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Archive: American Libraries.
STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS
by
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
_The Riverside Press, Cambridge_
Copyright, 1890,
By SARAH ORNE JEWETT.
All rights reserved.
The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
_TO_
S. W.
_PAINTER OF NEW ENGLAND MEN AND WOMEN_
_NEW ENGLAND FIELDS AND SHORES_
CONTENTS.
A Winter Courtship
The Mistress of Sydenham Plantation
The Town Poor
The Quest of Mr. Teaby
The Luck of the Bogans
Fair Day
Going to Shrewsbury
The Taking of Captain Ball
By the Morning Boat
In Dark New England Days
The White Rose Road
STRANGERS AND WAYFARERS.
A WINTER COURTSHIP.
The passenger and mail transportation between the towns of North Kilby
and Sanscrit Pond was carried on by Mr. Jefferson Briley, whose
two-seated covered wagon was usually much too large for the demands of
business. Both the Sanscrit Pond and North Kilby people were
stayers-at-home, and Mr. Briley often made his seven-mile journey in
entire solitude, except for the limp leather mail-bag, which he held
firmly to the floor of the carriage with his heavily shod left foot.
The mail-bag had almost a personality to him, born of long
association. Mr. Briley was a meek and timid-looking body, but he held
a warlike soul, and encouraged his fancies by reading awful tales of
bloodshed and lawlessness, in the far West. Mindful of stage robberies
and train thieves, and of express messengers who died at their posts,
he was prepared for anything; and although he had trusted to his own
strength and bravery these many years, he carried a heavy pistol under
his front-seat cushion for better defense. This awful weapon was
familiar to all his regular passengers, and was usually shown to
strangers by the time two of the seven miles of Mr. Briley's route had
been passed. The pistol was not loaded. Nobody (at least not
Mr. Briley himself) doubted that the mere sight of such a weapon would
turn the boldest adventurer aside.
Protected by such a man and such a piece of armament, one gray Friday
morning in the edge of winter, Mrs. Fanny Tobin was traveling from
Sanscrit Pond to North Kilby. She was an elderly and feeble-looking
woman, but with a shrewd twinkle in her eyes, and she felt very
anxious about her numerous pieces of baggage and her own personal
safety. She was enveloped in many shawls and smaller wrappings, but
they were not securely fastened, and kept getting undone and flying
loose, so that the bitter December cold seemed to be picking a lock
now and then, and creeping in to steal away the little warmth she had.
Mr. Briley was cold, too, and could only cheer himself by remembering
the valor of those pony-express drivers of the pre-railroad days, who
had to cross the Rocky Mountains on the great California route. He
spoke at length of their perils to the suffering passenger, who felt
none the warmer, and at last gave a groan of weariness.
"How fur did you say 't was now?"
"I do' know's I said, Mis' Tobin," answered the driver, with a frosty
laugh. "You see them big pines, and the side of a barn just this way,
with them yellow circus bills? That's my three-mile mark."
"Be we got four more to make? Oh, my laws!" mourned Mrs. Tobin. "Urge
the beast, can't ye, Jeff'son? I ain't used to bein' out in such bleak
weather. Seems if I couldn't git my breath. I'm all pinched up and
wigglin' with shivers now. 'T ain't no use lettin' the hoss go
step-a-ty-step, this fashion."
"Landy me!" exclaimed the affronted driver. "I don't see why folks
expects me to race with the cars. Everybody that gits in wants me to
run the hoss to death on the road. I make a good everage o' time, and
that's all I _can_ do. Ef you was to go back an' forth every day but
Sabbath fur eighteen years, _you'd_ want to ease it all you could, and
let those thrash the spokes out o' their wheels that wanted to. North
Kilby, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; Sanscrit Pond, Tuesdays,
Thu'sdays, an' Saturdays. Me an' the beast's done it eighteen years
together, and the creatur' warn't, so to say, young when we begun it,
nor I neither. I re'lly didn't know's she'd hold out till this time.
There, git up, will ye, old mar'!" as the beast of burden stopped
short in the road.
There was a story that Jefferson gave this faithful creature a rest
three times a mile, and took four hours for the journey by himself,
and longer whenever he had a passenger. But in pleasant weather the
road was delightful, and full of people who drove their own
conveyances, and liked to stop and talk. There were not many farms,
and the third growth of white pines made a pleasant shade, though
Jefferson liked to say that when he began to carry the mail his way
lay through an open country of stumps and sparse underbrush, where the
white pines nowadays completely arched the road.
They had passed the barn with circus posters, and felt colder than
ever when they caught sight of the weather-beaten acrobats in their
tights.
"My gorry!" exclaimed Widow Tobin, "them pore creatur's looks as
cheerless as little birch-trees in snow-time. I hope they dresses 'em
warmer this time o' year. Now, there! look at that one jumpin' through
the little hoop, will ye?"
"He couldn't git himself through there with two pair o' pants on,"
answered Mr. Briley. "I expect they must have to keep limber as eels.
I used to think, when I was a boy, that 't was the only thing I could
ever be reconciled to do for a livin'. I set out to run away an'
follow a rovin' showman once, but mother needed me to home. There
warn't nobody but me an' the little gals."
"You ain't the only one that's be'n disapp'inted o' their heart's
desire," said Mrs. Tobin sadly. "'T warn't so that I could be spared
from home to learn the dressmaker's trade."
"'T would a come handy later on, I declare," answered the sympathetic
driver, "bein' 's you went an' had such a passel o' gals to clothe an'
feed. There, them that's livin' is all well off now, but it must ha'
been some inconvenient for ye when they was small."
