SPRING AND SUMMER COME AT LAST.
But at last--at last--spring did come at Poganuc! This marvel and
mystery of the new creation _did_ finally take place there every
year, in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Long after the
blue-bird that had sung the first promise had gone back into his own
celestial ether, the promise that he sang was fulfilled.
Like those sweet, foreseeing spirits, that on high, bare tree-tops of
human thought pour forth songs of hope in advance of their age and
time, our blue-bird was gifted with the sure spirit of prophecy; and,
though the winds were angry and loud, though snows lay piled and deep
for long weeks after, though ice and frost and hail armed themselves
in embattled forces, yet the sun behind them all kept shining and
shining, every day longer and longer, every day drawing nearer and
nearer, till the snows passed away like a bad dream, and the brooks
woke up and began to laugh and gurgle, and the ice went out of the
ponds. Then the pussy-willows threw out their soft catkins, and the
ferns came up with their woolly hoods on, like prudent old house
mothers, looking to see if it was yet time to unroll their tender
greens, and the white blossoms of the shad-blow and the tremulous
tags of the birches and alders shook themselves gaily out in the
woods. Then under brown rustling leaf-banks came the white waxy
shells of the trailing arbutus with its pink buds, fair as a winter's
dawn on snow; then the blue and white hepaticas opened their eyes,
and cold, sweet white violets starred the moist edges of water
courses, and great blue violets opened large eyes in the shadows,
and the white and crimson trilliums unfurled under the flickering
lace-work shadows of the yet leafless woods; the red columbine
waved its bells from the rocks, and great tufts of golden cowslips
fringed the borders of the brooks. Then came in flocks the delicate
wind-flower family: anemones, starry white, and the crow foot, with
its pink outer shell, and the spotted adder's tongue, with its
waving yellow bells of blossom. Then, too, the honest, great green
leaves of the old skunk cabbage, most refreshing to the eye in its
hardy, succulent greenness, though an abomination to the nose of the
ill-informed who should be tempted to gather them. In a few weeks
the woods, late so frozen--hopelessly-buried in snow drifts--were
full of a thousand beauties and delicacies of life and motion, and
flowers bloomed on every hand. "Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they
are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth."
And, not least, the opening season had set free the imprisoned
children; and Dolly and the boys, with Spring at their heels, had
followed the courses of the brooks and the rippling brown shallows
of Poganuc River for many a blissful hour, and the parsonage had
every where been decorated with tumblers and tea-cups holding floral
offerings of things beautiful at the time they were gathered, but
becoming rather a matter of trial to the eye of exact housekeeping.
Yet both Mrs. Cushing and Nabby had a soft heart for Dolly's
flowers, sharing themselves the general sense of joy for the yearly
deliverance of which they were the signs and seals. And so the work
of renewing the face of the earth went on from step to step. The
forest hills around Poganuc first grew misty with a gentle haze of
pink and lilac, which in time changed to green and then to greener
shades, till at last the full-clothed hills stood forth in the joy
of re-creation, and, as of old, "all the trees of the field clapped
their hands."
Poganuc in its summer dress was a beautiful place. Its main street
had a row of dignified white houses, with deep door-yards and large
side-gardens, where the great scarlet peony flamed forth, where were
generous tufts of white lilies, with tall spires of saintly blossoms,
and yellow lilies with their faint sweet perfume, and all the good
old orthodox flowers of stately family and valid pretensions. In
all the door-yards and along the grassy streets on either side were
overshadowing, long-branching trees, forming a roof of verdure, a
green upper world from whose recesses birds dropped down their songs
in languages unknown to us mortals. Who shall interpret what is meant
by the sweet jargon of robin and oriole and bobolink, with their
endless reiterations? Something wiser, perhaps, than we dream of in
our lower life here.
Not a bit, however, did Hiel Jones trouble his head on this subject
as he came in on his high stage seat in lordly style on the evening
of the third of July. Far other cares were in Hiel's head, for
to-morrow was the glorious Fourth--the only really secular fête known
to the Yankee mind--and a great celebration thereof had been resolved
on by the magnates of Poganuc, and Hiel was captain of the "Poganuc
Rangers"--a flourishing militia company which was to be the ornament
of the forthcoming celebration.
It had been agreed for that time to drop all political distinctions.
Federalists and Democrats, Town Hill folk and outside folk, were all
of one mind and spirit to make this a celebration worthy of Poganuc
Center and the great cause of American Independence. A veritable
cannon had been hauled up upon the village green and fired once or
twice to relieve the bursting impatience of the boys and men who had
helped put it there. The flag with its stars and stripes was already
waving from the top of the Court-house, and a platform was being put
up in the Meeting-house, and people were running this way and that,
and standing in house-doors, and talking with each other over fences,
in a way that showed that something was impending.
Hiel sprang from his box, and, after attending to his horses,
speedily appeared on the green to see to things--for how could the
celebration to-morrow be properly presented without Hiel's counsels?
