Every village has its great man and woman, and Colonel Lunt and his wife
were Barton's. Theirs was the only family whose table appointments were
of sufficient elegance to board the preceptor of the academy. All the
Lyceum lecturers stopped at Colonel Lunt's; and Mrs. Lunt was the person
who answered the requirements of Lady Manager for the Mount Vernon
Association, namely, "social position, executive ability, tact, and
persistency."
They were the only family in Barton who had been abroad. The rest of us
stayed at home and admired them. They had not always lived in Barton;
perhaps, if they had, we should not have succumbed so entirely as we all
did, ten years ago, when Colonel Lunt came and bought the Schuyler
place, (so called because General Schuyler stopped there over night on
his way to fight Burgoyne,) and brought his orphan niece and adopted
daughter with him, and also a French governess for the child. These
things were not in Barton style at all; all our children being educated
at the town school, and finished, as means allowed, by three months'
polish at some seminary or other. Of course, in a country town like
Barton, which numbers nearly fifteen hundred inhabitants, there is
enough to interest and occupy every one. What would be gossip and
scandal in a different social condition is pure, kindly interest in
Barton. We know everybody, and his father and mother. Of course each
person has his standing as inevitable and decided as an English
nobleman's. Our social organization is perfect. Our circles are within
and within each other, until we come to the _creme de la creme_ of the
Lunts and six other families. The outer circle is quite extensive,
embracing all the personable young men "who are not embarrassed with
antecedents," as one of our number said. The inner one takes in some
graduates of college,--persons who read all the new books, and give a
tone to Barton. Among the best people are the Elliotts and Robertses.
The lawyers and shopkeepers come in of course, but not quite of
course--anywhere but in Barton--is included the barber. But Mr. Roberts
was an extreme case. He had been destined to literary pursuits, became
consumptive, and was obliged, by unforeseen contingencies, to take up
some light employment, which proved in the end to be shaving. If it had
been holding notes instead of noses, the employment would have been
vastly genteel, I dare say. As it was, we thought about the French
_emigres_ and _marquises_ who made cakes and dressed hair for a living,
and concluded to admit Mr. Roberts, especially as he married a far-away
Elliott, and was really a sensible and cultivated man. But as we must
stop somewhere, we drew a strict line before the tinman, blacksmith, and
Democrats of all sorts. We are pure-blooded Federalists in Barton, and
were brought up on the Hartford Convention. I think we all fully
believed that a Democrat was unfit to associate with decent people.
As in most New England towns, the young fly from the parent nest as soon
as they are fledged. Out of Barton have gone, in my time, Boston
millionnaires, state secretaries, statesmen, and missionaries,--of the
last, not a few. Once the town was full of odd people, whose
peculiarities and idiosyncrasies ran to seed, and made strange, eventful
histories.
But we have ceased to take such microscopic views of each other since
the railway came within ten miles of us, and are now able to converse on
much more general topics than formerly. Not that there isn't still
opportunity to lament over the flighty nature of kitchen incumbents, and
to look after the domestic interests of all Barton; but I think going to
Boston several times a year tends to enlarge the mind, and gives us more
subjects of conversation. We are quite up in the sculpture at Mount
Auburn, and have our preferences for Bierstadt and Weber. Nobody in
Barton, so far, is known to see anything but horrors in
pre-Raphaelitism. Some wandering Lyceum-man tried to imbue us with the
new doctrine, and showed us engravings of Raphael's first manner, and
Perugino. But we all voted Perugino was detestable, and would none of
him. Besides, none of the Lunts liked him.
In patriotism, Barton would have "knocked under to no man," if the
question had been put to it ten years ago on the Fourth of July. When a
proof of it was required from the pocket, on the occasion before alluded
to, of the Mount Vernon Association, I regret to say the response did
no credit to Barton.
Mrs. Lunt made a great many Lady Assistant Managers in the town, and
sent us forth to gather in the harvest, which we could not doubt would
be plentiful. She herself worded a most touching "appeal to the women of
Barton," and described "the majestic desolation of the spot where the
remains of Washington lie in cold neglect," and asked each one for a
heart-offering to purchase, beautify, and perpetuate a fitting home
where pilgrims from all parts of the Union should come to fill their
urns with the tears of grateful remembrance.
It really seemed unnecessary to urge such a claim on a community like
ours. Yet we found ourselves obliged to exhaust all the persistency and
tact we had. For every conceivable reason Barton refused to respond to
our appeals. The minister, Mr. Ford, declared to me that the sentiment
of loyalty did not exist in America. Sometimes, he said, he wished he
lived under a monarchy. He envied the heartfelt cheers with which
Victoria's name was met, everywhere on British ground. "But you can't
get people to give to Mount Vernon. They are afraid of slavery there.