"Yes, Mr. Briley, but then I've had my mercies, too," said the widow
somewhat grudgingly. "I take it master hard now, though, havin' to
give up my own home and live round from place to place, if they be my
own child'en. There was Ad'line and Susan Ellen fussin' an' bickerin'
yesterday about who'd got to have me next; and, Lord be thanked, they
both wanted me right off but I hated to hear 'em talkin' of it over.
I'd rather live to home, and do for myself."
"I've got consider'ble used to boardin'," said Jefferson, "sence ma'am
died, but it made me ache 'long at the fust on't, I tell ye. Bein' on
the road's I be, I couldn't do no ways at keepin' house. I should want
to keep right there and see to things."
"Course you would," replied Mrs. Tobin, with a sudden inspiration of
opportunity which sent a welcome glow all over her. "Course you would,
Jeff'son,"--she leaned toward the front seat; "that is to say, onless
you had jest the right one to do it for ye."
And Jefferson felt a strange glow also, and a sense of unexpected
interest and enjoyment.
"See here, Sister Tobin," he exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Why can't ye
take the trouble to shift seats, and come front here long o' me? We
could put one buff'lo top o' the other,--they're both wearin'
thin,--and set close, and I do' know but we sh'd be more protected
ag'inst the weather."
"Well, I couldn't be no colder if I was froze to death," answered the
widow, with an amiable simper. "Don't ye let me delay you, nor put you
out, Mr. Briley. I don't know's I'd set forth to-day if I'd known't
was so cold; but I had all my bundles done up, and I ain't one that
puts my hand to the plough an' looks back, 'cordin' to Scriptur'."
"You wouldn't wanted me to ride all them seven miles alone?" asked the
gallant Briley sentimentally, as he lifted her down, and helped her up
again to the front seat. She was a few years older than he, but they
had been schoolmates, and Mrs. Tobin's youthful freshness was suddenly
revived to his mind's eye. She had a little farm; there was nobody
left at home now but herself, and so she had broken up housekeeping
for the winter. Jefferson himself had savings of no mean amount.
They tucked themselves in, and felt better for the change, but there
was a sudden awkwardness between them; they had not had time to
prepare for an unexpected crisis.
"They say Elder Bickers, over to East Sanscrit, 's been and got
married again to a gal that's four year younger than his oldest
daughter," proclaimed Mrs. Tobin presently. "Seems to me 't was fool's
business."
"I view it so," said the stage-driver. "There's goin' to be a mild
open winter for that fam'ly."
"What a joker you be for a man that's had so much responsibility!"
smiled Mrs. Tobin, after they had done laughing. "Ain't you never
'fraid, carryin' mail matter and such valuable stuff, that you'll be
set on an' robbed, 'specially by night?"
Jefferson braced his feet against the dasher under the worn buffalo
skin. "It is kind o' scary, or would be for some folks, but I'd like
to see anybody get the better o' me. I go armed, and I don't care who
knows it. Some o' them drover men that comes from Canady looks as if
they didn't care what they did, but I look 'em right in the eye every
time."
"Men folks is brave by natur'," said the widow admiringly. "You know
how Tobin would let his fist right out at anybody that ondertook to
sass him. Town-meetin' days, if he got disappointed about the way
things went, he'd lay 'em out in win'rows; and ef he hadn't been a
church-member he'd been a real fightin' character. I was always 'fraid
to have him roused, for all he was so willin' and meechin' to home,
and set round clever as anybody. My Susan Ellen used to boss him
same's the kitten, when she was four year old."
"I've got a kind of a sideways cant to my nose, that Tobin give me
when we was to school. I don't know's you ever noticed it," said
Mr. Briley. "We was scufflin', as lads will. I never bore him no kind
of a grudge. I pitied ye, when he was taken away. I re'lly did, now,
Fanny. I liked Tobin first-rate, and I liked you. I used to say you
was the han'somest girl to school."
"Lemme see your nose. 'T is all straight, for what I know," said the
widow gently, as with a trace of coyness she gave a hasty glance. "I
don't know but what 't is warped a little, but nothin' to speak of.
You've got real nice features, like your marm's folks."
It was becoming a sentimental occasion, and Jefferson Briley felt that
he was in for something more than he had bargained. He hurried the
faltering sorrel horse, and began to talk of the weather. It certainly
did look like snow, and he was tired of bumping over the frozen road.
"I shouldn't wonder if I hired a hand here another year, and went off
out West myself to see the country."
"Why, how you talk!" answered the widow.
"Yes 'm," pursued Jefferson. "'T is tamer here than I like, and I was
tellin' 'em yesterday I've got to know this road most too well. I'd
like to go out an' ride in the mountains with some o' them great
clipper coaches, where the driver don't know one minute but he'll be
shot dead the next. They carry an awful sight o' gold down from the
mines, I expect."
"I should be scairt to death," said Mrs. Tobin. "What creatur's men
folks be to like such things! Well, I do declare."
"Yes," explained the mild little man. "There's sights of desp'radoes
makes a han'some livin' out o' followin' them coaches, an' stoppin'
an' robbin' 'em clean to the bone. Your money _or_ your life!" and he
flourished his stub of a whip over the sorrel mare.
"Landy me! you make me run all of a cold creep. Do tell somethin'
heartenin', this cold day. I shall dream bad dreams all night."
