_The Barn Frolic._
If Rhoda doubted James’s chivalric attitude toward her, she had
reason to change her mind before the day was over. Her escort was
all attention, and when it became evident that Becky Lowe had lost
her wager, Lettice cast a merry glance at Rhoda, giving her a nod of
approval. In spite of the fact that Becky was a neighbor, Lettice felt
that she must champion her uncle’s guest. As they stepped aboard the
little vessel which was to take them on their short sail, she whispered
to Patsey, “We must make Rhoda have a good time.” And Patsey gave a
responsive smile.
Patsey had been a little jealous of Rhoda on Joe’s account, but the
evident devotion of his Cousin James rather relieved her feelings in
that direction, and she confessed to herself that Joe had paid Rhoda
only such attentions as were becoming that he should show to a visitor
in his father’s house.
“Now what are we going to do?” asked Becky, when they were all safely
aboard the graceful sailboat which, with canvas set, was speeding
toward Love Point.
“We’re going to Kent Island, you know,” Lettice told her. “We are not
going anywhere else first, are we, Birket?” She turned to address a
very young gentleman at her side.
“No, miss,” he returned, “so Joe Hopkins says. I was over at the
Ringgold’s, and Joe asked me to come along.”
“But you didn’t come without knowing where we were going, did you,
Birket?”
The young man murmured something unintelligible, and gave his attention
to the jib-boom which threatened to annihilate Rhoda, who was not used
to a sailing vessel.
“You don’t go sailing up your way much, do you, Miss Kendall?” Becky
said. “We all down here go about on the water as much as we do on the
land.”
“We don’t have to,” Rhoda returned, a trifle defiantly. She was on the
defensive since her late talk with James. She had scarcely spoken to
the young man since they had started from home, but had managed to seat
herself near Patsey and Joe.
“No, they don’t have to up there,” spoke up James. “They have good
roads, and go straight at a thing instead of driving over roundabout
ways for miles to a place not a mile off, as we have to do. I tell you
that is a fine harbor they have there at Boston, Miss Rhoda! Ever been
there, Becky?”
“No, you know I haven’t!” she returned with some vexation.
“And it’s a beautiful coast,” James went on; “rocky, you know; not
sandy like ours. It certainly seems right pretty after our level
country, where we go miles on a stretch without so much as one little
hill to break the monotony.”
Becky was silenced for the time, but she had shafts in reserve. She
resented the presence of this fair-haired Northern girl. What business
had she down there usurping Becky’s own right to an admirer? Lettice
watched the manœuvres of Miss Becky with sly glances at Patsey. Lettice
herself was entirely heart-free. She was too young to be greatly
troubled by affairs of sentiment, although she had twice imagined
herself violently in love; once with a young gentleman who had passed
an evening at her uncle’s, and who had made himself particularly
agreeable to her; even now she liked to think about him, wondering if
she should ever see him again. He was from New York, she remembered,
and she became so absorbed in her recollections of him, that she did
not notice the youthful cavalier who stood waiting to help her ashore.
“Lettice is going to stay where she is,” laughed Becky; “she doesn’t
care to dance, you know, nor does she care for supper.”
“Don’t I?” cried Lettice, on her feet at once. “I do care. Your hand,
Birk, and I’ll be ashore before any one;” which indeed she was, and
stood laughing to greet the others as each made the landing.
A supper of oysters, crabs, biscuits, and such-like Maryland dainties,
was eaten merrily enough. Rhoda was a little reserved, but chatted
pleasantly with Patsey, Joe, and the one or two whom she knew; Lettice
was full of fun, and was as sportive as a kitten, ready to go crabbing,
or to row out into the creek whose waters reflected a gorgeous sunset
sky, to tease her Cousin Joe, or her Brother James, till finally she
dropped down on the sands in quite a thoughtful mood, listening to
Becky’s lazy voice as she inquired of Rhoda, “Do you go fox-hunting,
Miss Kendall?”
“No, I do not,” was the reply. “I ride sometimes, but we are not much
given to the chase.”
“Oh!” Becky lifted her eyebrows. “It’s very exciting, and we all think
it’s great fun. Shall you stay long enough to go this fall when the
season begins?”
“I hardly know; it will depend upon my father’s plans. He is in
Washington now.”
“Is he getting ready to fight?”
“I hope not,” Rhoda returned severely.
“Oh, don’t you want war? We all do; we think it must come. Isn’t it
funny, Mr. Dean? Miss Kendall doesn’t approve of the war.”
“That’s because she’s from Massachusetts,” Mr. Dean made reply, having
reasons of his own for wanting to please Miss Becky.
Rhoda bit her lip, but James came to the rescue. “Look here,” he said;
“it seems to me that it’s pretty early to be flinging at Massachusetts.
The war’s hardly begun, and if she wants to be cautious, what’s that
to us? I think her Revolutionary record will stand investigation. We
know well enough how she gave everything to the cause; her men didn’t
spare themselves, neither did her women. I say it’s too early, Dean,
to criticise.” He had moved closer to Rhoda, and she looked up at him
gratefully. “Perhaps we are the ones who are wrong, after all,” James
continued.
