire and new york enlarged her own to twice the extent vermont had originally claimed, and correspondingly increased her importance. furthermore, with supreme disregard of the injunctions of congress, vermont was strengthening her position by the disposal of her unappropriated lands to the citizens of other states, who thus became interested in the establishment of her independence. her importance was also augmented by the negotiations which she was now known to be conducting with general haldimand, lieutenant-governor of the province of quebec. although the object of these secret negotiations was not known to any but the parties engaged in them, congress and the country were greatly alarmed by fears of the possible result. a succinct account of this correspondence is given in the following chapter. footnotes: [81] they were so proud of their stature, it was sometimes recorded on their tombstones. the epitaph of benjamin carpenter, one of the founders of the state, sets forth that "he left this world and 146 persons of lineal posterity, march 29, 1804, aged 78 yrs. 10 mos. 12 days, with a strong mind and full faith of a more glorious hereafter. stature about six feet, weight 200. death had no terror." [82] the governor and council. chapter xv. the haldimand correspondence. the english government having determined to attempt making terms with the americans, commissioners were appointed for that purpose, and arrived in america in june, 1778. they addressed a letter to the president of congress, inclosing their commission from the crown. their propositions were objected to by congress, on the ground that they were founded on dependence, which was utterly inadmissible. congress was inclined to peace, but it could only be treated for upon an acknowledgment of the independence of the states, or the withdrawal of the king's fleets and armies. the commissioners were empowered to treat with such bodies politic or corporate, assemblies of men, person or persons, as they should think meet and sufficient for the purpose of considering the grievances supposed to exist in the government of any of the colonies respectively; to order and proclaim a cessation of hostilities on the part of the king's forces, as they should think fit; and also to appoint governors of provinces. these powers were to be transferred to sir henry clinton in case sir william howe, one of the commissioners, should be disabled from exercising them. this did occur, and sir henry clinton acted as a peace commissioner for a time beyond the limitation of the first commission, which was june, 1779. having failed with congress, the commissioners appealed to the public in a manifesto offering to the colonies at large or separately a general or separate peace, with the revival of their ancient governments, secured against any future infringement, and protected forever from taxation by great britain. the geographical situation of vermont, bordering on the great thoroughfare from canada southward, her controversy with the neighboring colonies, and the unfriendly attitude of congress toward her, especially invited the overtures of the british agents. in march, 1779, lord george germaine, secretary of colonial affairs, wrote to general haldimand: "the minister says, the separation of the inhabitants of the country they style vermont from the provinces in which it was formerly included is a circumstance from which much advantage might be derived, and sees no objection to giving them reason to expect, the king will erect their country into a province." the first overture was made, under the direction of sir henry clinton, by colonel beverly robinson, afterward engaged in the plot with arnold. in march, 1780, he wrote to ethan allen, to whom the letter was delivered in july in the streets of arlington by a british soldier disguised as a yankee farmer. robinson began by saying that he had been informed that allen and most of the inhabitants of vermont were opposed to the wild and chimerical schemes of the americans in attempting to separate the continent from great britain, and that they would willingly assist in uniting america again to the mother country. he invited allen to communicate freely whatever proposals he wished to make, and thought that upon his taking an active part, and embodying the inhabitants of vermont in favor of the crown, they might obtain a separate government under the king, and the men be formed into regiments under such officers as allen should recommend. allen at once laid the letter before governor chittenden and a few of the leading men, who all agreed that it was best to return no answer. in september following, governor chittenden wrote to general haldimand asking a cartel for the exchange of some prisoners who had been captured in the spring by scouting parties from canada. in october a large british force came up the lake to crown point, and the commander, major carleton, brought an answer to chittenden's letter, and wrote to ethan allen, commanding the vermont troops, acquainting him that he had appointed captain sherwood to treat with him and governor chittenden on the subject of an exchange; also that no hostilities should be committed by the british on posts or scouts within the boundaries of vermont during the negotiations, while allen would be expected to observe the same, "and recall his scouts to prevent the appearance of not adhering to the above." allen asked that the cessation of hostilities might be extended to the northern posts and frontiers of new york, to which, after some demur, carleton finally agreed. the vermont militia returned to their homes, much to the surprise of the new york militia serving on their borders, and the british retired to winter quarters in canada without making any hostile demonstration against vermont. ira allen and joseph fay were appointed on the part of vermont to confer with the british commissioners, captain sherwood and dr. smyth, both tories, on the subject of a cartel, and all proceeded together from crown point toward canada. an early winter was coming on; and as they made their way down the lake, its waters were steaming like a cauldron, and lofty columns of vapor swept past the boats like an army of gigantic spectres. the passage of the boats was soon opposed by a more material obstacle in the rapidly forming ice, and as the men were breaking the way through this, ira allen says, "much political conversation and exhibit of papers took place." after some days of battling with the ice, the vermont commissioners abandoned the struggle and went home, promising that they or other commissioners should visit canada as soon as possible. this dr. jonas fay undertook in the winter, and went as far as split rock, where he found the ice still an enemy, now refusing to bear him further, and he was obliged to abandon the journey. on the 23d of february, 1781, ethan allen received a second letter from beverly robinson, inclosing a copy of the first, which he feared had miscarried. he now confidently assured allen that the terms mentioned in the first letter might be obtained, provided he and the people of vermont took an active part with great britain. allen returned no answer, but transmitted both letters, with one from himself, to congress. his letter closed with bold and characteristic words: "i am confident that congress will not dispute my sincere attachment to the cause of my country, though, i do not hesitate to say, i am fully grounded in opinion that vermont has an indubitable right to agree on terms of cessation of hostilities with great britain, provided the united states persist in rejecting her application for a union with them; for vermont, of all people, would be most miserable were she obliged to defend the independence of the united claiming states, and they at the same time at full liberty to overturn and ruin the independence of vermont. i am persuaded, when congress considers the circumstances of this state, they will be more surprised that i have transmitted them the inclosed letters than that i have kept them in custody so long, for i am as resolutely determined to defend the independence of vermont as congress are that of the united states, and rather than fail will retire with hardy green mountain boys into the desolate caverns of the mountains, and wage war with human nature at large." on the 1st of may, which being his birthday he deemed propitious, ira allen, as sole commissioner, set forth for isle aux noix in considerable state, being attended by a guard consisting of a lieutenant, two sergeants, and sixteen privates. afterward, when the british were again in force upon the lake, general haldimand objected to the agents of vermont being attended by so large a retinue, and forbade more than five persons being received. allen was treated with great politeness by the commander, major dundas, who was empowered to act only in the exchange of prisoners. on the second day, as sherwood and allen were walking in the gray of the soft spring morning beneath the wide ramage of the nut-trees that gave the island its name, the tory captain informed the handsome young colonel that he and dr. smyth were to settle the armistice with him, and concert measures to establish vermont as a royal colony. for his better opportunities of conducting them, the negotiations with vermont had been committed to general haldimand's management, and he had given his instructions to sherwood and smyth on the 20th of the preceding december. these instructions authorized "positive assurances that their country will be erected into a separate province, independent and unconnected with every government in america, and will be entitled to every prerogative and immunity which is promised to other provinces in the proclamation of the king's commissioners." it was proposed to raise two vermont battalions of ten companies each, of which haldimand should be colonel, but all other officers should be vermonters, and entitled to half pay. the instructions still further state, "i am so much convinced of the present infatuation of these people, ... i agree that this negotiation should cease, and any step that leads to it be forgotten, provided the congress shall grant the state of vermont a seat in their assembly, and acknowledge its independency." sherwood said the reception of the british overtures during the ice-bound voyage on the lake was such that they had great hope of success. this hope it was the policy of vermont to encourage, in order to secure the safety of the people, since all the continental troops had been ordered out of the state, the new york troops withdrawn from skenesborough, and vermont had no adequate force wherewith to oppose the british force of 7,000 men in canada. thus abandoned, as it appeared to them designedly, that they might be forced into submission to new york, the leaders saw no hope of safety for the state but in an adroit management, to their own advantage, of these attempts of the british. in his interviews with the commissioners, allen was non-commital, and "very cautious and intricate," as they reported. he would make no proposals, nor talk of anything beyond the neutrality of vermont during the war, at the close of which it must, as a separate government, be subject to the ruling power, if that power would give the state a free charter. a cartel for the exchange of prisoners was arranged, and a verbal agreement made that hostilities should cease between the british forces and those of vermont until after the session of the legislature of the state, and longer "if prospects were satisfactory to the commander-in-chief." after seventeen days the present negotiations ended, and, with expressions of his satisfaction with the treatment he had received, allen departed with his attendants, voyaging homeward past green forested shores, above which, far to the eastward, the crouching lion, hoary with yet unmelted snows, reared his majestic front, as if guarding the beloved land of the green mountain boys. in compliance with a request of the assembly, ira allen appeared before them in june, and gave a report of his mission to canada to arrange a cartel, in which he had happily succeeded. he also stated that he had "discovered among the british officers a fervent wish for peace," but disclosed nothing concerning the overtures made to him.[83] these were then known to but ten persons, and were never disclosed to but few. that all might share alike the dangers and responsibilities of these negotiations, a paper giving approval of colonel ira allen's policy by feigning or endeavoring to make them believe that the state of vermont had a desire to negotiate a treaty of peace with great britain, and stating it "to be a necessary political manoeuvre to save the frontiers of this state," was signed by jonas fay, samuel safford, samuel robinson, joseph fay, thomas chittenden, moses robinson, timothy brownson, and john fassett, eight of the most ardent patriots of the state, who then and ever afterwards enjoyed the full confidence of the people. in the exposed and dangerous condition of the state, they deemed it justifiable to resort to stratagem, always practiced in war to ward off the blows of an enemy. in july, major fay was sent to the enemy on lake champlain, to complete the exchange of prisoners, and was received on board the royal george. the british found him as unprepared as colonel allen had been to close with the proffered terms, but wishing to continue the negotiations till november. the british agents suspected that the vermonters were procrastinating to save themselves from an invasion by king or congress. "upon the whole," they said, "it appears to us that interest, not loyalty, induces the leading men of vermont to unite with canada. one fifth of the people wish it from the same motive, near another fifth from principles of loyalty, and the remainder are mad rebels." yet the hope of drawing such a rebellious people to the king's cause was not abandoned, and the correspondence continued. emissaries from canada came now and then to ethan allen and his brother ira. unmolested if not undiscovered, they made their stealthy journeys between canada and the vermont settlements. gliding in light canoes along the lake in the shadow of cedar-clad shores, up the solitude of wooded streams where only the silent flight of the disturbed heron heralded their approach, and stealing along the byways of almost forgotten indian trails, they found at last safe hiding during their brief tarries, delivered in the dusk their precious packets, received others, and then returned by the ways they had come. in july, ira allen wrote to general haldimand that he and two others had been appointed agents to congress, with full powers to make and receive proposals for articles of union between the united states and vermont. "it is expected that the said agents will make proposals to congress that will not be accepted, and show that congress means nothing more than to keep this state in suspense till the end of the war, and then divide the territory among the claiming states." yet when, soon afterward, allen was acting as agent to congress, he so far yielded the claim of vermont to her east and west unions that the boundaries proposed by him through a member from connecticut were at once accepted by congress, though afterward rejected by vermont on the ground that the proposals had not been officially made by her agents. this shows that his real preferences were not such as he would lead haldimand to believe. a letter from lord george germaine to sir henry clinton, which had been intercepted by the french and taken to paris, was received by congress, to whom it had been sent by dr. franklin. "the return of the people of vermont to their allegiance," it said, "is an event of the utmost importance to the king's affairs, and at this time, if the french and washington really meditate an irruption into canada, may be considered as opposing an insurmountable bar to the attempt. general haldimand, who has the same instructions with you to draw over those people and give them support, will, i doubt not, push up a body of troops to act in conjunction with them to secure all the avenues through their country to canada." this letter had an immediate effect upon the action of congress, for a committee was at once appointed by that body to confer with persons to be appointed by the people of the grants, who should have full power to agree upon and ratify terms and articles of union and confederation with the united states of america. ira allen, who with jonas fay and bezaleel woodward had in june been appointed agents to congress, and were now on their way to philadelphia, says: "this information had greater influence on the wisdom and virtue of congress than all the exertions of vermont in taking ticonderoga, crown point, and the two divisions from general burgoyne's army, or their petition to be admitted as a state in the general confederation, and offers to pay their proportion of the expenses of the war." in september, 1781, there were further negotiations at skenesborough between the british commissioners and colonel allen and major joseph fay, acting for vermont. the plan of government for vermont was considered, and it was agreed it should be essentially the same as that established by her constitution, excepting the governor should be appointed by the king in council. the commissioners proposed to make prisoners of several persons in vermont who were most opposed to the negotiations, and insisted that vermont should declare itself a british colony, and proposed an expedition against albany. by uniting with the british troops, they said, the vermonters would be able to defend themselves against the other states, and declared that something effectual must be determined on before they parted, or the armistice must cease, for the commander-in-chief would not lose this campaign by inactivity. the agents of vermont would not consent to the first proposal, which would make active enemies of those who should be conciliated. against the others they set forth the extent of the frontier of vermont, which it would be impossible for the king's troops to defend in winter, when, unsupported by them, their friends in vermont would be overpowered; that there were many zealous whigs among the inhabitants who might better be conciliated than openly opposed; that, by continuing the truce, other unions than those already existing might be established; and that, by the pursuit of the present policy, better results might be attained by the british than by those proposed by the commissioners. the commissioners took down in writing the heads of these objections, and then suggested an instruction, which they could not deviate from without putting an end to the armistice, which was, that general haldimand should, in pursuance of full powers vested in him by his majesty in council, issue a proclamation offering to confirm vermont as a colony under the crown; that an army should come up the lake in october with said proclamations and distribute them while the legislature was in session, which must accept them, and with the british take measures for common defense. the agents strengthened their previous arguments by saying that, considering the climate and bad roads, and the absence of all necessary preparations, the season was too far advanced for such operations; that one winter would have great effect in changing the minds of the people for a new order of things. but if, in spite of these reasons, the general should still insist on such a proclamation, they trusted that he would learn the temper of the people before issuing it. with this understanding they consented to the proclamation rather than break the armistice. small chance was there of the acceptance of such a proclamation by a legislature chosen from a people three fifths of whom were known to be "mad rebels," to cure whose madness it does not appear that any attempt had been made by the men who on the part of vermont were conducting these negotiations. the conference now ended, and the agents departed, leaving the british commissioners very hopeful of success. in october, while the legislature was in session at charlestown, in the eastern union, general st. leger came up the lake to ticonderoga with a force so large that the narrow channel was black with the swarming armament. about the 25th a small scouting party, sent out for appearance's sake by the commander of the vermont troops, general enos,[84] who was in the secret of the negotiations, was fired upon while watching the movements of the british, and the leader, sergeant tupper, was killed. his body was buried with military honors, and his clothes, with an open letter expressing regret for his death, were sent by st. leger to general enos at castleton. these being publicly delivered, considerable stir was caused among the troops, and no less in charlestown when the news arrived there by a messenger bearing letters from general enos to governor chittenden. these letters related as well to the private negotiations with the british as to public affairs; and while the governor, sitting with others in a public room, was acquainting himself with their contents, major reynolds, commanding new hampshire troops there, came in and demanded of colonel allen why a british general should be sorry for the death of an enemy. allen answered that he did not know, unless that good men were sorry when good men were killed. angry words ensued; and while the spectators were agog to hear the quarrel, copies of the letters were made, excluding all that pertained to the negotiations. these were publicly read in place of the original letters, and the people were quieted. ira allen wrote to the commissioners, now with general st. leger, reporting rumors of cornwallis's surrender, which, whether true or not, had the same effect on the people, and advised that in the present situation the proclamation would best be withheld for a while. he also sent a list of the members of the new legislature, representing that the changes were favorable to the success of the negotiations. the letter was delivered at ticonderoga about ten o'clock in the morning, and an hour afterward an express arrived from the south with tidings of the surrender of cornwallis. before evening, st. leger began the embarkation of his stores and troops, and, with a favoring wind, set forth toward canada. the campaign had ended with barren results to the english, and no injury to vermont but the death of poor sergeant tupper, perhaps slain only to "try the temper of the people." the commissioners flattered themselves that this affair had resulted very favorably to them. there is no record of any subsequent interview of the agents of vermont and the british commissioners, though there were frequent communications passing between them during the next year. one of the commissioners wrote to ira allen in february, 1782, expressing his anxiety to know what effect the surrender of cornwallis had made upon the people of vermont. he reminded allen that it was well to consider the many chances and vicissitudes of war; that, however brilliant the last campaign might appear, the next might wear a very different aspect; and of the probability of the ruin of vermont by her "haughty neighbors, elated by what they call a signal victory;" and hoped that allen might see, as he did, that it was more than ever the interest of vermont to unite with those who would make her a free and happy government. in april general haldimand wrote to sir henry clinton that "coercion alone must now decide the part vermont will take;" that it had made concessions to congress by relinquishing its claims to the east and west unions, the confirmation of which had been promised by him. in june ethan allen wrote to haldimand that "the last refusal of congress to admit the state into the union has done more to awaken common people to a sense of their interest and resentment of their conduct than all which they had done before. by their own account, they declare that vermont does not and shall not belong to their confederacy; the consequence is, that they may fight their own battles. it is liberty which they are after, but they will not extend it to vermont; therefore vermont does not belong to the confederacy or the controversy, but are a neutral republic." he offers to meet general haldimand on any part of lake champlain, and closes in bitterness of spirit: "there is a majority in congress, and a number of the principal officers of the continental army continually planning against me. i shall do everything in my power to render this state a british province." ira allen was again sent to canada early in july with a request from governor chittenden for the release of two vermont officers then prisoners in canada, a request which was granted. about this time a letter attributed to ira allen, though it was a wide departure from his cautious practice of making only verbal communications on such delicate affairs, was written from quebec to general haldimand. it begins with the request that a supposed charter to philip skene, for a government comprehending vermonters with the tract of country called the "western union," might be produced, as the limits of vermont would thereby be established according to an act of congress confirming all royal charters and government lines established before the declaration of independence. the writer represents that the people of the western union "are mostly in favor of government, and would be of great use in bringing about the wished-for revolution." if general haldimand advised it, the vermont leaders would endeavor to raise a regiment or two from the other provinces, to consist of the most loyal or at least moderate men, with no officers but known and tried friends of government, to be stationed in vermont under pretense of protecting the frontiers; such regiments to be supplied by the king, and always ready to act in or out of vermont as ordered. "thus far," he says, "i have not deviated from the principles of my employers, the ruling men of vermont." but now, unauthorized, he proposes an immediate recognition of vermont under government; that the principal gentlemen of vermont promised to abide by any agreement he should enter into, provided it should be kept a profound secret till the british government could protect and assist them; and that they should not be obliged to go out of vermont to make war with the other states; but if other colonies should invade canada, they would oppose them as much as possible, but could not consistently go to canada for its defense and leave their own state exposed to ruin; and also promised never to take arms again in opposition to british government, or assist congress on any pretense whatever. in conclusion, the writer intimates that some of the king's money will be necessary to carry out these plans. there is only circumstantial evidence that ira allen was the author of this letter; although it is probable that he was, yet it contains contradictions hardly consistent with his usual shrewdness. later in the same month general haldimand wrote to sir guy carleton: "i have brought it [the negotiation] to a very embarrassing crisis with regard to myself, having urged the people to the declaration in favor of government by a long series of persuasion, and the strongest assurances of support and reward. uninformed as i am of the intentions of administration, except in general terms that they are pacific, i can no longer act with vermont upon any certain grounds until i receive instructions for that purpose. in the mean time i shall amuse the messenger, who is very pressing for answers to his proposals, in the best way i can." in august he writes to governor chittenden: "you may rest assured that i shall give such orders as will effectually prevent hostilities of any kind being exercised in the district of vermont until a breach on your part, or some general event, may make the contrary my duty." after the signing of the preliminary articles of peace between great britain and the united states, but before washington had proclaimed the cessation of hostilities, or the news of the peace, though expected, had reached canada, general haldimand dispatched his last letter to vermont. "while," says this letter, "his excellency sincerely regrets the happy moment which, it is much to be feared, cannot be recalled, of restoring to you the blessings of the british government, and views with concern the fatal consequences approaching which he had so long and so frequently predicted from your procrastination, he derives some satisfaction from a consciousness of not having omitted a circumstance which could tend to your persuasion and adoption of his desired purpose. if the report now prevailing has any foundation, a very short time will determine the fate of vermont. should anything favorable present, you may still depend on his excellency's utmost endeavor for your salvation." this closed the negotiations which had been continued for three years between the vermont leaders and the british in canada, and which, during that period, had saved the state from invasion on the one hand and disruption on the other. while it may be conceded that in the conduct of this policy the vermonters did not exhibit the most exalted devotion to the faithless congress,[85] though in it they did indeed serve it well, it must also be conceded that it was the only course by which they could preserve the autonomy of their state. this, antedating by eight years that of any other colony, could but be more precious to them than mere existence as a part or parts of other colonies, one of whom, and the principal claimant of their territory, had been, and still continued to be, more tyrannical and oppressive than great britain. they had rendered a most valuable service to the cause of america in the capture of ticonderoga and crown point, the first offensive operations of the americans; on their own soil had fought their country's battles, one of which was largely instrumental in the defeat of burgoyne; and had contributed a regiment of green mountain boys to the continental army. but when, after they had declared the independence which they had so long maintained, they asked to be admitted to a union with the sister states, congress turned a deaf ear to their appeal, and listened only to the dissentient voices of new york and new hampshire, greedy for spoil, and to the southern states, jealous even so early of a preponderance of northern commonwealths. abandoned by those to whom they naturally looked for aid when threatened by the common enemy, whose advance upon their wide frontier they were too feeble to oppose, they took advantage of the attempts of that enemy to corrupt them to procure a cessation of hostilities, which saved not only their own state but the frontiers of new york from invasion. if, at any time, they really contemplated more than this, and a wholesome admonition to congress to respect their rights, they never sought to work injury to the confederation from which they were excluded; and in the very beginning general haldimand promised, if vermont should be admitted an independent state in that confederation, the "negotiation should cease, and any step that leads to it be forgotten." there was no treason. the vermonters could plot no treason against a government in which they had no part. as independent as the united states, their right was as absolute to make terms with great britain, even to becoming a province under it, as they boldly declared to congress they would do rather than submit to the government of new york. ira allen did not scruple to carry misrepresentation beyond even the vaguely defined limits of diplomacy, and to him is chiefly due any doubts of the integrity of his associates, the wise and patriotic fathers of the state. in the necessarily secret conduct of the policy adopted, they incurred the suspicious of friends and foes alike. their own warner and stark, who had led the green mountain boys to victory, suspected them, and general haldimand complained of treachery; but they steadfastly pursued their course, to the accomplishment of all they desired.[86] footnotes: [83] a british spy who was in bennington at the time gave a report of the proceedings rather unfavorable to the success of the british cause. [84] when ethan allen resigned, general enos was appointed in his place. [85] winsor says in his _critical history_, vol. vii. p. 188: "these tergiversations of congress were not inducive of steadfast patriotism in the new state." [86] _vt. hist. soc. collections_, vol. ii.; _governor and council_, vol. ii.; _early history of vermont_, hiland hall; _history of vermont_, ira allen; williams's _history_, vol. ii.; thompson's _vermont_. the haldimand correspondence, in a voluminous cipher, was obtained from the british archives and sent to the distinguished antiquarian, henry stevens, of barnet. these papers, now in the office of the secretary of state, were published in full by the vermont historical society in 1871. chapter xvi. unions dissolved. vermont kept small garrisons in the forts at rutland, castleton, and pittsford, and the militia in readiness to turn out in force when required, while two companies of rangers patrolled the frontier to watch the movements of the enemy. her troops responded promptly to calls to act against the common enemy, as was proved when, to intercept the marauding force of sir john johnson, which had been ravaging the mohawk valley, governor clinton marched with the militia of albany to lake george, and sent an express to the commanding officer at castleton to meet him at ticonderoga with such force as he could muster. a day later, ebenezer allen, now major of the vermont rangers, sent him word that he had arrived at mount independence with more than two hundred men, and was expecting a hundred more to join him, trusting that the governor would furnish boats to transport them across the lake. johnson slipped by to the northward and escaped, but clinton wrote to the new york delegates in congress that the punctuality of the "militia of the grants in complying with his request with 240 men did them great honor." when, early in october, 1780, the british, as already stated, came up the lake with eight large vessels and more than a thousand men, their designs were against new york and not against vermont, as the british policy was then to favor vermont, with a view to future operations. fort anne was taken, and fort george shared the same fate after the greater part of its garrison, consisting of eighty men of warner's continental regiment under captain chipman, had been killed or captured by a superior force of the enemy, which they encountered when expecting to meet only a scout that had driven in one of their messengers sent to fort edward. marking its course with destruction, this invasion of the enemy created such a panic on the new york frontier that but few men could be raised there to oppose it. in this alarm, governor clinton so far acknowledged the existence of the "ideal vermont state" as to direct an officer to write to governor chittenden for assistance.[87] he was immediately answered that the militia of the state were at the north, but the militia of berkshire, which had been sent for, would be forwarded on their arrival. before the pacific intentions of the british were known, the militia of vermont were called out. they immediately mustered at castleton under general ethan allen, and the assembly, then in session at bennington, adjourned, that the members might take the field. vermont, late in october, agreed to the truce, when her militia were dismissed, save a small force of scouts. during the progress of this invasion occurred the last important incursion of the indians within the limits of vermont. while carleton's force swept with purposed harmlessness past the western border of vermont, an expedition set forth against newbury, on the connecticut, with the putative object of capturing a lieutenant whitcomb, who, while scouting on the richelieu some years before, had mortally wounded and then robbed the british general gordon. the force was commanded by lieutenant horton of the british army, seconded by a canadian named la motte, aided by one hamilton, an escaped prisoner of war, who had been in newbury and royalton on parole of honor during the previous summer. it consisted of 300 men,[88] all but seven of whom were indians. it is probable, from this preponderance of the savage element in its composition, that the real purpose of the expedition was the rapine which it so successfully accomplished. guided by old warriors, who had often followed this ancient warpath of their people in the days when their onslaughts were the constant dread of the new england frontiers, the party took its way up the winooski, past tenantless houses and deserted farms, on whose broad intervale meadows the timid deer now grazed undisturbed. then it came to where the wild stream wound through the unbroken wilderness; now among the frost-painted forest of deciduous trees, and now in the black shade of evergreens. among the great pines that then clad the narrow valley, where now stands the capital of the state, they overtook and made prisoners two hunters from newbury. these told the leaders that the people of their town were expecting an attack, and were prepared for it. upon this they turned southward, and, following a branch of white river, on the 16th of october fell upon royalton and neighboring towns. the attack was at first conducted in perfect silence, till the alarm of it spread among the inhabitants; then the infernal clamor of the warwhoop resounded among the hills that had so long been strangers to its echoes, giving to the panic another terror. burning, pillaging, and making prisoners as they swooped with the celerity of falcons upon one and another isolated homestead or defenseless hamlet, they killed four persons, captured twenty-five others, and destroyed quantities of stock and garnered harvests. as they drew off with prisoners and booty, mrs. hendee, the brave young wife of a settler, followed them, so earnestly pleading for the release of her little son that he was restored to her; and, upon her further entreaty, nine other small lads were set free. the alarm soon reached the settlements on the connecticut, and a force of 250 men were mustered, and, under command of captain house, began a vigorous pursuit of the enemy in the night. before daybreak they came up with the rear-guard of the marauders, who fired upon them, wounding one man. the fire was returned with better effect, killing one indian and wounding another. the indians then sent a prisoner to house with a threat that, if they persisted in the attack, the captives would all be immediately killed. while the pursuers were deliberating on this message, the enemy retreated to the winooski, and, following the river to its mouth, there embarked for canada, whither they went unmolested. when they arrived at montreal, the prisoners were "sold for a half joe each," says zadock steele in his "indian captive." most of them were exchanged and returned to their homes in the following summer, but steele, who was imprisoned with others taken elsewhere, did not escape until two years after his capture. after three weeks of starved and weary wandering through the wilderness, first on the western shore of lake champlain, then crossing at split rock on a raft, and then along the eastern shore and up otter creek, he and his two comrades reached the fort at pittsford. other towns, during the war, were visited by small bands of british and indians that did little injury, and during the haldimand negotiations they probably had orders from the british generals not to molest the inhabitants. late in the fall of 1780, vermont endeavored to form a union with the neighboring states for the mutual defense of the frontiers, as well as to secure from them an acknowledgment of her independence. governor chittenden, in november, wrote to governor clinton, making a formal demand on new york to relinquish her claim to the jurisdiction of vermont, at the same time proposing that new york should unite with vermont against the british forces, especially such as should invade the frontiers of the two states from canada. a similar letter was sent to each of the other claiming states. massachusetts complied with the request. new hampshire took no definite action; and when governor clinton acquainted the legislature with this demand, he characterized it as "insolent in its nature, and derogatory to the honor of the state." the legislature, however, was disposed to adjust a quarrel which it was evidently useless to prolong. resolutions were reported, which, though affirming the right of new york to the control of vermont, declared it was inexpedient to further insist on such right, and provided for the appointment of commissioners to confer with commissioners from vermont, with full powers to adjust terms for the cession of the territory to vermont. the report was adopted by the senate with but one dissenting vote, and the question of considering the resolutions received the affirmative vote of the house. upon this, a message was received from governor clinton threatening to prorogue the house if it should agree to carry these resolutions into effect. this threat put a stop to the proceedings, which promised to end the long and bitter controversy. general schuyler was a member of the senate, and, convinced of the futility of attempting to coerce vermont into submission to new york, and that congress would not come to a decision in favor of his state, he took an active part in forwarding the conciliatory measures. governor clinton's obstinate opposition to them, against the calm judgment of the wise and patriotic schuyler and the desire of the legislature of his state, can only be accounted for by his bitter enmity to the intensely democratic people of vermont, and the fact that he and members of his family were claimants under new york of grants of large tracts in the disputed territory. vermont had already appointed agents to wait upon the legislators of new york, to agree upon and establish the line between the two states; but when news of the failure of the pacific measures was received, the council decided neither to send the agents to albany nor to "write any further to the general assembly of new york at present." the intercepted letter from lord george germain afforded evidence that the british ministry were making overtures to the people of vermont, and were somehow persuaded that they were disposed to accept them. alarmed by this aspect of the affair, congress was stirred to some favorable action, but made it an indispensable preliminary to the recognition of vermont's independence and her admission to the union that she relinquish her claims to lands and jurisdiction beyond her original limits. vermont, having formed the unions, her legislature being in session at charlestown,[89] and her newly elected lieutenant-governor being a resident of the east union, refused to break the compact, or submit the question of her independence to any power, but was willing to refer the question of her boundaries to commissioners mutually chosen, and when admitted to the federal union would submit any such dispute to congress. the action of congress called forth a protest from new york, and her delegates were instructed to oppose all such measures. there now arose imminent danger of serious collisions in both unions. there was a probability that the government of new hampshire was about to take measures to compel the submission to its authority of those who had joined vermont; and governor chittenden wrote to general paine, the lieutenant-governor, to call out the militia east of the green mountains to assist the sheriff, and, if new hampshire made an attack with an armed force, to repel force by force. general paine sent a copy of his orders to the president of new hampshire, and informed him that he should carry them out if new hampshire began hostilities; at the same time commissioners were sent to the assembly of new hampshire to attempt an amicable arrangement of the matter. new hampshire gave her revolted citizens forty days in which to return to her, and thus armed conflict was averted. at the same time there were more serious disturbances in the western union. colonel van rensselaer of sancoik, acting under authority of new york, had arrested at new city (now lansingburg) a colonel of the vermont militia, who presently escaped. not long afterwards van rensselaer himself was arrested and taken to bennington, where, according to his own statement, he was well treated and soon discharged. other arrests were made by both parties, all of whom were residents of the union, and who, gathering in arms near sancoik, for a while threatened each other. the adherents of vermont so greatly outnumbered those of new york--only about eighty strong--that the latter did not dare to attack them, and the new york commander, colonel yates, applied in december, 1781, to general gansevoort at albany for reinforcements. governor chittenden now called out the militia of the original territory of vermont, and colonel walbridge marched from bennington with his regiment to sancoik. colonel yates at once withdrew his force, and, on his retreat, met general gansevoort, who, after an unsuccessful endeavor to obtain a detachment from general stark at saratoga, was marching into the disturbed region with eighty men, all that he had been able to raise from four regiments, one of which furnished only the colonel and one private. general gansevoort demanded by what authority and for what purpose colonel walbridge invaded the territory of new york; and walbridge answered that he had come to protect those who held allegiance to vermont, and, though he did not desire warfare, he would not be answerable for the consequences if the liberty and property of such persons were interfered with. finding his insignificant and indifferent force confronted by 500 green mountain boys, who were very much in earnest, general gansevoort wisely withdrew, and left "those turbulent sons of freedom" masters of the bloodless field. thus, most fortunately, no actual hostilities in either quarter resulted from these threatening demonstrations. but the fire was only covered, not quenched, and its smouldering embers were ready to burst into a blaze of fratricidal war whenever fanned by the first mischievous wind. that this did not happen was due to the wise and kindly advice given by washington in a letter to governor chittenden, dated january 1, 1782. admitting that congress had virtually acknowledged the right of vermont to independence in its late action, and its willingness to confirm it, provided the new state was confined to her originally claimed limits, he strongly urged the relinquishment of vermont's claims to the east and west unions. "you have nothing to do but withdraw your jurisdiction to the confines of your own limits, and obtain an acknowledgment of independence and sovereignty." when the vermont assembly met at bennington in february, washington's letter was laid before it and had the immediate effect of bringing about the measure which it advised. on the 22d the claims of vermont to jurisdiction beyond the original limits of the new hampshire grants were formally relinquished, and, having made such compliance with the resolutions of congress, four delegates were appointed by the assembly to negotiate the admission of the state, two of the delegates being empowered to take seats in congress as representatives of vermont upon her admission. before congress was apprised of this action, resolutions were proposed in that body that if, within one month after notification, vermont complied with the resolutions of august, she should at once be admitted into the union, but that non-compliance with them would be considered a manifest indication of her hostility to the united states, whose forces should then be employed against her inhabitants, and her territory be divided by the line of the green mountains between new hampshire and new york. but the resolutions were not adopted, and the vermont delegates presently arriving at philadelphia officially informed congress of the action of the legislature. the matter was referred to a committee of five, which reported on the 17th of april. its sense was that, as vermont had fully complied with the requirements of congress, her recognition and admission had become "necessary to be performed;" and it submitted a resolution recognizing and acknowledging vermont as a free, sovereign, and independent state, and authorizing the appointment of a committee to treat with the vermont delegates upon the terms of admission. notwithstanding all this, congress again resorted to the policy of delay by which it had so long evaded a settlement of this controversy, and motions to consider the report were successively made and rejected. the vermont delegates were indignant at such treatment, and after addressing a letter to the president of congress stating the confident hope of recognition which had induced vermont to relinquish her unions, expressing their disappointment at the delay of congress, and setting forth the critical situation in which vermont was now placed, left unaided to oppose invasions of the enemy from canada, they shook the dust of philadelphia from their feet, "expecting to be officially acquainted when their attendance would be necessary." there was a universal feeling in vermont that the legislature had been duped by congress into weakening the state. the people lost faith in the promises and resolutions of congress, and there were frequent expressions of bitter feeling against it. a member of the legislature, gossiping with neighbors at the mill while their grists were grinding, declared that congress had no business to interfere with the unions of vermont; and when a noted adherent of new york expressed a different opinion, he cursed congress roundly. "curse congress! haven't we waited long enough on them? a pox on them! i wish they would come to the mill now. i would put them between the millstones or under the water-wheel! they have sold us like an old horse! they have no business with our affairs. we know no such body of men!" another prominent worthy, who was in the secret of the haldimand correspondence, said, "we're fixin' up a pill that'll make the yorkers hum." another declared in a public house that, "as long as the king and parliament of great britain approved of and would maintain the state of vermont, he was determined to drive it, and so were its leaders."[90] there was a settled determination to maintain the independence of the state and to ask no favors of the vacillating congress, though the legislature, that nothing might be wanting on their part, at its next session appointed agents empowered to arrange terms of admission to the union. footnotes: [87] clinton afterwards denied giving any authority to this demand on the state of vermont. [88] h. hall, z. steele's _indian captive_. [89] _new hampshire in the east union._ [90] b. h. hall's _eastern vermont_. chapter xvii. "the republic of the green mountains." for all its relinquishment of the unions, without which, according to the representations of some internal enemies, it had not the capacity to maintain inhabitants enough to support the "charges, honor, power, and dignity of an inland state," the commonwealth was constantly gaining strength by the rapid incoming of settlers from other states. these were chiefly from connecticut, which had furnished so many of the founders and defenders of the state, and those who came now, being for the most part of the same mould and metal, gave a hearty support to the government under which they had chosen to live. however, some disturbances occurred in the southeastern part of the state, where certain persons, encouraged to resistance by governor clinton, opposed the raising of troops by vermont for the defense of the frontiers. the town of guilford was at that time the most populous in the state. a majority of the inhabitants were adherents of new york, and, having renounced the new hampshire charter, had, while there was no actual government exercised in the grants, formed a little republic, not ill-governed by the decisions of town meetings. here was the most active opposition to the levy of troops. the adherents of new york who were drafted refused to serve, and the sheriff of windham county was directed to seize their goods and chattels to the amount expended by the state in hiring their substitutes. when the officer attempted to execute his warrant, a cow which he had seized was taken from him by a mob acting under a captain commissioned by new york. in levying on the property of timothy church, of brattleboro, the sheriff was resisted by church, and, when he attempted to arrest him, was prevented by three of church's friends. being unable to execute his warrants, the sheriff asked for a military force to assist him, whereupon, by the advice of the council, governor chittenden ordered brigadier-general ethan allen to raise two hundred and fifty men, and march them into windham county to support the civil authority. not many days passed before allen led 200 mounted green mountain boys into the rebellious region, making several arrests, and meeting with little opposition but from the tongue of a termagant, whose husband they were seeking, till they came to guilford. even here, where disaffection most rankly flourished, there was no serious resistance to the arrests, but when marching thence toward brattleboro they were fired on by about fifty of the guilford men, who ambuscaded the highway. allen at once marched his force back to guilford, and made proclamation that if the people of that town did not peacefully submit to the authority of vermont he would "lay it as desolate as sodom and gomorrah." then, without further molestation, for the yorkers "feared ethan allen more than the devil," the prisoners, twenty in all, were conveyed to westminster and lodged in jail. when brought to trial, fines were imposed on the lesser offenders, while four of the principal ones were sentenced to be forever banished from vermont, not to return under pain of death, and their estates were forfeited to the state. two had made themselves particularly odious by accepting commissions under new york after having sworn allegiance to vermont. timothy church, who had borne a colonel's commission under new york, was one of them. he returned to the state, was taken, imprisoned for five months, and released upon taking the oath of fidelity to vermont, but the faithless creature was presently as busily as ever plotting against the government which he had twice sworn to support. the banished men appealed to governor clinton, but he, always lavish of promises, yet niggardly of fulfillment, gave them no present comfort, but forwarded a representation of their case to congress. the new york delegates, aided by charles phelps, the most active of the vermont refugees, succeeded in bringing congress into a certain degree of hostility to vermont. there were other reasons than the claims of new york, or the right of vermont to independence, or the obligations of congress to acknowledge it, that influenced the action of the different states. those of new england, with the exception of new hampshire, were inclined to favor vermont from kinship and intimate relations with its people, "but principally," said madison, "from the accession of weight they would derive from it in congress." this "accession of weight" was as potent a reason for the opposition of the southern states; and another reason was the effect which a decision in favor of vermont might have on the claims of virginia, north and south carolina, and georgia to the vast tracts stretching westward to the mississippi. for the same reason, pennsylvania and maryland inclined to favor vermont, as did delaware and new jersey, from a desire to strengthen the interests of the small states. on the 5th of december resolutions quite hostile to vermont were adopted by a vote of seven states, among whom were new hampshire and new york, though, by a previous resolution of congress, both were forbidden to vote on any question relative to the decision of this matter. the action of vermont toward her rebellious inhabitants was denounced, and "the people inhabiting said district, claiming to be independent," were required to make full restitution to the persons who had been condemned to banishment, or deprived of their property by confiscation or otherwise, since the first of september, and that they be not molested on returning to their homes. it was declared that the united states would take effectual measures to enforce these resolutions in case they were disobeyed. persons holding commissions under new york or the "district claiming to be independent" were forbidden to exercise authority over any inhabitants of said district, contrary to the resolutions of september 24, 1779, and june 2, 1780. a copy of these resolutions was transmitted to "thomas chittenden, esq., of bennington, in the district aforesaid, to be communicated to the people thereof."[91] a month later governor chittenden returned a forcible and spirited answer, reminding congress of its solemn engagements to vermont, and giving an extract from washington's letter to him advising the restriction of the limits of vermont, which advice had been complied with, in full reliance on the faith and honor of congress to fulfill its agreement. the right of congress to control the internal police of the state, from which it had never received any delegated power, was denied. if congress attempted to carry out its threat of coercion, vermont would probably appeal to general washington, who, with most of the inhabitants of the contiguous states, favored the independence of the state. "would it not, then," he asked, "be more prudent to refer this dispute to new york and vermont than to embroil the confederacy of the united states therewith?" the course pursued toward the rebellious persons was justified on the ground that nearly all of those banished or fined had taken the oath of allegiance to vermont, and were, according to the resolutions of congress itself, amenable to no laws or regulations but those of vermont. the remonstrance closed by earnestly soliciting the admission of vermont to the union, "agreeable to the before cited preliminary agreement, which the committee of congress have reported has become absolute and necessary on their part to be performed, and from which this state will not recede." when the legislature met in february, governor chittenden laid before it the resolutions of congress, which called forth a remonstrance quite as spirited as his own. it declared the willingness of vermont to comply with every reasonable requirement of congress; "but when congress require us," it continues, "to abrogate our laws and reverse the solemn decisions of our courts of justice in favor of insurgents and disturbers of the public peace, we think ourselves justified to god and the world when we say we cannot comply with such their requisitions." "it would be licensing factious subjects to oppose government with impunity." "as we have, from the commencement of the war, braved every danger and hardship against the usurpations of britain in common with the united states, as our inherent right of sovereignty and jurisdiction stands confessed upon the principles of the revolution, and implied by the solemn transactions of congress, we cannot but express our surprise at the reception of the late resolutions of congress." the remonstrance of governor chittenden was printed and extensively circulated, especially among the officers of the continental army, to inform them of the merits of a controversy in which they might soon be called upon to take part. general washington's letter being referred to in it, he laid it and the one to which it was an answer before congress, and at the same time wrote to mr. jones, a member of that body, reminding him that the committee on these affairs, of which he was a member, had approved of the reply to governor chittenden. he was sure that vermont had a powerful interest in the new england states, and with regard to the enforcement of the resolutions of congress by the army he wrote: "let me ask by whom that district of country is principally settled? and of whom is your present army (i do not confine the question to this part of it, but will extend it to the whole) composed? the answers are evident,--new england men. it has been the opinion of some that the appearance of force would awe those people into submission. if the general assembly ratify and confirm what mr. chittenden and his council have done, i shall be of a very different sentiment, and, moreover, that it is not a trifling force that will subdue them, even supposing they derive no aid from the enemy in canada; and that it would be a very arduous task indeed if they should, to say nothing of a diversion which may and doubtless would be made in their favor from new york if the war with great britain should continue." he could not say that there "would be any difficulty with the army if it were to be ordered on this service," but "should be exceedingly unhappy to see the experiment." there would be "a general unwillingness to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren." the threat of congress certainly had not the effect of awing vermont into any compliance with its behests, and if more than a threat was ever intended, nothing beyond it was ever attempted. no reparation was made to the offenders who had been so summarily dealt with; and when two of the banished men ventured to return, they were seized and imprisoned, but were released on their promise of submission to the laws of the state. when opposition was offered serious enough to require it, the militia was properly called out to enforce the civil authority; and the sturdy little commonwealth continued to exercise its jurisdiction unmolested by congress, though the legislature of new york seethed with wrath and boiled over in protests and complaints. constable oliver waters had made himself particularly obnoxious to the new york party by his activity in making arrests, and while he was lodging at an inn in brattleboro the house was attacked by twenty or thirty men. after firing through the doors and windows and wounding two of the inmates, they made forcible entry, and, seizing waters, carried him into massachusetts, intending to deliver him to governor clinton at poughkeepsie, but he was taken from them by a rescue party and brought safely to vermont. this affair was the cause of vigorous action against the insurgents, several hundred of the militia turning out to aid the state troops. several of the ring-leaders were taken, and several fled into massachusetts, whither they were not pursued. in february a new act was passed making punishable by death the levying of war against the state by any citizen thereof. at the same time the governor and council were given discretionary power to grant pardons, during the recess of the legislature, to offenders "who should appear penitent and desirous of returning to their duty." in the following month all active opposition to the jurisdiction of vermont ceased, and the troops were gradually withdrawn from windham county. many of the disaffected persons were granted pardons and the restoration of their confiscated property on taking the oath of allegiance. among these was charles phelps, who had been one of the most inveterate opponents of vermont, but who now became a peaceable citizen of the state, and so continued during the remainder of his life. many of the adherents of new york removed to lands on the susquehanna, granted them by that state. new york made complaint to congress of the employment of troops by vermont to reduce residents thereof who professed allegiance to new york, and again urged the intervention of congress. being apprised of this, governor chittenden wrote a pungent letter to the president of congress. "it seems they are willing congress should settle this dispute," he says of new york, "as they have a mind, but not otherwise." referring to the desire expressed by new york that she might not be blamed if blood was shed in the assertion of her authority: "as to this bloody proposition, the council of this state have only to remark that vermont does not wish to enter into a war with the state of new york, but she will act on the defensive, and expect that congress and the twelve states will observe strict neutrality, and let the two contending states settle their own controversy." referring to the suppression of the malcontents, he wrote: "this matter has been managed by the wisdom of the legislature of this state, who consider themselves herein amenable to no earthly tribunal." congress was reminded of the impropriety of permitting new york and new hampshire to vote on any motion which came before it respecting vermont, contrary to the express resolution of september, 1779, though it appeared they had ever since done so. in conclusion, the desire of vermont for a confederation with the united states was reiterated. this letter was referred to the same committee to which the representation of new york, and other papers relating to vermont, had been committed. on the 29th of may, 1783, it reported in favor of vermont, reciting the resolutions of august, 1781, and offering one recognizing the independence of the state, and admitting it into the union. a few days later the new york delegates moved the postponement of another matter that this report might be taken up, but only new york and new hampshire voted in favor of the motion. this was the last action taken by the continental congress in relation to vermont, with whose affairs it thenceforth offered no interference. by the treaty of peace with great britain signed at paris on the 3d of september, 1783, vermont was included in the territory belonging to the united states. but she was in fact thenceforth, till her admission to the union, what the legend[92] on her copper coins declared her to be, "the republic of the green mountains," and independent of every other government. a standard of weights and measures was prescribed, the value of coins regulated, and a postal service established, the rates of postage being the same as those of the united states, for the superintendence of which a postmaster-general was appointed, and the post-riders were given the exclusive right of carrying letters and packages. the mails were carried on horseback, and in their long and lonely routes the riders encountered much discomfort of storm and cold on roads always bad, often worse with blockades of snow or bottomless quagmires. the post-offices were for the most part a shelf in the great tavern bar, inconspicuous among the array of bottles and decanters that were in more frequent demand; or a drawer in the village store, into which the infrequent letters and few newspapers were promiscuously tumbled, to be searched through on demand of each inquirer. the furniture of one central office is still preserved,--a great chest of three drawers, each bearing in large letters the name of a town. being out of the confederation, vermont could not be called on to bear any part of the debt incurred by the war, by such general government as existed, and having made the taxes for the support of her own troops payable in provisions, which were always furnished, she herself owed no considerable debt, and this was in course of speedy liquidation by the sale of her lands, now in great demand by people of the neighboring states. her bills of credit, issued in 1781, had suffered no depreciation, and were faithfully redeemed. under these circumstances, the people of the prosperous commonwealth were quite lukewarm concerning its admission to the union, though they cultivated friendly relations with the neighboring states, and the legislature of the state enacted that all citizens of the united states should be equally entitled to all the privileges of law and justice with those of vermont, and an annual election of delegates to congress was provided for, though none had occasion to attend. contrasting their condition with that of the pioneers, these people might well be content with that which was now enjoyed. those brave invaders of the wilderness had been opposed by all unkindly forces of nature,--unpropitious seasons, floods, the bitterness of almost arctic winters endured in miserable shelter with meagre fare, and by more cruel man, the prowling, murderous savage and his as relentless christian allies; and withal had borne the heavy loneliness of isolation, lightened only by toil save when nature changed her mood and conversed in songs of familiar birds, voices of wind-swept trees and babble of streams whose torrential rage was spent, or smiled in sunshine from the little patch of sky, and in the bloom of innumerable flowers out of the border of the grim forest. the dangers and privations of pioneer life had now been passed through, and there were peace and abundance of all that simple lives required. the "plumping-mill"--the rude device for pounding corn in a huge mortar, with a pestle hung from a spring-pole--went out of use, and the long journeys on foot or on horseback to the gristmill forty miles away were no longer necessary. the wild streams were tamed to the turning of millstones, as well as to plying the saws that were incessantly gnawing into the heart of the woods. the wild forest had receded and given place to broad fields of tilth, meadow land, and pastures, not now in the uncouth desolation of stumps and log-heaps, but dotted with herds and flocks. the jangle of the sheep-bell was as frequent as the note of the thrush in the half-wild upland pastures, for two shillings were deducted from the lists for each pound of wool raised during the year. orchards were beginning to whiten hillsides with bloom and color them with fruitage, for every acre with forty growing trees was exempted from taxation. but while vermont continued very indifferent and almost inactive concerning the acknowledgment of her independence by congress, her old enemy had come to desire what she had so long opposed. it had become apparent to new york that the admission of the state to the union would be to her own advantage. the establishment of vermont as a free and independent state was an accomplished fact; her interest in the affairs of the nation, were she an acknowledged part of it, would in the main accord with that of new york. there was, then, no good reason why new york should continue to oppose her admission merely in the selfish and insignificant interest of the land speculators, and in the blind lead of governor clinton's persistent enmity. in accordance with this wiser view, the legislature of new york, on the 15th of july, 1789, appointed commissioners with full power to acknowledge the independence of vermont, and settle all matters of controversy with that state. in october vermont appointed commissioners to treat with those of new york, and finally determine everything which obstructed the union of vermont with the united states. the principal difficulty was the adjustment of the compensation for lands claimed by citizens of new york which had been re-granted by vermont, but after two or three meetings the commissioners came to an amicable arrangement of this most troublesome question. in october, 1790, the commissioners of new york declared the consent of the legislature of that state to the admission of vermont to the union, and that upon such admission all claims of new york to jurisdiction within the limits of vermont should cease; that the boundary line between the two states should be the western lines of towns granted by new hampshire, and the mid-channel of lake champlain. for the adjustment of the land claims, it was declared that if the legislature of vermont should before the 1st of january, 1792, agree to pay to the state of new york the sum of $30,000 on or before the first day of january, 1794, all rights and titles to land granted by the colonial or state government of new york should cease, except those which had been made in confirmation of the grants of new hampshire. the legislature of vermont at once acceded to this arrangement, and on the 28th of the same month passed an act directing the state treasurer to pay the sum named to the state of new york, and to accept the line proposed as a perpetual boundary between the two states. thus peaceably ended the controversy that for more than a quarter of a century had been an almost continual annoyance to the people of this district, and in its later stages a source of danger to the whole country. the assembly of vermont called a convention to consider the expediency of joining the federal union. this convention met at bennington, january 6, 1791, and though at first several members were not in favor of union, after a debate of three days the question was decided in the affirmative by a vote of 105 yeas to 3 nays. a few days later the assembly chose nathaniel chipman and lewis r. morris commissioners to negotiate with congress for the admission of the state to the union. the commissioners went immediately to philadelphia, and laid before the president the proceedings of the legislature and convention. on the eighteenth day of february, 1791, congress, without debate or one dissenting vote, passed an act declaring that on the fourth day of march next, "the said state, by the name and style of the state of vermont, shall be received into this union as a new and entire member of the united states of america." so at last the star, that so long had shone apart, now added its constant ray to the lustre of the constellation. footnotes: [91] for these resolutions see slade's _state papers_, p. 177; also chittenden's reply, p. 178. [92] _vermontensium res publica._ chapter xviii. the new state. when vermont had taken her place in the union, her state government continued to run smoothly in its accustomed lines, still guided by the firm hand and wise counsel of her first governor. with unabated faith in the wisdom, integrity, and patriotism of thomas chittenden, the freemen of vermont again and again reëlected him to the chief magistracy of the commonwealth after its admission, as with but one exception they had done in the twelve years preceding that event. notwithstanding the simplicity of home life in those days, "election day" was observed with a pomp and ceremony well befitting the occasion. an old newspaper[93] of the day tells us that the morning was ushered in by beat of drums, and that the governor-elect, thomas chittenden, esq., and lieutenant-governor peter olcott, accompanied by several members of the council, jonas fay, samuel safford, walbridge, bayley, and strong, old associates in the stalwart band of green mountain boys, were met at some distance from the town of windsor by a troop of horse, a company of artillery, and one of infantry, all in "most beautiful uniforms," doubtless of the beloved continental buff and blue, glittering with great brass buttons, whereon were inscribed the initials "g. w." and the legend, "long live the president." as this corps, made up of veterans who had smelled powder when it burned with deadly intent, and of martial youths whose swords were yet unfleshed, marched proudly to the screech of fife and beat of drum, the chronicler writes, their evolutions and discipline would have gained the applause of regular troops. upon the formal announcement of the result of the election, the artillery company fired a salute of fifteen guns, and then the governor and council, the members of the house, and all the good people there assembled, repaired to church, and listened to the election sermon, delivered by the rev. mr. shuttleworth "with his usual energy and pathos;" and in the evening the happy occasion was further celebrated by an "elegant ball given by a number of gentlemen of this town to a most brilliant assembly of gentlemen and ladies, of this and neighboring states." the sessions of the legislature usually continued about four weeks, and its business principally consisted in the granting of new townships, levying a small tax, and the passage of necessary laws. frequent petitions were received, and many granted, to establish lotteries to aid towns in the building and repairing of bridges and roads; to remove obstructions in the channel of the connecticut; to enable individuals to carry out private enterprises, such as the building of a malt and brew house; in one case to furnish a blind man means wherewith to go to europe to have an operation performed on his eyes; and at least one petition was presented praying for the grant of a lottery to build a church! some of the statutes made for the government of the commonwealth in its turbulent infancy, and which were soon repealed, are curious enough to deserve mention. manslaughter was punishable by forfeiture of possessions, by whipping on the naked back, and by branding the letter "m." on the hand with a hot iron. whoso was convicted of adultery was to be punished by whipping on the naked body not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, and "stigmatized or burnt on the forehead with the letter 'a' on a hot iron," and was to wear the letter "a" on the back of the outside garment, in cloth of a different color, and as often as seen without it, on conviction thereof, to be whipped ten stripes. the counterfeiter was punished by having his right ear cut off, and by branding with the letter "c" and being kept at hard labor during life. burglary and highway robbery were punished by branding with the letter "b" on the forehead, by having the right ear nailed to a post and cut off, and by whipping. a second offense entailed the loss of the other ear and the infliction of a severer whipping, and for the third offense the criminal was to be "put to death as being incorrigible." every town was obliged to maintain a good pair of stocks set in the most public place, and in these were exposed the convicted liar, the blasphemer, and the drunkard. in such place also must be maintained a sign-post, whereon all public notices were placed, with occasional ghastly garnishment of felons' ears. every town assigned a particular brand for its horse kind, each one of which was to be marked on the left shoulder by a regularly appointed brander, who should record a description of every horse branded. all owners of cattle, sheep, or swine were required to ear-mark or brand such animals, and cause their several marks to be registered in the town book. many of these ear-marks may yet be seen described and rudely pictured in faded ink on the musty pages of old record books. there was a general revision of the laws in 1787, and a second revision ten years later, whereby the barbarous severity of the penal laws was considerably lessened. after admission to the union, vermont was as faithful to the newly assumed bond as she had been steadfast and unflinching in the assertion of her independence of congress when that body attempted to exercise its authority over the unrecognized commonwealth. she was not backward in furnishing soldiers for the common defense. in 1792, captain william eaton, who some years later won renown as the heroic leader of a bold and successful expedition against the city of derne in tripoli, raised a company for service against the indians in the northwest. there, in the fourth sub-legion of general wayne's army, these brave men well sustained the valorous reputation of the green mountain boys, bearing the evergreen sprig to its accustomed place in the battle-front. at the battle of miami, of the eleven privates killed in the fourth sub-legion five were vermonters. the patriotism of these three-years' volunteers was stimulated by a bounty of eight dollars, and a monthly wage of three dollars. the pioneers of vermont aged early under the constant strain of anxiety and hardship which their life entailed, and though most of the leaders were spared amid the dangers of the frontier, the perils of war, and intestine feuds, few reached the allotted term of man's life. warner, whose vigorous constitution was sapped by the stress of continuous campaigns, died in 1785, aged only forty-two, six years before the state in whose defense he first drew his sword became a recognized member of the nation to whose service he unselfishly devoted the best years of his brave life. neither was ethan allen permitted to see the admission of vermont to the union, but was suddenly stricken down by apoplexy, in the robust fullness of his strength, two years before that event. noble and generous in his nature, bold, daring, and resolute, "he possessed," says zadoc thompson, "an unusual degree of vigor both of body and mind, and an unlimited confidence in his own abilities." vermont has given him the first place among her heroes, has set his marble effigy in the national capitol, in her own, and on the monument that marks his grave; yet to that brave and modest soldier, seth warner, the knightliest figure in her romantic history, the state he served so well has not given so much as a tablet to commemorate his name and valorous deeds. it is as if, in their mouldering dust, the character of the living men was preserved, the one still self-asserting, the other as unpretentious in the eternal sleep as he was in life. though governor chittenden's age was not beyond that in which modern statesmen are still active, infirmity and disease were upon him, admonishing him that he could no longer bear the fatigues of the office which for eighteen years he had held. in the summer of 1797 he announced that he would not again be a candidate for the governorship. he had seen the state, which he had been so largely instrumental in moulding out of the crude material of scattered frontier settlements, and which his strong hand had defended against covetous neighbors and a foreign enemy, in the full enjoyment of an honorable place in the sisterhood of commonwealths, and felt that his work was done. while still in office, a few weeks later, his honorable life closed at his home in williston, among the fertile fields that his hand had wrought out of the primeval wilderness, and his death was sincerely mourned by the people whom he had so long ruled with patriarchal care. at the next election, isaac tichenor was chosen governor. he was a native of new jersey, and, becoming a resident of vermont in 1777, he presently took an active part in the affairs of the state. for several years previous to his election to the first place in its gift, he had served it as a member of the council, chief justice, and united states senator. no choice was made by the people, though he received a plurality of the popular vote, and the election devolved upon the assembly. the federalist party predominating therein, he was elected by a large majority. he was ten times reëlected, and, such faith had the people in him, several times after his party was a minority in the state, although the acrimony of party strife had begun to embitter its politics. in the early part of tichenor's administration, while the legislature was in session at vergennes in the autumn of 1798, five chiefs of the cognahwaghnahs presented a claim of their people to ancient hunting grounds in vermont, bounded by a line extending from ticonderoga to the great falls of otter creek, and in the same direction to the height of land dividing the streams between lake champlain and the river connecticut, thence along the height of land opposite missisque, and then down to the bay, and comprising about a third of the state. the indians were handsomely entertained during their stay, and dismissed with a present of a hundred dollars, "well pleased with their own policy," says williams, "and with that of the assembly of vermont, hoping that the game would prove still better another season." an investigation of this claim resulted in a decision that, if any such right ever existed, it had been extinguished by the cession of the lands in question to the united states by great britain, whose allies these indians were in the late war. when, upon the passage of the alien and sedition laws by congress, the legislatures of virginia and kentucky, in 1798, passed resolutions, which were sent to the legislatures of all the other states, declaring these acts null, the assembly of vermont made a firm, dignified, and forcible reply, denying the right of states to sit in judgment on the constitutionality of the acts of congress, or to declare which of its acts should be accepted or which rejected. considering the almost recent antagonism which had existed between congress and the state of vermont, the one by turns vacillating or threatening, the other boldly defiant and denying the right of interference with her affairs, it might be thought that the new commonwealth would be found arrayed among the extreme defenders of state rights rather than so stoutly opposing them. party spirit had begun to embitter the politics of the state, and the growing minority of republicans was hotly arrayed against the still predominant federalists. the federal strength was further weakened by the imprisonment, under the sedition law, of matthew lyon, one of the vermont members of congress. his free expression of opinion concerning the conduct of the administration of president adams would not now be considered very extravagant, but for it he was sentenced to four months' imprisonment, and to pay a fine of $1,000. while in prison at vergennes, he wrote letters which it was thought would cause his re-arrest before he could leave the state to take his seat in congress, to which he had been reëlected while in prison. measures were taken for the payment of his fine in indisputably legal tender, one citizen of the state providing the sum in silver dollars, and one ardent republican of north carolina coming all the way from that state on horseback with the amount in gold. but lyon's many political friends desired to share the honor of paying his fine, and it was arranged that no person should pay more than one dollar. no sooner had he come forth from prison than his fine was paid, and he was placed in a sleigh and driven up the frozen current of great otter to middlebury, attended, it is said, by an escort in sleighs, the train extending from the one town to the other, a distance of twelve miles. with half as many, he might boast of a greater following than had passed up the indian road under any leader since the bloody days of border warfare when waubanakee chief or canadian partisan led their marauding horde along the noble river. lyon was of irish birth, and came to america at the age of thirteen under an indenture for his passage money. this was sold for a pair of steers to one of the founders of danville, vermont, and lyon was wont to swear "by the bulls that redeemed me." he served in the vermont troops in the revolution, and for a time was paymaster in warner's regiment. he was a member of the dorset convention, and for several years took a prominent part in the politics of the state, of which he was an enterprising and useful citizen. his second wife was the daughter of governor thomas chittenden. in 1801 he removed to kentucky, and was eight years a member of congress from that state. he died at the age of seventy-six, in the territory of arkansas, soon after his election as delegate to congress. four years after the arbitrary measures against lyon by a federalist majority in the legislature, the opposite party gained the ascendency in that body, though tichenor had been reëlected by a majority of the freemen of the state. the customary address of the governor, and the reply of the house thereto, was the occasion of a hot party debate, which was kept up for several days, and it was expected that the republicans would use their newly acquired power to place adherents of their party in all the offices at their disposal. but the wise counsel of the first governor still prevailed, and there were but few removals for mere political causes. though party spirit was rancorous enough, the elevation of men to office, more for their political views than for their fitness, did not obtain in the politics of vermont till the bad example had for some years been set by the party in power at the seat of national government. until 1808, the legislature of vermont wandered from town to town, like a homeless vagrant, having held its sessions in fifteen different towns, one of which, charlestown, was outside the present limits of the commonwealth, though then in its eastern union. this year, as if partially fulfilling the threat of ethan allen, it gathered among the fastnesses of the mountains, and established a permanent seat at montpelier, which town was chosen as the capital for being situated near the geographical centre of the state. a large wooden structure, three stories in height and of quaint fashion, was erected for a state house. the seats of the representatives' hall were of unpainted pine plank, which so invited the jackknives of the true-born yankee legislators that in a quarter of a century they were literally whittled into uselessness. a handsome new state house of vermont granite was built in 1835 on nearly the same ground. twenty-two years later this was destroyed by fire, and replaced by a larger one of the same style and material. commercial intercourse with canada had been established soon after the close of the war, principally by the people of western vermont, to whom the gate of the country now opened the easiest exit for their products, the most of which were the lumber and potash that the slain forest yielded to axe and fire. as early as 1784, steps were taken by the independent commonwealth to open free trade with the province of quebec, and a channel through it for such trade with europe. ira allen, joseph and jonas fay were appointed agents to negotiate this business. only ira allen acted in this capacity, and in the following year he reported having succeeded so far as to procure a free exchange of produce and manufactures, except peltry and a few articles of foreign production. these negotiations, occurring with the arrival of english troops in nova scotia, gave rise to alarming rumors that vermont was taking measures to become a british dependency; but this freedom of commerce through lake champlain and the richelieu, and exclusively confined thereto, was accorded by the canadian government to the states already in the union as well as to the independent republic of vermont, though the latter derived the greater benefit from it. to further promote this commerce, ira allen proposed the cutting of a ship canal to navigably connect the waters of lake champlain with those of the st. lawrence, and made a voyage to england with the object of engaging the british government in this work. he offered, under certain conditions, to cut the canal at his own expense, and continued, though unsuccessfully, to urge the government of his own state to aid him in the enterprise so late as 1809. the great pines, that fifty years before had been reserved for the "masting of his majesty's navy," were felled now by hardy yeomen who owed allegiance to no earthly king, and, gathered into enormous rafts, voyaged slowly down the lake, impelled by sail and sweep. they bore as their burden barrels of potash that had been condensed from the ashes of their slain brethren, whose giant trunks had burned away in grand conflagrations that made midnight hills and vales and skies bright with lurid flame. the crew of the raft lived on board, and the voyage, though always slow, was pleasant and easy when the south wind filled the bellying sail, wafting the ponderous craft past the shifting scene of level shore, rocky headland, and green islands. in calms or adverse winds, it was hard work to keep headway with the heavy sweeps, and the voyage grew dangerous when storms arose, and the leviathan heaved and surged on angry waves that threatened to sever its huge vertebræ and cast it piecemeal to the savage rocks. sloops, schooners, and square-sailed canada boats plied to and fro, bearing that way cargoes of wheat and potash; this way, salt and merchandise from over-seas. after midwinter, the turbulent lake became a plain of ice, affording a highway for traffic in sleighs, long trains of which fared to montreal with loads of produce to exchange for goods or coin. the declaration of what was commonly called the land embargo in 1808, cutting off this busy commerce, and barring western vermont from its most accessible market, caused great distress and dissatisfaction, and gave rise to an extensive contraband trade. the collector of the district of vermont wrote to mr. gallatin, united states secretary of the treasury, that the law could not be enforced without military aid. upon this, president jefferson issued a proclamation, calling on the insurgents to disperse, and on all civil and military officers to aid in quelling all disturbances. there is nothing in the newspapers of the day or in official documents to show any combination to oppose the law, and at a regularly called town meeting the citizens of st. albans, through their selectmen, formally protested to the president "that no cause for such a proclamation existed." nevertheless, the militia of franklin county were called out by governor smith, a republican, who had that year been elected over tichenor. the troops were assigned to duty at windmill point in alburgh, to prevent the passage of certain timber rafts, which, however, got safely past the post in the night. for this the franklin county troops were unjustly blamed, and, to their great indignation, were sent to their homes, while militia from rutland county and a small force of regulars were brought up to take their place. the smugglers grew bold, plying their nefarious traffic by night in armed bands of such strength that the revenue officers seldom ventured to attack them. a notorious craft named the black snake had crept a few miles up the winooski with a cargo of contraband goods, when she was seized by a party of militia. twelve soldiers, under command of lieutenant farrington, were detailed to take her to the lake. the smugglers ambuscaded them, firing on them repeatedly from the willow-screened bank with a wall-piece charged with bullets, slugs, and buckshot, killing three of the party and wounding the lieutenant. the remainder of the militia hurried to the rescue of their comrades, and succeeded in taking eight of the smugglers, while two escaped who were afterwards captured. at a special term of the supreme court one of them was sentenced to death,[94] and three to ten years' imprisonment, after first standing in the pillory, and two of the smugglers to receive fifty lashes each. the temper of both parties grew hotter under the existing conditions, but expended itself in violent language, and there was no further resistance to the laws. the federalist party gained sufficient strength to reëlect governor tichenor at the ensuing election, but in the following year the republicans elected their candidate, jonas galusha, who was continued in the office four years. footnotes: [93] _vermont journal_, october 18, 1791. [94] this was the first instance of capital punishment since the organization of the state. chapter xix. vermont in the war of 1812. the continued aggressions of great britain were gradually but surely tending to a declaration of war against the imperial mistress of the sea. to the impressment of our seamen, the search and seizure of our vessels, the wanton attack of the leopard on the chesapeake, and many other outrages, was added the insult of attempting the same policy toward all new england which years before england had pursued in the effort to draw vermont to her allegiance. to open communication with the leading men therein, and to ascertain the feeling of the new england states, in all of which, except vermont, the party opposing the administration of madison was in the ascendant, sir james craig, governor-general of canada, employed an adventurer named john henry, a naturalized citizen of the united states. coming from canada, he passed through vermont, tarrying awhile at burlington and windsor. from the first town he wrote an unwarranted favorable report to his employer, representing that vermont would not sustain the government in case of war; but, on reaching windsor, he was led to give a less favorable representation. he then journeyed through new hampshire, and, at length arriving at boston, wrote many letters in cipher to sir james. he represented the opposition of the new england federalists to the administration to be of so violent a nature that, in case of war, they would at least remain neutral, and probably would bring about a separation of those states from the union, and their formation into a dependency of great britain. having performed the duty assigned him, he received from the british government, as reward for his services, not the appointment he asked, but only compliments. in retaliation for this poor requital, he divulged the whole correspondence to president madison, receiving therefor the sum of $50,000. in the manifesto of the causes of war, this attempt at disruption was declared to be an "act of greater malignity than any other." on the 18th of june, 1812, an act was passed by congress declaring war against great britain. a considerable proportion of the citizens of the united states were strongly opposed to a resort to arms, believing that all disputes might have been adjusted more certainly by further negotiations than by the arbitrament of war, for which the nation was so ill-prepared. so it was in vermont. of the 207 members of the assembly which was that year elected, seventy-nine were federalists opposed to the war, who made earnest protest against a resolution of the majority, declaring that those who did not actively support this measure of the government "would identify themselves with the enemy, with no other difference than that of locality." but the overwhelming majority of republicans, with a governor of their own politics, framed the laws to their own liking. an act was passed prohibiting all intercourse between the people of vermont and canada without permit from the governor, under a penalty of $1,000 fine and seven years' imprisonment at hard labor; also, an act exempting the bodies and property of officers and soldiers of the militia from attachment while in actual service, and levying a tax of one cent per acre on all lands, for arming and supporting the militia to defend the frontiers. soon after the declaration of war, recruiting offices were opened in the state, a cantonment for troops was established at burlington, and small bodies of volunteers were stationed at several points on the northern frontier. on either side of the scattered settlers of this region lay the forest,--on this, the scarcely broken wilderness of northern vermont; on that, the canadian wilds, that still slept in almost primeval solitude. the old terror of indian warfare laid hold of these people, and their imagination filled the gloomy stretch of northward forest with hordes of red warriors awaiting the first note of conflict to repeat here the horrors of the old border warfare. in some of these towns stockades were built, and from all came urgent appeals to the state and general government for arms to repel the expected invasion. one frontier town was obliged to borrow twenty muskets, and the selectmen were authorized to purchase twenty-five pounds of powder and one hundred pounds of lead on six months' credit, a circumstance which shows how poorly prepared vermont was for war. two months before the declaration of war, congress authorized the president to detach 100,000 militia to march at a minute's notice, to serve for six months after arriving at the place of rendezvous. vermont's apportionment was 3,000, and was promptly raised. in november an act was passed by the legislature for the raising of sixty-four companies of infantry, two of cavalry, and two of artillery, to hold themselves ready at a minute's notice to take the field. it appears that this corps was formed almost exclusively from exempts from military service. in one company, says an old paper,[95] was a venerable patriarch who could still shoot and walk well, and who "was all animation at the sound of the drum." as shown by the disbursements by the state for premiums to recruits, it appears that only the old and populous states of massachusetts, new york, pennsylvania, and virginia furnished more men to the regular army than this young commonwealth, which was half a wilderness. the 30th and 31st regiments of infantry were composed entirely of vermonters, as were largely the 11th and 26th. the 3,000 detached vermont militia were assembled at plattsburgh in the fall of 1812. in november general dearborn marched from plattsburgh to the lines with an army of 5,000 men, 2,000 of whom were militia. at the la colle he made an ill-planned and feebly conducted attack upon a very inferior british force, and then retired to plattsburgh. a large number of vermonters shared the barren honors of this expedition under an incompetent leader. the militia were presently disbanded, and four regiments of regulars crossed the lake and took post at burlington. all along the lake, during the summer, there had been a stir of busy preparation. vessels of war were built and fitted out to contest the supremacy on the lake with the british naval force already afloat. "niles' register" reports the arrival at plattsburgh[96] of the sloop of war president, and a little later that of the smaller sloops, which, with six gunboats, constituted at the time the american force on lake champlain, all under the command of lieutenant macdonough. but the belligerent craft of either nation held aloof from more than menace, while sullen autumn merged into the bitter chill of northern winter, and the ships were locked harmless in their ice-bound harbors. when returning warm weather set them free, some british gunboats crept up the lake, and on the 3d of june the growler and eagle went in pursuit of them, chasing them into the richelieu. having come in sight of the works on isle aux noix, the sloops put about and endeavored to make their way back to the open lake against the current of the river and a south wind. three row-galleys now put out from the fort, and began playing on them with guns of longer range and heavier metal than those of the sloops, upon whom a galling fire of musketry was also rained from the river banks. the vessels poured a storm of grape and canister upon the green wall of leafage that hid the musketeers, and hurled ineffectual shot at the distant galleys, maintaining a gallant defense for more than four hours. then a heavy shot from one of the galleys crushed through the hull of the eagle below the water-line, sinking her instantly, but in shallow water, so that her men were rescued by boats from shore. fifteen minutes later a shot carried away the forestay and main boom of the growler, and being now unmanageable she was forced to strike. only one of the americans was killed, and nineteen were wounded, while the loss of the british was far greater, but the entire crews of both sloops were taken prisoners. thus disastrously to the americans resulted the first naval encounter of this war on these waters. the captured sloops were refitted, and, under the names of finch and chub, made a brave addition to the british fleet upon the lake. the defenseless condition of the western shore invited attack, and on the last day of july colonel murray sailed up to plattsburgh with two sloops, three gunboats, and a number of longboats manned by 1,400 men. making an unopposed landing, they destroyed the barracks and all other public property there, and carried away eight thousand dollars' worth of private property. during this attack general wade hampton, recently appointed to the command of this department, remained inert at burlington, only twenty miles distant, with 4,000 troops, although he had twenty-four hours' notice of the expected attack, and received repeated calls for aid. two gunboats and the longboats then proceeded to swanton, where they destroyed some old barracks and plundered several citizens, and committed similar piratical depredations at several points on the western shore. the two sloops, late growler and eagle, now sailed under changed names and colors up the lake, accompanied by the other gunboats, and destroyed several boats engaged in transporting stores. they appeared before burlington, firing a few shots upon the town, which were briskly returned by the batteries. that night they cut out four sloops laden with provisions, and burnt another with a cargo of salt, and then bore away northward with their booty. in september macdonough sailed down the lake with his little fleet and offered battle, but the british declined and sailed into the richelieu, whither the brave commodore would not follow to be entrapped as lieutenant smith had been. again, in december, when some of the british vessels came up to rouse's point on a burning and plundering expedition, macdonough endeavored to get within striking distance near point au fer, but they refused to engage, and retired to the same safe retreat. in october colonel isaac clark, a vermonter and a veteran of the revolution, made a brilliant dash with a detachment of his regiment, the 11th, on a british post at st. armand, on missisquoi bay. with 102 riflemen he surprised the enemy, killing nine, wounding fourteen, and taking 101 prisoners in an engagement that lasted only ten minutes. in november he again visited st. armand, securing fifty head of cattle which had been taken there from the vermont side of the line. a canadian journal was "glad to give the devil his due," and credited him with having "behaved very honorably in this affair." during the autumn general wade hampton amused himself and tired his troops with abortive meanderings along the line. in october he entered canada, and made an attack on a small body of british troops, accomplishing nothing but the loss to himself of thirty-five men, killed and wounded. he refused to coöperate with general wilkinson, who was advancing from sackett's harbor down the st. lawrence, and desired hampton to join him at st. regis, the object being the capture of montreal. hampton's inglorious campaign ended with his retiring to winter quarters at plattsburgh. many vermonters served under him, their hardships unrewarded by victory, or even vigorous endeavor to gain it. wilkinson's movements were as abortive, though when his flotilla reached the head of the long sault, a brigade of his army engaged a force of the enemy at chrysler's farm. the raw and undisciplined american troops, of whom the vermonters in a battalion of the 11th formed a part, distinguished themselves by frequently repulsing some of the tried veterans of the english army. neither side gained a victory, but the british remained in possession of the field, though they suffered the heavier loss in killed and wounded, and the flotilla continued its inconsequential voyage. arriving at st. regis, and learning that hampton would not coöperate with him, wilkinson abandoned the movement against montreal, and went into winter quarters at french mills. on the last of december a british force made a successful raid on a depot of supplies at derby, vermont, destroying barracks and storehouses, and carrying away a considerable quantity of stores. in consequence of this, and some threatening demonstration on the richelieu, wilkinson removed his quarters to lake champlain. while this pretense was made of undertaking a conquest which might result in the annexation of canada to the united states, and a consequent increase of power in the north, a result desired neither by the secretary of war nor the generals here employed, hot and earnest blows were falling on the enemy at the westward. on lake erie perry had overcome the british, and was master of that inland sea. harrison had vanquished the english and their indian allies at the battle of the thames, and michigan was regained. meantime a storm of abuse raged between the political parties of vermont, each hurling at the other the hard names of tories, traitors, and enemies of their country, and neighborhoods and families were divided in the bitter contest. the federalist strength was so far increased by the growing unpopularity of the war, and the irksomeness of the restrictions on trade, that the party succeeded at the election of 1813 in placing martin chittenden, son of the old governor, at the head of the state government. one of his earliest acts was to recall by proclamation a brigade of the state militia in service at plattsburgh. in this the governor acted on the ground that it was unconstitutional to call the militia beyond the limits of the state without permission from the governor, their commander-in-chief, a view of the case supported by the supreme court of massachusetts, and adhered to by most of the other new england states; and, further, that the militia of vermont were more needed for the defense of their own state than for that of its stronger sister commonwealth. a number of the vermont officers returned a protest whose vigor was weakened by its insolence. they refused to obey the proclamation of their captain-general, but nevertheless the rank and file, tired of inaction, less irksome to the officers, returned to their homes before the term of enlistment expired, and the affair passed without further notice. the muskrats had long been housed in their lodges on the frozen marshes, and all waterfowl but the loons and mergansers had flown southward, when macdonough withdrew his fleet from the stormy lake into otter creek, whose current was already thick with drifting anchor-ice. the craft were moored in a reach of the river known as the buttonwoods, three fourths of a mile above dead creek, the ice closed around them, and they slept inert until the return of spring. the sap had scarcely begun to swell the forest buds when vergennes, eight miles upstream, where the first fall bars navigation, was astir with the building of other craft for the champlain navy. a throng of ship carpenters were busy on the narrow flat by the waterside; the woods were noisy with the thud of axes, the crash of falling trees, and the bawling of teamsters; and the two furnaces were in full blast casting cannon-shot for the fleet. forty days after the great oak which formed the keel of the saratoga had fallen from its stump, the vessel was afloat and ready for its guns. several gunboats were also built there, and early in may, their sappy timbers yet reeking with woodsy odors, the new craft dropped down the river to join the fleet at the buttonwoods. the right bank of otter creek at its mouth is a rock-ribbed promontory, connected with the mainland, except at high water, by a narrow neck of low, alluvial soil. on the lakeward side of the point earthworks were thrown up, and mounted with several pieces of artillery, for the defense of the entrance against an expected attempt of the enemy to destroy the american fleet. the militia of addison, chittenden, and franklin counties were put in readiness to turn out on the firing of signal guns, and a small detachment was posted at hawley's farm, near the mouth of little otter, to watch the approach of the army. about 1,000 of the militia were stationed at vergennes. all the night of the 13th the officers of the neighboring towns were running bullets at their treasurer's, where powder and lead were stored for the militia at vergennes. on the 10th of may the british squadron passed cumberland head, and on the 14th eight of the galleys and a bomb-ketch appeared off the mouth of great otter, while a brig, four sloops, and several galleys were two miles to the northward. the galleys opened a fire on the battery, which was bravely defended by captain thornton of the artillery and lieutenant cassin of the navy. the rapid discharge of the guns, repeated in echoes from the rugged steeps of split rock mountain till it became a continuous roar, for a time greatly alarmed the inhabitants of the adjacent country, but the assailants were beaten off after receiving considerable injury, while they inflicted on the defenders only the dismounting of one gun, and the slight wounding of two men. the british fleet sailed northward, and next day macdonough's flotilla issued forth ready for battle, and sailed northward to cumberland bay. the importance of this action has not had proper recognition. it is briefly, if at all, mentioned by historians. if the defense of the little battery which now bears the name of fort cassin, in honor of macdonough's brave lieutenant, had been less gallant and successful, our fleet would in all probability have been destroyed before it could strike the blow which gained its commander imperishable renown. the british keenly felt the lost opportunity, for captain pring was charged by his superiors with cowardice and disobedience of orders in not having taken the battery and blockaded the american squadron. the invasion of canada again was the plan of the campaign for 1814. the two western armies were to move against the enemy on the upper lakes and at the niagara frontier, while general izard was to cut the communication on the st. lawrence between kingston and montreal. the vermonters of the 30th and 31st regiments, and part of the 11th, with the militia and volunteers raised in the vicinity of lake champlain were employed in this army, while the remainder of the 11th were in service on the niagara frontier. the contraband trade was not entirely suppressed all along the border. many cunning devices were resorted to by the smugglers. one of the most notable was the fitting out of a pretended privateer by one john banker of new york. obtaining letters of marque from the collector of that city, he began cruising on the lake in a little vessel named the lark, of less than one ton burden, and armed with three muskets. after evincing her warlike character by firing on the essex ferry-boat, she ran down the lake to rouse's point, and there lay in wait for prizes. a barge heavily laden with merchandise presently fell a prey to the bold privateer; her cargo was conveyed to new york by banker's confederate, and delivered to the owners. the government officials soon learned that the goods had not been received at the united states storehouse, the lark was seized, and the brief career of privateering on these waters came to an end. in march, 1814, colonel clark of the 11th, with 1,100 green mountain boys, took possession of the frontier from lake champlain to the connecticut, establishing his headquarters at missisquoi bay, harassing the enemy as opportunity offered, and making vigilant efforts for the suppression of smuggling. after successfully accomplishing this, he joined wilkinson at the la colle. in the brave but unsuccessful attack on the la colle mill, upon whose strong stone walls our two light pieces of artillery made no impression, clark led the 600 green mountain boys who composed the advance. their loss was eleven of the thirteen killed, and one third of the 128 wounded. the vermonters of this army had no further opportunity to distinguish themselves until september, but those of the 11th regiment gallantly bore their part in the bloody battles of chippewa, lundy's lane, and fort erie. in the first, general scott called on the 11th to charge upon the enemy, who had declared that the americans "could not stand cold iron," and the regiment dashed impetuously upon the scarlet line and swept it back with their bayonets. a formidable british army, 15,000 strong, largely composed of veterans, flushed with their european victories, was near the richelieu, under command of sir george prevost, and their fleet had been strengthened by additional vessels. though there were at the time but about 6,000 troops fit for duty, to oppose the enemy's advance in this quarter, early in august the secretary of war ordered general izard to march with 4,000 of them to the niagara frontier. protesting against an order which would leave the champlain region so defenseless, izard set forth from champlain and chazy with his army on the 29th, halting two days at lake george in the hope that the order might yet be revoked. on the 30th the british general brisbane occupied champlain, and four days later sir george prevost arrived there with his whole force; while plattsburgh was held by the insignificant but undaunted army of the americans under general macomb, abandoned to its fate by a government that did not desire the conquest of canada. the three forts and block-house were strengthened, and the general made an urgent call on new york and vermont for reinforcements, which was promptly responded to, while small parties were sent out to retard, as much as possible, the advance of the enemy. but the skirmishers were swept back by the overwhelming strength of the invading army, and retired across the saranac, destroying the bridges behind them. governor chittenden did not consider himself authorized to order the militia into service outside the state, but called for volunteers. there was a quick response. veterans of the revolution and their grandsons, exempt by age and youth from service, as well as the middle-aged, each with the evergreen badge of his state in his hat, turned out. with the old smooth-bores and rifles that had belched buckshot and bullet at hubbardton and bennington, and with muskets obtained from the town armories, they flocked towards the scene of impending battle, on foot, in wagons, singly, in squads, and by companies, crossing the lake at the most convenient points, of which burlington was the principal one. general strong was put in command of the vermont volunteers. on the 10th of september he reported 1,812 at plattsburgh, and on the 11th 2,500, while only 700 of the new york militia had arrived. when the morning of the 11th of september broke, the american army stood at bay on the south bank of the saranac. fifteen hundred regulars and about 3,200 hastily collected militia and volunteers, confronted by 14,000 of the best troops of great britain, proudly wearing the laurels won in the napoleonic wars, and confident of victory over the despised foe that now opposed them. early that morning the british fleet collected at isle la motte weighed anchor, and sailed southward. at eight o'clock it rounded cumberland head, and with sails gleaming in the sunlight, swept down toward the american fleet like a white cloud drifting across the blue lake. macdonough's vessels were anchored in a line extending north from crab island and parallel with the west shore, the eagle, captain henly, at the head of the line, next the saratoga, commodore macdonough's flagship; the schooner ticonderoga next; and at the south end of the line the sloop preble, so close to crab island shoal as to prevent the enemy from turning that end of the line. forty rods in the rear of this line lay ten gunboats, kept in position by their sweeps; two north and in rear of the eagle, the others opposite the intervals between the larger craft. at nine o'clock the hostile fleet came to anchor in a line about three hundred yards from ours, captain downie's flagship, the confiance, opposed to the saratoga; his brig linnet to the eagle; his twelve galleys to our schooner, sloop, and a division of galleys; while one of the sloops taken from us the year before assisted the confiance and linnet, the other the enemy's galleys. the british fleet had 95 guns, and 1,050 men; the american, 86 guns, and 820 men. in such position of the fleets the action began. the first broadside of the confiance killed and disabled forty of the saratoga's crew. the head of one of his men, cut off by a cannon-shot, struck macdonough in the breast and knocked him into the scuppers. a shot upset a coop and released a cock, which flew into the shrouds and crowed lustily, and the crew, cheering this augury of victory, served the guns with increased ardor. the eagle, unable to bring her guns to bear, cut her cable and took a position between the saratoga and the ticonderoga, where she greatly annoyed the enemy, but left the flagship exposed to a galling fire from the british brig. nearly all the saratoga's starboard guns were dismounted, and macdonough winded her, bringing her port guns to bear upon the confiance, which ship attempted the same manoeuvre, but failed. after receiving a few broadsides, her gallant commander dead, half her men killed and wounded, with one hundred and five shots in her hull, her rigging in tatters on the shattered masts, the british flagship struck her colors. the guns of the saratoga were now turned on the linnet, and in fifteen minutes she surrendered, as the chub, crippled by the eagle's broadsides and with a loss of half her men, had done some time before. the finch, driven from her position by the ticonderoga, drifted upon crab island shoals, where, receiving the fire of a battery on the island manned by invalids, she struck and was taken possession of by them. the galleys remaining afloat made off. our galleys were signaled to pursue, but were all in a sinking condition, unable to follow, and, the other vessels being crippled past making sail, the galleys escaped. the havoc wrought in this conflict proves it to have been one of the hottest naval battles ever fought. a british sailor who was at trafalgar declared that battle as "but a flea-bite to this." the british lost in killed and wounded one fifth of their men, the commander of the fleet, and several of his officers; the americans, one eighth of their men. among the killed were lieutenant stansbury of the ticonderoga, and lieutenant gamble of the saratoga. the saratoga was twice set on fire by the enemy's hot shot, and received fifty-five shots in her hull. at the close of the action, not a mast was left in either squadron on which a sail could be hoisted.