"They put on black crape over their heads," said the driver
mysteriously. "Nobody knows who most on 'em be, and like as not some
o' them fellows come o' good families. They've got so they stop the
cars, and go right through 'em bold as brass. I could make your hair
stand on end, Mis' Tobin,--I could _so!_"
"I hope none on 'em 'll git round our way, I'm sure," said Fanny
Tobin. "I don't want to see none on 'em in their crape bunnits comin'
after me."
"I ain't goin' to let nobody touch a hair o' your head," and
Mr. Briley moved a little nearer, and tucked in the buffaloes again.
"I feel considerable warm to what I did," observed the widow by way of
reward.
"There, I used to have my fears," Mr. Briley resumed, with an inward
feeling that he never would get to North Kilby depot a single man.
"But you see I hadn't nobody but myself to think of. I've got cousins,
as you know, but nothin' nearer, and what I've laid up would soon be
parted out; and--well, I suppose some folks would think o' me if
anything was to happen."
Mrs. Tobin was holding her cloud over her face,--the wind was sharp on
that bit of open road,--but she gave an encouraging sound, between a
groan and a chirp.
"'T wouldn't be like nothin' to me not to see you drivin' by," she
said, after a minute. "I shouldn't know the days o' the week. I says
to Susan Ellen last week I was sure 't was Friday, and she said no, 't
was Thursday; but next minute you druv by and headin' toward North
Kilby, so we found I was right."
"I've got to be a featur' of the landscape," said Mr. Briley
plaintively. "This kind o' weather the old mare and me, we wish we was
done with it, and could settle down kind o' comfortable. I've been
lookin' this good while, as I drove the road, and I've picked me out a
piece o' land two or three times. But I can't abide the thought o'
buildin',--'t would plague me to death; and both Sister Peak to North
Kilby and Mis' Deacon Ash to the Pond, they vie with one another to do
well by me, fear I'll like the other stoppin'-place best."
"_I_ shouldn't covet livin' long o' neither one o' them women,"
responded the passenger with some spirit. "I see some o' Mis' Peak's
cookin' to a farmers' supper once, when I was visitin' Susan Ellen's
folks, an' I says 'Deliver me from sech pale-complected baked beans as
them!' and she give a kind of a quack. She was settin' jest at my left
hand, and couldn't help hearin' of me. I wouldn't have spoken if I had
known, but she needn't have let on they was hers an' make everything
unpleasant. 'I guess them beans taste just as well as other folks','
says she, and she wouldn't never speak to me afterward."
"Do' know's I blame her," ventured Mr. Briley. "Women folks is
dreadful pudjicky about their cookin'. I've always heard you was one
o' the best o' cooks, Mis' Tobin. I know them doughnuts an' things
you've give me in times past, when I was drivin' by. Wish I had some
on 'em now. I never let on, but Mis' Ash's cookin' 's the best by a
long chalk. Mis' Peak's handy about some things, and looks after
mendin' of me up."
"It doos seem as if a man o' your years and your quiet make ought to
have a home you could call your own," suggested the passenger. "I kind
of hate to think o' your bangein' here and boardin' there, and one old
woman mendin', and the other settin' ye down to meals that like's not
don't agree with ye."
"Lor', now, Mis' Tobin, le's not fuss round no longer," said
Mr. Briley impatiently. "You know you covet me same 's I do you."
"I don't nuther. Don't you go an' say fo'lish things you can't stand
to."
"I've been tryin' to git a chance to put in a word with you ever
sence--Well, I expected you'd want to get your feelin's kind o'
calloused after losin' Tobin."
"There's nobody can fill his place," said the widow.
"I do' know but I can fight for ye town-meetin' days, on a pinch,"
urged Jefferson boldly.
"I never see the beat o' you men fur conceit," and Mrs. Tobin laughed.
"I ain't goin' to bother with ye, gone half the time as you be, an'
carryin' on with your Mis' Peaks and Mis' Ashes. I dare say you've
promised yourself to both on 'em twenty times."
"I hope to gracious if I ever breathed a word to none on 'em!"
protested the lover. "'T ain't for lack o' opportunities set afore me,
nuther;" and then Mr. Briley craftily kept silence, as if he had made
a fair proposal, and expected a definite reply.
The lady of his choice was, as she might have expressed it, much beat
about. As she soberly thought, she was getting along in years, and
must put up with Jefferson all the rest of the time. It was not likely
she would ever have the chance of choosing again, though she was one
who liked variety.
Jefferson wasn't much to look at, but he was pleasant and appeared
boyish and young-feeling. "I do' know's I should do better," she said
unconsciously and half aloud. "Well, yes, Jefferson, seein' it's you.
But we're both on us kind of old to change our situation." Fanny Tobin
gave a gentle sigh.
"Hooray!" said Jefferson. "I was scairt you meant to keep me sufferin'
here a half an hour. I declare, I'm more pleased than I calc'lated on.
An' I expected till lately to die a single man!"
"'T would re'lly have been a shame; 't ain't natur'," said Mrs. Tobin,
with confidence. "I don't see how you held out so long with bein'
solitary."
"I'll hire a hand to drive for me, and we'll have a good comfortable
winter, me an' you an' the old sorrel. I've been promisin' of her a
rest this good while."
"Better keep her a steppin'," urged thrifty Mrs. Fanny. "She'll
stiffen up master, an' disapp'int ye, come spring."
"You'll have me, now, won't ye, sartin?" pleaded Jefferson, to make
sure. "You ain't one o' them that plays with a man's feelin's. Say
right out you'll have me."