They are afraid of this, that, and the other; but give they will not."
He handed me a dollar, in a hopeless way, which was a four-hundredth of
his income. The blacksmith's wife would not admit me at all, saying,
"There has been one beggar here already this morning!" The butcher's
wife gave five cents; but I had my doubts about accepting it, for while
I was indignantly relating the desolate condition of the home and tomb
of the Father of his Country, and something about its being a spot only
fit for a wild pelican to live in, the butcher himself passed through
the house, nodding his head at me, and saying loudly, "Not a cent,
wife!" The plasterer, Mr. Rice, a respectable Vermonter, asked me who
Washington was; and Mrs. Goodwin, the cabinet-maker's wife, said
cordially to me, "There 's ten cents towards a tomb. I don't never
expect to go down South myself, but maybe my son'll like to be buried
there." Her son was buried down South, with many more of our brave
Barton boys, little as we thought of it then!
Now, the butcher and baker, the plasterer, and all, have gone to the
war. They have learned what it is to have a country to live for. They
have learned to hold up the old flag through thunderings and blood, and
to die for it joyfully. What a baptism and regeneration it has been!
what a new creation! Behold, old things have passed away, and all has
become new!
Soon after the battle of Cedar Mountain, and Banks's retreat, we had
long, full letters from Robert. He wrote a separate note to me, in which
he said, "Be kind to Percy." It was the very thing I had not been,--had
not felt it possible to be. But, conscience-stricken, I went up to call
at Colonel Lunt's, and read our letters to them. Percy walked home with
me, and we talked over the prospects and reverses of the war. Of course
we would not allow there were any real reverses.
We went on to my little cottage, and I asked her to come in and rest. I
remember it was a very still evening, except for a sad south-wind. The
breeze sighed through the pines in front of the house, like the sound of
distant water. The long lingering of the sun slanted over Percy's brow,
as she sat leaning her head on her hand, and looking away off, as if
over thousands of miles. Her pretty pale fingers were purple with
working on hospital shirts and drawers, and bloody with pricking through
the slipper soles for the wounded men. She was the most untiring and
energetic of all the young people; but they all worked well.
We sat there some time without speaking. I was full of thought and
anxiety, and I supposed she too might feel deeply about Robert.
"Aunt Marian,--may I call you so?" said she softly, at length looking
up.
"Why not, Percy? you always do."
"Only, lately, it has seemed to me you were different."
She crossed the room and sat down on a _tabouret_ so low that she was at
my feet, and took my hand with a humble sweetness that would have
touched any heart less hard than mine.
"I used to love to hear _him_ call you so!" she went on, caressing my
hand, which I did not withdraw, though I should have liked well to do
so, for I did not at all like this attitude we had assumed of penitent
and confessor. "I can't expect you to be just to me, dear Auntie,
because you don't know. But oh! do believe! I never guessed Robert's
feelings for me. How could I think of it,--and I a married woman!"
"Married! Percy!" said I, astonished at her agitation and the tears that
flowed down her pale face like rain.
"Yes," she answered in a voice so low that I could scarcely hear it.
"Not a widow, Percy Lunt! What do you mean?"
"I think--I believe--my husband is living. He was so a few months ago.
But I cannot tell you any more without papa's permission. O, I have
suffered so much! You would pity me if you knew all. But I felt as if I
must tell you this: and then--you would understand how I might have
been, as I was, so wholly preoccupied with my own feelings and interests
as never to guess that Robert's was anything but the regard of a friend.
And, indeed," she added with a sorrowful smile, "I feel so much older
than Robert.--I have gone through so much, that I feel ten years older
than he is. You will believe me, Aunt Marian, and forgive me?"
"It is easy to forgive, poor child!" I said, mingling my tears with
hers. "I have been cruel and hard-hearted to you. But I felt only for
poor Robert, and how could I guess?"
"You couldn't,--and that is why I felt that I must tell you."
"I cannot ask you anything further,--it is very strange."
While Percy kept strong rein on her feelings, her impassive manner had
deceived me. Now that my sympathy with her made me more keenly alive to
her distress, I saw the deep pain in her pale face, and the unnatural
look of grief in one so young. She tied on her hat in her old, hopeless
way, and the ivory smoothness of her face spoke of self-centred and
silent suffering.
"If papa is willing, I shall come to-morrow, and tell you part, at
least, of my sad story; and even if he is not willing, I think I must
tell you a part of it. I owe it to you, Aunt Marian!"
"I shall be at home all day, my dear," I said, kissing the poor, pale
lips with such tender pity as I had never thought to feel for Percy
Lunt.