[97] the result, so glorious to the americans, was due to the superior rapidity and accuracy of their fire. for more than two hours the unremitting thunder-peal of the battle had rolled up the champlain valley to thousands who listened in alternating hope and fear. for a time, none but the combatants and immediate spectators knew how the fight had gone, till the lifting smoke revealed to the anxious watchers on the eastern shore the stars and stripes alone floating above the shattered ships; then horsemen rode in hot speed north, east, and south, bearing the glad tidings of victory. the opening of the naval fight was the signal for the attack of the british land force. a furious fire began from all the batteries. at two bridges, and at a ford above plattsburgh, its strength was exerted in attempts to cross the saranac. the attacks at the bridges were repulsed by the american regulars, firing from breastworks formed of planks of the bridges. at the ford, the enemy were met by the volunteers and militia. a considerable number succeeded in crossing the river, but an officer riding up with news of the naval victory, the citizen soldiers set upon the enemy in a furious assault, and with cheers drove them back. a fire was kept up from the english batteries until sundown, but when the evening, murky with the cloud of battle, darkened into the starless gloom of night, the british host began a precipitate retreat, abandoning vast quantities of stores and munitions, and leaving their killed and wounded to the care of the victors. they had lost in killed, wounded, prisoners, and deserters 2,500; the americans, 119. but bitterest of all to the vanquished invaders was the thought that they who had overcome the armies of napoleon were now beaten back by an "insignificant rabble" of yankee yeomen. the retreat had been for some hours in progress before it was discovered, and a pursuit begun, which, after the capture of some prisoners, and covering the escape of a number of deserters, was stopped at chazy by the setting in of a drenching rainstorm. three days later, their present service being no longer necessary, the vermont volunteers were dismissed by general macomb, with thanks of warm commendation for their ready response to his call, and the undaunted spirit with which they had met the enemy. through general strong they received the thanks of governor chittenden, and, later, the thanks of the general government "to the brave and patriotic citizens of the state for their prompt succor and gallant conduct in the late critical state of the frontier." their promptness was indeed commendable, for they had rallied to macomb's aid, and the battle was fought, four days before the government at washington had issued its tardy call for their assistance. the state of new york presented to general strong an elegant sword in testimony of "his services and those of his brave mountaineers at the battle of plattsburgh," and the two states united in making a gift to macdonough of a tract of land on cumberland head lying in full view of the scene of his brilliant victory. the army of sir george prevost was beaten back to canada, but it was still powerful, and the danger of another invasion was imminent. governor chittenden issued another proclamation, unequivocal in its expressions of patriotism, enjoining upon all officers of the militia to hold their men in readiness to meet any invasion, and calling on all exempts capable of bearing arms to equip themselves and unite with the enrolled militia when occasion demanded. as there was nothing to apprehend from any naval force which could be put afloat this season by the british, macdonough requested that he might be employed on the seaboard under commodore decatur. on the approach of winter, the fleet was withdrawn to fiddler's elbow, near whitehall, never again to be called forth to battle. there, where the unheeding keels of commerce pass to and fro above them, the once hostile hulks of ship and brig, schooner and galley, lie beneath the pulse of waves in an unbroken quietude of peace. there were rumors of a projected winter invasion from canada to destroy the flotilla while powerless in the grip of the ice. it was reported that an immense artillery train of guns mounted on sledges was preparing; that a multitude of sleighs and teams for the transportation of troops, with thousands of buffalo robes for their warmth, had been engaged and bought. vermont did not delay preparation for such an attack. the rancor of politics among her people had given place to a nobler spirit of patriotism, and, without distinction of parties, all good men stood forth in defense of their country, and those who had opposed the war were now as zealous as its advocates in prosecuting it to an honorable close. major-general strong issued a general order to the militia to be ready for duty at any moment, requested the exempts to aid them, and urged the selectmen to make into cartridges the ammunition with which the towns were supplied, and place them at convenient points for distribution. all responded promptly, and, moreover, matrons and maids diligently plied their knitting-needles in the long winter evenings to make socks and mittens for the brave men who would need them in the bitter weather of such a campaign. but, instead of the expected invasion, came the good news of the treaty of peace, signed at ghent on the twenty-fourth day of december. peace was welcome to the nation, though the treaty was silent concerning the professed causes of the declaration of war, and the only compensation for the losses and burdens entailed by the conflict, so wretchedly conducted by our government, was the glory of the victories gained by our little navy and undisciplined troops over england's invincible warships and armies of veterans. footnotes: [95] _niles' register._ [96] october 27, 1812. [97] macdonough's report, palmer's _lake champlain_. chapter xx. old-time customs and industries. peace was indeed welcome to a people so long deprived of an accessible market as had been the inhabitants of vermont. the potash fires were relighted; the lumberman's axe was busy again in the bloodless warfare against the giant pines; new acres of virgin soil were laid bare to the sun, and added to the broadening fields of tilth. white-winged sloops and schooners, and unwieldy rafts, flocked through the reopened gate of the country, and the clumsy durham boat spread its square sail to the favoring north wind, and once more appeared on the broad lake where it had so long been a stranger. the shores were no longer astir with military preparations, but with the bustle of awakened traffic; soldiers had again become citizens; the ravages of war had scarcely touched the borders of the state, and in a few months there remained hardly a trace of its recent existence. there had not been, nor was there for years after this period, a marked change in the social conditions of the people, for the old fraternal bonds of interdependence still held pioneer to pioneer almost as closely as in the days when the strong hand was more helpful than the long purse. class distinctions were marked vaguely, if at all, and there was no aristocracy of idleness, for it was held that idleness was disgraceful. the farmer who owned five hundred acres worked as early and as late as he who owned but fifty, and led his half-score of mowers to the onslaught of herdsgrass and redtop with a ringing challenge of whetstone on scythe, and was proud of his son if the youngster "cut him out of his swathe." the matron taught her daughters and maids how to spin and weave flax and wool. the beat of the little wheel, the hum of the great wheel, the ponderous thud of the loom, were household voices in every vermont homestead, whether it was the old log-house that the forest had first given place to, or its more pretentious framed and boarded successor. all the womenfolk knitted stockings and mittens while they rested or visited, the click of the needles accompanied by the chirp of the cricket and the buzz of gossip. for workday and holiday, the household was clad in homespun from head to foot, save what the hatter furnished for the first and the traveling cobbler for the last. once a year the latter was a welcome visitor of every homestead in his beat, bringing to it all the gossip for the womenfolk, all the weighty news for the men, and all the bear stories for the children which he had gathered in a twelve months' "whipping of the cat," as his itinerant craft was termed. these he dispensed while, by the light of the wide fireplace, he mended old foot-gear or fashioned new, that fitted and tortured alike either foot whereon it was drawn on alternate days. the old custom of making "bees," instituted when neighborly help was a necessity, was continued when it was no longer needed, for the sake of the merry-makings which such gatherings afforded. there were yet logging-bees for the piling of logs in a clearing, and raising-bees when a new house or barn was put up; drawing-bees when one was to be moved to a new site, with all the ox-teams of half a township; and bees when a sick or short-handed neighbor's season-belated crops needed harvesting. when the corn was ripe came the husking-bee, in which old and young of both sexes took part, their jolly labor lighted in the open field by the hunter's moon or a great bonfire, around which the shocks were ranged like a circle of wigwams; or, if in the barn, by the rays sprinkled from lanterns of punched tin. when the work was done, the company feasted on pumpkin pie, doughnuts, and cider. then the barn floor was cleared of the litter of husks, the fiddler mounted the scaffold, and made the gloom of the roof-peak ring with merry strains, to which twoscore solidly clad feet threshed out time in "country dance" and "french four." the quilting party, in its first laborious stage, was participated in only by the womenkind; but, when that was passed, the menfolk were called in to assist in the ceremony of "shaking the quilt," and in the performance of this the fiddler was as necessary as in the closing rites of the husking-bee. when the first touch of spring stirred the sap of the maples, sugar-making began, a labor spiced with a woodsy flavor of camp life and small adventure. the tapping was done with a gouge; the sap dripped from spouts of sumach stems into rough-hewn troughs, from which it was gathered in buckets borne on a neck-yoke, the bearer making the rounds on snowshoes, and depositing the gathered sap in a big "store trough" set close to the boiling-place. this was an open fire, generously fed with four-foot wood, and facing an open-fronted shanty that sheltered the sugar-maker from rain and "sugar snow," while he plied his daily and nightly labor, now with the returning crow and the snickering squirrel for companions, now the unseen owl and fox, making known their presence with storm-boding hoot and husky bark. the sap-boiling was done in the great potash kettle that in other seasons seethed with pungent lye, but now, swung on a huge log crane, sweetened the odors of the woods with sugar-scented vapor. many families saw no sweetening, from one end of the year to the other, but maple sugar and syrup, the honey from their few hives, or the uncertain spoil of the bee-hunter. all the young folks of a neighborhood were invited to the "sugaring off," and camp after camp in turn, during the season of melting snow and the return of bluebird and robin, rung with the chatter and laughter of a merry party that was as boisterous over the sugar feast as the blackbirds that swung on the maple-tops above them rejoicing over the return of spring. in the long evenings of late autumn and early winter, there were apple or paring bees, to which young folk and frolicsome elder folk came and lent a hand in paring, coring, and stringing to dry, for next summer's use, the sour fruit of the ungrafted orchards, and, when the work was done, to lend more nimble feet to romping games and dances, that were kept up till the tallow dips paled with the stars in the dawn, and daylight surprised the coatless beaux and buxom belles, all clad in honest homespun. very naturally, weddings often came of these merry-makings, and were celebrated with as little ostentation and as much hearty good fellowship. the welcome guests brought no costly and useless presents for display; there were no gifts but the bride's outfit of home-made beds, homespun and hand-woven sheets, table-cloths, and towels given by parents and nearest relations. the young couple did not parade the awkwardness of their newly assumed relations in a wedding journey, but began the honeymoon in their new home, and spent it much as their lives were to be spent, taking up at once the burden that was not likely to grow lighter with the happiness that might increase. but if the burden became heavy, and the light of love faded, there was seldom separation or divorce. if there were more sons and daughters than could be employed at home, they hired out in families not so favored without loss of caste or sense of degradation in such honest service. they often married into the family of the employer, and their position was little changed by the new relation. for many years the wheat crop in vermont continued certain and abundant, and formed a part of almost every farmer's income, as well as the principal part of his breadstuff, for the pioneer's johnny-cake had fallen into disrepute among his thrifty descendants, who held it more honorable to eat poor wheat-bread than good johnny-cake, and despised the poor wretch who ate buckwheat. it is quite possible that the first demarcation between the aristocrats and the plebeians of vermont was drawn along this food line. wool-growing was fostered in the infancy of the state by public acts, and almost every farmer was more or less a shepherd. a marked improvement in the fineness and weight of the fleeces began with the introduction of the spanish merinos in 1809.[98] by the judicious breeding by a few intelligent vermont farmers, the spanish sheep were brought to a degree of perfection which they had never attained in their european home, and vermont merinos gained a world-wide reputation that still endures; while the wool product of the state, once so famous for it that sheffield cutlers stamped their best shears "the true vermonter," has become almost insignificant, compared with that of states and countries whose flocks yearly renew their impoverished blood with fresh draughts from vermont stock. shearing-time was the great festival of the year. the shearers, many of whom were often the flock-owner's well-to-do neighbors, were treated more as guests than as laborers, and the best the house afforded was set before them. the great barn's empty bays and scaffolds resounded with the busy click of incessant shears, the jokes, songs, and laughter of the merry shearers, the bleating of the ewes and lambs, and the twitter of disturbed swallows, while the sunlight, shot through crack and knot-hole, swung slowly around the dusty interior in sheets and bars of gold that dialed the hours from morning till evening. a distinctive breed of horses originated in vermont, and the state became almost as famous for its morgan horses as for its sheep. but, though vermont horses are still of good repute, this noted strain, the result of a chance admixture of the blood of the english thoroughbred and the tough little canadian horse, has been improved into extinction of its most valued traits. the laborious life of the farmer had an occasional break in days of fishing in lulls of the spring's work, and between that and haymaking; of hunting when the crops were housed, and the splendor of the autumnal woods was fading to sombre monotony of gray, or when woods and fields were white with the snows of early winter. the clear mountain ponds and streams were populous with trout, the lakes and rivers with pike, pickerel, and the varieties of perch and bass; and in may and june the salmon, fresh run from the sea and lusty with its bounteous fare, swarmed up the connecticut and the tributaries of lake champlain. the sonorous call of the moose echoed now only in the gloom of the northeastern wilderness, but the deer still homed in the mountains, often coming down to feed with domestic cattle in the hillside pastures. the ruffed grouse strutted and drummed in every wood, copse, and cobble. every spring, great flights of wild pigeons clouded the sky, as they flocked to their summer encampment; and in autumn, such innumerable hordes of wild fowl crowded the marshes that the roar of their startled simultaneous uprising was like dull thunder. these the farmer hunted in his stealthy indian way, and after new england fashion,--the fox on foot, with hound and gun; and so, too, the raccoon that pillaged his cornfields when the ears were in the milk. when a wolf came down from the mountain fastnesses, or crossed the frozen lake from the adirondack wilds, to ravage the folds, every arms-bearer turned hunter. the marauder was surrounded in the wood where he had made his latest lair; the circle, bristling with guns, slowly closed in upon him; and as he dashed wildly around it in search of some loophole of escape, he fell to rifle-ball or charge of buckshot, if he did not break through the line at a point weakly guarded by a timid or flurried hunter. his death was celebrated at the nearest store or tavern with a feast of crackers and cheese,--a droughty banquet, moistened with copious draughts of cider, beer, or more potent liquors, and the bounty paid the reckoning. the bounty, and the value of the skins and grease of bears were added incentives to the taking off of these pests, which was frequently accomplished by trap and spring-gun. many farmers made a considerable addition to their income by trapping the fur-bearers, for though the beaver had been driven from all but the wildest streams, and the otter was an infrequent visitor of his old haunts, their little cousins, the muskrat and mink, held their own in force on every stream and marsh; and the greater and lesser martins, known to their trappers as fisher and sable, still found home and range on the unshorn mountains. a few men yet followed for their livelihood the hunter's and trapper's life of laziness and hardship, for the most part unthrifty, and poor in everything but shiftless contentment and the wisdom of woodcraft. there were exceptions in this class: at least one mighty hunter laid the foundation of a fortune when he set his traps. when the trapping season was ended, he sold his peltry in montreal, bought goods there, and peddled them through his state till the falling leaves again called him to the woods. he gained wealth and a seat in congress, but neither is likely to be the reward of one who now follows such a vocation in vermont. the annual election of legislators, justices, judges, state officers, and members of congress, which falls on the first tuesday of september, had then other than political excitement to enliven the day in the wrestling matches and feats of strength that were interludes of the balloting. in one instance the name of a town was decided by the result of a wrestling match on election day. one figure constant at the elections of the first half of this century, and by far the most attractive one to the unfledged voters who never failed in attendance, was he who dispensed, from his booth or stand, pies, cakes, crackers, cheese, and spruce beer to the hungry and thirsty. when the result of the election was announced, the successful candidate for representative bought out the remaining stock of the victualer, and invited his friends to help themselves, which they did with little ceremony. nothing less than a reception given at the house of the representative-elect will satisfy the mixed multitude in these progressive times. the once familiar booth and its occupant have drifted into the past with the wrestlers, the jumpers, and pullers of the stick. gradually the primitive ways of life, the earliest industries, and the ruder methods of labor gave way to more luxurious living, new industries, and labor-saving machinery. the log-house, that was reared amid its brotherhood of stumps, decayed with them, and was superseded by a more pretentious frame-house, whose best apartment, known as the "square room," came to know the luxury of a rag carpet, or at least a painted floor, that heretofore had been only sanded, and a franklin stove, a meagre apology for the generous breadth of the great fireplace whose place it took. there was yet a fireplace in the kitchen, down whose wide-throated chimney the stars might shine upon the seething samp-pot swinging on the trammel and the bake-kettle embedded and covered in embers. great joints of meat were roasted before it on the spit, biscuits baked in a tin oven, and johnny-cakes tilted on oaken boards. around this glowing centre the family gathered in the evening, the always busy womenfolk sewing, knitting, and carding wool; the men fashioning axe-helves and ox-bows, the children popping corn on a hot shovel, or conning their next day's lessons; while all listened to the grandsire's stories of war and pioneer life, or to the schoolmaster's reading of some book seasoned with age, or of the latest news, fresh from the pages of a paper only a fortnight old. the fire gave better light for reading and work than the tallow dips, to whose manufacture of a year's supply one day was devoted, marked in the calendar by greasy discomfort. for the illumination of the square room on grand occasions, there were mould candles held in brass sticks, while these and the dips were attended by the now obsolete snuffers and extinguisher. close by the kitchen fireplace, and part of the massive chimney stack, whose foundations filled many cubic yards of the cellar, the brick oven held its cavernous place, and was heated on baking days with wood specially prepared for it. oven and fireplace gave away after a time to the sombre but more convenient cook-stove, and with them many time-honored utensils and modes of cookery fell into disuse. wool-carding machines were erected at convenient points, and hand-carding made no longer necessary. presently arose factories which performed all the work of cloth-making (carding, spinning, weaving, and finishing), so that housewife, daughter, and hired girl were relieved of all these labors, and the use of the spinning-wheel and hand-loom became lost arts. when it became cheaper to buy linen than to make it, the growing of flax and all the labors of its preparation were abandoned by the farmer. as wood grew scarcer and more valuable than its ashes, the once universal and important manufacture of pot and pearl ashes was gradually discontinued; and as the hemlock forests dwindled away, the frequent tannery, where the farmers' hides were tanned on shares, fell into disuse and decay. early in this century the dull thunder of the forge hammer resounded, and the furnace fire glared upon the environing forest, busily working up ore, brought some from the inferior mines of vermont, but for the most part from the iron mines of the new york shore. this industry became unprofitable many years ago, and one by one the fires of forge and furnace went out. with the decline of this industry, the charcoal pit and its grimy attendants became infrequent in the new clearings, though for many years later there was a considerable demand for charcoal by blacksmiths. of these there were many more then than now, for the scope of the smith's craft was far broader in the days when he forged many of the household utensils and farming tools that, except such as have gone out of use, are now wholly supplied by the hardware dealer. a common appurtenance of the smithy, when every farmer used oxen, was the "ox-frame," wherein those animals, who in the endurance of shoeing belie their proverbial patience, were hoisted clear of the ground, and their feet made fast while the operation was performed. the blacksmith's shop was also next in importance, as a gossiping place, to the tavern bar-room and the store. at the store dry-goods, groceries, and hardware were dealt out in exchange for butter, cheese, dried apples, grain, peltry, and all such barter, and generous seating conveniences and potations free to all customers invited no end of loungers. the merchant's goods were brought to him by teams from ports on lake champlain and the connecticut, and from troy, albany, and boston, whither by the same slow conveyance went the product of the farms,--the wool, grain, pork, maple sugar, cheese, butter, and all marketable products except beef, which was driven on the hoof in great droves to a market in boston and albany. daily stage-coaches traversed the main thoroughfares, carrying the mails and such travelers as went by public conveyance, to whom, journeying together day after day, were given great opportunities for gossip and acquaintance. there was much journeying on horseback. families going on distant visits went with their own teams in the farm wagon, whose jolting over the rough roads was relieved only by the "spring of the axletree" and the splint bottoms of the double-armed wagon chairs. they often carried their own provisions for the journey, to the disgust of the innkeepers, and this was known as traveling "tuckanuck," a name and custom that savors of indian origin. such were the means of interstate commerce, mail-carriage, and travel until two long-talked-of railroad lines were completed in 1849, running lengthwise of the state, east and west of the mountain range. the new and rapid means of transportation which now brought the state into direct communication with the great cities wrought great changes in trade, in modes of life, and in social traits. there was now a demand for many perishable products which had previously found only a limited home market, and a host of middlemen arose in eager competition for the farmer's eggs, poultry, butter, veal calves, potatoes, and fruit, as well as for hay, for which until now there had been only a local demand. the luxuries and fashions of the cities were in some degree introduced by the more rapid and easy intercourse with the outer world; for many strove to make display beyond their means, to the loss of content and comfort. with homespun wear and simple ways of life, the old-time social equality became less general, and neighborly interdependence slackened its generous hold. footnotes: [98] chancellor livingston brought merinos to this country as early as 1802. in 1809 william jarvis, our consul at lisbon, brought a considerable number of merinos to vermont, and from his famous weathersfield flocks most of the vermont merinos are descended. chapter xxi. religion, education, and temperance. being almost wholly of new england origin, the settlers of vermont and their descendants were in the main a religious people, and held to church-going when there was no place for public worship but the schoolhouse and the barn. in such places the members of the poorer and weaker sects held their meetings till within the memory of men now living. this was particularly the case of the baptists and methodists, who were viewed with slight favor by the predominant congregationalists. this sect organized the first religious society in vermont at bennington in 1762, and first erected houses of worship. these structures were unpretentious except in size, and for years were unprovided with means of warming. when the bitter chill of winter pervaded them, the congregation kept itself from freezing with thick garments and little foot-stoves of sheet-iron; the minister, with the fervor of his exhortations. folks went to church with no display of apparel or equipage. homespun was the wear, till some ambitious woman aroused the envy of her kind by appearing in a gown of calico, or some gay gallant displayed his many-caped drab surtout of foreign cloth. the sled or wagon that served for week days on the farm was good enough for sunday use, when its jolting was softened with a generous cushioning of buffalo robes for such as did not go to church on horseback, or on foot across lots. late in summer, after the earlier crops were gathered, the methodists were wont to congregate in the woods at camp-meetings. these meetings were celebrated with a fervor of religious warmth, and whether by day the white tents and enthusiastic worshipers were splashed and sprinkled with sunlight shot through the canopy of leaves, or lit at night by the lateral glare of the pine-knot torches flaring from a score of scaffolds set on the tree-trunks, the scene was weird and picturesque beyond what the fancy can conjure from the modern fashionable camp-meeting, with its trim cottages and steadily burning lamps and unmoved throng, and one can but think that another fire than that of the old pine torches burned out with them. there were few episcopalians, though the royal charters had given them two glebe lots, and two for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, and there were so few roman catholics that no priest of that faith established himself in the state till 1833. in parts of the state there were many friends, commonly called quakers, who, by reason of their non-resistant principles, were exempted from military service. the state grants gave in each town two lots of two hundred acres each to the first settled minister of the gospel, of whatever persuasion he might be. the rental of all these grants, except that of the society for the propagation of the gospel, now goes to the support of public schools, with that of a similar grant originally made for that purpose. the schoolhouse was one of the earliest recognized necessities, when the settlement of the state was fairly established. the pioneers built the schoolhouse of logs, like their dwellings, and its interior was even ruder than that of those. rough slabs set on legs driven into augur-holes furnished the seats, and the desks, if there were any, were of like fashion. in winter, when the school was largest, if indeed it was held at all in the busier seasons, a great fireplace diffused its fervent heat through half the room, while a chill atmosphere pervaded the far corners. among such cheerless surroundings many a vermonter of the old time began his education, which was completed when he had learned to read and write and could cipher to the "rule o' three." many of the scholars trudged miles through snow and storm to school, and the master, who always boarded around, had his turns of weary plodding with each distant dweller. the boy whose home was far away was in luck when he got the chance of doing chores for his board in some homestead near the schoolhouse. increase of population and of prosperity brought better schoolhouses, set in districts of narrower bounds. as early as 1782, nine years before the admission of the state into the union, provision was made by legislative enactment for the division of towns into districts, and the establishment and support of schools. it directed that trustees for the general superintendence of the schools of each town should be appointed, and also a prudential committee in each district; and empowered the latter to raise half the money needed for the support of the schools on the grand list, the other half on the polls of the scholars or on the grand list, as each district should determine. at one time the school fund, derived from the rental of lands and from the united states revenue distributed among the states in 1838, was apportioned among the heads of families according to the number of children of school age, without regard to attendance, or restriction of its use to school purposes. this singular application of the funds could not have greatly furthered the cause of education, though it may have stimulated the increase of population, for to the largest families fell the greater share in the distribution of the school money. in 1827 the legislature provided for the examination and licensing of teachers, and for the supervision of schools by town committees; and also for a board of state commissioners, to select text-books and report upon the educational needs of the state. these provisions were repealed six years later, and there was no general supervision of schools till 1845, when an act provided for the appointment of county and town superintendents, but the first office was soon abolished. in 1856 a state board of education was created, empowered to appoint a secretary, who should devote his whole time to the promotion of education. j. s. adams, the first secretary, served eleven years, and by his earnest efforts succeeded in awakening the people to a livelier interest in the public schools. during his service, normal schools were established, for the training of teachers; and graded schools in villages, with a high-school department, became a part of the school system.[99] in 1874 a state superintendent was appointed in place of the board of education; while in 1888 a system of county instead of town supervision was introduced, which after an unsatisfactory trial was abolished in 1890, and the town superintendent was restored. he now has a general charge over the schools in his town, but the teachers are licensed by a county examiner appointed by the governor and state superintendent. the common schools are now supported entirely at public expense, and are free to every child between the ages of five and twenty, and in all large villages there are free high schools, so that it is now rare to find a child of ten or twelve years who cannot read and write, and a fair education is within the reach of the poorest. by the act of 1782, already referred to, the judges of the county courts were authorized to appoint trustees of county schools in each county, and, with the assistance of the justices of the peace, to lay a tax for the building of a county schoolhouse in each. in most of the townships granted by vermont, one right of land was reserved for the support of a grammar school or academy; but as less than one half of the towns were so granted, many of the schools derived little aid from this source, and in fact the establishment of county schools was not generally effected; and though there are many grammar schools and academies in the state, few of them are endowed, but depend on the tuition fees for their support. the rutland county grammar school at castleton was established in 1787, and is the oldest chartered educational institution in vermont. this school, together with the orange county and lamoille county grammar schools, became a state normal school in 1867. these three institutions are under the supervision of the state superintendent of education, and the state offers to pay the tuition of one student from each town, thus encouraging the better preparation of teachers for the common schools.[100] the union of the sixteen new hampshire towns with vermont brought dartmouth college within the limits of the latter state. after the dissolution of the union in 1785, vermont, upon application of the president of the college, granted a township of land to that institution in view of "its importance to the world at large and this state in particular,"[101] and, encouraged by this success, the trustees asked for the sequestration to their use of the glebe and society lots granted in the new hampshire charters, and of the lands granted by vermont for educational purposes, promising, in return, to take charge of the affairs of education in the state. this gave rise to an agitation of the subject which resulted in the establishment of the university of vermont at burlington, for which purpose ira allen offered to give, himself, £4,000. a bill incorporating the university was passed in 1791. three years later land was cleared, and a commodious house built for the president and the accommodation of a few students. ten years later the erection of the university building was begun, and so far completed in 1804 that the first commencement was held in that year. during the war of 1812 the building was used for the storage of arms, and as quarters for the soldiery. president, professors, and students retired before this martial invasion, and collegiate exercises were suspended till the close of the war. this building was destroyed by fire in 1821 and rebuilt in 1825, the corner-stone being laid by general lafayette. the medical department of the university was fully organized in 1822, and a course of lectures was kept up for eleven years, when they were suspended, but resumed later. the department is now flourishing and of acknowledged importance, and occupies a fine building erected especially for its use. large endowments and valuable gifts, made by generous and grateful sons of the university, have erected handsome new buildings, notably the fine library edifice, and improved the old to worthy occupancy of the noble site. upon the suggestion of dr. dwight, who visited middlebury during his travels in new england, a college charter was obtained of the legislature, but all endowment by the state was refused. the institution was immediately organized with seven students, and held its first commencement in 1802. the first building, erected four years before, was of wood, but the college now occupies three substantial structures of limestone. a military academy, under the superintendence of captain alden partridge, was established in 1820 at norwich. some years later this was incorporated as norwich university. it was removed to northfield in 1866. its distinctive feature is the course of instruction in military science and civil engineering. it contributed 273 commissioned officers to the mexican and civil wars,[102] and many, especially in the latter war, served their country with distinction. the first course of medical lectures in vermont was given in castleton, by doctors gridley, woodward, and cazier in 1818, and laid the foundation of a medical academy at that place, which in 1841 was incorporated as castleton medical college. this, and another medical college established at woodstock some years previously, no longer exist. the state now gives thirty scholarships to each of her three colleges, which pays the tuition and room-rent of a student. these appointments are made by the state senators, or by the trustees of the colleges. though there is much interest in all these higher institutions of learning, as well as in the normal schools and academies, many of which are prosperous and important, yet the common schools more particularly engage the attention of the people and of the successive legislatures, resulting in a complication of school laws scarcely balanced by the improvement in the school system. the early inhabitants of vermont, though, for the most part, they were rough backwoodsmen, were imbued with a strong desire for useful and instructive reading, and this led to the formation of circulating libraries in several towns, almost as soon as the settlers had fairly established themselves in their new homes. this was notably the case in montpelier, where a library was begun in 1794, only seven years after the first pioneer's axe broke the shade and solitude of the wilderness. its two hundred volumes were well chosen, being histories, biographies, and books of travel and adventure, while all works of fiction and of a religious nature were excluded, the one class being deemed of an immoral tendency, the other apt to breed dissension in the sparse and interdependent community.[103] in many other towns similar libraries were formed; though perhaps not with like restrictions, yet, as far as one may judge now by the scattered volumes, they were of excellent character. a rough corner cupboard in the log-house kitchen, or a closet of the "square room," held the treasured volumes of gray paper in unadorned but substantial leather binding. what a treasure they were to those isolated settlers, to whom rarely came even a newspaper, can scarcely be imagined by us who are overwhelmed with the outflow of the modern press. it is a pathetic picture to look back upon, of the household reading of the one volume by the glare of the open fire, spendthrift of warmth and light, eldest and youngest member of the family listening eagerly to the slow, high-keyed words of the reader, while between the pauses was heard the long howl of the wolf, or the pitiless roar of the winter wind. yet it is questionable if they were not richer with their enforced choice of a few good books than we with our embarrassment of riches and its bewildering encumberment of dross. in 1796 an act was passed incorporating the bradford social library society,[104] the first corporate body of the kind of which there is any record. similar associations in fairhaven and rockingham were incorporated soon after. in recent years several large public libraries have been instituted, such as the libraries of st. johnsbury, st. albans, rutland, and brattleboro, the norman williams library at woodstock, the fletcher free library at burlington, and others, founded by wealthy and public-spirited vermonters. the library of the vermont university comprises forty thousand volumes, including the valuable gift of george p. marsh. this now occupies one of the finest edifices of the kind in new england, the billings library building. such a wealth of literature as is now accessible to their descendants could hardly have been dreamed of by the old pioneers, even while they laid its foundation. the first printing-office in vermont was established at westminster in 1778 by judah paddock spooner and timothy green,[105] the first of whom and alden spooner were appointed state printers. the enactments of the two preceding legislatures had been published only in manuscript, a method of promulgation which one would think might have curbed verbosity. judah spooner and his first partner began the publication of the pioneer newspaper of the state, the "vermont gazette, or green mountain post boy," at westminster in february, 1781. it was printed on a sheet of pot size, issued every monday. its motto, characteristic of its birthplace, was:- "pliant as reeds where streams of freedom glide, firm as the hills to stem oppression's tide." its publication was continued but two years. "the vermont gazette or freeman's depository," the second newspaper of the state, was published at bennington in 1783, and continued for more than half a century. about this time george hough removed the spooner press to windsor, and in company with alden spooner began the publication of a weekly newspaper entitled "the vermont journal and universal advertiser," which was continued until about 1834. the fourth paper, "the rutland herald or courier," was established in 1792 by anthony haswell, and is still continued in weekly and daily issues, being the oldest paper in the state. william lloyd garrison edited "the spirit of the times," at bennington, not long before he became the foremost standard-bearer of the anti-slavery cause, with which his name was so intimately associated. in 1839 "the voice of freedom" was begun at montpelier, as the organ of the anti-slavery society of the state, and was afterward merged in "the green mountain freeman," published in the interest of the political abolitionists or liberty party. the publication of "the vermont precursor," the first paper established at montpelier, was begun in 1806, and soon after changed its name to "the vermont watchman." for more than fifty years this paper was conducted by the waltons, father and sons, and is still continued. in 1817 they began the publication of "walton's vermont register," which is issued annually, bearing the name of its founder, and is a recognized necessity in every household and office in the state. eliakim p. walton, one of the sons, also rendered his state most valuable service in editing the records of the governor and council. a majority of the newspapers have displayed with justifiable pride the name of the state in their titles. a number have had but a brief existence, scarcely remembered now but for the names of their founders or their own strange titles, such as the "horn of the green mountains," "the post boy," "tablet of the times," "northern memento," and "the reformed drunkard." the spooners seem to have been intimately connected with early newspapers and printing in the young commonwealth, for at least four of this name were engaged in such business. the famous matthew lyon edited for a while "the farmer's library," and rufus w. griswold the "vergennes vermonter;" d. p. thompson, the novelist, "the green mountain freeman," and c. g. eastman, the poet, "the spirit of the age," and "the argus." the dingy little papers of the olden time, with their month-old news, the brief oracular editorial comments, their advertisements of trades and industries now obsolete, their blazoning of lotteries and the sale of liquors, now alike illegal, were welcome visitors in every household; and the weekly round of the post-rider was watched for with an eagerness that can hardly be understood by people to whom come daily and hourly, by mail and telegraph, news of recent events in all quarters of the globe. to those old-time readers of blurred type on gray paper, scanned by the ruddy glare of pine knots or the feeble light of tallow-dips, the tidings of foreign events which had happened months before came fresher than to us what but yesterday first stirred the heart of europe. now, every considerable village in the state has its weekly paper, the larger towns these and daily papers. when zadock thompson published his "vermont gazetteer" in 1840, there were thirty papers published in the state, where now are, according to walton's register for 1891, sixty-one daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals. for many years liquor-drinking was a universal custom, and a householder suffered greater mortification if he had no strong waters to set before his guest than if the supply of bread and meat was short. the cellar of every farmhouse in the apple-growing region had its generous store of cider, some of which went to the neighboring still to be converted into more potent apple-jack, here known as cider-brandy. this and new england rum were the ordinary tipple of the multitude, and the prolific source of hilarity, maudlin gabble, and bickerings at bees, june trainings, and town meetings. drunkenness was disgraceful, but the limit was wide, for a man was not held to be drunk as long as he could keep upon his feet. when he fell, and clung to the grass to keep himself from rolling off the heaving earth, he became open to the charge of intoxication, and fit for the adornment of the stocks. many a goodly farm, that had been uncovered of the forest by years of labor, floated out of its owner's hands in the continual dribble of new england rum and cider-brandy. the signboard of the wayside inn swung at such frequent intervals along the main thoroughfares that the traveler must be slow indeed who had time to grow thirsty between these places of entertainment. the old-time landlord was a very different being from his successor, the modern hotel proprietor. though a person of consideration, and maintaining a certain dignity, he received his guests with genial hospitality, and at once established a friendly relationship with them which he considered gave him a right to their confidence. ensconced in his cage-like bar, paled from counter to ceiling, the landlord drew from his guests all the information they would give of their own and the world's affairs,--their whence-coming and whither-going,--while he dispensed foreign and domestic strong waters, or made sudden sallies to the fireplace where lay the ever-ready flip-iron, blushing in its bed of embers. good old governor thomas chittenden was a famous tavern-keeper, and as inquisitive concerning his guests' affairs as other publicans of those days. he used to tell with relish of a rebuff he got from a wayfarer who stopped to irrigate his dusty interior at the governor's bar. "where might you come from, friend?" the governor asked. "from down below," was the curt reply. "and where might you be going?" "to canada." "to canada? indeed! and what might take you there?" "to get my pension." "a pension? and what might you get a pension for, friend?" "for what you never can, as i judge." "indeed! and what is that?" "for minding my own business." temperance began to have earnest advocates, men who, for the sake of their convictions, suffered unpopularity and persecution. a quaker miller refused to grind grain for a distillery, and the owners brought a suit against him to compel him to do so. after a long and vexatious suit, the case was decided against him, but he persisted in his refusal, and the distillery was finally abandoned. some would no longer comply with the old custom of furnishing liquor to their help in haymaking and to their neighbors who came to give a helping hand at bees, and by this infraction of ancient usage made themselves unpopular till a better sentiment prevailed. there were zealots who cut down acres of thrifty orchard, as if there were no use for apples but cider-making. through moral suasion and the honest example of good men, a great change was wrought in the sentiment of the people, till at last temperance became popular enough to become a matter of politics. moral suasion was in the main abandoned, and the old workers dropped out of sight. vermont followed the lead of maine in legislation for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and in 1852 passed a prohibitory law. each succeeding assembly has legislated to increase the stringency and efficiency of the prohibitory statutes. yet the fact remains that, after forty years' trial, prohibition does not prohibit, and presents the anomaly of an apparently popular law feebly and perfunctorily enforced. it is a question whether the frequent and unnoticed violations of this law, and the many abortive prosecutions under it, have not made all laws less sacredly observed, and the crime of perjury appear to the ordinary mind a merely venial sin. footnotes: [99] conant, _geography, history, and civil gov. of vermont_. [100] conant, _geography, history, and civil gov. of vermont_. [101] thompson's _vermont_. [102] conant, _geography, history, and civil gov. of vermont_. [103] _history of montpelier_, by daniel p. thompson. d. p. thompson is best known as the author of _the green mountain boys_, _the ranger_, and other tales that picture quite vividly early times in vermont. [104] _governor and council_, vol. iv. [105] _vermont_, by zadock thompson, an invaluable history. chapter xxii. emigration. when the tide of emigration began to flow from new england to the newly opened land of promise in the west, vermont still offered virgin fields to be won by the enterprising and ambitious young men of the older states. thousands of acres, capable of bounteous fruitfulness, still lay in the perpetual shadow of the woods, untouched by spade or plough; and the forest growth of centuries was itself a harvest worth the gathering, while wild cataracts still invited masterful hands to tame them to utility. some decades elapsed before the young state began to furnish material for the founding and growth of other new commonwealths, except such restless spirits as can never find a congenial place but in the foremost rank of pioneers. such an one was matthew lyon, who, having borne his part in the establishment of the first state of his adoption, early in the century removed to kentucky, then farther westward to missouri, in whose territorial government he had become the most prominent figure when death set a period to his enterprise and ambition. though there were yet vast tracts in vermont awaiting the axe and the plough, the fertile lands of the west began to draw from the state a steadily increasing flow of emigration. the tales of illimitable acres unencumbered by forest, and warmed by a genial climate, were attractive to men tired of warfare with the woods, and the beleaguering of bitter winters. the blood of their pioneering fathers was fresh in their veins, and impelled them to found new homes and new states. the first migrations were made in wagons drawn by horses or oxen, and beneath whose tent-like covers were bestowed the bare necessities of household stuff and provision for the tedious journey. after leave-takings as sad as funerals, the emigrants sorrowfully yet hopefully set forth. slowly the beloved landmarks of the mountains sank as the miles lengthened behind them, and slowly unfolded before them level lands and sluggish streams. the earlier stages of the journey were relieved by trivial incidents, and the new experience of gypsy-like nightly encampment by the wayside; but as day after day and week after week passed, the new and unfamiliar scenes, still stranger and less homelike, grew wearisome to the tired men and jaded, homesick women and children, and incident became a monotonous round of discomfort. in 1825 a swifter and easier path was opened to the west when, two years after the champlain canal had connected the waters of lake champlain and the hudson, the erie canal was completed. the new thoroughfare was thronged with emigrants, of whom vermont furnished her full share of families, and of enterprising young men seeking to better their fortunes in the land of plenty known there in common speech as "the 'hio," or in that farther region of prairies whose western bound was the golden sunset, and where they whose plough had turned no virgin soil till the axe had first cleared its path should behold the miracle of fertile plains that had never been shadowed by forest. when the long journey was accomplished, a quarter of the continent lay between them and the old home; and though they lived out the allotted days of man, the separation of kindred and friends was often as final as that of death. mails were weeks in making the passage that is now accomplished in a few days; and the grass might be green on the graves of kindred and friends in the old or the new home before tidings of their death brought a new and sudden grief from the distant prairie, or from the new england hillside, where its pain had already grown dull with accustomed loss. the course of emigration tended westward nearly within the parallels of latitude that bound new england, and but few pioneers of vermont birth diverged much below the southward limit of a region whose climate, kindred, emigrants, and familiar institutions, transplanted from the east, most attracted them. the fertile lands of ohio were chosen by many, while more were drawn to michigan, wisconsin, indiana, illinois, and iowa, in all of whom vermonters took their place as founders of homes and free commonwealths, and gave each some worthy characteristic of that from which they came. when gold was discovered in california, many vermonters flocked thither in quest of fortune, and many remained there to become life-long citizens of the state in whose marvelous growth they were a part. from their inauguration, the great railroad systems of the west have made another and continuous drain upon the best population of the east; and in every department of the enormous business men of vermont birth and training are found conspicuously honored for their ability and integrity. the rapidly growing cities, the immense sheep and cattle ranches, and all the new enterprises of the whole west, have drawn great numbers of ambitious young vermonters to every state and territory of the wonderful region. indeed, there is not a state in the union in which some vermonters have not made their home; but however far they may have wandered from the land of their birth, they cherish the mountaineer's love of home, and a just pride in the goodly heritage of their birthright. wherever in their alien environment they have congregated to any considerable number, they are associated as sons of vermont. chicago boasts the largest society, as its state does the greatest number of citizens, of vermont birth.[106] st. louis has a large association of the kind, as have other western cities. even so near their old home as boston,[107] worcester, providence, and brooklyn, the sons of vermont gather annually to refresh fond memories, and celebrate the virtues of their beloved state. to fill the place left by this constant drain on its population, the state has for the most part received a foreign element, which, though it keeps her numbers good, poorly compensates for her loss. invasions of vermont from canada did not cease with the war of the revolution, nor with the later war with great britain. on the contrary, an insidious and continuous invasion began with the establishment of commercial and friendly relations between the state and the province. early in the century, a few french canadians, seeking the small fortune of better wages, came over the border, and along the grand waterway which their noble countryman had discovered and given his name, and over which so many armies of their people had passed, sometimes in the stealth of maraud, sometimes in all the glorious pomp of war. at first the few new-comers were tenants of the farmers, for whom they worked by the day or month at fair wages, for the men were expert axemen, familiar with all the labors of land-clearing, and as handy as yankees with scythe and sickle; while their weather-browned wives and grown-up daughters could reap and bind as well as they, and did not hold themselves above any outdoor work. after a while some acquired small holdings of a few acres, or less than one, and built thereon log houses, that with eaves of notched shingles and whitewashed outer walls, with the pungent odor of onions and pitch-pine fires, looked and smelled as if they had been transplanted from canada with their owners. when the acreage of meadow land and grain field had broadened beyond ready harvesting by the resident yeomen, swarms of canadian laborers came flocking over the border in gangs of two or three, baggy-breeched and moccasined habitants, embarked in rude carts drawn by shaggy canadian ponies. after a month or two of haymaking and harvesting, they jogged homeward with their earnings, whereunto were often added some small pilferings, for their fingers were as light as their hearts. this annual wave of inundation from the north ceased to flow with the general introduction of the mowing-machine; and the place in the meadow once held by the rank of habitants picturesque in garb, swinging their scythes in unison to some old song sung centuries ago in france, has been usurped by the utilitarian device that, with incessant chirr as of ten thousand sharded wings, mingling with the music of the bobolinks, sweeps down the broad acres of daisies, herdsgrass, and clover. many canadians returned with their families to live in the land which they had spied out in their summer incursions, and so in one way and another the influx continued till they have become the most numerous of vermont's foreign population. for years the state was infested with an inferior class of these people, who plied the vocation of professional beggars. they made regular trips through the country in bands consisting of one or more families, with horses, carts, and rickety wagons, and a retinue of curs, soliciting alms of pork, potatoes, and breadstuffs at every farmhouse they came to, and pilfering when opportunity offered. in the large towns there were depots where the proceeds of their beggary and theft were disposed of. they were an abominable crew of vagabonds, robust, lazy men and boys, slatternly women with litters of filthy brats, and all as detestable as they were uninteresting. they worked their beats successfully, till their pitiful tales of sickness, burnings-out, and journeyings to friends in distant towns were worn threadbare, and then they gradually disappeared, no one knows whither. almost to a man, the canadians who settled in vermont were devout catholics when they came; but after they had been scattered for a few years among such a preponderant protestant community, most of them were held very loosely by the bonds of mother church. except they were residents of the larger towns they seldom saw a priest, and enjoyed a comfortable immunity from fasting, penance, and all ecclesiastic exactions on stomach or purse. on new year's day, perhaps the members of the family confessed to the venerable grandsire, but after that suffered no religious inconvenience until the close of the year. now and then one strayed quite out of the fold and took his place boldly among the heretics, and apparently did not thereby forfeit the fellowship of his more faithful compatriots. but when the flock had become large enough to pay for the shearing, shepherds of the true faith were not wanting. with that steadfast devotion to the interests of their church which has always characterized the catholic priesthood, these men began their work without ostentation, and have succeeded in drawing into the domination of their church a large majority of the canadian-born inhabitants of vermont and of their descendants, as completely as if they were yet citizens of the province, which parkman truly says, is "one of the most priest-ridden communities of the modern world." what this leaven may finally work in the protestant mass with which it has become incorporated is a question that demands more attention than it has yet received. the character of these people is not such as to inspire the highest hope for the future of vermont, if they should become the most numerous of its population. the affiliation with anglo-americans of a race so different in traits, in traditions, and in religion must necessarily be slow, and may never be complete. no great love for their adopted country can be expected of a people that evinces so little for that of its origin as lightly to cast aside names that proudly blazon the pages of french history for poor translations or weak imitations of them in english, nor can broad enlightenment be hoped for of a race so dominated by its priesthood. vermont, as may be seen, has given of her best for the building of new commonwealths, to her own loss of such material as has made her all that her sons, wherever found, are so proud of,--material whose place no alien drift from northward or over seas can ever fill. footnotes: [106] "the first president of this association was guerdon s. hubbard, a vermonter, who was instrumental in founding and establishing the city of chicago, who went there in 1819, and later, ten years afterwards, when chicago only had a fort and one house."--george edmund foss. [107] s. e. howard. chapter xxiii. "the star that never sets." there is little to interest any but the politician in the political history of the state during the uneventful years of three decades following the war of 1812. at the next election after the close of the war the republican party proved strong enough to elect to the governorship its candidate, jonas galusha, who was continued in that office for the five succeeding terms. when, in consequence of the abduction of morgan, the opposing parties were arrayed as masonic and anti-masonic in the battle of ballots, the masonic party of vermont went to the wall. when the two great parties of the nation rallied under their distinctive banners as whigs and democrats, vermont took its place with the first, and held it steadfastly alike through defeats and infrequent triumphs of the party until its dissolution. so constantly was its vote given to the state and national candidates of the whigs that it gained the title of "the star that never sets." from the adoption of its constitution[108] in 1777, which prohibited slave-holding, vermont has been the opponent of slavery. the brave partisan leader, captain ebenezer allen, only expressed the freedom-loving sentiment of the green mountain boys when he declared he was "conscientious that it is not right in the sight of god to keep slaves," and set free those taken prisoners with the british troops on lake champlain. it was natural that among the descendants of those people, the inhabitants of a mountain land such as ever nourishes the spirit of liberty and wherein slavery has never found a congenial soil, there should be found many earnest men ready to join the crusade which, under the leadership of garrison, began in 1833 to assail the great national sin with a storm of denunciation. they denounced the scheme of african colonization, which had a respectable following in vermont, as a device of the slave power to rid itself of the dangerous element of free blacks, under pretense of christianizing africa while here gradual emancipation should be brought about; and thus they aroused the antagonism of the body of the clergy, who had been hoodwinked by the pious plausibility of the plan. a line of the underground railroad held its hidden way through vermont, along which many a dark-skinned passenger secretly traveled, concealed during the day in the quiet stations, at night passing from one to another, helped onward by friendly hands till he reached canada and gained the protection of that government which in later years was to become the passive champion of his rebellious master. the star-guided fugitive might well feel an assurance of liberty when his foot touched the soil that in the old days had given freedom to dinah mattis and her child, and draw a freer breath in the state whose judge in later years demanded of a master, before his runaway slave would be given up to him, that he should produce a bill of sale from the almighty.[109] the abolitionists were no more given than other reformers to the choice of soft words in their objurgations of what they knew to be a sin against god and their fellow-men; yet they were men of peace, almost without exception,--non-resistants,--and freedom of speech was their right. it is humiliating to remember that there was an element in this state base enough to oppose them by mob violence. an anti-slavery meeting convened at the capital in 1835 was broken up by a ruffianly rabble, who pelted the speakers with rotten eggs, and became so violent in their demonstrations that it was unsafe for the principal speaker, rev. samuel j. may of boston, to leave the building, till a quaker lady quietly stepped forward, and, taking his arm, walked out with him through the turbulent crowd, which, though noisy and threatening, had decency enough to respect a lady and her escort. there were like disturbances in some other vermont towns where the abolitionists gathered to advocate their cause, but the intensity of bitterness against them gradually wore away, and they continued to gain adherents, till the question of the extension of slave territory became the all-absorbing subject of political controversy. in 1820 the representatives of vermont in congress opposed the admission of missouri as a slave state, though her senators were divided. in 1825 the legislature passed resolutions deprecating slavery as an evil, and declaring, "this general assembly will accord in any measures which may be adopted by the general government for its abolition in the united states that are consistent with the right of the people and the general harmony of the states." ten years later, in the same year that the anti-slavery meeting was broken up by the rabble in the very shadow of the capitol, the legislature assembled there declared, that "neither congress nor the state governments have any constitutional right to abridge the free expression of opinions, or the transmission of them through the public mail," and that congress possessed the power to abolish slavery in the district of columbia. in 1841 the anti-slavery sentiment had so far increased in the state as to take political form, and votes enough were cast for the candidate of the liberty party for governor to prevent an election by the people. two years later the assembly enacted that no officer or citizen of the state should seize or assist in the seizure of "any person for the reason that he is or may be claimed as a fugitive slave," and that no officer or citizen should transport or assist in the transportation of such person to any place in or out of the state; and that, for like reason, no person should be imprisoned "in any jail or other building belonging to the state, or to any county, town, city, or person therein." when congress in 1850, after a fierce storm of debate, passed the odious fugitive slave law, which made united states marshals, and at their behest every citizen of the republic, servants of the arrogant slave power, and withheld from whoever might be claimed as a slave the right of testifying in his own behalf, vermont was faithful to freedom and the spirit of her constitution. her legislature of the same year passed an act requiring states' attorneys "diligently and faithfully to use all lawful means to protect, defend, and procure to be discharged, every such person so arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave," and judicial and executive officers in their respective counties to inform their state's attorney of the intended arrest of any person claimed as a fugitive slave. in many of the northern states slave-hunting waxed hot and eager under the national law, but the hunters never attempted to seize their prey in the land of the green mountain boys, though there were fugitive slaves living there, and an occasional passenger still fared along the mysterious course of the underground railroad. consequent upon the annexation of texas came war with mexico,--a war waged wholly in the interest of slavery extension, and forced by the great republic upon her younger sister, weak and distracted by swiftly recurring revolutions. having a purpose so opposite to the interest and sentiment of the people of vermont, no possible appeal to arms could have been less popular among them. yet upon the call of president polk for volunteers, a company was soon recruited in the state. under captain kimball of woodstock, it formed a part of the 9th regiment, whose colonel was truman b. ransom, a vermonter, who had been a military instructor in the norwich university, and in a similar institution at the south. the 9th was attached to the brigade of general pierce, in general pillow's division, under general scott. the army of americans, always outnumbered, often three to one, by the enemy, could not have fought more bravely in a better cause; and the little band of green mountain boys gave gallant proof that, in the more than thirty years which had elapsed since they were last called forth to battle, the valor of their race had not abated. colonel ransom fell while leading his regiment in a charge at chepultepec; and the vermont company was one of the foremost at the storming of the castle, it being claimed for captain kimball and sergeant-major fairbanks that they hauled down the mexican colors, and raised the stars and stripes above the captured fortress.[110] upon the dissolution of the whig party, the least subservient to the slavery propagandists of the two great political parties in the north, vermont at once took her place under the newly unfurled banner of the republicans,--a place which she has ever since steadfastly maintained through victory and defeat. in 1856 her vote was cast for fremont, and four years later, by an increased majority, for lincoln. few who cast their votes at this memorable election foresaw that its result would so soon precipitate the inevitable conflict. but five brief months passed, and all were awakened to the terrible reality of war. footnotes: [108] e. p. walton, in _governor and council_, vol. i. p. 92, says, "this was the first emancipation act in america." [109] theophilus harrington. [110] dana's _history of woodstock_. chapter xxiv. vermont in the war of the rebellion. the dreariness of the long northern winter was past. the soft air of spring again breathed through the peaceful valleys, wafting the songs of returning birds, the voice of unfettered streams, and the sound of reawakened husbandry. though far off in the southern horizon the cloud of rebellion lowered and threatened, men went about their ordinary affairs, still hoping for peace, till the tranquillity of those april days was broken by the bursting storm of civil war. with the echo of its first thunder came president lincoln's call for troops, and vermont responded with a regiment of her sons, as brave, though their lives had been lapped in peace, as the war-nurtured green mountain boys of old. the military spirit had been but feebly nursed during many tranquil years, yet, at the first breath of this storm, it blazed up in a fervor of patriotic fire such as never before had been witnessed. at the outbreak of the rebellion, no northern state was less prepared for war than vermont. except in the feeble existence of four skeleton regiments, her militia was unorganized, the men subject to military service not being even enrolled. some of the uniformed companies were without guns, others drilled with ancient flintlocks; and the state possessed but five hundred serviceable percussion muskets, and no tents nor camp equipage; while the champlain arsenal at vergennes, like other united states arsenals in the north, had been stripped by floyd, the secretary of war, of everything but a few superannuated muskets and useless cannon. the continual outflow of emigration had drawn great numbers of the stalwart young men of the rural population to the western states, in whose regiments many of them were already enlisting, and she had not the large towns nor floating population which in most other states contributed so largely the material for armies. the governor, erastus fairbanks, immediately issued a proclamation, announcing the outbreak of rebellion, and the president's call for volunteers, and summoning the legislature to assemble on the 25th of april. his proclamation bore even date with that of the president, and is believed to have antedated by at least a day the like proclamation of any other governor.[111] in the brief interval between the summoning and the assembling of the legislature, in all parts of the state men were drilling and volunteering. banks and individuals tendered their money, railroad and steamboat companies offered free transportation for troops and munitions of war, and patriotic women were making uniforms of "vermont gray" for the ten companies of militia chosen on the 19th of april to form the 1st regiment. the train which brought the legislators to the capital was welcomed by a national salute from the two cannon captured at bennington. without distinction of party, senators and representatives met the imperative demands of the time with such resolute purpose that in forty-eight hours they had accomplished the business for which they were assembled, and had adjourned. a bill was unanimously passed appropriating one million dollars for war expenses. provision was made for raising six more regiments for two years' service, for it was forecast by the legislature that the war was not likely to be confined to one campaign, nor an insignificant expenditure of money. each private was to be paid by the state seven dollars a month in addition to the thirteen dollars offered by the united states. if his aged parents or wife and children should come to want while he was fighting his country's battles, they were not to become town paupers, but the wards of the commonwealth. the ten companies were rapidly filled, their equipment was completed, and they assembled at rutland on the 2d of may, with john w. phelps as colonel, a native of vermont, who had served with distinction in the mexican war as lieutenant, and captain in the regular army. no fitter choice could have been made of a commander for the regiment than this brave and conscientious soldier, who, though a strict disciplinarian, exercised such fatherly care over his men that he won their love and respect. after some delay the regiment was mustered into the united states service on the 8th. it was the opinion of the adjutant-general that there were troops enough already at washington for its defense, and that the 1st vermont might better be held in its own state for a while. but when general scott learned that a regiment of green mountain boys, commanded by phelps, was awaiting marching orders, he wished them sent on at once. "i want your vermont regiments, all of them. i remember the vermont men on the niagara frontier," and he remembered captain phelps at contreras and cherubusco. a special messenger was dispatched to rutland with orders to march, and on the 9th of may, the eighty-sixth anniversary of the mustering of allen's mountaineers for the attack of ticonderoga, this regiment of worthy inheritors of their home and name set forth for fortress monroe. there were heavy hearts in the cheering throng that bade them godspeed and farewell,--heavier than they bore, for to them was appointed action: to those they left behind, only waiting in hope and fear and prayer for the return of their beloved. on its passage through new york, the regiment attracted much admiration for the stature and soldierly bearing of its members, each of whom wore in his gray cap, as proudly as a knight his plume, the evergreen badge of his state. each succeeding regiment bore this emblem to the front, to be drenched in blood, to be scathed in the fire of war, to wither in the pestilential air of southern prisons, but never to be dishonored. "who is that tall vermont colonel?" one spectator asked, pointing to the towering form of colonel phelps. "that," answered another, "is old ethan allen resurrected!" the 1st was stationed at fortress monroe, and remained there and in the vicinity during its term of service. at big bethel, in the first engagement of the war worthy the name of a battle, it bore bravely its part, though the ill-planned attack resulted in failure. the throngs of fugitive slaves who sought refuge with colonel phelps were not returned to their masters, but allowed to come and go as they pleased, and thereafter were safe when they had found their way into the camps of vermonters, though they were given up by the officers of other volunteers and of the regulars. general butler, in command at fortress monroe, assuming that they were contraband of war, refused to return them to slavery, and put them to efficient service in the construction of fortifications. the regiment returned to vermont early in august, and was mustered out, but of its members five out of every six reëntered the service in regiments subsequently raised, and two hundred and fifty held commissions. their colonel, now appointed brigadier-general, remaining at fortress monroe, greatly regretted their departure. "a regiment the like of which will not soon be seen again," he said to colonel washburn. yet, before the leaves had fallen that were greening the vermont hills when the 1st regiment left them, five other regiments in no wise inferior had gone to the front, to a more active service and bloodier fields. the 2d vermont, its ten companies selected from over 5,600 men who offered themselves, went to the front in time to take part in the first great battle of the war at bull run. thenceforth till the close of the war this splendid regiment took part in almost every battle in which the army of the potomac was engaged. its ratio of killed and mortally wounded was eight times greater than was the average in the union army. the 3d regiment followed in july, the 4th and 5th were rapidly filled and sent forward in september, the 6th in october. these five regiments formed the first brigade of the sixth corps. the heroic service[112] of this brigade is interwoven with the history of the army of the potomac. the estimation in which it was held is shown by the responsible and dangerous positions to which it was so often assigned, and in the praise bestowed upon it by distinguished generals under which it served. when the sixth corps was to be hurried with all speed to the imperiled field of gettysburg, sedgwick's order was, "put the vermonters in front, and keep the column well closed up." "no body of troops in or out of the army of the potomac made their record more gallantly, sustained it more heroically, or wore their honors more modestly."[113] at the time of the draft riots in new york, in july, 1863, the first vermont brigade, with other most reliable troops to the number of twelve thousand, were sent thither to preserve order during the continuance of the draft. it was a strange turn of time that brought vermont regiments to protect the city whose colonial rulers had set the ban of outlawry upon the leaders of the old green mountain boys. these later bearers of the name performed their duty faithfully and without arrogance, and received warm praise of all good citizens for their orderly behavior during what was holiday service to such veterans. vermont horses had won a national reputation as well as vermont men, and it seemed desirable that the government should avail itself of the services of both. accordingly, in the fall of 1861, a regiment of cavalry was recruited under direct authority of the secretary of war; and in forty-two days after the order was issued, the men and their horses were in "camp ethan allen" at burlington. but one larger regiment, the 11th, went from the state, and none saw more constant or harder service. it brought home its flag inscribed with the names of seventy-five battles and skirmishes. the 7th and 8th regiments of infantry and two companies of light artillery were raised early in 1862, and were assigned to service in the gulf states, in the department commanded by general butler. arrived at ship island, much to their gratification, they were placed under the immediate command of their own general, phelps. faithful to the spirit of his state and his own convictions of justice, he had issued[114] a proclamation to the loyal citizens of the southwest, declaring that slavery was incompatible with free government, and the aim of the government to be its overthrow. fugitive slaves found a safe refuge in his camp here, as in virginia, and in may, 1862, he began drilling and organizing three regiments of blacks. but upon his requisition for muskets to arm them, he was peremptorily ordered by general butler to desist from organizing colored troops, and he resigned his commission. "the government," says benedict in "vermont in the civil war," "which before the war closed had 175,000 colored men under arms, thus lost the services of as brave, faithful, and patriotic an officer as it had in its army, one whose only fault as a soldier was that he was a little in advance of his superiors in willingness to accept the aid of all loyal citizens, white or black, in the overthrow of rebellion." in july, 1862, the 9th regiment, commanded by colonel stannard, went to the front, being the first under the recent call for three hundred thousand men. its initial service was at harper's ferry, where it presently suffered the humiliation of surrender with the rest of miles's force. in the little fighting that occurred, the raw regiment bore itself bravely. colonel stannard begged miles to let him storm london heights with his command alone, and then to cut his way out of the beleaguered post, but both requests were refused. the 9th passed several months under parole at chicago, was exchanged, and at length took its place in the army of the potomac. a portion of this regiment was the first of the union infantry to carry the national flag into the rebel capital. the 10th and 11th regiments were speedily forwarded in the fall of 1862. the former joined the army in virginia. the latter, recruited as heavy artillery, spent two years in garrison duty in the defenses of washington. when grant began the campaign of the wilderness, it joined the first vermont brigade as an infantry regiment, and its fifteen hundred men outnumbered the five other thinned regiments of the brigade that had so often been winnowed in the blasts of war, which soon swept its own ranks with deadly effect. before these two regiments were organized came the president's call for three hundred thousand militia to serve nine months, under which vermont's quota was nearly five thousand. the five regiments were quickly raised and sent forward, and to three of them, just before their term of enlistment expired, fell a full share of the glories of gettysburg, under the intrepid leader, general stannard. the charge of his vermont brigade beat back pickett's furious assault, and decided the fate of the day.[115] once more the brave little commonwealth was called on to furnish a regiment, and the 17th was sent to the front with ranks yet unfilled. its third battalion drill was held on the battlefield of the wilderness. the untried troops were hurled at once into the thick of the fight and suffered fearful loss, and henceforth were almost continually engaged with the enemy till the fall of richmond. besides these seventeen regiments of infantry and one of cavalry, the state furnished for the defense of the union three light batteries and three companies of sharpshooters, who well sustained the ancient renown of the marksmen whom stark and warner led, and at the close of the war vermont stood credited with nearly thirty-four thousand men. thus unstintingly did she devote her strength to the preservation of the union to which she had been so reluctantly admitted. what manner of men they were, sheridan testified when, two years after the war, standing beneath their tattered banners in representatives' hall at montpelier, he said: "i have never commanded troops in whom i had more confidence than i had in the vermont troops, and i do not know but i can say that i never commanded troops in whom i had as much confidence as those of this gallant state," and the torn and faded battle-flags under which he stood told more eloquently than words how bravely they had been borne through the peril of many battles, and honorably returned to the state that gave them. when, after four weary years, the war came to its successful close, the decimated regiments of green mountain boys returned to their state, received a joyful but sad welcome, and then, with all the embattled host of union volunteers, dissolved into the even, uneventful flow of ordinary life. notwithstanding the remoteness of the state from the arena of war, vermont suffered a rebel raid from a quarter whence of old her enemies had often come, though of right none should come now. a majority of the people of canada were in warm sympathy with the rebellion, their government was indifferent, and the dominion swarmed with disloyal americans, who were continually plotting to aid their brethren at the front by covert attacks in the rear. the federal government was on its guard, but a blow fell suddenly at an unexpected point. on the 19th of october, 1864, while vermont troops under sheridan were routing the rebels at cedar creek, a rather unusual number of strangers appeared in the village of st. albans, a few miles from the canadian border. moving about singly or in small groups, and clad in citizen's dress, they attracted no particular attention, till, at a preconcerted signal, three small parties of them entered the banks, and with cocked and leveled pistols forced the officials to deliver up all the moneys in their keeping. other armed men in the streets at once seized and placed under guard every citizen found astir, while some attempted to fire the town by throwing vials of so-called greek fire into some of the principal buildings. having possessed themselves of the treasure in the banks, amounting to two hundred thousand dollars, in specie, bills, and bonds, the party took horses from the livery stables, and rode out of town, firing as they went a wanton fusillade which wounded several persons, but happily killed only a recreant new englander who was in sympathy with their cause. they proved to be a band of rebel soldiers, commanded by a lieutenant young, who held a commission in the confederate army. they beat a hurried retreat with their booty beyond the line, whither they were pursued by a hastily gathered party of mounted men under the lead of captain conger, who had served in the union army. none of the raiders were taken, but later fourteen were captured in canada, with $87,000 of the booty, by captain conger's men, acting under orders of general dix, and aided by canadian officials. during their brief imprisonment they were entertained as honored guests in the montreal jail, and, after undergoing the farce of a trial in a canadian court of justice, they were set at liberty amid cheers, which evinced the warm sympathy of the neutral canadians. it appeared in the testimony of a detective that colonel armitinger, second in command of the montreal militia, was aware of the contemplated raid, but took no measures to prevent it. "let them go on," he said, "and have a fight on the frontier; it is none of our business; we can lose nothing by it." the affair formed an important point of consideration in the geneva arbitration, and secretary stanton declared it one of the important events of the war,--"not so much as transferring in part the scenes and horrors of war to a peaceful, loyal state, but as leading to serious and dangerous complications with great britain, through the desires and efforts of the southern people to involve canada, and through her britain, in a war on behalf of their southern friends."[116] the unfriendly attitude which the canadians held toward our government, throughout the struggle for its maintenance, might be profitably considered whenever the frequently arising project of annexation comes to the surface. the fenian irruptions of 1866 and 1870, abortive except for the panic which they created in canada, with more than the ordinary certainty of poetic justice, formed their base of operations at st. albans, the point of rebel attack in vermont. impelled by the military spirit which the war had aroused, the legislature made provision for the organization of a uniformed volunteer militia, to which every township furnished its quota. under the instruction of veterans of the war, the militia made commendable progress in drill and discipline. but after a few years it was disbanded, and the commonwealth has drifted back into almost the condition of unpreparation which existed at the beginning of the war. for the most part, the young men who have become of military age since those troublous days are more unlearned than their mothers in the school of the soldier. footnotes: [111] g. g. benedict, _vermont in the civil war_. [112] the limits of this work preclude detailed account of the noble services of vermont troops, which are fully and graphically related in g. g. benedict's valuable work, _vermont in the civil war_. of many noble examples of heroic self-devotion where vermonters unflinchingly endured the storm of fire, the record of the 5th regiment at savage's station is memorable,--in the space of twenty minutes, every other man in the line was killed or wounded. company e went into the fight with 59 officers and privates, of whom only seven came out unhurt and 25 were killed or mortally wounded. five brothers named cummings, a cousin of the same name, and a brother-in-law, all recruited on one street of the historic town of manchester, were members of this company. all but one were killed or mortally wounded in this action, and he received a wound so severe that he was discharged by special order of the secretary of war. [113] adjutant-general mcmahon of the sixth corps. [114] december, 1861. [115] on this historic field vermont has marked with monuments the position held by her troops. where the war-worn first brigade stood waiting but uncalled to stem the tide of battle, a crouching lion, alert for the onslaught, rears his majestic front, like the lion couchant of the green mountains. another monument stands where the second brigade beat back the impetuous fury of the rebel charges; another where the vermont cavalry dashed like a billow of fire and steel upon the foe; and two where, at the hornet's nest and the peach orchard, the unerring rifles of vermont's three companies of sharpshooters rained their constant fire upon the enemy. [116] _history of the st. albans raid_, p. 48, by e. a. sowles. chapter xxv. the vermont people. in the years of peace that have passed since the great national conflict, many changes have taken place in the commonwealth. the speculative spirit which arose from the inflation of values during that period in some degree affected almost every one, and still survives, when all values but that of labor have sunk to nearly their former level. too great a proportion of the people sought to gain their living by their wits as speculators,--go-betweens of the producer and consumer, agents of every real or sham business and enterprise, largely increasing the useless class who really do nothing, produce nothing, and add nothing to the wealth of a state. this class is largely drawn from the greatly predominant agricultural population. farmers, who in the years before the war could only bring the year around by the strictest economy, suddenly became rich men, as farmers count wealth, by the doubled or trebled value of their land, and the same increase of price of all its products, and fell into ways of extravagance that left them poorer than before, when prices went down, and withal more discontented with their lot. men bought land at the prevailing extravagant prices, and a few years later found themselves stranded, by the subsiding tidal wave, on the barren shores of hopeless debt, and many such became ready recruits for the insane army of greenbackers. the extravagance of their employers infected the wage-earners, and led them to the same silly emulation of display beyond their means, rather than to the founding of comfortable homes,--the ambition for something not quite attainable, which brings inevitable unrest and discontent. sheep husbandry, the old and fostered industry of the state, with which it was so long identified, deserves more than a passing mention. as has been said in a former chapter, early in the century vermont flocks were greatly improved by the introduction of the spanish merinos. during 1809 and 1810, william jarvis, our consul at lisbon, obtained about 4,000 merinos from the confiscated flocks of the spanish nobles, and imported them to this country. the flocks of pure blood bred on mr. jarvis's beautiful estate at weathersfield "bow," lying on the western bank of the connecticut, and half inclosed by the river, were not excelled by any in this country. from the jarvis importation, and from a small flock of the infantado family imported about the same time by colonel humphreys, our minister to spain, the most valued merinos are descended. from various causes the value of sheep and wool has exhibited remarkable fluctuations. during the years 1809 and 1810, half-blood merino wool sold for seventy-five cents a pound, and full blood for two dollars, and during the war with england rose to the enormous price of two dollars and a half a pound; full-blood rams sold for sums as great as the price of thoroughbred stallions, even ram lambs bringing a thousand dollars each: but such a sudden downfall followed the peace that, before the end of 1815, full-blooded sheep sold for one dollar each. during the next ten years the price of wool continued so low that nearly all the flocks of merinos were broken up, or deteriorated through careless breeding. at that time an increase in the duties on fine wool revived the prostrate industry, but unhappily led to the general introduction of the saxon merinos, a strain bearing finer but lighter fleeces, and far less hardy than their spanish cousins. the cross of the puny saxon with these worked serious injury to the flocks, but was continued for twenty years, and then abandoned so completely that all traces of the breed have disappeared. the spanish sheep again became the favorites, or rather their american descendants, for these, through careful breeding by a few far-sighted shepherds, now surpassed in size, form, and weight of fleece their long neglected european contemporaries, if not their progenitors from whom in their best days the importations had been drawn. sheep-husbandry became the leading industry of vermont, so generally entered upon that even the dairyman's acres were shared by some number of sheep, till every hillside pasture and broad level of the great valleys, rank with clover and herdsgrass, was cropped by its half hundred or hundreds of these unconscious inheritors of mixed or unadulterated blue blood of the royal spanish flocks. along all thoroughfares, from the massachusetts border to the canadian frontier, the traveler, as he journeyed by stage or in his own conveyance, saw flocks dotting the close-cropped pastures with white or umber flecks, or huddled in the comfort of the barnyard, and the quavering bleat of the sheep was continually in his ears; nor was the familiar sound left quite behind as he journeyed along the lonely woodland roads, for even there he was like to hear it, and, chiming with the thrush's song, the intermittent jangle of the tell-tale bell that marked the whereabouts of the midwood settler's half-wild flock. the "merino fever" again raged, and fabulous prices were paid for full-bloods, while unscrupulous jockeys "stubble sheared" and umbered sheep of doubtful pedigree into a simulation of desired qualities that fooled many an unsuspecting purchaser. breeders and growers went to the opposite extreme from that which had been reached during the saxon craze, and now sacrificed everything to weight of fleece, and vermont wool fell into ill-repute. prices went down again, and again the descendants of the paulars and infantados went to the shambles at prices as low as were paid for plebeian natives. the wool-growing industry of the east now began to find a most formidable rival in the west, the southwest, and australia, in whose milder climates and boundless ranges flocks can be kept at a cost far below that entailed by the long and rigorous winters of new england, and in numbers that her narrow pastures would scarcely hold. at the same time lighter duties increased the importation of foreign wools, so there was nothing apparently for vermont shepherds to do but to give up the unequal contest, and most of them cast away their crooks and turned dairymen. but gifted with a wise foresight, a few owners of fine flocks kept and bred them as carefully as ever, through all discouragements, and in time reaped their reward, for it presently became evident that the flocks of milder climates soon deteriorate, and frequent infusions of eastern blood are necessary to obtain the desired weight of fleece, so that sheep-breeding is still a prosperous industry, though, as has been stated, wool-growing has become insignificant. dairy products have largely increased, so that now they are far more important than wool among the exports, and almost everywhere the broad foot of the jersey, the ayrshire, the shorthorn, and the holstein has usurped the place of the "golden hoof." the butter and cheese of the state were in good repute even in the primitive days of the earthen milkpan, the slow and wearisome dash-churn, and the cheese-press that was only a rough bench and lever, as rude in construction as the plumping-mill, and when a summer store of ice was a luxury that the farmer never dreamed of possessing. the simplest utensils and means were in vogue, and modern devices and improved methods were unknown. the good, bad, and indifferent butter of a whole township went as barter to the village store, where with little assorting it was packed in large firkins, and by and by went its slow way to the city markets, in winter in sleighs, in the open seasons on lumbering wagons or creeping boats, with cargoes of cheese, pork, apples, dried and in cider sauce, maple sugar, potash, and all yields of farm and forest. even after such long journeying, the mixed product of many dairies retained some flavor of the hills that commended it to the palates of city folk, and was in favor with them. cheeses were not packed, as now, each in its own neat box, but four or five together in a cask made especially for the purpose, whose manufacture kept the cooper busy many days in the year. his wayside shop, with its resonant clangor of driven hoops and heaps of fresh shavings piled about it, distilling the wholesome odor of fresh wood, was a frequent wayside landmark, now not often seen. cheese was the chief product of the dairy, and was always home-made, while now it is almost entirely made in factories, to which the milk of neighboring dairies is brought, but by far the larger part of the milk goes to creameries for the making of butter. as the carding, spinning, and cloth-making went from the household in the day of a former generation, and the title of "spinster" became only the designation of unmarried women, so the final labor of the dairy is being withdrawn from the farm to the creamery and cheese factory, to make an even product, better than the worst, if never so good as the best, of that of the old system, and the buxom dairymaid will exist for coming generations only in song and story. the enormous mineral wealth of the state lay for years hidden or unheeded, copper and copperas in the hills of vershire and strafford, granite in the bald peaks of barre, slate in long lines of shelving ledges here and there, and marble cropping out in blotches of dull white among the mulleins and scrubby evergreens of barren sheep pastures. some of these resources developed slowly to their present importance, others have flourished and languished and flourished again, and others sprang from respectable existence into sudden importance. copper ore was discovered in orange county about 1820,[117] and was afterwards mined and smelted in vershire, in a small way, by a company formed of residents of the neighborhood and styled the "farmers' company." in 1853 the mine was purchased by residents of new york, who were granted a charter under the title of "vermont copper mining company," and they began more extensive operations under the direction of a skilled cornish miner. in the years which have elapsed since then, the work has at times been actively carried on with excellent results, and fifty tons or more of superior copper produced each month; at times it has languished, till the populous mining village was almost deserted, and neighboring hill and vale, scathed by the sulphurous breath of roast-bed and furnace, became more desolate than when the primeval forest clothed them; again it has seasons of prosperity, when the vershire vale is as populous with pols, tres, and pens as a cornish mining town.[118] granite, upheaved from the core of the world, is found in immense masses in the central portions of the state. at barre there are mountains of it; though there so overtopped by the lofty peaks of mansfield and "tah-be-de-wadso," they bear such humble names as cobble hill and millstone hill. the pioneer hunters who trapped beaver and otter in the wild streams,[119] and the settlers who here first brought sun and soil face to face, little dreamed that greater wealth than fertile acres bear was held in these barren hills. yet something of it became known more than half a century ago, and the second state house was built of this barre granite, hauled by teams nine miles over the hilly roads. for many years the working of the quarries increased only gradually, but within comparatively a few years it has become an immense business. the hills are noisy with the constant click of hammer and drill, the clang of machinery, and the sullen roar of blasts, and the quiet village has suddenly grown to be a busy town, with two railroads to bear away the crude or skillfully worked products of the quarries. in a single year a thousand scotch families came to this place, bringing strong hands skilled in the working of old world quarries to delve in those of the new, and a savor of the scotch highlands to the highlands of the new world. slate of excellent quality exists in vermont in three extensive ranges, one in the eastern part of the state, another in the central, and another in the western. each is quarried to some extent at several points, but the last named most extensively in rutland county. slabs taken from the weathered surface rock were long ago used for tombstones, and may be seen among the sumacs and goldenrods of many an old graveyard, still commemorating the spiritual and physical excellences of the pioneers who sleep beneath them. no quarries were opened until 1845, nor was much progress made for five years thereafter, when an immigration of intelligent welshmen brought skilled hands to develop the new industry, and made st. david a popular saint in the shadow of the taconic hills. the existence of marble in vermont was known long ago. on the isle la motte, a quarry of black marble was worked before the revolution; and early in the present century, quarries were opened in west rutland, and worked in rude and primitive fashion, the slabs so obtained being mostly used for headstones. a quarry was opened in middlebury, and it is claimed that the device of sawing marble with sand and a toothless strip of iron was invented by a boy of that town, named isaac markham, though in fact it was known to the ancients and used by them centuries ago. but little more than fifty years ago, the site of the great quarries of west rutland was a barren sheep-pasture, shaggy with stunted evergreens, and the wealth it roofed was undreamed of, and so cheaply valued that the whole tract was exchanged for an old horse worth less than one of the huge blocks of marble that day after day are hoisted from its depths. the working of these quarries was begun about 1836, and within ten years thereafter three companies were formed and in operation. but the growth of the business was slow, for there were no railroads, and all the marble quarried had to be hauled by teams twenty-five miles to whitehall, the nearest shipping-point. furthermore, its introduction to general use was difficult, for though its purity of color and firmness could not be denied, its durability was doubted. fifty years of exposure in our variable and destructive climate have proved vermont marble to exceed in this quality that of any foreign country. in 1852 a line of railroad running near at hand was completed, and the marble business of rutland began to assume something of the proportions which now distinguish it as the most important of the kind on the continent. one of the most remarkable changes in the commerce of vermont has been in the lumber trade, which no longer flows with the current of champlain and the richelieu to canada, but from the still immense forests of the dominion up these waterways to supply the demands of a region long since shorn of its choicest timber. of this great trade burlington is the centre, and one of the busiest lumber marts in new england. the pine-tree displayed on the escutcheon of vermont is now no more significant of the products of the commonwealth than is the wheat sheaf it bears; for almost the last of the old pines are gone with the century that nursed their growth, and the ponderous rafts of spars and square timber that once made their frequent and unreturning voyages northward have not been seen for more than half a century. the havoc of deforesting is not stayed, nor like to be while forest tracts remain. the devouring locomotive, spendthrift waste thoughtless of the future, the pulp-mill, and kindred wood consumers gnaw with relentless persistence upon every variety of tree growth that the ooze of the swamp or the thin soil of the mountain side yet nourishes. in 1808, only a year after fulton's successful experiment on the hudson, a steamer was launched at burlington on lake champlain, and astonished her spectators by her wonderful performance as she churned her way through the waters at the rate of five miles an hour. in 1815 a company was granted the exclusive right of the steam navigation of lake champlain, but the unjust monopoly was presently canceled. in later years the steamers of the lake were celebrated for the excellence of their appointments and superior management, a reputation which they still maintain, though the railroads that skirt their thoroughfare on either side have drawn from them the greater share of the patronage which they once enjoyed. all the various industries have been given an impetus by the railroad system which now meshes the state, and knits it closer to the others of the union. with these changes in business and methods, and this constant intercourse with all inhabitants of the republic, the quaint individuality of the earlier people is fast dissolving into commonplace likeness, so that now the typical green mountain boy of the olden time endures only like an ancient pine that, spared by some chance, rears its rugged crest above the second growth, still awaiting the tempest or the axe that shall lay it low; yet as the pine, changing its habit of growth with changed conditions, is still a pine, so the vermonter of to-day, when brought to the test, proves to be of the same tough fibre as were his ancestors. from the turbulent day of her birth through the period during which she maintained a separate and independent existence, and during the hundred years that she has borne her faithful part as a member of the great republic, the history of vermont is one that her people may well be proud of. such shall it continue to be, if her sons depart not from the wise and fatherly counsel of her first governor, "to be a faithful, industrious, and moral people," and in all their appointments "to have regard to none but those who maintain a good, moral character, men of integrity, and distinguished for wisdom and abilities." so may the commonwealth still rear worthy generations to uphold and increase her honorable fame, while her beautiful valleys continue, as in the long-past day of their discovery, "fertile in corn and an infinitude of other fruits." footnotes: [117] _geology of vermont._ [118] _hearth and home_, october, 1870. [119] one of the first of these, named stevens, was found in his cabin near the mouth of the stream which bears his name, dead on his piled treasure of rich peltry, with a kettle of unavailing medicinal herbs hanging over the ashes of his burned-out fire. index. abercrombie, general, 29, 32. abolitionists, 335. academy, military, 314. adams, secretary j. s., 311. alien and sedition laws, 261. allen, ebenezer, captures mount defiance, 179; frees dinah mattis, 183; at new haven fort, 187, 225. allen, ethan, 63, 68, 69, 76, 78, 84; outlawed, 86, 103, 109, 113, 115, 119; petition to king, 99; attempt to take montreal by, 121; capture of, 122; return to bennington of, 192; pamphlets written by, 198; receives letter from b. robinson, 204, 207, 212, 226; quells rebellion in guilford, 239; sent to cumberland county, 196; death of, 258. allen, herman, 140. allen, ira, 68, 70, 78; secretary of council of safety, 165, 167, 199, 201; commissioner with fay, 206; commissioner to isle aux noix, 208-220, 224, 265, 313. allen, parson, at bennington, 172. amherst, general, 28, 32, 33, 41, 42, 44. arnold, benedict, 103, 107, 112, 114; expedition to canada of, 125, 128, 130; naval battle of, 134; retreat of, 136. baker, remember, 71, 72, 111, 119; at otter creek falls, 78; outlawed, 86. barnum, lieut. barnabas, 188. baum, colonel, 170, 176. beach, major gershom, 105. bees, 294. bennington, 54; convention at, 64, 67, 80; legislature at, 193. big bethel, first regiment at, 344. bills of credit, 249. boundary line, settlement of, 252. bowker, joseph, 116. bradley, stephen r., pamphlet of, 198, 201. brattleboro, 16, 54. breckenridge, james, 65. breyman, 171, 175; retreat of, 176. brown, john, 102, 119, 179. burgoyne, sir john, at the bouquet, 151; proclamation of, 152, 162; sends baum to bennington, 170, 177; retreat of the army of, 182. burlington, 54; lumber trade at, 364; steamer launched at, 365. canada, expeditions against, 7, 13, 21; conquest of, 46; invasion of, 115-131. canal, champlain, 325; erie, 325; ship, 265. carleton, general, 124, 136; at crown point, 138; threatens ticonderoga, 142. carpenter, isaiah, 66. catamount tavern, 54, 83, 103. champlain, lake, 4; waubanakee name of, 6; iroquois name of, 19; seigniories on, 19. champlain, sieur samuel, 1. charlestown, 24; legislature at, 232. charlotte, county of, 89. chimney point, 19. chittenden, gov. martin, 278, 284. chittenden, thomas, president of council of safety, 165, 182, 184; appointed governor, 189; his letter to washington, 195, 205, 230, 239; answer to congress of, 242, 244; letter of, 247, 254; death of, 259; anecdote of, 321; counsel of, 366. church, timothy, 239, 240. clark, col. isaac, at st. armand, 276, 282. clay, capt. james, 195. clinton, governor, 225, 226, 230. cockran, robert, 71, 72. cognahwaghnah indians, claims of, 260. colden, governor, 98. colleges, 313. commissioners of sequestration, 167. committees of safety, 67, 73, 75, 77; decrees of, 82; answer of, to new york resolutions, 85; "association" of, 141. conger, captain, captures raiders, 352. congress, vacillating course of, 236, 242. connecticut, letters from, 238. constitution adopted, 146. controversy between new hampshire and new york, 56-67. copper mines, 360. council of safety, 150, 170; acts of, 181, 184, 187. crown point, fort built by amherst at, 41, 84, 100. cumberland county, 90. cummings, 346. dairying, 358. debeline's attack on number four, 23. declaration of independence, 143. deerfield, destruction of, 11. delaplace, captain, 110, 111. dellius, godfrey, 47. derby, raid on, 277. dorset, convention at, 139. dummer, fort, built, 17; truck house at, 18. dummerston, 91. eaton, capt. william, 358. election day, 254; customs of, 301. enos, general, 216. equivalent lands, 16. fairbanks, gov. erastus, proclamation of, 341. fay, dr. jonas, 201, 211, 213. fay, major joseph, 206, 211, 214. fay, capt. stephen, 75. fees for grants, 81. first brigade, 345. forts, bridgman's, 22; crown point, 41, 84, 100; number four, 23; ranger, 194; st. anne, 19; st. frederic, 19, 20, 101; ticonderoga, 26; vengeance, 194; warren, 194. francis, colonel, 157; death of, 159. french canadians, 328. french river, 11. french, william, murder of, 95. frontenac, expeditions by, 4, 10. fugitive slave law, 337. galusha, gov. jonas, 268, 333. gates, general, 132, 137. granite quarries, 361. green mountain boys, 68. green mountains, republic of, 248. gregg, lieutenant-colonel, 171. growler and eagle, loss of, 274. guilford, 238. haldimand, general, 83; correspondence of, 203-221. hale, colonel, 158. hampton, gen. wade, inaction of, 275. hay, col. udney, 183. headee, mrs., 228. henry, john, 269. herrick, captain, captures boats at skenesborough, 112; colonel, 167, 187; receives thanks of council, 183. hobbs, capt. humphrey, scout of, 25. horses, morgan, 298. houghton, daniel, 95. howe, caleb, 22. hubbardton, battle of, 158. indians, forays of, 5; routes of, 11; st. francis, 33. iroquois, 2; montreal sacked by, 5. isle aux noix, 33; taken by haviland, 44; conference with british at, 208. izard, general, 283. johnson, sir john, 225. johnson, sir william, 26. kent, cephas, innholder, 139. land embargo, 266. legislature, acts of, 255-257; promptcalls for troops, 340. libraries, early, 315; endowment of, 317. lincoln, abraham, president, 339; action of, 342. lincoln, general, 169, 181. liquor drinking, 364. louisburg, capture of, 21, 29. lumbering, 364. lydius, john henry, 47. macdonough, 273; builds fleet at vergennes, 279; fleet of, enters the lake, 281; naval victory of, 285. mcintosh, donald, 54, 79. manchester, jail at, 142; stark at, 168; lincoln at, 169; warner's regiment left at, 169. marble quarries, 362. massachusetts, claims of, 197. monro, esquire, 66, 69. monroe, colonel, 27. montcalm, 26, 31. montgomery, general, 117, 127; killed, 128. montpelier, the capitol at, 264; early library of, 315. montreal, taken by amherst, 46; attempt on, by ethan allen, 123; taken by montgomery, 128. mott, captain, 103, 105. mount defiance, 153; occupied by british, 156; taken by ebenezer allen, 179. mount independence, 132; evacuation of, 156; ibid. by british, 182. new connecticut, 144. new hampshire, controversy of, concerning boundaries, 56; obedience of, to king, 60, 80; prompt action of, to repel invasion of burgoyne, 166; sixteen towns of, join vermont, 201, 232, 235. new hampshire grants, 57-67, 143. new york, claims of, 58, 60; frontiers of, protected by allen's treaty, 223; appoints commissioners to treat concerning boundary, 251; draft riots of the city of, quelled by vermont troops, 346. newspapers, early, 317. number four, 22; defense of, 23; road from, to crown point, 43. otter, great, mills destroyed at first falls of, 78; fort at, 187; macdonough's fleet winters in, 279; boats built at, 279; british attack at mouth of, 280; arsenal at, 341. papers, 318. petowbowk, 6. phelps, charles, 240, 246. phelps, col. john w., 342; his treatment of fugitives, 344; his proclamation and resignation, 348. phipps, sir william, 9. plattsburgh, raid on, 275; battle of, 288. plumping-mill, 250. point à la chevalure, 19, 48. political parties, 261, 270, 333. postal service, 248. prevost, sir george, 283; defeat of, 290. printers and printing, 317. putnam, gen. israel, 30. quebec, 3, 9; fall of, 42; trade with, 265. ransom, truman b., 338. reid, col. john, 76, 79, 88. religious societies, 307. robinson, col. beverly, 204, 207. robinson, moses and samuel, 211. robinson, samuel, 62. rogers, major robert, expedition of, 34-41. royalton, indian massacre at, 227. sancoick, 171, 177, 233. savage's station, vermonters at, 345. schools, support of, 309-311; laws concerning, 311; grammar, state, normal, 312. schuyler, general, 115, 117, 162; favors claims of vermont, 231. schuyler, capt. john, 8. schuyler, major, 9. scott, general, 343. seigniories, 19. sheep, 251; importation of merino, 355; breeding of, 358. shelburne, british attack on block-house at, 188. sherwood, captain, 205, 206. skene, colonel, 88, 105, 170; supposed charter of, 219. skene, major, 112. slate quarries, 362. slavery prohibited, 147. smuggling, 267. smugglers, device of, 282. sobapsqua, 114. sons of vermont, 327. st. albans, protest of, 267; rebel raid on, 351; fenians at, 353. st. anne, fort, building of, 19. st. clair, general, at ticonderoga, 153; retreat of, 161. st. frederic, fort, 19; vaudreuil's expedition from, 20; abandoned by french, 33. st. john's, surrender of, 124. st. leger, general, 216; abandons ticonderoga, 217. stannard, general, colonel of 9th regiment, 348; at gettysburg, 349. stark, gen. john, 43; at number four, 166, 168; at bennington, 172. steele, zadock, 229. stevens, capt. phineas, defense by, 23. stoddard, col. john, 17, 23. sugar-making, 295. sunderland, peleg, 71, 111. taverns, 321. taxes, payment of, 249. temperance, 322. ten eyck, sheriff, 65. tichenor, governor, 260, 268. ticonderoga, fort, 26; abercrombie's attack on, 29-32; captured by amherst, 32, 84; ibid. by green mountain boys, 100, 103, 183; commanded by st. clair, 153; commissioners sent to, 154; evacuation of, 156; occupied by british, 161; evacuated by british, 183. tryon, governor, 73-76, 83; proclamation of, 85. tupper, sergeant, killed, 216. underground railroad, 34. union of new hampshire towns, 193; the west, 202. unions dissolved, 234, 235. valcour, island of, 134, 135. vaudreuil, expeditions of, 20; surrender of canada by, 46. vergennes, 54, 76. vermont, 145; its constitution, 147-187; militia of, called out, 226; agents appointed by, 231; refusal of, to break the unions, 232; an independent republic, 238; included in territory of the united states, 248; admission of, to the union, 253; unpopularity of war with england in, 270; raises troops, 272; in the mexican war, 338; unprepared for war in 1861, 340; characteristics of the people of, 365. vermontensium res publica, 248. walbridge, colonel, and general gansevoort, 233. warner, seth, 70, 73, 78, 84, 86; takes crown point, 111, 115; appointed commander of green mountain boys, 116, 124; recalled to canada, 128; retreat covered by, 128, 130, 147; new york demands recall of commission of, 144; repels indian invasion, 154; letter of, 154; at hubbardton, 157; at bennington, 175-177; death of, 258, 328. washington, general, letter from, 234; opinion of, concerning vermont, 244. waters, constable oliver, 245. waubanakee, name of, 2. wentworth, gov. benning, grants by, 52, 58, 60. westminster, 54; massacre at, 90, 240; convention at, 98, 142; declaration of independence at, 144, 179. wilderness, the, country of, 11, 18, 47, 49. wilkinson, general, movements of, 277. windsor, convention at, 146; first legislature at, 191. winooski, 54. winthrop, john, 7. wohjahose, rock dunder, 6. wool-growing, 297; insignificance of, 358. wright, captain, scout of, 18. young, dr. thomas, 145. zooquagese, 34. american commonwealths. edited by horace e. scudder. virginia. a history of the people. by john esten cooke, author of "life of stonewall jackson," etc. oregon. the struggle for possession. by william barrows, d. d. maryland. the history of a palatinate. by william hand browne, associate of johns hopkins university. kentucky. a pioneer commonwealth. by nathaniel s. shaler, s. d., professor of palæontology, harvard university. michigan. a history of governments. by thomas mcintyre cooley, ll. d., formerly chief justice of michigan. kansas. the prelude to the war for the union. by leverett w. spring, formerly professor in english literature in the university of kansas. california. from the conquest in 1846 to the second vigilance committee in san francisco. a study of american character. by josiah royce, assistant professor of philosophy in harvard university, formerly professor in the university of california. new york. the planting and the growth of the empire state. by the hon. ellis h. roberts, editor of the utica herald. in two volumes. connecticut. a study of a commonwealth democracy. by professor alexander johnston, author of "american politics." missouri. a bone of contention. by lucien carr, m. a., assistant curator of the peabody museum of archæology. indiana. a redemption from slavery. by j. p. dunn, jr., author of "massacres of the mountains." ohio. first fruits of the ordinance of 1787. by hon. rufus king. vermont. by rowland e. robinson. _in preparation._ new jersey. by austin scott, ph. d. illinois. by e. g. mason. south carolina. by edward mccrady, jr. _with maps. each volume, 16mo, gilt top, $1.25._ houghton, mifflin and company, 4 park st., boston; 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11 east 17th st., new york. +------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's note: | | | | inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the | | original document have been preserved. | | | | page 186 s^d denotes superscript | | | | typographical errors corrected in the text: | | | | page 63 controvery changed to controversy | | page 69 morter changed to mortar | | page 105 agreeably changed to agreeable | | page 121 fusilade changed to fusillade | | page 127 point au changed to pointe aux | | page 156 impossibile changed to impossible | | page 166 unsheath changed to unsheathe | | page 181 comander changed to commander | | page 216 appearance' changed to appearance's | | page 255 brillant changed to brilliant | | page 275 succcessful changed to successful | | page 279 neverthless changed to nevertheless | | page 330 ricketty changed to rickety | | page 352 fusilade changed to fusillade | | page 358 fold changed to hold | | page 367 boquet changed to bouquet | +------------------------------------------------+ proofreading team. the brimming cup _dorothy canfield_ harcourt, brace and company new york 1919 _by the same author_ the squirrel-cage a montessori mother mothers and children hillsboro people the bent twig the real motive fellow captains (_with sarah n. cleghorn_) understood betsy home fires in france the day of glory the brimming cup rough-hewn raw material the home-maker made-to-order stories her son's wife why stop learning? the deepening stream basque people fables for parents seasoned timber contents chapter page i. prelude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 ii. interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 _part one_ iii. old mr. welles and young mr. marsh. 