"I s'pose I shall have to," said Mrs. Tobin somewhat mournfully. "I
feel for Mis' Peak an' Mis' Ash, pore creatur's. I expect they'll be
hardshipped. They've always been hard-worked, an' may have kind o'
looked forward to a little ease. But one on 'em would be left
lamentin', anyhow," and she gave a girlish laugh. An air of victory
animated the frame of Mrs. Tobin. She felt but twenty-five years of
age. In that moment she made plans for cutting her Briley's hair, and
making him look smartened-up and ambitious. Then she wished that she
knew for certain how much money he had in the bank; not that it would
make any difference now. "He needn't bluster none before me," she
thought gayly. "He's harmless as a fly."
"Who'd have thought we'd done such a piece of engineerin', when we
started out?" inquired the dear one of Mr. Briley's heart, as he
tenderly helped her to alight at Susan Ellen's door.
"Both on us, jest the least grain," answered the lover. "Gimme a good
smack, now, you clever creatur';" and so they parted. Mr. Briley had
been taken on the road in spite of his pistol.
THE MISTRESS OF SYDENHAM PLANTATION.
A high wind was blowing from the water into the Beaufort streets,--a
wind with as much reckless hilarity as March could give to her
breezes, but soft and spring-like, almost early-summer-like, in its
warmth.
In the gardens of the old Southern houses that stood along the bay,
roses and petisporum-trees were blooming, with their delicious
fragrance. It was the time of wistarias and wild white lilies, of the
last yellow jas-mines and the first Cherokee roses. It was the
Saturday before Easter Sunday.
In the quaint churchyard of old St. Helena's Church, a little way from
the bay, young figures were busy among the graves with industrious
gardening. At first sight, one might have thought that this pretty
service was rendered only from loving sentiments of loyalty to one's
ancestors, for under the great live-oaks, the sturdy brick walls about
the family burying-places and the gravestones themselves were
moss-grown and ancient-looking; yet here and there the wounded look of
the earth appealed to the eye, and betrayed a new-made grave. The old
sarcophagi and heavy tablets of the historic Beaufort families stood
side by side with plain wooden crosses. The armorial bearings and long
epitaphs of the one and the brief lettering of the other suggested the
changes that had come with the war to these families, yet somehow the
wooden cross touched one's heart with closer sympathy. The padlocked
gates to the small inclosures stood open, while gentle girls passed in
and out with their Easter flowers of remembrance. On the high
churchyard wall and great gate-posts perched many a mocking-bird, and
the golden light changed the twilight under the live-oaks to a misty
warmth of color. The birds began to sing louder; the gray moss that
hung from the heavy boughs swayed less and less, and gave the place a
look of pensive silence.
In the church itself, most of the palms and rose branches were already
in place for the next day's feast, and the old organ followed a fresh
young voice that was being trained for the Easter anthem. The five
doors of the church were standing open. On the steps of that eastern
door which opened midway up the side aisle, where the morning sun had
shone in upon the white faces of a hospital in war-time,--in this
eastern doorway sat two young women.
"I was just thinking," one was saying to the other, "that for the
first time Mistress Sydenham has forgotten to keep this day. You know
that when she has forgotten everything and everybody else, she has
known when Easter came, and has brought flowers to her graves."
"Has she been more feeble lately, do you think?" asked the younger of
the two. "Mamma saw her the other day, and thought that she seemed
more like herself; but she looked very old, too. She told mamma to
bring her dolls, and she would give her some bits of silk to make them
gowns. Poor mamma! and she had just been wondering how she could
manage to get us ready for summer, this year,--Celestine and me," and
the speaker smiled wistfully.
"It is a mercy that the dear old lady did forget all that happened;"
and the friends brushed some last bits of leaves from their skirts,
and rose and walked away together through the churchyard.
The ancient church waited through another Easter Even, with its
flowers and long memory of prayer and praise. The great earthquake had
touched it lightly, time had colored it softly, and the earthly bodies
of its children were gathered near its walls in peaceful sleep.
From one of the high houses which stood fronting the sea, with their
airy balconies and colonnades, had come a small, slender figure, like
some shy, dark thing of twilight out into the bright sunshine. The
street was empty, for the most part; before one or two of the cheap
German shops a group of men watched the little old lady step proudly
by. She was a very stately gentlewoman, for one so small and thin; she
was feeble, too, and bending somewhat with the weight of years, but
there was true elegance and dignity in the way she moved, and those
who saw her--persons who shuffled when they walked, and boasted loudly
of the fallen pride of the South--were struck with sudden deference
and admiration. Behind the lady walked a gray-headed negro, a man who
was troubled in spirit, who sometimes gained a step or two, and
offered an anxious but quite unheeded remonstrance. He was a poor,
tottering old fellow; he wore a threadbare evening coat that might
have belonged to his late master thirty years before.
