CHESTNUTS AND GOLD MINES
"May I help? I think I could do that. It doesn't look hard," said
Katharine, wandering into the kitchen where Susanna was seeding
raisins--more raisins than the girl had ever seen together, save at a
grocer's counter. "What are you doing it for?"
"Fruit-cake. For Thanksgivin' an' Christmas. I ought to of done it long
ago, but the weather kep' so warm, an' one thing another's hendered. I'm
all behind with everything this fall, seems if. I've got to make my soft
soap yet, and--Laws, child, what do you lug that humbly dog all round
with you for? A beast as ugly favored as he is ought to do his own
walkin', and would, if he belonged to me."
"That's just why, I suppose. Because he 'belongs.' And because he isn't
old. Not so very. He isn't gray, anyway."
The Widow Sprigg looked over her spectacles and saw such a dejected face
that she immediately suggested caraway cookies. A delicacy which had
used to bring smiles to "Johnny's" countenance, even after he had
suffered that worst of all boyish trials,--a "lickin',"--and if there
was anything in heredity should restore cheer to the heart of "Johnny's"
daughter.
"No, thank you. But I'd like to help. I shall--shall burst if I don't do
something mighty soon," said Kate, excitedly. "I am hungry, but it's for
folks, not cookies. And why do you make cake for Christmas now when it's
forever and ever before it will come?"
"'Tain't so much for Christmas. Marsden folks don't set no great store
by any other holiday than Thanksgivin'. Another why is that fruit-cake
ain't fit to put in a body's mouth afore it's six seven months old at
the least. This here won't be worth shucks, but Eunice says better late
'n never, an' if it ain't ripe then t'will be for Easter. We never used
to hear tell of Easter, here in Marsden, till late years. Though Madam,
she always kep' it. She's met with a change of heart, however, sence she
became a Sturtevant, an' I'd ruther you wouldn't mention it, as comin'
from me, but--" here Susanna leaned forward and whispered,
sibilantly--"they say she used to be a Catholic when she was a girl!
Nobody lays it up ag'in her, an' folks pertend they've forgot it; and if
there is a good Christian goin', I 'low it's Madam Elinor Sturtevant.
Your Aunt Eunice--though she ain't your real aunt at all, only third
cousin once removed--she was promised to Schuyler Sturtevant, Madam's
husband's brother, but he was killed out on a fox-hunt, an' she ain't
never married nobody sence. That's one why she an' Madam are such good
friends, most like sisters; as they would have been hadn't things turned
out different. But there, my suz! Don't stan' there lookin' so wishful.
Put the dog in the lean-to an' shut the door. There's a strong air comes
through it an' I feel it, settin' still. Then you can tie my check apern
over your white frock. Don't you never wear no other kind of clothes,
Katy? 'Cause I don't know who'll do your washin' an' ironin', if you
don't."
Having finished a certain portion of the raisins, Susanna rose, washed
her hands and tied the apron around Katharine's neck, bringing the
strings forward under the arms with such firmness that the band choked
the girl, and made a puffy blouse of the gingham. The whole arrangement
was so uncomfortable that it was promptly taken off and hung upon its
nail.
"I can't endure that, you know. If I must wear an apron, like a coon,
I'll have one that fits. Why do I need it, anyway? This dress is only
white piqué, and wears like iron. I heard stepmother say so when she
gave it to the dressmaker. She never bought me anything but piqués and
ducks and things that would stand wearing without tearing. I mean--May
I do this many?"
Susanna fairly snatched the dish away and shook her helper's fingers
free from the cluster of raisins she had lifted, exclaiming:
"Why, I am surprised at you, Katharine Maitland! You takin' a bath every
mornin', in cold water, too, an' keepin' yourself so tidy all the time,
to go an' stun raisins after handlin' a dog! Wash 'em, an' clean your
nails with this pin, an' tie that apern back--loose if you want--but
wear it you must, or I won't be responsible for no smutch you get on
you. Here's your basin for the hull ones; an' here's an earthen bowl for
them 'at's done, an' a penknife to do 'em with. I declare! It's more
work to get you ready to 'help' than 'twould be to do it all myself."