29 iv. table talk. . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 v. a little girl and her mother. . . . 64 vi. things take their course. . . . . . 80 vii. the night-blooming cereus . . . . . 91 viii. what goes on inside . . . . . . . . 115 ix. the gent around the lady. . . . . . 130 x. at the mill . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 _part two_ xi. in aunt hetty's garden. . . . . . . 179 xii. heard from the study. . . . . . . . 199 xiii. along the eagle rock brook. . . . . 215 xiv. beside the onion-bed. . . . . . . . 224 xv. home-life . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 xvi. massage-cream; theme and variations 256 xvii. the soul of nelly powers. . . . . . 266 _part three_ xviii. before the dawn . . . . . . . . . . 279 xix. mr. welles lights the fuse. . . . . 285 xx. a primaeval heritage. . . . . . . . 294 xxi. the counsel of the stars. . . . . . 302 xxii. eugenia does what she can . . . . . 309 xxiii. marise looks down on the stars. . . 323 _part four_ xxiv. neale's return. . . . . . . . . . . 331 xxv. marise's coming-of-age. . . . . . . 338 xxvi. marise looks and sees what is there 360 xxvii. the fall of the big pine. . . . . . 367 xxviii. two good-byes . . . . . . . . . . . 380 xxix. vignettes from home-life. . . . . . 390 the brimming cup chapter i _prelude_ sunset on rocca di papa _an hour in the life of two modern young people_ april, 1909. lounging idly in the deserted little waiting-room was the usual shabby, bored, lonely ticket-seller, prodigiously indifferent to the grave beauty of the scene before him and to the throng of ancient memories jostling him where he stood. without troubling to look at his watch, he informed the two young foreigners that they had a long hour to wait before the cable-railway would send a car down to the campagna. his lazy nonchalance was faintly colored with the satisfaction, common to his profession, in the discomfiture of travelers. their look upon him was of amazed gratitude. evidently they did not understand italian, he thought, and repeated his information more slowly, with an unrecognizable word or two of badly pronounced english thrown in. he felt slightly vexed that he could not make them feel the proper annoyance, and added, "it may even be so late that the signori would miss the connection for the last tramway car back to rome. it is a long walk back to the city across the campagna." they continued to gaze at him with delight. "i've got to tip him for that!" said the young man, reaching vigorously into a pocket. the girl's answering laugh, like the inward look of her eyes, showed only a preoccupied attention. she had the concentrated absent aspect of a person who has just heard vital tidings and can attend to nothing else. she said, "oh, neale, how ridiculous of you. he couldn't possibly have the least idea what he's done to deserve getting paid for." at the sound of her voice, the tone in which these words were pronounced, the ticket-seller looked at her hard, with a bold, intrusive, diagnosing stare: "lovers!" he told himself conclusively. he accepted with a vast incuriosity as to reason the coin which the young foreigner put into his hand, and, ringing it suspiciously on his table, divided his appraising attention between its clear answer to his challenge, and the sound of the young man's voice as he answered his sweetheart, "of course he hasn't any idea what he's done to deserve it. who ever has? you don't suppose for a moment i've any idea what i've done to deserve mine?" the ticket-seller smiled secretly into his dark mustache. "i wonder if _my_ voice quivered and deepened like that, when i was courting annunziata?" he asked himself. he glanced up from pocketing the coin, and caught the look which passed between the two. he felt as though someone had laid hands on him and shaken him. "_dio mio_" he thought. "they are in the hottest of it." the young foreigners went across the tracks and established themselves on the rocks, partly out of sight, just at the brink of the great drop to the campagna. the setting sun was full in their faces. but they did not see it, seeing only each other. below them spread the divinely colored plain, crossed by the ancient yellow river, rolling its age-old memories out to the sea, a blue reminder of the restfulness of eternity, at the rim of the weary old land. like a little cluster of tiny, tarnished pearls, rome gleamed palely, remote and legendary. * * * * * the two young people looked at each other earnestly, with a passionate, single-hearted attention to their own meaning, thrusting away impatiently the clinging brambles of speech which laid hold on their every effort to move closer to each other. they did not look down, or away from each other's eyes as they strove to free themselves, to step forward, to clasp the other's outstretched hands. they reached down blindly, tearing at those thorny, clutching entanglements, pulling and tugging at those tenuous, tough words which would not let them say what they meant: sure, hopefully sure that in a moment . . . now . . . with the next breath, they would break free as no others had ever done before them, and crying out the truth and glory that was in them, fall into each other's arms. the girl was physically breathless with this effort, her lips parted, her eyebrows drawn together. "neale, neale dear, if i could only tell you how i want it to be, how utterly utterly _true_ i want us to be. nothing's of any account except that." she moved with a shrugging, despairing gesture. "no, no, not the way that sounds. i don't mean, you know i don't mean any old-fashioned impossible vows never to change, or be any different! i know too much for that. i've seen too awfully much unhappiness, with people trying to do that. you know what i told you about my father and mother. oh, neale, it's horribly dangerous, loving anybody. i never wanted to. i never thought i should. but now i'm in it, i see that it's not at all unhappiness i'm afraid of, your getting tired of me or i of you . . . everybody's so weak and horrid in this world, who knows what may be before us? that's not what would be unendurable, sickening. that would make us unhappy. but what would poison us to death . . . what i'm afraid of, between two people who try to be what we want to be to each other . . . how can i say it?" she looked at him in an anguish of endeavor, ". . . not to be true to what is deepest and most living in us . . . that would be the betrayal i'm afraid of. that's what i mean. no matter what it costs us personally, or what it brings, we must be true to that. we _must!_" he took her hand in his silently, and held it close. she drew a long troubled breath and said, "you _do_ think we can always have between us that loyalty to what is deep and living? it does not seem too much to ask, when we are willing to give up everything else for it, even happiness?" he gave her a long, profound look. "i'm trying to give that loyalty to you this minute, marise darling," he said slowly, "when i tell you now that i think it a very great deal to ask of life, a very great deal for any human beings to try for. i should say it was much harder to get than happiness." she was in despair. "do you think that?" she searched his face anxiously as though she found there more than in his speech. "yes, yes, i see what you mean." she drew a long breath. "i can even see how fine it is of you to say that to me now. it's like a promise of how you will try. but oh, neale, i won't _want_ life on any other terms!" she stopped, looking down at her hand in his. he tightened his clasp. his gaze on her darkened and deepened. "it's like sending me to get the apples of hesperides," he said, looking older than she, curiously and suddenly older. "i want to say yes! it would be easy to say yes. darling, darling marise, you can't want it more than i! but the very intelligence that makes you want it, that makes me want it, shows me how mortally hard it would be! think! to be loyal to what is deepest and most living in yourself . . . that's an undertaking for a life-time's effort, with all the ups and downs and growths of life. and then to try to know what is deepest and most living in another . . . and to try . . . marise! i will try. i will try with all my might. can anybody do more than try with all his might?" their gaze into each other's eyes went far beyond the faltering words they spoke. she asked him in a low voice, "couldn't you do more for me than for yourself? one never knows, but . . . what else is love for, but to give greater strength than we have?" there was a moment's silence, in which their very spirits met flame-like in the void, challenging, hoping, fearing. the man's face set. his burning look of power enveloped her like the reflection of the sun. "i swear you shall have it!" he said desperately, his voice shaking. she looked up at him with a passionate gratitude. "i'll never forget that as long as i live!" she cried out to him. the tears stood in his eyes as in hers. for the fraction of an instant, they had felt each other there, as never before they had felt any other human being: they had both at once caught a moment of flood-tide, and both together had been carried up side by side; the long, inevitable isolation of human lives from birth onward had been broken by the first real contact with another human soul. they felt the awed impulse to cover their eyes as before too great a glory. the tide ebbed back, and untroubled they made no effort to stop its ebbing. they had touched their goal, it was really there. now they knew it within their reach. appeased, assuaged, fatigued, they felt the need for quiet, they knew the sweetness of sobriety. they even looked away from each other, aware of their own bodies which for that instant had been left behind. they entered again into the flesh that clad their spirits, taking possession of their hands and feet and members, and taken possession of by them again. the fullness of their momentary satisfaction had been so complete that they felt no regret, only a simple, tender pleasure as of being again at home. they smiled happily at each other and sat silent, hand in hand. * * * * * now they saw the beauty before them, the vast plain, the mountains, the sea: harmonious, serene, ripe with maturity, evocative of all the centuries of conscious life which had unrolled themselves there. "it's too beautiful to be real, isn't it?" murmured the girl, "and now, the peaceful way i feel this minute, i don't mind it's being so old that it makes you feel a midge in the sunshine with only an hour or two of life before you. what if you are, when it's life as we feel it now, such a flood of it, every instant brimming with it? neale," she turned to him with a sudden idea, "do you remember how victor hugo's 'waterloo' begins?" "i should say not!" he returned promptly. "you forget i got all the french i know in an american university." "well, i went to college in america, myself!" "i bet it wasn't there you learned anything about victor hugo's poetry," he surmised skeptically. "well, how does it begin, anyhow, and what's it got to do with us?" the girl was as unamused as he at his certainty that it had something to do with them, or she would not have mentioned it. she explained, "it's not a famous line at all, nothing i ever heard anybody else admire. we had to learn the poem by heart, when i was a little girl and went to school in bayonne. it starts out, 'waterloo, waterloo, morne plaine comme une onde qui bout dans une urne trop pleine,' and that second line always stuck in my head for the picture it made. i could see it, so vividly, an urn boiling over with the great gush of water springing up in it. it gave me a feeling, inside, a real physical feeling, i mean. i wanted, oh so awfully, sometime to be so filled with some emotion, something great and fine, that i would be an urn too full, gushing up in a great flooding rush. i could see the smooth, thick curl of the water surging up and out!" she stopped to look at him and exclaim, "why, you're listening! you're interested. neale, i believe you are the only person in the world who can really pay attention to what somebody else says. everybody else just goes on thinking his own thoughts." he smiled at this fancy, and said, "go on." "well, i don't know whether that feeling was already in me, waiting for something to express it, or whether that phrase in the poem started it. but it was, for ever so long, the most important thing in the world to me. i was about fourteen years old then, and of course, being a good deal with catholics, i thought probably it was religious ecstasy that was going to be the great flood that would brim my cup full. i used to go up the hill in bayonne to the cathedral every day and stay there for hours, trying to work up an ecstasy. i managed nearly to faint away once or twice, which was _some_thing of course. but i couldn't feel that great tide i'd dreamed of. and then, little by little . . . oh, lots of things came between the idea and my thinking about it. mother was . . . i've told you how mother was at that time. and what an unhappy time it was at home. i was pretty busy at the house because she was away so much. and father and i hung together because there wasn't anybody else to hang to: and all sorts of ugly things happened, and i didn't have the time or the heart to think about being 'an urn too full.'" she stopped, smiling happily, as though those had not been tragic words which he had just spoken, thinking not of them but of something else, which now came out, "and then, oh neale, that day, on the piazza in front of st. peter's, when we stood together, and felt the spray of the fountains blown on us, and you looked at me and spoke out. . . . oh, neale, _neale_, what a moment to have lived through! well, when we went on into the church, and i knelt there for a while, so struck down with joy that i couldn't stand on my feet, all those wild bursts of excitement, and incredulity and happiness, that kept surging up and drenching me . . . i had a queer feeling, that awfully threadbare feeling of having been there before, or felt that before; that it was familiar, although it was so new. then it came to me, 'why, i have it, what i used to pray for. now at last i am the urn too full!' and it was true, i could feel, just as i dreamed, the upsurging of the feeling, brimming over, boiling up, brimming over. . . . and another phrase came into my mind, an english one. i said to myself, 'the fullness of life.' now i know what it is." she turned to him, and caught at his hand. "oh, neale, now i _do_ know what it is, how utterly hideous it would be to have to live without it, to feel only the mean little trickle that seems mostly all that people have." "well, i'll never have to get along without it, as long as i have you," he said confidently. "and i refuse to live a _minute_, if it goes back on me!" she cried. "i imagine that old folks would think we are talking very young," suggested the man casually. "don't speak of them!" she cast them away into non-existence with a gesture. they sank into a reverie, smiling to themselves. "how the fountains shone in the sun, that day," she murmured; "the spray they cast on us was all tiny opals and diamonds." "you're sure you aren't going to be sorry to go back to america to live, to leave all that?" asked the man. "i get anxious about that sometimes. it seems an awful jump to go away from such beautiful historic things, back to a narrow little mountain town." "i'd like to know what right you have to call it narrow, when you've never even seen it," she returned. "well, anybody could make a pretty fair guess that a small vermont town isn't going to be so very _wide_," he advanced reasonably. "it may not be wide, but it's deep," she replied. he laughed at her certainty. "you were about eleven years old when you saw it last, weren't you?" "no, you've got it wrong. it was when we came to france to live that i was eleven, and of course i stopped going to ashley regularly for vacations then. but i went back for several summers in the old house with cousin hetty, when i was in america for college, after mother died." "oh well, i don't care what it's like," he said, "except that it's the place where i'm going to live with you. any place on earth would seem wide enough and deep enough, if i had you there." "isn't it funny," she mused, "that i should know so much more about it than you? to think how i played all around your uncle's mill and house, lots of times when i was a little girl, and never dreamed . . ." "no funnier than all the rest of it," he demurred. "once you grant our existing and happening to meet out of all the millions of people in the world, you can't think up anything funnier. just the little two-for-a-cent queerness of our happening to meet in rome instead of in brooklyn, and your happening to know the town where my uncle lived and owned the mill he left me . . . that can't hold a candle for queerness, for wonderfulness, compared to my having ever laid eyes on you. suppose i'd never come to rome at all? when i got the news of uncle burton's death and the bequest, i was almost planning to sail from genoa and not come to southern italy at all." she shook her head confidently. "you can't scare me with any such hideous possibilities. it's not possible that we shouldn't ever have met, both of us being in the world. didn't you ever study chemistry? didn't they teach you there are certain elements that just _will_ come together, no matter how you mix them up with other things?" he made no answer, gazing out across the plain far below them, mellowing richly in the ever-softening light of the sunset. she looked doubtfully at his profile, rather lean, with the beginning already drawn of the deep american line from the corner of the nose to the mouth, that is partly humorous and partly grim. "don't you believe that, neale, that we would have come together somehow, anyhow?" she asked, "even if you had gone straight back from genoa to ashley? maybe it might have been up there after you'd begun to run the mill. maybe i'd have gone back to america and gone up to visit cousin hetty again." he was still silent. she said urgently, as if in alarm, "neale, you don't believe that we could have passed all our lives and never have _seen_ each other?" he turned on her his deep-set eyes, full of tenderness and humor and uncertainty, and shook his head. "yes, dear, i do believe that," he said regretfully. "i don't see how i can help believing it. why, i hadn't the faintest idea of going back to settle in ashley before i met you. i had taken uncle burton's mill and his bequest of four thousand dollars as a sort of joke. what could i do with them, without anything else? and what on earth did i want to do with them? nothing! as far as i had any plans at all, it was to go home, see father and mother for a while, get through the legal complications of inheritance, sell the mill and house . . . i wouldn't have thought of such a thing as bothering even to go to ashley to look at them . . . and then take the money and go off somewhere, somewhere different, and far away: to china maybe. i was pretty restless in my mind, pretty sure that nothing in our civilization was worth the candle, you know, before you arrived on the scene to put everything in focus. and if i had done all that, while you were still here in rome, running up and down your scales, honestly . . . i know i sound awfully literal . . . but i don't see how we ever could have met, do you, dear?" he offered her this, with a look half of apology, half of simple courage. she considered it and him seriously, studying his face and eyes, listening retrospectively to the accent of his words, and immensely astonished him by suddenly flashing a kiss on his cheek. "you're miraculous!" she said. "you don't know how it feels; as though i'd been floundering in a marsh, deeper and deeper, and then all at once, when i thought i'd come to know there wasn't anything in the world _but_ marsh, to come out on beautiful, fine, clean earth, where i feel the very strength of ages under my feet. you don't _know_ how good it seems to have a silly, romantic remark like what i said, answered the way you did, telling the truth; how _good_ it feels to be pulled down to what's what, and to know you can do it and really love me too." he had been so startled and moved by her kiss that he had heard her words but vaguely. "i don't seem to catch hold of all that. what's it all about?" "it's all about the fact that i really begin to believe that you will be loyal and tell me the truth," she told him. he saw cause for gravity in this, remembering the great moment so shortly back of them, and said with a surprised and hurt accent, "didn't you believe me, when i said i would?" she took up his hand in hers and said rapidly, "dear neale, i did believe it, for just a moment, and i can't believe anything good of anybody for longer than that, not _really_ in my heart of hearts. and it's my turn to tell you some truth when i tell you about that unbelief, what i've hardly even ever told myself, right out in words." he was listening now, fixing on her a look of profound, intelligent attention, as she went on, stumbling, reaching out for words, discarding those she found, only her steady gaze giving coherence to her statement. "you know, living the way i have . . . i've told you . . . i've seen a great deal more than most girls have. and then, half brought up in france with people who are clever and have their eyes wide open, people who really count, i've seen how they don't believe in humans, or goodness, or anything that's not base. they know life is mostly bad and cruel and dull and low, and above all that it's bound to fool you if you trust to it, or get off your guard a single minute. they don't _teach_ you that, you know; but you see it's what they believe and what they spend all their energies trying to dodge a little, all they think they can. then everything you read, except the silly little bibliothã¨que-rose sort of thing, makes you know that it's true . . . anatole france, and maupassant, and schnitzler. of course back in america you find lots of nice people who don't believe that. but they're so sweet you know they'd swallow anything that made things look pleasant. so you don't dare take their word for anything. they won't even look at what's bad in everybody's life, they just pretend it's not there, not in _their_ husbands, or wives or children, and so you know they're fooled." she lowered her voice, which faltered a little, but she still continued to look straight into his eyes, "and as for love, why, i've just hated the sound of the name and . . . i'm horribly afraid of it, even now." he asked her gravely, "don't you love me? don't you think that i love you?" she looked at him piteously, wincing, bracing herself with an effort to be brave. "i must try to be as honest as i want you to be. yes, i love you, neale, with all my heart a thousand times more than i ever dreamed i could love anybody. but how do i know that i'm not somehow fooling myself: but that maybe all that huge unconscious inheritance from all my miserable ancestors hasn't _got_ me, somehow, and you too? how do i know that i'm not being fooled by nature and fooling you with fine words?" she hesitated, probing deep into her heart, and brought out now, like a great and unexpected treasure, "but, neale, listen! i _don't_ think that about you! i don't believe you're being fooled. why, i believe in you more than in myself!" she was amazed at this and radiant. then she asked him, "neale, how do _you_ manage about all this? what do you feel about all the capacity for being low and bad, that everybody has? aren't you afraid that they'll get the best of us, inevitably, unless we let ourselves get so dull, and second-rate and passive, that we can't even be bad? are you afraid of being fooled? do you believe in yourself at all?" he was silent for some time, his eyes steadily fixed on some invisible realm. when he spoke it was with a firm, natural, unshaken accent. "why, yes, i think it very likely that i am being fooled all the time. but i don't think it matters the least bit in the world beside the fact that i love you. that's big enough to overtop everything else." he raised his voice and spoke out boldly to the undefined specter in her mind. "and if it's the mating instinct you mean, that may be fooling both of us, because of our youth and bodily health . . . good heavens! isn't our love deep enough to absorb that a million times over, like the water of a little brook flowing into the sea? do you think _that_, which is only a little trickle and a harmless and natural and healthy little trickle, could unsalt the great ocean of its savor? why, marise, all that you're so afraid of, all that they've made you so afraid of, . . . it's like the little surface waves . . . well, call it the big storm waves if you want to . . . but nothing at all, the biggest of them, compared to the stillness in the depths of the sea. why, i love you! do i believe in myself? of course i believe in myself, because i have you." she drew a long sigh and, closing her eyes, murmured, "i feel as though i were lifted up on a great rock." after a moment, opening her eyes, she said, "you are better than i, you know. i'm not at all sure that i could say that. i never knew before that i was weak. but then i never met strength before." "you're not weak," he told her; adding quaintly, "maybe a little overballasted; with brains and sensitiveness and under-ballasted with experience, that's all. but you haven't had much chance to take on any other cargo, as yet." she was nettled at this, and leaving her slow, wide-winged poise in the upper airs, she veered and with swallow-like swiftness darted down on him. "that sounds patronizing and elder-brotherish," she told him. "i've taken on all sorts of cargo that you don't know anything about. in ever so many ways you seem positively . . . naã¯ve! you needn't go thinking that i'm always highstrung and fanciful. i never showed that side to anybody before, never! always kept it shut up and locked down and danced and whooped it up before the door. you know how everybody always thinks of me as laughing all the time. i do wish everything hadn't been said already so many times. if it weren't that it's been said so often, i'd like to say that i have always been laughing to keep from crying." "why don't you say it, if that is what you mean?" he proposed. she looked at him marveling. "i'm so fatuous about you!" she exclaimed; "the least little thing you say, i see the most wonderful possibilities in it. i know _you'd_ say what you meant, no matter how many thousands had said it before. and since i know it's not stupidness in you, why, it seems to me just splendidly and simply courageous, a kind of courage i'd never thought of before. i see now, how, after all, those stupid people had me beaten, because i'd always thought that a person either had to be stupid so that he didn't _know_ he was saying something everybody else had said, or else not say it, even if he wanted to, ever so much, and it was just what he meant." "don't you think maybe you're too much bothered about other people, anyhow?" he suggested, mildly; "whether they're stupid or have said things or not? what difference does it make, if it's a question of what you yourself feel? i'd be just as satisfied if you gave _all_ your time to discovering the wonderful possibilities in what i say. it would give me a chance to conceal the fact that i get all out of breath trying to follow what you mean." this surprised her into a sudden laugh, outright and ringing. he looked down at her sparkling face, brilliant in its mirth as a child's, and said seriously, "you must instantly think of something perfectly prosaic and commonplace to say, or i shall be forced to take you in my arms and kiss you a great many times, which might have lord knows what effect on that gloomy-minded ticket-seller back of us who already has his suspicions." she rose instantly to the possibilities and said smoothly, swiftly, whimsically, with the accent of drollery, "i'm very particular about what sort of frying-pan i use. i insist on having a separate one for the _fritures_ of fish, and another for the omelets, used only for that: i'm a very fine and conscientious housekeeper, i'd have you know, and all the while we lived in bayonne i ran the house because mother never got used to french housekeeping ways. i was the one who went to market . . . oh, the gorgeous things you get in the bayonne market, near enough spain, you know, for real malaga grapes with the aroma still on them, and for spanish quince-paste. i bossed the old basque woman we had for cook and learned how to cook from her, using a great many onions for everything. and i learned how to keep house by the light of nature, since it had to be done. and i'm awfully excited about having a house of my own, just as though i weren't the extremely clever, cynical, disillusioned, fascinating musical genius everybody knows me to be: only let me warn you that the old house we are going to live in will need lots done to it. your uncle never opened the dreadful room he called the parlor, and never used the south wing at all, where all the sunshine comes in. and the pantry arrangements are simply humorous, they're so inadequate. i don't know how much of that four thousand dollars you are going to want to spare for remodeling the mill, but i will tell you now, that i will go on strike if you don't give me a better cook-stove than your uncle's touclã© had to work with." he had been listening with an appreciative grin to her nimble-witted chatter, but at this he brought her up short by an astonished, "who had? what had? what's that . . . touclã©?" she laughed aloud again, delighted at having startled him into curiosity. "touclã©. touclã©. don't you think it a pretty name? will you believe me when i say i know all about ashley?" "oh, go on, tell me!" he begged. "you don't mean to say that my uncle benton had pep enough to have a scandal in his life?" "what do _you_ know about your uncle?" "oh, i'd seen him a few times, though i'd never been up to ashley. as long as grandfather was alive and the mill at adams center was running, uncle burton used to go there to see his father, and i always used to be hanging around grandfather and the mill, and the woods. i was crazy about it all, as a boy, used to work right along with the mill-hands, and out chopping with the lumbermen. maybe uncle burton noticed that." he was struck with a sudden idea, "by george, maybe _that_ was why he left me the mill!" he cast his eye retrospectively on this idea and was silent for a moment, emerging from his meditation to say, wonderingly, "well, it certainly is _queer_, how things come out, how one thing hangs on another. it's enough to addle your brains, to try to start to follow back all the ways things happen . . . ways you'd never thought of as of the least importance." "your uncle burton was of some importance to _us_," she told him. "miss oldham at the _pension_ said that she had just met a new american, down from genoa, and when i heard your name i said, 'oh, i used to know an old mr. crittenden who ran a wood-working factory up in vermont, where i used to visit an old cousin of mine,' and that was why miss oldham introduced us, that silly way, as cousins." he said, pouncingly, "you're running on, inconsequently, just to divert my mind from asking you again who or what touclã© is." "you can ask and ask all you like," she defied him, laughing. "i'm not going to tell you. i've got to have _some_ secrets from you, to keep up the traditions of self-respecting womanhood. and anyhow i couldn't tell you, because she is different from everything else. you'll see for yourself, when we get there. if she's still alive." she offered a compromise, "i'll tell you what. if she's dead, i'll sit down and tell you about her. if she's still alive, you'll find out. she's an ashley institution, touclã© is. as symbolic as the cumean sybil. i don't believe she'll be dead. i don't believe she'll _ever_ be dead." "you've let the cat out of the bag enough so i've lost my interest in her," he professed. "i can make a guess that she's some old woman, and i bet you i won't see anything remarkable in her. except that wild name. is it miss touclã©, or mrs. touclã©?" the girl burst into laughter at this, foolish, light-hearted mirth which drenched the air all about her with the perfume of young gaiety. "is it miss druid, or mrs. druid?" was all she would say. she looked up at him, her eyes shining, and cried between her gusts of laughter, as if astonished, "why, i do believe we are going to be happy together. i do believe it's going to be fun to live with you." his appalled surprise that she had again fallen into the pit of incredulity was, this time, only half humorous. "for god's sake, what _did_ you think!" she answered, reasonably, "well, nobody ever is happy together, either in books or out of them. of all the million, million love-affairs that have happened, does anybody ever claim any one to have been happy?" his breath was taken away. he asked helplessly, "well, why _are_ you marrying me?" she replied very seriously, "because i can't help myself, dear neale. isn't that the only reason you're marrying me?" he looked at her long, his nostrils quivering a little, gave a short exclamation which seemed to carry away all his impatience, and finally said, quietly enough, "why, yes, of course, if that's the way you want to put it. you can say it in a thousand thousand different ways." he added with a sudden fury, "and never one of them will come anywhere near expressing it. look here, marise, i don't believe you have the faintest, faintest idea how big this thing is. all these fool clever ways of talking about it . . . they're just a screen set up in front of it, to my mind. it's enough sight bigger than just you or me, or happiness or unhappiness. it's the meaning of everything!" she considered this thoughtfully. "i don't believe i really know what you mean," she said, "or anyhow that i _feel_ what you mean. i have had dreams sometimes, that i'm in something awfully big and irresistible like a great river, flowing somewhere; but i've never felt it in waking hours. i wish i could. it's lovely in dreams. you evidently do, even awake." he said, confidently, "you will, later on." she ventured, "you mean, maybe, that i'm so shaken up by the little surface waves, chopping back and forth, that i don't feel the big current." "it's there. whether you feel it or not," he made final answer to her doubt. she murmured, "i wonder if there is anything in that silly, old-fashioned notion that men are stronger than women, and that women must lean on men's strength, to live?" "everybody's got to lean on his own strength, sooner or later," he told her with a touch of grimness. "you just won't be romantic!" she cried admiringly. "i really love you, marise," he answered profoundly; and on this rock-like assurance she sank down with a long breath of trust. * * * * * the sun was dipping into the sea now, emblazoning the sky with a last flaming half-circle of pure color, but the light had left the dusky edges of the world. already the far mountains were dimmed, and the plain, passing from one deep twilight color to another more somber, was quietly sinking into darkness as into the strong loving arms of ultimate dissolution. the girl spoke in a dreamy twilight tone, "neale dear, this is not a romantic idea . . . honestly, i do wish we could both die right here and never go down to the plain any more. don't you feel that? not at all?" his voice rang out, resonant and harsh as a bugle-note, "no, i do not, not at all, not for a single moment. i've too much ahead of me to feel that. and so have you!" "there comes the cable-car, climbing up to get us," she said faintly. "and we will go down from this high place of safety into that dark plain, and we will have to cross it, painfully, step by step. _dare_ you promise me we will not lose our way?" she challenged him. "i don't promise you anything about it," he answered, taking her hand in his. "only i'm not a bit afraid of the plain, nor the way that's before us. come along with me, and let's see what's there." "do you think you know where we are going, across that plain?" she asked him painfully; "even where we are to _try_ to go?" "no, i don't know, now," he answered undismayed. "but i think we will know it as we go along because we will be together." * * * * * the darkness, folding itself like a velvet mantle about the far mountains, deepened, and her voice deepened with it. "can you even promise that we won't lose each other there?" she asked somberly. at this he suddenly took her into his arms, silently, bending his face to hers, his insistent eyes bringing hers up to meet his gaze. she could feel the strong throbbing of his heart all through her own body. she clung to him as though she were drowning. and indeed she felt that she was. life burst over them with a roar, a superb flooding tide on whose strong swelling bosom they felt themselves rising, rising illimitably. the sun had now wholly set, leaving to darkness the old, old plain, soaked with humanity. chapter ii _interlude_ march 15, 1920. 8:30 a.m. marise fitted little mark's cap down over his ears and buttoned his blue reefer coat close to his throat. "now you big children," she said, with an anxious accent, to paul and elly standing with their school-books done up in straps, "be sure to keep an eye on mark at recess-time. don't let him run and get all hot and then sit down in the wind without his coat. remember, it's his first day at school, and he's only six." she kissed his round, smooth, rosy cheek once more, and let him go. elly stooped and took her little brother's mittened hand in hers. she said nothing, but her look on the little boy's face was loving and maternal. paul assured his mother seriously, "oh, i'll look out for mark, all right." mark wriggled and said, "_i_ can looken out for myself wivout paul!" their mother looked for a moment deep into the eyes of her older son, so clear, so quiet, so unchanging and true. "you're a good boy, paul, a real comfort," she told him. to herself she thought, "yes, all his life he'll look out for people and get no thanks for it." * * * * * she followed the children to the door, wondering at her heavy heart. what could it come from? there was nothing in life for her to fear of course, except for the children, and it was absurd to fear for them. they were all safe; safe and strong and rooted deep in health, and little mark was stepping off gallantly into his own life as the others had done. but she felt afraid. what could she be afraid of? as she opened the door, their advance was halted by the rush upon them of paul's dog, frantic with delight to see the children ready to be off, springing up on paul, bounding down the path, racing back to the door, all quivering eager exultation. "ah, he's going _with_ the children!" thought marise wistfully. she could not bear to let them leave her and stood with them in the open door-way for a moment. elly rubbed her soft cheek against her mother's hand. paul, seeing his mother shiver in the keen march air, said, "mother, if father were here he'd make you go in. that's a thin dress. and your teeth are just chattering." "yes, you're right, paul," she agreed; "it's foolish of me!" the children gave her a hearty round of good-bye hugs and kisses, briskly and energetically performed, and went down the stone-flagged path to the road. they were chattering to each other as they went. their voices sounded at first loud and gay in their mother's ears. then they sank to a murmur, as the children ran along the road. the dog bounded about them in circles, barking joyfully, but this sound too grew fainter and fainter. when the murmur died away to silence, there seemed no sound left in the stark gray valley, empty and motionless between the steep dark walls of pine-covered mountains. * * * * * marise stood for a long time looking after the children. they were climbing up the long hilly road now, growing smaller and smaller. how far away they were, already! and that very strength and vigor of which she was so proud, which she had so cherished and fostered, how rapidly it carried them along the road that led away from her! they were almost at the top of the hill now. perhaps they would turn there and wave to her. no, of course now, she was foolish to think of such a thing. children never remembered the people they left behind. and she was now only somebody whom they were leaving behind. she felt the cold penetrate deeper and deeper into her heart, and knew she ought to go back into the house. but she could not take her eyes from the children. she thought to herself bitterly, "this is the beginning of the end. i've been feeling how, in their hearts, they want to escape from me when i try to hold them, or when i try to make them let me into their lives. i've given everything to them, but they never think of that. _i_ think of it! every time i look at them i see all those endless hours of sacred sacrifice. but when they look at me, do they see any of that? no! never! they only see the obstacle in the way of their getting what they want. and so they want to run away from it. just as they're doing now." she looked after them, yearning. although they were so far, she could see them plainly in the thin mountain air. they were running mostly, once in a while stopping to throw a stone or look up into a tree. then they scampered on like squirrels, the fox-terrier bounding ahead. * * * * * now they were at the top where the road turned. perhaps, after all, they _would_ remember and glance back and wave their hands to her. * * * * * now they had disappeared, without a backward look. * * * * * she continued gazing at the vacant road. it seemed to her that the children had taken everything with them. * * * * * a gust of icy wind blew down sharply from the mountain, still snow-covered, and struck at her like a sword. she turned and went back shivering, into the empty house. part i chapter iii old mr. welles and young mr. marsh _an hour in the life of mr. ormsby welles, aet. 67_ march 15, 1920. 3:00 p.m. having lifted the knocker and let it fall, the two men stood gazing with varying degrees of attention at the closed white-painted old door. the younger, the one with the round dark head and quick dark eyes, seemed extremely interested in the door, and examined it competently, its harmoniously disposed wide panels, the shapely fan-light over it, the small panes of greenish old glass on each side. "beautiful old bits you get occasionally in these out-of-the-way holes," he remarked. but the older man was aware of nothing so concrete and material. he saw the door as he saw everything else that day, through a haze. chiefly he was concerned as to what lay behind the door. . . . "my neighbors," he thought, "the first i ever had." the sun shone down through the bare, beautiful twigs of the leafless elms, in a still air, transparent and colorless. the handle of the door turned, the door opened. the older man was too astonished by what he saw to speak, but after an instant's pause the younger one asked if mr. and mrs. crittenden were at home and could see callers. the lean, aged, leather-colored woman, with shiny opaque black eyes, opened the door wider and silently ushered them into the house. as long as she was in sight they preserved a prudent silence as profound as hers, but when she had left them seated, and disappeared, they turned to each other with lifted eyebrows. "well, what was _that_, do you suppose?" exclaimed the younger. he seemed extremely interested and amused. "i'm not so sure, mr. welles, about your being safe in never locking your doors at night, as they all tell you, up here. with that for a neighbor!" the older man had a friendly smile for the facetious intention of this. "i guess i won't have anything that'd be worth locking doors on," he said. he looked about him still smiling, his pleasant old eyes full of a fresh satisfaction in what he saw. the room was charming to his gaze, cheerful and homey. "i don't believe i'm going to have anything to complain of, with the folks that live in this house," he said, "any more than with any of the rest of it." the other nodded. "yes, it's a very good room," he agreed. after a longer inspection, he added with a slight accent of surprise, "an oddly good room; stunning! look at the color in those curtains and the walls, and the arrangement of those prints over that chippendale sewing-table. i wonder if it's accidental. you wouldn't think you'd find anybody up here who could achieve it consciously." he got to his feet with a vigorous precision of movement which the other admired. "well, he's grown to be considerable of a man," he thought to himself. "a pity his father couldn't have lived to see it, all that aliveness that had bothered them so much, down at last where he's got his grip on it. and enough of it, plenty of it, oceans of it, left so that he is still about forty times more alive than anybody else." he looked tolerantly with his tired elderly amusement at the other, stepping about, surveying the room and every object in it. the younger brought himself up short in front of a framed photograph. "why, here's a chã¢teau-fort i don't know!" he said with an abrupt accent. he added, with some vehemence, "i never even heard of it, i'm sure. and it's authentic, evidently." the older man sat perfectly still. he did not know what a shatto four was, nor had he the slightest desire to ask and bring the information down on him, given as the other would give it, pressingly, vividly, so that you had to listen whether you wanted to or not. heaven knew he did not want to know about whatever it was, this time. not about that, nor anything else. he only wanted to rest and have a little life before it was too late. it was already too late for any but the quietest sort. but that was no matter. he wouldn't have liked the other kind very well probably. he certainly had detested the sort of "life" he'd experienced in business. the quietest sort was what he had always wanted and never got. and now it really seemed as though he was going to have it. for all his fatigued pose in the old arm-chair, his heart beat faster at the idea. he hadn't got used to being free yet. he'd heard people say that when you were first married it was like that, you couldn't realize it. he'd heard one of the men at the office say that for a long time, every time he heard his bride's skirts rustle, he had to turn his head to make sure she was really there. well, he would like now to get up and look out of that window and see if his garden was really there. _his garden!_ he thought with a secret feeling, half pity and half shame, of those yellowed old seed catalogues which had come, varnished and brilliant and new, year after year, so long ago, which he'd looked at so hard and so long, in the evenings, and put away to get yellow and sallow like his face . . . and his hopes. it must be almost time to "make garden," he thought. he had heard them saying at the store that the sap was beginning to run in the maple-trees. he would have just time to get himself settled in his house . . . he felt an absurd young flush come up under his grizzled beard at this phrase . . . "his house," his own house, with bookshelves, and a garden. how he loved it all already! he sat very still, feeling those savagely lopped-off tendrils put out their curling fingers once more, this time unafraid. he sat there in the comfortable old arm-chair at rest as never before. he thought, "this is the way i'm going to feel right along, every day, all the time," and closed his eyes. he opened them again in a moment, moved subconsciously by the life-time habit of making sure what vincent was up to. he smiled at the keen look of alert, prick-eared attention which the other was still giving to that room! lord, how vincent did love to get things all figured out! he probably had, by this time, an exact diagram of the owners of the house all drawn up in his mind and would probably spend the hour of their call, seeing if it fitted. not that _they_ would have any notion he was doing anything but talk a blue streak, or was thinking of anything but introducing an old friend. one thing he wanted in his garden was plenty of gladioli. those poor, spindling, watery ones he had tried to grow in the window-box, he'd forget that failure in a whole big row all along the terrace, tall and strong, standing up straight in the country sunshine. what was the address of that man who made a specialty of gladioli? he ought to have noted it down. "vincent," he asked, "do you remember the address of that mr. schwatzkummerer who grew nothing but gladioli?" vincent was looking with an expression of extreme astonishment at the sheet of music on the piano. he started at the question, stared, recollected himself, laughed, and said, "heavens, no, mr. welles!" and went back into his own world. there were lots of things, mr. welles reflected, that vincent did _not_ care about just as hard as he cared about others. in a moment the younger man came and sat down on the short, high-armed sofa. mr. welles thought he looked puzzled, a very unusual expression on that face. maybe, after all, he hadn't got the owners of the house so well-plotted out as he thought he ought to. he himself, going on with his own concerns, remarked, "well, the name must be in the long island telephone directory. when you go back you could look it up and send me word." "whose name?" asked vincent blankly. "schwatzkummerer," said the other. "_what_!" cried vincent incredulously, and then, "oh yes," and then, "sure, yes, i'll look it up. i'm going back thursday on the night train. i won't leave the grand central without going to a telephone booth, looking it up, and sending it to you on a postcard, mailed there. it ought to be here on the morning mail saturday." the older man knew perfectly well that he was being a little laughed at, for his absorption in gladioli, and not minding it at all, laughed himself, peaceably. "it would take a great deal more than a little of vincent's fun," he thought, "to make me feel anything but peaceable here." he was quite used to having people set him down as a harmless, worn-out old duffer, and he did not object to this conception of his character. it made a convenient screen behind which he could carry on his own observation and meditation uninterrupted. "here comes somebody," said vincent and turned his quick eyes toward the door, with an eager expression of attention. he really _must_ have been stumped by something in the room, thought mr. welles, and meant to figure it out from the owners of the house themselves. the tall, quiet-looking lady with the long dark eyes, who now came in alone, excusing herself for keeping them waiting, must of course be mrs. crittenden, mr. welles knew. he wished he could get to his feet as vincent did, looking as though he had got there by a bound or a spring and were ready for another. he lifted himself out of his arm-chair with a heaviness he knew seemed all the heavier by contrast, took the slim hand mrs. crittenden offered him, looked at her as hard as he dared, and sank again into the arm-chair, as she motioned him to do. he had had a long experience in judging people quickly by the expression of their faces, and in that short length of time he had decided thankfully that he was really, just as he had hoped, going to like his new neighbor as much as all the rest of it. he gave her a propitiatory smile, hoping she might like him a little, too, and hoping also that she would not mind vincent. sometimes people did, especially nice ladies such as evidently mrs. crittenden was. he observed that as usual vincent had cut in ahead of everybody else, had mentioned their names, both of them, and was talking with that . . . well, the way he _did_, which people either liked very much or couldn't abide. he looked at vincent as he talked. he was not a great talker himself, which gave him a great deal of practice in watching people who did. he often felt that he _saw_ more than he heard, so much more did people's faces express than their words. he noticed that the younger man was smiling a good deal, showing those fine teeth of his, and he had one of those instantaneously-gone, flash-light reminiscences of elderly people, . . . the day when mr. marsh had been called away from the office and had asked him to go with little vincent to keep an appointment with the dentist. heavens! how the kid had roared and kicked! and now he sat there, smiling, "making a call," probably with that very filling in his tooth, grown-up, not even so very young any more, with a little gray in his thick hair, what people often called a good-looking man. how life did run between your fingers! well, he would close his hand tight upon what was left to him. he noticed further that as vincent talked, his eyes fixed on his interlocutor, his vigorous hands caressed with a slow circular motion the rounded arms of his chair. "what a three-ringed circus that fellow is," he thought. "i bet that the lady thinks he hasn't another idea in his head but introducing an old friend, and all the time he's taking her in, every inch of her, and three to one, what he'll talk about most afterwards is the smooth hard feeling of those polished arm-chairs." vincent was saying, ". . . and so, we heard in a round-about way too long to bother you with, about the small old house next door being for sale, and how very quiet and peaceful a spot this is, and the company bought it for mr. welles for a permanent home, now he has retired." "pretty fine of them!" murmured the older man dutifully, to the lady. vincent went on, "oh, it's only the smallest way for them to show their sense of his life-time devotion to their interests. there's no estimating what we all owe him, for his steadiness and loyalty and good judgment, especially during that hard period, near the beginning. _you_ know, when all electrical businesses were so entirely on trial still. nobody knew whether they were going to succeed or not. my father was one of the directors from the first and i've been brought up in the tradition of how much the small beginning company is indebted to mr. welles, during the years when they went down so near the edge of ruin that they could see the receiver looking in through the open door." welles moved protestingly. he never had liked the business and he didn't like reminders that he owed his present comfort to it. besides this was reading his own epitaph. he thought he must be looking very foolish to mrs. crittenden. vincent continued, "but of course that's of no great importance up here. what's more to the purpose is that mr. welles is a great lover of country life and growing things, and he's been forced to keep his nose on a city grindstone all his life until just now. i think i can guarantee that you'll find him a very appreciative neighbor, especially if you have plenty of gladioli in your garden." this last was one of what welles called "vincent's sidewipes," which he could inlay so deftly that they seemed an integral part of the conversation. he wondered what mrs. crittenden would say, if vincent ever got through his gabble and gave her a chance. she was turning to him now, smiling, and beginning to speak. what a nice voice she had! how nice that she should have such a voice! "i'm more than glad to have you both come in to see me, and i'm delighted that mr. welles is going to settle here. but mr. . . ." she hesitated an instant, recalled the name, and went on, "mr. marsh doesn't need to explain you any more. it's evident that you don't know ashley, or you'd realize that i've already heard a great deal more about you than mr. marsh would be likely to tell me, very likely a good deal more than is true. i know for instance, . . ." she laughed and corrected herself, ". . . at least i've been told, what the purchase price of the house was. i know how harry wood's sister-in-law's friend told you about ashley and the house in the first place. i know how many years you were in the service of the company, and how your pension was voted unanimously by the directors, and about the silver loving-cup your fellow employees in the office gave you when you retired; and indeed every single thing about you, except the exact relation of the elderly invalid to whose care you gave up so generously so much of your life; i'm not sure whether i she was an aunt or a second-cousin." she paused an instant to give them a chance to comment on this, but finding them still quite speechless, she went on. "and now i know another thing, that you like gladioli, and that is a real bond." she was interrupted here by a great explosive laugh from vincent. it was his comment on her speech to them, and for a time he made no other, eyeing her appreciatively as she and mr. welles talked garden together, and from time to time chuckling to himself. she gave him once a sidelong amused glance, evidently liking his capacity to laugh at seeing the ground cut away from under his feet, evidently quite aware that he was still thinking about that, and not at all about mr. welles and tulip-beds. welles was relieved at this. apparently she was going to "take" vincent the right way. some ladies were frightfully rubbed the wrong way by that strange great laugh of vincent's. and what she knew about gardening! and not only about gardening in general, but about his own garden. he was astounded at her knowledge apparently of every inch of the quadrangle of soil back of his house, and at the revelations she made to him of what could lie sleeping under a mysterious blank surface of earth. why, a piece of old ground was like a person. you had to know it, to have any idea of all that was hidden in its bosom, good and bad. "there never was such a place for pigweed as the lower end of your vegetable lot," she told him; "you'll have to get up nights to fight it if there is plenty of rain this summer." and again, "be careful about not digging too close to the east wall of your terrace. there is a border of peonies there, splendid pink ones, and you're likely to break off the shoots. they don't show so early as the red ones near the walk, that get more sun." "did you ever use to _live_ in that house?" he asked her, respectful of her mastery of its secrets. she laughed. "no, oh no. we've lived right here all the eleven years of our life in vermont. but there's another side to the local wireless information-bureau that let me know all about you before you ever got here. we all know all about everybody and everything, you know. if you live in the country you're really married to humanity, for better or for worse, not just on speaking terms with it, as you are in the city. why, i know about your garden because i have stood a thousand, thousand times leaning on my hoe in my own garden, discussing those peonies with old mrs. belham who lived there before you." this seemed to bring up some picture into her mind at which she looked for a moment, turning from it to the man beside her, with a warmth in her voice which went to his heart. "it's been forlorn having that dear little old house empty and cold. i can't _tell_ you how glad i am you have come to warm it, and live in it." the wonder of it overcame mr. welles like a wave. "i can't believe i'm really going to!" he cried desperately. "it doesn't seem _possible_!" he felt shamed, knowing that he had burst out too violently. what could she know of what lay back of him, that he was escaped from! what could she think of him, but that he was a foolish, bitter old man? she did not seem to think that, looking at him attentively as though she wanted to make out just what he meant. perhaps she did make out, for she now said gently, "i believe you are going to like it, mr. welles. i believe you are going to find here what, . . . what you deserve to find." she said quietly, "i hope we shall be good neighbors to you." she spoke so kindly, her look on him was so humane that he felt the water coming to his eyes. he was in a foolishly emotional state, these first days. the least little thing threw him off the track. it really _did_ seem hardly possible that it was all true. that the long grind at the office was over, the business he had always hated and detested, and the long, hateful slavery at the flat finished at last, and that he had come to live out what was left to him in this lovely, peaceful valley, in that quiet welcoming little house, with this sweet woman next door! he swallowed. the corners of his mouth twitched. what an old lunatic he was. but he did not dare trust himself to speak again. now vincent's voice rose. what a length of time vincent had been silent,--he who never took a back seat for anybody! what had he been doing all this time, sitting there and staring at them with those awfully brilliant eyes of his? very likely he had seen the silly weak tears so near the surface, had caught the sentimental twitch of the mouth. yes, quite certainly, for, now he was showing his tact by changing the subject, changing it with a vengeance. "mrs. crittenden," he was saying, "my curiosity has been touched by that very fine photograph over there. i don't recognize the castle it shows." "that's in bayonne," she said, and paused, her eyes speculatively on him. "no, heavens no! you don't need to tell me that it's not bayonne, new jersey!" he answered her unspoken question violently. this made her laugh, opening her long eyes a little. he went on, "i've been as far as pau, but never went into the basque country." "oh, pau." she said no more than this, but welles had the impression that these words somehow had made a comment on vincent's information. vincent seemed to think so too, and curiously enough not to think it a very favorable comment. he looked, what he almost never looked, a little nettled, and spoke a little stiffly. "it's a very fine specimen," he said briefly, looking again at the photograph. "oh, it looks very much finer and bigger in the photograph than it really is," she told them. "it's only a bandbox of a thing compared with coucy or pierrefonds or any of the northern ones. it was built, you know, like the cathedral at bayonne, when the plantagenets still held that country, but after they were practically pretty near english, and both the chã¢teau and the gothic cathedral seem queer aliens among the southern natives. i have the photograph up there on the wall only because of early associations. i lived opposite it long ago when i was a little girl." this, to mr. welles, was indistinguishable from the usual talk of people who have been "abroad." to tell the truth they always sounded to him more or less "showing-off," though he humbly tried to think it was only because he could never take any part in such talk. he certainly did not see anything in the speech to make vincent look at her, almost with his jaw dropped. he himself paid little attention to what she was now saying, because he could not keep his mind from the lingering sweet intonations of her voice. what difference did it make where she had lived as a little girl? she was going to live next door to him now; what an awfully nice woman she was, and quite a good-looking woman too, with a very nice figure, although not in her very first youth, of course. how old could she be? between thirty and forty of course, but you couldn't tell where. his personal taste was not for such a long face as hers. but you didn't notice that when she smiled. he liked the way she did her black hair, too, so smooth and shining and close to her head. it looked as though she'd really combed and brushed it, and most women's hair didn't. she turned to him now, again, and said, "is this your very first call in ashley? because if it is, i mustn't miss the opportunity to cut in ahead of all the other gossips, and give you a great deal of information. you might just as well have it all in one piece now, and get it straight, as take it in little snippets from old mrs. powers, when she comes to bring your milk, this evening. you see i know that you are to get your milk of the powers, and that they have plucked up courage to ask you eight cents a quart although the price around here has been, till now, six cents. you'll be obliged to listen to a great many more details from mrs. powers than from me, even those she knows nothing about. but of course you must be introduced to the powers, _in toto_ too. old mrs. powers, a very lively old widow, lives on her farm nearly at the foot of deer hollow. her married son and his family live with her. in this house, there is first of all my husband. i'm so sorry he is away in canada just now, on lumbering business. he is neale crittenden, a williams man, who in his youth had thoughts of exploring the world but who has turned out head of the 'crittenden manufacturing company,' which is the high-sounding name of a smallish wood-working business on the other side of the field next our house. you can see the buildings and probably hear the saws from your garden. properly speaking, you know, you don't live in ashley but in 'crittenden's' and your house constitutes one quarter of all the residences in that settlement. there are yours, and ours, the mill-buildings, the house where an old cousin of mine lives, and the powers' house, although that is so far away, nearly half a mile, that it is really only a farm-house in the country. _we_, you see, are the suburb of ashley." marsh laughed out again at this, and she laughed with him, their eyes, shining with amusement, meeting in a friendly glance. "the mill is the most important member of crittenden's, of course. part of the mill-building is pre-revolutionary, and very picturesque. in the life-time of my husband's uncle, it still ran by water-power with a beautiful, enormous old mossy water-wheel. but since we took it over, we've had to put in modern machinery very prosaically and run it on its waste of slabs, mostly. all sorts of small, unimportant objects are manufactured there, things you never heard of probably. backs of hair-brushes, wooden casters to put under beds and chairs, rollers for cotton mills. as soon as my husband returns, i'll ask him to take you through it. that and the old church are the only historic monuments in town." she stopped and asked him meditatively, "what else do you suppose i need to forestall old mrs. powers on? my old cousin hetty perhaps. she has a last name, allen--yes, some connection with ethan allen. i am, myself. but everybody has always called her miss hetty till few people remember that she has another name. she was born there in the old house below 'the burning,' and she has lived there for eighty years, and that is all her saga. you can't see her house from here, but it is part of crittenden's all the same, although it is a mile away by the main road as you go towards the dug-way. but you can reach it in six or seven minutes from here by a back lane, through the eagle rock woods." "what nice names!" mr. welles luxuriated in them. "the eagle rock woods. the dug-way. the burning. deer hollow." "i bet you don't know what they mean," vincent challenged him. vincent was always throwing challenges, at everything. but by this time he had learned how to dodge them. "no, i don't know, and i don't care if i don't," he answered happily. it pleased him that mrs. crittenden found this amusing, so that she looked at him laughing. how her eyes glistened when she laughed. it made you laugh back. he risked another small attempt at facetiousness. "go on with the census of crittenden's," he told her. "i want to know all about my future fellow-citizens. you haven't even finished up this house, anybody but your husband." "there is myself. you see me. there is nothing more to that. and there are the three children, paul, elly, and mark, . . ." she paused here rather abruptly, and the whimsical accent of good-humored mockery disappeared. for an instant her face changed into something quite different from what they had seen. mr. welles could not at all make out the expression which very passingly had flickered across her eyes with a smoke-like vagueness and rapidity. he had the queerest fancy that she looked somehow scared,--but of course that was preposterous. "your call," she told them both, "happens to fall on a day which marks a turning-point in our family life. this is the very first day in ten years, since paul's birth, that i have not had at least one of the children beside me. today is the opening of spring term in our country school, and my little mark went off this morning, for the first time, with his brother and sister. i have been alone until you came." she stopped for a moment. mr. welles wished that vincent could get over his habit of staring at people so. she went on, "i have felt very queer indeed, all day. it's as though . . . you know, when you have been walking up and up a long flight of stairs, and you go automatically putting one foot up and then the other, and then suddenly . . . your upraised foot falls back with a jar. you've come to the top, and, for an instant, you have a gone feeling without your stairs to climb." it occurred to mr. welles that really perhaps the reason why some nice ladies did not like vincent was just because of his habit of looking at them so hard. he could have no idea how piercingly bright his eyes looked when he fixed them on a speaker like that. and now mrs. crittenden was looking back at him, and would notice it. _he_ could understand how a refined lady would feel as though somebody were almost trying to find a key-hole to look in at her,--to have anybody pounce on her so, with his eyes, as vincent did. she couldn't know, of course, that vincent went pouncing on ladies and baggagemen and office boys, and old friends, just the same way. he bestirred himself to think of something to say. "i wish i could get up my nerve to ask you, mrs. crittenden, about one other person in this house," he ventured, "the old woman . . . the old lady . . . who let us in the door." at the sound of his voice mrs. crittenden looked away from vincent quickly and looked at him for a perceptible moment before she heard what he had said. then she explained, smiling, "oh, she would object very much to being labeled with the finicky title of 'lady.' that was touclã©, our queer old indian woman,--all that is left of old america here. she belongs to our house, or perhaps i should say it belongs to her. she was born here, a million years ago, more or less, when there were still a few basket-making indians left in the valley. her father and mother both died, and she was brought up by the old great-uncle crittenden's family. then my husband's uncle burton inherited the house and brought his bride here, and touclã© just stayed on. she always makes herself useful enough to pay for her food and lodging. and when his wife died an elderly woman, touclã© still just stayed on, till he died, and then she went right on staying here in the empty house, till my husband and i got here. we were married in rome, and made the long trip here without stopping at all. it was dawn, a june morning, when we arrived. we walked all the way from the station at ashley out to the old house, here at crittenden's. and . . . i'll never forget the astounded expression on my husband's face when touclã© rose up out of the long grass in the front yard and bade me welcome. she'd known me as a little girl when i used to visit here. she will outlive all of us, touclã© will, and be watching from her room in the woodshed chamber on the dawn of judgment day when the stars begin to fall." mr. welles felt a trifle bewildered by this, and showed it. she explained further, "but seriously, i must tell you that she is a perfectly harmless and quite uninteresting old herb-gatherer, although the children in the village are a little afraid of her, because she is an indian, the only one they have ever seen. she really _is_ an indian too. she knows every inch of our valley and the mountains better than any lumberman or hunter or fisherman in ashley. she often goes off and doesn't come back for days. i haven't the least idea where she stays. but she's very good to our children when she's here, and i like her capacity for monumental silence. it gives her very occasional remarks an oracular air, even though you know it's only because she doesn't often open her lips. she helps a little with the house-work, too, although she always looks so absent-minded, as though she were thinking of something very far away. she's quite capable of preparing a good meal, for all she never seems to notice what she's up to. and she's the last member of our family except the very coming-and-going little maids i get once in a while. ashley is unlike the rest of the world in that it is hard to get domestic servants here. "now let me see, whom next to introduce to you. you know all your immediate neighbors now. i shall have to begin on ashley itself. perhaps our minister and his wife. they live in the high-porticoed, tall-pillared white old house next door to the church in the village, on the opposite side from the church-yard. they are ashleyans of the oldest rock. both of them were born here, and have always lived here. mr. bayweather is seventy-five years old and has never had any other parish. i do believe the very best thing i can do for you is to send you straight to them, this minute. there's nothing mr. bayweather doesn't know about the place or the people. he has a collection of ashleyana of all sorts, records, deeds, titles, old letters, family trees. and for the last forty years he has been very busy writing a history of ashley." "a history of _ashley_?" exclaimed vincent. "a history of ashley," she answered, level-browed. mr. welles had the impression that a "side-wipe" had been exchanged in which he had not shared. vincent now asked irrelevantly, "do you go to church yourself?" "oh yes," she answered, "i go, i like to go. and i take the children." she turned her head so that she looked down at her long hands in her lap, as she added, "i think going to church is a _refining_ influence in children's lives, don't you?" to mr. welles' horror this provoked from vincent one of his great laughs. and this time he was sure that mrs. crittenden would take offense, for she looked up, distinctly startled, really quite as though he _had_ looked in through the key-hole. but vincent went on laughing. he even said, impudently, "ah, now i've caught you, mrs. crittenden; you're too used to keeping your jokes to yourself. and they're much too good for that." she looked at him hard, with a certain wonder in her eyes. "oh, there's no necromancy about it," he told her. "i've been reading the titles of your books and glancing over your music before you came in. and i can put two and two together. who are you making fun of to yourself? who first got off that lovely speech about the refining influence of church?" she laughed a little, half-uneasily, a brighter color mounting to her smooth oval cheeks. "that's one of mrs. bayweather's favorite maxims," she admitted. she added, "but i really _do_ like to go to church." mr. welles felt an apprehension about the turn things were taking. vincent, he felt sure, was on the verge of being up to something. and he did not want to risk offending mrs. crittenden. he stood up. "thank you very much for telling us about the minister and his wife, mrs. crittenden. i think we'll go right along down to the village now, and pay a call on them. there'll be time enough before dinner." vincent of course got up too, at this, saying, "he's the most perfect old housekeeper, you know. he's kept the neatest flat for himself and that aged aunt of his for seventy years." "_seventy!_" cried mr. welles, scandalized at the exaggeration. "oh, more or less," said vincent, laughing. mr. welles noticed with no enthusiasm that his eyes were extremely bright, that he smiled almost incessantly, that he stepped with an excess of his usual bounce. evidently something had set him off into one of his fits of wild high spirits. you could almost feel the electricity sparkle from him, as it does from a cat on a cold day. personally, mr. welles preferred not to touch cats when they were like that. "when are you going back to the city, mr. marsh?" asked mrs. crittenden, as they said good-bye at the door. vincent was standing below her on the marble step. he looked up at her now, and something about his expression made mr. welles think again of glossy fur emitting sparks. he said, "i'll lay you a wager, mrs. crittenden, that there is one thing your ashley underground news-service has not told you about us, and that is, that i've come up not only to help mr. welles install himself in his new home, but to take a somewhat prolonged rest-cure myself. i've always meant to see more of this picturesque part of vermont. i've a notion that the air of this lovely spot will do me a world of good." as mr. welles opened his mouth, perhaps rather wide, in the beginning of a remark, he cut in briskly with, "you're worrying about schwatzkummerer, i know. never you fear. i'll get hold of his address, all right." he explained briefly to mrs. crittenden, startled by the portentous name. "just a specialist in gladiolus seeds." "_bulbs!_" cried mr. welles, in involuntary correction, and knew as he spoke that he had been switched off to a side-track. "oh well, bulbs be it," vincent conceded the point indulgently. he took off his hat in a final salutation to mrs. crittenden, and grasping his elderly friend by the arm, moved with him down the flag-paved path. chapter iv table talk _an hour in the home life of mrs. neale crittenden, aet. 34_ march 20. as she and paul carried the table out to the windless, sunny side-porch, marise was struck by a hospitable inspiration. "you and elly go on setting the table," she told the children, and ran across the side-yard to the hedge. she leaned over this, calling, "mr. welles! mr. welles!" and when he came to the door, "the children and i are just celebrating this first really warm day by having lunch out of doors. won't you and mr. marsh come and join us?" by the time the explanations and protestations and renewals of the invitation were over and she brought them back to the porch, paul and elly had almost finished setting the table. elly nodded a country-child's silent greeting to the newcomers. paul said, "oh goody! mr. welles, you sit by me." marise was pleased at the friendship growing up between the gentle old man and her little boy. "elly, don't you want me to sit by you?" asked marsh with a playful accent. elly looked down at the plate she was setting on the table. "if you want to," she said neutrally. her mother smiled inwardly. how amusingly elly had acquired as only a child could acquire an accent, the exact astringent, controlled brevity of the mountain idiom. "i think elly means that she would like it very much, mr. marsh," she said laughingly. "you'll soon learn to translate vermontese into ordinary talk, if you stay on here." she herself went through the house into the kitchen and began placing on the wheel-tray all the components of the lunch, telling them over to herself to be sure she missed none. "meat, macaroni, spinach, hot plates, bread, butter, water . . . a pretty plain meal to invite city people to share. here, i'll open a bottle of olives. paul, help me get this through the door." as he pulled at the other end of the wheeled tray, paul said that mark had gone upstairs to wash his hands, ages ago, and was probably still fooling around in the soap-suds, and like as not leaving the soap in the water. "paul the responsible!" thought his mother. as they passed the foot of the stairs she called up, "mark! come along, dear. lunch is served. all ready," she announced as they pushed the tray out on the porch. the two men turned around from where they had been gazing up at the mountain. "what is that great cliff of bare rock called?" asked mr. marsh. "those are the eagle rocks," explained marise, sitting down and motioning them to their places. "elly dear, don't spread it on your bread so _thick_. if mr. bayweather were here he could probably tell you why they are called that. i have known but i've forgotten. there's some sort of tradition, i believe . . . no, i see you are getting ready to hear it called the maiden's leap where the indian girl leaped off to escape an unwelcome lover. but it's not that this time: something or other about tories and an american spy . . . ask mr. bayweather." "heaven forfend!" exclaimed mr. marsh. marise was amused. "oh, you've been lectured to on local history, i see," she surmised. "_i_ found it very interesting," said mr. welles, loyally. "though perhaps he does try to give you a little too much at one sitting." "mr. welles," said paul, with his mouth full, "fishing season begins in ten days." marise decided that she would really have to have a rest from telling paul not to talk with food in his mouth, and said nothing. mr. welles confessed that he had never gone fishing in his life, and asked if paul would take him. "sure!" said paul. "mother and i go, lots." mr. marsh looked at marise inquiringly. "yes," she said, "i'm a confirmed fisherman. some of the earliest and happiest recollections i have, are of fishing these brooks when i was a little girl." "here?" asked mr. welles. "i thought you lived in france." "there's time in a child's life to live in various places," she explained. "i spent part of my childhood and youth here with my dear old cousin. the place is full of associations for me. will you have your spinach now, or later? it'll keep hot all right if you'd rather wait." "what is this delicious dish?" asked mr. marsh. "it tastes like a man's version of creamed chicken, which is always a little too lady-like for me." "it's a _blanquette de veau_, and you may be sure i learned to make it in one of the french incarnations, not a vermont one." paul stirred and asked, "mother, where _is_ mark? he'll be late for school, if he doesn't hurry." "that's so," she said, and reflected how often one used that phrase in response to one of paul's solid and unanswerable statements. mark appeared just then and she began to laugh helplessly. his hands were wetly, pinkly, unnaturally clean, but his round, rosy, sunny little face was appallingly streaked and black. paul did not laugh. he said in horrified reproach, "oh, mark! you never _touched_ your face! it's piggy dirty." mark was staggered for a moment, but nothing staggered him long. "i don't get microbes off my face into my food," he said calmly. "and you bet there aren't any microbes left on my hands." he went on, looking at the table disapprovingly, "mother, there isn't a many on the table _this_ day, and i wanted a many." "the stew's awful good," said paul, putting away a large quantity. "'very,' not 'awful,' and don't hold your fork like that," corrected marise, half-heartedly, thinking that she herself did not like the insipid phrase "very good" nor did she consider the way a fork was held so very essential to salvation. "how much of life is convention, any way you arrange it," she thought, "even in such an entirely unconventional one as ours." "it _is_ good," said mark, taking his first mouthful. evidently he had not taken the remarks about his face at all seriously. "see here, mark," his mother put it to him as man to man, "do you think you ought to sit down to the table looking like that?" mark wriggled, took another mouthful, and got up mournfully. paul was touched. "here, i'll go up with you and get it over quick," he said. marise gave him a quick approving glance. that was the best side of paul. you could say what you pleased about the faults of american and french family life, but at any rate the children didn't hate each other, as english children seemed to, in novels at least. it was only last week that paul had fought the big french canadian boy in his room at school, because he had made fun of elly's rubber boots. as the little boys clattered out she said to the two guests, "i don't know whether you're used to children. if you're not, you must be feeling as though you were taking lunch in a boiler factory." mr. welles answered, "i never knew what i was missing before. especially paul. that first evening when you sent him over with the cake, as he stood in the door, i thought, 'i wish _i_ could have had a little son like that!'" "we'll share him with you, mr. welles." marise was touched by the wistfulness of his tone. she noticed that mr. marsh had made no comment on the children. he was perhaps one of the people who never looked at them, unless they ran into him. eugenia mills was like that, quite sincerely. "may i have a little more of the _blanquette_, if i won't be considered a glutton?" asked mr. marsh now. "i've sent to the city for an invaluable factotum of mine to come and look out for us here, and when he comes, i hope you'll give him the recipe." the little boys clattered back and began to eat again, in haste with frequent demands for their mother to tell them what time it was. in spite of this precaution, the clock advanced so relentlessly that they were obliged to set off, the three of them, before dessert was eaten, with an apple in one hand and a cookie in the other. the two men leaned back in their chairs with long breaths, which marise interpreted as relief. "strenuous, three of them at once, aren't they?" she said. "a new york friend of mine always says she can take the vibration-cure, only by listening to family talk at our table." "what's the vibration-cure?" asked mr. welles seriously. "oh, _i_ don't know!" confessed marise. "i'm too busy to keep up with the latest fads in cures as eugenia does. you may meet her there this summer, by the way. she usually spends a part of the summer with us. she is a very old school-friend of mine." "french or vermont incarnation?" inquired marsh casually. "may i smoke? won't you have a cigarette, yourself?" "oh, _french!_" marise was immensely amused, and then, remembering that the joke was not apparent, "if you'd ever seen her, even for a moment, you'd know why i laugh. she is the embodiment of sophisticated cosmopolitanism, an expert on all sorts of esoteric, aesthetic and philosophic matters, book-binding, historic lace, the vedanta creed, chinese porcelains, provenã§al poetry, persian shawls . . ." "what nationality is she, herself?" inquired mr. welles with some curiosity. marise laughed. "she was born in arkansas, and brought up in minnesota, what did you suppose? no european could ever take culture so seriously. you know how any convert always has a thousand times more fervor than the fatigued members of the faith who were born to it." "like henry james, perhaps?" suggested marsh. "yes, i always envied henry james the conviction he seems to have had, all his life, that europeans are a good deal more unlike other people than i ever found them. it may be obtuseness on my part, but i never could see that people who lived in the basses-pyrã©nã©es are any more cultivated or had any broader horizons than people who live in the green mountains. my own experience is that when you actually live with people, day after day, year after year, you find about the same range of possibilities in any group of them. but i never advance this theory to eugenia, who would be horrified to know that i find a strong family likeness between her new york circle and my neighbors here." she had been aware that marsh was looking at her as she spoke. what a singular, piercing eye he had! it made her a little restive, as at a too-intimate contact, to be looked at so intently, although she was quite aware that there was a good deal of admiration in the look. she wondered what he was thinking about her; for it was evident that he was thinking about her, as he sent out that penetrating gaze. but perhaps not, after all; for he now said as if in answer to her last remark, "i have my own way of believing that, too, that all people are made of the same stuff. mostly i find them perfectly negligible, too utterly without savor even to glance at. once in a thousand years, it seems to me, you come across a human being who's alive as you are, who speaks your language, is your own kind, belongs to you. when you do, good lord! what a moment!" he pronounced this in a perfectly impersonal tone, but something about the quality of his voice made marise flash a quick glance at him. his eyes met hers with a sudden, bold deepening of their gaze. marise's first impulse was to be startled and displeased, but in an instant a quick fear of being ridiculous had voiced itself and was saying to her, "don't be countrified. it's only that i've had no contact with people-of-the-world for a year now. that's the sort of thing they get their amusement from. it would make him laugh to have it resented." aloud she said, rather at random, "i usually go down once a season to the city for a visit to this old friend of mine, and other friends there. but this last winter i didn't get up the energy to do that." "i should think," said mr. welles, "that last winter you'd have used up all your energy on other things, from what mrs. powers tells me about the big chorus you always lead here in winters." "that does take up a lot of time," she admitted. "but it's a generator of energy, leading a chorus is, not a spender of it." "oh, come!" protested marsh. "you can't put that over on me. to do it as i gather you do . . . heavens! you must pour out your energy and personality as though you'd cut your arteries and let the red flood come." "you pour it out all right," she agreed, "but you get it back a thousand times over." she spoke seriously, the topic was vital to her, her eyes turned inward on a recollection. "it's amazing. it's enough to make a mystic out of a granite boulder. i don't know how many times i've dragged myself to a practice-evening dog-tired physically with work and care of the children, stale morally, sure that i had nothing in me that was profitable for any purpose, feeling that i'd do anything to be allowed to stay at home, to doze on the couch and read a poor novel." she paused, forgetting to whom she was speaking, forgetting she was not alone, touched and stirred with a breath from those evenings. "well . . . ?" prompted mr. marsh. she wondered if she were mistaken in thinking he sounded a little irritable. "well," she answered, "it has not failed a single time. i have never come back otherwise than stronger, and rested, the fatigue and staleness all gone, buried deep in something living." she had a moment of self-consciousness here, was afraid that she had been carried away to seem high-flown or pretentious, and added hastily and humorously, "you mustn't think that it's because i'm making anything wonderful out of my chorus of country boys and girls and their fathers and mothers. it's no notable success that puts wings to my feet as i come home from that work. it's only the music, the hearty satisfying singing-out, by ordinary people, of what too often lies withering in their hearts." she was aware that she was speaking not to sympathizers. mr. welles looked vague, evidently had no idea what she meant. mr. marsh's face looked closed tight, as though he would not open to let in a word of what she was saying. he almost looked hostile. why should he? when she stopped, a little abashed at having been carried along by her feelings, mr. marsh put in lightly, with no attempt at transition, "all that's very well. but you can't make me believe that by choice you live up her all the year around. you must nearly perish away with homesickness for the big world, you who so evidently belong in it." "where is the big world?" she challenged him, laughing. "when you're young you want to go all round the globe to look for it. and when you've gone, don't you find that your world everywhere is about as big as you are?" mr. marsh eyed her hard, and shook his head, with a little scornful downward thrust of the corners of his mouth, as though he were an augur who refused to lend himself to the traditional necessity to keep up the appearance of believing in an exploded religion. "_you_ know where the big world is," he said firmly. "it's where there are only people who don't have to work, who have plenty of money and brains and beautiful possessions and gracious ways of living, and few moral scruples." he defined it with a sovereign disregard for softening phrases. she opposed to this a meditative, "oh, i suppose the real reason why i go less and less to new york, is that it doesn't interest me as it used to. human significance is what makes interest for me, and when you're used to looking deep into human lives out of a complete knowledge of them as we do up here, it's very tantalizing and tormenting and after a while gets boring, the superficial, incoherent glimpses you get in such a smooth, glib-tongued circle as the people i happen to know in new york. it's like trying to read something in a language of which you know only a few words, and having the book shown to you by jerks at that!" mr. marsh remarked speculatively, as though they were speaking of some quite abstract topic, "it may also be possibly that you are succumbing to habit and inertia and routine." she was startled again, and nettled . . . and alarmed. what a rude thing to say! but the words were no sooner out of his mouth than she had felt a scared wonder if perhaps they were not true. she had not thought of that possibility. "i should think you would like the concerts, anyhow," suggested mr. welles. "yes," said marise, with the intonation that made the affirmation almost a negative. "yes, of course. but there too . . . music means so much to me, so very much. it makes me sick to see it pawed over as it is among people who make their livings out of it; used as it so often is as a background for the personal vanity or greed of the performer. take an ordinary afternoon solo concert given by a pianist or singer . . . it always seems to me that the music they make is almost an unconsidered by-product with them. what they're really after is something else." marsh agreed with her, with a hearty relish, "yes, musicians are an unspeakable bunch! "i suppose," marise went on, "that i ought not to let that part of it spoil concert music for me. and it doesn't, of course. i've had some wonderful times . . . people who play in orchestra and make chamber-music are the real thing. but the music you make yourself . . . the music we make up here . . . well, perhaps my taste for it is like one's liking (some people call it perverse) for french primitive painting, or the something so awfully touching and heart-felt that was lost when the renaissance came up over the alps with all its knowingness." "you're not pretending that you get vermonters to make music?" protested marsh, highly amused at the notion. "i don't know," she admitted, "whether it is music or not. but it is something alive." she fell into a muse, "queer, what a spider-web of tenuous complication human relationships are. i never would have thought, probably, of trying anything of the sort if it hadn't been for a childhood recollection. . . . french incarnation this time," she said lightly to marsh. "when i was a little girl, a young priest, just a young parish priest, in one of the poor hill-parishes of the basque country, began to teach the people of his parish really to sing some of the church chants. i never knew much about the details of what he did, and never spoke to him in my life, but from across half the world he has reached out to touch this cornet of america. by the time i was a young lady, he had two or three big country choruses under his direction. we used to drive up fist to one and then to another of those hill-towns, all white-washed houses and plane-tree atriums, and sober-eyed basques, to hear them sing. it was beautiful. i never have had a more complete expression of beauty in all my life. it seemed to me the very soul of music; those simple people singing, not for pay, not for notoriety, out of the fullness of their hearts. it has been one of the things i never forgot, a standard, and a standard that most music produced on platforms before costly audiences doesn't come up to." "i've never been able to make anything out of music, myself," confessed mr. welles. "perhaps you can convert me. i almost believe so." "'gene powers sings!" cried marise spiritedly. "and if he does . . ." "any relation to the lively old lady who brings our milk?" "her son. haven't you seen him yet? a powerfully built granite rock of a man. silent as a granite rock too, as far as small talk goes. but he turns out to have a bass voice that is my joy. it's done something for him, too, i think, really and truly, without sentimental exaggeration at all. he suffered a great injustice some six or seven years ago, that turned him black and bitter, and it's only since he has been singing in our winter choir that he has been willing to mix again with anyone." she paused for a moment, and eyed them calculatingly. it occurred to her that she had been talking about music and herself quite enough. she would change the subject to something matter-of-fact. "see here, you'll be sure to have to hear all that story from mr. bayweather in relentless detail. it might be your salvation to be able to say that i had told you, without mentioning that it was in a severely abridged form. he'd want to start back in the eighteenth century, and tell you all about that discreditable and unreconstructed tory ancestor of mine who, when he was exiled from ashley, is said to have carried off part of the town documents with him to canada. whether he did or not (mr. bayweather has a theory, i believe, that he buried them in a copper kettle on peg-top hill), the fact remains that an important part of the records of ashley are missing and that has made a lot of trouble with titles to land around here. several times, unscrupulous land-grabbers have taken advantage of the vagueness of the titles to cheat farmers out of their inheritance. the powers case is typical. there always have been powerses living right there, where they do now; that big pine that towers up so over their house was planted by 'gene's great-grandfather. and they always owned an immense tract of wild mountain land, up beyond the eagle rock range, along the side of the red-brook marsh. but after paying taxes on it for generations all during the time when it was too far away to make it profitable to lumber, it was snatched away from them, seven years ago, just as modern methods and higher prices for spruce would have made it very valuable. a lawyer from new hampshire named lowder turned the trick. i won't bother you going into the legal details--a question of a fake warranty deed, against 'gene's quit-claim deed, which was all he had in absence of those missing pages from the town records. as a matter of fact, the lawyer hasn't dared to cut the lumber off it yet, because his claim is pretty flimsy; but flimsy or not, the law regards it as slightly better than 'gene's. the result is that 'gene can't sell it and daren't cut it for fear of being involved in a law-suit that he couldn't possibly pay for. so the powers are poor farmers, scratching a difficult living out of sterile soil, instead of being well-to-do proprietors of a profitable estate of wood-land. and when we see how very hard they all have to work, and how soured and gloomy it has made 'gene, and how many pleasures the powers' children are denied, we all join in when mrs. powers delivers herself of her white-hot opinion of new hampshire lawyers! i remember perfectly that mr. lowder,--one of the smooth-shaven, thin-lipped, fish-mouthed variety, with a pugnacious jaw and an intimidating habit of talking his new hampshire dialect out of the corner of his mouth. the poor powers were as helpless as rabbits before him." it all came up before her as she talked, that horrid encounter with commercial ruthlessness: she saw again poor 'gene's outraged face of helpless anger, felt again the heat of sympathetic indignation she and neale had felt, recognized again the poison which triumphant unrighteousness leaves behind. she shook her head impatiently, to shake off the memory, and said aloud, "oh, it makes me sick to remember it! we couldn't believe, any of us, that such bare-faced iniquity could succeed." "there's a good deal of bare-faced iniquity riding around prosperously in high-powered cars," said mr. welles, with a lively accent of bitterness. "you have to get used to it in business life. it's very likely that your wicked mr. lowder in private life in new hampshire is a good husband and father, and contributes to all the charitable organizations." "i won't change _my_ conception of him as a pasty-faced demon," insisted marise. it appeared that mr. marsh's appetite for local history was so slight as to be cloyed even by the very much abbreviated account she had given them, for he now said, hiding a small yawn, with no effort to conceal the fact that he had been bored, "mrs. crittenden, i've heard from mr. welles' house the most tantalizing snatches from your piano. won't you, now we're close to it, put the final touch to our delightful lunch-party by letting us hear it?" marise was annoyed by his _grand seigneur_ air of certainty of his own importance, and piqued that she had failed to hold his interest. both impressions were of a quicker vivacity than was at all the habit of her maturity. she told herself, surprised, that she had not felt this little sharp sting of wounded personal vanity since she was a girl. what did she care whether she had bored him or not? but it was with all her faculties awakened and keen that she sat down before the piano and called out to them, "what would you like?" they returned the usual protestations that they would like anything she would play, and after a moment's hesitation . . . it was always a leap in the dark to play to people about whose musical capacities you hadn't the faintest idea . . . she took out the beethoven sonata album and turned to the sonata pathã©tique. beethoven of the early middle period was the safest guess with such entirely unknown listeners. for all that she really knew, they might want her to play chaminade and moskowsky. mr. welles, the nice old man, might find even them above his comprehension. and as for marsh, she thought with a resentful toss of her head that he was capable of saying off-hand, that he was really bored by all music--and conveying by his manner that it was entirely the fault of the music. well, she would show him how she could play, at least. she laid her hands on the keys; and across those little smarting, trivial personalities there struck the clear, assured dignity and worth of her old friend . . . was there ever such a friend as that rough old german who had died so long before she was born? no one could say the human race was ignoble or had never deserved to live, who knew his voice. in a moment she was herself again. those well-remembered opening chords, they were by this time not merely musical sounds. they had become something within her, of her own being, rich with a thousand clustered nameless associations, something that thrilled and sang and lived a full harmonious life of its own. that first pearling down-dropping arabesque of treble notes, not only her fingers played those, but every fiber in her, answering like the vibrating wood of a violin, its very cells rearranged in the pattern which the notes had so many times called into existence . . . by the time she had finished she had almost forgotten that she had listeners. and when, sitting for a moment, coming back slowly from beethoven's existence to her own, she heard no sound or stir from the porch, she had only a quiet smile of tolerant amusement. apparently she had not guessed right as to their tastes. or perhaps she had played them to sleep. as for herself, she was hungry for more; she reached out her hand towards that world of high, purified beauty which miraculously was always there, with open doors of gold and ivory. . . . what now? what did she know by heart? the largo in the chopin sonata. that would do to come after beethoven. the first plunge into this did not so intimately startle and stir her as the beethoven movement had done. it was always like that, she thought as she played, the sound of the first note, the first chord struck when one had not played for a day or so; it was having one's closed eyes unsealed to the daylight anew, an incredulous rapture. but after that, though you didn't go on quaking and bowing your head, though you were no longer surprised to find music still there, better than you could possibly remember it, though you took it for granted, how deeply and solidly and steadfastly you lived in it and on it! it made you like the child in the wordsworth sonnet, "a beauteous evening, calm and free"; it took you in to worship quite simply and naturally at the temple's inner shrine; and you adored none the less although you were not "breathless with adoration," like the nun; because it was a whole world given to you, not a mere pang of joy; because you could live and move and be blessedly and securely at home in it. she finished the last note of the largo and sat quiet for a moment. then she knew that someone had come into the room behind her. she turned about, facing with serene, wide brows whatever might be there. the first meeting with the eyes of the man who stood there moved her. so he too deeply and greatly loved music! his face was quite other from the hawk-like, intent, boldly imperious countenance which she had seen before. those piercing eyes were softened and quietly shining. the arrogant lines about the mouth that could look so bitter and skeptical, were as sweet and candid as a child's. he smiled at her, a good, grateful, peaceful smile, and nodded, as though now they understood each other with no more need for words. "go on . . . go on!" was all he said, very gently and softly. he sank down in an arm-chair and leaned his head back in the relaxed pose of listening. he looked quite and exactly what marise was feeling. it was with a stir of all her pulses, a pride, a glory, a new sympathy in her heart, that she turned back to the piano. chapter v a little girl and her mother _an afternoon in the life of elly crittenden, aet. 8 years_ april 6. elly crittenden had meant to go straight home from school as usual with the other children, paul and mark, and addle and ralph powers. and as usual somehow she was ever so far behind them, so far that there wasn't any use trying to catch up. paul was hurrying to go over and see that new old man next door, as usual. she might as well not try, and just give up, and get home ever so late, the way she always did. oh well, father wasn't at home, and mother wouldn't scold, and it was nice to walk along just as slow as you wanted to, and feel your rubber boots squizzle into the mud. how _good_ it did seem to have real mud, after the long winter of snow! and it was nice to hear the brooks everywhere, making that dear little noise and to see them flashing every-which-way in the sun, as they tumbled along downhill. and it was nice to smell that smell . . . what _was_ that sort of smell that made you know the sugaring-off had begun? you couldn't smell the hot boiling sap all the way from the mountain-sides, but what you did smell made you think of the little bark-covered sap-houses up in the far woods, with smoke and white steam coming out from all their cracks, as though there was somebody inside magicking charms and making a great cloud to cover it, like klingsor or the witch-ladies in the arabian nights. there was a piece of music mother played, that was like that. you could almost see the white clouds begin to come streeling out between the piano-keys, and drift all around her. all but her face that always looked through. the sun shone down so warm on her head, she thought she might take off her woolen cap. why, yes, it was plenty warm enough. oh, how good it felt! how _good_ it did feel! like somebody actually touching your hair with a warm, soft hand. and the air, that cool, cool air, all damp with the thousand little brooks, it felt just as good to be cool, when you tossed your hair and the wind could get into it. how _good_ it did feel to be bare-headed, after all that long winter! cool inside your hair at the roots, and warm outside where the sun pressed on it. cool wind and warm sun, two different things that added up to make one lovely feel for a little girl. the way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping . . . it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so different and yet the same. and there, underneath all this fluttering and tossing and differences, there were your legs going on just as dumb and steady as ever, stodge, stodge, stodge! she looked down at them with interest and appreciation of their faithful, dutiful service, and with affection at the rubber boots. she owed those to mother. paul had scared her so, when he said, so stone-wally, the way paul always spoke as if that settled everything, that _none_ of the little girls at school wore rubber boots, and he thought elly oughtn't to be allowed to look so queer. it made him almost ashamed of his sister, he said. but mother had somehow . . . what _had_ she said to fix it? . . . oh well, something or other that left her her rubber boots and yet paul wasn't mad any more. and what could she _do_ without rubber boots, when she wanted to wade through a brook, like this one, and the brooks were as they were now, all running spang full to the very edge with snow-water, the way this one did? oo . . . ooh . . . ooh! how queer it did feel, to be standing most up to your knees this way, with the current curling by, all cold and snaky, feeling the fast-going water making your boot-legs shake like aunt hetty's old cheeks when she laughed, and yet your feet as _dry_ inside! how could they feel as cold as that, without being wet, as though they were magicked? that was a _real_ difference, even more than the wind cool inside your hair and the sun warm on the outside; or your hair tied tight at one end and all wobbly loose at the other. but this wasn't a nice difference. it didn't add up to make a nice feeling, but a sort of queer one, and if she stood there another minute, staring down into that swirly, snatchy water, she'd fall right over into it . . . it seemed to be snatching at _her!_ oh gracious! this wasn't much better! on the squelchy dead grass of the meadow that looked like real ground and yet you sank right into it. oh, it was _horridly_ soft, like touching the hand of that new man that had come to live with the old gentleman next door. she must hurry as fast as she could . . . it felt as though it was sucking at her feet, trying to pull her down altogether like the girl with the red shoes, and she didn't have any loaves of bread to throw down to step on . . . well, there! this was better, as the ground started uphill. there was firm ground under her feet. yes, not mud, nor soaked, flabby meadow-land, but solid earth, _solid, solid!_ she stamped on it with delight. it was just as nice to have solid things _very_ solid, as it was to have floaty things like clouds _very_ floaty. what was horrid was to have a thing that _looked_ solid, and yet was all soft, like gelatine pudding when you touched it. well, for goodness' sake, where was she? where had she come to, without thinking a single thing about it? right on the ridge overlooking aunt hetty's house to be sure, on those rocks that hang over it, so you could almost throw a stone down any one of the chimneys. she might just as well go down and make aunt hetty a visit now she was so near, and walk home by the side-road. of course paul would say, nothing could keep him from saying, that she had planned to do that very thing, right along, and when she left the school-house headed straight for aunt hetty's cookie-jar. well, _let_ him! she could just tell him, she'd never _dreamed_ of such a thing, till she found herself on those rocks. she walked more and more slowly, letting herself down cautiously from one ledge to another, and presently stopped altogether, facing a beech tree, its trunk slowly twisted into a spiral because it was so hard to keep alive on those rocks. she was straight in front of it, staring into its gray white-blotched bark. now if _mother_ asked her, of course she'd have to say, yes, she had planned to, _sort of_ but not quite. mother would understand. there wasn't any use trying to tell things how they really were to paul, because to him things weren't ever sort-of-but-not-quite. they either were or they weren't. but mother always knew, both ways, hers and paul's. she stepped forward and downward now, lightened. her legs stretched out to carry her from one mossed rock to another. "striding," that was what she was doing. now she knew just what "striding" meant. what fun it was to _feel_ what a word meant! then when you used it, you could feel it lie down flat in the sentence, and fit into the other words, like a piece in a jig-saw puzzle when you got it into the right place. gracious! how fast you could "stride" down those rocks into aunt hetty's back yard! hello! here at the bottom was some snow, a great big drift of it still left, all gray and shrunk and honey-combed with rain and wind, with a little trickle of water running away softly and quietly from underneath it, like a secret. well, think of there being still _snow_ left anywhere except on top of the mountains! she had just been thinking all the afternoon how _good_ it seemed to have the snow all gone, and here she ran right into some, as if you'd been talking about a person, saying how sick and tired you were of everlastingly seeing him around, and there he was, right outside the window and hearing it all, and knowing it wasn't _his_ fault he was still hanging on. you'd feel bad to know he'd heard. she felt bad now! after all, the fun the snow had given them, all that winter, sleighing and snow-shoeing and ski-running and sliding downhill. and when she remembered how _glad_ she'd been to see the first snow, how she and little mark had run to the window to see the first flakes, and had hollered, oh goody, _goody!_ and here was all there was left, just one poor old forgotten dirty drift, melting away as fast as it _could_, so's to get itself out of the way. she stood looking down on it compassionately, and presently, stooping over, gave it a friendly, comforting pat with one mittened hand. then she was pierced with an arrow of hunger, terrible, devouring starvation! why was it she was always so _much_ hungrier just as she got out of school, than ever at meal-times? she did hope this wouldn't be one of those awful days when aunt hetty's old agnes had let the cookie-jar get empty! she walked on fast, now, across the back yard where the hens, just as happy as she was to be on solid ground, pottered around dreamily, their eyes half-shut up. . . . elly could just think how good the sun must feel on their feathers! she could imagine perfectly how it would be to have feathers instead of skin and hair. she went into the kitchen door. nobody was there. she went through into the pantry. nobody there! nobody, that is, except the cookie-jar, larger than any other object in the room, looming up like a wash-tub. she lifted the old cracked plate kept on it for cover. _oh_, it was _full_,--a fresh baking! and raisins in them! the water ran into her mouth in a little gush. oh _my_, how good and cracklesome they looked! and how beautifully the sugar sprinkled on them would grit against your teeth as you ate it! oh _gracious!