The pair went slowly along the bay street to the end of a row of new
shops, and the lady turned decidedly toward the water, and approached
the ferry-steps. Her servitor groaned aloud, but waited in respectful
helplessness. There was a group of negro children on the steps,
employed in the dangerous business of crab-fishing; at the foot, in
his flat-bottomed boat, sat a wondering negro lad, who looked up in
apprehension at his passengers. The lady seemed like a ghost. Old
Peter,--with whose scorn of modern beings and their ways he was
partially familiar,--old Peter was making frantic signs to him to put
out from shore. But the lady's calm desire for obedience prevailed,
and presently, out of the knot of idlers that gathered quickly, one,
more chivalrous than the rest, helped the strange adventurers down
into the boat. It was the fashion to laugh and joke, in Beaufort, when
anything unusual was happening before the eyes of the younger part of
the colored population; but as the ferryman pushed off from shore,
even the crab-fishers kept awe-struck silence, and there were
speechless, open mouths and much questioning of eyes that showed their
whites in vain. Somehow or other, before the boat was out of hail,
long before it had passed the first bank of raccoon oysters, the tide
being at the ebb, it was known by fifty people that for the first time
in more than twenty years the mistress of the old Sydenham plantation
on St. Helena's Island had taken it into her poor daft head to go to
look after her estates, her crops, and her people. Everybody knew that
her estates had been confiscated during the war; that her people owned
it themselves now, in three and five and even twenty acre lots; that
her crops of rice and Sea Island cotton were theirs, planted and hoed
and harvested on their own account. All these years she had forgotten
Sydenham, and the live-oak avenue, and the outlook across the water to
the Hunting Islands, where the deer ran wild; she had forgotten the
war; she had forgotten her children and her husband, except that they
had gone away,--the graves to which she carried Easter flowers were
her mother's and her father's graves,--and her life was spent in a
strange dream.
Old Peter sat facing her in the boat; the ferryman pulled lustily at
his oars, and they moved quickly along in the ebbing tide. The
ferryman longed to get his freight safely across; he was in a fret of
discomfort whenever he looked at the clear-cut, eager face before him
in the stern. How still and straight the old mistress sat! Where was
she going? He was awed by her presence, and took refuge, as he rowed,
in needless talk about the coming of the sandflies and the great
drum-fish to Beaufort waters. But Peter had clasped his hands together
and bowed his old back, as if he did not dare to look anywhere but at
the bottom of the boat. Peter was still groaning softly; the old lady
was looking back over the water to the row of fine houses, the once
luxurious summer homes of Rhetts and Barnwells, of many a famous
household now scattered and impoverished. The ferryman had heard of
more one than bereft lady or gentleman who lived in seclusion in the
old houses. He knew that Peter still served a mysterious mistress with
exact devotion, while most of the elderly colored men and women who
had formed the retinues of the old families were following their own
affairs, far and wide.
"Oh, Lord, ole mis'! what kin I go to do?" mumbled Peter, with his
head in his hands. "Thar'll be nothin' to see. Po' ole mis', I do'
kno' what you say. Trouble, trouble!"
But the mistress of Sydenham plantation had a way of speaking but
seldom, and of rarely listening to what any one was pleased to say in
return. Out of the mistiness of her clouded brain a thought had come
with unwonted clearness. She must go to the island: her husband and
sons were detained at a distance; it was the time of year to look
after corn and cotton; she must attend to her house and her slaves.
The remembrance of that news of battle and of the three deaths that
had left her widowed and childless had faded away in the illness it
had brought. She never comprehended her loss; she was like one
bewitched into indifference; she remembered something of her youth,
and kept a simple routine of daily life, and that was all.
"I t'ought she done fo'git ebryt'ing," groaned Peter again. "O Lord,
hab mercy on ole mis'!"
The landing-place on Ladies' Island was steep and sandy, and the
oarsman watched Peter help the strange passenger up the ascent with a
sense of blessed relief. He pushed off a little way into the stream,
for better self-defense. At the top of the bluff was a rough shed,
built for shelter, and Peter looked about him eagerly, while his
mistress stood, expectant and imperious, in the shade of a pride of
India tree, that grew among the live-oaks and pines of a wild thicket.
He was wretched with a sense of her discomfort, though she gave no
sign of it. He had learned to know by instinct all that was unspoken.
In the old times she would have found four oarsmen waiting with a
cushioned boat at the ferry; she would have found a saddle-horse or a
carriage ready for her on Ladies' Island for the five miles' journey,
but the carriage had not come. The poor gray-headed old man recognized
her displeasure. He was her only slave left, if she did but know it.
"Fo' Gord's sake, git me some kin' of a cart. Ole mis', she done wake
up and mean to go out to Syd'n'am dis day," urged Peter. "Who dis hoss
an' kyart in de shed? Who make dese track wid huffs jus' now, like dey
done ride by? Yo' go git somebody fo' me, or she be right mad, shore."
The elderly guardian of the shed, who was also of the old _regime_,
hobbled away quickly, and backed out a steer that was broken to
harness, and a rickety two-wheeled cart. Their owner had left them
there for some hours, and had crossed the ferry to Beaufort. Old
mistress must be obeyed, and they looked toward her beseechingly where
she was waiting, deprecating her disapproval of this poor apology for
a conveyance. The lady long since had ceased to concern herself with
the outward shapes of things; she accepted this possibility of
carrying out her plans, and they lifted her light figure to the chair,
in the cart's end, while Peter mounted before her with all a
coachman's dignity,--he once had his ambitions of being her
coachman,--and they moved slowly away through the deep sand.
"My Gord A'mighty, look out fo' us now," said Peter over and over.
"Ole mis', she done fo'git, good Lord, she done fo'git how de Good
Marsa up dere done took f'om her ebryt'ing; she 'spect now she find
Syd'n'am all de same like's it was 'fo' de war. She ain't know 'bout
what's been sence day of de gun-shoot on Port Royal and dar-away. O
Lord A'mighty, yo' know how yo' stove her po' head wid dem gun-shoot;
be easy to ole mis'."
But as Peter pleaded in the love and sorrow of his heart, the lady who
sat behind him was unconscious of any cause for grief. Some sweet
vagaries in her own mind were matched to the loveliness of the day.