Katharine's spirits rose. Though she blushed at the reprimand for
untidiness, a kind of reproof she seldom deserved, she was so accustomed
to corrections that she scarcely listened to any, and sprang to a seat
on the end of the great table with an outburst of rollicking "rag-time"
song.
Safe to say that that sort of music had never before been heard within
the dignified walls of that old mansion, and though Susanna was
delighted to see "Johnny's girl" happy again, she was, also, somewhat
shocked.
"Why--why, Katy! What's that you're saying? Don't sound like reg'lar
English. Not like 'Old Lang Syne,' nor 'The Old Oaken Bucket,' nor
'Send Round the Bowl,'--nor--My suz, child! What be you doin'?"
"Just, 'Sendin' Round the Bowl,' since you like it!" cried Kate,
hilariously spinning the receptacle which had been given her for the
"stunned raisins" across the table to where Susanna sat; then adding,
mischievously, "And that's the first time that I knew that 'Old Lang
Syne' was good English; I thought it was Scotch. As for 'rag-time,' all
papa's friends said I could do it excellently well. You see, I was
brought up with the coons and can mimic them easily. And you should see
me do a cake-walk. I will after I've helped you awhile."
Susanna looked rather foolish at being herself set right. She had never
aspired to much literary knowledge, but she did know that the words
Katharine had sung were senseless, though they might sound funny. To
cover her annoyance she demanded, rather crisply:
"What do you mean by 'coon' and 'duck'? Your pa always had odd notions,
but I never 'lowed his daughter'd be raised with coons and ducks and
animals of that natur'. I give him credit for some sense, even if he did
paint pictures for a living."
Katharine's eyes flashed, then softened till they were on the verge of
tears, and she announced with a finality that brooked no contradiction:
"My father was the sensiblest, cleverest, dearest gentleman that ever
lived. If I didn't come 'up' as I was 'brought' it wasn't his fault. And
I'd rather not talk about him--not yet. Not to-day. 'Coons' are the
colored people. Baltimore's full of them. They're our servants.
Stepmother says they're worthless, nowadays, and I know she was always
changing them. But they're the only kind we have down there. We couldn't
get nice white ones like you. Why--what's the matter?"
The Widow Sprigg had risen very suddenly. Her face had flushed and a
glitter come into the eyes behind the big spectacles, while her lips had
closed with a sort of cluck. Leaning across the table, she demanded:
"Give me that bowl, please. I don't need no more your help."
Katharine extended the bowl, as desired, her own face clouding again at
sight of the other's darkened one. And she fairly jumped as the
housekeeper asked:
"Where's the raisins?"
"Oh! the raisins? Why--I hadn't begun yet. I ate the few I seeded. I'll
begin now. I can work right smart if I try."
"Huh! go clean yourself an' clear out. I like to have my kitchen to
myself."
Kate leaped from the table, having that odd homesickness stealing over
her again, and as much to dispel her own gloom as to keep her word,
which she never broke if she could possibly help it, she cake-walked
down the long kitchen with the gravest of faces and the most ludicrous
of gestures. Down and back, down and back, head thrown sidewise over her
shoulder, body bent at an angle which threatened a tumble backwards, and
her feet alternately tossing the engulfing apron high on this side, then
on that, and now become utterly oblivious of Susanna in her earnestness
to distinguish herself--the girl seemed the absurdest creature it had
ever been the housekeeper's lot to see.
She still felt insulted by Katharine's term of "servant," but could not
repress a smile, and turned into the pantry to hide that telltale
weakness.
Looking in through that same pantry window, his mouth agape, his eyes
twinkling, was her housemate and natural enemy, Moses. Hitherto he had
taken slight notice of the small new member of the household, and Kate
had been rather afraid of him. It would, therefore, be killing two birds
with one stone, or punishing two annoying people at one time, to pair
them off together, thought Susanna, remarking:
"Well, Mr. Jones, when you get done staring at the monkey-shines of that
young one you can just take her in charge a spell. Goin' to the
wood-lot, ain't ye?"