_ she put her hand in and touched one. there was nothing that felt like a freshly baked cookie; even through your mitten you could _know_, with your eyes shut, it was a cookie. she took hold of one, and stood perfectly still. she could take that, just as easy! nobody would miss it, with the jar so full. aunt hetty and agnes were probably house-cleaning, like everybody else, upstairs. nobody would ever know. the water of desire was at the very corners of her mouth now. she felt her insides surging up and down in longing. _nobody_ would know! she opened her hand, put the cookie back, laid the plate on the top of the jar, and walked out of the pantry. of course she couldn't do that. what had she been thinking of,--such a stealy, common thing, and she _mother's_ daughter! but, oh! it was awful, having to be up to mother! she sniffed forlornly and drew her mitten across her nose. she _had_ wanted it so! and she was just _dying_, she was so hungry. and mother wouldn't even let her _ask_ people for things to eat. suppose aunt hetty didn't think to ask her! she went through the dining-room, into the hall, and called upstairs, "aunt hetty! aunt hetty!" she was almost crying she felt so sorry for herself. "yis," came back a faint voice, very thin and high, the way old people's voices sounded when they tried to call loud. "up in the east-wing garret." she mounted the stairs heavily, pulling herself along by those spindling old red balustrades, just like so many old laths, noticing that her rubber boots left big hunks of mud on the white-painted stairs, but too miserable to care. the door to the east-wing garret was open. aunt hetty was there, bossing agnes, and they were both "dudsing," as elly called it to herself, leaning over trunks, disappearing in and out of closets, turning inside out old bags of truck, sorting over, and, for all elly could see, putting the old duds back again, just where they had been before. grown-ups did seem to run round in circles, so much of their time! she sat down wearily on an ugly little old trunk near the door. aunt hetty shut up a drawer in a dresser, turned to elly, and said, "mercy, child, what's the matter? has the teacher been scolding you?" "no, aunt hetty," said elly faintly, looking out of the window. "anybody sick at your house?" asked aunt hetty, coming towards the little girl. "no," said elly, shaking her head. "don't you feel well?" asked aunt hetty, laying one wrinkled, shaky old hand on her shoulder. "no, aunt hetty," said elly, her eyes large and sad. "maybe she's hungry," suggested agnes, in a muffled voice from the depths of a closet. "are you?" asked aunt hetty. "yes," cried elly. aunt hetty laughed. "well, i don't know if there are any cookies in the house or not," she said, "we've been so busy house-cleaning. agnes, did you bake any cookies this morning?" elly was struck into stupor at this. think of not _knowing_ if there were any cookies in the house! agnes appeared, tiny and old and stooped and wrinkled, like her mistress. she had a big, rolled-up woolen-covered comforter in her arms, over which she nodded. "yes, i made some. you told me to make some every wednesday," she said. she went on, looking anxiously at aunt hetty, "there ain't any moth-holes in this. was this the comfortable you meant? i thought this was the one you told me to leave out of the camphor chest. i thought you told me . . ." "you know where to find the cookies, don't you, elly?" asked aunt hetty, over her shoulder, trotting rapidly like a little dry, wind-blown leaf, towards agnes and the comforter. "oh _yes_, aunt hetty!" shouted elly, halfway down the stairs. aunt hetty called after her, "take all you want . . . three or four. they won't hurt you. there's no egg in our recipe." elly was there again, in the empty pantry, before the cookie-jar. she lifted the cracked plate again. . . . but, oh! how differently she did feel now! . . . and she had a shock of pure, almost solemn, happiness at the sight of the cookies. she had not only been good and done as mother would want her to, but she was going to have _four_ of those cookies. three _or_ four, aunt hetty had said! as if anybody would take three if he was let to have four! which ones had the most raisins? she knew of course it wasn't _so very_ nice to pick and choose that way, but she knew mother would let her, only just laugh a little and say it was a pity to be eight years old if you couldn't be a little greedy! oh, how happy she was! how light she felt! how she floated back up the stairs! what a perfectly sweet old thing aunt hetty was! and what a nice old house she had, though not so nice as home, of course. what pretty mahogany balusters, and nice white stairs! too bad she had brought in that mud. but they were house-cleaning anyhow. a little bit more to clean up, that was all. and what _luck_ that they were in the east-room garret, the one that had all the old things in it, the hoop-skirts and the shells and the old scoop-bonnets, and the four-poster bed and those fascinating old cretonne bags full of treasures. she sat down near the door on the darling little old hair-covered trunk that had been great-grandfather's, and watched the two old women at work. the first cookie had disappeared now, and the second was well on the way. she felt a great appeasement in her insides. she leaned back against the old dresses hung on the wall and drew a long breath. "well," said aunt hetty, "you've got neighbors up your way, so they tell me. funny thing, a city man coming up here to live. he'll never stick it out. the summer maybe. but that's all. you just see, come autumn, if he don't light out for new york again." elly made no comment on this. she often heard her elders say that she was not a talkative child, and that it was hard to get anything out of her. that was because mostly they wanted to know about things she hadn't once thought of noticing, and weren't a bit interested when she tried to talk about what she _had_ noticed. just imagine trying to tell aunt hetty about that poor old gray snow-bank out in her woods, all lonely and scrumpled up! she went on eating her cookie. "how does he like it, anyhow?" asked aunt hetty, bending the upper part of her out of the window to shake something. "and what kind of a critter is he?" "well, he's rather an old man," said elly. she added conscientiously, trying to be chatty, "paul's crazy about him. he goes over there all the time to visit. i like him all right. the old man seems to like it here all right. they both of them do." "both?" said aunt hetty, curving herself back into the room again. "oh, the other one isn't going to _live_ here, like mr. welles. he's just come to get mr. welles settled, and to make him a visit. his name is mr. marsh." "well, what's _he_ like?" asked aunt hetty, folding together the old wadded petticoat she had been shaking. "oh, he's all right too," said elly. she wasn't going to say anything about that funny softness of his hands, she didn't like, because that would be like speaking about the snow-drift; something aunt hetty would just laugh at, and call one of her notions. "well, what do they _do_ with themselves, two great hulking men set off by themselves?" elly tried seriously to remember what they did do. "i don't see them, of course, much in the morning before i go to school. i guess they get up and have their breakfast, the way anybody does." aunt hetty snorted a little, "gracious, child, a person needs a corkscrew to get anything out of you. i mean all day, with no chores, or farmin', or _any_thing." "i don't _know_," elly confessed. "mr. clark, of course, he's busy cooking and washing dishes and keeping house, but . . ." "are there _three_ of them?" aunt hetty stopped her dudsing in her astonishment. "i thought you said two." "oh well, mr. marsh sent down to the city and had this mr. clark come up to work for them. he doesn't call him 'mr. clark'--just 'clark,' short like that. i guess he's mr. marsh's hired man in the city. only he can do everything in the house, too. but i don't feel like calling him 'clark' because he's grown-up, and so i call him '_mr._ clark.'" she did not tell aunt hetty that she sort of wanted to make up to him for being somebody's servant and being called like one. it made her mad and she wanted to show he could be a mister as well as anybody. she began on the third cookie. what else could she say to aunt hetty, who always wanted to know the news so? she brought out, "well, _i_ tell you, in the afternoon, when i get home, mostly old mr. welles is out in his garden." "_gardin_!" cried aunt hetty. "mercy on us, making garden the fore-part of april. where does he think he's living? florida?" "i don't believe he's exactly making garden," said elly. "he just sort of pokes around there, and looks at things. and sometimes he sits down on the bench and just _sits_ there. he's pretty old, i guess, and he walks kind of tired, always." "does the other one?" asked aunt hetty. this made elly sit up, and say very loud, "no, _indeedy_!" she really hadn't thought before how very _un_tired mr. marsh always seemed. she added, "no, the other one doesn't walk tired, nor he doesn't poke around in the garden. he takes long tramps way back of the mountains, over burnham way." "for goodness' sakes, what's he find up there?" "he likes it. he comes over and borrows our maps and things to study, and he gets mother to tell him all about everything. he gets touclã© to tell him about the back trails, too." "well, he's a smart one if he can get a word out of touclã©." "yes, he does. everybody talks to him. you _have_ to if he starts in. he's very lively." "does he get _you_ to talk?" asked aunt hetty, laughing at the idea. "well, some," stated elly soberly. she did not say that mr. marsh always seemed to her to be trying to get some secret out of her. she didn't _have_ any secret that she knew of, but that was the way he made her feel. she dodged him mostly, when she could. "what's the news from your father?" "oh, he's all right," said elly. she fell to thinking of father and wishing he would come back. "when's he going to get through his business, up there?" "before long, i guess. mother said maybe he'd be back here next month." elly was aware that she was again not being talkative. she tried to think of something to add. "i'm very much obliged for these cookies," she said. "they are awfully good." "they're the kind your mother always liked, when she was your age," said aunt hetty casually. "i remember how she used to sit right there on father's hair-trunk and eat them and watch me just like you now." at this statement elly could feel her thoughts getting bigger and longer and higher, like something being opened out. "and the heaven was removed as a scroll when it is rolled up." that sentence she'd heard in church and never understood, and always wondered what was behind, what they had seen when the scroll was rolled up. . . . something inside her now seemed to roll up as though she were going to see what was behind it. how much longer time was than you thought! mother had sat there as a little girl . . . a little girl like her. mother who was now grown-up and _finished_, knowing everything, never changing, never making any mistakes. why, how _could_ she have been a little girl! and such a short time ago that aunt hetty remembered her sitting there, right there, maybe come in from walking across that very meadow, and down those very rocks. _what had she been thinking about, that other little girl who had been mother?_ "why" . . . elly stopped eating, stopped breathing for a moment. "why, she herself would stop being a little girl, and would grow up and be a mother!" she had always known that, of course, but she had never _felt_ it till that moment. it made her feel very sober; more than sober, rather holy. yes, that was the word,--holy,--like the hymn. perhaps some day another little girl would sit there, and be just as surprised to know that _her_ mother had been really and truly a little girl too, and would feel queer and shy at the idea, and all the time her mother had been only _elly_. but would she _be_ elly any more, when she was grown up? what would have happened to elly? and after that little girl, another; and one before mother; and back as far as you could see, and forwards as far as you could see. it was like a procession, all half in the dark, marching forward, one after another, little girls, mothers, mothers and little girls, and then more . . . what for . . . oh, _what for?_ she was a little scared. she wished she could get right up and go _home_ to mother. but the procession wouldn't stop . . . wouldn't stop. . . . aunt hetty hung up the last bag. "there," she said, "that's all we can do here today. elly, you'd better run along home. the sun'll be down behind the mountain _now_ before you get there." elly snatched at the voice, at the words, at aunt hetty's wrinkled, shaking old hand. she jumped up from the trunk. something in her face made aunt hetty say, "well, you look as though you'd most dropped to sleep there in the sun. it does make a person feel lazy this first warm march sun. i declare this morning i didn't want to go to work house-cleaning. i wanted to go and spend the day with the hens, singing over that little dozy ca-a-a-a they do, in the sun, and stretch one leg and one wing till they most broke off, and ruffle up all my feathers and let 'em settle back very slow, and then just _set_." they had started downstairs before aunt hetty had finished this, the little girl holding tightly to the wrinkled old hand. how peaceful aunt hetty was! even the smell of her black woolen dresses always had a _quiet_ smell. and she must see all those hunks of mud on the white stairs, but she never said a word. elly squeezed her hand a little tighter. what was it she had been thinking about on the hair-trunk that made her so glad to feel aunt hetty peaceful? oh yes, that mother had been there, where she was, when she was a little girl. well, gracious! what of that? she'd always known that mother had visited aunt hetty a lot and that aunt hetty had been awfully good to her, and that mother loved aunt hetty like everything. what had made it seem so queer, all of a sudden? "well," said aunt hetty at the front door, "step along now. i don't want you should be late for supper." she tipped her head to look around the edge of the top of the door and said, "well, i declare, just see that moon showing itself before ever the sun gets down." she walked down the path a little way with elly, who still held her hand. they stood together looking up at the mountain, very high and blue against the sky that was green . . . yes, it really was a pale, clear green, at the top of the mountain-line. people always said the sky was blue, except at sunset-time, like now, when it was filling the notch right to the top with every color that could be. "the lilacs will begin to swell soon," said aunt hetty. "i saw some pussy-willows out, today," answered elly. the old woman and the little girl lifted their heads, threw them back, and looked up long into the sky, purely, palely high above them. "it's quite a sightly place to live, crittenden's is," said aunt hetty. elly said nothing, it being inconceivable to her that she could live anywhere else. "well, good-bye," said aunt hetty. it did not occur to her to kiss the little girl. it did not occur to elly to want a kiss. they squeezed their hands together a little bit more, and then elly went down the road, walking very carefully. why did she walk so carefully, she wondered? she felt as though she were carrying a cup, full up to the brim of something. and she mustn't let it spill. what was it so full of? aunt hetty's peacefulness, maybe. or maybe just because it was beginning to get twilight. that always made you feel as though something was being poured softly into you, that you mustn't spill. she was glad the side-road was so grass-grown. you could walk on it, so still, like this, and never make a sound. she thought again of father and wished he would come home. she _liked_ father. he was solid. he was solid like that solid earth she liked so much to walk on. it was just such a comfort to feel him. father was like the solid ground and mother was like the floaty clouds. why, yes, they were _every_ way like what she had been thinking about. . . . father was the warm sun on the outside, and mother was the cool wind on the inside. father was the end that was tied tight and firm so you _knew_ you couldn't lose it, and mother was the end that streamed out like flags in the wind. but they weren't either of them like that slinky, swirly water, licking at you, in such a hurry to get on past you and get what it was scrambling to get, whatever that was. well, of all things! there was old mr. welles, coming towards her. _he_ must be out taking a walk too. how slowly he went! and kept looking up the way she and aunt hetty had, at the sky and the mountains. he was quite close now. why . . . why, he didn't know she was there. he had gone right by her and never even saw her and yet had been so close she could see his face plainly. he must have been looking very hard at the mountains. but it wasn't hard the way he was looking, it was soft. how soft his face had looked, almost quivery, almost. . . . but that was silly to think of . . . almost as though he felt like crying. and yet all shining and quiet, too, as if he'd been in church. well, it _was_ a little bit like being in church, when you could see the twilight come down very slow like this, and settle on the tree-tops and then down through them towards you. you always felt as though it was going to do something to you when it got to you; something peaceful, like old aunt hetty. she was at her own front path now, it was really almost dark. mother was playing the piano. but not for either of the boys. it was grown-up music she was playing. elly hesitated on the flagged stones. maybe she was playing for mr. marsh again. she advanced slowly. yes, there he was, sitting on the door-step, across the open door, leaning back his head, smoking, sometimes looking out at the sunset, and sometimes looking in towards the piano. elly made a wide circuit under the apple-trees, and went in the side-door. touclã© was only just setting the table. elly would have plenty of time to get off her rubber boots, look up her old felt slippers, and put them on before supper time. gracious! her stockings were wet. she'd have to change them, too. she'd just stay upstairs till mr. marsh went away. she didn't feel to talk to him. * * * * * when out of her window she saw him step back across the grass to mr. welles' house, elly came downstairs at once. the light in the living-room made her blink, after all that outdoor twilight and the indoor darkness of her room upstairs. mother was still at the piano, her hands on the keys, but not playing. at the sight of her, elly's heart filled and brightened. her busy, busy thoughts stopped for the first time that day. she felt as you do when you've been rowing a boat a long time and finally, almost where you want to go, you stop and let her slide in on her own movement, quiet and soft and smooth, and reach out your hand to take hold of the landing-place. elly reached out her arm and put it around mother's neck. she stood perfectly quiet. there wasn't any need to be anything _but_ quiet now you'd got to where you were going. she had been out on the rim of the wheel, all around and around it, and up and down the spokes. but now she was at the center where all the spokes ended. she closed her eyes and laid her head on mother's soft shoulder. "did you have a good walk, all by yourself, dear?" asked mother. "oh yes, it was all right," said elly. "your feet aren't wet, are they?" "no," said elly, "i took off my boots just as soon as i came in, and changed my stockings." chapter vi things take their course _a couple of hours from mr. welles' new life_. i april 10. one of the many things which surprised mr. welles was that he seemed to need less sleep than in the city. long hours in bed had been one of the longed-for elements of the haven of rest which his retiring from the office was to be. especially as he had dragged himself from bed to stop the relentless snarl of his alarm-clock, had he hoped for late morning sleeps in his new home, when he could wake up at seven, feel himself still heavy, unrefreshed, unready for the day, and turn on the pillow to take another dose of oblivion. but here, after the first ten days of almost prostrate relaxation, he found himself waking even before the dawn, and lying awake in his bed, waiting almost impatiently for the light to come so that he could rise to another day. he learned all the sounds of the late night and early morning, and how they had different voices in the dark; the faint whisper of the maple-branches, the occasional stir and muffled chirp of a bird, the hushed, secret murmur of the little brook which ran between his garden and the crittenden yard, and the distant, deeper note of the necronsett river as it rolled down the ashley valley to the notch. he could almost tell, without opening his eyes, when the sky grew light over the eagle rocks, by the way the night voices lifted, and carried their sweet, muted notes up to a clearer, brighter singing. when that change in the night-voices came, he sat up in bed, turning his face from the window, for he did not want any mere partial glimpse for his first contact with the day, and got into his clothes, moving cautiously not to waken vincent, who always sat up till all hours and slept till ten. down the stairs in his stocking-feet, his shoes in his hand; a pause in the living-room to thread and fasten shoe-laces; and then, his silly old heart beating fast, his hand on the door-knob. the door slowly opened, and the garden, his own shining garden, offered itself to him anew, so fresh in the dew and the pale gold of the slanting morning sun-rays, that he was apt to swallow hard as he first stepped out into it and stood still, with bare head lifted, drawing one long breath after another. he was seldom alone in those early hours, although the house slept profoundly behind him; a robin, the only bird whose name he was sure of, hopped heavily and vigorously about on the sparkling grass; a little brown bird of whose name he had not the slightest notion, but whose voice he knew very well by this time, poured out a continuous cascade of quick, high, eager notes from the top of the elm; a large toad squatted peaceably in the sun, the loose skin over its forehead throbbing rhythmically with the life in it; and over on the steps of the crittendens' kitchen, the old indian woman, as motionless as the toad, fixed her opaque black eyes on the rising sun, while something about her, he could never decide what, throbbed rhythmically with the life in her. mr. welles had never in all his life been so aware of the rising sun, had never so felt it like something in himself as on those mornings when he walked in his garden and glanced over at the old indian. presently, the crittenden house woke, so to speak, with one eye, and took on the aspect of a house in which someone is astir. first came the fox-terrier, inevitable precursor of his little master, and then, stepping around touclã© as though she were a tree or a rock, came his little partner paul, his freckled face shining with soap and the earliness of the hour. mr. welles was apt to swallow hard again, when he felt the child's rough, strong fingers slip into his. "hello, mr. welles," said paul. "hello, paul," said mr. welles. "i thought sure i'd beat you to it for once, this morning," was what paul invariably said first. "i can't seem to wake up as early as you and touclã©." then he would bring out his plan for that particular morning walk. "maybe we might have time to have me show you the back-road by cousin hetty's, and get back by the men's short-cut before breakfast, maybe? perhaps?" "we could try it," admitted mr. welles, cautiously. it tickled him to answer paul in his own prudent idiom. then they set off, surrounded and encompassed by the circles of mad delight which mã©dor wove about them, rushing at them once in a while, in a spasm of adoration, to leap up and lick paul's face. thus on one of these mornings in april, they were on the back-road to cousin hetty's, the right-hand side solemn and dark with tall pines, where the ground sloped up towards the eagle rocks; jungle-like with blackberry brambles and young pines on the left side where it had been lumbered some years ago. paul pointed out proudly the thrifty growth of the new pines and explained it by showing the several large trees left standing at intervals down the slope towards the ashley valley. "father always has them do that, so the seeds from the old trees will seed up the bare ground again. gosh! you'd ought to hear him light into the choppers when they forget to leave the seed-pines or when they cut under six inches butt diameter." mr. welles had no more notion what cutting under six inches butt diameter meant than he had of the name of the little brown bird who sang so sweetly in his elm; but paul's voice and that of the nameless bird gave him the same pleasure. he tightened his hold of the tough, sinewy little fingers, and looked up through the glorious brown columns of the great pines towards where the sky-line showed, luminous, far up the slope. "that's the top of the eagle rocks, where you see the sky," explained his small cicerone, seeing the direction of his eyes. "the powerses lost a lot of sheep off over them, last year. a dog must ha' started running them down in the pasture. and you know what fools sheep are. once they get scared they can't think of anything to do except just to keep a-running till something gets in their way. about half of the powers flock just ran themselves off the top of the rocks, although the dog had stopped chasing them, way down in the valley. there wasn't enough of them left, even to sell to the butcher in ashley for mutton. ralph powers, he's about as old as i am, maybe a little bit older, well, his father had given him a ewe and two twin lambs for his own, and didn't they all three get killed that day! ralph felt awful bad about it. he don't ever seem to have any luck, ralph don't." . . . how sweet it was, mr. welles thought to himself, how awfully sweet to be walking in such pine-woods, on the early morning, preceded by such a wildly happy little dog, with a little boy whose treble voice ran on and on, whose strong little hand clasped yours so tightly, and who turned up to you eyes of such clear trust! was he the same man who for such endless years had been a part of the flotsam cast out every morning into the muddy, brawling flood of the city street and swept along to work which had always made him uneasy and suspicious of it? "there's the whistle," said paul, holding up a finger. "father has the first one blown at half-past six, so's the men can have time to get their things ready and start; and not have to hurry." at this a faint stirring of interest in what the child was saying broke through the golden haze of the day-dream in which mr. welles was walking. "where do they come from anyhow, the men who work in your father's mill?" he asked. "where do they live? there are so few homes at crittenden's." "oh, they live mostly over the hill in the village, in ashley. there are lots of old houses there, and once in a while now they even have to build a new one, since the old ones are all filled up. mr. bayweather says that before father and mother came here to live and really run the mill, that ashley street was all full of empty houses, without a light in them, that the old folks had died out of. but now the men have bought them up and live in them. it's just as bright, nights! with windows lighted up all over. father's had the electric current run over there from the mill, now, and that doesn't cost anything except . . ." mr. welles' curiosity satisfied, he fell back into his old shimmer of content and walked along, hearing paul's voice only as one of the morning sounds of the newly awakened world. presently he was summoned out of this day-dream by a tug at his hand. paul gave out the word of command, "we turn here, so's to get into the men's short-cut." this proved to be a hard-trodden path, lying like a loosely thrown-down string, over the hill pasture-land which cut ashley village off from crittenden's mill. it was to get around this rough tract that the road had to make so long a detour. "oh, i see," said mr. welles. "i'd been thinking that it must bother them a lot to come the two miles along the road from the village." "sure," said paul. "only the ones that have got fords come that way. this is ever so much shorter. those that step along fast can make it easy in twelve or fifteen minutes. there they come now, the first of them." he nodded backward along the path where a distant dark line of men came treading swiftly and steadily forward, tin pails glistening in their hands. "some of those in that first bunch are really choppers by rights," paul diagnosed them with a practised eye, "but of course nobody does much chopping come warmer weather. but father never lays off any men unless they want to be. he fixes some jobs for them in the lumber-yard or in the mill, so they live here all the year around, same's the regular hands." the two stood still now, watching the men as their long, powerful strides brought them rapidly nearer. back of them the sun rose up splendid in the sparkling, dustless mountain air. the pasture grass on either side of the sinuous path lay shining in the dew. before them the path led through a grove of slim, white birches, tremulous in a pale cloud of light green. "well, they've got a pretty good way to get to their work, all right," commented mr. welles. "yep, pretty good," agreed paul. "it's got tramped down so it's quite smooth." a detachment of the file of tall, strongly built, roughly dressed men had now reached them, and with friendly, careless nods and greetings to paul, they swung by, smoking, whistling, calling out random remarks and jokes back and forth along the line. "hello, frank. hello, mike. hello, harry. hello, jom-bastiste. hello, jim." paul made answer to their repeated, familiar, "hello, paul." * * * * * mr. welles drew back humbly from out their path. these were men, useful to the world, strong for labor. he must needs stand back with the child. with entire unexpectedness, he felt a wistful envy of those men, still valid, still fit for something. for a moment it did not seem as sweet as he had thought it would always be, to feel himself old, old and useless. ii april 12. he was impatient to be at the real work of gardening and one morning applied seriously to mrs. crittenden to be set at work. surely this must be late enough, even in this "suburb of the north pole," as vincent called vermont. well, yes, mrs. crittenden conceded to him, stopping her rapid manipulation of an oiled mop on the floor of her living-room, if he was in such a hurry, he could start getting the ground ready for the sweet peas. it wouldn't do any harm to plant them now, though it might not do any good either; and he mustn't be surprised to find occasional chunks of earth still frozen. she would be over in a little while to show him about it. let him get his pick-mattock, spade, and rake ready, up by the corner of his stone wall. * * * * * he was waiting there, ten minutes later, the new implements (bought at mrs. crittenden's direction days and days ago) leaning against the wall. the sun was strong and sweet on his bared white head, the cool earth alive under his feet, freed from the tension of frost which had held it like stone when he had first trod his garden. he leaned against the stone wall, laid a century ago by who knew what other gardener, and looked down respectfully at the strip of ground along the stones. there it lay, blank and brown, shabby with the litter of broken, sodden stems of last year's weeds, and unsightly with half-rotten lumps of manure. and that would feed and nourish . . . for an instant there stood there before his flower-loving eyes the joyful tangle of fresh green vines, the pearly many-colored flesh of the petals, their cunning, involved symmetry of form--all sprung from a handful of wrinkled yellow seeds and that ugly mixture of powdered stone and rotten decay. it was a wonderful business, he thought. mrs. crittenden emerged from her house now, in a short skirt, rough heavy shoes, and old flannel shirt. she looked, he thought, ever so trig and energetic and nice; but suddenly aware that vincent was gazing idly out of an upper window at them, he guessed that the other man would not admire the costume. vincent was so terribly particular about how ladies dressed, he thought to himself, as he moved forward, mattock in hand. "i'm ashamed to show you how dumb i am about the use of these tools," he told her, laughing shamefacedly. "i don't suppose you'll believe me, but honestly i never had a pick-mattock in my hand till i went down to the store to buy one. i might as well go the whole hog and confess i'd never even heard of one till you told me to get it. is this the way you use it?" he jabbed ineffectually at the earth with the mattock, using a short tight blow with a half-arm movement. the tool jarred itself half an inch into the ground and was almost twisted out of his hand. "no, not quite," she said, taking the heavy tool out of his hand. if she were aware of the idle figure at the upper window, she gave no sign of it. she laid her strong, long, flexible hands on the handle, saying, "so, you hold it this way. then you swing it up, back of your head. there's a sort of knack to that. you'll soon catch it. and then, if the ground isn't very hard, you don't need to use any strength at all on the downward stroke. let old mother gravity do the work. if you aim it right, its own weight is enough for ordinary garden soil, that's not in sod. now watch." she swung the heavy tool up, shining in the bright air, all her tall, supple body drawn up by the swing of her arms, cried out, "see, now i relax and just let it fall," and bending with the downward rush of the blade, drove it deep into the brown earth. a forward thrust of the long handle ("see, you use it like a lever," she explained), a small earthquake in the soil, and the tool was free for another stroke. at her feet was a pool of freshly stirred fragments of earth, loose, friable, and moist, from which there rose in a gust of the spring breeze, an odor unknown to the old man and thrilling. he stooped down, thrust his hand into the open breast of earth, and took up a handful of the soil which had lain locked in frost for half a year and was now free for life again. over it his eyes met those of the beautiful woman beside him. she nodded. "yes, there's nothing like it, the smell of the first earth stirred every spring." he told her, wistfully, "it's the very first stirred in all my life." they had both lowered their voices instinctively, seeing vincent emerge from the house-door and saunter towards them immaculate in a gray suit. mr. welles was not at all glad to see him at this moment. "here, let me have the mattock," he said, taking it out of mrs. crittenden's hands, "i want to try it myself." he felt an anticipatory impatience of vincent's everlasting talk, to which mrs. crittenden always had, of course, to give a polite attention; and imitating as well as he could, the free, upward swing of his neighbor, he began working off his impatience on the unresisting earth. but he could not help hearing that, just as he expected, vincent plunged at once into his queer, abrupt talk. he always seemed to think he was going right on with something that had been said before, but really, for the most part, as far as mr. welles could see, what he said had nothing to do with anything. mrs. crittenden must really be a very smart woman, he reflected, to seem to know what he meant, and always to have an answer ready. vincent, shaking his head, and looking hard at mrs. crittenden's rough clothes and the handful of earth in her fingers, said with an air of enforced patience with obvious unreasonableness, "you're on the wrong track, you know. you're just all off. of course with you it can't be pose as it looks when other people do it. it must be simply muddle-headed thinking." he added, very seriously, "you infuriate me." mr. welles, pecking feebly at the ground, the heavy mattock apparently invested with a malicious life of its own, twisting perversely, heavily lop-sided in his hands, thought that this did not sound like a polite thing to say to a lady. and yet the way vincent said it made it sound like a compliment, somehow. no, not that; but as though it were awfully important to him what mrs. crittenden did. perhaps that counted as a compliment. he caught only a part of mrs. crittenden's answer, which she gave, lightly laughing, as though she did not wish to admit that vincent could be so serious as he sounded. the only part he really heard was when she ended, ". . . oh, if we are ever going to succeed in forcing order on the natural disorder of the world, it's going to take everybody's shoulder to the wheel. women can't stay ornamental and leisurely, and elegant, nor even always nice to look at." mr. welles, amazed at the straining effort he needed to put forth to manage that swing which mrs. crittenden did so easily, took less than his usual small interest in the line of talk which vincent was so fond of springing on their neighbor. he heard him say, with his air of always stating a foregone conclusion, something so admitted that it needed no emphasis, "it's haroldbellwrightism, pure and simple, to imagine that anything you can ever do, that anybody can ever do, will help bring about the kind of order _you're_ talking about, order for everybody. the only kind of order there ever will be, is what you get when you grab a little of what you want out of the chaos, for your own self, while there's still time, and hold on to it. that's the only way to get anywhere for yourself. and as for doing something for other people, the only satisfaction you can give anybody is in beauty." mr. welles swam out of the breakers into clear water. suddenly he caught the knack of the upward swing, and had the immense satisfaction of bringing the mattock down squarely, buried to the head in the earth. "there!" he said proudly to mrs. crittenden, "how's that for fine?" he looked up at her, wiping the sweat from his forehead. he wondered for an instant if she really looked troubled, or if he only imagined it. there was no doubt about how vincent looked, as though he thought mr. welles, exulting over a blow with a mattock, an old imbecile in his dotage. mr. welles never cared very much whether he seemed to vincent like an old imbecile or not, and certainly less than nothing about it today, intoxicated as he was with the air, the sun, and his new mastery over the soil. he set his hands lovingly to the tool and again and again swung it high over his head, while vincent and mrs. crittenden strolled away, still talking. . . . "doesn't it depend on what you mean by 'beauty'?" mrs. crittenden was saying. chapter vii the night-blooming cereus _an evening in the life of mrs. neale crittenden_ april 20. nowadays she so seldom spoke or acted without knowing perfectly well what she was about, that marise startled herself almost as much as her callers by turning over that leaf in the photograph album quickly and saying with abruptness, "no, never mind about that one. it's nothing interesting." of course this brought out from paul and little mark, hanging over her shoulder and knee, the to-be-expected shouts of, "oh, let's see it! what is it?" marise perceived that they scented something fine and exciting such as mother was always trying to keep from them, like one man choking another over the edge of a cliff, or a woman lying on her back with the blood all running from her throat. whenever pictures like that were in any of the magazines that came into the house, marise took them away from the little boys, although she knew helplessly that this naturally made them extremely keen not to miss any chance to catch a glimpse of such a one. she could see that they thought it queer, there being anything so exciting in this old album of dull snapshots and geographical picture-postcards of places and churches and ruins and things that father and mother had seen, so long ago. but you never could tell. the way mother had spoken, the sound of her voice, the way she had flapped down the page quick, the little boys' practised ears and eyes had identified all that to a certainty with the actions that accompanied pictures she didn't want them to see. so, of course, they clamored, "oh _yes_, mother, just one look!" elly as usual said nothing, looking up into mother's face. marise was extremely annoyed. she was glad that elly was the only one who was looking at her, because, of course, dear old mr. welles' unobservant eyes didn't count. she was glad that mr. marsh kept his gaze downward on the photograph marked "rome from the pincian gardens," although through the top of his dark, close-cropped head she could fairly feel the racing, inquiring speculations whirling about. nor had she any right to resent that. she supposed people had a right to what went on in their own heads, so long as they kept it to themselves. and it had been unexpectedly delicate and fine, the way he had come to understand, without a syllable spoken on either side, that that piercing look of his made her uneasy; and how he had promised her, wordlessly always, to bend it on her no more. _why_ in the world had it made her uneasy, and why, a thousand times why, had she felt this sudden unwillingness to look at the perfectly commonplace photograph, in this company? something had burst up from the subconscious and flashed its way into action, moving her tongue to speak and her hand to action before she had the faintest idea it was there . . . like an action of youth! and see what a silly position it had put her in! the little boys had succeeded with the inspired tactlessness of children in emphasizing and exaggerating what she had wished could be passed over unnoticed, a gesture of hers as inexplicable to her as to them. oh well, the best thing, of course, was to carry it off matter-of-factly, turn the leaf back, and _let_ them see it. and then refute them by insisting on the literal truth of what she had said. "there!" she said carelessly; "look at it then." the little boys bent their eager faces over it. paul read out the title as he had been doing for the other photographs, "'view of the campagna from the top of the cable-railway at rocca di papa. rome in the distance.'" she had to sustain, for an instant, an astonished and disconcerted look from all those eyes. it made her quite genuinely break into a laugh. it was really a joke on them. she said to the little boys mischievously, "what did mother say? do you find it very interesting?" paul and mark stared hard at the very dull photograph of a cliff and a plain and not even a single person or donkey in it, and gave up the riddle. mother certainly _had_ spoken to them in that hide-it-away-from-the-children voice, and yet there was nothing there. marise knew that they felt somehow that mother had unfairly slipped out between their fingers, as grown-ups are always doing. well, it wasn't fair. she hated taking advantage of them like that. it was a sort of sin against their awakening capacity to put two and two together and make a human total, and understand what went on about them. but it hadn't been against _their_ capacity to put two and two together that she had instinctively thrown up that warding-off arm, which hadn't at all warded off attention, but rather drawn it hard and scrutinizing, in spite of those down-dropped sharp eyes. well, there was no sum he could do with only two, and slight probability he would ever get the other two to put with it . . . whatever the other two might be. mr. welles' pleasant old voice said, "it's a very pretty picture, i'm sure. they certainly have very fine views about the eternal city. i envy you your acquaintance with all those historic spots. what is the next one?" dear old mr. welles! what a restful presence! how unutterably sweet and uncomplicated life could be with a good big dose of simplicity holding everything in a clear solution, so that it never occurred to you that what things seemed was very different from what they were. "ready to turn over, dears?" she asked the little boys. this time she was in her usual control of the machine, regulated what she did from the first motion to the last, made her voice casual but not elaborately so, and put one arm around mark's slim little shoulder with just the right degree of uninterest in those old and faded photographs. very deep down, at the edge of consciousness, something asked her, "why did you try to hide that photograph?" she could not answer this question. she didn't know why, any more than the little boys did. and it wouldn't do now, with the need to be mistress-of-the-house till a call ended, to stop to try to think it out. later on, tonight, after the children were in bed, when she was brushing her hair . . . oh, probably she'd find as you so often did, when you went after the cause of some unexpected little feeling, that it came from a meaningless fortuitous association of ideas, like elly's hatred of grape-jelly because she had once taken some bitter medicine in it. "'view of the roman aqueduct, taken from the tramway line to tivoli,'" read out paul. "very pretty view," said mr. welles. mr. marsh's silences were as abysmal as his speech was niagara-like on occasion. he said nothing. elly stirred and looked toward the doorway. touclã© stood there, her shoe-button eyes not blinking in the lamp-light although she probably had been sitting on the steps of the kitchen, looking out into the darkness, in the long, motionless vigil which made up touclã©'s evenings. as they all turned their faces towards her, she said, "the cereus is going to bloom tonight," and disappeared. marise welcomed this diversion. ever since that absurd little gesture about the photograph, she had felt thickening about her . . . what? what you call "depression" (whatever that meant), the dull hooded apparition that came blackly and laid its leaden hand on your heart. this news was just the thing. it would change what was threatening to stand stagnant and charge it with fresh running currents. she got up briskly to her feet. "come on, children," she said. "i'll let you sit up beyond bed-time tonight. scatter quick, and put on your things. we'll all go down the road to the powers house and see the cereus in bloom." the children ducked quickly out of the room, thudding along softly in their felt slippers. scramblings, chatterings, and stamping sounded back from the front hall, as they put on their boots and wraps. "wouldn't you like to come, too?" she asked the men, rescuing them from the rather high-and-dry position in which this unexpected incident had left them. it was plainly, from their faces, as inexplicable as unexpected. she explained, drawing a long, plain, black silk scarf closely about her head and shoulders, "why, yes, do come. it's an occasion as uniquely ashleyian as pelota is basque. you, mr. marsh, with your exhaustive inquiries into the habits and manners of vermont mountaineers, your data won't be complete unless you've seen nelly powers' night-blooming cereus in its one hour of glory. seriously, i assure you, you won't encounter anything like it, anywhere else." as marsh looked at her, she noted with an inward amusement that her words had lighted a smouldering glow of carefully repressed exasperation in his eyes. it made her feel quite gay and young to be teasing somebody again. she was only paying him back in his own coin. he himself was always telling everybody about his deep interest in the curious quaint ways of these mountaineers. and if he didn't have a deep interest in their curious quaint ways, what else could he give as a reason for staying on in the valley? the men turned away to get their hats. she settled the folds of her heavy black silk mantilla more closely about her head, glancing at herself in the mirror. she smiled back with sympathy at the smiling face she saw there. it was not so often since the war that she saw her own face lighted with mirth. gravely, something deep on the edge of the unconscious called up to her, "you are talking and feeling like a coquette." she was indignant at this, up in arms to defend human freedom. "oh, what a hateful, little-villagey, prudish, nasty-minded idea!" she cried to herself. "who would have thought that narrowness and priggishness could rub off on a person's mind like that! mrs. bayweather could have thought that! mercy! as if one civilized being can't indulge in a light touch or two in human intercourse with another!" the two men were ready now and all the party of six jostled each other cheerfully as they went out of the front door. paul had secured the hand of old mr. welles and led him along with an air of proprietary affection. "don't you turn out the lamp, or lock the door, or _any_thing?" asked the old man, now. "oh no, we won't be gone long. it's not more than half a mile to the powers'. there's not a soul in the valley who would think of going in and rummaging . . . let alone taking anything. and we never have tramps. we are too far from the railroad," said marise. "_well!_" exclaimed the other, looking back as they went down the path, "it certainly looks queer to me, the door standing open into this black night, and the light shining in that empty room." elly looked back too. she slipped her hand out of her mother's and ran towards the house. she darted up to the door and stood there, poised like a swallow, looking in. "what does she want?" asked mr. welles with the naã¯ve conviction of the elderly bachelor that the mother must know everything in the child's mind. "i don't know," admitted marise. "nobody ever knows exactly what is in elly's mind when she does things. maybe she is looking to see that her kitten is safe." the little girl ran back to them. "what did you want, dear?" asked her mother. "i just wanted to look at it again," said elly. "i _like_ it, like that, all quiet, with nobody in it. the furniture looks as though it were having a good rest from us." "oh, listen to the frogs!" screamed mark, out of the darkness where he had run to join touclã©. elly and paul sprang forward to join their little brother. * * * * * "what in the world are we going to see?" asked marsh. "you forget you haven't given us the least idea." "you are going to see," marise set herself to amuse them, "you're going to see a rite of the worship of beauty which ashley, vermont, has created out of its own inner consciousness." she had succeeded in amusing at least one of them, for at this mr. marsh gave her the not disagreeable shock of that singular, loud laugh of his. it was in conversation like something-or-other in the orchestra . . . the cymbals, that must be it . . . made you jump, and tingle with answering vibrations. "ashleyians in the rã´le of worshipers of beauty!" he cried, out of the soft, moist, dense darkness about them. "none so blind as those who won't see," she persisted. "just because they go to it in overalls and gingham aprons, instead of peplums and sandals." "what _is_ a night-blooming cereal?" asked mr. welles, patient of the verbose by-play of his companions that never got anybody anywhere. what an old dear mr. welles was! thought marise. it was like having the sweetest old uncle bestowed on you as a pendant to dear cousin hetty. ". . . -eus, not -eal," murmured marsh; "not that i know any more than you what it is." marise felt suddenly wrought upon by the mildness of the spring air, the high, tuneful shrillness of the frogs' voices, the darkness, sweet and thick. she would not amuse them; no, she would really tell them, move them. she chose the deeper intonations of her voice, she selected her words with care, she played upon her own feeling, quickening it into genuine emotion as she spoke. she would make them feel it too. "it is a plant of the cactus family, as native to america as is ashley's peculiar sense of beauty which you won't acknowledge. it is as ugly to look at, the plant is, all spines and thick, graceless, fleshy pads; as ugly as ashley life looks to you. and this crabbed, ungainly plant-creature is faithfully, religiously tended all the year around by the wife of a farmer, because once a year, just once, it puts forth a wonderful exotic flower of extreme beauty. when the bud begins to show its color she sends out word to all her neighbors to be ready. and we are all ready. for days, in the back of our minds as we go about our dull, routine life, there is the thought that the cereus is near to bloom. nelly and her grim husband hang over it day by day, watching it slowly prepare for its hour of glory. sometimes when they cannot decide just the time it will open, they sit up all through a long night, hour after hour of darkness and silence, to make sure that it does not bloom unseen. when they see that it is about to open, they fling open their doors, wishing above everything else to share that beauty with their fellows. their children are sent to announce, as you heard touclã© say tonight, 'the cereus is going to bloom.' and all up and down this end of the valley, in those ugly little wooden houses that look so mean and dreary to you, everywhere people tired from their day's struggle with the earth, rise up and go their pilgrimage through the night . . . for what? to see something rare and beautiful." she stopped speaking. on one side of her she heard the voice of the older man say with a quiver, "well, i can understand why your neighbors love you." with entire unexpectedness marsh answered fiercely from the other side, "_they_ don't love her! they're not capable of it!" marise started, as though a charged electric wire had fallen across her arm. why was there so often a note of anger in his voice? for a moment they advanced silently, pacing forward, side by side, unseen but not unfelt by each of the others. the road turned now and they were before the little house, every window alight, the great pine somber and high before it. the children and touclã© were waiting at the door. they all went in together, shaking hands with the mistress of the house, neatly dressed, with a clean, white flounced apron. "nelly's garment of ceremony!" thought marise. nelly acknowledged, with a graceful, silent inclination of her shining blonde head, the presence of the two strangers whom marise presented to her. what an inscrutable fascination nelly's silence gave to her! you never knew what strange thoughts were going on behind that proud taciturnity. she showed the guests to chairs, of which a great many, mostly already filled, stood about the center table, on which sprawled the great, spiny, unlovely plant. marise sat down, taking little mark on her knees. elly leaned against her. paul sat close beside old mr. welles. their eyes were on the big pink bud enthroned in the uncomeliness of the shapeless leafpads. "oh!" said elly, under her breath, "it's not open yet! we're going to _see_ it open, this time!" she stared at it, her lips parted. her mother looked at her, tenderly aware that the child was storing away an impression to last her life long. dear, strangely compounded little elly, with her mysticism, and her greediness and her love of beauty all jumbled together! a neighbor leaned from her chair to say to mrs. crittenden, "warm for this time of year, ain't it?" and another remarked, looking at mark's little trousers, "that material come out real good, didn't it? i made up what i got of it, into a dress for pearl." they both spoke in low tones, but constrained or sepulchral, for they smiled and nodded as though they had meant something else and deeper than what they had said. they looked with a kindly expression for moment at the crittenden children and then turned back to their gaze on the flower-bud. nelly powers, walking with a singular lightness for so tall a woman, ushered in another group of visitors--a tall, unshaven farmer, his wife, three little children clumping in on shapeless cow-hide boots, and a baby, fast asleep, its round bonneted head tucked in the hollow of its mother's gingham-clad shoulder. they sat down, nodding silent greetings to the other neighbors. in turning to salute them, marise caught a glimpse of mr. marsh, fixing his brilliant scrutiny first on one and then on another of the company. at that moment he was gazing at nelly powers, "taking her in" thought marise, from her beautiful hair to those preposterously high-heeled shoes she always would wear on her shapely feet. his face was impassive. when he looked neutral like that, the curious irregularity of his features came out strongly. he looked like that bust of julius caesar, the bumpy, big-nosed, strong-chinned one, all but that thick, closely cut, low-growing head of dark hair. she glanced at mr. welles, and was surprised to find that he was looking neither at the people nor the plant. his arm was around his favorite paul, but his gaze seemed turned inward, as though he were thinking of something very far away. he looked tired and old, it seemed to her, and without that quietly shining aspect of peace which she found so touching. perhaps he was tired. perhaps she ought not to have brought him out, this evening, for that long walk over rough country roads. how much older he was than his real age in years! his life had used him up. there must have been some inner maladjustment in it! there was a little stir in the company, a small inarticulate sound from elly. marise saw everyone's eyes turn to the center of the room and looked back to the plant. the big pink bud was beginning visibly to swell. a silence came into the room. no one coughed, or stirred, or scraped a chair-leg. it was as though a sound would have wounded the flower. all those human souls bowed themselves. almost a light shone upon them . . . a phrase from dante came to marise's mind . . . "_la mia menta fu percossa da un fulgore_ . . ." with a quick involuntary turn she looked at marsh, fearing his mockery of her, "quoting the _paradiso_, about vermont farmers!" as though he could know, for all those sharp eyes of his, what was going on hidden in her mind! all this came and went in an instant, for she now saw that one big, shining petal was slowly, slowly, but quite visibly uncurling at the tip. from that moment on, she saw nothing, felt nothing but the opening flower, lived only in the incredibly leisurely, masterful motion with which the grotesquely shaped protecting petals curled themselves back from the center. their motion was so slow that the mind was lost in dreaminess in following it. had that last one moved? no, it stood still, poised breathlessly . . . and yet, there before them, revealed, exultant, the starry heart of the great flower shimmered in the lamp-light. * * * * * then she realized that she had not breathed. she drew in a great marveling aspiration, and heard everyone about her do the same. they turned to each other with inarticulate exclamations, shaking their heads wonderingly, their lips a little apart as they drew long breaths. two very old women, rubbing their age-dimmed eyes, stood up, tiptoed to the table, and bent above the miraculously fine texture of the flower their worn and wrinkled faces. the petals cast a clear, rosy reflection upon their sallow cheeks. some of the younger mothers took their little children over to the table and lifting them up till their round shining eyes were on a level with the flower, let them gaze their fill at the mysterious splendor of stamen and pistil. "would you like to go quite close and look at it, children?" marise asked her own brood. the little boys stepped forward at once, curiously, but elly said, "no, oh _no!_" and backed off till she stood leaning against touclã©'s knee. the old woman put her dark hand down gently on the child's soft hair and smiled at her. how curious it was to see that grim, battered old visage smile! elly was the only creature in the world at whom the old indian ever smiled, indeed almost the only thing in the house which those absent old eyes ever seemed to see. marise remembered that touclã© had smiled when she first took the baby elly in her arms. * * * * * a little murmur of talk arose now, from the assembled neighbors. they stood up, moved about, exchanged a few laconic greetings, and began putting their wraps on. marise remembered that mr. welles had seemed tired and as soon as possible set her party in motion. "thank you so much, nelly, for letting us know," she said to the farmer's wife, as they came away. "it wouldn't seem like a year in our valley if we didn't see your cereus in bloom." she took elly's hand in one of hers, and with mark on the other side walked down the path to the road. the darkness was intense there, because of the gigantic pine-tree which towered above the little house. "are you there, paul?" she called through the blackness. the little boy's voice came back, "yes, with touclã©, we're ahead." the two men walked behind. elly's hand was hot and clasped her mother's very tightly. marise bent over the little girl and divined in the darkness that she was crying. "why, elly darling, what's the matter?" she asked. the child cried out passionately, on a mounting note, "nothing, nothing! _nothing!_" she flung her arms around her mother's neck, straining her close in a wild embrace. little mark, on the other side, yawned and staggered sleepily on his feet. elly gave her mother a last kiss, and ran on ahead, calling over her shoulder, "i'm going to walk by myself!" "_well!_" commented the old gentleman. mr. marsh had not been interested in this episode and had stood gazing admiringly up at the huge pine-tree, divining its bulk and mass against the black sky. "like milton's satan, isn't it?" was his comment as they walked on, "with apologies for the triteness of the quotation." for a time nothing was said, and then marsh began, "now i've seen it, your rite of the worship of beauty. and do you know what was really there? a handful of dull, insensitive, primitive beings, hardened and calloused by manual toil and atrophied imaginations, so starved for any variety in their stupefyingly monotonous life that they welcome anything, anything at all as a break . . . only if they could choose, they would infinitely prefer a two-headed calf or a bearded woman to your flower. the only reason they go to see that is because it is a curiosity, not because of its beauty, because it blooms once a year only, at night, and because there is only one of them in town. also because everybody else goes to see it. they go to look at it only because there aren't any movies in ashley, nor anything else. and you know all this just as well as i do." "oh, mr. welles," marise appealed to him, "do you think that is the truth of the facts?" the old man pronounced judgment gently. "well, i don't know that _any_thing is the truth. i should say that both of you told the truth about it. the truth's pretty big for any one person to tell. isn't it all in the way you look at it?" he added, "only personally i think mrs. crittenden's the nicest way." marsh was delighted with this. "there! i hope you're satisfied. you've been called 'nice.' that ought to please any good american." "i wonder, mr. welles," marise said in an ostentatiously casual tone, "i wonder if mr. marsh had been an ancient greek, and had stood watching the procession going up the acropolis hill, bearing the thank-offerings from field and loom and vineyard, what do you suppose he would have seen? dullness and insensitiveness in the eyes of those grecian farmer-lads, no doubt, occupied entirely with keeping the oxen in line; a low vulgar stare of bucolic curiosity as the country girls, bearing their woven linen, looked up at the temple. don't you suppose he would have thought they managed those things a great deal more artistically in persia?" "well, i don't know much about the ancient greeks," said mr. welles mildly, "but i guess vincent would have been about the same wherever he lived." "who is satisfied with the verdict now?" triumphed marise. but she noticed that marsh's attack, although she considered that she had refuted it rather neatly, had been entirely; efficacious in destroying the aura of the evening. of the genuine warmth of feeling which the flower and the people around it had roused in her heart, not the faintest trace was left. she had only a cool interested certainty that her side had a perfectly valid foundation for arguing purposes. mr. marsh had accomplished that, and more than that, a return from those other centers of feeling to her preoccupation with his own personality. he now went on, "but i'm glad to have gone. i saw a great deal else there than your eccentric plant and the vacancy of mind of those sons of toil, cursed, soul-destroying toil. for one thing, i saw a woman of very great beauty. and that is always so much gained." "oh yes," cried marise, "that's so. i forgot that you could see that. i've grown so used to the fact that people here don't understand how splendidly handsome nelly powers is. their taste doesn't run to the statuesque, you know. they call that grand silent calm of her, stupidness! ever since 'gene brought her here as a bride, a year after we came to live in crittenden's, i have gone out of my way to look at her. you should see her hanging out the clothes on a windy day. one sculptured massive pose after another. but even to see her walk across the room and bend that shining head is thrilling." "i saw something else, too," went on marsh, a cool voice speaking out of the darkness. "i saw that her black, dour husband is furiously in love with her and furiously jealous of that tall, ruddy fellow with an expressive face, who stood by the door in shirt-sleeves and never took his eyes from her." marise was silent, startled by this shouting out of something she had preferred not to formulate. "vincent, you see too much," said mr. welles resignedly. the phrase ran from his tongue as though it were a familiar one. marise said slowly, "i've sometimes thought that frank warner did go to the powers' a good deal, but i haven't wanted to think anything more." "what possible reason in the world have you for not wanting to?" asked marsh with the most authentic accent of vivid and astonished curiosity. "what reason . . . ?" she repeated blankly. he said dispassionately, "i don't like to hear _you_ make such a flat, conventional, rubber-stamp comment. why in the world shouldn't she love a fine, ardent, _living_ man, better than that knotty, dead branch of a husband? a beautiful woman and a living, strong, vital man, they belong together. whom god hath joined . . . don't try to tell me that your judgment is maimed by the chinese shoes of outworn ideas, such as the binding nature of a mediaeval ceremony. that doesn't marry anybody, and you know it. if she's really married to her husband, all right. but if she loves another man, and knows in her heart that she would live a thousand times more fully, more deeply with him . . . why, she's _not_ married to her husband, and nothing can make her. you know that!" marise sprang at the chance to turn his own weapons of mockery against him. "upon my word, who's idealizing the yankee mountaineer now?" she cried, laughing out as she spoke at the idea of her literal-minded neighbors dressed up in those trailing rhetorical robes. "i thought you said they were so dull and insensitive they could feel nothing but an interest in two-headed calves, and here they are, characters in an italian opera. i only wish nelly powers were capable of understanding those grand languages of yours and then know what she thought of your idea of what's in her mind. and as for 'gene's jealousy, i'll swear that it amounts to no more than a vague dislike for frank warner's 'all the time hanging around and gassin' instead of stickin' to work.' and you forget, in your fine modern clean-sweep, a few old-fashioned facts like the existence of three powers children, dependent on their mother." "you're just fencing, not really talking," he answered imperturbably. "you can't pretend to be sincere in trying to pull that antimacassar home-and-mother stuff on me. ask bernard shaw, ask freud, ask mrs. gilman, how good it is for children's stronger, better selves, to live in the enervating, hot-house concentration on them of an unbalanced, undeveloped woman, who has let everything else in her personality atrophy except her morbid preoccupation with her own offspring. that's really the meaning of what's sentimentally called 'mothering.' probably it would be the best thing in the world for the powers children if their mother ran away with that fine broth of a lad." "but nelly loves her children and they love her!" marise brought this out abruptly, impulsively, and felt, as she heard the words, that they had a flat, naã¯ve sound, out of key with the general color of this talk, like a c major chord introduced into debussy nuances. "not much she doesn't, nor they her. any honest observer of life knows that the only sincere relation possible between the young and the old (after the babies are weaned) is hostility. we hated our elders, because they got in our way. and they'll hate us as soon as they get the strength to, because we'll be in their way. and we will hate them because they will want to push us off the scene. it's impossible to ignore the gulf. most human tragedies come from trying to pretend it's not there." "why, mr. welles," cried marise again, "what do you say to such talk? don't you find him perfectly preposterous?" mr. welles answered a little absently. "oh, i'm pretty well used to him, by now. and all his friends in the city are talking like that now. it's the fashion. i'm so old that i've seen a good many fashions in talk come and go. i never could see that people _acted_ any differently, no matter which way they talk." as he finished, he drew a long sigh, which had obviously no connection with what he had been saying. with the sigh, came an emanation from him of dispirited fatigue. marise wished she dared draw his hand upon her arm and ask him to lean on her as they walked. nothing more was said for a time. marise lost herself in the outdoor wideness of impression that always came to her under a night sky, where she felt infinity hovering near. she was aware of nothing but the faint voice of the pines, the distant diminuendo of the frog's song, the firm elastic quality of the ground under her feet, so different from the iron rigidity of the winter earth, and the cool soft pressure of the night-air on her cheeks, when, like something thrust into her mind from the outside, there rose into her consciousness, articulate and complete, the reason why she had shrunk from looking at the photograph of rocca di papa. it was because it was painful to her, intimately painful and humiliating to remember how she and neale had felt there, the wild, high things they had said to each other, that astounding flood of feeling which had swept them away at the last. what had become of all that? where now was that high tide? * * * * * of course she loved neale, and he loved her; there was nobody like neale, yes, all that; but oh! the living flood had been ebbing, ebbing out of their hearts. they were not _alive_ as they had been alive when they had clung to each other, there on that age-old rock, and felt the tide of all the ages lift them high. it must have been ebbing for a long time before she realized it because, hurried, absorbed, surrounded incessantly by small cares as she was, hustled and jostled in her rã´le of mother and mistress-of-the-house in servantless america, with the primitive american need to do so much with her own hands, she had not even had the time to know the stupid, tragic thing that was happening to her . . . that she was turning into a slow, vegetating plant instead of a human being. and now she understood the meaning of the strange dejection she had felt the day when little mark went off to school with the others. how curiously jaded and apprehensive she had felt that morning, and when she had gone downstairs to see the callers who arrived that day. that was the first time she had _felt_ that the tide was ebbing. all this went through her mind with the cruel swiftness of a sword-flash. and the first reaction to it, involuntary and reflex, was to crush it instantly down, lest the man walking at her side should be aware of it. it had come to her with such loud precision that it seemed it must have been audible. as she found herself still on the dark country road, cloaked and protected by the blackness of the starless night, she was struck with wonder, as though she had never thought of it before, at the human body, its opaque, inscrutable mystery, the locked, sealed strong-box of unimaginable secrets which it is. there they were, the three of them, stepping side by side, brushing each other as they moved; and as remote from each other as though they were on different stars. what were the thoughts, powerful, complex, under perfect control, which were being marshaled in that round, dark head? she felt a little afraid to think; and turned from the idea to the other man with relief. she knew (she told herself) as though she saw inside, the tired, gentle, simple, wistful thoughts that filled the white head on her other side. with this, they were again at the house, where the children and touclã© had preceded them. paul was laughing and saying, "elly's the looniest kid! she's just been saying that father is like . . ." elly, in a panic, sprang up at him, clapping her hand over his mouth, crying out, "no, paul, you shan't tell! _don't!_" the older, stronger child pulled himself away and, holding her at arm's length, continued, "she said father was like the end of her hair that's fastened into her head, and mother was the end that flaps in the wind, and mr. marsh was like the eagle rock brook, swirly and hurrying the way it is in the spring." elly, half crying, came to her mother. "mother, it's nasty-horrid in paul to tell when i didn't want him to." marise began taking off the little girl's coat. "it wasn't very kind in paul, but there was nothing in those funny little fancies to hide, dear." "i didn't care about you and father!" explained the child. "only . . ." she looked at mr. marsh from under downbent brows. "why, elly, i am very much complimented, i'm sure," marsh hastened to tell her, "to be compared with such a remarkably nice thing as a brook in spring-time. i didn't suppose any young lady would ever have such a poetic idea about me." "oh . . ." breathed elly, relieved, "well . . ." "do you suppose you little folks can get yourselves to bed without me?" asked marise. "if one of you big children will unbutton mark in the back, he can manage the rest. i must set a bread-sponge before i go upstairs." they clung to her imploringly. "but you'll be upstairs in time to kiss us good-night in our beds," begged elly and mark together. paul also visibly hung on his mother's answer. marise looked down into their clear eyes and eager faces, reaching out to her ardently, and she felt her heart melt. what darlings they were! what inestimable treasures! how sweet to be loved like that! she stooped over them and gathered them all into a great armful, kissing them indiscriminately. "yes, of course, i will . . . and give you an extra kiss now!" she cried. she felt marsh's eyes on her, sardonically. she straightened herself, saying with affectionate roughness, "there, that's enough. scamper along with you. and don't run around with bare feet!" she thought to herself that she supposed this was the sort of thing marsh meant when he spoke about hot-house enervating concentration. she had been more stung by that remark of his than she had been willing to acknowledge to marsh or to herself. but for the moment, any further reflection on it was cut short by the aspect of mr. welles' face. he had sunk into a chair near the lamp, with an attitude and an expression of such weariness, that marise moved quickly to him. "see here, mr. welles," she said impulsively, "you have something on your mind, and i've got the mother-habit so fastened on me that i can't be discreet and pretend not to notice it. i want to make you say what the trouble is, and then flu it right, just as i would for one of mine." the old man looked up at her gratefully and reaching out one of his wrinkled hands took hers in it. "it does me good to have you so nice to me," he said, "but i'm afraid even you can't fix it right. i've had a rather distressing letter today, and i can't seem to get it out of my mind." "schwatzkummerer can't send the gladioli," conjectured marsh. for the first time since he had entered the house, marise felt a passing dislike for him. she had often felt him to be hard and ruthless, but she had never seen anything cheap in him, before, she thought. "what was your letter?" she asked the older man. "oh, nothing in the least remarkable, nothing new," he said heavily. "i've got a cousin whom i haven't seen since she was a little little girl, though she must be somewhere near my age, now. she has been a teacher in a school for negroes, down in georgia, for years, most of her life. but i had sort of lost track of her, till i had to send her some little family trinkets that were left after my old aunt died. her letter, that i received today, is in answer to that. and while she was writing, she gave me her news, and told me a good deal about conditions down there. pretty bad, i should think it, pretty bad." a little spasm crossed his face. he shook his head, as though to shake off a clinging filament of importunate thought. "what's the trouble? do they need money, the school?" asked marise with a vague idea of getting up a contribution. "no, my cousin didn't say anything about that. it's not so simple. it's the way the negroes are treated. no, not lynchings, i knew about them. but i knew they don't happen every day. what i hadn't any idea of, till her letter came, was how every day, every minute of every day, they're subject to indignity that they can't avoid, how they're made to feel themselves outsiders and unwelcome in their own country. she says the southern white people are willing to give them anything that will make good day-laborers of them, almost anything in fact except the thing they can't rise without, ordinary human respect. it made a very painful impression on my mind, her letter, very. she gave such instances. i haven't been able to get it out of my mind. for instance, one of the small things she told me . . . it seems incredible . . . is that southern white people won't give the ordinary title of respect of mr. or mrs. or dr. even to a highly educated negro. they call them by their first names, like servants. think what an hourly pin-prick of insult that must be. ever since her letter came, i've been thinking about it, the things she told me, about what happens when they try to raise themselves and refine themselves, how they're made to suffer intimately for trying to be what i thought we all wanted all americans to be." he looked at marise with troubled eyes. "i've been thinking how it would feel to be a negro myself. what a different life would be in front of your little elly if she had negro blood!" marise had listened to him in profound silence. sheer, unmixed astonishment filled her mind, up to the brim. of all the totally unexpected things for mr. welles to get wrought up about! she drew a long breath. how eternally disconcerting human beings are! there she had been so fatuously sure, out there on the walk home, that she knew exactly what was in that old white head. and all the time it had been this. who could have made the faintest guess at that? it occurred to her for the first time that possibly more went on under mr. welles' gently fatigued exterior than she thought. she found not a word to say, so violent and abrupt was the transition of subject. it was as though she had been gazing down through a powerful magnifying glass, trying to untangle with her eyes a complicated twist of moral fibers, inextricably bound up with each other, the moral fibers that made up her life . . . and in the midst of this, someone had roughly shouted in her ear, "look up there, at that distant cliff. there's a rock on it, all ready to fall off!" she could not be expected all of a sudden, that way, to re-focus her eyes. and the rock was so far away. and she had such a dim sense of the people who might be endangered by it. and the confusion here, under the microscope of her attention, was so vital and immediate, needing to be understood and straightened before she could go on with her life. she looked at the old man in an astonishment which she knew must seem fairly stupid to him, but she could not bring out anything else. what was it to her, whether a negro physician was called dr. or "jo"? mr. welles patted her hand, released it, smiled at her kindly, and stood up. "i'm pretty tired. i guess we'd better be getting along home, vincent and i." "well, i should say we _would_ better be getting along home to bed!" agreed the other man, coming forward and slipping his arm under the older man's. "i'll tuck you up, my old friend, with a good hot toddy inside you, and let you sleep off this outrageously crazy daylight nightmare you've cooked up for yourself. and don't wake up with the fate of the japanese factory-hand sitting on your chest, or you'll get hard to live with." mr. welles answered this with literal good faith. "oh, the japanese factory-hands, they're not on the conscience of americans." "but, when i see an aged and harmless inhabitant of ashley, vermont, stretching his poor old protesting conscience till it cracks, to make it reach clear down to the georgia negroes, how do i know where he's going to stop?" the old man turned to their hostess. "well, good-night, mrs. crittenden. i enjoyed seeing that wonderful flower very much. i wonder if i could grow one like it? it would be something to look forward to, to have the flower open in your own house." to marise he looked so sweet and good, and like a tired old child, that she longed to kiss him good-night, as she had her own. but even as she felt the impulse, she had again a startled sense of how much more goes on under the human surface than ever appears. evidently mr. welles, too, was a locked and sealed strong-box of secrets. * * * * * in the doorway marsh stopped abruptly and said, looking at the dense, lustreless black silk wrap about marise's head and shoulders, "what's that thing? i meant to ask you when you put it on." she felt as she often did when he spoke to her, as startled as though he had touched her. what an extraordinarily living presence he was, so that a word from him was almost like an actual personal contact. but she took care not to show this. she looked down casually at the soft, opaque folds of her wrap. "oh, this is a thousand years old. it dates from the bayonne days. it's basque. it's their variation, i imagine, on the spanish mantilla. they never wear hats, the basque women. the little girls, when they have made their first communion, wear a scarf of light net, or open transparent lace. and when they marry they wear this. it's made of a special sort of silk, woven just for this purpose. as far away as you can see a woman in the basque country, if she wears this, you know she's married." "oh, you do, do you?" said marsh, going out after his companion. * * * * * they were very far from the negroes in georgia. chapter viii what goes on inside _half an hour in the life of a modern woman_ may 8. marise looked at the clock. they all three looked at the clock. on school mornings the clock dominated their every instant. marise often thought that the swinging of its great pendulum was as threatening as the pendulum that swung in the pit. back and forth, back and forth, bringing nearer and nearer the knife-edge of its dire threat that nine o'clock would come and the children not be in school. somehow they must all manage to break the bonds that held them there and escape from the death-trap before the fatal swinging menace reached them. the stroke of nine, booming out in that house, would be like the crack o' doom to the children. marise told paul not to eat so fast, and said to elly, who was finishing her lessons and her breakfast together, "i let you do this, this one time, elly, but i don't want you to let it happen again. you had plenty of time yesterday to get that done." she stirred her coffee and thought wistfully, "what a policeman i must seem to the children. i wish i could manage it some other way." elly, her eyes on the book, murmured in a low chanting rhythm, her mouth full of oatmeal, "delaware river, newcastle, brandywine, east branch, west branch, crum creek, schuylkill." paul looked round at the clock again. his mother noted the gesture, the tension of his attitude, his preoccupied expression, and had a quick inner vision of a dirty, ragged, ignorant, gloriously free little boy on a raft on the mississippi river, for whom life was not measured out by the clock, in thimbleful doses, but who floated in a golden liberty on the very ocean of eternity. "why can't we bring them up like huckleberry finns!" she thought, protestingly, pressing her lips together. then she laughed inwardly at the thought of certain sophisticated friends and their opinion of her life. "i daresay we do seem to be bringing them up like huckleberry finns, in the minds of any of the new york friends, eugenia mills for instance!" she remembered with a passing gust of amusement the expression of slightly scared distaste which eugenia had for the children. "too crudely quivering lumps of life-matter for eugenia's taste," she thought, and then, "i wonder what marsh's feeling towards children really is, children in general. he seems to have the greatest capacity to ignore their existence at all. or does he only seem to do that, because i have grown so morbidly conscious of their existence as the only thing vital in life? that's what he thinks, evidently. well, i'd like to have him live a mother's life and see how he'd escape it!" "mother," said paul seriously, "mother, mark isn't even awake yet, and he'll never be ready for school." "oh, his teacher had to go to a wedding today. don't you remember? he doesn't have any school till the afternoon session." she thought to herself, "what a sense of responsibility paul has! he is going to be one of the pillars of the earth, one of those miraculous human beings who are mixed in just the right proportions, so that they aren't pulled two ways at once. _two_ ways! most of us are pulled a thousand ways! it is one of the injustices of the earth that such people aren't loved as much as impulsive, selfish, brilliant natures like dear little mark's. paul has had such a restful personality! even when he was a baby, he was so straight-backed and robust. there's no yellow streak in paul, such as too much imagination lets in. i know all about that yellow streak, alas!" the little boy reached down lovingly, and patted the dog, sitting in a rigid attitude of expectancy by his side. as the child turned the light of his countenance on those adoring dog eyes, the animal broke from his tenseness into a wriggling fever of joy. "'oh, my god, my dear little god!'" quoted marise to herself, watching uneasily the animal's ecstasy of worship. "i wish dogs wouldn't take us so seriously. we don't know so much more than they, about anything." she thought, further, noticing the sweetness of the protecting look which paul gave to mã©dor, "all animals love paul, anyhow. animals know more than humans about lots of things. they haven't that horrid perverse streak in them that makes humans dislike people who are too often in the right. paul is like my poor father. only i'm here to see that paul is loved as father wasn't. mã©dor is not the only one to love paul. _i_ love paul. i love him all the more because he doesn't get his fair share of love. and old mr. welles loves him, too, bless him!" "roanoke river, staunton river, dan river," murmured elly, swallowing down her chocolate. she stroked a kitten curled up on her lap. "what shall i have for lunch today?" thought marise. "there are enough potatoes left to have them creamed." like a stab came the thought, "creamed potatoes to please our palates and thousands of babies in vienna without milk enough to _live_!" she shook the thought off, saying to herself, "well, would it make any difference to those viennese babies if i deprived my children of palatable food?" and was aware of a deep murmur within her, saying only half-articulately, "no, it wouldn't make any literal difference to those babies, but it might make a difference to you. you are taking another step along the road of hardening of heart." all this had been the merest muted arpeggio accompaniment to the steady practical advance of her housekeeper's mind. "and beefsteak . . . mark likes that. at fifty cents a pound! what awful prices. well, neale writes that the canadian lumber is coming through. that'll mean a fair profit. what better use can we put profit to, than in buying the best food for our children's growth. beefsteak is not a sinful luxury!" the arpeggio accompaniment began murmuring, "but the powers children. nelly and 'gene can't afford fifty cents a pound for beefsteak. perhaps part of their little ralph's queerness and abnormality comes from lack of proper food. and those white-cheeked little putnam children in the valley. they probably don't taste meat, except pork, more than once a week." she protested sharply, "but if their father won't work steadily, when there is always work to be had?" and heard the murmuring answer, "why should the children suffer because of something they can't change?" she drew a long breath, brushed all this away with an effort, asking herself defiantly, "oh, what has all this to do with _us_?" and was aware of the answer, "it has everything to do with us, only i can't figure it out." impatiently she proposed to herself, "but while i'm trying to figure it out, wouldn't i better just go ahead and have beefsteak today?" and wearily, "yes, of course, we'll have beefsteak as usual. that's the way i always decide things." she buttered a piece of toast and began to eat it, thinking, "i'm a lovely specimen, anyhow, of a clear-headed, thoughtful modern woman, muddling along as i do." the clock struck the half-hour. paul rose as though the sound had lifted him bodily from his seat. elly did not hear, her eyes fixed dreamily on her kitten, stroking its rounded head, lost in the sensation of the softness of the fur. her mother put out a reluctant hand and touched her quietly. "come, dear elly, about time to start to school." as she leaned across the table, stretching her neck towards the child, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the other side of the room, and thought, "oh, how awful! i begin to look as cousin hetty does, with that scrawny neck. . . ." she repulsed the thought vigorously. "well, what does it matter if i do? there's nothing in my life, any more, that depends on my looking young." at this thought, something perfectly inchoate, which she did not recognize, began clawing at her. she pushed it off, scornfully, and turned to elly, who got up from the table and began collecting her books into her school-bag. her face was rosy and calm with the sweet ineffable confidence of a good child who has only good intentions. as she packed her books together, she said, "well, i'm ready. i've done my grammar, indefinite pronouns, and i can say all those river-tributaries backwards. so now i can start. good-bye, mother dear." marise bent to kiss the shining little face. "good-bye, elly." to herself she thought, as her face was close to the child's, "i wonder if i look to my little girl as cousin hetty used to look to me?" and startled and shocked that the idea kept recurring to her, assuming an importance she was not willing to give it, she cried out to herself, "oh, stop being so paltry about that!" aloud she said, "don't forget to put your rubbers on. have you a clean handkerchief? oh, _elly_, look at your nails! here, hand me the nail-file over there, paul. i'll clean them more quickly than you, dear." as she cleaned the nails, one eye on the grimly relentless clock, the ideas flicked through her mind like quick, darting flames. "what mediaeval nonsense we do stuff into the school-children's head. what an infamous advantage we take of the darlings' trust in us and their docility to our purposes! my dear little daughter with her bright face of desire-to-do-her-best! what wretched chaff she is getting for that quick, imaginative brain of hers! it's not so bad for paul, but . . . oh, even for him what nonsense! rules of grammar, names of figures of speech . . . stuff left over from scholastic hair-splitting! and the tributaries of rivers . . . !" she glanced up for an instant and was struck into remorse by the tranquil expression of peace in the little girl's clear eyes, bent affectionately on her mother. "oh, my poor, darling little daughter," she thought, "how _can_ you trust anything in this weak and wicked world as you trust your broken reed of a mother? i don't know, dear child, any more than you do, where we are going, nor how we are going to get there. we are just stumbling along, your father and i, as best we can, dragging you and your brothers along with us. and all we can do for you, or for each other, is to love you and . . ." elly withdrew her hand. "there, mother, i know they're clean enough now. i'm afraid i'll be late if i don't go. and you know she scolds like everything if anybody's late." she repeated in a rapid murmur, "the tributaries of the delaware on the left bank are . . ." her mother's mind went back with a jerk to the question of river-tributaries. "and what's the use of cramming her memory with facts she could find in three minutes in any atlas if by any strange chance she should ever ever need to know about the tributaries of the delaware. as well set her to learning the first page of the telephone directory! why don't i do the honest thing by her and say to her that all that is poppy-cock?" * * * * * an inner dialogue flashed out, lunge, parry, riposte, like rapier blades at play. "because if i told her it is nonsense, that would undermine her faith in her teacher and her respect for her." "but why _should_ she respect her teacher if her teacher does not deserve that sort of respect? ought even a little child to respect anything or anybody merely because of a position of authority and not because of intrinsic worth? no, of course not." "oh, you know that's only wild talk. of course you couldn't send the child to school, and keep her under her teacher, unless you preserve the form of upholding the teacher's authority." "yes, but in heaven's name, why _do_ we send her to school? she could learn twenty times more, anywhere else." "because sending her to school keeps her in touch with other children, with her fellow-beings, keeps her from being 'queer' or different. she might suffer from it as she grew up, might desire more than anything in the world to be like others." * * * * * elly had been staring at her mother's face for a moment, and now said, "mother, what _makes_ you look so awfully serious?" marise said ruefully, "it's pretty hard to explain to a little girl. i was wondering whether i was as good a mother to you as i ought to be." elly was astonished to the limit of astonishment at this idea. "why, mother, how _could_ you be any better than you are?" she threw herself on her mother's neck, crying, "mother, i wish you never looked serious. i wish you were always laughing and cutting up, the way you used to. seems to me since the war is over, you're more soberer than you were before, even, when you were so worried about father in france. i'd rather you'd scold me than look serious." paul came around the table, and shouldered his way against elly up to a place where he touched his mother. "is that masculine jealousy, or real affection?" she asked herself, and then, "oh, what a _beast_! to be analyzing my own children!" and then, "but how am i ever going to know what they're like if i don't analyze them?" the dog, seeing the children standing up, half ready to go out, began barking and frisking, and wriggling his way to where they stood all intertwined, stood up with his fore-paws against paul. the kitten had been startled by his approach and ran rapidly up marise as though she had been a tree, pausing on her shoulder to paw at a loosened hair-pin. marise let herself go on this wave of eager young life, and thrust down into the dark all the razor-edged questions. "oh, children! children! take the kitten off my back!" she said, laughing and squirming. "she's tickling me with her whiskers. oh, _ow_!" she was reduced to helpless mirth, stooping her head, reaching up futilely for the kitten, who had retreated to the nape of her neck and was pricking sharp little pin-pointed claws through to the skin. the children danced about chiming out peals of laughter. the dog barked excitedly, standing on his hind-legs, and pawing first at one and then at another. then paul looked at the clock, and they all looked at the clock. the children, flushed with fun, crammed on their caps, thrust their arms into coats, bestowed indiscriminate kisses on their mother and the kitten, and vanished for the morning, followed by the dog, pleading with little whines to be taken along too. the kitten got down and began soberly to wash her face. * * * * * there was an instant of appalling silence in the house, the silence that is like no other, the silence that comes when the children have just gone. through it, heavy-footed and ruthless, marise felt something advancing on her, something which she dreaded and would not look at. from above came a sweet, high, little call, "mo-o-o-ther!" oh, a respite--mark was awake! his mother sprang upstairs to snatch at him as he lay, rosy and smiling and sleepy. she bent over him intoxicated by his beauty, by the flower-perfection of his skin, by the softness of his sleep-washed eyes. she heard almost as distinctly as though the voice were in her ear, "oh, you mothers use your children as other people use drugs. the child-habit, the drug-habit, the baby-habit, the morphine habit . . . two different ways of getting away from reality." that was what marsh had said one day. what terribly tarnishing things he did say. how they did make you question everything. she wondered what neale would say to them. she hoped to have a letter from neale today. she hoped so, suddenly, again, with such intensity, such longing, such passion that she said to herself, "what nonsense that was, that came into my head, out on the road in the dark, the other night, that neale and i had let the flood-tide of emotion ebb out of our hearts! what could have put such a notion into my head?" what crazy, fanciful creatures women are! always reaching out for the moon. yes, that must have been the matter with her lately, that neale was away. she missed him so, his strength and courage and affection. "i'm awfully hungry," remarked mark in her ear. "i feel the hole right _here_." he laid a small shapely hand on the center of his pajama-clad body, but he kept the other hand and arm around his mother's neck, and held her close where he had pulled her to him in his little bed. as he spoke he rubbed his peach-like cheek softly against hers. a warm odor of sleep and youth and clean, soaped skin came up from him. his mother buried her face in it as in a flower. "ooh!" he cried, laughing richly, "you're tickling me." "i _mean_ to tickle you!" she told him savagely, worrying him as a mother-cat does her kitten. he laughed delightedly, and wriggled to escape her, kicking his legs, pushing at her softly with his hands, reaching for the spot back of her ear. "i'll tickle _you_," he crowed, tussling with her, disarranging her hair, thudding his little body against her breast, as he thrashed about. the silent house rang with their laughter and cries. they were both flushed, with lustrous eyes, when the little boy finally squirmed himself with a bump off the bed and slid to the floor. at this point the kitten came walking in, innocent-eyed and grave. mark scrambled towards her on his hands and knees. she retreated with a comic series of stiff-legged, sideways jumps, that made him roll on the floor, chuckling and giggling, and grabbing futilely for the kitten's paws. marise had stood up and was putting the loosened strands of her hair back in place. the spell was broken. looking down on the laughing child, she said dutifully, "mark, the floor's cold. you mustn't lie down on it. and, anyhow, you're ever so late this morning. hop up, dear, and get into your clothes." "oh, mother, _you_ dress me!" he begged, rolling over to look up at her pleadingly. she shook her head. "now, mark, that's silly. a great big boy like you, who goes to school. get up quick and start right in before you take cold." he scrambled to his feet and padded to her side on rosy bare feet. "mother, you'll have to 'tay here, anyhow. you know i can't do those back buttons. and i always get my drawer-legs twisted up with my both legs inside my one leg." marise compromised. "well, yes, if you'll hurry. but not if you dawdle. mother has a lot to do this morning. remember, i won't help you with a single thing you can do yourself." the child obediently unbuttoned his pajamas and stepping out of them reached for his undershirt. his mother, looking at him, fell mentally on her knees before the beautiful, living body. "oh, my son, the straight, strong darling! my precious little son!" she shook with that foolish aching anguish of mothers, intolerable. . . . "why must he stop being so pure, so _safe_? how can i live when i am no longer strong enough to protect him?" mark remarked plaintively, shrugging himself into the sleeves of his shirt, "i've roden on a horse, and i've roden on a dog, and i've even roden on a cow, but i've never roden on a camel, and i _want_ to." the characteristic mark-like unexpectedness of this made her smile. "you probably will, some day," she said, sitting down. "but i've never even _sawn_ a camel," complained mark. "and elly and paul have, and a elephant too." "well, you're big enough to be taken to the circus this year," his mother promised him. "this very summer we'll take you." "but i want to go _now_!" clamored mark, with his usual disregard of possibilities, done in the grand style. "don't dawdle," said his mother, looking around for something to read, so that she would seem less accessible to conversation. she found the newspaper under her hand, on the table, and picked it up. she had only glanced at the head-lines yesterday. it took a lot of moral courage to read the newspapers in these days. as she read, her face changed, darkened, set. the little boy, struggling with his underwear, looked at her and decided not to ask for help. she was thinking as she read, "the treaty muddle worse than ever. great britain sending around to all her colonies asking for the biggest navy in the world. our own navy constantly enlarged at enormous cost. constantinople to be left turkish because nobody wants anybody else to have it. armenian babies dying like flies and evening cloaks advertised to sell for six hundred dollars. italy land-grabbing. france frankly for anything except the plain acceptance of the principles we thought the war was to foster. the same reaction from those principles starting on a grand scale in america. men in prison for having an opinion . . . what a hideous bad joke on all the world that fought for the allies and for the holy principles they claimed! to think how we were straining every nerve in a sacred cause two years ago. neale's enlistment. those endless months of loneliness. that constant terror about him. and homes like that all over the world . . . with _this_ as the result. could it have been worse if we had all just grabbed what we could get for ourselves, and had what satisfaction we could out of the baser pleasures?" she felt a mounting wave of horror and nausea, and knowing well from experience what was on its way, fought desperately to ward it off, reading hurriedly a real-estate item in the newspaper, an account of a flood in the west, trying in vain to fix her mind on what she read. but she could not stop the advance of what was coming. she let the newspaper fall with a shudder as the thought arrived, hissing, gliding with venomous swiftness along the familiar path it had so often taken to her heart . . . "suppose this reactionary outburst of hate and greed and intolerance and imperialistic ambitions all around, means that the 'peace' is an armed truce only, and that in fifteen years the whole nightmare will start over." she looked down at the little boy, applying himself seriously to his buttons. "in fifteen years' time my baby will be a man of twenty-one." wild cries broke out in her heart. "no, oh no! i couldn't live through another. to see them all go, husband and sons! not another war! let me live quickly, anyhow, somehow, to get it over with . . . and die before it comes." the little boy had been twisting himself despairingly, and now said in a small voice, "mother, i've tried and i've tried and i can't do that back button." his mother heard his voice and looked down at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. he said, less resigned, impatience pricking through his tone, "mother, i _told_ you i never could reach that button behind." she bent from her chair, mechanically secured the little garment, and then, leaning back, looked down moodily at her feet. the little boy began silently to put on and lace up his shoes. marise was aware of a dimming of the light in the inner room of her consciousness, as though one window after another were being darkened. a hushed, mournful twilight fell in her heart. melancholy came and sat down with her, black-robed. what could one feel except melancholy at the sight of the world of humanity, poor world, war-ridden, broken in health, ruined in hope, the very nerves of action cut by the betrayal of its desperate efforts to be something more than base. * * * * * was that really melancholy? something else slid into her mind, something watchful. she sat perfectly still so that no chance movement should disturb that mood till it could be examined and challenged. there was certainly something else in her heart beside sorrow over the miseries of the after-war world. she persisted in her probing search, felt a cold ray of daylight strike into that gloom and recognized with amazement and chagrin what else it was! disgusting! there in the very bottom of her mind, lay still that discomfort at beginning to look like cousin hetty! and so that wound to her vanity had slowly risen again into her consciousness and clothed itself in the ampler, nobler garments of impersonal melancholy. . . . "_oh_," she cried aloud, impatiently, contemptuous of herself, "what picayune creatures human beings are! i'm ashamed to be one!" she started up and went to the window, looking out blankly at the mountain wall, as she had at the newspaper, not seeing what was there, her eyes turned inward. "wait now, wait. don't go off, half-cocked. go clear through with this thing," she exhorted herself. "there _must_ be more in it than mere childish, silly vanity." she probed deep and brought up, "yes, there is more to it. in the first place i was priggish and hypocritical when i tried to pretend that it was nothing to me when i looked in the glass and saw for the first time that my youth has begun to leave me. that was anglo-saxon pretense, trying to seem to myself made of finer stuff than i really am. it's really not cheerful for any woman, no matter on what plane, to know that the days of her physical flowering are numbered. i'd have done better to look straight at that, and have it out with myself." she moved her head very slightly, from side to side. "but there was more than that. there was more than that. what was it?" she leaned her ear as if to listen, her eyes very large and fixed. "yes, there _was_ the war, and the awfulness of our disappointment in it, too, after all. there was the counsel of despair about everything, the pressure on us all to think that all efforts to be more than base are delusions. we were so terribly fooled with our idealistic hopes about the war . . . who knows but that we are being fooled again when we try for the higher planes of life? perhaps those people are right who say that to grab for the pleasures of the senses is the best . . . those are _real_ pleasures, at least. who knows if there is anything else?" something like a little, far-away tolling said to her, "there was something else. there was something else." this time she knew what it was. "yes, there was that other aspect of the loss of physical youth, when you think that the pleasures of the senses are perhaps all there are. there was the inevitable despairing wonder if i had begun to have out of my youth all it could have given, whether . . ." there tolled in her ear, "something else, something else there." but now she would not look, put her hands over her eyes, and stood in the dark, fighting hard lest a ray of light should show her what might be there. a voice sounded beside her. touclã© was saying, "have you got one of your headaches? the mail carrier just went by. here are the letters." she took down her hands, and opened her eyes. she felt that something important hung on there being a letter from neale. she snatched at the handful of envelopes and sorted them over, her fingers trembling. yes, there it was, the plain stamped envelope with neale's firm regular handwriting. she felt as though she were a diver whose lungs had almost collapsed, who was being drawn with heavenly swiftness up to the surface of the water. she tore open the envelope and read, "dearest marise." it was as though she had heard his voice. she drew in a great audible breath and began to read. what a relief it was to feel herself all one person, not two or three, probing hatefully into each other! * * * * * but there was something she had not done, some teasing, unimportant thing, she ought to finish before going on with the letter. she looked up vacantly, half-absently, wondering what it was. her eyes fell on touclã©. touclã© was looking at her, touclã© who so seldom looked at anything. she felt a momentary confusion as though surprised by another person in a room she had thought empty. and after that, uneasiness. she did not want touclã© to go on looking at her. "mark hasn't had his breakfast yet," she said to the old indian woman. "won't you take him downstairs, please, and give him a dish of porridge for me?" chapter ix "the gent around the lady and the lady round the gent" _an evening in the life of mr. vincent marsh_ may 25. "come in, come in!" cried an old black-clad woman, with a white apron, who opened the door wider into the flaring brilliance of the lamp-lit kitchen. "i'm _real_ glad you felt to come to one of our dances. they're old-fashioned, but _we_ like 'em." she closed the door behind them and added cordially, "now mr. welles is going to live here, he'll have to learn to shake his feet along with the rest of us." mr. welles was frankly terrified at the idea. "why, i never dreamed of dancing in all my life!" he cried. "i only came to look on." he hesitated to divest himself of his overcoat, panic-struck and meditating flight. vincent fell upon him from one side and the lively old woman from the other. together they stripped the older man of his wraps. "never too late to learn," old mrs. powers assured him briskly. "you dance with _me_ and i'll shove ye around, all right. there ain't a quadrille ever danced that i couldn't do backwards with my eyes shut, as soon as the music strikes up." she motioned them towards the door, "step right this way. the folks that have come are all in the settin'-room." as they followed her, vincent said, "mrs. powers, aren't you going to dance with me, too?" "oh, of course i be," she answered smartly, "if you ask me." "then i ask you now," he urged, "for the first dance. only i don't know any more than mr. welles how to dance a quadrille. but i'm not afraid." "i guess there ain't much ye _be_ afraid of," she said admiringly. they came now into the dining-room and caught beyond that a glimpse of the living-room. both wore such an unusual aspect of elegance and grace that vincent stared, stopping to look about him. "looks queer, don't it," said mrs. powers, "with the furniture all gone. we always move out everything we _can_, up garret, so's to leave room for dancing." oh yes, that was it, vincent thought; the shinily varnished cheap furniture had almost disappeared, and the excellent proportions of the old rooms could be seen. lamps glowed from every shelf, their golden light softened by great sprays of green branches with tender young leaves, which were fastened everywhere over the doors, the windows, banked in the corner the house smelled like a forest, indescribably fresh and spicy. "there ain't many flowers yet; too early," explained mrs. powers apologetically, "so we had to git green stuff out'n the woods to kind of dress us up. 'gene he _would_ have some pine boughs too. he's crazy about pine-trees. i always thought that was one reason why he took it so hard when we was done out of our wood-land. he thinks as much of that big pine in front of the house as he does of a person. and tonight he's got the far room all done up with pine boughs." they arrived in the living-room now, where the women and children clustered on one side, and the men on the other, their lean boldly marked faces startlingly clear-cut in the splendor of fresh shaves. the women were mostly in light-colored waists and dark skirts, their hair carefully dressed. vincent noticed, as he nodded to them before taking his place with the men, that not a single one had put powder on her face. their eyes looked shining with anticipation. they leaned their heads together and chatted in low tones, laughing and glancing sideways at the group of men on the other side of the room. vincent wondered at the presence of the children. when she arrived, he would ask marise about that. at the inward mention of the name he felt a little shock, which was not altogether pleasurable. he narrowed his eyes and shook his head slightly, as though to toss a lock of hair from his forehead, a gesture which was habitual with him when he felt, with displeasure, an unexpected emotion not summoned by his will. it passed at once. on joining the dark-suited group of men he found himself next to young frank warner, leaning, loose-jointed and powerful, against the wall, and not joining in the talk of weather, pigs, roads, and spring plowing which rose from the others. vincent looked at him with approval. he felt strongly drawn to this splendid, primitive creature, and knew perfectly well why. he liked anybody who had pep enough to have an original feeling, not one prescribed by the ritual and tabu of his particular tribe. "hello, frank," he said. "have a cigarette? "we'll have to go out if we smoke," said frank. "well, why shouldn't we?" suggested vincent, looking around him. "there's nothing to do here, yet." frank tore himself loose from the supporting wall with a jerk, and nodded. together they stepped out of the front door, unused by the guests, who all entered by the kitchen. at first it was as though they had plunged into black velvet curtains, so great was the contrast with the yellow radiance of the room they had left. they looked back through the unshaded windows and saw the room as though it were an illustration in a book, or a scene in a moving-picture play, the men grouped in a dark mass on one side, the women, smiling, bending their heads towards each other, the lamps glowing on the green branches and on the shining eyes of all those pleasure-expectant human beings. as they looked, nelly powers came in from another room, doubtless the "far room" of which her mother-in-law had spoken. she was carrying a large tray full of cups. she braced herself against the weight of the earthenware and balancing herself with a free swinging motion on her high-heeled shoes walked with an accentuation of her usual vigorous poise. "by george, she's a beauty!" cried vincent, not sorry to have an opportunity to talk of her with his companion. frank made no comment. vincent laughed to himself at the enormous capacity for silence of these savages, routing to the imagination of a civilized being. he went on, determined to get some expression from the other, "she's one of the very handsomest women i ever saw anywhere." frank stirred in the darkness as though he were about to speak. vincent cocked his ear and prepared to listen with all the prodigious sharpness of which he knew himself capable. if he could only once make this yokel speak her name, he'd know . . . all he wanted to know. frank said, "yes, she's good-looking, all right." vincent kept silence, pondering every tone and overtone of the remark. he was astonished to find that he had no more direct light than ever on what he wanted to know. he laughed again at his own discomfiture. there were the two extremes, the super-sophisticated person who could control his voice so that it did not give him away, and the utter rustic whose voice had such a brute inexpressiveness that his meaning was as effectively hidden. he would try again. he said casually, "she's an enough-sight better-looking specimen than her husband. however does it happen that the best-looking women are always caught by that sort of chimpanzees? how did she ever happen to marry 'gene, anyhow?" the other man answered, literally. "i don't know how she did happen to marry him. she don't come from around here. 'gene was off working in a mill, down in massachusetts, adams way, and they got married there. they only come back here to live after they'd had all that trouble with lawyers and lost their wood-land. 'gene's father died about that time. it cut him pretty hard. and 'gene and his wife they come back to run the farm." at this point they saw, looking in at the lighted dumb-show in the house, that new arrivals had come. vincent felt a premonitory clap of his heart and set his teeth in his cigarette. yes, marise had come, now appeared in the doorway, tall, framed in green-leafed branches, the smooth pale oval of her face lighted by the subtle smile, those dark long eyes! by god! what would he not give to know what went on behind that smile, those eyes! she was unwinding from her head the close, black nun-like wrap that those narrow primitive country-women far away on the other side of the globe had chosen to express their being united to another human being. and a proper lugubrious symbol it made for their lugubrious, prison-like, primitive view of the matter. now she had it off. her sleek, gleaming dark head stood poised on her long, thick, white throat. what a woman! what she could be in any civilized setting! she was talking to nelly powers now, who had come back and stood facing her in one of those superb poses of hers, her yellow braids heavy as gold. it was brunhilda talking to leonardo da vinci's ste. anne. no, heavens no! not a saint, a musty, penitential negation like a saint! only of course, the ste. anne wasn't a saint either, but da vinci's glorious renaissance stunt at showing what an endlessly desirable woman he could make if he put his mind on it. "what say, we go in," suggested frank, casting away the butt of his cigarette. "i think i hear old nate beginning to tune up." they opened the door and stepped back, the laughing confusion of their blinking entrance, blinded by the lights, carrying off the first moments of greeting. in the midst of this, vincent heard the front door open and, startled to think that anyone else had used that exit, turned his head, and saw with some dismay that 'gene had followed them in. how near had he been to them in the black night while they talked of his wife's mismated beauty? he walked past them giving no sign, his strong long arms hanging a little in front of his body as he moved, his shoulders stooped apparently with their own weight. from the dining-room came a sound which vincent did not recognize as the voice of any instrument he had ever heard: a series of extraordinarily rapid staccato scrapes, playing over and over a primitively simple sequence of notes. he stepped to the door to see what instrument was being used and saw an old man with a white beard and long white hair, tipped back in a chair, his eyes half shut, his long legs stretched out in front of him, patting with one thick boot. under his chin was a violin, on the strings of which he jiggled his bow back and forth spasmodically, an infinitesimal length of the horse-hair being used for each stroke, so that there was no sonority in the tones. vincent gazed at him with astonishment. he had not known that you could make a violin, a real violin, sound like that. old mrs. powers said at his elbow, "the first sets are forming, mr. marsh." she called across to frank warner, standing very straight with nelly powers' hand on his arm, "frank, you call off, wun't ye?" instantly the young man, evidently waiting for the signal, sent out a long clear shout, "first sets _fo-orming!