All her childhood, spent among the rustic scenes of these fertile Sea
Islands, was yielding for her now an undefined pleasantness of
association. The straight-stemmed palmettos stood out with picturesque
clearness against the great level fields, with their straight furrows
running out of sight. Figures of men and women followed the furrow
paths slowly; here were men and horses bending to the ploughshare, and
there women and children sowed with steady hand the rich seed of their
crops. There were touches of color in the head kerchiefs; there were
sounds of songs as the people worked,--not gay songs of the evening,
but some repeated line of a hymn, to steady the patient feet and make
the work go faster,--the unconscious music of the blacks, who sing as
the beetle drones or the cricket chirps slowly under the dry grass. It
had a look of permanence, this cotton-planting. It was a thing to
paint, to relate itself to the permanence of art, an everlasting duty
of mankind; terrible if a thing of force, and compulsion and for
another's gain, but the birthright of the children of Adam, and not
unrewarded nor unnatural when one drew by it one's own life from the
earth.
Peter glanced through the hedge-rows furtively, this way and that.
What would his mistress say to the cabins that were scattered all
about the fields now, and that were no longer put together in the long
lines of the quarters? He looked down a deserted lane, where he well
remembered fifty cabins on each side of the way. It was gay there of a
summer evening; the old times had not been without their pleasures,
and the poor old man's heart leaped with the vague delight of his
memories. He had never been on the block; he was born and bred at old
Sydenham; he had been trusted in house and field.
"I done like dem ole times de best," ventures Peter, presently, to his
unresponding companion. "Dere was good 'bout dem times. I say I like
de ole times good as any. Young folks may be a change f'om me."
He was growing gray in the face with apprehension; he did not dare to
disobey.
The slow-footed beast of burden was carrying them toward Sydenham step
by step, and he dreaded the moment of arrival. He was like a
mesmerized creature, who can only obey the force of a directing will;
but under pretense of handling the steer's harness, he got stiffly to
the ground to look at his mistress. He could not turn to face her, as
he sat in the cart; he could not drive any longer and feel her there
behind him. The silence was too great. It was a relief to see her
placid face, and to see even a more youthful look in its worn lines.
She had been a very beautiful woman in her young days. And a solemn
awe fell upon Peter's tender heart, lest the veil might be lifting
from her hidden past, and there, alone with him on the old plantation,
she would die of grief and pain. God only knew what might happen! The
old man mounted to his seat, and again they plodded on.
"Peter," said the mistress,--he was always frightened when she
spoke,--"Peter, we must hurry. I was late in starting. I have a great
deal to do. Urge the horses."
"Yas, mis',--yas, mis'," and Peter laughed aloud nervously, and
brandished his sassafras switch, while the steer hastened a little.
They had come almost to the gates.
"Who are these?" the stately wayfarer asked once, as they met some
persons who gazed at them in astonishment.
"I 'spect dem de good ladies f'om de Norf, what come down to show de
cullud folks how to do readin'," answered Peter bravely. "It do look
kind o' comfo'ble over here," he added wistfully, half to himself. He
could not understand even now how oblivious she was of the great
changes on St. Helena's.
There were curious eyes watching from the fields, and here by the
roadside an aged black woman came to her cabin door.
"Lord!" exclaimed Peter, "what kin I do now? An' ole Sibyl, she's done
crazy too, and dey'll be mischievous together."
The steer could not be hurried past, and Sibyl came and leaned against
the wheel. "Mornin', mistis," said Sibyl, "an' yo' too, Peter. How's
all? Day ob judgment's comin' in mornin'! Some nice buttermilk? I done
git rich; t'at's my cow," and she pointed to the field and chuckled.
Peter felt as if his brain were turning. "Bless de Lord, I no more
slave," said old Sibyl, looking up with impudent scrutiny at her old
mistress's impassive face. "Yo' know Mars' Middleton, what yo' buy me
f'om? He my foster-brother; we push away from same breast. He got
trouble, po' gen'elman; he sorry to sell Sibyl; he give me silver
dollar dat day, an' feel bad. 'Neber min', I say. I get good mistis,
young mistis at Sydenham. I like her well, I did so. I pick my two
hunderd poun' all days, an' I ain't whipped. Too bad sold me, po'
Mars' Middleton, but he in trouble. He done come see me last
plantin'," Sibyl went on proudly. "Oh, Gord, he grown ole and
poor-lookin'. He come in, just in dat do', an' he say, 'Sibyl, I long
an' long to see you, an' now I see you;' an' he kiss an' kiss me. An'
dere's one wide ribber o' Jordan, an' we'll soon be dere, black an'
white. I was right glad I see ole Mars' Middleton 'fore I die."
The old creature poured forth the one story of her great joy and
pride; she had told it a thousand times. It had happened, not the last
planting, but many plantings ago. It remained clear when everything
else was confused. There was no knowing what she might say next. She
began to take the strange steps of a slow dance, and Peter urged his
steer forward, while his mistress said suddenly, "Good-by, Sibyl. I am
glad you are doing so well," with a strange irrelevancy of
graciousness. It was in the old days before the war that Sibyl had
fallen insensible, one day, in the cotton-field. Did her mistress
think that it was still that year, and--Peter's mind could not puzzle
out this awful day of anxiety.