"You know I be. Said so at breakfast, didn't I? Silly women always do
have to have idees druv into their heads, like nails, 'fore they can
clinch 'em. Eunice 'lowed that we'd ought to have a lot more small
sticks chopped," answered the man who managed the estate but was
presumably managed himself by Miss Maitland. He had his axe over his
shoulder, and had merely stopped at the pantry window, kept open for his
benefit, to take a drink from the pail of buttermilk which stood there.
"Well, Eunice has gone down to Madam's. And I've no time to bother, and
you'll have to take her 'long with ye. If she ain't under somebody's eye
no tellin' what'll happen. Harm of some kind, sure's you're born."
Moses was about to retort and decline, but a second glance at the child,
who had now finished her cake-walk and was listening to her elders,
reminded him that, as yet, he had heard no details of that night's
escapade when his beloved Monty had so wonderfully come out safe from
peril of death. This had been some days before, and rumor had it that
the lad was still confined a prisoner in his chamber. Whether because of
real illness or for punishment, nobody knew, nor dared anybody question
the dignified Madam. Eunice had heard the rumor that morning and had
immediately gone to see her friend and offer her own service as nurse,
should nursing be necessary. Therefore, it was more to please himself
than oblige Susanna, that he called through the window:
"Sissy, do you like chestnuts?"
"Oh, I love them! Why? And please, please don't call me 'Sissy.' It
makes me feel so silly. My name is Katharine Maitland, though at home--"
there came a little catch in her throat, which nobody else
observed--"they used to call me 'Kitty Quixote,'" answered the girl,
running to the window, and looking through the half-closed blind to the
hired man.
"Hm-m. Ke-ho-ta. Kehota? Kee-ho-tee? Why, I thought I knew the Maitland
family, root an' branch, twists an' turns an' ramifications, but I never
heerd tell of a Keehotey amongst 'em. Not even 'mongst their wives'
folks, nuther. Your own ma was a Woodley, and your pa's second was a
Snowball, Eunice says, so how happens--"
"Oh, you dear, funny old fellow! Quixote wasn't any of our folks, but a
fiction-y man, who was always doing chivalrous things in the wrong
place, or where there was no occasion, as papa said--just like me. Wait
till I come, please. I'll put on my hat and jacket and be back in a
minute. For I've guessed what you mean about liking chestnuts. I'm to go
to the wood-lot with you and gather them for myself. And I never,
never, never in all my life gathered chestnuts! I've just bought them
from the stands."
Away she flew, leaving Susanna rather doubtful of the success of her
intended punishment. From present appearances Katharine was going to
enjoy a morning in the woods with Moses far better than she would have
done in the kitchen seeding raisins.
"An' she must have et as much as two whole bunches, even in that little
spell. So, after all, it's a good thing for the cake, 'lowin' 't we want
to have it rich in fruit, that she is goin'. But Eunice will have to see
about her clothes. The idee! Wearin' white every day same as if it was
Sunday in the summer-time. She told Eunice that her stepmother thought
white was the sensiblest, for it would wash and bile, and she always
needed bilin'. But she looks real peart, and sort of different set-up
from Marsden girls in that little blue flannel suit she wore to come in.
Dress an' coat an' hat all the same color, an' fittin' her's if she'd
been run into 'em, yet easy-loose, too, an' not a bit of trimming on
anything," continued Widow Sprigg with herself, having none other
present with whom to commune; and, as Katharine reappeared, garbed in
the same blue coat and hat, with her short dainty skirts showing below
the coat and her face now glowing with anticipation, remarking aloud:
"Well, your step-ma may not have been any great shakes for
pleasantness, but she did manage to make you look real neat."
"Oh, she had beautiful taste! Everybody said that. When she was dressed
to go out herself she always looked so just right that nobody could tell
what at all she wore; and that, papa said, was the perfection of
dressing. Indeed, do you suppose that my father, an artist, could have
married a person who would offend his eye all the time? Why, what is
that for, Susanna?"
