birds, and even chasing crickets, and going through a great piece of
affectation in barking before an empty woodchuck's hole to kill time,
came to sit patiently in front of me, as if he wished to ask when I
would go on. I had never been in this part of the pasture before. It was
at one side of the way I usually took, so presently I went on to find a
favorite track of mine, half a mile to the right, along the bank of a
brook. There had been heavy rains the week before, and I found more
water than usual running, and the brook was apparently in a great hurry.
It was very quiet along the shore of it; the frogs had long ago gone
into winter-quarters, and there was not one to splash into the water
when he saw me coming. I did not see a musk-rat either, though I knew
where their holes were by the piles of fresh-water mussel shells that
they had untidily thrown out at their front door. I thought it might be
well to hunt for mussels myself, and crack them in search of pearls, but
it was too serene and beautiful a day. I was not willing to disturb the
comfort of even a shell-fish. It was one of the days when one does not
think of being tired: the scent of the dry everlasting flowers, and the
freshness of the wind, and the cawing of the crows, all come to me as I
think of it, and I remember that I went a long way before I began to
think of going home again. I knew I could not be far from a cross-road,
and when I climbed a low hill I saw a house which I was glad to make the
end of my walk--for a time, at any rate. It was some time since I had
seen the old woman who lived there, and I liked her dearly, and was sure
of a welcome. I went down through the pasture lane, and just then I saw
my father drive away up the road, just too far for me to make him hear
when I called. That seemed too bad at first, until I remembered that he
would come back again over the same road after a while, and in the mean
time I could make my call. The house was low and long and unpainted,
with a great many frost-bitten flowers about it. Some hollyhocks were
bowed down despairingly, and the morning-glory vines were more miserable
still. Some of the smaller plants had been covered to keep them from
freezing, and were braving out a few more days, but no shelter would
avail them much longer. And already nobody minded whether the gate was
shut or not, and part of the great flock of hens were marching proudly
about among the wilted posies, which they had stretched their necks
wistfully through the fence for all summer. I heard the noise of
spinning in the house, and my dog scurried off after the cat as I went
in the door. I saw Miss Polly Marsh and her sister, Mrs. Snow, stepping
back and forward together spinning yarn at a pair of big wheels. The
wheels made such a noise with their whir and creak, and my friends were
talking so fast as they twisted and turned the yarn, that they did not
hear my footstep, and I stood in the doorway watching them, it was such
a quaint and pretty sight. They went together like a pair of horses, and
kept step with each other to and fro. They were about the same size, and
were cheerful old bodies, looking a good deal alike, with their checked
handkerchiefs over their smooth gray hair, their dark gowns made short
in the skirts, and their broad little feet in gray stockings and low
leather shoes without heels. They stood straight, and though they were
quick at their work they moved stiffly; they were talking busily about
some one.
"I could tell by the way the doctor looked that he didn't think there
was much of anything the matter with her," said Miss Polly Marsh. "'You
needn't tell me,' says I, the other day, when I see him at Miss
Martin's. 'She'd be up and about this minute if she only had a mite o'
resolution;' and says he, 'Aunt Polly, you're as near right as usual;'"
and the old lady stopped to laugh a little. "I told him that wa'n't
saying much," said she, with an evident consciousness of the underlying
compliment and the doctor's good opinion. "I never knew one of that
tribe that hadn't a queer streak and wasn't shif'less; but they're
tougher than ellum roots;" and she gave the wheel an emphatic turn,
while Mrs. Snow reached for more rolls of wool, and happened to see me.
"Wherever did you come from?" said they, in great surprise. "Why, you
wasn't anywhere in sight when I was out speaking to the doctor," said
Mrs. Snow. "Oh, come over horseback, I suppose. Well, now, we're pleased
to see ye."
"No," said I, "I walked across the fields. It was too pleasant to stay
in the house, and I haven't had a long walk for some time before." I
begged them not to stop spinning, but they insisted that they should not
have turned the wheels a half-dozen times more, even if I had not come,
and they pushed them back to the wall before they came to sit down to
talk with me over their knitting--for neither of them were ever known to
be idle. Mrs. Snow was only there for a visit; she was a widow, and
lived during most of the year with her son; and Aunt Polly was at home
but seldom herself, as she was a famous nurse, and was often in demand
all through that part of the country. I had known her all my days.