They turned at last into the live-oak avenue,--they had only another
half mile to go; and here, in the place where the lady had closest
association, her memory was suddenly revived almost to clearness. She
began to hurry Peter impatiently; it was a mischance that she had not
been met at the ferry. She was going to see to putting the house in
order, and the women were all waiting. It was autumn, and they were
going to move over from Beaufort; it was spring next moment, and she
had to talk with her overseers. The old imperiousness flashed out. Did
not Peter know that his master was kept at the front, and the young
gentlemen were with him, and their regiment was going into action? It
was a blessing to come over and forget it all, but Peter must drive,
drive. They had taken no care of the avenue; how the trees were broken
in the storm! The house needed--They were going to move the next day
but one, and nothing was ready. A party of gentlemen were coming from
Charleston in the morning!--
They passed the turn of the avenue; they came out to the open lawn,
and the steer stopped and began to browse. Peter shook from head to
foot. He climbed down by the wheel, and turned his face slowly. "Ole
mis'!" he said feebly. "_Ole mis'!_"
She was looking off into space. The cart jerked as it moved after the
feeding steer. The mistress of Sydenham plantation had sought her home
in vain. The crumbled, fallen chimneys of the house were there among
the weeds, and that was all.
On Christmas Day and Easter Day, many an old man and woman come into
St. Helena's Church who are not seen there the rest of the year. There
are not a few recluses in the parish, who come to listen to their
teacher and to the familiar prayers, read with touching earnestness
and simplicity, as one seldom hears the prayers read anywhere. This
Easter morning dawned clear and bright, as Easter morning should. The
fresh-bloomed roses and lilies were put in their places. There was no
touch of paid hands anywhere, and the fragrance blew softly about the
church. As you sat in your pew, you could look out through the
wide-opened doors, and see the drooping branches, and the birds as
they sat singing on the gravestones. The sad faces of the old people,
the cheerful faces of the young, passed by up the aisle. One figure
came to sit alone in one of the pews, to bend its head in prayer after
the ancient habit. Peter led her, as usual, to the broad-aisle
doorway, and helped her, stumbling himself, up the steps, and many
eyes filled with tears as his mistress went to her place. Even the
tragic moment of yesterday was lost already in the acquiescence of her
mind, as the calm sea shines back to the morning sun when another
wreck has gone down.
THE TOWN POOR.
Mrs. William Trimble and Miss Rebecca Wright were driving along
Hampden east road, one afternoon in early spring. Their progress was
slow. Mrs. Trimble's sorrel horse was old and stiff, and the wheels
were clogged by day mud. The frost was not yet out of the ground,
although the snow was nearly gone, except in a few places on the north
side of the woods, or where it had drifted all winter against a length
of fence.
"There must be a good deal o' snow to the nor'ard of us yet," said
weather-wise Mrs. Trimble. "I feel it in the air; 't is more than the
ground-damp. We ain't goin' to have real nice weather till the
up-country snow's all gone."
"I heard say yesterday that there was good sleddin' yet, all up
through Parsley," responded Miss Wright. "I shouldn't like to live in
them northern places. My cousin Ellen's husband was a Parsley man, an'
he was obliged, as you may have heard, to go up north to his father's
second wife's funeral; got back day before yesterday. 'T was about
twenty-one miles, an' they started on wheels; but when they'd gone
nine or ten miles, they found 't was no sort o' use, an' left their
wagon an' took a sleigh. The man that owned it charged 'em four an'
six, too. I shouldn't have thought he would; they told him they was
goin' to a funeral; an' they had their own buffaloes an' everything."
"Well, I expect it's a good deal harder scratching up that way; they
have to git money where they can; the farms is very poor as you go
north," suggested Mrs. Trimble kindly. "'T ain't none too rich a
country where we be, but I've always been grateful I wa'n't born up to
Parsley."
The old horse plodded along, and the sun, coming out from the heavy
spring clouds, sent a sudden shine of light along the muddy road.
Sister Wright drew her large veil forward over the high brim of her
bonnet. She was not used to driving, or to being much in the open air;
but Mrs. Trimble was an active business woman, and looked after her
own affairs herself, in all weathers. The late Mr. Trimble had left
her a good farm, but not much ready money, and it was often said that
she was better off in the end than if he had lived. She regretted his
loss deeply, however; it was impossible for her to speak of him, even
to intimate friends, without emotion, and nobody had ever hinted that
this emotion was insincere. She was most warm-hearted and generous,
and in her limited way played the part of Lady Bountiful in the town
of Hampden.
"Why, there's where the Bray girls lives, ain't it?" she exclaimed,
as, beyond a thicket of witch-hazel and scrub-oak, they came in sight
of a weather-beaten, solitary farmhouse. The barn was too far away for
thrift or comfort, and they could see long lines of light between the
shrunken boards as they came nearer. The fields looked both stony and
sodden. Somehow, even Parsley itself could be hardly more forlorn.
"Yes'm," said Miss Wright, "that's where they live now, poor things. I
know the place, though I ain't been up here for years. You don't
suppose, Mis' Trimble--I ain't seen the girls out to meetin' all
winter. I've re'lly been covetin'"--
"Why, yes, Rebecca, of course we could stop," answered Mrs. Trimble
heartily. "The exercises was over earlier 'n I expected, an' you're
goin' to remain over night long o' me, you know. There won't be no tea
till we git there, so we can't be late. I'm in the habit o' sendin' a
basket to the Bray girls when any o' our folks is comin' this way, but
I ain't been to see 'em since they moved up here. Why, it must be a
good deal over a year ago. I know 't was in the late winter they had
to make the move. 'T was cruel hard, I must say, an' if I hadn't been
down with my pleurisy fever I'd have stirred round an' done somethin'
about it. There was a good deal o' sickness at the time, an'--well, 't
was kind o' rushed through, breakin' of 'em up, an' lots o' folks
blamed the selec'_men_; but when't was done, 't was done, an' nobody
took holt to undo it. Ann an' Mandy looked same's ever when they come
to meetin', 'long in the summer,--kind o' wishful, perhaps. They've
always sent me word they was gittin' on pretty comfortable."