Stephen Dean gave a low whistle. “Whew!” he exclaimed, “I thought you
were hot foot for war.”
“So I am; but that isn’t saying that I’m infallible, is it? If we get
whipped, maybe we’ll wish we hadn’t been quite so peart in stirring up
old England--Hallo! there’s a boat coming in. It’s your father, Miss
Rhoda, and Uncle Tom, and a stranger.”
The small vessel containing the new arrivals now gracefully approached
the landing, and in a moment Rhoda was welcoming her father, Joe was
rapidly putting questions, while before Lettice, who was standing
shyly apart, was bowing the young gentleman of her dreams. “Fair Miss
Lettice, this is a very happy meeting,” said young Mr. Robert Clinton.
“I am fortunate to have arrived in time for a jubilee. What is the
occasion? a birthday?”
“No special occasion; it is but one of the frolics we often have.
Mr. Sam Osborne has built a new barn, and the young people in the
neighborhood are going to have a dance there this evening. We have just
been having a crab supper.”
“Am I too late for scraps?”
“No, there is an abundance left. I will order Bounce to get you all
something.”
“Don’t run away.”
“I will come back. I must see if my father sent me a message.” She
approached her Uncle Tom, having stopped to bid Bounce serve the
gentlemen with the best that was left of the feast.
“Free trade and sailor’s rights! that is the cry,” her uncle was
saying, and on the other side, Mr. Kendall replied, “As our great
Josiah Quincy says, sir, ‘we’re not going to be kicked into a war.’
Sailor’s rights, indeed! Where is your navy?”
“There,” Mr. Hopkins waved his hand toward the blue Chesapeake dotted
with the white sails of her schooners and clippers.
Mr. Kendall smiled sarcastically. “And your marines?”
“Here,” returned Mr. Hopkins, indicating the party of sunburnt young
men before them. “Think you, sir, that we shall endure the heel of
England upon our necks? You may be willing meekly to accept her abuse
for the sake of the profit that will accrue from swallowing her
insults, but we of the South are of a different mould.”
“Your John Randolph is not so eager to voice your cry of free trade
and sailor’s rights.”
“But our Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun do voice it.”
“Politics! Politics!” cried Lettice. “Just a short rest from them,
Uncle Tom. Will you and Mr. Kendall partake of some refreshments, and
leave politics till another time? It seems to me that you will find it
vastly more agreeable to discuss a devilled crab. Uncle Tom, did you
bring me any message from my father?”
“His love, and he will see you before we are ordered off.”
“Ordered off! Oh, Uncle Tom, you are really going to join the troops?”
“Yes.”
“What is the news from Canada, father?” Rhoda asked.
“What might have been expected,” he returned; “Hull has surrendered.”
“Oh, do you mean General William Hull?”
“That’s the man.”
Rhoda cast a triumphant glance at James who had joined them, and the
lad flushed angrily. “Is that really true, or is it only a report?” he
asked his uncle.
“Too true,” he answered; “but,” laying his hand on the boy’s shoulder,
“we shall have need of you yet, Jamie. We are disgusted, but not
defeated, for another Hull has given us a glorious victory on the sea
to offset our defeat on land.”
“What’s that, sir? We haven’t heard the news yet.”
“You might have heard it fast enough, if you had been a little nearer
to Baltimore, for they fired salutes in honor of the news, and every
ship in the harbor ran up her flag. Captain Isaac Hull has taken the
_Guerrière_ as a prize into Boston, and the whole country is jubilant.”
“The _Guerrière_? Dacres’s ship? Then Hull has won his hat,” James
cried. “Hurrah for Hull and the old _Constitution_!”
“What’s that about a hat?” Lettice asked.
“Why, Dacres and Hull laid a wager of a hat, each declaring that he
would whip the other if they ever met on the high seas, and old Hull
has won.” And James struck up a song written by Mr. Francis Hopkinson
and called “The Favorite New Federal Song,” although we know it now as
“Hail Columbia.”
“And you, sir?” said Lettice to Mr. Clinton, who, with a devilled crab
in one hand and a sandwich in the other, was about to throw himself at
her feet. “You, Mr. Clinton, what do you think of this war question?”
“It’s all nonsense!” he exclaimed with an amused glance at her.
“Surely, Miss Lettice, a pretty girl doesn’t need to bother her head
about loans, taxes, navies, and war news.”
Lettice regarded him gravely. “I am not so sure about that,” she
rejoined. “I don’t really know all about it, but I don’t think the
British have any right to steal our sailors.”
“And what do you think of the letters-of-marque and reprisal? And will
you favor me with your opinion on carrying trade and the constructive
blockade?”
Lettice looked bewildered, and Mr. Clinton laughed. “I did but tease
you, fair demoiselle. ’Tis not for ladies to bother their heads about
such things; what concerns them more is a question of a becoming gown
or a new dancing step. What, by the way, is this that I hear of a dance
in a barn? May I hope to have the honor?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“The first?”
“That is promised,” returned Lettice, reluctantly.
“The second, then?”
“That, too.”
“The third, then?”