_" vincent was startled by the electrifying quality of the human voice when not hushed to its usual smothered conversational dullness. "two sets formed in the living-room! two in the dining-room! one in the far room!" chanted frank. he drew a deep breath which visibly swelled his great chest and sang out, resonantly, "promenade _to_ your places!" he set the example, marching off through the throng with nelly by his side. "frank, he generally calls off," explained old mrs. powers. "it's in his family to. his father always did before him." she looked around her, discerned something intelligible in what looked like crowding confusion to vincent and told him hurriedly, "look-y-here, we'll have to git a move on, if we git into a set. they're all full here." frank appeared in the doorway, alone, and lifted a long high arm. "_one_ couple needed in the far room!" he proclaimed with stentorian dignity and seriousness. "here we are!" shouted old mrs. powers, scrambling her way through the crowd, and pulling vincent after her. he could see now that the couples about him were indeed in their places, hand in hand, facing each other, gravely elate and confident. the younger ones were swinging their bodies slightly, in time to the sharply marked beat of the fiddle, and in the older ones, the pulse throbbed almost visibly as they waited. he felt the breath of pines on him, resinous, penetrating, stimulating. he was in a small, square room with a low ceiling, dense and green with pine-boughs, fastened to the walls. the odor was as strange an accompaniment to dancing as was that furiously whirling primitive iteration of the fiddle. "over here!" cried mrs. powers, dragging masterfully at her partner. she gave a sigh of satisfaction, caught at his hand and held it high. "all ready, frank," she said. facing them, near the doorway stood frank and nelly, their heads up, nelly's small high-heeled shoe thrust forward, their clasped hands held high. vincent felt his blood move more quickly at the spectacle they made. on one side stood marise crittenden, her fingers clasped by the huge knotted hand of 'gene powers, and on the other was rounded, rosy old mr. bayweather holding by the hand the oldest powers child, a pretty blonde girl of twelve. frank's voice pealed out above the jig-jig-jigging of the fiddle. "_salute_ your partners!" vincent had a qualm of a feeling he thought he had left behind him with his boyhood, real embarrassment, fear of appearing at a disadvantage. what in the world did their antiquated lingo _mean?_ was he to _kiss_ that old woman? mrs. powers said reassuringly, "don't you worry. just do what the others do." as she spoke she was holding out her skirts and dipping to a courtesy. a little later, he caught at the idea and sketched a bow such as to his astonishment he saw the other men executing. was he in old versailles or vermont? he felt his hand seized by the old woman's. such a hearty zest was in her every action that he looked at her amazed. "balance to the corners, right!" chanted frank, sending his voice out like a bugle so that it might be heard in all the rooms. with perfect precision, and poise, the men and women of the couples separated, stepped swayingly, each towards the nearest of the couple to their right, and retreated. "balance to corners, left!" the same movement was executed to the other side. "first couple forward and back!" shouted frank. marise and 'gene advanced, hand in hand, to meet the old clergyman and the little girl. they met in the middle, poised an instant on the top wave of rhythm and stepped back, every footfall, every movement, their very breathing, in time to the beat-beat-beat of the fiddle's air which filled the room as insistently as the odor of the pines. mrs. powers nodded her white head to it and tapped her foot. marsh had not ventured to remove his eyes from the weaving interplay of the dancers in his own set. now, for an instant, he glanced beyond them into the next room. he received an impression of rapid, incessant, intricate shifting to and fro, the whole throng of dancers in movement as swift and disconcerting to the eyes as the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. it made him literally dizzy to see it, and he turned his eyes back to his own set. the air changed, but not the rhythm, and all the men broke out in a hoarse chant, singing to a whirring, rapid tune, "_oh_, pass right through and never mind who and leave the girl behind you. now come right back on the same old track and _swing_ the girl behind you!" in obedience to these chanted commands, the four who were executing the figure went through labyrinthine manoeuvers, forward and back, dividing and reuniting. the old clergyman held out his hand to mrs. crittenden, laughing as he swung her briskly about. 'gene bent his great bulk solemnly to swing his own little daughter. then with neat exactitude, on the stroke of the beat, they were all back in their places. "_second_ couple forward and back!" sang out frank, prolonging the syllables in an intoned chant like a muezzin calling from a tower. vincent felt himself being pushed and shoved by mrs. powers through the intricate figure. "now come right back on the same old track and _swing_ the girl behind you!" the men shouted loudly, stamping in time, with such a relish for the beat of the rhythm that it sang itself through to the motor-centers and set them throbbing. vincent found himself holding nelly powers at arm's length and swinging her till his head whirled. she was as light as sea-foam, dreamy, her blue eyes shining. "_grand_ right and left!" shouted frank. vincent's hand was seized by the little powers girl. she swung him competently and passed him on to her mother, who swam past him like a goddess, a golden aroma of health and vivid sensual seduction trailing from her as she moved. then it was marise's hand in his . . . how strange, how strange . . . that hand which knew the secrets of debussy's heart. . . . she grasped his fingers firmly and looked at him full, laughingly, her face as open as a child's . . . the many-sided tantalizing creature! she pulled him about and was gone. and there was old mrs. powers in her place, absurdly light and elastic, treading the floor in her flat, old-woman's shoes with brilliant precision. "_all_ promenade!" cried frank, this time his voice exultant that the end was successfully reached. he seized nelly by the waist and danced with her the length of the room, followed by the other couples. the music stopped. he released her instantly, made a strange, stiff little bow, and turned away. the set was over. "there!" said mrs. powers, breathing quickly. "'twan't so hard as you thought 'twas goin' to be, was it?" "good-evening," said mr. bayweather on the other side, wiping the pink roll at the back of his neck. "what do you think of our aboriginal folk-dancing? i'll warrant you did not think there was a place in the united states where the eighteenth century dances had had an uninterrupted existence, did you?" "i assure you i had never thought about the subject at all," said vincent, edging away rapidly towards escape. "fascinating historical phenomenon, i call it," said the clergyman. "analogous to the persistence of certain parts of old english speech which is to be observed in the talk of our people. for instance in the eighteenth century english vocabulary, the phrase . . ." his voice died away in the voices of the people vincent had put resolutely between them shoving his way through the crowd, recklessly. he was struck by the aspect of the people, their blood warmed, their lips moist, their eyes gleaming. the rooms were growing hot, and the odor of pines was heavy in the air. he found himself next to nelly powers, and asked her to dance with him, "although i don't know at all how to do it," he explained. she smiled, silently, indifferently, confidently, and laid her hand on his arm in token of accepting his invitation. vincent had a passing fancy that she did not care at all with whom she danced, that the motion itself was enough for her. but he reflected that it was probably that she did not care at all whether she danced with _him_. from the other end of the room came frank's deep-mouthed shout, "the set is forming! promenade _to_ your places!" nelly moved swiftly in that direction and again vincent found himself opposite frank, dancing this time with marise crittenden. the music broke out into its shaking, quavering iteration of the pulse of the dance. "salute your partners!" this time vincent knew what to do, and turning, bowed low to nelly, who made him a deep courtesy, her toe pointed, instep high, her eyes shining, looking straight at him but evidently not seeing him. the music seemed to float her off on a cloud. "chassay _to_ the corners, right!" vincent untangled the difference between "chassay" and "balance" and acquitted himself. now that his first panic of astonishment was over, he observed that the figures of the dance were of great simplicity, all but the central part, the climax. when the preliminary part was over, the music changed and again the men broke out into their accompanying chant. this time it ran, "the gent around the lady _and_ the lady around the gent. _then_ the lady around the lady _and_ the gent around the gent." somewhere in the hypnotic to-and-fro of those swaying, poised, alert human figures, he encountered marise, coming on her suddenly, and finding her standing stock-still. "_around_ me!" she commanded, imperatively, nodding and laughing. "just as the song says." "the gent around the lady," sang the men. frank was circling about nelly, his eyes on hers, treading lightly, his tall body apparently weighing no more than thistle-down. it was as though he were weaving a charm. vincent ended his circle. the men sang, "_and_ the lady round the gent." marise and nelly stepped off, overlaying the men's invisible circle with one of their own. the room beyond boiled with the dervish-like whirling of the dancers. the fiddle rose louder and shriller, faster and faster. the men sang at the tops of their voices, and beat time heavily. under cover of this rolling clamor, vincent called out boldly to marise, "a symbol of life! a symbol of our life!" and did not know if she heard him. "_then_ the lady around the lady." nelly and marise circled each other. "_and_ the gent around the gent." he and frank followed them. his head was turning, the room staggered around him. nelly's warm, vibrant hand was again in his. they were in their places. frank's voice rose, resounding, "_pro_menade all!" nelly abandoned herself to his arms, in the one brief moment of close physical contact of the dance. they raced to the end of the room. the music stopped abruptly, but it went on in his head. the odor of pines rose pungent in the momentary silence. everyone was breathing rapidly. nelly put up a hand to touch her hair. vincent, reflecting that he would never acquire the native-born capacity for abstaining from chatter, said, because he felt he must say something, "what a pleasant smell those pine-branches give." she turned her white neck to glance into the small room lined with the fragrant branches, and remarked, clearly and dispassionately, "i don't like the smell." vincent was interested. he continued, "well, you must have a great deal of it, whether you like it or not, from that great specimen by your front door." she looked at him calmly, her eyes as blue as precious stones. "the old pine-tree," she said, "i wish it were cut down, darkening the house the way it does." she spoke with a sovereign impassivity, no trace of feeling in her tone. she turned away. vincent found himself saying almost audibly, "oh _ho_!" he had the sensation, very agreeable to him, of combining two clues to make a certainty. he wished he could lay his hands on a clue to put with marise crittenden's shrinking from the photograph of the rocca di papa. he had not spoken to marise that evening, save the first greetings, and his impudent shout to her in the dance, and now turned to find her. on the other side of the room she was installed, looking extraordinarily young and girl-like, between mr. welles and mr. bayweather, fanning first one and then the other elderly gentleman and talking to them with animation. they were both in need of fanning, puffing and panting hard. mr. welles indeed was hardly recognizable, the usual pale quiet of his face broken into red and glistening laughter. "i see you've been dancing," said vincent, coming to a halt in front of the group and wishing the two old gentlemen in the middle of next week. "old mrs. powers got me," explained mr. welles. "you never saw anything so absurd in your life." he went on to the others, "you simply can't imagine how remarkable this is, for me. i never, _never_ danced and i no more thought i ever _would_ . . ." mr. bayweather ran his handkerchief around and around his neck in an endeavor to save his clerical collar from complete ruin, and said, panting still, "best thing in the world for you, mr. welles." "yes indeed," echoed marise. "we'll have to prescribe a dance for you every week. you look like a boy, and you've been looking rather tired lately." she had an idea and added, accusingly, "i do believe you've gone on tormenting yourself about the negro problem!" "yes, he has!" mr. bayweather unexpectedly put in. "and he's not the only person he torments about it. only yesterday when he came down to the rectory to see some old deeds, didn't he expatiate on that subject and succeed in spoiling the afternoon. i had never been forced to think so much about it in all my life. he made me very uncomfortable, very! what's the use of going miles out of your way, i say, out of the station to which it has pleased god to place us? i believe in leaving such insoluble problems to a divine providence." marise was evidently highly amused by this exposition of one variety of ministerial principle, and looked up at vincent over her fan, her eyes sparkling with mockery. he savored with an intimate pleasure her certainty that he would follow the train of her thought; and he decided to try to get another rise out of the round-eyed little clergyman. "oh, if it weren't the negro problem, mr. bayweather, it would be free-will or predestination, or capital and labor. mr. welles suffers from a duty-complex, inflamed to a morbid degree by a life-long compliance to a mediaeval conception of family responsibility." mr. bayweather's eyes became rounder than ever at this, and vincent went on, much amused, "mr. welles has done his duty with discomfort to himself so long that he has the habit. his life at ashley seems too unnaturally peaceful to him. i'd just as soon he took it out with worrying about the negroes. they are so safely far away. i had been on the point of communicating to him my doubts as to the civic virtues of the martians, as a safety valve for him." marise laughed out, as round a peal as little mark's, but she evidently thought they had gone far enough with their fooling, for she now brought the talk back to a safe, literal level by crying, "well, there's one thing sure, mr. welles can't worry his head about _any_ of the always-with-us difficulties of life, as long as he is dancing art ashley quadrille." mr. welles concurred in this with feeling. "i'd no idea i would ever experience anything so . . . so . . . well, i tell you, i thought i'd left _fun_ behind me, years and years ago." "oh, what you've had is nothing compared to what you're going to have," marise told him. "just wait till old nate strikes up the opening bars of 'the whirlwind' and see the roof of the house fly off. see here," she laid her hand on his arm. "this is leap-year. i solemnly engage you to dance 'the whirlwind' with me." she made the gesture of the little-boy athlete, feeling the biceps of one arm, moving her forearm up and down. "i'm in good health, and good muscle, because i've been out stirring up the asparagus bed with a spading-fork. i can shove you around as well as old mrs. powers, if i do say it who shouldn't." vincent looked down at her, bubbling with light-hearted merriment, and thought, "there is no end to the variety of her moods!" she glanced up at him, caught his eyes on her and misinterpreted their wondering expression. "you think i'm just silly and childish, don't you?" she told him challengingly. "oh, don't be such an everlasting adult. life's not so serious as all that!" he stirred to try to protest, but she went on, "it's dancing that sets me off. nelly powers and i are crazy about it. and so far as my observation of life extends, our dances here are the only social functions left in the world, that people really _enjoy_ and don't go to merely because it's the thing to. it always goes to my head to see people enjoy themselves. it's so sweet." mr. welles gave her one of his affectionate pats on her hand. vincent asked her casually, "what's the idea of making a family party of it and bringing the children too?" she answered dashingly, "if i answer you in your own language, i'd say that it's because their households are in such a low and lamentably primitive condition that they haven't any slave-labor to leave the children with, and so bring them along out of mere brute necessity. if i answer you in another vocabulary, i'd say that there is a close feeling of family unity, and they _like_ to have their children with them when they are having a good time, and find it pleasant to see mothers dancing with their little boys and fathers with their little girls." * * * * * without the slightest premonition of what his next question was to bring out, and only putting it to keep the talk going, vincent challenged her, "why don't you bring your own, then?" he kept down with difficulty the exclamation which he inwardly added, "if you only knew what a relief it is to see you for once, without that intrusive, tiresome bunch of children!" "why, sometimes i do," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "but i just had a telegram from my husband saying that he is able to get home a little sooner than he thought, and will be here early tomorrow morning. and the children voted to go to bed early so they could be up bright and early to see him." vincent continued looking down on her blankly for an instant, after she had finished this reasonable explanation. he was startled by the wave of anger which spurted up over him like flame. he heard mr. welles make some suitable comment, "how nice." he himself said, "oh really," in a neutral tone, and turned away. * * * * * for a moment he saw nothing of what was before him, and then realized that he had moved next to frank warner, who was standing by nelly powers, and asking her to dance with him again. she was shaking her head, and looking about the room uneasily. vincent felt a gust of anger again. "oh, go _to_ it, frank!" he said, in a low fierce tone. "take her out again, as often as you like. why shouldn't you?" nelly gave him one of her enigmatic looks, deep and inscrutable, shrugged her shoulders, put her hand on frank's arm, and walked off with him. "they're the handsomest couple in the room," said vincent, at random to a farmer near him, who looked at him astonished by the heat of his accent. and then, seeing that nelly's husband was in possible earshot, vincent raised his voice recklessly. "they're the handsomest couple in the room," he repeated resentfully. "they ought always to dance together." if 'gene heard, he did not show it, the granite impassivity of his harsh face unmoved. vincent went on towards the door, his nerves a little relieved by this outburst. he would go out and have another cigarette, he thought, and then take his old man-child home to bed. what were they doing in this absurd place? the music began to skirl again as he stepped out and closed the door behind him. he drew in deeply the fresh night-air, and looking upward saw that the clouds had broken away and that the stars were out, innumerable, thick-sown, studding with gold the narrow roof of sky which, rising from the mountains on either side, arched itself over the valley. he stood staring before him, frowning, forgetting what he had come out to do. he told himself that coming from that yelling confusion inside, and the glare of those garish lamps, he was stupefied by the great silence of the night. there was nothing clear in his mind, only a turmoil of eddying sensations which he could not name. he walked down to the huge dark pine, the pine which 'gene powers loved like a person, and which his wife wished were cut down. what a ghastly prison marriage was, he thought, a thing as hostile to the free human spirit as an iron ball-and-chain. he looked back at the little house, tiny as an insect before the great bulk of the mountains, dwarfed by the gigantic tree, ridiculous, despicable in the face of nature, like the human life it sheltered. from its every window poured a flood of yellow light that was drunk up in a twinkling by the vastness of the night's obscurity. he leaned against the straight, sternly unyielding bole of the tree, folding his arms and staring at the house. what a beastly joke the whole business of living! a thousand ugly recollections poured their venom upon him from his past life. life, this little moment of blind, sensual groping and grabbing for something worth while that did not exist, save in the stultification of the intelligence. all that you reached for, so frantically, it was only another handful of mud, when you held it. past the yellow squares of the windows, he saw the shapes of the dancers, insect-tiny, footing it to and fro. and in one of those silhouettes he recognized marise crittenden. he turned away from the sight and struck his fist against the rough bark of the tree. what an insane waste and confusion ruled everywhere in human life! a woman like that to be squandered . . . an intelligence fine and supple, a talent penetrating and rare like hers for music, a strange personal beauty like that of no other woman, a depth one felt like mid-ocean, a capacity for fun like a child's and a vitality of personality, a power for passion that pulsed from her so that to touch her hand casually set one thrilling . . . ! and good god! what was destiny doing with her? spending that gold like water on three brats incapable of distinguishing between her and any good-natured woman who would put on their shoes and wash their faces for them. any paid irish nurse could do for them what their mother bent the priceless treasure of her temperament to accomplish. the irish nurse would do it better, for she would not be aware of anything else better, which she might do, and their mother knew well enough what she sacrificed . . . or if she did not know it yet, she would, soon. she had betrayed that to him, the very first time he had seen her, that astonishing first day, when, breathing out her vivid charm like an aureole of gold mist, she had sat there before him, quite simply the woman most to his taste he had even seen . . . _here_! that day when she had spoken about the queerness of her feeling "lost" when little mark went off to school, because for the first time in years she had had an hour or so free from those ruthless little leeches who spent their lives in draining her vitality. he had known, if she had not, the significance of that feeling of hers, the first time she had had a moment to raise her eyes from her trivial task and see that she had been tricked into a prison. that very day he had wanted to cry out to her, as impersonally as one feels towards a beautiful bird caught in a net, "now, _now_, burst through, and spread your wings where you belong." it was like wiping up the floor with cloth of gold. in order that those three perfectly commonplace, valueless human lives might be added to the world's wretched population, a nature as rare as a jewel was being slowly ground away. what were the treasures to whom she was being sacrificed? paul, the greasy, well-intentioned, priggish burgher he would make; elly, almost half-witted, a child who stared at you like an imbecile when asked a question, and who evidently scarcely knew that her mother existed, save as cook and care-taker. and mark, the passionate, gross, greedy baby. there were the three walls of the prison where she was shut away from any life worthy of her. and the fourth wall . . . * * * * * the blackness dropped deeper about him, and within him. there they were dancing, those idiots, dancing on a volcano if ever human beings did, in the little sultry respite from the tornado which was called the world-peace. well, that was less idiotic than working, at least. how soon before it would break again, the final destructive hurricane, born of nothing but the malignant folly of human hearts, and sweep away all that they now agonized and sweated to keep? what silly weakness to spend the respite in anything but getting as much of what you wanted as you could, before it was all gone in the big final smash-up, and the yellow or black man were on top. * * * * * with a bitter relish he felt sunk deep in one of his rank reactions against life and human beings. now at least he was on bed-rock. there was a certain hard, quiet restfulness in scorning it all so whole-heartedly as either stupid or base. * * * * * at this a woman's face hung suddenly there in the blackness. her long eyes seemed to look directly into his, a full revealing look such as they had never given him in reality. his hard quiet was broken by an agitation he could not control. no, no, there was something there that was not mud. he had thought he would live and die without meeting it. and there it was, giving to paltry life a meaning, after all, a troubling and immortal meaning. a frosty breath blew down upon him from the mountains. a long shudder ran through him. the sensation moved him to a sweeping change of mood, to a furious resentment as at an indignity. god! what was he doing? who was this moping in the dark like a boy? * * * * * the great night stood huge and breathless above him as before, but now he saw only the lamp-lit house, tiny as an insect, but vibrant with eager and joyous life. with a strong, resolute step he went rapidly back to the door, opened it wide, stepped in, and walked across the floor to marise crittenden. "you're going to dance the next dance with _me_, you know," he told her. chapter x at the mill i _an afternoon in the life of mr. neale crittenden, aet. 38_ may 27. the stenographer, a pale, thin boy, with a scarred face, and very white hands, limped over to the manager's desk with a pile of letters to be signed. "there, captain crittenden," he said, pride in his accent. neale was surprised and pleased. "all done, arthur?" he looked over the work hastily. "good work, good work." he leaned back, looking up at the other. "how about it, anyhow, arthur? is it going to work out all right?" the stenographer looked at him hard and swallowed visibly. "i never dreamed i'd be fit to do anything i like half so well. i thought when i was in the hospital that i was done for, for sure. captain crittenden, if you only knew what my mother and i think about what you've done for . . ." neale dodged hastily. "that's all right. that's all right. if you like it, that's all that's necessary. and i'm not captain any more." "i forget, sir," said the other apologetically. "can you sit down and take a second batch right now? i want to get through early. mrs. crittenden's going to bring some visitors to see the place this afternoon, and i'll have to be with them more or less." he looked at the clock. it was half-past three. marise had said she would be there about four. he gave a calculating glance at the stack of letters. he would never be able to get through those. "we'll have to get a move on," he remarked. "things got pretty well piled up while i was away." he began to dictate rapidly, steadily, the end of a sentence clearly in his mind before he pronounced the first word. he liked to dictate and enjoyed doing it well. the pale young stenographer bent over his note-book, his disfigured face intent and serious. "turned out all right, arthur has," thought neale to himself. "i wasn't so far off, when i thought of the business college for him." then he applied himself single-mindedly to his dictation, taking up one letter after another, with hardly a pause in his voice. but for all his diligence, he had not come to the bottom of the pile when four o'clock struck; nor ten minutes later when, glancing out of the window, he saw marise and the children with mr. bayweather and the two other men coming across the mill-yard. evidently mr. bayweather had dropped in just as they were going to start and had come along. he stopped dictating and looked at the group with a certain interest. marise and the children had had a good deal to say yesterday about the newcomers to crittenden's. it seemed to him that the impression he had received of them had been as inaccurate as such second-hand impressions were apt to be. the older man was just like any elderly business man, for all he could see, nothing so especially attractive about him, although marise had said in her ardent way that he was "the sort of old american you love on sight, the kind that makes you home-sick when you meet him in europe." and as for mr. marsh, he couldn't see any signs of his being such a record-breaking live-wire as they had all said. he walked along quietly enough, and was evidently as resigned as any of them to letting mr. bayweather do all the talking. on the other hand, none of them had told him what a striking-looking fellow he was, so tall, and with such a bold carriage of that round dark head. "here they come, arthur," he remarked. "no more time. but i'll try to squeeze in a minute or two, while they are here, to finish up these last ones." the young man followed the direction of his eyes and nodded. he continued looking at the advancing group for a moment, and as he stood up, "you could tell that mr. marsh is a millionaire by the way his clothes fit, couldn't you?" he remarked, turning to go back to his desk in the outer office. they were coming down the hall now. neale went forward to open the door, met and breasted the wave of children who after hugging casually at his knees and arms, swept by; and stepped forward to be presented to the newcomers. they had not crossed the threshold, before his first impression was reversed in one case. marsh was a live-wire all right. now that he had seen his eyes, he knew what elly had meant when she said that when he looked at you it was like lightning. mr. bayweather barely waited for the first greetings to be pronounced before he burst out, "do they say, 'backwards and forwards' or 'back and forth'?" neale laughed. old bayweather was perennial. "backwards and forwards, of course," he said. "english people always say everything the longest possible way." he explained to the others, "mr. bayweather is an impassioned philologist . . ." "so i have gathered," commented marsh. ". . . and whenever any friends of his go on travels, they are always asked to bring back some philological information about the region where they go." he turned to marise (how sweet she looked in that thin yellow dress). "where do you want your personally conducted to begin, dear?" he asked her. (lord! how good it seemed to get back to marise!) mr. bayweather cut in hastily, "if i may be permitted to suggest, i think a history of the mill would be advisable as a beginning. i will be glad to tell the newcomers about this. i've just been working the subject up for a chapter in history of ashley." neale caught an anguished side-glance from marise and sent back to her a shrugged message of helplessness in the face of destiny. the man didn't live who could head old bayweather off when he got started on local history. and besides, this would give him time to get those last three letters finished. aloud he said, "i wouldn't dare say a word about history in mr. bayweather's presence. i have a few letters to finish. i'll just step into the outer office and be ready to start when you've heard the history lecture." he turned to the children, who were tapping on the typewriter. "look here, kids, you'd be better off where you won't break anything. get along with you out into the mill-yard and play on the lumber-piles, why don't you? paul, you see if you can tell yellow birch from oak this time!" he and the children beat a retreat together into the outer office, where he bent over arthur's desk and began to dictate in a low voice, catching, as he did so, an occasional rotund phrase from the disquisition in the other room. ". . . the glorious spirit of manly independence of the green mountain boys . . ." to himself neale thought, "he'd call it bolshevism if he met it today . . ." ". . . second building erected in the new settlement, 1766, as a fort. . . . no, _no_, mr. marsh, _not_ against the indians! our early settlers _here_ never had any trouble with the indians." neale laughed to himself at the clergyman's resentment of any ignorance of any detail of ashley's unimportant history. ". . . as a fort against the york state men in the land-grant quarrels with new hampshire and new york, before the revolution." neale, smiling inwardly, bet himself a nickel that neither of the two strangers had ever heard of the vermont land-grant quarrels, and found himself vastly tickled by the profound silence they kept on the subject. they were evidently scared to death of starting old bayweather off on another line. they were safe enough, if they only knew it. it was inconceivable to mr. bayweather that any grown person should not know all about early vermont history. at this point marise came out of the office, her face between laughter and exasperation. she clasped her hands together and said, "can't you do _any_thing?" "in a minute," he told her. "i'll just finish these two letters and then i'll go and break him off short." marise went on to the accountant's desk, to ask about his wife, who sang in her winter chorus. he dictated rapidly: "no more contracts will go out to you if this stripping of the mountain-land continues. our original contract has in it the clause which i always insist on, that trees smaller than six inches through the butt shall not be cut. you will please give your choppers definite orders on this point, and understand that logs under the specified size will not be accepted at the mill." he held out to the stenographer the letter he was answering. "here, arthur, copy the name and address off this. it's one of those french-canadian names, hard to spell if you don't see it." he paused an instant to hear how far mr. bayweather had progressed, and heard him saying, "in the decade from 1850 on, there was a terrible and scandalous devastation of the mountain-land . . ." and said to himself, "halfway through the century. i'll have time to go on a while. all ready, arthur." he dictated: "on birch brush-backs of the model specified, we can furnish you any number up to . . ." he wound his way swiftly and surely through a maze of figures and specifications without consulting a paper or record, and drawing breath at the end, heard mr. bayweather pronouncing his own name. ". . . mr. crittenden has taught us all a great deal about the economic aspects of a situation with which we had had years of more familiarity than he. his idea is that this mountainous part of new england is really not fit for agriculture. farming in the usual sense has been a losing venture ever since the civil war high prices for wool ceased. only the bottoms of the valleys are fit for crops. most of our county is essentially forest-land. and his idea of the proper use to make of it, is to have a smallish industrial population engaged in wood-working, who would use the bits of arable land in the valleys as gardens to raise their own food. he has almost entirely reorganized the life of our valley, along these lines, and i daresay he cannot at all realize himself the prodigious change from hopelessness and slow death to energy and forward-looking activity which his intelligent grasp of the situation has brought to this corner of the earth." the young stenographer had heard this too, and had caught the frown of annoyance which the personal reference brought to neale's forehead. he leaned forward and said earnestly, "it's so, captain . . . mr. crittenden. it's _so_!" mr. bayweather went on, "there is enough wood in the forests within reach of the mill to keep a moderate-sized wood-working factory going indefinitely, cutting by rotation and taking care to leave enough trees for natural reforestration. but of course that has not been the american way of going at things. instead of that steady, continuous use of the woods, which mr. crittenden has shown to be possible, furnishing good, well-paid work at home for the men who would be otherwise forced off into cities, our poor mountains have been lumbered every generation or so, on an immense, murderous, slashing scale, to make a big sum of money for somebody in one operation. when old mr. burton crittenden's nephew came to town it was a different story. mr. neale crittenden's ideal of the lumber business is, as i conceive it, as much a service to mankind as a doctor's is." neale winced, and shook his head impatiently. how ministers did put the sunday-school rubber-stamp on everything they talked about--even legitimate business. "and as mrs. crittenden's free-handed generosity with her musical talent has transformed the life of the region as much as mr. crittenden's high and disinterested . . ." "oh _gosh_, arthur, never mind about the rest!" murmured neale, moving back quickly into the inner office to create a diversion. "all ready?" he asked in a loud, hearty voice, as he came up to them. "up to 1920 by this time, mr. bayweather?" he turned to marsh, "i'm afraid there is very little to interest you, with your experience of production on a giant scale, in a business so small that the owner and manager knows every man by name and everything about him." "you couldn't show me anything more _out_ of my own experience," answered marsh, "than just that. and as for what i know about production on a giant scale, i can tell you it's not much. i did try to hook on, once or twice, years ago--to find out something about the business that my father spent his life in helping to build up, but it always ended in my being shooed out of the office by a rather irritable manager who knew i knew nothing about any of it, and who evidently hated above everything else, having amateur directors come horning in on what was no party of theirs. 'if they get their dividends all right, what more do they want?' was his motto. i never was able to make any sense out of it. it's all on such a preposterously big scale now. once in a while, touring, i have come across one of our branch establishments and have stopped my car to see the men come out of the buildings at quitting-time. that's as close as i have ever come. do you really know their _names_?" "i can't pronounce all the french-canadian names to suit them, but i know them all, yes. most of them are just the overflow of the rural population around here." he said to himself in congratulation, "between us, we pried old bayweather loose from his soft soap, pretty neatly," and gave the man before him a look of friendly understanding. he was a little startled, for an instant, by the expression in the other's bright eyes, which he found fixed on him with an intentness almost disconcerting. "does he think i'm trying to put something over on him?" he asked himself with a passing astonishment, "or is he trying to put something over on me?" then he remembered that everyone had spoken of marsh's eyes as peculiar; it was probably just his habit. "he can look right through me and out at the other side, for all _i_ care!" he thought indifferently, meeting the other's gaze with a faintly humorous sense of something absurd. marise had come back now, and was saying, "you really must get started, neale, the men will be quitting work soon." "yes, yes, this minute," he told her, and led the way with mr. welles, leaving marise and mr. bayweather to be showman for mr. marsh. he now remembered that he had not heard the older man say a single word as yet, and surmised that he probably never said much when the fluent mr. marsh was with him. he wondered a little, as they made their way to the saw-mill, what marise saw in either of them to interest her so much. oh well, they were a change, of course, from ashley and crittenden's people, and different from the eugenia mills bunch, in new york, too. he stood now, beside mr. welles, in the saw-mill, the ringing high crescendo scream of the saws filling the air. marise stood at the other end talking animatedly to the two she had with her. marise was a wonder on conversation anyhow. what could she find to say, now, for instance? what in the world was there to say to an ex-office manager of a big electrical company about a wood-working business? his eyes were caught by what one of the men was doing and he yelled at him sharply, "look out there, harry! stop that! what do i have a guard rail there for, anyhow?" "what was the matter?" asked mr. welles, startled. "oh, nothing much. one of the men dodging under a safety device to save him a couple of steps. they get so reckless about those saws. you have to look out for them like a bunch of bad children." mr. welles looked at him earnestly. "are you . . . have you . . . mr. bayweather has told us so much about all you do for the men . . . how they are all devoted to you." neale looked and felt annoyed. bayweather and his palaver! "i don't do anything for them, except give them as good wages as the business will stand, and as much responsibility for running things as they'll take. beyond that, i let them alone. i don't believe in what's known as 'welfare work.' i wouldn't want them messing around in my private life, and i don't believe they'd like me in theirs." the necessity to raise his voice to a shout in order to make himself heard above the tearing scream of the saws made him sound very abrupt and peremptory, more so than he had meant. as he finished speaking his eyes met those of the older man, and were held by the clarity and candor of the other's gaze. they were like a child's eyes in that old face. it was as though he had been abrupt and impatient to elly or mark. as he looked he saw more than candor and clarity. he saw a deep weariness. neale smoothed his forehead, a little ashamed of his petulance, and drew his companion further from the saws where the noise was less. he meant to say something apologetic, but the right phrase did not come to him. and as mr. welles said nothing further, they walked on in silence. they passed through the first and second floors of the mill, where the handling of the smaller pieces was done, and neither of them spoke a word. neale looked about him at the familiar, familiar scene, and found it too dull to make any comment on. what was there to say? this was the way you manufactured brush-backs and wooden boxes and such-like things, and that was all. the older men bent over their lathes quietly, the occasional woman-worker smartly hammering small nails into the holes already bored for her, the big husky boys shoved the trucks around, the elevator droned up and down, the belts flicked as they sped around and around. blest if he could think of any explanation to make to a grown man on so simple and everyday a scene. and yet he did not enjoy this silence because it seemed like a continuation of his grumpiness of a few minutes ago. well, the next time the old fellow said anything, he'd fall over himself to be nice in his answer. presently as they came to the outside door, mr. welles remarked with a gentle dignity, in evident allusion to neale's cutting him short, "i only meant that i was very much interested in what i see here, and that i would like very much to know more about it." neale felt he fairly owed him an apology. he began to understand what marise meant when she had said the old fellow was one you loved on sight. it was her way, emotionally heightened as usual, of saying that he was really a very nice old codger. "i'll be glad to tell you anything you want to know, mr. welles," he said. "but i haven't any idea what it is that interests you. you fire ahead and ask questions and i'll agree to answer them." "that's what i'd like, all right. and remember if i ask anything you don't want to talk about . . ." he referred evidently to neale's impatience of a few minutes ago. "there aren't any trade secrets in the wood-working business," said neale, laughing. "better come along and see our drying-room as we talk. we've had to make some concession to modern haste and use kiln-drying, although i season first in the old way as long as possible." they stepped out of the door and started across the mill-yard. mr. welles said with a very faint smile in the corner of his pale old lips, "i don't believe you want to show me any of this, mr. crittenden. and honestly that isn't what interests me about it. i wouldn't know a drying-room from a steam-laundry." neale stopped short, and surveyed his companion with amusement and admiration. "good for you!" he cried. "tell the truth and shame the devil and set an example to all honest men. mr. welles, you have my esteem." the old man had a shy smile at this. "i don't tell the truth that way to everybody," he said demurely. neale liked him more and more. "sir, i am yours to command," he said, sitting down on the steps, "ask ahead!" mr. welles turned serious, and hesitated. "mr. bayweather said . . ." he began and looked anxiously at neale. "i won't bite even if he did," neale reassured him. mr. welles looked at him with the pleasantest expression in his eyes. "it's a great relief to find that we can get on with one another," he said, "for i must admit to you that i have fallen a complete victim to mrs. crittenden. i . . . i love your wife." he brought it out with a quaint, humorous roundness. "you can't get up any discussion with me about that," said neale. "i do myself." they both laughed, and mr. welles said, "but you see, caring such a lot about her, it was a matter of great importance to me what kind of husband she had. i find actually seeing you very exciting." "you're the first who ever found it so, i'm sure," said neale, amused at the idea. "but it wasn't this i wanted to say," said mr. welles. he went back and said again, "mr. bayweather said your idea of business is service, like a doctor's?" neale winced at the bayweather priggishness of this way of putting it, but remembering his remorse for his earlier brusqueness, he restrained himself to good humor and the admission, "making allowance for ministerial jargon, that's something like a fair statement." he was astonished at the seriousness with which mr. welles took this. what was it to him? the old man looked at him, deeply, unaccountably, evidently entirely at a loss. "mr. crittenden," he said abruptly, "to speak right out, that sounded to me like the notion of a nice idealistic woman, who has never been in business. you see i've _been_ in a business office all my life!" neale found his liking for the gentle, troubled old man enough for him to say truthfully, "mr. welles, i don't mind talking to you about it. sure, yes i can understand how having a minister put it that way. . . . lord! how the old boy does spill over! and yet why should i care? i'm ashamed of letting harmless mr. bayweather get on my nerves so." mr. welles started to speak, found no words, and waved an arm as if to imply that _he_ understood perfectly. this made neale laugh a little, and gave him a picture of the helplessness of a newcomer to ashley, before the flood-tide of mr. bayweather's local learning. he went on, "he sort of taints an honest idea, doesn't he, by his high-falutin' way of going on about it?" he hesitated, trying to think of simple words to sum up what he had, after all, never exactly formulated because it had been so much an attitude he and marise had silently grown into. it was hard, he found, to hit on any expression that said what he wanted to; but after all, it wasn't so very important whether he did or not. he was only trying to make a nice tired old man think himself enough respected to be seriously talked to. he'd just ramble on, till marise brought the other visitors up to them. and yet as he talked, he got rather interested in his statement of it. a comparison of baseball and tennis ethics came into his mind as apposite, and quite tickled him by its aptness. mr. welles threw in an occasional remark. he was no man's fool, it soon appeared, for all his mildness. and for a time he seemed to be interested. but presently neale noticed that the other was looking absent and no longer made any comments. that was what happened, neale reflected with an inward smile, as he slowed down and prepared to stop, when anybody succeeded in getting you started on your hobby. they were bored. they didn't really want to know after all. it was like trying to tell folks about your travels. but he was astonished to the limit of astonishment by what mr. welles brought out in the silence which finally dropped between them. the old man looked at him very hard and asked, "mr. crittenden, do you know anything about the treatment of the negroes in the south?" neale sat up blinking. "why no, nothing special, except that it's a fearful knot we don't seem to get untied," he said. "i contribute to the support of an agricultural school in georgia, but i'm afraid i never take much time to read the reports they send me. why do you ask?" "oh, no particular reason. i have a relative down there, that's all." marise and the others came out of a door at the far-end of the building now, and advanced towards them slowly. neale and mr. welles watched them. neale was struck again by marsh's appearance. as far away as you could see him, he held the eye. "an unusual man, your friend mr. marsh," he remarked. "mrs. crittenden tells me that he is one of the people who have been everywhere and done everything and seen everybody. he looks the part." mr. welles made no comment on this for a moment, his eyes on the advancing group. marise had raised her parasol of yellow silk. it made a shimmering halo for her dark, gleaming hair, as she turned her head towards marsh, her eyes narrowed and shining as she laughed at something he said. then the old man remarked, "yes, he's unusual, all right, vincent is. he has his father's energy and push." he added in a final characterization, "i've known him ever since he was a little boy, and i never knew him not to get what he went after." ii _how the same thing looked to mr. welles_ as they walked along towards the mill, mr. welles had a distinct impression that he was going to dislike the mill-owner, and as distinct a certainty as to where that impression came from. he had received too many by the same route not to recognize the shipping label. not that vincent had ever said a single slighting word about mr. crittenden. he couldn't have, very well, since they neither of them had ever laid eyes on him. but vincent never needed words to convey impressions into other people's minds. he had a thousand other ways better than words. vincent could be silent, knock off the ashes from his cigarette, recross his legs, and lean back in his chair in a manner that slammed an impression into your head as though he had yelled it at you. but to be fair to vincent, mr. welles thought probably he had been more than ready to soak up an impression like the one he felt. they'd had such an awfully good time with mrs. crittenden and the children, it stood to reason the head of the house would seem to them like a butter-in and an outsider in a happy-family group. more than this, too. as they came within hearing of the industrial activity of the mill, and he felt his heart sink and turn sore and bitter, mr. welles realized that vincent had very little to do with his dread of meeting the mill-owner. it was not mr. crittenden he shrank from, it was the mill-owner, the business man . . . business itself. mr. welles hated and feared the sound of the word and knew that it had him cowed, because in his long life he had known it to be the only reality in the world of men. and in that world he had known the only reality to be that if you didn't cut the other fellow's throat first he would cut yours. there wasn't any other reality. he had heard impractical, womanish men say there was, and try to prove it, only to have their economic throats cut considerably more promptly than any others. he had done his little indirect share of the throat-cutting always. he was not denying the need to do it. only he had never found it a very cheerful atmosphere in which to pass one's life. and now he had escaped, to the only other reality, the pleasant, gentle, slightly unreal world of women, nice women, and children and gardens. he was so old now that there was no shame in his sinking into that for what time he had left, as other old fellows sank into an easy-chair. only he wished that he could have got along without being reminded so vividly, as he would be by this trip to the business-world, of what paid for the arm-chair, supported the nice women and children. he wished he hadn't had to come here, to be forced to remember again that the inevitable foundation for all that was pleasant and livable in private life was the grim determination on the part of a strong man to give his strength to "taking it out of the hide" of his competitors, his workmen, and the public. he'd had a vacation from that, and it made him appallingly depressed to take another dose of it now. he sincerely wished that sweet mrs. crittenden were a widow with a small income from some impersonal source with no uncomfortable human associations with it. he recalled with a sad cynicism the story mrs. crittenden had told them about the clever and forceful lawyer who had played the dirty trick on the farmer here in ashley, and done him out of his wood-land. she had been very much wrought up about that, the poor lady, without having the least idea that probably her husband's business-life was full of such knifings-in-the-back, all with the purpose of making a quiet life for her and the children. well, there was nothing for it but to go on. it wouldn't last long, and mr. welles' back was practised in bowing to weather he didn't like but which passed if you waited a while. they were going up the hall now, towards a door marked "office," the children scampering ahead. the door was opening. the tall man who stood there, nodding a welcome to them, must be mr. crittenden. so that was the kind of man he was. nothing special about him. just a nice-looking american business-man, with a quiet, calm manner and a friendly face. to the conversation which followed and which, like all such conversations, amounted to nothing at all, mr. welles made no contribution. what was the use? mr. bayweather and vincent were there. the conversation would not flag. so he had the usual good chance of the silent person to use his eyes. he looked mostly at mr. crittenden. well, he wasn't so bad. they were usually nice enough men in personal relations, business men. this one had good eyes, very nice when he looked at the children or his wife. they were often good family men, too. there was something about him, however, that wasn't just like all others. what was it? not clothes. his suit was cut off the same piece with forty million other american business-suits. not looks, although there was an outdoor ruddiness of skin and clearness of eye that made him look a little like a sailor. oh yes, mr. welles had it. it was his voice. whenever he spoke, there was something . . . something _natural_ about his voice, as though it didn't ever say things he didn't mean. well, for heaven's sake here was the old minister started off again on one of his historical spiels. mr. welles glanced cautiously at vincent to see if he were in danger of blowing up, and found him looking unexpectedly thoughtful. he was evidently not paying the least attention to mr. bayweather's account of the eighteenth century quarrel between new hampshire and vermont. he was apparently thinking of something else, very hard. he himself leaned back in his chair, but half of one absent ear given to mr. bayweather's lecture, and enjoyed himself looking at mrs. crittenden. she was pretty, mrs. crittenden was. he hadn't been sure the first day, but now he had had a chance to get used to her face being so long and sort of pointed, and her eyes long too, and her black eyebrows running back almost into her hair, he liked every bit of her face. it looked so different from anybody else's. he noticed with an inward smile that she was fidgety under mr. bayweather's historical talk. _he_ was the only person with any patience in that whole bunch. but at what a price had he acquired it! by and by mrs. crittenden got up quietly and went out into the other office as if on an errand. mr. bayweather took advantage of her absence to tell them a lot about how much the crittendens had done for the whole region and what a golden thing mrs. crittenden's music had been for everybody, and about an original conception of business which mr. crittenden seemed to have. mr. welles was not interested in music, but he was in business and he would have liked to hear a great deal more about this, but just at this point, as if to cut the clergyman off, in came mr. crttenden, very brisk and prompt, ready to take them around the mill. vincent stood up. they all stood up. mr. welles noted that vincent had quite come out of his brown study and was now all there. he was as he usually was, a wire charged with a very high-voltage current. they went out now, all of them together, but soon broke up into two groups. he stayed behind with mr. crittenden and pretended to look at the machinery of the saw-mill, which he found very boring indeed, as he hadn't the slightest comprehension of a single cog in it. but there was something there at which he really looked. it was the expression of mr. crittenden's face as he walked about, and it was the expression on the faces of the men as they looked at the boss. mr. welles, not being a talker, had had a great deal of opportunity to study the faces of others, and he had become rather a specialist in expressions. part of his usefulness in the office had come from that. he had catalogued in his mind the different looks on human faces, and most of them connected with any form of business organization were infinitely familiar to him, from the way the casual itinerant temporary laborer looked at the boss of his gang, to the way the star salesman looked at the head of the house. but here was a new variety to him, these frank and familiar glances thrown in answer to the nodded greeting or short sentence of the boss as he walked about. they were not so much friendly (although they were that too), as they were familiar and open, as though nothing lay hidden behind the apparent expression. it was not often that mr. welles had encountered that, a look that seemed to hide nothing. he wondered if he could find out anything about this from mr. crittenden and put a question to him about his relations with his men. he tried to make it tactful and sensible-sounding, but as he said the words, he knew just how flat and parlor-reformerish they sounded; and it didn't surprise him a bit to have the business-man bristle up and snap his head off. it had sounded as though he didn't know a thing about business--he, the very marrow of whose bones was soaked in a bitter knowledge that the only thing that could keep it going was the fear of death in every man's heart, lest the others get ahead of him and trample him down. he decided that he wouldn't say another thing, just endure the temporary boredom of being trotted about to have things explained to him, which he hadn't any intention of trying to understand. but mr. crittenden did not try to explain. perhaps he was bored himself, perhaps he guessed the visitor's ignorance. he just walked around from one part of the big, sunshiny shops to another, taking advantage of this opportunity to look things over for his own purposes. and everywhere he went, he gave and received back that curious, new look of openness. it was not noisy here as in the saw-mill, but very quiet and peaceful, the bee-like whirring of the belts on the pulleys the loudest continuous sound. it was clean, too. the hardwood floor was being swept clean of sawdust and shavings all the time, by a lame old man, who pottered tranquilly about, sweeping and cleaning and putting the trash in a big box on a truck. when he had it full, he beckoned to a burly lad, shoving a truck across the room, and called in a clear, natural, friendly voice, "hey, nat, come on over." the big lad came, whistling, pushed the box off full, and brought it back empty, still whistling airily. there were a good many work-people in sight. mr. welles made a guessing estimate that the business must keep about two hundred busy. and there was not one who looked harried by his work. the big, cluttered place heaped high with piles of curiously shaped pieces of wood, filled with oddly contrived saws and lathes and knives and buffers for sawing and turning and polishing and fitting those bits of wood, was brooded over as by something palpable by an emanation of order. mr. welles did not understand a detail of what he was looking at, but from the whole, his mind, experienced in business, took in a singularly fresh impression that everybody there knew what he was up to, in every sense of the word. he and mr. crittenden stood for a time looking at and chatting to a gray-haired man who was polishing smoothly planed oval bits of board. he stopped as they talked, ran his fingers over the satin-smoothed surface with evident pleasure, and remarked to his employer, "mighty fine maple we're getting from the warner lot. see the grain in that!" he held it up admiringly, turning it so that the light would show it at its best, and looked at it respectfully. "there's no wood like maple," he said. mr. crittenden answered, "yep. the warner land is just right for slow-growing trees." he took it out of the workman's hand, looked it over more closely with an evident intelligent certainty of what to look for, and handed it back with a nod that signified his appreciation of the wood and of the workmanship which had brought it to that state. there had been about that tiny, casual human contact a quality which mr. welles did not recognize. his curiosity rose again. he wondered if he might not succeed in getting some explanation out of the manufacturer, if he went about it very tactfully. he would wait for his chance. he began to perceive with some surprise that he was on the point of quite liking mrs. crittenden's husband. so he tried another question, after a while, very cautiously, and was surprised to find mr. crittenden no longer snappish, but quite friendly. it occurred to him as the pleasantest possibility that he might find his liking for the other man returned. that _would_ be a new present hung on the christmas tree of his life in vermont. on the strength of this possibility, and banking on the friendliness in the other man's eyes, he drove straight at it, the phrase which the minister had used when he said that mr. crittenden thought of business as an ideal service to humanity as much as doctoring. that had sounded so ignorant and ministerial he hadn't even thought of it seriously, till after this contact with the man of whom it had been said. the best way with crittenden was evidently the direct one. he had seen that in the first five minutes of observation of him. so he would simply tell him how bookish and impossible it had sounded, and see what he had to say. he'd probably laugh and say the minister had it all wrong, of course, regular minister's idea. and so presently they were off, on a real talk, beyond what he had hoped for, and crittenden was telling him really what he had meant. he was saying in his firm, natural, easy voice, as though he saw nothing specially to be self-conscious about in it, "why, of course i don't rank lumbering and wood-working with medicine. wood isn't as vital to human life as quinine, or a knowledge of what to do in typhoid fever. but after all, wood is something that people have to have, isn't it? somebody has to get it out and work it up into usable shape. if he can do this, get it out of the woods without spoiling the future of the forests, drying up the rivers and all that, and have it transformed into some finished product that people need in their lives, it's a sort of plain, everyday service, isn't it? and to do this work as economically as it can be managed, taking as low a price as you can get along with instead of screwing as high a price as possible out of the people who have to have it, what's the matter with that, as an interesting problem in ingenuity? i tell you, mr. welles, you ought to talk to my wife about this. it's as much her idea as mine. we worked it out together, little by little. it was when elly was a baby. she was the second child, you know, and we began to feel grown-up. by that time i was pretty sure i could make a go of the business. and we first began to figure out what we were up to. tried to see what sort of a go we wanted the business to have. we first began to make some sense out of what we were doing in life." mr. welles found himself overwhelmed by a reminiscent ache at this phrase and burst out, his words tinged with the bitterness he tried to keep out of his mind, "isn't that an awful moment when you first try to make some sense out of what you are doing in life! but suppose you had gone on doing it, always, always, till you were an old man, and never succeeded! suppose all you seemed to be accomplishing was to be able to hand over to the sons of the directors more money than was good for them? i tell you, mr. crittenden, i've often wished that once, just once, before i died i could be _sure_ that i had done anything that was of any use to anybody." he went on, nodding his head, "what struck me so about what mr. bayweather said is that i've often thought about doctors myself, and envied them. they take money for what they do, of course, but they miss lots of chances to make more, just so's to be of some use. i've often thought when they were running the prices up and up in our office just because they could, that a doctor would be put out of his profession in no time by public opinion, if he ever tried to screw the last cent out of everybody, the way business men do as a matter of course." mr. crittenden protested meditatively against this. "oh, don't you think maybe there's a drift the other way among decent business people now? why, when marise and i were first trying to get it clear in our own heads, we kept it pretty dark, i tell you, that we weren't in it only for what money we could make, because we knew how loony we'd seem to anybody else. but don't you see any signs that lately maybe the same idea is striking lots of people in america?" "no, i do _not_!" said mr. welles emphatically. "with a profiteer on every corner! "but look-y-here, the howl about profiteers, isn't that something new? isn't that a dumb sort of application to business of the doctor's standard of service? twenty years ago, would anybody have thought of doing anything but uneasily admiring a grocer who made all the money he could out of his business? 'why shouldn't he?' people would have thought then. everybody else did. twenty years ago, would anybody have dreamed of legally preventing a rich man from buying all the coal he wanted, whether there was enough for everybody, or not?" mr. welles considered this in unconvinced silence. mr. crittenden went on, "why, sometimes it looks to me like the difference between what's legitimate in baseball and in tennis. every ball-player will try to bluff the umpire that he's safe when he knows the baseman tagged him three feet from the bag; and public opinion upholds him in his bluff if he can get away with it. but like as not, the very same man who lies like a trooper on the diamond, if he went off that very afternoon to play tennis would never dream of announcing 'out' if his opponent's ball really had landed in the court,--not if it cost him the sett and match,--whether anybody was looking at him or not. it's 'the thing' to try to get anything you can put over in baseball, anything the umpire can't catch you at. and it's not 'the thing' in tennis. most of the time you don't even have any umpire. that's it: that's not such a bad way to put it. my wife and i wanted to run our business on the tennis standard and not on the baseball one. because i believe, ultimately you know, in fixing things,--everything,--national life as well, so that we'll need as few umpires as possible. once get the tennis standard adopted . . ." mr. welles said mournfully, "don't get started on politics. i'm too old to have any hopes of that!" "right you are there," said mr. crittenden. "economic organization is the word. that's one thing that keeps me so interested in my little economic laboratory here. political parties are as prehistoric as the mastodon, if they only knew it." mr. welles said, "but the queer thing is that you make it work." "oh, anybody with a head for business could make it work. you've got to know how to manage your machine before you can make it go, of course. but that's not saying you have to drive it somewhere you don't want to get to. i don't say that that workman back there who was making such a beautiful job of polishing that maple could make it go. he couldn't." mr. welles persisted. "but i've always thought, i've always _seen_ it, or thought i had . . . that life-and-death competition is the only stimulus that's strong enough to stir men up to the prodigious effort they have to put out to _make_ a go of their business, start the machine running. that, and the certainty of all they could get out of the consumer as a reward. you know it's held that there's a sort of mystic identity between all you can get out of the consumer and the exact amount of profit that'll just make the business go." mr. crittenden said comfortably, as though he were talking of something that did not alarm him, "oh well, the best of the feudal seigneurs mournfully believed that a sharp sword and a long lance in their own hands were the strongholds of society. the wolf-pack idea of business will go the same way." he explained in answer to mr. welles' vagueness as to this term, "you know, the conception that if you're going to get hair brushes or rubber coats or mattresses or what-not enough for humanity manufactured, the only way is to have the group engaged in it form a wolf-pack, hunting down the public to extract from it as much money as possible. the salesmen and advertisers take care of this extracting. then this money's to be fought for, by the people engaged in the process, as wolves fight over the carcass of the deer they have brought down together. this is the fight between the directors of labor and the working-men. it's ridiculous to hold that such a wasteful and incoherent system is the only one that will arouse men's energies enough to get them into action. it's absurd to think that business men . . . they're the flower of the nation, they're america's specialty, you know . . . can only find their opportunity for service to their fellow-men by such haphazard contracts with public service as helping raise money for a library or heading a movement for better housing of the poor, when they don't know anything about the housing of the poor, nor what it ought to be. their opportunity for public service is right in their own legitimate businesses, and don't you forget it. everybody's business is his best way to public service, and doing it that way, you'd put out of operation the professional uplifters who uplift as a business, and can't help being priggish and self-conscious about it. it makes me tired the way professional idealists don't see their big chance. they'll take all the money they can get from business for hospitals, and laboratories, and to investigate the sleeping sickness or the boll-weevil, but that business itself could rank with public libraries and hospitals as an ideal element in the life on the globe . . . they can't open their minds wide enough to take in that." mr. welles had been following this with an almost painful interest and surprise. he found it very agitating, very upsetting. suppose there had been something there, all the time. he must try to think it out more. perhaps it was not true. but here sat a man who had made it work. why hadn't he thought of it in time? now it was too late. too late for him to do anything. anything? the voice of the man beside him grew dim to him, as, uneasy and uncertain, his spirits sank lower and lower. suppose all the time there had been a way out besides beating the retreat to the women, the children, and the gardens? only now it was too late! what was the use of thinking of it all? for a moment he forgot where he was. it seemed to him that there was something waiting for him to think of it . . . but oddly enough, all that presented itself to him, when he tried to look, was the story that had nothing to do with anything, which his cousin had told him in a recent letter, of the fiery sensitive young negro doctor, who had worked his way through medical school, and hospital-training, gone south to practise, and how he had been treated by the white people in the town where he had settled. he wondered if she hadn't exaggerated all that. but she gave such definite details. perhaps mr. crittenden knew something about that problem. perhaps he had an idea about that, too, that might be of help. he would ask him. part ii chapter xi in aunt hetty's garden i june 10. marise bent to kiss the soft withered cheek. "elly is a _real_ vermonter, but i'm not. she can get along with just 'hello, aunt hetty,' but that's not enough for me," she said tenderly to the old woman; "i have to kiss you." "oh, you can do as you like, for all of me," answered the other with an unsparing indifference. marise laughed at the quality of this, taking the shaky old hand in hers with a certainty of affection returned. she went on, "this is a regular descent on you, cousin hetty. i've come to show you off, you and the house and the garden. this is mr. welles who has settled next door to us, you know, and this is mr. marsh who is visiting him for a time. and here are the children, and eugenia mills came up from the city last night and will be here perhaps, if she gets up energy after her afternoon nap, and neale is coming over from the mill after closing hours, and we've brought along a basket supper and, if you'll let us, we're going to eat it out in your garden, under great-great-grandmother's willow-tree." cousin hetty nodded dry, though not uncordial greetings to the strangers and said crisply, "you're welcome enough to sit around anywhere you can find, and eat your lunch here, but where you're going to find anything to show off, beats me." "mr. welles is interested in gardens and wants to look at yours." "not much to look at," said the old lady uncompromisingly. "i don't want to look at a _garden_!" clamored little mark, outraged at the idea. "i want to be let go up to aunt hetty's yattic where the sword and 'pinning-wheel are." "would all you children like that best?" asked marise. their old kinswoman answered for them, "you'd better believe they would. you always did yourself. run along, now, children, and don't fall on the attic stairs and hurt yourselves on the wool-hetchels." the fox-terrier, who had hung in an anguish of uncertainty and hope and fear on the incomprehensible words passing between little mark and the grown-ups, perceiving now that the children ran clattering towards the stairs, took a few agitated steps after them, and ran back to marise, shivering, begging with his eyes, in a wriggling terror lest he be forbidden to follow them into the fun. marise motioned him along up the stairs, saying with a laughing, indulgent, amused accent, "yes, yes, poor mã©dor, you can go along with the children if you want to." the steel sinews of the dog's legs stretched taut on the instant, in a great bound of relief. he whirled with a ludicrous and undignified haste, slipping, his toe-nails clicking on the bare floor, tore across the room and dashed up the stairs, drunk with joy. "if strong emotions are what one wants out of life," commented marise lightly, to marsh, "one ought to be born a nervous little dog, given over to the whimsical tyranny of humans." "there are other ways of coming by strong emotions," answered marsh, not lightly at all. "what in the world are wool-hetchels?" asked mr. welles as the grown-ups went along the hall towards the side-door. "why, when i was a girl, and we spun our own wool yarn . . ." began cousin hetty, trotting beside him and turning her old face up to his. marsh stopped short in the hall-way with a challenging abruptness that brought marise to a standstill also. the older people went on down the long dusky hail to the door and out into the garden, not noticing that the other two had stopped. the door swung shut behind them. * * * * * marise felt the man's dark eyes on her, searching, determined. they were far from those first days, she thought, when he had tacitly agreed not to look at her like that, very far from those first days of delicacy and lightness of touch. with a determination as firm as his own, she made her face and eyes opaque, and said on a resolutely gay note, "what's the matter? can't you stand any more information about early times in vermont? you must have been having too heavy a dose of mr. bayweather. but _i_ like it, you know. i find it awfully interesting to know so in detail about any past period of human life; as much so . . . why not? . . . as researches into which provinces of france used half-timber houses, and how late?" "you like a great many things!" he said impatiently. "we must get out into the garden with the others, or cousin hetty will be telling her old-time stories before we arrive," she answered, moving towards the door. she felt her pulse knocking loud and swift. strange how a casual interchange of words with him would excite and agitate her. but it had been more than that. everything _was_, with him. he gave the sidewise toss of his head, which had come to be so familiar to her, as though he were tossing a lock of hair from his forehead, but he said nothing more, following her down the long hall in silence. it was as though she had physically felt the steel of his blade slide gratingly once more down from her parry. her mental attitude had been so entirely that of a fencer, on the alert, watchfully defensive against the quick-flashing attack of the opponent, that she had an instant's absurd fear of letting him walk behind her, as though she might feel a thrust in the back. "how ridiculous of me!" she told herself with an inward laugh of genuine amusement. "women are as bad as fox-terriers for inventing exciting occasions out of nothing at all." then in a gust of deep anger, instantly come, instantly gone, "why do i tolerate this for a moment? i was perfectly all right before. why don't i simply send him about his business, as i would any other bold meddler?" but after this, with an abrupt shift to another plane, "that would be acting preposterously, like a silly, self-consciously virtuous matron. what earthly difference does it make to me what a casual visitor to our town says or does to amuse himself in his casual stay, that may end at any moment? and how scarifyingly he would laugh at me, if he knew what comic relics of old prudish reflexes are stirred up by the contact with his mere human livingness. heavens! how he would laugh to know me capable of being so 'guindã©e,' so personal, fearing like any school-girl a flirtation in any man's conversation. he must never see a trace of that. no matter how startled i ever am, he mustn't see anything but a smooth, amused surface. it would be intolerable to have him laugh at me." her hand was on the latch, when a deep, muffled murmur from the depths admonished her, "personal vanity . . . that's what's at the bottom of all that you are telling yourself. it is a vain woman speaking, and fearing a wound to her vanity." she resented this, pushed it back, and clicked the latch up firmly, stepping out into the transparent gold of the late-afternoon sunshine. she turned her head as her companion came up behind her on the garden path, half expecting to have his eyes meet hers with a visible shade of sardonic mockery, and prepared to meet it halfway with a similar amusement at the absurdity of human beings, herself included. * * * * * he was not looking at her at all, but straight before him, unconscious for an instant that she had turned her eyes on him, and in this instant before the customary mask of self-consciousness dropped over his face, she read there, plain and startling to see, unmistakable to her grown woman's experience of life, the marks of a deep, and painful, and present emotion. all of her hair-splitting speculations withered to nothing. she did not even wonder what it was that moved him so strangely and dreadfully. there was no room for thought in the profound awed impersonal sympathy which with a great hush came upon her at the sight of another human being in pain. he felt some intimate emanation from her, turned towards her, and for the faintest fraction of time they looked at each other through a rent in the veil of life. * * * * * cousin hetty's old voice called them cheerfully, "over here, this way under the willow-tree." they turned in that direction, to hear her saying, ". . . that was in 1763 and of course they came on horseback, using the indian trails the men had learned during the french-and-indian wars. great-grandmother (she was a twelve-year-old girl then) had brought along a willow switch from their home in connecticut. when the whole lot of them decided to settle here in the valley, and her folks took this land to be theirs, she stuck her willow switch into the ground, alongside the brook here, and this is the tree it grew to be. looks pretty battered up, don't it, like other old folks." mr. welles tipped his pale, quiet face back to look up at the great tree, stretching its huge, stiff old limbs mutilated by time and weather, across the tiny, crystal brook dimpling and smiling and murmuring among its many-colored pebbles. "queer, isn't it," he speculated, "how old the tree has grown, and how the brook has stayed just as young as ever." "it's the other way around between 'gene powers' house and his pine-tree," commented aunt hetty. "the pine-tree gets bigger and finer and stronger all the time, seems 'sthough, and the house gets more battered and feeble-looking." marise looked across at marsh and found his eyes on her with an expression she rarely saw in them, almost a peaceful look, as of a man who has had something infinitely satisfying fall to his lot. he smiled at her gently, a good, quiet smile, and looked away into the extravagant splendor of a row of peonies. marise felt an inexplicable happiness, clear and sunny like the light in the old garden. she sat down on the bench and fell into a more relaxed and restful pose than she had known for some time. what a sweet and gracious thing life could be after all! could there be a lovelier place on earth than here among cousin hetty's flower-children. dear old cousin hetty, with her wrinkled, stiff exterior, and those bright living eyes of hers. she was the willow-tree outside and the brook inside, that's what she was. what tender childhood recollections were bound up with the sight of that quiet old face. "and those rose-bushes," continued the old woman, "are all cuttings my great-great-grandmother brought up from connecticut, and _they_ came from cuttings our folks brought over from england, in 1634. if 'twas a little later in the season, and they were in bloom, you'd see how they're not nearly so i double as most roses. the petals are bigger and not so curled up, more like wild roses." she sat down beside the others on the long wooden bench, and added, "i never dig around one of those bushes, nor cut a rose to put in a vase, without i feel as though great-great-grandmother and grandmother and all the rest were in me, still alive." "don't you think," asked marise of the two men, "that there is something awfully sweet about feeling yourself a part of the past generations, like that? as we do here. to have such a familiarity with any corner of the earth . . . well, it seems to me like music, the more familiar it is, the dearer and closer it is . . . and when there are several generations of familiarity back of you. . . . i always feel as though my life were a part of something much bigger than just _my_ life, when i feel it a continuation of their lives, as much as of my own childhood. it always seems deep and quieting to me." mr. welles assented wistfully, "it makes me envious." marsh shook his head, sending up a meditative puff of smoke. "if you want to know how it really strikes me, i'll have to say it sounds plain sleepy to me. deep and quieting all right, sure enough. but so's opium. and in my experience, most things just get duller and duller, the more familiar they are. i don't begin to have time in my life for the living i want to do, my own self! i can't let my grandmothers and grandfathers come shoving in for another whirl at it. they've had their turn. and my turn isn't a minute too long for me. your notion looks to me . . . lots of old accepted notions look like that to me . . . like a good big dose of soothing syrup to get people safely past the time in their existences when they might do some sure-enough personal living on their own hook." he paused and added in a meditative murmur, "that time is so damn short as it is!" he turned hastily to the old lady with an apology. "why, i _beg_ your pardon! i didn't realize i had gone on talking aloud. i was just thinking along to myself. you see, your soothing syrup is working on me, the garden, the sun, the stillness, all the grandmothers and grandfathers sitting around. i am almost half asleep." "i'm an old maid, i know," said cousin hetty piquantly. "but i'm not a proper massachusetts old maid. i'm vermont, and a swear-word or two don't scare me. i was brought up on first-hand stories of ethan allen's talk, and . . ." marise broke in hastily, in mock alarm, "now, cousin hetty, don't you start in on the story of ethan allen and the cowshed that was too short. i won't have our city visitors scandalized by our lack of . . ." cousin hetty's laughter cut her short, as merry and young a sound as the voice of the brook. "i hadn't thought of that story in years!" she said. she and marise laughed together, looking at each other. but they said nothing else. "aren't you going to _tell_ us?" asked mr. welles with a genuine aggrieved surprise which tickled cousin hetty into more laughter. "i shall not rest day or night, till i have found someone who knows that story," said marsh, adding, "old mrs. powers must know it. and _she_ will love to tell it to me. it is evidently the sort of story which is her great specialty." they all laughed, foolishly, light-heartedly. marise consciously delighted in the laughter, in the silly, light tone of their talk, in the feeling of confidence and security which bathed her as warmly as the new wine of the spring sunshine. she thought passingly, swiftly, with her habitual, satiric wonder at her own fancifulness, of her earlier notions about steel blades and passes and parries, and being afraid to walk down the hall with her "opponent" back of her. her opponent, this potent, significant personality, lounging on the bench beside her, resting in the interval of a life the intensity of which was out of her world altogether, the life, all power, of a modern rich man in great affairs; controlling vast forces, swaying and shaping the lives of thousands of weaker men as no potentate had ever done, living in the instants he allowed himself for personal life (she felt again the pang of her sympathy for his look of fierce, inexplicable pain) with a concentration in harmony with the great scale of his other activities. it was, just as the cheap novels called it, a sort, a bad, inhuman, colorful, fascinating sort of modern version of the superman's life, she reflected. she had been ridiculous to project her village insignificance into that large-scale landscape. a distant whistle blew a long, full note, filling the valley with its vibrations. "is that a train, at this hour?" murmured mr. welles. his voice was sunk to a somnolent monotone, his hands folded over his waistcoat moved slowly and rhythmically with his breathing. it was evident that he did not in the least care whether it was a train or not. "oh _no!_" said marise, severely, disapproving the vagueness and inaccuracy of his observation. "that's the mill-whistle, blowing the closing-hour. you're no true ashleyan, not to have learned the difference between the voices of the different whistles of the day." she turned to marsh, tilting her wings for a capricious flight. "i think it's part of the stubborn stiff-jointedness of human imagination, don't you, that we don't hear the beauty of those great steam-whistles. i wonder if it's not unconscious art that gave to our mighty machines such voices of qower." "isn't it perhaps ostentatious to call the family saw-mill a 'mighty machine'?" inquired marsh mildly. he sat at the end of the bench, his arm along the back behind mr. welles, his head turned to the side, his soft hat pulled low over his forehead, looking at the garden and at marise out of half-shut, sleepy eyes. marise went on, drawing breath for a longer flight. "when the train comes sweeping up the valley, trailing its great beautiful banner of smoke, i feel as though it were the crescendo announcing something, and at the crossing, when that noble rounded note blares out . . . why, it's the music for the setting. nothing else could cope with the depth of the valley, the highness and blackness of its mountain walls, and the steepness of the eagle rocks." "i call that going some, 'noble rounded note'!" murmured marsh, lifting his eyebrows with a visible effort and letting his eyes fall half shut, against the brilliance of the sunshine. marise laughed, and persisted. "just because its called a steam-whistle, we won't hear its beauty and grandeur, till something else has been invented to take its place, and then we'll look back sentimentally and regret it." "maybe _you_ will," conceded marsh. the two elder looked on, idly amused at this give-and-take. "and i don't suppose," continued marise, "to take another instance of modern lack of imagination, that you have ever noticed, as an element of picturesque power in modern life, the splendid puissance of the traffic cop's presence in a city street." they all had a protesting laugh at this, startled for an instant from their dreaminess. "yes, and if i could think of more grandiloquent words to express him, i'd use them," said marise defiantly, launching out into yet more outrageous flights of rhetoric. "i could stand for hours on a street corner, admiring the completeness with which he is transfigured out of the human limitations of his mere personality, how he feels, flaming through his every vein and artery, the invincible power of the law, freely set over themselves by all those turbulent, unruly human beings, surging around him in their fiery speed-genii. he raises his arm. it is not a human arm, it is the decree of the entire race. and as far as it can be seen, all those wilful fierce creatures bow themselves to it. the current boils past him in one direction. he lets it go till he thinks fit to stop it. he sounds his whistle, and raises his arm again in that inimitable gesture of omnipotence. and again they bow themselves. now that the priest before the altar no longer sways humanity as he did, is there anywhere else, any other such visible embodiment of might, majesty, and power as . . ." "gracious me, marise!" warned her old cousin. "i know you're only running on with your foolishness, but i think you're going pretty far when you mix a policeman up with priests and altars and things. i don't believe mr. bayweather would like that very well." "he wouldn't mind," demurred marise. "he'd think it an interesting historical parallel." "mrs. bayweather would have a thing or two to say." "right you are. _mrs._ bayweather would certainly say something!" agreed marise. she stood up. "i'm hypnotized into perfect good-for-nothingness like the rest of you by the loveliness of the afternoon and the niceness of everybody. here it is almost eating-time and i haven't even opened the baskets. no, don't you move," she commanded the others, beginning to stir from their nirvana to make dutiful offers of help. "i'll call the children. and neale will be here in a moment." * * * * * she went back to the house, down the long walk, under the grape-arbor, still only faintly shaded with sprigs of pale green. she was calling, "children! _children!_ come and help with the supper." she vanished into the house. there was a moment or two of intense quiet, in which the almost horizontal rays of the setting sun poured a flood of palpable gold on the three motionless figures in the garden. * * * * * then she emerged again, her husband beside her, carrying the largest of the baskets, the children struggling with other baskets, a pail, an ice-cream-freezer, while the dog wove circles about them, wrought to exaltation by the complicated smell of the eatables. "neale was just coming in the front gate," she explained, as he nodded familiarly to the men and bent to kiss the old woman's cheek. "cousin hetty, just _look_ at elly in that night-cap of great-aunt pauline's. doesn't she look the image of that old daguerreotype of grandmother? see here, mark, who said you could trail that sword out here? that belongs in the attic." "oh, let him, let him," said cousin hetty peaceably. "there's nothing much less breakable than a sword. he can't hurt it." "i've woren it lots of times before," said mark. "aunt hetty always let me to. favver, won't you 'trap it tight to me, so's i won't 'traddle it so much." "mother," said elly, coming up close to marise, as she stood unpacking the dishes, "i was looking inside that old diary, the one in the red leather cover, your grandmother's, i guess, the diary she wrote when she was a young lady. and she was having a perfectly dreadful time whether she could believe the doctrine of the trinity. she seemed to feel so bad about it. she wrote how she couldn't sleep nights, and cried, and everything. it was the holy ghost she couldn't make any sense out of. mother, what in the world _is_ the doctrine of the trinity? "for mercy's sakes!" cried cousin hetty. "i never saw such a family! elly, what won't you be up to, next? i can't call that a proper thing for a little girl to talk about, right out, so." "mother, _you_ tell me," said elly, looking up into her mother's face with the expression of tranquil trust which was like a visible radiance. marise always felt scared, she told herself, when elly looked at her like that. she made a little helpless shrugged gesture of surrender with her shoulders, setting down on the table a plate of cold sliced lamb. "elly, darling, i can't stop just this minute to tell you about it, and anyhow i don't understand any more about it than grandmother did. but i don't care if i don't. the first quiet minute we have together, i'll tell you enough so you can understand why _she_ cared." "all right, when i go to bed tonight i'll remind you to," elly made the engagement definite. she added, with a shout, "oh, mother, _chicken_ sandwiches! oh, i didn't know we were going to have _chicken_ sandwiches. mother, can't we begin now? i'm awfully hungry." "hello," said neale, looking back toward the house. "here comes eugenia, arisen from her nap. paul, run back into the house and bring out another chair. marise, have you explained who eugenia is?" "oh lã , lã , no!" exclaimed marise. "i forgot they didn't know her. quick, you do it, neale." "old friend of my wife's, sort of half-cousin several-times removed, schoolmates in france together, the kind of old family friend who comes and goes in the house at will," said neale rapidly. "cultivated, artistic, and so on." "oh, _neale_, how slightingly you put it!" cried marise under her breath. "she's made herself into one of the rarest and most finished creations!" neale went on rapidly, in a low tone as the newcomer stepped slowly down the path, "she toils not, neither does she spin . . . doesn't have to. highbrow, very, and yet stylish, very! most unusual combination." he added as final information, "spinster, by conviction," as he stepped forward to greet her. the other two men stood up to be presented to the newcomer, who, making everything to marise's eyes seem rough and countrified, advanced towards them, self-possessed, and indifferent to all those eyes turned on her. in her gleaming, supple dress of satin-like ivory jersey, she looked some tiny, finished, jewel-object, infinitely breakable, at which one ought only to look if it were safely behind glass. "there is someone of marsh's own world, the 'great world' he speaks of," thought marise. she was not aware of any wistfulness in her recognition of this fact, but she was moved to stand closer to her husband, and once as she moved about, setting the table, to lay her fingers for an instant on his hand. "we're going to have ice-cream, eugenia," announced paul, leaning on the arm of her chair after she and all the others were seated again. "that's good news," she said equably. she laid a small, beautiful hand on the child's shoulder, and with a smooth, imperceptible movement, set him a little further from her. paul did not observe this manoeuver, but his mother did, with an inward smile. "paul, don't hang on eugenia like that," she called to him. "but she smells so sweet!" protested the little boy. mr. welles held out a sympathizing hand and drew the child to him. he too had seen that gesture. "come here, all you little folks," ordered marise, now seriously beginning to serve the meal, "and start waiting on the table." "cold lamb!" cried cousin hetty with enthusiasm. "i'm so glad. agnes won't touch mutton or lamb. she says they taste so like a sheep. and so we don't often have it." "paul, can you be trusted to pour the hot chocolate?" asked his mother. "no, neale, don't get up. i want to see if the children can't do it all." * * * * * from where she sat at the foot of the table, she directed the operations. the children stepped about, serious, responsible, their rosy faces translucent in the long, searching, level rays sent up by the sun, low in the notch. dishes clicked lightly, knives and forks jingled, cups were set back with little clinking noises on saucers. all these indoor sounds were oddly diminished and unresonant under the open sky, just as the chatting, laughing flow of the voices, even though it rose at times to bursts of mirth which the children's shouts made noisy, never drowned out the sweet, secret talk of the brook to itself. marise was aware of all this, richly and happily aware of the complexities of an impression whose total seemed to her, for the moment, felicity itself. it pleased her, all, every bit of it, pleased and amused her; the dear children, paul worshiping at the shrine of eugenia's elegancies, mark the absurd darling with that grotesque sword between his legs, elly devouring her favorite sandwich with impassioned satisfaction and wondering about the holy ghost; cousin hetty, ageless, pungent, and savory as one of her herbs; mr. welles, the old tired darling come into his haven, loving paul as he would his own grandson; eugenia orchid-like against their apple-blossom rusticity; marsh . . . how tremendously more _simpã¡tico_ he had seemed this afternoon than ever before, as though one might really like him, and not just find him exciting and interesting; neale, dear neale with his calm eyes into which it did everyone good to look. all of them at ease, friendly, enjoying food, the visible world, and each other. where, after all, were those traditional, troubling, insoluble intricacies of human relationships which had been tormenting her and darkening her sky? it was all so good and simple if one could only remain good and simple oneself. there was no lightning to fear in that lucent sunset air. * * * * * presently, as the talk turned on flowers and the dates of their blooming, eugenia said to her casually, "marisette, here we are the first of june and past, and the roses here are less advanced than they were at tivoli the last of march. do you remember the day when a lot of us sat outdoors and ate a picnic dinner, just as we do now? it was the day we climbed monte cavo." marise explained, "miss mills is a friend who dates back even before my husband's time, back to our student days in rome." to eugenia she said, "you're giving us both away and showing how long ago it is, and how you've forgotten about details. we never could have climbed up monte cavo, the day we went to tivoli. they don't go on the same excursion, at all." "that's true," agreed eugenia indifferently, "you're right. monte cavo goes with the rocca di papa expedition." before she could imagine a possible reason, marise felt her hands go cold and moist. the sky seemed to darken and lower above her. eugenia went on, "and i never went to rocca di papa with you, at all, i'm sure of that. that was a trip you took after you had dropped me for neale. in fact, it was on that very expedition that you got formally engaged, don't you remember? you and neale walked over from monte cavo and only just caught the last car down." * * * * * ridiculous! preposterous! marise told herself that it was not possible that her hands were trembling so. it was merely a physical reaction, such as one had when startled by some trivial sudden event. but she couldn't make them stop trembling. she couldn't make them stop. what nonsense to be so agitated. nobody could remember the name from that evening, weeks and weeks ago. and what if they did? what could they make of it? it seemed to her that dusk had fallen in the garden. where was that lucent sunset air? she heard eugenia's voice going on, and neale chiming in with a laugh, and did not understand what they said. surely everybody must have forgotten. she hazarded a quick glance at mr. welles' face and drew a long breath of relief. he had forgotten, that was evident. she looked beyond him to marsh. he too would certainly have forgotten. he was waiting for her eyes. and when they met his, she felt the lightning flash. he had not forgotten. ii marsh suddenly found it unbearable. he wasn't used to keeping the curb on himself like this, and he hadn't the least intention of learning how to do it. a fierce, physical irritability overcame him, and he stopped short in the hall, just because he could not stand the silly chatter that was always flowing from these silly people about their foolish affairs. if they only knew what he was leaving unsaid! he had not meant to make marise halt, too, his movement having been a mere unconsidered reflex, but of course she did stop, apparently surprised by the brusqueness of his action, and faced him there in the dusky hall-way. she was so close to him that he could see every detail of her face and person, just as he could at night when he closed his eyes; so close that for an instant he felt her breath on his face. he ground his teeth, minded, that instant, to throw down the trumpery little wall of convention. it couldn't stand, he knew with an experienced certainty of his own power that it couldn't stand for an instant against him. the day he chose to put his shoulder to it, down it would go in a heap of rubble. but the wall was not all. usually it was all. but with this woman it was nothing, a mere accident. beyond it she stood, valid, and looked at him out of those long eyes of hers. _what was in her mind?_ she looked at him now, quietly, just as usual, made some light casual remark, and effortlessly, as though she had some malign and invincible charm, she had passed from out his power again, and was walking with that straight, sure tread of hers, down to the door. if he could have done it, he would have struck at her from behind. he could get no hold on her, could not take the first step. all during those weeks and weeks, he had thrown out his net, and had caught enough facts, lord knows. but had he any certainty that he had put them together right? he had not yet caught in her any one tone or look or phrase that would give him the unmistakable clue. he had set down words and words and words that would tell him what her life really was, if he only knew the alphabet of her language. he might be making a fool of himself with his almost certainty that she was conscious of having outgrown, like a splendid tropical tree, the wretched little kitchen-garden where fate had transplanted her. when he could stamp down his heat of feeling and let his intelligence have a moment's play, he was perfectly capable of seeing that he might be misinterpreting everything he had observed. for instance, that evening over the photograph-album with her betrayal of some strong feeling of distaste for the place near rome. it was evident, from her tone, her look, her gesture, that the name of it brought up some acutely distasteful memory to her, but that could mean anything, or nothing. it might be merely some sordid accident, as that a drunken workman had said something brutal to her there. women of her sort, he knew, never forgot those things. or any one of a thousand such incidents. he would never know the significance of that gesture of shrinking of hers. as he walked behind her, he looked hard at her back, with its undulating, vase-like beauty, so close to him; and felt her immeasurably distant. she opened the door now and went out into the sunlight, stepping a little to one side as though to make room for him to come up beside her. he found that he knew every turn of her head, every poise of her shoulders and action of her hands, the whole rhythm of her body, as though they were his own. and there she passed from him, far and remote. a sudden certainty of fore-ordained defeat came over him, as he had never known before. he was amazed at the violence of his pain, intolerable, intolerable! * * * * * she turned her head quickly and caught his eyes in this instant of inexplicable suffering. * * * * * what miraculous thing happened then? it seemed to him that her face wavered in golden rays, from the radiance of her eyes. for she did not withdraw her gaze. she looked at him with an instant, profound sympathy and pity, no longer herself, transfigured, divine by the depth of her humanity. the sore bitterness went out from his heart. * * * * * a voice called. she turned away. he felt himself following her. he looked about him, light-headed with relief from pain. the quiet, flowering world shimmered rainbow-like. what a strange power one human being could have with another that a look could be an event! he walked more slowly, feeling with a curious pleasure the insatiable desire for possession ebbing from him. why not let it ebb entirely? why not enjoy the ineffable sweetness of what he could have? that was what would please her, what she would like, what she would give, freely. in this moment of hush, he quite saw how it would be possible, although he had never for a moment before in his life believed it. yes, possible and lovely. after all, he must stop sometime, and take the slower pace. why not now, when there was a certain and great prize to be won . . . ? * * * * * people talked around him. he talked and did not know his own words. marise spun those sparkling webs of nonsense of hers, and made him laugh, but the next moment he could not have told what she had said. he must somehow have been very tired to take such intense pleasure in being at rest. her husband came, that rough and energetic husband. the children came, the children whose restless, selfish, noisy preying on their mother usually annoyed him so, and still the charm was not broken. marise, as she always did when her husband and children were there, retreated into a remote plane of futile busyness with details that servants should have cared for; answering the children's silly questions, belonging to everyone, her personal existence blotted out. but this time he felt still, deep within him, the penetrating sweetness of her eyes as she had looked at him. a tiresome, sophisticated friend of marise's came, too, somehow intruding another personality into the circle, already too full, and yet he was but vaguely irritated by her. she only brought out by contrast the thrilling quality of marise's golden presence. he basked in that, as in the sunshine, and thought of nothing else. possibilities he had never dreamed of, stretched before him, possibilities of almost impersonal and yet desirable existence. perhaps this was the turning-point of his life. he supposed there really was one, sometime, for everybody. * * * * * ". . . rocca di papa . . ." someone had said. or had he dreamed it? he awoke with an inward bound, like a man springing up from sleep at a sudden noise. his first look was for marise. she was pale. he had not dreamed it. the voice went on . . . the newcomer's, the one they called eugenia . . . yes, she had known them in italy. marise had just said they had been friends before her marriage. the voice went on. how he listened as though crouched before the keyhole of a door! only three or four sentences, quite casual and trivial in content, pronounced in that self-consciously cosmopolitan accent. then the voice stopped. it had said enough for him. now he knew. now he had that clue. he had the sensation of rising to his full height, exultantly, every faculty as alert as though he had never been drugged to sleep by those weak notions of renunciation. the consciousness of power was like a sweet taste in his mouth. the deep, fundamental, inalienable need for possession stretched itself, titanic and mighty, refreshed, reposed, and strengthened by the involuntary rest it had had. * * * * * he fixed his eyes on marise, waiting for the first interchange of a look. he could see that her hands were trembling; and smiled to himself. she was looking at the old man. now, in a moment she would look at him. there were her eyes. she had looked at him. thunder rolled in his ears. chapter xii heard from the study june 20. from his desk in the inner room where he finally buckled down to those estimates about the popple-wood casters, neale could follow, more or less closely, as his attention varied, the evening activities of the household. first there had been the clinking and laughter from the dining-room and kitchen where marise and the children cleared off the table and washed the dishes. how sweet their voices sounded, all light and gay! every occasion for being with their mother was fun for the kids. how happy marise made them! and how they throve in that happiness like little plants in the sunshine! when you really looked at what went on about you, how funny and silly lots of traditional ideas did seem. that notion, solemnly accepted by the would-be sophisticated moderns, for instance, that a woman of beauty and intelligence was being wasted unless she was engaged in being the "emotional inspiration" of some man's life: which meant in plain english, stimulating his sexual desire to that fever-heat which they called impassioned living. as if there were not a thousand other forms of deep fulfilment in life. people who thought that, how narrow and cramped they seemed, and blinded to the bigness and variety of life! but then, of course, everybody hadn't had under his eyes a creature genuinely rich and various, like marise, and hadn't seen how all children feasted on her charm like bees on honey, and how old people adored her, and how, just by being herself, she enriched and civilized every life that touched her, and made every place she lived in a home for the human spirit. and heaven knew she was, with all that, the real emotional inspiration of a man's life, a man who loved her a thousand times more than in his ignorant and passionate youth. * * * * * come, this wasn't work. he might as well have stayed out with the family and helped with the dishes. this was being like eugenia mills, who always somehow had something to do upstairs when there was any work to do downstairs. eugenia was a woman who somehow managed to stand from under life, anyhow, had been the most successful draft-dodger he knew. no call had been urgent enough to get _her_ to the recruiting station to shoulder her share of what everybody had to do. but what did she get out of her successful shirking? she was in plain process of drying up and blowing away. he turned to his desk and drew out the papers which had the figures and estimates on that popple. he would see if the warner woodlot had as much popple and basswood on it as they thought. it would, of course, be easiest to get it off that lot, if there were enough of it to fill the order for casters. the hemmingway lot and the dornwood lot oughtn't to be lumbered except in winter, with snow for the sleds. but you could haul straight downhill from the warner lot, even on wheels, using the back lane in the eagle rocks woods. there was a period of close attention to his papers, when he heard nothing at all of what went on in the rooms next his study. his mind was working with the rapid, trained exactitude which was a delight to him, with a sure, firm grasp on the whole problem in all its complicated parts. finally he nodded with satisfaction, pushed the papers away, and lighted his pipe, contentedly. he had it by the tail. he leaned back in his chair, drawing on the newly lighted pipe and ruminating again. he thought to himself that he would like to see any other man in the valley who could make an estimate like that, and be sure of it, who would know what facts to gather and where to get them, on the cost of cutting and hauling in different seasons, on mill-work and transportation and overhead expenses, and how to market and where, and how to get money and how to get credit and how to manage these cranky independent yankees and the hot-tempered irresponsible canucks. it was all very well for advanced radicals to say that the common workmen in a business were as good as the head of the concern. they weren't and that was all there was to be said about it. any one of them, any single one of his employees, put in his place as manager, would run the business into a hole as deep as hell inside six months. and if you put the whole lot of them at it, it would only be six weeks instead of six months before the bust-up. there again, what people kept saying about life, things clever people said and that got accepted as the clever things _to_ say, how awfully beside the mark they seem to you, when you found out actual facts by coming up against them. what a difference some first-hand experience with what you were talking about, did make with what you said. what clever folks ought to say was not that the workmen were as good as the head or the same sort of flesh and blood, because they weren't; but that the head exploited his natural capacities out of all proportion, getting such an outrageous share of the money they all made together, for doing what was natural to him, and what he enjoyed doing. take himself for instance. if by some freak, he could make more money out of being one of the hands, would he go down in the ranks, stand at a machine all day and cut the same wooden shapes, hour after hour: or drive a team day after day where somebody else told him to go? you bet your life he wouldn't! he didn't need all the money he could squeeze out of everybody concerned, to make him do his job as manager. his real pay was the feeling of managing, of doing a job he was fitted for, and that was worth doing. how fine it had always been of marise to back him up in that view of the business, not to want him to cheat the umpire, even if he could get away with it, even though it would have meant enough sight more money for them, even though the umpire didn't exist as yet, except in his own conscience, in his own idea of what he was up to in his business. never once had marise had a moment of that backward-looking hankering for more money that turned so many women into pillars of salt and their husbands into legalized sneak-thieves. he pulled out some of the letters from canada about the powers case, and fingered them over a little. he had brought them home this evening, and it wasn't the first time either, to try to get a good hour alone with marise to talk it over with her. he frowned as he reflected that he seemed to have had mighty little chance for talking anything over with marise since his return. there always seemed to be somebody sticking around; one of the two men next door, who didn't have anything to do _but_ stick around, or eugenia, who appeared to have settled down entirely on them this time. well, perhaps it was just as well to wait a little longer and say nothing about it, till he had those last final verifications in his hands. what in thunder did eugenia come to visit them for, anyhow? their way of life must make her sick. why did she bother? oh, probably her old affection for marise. they had been girls together, of course, and marise had been good to her. women thought more of those old-time relations than men. well, he could stand eugenia if she could stand them, he guessed. but she wasn't one who grew on him with the years. he had less and less patience with those fussy little ways, found less and less amusing those frequent, small cat-like gestures of hers, picking off an invisible thread from her sleeve, rolling it up to an invisible ball between her white finger and thumb, and casting it delicately away; or settling a ring, or brushing off invisible dust with a flick of a polished finger-nail; all these manoeuvers executed with such leisure and easy deliberation that they didn't make her seem restless, and you knew she calculated that effect. a man who had had years with a real, living woman like marise, didn't know whether to laugh or swear at such mannerisms and the self-consciousness that underlay them. there she was coming down the stairs now, when she heard marise at the piano, with the children, and knew there was no more work to be done. pshaw! he had meant to go out and join the others, but now he would wait a while, till he had finished his pipe. a pipe beside eugenia's perfumed cigarettes always seemed so gross. and he wanted to lounge at his ease, stretch out in his arm-chair with his feet on another. could you do that, with eugenia fashion-plating herself on the sofa? he leaned back smoking peacefully, listening to marise's voice brimming up all around the children's as they romped through "the raggle-taggle gypsies, oh!" what a mastery of the piano marise had, subduing it to the slender pipe of those child-voices as long as they sang, and rolling out sumptuous harmonies in the intervals of the song. lucky kids! lucky kids! to have childhood memories like that. he heard paul say, "now let's sing 'massa's in the cold, cold ground,'" and elly shriek out, "no, mother, _no!