While Katharine had been discussing her stepmother, the widow had been
filling a quaint, old-fashioned, tight covered basket with caraway
cookies and a red apple. The basket had a wreath of flowers painted on
its sides and another on its cover. It was carried by two slender
handles, and was unlike any which Kate had ever seen.
"There, deary, that is a lunch to eat whilst you're in the woods; crisp
air makes a body hungry. Moses'll show you where the spring is, and
there's a gourd dipper hangs by it to drink out of. But take dreadful
care the basket. It was your own pa's meetin' one."
"My father's 'meeting one.' What was that? and how fearfully old it must
be. 'Cause he ran away when he was a little boy, only a year or so older
than I am now."
"He was old enough to have had more sense, and so're you. A
'meetin'-basket' was a basket to take to meetin', course. What else you
suppose? We didn't have two three hours betwixt times, them days. We
went in the morning and stayed till the afternoon service was over. We
took our dinners with us an' et 'em on the graves in the graveyard back
the church. Moses an' Eunice an' me gen'ally took all we needed in the
big willow, but the childern liked their own by themselves. They used to
eat in the hollow below the graveyard, and if any of 'em got too noisy,
or played games wasn't Sabbath ones, one the deacons or head men would
go down an' stop 'em. Oh, childern was raised right in them days, an'
grown folks, too!"
This was all very interesting, and Katharine received the old round
basket, which her dead father's boyish hands must have treated gently,
indeed, to have left it so well preserved, with a reverent feeling that
he must be there and see her. She hoped he did. She wanted him to know
that she was back in his old home, following the haunts which he had
loved, knowing the very same people who had cared for him. She wondered,
as many an older person has wondered, if he did know, and she put the
question eagerly to Susanna, who was herself so old and should,
therefore, be so wise.
"Oh, Widow Sprigg! Do you believe he can see me, does know, is glad? Do
you suppose that right now, while I hold this basket, his basket, up
high toward the sky, careful and loving and not afraid, he is looking
down and loving, too? _Do_ you?"
Susanna pushed her spectacles very high, indeed, that she might better
observe this strange child who now confronted her with gleaming eyes and
that exalted expression; and the face startled her. She was not much
used to children, and this one was of a sort so novel that she made one
uncomfortable. She'd have given "Johnny's girl" the old egg-basket
instead of this "meeting" one, could she have foreseen results. But she
could and did bring the girl out of the clouds with the exclamation:
"My suz! You're enough to give a body the creeps. All I meant was that
Johnny was a good boy and took care. If you want to be like him you'll
take care, too. When he didn't take care, it was Moses' business to lick
him, an' if you keep him much longer at that lane gate, he'll feel like
lickin' you, too. So, off with you."
Katharine lowered the basket. Also, lowered her gaze from the ceiling it
had seemed to pierce till it rested on the old woman's face. What she
saw there was something very different from what the harsh words had
suggested, and, with an impulse of affection, she threw her arms, basket
and all, about Susanna's neck and kissed her ecstatically.
Poor Widow Sprigg caught her breath and gasped it back again before her
surprise allowed her to say: "There, there, deary, run along. Don't
keep Moses waitin' a minute longer. He'll be terrible cross. Yes, you
can take Punchy. I'd ruther you'd take him 'an not, for Sir Philip looks
peakeder 'n ever to-day. The very sight o' that humbly dog 'pears to
make him sick. After you've et your cookies you can put your chestnuts
in the basket to fetch 'em home--if you get any."
Moses had lost his patience, as was to be expected, but he soon regained
good nature while Katharine related to him all that her father had once
told her of the famous Don Quixote for whom he had nicknamed her. Then,
in turn, he pointed out to her the old meeting-house and graveyard, long
since disused, where the Marsdenites had repaired to take their Sunday
lunch.
"But it was so--so funny! So absurd, so sort of--of ghastly, wasn't it?
But what a perfectly glorious place for a hallowe'en party--if there was
anybody to give a party to. I wish there was somebody to play with,
Uncle Moses."