Everybody was fond of the good soul, and she had been one of the most
useful women in the world. One of my pleasantest memories is of a long
but not very painful illness one winter, when she came to take care of
me. There was no end either to her stories or her kindness. I was
delighted to find her at home that afternoon, and Mrs. Snow also.
Aunt Polly brought me some of her gingerbread, which she knew I liked,
and a stout little pitcher of milk, and we sat there together for a
while, gossiping and enjoying ourselves. I told all the village news
that I could think of, and I was just tired enough to know it, and to be
contented to sit still for a while in the comfortable three-cornered
chair by the little front window. The October sunshine lay along the
clean kitchen floor, and Aunt Polly darted from her chair occasionally
to catch stray little wisps of wool which the breeze through the door
blew along from the wheels. There was a gay string of red peppers
hanging over the very high mantel-shelf, and the wood-work in the room
had never been painted, and had grown dark brown with age and smoke and
scouring. The clock ticked solemnly, as if it were a judge giving the
laws of time, and felt itself to be the only thing that did not waste
it. There was a bouquet of asparagus and some late sprigs of larkspur
and white petunias on the table underneath, and a Leavitt's Almanac lay
on the county paper, which was itself lying on the big Bible, of which
Aunt Polly made a point of reading two chapters every day in course. I
remember her saying, despairingly, one night, half to herself, "I don'
know but I may skip the Chronicles next time," but I have never to this
day believed that she did. They asked me at once to come into the best
room, but I liked the old kitchen best. "Who was it that you were
talking about as I came in?" said I. "You said you didn't believe there
was much the matter with her." And Aunt Polly clicked her
knitting-needles faster, and told me that it was Mary Susan Ash, over by
Little Creek.
"They're dreadful nervous, all them Ashes," said Mrs. Snow. "You know
young Joe Adams's wife, over our way, is a sister to her, and she's
forever a-doctorin'. Poor fellow! _he's_ got a drag. I'm real sorry for
Joe; but, land sakes alive! he might 'a known better. They said she had
an old green bandbox with a gingham cover, that was stowed full o'
vials, that she moved with the rest of her things when she was married,
besides some she car'd in her hands. I guess she ain't in no more hurry
to go than any of the rest of us. I've lost every mite of patience with
her. I was over there last week one day, and she'd had a call from the
new supply--you know Adams's folks is Methodists--and he was took in by
her. She made out she'd got the consumption, and she told how many
complaints she had, and what a sight o' medicine she took, and she
groaned and sighed, and her voice was so weak you couldn't more than
just hear it. I stepped right into the bedroom after he'd been prayin'
with her, and was taking leave. You'd thought, by what he said, she was
going right off then. She was coughing dreadful hard, and I knew she
hadn't no more cough than I had. So says I, 'What's the matter, Adaline?
I'll get ye a drink of water. Something in your throat, I s'pose. I hope
you won't go and get cold, and have a cough.' She looked as if she could
'a bit me, but I was just as pleasant 's could be. Land! to see her
laying there, I suppose the poor young fellow thought she was all gone.
He meant well. I wish he had seen her eating apple-dumplings for dinner.
She felt better 'long in the first o' the afternoon before he come. I
says to her, right before him, that I guessed them dumplings did her
good, but she never made no answer. She will have these dyin' spells. I
don't know's she can help it, but she needn't act as if it was a credit
to anybody to be sick and laid up. Poor Joe, he come over for me last
week another day, and said she'd been havin' spasms, and asked me if
there wa'n't something I could think of. 'Yes,' says I; 'you just take a
pail o' stone-cold water, and throw it square into her face; that'll
bring her out of it;' and he looked at me a minute, and then he burst
out a-laughing--he couldn't help it. He's too good to her; that's the
trouble."
"You never said that to her about the dumplings?" said Aunt Polly,
admiringly. "Well, _I_ shouldn't ha' dared;" and she rocked and knitted
away faster than ever, while we all laughed. "Now with Mary Susan it's
different. I suppose she does have the neurology, and she's a poor
broken-down creature. I do feel for her more than I do for Adaline. She
was always a willing girl, and she worked herself to death, and she
can't help these notions, nor being an Ash neither."