_ it's so _terribly_ sad! i can't stand it!" and paul answer with that certainty of his always being in the right, "aw, elly, it's not fair. is it, mother, fair to have elly keep us from singing one of the nicest songs we have, just because she's so foolish?" his father frowned. queer about paul. he'd do anything for elly if he thought her in trouble, would stand up for her against the biggest bully of the school-yard. but he couldn't keep himself from . . . it was perhaps because paul could not _understand_ that . . . now how could marise meet this little problem in family equity, he wondered? her solutions of the children's knots always tickled him. she was saying, "let's see. elly, it doesn't look to me as though you had any right to keep paul from singing a song he likes. and, paul, it doesn't seem as though you had any right to make elly listen to a song that makes her cry. let's settle it this way. we can't move the piano, but we can move elly. elly dear, suppose you go 'way out through the kitchen and shut both doors and stand on the back porch. touclã© will probably be there, looking out, the way she does evenings, so you won't be alone. i'll send mark out to get you when we're through. and because it's not very much fun to stand out in the dark, you can stop and get yourself a piece of cocoanut cake as you go through the pantry." neale laughed silently to himself as he heard the doors open and shut and elly's light tread die away. how perfectly marise understood her little daughter! it wasn't only over the piano that marise had a mastery, but over everybody's nature. she played on them as surely, as richly as on any instrument. that's what he called real art-in-life. why wasn't it creative art, as much as anything, her blondin-like accuracy of poise among all the conflicting elements of family-life, the warring interests of the different temperaments, ages, sexes, natures? why wasn't it an artistic creation, the unbroken happiness and harmony she drew out of those elements, as much as the picture the painter drew out of the reds and blues and yellows on his palette? if it gave an actor a high and disinterested pleasure when he had an inspiration, or heard himself give out a true and freshly found intonation, or make exactly the right gesture, whether anybody in the audience applauded him or not, why wouldn't the mother of a family and maker of a home have the same pleasure, and by heck! just as high and disinterested, when she had once more turned the trick, had an inspiration, and found a course that all her charges, young and old, could steer together? well, there was one, anyhow, of marise's audience who often gave her a silent hand-clap of admiration. the wailing, lugubrious notes of the negro lament rose now, paul's voice loud and clear and full of relish. "it takes a heavy stimulant to give paul his sensations," thought his father. "what would take the hide right off of elly, just gives him an agreeable tingle." his pipe went out as he listened, and he reached for a match. the song stopped. someone had come in. he heard paul's voice cry joyfully, "oh goody, mr. welles, come on up to the piano." neale leaned forward with a slightly unpleasant stirring of his blood and listened to see if the old man had come alone. no, of course he hadn't. he never did. there was eugenia's voice saying, "good-evening, mr. marsh." she would move over for him on the sofa and annex him with a look. well, let her have him. he was her kind more than theirs, the lord knew. probably he was used to having that sort of woman annex him. neale moved his head restlessly and shifted his position. his pipe and his arm-chair had lost their savor. the room seemed hot to him and he got up to open a window. standing there by the open sash, looking out into the blue, misty glory of an overclouded moonlight night, he decided that he would not go in at all, and join them. he felt tired and out of sorts, he found. and they were such infernal talkers, eugenia and marsh. it wore you out to hear them, especially as you felt all the time that their speculations on life and human nature were so _far_ off, that it would be just wasting your breath to try to set them right. he'd stay here in the study and smoke and maybe doze off a little, till they went away. marise had known he had business figuring to do, and she would have a perfectly valid excuse to give them for his non-appearance. not that he had any illusions as to anybody there missing him at all. he heard mark's little voice sound shrilly from the pantry, "come on, elly. it's all right. i've even putten away the book that's got that song." some splendid, surging shouts from the piano and the voices began on "the battle hymn of the republic." neale could hear mr. welles' shaky old bass booming away this time. he was probably sitting down with paul on his knees. it was really nice of the old codger to take such a fancy to paul, and be able to see those sterling qualities of his, through paul's surface unloveliness that came mostly from his slowness of imagination. the voices stopped; elly said, "that song sounds as if it were proud of itself." her father's heart melted in the utter prostration of tenderness he felt for his little daughter. how like elly! what a quick intelligence animated the sensitive, touching, appealing, defenseless darling that elly was! marise must have been a little girl like that. think of her growing up in such an atmosphere of disunion and flightiness as that weak mother of hers must have given her. queer, how marise didn't seem to have a trace of that weakness, unless it was that funny physical impressionableness of hers, that she could laugh at herself, but that still wrought on her, so that if measles were going the rounds, she could see symptoms of measles in everything the children did or didn't do; or that well-known habit of hers, that even the children laughed about with her, of feeling things crawling all over her for hours after she had seen a caterpillar. well, that was only the other side of her extraordinary sensitiveness, that made her know how everybody was feeling, and what to do to make him feel better. she had often said that she would certainly die if she ever tried to study medicine, because as fast as she read of a symptom she would have it, herself. but she wouldn't die. she'd live and make a cracker-jack of a doctor, if she'd ever tried it, enough sight better than some callous brute of a boy with no imagination. "one more song before bed-time," announced marise. "and we'll let mark choose. it's his turn." a long silence, in which neale amusedly divined mark torn between his many favorites. finally the high sweet little treble, "well, let's make it 'down among the dead men.'" at which neale laughed silently again. what a circus the kids were! the clock struck nine as they finished this, and neale heard the stir and shifting of chairs. paul said, "mother, mr. welles and i have fixed it up, that he's going to put us to bed tonight, if you'll let him." amused surprise from marise: mr. welles' voice saying he really would like it, never had seen any children in their nightgowns except in the movies; paul saying, "gracious! we don't wear nightgowns like women. we wear pajamas!"; mark's voice crying, "we'll show you how we play foot-fight on the rug. we have to do that barefoot, so each one can tickle ourselves;" as usual, no sound from elly probably still reveling in the proudness of "the battle hymn of the republic." a clatter of feet on the stairs, the chirping voices muffled by the shutting of a door overhead, and eugenia's voice, musical and carefully modulated, saying, "well, marisette, you look perfectly worn out with fatigue. you haven't looked a bit well lately, anyhow. and i'm not surprised. the way those children take it out of you!" "damn that woman!" thought neale. that sterile life of hers had starved out from her even the capacity to understand a really human existence when she saw it. not that she had _ever_ seemed to have any considerable seed-bed of human possibilities to be starved, even in youth, if he could judge from his memory, now very dim, of how she had seemed to him in rome, when he had first met her, along with marise. he remembered that he had said of her fantastically, to a fellow in the _pension_, that she reminded him of a spool of silk thread. and now the silk thread had all been wound off, and there was only the bare wooden spool left. "it's not surprising that mrs. crittenden gets tired," commented marsh's voice. "she does the work of four or five persons." "yes," agreed eugenia, "i don't know how she does it . . . cook, nurse, teacher, housekeeper, welfare-worker, seamstress, gardener . . ." "oh, let up, let up!" neale heard marise say, with an impatience that pleased him. she must have been at the piano as she spoke, for at once there rose, smiting to the heart, the solemn, glorious, hopeless chords of the last part of the pathetic symphony. heavens! how marise could play! when the last dull, dreary, beautiful note had vibrated into silence, eugenia murmured, "doesn't that always make you want to crawl under the sod and pull the daisies over you?" "ashes, ashes, not daisies," corrected marsh, dreamily. there was, thought neale listening critically to their intonations, a voluptuous, perverse pleasure in despair which he found very distasteful. despair was a real and honest and deadly emotion. folks with appetites sated by having everything they wanted, oughtn't to use despair as a sort of condiment to perk up their jaded zest in life. "confounded play-actors!" he thought, and wondered what marise's reaction to them was. he foresaw that it was going to be too much for his patience to listen to them. he would get too hot under the collar and be snappish, afterwards. luckily he was in the library. there were better voices to listen to. he got up, ran his forefinger along a shelf, and took down a volume of trevelyan, "garbaldi and the thousand." the well-worn volume opened of itself at a familiar passage, the description of the battle of calatafimi. his eye lighted in anticipation. there was a man's book, he thought. but his pipe was out. he laid the book down to light it before he began to read. in spite of himself he listened to hear what they were saying now in the next room. eugenia was talking and he didn't like what she was saying about those recurrent dreams of marise's, because he knew it was making poor marise squirm. she had such a queer, elly-like shyness about that notion of hers, marise had. it evidently meant more to her than she had ever been able to make him understand. he couldn't see why she cared so much about it, hated to have it talked about casually. but he wasn't eugenia. if marise didn't want it talked about casually, by george he wasn't the one who would mention it. they'd hardly ever spoken of them, those dreams, even to each other. people had a right to moral privacy, if they wanted it, he supposed, even married women. there was nothing so ruthless anyhow as an old childhood friend, to whom you had made foolish youthful confidences and who brought them out any time he felt like it. "you ought to have those dreams of yours psycho-analyzed, marisette," eugenia was saying. to marsh she went on in explanation, "mrs. crittenden has always had a queer kind of dream. i remember her telling me about them, years ago, when we were girls together, and nobody guessed there was anything in dreams. she dreams she is in some tremendous rapid motion, a leaf on a great river-current, or a bird blown by a great wind, or foam driven along by storm-waves, isn't that it, marisonne?" neale did not need the sound of marise's voice to know how she hated this. she said, rather shortly for her, as though she didn't want to say a word about it, and yet couldn't leave it uncorrected, "not exactly. i don't dream i'm the leaf on the current. i dream i _am_ the current myself, part of it. i'm the wind, not the bird blown by it; the wave itself; it's too hard to explain." "do you still have those dreams once in a while, marisette, and do you still love them as much?" "oh yes, sometimes." "and have you ever had the same sensation in your waking moments? i remember so well you used to say that was what you longed for, some experience in real life that would make you have that glorious sense of irresistible forward movement. we used to think," said eugenia, "that perhaps falling in love would give it to you." "no," said marise. "i've never felt it, out of my dreams." neale was sorry he had elected to stay in the study. if he were out there now, he could change the conversation, come to her rescue. couldn't eugenia see that she was bothering marise! "what do you suppose freud would make out of such dreams?" asked eugenia, evidently of marsh. "why, it sounds simple enough to me," said marsh, and neale was obliged to hand it to him that the very sound of his voice had a living, real, genuine accent that was a relief after eugenia. he didn't talk half-chewed and wholly undigested nonsense, the way eugenia did. neale had heard enough of his ideas to know that he didn't agree with a word the man said, but at least it was a vital and intelligent personality talking. "why, it sounds simple enough to me. americans have fadded the thing into imbecility, so that the very phrase has become such a bromide one hates to pronounce it. but of course the commonplace that all dreams are expressions of suppressed desires is true. and it's very apparent that mrs. crittenden's desire is a very fine one for freedom and power and momentum. she's evidently not a back-water personality. though one would hardly need psycho-analysis to guess that!" he changed the subject as masterfully as neale could have done. "see here, mrs. crittenden, that tschaikowsky whetted my appetite for more. don't you feel like playing again?" the idea came over neale, and in spite of his uneasy irritation, it tickled his fancy, that possibly marsh found eugenia just as deadly as he did. marise jumped at the chance to turn the talk, for in an instant the piano began to chant again, not tschaikowsky, neale noted, but some of the new people whom marise was working over lately. he couldn't understand a note of them, nor keep his mind on them, nor even try to remember their names. he had been able to get just as far as debussy and no further, he thought whimsically, before his brain-channels hardened in incipient middle-age. he plunged into trevelyan and the heart-quickening ups and downs of battle. some time after this, he was pulled back from those critical and glorious hours by the consciousness, gradually forcing itself on him on two discomforts; his pipe had gone out and eugenia was at it again. he scratched a match and listened in spite of himself to that smooth liquid voice. she was still harping on psycho-analysis. wasn't she just the kind of woman for whom that would have an irresistible fascination! he gathered that marise was objecting to it, just as sweepingly as eugenia was approving. how women did hate half-tones and reasonable qualifications! "i'm a gardener," marise was saying, "and i know a thing or two about natural processes. the thing to do with a manure pile is not to paw it over and over, but to put it safely away in the dark, underground, and never bother your head about it again except to watch the beauty and vitality of the flowers and grains that spring from the earth it has fertilized." neale as he held the lifted match over his pipe, shook his head. that was all very well, put picturesquely as marise always put things; but you couldn't knock an idea on the head just with an apt metaphor. there was a great deal more to be said about it, even if fool half-baked faddists like eugenia did make it ridiculous. in the first place it was nothing so new. everybody who had ever encountered a crisis in his life and conquered it, had . . . why, he himself . . . he felt his heart beat faster, and before he knew what was coming, he felt a great, heart-quickening gust of fresh salt air blow over him, and felt himself far from the book-tainted stagnant air of that indoor room. he forgot to light his pipe and sat motionless, holding the burning match till it flared up at the end and scorched his fingers. then he dropped it with a startled oath, and looked quickly around him. in that instant he had lived over again the moment in nova scotia when he had gone down to the harbor just as the battered little tramp steamer was pulling out, bound for china. good god! what an astonishing onslaught that had been! how from some great, fierce, unguessed appetite, the longing for wandering, lawless freedom had burst up! marise, the children, their safe, snug middle-class life, how they had seemed only so many drag-anchors to cut himself loose from and make out to the open sea! if the steamer had been still close enough to the dock so that he could have jumped aboard, how he would have leaped! he might have been one of those men who disappeared mysteriously, from out a prosperous and happy life, and are never heard of again. but it hadn't been close enough. the green oily water widened between them; and he had gone back with a burning heart to that deadly little country hotel. well, had he buried it and forced himself to think no more about it? no. not on your life he hadn't. he'd stood up to himself. he'd asked himself what the hell was the matter, and he'd gone after it, as any grown man would. it hadn't been fun. he remembered that the sweat had run down his face as though he'd been handling planks in the lumber-yard in midsummer. and what had he found? he'd found that he'd never got over the jolt it had given him, there on that aimless youthful trip through italy, with china and the eastern seas before him, to fall in love and have all those plans for wandering cut off by the need for a safe, stable life. then he'd gone on. he'd asked himself, if that's so, _then_ what? he hadn't pulled any of the moralizing stern-duty stuff; he knew marise would rather die than have him doing for her something he hated, out of stern duty. it was an insult, anyhow, unless it was a positively helpless cripple in question, to do things for people out of duty only. and to mix what folks called "duty" up with love, that was the devil. so he hadn't. that was the sort of thing marise had meant, so long ago, when they were first engaged, that was the sort of thing she had asked him never to do. he'd promised he never would, and this wasn't the first time the promise had held him straight to what was, after all, the only decent course with a woman like marise, as strong as she was fine. anything else would be treating her like a child, or a dependent, as he'd hate to have her treat him, or anybody treat him. so this time he'd asked himself right out, what he really wanted and needed in life, and he'd been ready, honestly ready, to take any answer he got, and dree his weird accordingly, as the best thing for everybody concerned, as the only honest thing, as the only thing that would put any bed-rock under him, as what marise would want him to do. if it meant tramp-steamers, why it had to be tramp-steamers. something could be managed for marise and the children. this was what he had asked. and what answer had he got? why, of course, he hankered for the double-jointed, lawless freedom that the tramp-steamer stood for. he guessed everybody wanted that, more or less. but he wanted marise and the children a damn sight more. and not only marise and the children. he hadn't let himself lay it all on their backs, and play the martyr's rã´le of the forcibly domesticated wild male. no, he wanted the life he had, outside the family, his own line of work; he wanted the sureness of it, the coherence of it, the permanence of it, the clear conscience he had about what he was doing in the world, the knowledge that he was creating something, helping men to use the natural resources of the world without exploiting either the natural resources or the men; he wanted the sense of deserved power over other human beings. that was what he really wanted most of all. you could call it smug and safe and bourgeois if you liked. but the plain fact remained that it had more of what really counted for him than any other life he could see possible. and when he looked at it, hard, with his eyes open, why the tramp-steamer to china sailed out of school-boy theatrical clouds and showed herself for the shabby, sordid little substitute for a real life she would have been to him. he'd have liked to have that too, of course. you'd _like_ to have everything! but you can't. and it is only immature boys who whimper because you can't have your cake and eat it too. that was all there was to that. what he had dug for was to find his deepest and most permanent desires, and when he had found them, he'd come home with a happy heart. it even seemed to him that he had been happier and quieter than before. well, maybe marise's metaphor had something in it, for all it was so flowery and high-falutin. maybe she would say that what he had done was exactly what she'd described, to dig it under the ground and let it fertilize and enrich his life. oh lord! how a figure of speech always wound you up in knots if you tried to use it to say anything definite! he relighted his pipe, this time with a steady hand, and a cool eye; and turned to trevelyan and garibaldi again. he'd take that other side of himself out in books, he guessed. he had now arrived at the crucial moment of the battle, and lifted his head and his heart in anticipation of the way garibaldi met that moment. he read, "to experienced eyes the battle seemed lost. bixio said to garibaldi, 'general, i fear we ought to retreat.' garibaldi looked up as though a serpent had stung him. '_here we make italy or die!_' he said." "that's the talk!" cried neale, to himself. the brave words resounded in the air about him, and drowned out the voices from the next room. chapter xiii along the eagle rock brook july 1. paul was very much pleased that mr. welles agreed with him so perfectly about the hour and place for lunch. but then mr. welles was awfully nice about agreeing. he said, now, "yes, i believe this would be the best place. here by the pool, on that big rock, as you say. we'll be drier there. yesterday's rain has made everything in the woods pretty wet. that's a good idea of yours, to build our fire on the rock, with water all around. the fire couldn't possibly spread." paul looked proudly at the rain-soaked trees and wet soggy leaves which his forethought had saved from destruction and strode across the brook in his rubber boots, with the first installment of dry pine branches. "aren't you tired?" he said protectingly to his companion. "whyn't you sit down over there and undo the lunch-basket? i'll make camp. father showed me how to make a campfire with only one match." "all right," said mr. welles. "i do feel a little leg-weary. i'm not so used to these mountain scrambles as you are." "i'll clean the fish, too," said paul; "maybe you don't like to. elly can't abide it." he did not say that he did not like it very well himself, having always to get over the sick feeling it gave him. "i never did it in my life," confessed mr. welles. "you see i always lived in towns till now." paul felt very sorry for mr. welles, and shook his head pityingly as he went off for more firewood. when he had collected a lot, he began to lay the sticks. he did it just as father had showed him, but it seemed lots harder to get them right. and it took a lot more than one match to get it started. he didn't have a bit of breath left in him, by the time he finally got it going. and my, weren't his hands black! but he felt very much set up, all the same, that he had done it. in his heart paul knew that there was nothing anybody could do which he could not. they hung the slimpsy slices of bacon from forked sticks, paul showing mr. welles how to thread his on, and began to cook them around the edges of the fire, while the two little trout frizzled in the frying-pan. "i'm so glad we got that last one," commented paul. "one wouldn't have been very much." "yes, it's much better to have one apiece," agreed mr. welles. when the bacon was done (only burned a little at the edges, and still soft in the thicker places in the center of the slice), and the fish the right brown, and 'most shrunk up to nothing, they each of them put a trout and a piece of bacon on his slice of bread and butter, and gracious! didn't it taste good. "you must have done this before," said mr. welles, respectfully; "you seem to know a good deal about camping." "oh, i'm a good camper, all right," agreed paul. "mother and i have gone off in the woods, lots of times. when i was littler, i used to get spells when i was bad. i do still, even now, once in a while." mr. welles did not smile, but continued gravely eating his bread and bacon, his eyes on the little boy. "i don't know what's the matter. i feel all snarled up inside. and then the first thing you know i've done something awful. mother can tell when it first gets started in me, the least little teenty bit. _how_ can she tell? and then she takes me off camping. she pretends it's because she's feeling snarled up, herself. but it's not. she never is. why not?" he considered this in silence, chewing slowly on a vast mouthful of bread. "anyhow, we leave the little children with touclã©, if she's there," (he stopped here an instant to inspect mr. welles to make sure he was not laughing because he had called elly and mark the "little children." but mr. welles was not laughing at him. he was listening, _really_ listening, the way grown-ups almost never did, to hear what you had to say. he did like mr. welles. he went on,) "or if touclã©'s off somewheres in the woods herself, we leave them down at the powers' to play with addie and ralph, and we light out for the woods, mother and i. the snarleder up i feel, the further we go. we don't fish or anything. just leg it, till i feel better. then we make a fire and eat." he swallowed visibly a huge lump of unchewed bread, and said, uncorking a thermos bottle, "i asked mother to put up some hot coffee." mr. welles seemed surprised. "why, do you drink coffee?" "oh no, none of us kids ever take it. but i thought you'd like some. grown-up folks mostly do, when they eat out-of-doors." mr. welles took the cup of steaming coffee, ready sugared and creamed, without even saying thank you, but in a minute, as they began their second round of sandwiches, filled this time with cold ham from home, he said, "you've got quite a way of looking out for folks, haven't you? "i like to," said paul. "_i_ always liked to," said mr. welles. "i guess you've done quite a lot of it," conjectured the little boy. "quite a lot," said the old man, thoughtfully. paul never liked to be left behind and now spoke out, "well, i expect i'll do a good deal, too." "most likely you will," agreed the old man. he spoke a little absently, and after a minute said, "paul, talking about looking out for folks makes me think of something that's bothering me like everything lately. i can't make up my mind about whether i ought to go on, looking out for folks, if i know folks that need it. i keep hearing from somebody who lives down south, that the colored folks aren't getting a real square deal. i keep wondering if maybe i oughtn't to go and live there and help her look out for them." paul was so astonished at this that he opened his mouth wide, without speaking. when he could get his breath, he shouted, "why, mr. welles, go away from ashley to live!" he stared hard at the old man, thinking he must have got it twisted. but mr. welles did not set him straight, only stared down at the ground with a pale, bothered-looking face and sort of twitched his mouth to one side. the little boy moved over closer to him, and said, looking up at him with all his might, "aw, mr. welles, i _wish't_ you wouldn't! i _like_ your being here. there's lot of things i've got planned we could do together." it seemed to him that the old man looked older and more tired at this. he closed his eyes and did not answer. paul felt better. mr. welles couldn't have been in earnest. how still it was in the woods that day. not the least little flutter from any leaf. the sunlight looked as green, as green, coming down through the trees that way, like the light in church when the sun came in through the stained-glass windows. the only thing that budged at all was a bird . . . was it a flicker? . . . he couldn't make out. it kept hopping around in that big beech tree across the brook. probably it was worried about its nest and didn't like to have people so near. and yet they sat as still, he and mr. welles, as still as a tree, or the shiny water in the pool. mr. welles opened his eyes and took the little boy's rough, calloused hand in his. "see here, paul, maybe you can help me make up my mind." paul squared his shoulders. "it's this way. i'm pretty nearly used up, not good for much any more. and the electrical company wanted to fix everything the nicest way for me to live. and they have. i hadn't any idea anything could be so nice as living next door to you folks in such a place as crittenden's. and then making friends with you. i'd always wanted a little boy, but i thought i was so old, no little boy would bother with me." he squeezed the child's fingers and looked down on him lovingly. for a moment paul's heart swelled up so he couldn't speak. then he said, in a husky voice, "i _like_ to." he took a large bite from his sandwich and repeated roughly, his mouth full, "i _like_ to." neither said anything more for a moment. the flicker . . . yes, it was a flicker . . . in the big beech kept changing her position, flying down from a top-branch to a lower one, and then back again. paul made out the hole in the old trunk of the tree where she'd probably put her nest, and wondered why she didn't go back to it. "have you got to the civil war, in your history yet, paul?" "gee, yes, 'way past it. up to the philadelphia exposition." mr. welles said nothing for a minute and paul could see by his expression that he was trying to think of some simple baby way to say what he wanted to. gracious! didn't he know paul was in the seventh grade? "_i_ can understand all right," he said roughly. mr. welles said, "well, all right. if you can, you'll do more than i can. you know how the colored people got their freedom then. but something very bad had been going on there in slavery, for ever so long. and bad things that go on for a long time, can't be straightened out in a hurry. and so far, it's been too much for everybody, to get this straightened out. the colored people . . . they're made to suffer all the time for being born the way they are. and that's not right . . . in america . . ." "why don't they stand up for themselves?" asked paul scornfully. he'd like to see anybody who would make him suffer for being born the way he was. mr. welles hesitated again. "it looks to me this way. people can fight for some things . . . their property, and their vote and their work. and i guess the colored people have got to fight for those, themselves. but there are some other things . . . some of the nicest . . . why, if you fight for them, you tear them all to pieces, trying to get them." paul did not have the least idea what this meant. "if what you want is to have people respect what you are worth, why, if you fight them to make them, then you spoil what you're worth. anyhow, even if you don't spoil it, fighting about it doesn't put you in any state of mind to go on being your best. that's a pretty hard job for anybody." paul found this very dull. his attention wandered back to that queer flicker, so excited about something. the old man tried to get at him again. "look here, paul, americans that happen to be colored people ought to have every bit of the same chance to amount to their best that any americans have, oughtn't they?" paul saw this. but he didn't see what mr. welles could do about it, and said so. "well, i couldn't do a great deal," said the old man sadly, "but more than if i stayed here. it looks as though they needed, as much as anything else, people to just have the same feeling towards them that you have for anybody who's trying to make the best of himself. and i could do that." paul got the impression at last that mr. welles was in earnest about this. it made him feel anxious. "oh _dear_!" he said, kicking the toe of his rubber boot against the rock. he couldn't think of anything to say, except that he hated the idea of mr. welles going. but just then he was startled by a sharp cry of distress from the bird, who flew out wildly from the beech, poised herself in the air, beating her wings and calling in a loud scream. the old man, unused to forests and their inhabitants, noticed this but vaguely, and was surprised by paul's instant response. "there must be a snake after her eggs," he said excitedly. "i'll go over and chase him off." he started across the pool, gave a cry, and stood still, petrified. before their eyes, without a breath of wind, the hugh beech solemnly bowed itself and with a great roar of branches, whipping and crushing the trees about, it fell, its full length thundering on the ground, a great mat of shaggy roots uptorn, leaving an open wound in the stony mountain soil. then, in a minute, it was all as still as before. paul was scared almost to death. he scrambled back to the rock, his knees shaking, his stomach sick, and clung to mr. welles with all his might. "what made it fall? there's no wind! what made it fall?" he cried, burying his face in the old man's coat. "it might just as easy have fallen this way, on us, and killed us! what made it fall?" mr. welles patted paul's shoulder, and said, "there, there," till paul's teeth stopped chattering and he began to be a little ashamed of showing how it had startled him. he was also a little put out that mr. welles had remained so unmoved. "you don't know how dangerous a big tree _is_, when it falls!" he said, accusingly, to defend himself. "if you'd lived here more, and heard some of the stories . . . ! nate hewitt had his back broken with a tree falling on him. but he was cutting that one down, and it fell too soon. nobody had touched this one! and there isn't any wind. what _made_ it fall? most every winter, some man in the lumber camp on the mountain gets killed or smashed up, and lots of horses too." he felt much better now, and he did want to find out whatever had made that tree fall. he sat up, and looked back at it, just a mess of broken branches and upset leaves, where a minute before there had been a tall living tree! "i'm going over to see what made it fall," he said. he splashed across the pool and poked around with a stick in the hole in the ground, and almost right away he saw what the reason was. he ran back to tell mr. welles. "i see now. the brook had kept sidling over that way, and washed the earth from under the rocks. it just didn't have enough ground left to hold on to." he felt all right now he knew some simple reason for what had looked so crazy. he looked up confidently at the old man, and was struck into awed silence by the expression of mr. welles' face. "paul," said mr. welles, and his voice wasn't steady, "i guess what i ought to try to be is one more drop of water in the brook." paul stared hard. he did not understand this either, but he understood the expression in that tired, old face. mr. welles went on, "that wrong feeling about colored people, not wanting them to be respected as much as any american, is . . . that's a tree that's got to come down. i'm too old to take an axe to it. and, anyhow, if you cut that sort of thing down with an axe, the roots generally live and start all over again. if we can just wash the ground out from under it, with enough people thinking differently, maybe it'll fall, roots and all, of its own weight. if i go and live there and just am one more person who respects them when they deserve it, it'll help _that_ much, maybe, don't you think?" paul had understood more what mr. welles' face and voice said to him than the words. he kept on looking into the old man's eyes. something deep inside paul said "yes" to what mr. welles' eyes were asking him. "how about it, paul?" asked the old man. the child gave a start, climbed up beside him, and took hold of his hand. "how about it? how about it?" asked mr. welles in a very low tone. the little boy nodded. "maybe," he said briefly. his lips shook. presently he sniffed and drew his sleeve across his nose. he held the old hand tightly. "oh dear!" he said again, in a small, miserable voice. the old man made no answer. the two sat motionless, leaning against each other. a ray of sun found the newly opened spot in the roof of the woods, and it seemed to paul it pointed a long steady finger down on the fallen beech. at first paul's throat ached, and his eyes smarted. he felt heavy and sore, as though he hadn't eaten the right thing for lunch. but by and by this went away. a quiet came all over him, so that he was better than happy. he laid his head against mr. welles' shoulder and looked up into the worn, pale old face, which was now also very quiet and still as though he too were better than happy. he held paul close to him. paul had a great many mixed-up thoughts. but there was one that was clear. he said to himself solemnly, "i guess i know who i want to be like when i grow up." * * * * * by and by, he stirred and said, "well, i guess i better start to pack up. don't you bother. i'll pack the things away. mother showed me how to clean the frying-pan with sand and moss." chapter xiv beside the onion-bed july 10. marise pulled nervously and rapidly at the weeds among the onions, and wiped away with her sleeve the drops that ran down her hot, red face. she was not rebellious at the dusty, tiresome task, nor aware of the merciless heat of the early-summer sun. she was not indeed thinking at all of what she was doing, except that the physical effort of stooping and reaching and pulling was a relief to her, made slightly less oppressive the thunder-heavy moral atmosphere she breathed. she was trying to think, but the different impressions came rushing into her mind with such vehement haste that they dashed against each other brutally, to her entire confusion. when she tried to think out an answer to this perfectly preposterous idea of old mr. welles, why should a thousand other horrifying ideas which she had been keeping at bay pour in through the door, once opened to probing thought? what possible connection could there be between such a fantastic crazy notion as his, and those other heaving, looming possibilities which rolled themselves higher and murkier the longer she refused to look at them? she snatched at the weeds, twitching them up, flinging them down, reaching, straining, the sun molten on her back, the sweat stinging on her face. it was a silly impression of course, but it seemed to her that if she hurried fast enough with the weeds, those thoughts and doubts could not catch up with her. she had put them off, and put them off while neale was away, because they scared her, and she didn't want to look at them without neale. but he had been back for weeks now and still she put them off. all those tarnishing sayings, those careless, casual negations of what she had taken for axioms; that challenge to her whole life dropped from time to time as though it were an accepted commonplace with all intelligent beings. . . . was her love for the children only an inverted form of sensual egotism, an enervating slavery for them, really only a snatched-up substitute for the personal life which was ebbing away from her? was her attitude towards her beloved music a lazy, self-indulgent one, to keep it to herself and the valley here? was that growing indifference of hers to dress and trips to the city, and seeing eugenia's smart crowd there, a sign of mental dry-rot? was it a betrayal of what was alive in her own personality to go on adapting herself to the inevitable changes in her relations with neale, compromising, rather than . . ." "aren't you awfully hot to go on doing that?" asked neale, coming up behind her, from the road. she was startled because she had not heard him approach on the soft, cultivated ground of the garden. and as she turned her wet, crimson face up to his, he was startled himself. "why, what's the matter, dear?" he asked anxiously. she sank back to a sitting position, drawing a long breath, mopping her forehead with her sleeve, as unconscious of her looks before neale as though she had still been alone. she motioned him down beside her. "oh, neale, i'm so glad! how'd you happen to be so early? maybe if we stay right out here, where the children won't know where we are, we can have a few minutes quite to ourselves. touclã© is going to get tea tonight. neale, sit down a minute. i want to tell you something. i'm awfully upset. i went over to help mr. welles transplant his brussels sprouts, and we got to talking. neale, what do you suppose has been in his mind all this time we've been thinking him so happy and contented here?" "doesn't he like crittenden's? find it dull?" "no, no, not that, a bit. he _loves_ it. it's heart-breaking to see how much he loves it!" she stopped, her voice shaking a little, and waited till she could get it under control. her husband took her stained, dusty hand in his. she gave his fingers a little pressure, absently, not noting what she did, and seeing the corner of his handkerchief showing in the pocket of his shirt, she pulled it out with a nervous jerk, and wiped her face all over with it. he waited in silence. "listen, neale, i know it will sound perfectly crazy to you, at first. but you might as well believe it, for he is serious. it seems he's been getting lots more letters from that niece or cousin of his, down in georgia. she tells him about things, how the negroes are treated, all the jim crow business carried into every single detail of every single minute of every single day. it seems they're not badly treated as long as they'll stay day-laborers or servants, but . . . oh well, there's no need to go on with telling you . . . _you_ know. we all know well enough what the american attitude is. only i didn't think it could be so bad, or so everlastingly kept up every minute, as this cousin tells him. i suppose she ought to know. she's lived there for forty years. she keeps citing instances she's seen." marise broke out with a fierce, blaming sharpness, "i don't see what _business_ she had, writing him that way. i think it was beastly of her. why couldn't she let him alone!" she felt her husband waiting patiently for her to quiet down and go on more coherently, and knew that his patience came from a long acquaintance with her mental habits, a certainty that her outbursts of feeling generally did quiet down if one waited: and across her genuine absorption in the story she was telling there flitted, bat-like, a distaste far being known so well as all that! there was something indiscreet and belittling in it, she thought, with an inward fastidious recoil. but this had gone, entirely, in a moment, and she was rushing on, "and, neale, what _do_ you think? she has worked on him, and he has worked on himself till he's got himself in a morbid state. he thinks perhaps he ought to leave ashley that he loves so much and go down to live where this horrid cousin lives. . . ." her husband's astonishment at this was as great as she could have desired. none of neale's usual, unsurprised acceptance of everything that happened as being in the nature of things, which occasionally so rubbed her the wrong way, and seemed to her so wilfully phlegmatic. he was sincerely amazed and astounded; that was plain from his exclamation, his tone, his face. of course he wasn't as outraged as she, but that wasn't to be expected, since he hadn't seen so much of that dear old life-worn man, nor grown so protectingly fond of him. she revelled in neale's astonishment as bearing out her own feeling. "isn't it crazy, neale! don't you think it crazy! is there the slightest justification for it? you feel, just as i do, don't you, that it's a perfectly unbalanced, fanatical, _fool_ish thing to think of doing, his going down into that hopeless mess?" but her husband had had a moment's time, while she exclaimed, to get back to his usual unhurried post in life. "it's certainly about as unexpected as anything i ever heard of," he admitted. "i should have to know a lot more about it, before i could be sure what to think." an old impatience, at an old variance between their ways of thought, came out with an edge in marise's tone as she said hotly, "oh, _neale_, don't take that line of yours! you know all there is to know, now! what else could you find out? you know how he's given all his life to looking out for his family, ending up with years of that bed-ridden old aunt the others wished on to him, just because he was too soft-hearted to get out from under. you know how anxious the company was to do something to make up to him for all the years of service he gave them. and you know how happy he has been here, how he's loved it all, and fathered every root and seed in his garden, and how he and paul have struck up such a sweet affection, and how he could be happier and happier." she struck her hands together. "oh, neale, i can't have him do such a foolish, useless thing, and spoil his life! it's not as if he'd be of any use down in georgia. you know how the southern white people detest northerners coming down and interfering with the negroes. maybe they're wrong. but they're the people who live there. what could _he_ do against them? what under the sun could one tired-out old man accomplish in a situation that every american knows to be simply impossible?" she looked hard at her husband's thoughtful face and threw herself against him with a petulant gesture. "now, neale, don't go and justify him! don't say you think he's right." he put his arm about her shoulders, hot and wet under their gingham covering, and she leaned against him, the gesture as unconsidered and unconscious for the one as the other. "no, i'm not going to try to justify him. i suppose i think he's very foolish. but i must say it shows a pretty fine spirit. i take off my hat to his intention." "oh yes, his intention . . ." conceded marise. "he's an old saint, of course. only he mustn't be allowed to ruin his life and break everybody's heart, even if he is a saint." "that's the way saints usually run their business, isn't it?" asked neale. "and i'd like to know how anybody's going to keep him from doing it, if he decides he ought to." "oh yes, we can," urged marise, sitting up with energy. "we can, every one of us, throw ourselves against it, argue with him, tell him that it seems to us not only foolish, and exaggerated, and morbid, but conceited as if he thought what _he_ did would count so very much. we can make him feel that it would be sort of cheating the company, after what they've done for him; we can just mass all our personalities against it, use moral suasion, get excited, work on his feelings . . . she has done that, that cousin!" "i wouldn't want to do that," said neale quietly. "you can, if you think best." she recognized a familiar emergence of granite in his voice and aspect and cried out on it passionately, "now, _neale_!" he knew perfectly well what this meant, without further words from her. they looked at each other, an unspoken battle going on with extreme rapidity between them, over ground intimately familiar. in the middle of this, she broke violently into words, quite sure that he would know at which point she took it up. "you carry that idea to perfectly impossible lengths, neale. don't you ever admit that we ought to try to make other people act the way we think best, even when we _know_ we're right and they're wrong?" "yes," admitted her husband, "i should think we were bound to. if we ever _were_ sure we were right and they wrong." she gave the impression of vibrating with impatience and cried out, "that's pettifogging. of course there are times when we are sure. suppose you saw a little child about to take hold of the red-hot end of a poker?" "a child is different," he opposed her. "all grown-ups are responsible for all children. i suppose i'd keep him from taking hold of it. and yet i'm not dead sure i'd be right. if i thought he was only just going to touch it, to see if it really would burn him as people had told him, i guess i'd let him." "you always get around things," she said blamingly, "but there _are_ cases when you could be sure. suppose you saw aunt hetty just about to take poison, or frank warner getting nelly powers to run away with him?" he was startled by this, and asked quickly with a change of tone, "whatever made you think of that? are frank and nelly . . . ?" "oh, it just came into my head. no, i haven't heard anybody has said anything, noticed anything. but i had a sort of notion that 'gene doesn't like frank hanging around the house so much." "well . . ." commented her husband, with a lively accent of surprise. "i hadn't dreamed of such a thing. and it throws a light on something i happened to see this afternoon, on my way home. i came round the back way, the ravine road below the eagle rocks. i wanted to see about some popple we're thinking of buying from the warners, on the shoulder beyond the rocks. it didn't occur to me, of course, that anybody else would be up there, but just at the peak of the shoulder i saw 'gene powers, lying down beside a big beech-tree. he didn't hear me, walking on the pine-needles. and for a minute i stood there, and honestly didn't know what to do." "how do you mean . . . 'lying down'?" asked marise, not visualizing the scene. "as though he were sick?" "no, not a bit that way. not on his back, but on his face, looking over the edge of the ridge. all strung up like a bow, his head down between his shoulders and shot forwards like a cat stalking something. _i_ tell you, he made me think of a hunter when he thinks he sees a deer. i thought probably he had. i've seen a buck and some does up there lately. then he saw me and jumped up very quickly and came down past me. i was going to say, just for the sake of saying something, 'laying your plans for next deer-week?' but as he went by and nodded, he looked at me with such an odd expression that i thought i'd better not. the idea came to me that maybe 'gene does poach and occasionally take a deer out of season. meat is so high it wouldn't be surprising. they have a pretty hard time scraping along. i don't know as i'd blame him if he did shoot a deer once in a while. "well, after i'd been on beyond and made my estimate on the popple, i came back that way. and as i passed where he'd been lying, i thought, just for curiosity, i'd go up and see if i could see what he'd been looking at so hard. i got up to the big beech where he'd been, and looked over. and i got the surprise of my life. he couldn't have been looking at deer, for on the other side the cliff drops down sheer, and you look right off into air, across the valley. i was so surprised i stood there, taken aback. the afternoon train went up the valley while i stood there, staring. it looked so tiny. you're really very high on those rocks. i noticed you could see your cousin hetty's house from there, and the mill and the powers house. that looked like a child's plaything, so little, under the big pine. and just as i looked at that, i saw a man come out from the house, get on a horse, and ride away." "why, that must have been frank," said marise. "he rides that roan mare of his as much as he drives her." "yes, that's what came into my mind when you spoke his name just now in connection with nelly. i hadn't thought anything of it, before." there was a moment's silence as they looked at each other. "oh, _neale_!" said marise, on a deep note. "how awful! you don't suppose there is anything in his jealousy. . . . nelly is as inscrutable in her way as 'gene." "heavens! how should i know? but my guess is that 'gene is making a fool of himself for nothing. nelly doesn't strike me as being the sort of woman to . . ." "but frank is awfully good-looking and dashing, and lots younger than 'gene. and nelly is young too and perfectly stunning to look at. and she's not one of our native valley girls, you know. it may seem very dull and cooped-up here, so far from town, and shops. she may envy her sisters, still living back in west adams with city life around them." "oh, it's possible enough, i suppose," admitted neale. "but she seems perfectly contented, and thinks the world of the children." marise's face clouded. the phrase had recalled her dark preoccupations of a moment ago. "lots of people nowadays would say she seems to be fond of the children because she is using them to fill up a lack in her life," she said somberly; "that 'gene no longer satisfied her, and that she fed on the children because she was starving emotionally." her husband making no comment on this, she went on, "neale, don't you think that people are saying horrid, distressing things nowadays? about marriage i mean, and all relations between men and women and between parents and children?" her heart was beating faster as she finished this question. the subject was broached at last. where would it lead them? where would it lead them? she shut her eyes at the thought. "there's a good deal to be said about all that, that's pretty horrid and perfectly true," remarked neale casually. he tilted his hat further over his eyes and leaned back, propping himself on one elbow. "_neale_!" she protested, shocked and repelled. she had hoped for something very different from neale. but she thought, in a momentary exasperation with him, she might have known she would not get it. he always took everything so abstractedly, so impersonally. "i don't see any use in pretending there's not," he advanced with a reasonable, considering air. "i don't see that intimate human relationships are in any _more_ of a mess than other human relations. international ones, for instance, just now. but they certainly are in considerable of a mess, in a great many cases. it is evident that lots of times they're managed all wrong." marise was so acutely disappointed that she felt a quavering ache in her throat, and kept silence for a moment. so this was what she had looked forward to, as a help. what was neale there _for_, if not for her to lean against, to protect her, to be a defending wall about her? he was so strong and so clearheaded, he could be such a wall if he chose. how stern and hard he was, the core of him! "neale," she said after a moment, "i wonder if you even _know_ what things are being said about what we've always believed in . . . motherhood for instance, and marriage?" she had been unable to keep the quaver out of her voice, and at the sound of it, he sat up instantly, astonished, solicitous, tender. "why, darling, what's the matter?" he said again, moving closer to her, bending over her. "how _can_ you think such things without their making you perfectly miserable, without making you want to go straight and cut your throat?" she cried out on his callousness. he put his arm about her again, not absently this time, and drew her close. she thought angrily, "he thinks it's just a fit of nerves i can be soothed out of like a child," and pulled away from him. he looked at her, his attentive, intelligent look, and let his arm drop. and yet, although he was serious now, she was sure that he saw only that the subject agitated her, and did not see any possibility that it might touch them both, personally. "i have to think whatever i'm convinced is true, whether it makes me miserable or not, don't i?" he said gently. "and it does make me miserable, of course. who can help being miserable at the spectacle of such rich possibilities as human life is full of, mismanaged and spoiled and lost?" "but, neale, do you realize that people are thinking, books are being written to prove that parents' love for their children is only self-love, hypocritically disguised, and sometimes even sexual love camouflaged; and that anybody is better for the children to be with than their mother; and that married people, after the first flare-up of passion is over, hate each other instead of loving?" "i daresay there's a certain amount of truth in that, occasionally. it would certainly explain some of the inexplicable things we all see happen in family life," he remarked. marise started and cried out piercingly, "neale, how can you say such things to _me_!" he looked at her keenly again, keenly and penetratingly, and said, "i'm not one of those who think it inherent in the nature of women to take abstract propositions personally always. but i do think they will have to make a big effort to get themselves out of a mighty old acquired habit of thinking every general observation is directed at them personally." she flashed out indignantly at him, "how can you help taking it personally when it shakes the very foundations of our life?" he was astonished enough at this to suit even her. his face showed the most genuine amazed incapacity to understand her. "shakes the . . . why, marise dear, what are you talking about? you don't have to believe about _yourself_ all the generalizing guesses that people are writing down in books, do you, if it contradicts your own experience? just because you read that lots of american men had flat-foot and were refused at the recruiting station for that, you don't have to think your own feet flat, do you? if you do think so, all you have to do is to start out and walk on them, to know for sure they're all right. heavens and earth! people of our age, who have really lived, don't need somebody in a book to tell them what's happening to them. don't you _know_ whether you really love elly and mark and paul? if you don't, i should think a few minutes' thought and recollection of the last ten years would tell you, all right. don't you _know_ whether we hate each other, you and i?" marise drew a long breath of relief. this was the sort of talk she wanted. she clutched at the strong hand which seemed at last held out to her. she did so want to be talked out of it all. "oh good! then, neale, you don't believe any of that sort of talk? you were only saying so for argument." he withdrew the hand. "yes, i do believe a good deal of as a general proposition. what i'm saying, what i'm always saying, dear, and trying my best to live, is that everybody must decide for himself when a general proposition applies to him, what to believe about his own life and its values. nobody else can tell him." she approached along another line. "but, neale, that's all very well for you, because you have so much withstandingness in you. but for me, there are things so sacred, so intimate, so much a part of me, that only to have some rough hand laid on them, to have them pulled out and pawed over and thought about . . . it frightens me so, sets me in such a quiver! and they don't seem the same again. _aren't_ there things in life so high and delicate that they can't stand questioning?" he considered this a long time, visibly putting all his intelligence on it. "i can't say, for you," he finally brought out. "you're so much finer and more sensitive than i. but i've never in all these years seen that your fineness and your sensitiveness make you any less strong in the last analysis. you suffer more, respond more to all the implications of things; but i don't see that there is any reason to think there's any inherent weakness in you that need make you afraid to look at facts." he presented this testimony to her, seriously, gravely. it took her breath, coming from him. she could only look at him in speechless gratitude and swallow hard. finally she said, falteringly, "you're too good, neale, to say that. i don't deserve it. i'm awfully weak, many times." "i wouldn't say it, if it weren't so," he answered, "and i didn't say you weren't weak sometimes. i said you were strong when all was said and done." even in her emotion, she had an instant's inward smile at the neale-like quality of this. she went on, "but don't you think there is such a thing as spoiling beautiful elements in life, with handling them, questioning them, for natures that aren't naturally belligerent and ready to fight for what they want to keep? for instance, when somebody says that children in a marriage are like drift-wood left high on the rocks of a dwindled stream, tokens of a flood-time of passion now gone by. . . ." she did not tell him who had said this. nor did he ask. but she thought by his expression that he knew it had been vincent marsh. he said heartily, "i should just call that a nasty-minded remark from somebody who didn't know what he was talking about. and let it go at that." "there, you see," she told him, "that rouses your instinct to resist, to fight back. but it doesn't mine. it just makes me sick." "marise, i'm afraid that you _have_ to fight for what you want to keep in this world. i don't see any way out of it. and i don't believe that anybody else can do your fighting for you. you ask if it's not possible to have beautiful, intimate things spoiled by questioning, criticisms, doubts. yes, i do think it is, for young people, who haven't learned anything of life at first hand. i think they ought to be protected till they have been able to accumulate some actual experience of life. that's the only weapon for self-defense anybody can have, what he has learned of life, himself. young people are apt to believe what older people tell them about life, because they don't know anything about it, yet, themselves, and i think you ought to be careful what is questioned in their presence. but i don't see that mature people ought to be protected unless you want to keep them childish, as women used to be kept. nothing is your own, if you haven't made it so, and kept it so." "but, neale, it's so sickeningly _hard_! why do it? why, when everything seems all right, pry into the deep and hidden roots of things? i don't _want_ to think about the possibility of some dreadful dry-rot happening to married people's feelings towards each other, as they get older and get used to each other. it's soiling to my imagination. what's the use?" she had so hoped he would help her to sweep them all back to the cellar labeled "morbid" and lock them down in the dark again. any other man would, she thought, amazed at him, _any_ other husband! she focussed all her personality passionately to force him to answer as she wished. he fell into another thoughtful silence, glanced up at her once sharply and looked down again. she always felt afraid of him when he looked like that. no, not afraid of him, but of the relentless thing he was going to say. presently he said it. "what's the use? why, the very fact you seem afraid of it . . . i can't imagine why . . . shows there would be some use. to turn your back on anything you're afraid of, that's fatal, always. it springs on you from behind." she cried out to him in a sudden anguish that was beyond her control, "but _suppose you face it and still it springs_!" her aspect, her accent, her shaken voice gave him a great start. he faced her. he looked at her as though he saw her for the first time that day. and he grew very pale as he looked. something wordless passed between them. now he knew at last what she was afraid of. but he did not flinch. he said desperately, in a harsh voice, "you have to take what comes to you in life," and was grimly silent. then with a gesture as though to put away something incredible, approaching him, he went on more quietly, "but my experience is that it doesn't dare spring if you walk right up to it. generally you find you're less afraid of everything in the world, after that." * * * * * she had been frightened, stabbed through and through by the look they had interchanged, by the wordless something which had passed between them. but now she wondered suddenly, passionately, amazedly, if he had really understood all the dagger-like possibilities of their talk. "neale," she challenged him, "don't you put _any_ limits on this? isn't there _any_where you'd stop out of sheer respect? nothing too hallowed by . . ." "nothing. nothing," he answered her, his face pale, his eyes deep and enduring. "it's lying down, not to answer the challenge when it comes. how do you know what you have to deal with if you won't look to see? you may find out that something you have been trusting is growing out of a poisonous root. that does happen. what's the use of pretending that it couldn't to you, as to anybody else? and what's the use of having lived honestly, if you haven't grown brave enough to do whatever needs to be done? if you are scared by the idea that your motherhood may be only inverted sensuality, or if you think there is any possibility that the children would be better off in other hands, or if you think . . . if you think there is any other terrifying possibility in our life here, for god's sake look into your own heart and see for yourself! it all sounds like nonsense to me, but . . ." she snatched at the straw, she who longed so for help. "oh, neale, if _you_ think so, i know . . ." "i won't _have_ you taking my word for it!" he told her roughly. "_i_ can't tell what's back of what you do. and you oughtn't to take my word for it if i tried to. nobody on earth can make your decision for you, but you yourself." the drops stood out on his forehead as he spoke, and ran down his pale face. she quivered and was silent for a moment. then, "neale, where shall i get the strength to do that?" she asked. he looked full in her face. "i don't know anywhere to go for strength but out of one's naked human heart," he said. she shrank from the rigor of this with a qualm of actual fear. "i think i must have something else," she told him wildly. "i don't know," he returned. "i don't know at all about that. i'm no mystic. i can't help you there, dear. but i know, as well as i know anything on earth, that anything that's worth having in anybody's life, his parent-hood, his marriage, his love, his ambition, can stand any honest challenge it can be put to. if it can't, it's not valid and ought to be changed or discarded." his gaze on her was immeasurably steady. she longed unspeakably for something else from him, some warming, comforting assurance of help, some heartening, stimulating encouragement along that stark, bleak way. * * * * * somehow they were standing up now, both pale, looking profoundly into each other's eyes. something almost palpable, of which not a word had been spoken aloud, came and stood there between them, and through it they still looked at each other. they had left words far behind now, in the fierce velocity of their thoughts. and yet with the almost physical unity of their years of life together, each knew the other's thoughts. she flung herself against him as though she had cried out to him. he put his arms strongly, tenderly about her, as though he had answered. with no words she had cried out, silently, desperately to him, "hold me! hold me!" and with no words, he had answered, silently, desperately, "no one can hold you but yourself." * * * * * a shouting babble of voices rose in the distance. the children crying to each other came out of the house-door and raced down the flag-stone walk. "there they are! in the garden! by the onion-bed! father! mother! we've been looking for you everywhere. touclã© says if you'll let her, she'll boil down some maple syrup for us to wax on ice for dessert." they poured into the garden, children, cat and fox-terrier, noisy, insistent, clamorous. mark, always frankly greedy of his mother's attention, pushed in jealously between his parents, clinging to his mother's knees. he looked up in her face and laughed out, his merry peal, "oh, mother, what a dirty face! you've been suspiring and then you've wiped your forehead with your dirty hand, the way you say i mustn't. how funny you look! and you've got a great, long tear in your sleeve, too." behind them, tiny, smooth and glistening, eugenia mills strolled to the edge of the garden, as far as the flag-stones went, and stood waiting, palpably incapable of taking her delicate bronze slippers into the dust. "you've missed a kitchen call from that lively, earthy old mrs. powers and her handsome daughter-in-law," she announced casually. "touclã© says they brought some eggs. what a stunning creature that nelly is! there's temperament for you! can't you just feel the smouldering, primitive fire hidden under that scornful silence of hers?" "mother, may we tell touclã© to put the syrup on to boil?" begged elly. her hair was tangled and tousled, with bits of bark sticking in it, and dried mud was caked on her hands and bare legs. marise thought of the repugnance she must have aroused in eugenia. "mother," said paul, "mr. welles is going to give me a fishing-rod, he says. a _real_ one. boughten." "oh, i want one too!" cried mark, jumping up and down. "i want one too." "you're too little. mother, _isn't_ mark too little? and anyhow, he always breaks everything. you do, mark, you know you do. i take _care_ of my things!" * * * * * someone in the confusion stepped on the fox-terrier's toes and he set up a shrill, aggrieved yelping. the children pawed at her with dirty hands. "good-evening, mr. marsh," said eugenia, looking over her shoulder at the dark-haired figure in flannels approaching from the other house. she turned and strolled across the grass to meet him, as white and gleaming as he. * * * * * a sick qualm of self-contempt shook marise. for, high and clear above everything else, there had come into her mind a quick discomfort at the contrast between her appearance and that of eugenia. chapter xv home life july 20. the heat was appalling even early in the morning, right after breakfast. there were always three or four such terrific days, even up here in the mountains, to remind you that you lived in america and had to take your part of the ferocious extremes of the american climate. and of course this had to be the time when touclã© went off for one of her wandering disappearances. marise could tell that by the aspect of the old woman as she entered the kitchen that morning, her reticule bag bulging out with whatever mysterious provisions touclã© took with her. you never missed anything from the kitchen. marise felt herself in such a nervously heightened state of sensitiveness to everything and everybody in those days, that it did not surprise her to find that for the first time she received something more than a quaint and amusing impression from the old aborigine. she had never noticed it before, but sometimes there was something about touclã©'s strange, battered, leathery old face . . . what was it? the idea came to her a new one, that touclã© was also a person, not merely a curious and enigmatic phenomenon. touclã© was preparing to depart in the silent, unceremonious, absent-minded way she did everything, as though she were the only person in the world. she opened the screen door, stepped out into the torrid glare of the sunshine and, a stooped, shabby, feeble old figure, trudged down the path. "where does she go?" thought marise, and "what was that expression on her face i could not name?" impulsively she went out quickly herself, and followed after the old woman. "touclã©! touclã©!" she called, and wondered if her voice in these days sounded to everyone as nervous and uncertain as it did to her. the old woman turned and waited till the younger had overtaken her. they were under the dense shade of an old maple, beside the road, as they stood looking at each other. as she had followed, marise regretted her impulse, and had wondered what in the world she could find to say, but now that she saw again the expression in the other's face, she cried out longingly, "touclã©, where do you go that makes you look peaceful?" the old woman glanced at her, a faint surprise appearing in her deeply lined face. then she looked at her, without surprise, seriously as though to see what she might read in the younger woman's eyes. she stood for a long moment, thinking. finally she sat down on the grass under the maple-tree, and motioned marise to sit beside her. she meditated for a long time, and then said, hesitatingly, "i don't know as a white person could understand. white people . . . nobody ever asked me before." she sat silent, her broad, dusty feet in their elastic-sided, worn, run-over shoes straight before her, the thick, horny eyelids dropped over her eyes, her scarred old face carved into innumerable deep lines. marise wondered if she had forgotten that anyone else was there. she turned her own eyes away, finally, and looking at the mountains saw that black thunderclouds were rolling up over the eagle rocks. then the old woman said, her eyes still dropped, "i tell you how my uncle told me, seventy-five years ago. he said people are like fish in an underground brook, in a black cave. he said there is a place, away far off from where they live, where there is a crack in the rock. if they went 'way off they could get a glimpse of what daylight is. and about once in so often they need to swim there and look out at the daylight. if they don't, they lose their eyesight from always being in the dark. he said that a lot of indians don't care whether they lose their eyesight or not, so long's they can go on eating and swimming around. but good indians do. he said that as far as he could make out, none of the white people care. he said maybe they've lost their eyes altogether." without a move of her sagging, unlovely old body, she turned her deep black eyes on the flushed, quivering, beautiful woman beside her. "that's where i go," she answered. "i go 'way off to be by myself, and get a glimpse of what daylight is." she got up to her feet, shifted her reticule from one hand to the other, and without a backward look trudged slowly down the dusty road, a stooped, shabby, feeble old figure. marise saw her turn into a wood-road that led up towards the mountain, and disappear. her own heart was burning as she looked. nobody would help her in her need. touclã© went away to find peace, and left her in the black cave. neale stood. . . . a child's shriek of pain and loud wailing calls for "mother! mother! _mother!_" sent her back running breathlessly to the house. mark had fallen out of the swing and the sharp corner of the board had struck him, he said, "in the eye! in the eye!" he was shrieking and holding both hands frantically over his left eye. this time it might be serious, might have injured the eye-ball. those swing-boards were deadly. marise snatched up the screaming child and carried him into the kitchen, terrible perspectives of blindness hag-riding her imagination; saying to herself with one breath, "it's probably nothing," and in the next seeing mark groping his way about the world with a cane, all his life long. she opened the first-aid box on the kitchen-shelf, pulled out a roll of bandage and a length of gauze, sat down with mark in her lap near the faucet, and wet the gauze in cold water. then she tried in vain to induce him to take down his hands so that she could see where the blow had struck. but the terrified, hysterical child was incapable of hearing what she said, incapable of doing anything but scream louder and louder when she tried to pull down those desperately tight little hands held with frantic tenseness over the hurt eye. marise could feel all his little body, quivering and taut. his shrieks were like those of someone undergoing the most violent torture. she herself responded nervously and automatically to his condition, felt herself begin to tighten up, and knew that she was equally ready to shake him furiously, or to burst into anguished tears of sympathy for his pain. wait now . . . wait . . . what was the thing to do for mark? what would untie those knots of fright and shock? for paul it would have been talk of the bicycle he was to have for his birthday; for elly a fairy-story or a piece of candy! for mark . . . high above the tumult of mark's shrieks and her own spasmodic reactions to them, she sent her intelligence circling quietly . . . and in an instant . . . oh yes, that was the thing. "listen, mark," she said in his ear, stopping her effort to take down his hands, "mother's learned a new song, a _new_ one, awfully funny. and ever so long too, the way you like them." she put her arms about him and began, hearing herself with difficulty through his cries. "on yonder hill there stands a damsel, who she is, i do not know." ("how preposterous we must sound, if eugenia is listening," she thought to herself, as she sang, "out-yelling each other this way!") "i'll go and court her for her beauty. she must answer 'yes' or 'no.'" as usual mark fell helpless before the combination of music and a story. his cries diminished in volume. she said in his ear, "and then the lady sings," and she tuned her voice to a young-ladyish, high sweetness and sang, "my father was a spanish captain, went to sea a month ago," mark made a great effort and choked down his cries to heaving sobs as he tried to listen, "first he kissed me, then he left me; bade me always answer 'no.'" she told the little boy, now looking up at her out of the one eye not covered by his hands, "then the gentleman says to her," she made her voice loud and hearty and bluff, "oh, madam, in your face is beauty, on your lips red roses grow. will you take me for your lover? madam, answer 'yes' or 'no.'" she explained in an aside to mark, "but her father had told her she must always answer just the one thing, 'no,' so she had to say," she turned up in the mincing, ladylike key again, and sang, "oh no, john, no, john, no." mark drew a long quivering breath through parted lips and sat silent, his one eye fixed on his mother, who now sang in the loud, lusty voice, "oh, madam, since you are so cruel, and that you do scorn me so, if i may not be your lover, madam, will you let me go?" and in the high, prim voice, she answered herself, "oh no, john, no, john, _no!_" a faint smile hovered near mark's flushed face. he leaned towards his mother as she sang, and took down his hands so that he could see her better. marise noted instantly, with a silent exclamation of relief that the red angry mark was quite outside the eye-socket, harmless on the bone at one side. much ado about nothing as usual with the children. why _did_ she get so frightened each time? another one of mark's hairbreadth escapes. she reached for the cold wet compress and went on, singing loudly and boldly, with a facetious wag of her head, (how tired she was of all this manoeuvering!), "then i will stay with you forever if you will not be unkind." she applied the cold compress on the hurt spot and put out her hand for the bandage-roll, singing with an ostentatiously humorous accent and thinking with exasperation how all this was delaying her in the thousand things to do in the house, "madam, i have vowed to love you; would you have me change my mind?" she wound the bandage around and around the little boy's head, so that it held the compress in place, singing in the high, sweet voice, "oh no, john, no, john, no." she went on with a heavy, mock solemnity, in the loud voice, "oh, hark, i hear the church-bells ringing; will you come and be my wife?" she pinned the bandage in place at the back of mark's head, "or, dear madam, have you settled to live single all your life?" she gathered the child up to her, his head on her shoulder, his face turned to her, his bare, dusty, wiry little legs wriggling and soiling her white skirt; and sang, rollickingly, "oh no, john, no, john, no!" "there, that's all," she said in her natural voice, looking down at mark. she said to herself rebelliously, "i've expended enough personality and energy on this performance to play a beethoven sonata at a concert," and found she was quoting something vincent marsh had said about her life, the day before. there was a moment while the joke slowly penetrated to mark's six-year-old brain. and then he laughed out, delightedly, "oh, mother, that's a beaut! sing it again. sing it again! now i know what's coming, i'll like it such a lots betterer." marise cried out in indignant protest, "mark! when i've sat here for ten minutes singing to you, and all the work to do, and the sun getting like red-hot fire every minute." "what must you got to do?" asked mark, challengingly. "well, the very first thing is to get dinner ready and in the fireless cooker, so we can turn out the oil-stove and cool off this terrible kitchen." mark looked up at her and smiled. he had recently lost a front tooth and this added a quaintness to the splendor of his irresistible smile. "you could sing as you get the dinner ready," he said insinuatingly, "and i'll help you." marise smothered an impulse to shout to the child, "no, no, go away! go away! i can't have you bothering around. i've got to be by myself, or i don't know what will happen!" she thought of touclã©, off in the green and silent woods, in a blessed solitude. she thought of eugenia up in her shaded room, stretched on the chaise-longue in a thin silk room-gown, she thought of neale and his stern eyes . . . she looked down on the dusty, tanned, tousle-headed little boy, with the bandage around his head, his one eye looking up at her pleadingly, his dirty little hand clutching at the fold of her skirt; and drearily and unwillingly she summoned herself to self-control. "all right, mark, that's true. i could sing while i peel the potatoes. you could wash them for me. that would help." they installed themselves for this work. the acrid smell of potato-parings rose in the furnace-like heat of the kitchen, along with the singing voice, asking and answering itself. mark listened with all his might, laughing and wriggling with appreciation. when his mother had finished and was putting the potatoes into the boiling water, he said exultantly, "he got around _her_, all right, i should say what!" paul burst in now, saying, "mother, mother!" he stopped short and asked, "what you got on your head, mark?" the little boy looked surprised, put his hand up, felt the bandage, and said with an off-hand air, "oh, i bunked my head on the corner of the swing-board." "i know," said paul, "i've done it lots of times." he went on, "mother, my pig has lice. you can just _see_ them crawling around under his hair. and i got out the oil father said to use, but i can't do it. it says on the can to rub it on with a stiff little brush. i don't see how ever in the world you're going to get your pig to stand still while you do it. when i try to, he just squeals, and runs away." his mother said with decision, from where she stooped before the open ice-box door, "paul, if there is anything in the world i know nothing about, it is pigs. i haven't the slightest idea what to do." she shut the heavy door with a bang more energetic than was necessary to latch it, and came back towards the stove with a raw, red piece of uncooked meat on a plate. "oh, how nasty meat looks, raw," said mark, with an accent of disgust. "you eat it with a good appetite when i've cooked it," remarked his mother, somewhat grimly, putting it in a hot pan over the fire. an odor of searing fibers and smoke and frying onions rose up in the hot, still air of the kitchen. "if i could have guessed we'd have such weather, i'd never have ordered a pot-roast," thought marise, vexed. "please, mother, _please_," begged paul. "please what?" asked his mother, who had forgotten the pig. "henry!" said paul. "if you could see how he scratches and scratches and how the behind of his ears is all scabs he's so bitten." "wouldn't eugenia and vincent marsh love this conversation?" thought marise, turning the meat in the pan and starting back from the spatters of hot fat. "mother, don't you see, i agreed to take care of him, with father, and so i _have_ to. he's just like my child. you wouldn't let one of _us_ have lice all over, and scabs on our . . ." "oh stop, paul, for heaven's sake!" said his mother. through the smoke and smell and heat, the sensation of her underclothing sticking hotly to her limbs, the constant dogging fear and excitement that beset her, and the causeless twanging of her nerves, there traveled to her brain, along a channel worn smooth by the habit of her thought about the children, the question, "what is it that makes paul care so much about this?" and the answer, almost lost in the reverberation of all those other questions and answers in her head, was, "it comes from what is best in paul, his feeling of personal responsibility for the welfare of others. that mustn't be hindered." aloud, almost automatically, she said, in a neutral tone, "paul, i don't think i can do a single thing for you and henry, but i'll go with you and look at him and see if i can think of anything. just wait till i get this and the potatoes in the fireless cooker." paul made a visible effort, almost as though he were swallowing something too large for his throat, and said ungraciously, "i suppose i ought to help you in here, then." "i suppose so," said his mother roughly, in an exact imitation of his manner. paul looked at her quickly, laughing a little, sheepishly. he waited a moment, during which time mark announced that he was going out to the sand-pile, and then said, in a pleasant tone, "what can i do?" his mother nodded at him with a smile, refrained from the spoken word of approbation which she knew he would hate, and took thought as to what he might do that would afflict him least. "you can go and sweep off the front porch, and straighten out the cushions and chairs, and water the porch-box geraniums." he disappeared, whistling loudly, "massa's in the cold, cold ground." marise hoped automatically that elly was not in earshot to hear this. she felt herself tired to the point of exhaustion by the necessity always to be divining somebody's inner processes, putting herself in somebody's else skin and doing the thing that would reach him in the right way. she would like, an instant, just an instant, to be in her own skin, she thought, penetrated with a sense of the unstable equilibrium of personal relations. to keep the peace in a household of young and old highly differentiated personalities was a feat of the blondin variety; the least inattention, the least failure in judgment, and opportunities were lost forever. her sense of the impermanence of the harmony between them all had grown upon her of late, like an obsession. it seemed to her that her face must wear the strained, propitiatory smile she had so despised in her youth on the faces of older woman, mothers of families. now she knew from what it came . . . balancing perpetually on a tight-rope from which . . . oh, her very soul felt crumpled with all this pressure from the outside, never-ending! the worst was not the always recurring physical demands, the dressing and undressing the children, preparing their food and keeping them clean. the crushing part was the moral strain; to carry their lives always with you, incalculably different from each other and from your own. and not only their present lives, but the insoluble question of how their present lives were affecting their future. never for a moment from the time they are born, to be free from the thought, "where are they? what are they doing? is that the best thing for them?" till every individual thought of your own was shattered, till your intelligence was atrophied, till your sensibilities to finer things were dulled and blunted. paul came back. "about ready for henry?" he asked. "i've finished the porch." she put the two tightly closed kettles inside the fireless cooker and shut down the lid. "yes, ready for henry," she said. she washed her hot, moist face in cold water, drank a glass, put on a broad-brimmed garden hat, and set out for the field back of the barn. the kitchen had been hot, but it seemed cool compared to the heat into which they stepped from the door. it startled marise so that she drew back for an instant. it seemed to her like walking through molten metal. "mercy! what heat!" she murmured. "yes, ain't it great?" said paul, looking off, down the field, "just what the corn needs." "you should say 'isn't,' not 'ain't,'" corrected his mother. "but it'll be cooler soon," said paul. "there's a big thunderstorm coming up. see, around the corner of the mountain. see how black it is now, over the eagle rocks" he took her hand in his bramble-scarred little fingers, and led her along, talking proudly of his own virtue. "i've moved henry's pen today, fresh, so's to get him on new grass, and i put it under the shade of this butternut tree." they were beside the pen now, looking over the fence at the grotesque animal, twitching his gross and horribly flexible snout, as he peered up at them out of his small, intelligent eyes, sunk in fat, and almost hidden by the fleshy, hairy triangles of his ear-flaps. "don't you think henry is a _very_ handsome pig?" asked paul. "i think you take very good care of him," she answered. "now what is the matter about the oil you can't put on? doesn't he like it?" "he hasn't felt it yet. he won't even let me try. look!" the child climbed over the fence and made a quick grab at the animal, which gave an alarmed, startled grunt, wheeled with astonishing nimbleness, and darted away in a short-legged gallop. "look there, that's the way he always does!" said paul in an aggrieved tone. marise considered the pig for a moment. he had turned again and was once more staring at her, his quivering, fleshy snout in the air, a singularly alert expression of attention animating his heavy-jowled countenance. "are there any things he specially likes?" she asked paul. "he likes to eat, of course, being a pig," said paul, "and he loves you to scratch his back with a stick." "oh, then it's easy. come outside the pen. now listen. you go back to the barn and get whatever it is you feed him. then you put that in the trough, and let him begin to eat, quietly. then take your oil and your brush, and moving very slowly so that you don't startle him, lean over the fence and begin to brush it on his back where he likes to be rubbed. if he likes the feel of it, he'll probably stand still. i'll wait here, till you see how it comes out." she moved away a few paces, and sank down on the grass under the tree, as though the heat had flung her there. the grass crisped drily under her, as though it too were parched. she closed her eyes and felt the sun beating palpably on the lids . . . or was it that hot inward pulse still throbbing . . . ? why wouldn't neale do it for her? why wouldn't he put out that strength of his and crush out this strange agitation of hers, _forbid_ it to her? then there was nothing in her but intense discomfort, as though that were a universe of its own. a low, distant growl of thunder shook the air with a muffled, muted roar. after a time, a little voice back of her announced in a low, cautious tone, "mother, it _works!_ henry loves it!" she turned her head and saw the little boy vigorously rubbing the ears and flanks of the pig, which stood perfectly still, its eyes half shut, rapt in a beatitude of satisfaction. marise turned her head away and slid down lower on the grass, so that she lay with her face on her arm. she was shaking from head to foot as though with sobs. but she was not crying. she was laughing hysterically. "even for the pig!" she was saying to herself. "a symbol of my life!" she lay there a long time after this nervous fit of laughter had stopped, till she heard paul saying, "there, i've put it on every inch of him." he added with a special intonation, "and now i guess maybe i'd better go in swimming." at this marise sat up quickly, with an instant experienced divination of what she would see. in answer to her appalled look on him, he murmured apologetically, "i didn't know i was getting so _much_ on me. it sort of spattered." * * * * * it was, of course, as she led the deplorable object towards the house that they encountered eugenia under a green-lined white parasol, on the way back from the garden, carrying an armful of sweet-peas. "i thought i'd fill the vases with fresh flowers before the rain came," she murmured, visibly sheering off from paul. "eugenia ought not to carry sweet-peas," thought marise. "it ought always to be orchids." in the bath-room as she and paul took off his oil-soaked clothes, mark's little voice called to her, "mother! mo-o-other!" "yes, what is it?" she answered, suspending operations for a moment to hear. "mother, if i had to kill all the ants in the world," called mark, "i'd a great deal rather they were all gathered up together in a heap than running around every-which-way, wouldn't you?" "for goodness' _sakes,_ what a silly baby thing to say!" commented paul with energy. marise called heartily to mark, "yes indeed i would, dear." paul asked curiously, "mother, how can you answer him like that, such a _fool_ thing!" marise felt another wave of hysterical laughter mounting, at the idea of the difficulty in perceiving the difference in degree of flatness between mark's remarks and those of paul. but it suddenly occurred to her that this was the time for elly's hour at the piano, and she heard no sound. she hastily laid out the clean clothes for paul, saw him started on the scrub in the bath-tub, and ran downstairs to see if she could find elly, before the storm broke, turning over in her mind elly's favorite nooks. * * * * * the air was as heavy as noxious gas in the breathless pause before the arrival of the rain. in the darkened, shaded hall stood a man's figure, the face turned up towards her, the look on it meant for her, her only, not the useful house-mother, but that living core of her own self, buried, hidden, put off, choked and starved as she had felt it to be, all that morning. that self rose up now, passionately grateful to be recognized, and looked back at him. thunder rolled among the distant hills. she felt her pulse whirling with an excitement that made her lean against the wall, as he took a great stride towards her, crying out, "oh, make an end . . . make an end of this. . . ." the door behind him opened, and elly ran in, red-faced and dusty. "mother, mother, reddy has come off her nest. and there are twelve hatched out of the fourteen eggs! mother, they are such darlings! i wish you'd come and see. mother, if i practise _good_, won't you come afterwards and look at them?" "you should say 'practise well,' not 'good,'" said marise, her accent openly ironical. the wind, precursor of the storm falling suddenly on the valley, shook the trees till they roared. over the child's head she exchanged with vincent marsh a long reckless look, the meaning of which she made no effort to understand, the abandon of which she made no effort to restrain. with a dry, clattering, immediate rattle, without distance or dignity, the thunder broke threateningly over the house. chapter xvi massage-cream; theme and variations july 20. the hardest thing for eugenia about these terribly hard days of suspense was to keep her self-control in her own room. of course for her as for any civilized being, it was always possible to keep herself in hand with people looking on. but for years she had not had to struggle so when alone, for poise and self-mastery. her room at the crittendens', which had been hers so long, and which marise had let her furnish with her own things, was no longer the haven of refuge it had been from the bitter, raw crudity of the vermont life. she tried to fill the empty hours of neale's daily absences from the house with some of the fastidious, delicate occupations of which she had so many, but they seemed brittle in her hot hands, and broke when she tried to lean on them. a dozen times a day she interrupted herself to glance with apprehension at her reflection in the mirror, the florentine mirror with the frame of brown wood carved, with the light, restrained touch of a good period, into those tasteful slender columns. and every time she looked, she was horrified and alarmed to see deep lines of thought, of hope, of impatience, of emotion, criss-crossing fatally on her face. then she would sit down before her curving dressing-table, gather the folds of her persian room-dress about her, lift up her soul and go through those mental and physical relaxing exercises which the wonderful lecturer of last winter had explained. she let her head and shoulders and neck droop like a wilted flower-stem, while she took into her mind the greater beauty of a wilted flower over the crass rigidity of a growing one; she breathed deeply and slowly and rhythmically, and summoned to her mind far-off and rarely, difficultly, beautiful things; the tranquil resignation of chinese roofs, tempered with the merry human note of their tilted corners; arabian traceries; cunningly wrought, depraved wood-carvings in the corners of gothic cathedrals; the gay and amusing pink rotundities of a boucher ceiling. when she felt her face calm and unlined again, she put on a little massage cream, to make doubly sure, and rubbed it along where the lines of emotion had been. but half an hour afterwards, as she lay stretched in the chaise-longue by the window, reading claudel, or strindberg, or rã©my de gourmont, she would suddenly find that she was not thinking of what was on the page, that she saw there only marise's troubled eyes while she and marsh talked about the inevitable and essential indifference of children to their parents and the healthiness of this instinct; about the foolishness of the parents' notion that they would be formative elements in the children's lives; or on the other hand, if the parents did succeed in forcing themselves into the children's lives, the danger of sexual mother-complexes. eugenia found that instead of thrilling voluptuously, as she knew she ought, to the precious pain and bewilderment of one of the thwarted characters of james joyce, she was, with a disconcerting and painful eagerness of her own, bringing up to mind the daunted silence marise kept when they mentioned the fact that of course everybody nowadays knew that children are much better off in a big, numerous, robust group than in the nervous, tight isolation of family life; and that a really trained educator could look out for them much better than any mother, because he could let them alone as a mother never could. she found that such evocations of facts poignantly vital to her personally, were devastatingly more troubling to her facial calm than any most sickening picture in d'annunzio's portrayal of small-town humanity in which she was trying to take the proper, shocked interest. despite all her effort to remain tranquil she would guess by the stir of her pulses that probably she had lost control of herself again, and going to the mirror would catch her face all strained and tense in a breathless suspense. but if there was one thing which life had taught her, it was persevering patience. she drew from the enameled bonbonniã¨re one of the curious, hard sweet-meats from southern china; lifted to her face the spicy-sweet spikes of the swamp-orchid in her venetian glass vase; turned her eyes on the reproduction of the gauguin _ja orana maria_, and began to draw long, rhythmic breaths, calling on all her senses to come to her rescue. she let her arms and her head and her shoulders go limp again, and fixed her attention on rare and beautiful things of beauty . . . abandoning herself to the pictures called up by a volume of translated japanese poems she had recently read . . . temples in groves . . . bells in the mist . . . rain on willow-trees . . . snow falling without wind. . . . how delicate and suggestive those poems were! how much finer, more subtle than anything in the aryan languages! she came to herself cautiously, glanced at her face in the mirror, and reached for the carved ivory pot of massage cream. * * * * * she decided then she would sew a little, instead of reading. the frill of lace in her net dress needed to be changed . . . such a bore having to leave your maid behind. she moved to the small, black-lacquered table where her work-box stood and leaned on it for a moment, watching the dim reflection of her pointed white fingers in the glistening surface of the wood. they did not look like marise's brown, uncared-for hands. she opened the inlaid box and took from it the thimble which she had bought in siena, the little antique masterpiece of north italian gold-work. what a fulfilment of oneself it was to make life beautiful by beautifying all its implements. what a revelation it might be to neale, how a woman could make everything she touched exquisite, to neale who had only known marise, subdued helplessly to the roughness of the rough things about her, marise who had capitulated to america and surrendered to the ugliness of american life. * * * * * but none of that, none of that! she was near the danger line again. she felt the flesh on her face begin to grow tense, and with her beautiful, delicate fore-fingers she smoothed her eyebrows into relaxed calm again. she must keep herself occupied, incessantly; that was the only thing possible. she had been about to have recourse to the old, old tranquillizer of women, the setting of fine stitches. she would fix her mind on that . . . a frill of lace for the net dress . . . which lace? she lifted the cover from the long, satin-covered box and fingered over the laces in it, forcing herself to feel the suitable reaction to their differing physiognomies, to admire the robustness of the carrick-macross, the boldness of design of the argentan, the complicated fineness of the english point. she decided, as harmonizing best with the temperament of the net dress, on malines, a strip of this perfect, first-napoleon malines. what an aristocratic lace it was, with its cobwebby _fond-de-neige_ background and its fourpetaled flowers in the scrolls. americans were barbarians indeed that malines was so little known; in fact hardly recognized at all. most americans would probably take this priceless creation in her hand for something bought at a ten-cent store, because of its simplicity and classic reticence of design. they always wanted, as they would say themselves, something more to show for their money. their only idea of "real lace," as they vulgarly called it (as if anything could be lace that wasn't real), was that showy, awful brussels, manufactured for exportation, which was sold in those terrible tourists' shops in belgium, with the sprawling patterns made out of coarse braid and appliquã©d on, not an organic part of the life of the design. she stopped her work for a moment to look more closely at the filmy lace in her hand, to note if the mesh of the rã©seau were circular or hexagonal. she fancied that she was the only american woman of her acquaintance who knew the difference, who had the least culture in the matter of lace . . . except marise, of course, and it was positively worse for marise to have been initiated and then turn back to commonness, than for those other well-meaning, philistine american women who were at least innocently ignorant. having known the exquisite lore of lace, how could marise have let it and all the rest of the lore of civilization drop for these coarse occupations of hers, now? how could she have let life coarsen her, as it had, how could she have fallen into such common ways, with her sun-browned hair, and her roughened hands, and her inexactly adjusted dresses, and the fatal middle-aged lines beginning to show from the corner of the ear down into the neck, and not an effort made to stop them. but as to wrinkles, of course a woman as unrestrained as marise was bound to get them early. she had never learned the abc of woman's wisdom, the steady cult of self-care, self-beautifying, self-refining. how long would it be before neale . . . no! none of that! she must get back to impersonal thoughts. what was it she had selected as subject for consideration? it had been lace. what about lace? lace . . . ? her mind balked, openly rebellious. she could not make it think of lace again. she was in a panic, and cast about her for some strong defense . . . oh! just the thing . . . the new hat. she would try on the new hat which had just come from new york. she had been waiting for a leisurely moment, really to be able to put her attention on that. she opened the gaily printed round pasteboard box, and took out the creation. she put it on with care, low over her eyebrows, adjusting it carefully by feel, before she looked at herself to get the first impression. then, hand-glass in hand, she began to study it seriously from various angles. when she was convinced that from every view-point her profile had the unlovely and inharmonious silhouette fashionable that summer, she drew a long breath of relief, and took it off gently, looking at it with pleasure. nothing gives one such self-confidence, she reflected, as the certainty of having the right sort of hat. how much better "chic" was than beauty! with the hat still in her hand, her very eyes on it, she saw there before her, as plainly as though in a crystal ball, marise's attitude as she had stood with marsh that evening before at the far end of the garden. her body drawn towards his, the poise of her head, all of her listening intently while he talked . . . one could see how he was dominating her. a man with such a personality as his, regularly hypnotic when he chose, and practised in handling women, he would be able to do anything he liked with an impressionable creature like marise, who as a girl was always under the influence of something or other. it was evident that he could put any idea he liked into marise's head just by looking at her hard enough. she had seen him do it . . . helped him do it, for that matter! and so neale must have seen. anybody could! and neale was not raising a hand, nor so much as lifting an eyebrow, just letting things take their course. _what could that mean except that he would welcome_ . . . oh heavens! her pulse was hammering again. she sprang up and ran to the mirror. yes, the mirror showed a face that scared her; haggard and pinched with a fierce desire. there were not only lines now, there was a hollow in the cheek . . . or was that a shadow? it made her look a thousand years old. massage would do that no good! and she had no faith in any of those "flesh-foods." perhaps she was underweight. the hideous strain and suspense of the last weeks had told on her. perhaps she would better omit those morning exercises for a time, in this intense heat. perhaps she would better take cream with her oatmeal again. or perhaps cream of wheat would be better than oatmeal. how ghastly that made her look! but perhaps it was only a shadow. she could not summon courage enough to move and see. finally she took up her hand-mirror, framed in creamy ivory, with a carved jade bead hanging from it by a green silk cord. she went to the window to get a better light on her face. she examined it, holding her breath; and drew a long, long sigh of respite and relief. it _had_ been only a shadow! but what a fright it had given her! her heart was quivering yet. what unending vigilance it took to protect yourself from deep emotions. when it wasn't one, it was another, that sprang on you unawares. another one _was_ there, ready to spring also, the suddenly conceived possibility, like an idea thrust into her mind from the outside, that there might be some active part she could play in what was going on in this house. people did sometimes. if some chance for this offered . . . you never could tell when . . . a word might be . . . perhaps something to turn marise from neale long enough to . . . she cast this idea off with shame for its crudeness. what vulgar raw things would come into your head when you let your mind roam idly . . . like cheap melodrama . . . she would try the vedanta deep-breathing exercises this time to quiet herself; and after them, breathing in and out through one nostril, and thinking of the infinite, as the yogi had told her. she lay down flat on the bed for this, kicking off her quilted satin _mules_, and wriggling her toes loose in their lace-like silk stockings. she would lie on her back, look up at the ceiling, and fix her mind on the movement up and down of her navel in breathing, as the vedanta priest recommended to quiet the spirit. perhaps she could even say, "om . . . om . . . om . . ." as they did. * * * * * no, no she couldn't. she still had vestiges of that stupid, gross anglo-saxon self-consciousness clinging to her. but she would outgrow them, yet. she lay there quiet and breathed slowly, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. and into her mind there slowly slid a cypress-shaded walk with rome far below on one side, and a sun-ripened, golden, old wall on the other. she stood there with marise, both so young, so young! and down the path towards them came a tall figure, with a bold clear face, a tender full-lipped mouth, and eyes that both smiled and were steady. helplessly she watched him come, groaning in spirit at what she knew would happen; but she could not escape till the ache in her throat swelled and broke, as she saw that his eyes were for marise and his words, and all of his very self for which she . . . so many years . . . so many years . . . with so much else in the world . . . not to have been able to cure that one ache . . . and she did not want to suffer . . . she wanted to be at rest, and have what she needed. the tears rose brimming to her eyes, and ran down on each side of her face to the pillow. poor eugenia! poor eugenia! * * * * * she was almost broken this time, but not entirely. there was some fight left in her. she got up from the bed, clenched her hands tightly, and stood in the middle of the floor, gathering herself together. down with it! down! down! just now, at this time, when such an utterly unexpected dawn of a possible escape . . . to give way again. she thought suddenly, "suppose i give up the new-thought way, always distracting your attention to something else, always suppressing your desire, resisting the pull you want to yield to. suppose i try the freud way, bringing the desire up boldly, letting yourself go, unresisting." it was worth trying. she sat down in a chair, her elbows on the dressing-table, and let herself go, gorgeously, wholly, epically, as she had been longing to ever since she had first intercepted that magnetic interchange of looks between marsh and marise, the day after her arrival, the day of the picnic-supper in that stupid old woman's garden. that was when she had first known that something was up. * * * * * why, how easy it was to let yourself go! they were right, the freudians, it was the natural thing to do, you did yourself a violence when you refused to. it was like sailing off above the clouds on familiar wings, although it was the first time she had tried them. . . . marise would fall wholly under marsh's spell, would run away and be divorced. neale would never raise a hand against her doing this. eugenia saw from his aloof attitude that it was nothing to him one way or the other. any man who cared for his wife would fight for her, of course. and it was so manifestly the best thing for marise too, to have a very wealthy man looking out for her, that there could be no disturbing reflexes of regret or remorse for anybody to disturb the perfection of this fore-ordained adjustment to the infinite. then with the children away at school for all the year, except a week or two with their father . . . fine, modern, perfect schools, the kind where the children were always out of doors, florida in winter and new england hills in summer. those schools were horribly expensive . . . what was all her money for? . . . but they had the best class of wealthy children, carefully selected for their social position, and the teachers were so well paid that of course they did their jobs better than parents. then neale, freed from slavery to those insufferable children, released from the ignoble, grinding narrowness of this petty manufacturing business, free to roam the world as she knew he had always longed to do . . . what a life they could have . . . india with neale . . . china . . . paris . . . they would avoid rome perhaps because of unwelcome memories . . . norway in summer-time. think of seeing neale fishing a norway salmon brook . . . she and neale on a steamer together . . . together . . . she caught sight of her face in the mirror . . . that radiant, smiling, triumphant, _young_ face, hers! yes, the freud way was the best. chapter xvii the soul of nelly powers july 20. the big pine was good for one thing, anyhow, if it did keep the house as dark as a cellar with the black shade it made. the side-porch was nice and cool even on a hot summer day, just right for making butter. if it wasn't for the horrid pitch-piny smell the tree wouldn't be so bad. the churning was getting along fine too. the dasher was beginning to go the blob-blob way that showed in a minute or two the butter would be there. it had been a real good idea to get up early and get the work out of the way so that the churning could be done before it got so hot. a thunder-storm was coming, too, probably. you could feel it in the air. there, perhaps the butter had come, now. nelly pushed the dasher down slowly and drew it back with care, turning her ear to listen expertly to the sound it made. no, not yet, there wasn't that watery splash yet that came after it had separated. she went on with the regular rhythmic motion, her eyes fixed dreamily on the round hole in the cover of the churn, through which the dasher-handle went up and down and which was now rimmed with thick yellow cream. she loved to churn, nelly thought. she loved to have milk to look out for, anyhow, from the time it came in from the barn, warm and foamy and sweet-smelling, till the time when she had taken off the thick, sour cream, like shammy-skin, and then poured the loppered milk spatteringly into the pigs' trough. she liked seeing how the pigs loved it, sucking it up, their eyes half shut because it tasted so good. there wasn't anything that was better than giving people or animals what they liked to eat. it made her feel good all over to throw corn to the hens and see how they scrabbled for it. she just loved to get a bag of stick candy at the store, when she went to town, and see how addie and ralph and little 'gene jumped up and down when they saw it. and then it was so nice to be fore-handed and get the churning out of the way before noon. she would have time this afternoon after the dishes were done, to sit right down with that sprigged calico dress for little addie. she could get the seams all run up on the machine before supper-time, and have the hand-work, buttonholes and finishing, for pick-up work for odd minutes. she just loved to sit and sew, in a room all nice and picked up, and know the house-work was done. that would be a _real_ pretty dress, she thought, with the pink sprigs and the pink feather-stitching in mercerized cotton she was going to put on it. addie would look sweet in it. and if it was washed careful and dried in the shade it wouldn't fade so much. it was a good bright pink to start with. only addie ought to have a new hat to wear with it. a white straw with pink flowers on it. but that would cost a couple of dollars, anyhow, everything was so dear now. oh well, 'gene would let her buy it. 'gene would let her do most anything. she thought with pity of her sisters, mill-hands in west adams still, or married to mill-hands, men who got drunk on the sly and didn't work regular, and wanted a full half of all they made for themselves. 'gene and his mother were always scolding about the money they could have had if they'd kept that wood-land on the mountain. they'd ought to ha' been really poor the way she had been, so's you didn't know where the next meal was coming from, or how the rent was going to be paid. she had been awfully lucky to get 'gene, who let her decide how much money ought to be spent on the children's clothes and hers, and never said a thing, or scolded or bothered. he was kind of _funny_, 'gene was, always so sober and solemn, and it was a _sort_ of bother to have him so crazy about her still. that had been all right when they were engaged, and first married. she had liked it all right then, although it always seemed sort of foolish to her. but men _were_ that way! only now, when there were three children and another one coming, and the house to be kept nice, and the work done up right, and the farmwork and everything going so good, and so much on her mind, why, it seemed as though they'd ought to have other things to think about beside kissings and huggings. not that 'gene didn't do his share of the work. he was a fine farmer, as good as anybody in the valley. but he never could settle down, and be comfortable and quiet with her, like it was natural for old married folks to do. if she went by him, close, so her arm touched him, why then, if nobody was there he'd grab at her and kiss her and rumple her hair, and set her all back in her work. with all she had to do and think of, and she did her work as good as anybody if she did say it who shouldn't, she had her day planned before she turned her feet out of bed in the morning. and she liked to have things go the way she planned them. she _liked_ 'gene all right, only she had her work to get done. she churned meditatively, looking off towards the mountain where the eagle rocks heaved themselves up stiff and straight and high. 'gene's mother came to the door, asked if the butter was coming all right, looked at her, and said, "my! nelly, you get better looking every day you live," and went back to her bread-baking. nelly went on with her reflections about 'gene. it was more than just that he bothered her and put her back with her work. she really didn't think it was just exactly nice and refined to be so crazy about anybody as that. well, there was a streak in the powerses that wasn't refined. 'gene's mother! gracious! when she got going, laughing and carrying-on, what wouldn't she say, right out before anybody! and dancing still like a young girl! and that hateful old mrs. hewitt, just after they'd moved back to ashley, didn't she have to go and tell her about 'gene's being born too soon after his father and mother were married? 'gene took it from his mother she supposed; he wa'an't to blame, really. but she hoped addie and ralph would be _like_ her folks. not but what the powerses were good-hearted enough. 