"Look here, now, boys," he said to the group assembled around the
cannon, "don't be a burnin' out yer powder. Keep it for to-morrow.
Let her be now; ye don't want to keep bangin' and bangin' afore the
time. To-morrow mornin' we'll let 'er rip bright and early, and wake
all the folks. Clear out, now, and go home to yer suppers, and don't
be a blowin' yerselves up with powder so that ye can't see the show
to-morrow."
Hiel then proceeded into the Meeting-house and criticised proceedings
there.
"Look here, Jake, you jest stretch that air carpet a leetle forrard;
ye see, ye want the most out in front where't shows; back there, why,
the chairs and table 'll kiver it; it ain't so much matter. Wonder
now ef them air boards is firm? Wouldn't do, lettin' on 'em all down
into the pews in the midst on't. Look here, Seth Chickering, ye need
another prop under there; ye hain't calkerlated for the heft o' them
fellers--governors and colonels and ministers weighs putty heavy, and
there ain't no glory in a gineral smash-up, and we're a goin' in for
glory to-morrow; we're goin' to sarve it out clear, and no mistake."
Hiel was a general favorite; his word of criticism was duly accepted,
and things were pretty comfortably adjusted to his mind when he went
home to eat his supper and try on his regimentals.
The dry, hard, colorless life of a Yankee boy in those days found
some relief in the periods called "training-days," when the militia
assembled in uniform and marched and drilled to the sound of fife and
drum. Hiel had expended quite a round sum upon his uniform and was
not insensible to the transformation which it wrought in his personal
appearance.
The widow Jones kept his gold-laced cocked-hat, his bright gold
epaulets, his whole soldier suit in fact, enveloped in many papers
and napkins, and locked away in one of her most sacred recesses; but
it was with pride that she gave him up the key, and when he came out
before her, all in full array, her soul was inly uplifted. Her son
was a hero in her eyes.
"It's all right, Mother, I believe," said Hiel, surveying himself
first over one shoulder and then the other, and consulting the
looking-glass fringed with gilt knobs that hung in the widow's
"keeping-room."
"Yes, indeed, Hiel, it's all right. I've kep' camphor gum with it to
keep out the moths, and wrapped it up to save the gold, and I don't
see that it's a grain altered since it came home new. It's just as
new as ever 'twas."
Hiel may be pardoned for smiling somewhat complacently on the image
in the glass--which certainly was that of a very comely youth--and
when he reflected that Nabby would to-morrow see him at the head of
his company his heart swelled with a secret exultation. It is not
alone the privilege of the fair sex to know when things are becoming
to them, and Hiel knew when he looked well, as surely as if any one
had told him. He gave himself a patronizing wink and whistled a
strain of "Yankee Doodle" as he turned away from the glass, perhaps
justly confiding in the immemorial power which military trappings
have always exercised over the female heart.
It was with reluctance that he laid aside the fascinating costume,
and set himself to brightening up here and there a spot upon his
sword-hilt or blade that called for an extra touch.
"We must have breakfast early to-morrow, Mother; the boys will be
here by sunrise."
"Never you fear," said the widow. "I've got everything ready, and
we'll be all through by that time; but it's as well to get to bed
now."
And so in a few minutes more the candles were out and only the
sound of the frogs and the whippoorwills broke the stillness of the
cottage. Long before the nine o'clock bell rung Hiel and his mother
were happy in the land of dreams.
In the parsonage, too, there had been an effort of discipline
to produce the needed stillness and early hours called for by
to-morrow's exactions.
The boys, who had assisted at the dragging in of the cannon and
heard its first reverberation, were in a most inflammatory state
of patriotism, longing wildly for gunpowder. In those days no
fire-crackers or other vents of the kind had been provided for the
relief of boys under pressure of excitement, and so they were forced
to become explosive material themselves, and the walls of the
parsonage rang with the sound. Dolly also was flying wildly around,
asking Nabby questions about to-morrow and running away before she
got her answer, to listen to some new outburst from the boys.
Nabby, however, had her own very decisive ways of putting things,
and settled matters at last by putting her to bed, saying as she did
so, "Now, Dolly Cushing, you just shut up. You are crazier than a
bobolink, and if you don't be still and go to sleep I won't touch
to take you with me to see the trainers to-morrow. Your ma said you
might go with me if you'd be good; so you just shut up and go to
sleep;" and Dolly shut her eyes hard and tried to obey.
We shall not say that there were not some corresponding movements
before the glass on the part of Nabby before retiring. It certainly
came into her head to try on her bonnet, which had been thriftily
re-trimmed and re-arranged for summer use since the time of that
sleigh-ride with Hiel. Moreover, she chose out her gown and sorted
a knot of ribbons to go with it. "I suppose," she said to herself,
"all the girls will be making fools of themselves about Hiel Jones
to-morrow, but I ain't a going to." Nevertheless, she thought there
was no harm in looking as well as she could.