"That would be their way," said Rebecca Wright. "They never was any
hand to complain, though Mandy's less cheerful than Ann. If Mandy 'd
been spared such poor eyesight, an' Ann hadn't got her lame wrist that
wa'n't set right, they'd kep' off the town fast enough. They both shed
tears when they talked to me about havin' to break up, when I went to
see 'em before I went over to brother Asa's. You see we was brought up
neighbors, an' we went to school together, the Brays an' me. 'T was a
special Providence brought us home this road, I've been so covetin' a
chance to git to see 'em. My lameness hampers me."
"I'm glad we come this way, myself," said Mrs. Trimble.
"I'd like to see just how they fare," Miss Rebecca Wright continued.
"They give their consent to goin' on the town because they knew they'd
got to be dependent, an' so they felt 't would come easier for all
than for a few to help 'em. They acted real dignified an'
right-minded, contrary to what most do in such cases, but they was
dreadful anxious to see who would bid 'em off, town-meeting day; they
did so hope 't would be somebody right in the village. I just sat down
an' cried good when I found Abel Janes's folks had got hold of 'em.
They always had the name of bein' slack an' poor-spirited, an' they
did it just for what they got out o' the town. The selectmen this last
year ain't what we have had. I hope they've been considerate about the
Bray girls."
"I should have be'n more considerate about fetchin' of you over,"
apologized Mrs. Trimble. "I've got my horse, an' you 're lame-footed;
't is too far for you to come. But time does slip away with busy
folks, an' I forgit a good deal I ought to remember."
"There's nobody more considerate than you be," protested Miss Rebecca
Wright.
Mrs. Trimble made no answer, but took out her whip and gently touched
the sorrel horse, who walked considerably faster, but did not think it
worth while to trot. It was a long, round-about way to the house,
farther down the road and up a lane.
"I never had any opinion of the Bray girls' father, leavin' 'em as he
did," said Mrs. Trimble.
"He was much praised in his time, though there was always some said
his early life hadn't been up to the mark," explained her companion.
"He was a great favorite of our then preacher, the Reverend Daniel
Longbrother. They did a good deal for the parish, but they did it
their own way. Deacon Bray was one that did his part in the repairs
without urging. You know 't was in his time the first repairs was
made, when they got out the old soundin'-board an' them handsome
square pews. It cost an awful sight o' money, too. They hadn't done
payin' up that debt when they set to alter it again an' git the walls
frescoed. My grandmother was one that always spoke her mind right out,
an' she was dreadful opposed to breakin' up the square pews where
she'd always set. They was countin' up what 't would cost in parish
meetin', an' she riz right up an' said 't wouldn't cost nothin' to
let 'em stay, an' there wa'n't a house carpenter left in the
parish that could do such nice work, an' time would come when the
great-grandchildren would give their eye-teeth to have the old
meetin'-house look just as it did then. But haul the inside to pieces
they would and did."
"There come to be a real fight over it, didn't there?" agreed
Mrs. Trimble soothingly. "Well, 't wa'n't good taste. I remember the
old house well. I come here as a child to visit a cousin o' mother's,
an' Mr. Trimble's folks was neighbors, an' we was drawed to each other
then, young's we was. Mr. Trimble spoke of it many's the time,--that
first time he ever see me, in a leghorn hat with a feather; 't was one
that mother had, an' pressed over."
"When I think of them old sermons that used to be preached in that old
meetin'-house of all, I'm glad it's altered over, so's not to remind
folks," said Miss Rebecca Wright, after a suitable pause. "Them old
brimstone discourses, you know, Mis' Trimble. Preachers is far more
reasonable, nowadays. Why, I set an' thought, last Sabbath, as I
listened, that if old Mr. Longbrother an' Deacon Bray could hear the
difference they 'd crack the ground over 'em like pole beans, an' come
right up 'long side their headstones."
Mrs. Trimble laughed heartily, and shook the reins three or four times
by way of emphasis. "There's no gitting round you," she said, much
pleased. "I should think Deacon Bray would want to rise, any way, if
't was so he could, an' knew how his poor girls was farin'. A man
ought to provide for his folks he's got to leave behind him, specially
if they're women. To be sure, they had their little home; but we've
seen how, with all their industrious ways, they hadn't means to keep
it. I s'pose he thought he'd got time enough to lay by, when he give
so generous in collections; but he didn't lay by, an' there they be.
He might have took lessons from the squirrels: even them little wild
creator's makes them their winter hoards, an' men-folks ought to know
enough if squirrels does. 'Be just before you are generous:' that's
what was always set for the B's in the copy-books, when I was to
school, and it often runs through my mind."
"'As for man, his days are as grass,'--that was for A; the two go well
together," added Miss Rebecca Wright soberly. "My good gracious, ain't
this a starved-lookin' place? It makes me ache to think them nice Bray
girls has to brook it here."
The sorrel horse, though somewhat puzzled by an unexpected deviation
from his homeward way, willingly came to a stand by the gnawed corner
of the door-yard fence, which evidently served as hitching-place. Two
or three ragged old hens were picking about the yard, and at last a
face appeared at the kitchen window, tied up in a handkerchief, as if
it were a case of toothache. By the time our friends reached the side
door next this window, Mrs. Janes came disconsolately to open it for
them, shutting it again as soon as possible, though the air felt more
chilly inside the house.