'gene was a good man, if he was queer, and an awful good papa to addie and ralph and little 'gene. none of her sisters had got a man half so good. that sprigged dress would look good with feather-stitching around the hem, too. why hadn't she thought of that before? she hadn't got enough mercerized thread in the house, she didn't believe, to do it all; and it was such a nuisance to run out of the thread you had to have, and nobody going to the village for goodness knows when, with the farmwork behind the way it was, on account of the rains. she shifted her position and happened to bring one of her feet into view. without disturbing a single beat of the regular rhythm of the dasher, she tilted her head to look at it with approbation. if there was one thing she was particular about it was her shoes. she took such comfort in having them nice. they could say what they pleased, folks could, but high heels _suited_ her feet. maybe some folks, that had great broad feet like that old indian touclã©, felt better in those awful, sloppy old gunboats they called "common-sense shoes," but _she_ didn't! it would make her sick to wear them! how they did look! was there anything so pretty, anyhow, as a fine-leather shoe with a nice pointed toe, and a pretty, curved-in heel? it made you feel refined, and as good as anybody, even if you had on a calico dress with it. that was another nice thing about 'gene, how he'd stand up for her about wearing the kind of shoes she wanted. let anybody start to pick on her about it, if 'twas his own mother, he'd shut 'em up short, and say nelly could wear what she liked he guessed. even when the doctor had said so strict that she hadn't ought to wear them in the time before the babies came, 'gene never said a word, when he saw her doing it. there, the butter was just almost there. she could hear the buttermilk begin to swash! she turned her head to call to her mother-in-law to bring a pitcher for the buttermilk, when a sound of galloping hoofs echoed from the road. nelly frowned, released her hold on the dasher, listened an instant, and ran into the house. she went right upstairs to her room as provoked as she could be. well, she would make the bed and do the room-work anyhow, so's not to waste _all_ that time. she'd be that much ahead, anyhow. and as soon as frank had finished chinning with mother powers, and had gone, she'd go back and finish her churning. she felt mad all through at the thought of that cream left at just the wrong minute, just as it was separating. suppose frank hung round and _hung_ around, the way he did often, and the sun got higher and the cream got too warm, and she'd have to put in ice, and go down cellar with it, and fuss over it all the rest of the day? she was furious and thumped the pillows hard, with her doubled-up fist. but if she went down, frank'd hang around worse, and talk so foolish she'd want to slap him. he wa'n't more'n half-witted, sometimes, she thought. what was the _matter_ with men, anyhow? they didn't seem to have as much sense as so many calves! you'd think frank would think up something better to do than to bother the life out of busy folks, sprawling around all over creation the way he did. but she never had any luck! before frank it had been that old mrs. hewitt, nosing around to see what she could pick fault with in a person's housekeeping, looking under the sink if you left her alone in the kitchen for a minute, and opening your dresser drawers right before your face and eyes. well, frank was getting to be most as much of a nuisance. he didn't peek and snoop the way mrs. hewitt did, but he _bothered_; and he was getting so impudent, too! he had the big-head because he was the best dancer in the valley, that was what was the matter with him, and he knew she liked to dance with him. well, she did. but she would like to dance with anybody who danced good. if 'gene didn't clump so with his feet, she'd love to dance with him. and frank needn't think he was so much either. that city man who was staying with the old man next to the crittendens was just as good a dancer as frank, just exactly as light on his feet. she didn't like him a bit. she thought he was just plain fresh, the way he told frank to go on dancing with her. what was it to him! but she'd dance with him just the same, if she got the chance. how she just loved to dance! something seemed to get into her, when the music struck up. she hardly knew what she was doing, felt as though she was floating around on that thick, soft moss you walked on when you went blue-berrying on the burning above the eagle rocks . . . all springly. . . . if you could only dance by yourself, without having to bother with partners, that was what would be nice. she stepped to the door to listen, and heard 'gene's mother cackling away like an old hen. how she would carry on, with anybody that came along! she hadn't never settled down, not a bit really, for all she had been married and was a widow and was old. it wa'n't nice to be so lively as that, at her age. but she _wasn't_ nice, mother powers wasn't, for all she was good to addie and ralph and little 'gene. nelly liked nice people, she thought, as she went back to shake the rag rugs out of the window; refined ladies like mrs. bayweather, the minister's wife. that was the way _she_ wanted to be, and have little addie grow up. she lingered at the window a moment looking up at the thick dark branches of the big pine. how horrid it was to have that great tree so close to the house! it shaded the bedroom so that there was a musty smell no matter how much it was aired. and the needles dropped down so messy too, and spoiled the grass. frank's voice came up the stairs, bold, laughing, "nelly, nelly, come down here a minute. i want to ask you something!" "i can't," she called back. didn't he have the nerve! "why can't you?" the skeptical question came from halfway up the stairs. "i saw you on the side-porch, just as i came up." nelly cast about for an excuse. of course you had to have some _reason_ for saying you couldn't see a neighbor who came in. she had an inspiration. "i'm washing my hair," she called back, taking out the hair-pins hastily, as she spoke. the great coils came tumbling down on her shoulders. she soused them in the water pitcher, and went to the door, opening it a crack, tipping her head forward so that the water streamed on the floor. "can't you ask mother powers for whatever it is?" she said impatiently. she wished as she spoke that she could ever speak right out sharp and scratchy the way other people did. she was too easy, that was the trouble. "well," said frank, astonished, "you be, for a fact." he went back down the stairs, and nelly shut the door. she was hot all over with impatience about that butter. when it wasn't one thing to keep her from her work, it was another. her hair all wet now. and such a job to dry it! she heard voices in the kitchen, and the screen-door open. thank goodness, frank was going away! oh my! maybe he was going to the village! he could bring some of the pink mercerized cotton on his way back. he might as well be of _some_ use in the world. she thrust her head out of the window. "frank, frank, wait a minute!" she called. she ran back to her work-basket, cut a length from a spool of thread, wound it around a bit of paper, and went again to the window. "say, frank, get me two spools of cotton to match that, will you, at warner and hardy's." he rode his horse past the big pine, under her window, and stood up in the stirrups, looking up boldly at her, her hair in thick wet curls about her face. "i'd do anything for you!" he said jokingly, catching at the paper she threw down to him. she slammed the window down hard. how provoking he was! but anyhow she would have enough thread to feather-stitch that hem. she'd got that much out of him. the thought made up to her for some of the annoyance of the morning. she put a towel around her shoulders under her wet hair, and waited till he was actually out of sight around the bend of the road. it seemed to her that she saw something stir in the long grass in the meadow there. could the woodchucks be getting so close to the house as that? she'd have to tie towser up by her lettuce, nights, if they were. gracious, there it was thundering, off behind the rocks! she'd have to hustle, if she got the butter done before the storm came. when frank had really disappeared, she ran downstairs, and rushed out to her churn. she felt of it anxiously, her face clearing to note that it seemed no warmer than when she had left it. maybe it was all right still. she began to plunge the dasher up and down. well, it had gone back some, she could tell by the feel, but not so much, she guessed, but what she could make it come all right. as she churned, she thought again of frank warner. this was the limit! he got so on her nerves, she declared to herself she didn't care if he _never_ danced with her again. she wished she had more spunk, like some girls, and could just send him packing. but she never could think of any sharp things to say to folks, in time. she was too easy, she knew that, always had been. look how long she had put up with mrs. hewitt's snooping around. and then in the end she had got cold feet and had had to sick 'gene on to her, to tell her they didn't want her sitting around all the time and sponging off them at meal-times. but somehow she didn't want to ask 'gene to speak to frank that way. she was afraid somehow it would get 'gene excited. mostly he was so still, and then all of a sudden he'd flare up and she never could see a thing to make him then more than any time. the best thing to do with gene was to keep him quiet, just as much as she could, not do anything to get him started. that was why she never went close up to him or put her arms around his neck of her own accord. she'd _like_ to pet him and make over him, the way she did over the children, but it always seemed to get him so stirred up and everything. men were funny, anyhow! she often had thought how nice it would be if 'gene could only be another woman. they could have such good times together. why, here was 'gene himself come in from cultivating corn right in the middle of the morning. maybe he wanted a drink. he came up on the porch, without looking at her and went into the house. how heavy he walked. but then he always did. that was the trouble with his dancing. you had to step light, to be a good dancer. there was a crack of thunder again, nearer than the first one. she heard him ask his mother, "frank warner been here?" and mother powers say, "yes, he come in to ask if we could loan him our compass. he's going to go up tomorrow in the eagle rock woods to run out the line between the warner and the benson woodlots. the warners have sold the popple on theirs to the crittenden mill, and frank says the blazes are all barked over, they're so old." oh goody! thought nelly, there the butter was, come all at once. the buttermilk was splashing like water. yes, even there around the hole you could see the little yellow specks. well, she needn't have got so provoked, after all. that was fine. now she could get at that sprigged dress for addie, after all, this afternoon. 'gene came out on the porch again. she looked at him and smiled. she felt very happy and relieved that the butter had come so that she could finish working it over before noon. 'gene glowered at her smiling face and at her hair curling and shining all down her back. how cross he looked! oh bother! excited too. well, what could the matter be, _now_? she should think any man would be satisfied to come in, right in the middle of the morning like that, without any warning, and find his house as spick and span as a pin, and the butter churned and half the day's work out of the way. she'd like to know what more he wanted? who else could do any better? oh bother! how queer men were! yes, it would really be lots nicer if there were only women and children in the world. gracious! how that lightning made her jump! the storm had got there quicker'n she'd thought. but the butter had come, so it was all right. part iii chapter xviii before the dawn july 21. neale had lain so long with his eyes on the place where the window ought to be, that finally he was half persuaded he could see it, a faintly paler square against the black of the room. very soon dawn would come in that window, and another day would begin. at the thought the muscles of his forearms contracted, drawing his fingers into rigidly clenched fists, and for a moment he did not breathe. then he conquered it again; threw off the worst of the pain that had sprung upon him when he had wakened suddenly, hours before, with the fear at last there before him, visible in the darkness. what was this like? where before had he endured this eternity of waiting? yes, it was in france, the night when they waited for the attack to break, every man haggard with the tension, from dark till just before dawn. he lay still, feeling marise's breathing faintly stirring the bed. there in france it had been a strain almost beyond human power to keep from rushing out of the trenches with bayonets fixed, to meet the threatened danger, to beat it back, to conquer it, or to die and escape the suspense. now there was the same strain. he had the weapons in his hands, weapons of passion, and indignation and entreaty and reproach, against which marise would not stand for a moment. but there in france that would have meant possibly an insignificant local success and the greater victory all along the line imperiled. and here that was true again. there hadn't been anything to do then but wait. there was nothing to do now but wait. yes, but it was harder to wait now! there in france they had at least known that finally the suspense would end in the fury of combat. they would have the chance to resist, to conquer, to impose their will. and now there was no active part for him. he must wait on, and hold back his hand from the attack which would give him the appearance of victory, and which would mean everlasting defeat for him, for marise, the death and ruin of what they had tried to be for each other, to build up out of their life together. what did he mean by that? wasn't he fooling himself with words, with priggish phrases? it was so easy to do that. and he was so mortally fatigued with this struggle in the dark. he had been thinking about it so deeply, so desperately, ever since he had faced it there, squarely, those endless black hours ago. he might have lost his way. now, once more, slowly, step by step, once more over the terrible road that led him here. perhaps there was another way he had overlooked. perhaps this time it would lead him to something less intolerable. quiet now, steady, all that he had of courage and honesty and knowledge of marise, and of life, and of himself, put to work. his brain began again to plod up the treadmill it had labored on for so many black hours. he set himself to get it clear in his own mind, forcing those fierce, burning thoughts of his into words, as if he had been speaking aloud. "now, now here i am. what must i do? what ought i to do? there must be some answer if i can only think clearly, feel aright. _what is it that i want?_" the answer burst from him, as though in a cry of torture from his brain, his body, his passion, his soul, "_i want marise!_" and at this expression of overmastering desire, memory flooded his mind with a stream of unforgotten pictures of their life together; marise facing him at the breakfast table; marise walking with him in the autumn woods; marise with paul a baby in her arms; marise, almost unknown then, the flame-like divinity of her soul only guessed-at, looking into his eyes as the campagna faded into darkness below them. "what was it she asked me then? whether i knew the way across the dark plain? i was a confident young fool then. i was sure i could find the way, _with her_. i've been thinking all these years that we were finding it, step by step . . . till now. and now, what is it i am afraid of? i'm afraid she finds herself cramped, wants a fuller existence, regrets . . . no, that's dodging. there's no use lying to myself. i'm afraid that marise is in love with vincent marsh. good god! no! it can't be that . . . not marise! this is all nonsense. this is something left over from sleep and a bad dream. i must wake up. i must wake up and find it not true." he lay perfectly still, his fists clenched tight, perspiration standing out on his rigid body. then sternly he forced his mind to go forward again, step by step. "i suppose it's possible. other women have. there's a lot in her that must be starved here. i may not be enough for her. she was so young then. she has grown so greatly. what right have i to try to hold her if she is tired of it all, needs something else?" he hesitated, shrinking back as from fire, from the answer he knew he must give. at last he forced it out, "i haven't any right. i don't want her to stay if she wants to go. i want marise. but even more i want her to be happy." the thought, with all its implications, terrified him like a death-sentence, but he repeated it grimly, pressing it home fiercely, "i want her to be happy." he realized where this thought would lead him, and in a panic wildly fought against going on. he had tried to hold himself resolute and steady, but he was nothing now save a flame of resentment. "happy! she won't be happy that way! she can't love that man! she's being carried away by that damnable sensibility of hers. it would be the most hideous, insane mistake. what am i thinking of . . . all these _words_! what i must do is to keep her from ruining her life." on the heels of this outcry, there glided in insinuatingly a soft-spoken crowd of tempting, seductive possibilities. marise was so sensitive, so impressionable, so easily moved, so defenseless when her emotions were aroused. hadn't he the right, the duty, he who knew her better than anyone else, to protect her against herself? wasn't he deceiving himself by fantastic notions? it would be so easy to act the ardent, passionate young lover again . . . but when had he ever "acted" anything for marise! no matter, no matter, this was life or death; what was a lie when life and death hung in the balance? he could play on her devotion to the children, throw all the weight of his personality, work on her emotions. that was what people did to gain their point. everybody did it. and he could win if he did. he could hold her. * * * * * like the solemn tolling of a great bell there rang, through all this hurried, despairing clutching at the endurable and lesser, a call to the great and intolerable. the immensity of his love for marise loomed up, far greater than he; and before that sacred thing he hung his head, and felt his heart breaking. "no, that won't do. not when it is marise who is in question. the best, the very best i can conceive is what i must give to marise. a cage could not hold her, not anything but her body, and to force her decision would be to make a cage. no, i mustn't use the children either. they are hers as much as mine. if all is not right between us, what would it avail them to be with us? they must take what life brings them, like the rest of us. if the years marise and i have passed together, if what we have been to each other, and are to each other, if that is not enough, then nothing is enough. that would be a trick to play on her . . . to use my knowledge of her vulnerable points to win. that is not what i want. what _do_ i want? i want marise to be happy." he had advanced a step since the last time he had told himself this, for now he said it with a dreadful calm, his heart aching but not faltering. but he could go no further. there were limits to what he could endure. he fell into a trance-like state of passivity, his body and mind exhausted. as he lay thus, fallen and prostrate, there soared up out of a part of him that was neither mind nor body, but was nevertheless himself, something swift and beautiful and living, something great enough at last to measure its greatness with the immensity of his love for marise. what was it? it was this . . . for a moment he had it all clear, as though he had died and it were something told him in another world . . . he did not want marise for himself; he did not even want her to be happy; he wanted her to be herself, to be all that marise could ever grow to be, he wanted her to attain her full stature so far as any human being could do this in this life. and to do that she must be free. for an instant he looked full at this, his heart flooded with glory. and then the light went out. he was there in the blackness again, unhappy beyond any suffering he had thought he could bear. he lay still, feeling marise beside him, the slow, quiet rhythm of her breathing. was she awake or sleeping? what would happen if he should allow the fear and suffering which racked him to become articulate? if he should cry out to her, she would not turn away. he knew marise. she would never turn away from fear and suffering. "but i can't do that. i won't work on her sympathy. i've promised to be true to what's deepest and truest in us both. i have been, by god! and i will be. if our married life has been worth anything, it's because we've both been free and honest . . . true with one another. this is her ordeal. she must act for herself. better die than use my strength to force her against her own nature. if i decide . . . no matter how sure i am i'm right . . . it won't be her decision. nothing would be decided. i must go on just as before . . ." he groaned, "that will take all the strength i have." it was clear to him now; the only endurable future for them, such as they were to each other, would come from marise's acting with her own strength on her own decision. by all that was sacred, he would never by word or act hamper that decision. he would be himself, honestly. marise ought to know what that self was. he had thought that this resolve would bring to him another of these terrible racking instants of anguish, but instead there came almost a calm upon him, as though the pain had passed and left him in peace, or as though a quiet light had shone out in the darkness. perhaps the dawn had come. no, the square of the window was still only faintly felt in the blacker mass of the silent room. then he knew why the pain had left him. it had been driven away by the certainty that there was a worse fear than any he knew, or ever would know. no matter what risk or catastrophe lay before them, marise would never look at him out her clear eyes and act a thing that was not true. marise would always be marise. why then, whatever came he could bear it. life might be cruel and pitiless, but it was not base, when it had among its gifts such a certainty as that, rock-like under his feet, bearing him up in his pain. he moved to her in the bed, felt for her hand and put it gently to his lips. then, holding it in his, on his breast, he turned his eyes towards the window, waiting for the dawn. chapter xix mr. welles lights the fuse july 2. that early morning talk with mr. welles had left marise trembling with helpless sorrow and exasperation. she sat on the bench where he had left her, and felt the nervous tears stinging her eyes. when she looked up and saw vincent marsh was standing there, extremely pale, as visibly shaken as she, as visibly little in control of himself, she burst out, "so you too know. he has just told me that he is really going. the very date is set. his cousin has a room in her boarding house engaged for him. he's going to work as a clerk to pay for the extra expenses of the life there. _oh!_" she struck her hand on the back of the bench. vincent marsh sat down beside her, his eyes on hers. he said in a curious, low voice, rough and husky, "i wish you would do something for me. i wish you would think with all your might, deeply, just why you are so opposed to his doing what evidently seems to him a very saintly and heroic action; and then tell me why it is." marise felt this as a challenge. he was always challenging everything. this time she was more than ready. "i don't need any time to think of reasons!" she cried. "it's obvious to anyone with any sense for the reality of human values, who isn't fooled by threadbare old words. it's one of those wasteful, futile, exasperating tricks people play on themselves in the name of 'duty.' he's throwing away something real and true, something that could add to the richness of human life, he's throwing away the happiness that comes of living as suits his nature, and so creating a harmony that enriches everybody who touches him. and what's he doing it for? to satisfy a morbid need for self-sacrifice. he's going to do harm, in all probability, mix up a situation already complicated beyond solution, and why is he? so that he can indulge himself in the perverse pleasure of the rasp of a hair-shirt. he doesn't really use his intelligence to think, to keep a true sense of proportions; he takes an outworn and false old ideal of self-sacrifice, and uses it not to do anybody any real good, but to put a martyr's crown on his head." she became conscious that her words were having a singular effect upon vincent. a dark flush had come over all his face. his gaze on her was extraordinary in its intentness, in its eagerness, in its fierceness. she stopped suddenly, as though he had broken in on what she was saying. he did not stir from his place, but to her he seemed to tower taller. into his dark, intent face came an exultant look of power and authority which fell on her like a hot wind. with a loud knocking of her heart she knew. before he spoke, she knew what he would say. and he saw that. he opened those burning lips and said in the same low voice, rough with its intensity, "you see what you have done. you have spoken for me. you have said at last what i have been silently and desperately calling out to you. you know what has happened. you have said it, it is obvious to anyone with any sense of human values. make an end! make an end! come away from a position where only an outworn old ideal holds you to futility and waste. come away where you will really live and know the fullness of life. come away from that false notion of duty which makes you do for the children what you know is not best for them, only because it is the traditional thing to do, only because it gives you a martyr's crown to wear. i don't say anything now, as i would to any other woman in the world, as i would have said to you weeks ago before i knew all that you are . . . i don't say anything about the imbecility of keeping such a woman as you are here in this narrow, drab hole, this sordid prison . . . you born, if ever a human being was, to rich and warm and harmonious living! it is your birthright. let me give it to you. all that, even that, a whole world of beauty and fullness waiting for you to create it to glorious being, all that is nothing compared to what has come to pass between us, you and me; compared to that other world of impassioned living existence that is waiting for you. come away from the man who is nothing more to you than the house you live in . . . nothing but a habit." she started at this, moving out of the stony immobility in which she gazed at him, listened to him. she did not know that she had moved, was incapable of willing to do so. it had been a mere reflex start as though she had been struck. but at the sight of it, the flame in his eyes leaped up. "no, no, no!" he cried with an insistent triumph, "he is nothing more to you than a habit. and you are nothing more to him. you were right, on that evening when you shrank away from the sight of the place in italy where in your ignorant youth you made the mistake of trying to join your life to his. there is not a breath you draw, not a turn of your head or body . . . i know them all . . . that does not prove that he is nothing to you now. i have seen you take a handkerchief from his pocket as you would take it from a bureau-drawer. i have seen him set you on one side, to pass through a door, as he would set a chair on one side. you don't even see him any more when you look at him, and he doesn't see you. whatever there may have been between you, if there was ever anything real, it is dead now, dead and buried . . . and you the most living woman who ever wore flesh and blood! and i am a living man! you know, i don't need to say it, you know what happens when our looks meet. our looks only! life flares up like a torch in both of us. you know if i but brush against your skirt, how i cannot speak! you know how when our hands touch, every drop of blood in our two bodies burns! you are a grown woman. you know life as well as i do. you know what this means. you are no longer even a part of his life. you are all of mine. look at me now." he flung out his hands, shaking uncontrollably. "do you see how i show this, say this anywhere, tell this to you here, now, where anyone could hear me? i am not ashamed of it. it is not a thing to hide. it is a thing to glory in. it is the only honestly living thing in all our miserable human life, the passion of a man and a woman for each other. it is the only thing that moves us out of our cowardly lethargy of dead-and-alive egotism. the thing that is really base and false is to pretend that what is dead is still alive. your marriage is dead. your children do not need you as you pretend. let yourself go in this flood that is sweeping us along. i had never thought to know it. i could fall down and worship you because you have shown it to me. but i will show it to you, that and the significance of what you will be when you are no longer smothered and starved. in all this scrawling ant-heap of humanity, there are only a handful of human beings who ever really live. and we will be among them. all the rest are nothing, less than nothing, to be stamped down if they impede you. they have no other destiny. but we have! everything comes down to that in the end. that is the only truth. that . . . and you and i!" in the distance, someone called marise's name. he thought she made a move, and said, leaning towards her, the heat of his body burning through to her arm where he touched her, "no, no, none of those trivial, foolish interruptions that tie you hand and foot, can tie us any longer. they have no real strength. they can't stand for an instant against something alive. all that rattles in your ears, that keeps you from knowing what you really are . . ." someone was hurrying down the walk towards them, hidden by the hedge. marise could not have turned her head if her life had hung on the action. vincent looked straight at her, straight and deep and strong into her eyes, and for an instant his burning lips were pressed on hers. the contact was terrible, momentous. when he went on speaking, without haste, unafraid although the hurrying steps were almost there, she could scarcely hear his voice, although it was urgent and puissant as the impact of his eyes. "you can't get away from this now. it is here. it has been said. it lives between us, and you are not strong enough, no power on earth is strong enough, to put it down." * * * * * and then the outer world broke in on them, swept between them with an outcry. someone was there, someone who drew short sobbing breaths, who caught at her and clung to her. it was cousin hetty's old agnes . . . why in the world was she here? . . . and she was saying in a loud voice as though she had no control of it, "oh, oh! come quick! come quick!" marise stood up, carrying the old woman with her. she was entirely certain now that she was in a nightmare, from which she would presently awake, wet with cold sweat. "come! come!" cried the old woman, beating her hands on marise's arm. "perhaps it ain't too late. perhaps you can do something." "what has happened?" asked marise, making her voice sharp and imperative to pierce the other's agitation. "i don't know. i don't know," sobbed agnes. "she didn't come down for breakfast. i went up to see . . . oh, go quick! go quick!" she went down, half on the bench, half on the ground. marise and marsh stood for an instant, petrified. there was only the smallest part of marise's consciousness which was alive to this. most of it lay numbed and bewildered, still hearing, like a roll of thunder, the voice of vincent marsh. then she turned. "look out for her, will you," she said briefly. "no, don't come with me. i'll go by the back road. it's the quickest, but it's too narrow for a car. you drive to ashley and bring the doctor in your car." she ran down the path and around the house to the road, not feeling the blinding heat of the sun. she ran along the dusty road, a few steps from the house before the turn into the narrow lane. she felt nothing at all but a great need for haste. as she ran, putting all her strength into her running, there were moments when she forgot why she was hurrying, where she was going, what had happened; but she did not slacken her pace. she was on the narrow back road now, in the dense shade of the pines below the eagle rocks. in five minutes she would be at cousin hetty's. that was where she was going. she was running more slowly now over the rough, uneven, stony road, and she was aware, more than of anything else, of a pain in her chest where she could not draw a long breath. it seemed to her that she must be now wholly in the bad dream, for she had the nightmare sensation of running with all her strength and not advancing at all. the somber, thick-set pines seemed to be implacably in the same place, no matter how she tried to pass them, to leave them behind, to hurry on. everything else in the silent, breathless, midsummer forest was rooted immovably deep in the earth. she alone was killing herself with haste, and yet futilely . . . not able to get forward, not able to . . . * * * * * and then, fit to turn her brain, the forest drew aside and showed her another nightmare figure, a man, far away to her right, running down the steep incline that sloped up to the rocks. a man running as she had been wishing she could run, a powerful, roughly dressed man, rapt in a passion of headlong flight, that cast him down the rough slope, over the rocks, through the brambles, as though his flight were part of an endless fall. marise stopped stock-still, shocked out of every sensation but the age-old woman's instinct of fear and concealment. the man plunged forward, not seeing her where she stood on the road across which he now burst, flinging himself out of the pines on one side and into the thicket of undergrowth on the other. far from him as she was, marise could hear, through the forest hush, the terrible sound of his breathing as he ran, as he stumbled, as he struggled to his feet, fighting crazily with the thick undergrowth. those loud hoarse gasps . . . it was as though he were being choked to death by a hand on his throat. he was gone, down the slope towards the valley road. the leaves closed together behind him. the forest was impenetrably silent again. marise knew who he was, then, recognized him for 'gene powers beyond any doubt. she felt a strange mixture of pity and scorn and envy. to be so primitive as that . . . to think, even for an instant's madness, that you could run away on your own two poor human feet from whatever life brought to you! * * * * * she herself was hurrying forward again. what was she going to? what had she left behind? the passage of the other runner had not taken a single moment's time. she was now at the path which led to cousin hetty's side-door. she darted along this, and found herself in the yard before the door, open as agnes had left it when she rushed out for help. a tea-kettle on the kitchen-stove sang in a low murmur. the clock ticked loudly, wagging its pendulum back and forth. the cat, stretched at full length on the floor in a yellow square of sunlight, lifted a drowsy head and looked at her. there was a smell of freshly made coffee in the air. as she stood there for an instant till the whirling in her head should stop, a stick of wood in the fire broke and fell together. marise went through into the dining-room where the table laid for breakfast stood in a quiet expectancy. the old house, well-kept and well-loved, wore a tranquil expression of permanence and security. but out in the dusky hail, the white stairs stood palely motioning up. there marise felt a singular heavy coolness in the stagnant air. she went up the stairs, leaning on the balustrade, and found herself facing an open door. beyond it, in a shuttered and shaded room, stood a still white bed. and on the bed, still and white and distant, lay something dead. it was not cousin hetty. that austere, cold face, proud and stern, was not cousin hetty's. it was her grandmother's, her father's, her uncle's face, whom cousin hetty had never at all resembled. it was the family shell which cousin hetty had for a time inhabited. marise came forward and crossed the threshold. immediately she was aware of a palpable change in the atmosphere. the room was densely filled with silence, which folded her about coldly. she sank down on a chair. she sat motionless, looking at what lay there so quiet, at the unimaginable emptiness and remoteness of that human countenance. this was the end. she had come to the end of her running and her haste and her effort to help. all the paltry agitations and sorrows, the strains and defeats and poor joys, they were all hurrying forward to meet this end. all the scruples, and sacrifices, and tearing asunder of human desires to make them fit words that were called ideals, all amounted to this same nothingness in the end. what was cousin hetty's life now, with its tiny inhibitions, its little passivities? the same nothingness it would have been, had she grasped boldly at life's realities and taken whatever she wanted. and all cousin hetty's mother's sacrifices for her, her mother's hopes for her, the slow transfusion of her mother's life to hers; that was all dead now, had been of no avail against this nothingness. some day elly would lie like that, and all that she had done for elly, or could do for her, would be only a pinch of ashes. if she, if cousin hetty, if cousin hetty's mother, if elly, if all of them, took hotly whatever the hours had to give, they could not more certainly be brought to nothingness and oblivion in the end. . . . those dreams of her . . . being one with a great current, sweeping forward . . . what pitiful delusions! . . . there was nothing that swept forward. there were only futile storms of froth and excitement that whirled you about to no end, one after another. one died down and left you becalmed and stagnant, and another rose. and that would die down in its turn. until at the end, shipwreck, and a sinking to this darkly silent abyss. chapter xx a primaeval heritage july 21. evening. cousin hetty lay coldly dead; and marise felt herself blown upon by an icy breath that froze her numb. the doctor had come and gone, queerly, and bustlingly alive and full of talk and explanations; agnes had come back and, silently weeping, had walked endlessly and aimlessly around the house, with a broom in her idle hand; one after another of the neighbors had come and gone, queerly alive as usual, they too, for all their hushed and awkward manners; neale had come, seeming to feel that cold breath as little as the others. and now neale was gone, after everything had been decided, all the incredibly multitudinous details that must be decided. the funeral was set for the day after tomorrow, and until then, everything in everybody's life was to stop stock-still, as a matter of course. because agnes was in terror of being left alone for an instant, marise would not even leave the house until after the funeral, and one of the thousand petty unescapable details she and neale had talked of in the hushed voice which the house imposed on all in it, was the decision as to which dress and hat were to be sent to her from the wardrobe at home. she was to stay there with agnes, she, who was all the family old cousin hetty had left, for the last watch over what lay up there on the bed in her bedroom. neale would look out for the children (there was no one else for the moment, touclã© was gone, eugenia quite useless), would telegraph the few old friends who would care to know the news, would see mr. bayweather about the funeral, would telephone the man in west ashley who dug graves, would do what was to be done outside; and she would do what was to be done inside, as now, when she sat on the stairs waiting in case the undertaker needed something. she was glad that the undertaker was only quiet, white-bearded old mr. hadley, who for so many, many years had given his silent services to the dead of ashley that he had come to seem not quite a living figure himself, hushed and stilled by his association with everlasting stillness. marise, cold and numbed with that icy breath upon her, knew now why the old undertaker was always silent and absent. a strange life he must have had. she had never thought of it till she had seen him come into that house, where she and agnes waited for him, uncertain, abashed, not knowing what to do. into how many such houses he must have gone, with that same quiet look of unsurprised acceptance of what everybody knew was coming sometime and nobody ever expected to come at all. how extraordinary that it had never occurred to her that cousin hetty, old as she was, would some day die. you never really believed that anybody in your own life was ever going to die, or change; any more than you really believed that you yourself were ever going to grow old, or change; or that the children were ever really going to grow up. that threadbare old phrase about the death of old people, "it always comes as a shock," that was true of all the inevitable things that happened in life which you saw happen to everyone else, and never believed would happen to you. this was the last tie with the past gone, the last person disappeared for whom she was still the little girl she felt herself now, the little girl who had lost her way and wanted someone to put her back in the path. she had a moment of very simple, sweet sorrow, sitting there alone in the hall, warm tears streaming down her cheeks and falling on her hands. cousin hetty gone, dear old cousin hetty, with her bright living eyes, and her love for all that was young. how much she owed her . . . those troubled years of her youth when cousin hetty and the old house were unfailing shelter. what shelter had she now? the pendulum of her mind swung back . . . of course this was silly traditional repeating of superstitious old words. there was no shelter; there could be none in this life. no one could show her the path, because there _was_ no path; and anyone who pretended to show it was only a charlatan who traded on moments of weakness like this. mr. hadley opened the door quietly and asked in that seldom-heard voice of his for a couple of soft, clean towels. where did cousin hetty keep her towels? in the chest of drawers at the end of the hall. an odor of cloves came up spicily into the air as marise opened the drawer. how like cousin hetty to have that instead of the faded, sentimental lavender. she had perhaps put those towels away there last night, with her busy, shaking old hands, so still now. all dead, the quaintness, the vitality, the zest in life, the new love for little elly, all dead now, as though it had never been, availing nothing. there was nothing that did not die. she handed in the towels and sat down again on the stairs leaning her head against the wall. what time could it be? was it still daylight? . . . no, there was a lamp lighted down there. what could she have been doing all day, she and agnes and the doctor and mr. hadley? she wondered if the children were all right, and if neale would remember, when he washed mark's face, that there was a bruise on his temple where the swing-board had struck him. was that only yesterday morning! was it possible that it was only last night that she had lain awake in the darkness, trying to think, trying to know what she was feeling, burning with excitement, as one by one those boldly forward-thrusting movements came back to her from the time when he had cried out so angrily, "_they_ can't love her. they're not capable of it!" to the time when they had exchanged that long reckless gaze over elly's head! and now there was the triumphant glory of security which had been in his kiss . . . why, that was this morning, only a few hours ago! even through her cold numbed lassitude she shrank again before the flare-up of that excitement, and burned in it. she tried to put this behind her at once, to wait, like all the rest, till this truce should be over, and she should once more be back in that mãªlã©e of agitation the thought of which turned her sick with confusion. she was not strong enough for life, if this was what it brought, these fierce, clawing passions that did not wait for your bidding to go or come, but left you as though you were dead and then pounced on you like tigers. she had not iron in her either to live ruthlessly, or to stamp out that upward leap of flame which meant the renewal of priceless youth and passion. between these alternatives, she _could_ make no decision, she could not, it would tear her in pieces to do it. the pendulum swung back again, and all this went out, leaving her mortally tired. agnes came to the foot of the stairs, a little, withered, stricken old figure, her apron at her eyes. from behind it she murmured humbly, between swallowing hard, that she had made some tea and there was bread and butter ready, and should she boil an egg? a good and healing pity came into marise's heart. poor old agnes, it was the end of the world for her, of course. and how touching, how tragic, how unjust, the fate of dependents, to turn from one source of commands to another. she ran downstairs on tip-toe and put her arm around the old woman's shoulder. "i haven't said anything yet, agnes," she told her, "because this has come on us so suddenly. but of course mr. crittenden and i will always look out for you. cousin hetty . . . you were her best friend." the old woman laid her head down on the other's shoulder and wept aloud. "i miss her so. i miss her so," she said over and over. "the thing to do for her," thought marise, as she patted the thin heaving shoulders, "is to give her something to work at." aloud she said, "agnes, we must get the front room downstairs ready. mr. hadley wants to have cousin hetty brought down there. before we eat we might as well get the larger pieces of furniture moved out." agnes stood up, docilely submitting herself to the command, stopped crying, and went with marise into the dim old room, in which nothing had been changed since the day, twenty years ago, when the furniture had been put back in place after cousin hetty's old mother had lain there, for the last time. the two women began to work, and almost at once agnes was herself again, stepping about briskly, restored by the familiarity of being once more under the direction of another. they pulled out the long haircloth sofa, moved the spindle-legged old chairs into the dining-room, and carried out one by one the drawers from the high-boy in the corner. from one of these drawers a yellowed paper fell out. marise picked it up and glanced at it. it was a letter dated 1851, the blank page of which had been used for a game of consequences. the foolish incoherencies lay there in the faded ink just as they had been read out, bringing with them the laughter of those people, so long dead now, who had written them down in that pointed, old-fashioned handwriting. marise stood looking at it while agnes swept the other room. cousin hetty had been ten years old in 1851, just as old as paul was now. her mother had probably left something she wanted to do, to sit down and laugh with her little daughter over this trivial game. a ghostly echo of that long-silent laughter fell faintly and coldly on her ear. so soon gone. was it worth while to do it at all? such an effort, such a fatigue lay before those children one tried to keep laughing, and then . . . someone came in behind her, without knocking or ringing. people had been coming and going unannounced in that house all the day as though death had made it their own home. agnes came to the door, marise looked up and saw nelly powers standing in the door-way, the second time she had been there. "i come over again," she said, "to bring you some hot biscuit and honey. i knew you wouldn't feel to do much cooking." she added, "i put the biscuits in the oven as i come through, so they'd keep warm." "oh, thank you, nelly, that's very kind and thoughtful," said marise. as she spoke and looked at the splendid, enigmatic woman standing there, the richness of her vitality vibrating about her, she saw again the nightmare vision of 'gene and heard the terrible breathing that had resounded in the eagle rock woods. she was overwhelmed, as so often before in her life, by an amazement at the astounding difference between the aspect of things and what they really were. she had never entirely outgrown the wildness of surprise which this always brought to her. she and nelly, looking at each other so calmly, and speaking of hot biscuits! she listened as though it were an ironically incongruous speech in a play to agnes' conscientious country attempt to make conversation with the caller, "hot today, ain't it? yesterday's storm didn't seem to do much good." and to nelly's answer on the same note, "yes, but it's good for the corn to have it hot. 'gene's been out cultivating his, all day long." "ah, not all day! not all day!" marise kept the thought to herself. she had a vision of the man goaded beyond endurance, leaving his horses plodding in the row, while he fled blindly, to escape the unescapable. an old resentment, centuries and ages older than she was, a primaeval heritage from the past, flamed up unexpectedly in her heart. _there_ was a man, she thought, who had kept the capacity really to love his wife; passionately to suffer; whose cold intelligence had not chilled down to . . ." "well, i guess i must be going now," said nelly in the speech of the valley. she went away through the side-door, opening and shutting it with meticulous care, so that it would not make a sound. . . . as though a sound could reach cousin hetty now! "i don't like her biscuits," said agnes. "she always puts too much sody in." she added, in what was evidently the expression of an old dislike, "and don't she look a fool, a great hulking critter like her, wearing such shoes, teeterin' along on them heels." "oh well," said marise, vaguely, "it's her idea of how to look pretty." "they must cost an awful sight too," agnes went on, scoldingly, "laced halfway up her leg that way. and the powerses as poor as job's turkey. the money she puts into them shoes'd do 'em enough sight more good if 'twas saved up and put into a manure spreader, i call it." she had taken the biscuits out of the oven and was holding them suspiciously to her nose, when someone came in at the front door and walked down the hall with the hushed, self-conscious, lugubrious tip-toe step of the day. it was mr. bayweather, his round old face rather pale. "i'm shocked, unutterably shocked by this news," he said, and indeed he looked badly shaken and scared. it came to marise that cousin hetty had been of about his age. he shook her hand and looked about for a chair. "i came to see about which hymns you would like sung," he said. "do you know if miss hetty had any favorites?" he broke off to say, "mrs. bayweather wished me to be sure to excuse her to you for not coming with me tonight to see if there was anything she could do. but she was stopped by old mrs. warner, just as we were leaving the house. frank, it seems, went off early this morning to survey some lines in the woods somewhere on the mountain, and was to be back to lunch. he didn't come then and hasn't showed up at all yet. mrs. warner wanted my wife to telephone up to north ashley to see if he had perhaps gone there to spend the night with his aunt. the line was busy of course, and mrs. bayweather was still trying to get them on the wire when i had to come away. if she had no special favorites, i think that 'lead, kindly light, amid th' encircling gloom' is always suitable, don't you?" something seemed to explode inside marise's mind, and like a resultant black cloud of smoke a huge and ominous possibility loomed up, so darkly, so unexpectedly, that she had no breath to answer the clergyman's question. those lines frank warner had gone to survey ran through the eagle rock woods! * * * * * "or would you think an easter one, like 'the strife is o'er, the battle won,' more appropriate?" suggested mr. bayweather to her silence. * * * * * agnes started. "who's that come bursting into the kitchen?" she cried, turning towards the door. it seemed to marise, afterwards, that she had known at that moment who had come and what the tidings were. agnes started towards the door to open it. but it was flung open abruptly from the outside. touclã© stood there, her hat gone from her head, her rusty black clothes torn and disarranged. marise knew what she was about to announce. she cried out to them, "frank warner has fallen off the eagle rocks. i found him there, at the bottom, half an hour ago, dead." * * * * * the savage old flame, centuries and ages older than she, flared for an instant high and smoky in marise's heart. "_there_ is a man who knows how to fight for his wife and keep her!" she thought fiercely. chapter xxi the counsel of the stars july 21. night. it had been arranged that for the two nights before the funeral agnes was to sleep in the front bedroom, on one side of cousin hetty's room, and marise in the small hall bedroom on the other side, the same room and the same bed in which she had slept as a little girl. nothing had been changed there, since those days. the same heavy white pitcher and basin stood in the old wash-stand with the sunken top and hinged cover; the same oval white soap-dish, the same ornamental spatter-work frame in dark walnut hung over the narrow walnut bedstead. as she undressed in the space between the bed and the wash-stand, the past came up before her in a sudden splashing wave of recollection which for a moment engulfed her. it had all been a dream, all that had happened since then, and she was again eight years old, with nothing in the world but bad dreams to fear, and cousin hetty there at hand as a refuge even against bad dreams. how many times she had wakened, terrified, her heart beating hammer-strokes against her ribs, and trotted shivering, in her night-gown, into cousin hetty's room. "cousin hetty! cousin hetty!" "what? what's that? oh, you, marise. what's the matter? notions again?" "oh, cousin hetty, it was an _awful_ dream this time. can't i get into bed with you?" "why yes, come along, you silly child." the fumbling approach to the bed, the sheets held open, the kind old hand outstretched, and then the haven . . . her head on the same pillow with that of the brave old woman who was afraid of nothing, who drew her up close and safe and with comforting assurance instantly fell asleep again. and then the delicious, slow fading of the terrors before the obliterating hand of sleep, the delicious slow sinking into forgetfulness of everything. * * * * * standing there, clad in the splendor of her physical maturity, marise shivered uncontrollably again, and quaked and feared. it was all a bad dream, all of it, and now as then cousin hetty lay safe and quiet, wrapped in sleep which was the only escape. marise turned sick with longing to go again, now, to seek out cousin hetty and to lie down by her to share that safe and cold and dreamless quiet. she flung back over her shoulder the long shining dark braid which her fingers had been automatically twisting, and stood for a moment motionless. she was suffering acutely, but the pain came from a source so deep, so confused, so inarticulate, that she could not name it, could not bring to bear on it any of the resources of her intelligence and will. she could only bend under it as under a crushing burden, and suffer as an animal endures pain, dumbly, stupidly. after a time a small knock sounded, and agnes's voice asked through the door if miss marise thought the door to . . . to . . . if the "other" door ought to be open or shut. it was shut now. what did people do as a general thing? marise opened her own door and looked down on the old figure in the straight, yellowed night-gown, the knotted, big-veined hand shielding the candle from the wandering summer breeze which blew an occasional silent, fragrant breath in from the open windows. "i don't know what people do as a rule," she answered, and then asked, "how did miss hetty like best to have it, herself?" "oh, open, always." "we'd better open it, then." the old servant swayed before the closed door, the candlestick shaking in her hand. she looked up at marise timidly. "you do it," she said under her breath. marise felt a faint pitying scorn, stepped past agnes, lifted the latch, and opened the door wide into the blackness of the other room. the dense silence seemed to come out, coldly and softly. for marise it had the sweetness of a longed-for anaesthetic, it had the very odor of the dreamless quiet into which she longed to sink. but agnes shrank away, drew hastily closer to marise, and whispered in a sudden panic, "oh, don't it scare you? aren't you afraid to be here all alone, just you and me? we'd ought to have had a man stay too." marise tried to answer simply and kindly, "no, i'm not afraid. it is only all that is left of dear cousin hetty." but the impatience and contemptuous surprise which she kept out of her words and voice were felt none the less by the old woman. she drooped submissively as under a reproach. "i know it's foolish," she murmured, "i know it's foolish." she began again to weep, the tears filling her faded eyes and running quietly down her wrinkled old cheeks. "you don't know how gone i feel without her!" she mourned. "i'd always had her to tell me what to do. thirty-five years now, every day, she's been here to tell me what to do. i can't make it seem true, that it's her lying in there. seems as though every minute she'd come in, stepping quick, the way she did. and i fairly open my mouth to ask her, 'now miss hetty, what shall i do next?' and then it all comes over me." marise's impatience and scorn were flooded by an immense sympathy. what a pitiable thing a dependent is! poor old agnes! she leaned down to the humble, docile old face, and put her cheek against it. "i'll do my best to take cousin hetty's place for you," she said gently, and then, "now you'd better go back to bed. there's a hard day ahead of us." agnes responded with relief to the tone of authority. she said with a reassured accent, "well, it's all right if _you're_ not afraid," turned and shuffled down the hall, comforted and obedient. marise saw her go into her room, heard the creak of the bed as she lay down on it, and then the old voice, "miss marise, will it be all right if i leave my candle burning, just this once?" "yes, yes, agnes, that'll be all right," she answered. "go to sleep now." as she went back into her own room, she thought passingly to herself, "strange that anyone can live so long and grow up so little." she herself opened her bed, lay down on it resolutely, and blew out her candle. instantly the room seemed suffocatingly full of a thousand flying, disconnected pictures. the talk with agnes had changed her mood. the dull, leaden weight of that numbing burden of inarticulate pain was broken into innumerable fragments. for a time, before she could collect herself to self-control, her thoughts whirled and roared in her head like a machine disconnected from its work, racing furiously till it threatens to shake itself to pieces. everything seemed to come at once. frank warner was dead. what would that mean to nelly powers? had there been enough bread left in the house till someone could drive the ford to ashley and buy some more? ought she to wear mourning for cousin hetty? what had happened on the eagle rocks? had frank and 'gene quarreled, or had 'gene crept up behind frank as he sighted along the compass? how would they get cousin hetty's friends from the station at ashley, out to the house, such feeble old people as they were? it would be better to have the services all at the church. had anything been decided about hymns? someone had said something about it, but what had she . . . oh, of course that had been the moment when touclã© had come in, and mr. bayweather had rushed away to tell frank's mother. frank's mother. his mother! suppose that were to happen to mark, or paul? no, not such thoughts. they mustn't be let in at all, or you went mad. was it true that elly cared nothing about her, that children didn't, for grown-ups, that she was nothing in elly's life? she was glad that touclã© had come back. there would be someone to help neale with the children. . . . _neale_ . . . the name brought her up abruptly. her mind, hurrying, breathless, panting, was stopped by the name, as by a great rock in the path. there was an instant of blankness, as she faced it, as though it were a name she did not know. when she said that name, everything stopped going around in her head. she moved restlessly in her bed. and then, as though she had gone around the rock, the rapid, pattering, painful rush of those incoherent ideas began again. queer that nobody there, mr. bayweather, agnes, touclã©, none of them seemed to realize that frank had not fallen, that 'gene had . . . but of course she remembered they hadn't any idea of a possible connection between frank and the powers, and she had been the only one to see 'gene in that terrible flight from the rocks. nelly had thought he had been cultivating corn all day. of course nobody would think of anything but an accident. nobody would ever know. yes, it was true; it was true that she would touch neale and never know it, never feel it . . . how closely that had been observed, that she could take a handkerchief from his pocket as from a piece of furniture. it was true that neale and she knew each other now till there was no hidden corner, no mystery, no possibility of a single unexpected thing between them. she had not realized it, but it was true. how could she not have seen that his presence left her wholly unmoved, indifferent now? but how could she have known it, so gradual had been the coming of satiety, until she had to contrast with it this fierce burning response to a fierce and new emotion? . . . had she thought "indifference"? and "satiety"? of whom had she been thinking? not of _neale_! was that what had come of the great hour on rocca di papa? _was that what human beings were?_ she had gone further this time, but now she was brought up short by the same blankness at the name of neale, the same impossibility to think at all. she could not think about neale tonight. all that must be put off till she was more like herself, till she was more steady. she was reeling now, with shock after shock; cousin hetty's death, 'gene's dreadful secret, the discovery no longer to be evaded of what vincent marsh meant and was. . . . she felt a sudden hurried impatient haste to be with vincent again, to feel again the choking throb when she first saw him, the constant scared uncertainty of what he might say, what she might feel, what they both might do, from one moment to the next . . . she could forget, in those fiery and potent draughts, everything, all this that was so hard and painful and that she could not understand and that was such a torment to try to understand. everything would be swept away except . . . as though she had whirled suddenly about to see what was lurking there behind her, she whirled about and found the thought, "but i ought to tell someone, tell the police, that i saw 'gene powers running away after he had killed the man who wanted to take his wife from him." instantly there spoke out a bitter voice, "no, i shall tell no one. 'gene has known how to keep nelly. let him have her for all his life." another voice answered, "frank's mother . . . his mother!" and both of these were drowned by a tide of sickness as the recollection came upon her of that dreadful haste, those horrible labored breaths. she sat up with a great sweeping gesture of her arms, as though she must fight for air. the little room seemed palpably crammed with those jostling, shouting, battling thoughts. she slid from the bed and went to the window, leaning far out from it, and looking up at the sky, immeasurably high and black, studded thick with stars. they looked down disdainfully at her fever and misery. a chilling consolation fell from them upon her, like a cold dew. she felt herself shrink to imperceptible proportions. what did they matter, the struggles of the maggots who crawled about the folds of the globe, itself the most trifling and insignificant of all the countless worlds which people the aimless disorder of the universe? what difference did it make? anything they did was so soon indistinguishable from anything else. the easiest way . . . to yield to whatever had the strongest present force . . . that was as good as any other way in the great and blind confusion of it all. after she had gone back to bed, she could still see the silent multitude of stars above her, enormous, remote beyond imagination, and it was under their thin, cold, indifferent gaze that she finally fell asleep. chapter xxii eugenia does what she can july 22. agnes brought upstairs an armful of white roses. "the lady that visits at your house, she brought them from your garden and she wants to see you if she can." eugenia of course. that was unexpected. she must have made an effort to do that, she who hated sickness and death and all dark things. "yes, tell her i will be down in a moment. take her in a glass of cold water, too, will you please, agnes. the walk over here must have been terribly hot for her." the roses showed that. they were warm to the touch and as she looked at them intently, at their white clear faces, familiar to her as those of human beings, bent on her with a mute message from the garden, she saw they had begun to droop imperceptibly, that the close, fine texture of their petals had begun ever so slightly to wither. she sprinkled them, put their stems deep into water and went downstairs, wiping her moist hands on her handkerchief. eugenia in mauve organdie stood up from the deep windsor chair where she had sunk down, and came forward silently to greet her. they kissed each other ceremoniously in token of the fact that a death lay between them and the last time they had met . . . was it only yesterday morning? "were you able to sleep at all, marise? you look shockingly tired." "oh yes, thanks. i slept well enough. are the children all right?" eugenia nodded, "yes, as usual." "did their father tell them the news of cousin hetty's death? how did they take it? elly perhaps was . . ." eugenia did not know about this, had not happened to hear anybody say. but old touclã© was back, at least, to do the work. "i knew she must be," said marise. "she was here last night. it was she, you know, who found frank warner's body at the foot of . . . of course you've heard of that?" eugenia made a little wry face. of course she had heard of that, she said with an accent of distaste. everybody was talking about the melodramatic accident, as probably they would still be talking about it a hundred years from now, up here where nothing happened. people had come all the way from north ashley to look at the place, and some of the men and boys had gone around up to the top of the eagle rocks to see where frank had lost his footing. they found his surveyor's compass still set upon its staff. it was where the line ran very near the edge and frank must have stepped over the cliff as he was sighting along it. they could see torn leaves and stripped twigs as though he had tried to save himself as he fell. she stopped speaking. marise found herself too sick and shaken to venture any comment. there was rather a long silence, such as was natural and suitable under the circumstances, in that house. presently marise broke this to ask if anyone knew how frank's mother had taken the news, although she knew of course eugenia was the last person of whom to ask such a question. as she expected, eugenia had only lifted eyebrows, a faint slow shake of her head and a small graceful shrug of her shoulders, her usual formula for conveying her ignorance of common facts, and her indifference to that ignorance. but marise, looking at her, as they sat opposite each other in the twilight of the closely shuttered room, was struck by the fact that eugenia did not seem wholly like herself. her outward aspect was the same, the usual exquisite exactitude of detail, every blond hair shining and in its place, the flawless perfection of her flesh as miraculous as ever, her tiny white shoe untouched by dust through which she must have walked to reach the house. but there was something . . . in her eyes, perhaps . . . which now looked back at marise with an expression which marise did not understand or recognize. if it had not been impossible to think it of eugenia, marise would have imagined that her eyes looked troubled, excited. was it possible that even in her safe ivory tower of aloofness from life, she had felt the jarring blow of the brutally immediate tragedy of the eagle rocks? or perhaps even cousin hetty's disappearance . . . she had always hated reminders of death. as marise, surprised, looked at her and wondered thus passingly if she felt any reverberation from the tragedy-laden air about them, eugenia's face hardened back into its usual smooth calm; over the eyes that had been for an instant transparent and alive with troubled brightness, slid their acquired expression of benignant indifference. she answered marise's faintly inquiring gaze by getting up as if to go, remarking in a clear low tone (she was the only person who had come into the house who had not succumbed to that foolish, instinctive muffling of the voice), "i forgot to give you a message from neale. he is obliged to be away today, on business, something about a deed to some wood-land." marise was slightly surprised. "where is he going?" she asked. "in the ford? on the train?" how little she had thought about the mill of late, that she should be so entirely blank as to this business trip. "oh, i didn't even try to understand," said eugenia, smoothing the shining silk of her parasol. "business finds no echo in me, you know. a man came to supper last night, unexpectedly, and they talked interminably about some deal, lumbering, lines, surveys, deeds . . . till touclã© came in with the news of the accident. the man was from new hampshire, with that droll, flat new hampshire accent. you know how they talk, 'bahn' and 'yahd' for barn and yard." the words "new hampshire" and "deeds" stirred a disagreeable association of ideas in marise's mind. the shyster lawyer who had done the powers out of their inheritance had come from new hampshire. however, she supposed there were other people in the state besides dishonest lawyers. eugenia went on casually. "it seemed quite important. neale was absorbed by it. he told me afterward, neale did, that the man had acted as agent for him some years ago in securing a big tract of wood-land around here, something that had been hard to get hold of." marise was startled and showed it by a quick lift of her head. she had never known neale to employ an agent. she looked hard at eugenia's quiet, indifferent face. the other seemed not to notice her surprise, and returned her look with a long clear gaze, which apparently referred to her hair, for she now remarked in just the tone she had used for the news about neale, "that way of arranging your coiffure _is_ singularly becoming to you. mr. marsh was speaking about it the other day, but i hadn't specially noticed it. he's right. it gives you that swathed close-coifed leonardo da vinci look." she put her handkerchief into a small bag of mauve linen, embroidered with white and pale-green crewels, and took up her parasol. marise felt something menacing in the air. eugenia frightened her a little with that glass-smooth look of hers. the best thing to do was to let her go without another word. and yet she heard her voice asking, urgently, peremptorily, "what was the name of the man from new hampshire?" eugenia said, "what man from new hampshire?" and then, under marise's silent gaze, corrected herself and changed her tone. "oh yes, let me see: neale introduced him, of course. why, some not uncommon name, and yet not like smith or jones. it began with an l, i believe." marise said to herself, "i will not say another word about this," and aloud she said roughly, brusquely, "it wasn't lowder, of course." "yes, yes," said eugenia, "you're right. it was lowder. i _thought_ it was probably something you'd know about. neale always tells you everything." she looked away and remarked, "i suppose you will inherit the furniture of this house? there are nice bits. this windsor chair; and i thought i saw a chippendale buffet in the dining-room." marise, immobile in her chair, repeated, "it wasn't lowder. you didn't say it was lowder." "yes, it was lowder," said eugenia clearly. "and now you speak of it once more, i remember one more thing about their talk although i didn't try to understand much of it. it was all connected with the powers family. it was their woodlot which this mr. lowder had bought for neale. i was surprised to know that they had ever had any wood-land. they have always seemed too sordidly poverty-stricken. but it seems this was the only way neale could get hold of it, because they refused to sell otherwise." she looked again at marise, a long, steady, and entirely opaque gaze which marise returned mutely, incapable of uttering a word. she had the feeling of leaning with all her weight against an inner-door that must be kept shut. "did neale _tell_ you this man had secured the powers woodlot for him, for neale, for our mill?" she heard her voice asking, faint in the distance, far off from where she had flung herself against that door. "why yes, why not? not very recently he said, some time ago. we had quite a talk about it afterwards. it must be something you've forgotten," said eugenia. she took up a card from the table and fanned herself as she spoke, her eyes not quitting marise's face. "it's going to be as hot as it was yesterday," she said with resignation. "doesn't it make you long for a dusky, high-ceilinged roman room with a cool, red-tiled floor, and somebody out in the street shouting through your closed shutters, 'ricotta! ricotta!'" she asked lightly. marise looked at her blankly. she wished she could lean forward and touch eugenia to make sure she was really standing there. what was it she had been saying? she could not have understood a word of it. it was impossible that it should be what it seemed to mean,--impossible! a door somewhere in the house opened and shut, and steps approached. the two women turned their eyes towards the hall-door. old mrs. powers walked in unceremoniously, her gingham dress dusty, her lean face deeply flushed by the heat, a tin pan in her hands, covered with a blue-and-white checked cloth. "i thought maybe you'd relish some fresh doughnuts as well as anything," she said briskly, with no preliminary of greeting. something about the atmosphere of the room struck her oddly for all the composed faces and quiet postures of the two occupants. she brought out as near an apology for intruding, as her phraseless upbringing would permit her. "i didn't see agnes in the kitchen as i come through, so i come right along, to find somebody," she said, a little abashed. marise was incapable of speaking to her, but she made a silent gesture of thanks, and, moving forward, took the pan from the older woman's hand. mrs. powers went on, "if 'twouldn't bother you, could you put them in your jar now, and let me take the pan back with me? we hain't got any too many dishes, you know." marise went out to the pantry with the older woman, feeling with astonishment the floor hard and firm under her feet as usual, the walls upright about her. only something at the back of her throat contracted to a knot, relaxed, contracted, with a singular, disagreeable, involuntary regularity. "you look down sick, mis' crittenden," said mrs. powers with a respectful admiration for the suitability of this appearance. "and there ain't nothing surprising that you should. did you ever see anybody go off more sudden than miss hetty? such a good woman she was, too. it must ha' gi'n you an awful turn." she poured the doughnuts into the jar and, folding the checked cloth, went on, "but i look at it this way. 'twas a quick end, and a peaceful end without no pain. and if you'd seen as many old people drag along for years, as i have, stranglin' and chokin' and half-dead, why, you'd feel to be thankful miss hetty was spared that. and you too!" "marise," said eugenia, coming to the pantry door, "your neighbors wanted me, of course, to bring you all their sympathetic condolence. mr. welles asked me to tell you that he would send all the flowers in his garden to the church for the service tomorrow. and mr. marsh was very anxious to see you today, to arrange about the use of his car in meeting the people who may come on the train tomorrow, to attend the funeral. he said he would run over here any time today, if you would send agnes to tell him when you would see him. he said he wouldn't leave the house all day, to be ready to come at any time you would let him." mrs. powers was filled with satisfaction at such conduct. "now that's what i call real neighborly," she said. "and both on 'em new to our ways too. that mr. welles is a real nice old man, anyhow. . . . there! i call him 'old' and i bet he's younger than i be. he acts so kind o' settled down to stay. but mr. marsh don't act so. that's the kind man i like to see, up-and-coming, so you never know what he's a-goin' to do next." eugenia waited through this, for some answer, and still waited persistently, her eyes on marise's face. marise aroused herself. she must make some comment, of course. "please thank them both very much," she said finally, and turned away to set the jar on a shelf. "well, you goin'?" said mrs. powers, behind her, evidently to eugenia. "well, good-bye, see you at the funeral tomorrow, i s'pose." marise looked around and caught a silent, graceful salutation of farewell from eugenia, who disappeared down the hall, the front door closing gently behind her. mrs. powers began again abruptly, "folks is sayin' that frank warner must ha' been drinking, but i don't believe it. he wa'n't no drinker. and where'd he git it, if he was? it was heedless, that's what it was. he always was a heedless critter from a little boy up. he was the one that skated right ahead into the hole and most drowned him, and he was fooling with his gran'father's shot-gun when it went off and most blew him to pieces. 's a wonder he lived to grow up: he come so nigh breaking his neck, before this." marise was surprised to hear eugenia's voice again, "marise, i stepped back to ask you if there are any errands i could do for you, any messages to take. i pass by the door of mr. welles' house. i could perfectly easily stop there and tell mr. marsh he could see you now, for instance." marise seemed to see her from afar. she heard what she said, but she was aware of it only as an interruption. there was a question she must ask old mrs. powers. how could she think of anything else till that had been answered? she said to eugenia at random, using the first phrase that came into her mind, "no, no. later. some other time." eugenia hesitated, took a step away from the door, and then came back in, deliberately, close to marise. she spoke to her in italian, very clearly, "he is not a man who will wait." to this marise, wholly engrossed in her inner struggle, opposed a stupid blankness, an incapacity to think of what eugenia was saying, long enough to understand it. in that dark inner room, where she kept the door shut against the horror that was trying to come in, she dared not for an instant look away. she merely shook her head and motioned impatiently with her hand. why did not eugenia go away? and yet when eugenia had gone, she could not bring the words out because of that strange contraction of her throat. "my! but you ought to go and lie down," said mrs. powers compassionately. "you're as white as a sheet. why don't you just give up for a while? agnes and i'll tend to things." marise was filled with terror at the idea of not getting her answer, and spoke quickly, abruptly. "mrs. powers, you never heard, did you, you never thought, in that trouble about losing your wood-land . . . nobody ever thought that mr. lowder was only an agent for someone else, whose name wasn't to be known then." "oh sure," said mrs. powers readily. "'gene found out from a man that had lived in his town in new hampshire that lowder didn't do no lumbering of his own. he just makes a business of dirty deals like that for pay. he always surmised it to be some lumber-company; somebody that runs a mill. lots of men that run mills do that sort of thing, darn 'em!" marise leaned against the pantry shelf. the old woman glanced at her face, gave a cry, and pushed her into a chair, running for water. at the sound, agnes came trotting, and showed a scared rabbit-like face. "she's just beat out with the shock of miss hetty's going off so sudden," explained mrs. powers to agnes. marise got to her feet angrily. she had entirely forgotten that cousin hetty was dead, or that she was in her house. she was shocked that for a moment she had relaxed her steady pressure against that opening door. she flung herself against it now. what could she do next? instantly, clearly, as though she had heard someone saying it to her, she thought, "why, of course, all i have to do is to go and ask neale about it!" it was so simple. somehow, of course, neale could give the answer she must have. why had she not thought of that the instant eugenia had begun to speak? she drank the glass of water agnes gave her and said, "mrs. powers, could you do something for me? i promised i would stay here till the funeral and i know agnes is afraid to stay alone. would you mind waiting here for perhaps half an hour till i could get to the mill and back? there is something important i must see to." mrs. powers hesitated. "well now, mis' crittenden, there ain't nothing i wouldn't do for you. but i'm kind o' _funny_ about dead folks. i don't believe i'd be much good to agnes because i feel just the way she does. but i'll run over to the house and get nelly and 'gene to come. i guess the four of us together won't be nervous about staying. 'gene ain't workin' today. he got a sunstroke or something yesterday, in the sun, cultivatin' his corn and he don't feel just right in his head, he says." she went out of the door as she spoke, calling over her shoulder, "i wun't be gone long." marise sat down again, there in the pantry, leaned her head against the door and looked steadily at the shelves before her, full of dishes and jars and bottles and empty jelly glasses. in her mind there was only one thing, a fixed resolve not to think at all, of anything, until she had been to neale's office and had neale explain it to her. surely he would not have started on that trip whatever it was. it was so early still. she must not think about it at all, until she had asked neale. eugenia had probably made a mistake about the name. even if neale had gone she would be able to ask about the name and find that eugenia had made a mistake. that would make everything all right. of course eugenia had made a mistake about the name. she was still staring fixedly at the shelves, frowning and beginning again to count all the things on them, when mrs. powers' voice sounded from the kitchen. "i met 'em on the way is why i'm back so soon," she explained to agnes. "nelly had some flowers to bring. and they've been down by the river and got a great lot of ferns too." marise started up, for an instant distracted from her concentration on what eugenia had said. this was the first time she had seen nelly and 'gene since frank's death. how would they look? how did people go on living? how would they speak, and how could they listen to anything but their own thoughts? what had frank's death meant to nelly? she turned shrinkingly towards nelly. nelly was bending down and flicking the dust from her shoes with her handkerchief. when she stood up, she looked straight at marise. under the thick-springing, smooth-brushed abundance of her shining fair hair, her eyes, blue as precious stones, looked out with the deep quiet which always seemed so inscrutable to the other woman. she held out an armful of flowers. "i thought you'd like the white phlox the best. i had a lot of pink too, but i remembered mrs. bayweather said white is best at such times." marise drew a long breath. what superb self-control! "were the biscuits good?" asked nelly, turning to agnes. "i was afraid afterward maybe they weren't baked enough." marise was swept to her feet. if nelly could master her nerves like that, she could do better herself. she took the flowers, carried them to the kitchen, and set them in a panful of water. she had not yet looked at 'gene. she went to find an umbrella to shield her hatless head from the sun, and on her way out only, cast a swift glance at 'gene. that was enough. all the blazing, dusty way to the mill, she saw hanging terribly before her that haggard ashy face. at the mill, she paused in the doorway of the lower office, looking in on the three desk-workers, tapping on their machines, leaning sideways to consult note-books. the young war-cripple, neale's special protã©gã©, seeing her, got to his feet to ask her what he could do for her. marise considered him for a moment before she answered. _was_ there anything he could do for her? why had she come? all she could remember for the moment was that singular contraction of her throat, which had come back now. then she remembered, "is mr. crittenden here?" "no, he was called away for the day, urgent business in new hampshire." marise looked about her helplessly. "may i sit down for a moment?" the young stenographer ran, limping and eager, to offer her a chair, and then, shyly, swung his swivel chair towards her, not wishing to go back to his work, uncertain what to say to his employer's wife. "when will mr. crittenden be back?" asked marise, although she knew the answer. "no later than tonight, he said," answered the stenographer. "he spoke particularly about coming back because of miss hetty allen's funeral." "yes, of course," said marise. there was nothing more to be said, she knew that, nothing more to be done, until neale came back. but it seemed physically impossible for her to live until then, with the clutch in her throat. she ought to get up now, at once, and go back to cousin hetty's. the powers were waiting for her return. but her consternation at finding neale really gone was a blow from which she needed a breathing time to recover. she couldn't have it so. she could never endure a whole day with this possibility like a threatening powder-mine under her feet, ready to go off and bring her inner world to ruin and despair. she put her hand out to take her umbrella and struggled up. "any message to leave for mr. crittenden?" asked the stenographer, seeing her ready to go. she shook her head. her eye fell on the waste-paper basket beside the desk. on one of the empty envelopes, torn in two, the words, "return to c.k. lowder," stood out clearly. she turned away and stood motionless, one hand at her temple. she was thinking to herself, "this is simply incredible. there is some monstrous mistake. if i could only think of a way to find it out before it kills me." she became aware that the young cripple was looking at her anxiously, and saw in his startled, agitated face a reflection of what hers must be. she made an effort to speak quietly, and heard herself say, "do you happen to remember if mr. crittenden was alone as he drove away?" "oh no," said the other. "he had had someone with him ever since the afternoon train came in yesterday. mr. crittenden drove the car in himself to the ashley station to meet him. somebody here on business." "what sort of a man, do you remember?" asked marise. "well, a clean-shaven man, with a queer thin long mouth, like the pictures of william jennings bryan's. and he talked out of one corner of it, the way . . . see here, mrs. crittenden, you look awfully tired. wouldn't you better sit down and rest a moment more?" marise shook her head with an impatient gesture. now she needed to get away from that office as much as she had wished to go to it. the place was hateful to her. the young man's eyes were intolerable. he was one of the people, one of the many, many people who had grown up trusting in neale. she swung suddenly to a furious incredulity about the whole thing. it was nonsense! none of it could be true. what were all these people saying to her, eugenia, mrs. powers, this boy . . . ? she would never forgive them for trying to do such an infamous thing. they were trying to make her believe that neale had been back of lowder in the low-down swindle that had been practised on the powers. they were trying to make her believe that for seven years neale had been lying to her with every breath he drew. because other men could lie, they thought they could make her believe that neale did. because other women's husbands had done base things in business, they thought she would be capable of believing that about neale. they didn't know how preposterous it was, how close she and neale had always been, how deeply a part of the whole aspect of life to her, neale's attitude toward his work had become. those people did not realize what they were trying to make her believe, it was not only that her husband had been the instigator of a mean little cheat which had cost years of suffering to helpless neighbors, it was the total destruction of all that she had thought neale to be . . . _thought_ him? known him to be. "i must get back at once," she said, with a resentful accent and moved towards the door. chapter xxiii marise looks down on the stars july 22. she passed out from the office into the yellow glare of the sun, her feet moving steadily forward, with no volition of hers, along the dusty road. and as steadily, with as little volition of hers, march, march, came . . . first what eugenia had said, the advance from that to mrs. powers' words, from that to the stenographer's, to the name on the envelope . . . and then like the door to a white-hot blast-furnace thrown open in her face, came the searing conception of the possibility that it might be true, and all the world lost. the extremity and horror of this aroused her to a last effort at self-preservation so that she flung the door shut by a fierce incapacity to believe any of those relentless facts which hung one from another with their horrible enchaining progression. no, she had been dreaming. it was all preposterous! the heat wavered up from the hot earth in visible pulsations and there pulsed through her similar rhythmic waves of feeling; the beginning . . . what eugenia had said, had said that _neale had told her_ . . . what mrs. powers had said, "lots of men that run mills do that sort of thing" . . . what the stenographer had said . . . the name on the envelope . . . _suppose it should be true_. she was at cousin hetty's door now; a give-and-take of women's voices sounding within. "here's mrs. crittenden back. come on, nelly, we better be going. there's all the work to do." marise went in and sat down, looking at them with stony indifference, at 'gene this time as well as at the women. the drawn sickness of his ashy face did not move her in the least now. what did she care what he did, what anyone did, till she knew whether she had ever had neale or not? the women's chatter sounded remote and foolish in her ears. if neale had done that . . . if that was the man he was . . . but of course it was preposterous, and she had been dreaming. what was that that eugenia had said? the descent into hell began again step by step. the powers went out, the old woman still talking, chattering, as if anything mattered now. after they were gone, agnes ran to the door calling, "mis' powers! you forgot your pan and towel after all!" and there was mrs. powers again, talking, talking. she had been saying something that needed an answer apparently, for now she stood waiting, expectant. "what was that, mrs. powers? i was thinking of something else." "i was just tellin' you that there's going to be a big change over to our house. 'gene, he told nelly, as he was setting here waiting for you, how he was going to cut down the big pine one of these days, like she always wanted him to. you know, the one that shades the house so. 'gene's grandfather planted it, and he's always set the greatest store by it. used to say he'd just as soon cut his grandmother's throat as chop it down. but nelly, she's all housekeeper and she never did like the musty way the shade makes our best room smell. i never thought to see the day 'gene would give in to her about that. he's gi'n in to her about everything else though. only last night he was tellin' her, he was going to take something out'n the savings-bank and buy her an organ for addie to learn to play on, that nelly always hankered after. seems 'sthough he can't do enough for nelly, don't it?" marise looked at her coldly, incapable of paying enough attention to her to make any comment on what she said. let them cut down all the trees in the valley, and each other's throats into the bargain, if neale had . . . if there had never been her neale, the neale she thought she had been living with, all these years. mrs. powers had gone finally, and the house was silent at last, so silent that she could now hear quite clearly, as though eugenia still sat there, what the sweet musical voice was saying over and over. why had they gone away and left her alone to face this deadly peril which advanced on her step by step without mercy, time after time? now there was nothing to do but to wait and stand it off. * * * * * she was sitting in the same chair, her umbrella still in her hand, waiting, when agnes came in to say that she had lunch ready. she turned eyes of astonished anger and rebuke on her. "i don't want anything to eat," she said in so strange a voice that agnes crept back to the kitchen, shuffling and scared. she was still sitting there, looking fixedly before her, and frowning, when agnes came to the door to say timidly that the gentleman had come about using his car to meet the train, and wanted to know if he could see mrs. crittenden. marise looked at her, frowning, and shook her head. but it was not until late that night that she understood the words that agnes had spoken. * * * * * she was still sitting there, rigid, waiting, when agnes brought in a lighted lamp, and marise saw that evening had come. the light was extremely disagreeable to her eyes. she got up stiffly, and went outdoors to the porch, sitting down on the steps. the stars were beginning to come out now. the sight of them suggested something painful, some impression that belonged to that other world that had existed before this day, before she had conceived the possibility that neale might not be neale, might never have been neale, that there was no such thing for her as human integrity. was it she who had leaned out from the window and felt herself despised by the height and vastness of the stars? from the height and vastness of her need, she looked down on them now, and found them nothing, mere pin-pricks in the sky, compared to this towering doubt of her, this moral need which shouted down all the mere matter on the earth and in the heavens above the earth. something eternal was at stake now, the faith in righteousness of a human soul. she had thought childishly, shallowly last night that she had had no faith, and could live with none. that was because she had not conceived what it would be to try to live without faith, because she had not conceived that the very ground under her feet could give way. at that very moment she had had a faith as boundless as the universe, and had forgotten it. and now it was put in doubt. she could not live without it. it was the only vital thing for her. was she the woman who had felt forced into acquiescing when vincent marsh had said so boldly and violently, that she loved her husband no more, that he was nothing to her now? it seemed to her at this moment that it was a matter of the utmost unimportance whether she _loved_ him or not; but she could not live without believing him. that was all. she could not live without that. life would be too utterly base . . . neale nothing to her? she did not know _what_ he was to her, but the mere possibility of losing her faith in him was like death. it was a thousand times worse than death, which was merely material. this mattered a great deal more than the physical death of someone's body . . . it was the murder, minute by minute, hour by hour, month by month, year by year of all her married life, of all she had found lovable and tolerable and beautiful and real in life. of course this could not be true . . . of course not . . . but if it were true, she would find the corrosive poison of a false double meaning in every remembered hour. she did not believe any of those hideously marshaled facts, but if they were true, she would go back over all those recollections of their life together and kill them one by one, because every hour of her life had been founded on the most unthinking, the most absolute, the most recklessly certain trust in neale. to know that past in peril, which she had counted on as safe, more surely than on anything in life, so surely that she had almost dismissed it from her mind like a treasure laid away in a safe hiding-place . . . to know those memories in danger was a new torture that had never before been devised for any human being. no one had the safe and consecrated past taken from him. its pricelessness shone on her with a blinding light. what if it should be taken away, if she should find she had never had it, at all . . . ? the idea was so acute an anguish to her that she startled herself by a cry of suffering. agnes' voice behind her asked tremblingly, "did you call me, miss marise?" marise shifted her position, drew a breath, and answered in a hard tone, "no." she knew with one corner of her mind that agnes must be terrified. what if she were? marise's life-long habit of divining another's need and ministering to it, vanished like a handful of dust in a storm. what did she care about agnes? what did she care about anything in the world but that she should have back again what she had valued so little as to lose it from her mind altogether? all of her own energy was strained in the bitterness of keeping her soul alive till neale should come. she had not the smallest atom of strength to care about the needs of anyone else. she looked up at the stars, disdainful of them. how small they were, how unimportant in the scheme of things, so much less able to give significance to the universe, than the presence of integrity in a human soul. if she could have neale back again, as she had always had him without thinking of it, if she could have her faith in him again, the skies might shrivel up like a scroll, but something eternal would remain in her life. * * * * * it seemed to her that she heard a faint sound in the distance, on the road, and her strength ran out of her like water. she tried to stand up but could not. yes, it was the car, approaching. the two glaring headlights swept the white road, stopped, and went out. for an instant the dark mass stood motionless in the starlight. then something moved, a man's tall figure came up the path. "is that you, marise?" asked neale's voice. she had not breath to speak, but all of her being cried out silently to him the question which had had all the day such a desperate meaning for her, "is that _you_, neale?" part iv chapter xxiv neale's return july 22. evening. he stooped to kiss her and sank down beside her where she sat cowering in the dark. although she could not see his face clearly marise knew from his manner that he was very tired, from the way he sat down, taking off his cap, and his attitude as he leaned his head back against the pillar. she knew this without thinking about it, mechanically, with the automatic certainty of a long-since acquired knowledge of him. and when he spoke, although his voice was quiet and level, she felt a great fatigue in his accent. but he spoke with his usual natural intonation, which he evidently tried to make cheerful. "i'm awfully glad you're still up, dear. i was afraid you'd be too tired, with the funeral coming tomorrow. but i couldn't get here any sooner. i've been clear over the mountain today. and i've done a pretty good stroke of business that i'm in a hurry to tell you about. you remember, don't you, how the powers lost the title to their big woodlot? i don't know if you happen to remember all the details, how a lawyer named lowder . . ." "i remember," said marise, speaking for the first time, "all about it." "well," went on neale, wearily but steadily, "up in nova scotia this time, talking with one of the old women in town, i ran across a local tradition that, in a town about ten miles inland, some of the families were descended from tory yankees who'd been exiled from new england, after the revolution. i thought it was worth looking up, and one day i ran up there to see if i could find out anything about them. it was sunday and i had to . . ." marise was beside herself, her heart racing wildly. she took hold of his arm and shook it with all her might. "neale, quick! quick! leave out all that. _what did you do?_" she could see that he was surprised by her fierce impatience, and for an instant taken aback by the roughness of the interruption. he stared at her. how _slow_ neale was! he began, "but, dear, why do you care so much about it? you can't understand about what i did, if i don't tell you this part, the beginning, how i . . ." then, feeling her begin to tremble uncontrollably, he said hastily, "why, of course, marise, if you want to know the end first. the upshot of it all is that i've got it straightened out, about the powers woodlot. i got track of those missing leaves from the ashley town records. they really were carried away by that uncle of yours. i found them up in canada. i had a certified copy and tracing made of them. it's been a long complicated business, and the things only came in yesterday's mail, after you'd been called over here. but i'd been in correspondence with lowder, and when i had my proofs in hand, i telephoned him and made him come over yesterday afternoon. it was one of the biggest satisfactions i ever expect to have, when i shoved those papers under his nose and watched him curl up. then i took him back today, myself, to his own office, not to let him out of my sight, till it was all settled. there was a great deal more to it . . . two or three hours of fight. i bluffed some, about action by the bar-association, disbarment, a possible indictment for perjury, and seemed to hit a weak spot. and finally i saw him with my own eyes burn up that fake warranty-deed. and that's all there is to that. just as soon as we can get this certified copy admitted and entered on our town records, 'gene can have possession of his own wood-land. isn't that good news?" he paused and added with a tired, tolerant, kindly accent, "now nelly will have fourteen pairs of new shoes, each laced higher up than the others, and i won't be the one to grudge them to her." he waited for a comment and, when none came, went on doggedly making talk in that resolutely natural tone of his. "now that you know the end, and that it all came out right, you ought to listen to some details, for they are queer. the missing pages weren't in that first town i struck at all. nothing there but a record of a family of simmonses who had come from ashley in 1778. they had . . ." marise heard nothing more of what he said, although his voice went on with words the meaning of which she could not grasp. it did not seem to her that she had really understood with the whole of her brain anything he had said, or that she had been able to take in the significance of it. she could think of nothing but a frightening sensation all over her body, as though the life were ebbing out of it. every nerve and fiber in her seemed to have gone slack, beyond anything she had ever conceived. she could feel herself more and more unstrung and loosened like a violin string let down and down. the throbbing ache in her throat was gone. everything was gone. she sat helpless and felt it slip away, till somewhere in the center of her body this ebbing of strength had run so far that it was a terrifying pain, like the approach of death. she was in a physical panic of alarm, but unable to make a sound, to turn her head. it was when she heard a loud insistent ringing in her head, and saw the stars waver and grow dim that she knew she was fainting away. * * * * * then she was lying on the sofa in cousin hetty's sitting-room, neale bending over her, holding a handkerchief which smelled of ammonia, and agnes, very white, saying in an agitated voice, "it's because she hasn't eaten a thing all day. she wouldn't touch her lunch or supper. it's been turrible to see her." marise's head felt quite clear and lucid now; her consciousness as if washed clean by its temporary absence from life. she tried to sit up and smile at neale and agnes. she had never fainted away in all her life before. she felt very apologetic and weak. and she felt herself in a queer, literal way another person. neale sat down by her now and put his arm around her. his face was grave and solicitous, but not frightened, as agnes was. it was like neale not to lose his head. he said to agnes, "give me that cup of cocoa," and when it came, he held it to marise's lips. "take a good swallow of that," he said quietly. marise was amazed to find that the hot sweet smell of the cocoa aroused in her a keen sensation of hunger. she drank eagerly, and taking in her hand the piece of bread and butter which neale offered to her, she began to eat it with a child's appetite. she was not ashamed or self-conscious in showing this before neale. one never needed to live up to any pose before neale. his mere presence in the room brought you back, she thought, to a sense of reality. sometimes if you had been particularly up in the air, it made you feel a little flat as she certainly did now. but how profoundly alive it made you feel, neale's sense of things as they were. the food was delicious. she ate and drank unabashedly, finding it an exquisite sensation to feel her body once more normal, her usual home, and not a scaring, almost hostile entity, apart from her. when she finished, she leaned against neale's shoulder with a long breath. for an instant, she had no emotion but relieved, homely, bodily comfort. "well, for heaven's sake!" said neale, looking down at her. "i know it," she said. "i'm an awful fool." "no, you're not," he contradicted. "that's what makes me so provoked with you now, going without eating since morning." agnes put in, "it's the suddenness of it that was such a shock. it takes me just so, too, comes over me as i start to put a mouthful of food into my mouth. i can't get it down. and you don't know how _lost_ i feel not to have miss hetty here to tell me what to eat. i feel so gone!" "you must go to bed this minute," said neale. "i'll go right back to the children." he remembered suddenly. "by george, i haven't had anything to eat since noon, myself." he gave marise an apologetic glance. "i guess i haven't any stones to throw at your foolishness." agnes ran to get him another cup of cocoa and some more bread and butter. marise leaned back on the sofa and watched him eat. * * * * * she was aware of a physical release from tension that was like a new birth. she looked at her husband as she had not looked at him for years. and yet she knew every line and hollow of that rugged face. what she seemed not to have seen before, was what had grown up little by little, the expression of his face, the expression which gave his presence its significance, the expression which he had not inherited like his features, but which his life had wrought out there. before her very eyes there seemed still present the strange, alien look of the dead face upstairs, from which the expression had gone, and with it everything. that vision hung, a cold and solemn warning in her mind, and through it she looked at the living face before her and saw it as she had never done before. in the clean, new, sweet lucidity of her just-returned consciousness she saw what she was not to forget, something like a steady, visible light, which was neale's life. that was neale himself. and as she looked at him silently, she thought it no wonder that she had been literally almost frightened to death by the mere possibility that it had not existed. she had been right in thinking that there was something there which would outlast the mere stars. he looked up, found her eyes on him, and smiled at her. she found the gentleness of his eyes so touching that she felt the tears mounting to her own. . . . but she winked them back. there had been enough foolishness from her, for one day. neale leaned back in his chair now, looked around for his; cap, took it up, and looked back at her, quietly, still smiling a little. marise thought, "neale is as _natural_ in his life as a very great actor is in his art. whatever he does, even to the most trifling gesture, is done with so great a simplicity that it makes people like me feel fussy and paltry." there was a moment's silence, neale frankly very tired, looking rather haggard and grim, giving himself a moment's respite in his chair before standing up to go; marise passive, drawing long quiet breaths, her hands folded on her knees; agnes, her back to the other two, hanging about the sideboard, opening and shutting the drawers, and shifting their contents aimlessly from one to the other. then agnes turned, and showed a shamed, nervous old face. "i don't know what's got into me, miss marise, that i ain't no good to myself nor anybody else. i'm afraid to go back into the kitchen alone." she explained to neale, "i never was in the house with a dead body before, mr. crittenden, and i act like a baby about it, scared to let mrs. crittenden out of my sight. if i'm alone for a minute, seems 'sthough . . ." she glanced over her shoulder fearfully and ended lamely, "seems 'sthough i don't know what might happen." "i won't leave you alone, agnes, till it is all over," said marise, and this time she kept contempt not only out of her voice, but out of her heart. she was truly only very sorry for the old woman with her foolish fears. agnes blinked and pressed her lips together, the water in her eyes. "i'm awful glad to hear you say that!" she said fervently. marise closed her eyes for a moment. it had suddenly come to her that this promise to agnes meant that she could not see neale alone till after the funeral, tomorrow, when she went back into life again. and she found that she immensely wanted to see him alone this very hour, now! and agnes would be there . . . ! she opened her eyes and saw neale standing up, his cap in his hand, looking at her, rough and brown and tall and tired and strong; so familiar, every line and pose and color of him; as familiar and unexciting, as much a part of her, as her own hand. as their eyes met in the profound look of intimate interpenetration which can pass only between a man and a woman who have been part of each other, she felt herself putting to him clearly, piercingly, the question which till then she had not known how to form, "_neale, what do you want me to do?