“I told my Cousin Joe that I would give him that, but--”
“Since he is your cousin, perhaps I can persuade him to exchange places
with me, if you will allow.”
“Oh! ye-es,” Lettice replied, trying to cover her first exclamation of
eagerness by a little show of reluctance. “If you like, you can settle
it with Cousin Joe. I don’t care.”
Her uncle was watching her amusedly. “Don’t go over to the enemy,
Letty,” he said as she passed him.
“No fear of that,” she replied, laughing, but with a little fluttering
at heart. What was the use of a girl’s bothering about politics, after
all, she thought; even James had said that perhaps a war was not right,
and--yes, of course she was what her father was, but that didn’t mean
she could not have friends on the other side. Look at Mr. Kendall and
her Uncle Tom, they were brothers-in-law and friends, yet they didn’t
agree. So she put all disturbing questions aside, and danced her
prettiest with this new gallant, feeling that she was the envy of the
older girls, for no one was led out more gracefully than she, though
all the neighborhood was famous for its good dancers. The tobacco barn
with its big floor was a fine place for a dance, and the courtseyings
and dippings and bowings went on till all hours. The fashion of round
dances had not yet reached the place, and more stately measures were
used.
“Across there, where you see the lights twinkling, is Annapolis,”
Lettice told Mr. Clinton on their homeward voyage. She had turned
a cold shoulder on Birket Dean, and was listening with evident
pleasure to the newcomer’s low-spoken words. “It was from there the
_Constitution_ sailed, only last month; we saw her go out. I wonder
what will be the next news,” she said in one of the pauses of the
conversation.
“Still troubling your pretty head with such matters?” returned Mr.
Clinton, smiling at her. “Rather let us speak of yonder moon sailing so
serenely across the heavens.” And he began to quote poetry to her, till
she did indeed forget war’s alarms.
Lounging at Rhoda’s feet, James every now and then turned his curly
head toward the slim girl figure. She was very kind to him on this
homeward trip, and they did not once get into an argument.
Joe and Patsey sat suspiciously close together. They were both very
quiet. “If I were going to be married at Christmas, I wonder if I
should find no more to talk about than Joe and Patsey,” Lettice
thought. But she did not know that the wedding day was an indefinite
matter, and that Joe had just informed his sweetheart that he should,
in a few days, take command of one of his father’s clippers, and that
his business would be to harass English vessels whenever he could.
“I’d like to meet that wretched thief who stole Pat Flynn,” he said;
“I’d make him suffer for it.” But Patsey was silent. Privateering for
her Joe! The uncertainty of the sea was bad enough, but add to that
the dangers of warfare, and it was too much. The girl’s heart was very
full; she could only let her hand lie in Joe’s strong clasp, and be
thankful for the present, for the future seemed suddenly to slip into
an impenetrable cloud.
At first Joe had urged an immediate marriage, but Patsey shook her
head. “You’ll be back by Christmas?” she faltered.
“Surely, unless--” His clasp on Patsey’s hand tightened, and he had no
further words.
The little craft rounded Love’s Point and turned into the waters of
the Chester River. “Your uncle promises me some rare sport during the
shooting season down here. The country is a very paradise, not only
because of its delights, but because of the angelic beings who dwell
here,” Mr. Clinton remarked sentimentally to Lettice.
“Angels?” laughed Lettice. “Do you perhaps mean ghosts? The darkies are
dreadfully afraid of them, and won’t go near our graveyard.”
“Have you a special graveyard of your own?”
“Yes, haven’t you? Ours is such a quiet, dim little corner of the
plantation. It is all moss-grown, and the trees are so thick and green
there.”
“Will you show it to me some day?”
“Yes, if you like; but I don’t believe I’d care to go there at night
myself.”
“Not if I were with you? Surely, you’d not be afraid then.”
“You couldn’t keep off haunts,” returned Lettice. “Don’t let’s talk of
them, it makes me creepy. I like the place in the daytime, when the sun
shines in between the leaves and flickers down on the headstones. It
is pleasant to go there then, and lie in the long grass, only I always
like to have Lutie, even then.”
“And who is Lutie?”
“My maid. She belonged to my mother, and was given to me when I was
born.”
“And your mother?”
“She lies in the graveyard; so does my little sister. My eldest
brother’s headstone is there, too.” Lettice gave a sigh; she always
did when she spoke of this brother; a wild young fellow who had been
a trial to his family, and who one day set off for Norfolk with a
set of roistering fellows, as feather-brained as himself, and had
fallen overboard. A stone to his memory had been set up in the family
burying-ground, although his body had never been recovered. This loss
was the shock which hastened his mother’s death, and the family rarely
spoke of him.
Just then the old darkey who had been playing such tunes as “Cooney in
de Holler” and “Jim along o’ Josey” struck up a plaintive melody on his
fiddle. They were nearing home. Overhead a waning moon was low in the
heavens, athwart which, now and then, sped a meteor; all was still,
save for the lapping of waves against the sides of the boats or the
sound of the light breeze in the sails. One could not realize that soon
from shore to shore would reverberate the cannon’s booming, and that
terror would overspread the fair and quiet land.