Moses ignored the wish. He was not anxious that Katharine should enlarge
her acquaintance, which would mean more trouble for all concerned. He
merely continued to discourse upon the ancient customs, of how not only
did the people bring their dinners to the church, but the mothers their
babies, with rocking-chairs furnished galore by the congregation, and
ranged in the roomy vestibule. There the mothers could sway their
offspring gently to and fro without losing their own religious
privileges or disturbing anybody.
Kate listened in silence till a bend of the road hid the meeting-house
from view, then exclaimed:
"I can see the whole picture. I mean to paint it when I grow up. But I
shall give the babies cherubic faces, like the old masters, because I
suppose most of them are angels now. I hope they know I'm thinking about
them, and I wonder if papa sees any of them there, up in heaven. What do
you think?"
Even as Susanna had done, the hired man stared at Katharine, saying:
"I think--I don't know what I do think! I think I know some of them
babies that grew up to be anything but angels. If they'd been made into
angels a little earlier in their lives 'twould ha' been better for
Marsden, an' I shouldn't feel it my painful duty to 'rest 'em when I get
to be constable--if ever I'm elected," and then Moses sighed so
profoundly that Katharine's thoughts flew from this old-time
reminiscence to the present day's ambitions. Slipping her hand softly
into the one of his that swung at his side, she gave it a little
squeeze, and asked:
"Do you awfully want to be a constable? Just awfully, Uncle Mose?"
There was so much of sympathy in the small face at his elbow that Mr.
Jones was caught unawares.
"Well, 'Kitty Keehoty,' wild horses wouldn't have drug it out of me to
anybody else; but I don't mind lettin' on to you, just you, that I'd
admire to be one. I'd like it real well. But, that's nuther here nor
there. Likin' things an' havin' 'em is as different as chalk an' cheese.
An' here we be to the woods. The best chestnut-trees is yender, the best
shellbarks t'other way. 'Tain't time for hickories yet, not till a
heavier frost comes, but chestnuts you've got to get early if you get
any at all. The squirrels an' boys are smart round this way. Why, 'most
every year they gather Eunice's nuts off her own trees, then march up to
her front door an' sell 'em to her. Fact. An' the silly woman only
laughs an' says she don't begrudge 'em a little pocket-money. An' she
don't need. Eunice is real forehanded, Eunice is; and does seem 't the
more she gives away the more comes in. Now, I'll cut a saplin'-pole an'
thrash a tree for you. Then, whilst I'm choppin' down in that clump of
pines over there, you can be pickin' up nuts. Make up your mind to prick
your fingers with the burrs. A body has to fight for most anything worth
while."
"Oh, if I only had somebody to pick them up with me!" sighed Kate, as
she fell to work. Then her thoughts travelled far afield, for a
delightful notion had taken possession of her, and her young brain was
teeming with a scheme so great it was--well, it was fully worthy of
itself.
Almost unconsciously she gathered the fallen chestnuts, scarcely
realizing the novelty of the task so absorbed was she in her sudden
Quixotic project. Yet, as she groped among the brown leaves at the foot
of her tree, her fingers came in contact with something wholly different
from chestnuts or their thorny burrs. It was hard as a stone, yet it
wasn't a stone. It was half-buried in the leaf-mold and moss, though the
rain of the previous night had washed it free in one corner.
That corner glistened so that it dazzled the digger's eyes, and she
exclaimed aloud:
"Oh, I've found a gold mine! Right here in Aunt Eunice's woods. I must
get this great piece of gold out and take it to her. And I won't tell
anybody, not anybody, not even Uncle Moses, till I've told her. For
whatever is in her woods must be hers, of course."
Away went the last great scheme, which had been wholly connected with
Mr. Jones and his aspirations for town office; and up rose another far
more gigantic, by which everybody who was poor, "everybody in the whole
wide world," should benefit. For, of course, the mine was to be
inexhaustible, and Aunt Eunice would be able to give away money
hereafter without stint or measure.
If only she could get out that first great shining lump of gold!
And at last it was out, yet, after all, no gold whatever. Something
almost as splendid, though, since this was a mystery. A mystery with a
capital M! For if there were no mystery in the matter why should anybody
hide that strangely shaped, glittering brass bound box beneath a
chestnut-tree?