"I'm the last one to be hard on anybody that's sick, and in trouble,"
said Mrs. Snow.
"Bless you, she set up with Ad'line herself three nights in one week, to
my knowledge. It's more'n I would do," said Aunt Polly, as if there were
danger that I should think Mrs. Snow's kind heart to be made of flint.
"It ain't what I call watching," said she, apologetically. "We both doze
off, and then when the folks come in in the morning she'll tell what a
sufferin' night she's had. She likes to have it said she has to have
watchers."
"It's strange what a queer streak there is running through the whole of
'em," said Aunt Polly, presently. "It always was so, far back's you can
follow 'em. Did you ever hear about that great-uncle of theirs that
lived over to the other side o' Denby, over to what they call the Denby
Meadows? We had a cousin o' my father's that kept house for him (he was
a single man), and I spent most of a summer and fall with her once when
I was growing up. She seemed to want company: it was a lonesome sort of
a place."
"There! I don't know when I have thought to' that," said Mrs. Snow,
looking much amused. "What stories you did use to tell, after you come
home, about the way he used to act! Dear sakes! she used to keep us
laughing till we was tired. Do tell her about him, Polly; she'll like to
hear."
"Well, I've forgot a good deal about it: you see it was much as fifty
years ago. I wasn't more than seventeen or eighteen years old. He was a
very respectable man, old Mr. Dan'el Gunn was, and a cap'n in the
militia in his day. Cap'n Gunn, they always called him. He was well off,
but he got sun-struck, and never was just right in his mind afterward.
When he was getting over his sickness after the stroke he was very
wandering, and at last he seemed to get it into his head that he was his
own sister Patience that died some five or six years before: she was
single too, and she always lived with him. They said when he got so's to
sit up in his arm-chair of an afternoon, when he was getting better, he
fought 'em dreadfully because they fetched him his own clothes to put
on; he said they was brother Dan'el's clothes. So, sure enough, they
got out an old double gown, and let him put it on, and he was as
peaceable as could be. The doctor told 'em to humor him, but they
thought it was a fancy he took, and he would forget it; but the next day
he made 'em get the double gown again, and a cap too, and there he used
to set up alongside of his bed as prim as a dish. When he got round
again so he could set up all day, they thought he wanted the dress; but
no; he seemed to be himself, and had on his own clothes just as usual in
the morning; but when he took his nap after dinner and waked up again,
he was in a dreadful frame o' mind, and had the trousers and coat off in
no time, and said he was Patience. He used to fuss with some
knitting-work he got hold of somehow; he was good-natured as could be,
and sometimes he would make 'em fetch him the cat, because Patience used
to have a cat that set in her lap while she knit. I wasn't there then,
you know, but they used to tell me about it. Folks used to call him Miss
Dan'el Gunn.
"He'd been that way some time when I went over. I'd heard about his
notions, and I was scared of him at first, but I found out there wasn't
no need. Don't you know I was sort o' 'fraid to go, 'Lizabeth, when
Cousin Statiry sent for me after she went home from that visit she made
here? She'd told us about him, but sometimes, 'long at the first of it,
he used to be cross. He never was after I went there. He was a clever,
kind-hearted man, if ever there was one," said Aunt Polly, with
decision. "He used to go down to the corner to the store sometimes in
the morning, and he would see to business. And before he got feeble
sometimes he would work out on the farm all the morning, stiddy as any
of the men; but after he come in to dinner he would take off his coat,
if he had it on, and fall asleep in his arm-chair, or on a l'unge there
was in his bedroom, and when he waked up he would be sort of bewildered
for a while, and then he'd step round quick's he could, and get his
dress out o' the clothes-press, and the cap, and put 'em on right over
the rest of his clothes. He was always small-featured and smooth-shaved,
and I don' know as, to come in sudden, you would have thought he was a
man, except his hair stood up short and straight all on the top of his
head, as men-folks had a fashion o' combing their hair then, and I must
say he did make a dreadful ordinary-looking woman. The neighbors got
used to his ways, and, land! I never thought nothing of it after the
first week or two.