_" she must have said it aloud, and said it with an accent which carried its prodigious import, for she saw him turn very white, saw his eyes deepen, his chest lift in a great heave. he came towards her, evidently not able to speak for a moment. then he took her hands . . . the memory of a thousand other times was in his touch . . . he looked at her as though he could never turn his eyes away. the corners of his mouth twitched and drew down. he said, in a deep, trembling, solemn voice, "marise, my darling, i want you always to do what is best for _you_ to do." he drew a deep, deep breath as though it had taken all his strength to say that; and went on, "what is deepest and most living in you . . . that is what must go on living." he released one hand and held it out towards her as though he were taking an oath. chapter xxv marise's coming-of-age july 23. dawn even after the old child, agnes, had been soothed and reassured, over and over, till she had fallen asleep, and the house lay profoundly quiet, marise felt not the slightest approach of drowsiness or even of fatigue. she lay down on her bed, but could not close her eyes. they remained wide open, looking not at a wild confusion of incoherent images as they had the night before, but straight into blackness and vacancy. it was strange how from the brawling turmoil of impressions which had shouted and cried out to her the night before, and had wrought her to frenzy by their insane insistence, not an echo reached her now. her mind was as silent and intent as the old house, keeping its last mute watch over its mistress. intent on what? she did not know. on something that was waiting for her, on something for which she was waiting. in an immense hush, like the dusky silence in a cathedral aisle or in the dark heart of the woods, there was something there waiting for her to go and find it. that hush had fallen on her at the sight of neale's face, at the sound of his voice, as he had looked at her and spoken to her, at the last, just before he went away back to the children. those furiously racing pulses of hers had been stilled by it into this steady rhythm which now beat quietly through her. the clashing thoughts which had risen with malevolent swiftness, like high, battling shadowy genii, and had torn her in pieces as they fought back and forth, were stilled as though a master-word had been spoken which they must all obey. the old house, silent under the stars, lay quiet in its vigil about her, but slept no more than she; the old house which had been a part of her childhood and her youth now watched over her entry into another part of her journey. for as she lay there, wide-awake, watching the light of the candle, she felt that she knew what was waiting for her, what she must go to find. it was her maturity. and as she lay quiet, her ears ringing in the solemn hush which neale's look and voice had laid about her, she felt slowly coming into her, like a tide from a great ocean, the strength to go forward. she lay still, watching the candle-flame, hovering above the wick which tied it to the candle, reaching up, reaching up, never for a moment flagging in that transmutation of the dead matter below it, into something shining and alive. she felt the quiet strength come into her like a tide. and presently, as naturally as a child wakes in the morning, refreshed, and feels the impulse to rise to active effort again, she sat up in bed, folded her arms around her knees, and began to think. really to think this time, not merely to be the helpless battle-field over which hurtling projectiles of fierce emotions passed back and forth! she set her life fairly there before her, and began to try to understand it. as she took this first step and saw the long journey stretching out before her, she knew on what staff she leaned. it was neale's belief that she was strong and not weak, that she could find out, if she tried, what was deepest and most living in her heart. with this in her hand, with that great protecting hush about her, she set forth. she was afraid of what she might find, but she set forth. she must begin at the beginning this time, and go steadily forward from one step to the next, not her usual involuntary plunge, not the usual closing over her head of those yelling waters of too vivid impression. the beginning had been . . . yes, the first conscious beginning had been the going away of little mark, out of his babyhood into his own child-life. he had gone out and left an empty place behind him, which till then had been filled with the insistent ever-present need for care for the physical weakness of babyhood. and she had known that never again would mark fill that place. emptiness, silence, solitude in the place of constant activity; it had frightened her, had set before her a vision that her life had reached its peak, and henceforth would go down the decline. into that empty place had come a ringing, peremptory call back to personal and physical youth and excitement and burning sensations. and with that blinding rebirth of physical youth had come a doubt of all that had seemed the recompense for the loss of it, had come the conception that she might be letting herself be fooled and tricked out of the only real things. there had been many parts to this: her revolt from the mere physical drudgery of her life, from giving so much of her strength to the dull, unsavory, material things. this summer, a thousand times in a thousand ways, there had been brought home to her by vincent, by eugenia, the fact that there were lives so arranged that other people did all the drudgery, and left one free to perceive nothing but the beauty and delicacy of existence. now, straight at it! with all the knowledge of herself and of life which she had gathered,--straight at it, to see what this meant! did their entire freedom from drudgery give them a keener sense of the beauty and delicacy of existence? were they more deeply alive because of the ease of their lives? she cast about her for evidence, in a firm, orderly search among the materials which life had brought to her. had she seen anything which could give evidence on that? there was eugenia; eugenia and her friends had always lived that life of rich possessions and well-served ease. what had it made of them? was their sense of beauty deeper and more living because of it? no, not in the least. she turned her inward eye on eugenia's life, on the lives of the people in that circle, in a long searching gaze. was it deep in eternal values? was it made up of a constant recurrence of sensitive aliveness to what is most worth responding to? odd, that it did not seem to be! they were petulant, and bored, and troubled about minute flaws in their ease, far more than they were deep in communion with beauty. another piece of evidence came knocking at the door now, a picture of quaint and humble homeliness . . . herself standing before the stove with the roast on a plate, and little mark saying fastidiously, "oh, how nasty raw meat looks!" she recalled her passing impatience with the childishness of that comment, her passing sense of the puerile ignorance of the inherent unity of things, in such an attitude of eagerness to feed on results and unwillingness to take one's share of what leads up to results. yes, it was more there, than in looking at eugenia, that she could find evidence. did she want to be of those who sat afar off and were served with the fine and delicate food of life, and knew nothing of the unsavory process of preparing it? it had seemed to her this summer, a thousand times with vincent's eyes on her, scornful of her present life, that she did want it, that she wanted that more than anything else. now let her look full at it. she was a grown woman now, who could foresee what it would mean. she looked full at it, set herself there in her imagination, in the remote ivory tower and looked out from its carven windows at the rough world where she had lived and worked, and from which she would henceforth be protected . . . and shut out. she looked long, and in the profound silence, both within and without her, she listened to the deepest of the voices in her heart. and she knew that it was too late for that. she had lived, and she could not blot out what life had brought to her. she could never now, with a tranquil heart, go into the ivory tower. it would do her no good to shut and bar the golden door a hundred times behind her, because she would have with her, everywhere she went, wrought into the very fiber of her being, a guilty sense of all the effort and daily strain and struggle in which she did not share. she saw no material good accomplished by taking her share. the existence in the world of so much drudgery and unlovely slavery to material processes was an insoluble mystery; but a life in which her part of it would be taken by other people and added to their own burdens . . . no, she had grown into something which could not endure that! perhaps this was one of the hard, unwelcome lessons that the war had brought to her. she remembered how she had hated the simple comforts of home, the safety, the roof over her head, because they were being paid for by such hideous sufferings on the part of others; how she had been ashamed to lie down in her warm bed when she thought of neale and his comrades in the trench-mud, in the cold horror of the long drenching nights, awaiting the attack; and she had turned sick to see the long trains of soldiers going out while she stayed safely behind and bore no part in the wretchedness which war is. there had been no way for her to take her part in that heavy payment for her safety and comfort; but the bitterness of those days had shocked her imagination alive to the shame of sharing and enjoying what she had not helped to pay for, to the disharmony of having more than your share while other people have less than theirs. this was nothing she had consciously sought for. she felt no dutiful welcome that it had come; she bent under it as under a burden. but it was there. life had made her into one of the human beings capable of feeling that responsibility, each for all, and the war had driven it home, deep into her heart, whence she could not pluck it out. she might never have known it, never have thought of it, if she had been safely protected by ignorance of what life is like. but now she knew, living had taught her; and that knowledge was irrevocably part of the woman she had become. wait now! was this only habit, routine, dulled lack of divining imagination of what another life could be? that was the challenge vincent would throw down. she gazed steadily at the wall before her, and called up, detail by detail, the life which vincent marsh thought the only one that meant richness and abundance for the human spirit. it hung there, a shimmering mass of lovely colors and exquisite textures and fineness and delicacy and beauty. and as she looked at it, it took on the shape of a glorious, uprooted plant, cut off from the very source of life, its glossy surfaces already beginning to wither and dull in the sure approach of corruption and decay. but what beauties were there to pluck, lovely fading beauties, poignant and exquisite sensations, which she was capable of savoring, which she sadly knew she would live and die without having known, a heritage into which she would never enter; because she had known the unforgettable taste of the other heritage, alive and rooted deep! this faded out and left her staring at the blank wall again, feeling old and stern. nothing more came for a moment, and restless, feeling no bodily fatigue at all, she got out of her bed, took up the candle, and stepped aimlessly out into the hall. the old clock at the end struck a muffled stroke, as if to greet her. she held up her candle to look at it. half-past two in the morning. a long time till dawn would come. she hesitated a moment and turned towards the door of a garret room which stood open. she had not been in there for so long,--years perhaps; but as a child she had often played there among the old things, come down from the dead, who were kept in such friendly recollection in this house. near the door there had been an old, flat-topped, hair-covered trunk . . . yes, here it was, just as it had been. nothing ever changed here. she sat down on it, the candle on the floor beside her, and saw herself as a little girl playing among the old things. a little girl! and now she was the mother of a little girl. so short a time had passed! she understood so very little more than when she had been the little girl herself. yet now there was elly who came and stood by her, and looked at her, and asked with all her eyes and lips and being, "mother, what is the meaning of life?" what answer had she to give? was she at all more fit than anyone else to try to give elly the unknowable answer to that dark question? was there any deep spiritual reality which counted at all, which one human being could give to another? did we really live on desert islands, cut off so wholly from each other by the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea? and if we did, why break one's heart in the vain effort to do the impossible, to get from human beings what they could not give? her heart ached in an old bitterness at the doubt. did her children . . . could they . . . give her the love she wanted from them, in answer to her gift of her life to them? they were already beginning to go away from her, to be estranged from her, to shut her out of their lives, to live their lives with no place for her in them. she sat there on the old trunk and saw the endless procession of parents and children passing before her, the children so soon parents, all driven forward by what they could not understand, yearning and starving for what was not given them, all wrapped and dimmed in the twilight of their doubt and ignorance. where were they going? and why? so many of them, so many! her humbled spirit was prostrate before their mystery, before the vastness of the whole, of which she and her children were only a part, a tiny, lowly part. with this humbling sense of the greatness of the whole, something swollen and sore in her heart gave over its aching, as though a quieting hand had been laid on it. she drew a long breath. oh, from what did it come, this rest from that sore bitterness? it came from this, that she had somehow been shown that what she wanted was not love from her children for herself. that was trying to drive a bargain to make them pay for something they had never asked to have. what she wanted was not to get love, to get a place in their lives for herself, to get anything from them, but to give them all that lay in her to give. if that was what she wanted, why, nothing, nothing could take it away. and it was truly . . . in this hour of silence and searching . . . she saw that it was truly what she wanted. it was something in her which had grown insensibly to life and strength, during all those uncounted hours of humble service to the children. and it was something golden and immortal in her poor, flawed, human heart. * * * * * a warm bright wave of feeling swept over her . . . there, distinct and rounded against the shadowy confused procession of abstract ideas about parents and children, there stood looking at her out of their clear loving eyes, paul and elly and little mark, alive, there, a part of her; not only themselves but her children; not only her children but themselves; human life which she and neale had created out of the stuff of the universe. they looked at her and in their regard was the clear distillation of the innumerable past hours when they had looked at her with love and trust. at the sight of them, her own children, her heart swelled and opened wide to a conception of something greater and deeper in motherhood than she had had; but which she could have if she could deserve it; something so wide and sun-flooded that the old selfish, possessive, never-satisfied ache which had called itself love withered away, its power to hurt and poison her gone. she had no words for this . . . she could not even try to understand it. it was as solemn a birth-hour to her, as the hour when she had first heard the cry of her new-born babies . . . she was one mother then, she had become another mother now. she turned to bless the torment of bitter, doubting questioning of what she had called mother-love, which had forced her forward blindly struggling, till she found this divination of a greater possibility. she had been trying to span the unfathomable with a mean and grasping desire. now she knew what she must try to do; to give up the lesser and receive the greater. * * * * * this passed and left her, looking straight before her at the flickering shadows, leaping among the dusky corners of the dark slant-ceilinged room. the old clock struck three in the hall behind her. she felt tired now, as she had after the other travail which had given her her children, and leaned her head on her hand. where did she herself, her own personal self come in, with all this? it was always a call to more effort which came. to get the great good things of life how much you had to give! how much of what seemed dearly yourself, you had to leave behind as you went forward! her childhood was startlingly called up by this old garret, where nothing had changed: she could still see herself, running about there, happily absorbed in the vital trivialities of her ten years. she had not forgotten them, she knew exactly the thrill felt by that shadowy little girl as she leaned over the old chest yonder, and pulled out the deep-fringed shawl and quilted petticoat. it had been sweet to be a little girl, she thought wistfully, to have had no past, to know only the shining present of every day with no ominous, difficult future beyond it. ineffably sweet too was the aroma of perfect trust in the strength and wisdom of grown-up people, which tinctured deep with certainty every profoundest layer of her consciousness. ineffably sweet . . . and lost forever. there was no human being in the world as wise and strong as poor old cousin hetty had seemed to her then. a kingdom of security from which she was now shut out. and the games, the fantastic plays,--how whole and rounded and entire, the pleasure in them! she remembered the rainy day she had played paper-dolls here once, with little margaret congdon . . . dead, years ago, that much-loved playmate of past summer days . . . and how they had taken the chest for the house for margaret's dolls, and the hair-trunk where she sat, for hers; how they had arranged them with the smallest of playthings, with paste-board furniture, and bits of colored tissue paper for rugs, and pieces of silk and linen from the rag-bag for bed-clothes; how they had hummed and whistled to themselves as they worked (she could hear them now!); and how the aromatic woodsy smell of the unfinished old room and the drone of the rain on the roof had been a part of their deep content. nothing had changed in that room, except the woman who sat there. she got up with a sudden impulse, and threw back the lid of the trunk. a faint musty odor rose from it, as though it had been shut up for very long. and . . . why, there it was, the doll's room, just as they had left it, how long ago! how like this house! how like cousin hetty never to have touched it! she sat down on the floor and, lifting the candle, looked in at the yellowed old playthings, the flimsy, spineless paper-dolls, the faded silk rags, the discolored bits of papers, the misshapen staggering paste-board chairs and bed, which had seemed so delightful and enchanting to her then, far better than any actual room she knew. a homesickness for the past came over her. it was not only margaret who was dead. the other little girl who had played there, who had hung so lovingly over this creation of her fancy, was dead too, marise thought with a backward look of longing. and then the honest, unsparing habit of her life with neale shook her roughly. this was sentimentalizing. if she could, would she give up what she had now and go back to being the little girl, deeply satisfied with make-shift toys, which were only the foreshadowings of what was to come? if she could, would she exchange her actual room at home, for this, even to have again all the unquestioning trust in everyone and everything of the child who had died in her heart? would she choose to give up the home where her living children had been born, at no matter what cost of horrid pain to herself, and were growing up to no matter what dark uncertainties in life, for this toy inhabited by paper-dolls? no, no, she had gone on, gone on, and left this behind. nor would she, if she could, exchange the darker, heavier, richer gifts for the bright small trinkets of the past. all this ran fluently from her mind, with a swiftness and clarity which seemed as shallow as it was rapid; but now there sounded in her ears a warning roar of deeper waters to which this was carrying her. before she knew what was coming, she braced herself to meet it; and holding hard and ineffectually, felt herself helplessly swept out and flung to the fury of the waves . . . and she met them with an answering tumult of welcome. that was what vincent marsh could do for her, wanted to do for her,--that wonderful, miraculous thing,--give back to her something she had thought she had left behind forever; he could take her, in the strength of her maturity with all the richness of growth, and carry her back to live over again the fierce, concentrated intensity of newly-born passion which had come into her life, and gone, before she had had the capacity to understand or wholly feel it. he could lift her from the dulled routine of life beginning to fade and lose its colors, and carry her back to the glorious forgetfulness of every created thing, save one man and one woman. she had had a glimpse of that, in the first year of her married life, had had it, and little by little had lost it. it had crumbled away insensibly, between her fingers, with use, with familiarity, with the hateful blunting of sensitiveness which life's battering always brings. but she could have it again; with a grown woman's strength and depth of feeling, she could have the inheritance of youth. she had spent it, but now she could have it again. that was what vincent meant. he seemed to lean over her now, his burning, quivering hand on hers. she felt a deep hot flush rise to her face, all over her body. she was like a crimson rose, offering the splendor of its maturity to be plucked. let her have the courage to know that its end and aim and fulfilment lay in being plucked and gloriously worn before the coming of the inevitable end! thus and thus only could one find certainty, before death came, of having lived as deeply as lay in one to live. * * * * * through the glowing pride and defiance with which she felt herself rise to the challenge, felt herself strong to break and surmount all obstacles within and without, which stood in the way of that fulfilment of her complete self, she had heard . . . the slightest of trivialities . . . a thought gone as soon as it was conceived . . . nothing of the slightest consequence . . . harmless . . . insignificant . . . yet why should it give off the betraying clink of something flawed and cracked? . . . she had heard . . . it must have come from some corner of her own mind . . . something like this, "set such an alternative between routine, traditional, narrow domestic life, and the mightiness and richness of mature passion, before a modern, free european woman, and see how quickly she would grasp with all her soul for passion." what was there about this, the veriest flying mote among a thousand others in the air, so to awaken in marise's heart a deep vibration of alarm? why should she not have said that? she asked herself, angry and scared. why was it not a natural thought to have had? she felt herself menaced by an unexpected enemy, and flew to arms. into the rich, hot, perfumed shrine which vincent's remembered words and look had built there about her, there blew a thin cool breath from the outside, through some crack opened by that casual thought. before she even knew from whence it came, marise cried out on it, in a fury of resentment . . . and shivered in it. with no apparent volition of her own, she felt something very strong within her raise a mighty head and look about, stirred to watchfulness and suspicion by that luckless phrase. she recognized it . . . the habit of honesty of thought, not native to marise's heart, but planted there by her relation with neale's stark, plain integrity. feeding unchecked on its own food, during the long years of her marriage it had grown insensibly stronger and stronger, till now, tyrant and master, with the irresistible strength of conscious power, it could quell with a look all the rest of her nature, rich in colored possibilities of seductive self-deceit, sweet illusions, lovely falsities. she could no more stop its advance now, straight though it made its way over treasures she fain would keep, than she could stop the beating of her heart. a ruthless question or two . . . "why did you say that about what a modern, free european woman would do in your place? are you trying to play up to some trumpery notion of a rã´le to fill? and more than this, did you really mean in your heart an actual, living woman of another race, such as you knew in europe; or did you mean somebody in an italian, or a french, or a scandinavian book?" marise writhed against the indignity of this, protested fiercely, angrily against the incriminating imputation in it . . . and with the same breath admitted it true. it was true. she was horrified and lost in grief and humiliation at the cheapened aspect of what had looked so rich before. had there been in truth an element of such trashy copying of the conventional pose of revolt in what had seemed so rushingly spontaneous? oh no, no . . . not that! she turned away and away from the possibility that she had been partially living up to other people's ideas, finding it intolerable; and was met again and again by the relentless thrust of that acquired honesty of thought which had worn such deep grooves in her mind in all these years of unbroken practice of it. "you are not somebody in a book, you are not a symbol of modern woman who must make the gestures appropriate for your part . . ." one by one, that relentless power seated in her many-colored tumultuous heart put out the flaring torches. it had grown too strong for her, that habit of honesty of thought and action. if this struggle with it had come years before she could have mastered it, flinging against it the irresistible suppleness and lightness of her ignorant youth. but now, freighted heavily with experience of reality, she could not turn and bend quickly enough to escape it. it had profited too well by all those honest years with neale . . . never to have been weakened by a falsehood between them, by a shade of pretense of something more, or different from what really was there. that habit held her mercilessly to see what was there now. she could no more look at what was there and think it something else, than she could look with her physical eyes at a tree and call it a dragon. if it had only been traditional morality, reproaching her with traditional complaints about the overstepping of traditional bounds, how she could have overwhelmed it, drowned out its feeble old voice, with eloquent appeals for the right to growth, to freedom, to the generous expansion of the soul, of the personality, which vincent marsh could give. but honesty only asked her neutrally, "is it really growth and freedom, and generous expansion of the soul?" poor marise felt her arms fall to her side, piteous and defenseless. no, it was not. it was with the flatness of accent which she hated, which was so hard for her, that she made the admission. it was physical excitement,--that was what it was. physical excitement, that was what vincent marsh could give her which neale no longer could. . . . that and great ease of life, which neale never would. there was a pause in which she shivered, humiliated. she added lamely to this, a guessed-at possibility for aesthetic sympathy and understanding, perhaps more than neale could . . . and broke off with a qualm of sickness. how horrid this was! how it offended a deep sense of personal dignity and decency! how infinitely more beautiful and gracious those rolling clouds of vagueness and impulsive illusion! but at least, when it had extracted the plain, bare statement which it had hunted down through the many-recessed corners of her heart, that stern sense of reality let her alone. she no longer felt like a beetle impaled on a pin. she was free now to move as she liked and look unmolested at what she pleased. honesty had no more power over her than to make sure she saw what she was pretending to look at. but at what a diminished pile she had now to look, tarnished and faded like the once-loved bits of bright-colored silk and paper. she felt robbed and cried out in a pain which seemed to her to come from her very heart, that something living and vital and precious to her had been killed by that rough handling. but one warning look from the clear eyes of honesty forced her, lamenting, to give up even this. if it had been living and precious and vital to her, it would have survived anything that honesty could have done to it. but something had survived, something to be reckoned with, something which no tyrant, overbearing honesty could put out of her life . . . the possibility for being carried away in the deep full current of passion, fed by all the multitudinous streams of ripened personality. if that was all that was left, was not that enough? it had been for thousands of other women. . . . no, not that; honesty woke to menace again. what thousands of other women had done had no bearing here. she was not thousands of other women. she was herself, herself. would it be enough for her? honesty issued a decree of impartial justice. let her look at it with a mature woman's experienced divination of reality, let her look at it as it would be and see for herself if it would be enough. she was no girl whose ignorance rendered her incapable of judging until she had literally experienced. she was no bound-woman, bullied by the tyranny of an outgrown past, forced to revolt in order to attain the freedom without which no human decision can be taken. neale's strong hand had opened the door to freedom and she could see what the bound-women could not . . . that freedom is not the end, but only the beginning. it was as though something were holding her gripped and upright there, staring before her, motionless, till she had put herself to the last supreme test. she closed her eyes, and sat so immobile, rapt in the prodigious effort of her imagination and will, that she barely breathed. how would it be? would it be enough? she plunged the plummet down, past the fury and rage of the storm on the surface, past the teeming life of the senses, down to the depths of consciousness. . . . and what she brought up from those depths was a warning distaste, a something offending to her, to all of her, now she was aware of it. she was amazed. why should she taste an acrid muddy flavor of dregs in that offered cup of heavy aromatic wine, she who had all her life thanked heaven for her freedom from the ignominy of feeling it debasing to be a woman who loved? it was glorious to be a woman who loved. there had been no dregs left from those sweet, light, heady draughts she and neale had drunk together in their youth, nor in the quieter satisfying draughts they knew now. what was the meaning of that odor of decay about what seemed so living, so hotly more living than what she had? why should she have this unmistakable prescience of something stale and tainting which she had never felt? was she too old for passion? but she was in the height of her physical flowering, and physically she cried out for it. could it be that, having spent the heritage of youth, she could not have it again? could it be that one could not go back, there, any more than . . . oh, what did that bring to mind? what was that fleeting cobweb of thought that seemed a recurrence of a sensation only recently passed? when she had tried to tell herself that full-fruited passion was worth all else in life, was the one great and real thing worth all the many small shams . . . what was it she had felt? she groped among the loose-hanging filaments of impression and brought it out to see. it seemed to be . . . could it have been, the same startled recoil as at the notion of getting back the peace of childhood by giving up her home for the toy-house; her living children for the dolls? * * * * * now, for the great trial of strength. back! push back all those thick-clustering, intruding, distracting traditional ideas of other people on both sides; the revolt on one hand, the feeble resignation on the other; what other women did; what people had said. . . . let her wipe all that off from the too-receptive tablets of her mind. out of sight with all that. this was _her_ life, _her_ question, hers alone. let her stand alone with her own self and her own life, and, with honesty as witness, ask herself the question . . . would she, if she could, give up what she was now, with her myriads of roots, deep-set in the soil of human life, in order to bear the one red rose, splendid though it might be? that was the question. with no conscious volition of hers, the answer was there, plain and irrefutable as a fact in the physical world. no, she would not choose to do that. she had gone on, gone on beyond that. she was almost bewildered by the peremptory certainty with which that answer came, as though it had lain inherent in the very question. * * * * * and now another question crowded forward, darkly confused, charged with a thousand complex associations and emotions. there had been something displeasing and preposterous in the idea of trying to stoop her grown stature and simplify her complex tastes and adult interests back into the narrow limits of a child's toy-house. could it be that she felt something of the same displeasure when she set herself fully to conceive what it would be to cramp herself and her complex interests and adult affections back to . . . but at this there came a wild protesting clamor, bursting out to prevent her from completing this thought; loud, urgent voices, men's, women's, with that desperate certainty of their ground which always struck down any guard marise had been able to put up. they cried her down as a traitor to the fullness of life, those voices, shouting her down with all the unquestioned authority she had encountered so many times on that terribly vital thing, the printed page; they clashed in their fury and all but drowned each other out. only disconnected words reached her, but she recognized the well-known sentences from which they came . . . "puritanism . . . abundance of personality . . . freedom of development . . . nothing else vital in human existence . . . prudishness . . . conventionality . . . our only possible contact with the life-purpose . . . with the end of passion life declines and dies." the first onslaught took marise's breath, as though a literal storm had burst around her. she was shaken as she had been shaken so many times before. she lost her hold on her staff . . . _what had that staff been?_ at the thought, the master-words came to her mind again; and all fell quiet and in a great hush waited on her advance. neale had said, "what is deepest and most living in _you_." well, what _was_ deepest and most living in her? that was what she was trying to find out. that was what those voices were trying to cry her down from finding. for the first time in all her life, she drew an inspiration from neale's resistance to opposition, knew something of the joy of battle. what right had those people to cry her down? she would not submit to it. she would go back to the place where she had been set upon by other people's voices, other people's thoughts, and she would go on steadily, thinking her own. she had been thinking that there _was_ the same displeasure and distaste as when she had thought of returning to her literal childhood, when she set herself fully to conceive what it would be to cramp herself and simplify her complex interests and affections back to the narrow limits of passion, which like her play with dolls had been only a foreshadowing of something greater to come. she spoke it out boldly now, and was amazed that not one of the clamorous voices dared resist the authenticity of her statement. but after all, how would they dare? this was what she had found in her own heart, what they had not been able, for all their clamor, to prevent her from seeing. she had been strong enough to beat them, to stand out against them, to say that she saw what she really did see, and felt what she really did feel. she did not feel what traditionally she should feel, that is what a primitive italian woman might feel, all of whose emotional life had found no other outlet than sex. . . . well, if it was so, it was so. for better or for worse, that was the kind of woman she had become, with the simple, forthright physical life subordinate, humble; like a pleasant, lovable child playing among the strong, full-grown, thought-freighted interests and richly varied sympathies and half-impersonal joys and sorrows which had taken possession of her days. and she could not think that the child could ever again be master of her destiny, any more than (save in a moment of false sentimentality) she could think that she would like to have her horizon again limited by a doll-house. to be herself was to go on, not to go back, now that she knew what she had become. it seemed to her that never before had she stood straight up. and in plain fact she found that somehow she had risen to her feet and was now standing, her head up, almost touching the rafters of the slant ceiling. she could have laughed out, to find herself so free. she knew now why she had never known the joy of battle. it was because she had been afraid. and she had been afraid because she had never dared to enter the battle, had always sent others in to do her fighting for her. now she had been forced into it and had won. and there was nothing to be afraid of, there! she spread out her arms in a great gesture of liberation. how had she ever lived before, under the shadow of that coward fear? this . . . this . . . she had a moment of vision . . . this was what neale had been trying to do for her, all these years, unconsciously, not able to tell her what it was, driving at the mark only with the inarticulate wisdom of his love for her, his divination of her need. he had seen her, shivering and shrinking in the shallow waters, and had longed for her sake to have her strike out boldly into the deep. but even if he had been ever so able to tell her, she would not have understood till she had fought her way through those ravening breakers, beyond them, out into the sustaining ocean. how long it took, how _long_ for men and women to make the smallest advance! and how the free were the only ones who could help to liberate the bound. how she had fought against neale's effort to set her free, had cried to him that she dared not risk herself on the depths, that he must have the strength to swim for her . . . and how neale, doggedly sure of the simple truth, too simple for her to see, had held to the certainty that his effort would not make her strong, and that she would only be free if she were strong. neale being his own master, a free citizen of life, knew what a kingdom he owned, and with a magnanimity unparalleled could not rest till she had entered hers. she, not divining what she had not known, had only wished to make the use of his strength which would have weakened her. had there ever before been any man who refused to let the woman he loved weaken herself by the use of his strength? had a man ever before held out his strong hand to a woman to help her forward, not to hold her fast? her life was her own. she stood in it, knowing it to be an impregnable fortress, knowing that from it she could now look abroad fearlessly and understandingly, knowing that from it she could look at things and men and the world and see what was there. from it she could, as if for the first time, look at vincent marsh when next she saw him; she would look to see what was really there. that was all. she would look at him and see what he was, and then she would know the meaning of what had happened, and what she was to do. and no power on earth could prevent her from doing it. the inner bar that had shut her in was broken. she was a free woman, free from that something in her heart that was afraid. for the moment she could think of nothing else beyond the richness of that freedom. why, here was the total fulfilment she had longed for. here was the life more abundant, within, within her own heart, waiting for her! * * * * * the old clock in the hall behind her sounded four muffled strokes and, as if it had wakened her, agnes stirred in her bed and cried out in a loud voice of terror, "oh, come quick, miss marise! come!" marise went through the hail and to her door, and saw the frightened old eyes glaring over the pulled-up sheet. "oh . . . oh . . . it's you . . . i thought. . . . oh, miss marise, don't you see anything standing in that corner? didn't you hear. . . . oh, miss marise, i must have had a bad dream. i thought . . ." her teeth were chattering. she did not know what she was saying. "it's all right, agnes," said marise soothingly, stepping into the room. "the big clock just struck four. that probably wakened you." she sat down on the bed and laid her hand firmly on agnes' shoulder, looking into the startled old eyes, which grew a little quieter now that someone else was there. what a pitiable creature agnes' dependence on cousin hetty had made of her. like the boom from a great bell came the thought, "that is what i wanted neale to make of me, when the crucial moment came, a dependent . . . but he would not." "what time did you say it is?" agnes asked, still breathing quickly but with a beginning of a return to her normal voice. "four o'clock," answered marise gently, as to a child. "it must be almost light outside. the last night when you have anything to fear is over now." she went to the window and opened the shutter. the ineffable sacred pureness of another dawn came in, gray, tranquil, penetrating. at the sight of it, the dear light of everyday, marise felt the thankful tears come to her eyes. "see, agnes," she said in an unsteady voice, "daylight has come. you can look around for yourself, and see that there is nothing to be afraid of." chapter xxvi marise looks and sees what is there _a torch in a living tree_ july 24. not since his fiery, ungovernable youth had vincent felt anything like the splendid surge of rich desire and exultant certainty which sent him forward at a bound along the wood-road into which he had seen marise turn. the moment he had been watching for had come at last, after these three hideous days of sudden arrest and pause. the forced inaction had been a sensation physically intolerable to him, as though he had been frozen immobile with every nerve and muscle strained for a great leap. he felt himself taking the leap now, with such a furious, triumphant sense of power released, that he came up beside her like a wind in the forest, calling her name loudly, his hands outflung, his face glowing, on fire with joy and his need for her. for an instant he was dumfounded by the quiet face she turned on him, by his instant perception of a profound change in her, by an expression in her long dark eyes which was new to him, which he felt to be ominous to him. but he was no untried boy to be cast down or disconcerted by sudden alterations of mood in a woman. he was a man, with a man's trained tenacity of purpose and experienced quickness of resource. he wasted no time. "what has happened to you?" he demanded, peremptorily as by right to know, and with the inner certainty of over-riding it, whatever it was. she did not seem tacitly or otherwise to deny his right to know, but she seemed to have no words for it, continuing to look at him silently, intently, with no hostility, with a sort of steady, wondering attention in her face, usually so sensitively changing. he felt a resentment at its quiet, at its lack of that instant responsiveness to his look which had given him such moments of exquisite pleasure, which had been her own, her wonderful gift to him. she was looking at him now as she might have looked at any one else, merely in order to see what was there. well, he would show her what was there! the will to conquer rose high and strong in him, with an element of fierceness it had not had before because no resistance had called it out. he did not show this, indeed only allowed it the smallest corner of his consciousness, keeping all the rest tautly on the alert for the first indication of an opening, for the first hint of where to throw his strength. but standing in suspense on the alert was the last rã´le he could long endure, and in a moment, when she did not answer, he took a step towards her, towering above her, his hands on her shoulders, pouring out with a hot sense of release all his longing into the cry, "marise, marise my own, what has happened to you?" how he hated the quiet of her face! with what hungry impatience he watched to see it break. how surely he counted on its disappearance at his touch. for he had the certainty of his power to kindle her left intact from the last time he had seen her, tinder to his spark, helplessly played upon by his voice. but now it was as though he had held a torch aloft into the green branches of a living tree. a twitch of surface agitation on her face and that was all. and when she spoke, as she did at once, the sound of her voice was strange and alien to him. with an extreme directness, and with a deep sincerity of accent which, even to his ears, made his own impassioned outcry to her sound inflated and false, she said earnestly, "i don't believe i can tell you what has happened. i don't believe you could understand it." he did not believe a word of this, but with his brilliant suppleness of mind he perceived that he was in the wrong key. she was not, for the moment, to be kindled to flame, she who miraculously was never the same. perhaps it was the moment for a thrust of sheer power, straight at the obstacle, for of course he knew the obstacle. "i know what has happened," he said, "without your telling me. your husband has made a scene, and overborne you, and is trying to force you back into the hen-yard of domestic virtue. . . ." he changed his manner. he said in a low, beautiful, persuasive voice, his eyes deeply on her, sure of himself with that sureness that no one had ever resisted, "but you can never do that now, you bird-of-paradise! you would only . . ." he was brought up short by a change in her. this time his words had had the power to move her face from the quiet he hated. it was suddenly alive with a strong emotion. but what emotion? he could not guess at its meaning, nor why she should step quickly away, shaking his hands from her shoulders, and looking at him sadly, her eyebrows drawn up as if in pain. he hung uncertain, daunted by his inability to read her face, feeling for the first time an instantly dismissed doubt of his mastery over her. she said very quickly, with the accent and manner of one who, shocked and pitying, tries to save another from going on with an involuntary disclosure in him of something shaming and unworthy. "no, oh no! not that. neale has done nothing . . . said nothing . . . except as he always has, to leave me quite free, all free." as he was silent for a moment, watchful, not especially moved by her words, which seemed to him unimportant, but alarmed by some special significance which they seemed to have for her, she went on with the single, only note of blame or reproach which was to come into her voice. "oh, how _could_ you think that?" she said to him, with a deep quavering disappointment, as though she were ashamed of him. he knew that he was the cause of the disappointment, although he could not imagine why, and he regretted having made a false move; but he was not deeply concerned by this passage. he did not see how it could have any importance, or touch what lay at issue between them. these were all womanish, up-in-the-air passes and parries. he had only not yet found his opening. he flung his head back impatiently. "if it is not that, what is it?" he demanded. "a return of hide-bound scruples about the children? you know that they must live their own lives, not yours, and that anything that gives you greater richness and power makes you a better mother." "oh yes, i know that," she answered. "i have thought of that, myself." but he had a baffled feeling that this was not at all the admission the words would make it seem. his impatience began to burn high, and a dawning alarm to translate itself into anger. he would not be played with, by any woman who ever lived! "marise," he said roughly, "what under the sun is it?" in his tone was all his contemptuous dismissal of it, whatever it might be . . . outworn moral qualms, fear of the world's opinion, inertia, cowardice, hair-splitting scruples, or some morbid physical revulsion . . . there was not one of them which he knew he could not instantly pounce on and shake to rags. marise stood very still, her eyes bent downward. "aren't you going to answer me?" he said, furious. she nodded. "yes, i'm going to answer you," she said, without raising her eyes. he understood that he must wait, and stood opposite to her, close to her, looking at her, all the strength of his passion in that avid gaze. she was stamped on his mind in every detail as she looked at that instant, infinitely desirable, infinitely alluring, in her thin white dress, her full supple woman's body erect and firm with a strong life of its own, her long sensitive hands clasped before her . . . how many times in his dreams had he held them in his . . . her shining dark hair bound smoothly about her head and down low on each side of her rounded forehead. her thick white eyelids, down-dropped, were lowered over her eyes, and her mouth with its full lips and deep corners . . . at the sight of her mouth on which he had laid that burning kiss, vincent felt a barrier within him give way . . . here he was at last with the woman he loved, the woman who was going to give herself to him . . . good god! all these words . . . what did they mean? nothing. he swept her into his arms and drew her face to his, his eyes closed, lost in the wonder and ecstasy of having reached his goal at last. * * * * * she did not make the startled virginal resistance of a girl. she drew away from him quietly . . . the hatred for that quiet was murderous in him . . . and shook her head. why, it was almost gently that she shook her head. how dared she act gently to him, as though he were a boy who had made a mistake! how dared she not be stirred and mastered! he felt his head burning hot with anger, and knew that his face must be suffused with red. and hers was not, it was quiet. he could have stamped with rage, and shaken her. he wanted to hurt her at once, deeply, to pierce her and sting her back to life. "do you mean," he said brutally, "that you find, after all, that you are a cold, narrow, cowardly, provincial woman, stunted by your life, so that you are incapable of feeling a generous heat?" as she remained silent, he was stung by the expression on her face which he did not understand. he went on vindictively snatching up to drive home his thrust the sharpest and cruelest weapon he could conceive, "_perhaps you find you are too old?_" at this she looked away from him for an instant, up to the lower branches of the oak under which they stood. she seemed to reflect, and when she brought her eyes back to his, she answered, "yes, i think that is it. i find i am too old." he was for years to ponder on the strangeness of the accent with which she said this, without regret, with that damnable gentleness as though to hide from him a truth he might find hard to bear, or be incapable of understanding. how could any woman say "i find i am too old" with that unregretting accent? was it not the worst of calamities for all women to grow old? what was there left for a woman when she grew old? but how preposterous, her saying that, she who stood there in the absolute perfection of her bloom! he found that he did not know what to say next. that tolerant acquiescence of hers in what he had meant to sting intolerably . . . it was as though he had put all his force into a blow that would stun, and somehow missing his aim, encountering no resistance, was toppling forward with the impetus of his own effort. he recovered himself and looked at her, choking, "you don't mean . . ." he began challenging her incredulously, and could go no further. for she nodded, her eyes on his with that singular expression in them which he did not understand, and which he intensely resented. he was so angry that for a moment he could not speak. he was aware of nothing but anger. "it's impotence and weakness on your part, that's all it is!" he cast out at her, hating her savagely as he spoke, "no matter what fine words you've decided to call it to cloak your own feebleness. it's the littleness of the vital spark in you. or it's cowardly inertia, turning from the real fulfilment that calls for you, back to chips and straw because you are used to them. it's being a small, poor, weak, cowed creature, traditional-minded, instead of the splendid, brave, living woman i thought i loved. i am _glad_ to leave you behind, to have no more of you in my life. i have no use for thin-blooded cowards." she made no answer at all, not a word. his flaming eyes fell away from her face. he turned from her abruptly and walked rapidly away, not looking back. then he found he had ceased to advance rapidly, had stopped and was standing still, wrung in so dreadful a pain that his hand was at his side as though he had been stabbed. with no thought, with no awareness of what he was doing, he ran back to her, his hands outstretched, suffering so that he must have help. he did not mean to speak, did not know what he was to say . . . he cried out to her, "marise, marise . . . i love you! _what can i do?_" the cry was desperate, involuntary, forcing its way out from unfathomed depths of feeling below all his anger and resentment, and tearing him to pieces as it came. it was as though he had taken his heart out and flung it at her feet. her face changed instantly and was quiveringly alight with a pale and guilty agitation. "no . . . oh _no_, vincent! i thought you only . . . i had thought you could not really . . . vincent, forgive me! forgive me!" she took one of his hands in both hers . . . the last unforgotten touch he was ever to have of her. . . . * * * * * it came to him through those words which he did not understand that she was pitying him; and stung to the quick, he drew back from her, frowning, with an angry toss of his head. instantly she drew back also, as though she had misinterpreted something. he stood for an instant looking full at her as though he did not see her; and then with a wide gesture of utter bewilderment, strange from him, he passed her without a look. this time he did not turn back, but continued steadily and resolutely on his way. chapter xxvii the fall of the big pine august 2. i when marise reached the place on the wood-road where she had had that last talk with vincent marsh, she stopped, postponing for a moment the errand to the powers which she had so eagerly undertaken. she stood there, looking up into the far green tops of the pines, seeing again that strange, angry, bewildered gesture with which he had renounced trying to make anything out of her, and had turned away. it remained with her, constantly, as the symbol of what had happened, and she looked at it gravely and understandingly. then, very swiftly, she saw again that passing aspect of his which had so terribly frightened her, felt again the fear that he might be really suffering, that she might really have done a hurt to another human being. this brought her a momentary return of the agitation it had caused in her that day, and she sat down abruptly on a tree-trunk, her knees trembling, her hands cold. that fear had come as so totally unexpected a possibility, something which his every aspect and tone and word up to then had seemed to contradict. strange, how unmoved he had left her, till that moment! strange the impression of him, that first time after she had known herself strong enough to stand up and be herself, not the responsive instrument played on by every passing impression. strange, how instantly he had felt that, and how passionate had been his resentment of her standing up to be herself, her being a grown woman, a human being, and not a flower to be plucked. how he had hated it, and alas! how lamentable his hatred of it had made him appear. what a blow he had dealt to her conception of him by his instant assumption that a change in her could only mean that neale had been bullying her. it had been _hard_ to see him so far away and diminished as that had made him seem, so entirely outside her world. it had dealt a back-hand blow to her own self-esteem to have him seem vulgar. how strange an experience for her altogether, to be able to stand firm against noise and urgent clamor and confusion, and to see, in spite of it, what she was looking at; to see, back of the powerful magnetic personality, the undeveloped and tyrannical soul, the cramped mind without experience or conception of breadth and freedom in the relations between human beings; to be able to hear vincent cry out on her with that fierce, masterful certainty of himself, that she was acting from cowed and traditional-minded motives and not to believe a word of it, because it was not true; not even to feel the scared throb of alarm at the very idea that it might be true; to have it make no impression on her save pity that vincent should be imprisoned in a feeling of which possession was so great a part that failure to possess turned all the rest to poison and sickness. what had happened to her, in truth, that she had this new steadfastness? she had told vincent he could not understand it. did she understand it herself? she leaned her chin on her two hands looking deep into the green recesses of the forest. high above her head, a wind swayed the tops of the pines and sang loudly; but down between the great brown columns of their trunks, not a breath stirred. the thick-set, myriad-leaved young maples held all their complicated delicately-edged foliage motionless in perfect calm. it was very still in the depths of marise's complicated mind also, although the wind stirred the surface. yes, she knew what had happened to her. she had seen it completely happen to three other human beings, miraculously, unbelievably, certainly; had seen the babies who could not tell light from dark, heat from cold, emerge by the mere process of healthful living into keenly sensitive beings accurately alive to every minutest variation of the visible world. it must be that like them she had simply learned to tell moral light from dark, heat from cold, by the mere process of healthful living. what happened to the child who at one time could not grasp the multiplication table, and a few years later, if only he were properly fed and cared for, had somehow so wholly changed, although still the same, that he found his way lightly among geometric conceptions, and only a few years after that was probing with expert fingers at some unsolved problem of astronomy? he had grown up, that was all. by calling the miracle a familiar name we veiled the marvel of it. insensibly to him, with no visible change from one day to the next, he had acquired a totally different conception of the universe, a totally different valuation of everything in life. that was what had happened to her. she had grown up . . . why should not a woman grow up to other valuations of things as well as her comrade in life? and it had happened to her as it did to the child, because someone stronger than she had protected her while she was growing . . . not protected from effort, as though one should try to protect the child from learning his lessons. . . . back there, such ages ago in italy, in her ignorant . . . how ignorant! . . . and frightened girlhood, she had begged neale, without knowing what she did, to help her grow up, to help her save what was worth saving in her, to help her untangle from the many-colored confusion of her nature what was best worth keeping. and neale had done it, had clung steadily to his divination of what was strong in her, in spite of her clamor to him to let it go. but vincent had not grown up, was back there still in confusion, holding desperately with all that terrific strength of his to what could not be held, to what was impermanent and passing in its nature. why should he do that? neale knew better than that. then she saw why: it was because vincent conceived of nothing but emptiness if he let it go, and horribly feared that imaginary emptiness. out of the incalculable richness of her kingdom she wondered again at his blindness. . . . and made a pitying guess at the reason for it . . . perhaps for him it was _not_ imaginary. perhaps one of the terms of the bargain he had made with life was that there _should_ be nothing later but emptiness for him. yes, she saw that. she would have made that bargain, too, if it had not been for neale. she would have been holding terrified to what was not to be held; with nothing but that between her and the abyss. who was she to blame vincent for his blindness? that, perhaps, had been the meaning of that singular last moment of their talk together, which had frightened her so, with its sudden plunge below the surface, into the real depths, when, changed wholly into someone else, he had run back to her, his hands outstretched, his eyes frightened, his lips trembling . . . perhaps he had felt the abyss there just before him. for an instant there, he had made her think of paul, made her remember that vincent himself had, so short a time ago, been a little boy too. she had been so shocked and racked by pity and remorse, that she would have been capable of any folly to comfort him. perhaps she had seen there for an instant the man vincent might have been, and had seen that she could have loved that man. but how instantly it had passed! he had not suffered that instant of true feeling to have space to live, but had burned it up with the return of his pride, his resentment that anyone save himself should try to stand upright, with the return of the devouring desire-for-possession of the man who had always possessed everything he had coveted. there was something sad in being able to see the littleness of life which underlay the power and might of personality in a man like vincent. he could have been something else. she wondered why there should slide into her mood, just now, a faint tinge of regret. . . . why should there be anything there but the bright gladness of thanksgiving for the liberation from the chains which her own nature might have forged about her? she had at last stepped outside the narrow circle of personal desire, and found all the world open to her. and yet there was room in her heart for a shade of wistful wonder if perhaps all this did not mean that she might be sliding from the ranks of those who feel and do, into the ranks of those who only understand. but one glance at the life that lay before her scattered this hanging mist-cloud . . . good heavens! what feeling and doing lay there before her! had she thought that neale was nothing to her because he had become all in all to her so that he penetrated all her life, so that she did not live an instant alone? had she thought the loss of the amusing trinket of physical newness could stand against the gain of an affection ill massy gold? would she, to buy moments of excitement, lose an instant of the precious certainty of sympathy and trust and understanding which she and neale had bought and paid for, hour by hour, year by year of honest life-in-common? where was real life for her? had she not known? where were the real depths, where the real food for the whole woman she had grown to be? neale had opened the door so that she could go away from him if that was what she needed, or go back to stand by his side; and through the open door had come the flood of daylight which had shown her that she could not go back to stand by his side because she had been there all the time, had never left it, never could leave it, any more than she could leave half of her body in one place, and go on to another. ii there was other feeling and doing now, too, before her, this instant, which she had forgotten, idling here in her much-loved forest, as much a part of her home as her piano or her own roof-tree. she had been trying to understand what had been happening that summer. let her try first of all to understand what she must do in that perfectly definite and concrete dilemma in which she had been placed by that strange sight of 'gene powers, fleeing back from the eagle rocks. she must look squarely at what she supposed was the legal obligation . . . she instantly felt a woman's impatience of the word legal as against human, and could not entertain the thought of the obligations of the situation. she must see, and think and try to understand, with neale to help her. she had not yet had time to tell neale. but not today. today she was only the bearer of the good tidings to nelly and 'gene, tidings which would wipe out for her the recollection of a day which was shameful to her, the day when she had conceived the possibility of believing some thing base against neale. it was not that she had believed it,--no, she had stood it off till neale came back. but there was shame for her in those recurrent spasms of horror when she had conceived the possibility that she might believe it. there had been proof of it, of course, eugenia's positive statement . . . strange how eugenia could have so entirely misunderstood the affair! . . . but what was mere proof against human certainty? no, she had been attacked suddenly and for an instant had failed to rise to defend what was hers to defend. it was a failure to live down. she stood up and moved forward along the path, changing the thick envelope in one hand to the other. she had already lost time. she ought to have been by this time through the forest and out in the edge of the powers pasture. she became aware that for some time she had heard a distant sound, a faint toc-toc-toc, like the sound of chopping. this being associated in her mind with snow and winter woods, she had not thought it could be the sound of the axe which it seemed to be. nobody could be felling trees in the height of the farming season, and on this day of swooning heat. but as she came to the edge of the woods and turned into the path along the brook, she heard it more plainly, unmistakable this time, not far now, the ringing blows delivered with the power and rhythmic stroke of the trained chopper. it came not from the woods at all, she now perceived, but from the open farming land, from the other side of the pasture, beyond the powers house. but there were no woods there, only the powers' big pine which towered up, darkly glorious, into the shimmering summer haze. as she looked at it wondering, it came into her mind had somebody told her, or had she overheard it somewhere? . . . that 'gene had promised nelly at last to cut down the big pine he and his fathers had so cherished. could it be that? what a sacrifice! and to a foolish whim of nelly's. there had been no musty smell in the house till nelly came there to keep the shutters closed so that the sun would not fade the carpets. the old pine was one of the most splendid things of beauty in the valley. and it was something vital in 'gene's strange, choked, inarticulate life. she stopped to listen a moment, feeling a chill of apprehension and foreboding. it was dreadful to have 'gene do that. it was as though he were cutting at his own strength, cutting off one of his own members to please his wife. poor 'gene! he would do that too, now, if nelly asked him. the resonant winter note rang out loud, strange in that sultry summer air. she looked from afar at the tree, holding its mighty crest high above the tiny house, high above the tiny human beings who had doomed it. so many winters, so many summers, so many suns and moons and rains and snows had gone to make it what it was. like the men who had planted it and lived beneath its shade, it had drawn silently from the depths of the earth and the airy treasures of the sky food to grow strong and live its life. and now to be killed in an hour, in attempted expiation of a deed for which it bore no guilt! marise was coming closer now. the axe-strokes stopped for a moment as though the chopper drew breath. the silence was heavy over the breathless summer field. but by the time she had arrived at the back door of the house, the axe-blows were renewed, loud, immediate, shocking palpably on her ear. she knocked, but knew that the ringing clamor of the axe drowned out the sound. through the screen-door she saw old mrs. powers, standing by the table, ironing, and stepped in. the three children were in the pantry, beyond, ralph spreading some bread and butter for his little brother and sister. ralph was always good to the younger children, although he was so queer and un-childlike! nelly was not there. mrs. powers looked up at marise, and nodded. she looked disturbed and absent. "we're at it, you see," she said, jerking her head back towards the front of the house. "i told you 'bout 'gene's sayin' he'd gi'n in to nelly about the big pine." marise made a gesture of dismay at this confirmation. the old woman went on, "funny thing . . . i ain't a powers by birth, lord knows, and i never thought i set no store by their old pine tree. it always sort o' riled me, how much 'gene's father thought of it, and 'gene after him . . . sort of silly, seems like. but just now when we was all out there, and 'gene heaved up his axe and hit the first whack at it . . . well, i can't tell you . . . it give me a turn most as if he'd chopped right into _me_ somewhere. i got up and come into the house, and i set to ironin', as fast as i could clip it, to keep my mind off'n it. i made the children come in too, because it ain't no place for kids around, when a tree that size comes down." marise demurred, "'gene is such a fine chopper, he knows to a hair where he'll lay it, of course." "well, even so, who knows what notion a kid will take into his head? they was playin' right there on a pile of pole-wood 'gene's brought in from the woods and ain't got sawed up into stove-lengths yet. i didn't want to take no chances; maybe they wouldn't ha' moved quick enough when their papa yelled to them. no, ma'am, i made 'em come in, and here they'll stay. nelly, she's out there, walkin' round and round watchin' 'gene. she's awfully set up havin' it come down. 'gene he's told her he'll give her the money from the lumber in it. there'll be a sight of boards, too. it's the biggest pine in the valley." marise went to the window and looked at the scene, penetrated by the strangeness of the difference between its outer and inner aspect: 'gene, his faded blue overalls tucked into his plowman's heavy cow-hide boots, his shirt open over his great throat and chest, his long corded arms rising and falling with the steady effortless rhythm of the master woodsman. nelly, in one of her immaculate blue ginghams, a white apron over it, a white frilled shade-hat on her head, her smartly shod small feet, treading the ground with that inimitable light step of hers, circling slowly about, looking at 'gene as he worked, looking up at the crown of the tree, high, so insolently high above her head, soon to be brought low by a wish from her heart, soon to be turned into money for her to spend. "i came over to talk to 'gene and nelly about some business," marise said, over her shoulder, to mrs. powers, not able to take her eyes from the trio in the drama out there, "but i'd better wait till the tree is down before i speak to them." "'twon't be long now. 'gene's been at it quite a while, and he's stavin' away like all possessed. seems as if, now he's started in, he couldn't get it over with quick enough to suit him. he acted awful queer about it, i thought." she left her ironing and, looking over her shoulder at the children, came closer to where marise stood. then she stepped back and shut the door to the pantry. "mis' crittenden," she said in an anxious troubled voice, "'gene ain't right these days. he acts to me like he's comin' down with a sick spell, or something. he ain't _right_. today nelly told me she woke up in the night last night and 'gene wasn't there. she hollered to him, and he didn't answer. it scared her like everything, and she scrambled out of bed and lighted the lamp, and she said she 'most fainted away, when she see 'gene, rolled up in a blanket, lying on the floor, over against the wall, his eyes wide open looking at her. she said she let out a yell . . . it scairt the life out of her . . . and 'gene he got right up. she says to him, 'for the lord's sake, 'gene, what _ails_ you?' and what do you suppose he says to her, he says, 'i didn't know whether you wanted me there or not, nelly.' what do you think of that? she says back, 'for goodness' sake, 'gene powers, where _would_ you be nights, except in your own bed!' he got back and for all nelly knows slept all right the rest of the night. she says she guesses he must have had some sort of funny dream, and not been really all waked up yet. but it must ha' gi'n her a turn, for all she ain't one of the nervous kind." marise turned sick with shocked pity. the two women looked at each other, silently with shadowed eyes of foreboding. mrs. powers shook her head, and turned back into the pantry, shutting the door behind her. marise heard her speaking to the children, in the cheerful, bantering, affectionate, grandmother tone she had always had for them. she was brave, old mrs. powers, she always said she could "stand up to things." she was the sort of woman who can always be depended on to keep life going, no matter what happens; who never gives up, who can always go on taking care of the children. marise herself did not feel at all brave. she sat down heavily in a chair by the window looking out at the man who for his wife's sake was killing something vital and alive. he had done that before, 'gene had. he went at it now with a furious haste which had something dreadful in it. nelly, who had sat down to rest on the pile of brush and poles, seemed a carved and painted statuette of ivory and gold. she took off her ruffled pretty hat, and laid it down on the white-birch poles, so that she could tip her head far back and see the very top of the tree. her braids shone molten in the sunshine. her beautiful face was impassive, secreting behind a screen all that marise was sure she must have been feeling. 'gene, catching sight of her now, in a side-glance, stopped abruptly in the middle of a swing, and shouted to her to "get off that brush-pile. that's jus' where i'm lottin' on layin' the tree." somewhat startled, nelly sprang up and moved around to the other side, back of him, although she called protestingly, "gracious, you're not _near_ through yet!" 'gene made no answer, returning to the fury of his assault on what he so much loved. the great trunk now had a gaping raw gash in its side. nelly idled back of him, looking up at the tree, down at him. what was she thinking about? marise wondered if someone with second-sight could have seen frank warner, there between the husband and wife? 'gene's face was still gray in spite of the heat and his fierce exertion. glistening streams of perspiration ran down his cheeks. what did the future hold for 'gene? what possible escape was there from the tragic net he had wrapped stranglingly around himself? very distantly, like something dreamed, it came to marise that once for an instant the simple, violent solution had seemed the right one to her. _could she have thought that?_ what a haunted house was the human heart, with phantoms from the long-dead past intruding their uninvited ghastly death's-heads among the living. the axe-strokes stopped; so suddenly that the ear went on hearing them, ghost-like, in the intense silence. 'gene stood upright, lifting his wet, gray face. "she's coming now," he said. marise looked out, astonished. to her eyes the tree stood as massively firm as she had ever seen it. but 'gene's attitude was of strained, expectant certainty: he stood near nelly and as she looked up at the tree, he looked at her. at that look marise felt the cold perspiration on her own temples. nelly stepped sideways a little, tipping her head to see, and cried out, "yes, i see it beginning to slant. how _slow_ it goes! "it'll go fast enough in a minute," said 'gene. of what followed, not an instant ever had for marise the quality of reality. it always remained for her a superb and hideous dream, something symbolical, glorious, and horrible which had taken place in her brain, not in the lives of human beings. * * * * * nelly, . . . looking down suddenly to see where the tree would fall, crying out, "oh, i left my hat where it'll . . ." and darting, light as a feather, towards it. 'gene, making a great futile gesture to stop her, as she passed him, shouting at her, with a horrified glance up at the slowly leaning tree, "come back! come back!" nelly on the brush-pile, her hat in her hand, whirling to return, supple and swift, suddenly caught by the heel and flung headlong . . . up again in an instant, and falling again, to her knees this time. up once more with a desperate haste, writhing and pulling at her shoe, held by its high heel, deep between the knotty poles. 'gene, bounding from his place of safety, there at her feet, tearing in a frenzy at the poles, at her shoe. . . . above them the great tree bearing down on them the solemn vengeful shadow of its fall. someone was screaming. it was nelly. she was screaming, "'gene! 'gene! 'gene!" her face shrunken in terror, her white lips open. * * * * * and then, that last gesture of 'gene's when he took nelly into his great arms, closely, hiding her face on his shoulder, as the huge tree, roaring downward, bore them both to the earth, forever. chapter xxviii two good-byes august 10. marise welcomed the bother about the details of eugenia's departure and mr. welles', and flung herself into them with a frightened desire for something that would drown out the roaring wind of tragedy which filled her ears in every pause of the day's activities, and woke her up at night out of the soundest sleep. night after night, she found herself sitting up in bed, her night-gown and hair damp with perspiration, nelly's scream ringing knife-like in her ears. then, rigid and wide-eyed she saw it all again, what had happened in those thirty seconds which had summed up and ended the lives of 'gene and nelly. but one night as she sat thus in her bed, hammered upon beyond endurance, she saw as though she had not seen it before what 'gene had finally done, his disregard of possible safety for himself, his abandon of his futile, desperate effort to free nelly from the tangle where her childish vanity had cast her, the grandeur and completeness of his gesture when he had taken nelly into his strong arms, to die with her. marise found herself crying as she had not cried for years. the picture, burned into her memory, stood there endlessly in the black night till she understood it. the tears came raining down her face, and with them went the strained, wild horror of the memory. but the shadow and darkness hung about her like a cloud, through which she only dimly saw the neat, unhurried grace of eugenia's preparations for departure and far travels, and felt only a dimmed, vague echo of the emotion she had thought to feel at the disappearance of mr. welles, poor, weary, futile old crusader on his rosinante. on that last morning of their stay she drove with them to the station, still giving only a half-attention to the small episodes of their departure. she did see and smile at the characteristic quality of an instinctive gesture of eugenia's as they stepped up on the platform of the station. two oddly-shaped pieces of metal stood there, obviously parts of a large machine. paul stumbled over them as he climbed out of the car, and held tight to mr. welles' hand to save himself from a fall. eugenia saw them instantly from afar as an element in life which threatened the spotlessness of her gray traveling cloak, and as she passed them she drew the thick folds of velvet-like wool about her closely. marise thought to herself, "that's eugenia's gesture as she goes through the world." neale turned off his switch, listened a moment to see if the ford were boiling from the long climb up the hill to the station, and now made one long-legged step to the platform. he started towards eugenia with the evident intention of making some casual pleasant remarks, such as are demanded by decency for a departing guest, but in his turn his eyes caught the curiously shaped pieces of metal. he stopped short, his face lighted up with pleasure and surprise. all consciousness of anyone else on the platform disappeared from his expression. "hello!" he said to himself, "those mandrels here." he picked up one in his strong hands on which the metal left a gray dust, and inspected it. he might have been entirely alone in his shop at the mill. marise noted with envy how he gave all of himself to that momentary examination, entirely escaped from any awareness of that tyrannical self which in her own heart always clamored like a spoiled child for attention. the impersonal concentration of his look as he turned the metal about between those strong dusty hands, gave to his face the calm, freed expression not to be bought for any less price than a greater interest in one's work than in one's self. "they'll do," pronounced neale. this was evidently a thought spoken aloud, for it did not occur to him to make any pretense of including the two women in his interest. he set down the casting he held, and went off into the freight-house, calling loudly, "charlie! charlie! those mandrels have come. i wish you'd . . ." his voice died away as he walked further into the dusky freight-shed. marise happening to glance at eugenia now, caught on her face an expression which she took to be annoyance at a breach of manners. she reflected, "eugenia must find neale's abrupt american ways perfectly barbaric." and she was surprised to feel for the first time a rather scornful indifference to all that was involved in eugenia's finding them barbaric. heavens! what did it matter? in a world so filled with awful and portentous and glorious human possibilities, how could you bother about such things? there was a silence. mr. welles and paul had been standing near, aimlessly, but now, evidently taking the silence for the inevitable flatness of the flat period of waiting for a train, mr. welles drew the little boy away. they walked down the cinder-covered side-tracks, towards where the single baggage truck stood, loaded with elegant, leather-covered boxes and wicker basket-trunks, marked "e. mills. s.s. savoie. compagnie gã©nã©rale transatlantique." among them, out of place and drab, stood one banal department-store trunk labeled, "welles. 320 maple avenue. macon, georgia." the departure of the old man and the little boy left the two women alone. eugenia stepped closer to marise and took her hand in her own gloved fingers. she looked at it intently, with the expression of one who is trying to find words for a complicated feeling. marise made an effort to put herself in the receptive mood which would make the saying of it easier, but failed. the fall of the big pine roared too loudly in her ears. she looked without sympathy or admiration at eugenia's perfection of aspect. "to look like that, she must care for looks more than anything else. what can she know about any real human feeling?" marise asked herself, with an intolerance she could not mitigate. and yet as she continued to peer at eugenia through that dark cloud of tragedy, it seemed to her that eugenia showed signs of some real human emotion. as she gazed at her in the crude brilliance of the gaudy morning sun, she saw for the first time signs of years in eugenia's exquisite small face. there was not a line visible, nor a faltering of the firmness of the well-cared-for flesh, but over it all was a faint, hardly discernible flaccid fatigue of texture. but perhaps she imagined it, for even as she looked, and felt her heart soften to think what this would mean to eugenia, an inner wave of resolution reached the surface of the other woman's face, and there was eugenia as she always had been, something of loveliness immutable. she said impulsively, "eugenia, it's a stupidly conventional thing to say, but it's a pity you never married." as eugenia only looked at her, quietly, she ventured further, "you might really be happier, you know. there is a great deal of happiness in the right marriage." she had never said so much to eugenia. eugenia let marise's hand drop and with it, evidently, whatever intention she might have had of saying something difficult to express. instead, she advanced with her fastidious, delicate note of irony, "i don't deny the happiness, if that sort of happiness is what one is after. but i think my appetite for it . . . that sort . . . is perhaps not quite robust enough to relish it." marise roused herself to try to put a light note of cheerfulness into this last conversation. "you mean that it seems to you like the coarsely heaped-up goodies set before a farmhand in a country kitchen . . . chicken and butter and honey and fruit and coffee, all good but so profuse and jumbled that they make you turn away?" "i didn't give that definition of domestic life," corrected eugenia, with a faint smile, "that's one of _your_ fantasies." "well, it's true that you get life served up to you rather pell-mell, lots of it, take-it-as-it-comes," admitted marise, "but for a gross nature like mine, once you've had that, you're lost. you know you'd starve to death on the delicate slice of toasted bread served on old china. you give up and fairly enjoy wallowing in the trough." she had been struck by that unwonted look of fatigue on eugenia's face, had tried to make her laugh, and now, with an effort, laughed with her. she had forgotten her passing notion that eugenia had something special to say. what could she have? they had gone over that astonishing misconception of hers about the powers woodlot, and she had quite made marise understand how hopelessly incapable she was of distinguishing one business detail from another. there could be nothing else that eugenia could wish to say. "how in the world shall i get through the winter?" eugenia now wondered aloud. "biskra and the sahara perhaps . . . if i could only get away from the hideous band of tourists. they say there are swarms of war-profiteers from italy now, everywhere, low-class people with money for the first time." she added with a greater accent of wonder, "how in the world are _you_ going to get through the winter?" marise was struck into momentary silence by the oddness of the idea. there were phrases in eugenia's language which were literally non-translatable into hers, representing as they did ideas that did not exist there. "oh, we never have to consider that," she answered, not finding a more accurate phrase. "there won't be time enough to do all we'll try to do, all we'll have to do. there's living. that takes a lot of time and energy. and i'll have the chorus as usual. i'm going to try some mendelssohn this year. the young people who have been singing for five or six years are quite capable of the 'elijah.' and then any of the valley children who really want to, come to me for lessons, you know. the people in north ashley have asked me to start a chorus there this year, too. and in the mill, neale has a plan to try to get the men to work out for themselves some standards of what concerns them especially, what a day's work really is, at any given job, don't you know." what an imbecile she was, she thought, to try to talk about such things to eugenia, who could not, in the nature of things, understand what she was driving at. but apparently eugenia had found something understandable there, for she now said sharply, startled, "won't that mean less income for you?" she did not say, "_even_ less," but it was implied in the energy of her accent. marise hesitated, brought up short by the solidity of the intangible barrier between their two languages. there were phrases in her own tongue which could not be translated into eugenia's, because they represented ideas not existing there. she finally said vaguely, "oh perhaps not." her pause had been enough for eugenia to drop back into her own world. she said thoughtfully, "i've half a notion to try going straight on beyond biskra, to the south, if i could find a caravan that would take me. that would be something new. biskra is so commonplace now that it has been discovered and exploited." she went on, with a deep, wistful note of plaintiveness in her voice, "but _every_thing's so commonplace now!" and added, "there's java. i've never been to java." it came over marise with a shock of strangeness that this was the end of eugenia in her life. somehow she knew, as though eugenia had told her, that she was never coming back again. as they stood there, so close together, in the attitude of friends, they were so far apart that each could scarcely recognize who the other was. their paths which in youth had lain so close to each other as to seem identical, how widely they had been separated by a slight divergence of aim! marise was struck by her sudden perception of this. it had been going on for years, she could understand that now. why should she only see it in this quiet, silent, neutral moment? an impalpable emanation of feeling reached her from the other woman. she had a divination that it was pain. perhaps eugenia was also suddenly realizing that she had grown irrevocably apart from an old friend. the old tenderness felt for the girl eugenia had been, by the girl marise had been, looked wistfully down the years at the end. marise opened her arms wide and took eugenia into them for a close, deeply moved embrace. "good-bye, eugenia," she said, with sadness. "good-bye, marise," said eugenia, looking at her strangely. * * * * * neale came back now, frankly consulting his watch with neale's bluntness in such matters. "train's due in a minute or two," he said. "where's mr. welles?" marise said, "over there, with paul. i'll go tell them." she found them both, hand in hand, sitting on the edge of the truck which carried the leather-covered boxes and wicker basket-trunks, bound for biskra or beyond, or java; and the square department-store trunk bound for maple avenue, macon, georgia. "mother," said paul, "mr. welles has promised me that he'll come up and visit us summers." "there's no house in the world where you'll be more welcome," said marise with all her heart, holding out her hand. mr. welles shook it hard, and held it in both his. as the train whistled screamingly at the crossing, he looked earnestly into her face and tried to tell her something, but the words would not come. as she read in his pale old face and steady eyes what he would have said, marise cried out to herself that there do not exist in the world any things more halting and futile than words. she put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "good-bye, dear mr. welles," was all she said, but in the clinging of his old arms about her, and in the quivering, shining face he showed as they moved down the platform together, she knew that he too had not needed words. paul clung to his hand till the last moment, gazing up at him constantly, silently. marise looked down on the little boy's tanned, freckled, sober face and strained, rapidly winking eyes, and had the intuition, "this is one of the moments paul will never forget. he will always be able to shut his eyes and see this old don quixote setting forth." with a rush of her old, jealous, possessive mother-love, she longed to share this with him and to have him know that she shared it; to put her arms around him and _make him let her in_. but she knew better now. she yearned over him silently, and did not touch him. "well, good-bye, paul," said mr. welles, shaking hands with him. "well, good-bye," said paul dryly, setting his jaw hard. "oh, this is the day-coach!" cried eugenia. "where is the drawing-room car?" "at the far end," said the conductor with the sweeping gesture of a man used to talking with his arms. "good-bye, mr. welles," said eugenia, giving him for an instant a small, pearl-gray hand. "boa voyage! good luck!" "same to you," said the old gentleman, scrambling up the unswept, cinder-covered steps into the day-coach. at the front end of the train, the baggage man was tumbling into the express car the fine, leather-covered boxes and the one square trunk. neale carried eugenia's two small bags down to the drawing-room car and now handed them to the porter. the two women kissed each other on both cheeks, hurriedly, as someone cried, "all aboard!" eugenia took neale's outstretched hand. "good-bye, neale," she said. with the porter's aid, she mounted the rubber-covered steps into the mahogany and upholstery of the drawing-room car. "good luck, eugenia! bon voyage!" called neale after her. she did not turn around or look back. * * * * * marise noted that characteristically eugenia had forgotten paul. but paul had forgotten her, too, and was now back near the day-coach searching one window after another. the conductor signaled widely, the whistle shrieked, the wheels groaned. neale drew marise a little back out of the whirl of dust and stood holding her arm for an instant. it seemed to marise as they stood thus, neale holding her arm, that she caught a last glimpse of eugenia behind plate-glass, looking at them gravely, steadily. paul suddenly caught sight of mr. welles' face at a window, snatched off his cap, and waved it frantically, over and over, long after the train was only an echoing roar from down the tracks. * * * * * then the mountain-silence settled down about them calmly, and they could hear their own hearts beat, and knew the thoughts in their minds. as they went back to their battered ford, marise said thoughtfully, "somehow i believe that it will be a long time before we see eugenia again." neale permitted himself no comment on this, nor showed the alteration of a line in his face as he stepped into the car and turned on the switch, but marise cried out to him accusingly, "you might as well say it right out, that you can support life if it is." neale laughed a little and put his foot on the starter. "get in the back seat, paul," was all he said, as the little boy came up silently from the other side of the station. he added as they started up the hill road, "first time in my life i was ever sort of sorry for eugenia. it seemed to me this morning that she was beginning to show her age." marise hid the fact that she had had the same idea and opposed, "eugenia would laugh at that from you, the husband of such a frankly middle-aged thing as i." neale was silent for a moment, and then, "you'll always look younger than she. no, not younger, that's not it, at all. it's _living_, you look. i tell you what, she's a cut flower in a vase, that's beginning to wilt, and you're a living plant." "why, _neale_!" said marise, astonished and touched. "yes, quite a flight of fancy for me, wasn't it?" commented neale casually, leaning forward to change the carburetor adjustment. * * * * * marise felt paul lean over her shoulder from the back of the car. "say, mother," he said in her ear, "would you just as soon get in back with me for a while?" neale stopped the care. marise stepped out and in, and seated herself beside paul. he had apparently nothing to say, after all, looking fixedly down at his bare brown feet. but presently he moved nearer to his mother and leaned his head against her breast. this time she put her arm around him and held him close to her, the tears in her eyes. chapter xxix vignettes from home life i august 20. paul had been sent for blue-berries through the eagle rock woods to the high upland pasture where the powers cows fed during the day. on the upper edge of that, skirting a tract of slash left from an old cutting, was a berry-patch, familiar to all the children of crittenden's valley. when at four o'clock there was no sign of him, and then at five still none, marise began to feel uneasy, although she told herself that nothing in the world could happen to paul on that well-known mountain-side. he had taken mã©dor with him, who would certainly have come for help if paul had fallen and hurt himself. she excused herself to the tall, awkward lad from north ashley come to try over his part in a quartet, asked touclã© to help elly set the supper things on the table if she should be late, and set off at a rapid pace by the short-cut over the ledges. as she hurried over the rough trail, frankly hastening, now frankly alarmed, she thought that probably for all the life-time of the people in the valley the death of frank warner would set a sinister element of lurking danger in those familiar wooded slopes. nothing _could_ have happened to paul, but still she hurried faster and faster, and as she came near the upper edge of the pasture she began to shout loudly, "paul! paul!" and to send out the high yodel-cry that was the family assembly call. that act of shouting brought her a step nearer to panic. but almost at once she heard the little boy's answer, not far from her saw his dog bounding through the bushes, and as she emerged from the woods into the open pasture she saw paul running towards her, pail in hand, evidently astonished to know her there. but there was about him something more than astonishment, something which marise's mother-eye catalogued as furtitve, that consciousness of something to hide which always looks to grown-ups like guilt. she gave no sign of seeing this, however, stopping short to catch her breath, smiling at him, and wondering with great intensity what in the world it could be. he looked a little frightened. he came up to her, answering her smile uneasily, and she saw that he had only a few berries in his pail. at this she was relieved, thinking that possibly all that had happened was that he had lingered to play. but when she glanced back at his face, she had the impression that there was something more, very much more. he had received some indelible impression and it was his instinct to hide it from his mother. her heart sank forebodingly. "what is the best thing to do?" she asked herself. "to speak about it first, or to wait till he does?" she sat down on a stone, fanning herself with her hat, watching him, trying to make out the meaning of every shift of expression, turn of eye, position of his hands, carriage of his head, bringing to this all her accumulated knowledge of paul, afire with the sudden passion to protect him which had flamed up with her intuition that something had happened to him. (come and gone with the dry rapidity of fingers snapped, she had thought, "the point is, that other people may be more clever than mothers, but nobody else _cares_ enough, always, always to try to understand!") "i thought i'd come up and walk back with you," she offered. "i haven't got very many," said paul, abashed, looking down at the few, blue, bloom-covered balls in the bottom of his shining tin pail. "i was trying to hurry up and get enough for supper, anyhow." marise in spite of herself, moved by pity for his confusion, offered him a way out. it always seemed to her too dreadful for anyone not to have a way out, even if it implied a fib. "weren't there very many on the bushes?" she asked. but he refused it with a characteristic integrity. "oh yes, there were lots there," he said. a silence fell. the little dog, sensitively aware of something wrong, whined uneasily, and pawed at paul's hand. but paul did not look down at him. he stood, his bare feet wide apart, the empty pail in his hand, looking down the beautiful green slope of the pasture, golden now in the long rays from the sun poised low on the line of the mountains opposite. marise looked at him, seeing nothing in all the world but that tanned, freckled, anxious little face. with what an utter unexpectedness did these moments of crisis spring on you; something vital there, and no warning, no chance to think. "anything the matter, paul?" she said gently. he nodded, silent. "anything you can tell mother?" she asked, still more gently. paul said gruffly, "i don't know: it's about ralph powers. he was up here this afternoon." he looked down at his brown, bramble-scratched legs. marise's imagination gave an unbridled leap of fear. she had always felt something strange and abnormal about ralph. but she thought, "i mustn't tyrannize over paul, even by a too-waiting expectant silence," and stooped over with the pretext of tying her shoe. a lump came to her throat. how terribly, helplessly, you _cared_ about what came to your children! when she lifted her head, paul had come nearer her and was looking down at her, with troubled eyes. "say, mother, he didn't _say_ not to tell you. do you suppose it would be fair?" she made a great effort at loyalty and said, "i can't tell, paul. you saw him. you know better than i, if you think he meant you not to tell. try to remember if he said anything about it." paul thought hard. "you wouldn't tell anybody?" he asked. "not if you don't want me to," she answered. paul sat down by her and drew a long breath. "i don't believe he would care, your knowing it, if you never told anybody else, nor said anything to him. mother, i was going along, up there by the big rock where the white birches grow, and i saw ralph. . . . he was in front of a sort of table he'd fixed up with a long piece of slate-stone, and he had some queer-shaped stones on it . . . oh, _mother_ . . . he was crying so, and talking to himself! and when he saw me he got as mad! and he told me about it, just as mad all the time, as though he was mad at me. mother, it's an altar! "an altar!" said marise, stupidly, utterly disconcerted by the word, so totally other than what her fears had been foreboding. "yes, an altar, and he says the stones on it are idols, and he bows down and worships them, the way the bible says it's wicked to." marise was too much astonished to open her lips. paul said, "mother, ralph says he hates god, and isn't going to say his prayers to him any more. he says god let his father and mother both get killed, and he don't know what the devil could do any worse than that. he said he started in having an altar to idols because he thought from what the bible said that if you did you'd be so wicked lightning would strike you dead. but it didn't, and now he doesn't believe _any_thing. so he's going on, having idols because the bible says not to." marise's first rounded and exclusive emotion was of immense relief. nothing had happened to her own son, and beside this relief, nothing for the moment seemed of any consequence. she drew paul to her with a long breath of what was, she recognized it the moment afterward, her old, clear, undiluted, ferocious, hateful mother-egotism. for that instant she had not cared an atom what happened to another woman's child, so long as hers was safe. but the next instant, the awareness of her hard heart cut across her like the lash of a whip. she shrank under it, horrified. she hung her head guilty and ashamed, divining the extremity of the other child's misery. as she sat there, with her living arms around her own little son, the boy whose mother was dead came and stood before her in imagination, showing those festering, uncared-for wounds of sorrow and bitterness and loneliness, and furious, unavailing revolt from suffering too great to be borne. she felt the guilt driven out from her narrow heart as it swelled larger to take him in. any child who needed a mother so much, was _her own child_. he had no longer any mother who would care enough to try to understand, but _she_ would care enough. "he bowed down and worshiped," said paul, in a shocked, frightened voice. "he knocked his head on the stones and cried like anything. he said he hated god." "oh!" cried marise, intolerably stung by sympathy and pity. she started up to her feet, her heart burning, the tears on her cheeks. her arms ached with emptiness till she should have drawn that suffering into them. paul said shyly, "say, mother, it's _awful_ hard on those powers kids, isn't it, not having anybody but their grandmother. say, mother, don't you think maybe we could . . . we could . . ." he turned his freckled, tanned, serious little face up to hers. his mother stooped to kiss him, furiously, burningly, passionately, as she did not often kiss paul, and he clung to her with all the strength of his strong little arms. "yes, yes, you darling, you darling," she told him brokenly. "yes, yes, yes." ii september 10. marise was slowly going through a passage of scriabine, which had just come in the mail. she was absorbed in the difficulties and novelties of it, her ear alert to catch a clue to the meaning of those new rhythms and progressions, her mind opened wide to understand them when she heard them. it was with an effort that she brought her attention back to elly, who had come in behind her and was saying something urgently. marise turned around on the piano-stool, her head humming with the unfamiliar, tantalizing beauties and intricacies of the page she had left half unread, and considered the little girl for an instant before she heard what she said. how elly did grow! that dress was already much too small for her. well, elly was not the only one who had grown out of her old clothes this summer . . . the old garments that had been large enough and now must be laid aside! . . . elly was saying, "mother, one of my chickens looks sick, and i don't know what to do. i _wish_ you'd come!" marise began a process of mentally weighing which was more important, scriabine or elly's chicken. elly looked at her mother with imploring eyes. "mother, he looked awfully sick. and he is my nicest little downy-head, the one i've always loved the best. i've tried to take such good care of him. mother, i'm _worried_ about him." marise decided that scriabine had at least the capacity to wait, while the chicken might not. she got up, saying, "all right, elly, we'll see what we can do." elly pulled her along rapidly to the chicken-yard where grossly self-satisfied hens scratched in trash and filth undiscriminatingly, and complacently called their families to share what they had found there, or indeed at times apparently to admire them for having found nothing. marise stood regarding them with a composed, ironic eye. it was good, she reflected, to be able to know that that was the way you looked from the outside, and not to care a bit because you knew firmly that there was something else there that made all the difference. all the same, it was a very good thing to have had the scaring thought that you were like that . . . "there but for the grace of god. . . ." was it complacent to say that? oh, what did it matter what you called it,--complacent or not, if you knew! it all came back to not caring so much about what things could be called, if you knew what they were. elly had disappeared into the chicken-house and now came back with a perplexed face. "downy-head was there, by the nests, and now he's gone." marise caught in the child's eyes the realness of her anxiety and thrilled to it, as she always did to any real emotion. "i'll help you look," she said, turning her eyes about the chicken-yard, crowded with voluble, intently self-centered, feathered personalities. "which hen is his mother, elly? "this one, old speckle. oh, mother, there he is, lying down. he must be feeling worse!" she ran forward and stooped over a little panting yellow ball. across the intervening space and beyond all those carelessly alive bodies, marise's eyes caught the unmistakable aspect of death in the tiny creature lying there. "mother!" cried elly, "his eyes look so! he can't get his breath. _mother!_" marise felt the child's agitation and alarm knock at her heart. she looked down helplessly at the dying creature. that tiny, tiny scrap of down-covered flesh to be alive, to contain the miracle and mystery of life, and now to be struggling, all alone, with the miracle and mystery of death! the little thing opened its glazing eyes once more, drew a long breath, and lay still. an age-old inherited knowledge and experience told elly what bad happened. she gave a scream, picked it up and held it in her cupped hands, her little face drawn in horrified incredulity. she looked up at her mother and said in a whisper, "mother, he's _dead_." marise nodded silently. poor elly! she wished she could think of something comforting to say. but what is there to say? for her there had never been anything but stoic silence. the mother hen clucked unconcernedly at their feet, and with coaxing guttural sounds called the rest of the chickens to eat a grain. the strong ammonia smell of the chicken-yard rose in the sunshine. elly stood perfectly still, the little ball of yellow down in her hand, her face pale. marise looked down on her with infinite sympathy. her child, flesh of her flesh, meeting in this uncouth place the revelation of the black gulf! but she remained silent, not knowing what to say. elly spoke in a low voice, "but, mother, how _can_ he be dead, just so quick while we were looking at him? mother, he was alive a minute ago. he was breathing. he looked at me. he knew me. and in just a minute like that . . . nothing!" she looked around her wildly. "_mother, where has his life gone to?_" marise put her arm around the little girl's shoulders tenderly, but she still only shook her head without a word. she did not know any more than elly where his life had gone. and surely loving silence was better than tinkling words of falseness. elly looked up at her, glistening drops of sweat standing on her temples. "mother," she asked, urgently, in a loud, frightened whisper, "mother, do we die like that? mother, will _you_ die like that? all in a moment . . . and then . . . nothing?" it came like thunder, then, what marise had never thought to feel. with a clap, she found that this time she had something to answer, something to say to elly. looking deep, deep into elly's eyes, she said firmly with a certainty as profound as it was new to her, "no, elly, i don't believe we do die like that . . . all in a moment . . . nothing." she was astonished by what she said, astonished by the sudden overflowing of something she had not known was there, but which was so great that her heart could not contain it, "comme une onde qui bout dans une urne trop pleine." and she was as moved as she was astonished. elly came into her arms with a comforted gasp. they clung to each other closely, marise's ears humming with the unfamiliar beauty and intricacy of that new page at which she had had that instant's glimpse. here was a new harmony, a new progression, a new rhythm to which her ear had just opened . . . heard here in this uncouth place! * * * * * that evening, after the children were in bed, she stopped her reading of the new music for a moment to say to neale, "you know those ideas that other people are better for children than their parents are?" "yes," said neale, laying down the baseball page of his newspaper, instantly all there, looking at her intently. "well, i don't believe a word of it," said marise. "i should say it depended on which parents and on which children were meant," advanced neale guardedly. marise had at first an affectionate smile for this, and then a laugh. she got up from the piano-stool and went to kiss him. he said with a whimsical suspicion of this, "why so?" "because you are so entirely you," she told him, and went back to scriabine. iii september 22. it was the half-hour of pause after lunch. the children played idly with the fox-terrier and lounged on the steps of the side-porch, strong and brown, living cups filled to the brim with life. neale had pushed his chair back from the table, lighted his pipe, and sat meditating. presently he put out his hand and laid it on marise's, who had turned to look down the sun-flooded valley. it was high-noon, dreamy, entranced, all the world golden with the magnificent weather as a holly-hock is golden with pollen. from the brook came the living voice of the water, with the special note of brave clarity it always had for brilliant noons. it seemed to marise that she too was all gold-powdered with the magnificence of life, that in her heart there sang a clear living voice that did not fear high-noons. iv october. would vincent come back at all? marise had wondered so often. not vincent in the flesh; that last angry bewildered gesture had finality in it. he had given her up then, totally. but would he come back to haunt her in those inevitable moments of flat ebb-tide in life, when what should be moist and living, withered and crisped in the merciless drought of drudgery and routine? she feared it, frankly dreaded it at first, and tried to think how to brace herself against it. but it was not then that tie came, not when she was toiling with dishes to wash, or vegetables to pare, or the endless care of the children's never-in-order clothes. instead she found in those moments, which had been arid before, a curious new savor, a salt without which life would seem insipid, something which gave her appetite for the rest. "this is all tolstoyan nonsense and sentimentality," she told herself mockingly, "there is nothing sacred about scrubbing the floor." or on another day, "i wonder if it's a twist of the absurd mediaeval ascetic perversity left over?" or again, "all it does for me is to take off the curse of belonging to the bourgeoisie." but no matter what skeptical name she called it, nor how much she minimized the reality of it, she felt some odd value in it which she would not have gone without. once she said to herself, "it's ballast, to a person like me," although she did not know exactly what this meant. and another time she said, "perhaps it's that i'm making an honest effort to do my share." but it was true and real, the fact that after such work the reading of the day's news of the world brought her a less oppressive sense of guilt. and stranger than this, music had greater vitality for her. she felt it a deeper, richer soil than even she had dreamed of, and struck her roots profoundly into depths which kept her whole complicated organism poised, steady, and upright. and here it was that vincent came back. not the vincent of the hawk-like imperious face, or burning eyes of desire, which had seemed to him his realest self. but the vincent who had come in from the porch that day in march when she had first played to him, who had smiled at her, the good, grateful, peaceful smile, and had said to her music, "go on, go on." it was the same vincent of the afternoon in cousin hetty's garden when the vulture of the desire to possess had left him for a moment in peace. often and often he came thus as she played and leaned his head back and said, "go on." and thus marise knew he would always come. and thus she welcomed him. this was what was left of him in the house he had so filled with his smoky, flaming brilliance. v december. they had been talking around the fire of the stars and their names and stories, she and neale and the children. presently interest overcoming inertia they decided to go out and see if the clouds had blown away so that the stars could be seen. they huddled on hastily found wraps, thrust their feet into flapping, unbuckled overshoes, and leaving the still, warm, lamp-lit room, they shuffled out, laughing and talking, into the snow which lay thick and still before the house. at first they carried out between them so much of the house atmosphere that it hung about them like warm fog, shielding them from the fiercely pure, still cold of the air, and from the brilliant glitter of the myriad-eyed black sky. they went on talking and laughing, pointing out the constellations they knew, and trying to find others in the spangled vault over their heads. "a bear!" cried mark. "i could draw a better bear than that any day!" and from paul, "they can call it orion's belt all they want to, but there's no belt to it!" and from elly, "aldebaran! aldebaran! red-eyed aldebaran!" but little by little the house-air began to be thinned about them, to blow away from between them in wisps and wreathes, off into the blackness. the warmed, lighted house dwindled to nothing. there were only the great cold black sky and the small cold white earth. their voices were lowered; they stood very still, close together, their heads tipped back, their faces and hearts upraised silently to receive the immensity above and about them. elly murmured under her breath, "doesn't it seem funny, our world being just one of all those, and such a little one, and here we are, just these few of us, standing on the world and looking at it all." marise thought, "we seem to be the only living things in all creation." in that huge, black, cold glittering universe how tiny was the little glow of life they made! tiny but unquenchable! those myriads of hard staring eyes could not look down the immortal handful of human life and love which she and neale had created between them. there was a silence, filled with still, breathless cold; with enormous space, with infinity. marise felt a rigorous shudder run over her, as though something vital were coming to her, like the rending pang of pain which heralds child-birth. after this, did she close her eyes for a moment, or did it come to her while she continued to gaze wide-eyed at the stern greatness of the universe? what was this old, familiar, unknown sensation? . . . as though, on a long journey in the dark it had grown light, so that she had suddenly recognized which way she was going. then she knew what it was. conscious and awake, she was feeling herself one with the great current, advancing with an irresistible might, majesty and power, in which she shared, to which she gave her part. vi january. she was putting away the clean sheets from the washing on the shelves at the end of the hall, upstairs, her mind entirely on the prosaic task, wondering when she would have to replace some of the older ones, and wishing she could put off buying till the outrageous post-war prices went down. someone stirred behind her and she turned her head quickly to see who was there. it was neale, come in early. he was standing, looking at her back; and in the instant before he saw that she had turned, she caught the expression on his face, the tender fathomless affection that was there. a warm gush of happiness surged up all over her. she felt a sudden intense physical well-being, as though her breath came more smoothly, her blood ran more sweetly in her veins. "oh, _neale_!" she said, under her breath, flushing and turning to him. he looked at her, his strong, resolute face and clear eyes smiled, and opening his arms he drew her into them. the ineffable memory of all the priceless past, the ineffable certainty of the priceless future was in their kiss. that evening, after a long golden hour at the piano, she chanced to take down the largo in the chopin sonata. as she began it, something stirred in her mind, some memory that instantly lived with the first notes of the music. how thick-clustered with associations music became, waking a hundred echoes and overtones! this was the memory of the time when she had played it, almost a year ago, and had thought how intimacy and familiarity with music but deepened and enriched and strengthened its hold on you. it was only the lower pleasures of which one grew tired,--had enough. the others grew with your growing capacity to hold them. she remembered how that day she had recalled the wordsworth sonnet, "a beauteous evening, calm and free," and had thought that music took you in to worship quite simply and naturally at the temple's inner shrine, that you adored none the less although you were at home there and not breathless with adoration like the nun: because it was a whole world given to you, not a mere pang of joy, because you could live and move and be blessedly and securely at home there. she finished the last note of the largo and sat silent. she was thinking that her marriage was like that, too. presently she got up, took out the old portfolio of photographs, and pinned upon the wall over the piano the view taken from rocca di papa. vii february 24. marise had been drilling the chorus in the town hall of ashley after the men's working-hours, and now in the dimming light of the early evening was going home on snow-shoes, over the hill-path. she liked to use snow-shoes and occasionally said that she could walk more easily and more lightly on them than on bare ground. she trod over the tops of the deep drifts with an accentuation of her usual strong free step. the snow fell thickly and steadily, a cold, finely-spun, straight-hung curtain, veiling all the muffled sleeping valley. there was an inconceivable silence about her as she drew her snow-shoes over the velvet-like masses of the snow. but within her were ringing echoes of the rhythms and cadences of the afternoon's struggle, imperfectly sung most of them, haltingly, or dully, or feebly, or with a loud misunderstanding of the phrase. at the recollection of these failures, she clenched her hands hard inside her fur gloves with an indomitable resolution to draw something better from her singers the next time. but mingled with them was a moment of splendor. it was when the men had tried over the passage she had explained to them the week before. she had not known then, she did not know now, how clearly or definitely she had reached them with her summary of the situation of the drama: the desperate straits of the israelites after the three-year drought, the trial by fire and water before the scorning aristocracy, elijah stark and alone against all the priesthood of baal, the extremity of despair of the people . . . and then the coming of the longed-for rain that loosened the terrible tension and released their hearts in the great groaning cry of thanksgiving. she had wondered how clearly or definitely she had reached their understanding, but she knew that she had reached their hearts, when suddenly she had heard all those men's voices pealing out, pure and strong and solemn and free, as she had dreamed that phrase could be sung. [illustration: thanks be to god! he laveth the thirsty land.] the piercing sweetness of the pleasure this had brought to her came over her again in a wave. she halted on the crest of the hill, and for a moment in place of the purples and blues of the late snowy afternoon there hung before her eyes the powerful, roughly clad bodies of those vigorous men, their weather-beaten faces, their granite impassivity, under which her eye had caught the triumph of the moment, warming them as it did her, with the purest of joys this side of heaven, the consciousness of having made music worthily. the whole valley seemed to be filled to its brim with that shout of exultation. it had taken all of her patience, and will-power, and knowledge of her art and of these people to achieve that moment. but it had lifted her high, high above the smallness of life, up to a rich realm of security in joy. the snow fell more and more thickly, covering her as she stood with a fine, soft mantle of white. she had heard the men that afternoon saying they had seen signs of the winter break-up, and she wondered at it now, looking about the frozen, buried, beautiful valley and up to the frozen towering mountains, breathing in the cold air, as pure as the ether itself. it seemed to her that spring was as remote and unreal and impossible an imagination of the heart as a child's fairy-tale. then suddenly, bursting out of the dimming distance, close in front of her, flying low, silently, strongly, a pair of wild geese went winging off towards the north, their gray shapes the only moving thing in all the frost-held world. marise drew a great breath of delight in their strong and purposeful vitality. she looked after them, her heart rising and singing with comradely pride in them. she would have liked to shout an exultant greeting after them, "hurrah!" they went beating off, fast and straight, for their unseen destination, while, treading the velvet-like snow-drifts with her strong free tread, marise went home. [illustration: music] viii march 2. it was the first warm day of the year. the hard-frozen ruts of the road thawed on top and glistened. the snow-banks shrank visibly from one hour to the next under a warm wind and a hazy sun. the mountains were unbelievably beautiful and seductive in a shimmer of blue and silver. the children had brought home a branch of pussy-willows, and as marise and neale stood for a moment at the open door breathing in the new softness, they saw touclã©, old and stooped and shabby, her reticule bag bulging, her flat feet in enormous overshoes plodding up the road towards the mountain. they smiled at one another. it was in truth the first day of spring. marise said, after a pause, "do you know what she goes off for?" neale shook his head with a wide indifference as to the reason. "because she's an injun," he conjectured casually. "she told me once," said marise, with a sudden wonder what neale would think of that glimpse into the old mystic's mind, how he would (for she knew beforehand he would) escape the wistfulness which struck at her even now, at the thought of that door to peace. she repeated to him word for word what touclã© had told her on that hot august day. neale gave her his usual careful attention. marise thought to herself, "neale is the only person i ever knew who could listen to other people's ideas." but when she finished he made no comment. she asked him, "did you ever think that old carven-image had that in her? how profound a disdain for us busy-about-nothing white people she must have!" neale nodded. "most likely. everybody has a good deal of disdain for other people's ideals." "well, you haven't for hers, have you?" challenged marise. neale looked thoughtful. "i'm no mystic. their way of managing life often looks to me like sort of lying down on the job. i'm no mystic and i'm no fish. looks to me as though the thing to do isn't to go off in a far corner to get your momentary glimpse of daylight, but to batter a hole in the roof of your cave and let daylight in where you live all the time. i can't help being suspicious of a daylight that's so uncertain you have to go away from life and hold your breath before you can see it for a minute. i want it where i do my work." marise looked at him, thinking deeply. that was just what neale did. but when she looked back at the old indian woman, just now turning into the wood-road, she sighed wistfully, and did not know why. there was so very much growing always to be done in life. ix march 10. (_a letter from eugenia_:) ". . . i'm planning perhaps to make the trip to the temples in the malay jungle. biskra was deadly, and italy worse . . . vulgarity and commonness everywhere. what an absolutely dreary outlook wherever one turns one's eyes! there is no corner of the modern world that is not vulgar and common. democracy has done its horrible leveling down with a vengeance . . ." * * * * * (_a letter from mr. welles_:) ". . . the life here is full of interest and change, and it's like dew on my dusty old heart to see the vitality of the joy-in-life of these half-disinherited people. i'm ashamed to tell you how they seem to love me and how good they are to me. their warmness of heart and their zest in life. . . . i'm just swept back into youth again. it makes me very much mortified when i think what a corking good time i am having and what sanctimonious martyr's airs i put on about coming down here. of course a certain amount of my feeling younger and brisker comes from the fact that, working as i am, nobody feels about me the laid-on-the-shelf compassion which everybody (and me too) was feeling before. i _am_ somebody here and every time i say 'dr. martin' to a well-educated negro physician whom another white man has just hailed as 'andy' i feel not only a real sense of righteous satisfaction but the joyful mischievous fun that a small boy has. give my love to paul (speaking of small boys) and tell him i'm saving up for the fishing-pole i am going to use when i go fishing with him next summer. he said in his last letter he wanted to come down here and make me a visit; but you tell him i think he'd better get his growth before he does that." x march 15, 1921. from a profound sleep, serene warm infinity of rest, marise was wakened by a little outcry near the bed, a sobbing voice saying through chattering teeth, "mother! father!" still drowned in sleep, marise cried out, "what? what's that?" and then, "oh, you, elly. what's the matter, dear? notions again?" "oh, mother, it was an awful dream this time. can't i get into bed with you?" "why yes, come along, you dear little silly." the fumbling approach to the bed, marise holding the sheets open and stretching out her hand through the cold darkness towards the little fingers groping for her; the clutch at her hand with a quick anguish of relief and joy. "oh, _mother!_" then the shivering body rolling into bed, the little cold arms tight around her neck, the cold smooth petal-like cheek against hers. marise reached over beyond elly and tucked the covers in with one arm, drew the child closer to her, and herself drew closer to neale. she wondered if he had been awakened by elly's voice, and the little stir in the room, and hoped he had not. he had been off on a very long hard tramp over mountain trails the day before, and had been tired at night. perhaps if he had been wakened by elly he would drowse off again at once as she felt herself doing now, conscious sleepily and happily of elly's dear tender limbs on one side of her and of neale's dear strong body on the other. * * * * * the strong march wind chanted loudly outside in the leafless maple-boughs. as marise felt her eyelids falling shut again it seemed to her, half-awake, half-asleep, that the wind was shouting out the refrain of an old song she had heard in her childhood, "there's room for all! there's room for all! what had it meant, that refrain? she tried drowsily to remember, but instead felt herself richly falling asleep again, her hands, her arms, her body. "there's room for all! there's room for all!" she was almost asleep. . . . someone was speaking again. elly's voice, calmer now, wistful and wondering, as though she were lying awake and trying to think. "mother." "yes, dear, what is it? "mother, aren't you and father afraid of anything?" * * * * * marise was wide-awake now, thinking hard. she felt neale stir, grope for her hand and hold it firmly . . . neale's strong hand! she knew what she was saying. yes, she knew all that it meant when she answered, "no, elly, i don't believe we are." 