"His sister's clothes that he wore first was too small for him, and so
my cousin Statiry, that kep' his house, she made him a linsey-woolsey
dress with a considerable short skirt, and he was dreadful pleased with
it, she said, because the other one never would button over good, and
showed his wais'coat, and she and I used to make him caps; he used to
wear the kind all the old women did then, with a big crown, and close
round the face. I've got some laid away up-stairs now that was my
mother's--she wore caps very young, mother did. His nephew that lived
with him carried on the farm, and managed the business, but he always
treated the cap'n as if he was head of everything there. Everybody
pitied the cap'n; folks respected him; but you couldn't help laughing,
to save ye. We used to try to keep him in, afternoons, but we couldn't
always."
"Tell her about that day he went to meeting," said Mrs. Snow.
"Why, one of us always used to stay to home with him; we took turns; and
somehow or 'nother he never offered to go, though by spells he would be
constant to meeting in the morning. Why, bless you, you never'd think
anything ailed him a good deal of the time, if you saw him before noon,
though sometimes he would be freaky, and hide himself in the barn, or go
over in the woods, but we always kept an eye on him. But this Sunday
there was going to be a great occasion. Old Parson Croden was going to
preach; he was thought more of than anybody in this region: you've heard
tell of him a good many times, I s'pose. He was getting to be old, and
didn't preach much. He had a colleague, they set so much by him in his
parish, and I didn't know's I'd ever get another chance to hear him, so
I didn't want to stay to home, and neither did Cousin Statiry; and Jacob
Gunn, old Mr. Gunn's nephew, he said it might be the last time ever he'd
hear Parson Croden, and he set in the seats anyway; so we talked it all
over, and we got a young boy to come and set 'long of the cap'n till we
got back. He hadn't offered to go anywhere of an afternoon for a long
time. I s'pose he thought women ought to be stayers at home according
to Scripture.
"Parson Ridley--his wife was a niece to old Dr. Croden--and the old
doctor they was up in the pulpit, and the choir was singing the first
hymn--it was a fuguing tune, and they was doing their best: seems to me
it was 'Canterbury New.' Yes, it was; I remember I thought how splendid
it sounded, and Jacob Gunn he was a-leading off; and I happened to look
down the aisle, and who should I see but the poor old cap'n in his cap
and gown parading right into meeting before all the folks! There! I
wanted to go through the floor. Everybody 'most had seen him at home,
but, my goodness! to have him come into meeting!"
"What did you do?" said I.
"Why, nothing," said Miss Polly; "there was nothing _to_ do. I thought I
should faint away; but I called Cousin Statiry's 'tention, and she
looked dreadful put to it for a minute; and then says she, 'Open the
door for him; I guess he won't make no trouble,' and, poor soul, he
didn't. But to see him come up the aisle! He'd fixed himself nice as he
could, poor creatur; he'd raked out Miss Patience's old Navarino bonnet
with green ribbons and a willow feather, and set it on right over his
cap, and he had her bead bag on his arm, and her turkey-tail fan that
he'd got out of the best room; and he come with little short steps up to
the pew: and I s'posed he'd set by the door; but no, he made to go by
us, up into the corner where she used to set, and took her place, and
spread his dress out nice, and got his handkerchief out o' his bag,
just's he'd seen her do. He took off his bonnet all of a sudden, as if
he'd forgot it, and put it under the seat, like he did his hat--that was
the only thing he did that any woman wouldn't have done--and the crown
of his cap was bent some. I thought die I should. The pew was one of
them up aside the pulpit, a square one, you know, right at the end of
the right-hand aisle, so I could see the length of it and out of the
door, and there stood that poor boy we'd left to keep the cap'n company,
looking as pale as ashes. We found he'd tried every way to keep the old
gentleman at home, but he said he got f'erce as could be, so he didn't
dare to say no more, and Cap'n Gunn drove him back twice to the house,
and that's why he got in so late. I didn't know but it was the boy that
had set him on to go to meeting when I see him walk in, and I could 'a
wrung his neck; but I guess I misjudged him; he was called a stiddy boy.
He married a daughter of Ichabod Pinkham's over to Oak Plains, and I saw
a son of his when I was taking care of Miss West last spring through
that lung fever--looked like his father. I wish I'd thought to tell him
about that Sunday. I heard he was waiting on that pretty Becket girl,
the orphan one that lives with Nathan Becket. Her father and mother was
both lost at sea, but she's got property."
"What did they say in church when the captain came in, Aunt Polly?" said
I.
"Well, a good many of them laughed--they couldn't help it, to save them;
but the cap'n he was some hard o' hearin', so he never noticed it, and
he set there in the corner and fanned him, as pleased and satisfied as
could be. The singers they had the worst time, but they had just come to
the end of a verse, and they played on the instruments a good while in
between, but I could see 'em shake, and I s'pose the tune did stray a
little, though they went through it well. And after the first fun of it
was over, most of the folks felt bad. You see, the cap'n had been very
much looked up to, and it was his misfortune, and he set there quiet,
listening to the preaching. I see some tears in some o' the old folks'
eyes: they hated to see him so broke in his mind, you know. There was
more than usual of 'em out that day; they knew how bad he'd feel if he
realized it. A good Christian man he was, and dreadful precise, I've
heard 'em say."
"Did he ever go again?" said I.
"I seem to forget," said Aunt Polly. "I dare say. I wasn't there but
from the last of June into November, and when I went over again it
wasn't for three years, and the cap'n had been dead some time. His mind
failed him more and more along at the last. But I'll tell you what he
did do, and it was the week after that very Sunday, too. He heard it
given out from the pulpit that the Female Missionary Society would meet
with Mis' William Sands the Thursday night o' that week--the sewing
society, you know; and he looked round to us real knowing; and Cousin
Statiry, says she to me, under her bonnet, 'You don't s'pose he'll want
to go?' and I like to have laughed right out. But sure enough he did,
and what do you suppose but he made us fix over a handsome black watered
silk for him to wear, that had been his sister's best dress. He said
he'd outgrown it dreadful quick. Cousin Statiry she wished to heaven
she'd thought to put it away, for Jacob had given it to her, and she was
meaning to make it over for herself; but it didn't do to cross the cap'n
and Jacob Gunn gave Statiry another one--the best he could get, but it
wasn't near so good a piece, she thought. He set everything by Statiry,
and so did the cap'n, and well they might.
"We hoped he'd forget all about it the next day; but he didn't; and I
always thought well of those ladies, they treated him so handsome, and
tried to make him enjoy himself. He did eat a great supper; they kep'
a-piling up his plate with everything. I couldn't help wondering if some
of 'em would have put themselves out much if it had been some poor
flighty old woman. The cap'n he was as polite as could be, and when
Jacob come to walk home with him he kissed 'em all round and asked 'em
to meet at his house. But the greatest was--land! I don't know when I've
thought so much about those times--one afternoon he was setting at home
in the keeping-room, and Statiry was there, and Deacon Abel Pinkham
stopped in to see Jacob Gunn about building some fence, and he found
he'd gone to mill, so he waited a while, talking friendly, as they
expected Jacob might be home; and the cap'n was as pleased as could be,
and he urged the deacon to stop to tea. And when he went away, says he
to Statiry, in a dreadful knowing way, 'Which of us do you consider the
deacon come to see?' You see, the deacon was a widower. Bless you! when
I first come home I used to set everybody laughing, but I forget most of
the things now. There was one day, though"--
"Here comes your father," said Mrs. Snow. "Now we mustn't let him go by
or you'll have to walk 'way home." And Aunt Polly hurried out to speak
to him, while I took my great bunch of golden-rod, which already drooped
a little, and followed her, with Mrs. Snow, who confided to me that the
captain's nephew Jacob had offered to Polly that summer she was over
there, and she never could see why she didn't have him: only love goes
where it is sent, and Polly wasn't one to marry for what she could get
if she didn't like the man. There was plenty that would have said yes,
and thank you too, sir, to Jacob Gunn.
That was a pleasant afternoon. I reached home when it was growing dark
and chilly, and the early autumn sunset had almost faded in the west. It
was a much longer way home around by the road than by the way I had come
across the fields.
_From a Mournful Villager_
Lately I have been thinking, with much sorrow, of the approaching
extinction of front yards, and of the type of New England village
character and civilization with which they are associated. Formerly,
because I lived in an old-fashioned New England village, it would have
been hard for me to imagine that there were parts of the country where
the Front yard, as I knew it, was not in fashion, and that Grounds
(however small) had taken its place. No matter how large a piece of land
lay in front of a house in old times, it was still a front yard, in
spite of noble dimension and the skill of practiced gardeners.