down, but I didn't know what it was all about, and in come poor Susan
Ellen and lit on the edge of the first chair and set the pail down
beside of her. We tried to make her feel welcome, and spoke about
everything we could contrive, seein' as it was the first time she'd
been over; and she seemed grateful and did the best she could, and lost
her strangeness with mother right away, for mother was the best hand to
make folks feel to home with her that I ever come across. There ain't
many like her now, nor never was, I tell 'em. But there wa'n't nothing
said about the six-quart pail, and there it set on the floor, until
Susan Ellen said she must be going and mentioned that there was
something said about a remedy for Joseph's throat. 'Oh, yes,' says
mother, and she brought out the little stone jar she kept the preserve
in, and there wa'n't more than the half of it full. Susan Ellen took up
the cover off the pail, and I walked off into the bedroom, for I thought
I should laugh, certain. Mother put in a big spoonful, and another, and
I heard 'em drop, and she went on with one or two more, and then she
give up. 'I'd give you the jar and welcome,' she says, 'but I ain't very
well off for preserves, and I was kind of counting on this for tea in
case my brother's folks are over.' Susan Ellen thanked her, and said
Joseph would be obliged, and back she went acrost the pasture. I can see
that big tin pail now a-shining in the sun.
"The old man was alive then, and he took a great spite against poor
Susan Ellen, though he never would if he hadn't been set on by John; and
whether he was mad because Joseph had stepped in to so much good money
or what, I don't know,--but he twitted him about her, and at last he and
the old man between 'em was too much to bear, and Joe fitted up a couple
o' rooms for himself in a building he'd put up for a kind of work-shop.
He used to carpenter by spells, and he clapboarded it and made it as
comfortable as he could, and he ordered John out of it for good and all;
but he and Susan Ellen both treated the old sir the best they knew how,
and Joseph kept right on with his farm work same as ever, and meant to
lay up a little more money to join with his wife's, and push off as soon
as he could for the sake of peace, though if there was anybody set by
the farm it was Joseph. He was to blame for some things,--I never saw an
Ashby that wasn't,--and I dare say he was aggravating. They were
clearing a piece of woodland that winter, and the old man was laid up in
the house with the rheumatism, off and on, and that made him fractious,
and he and John connived together, till one day Joseph and Susan Ellen
had taken the sleigh and gone to Freeport Four Corners to get some flour
and one thing and another, and to have the horse shod beside, so they
was likely to be gone two or three hours. John Jacobs was going by with
his oxen, and John Ashby and the old man hailed him, and said they'd
give him a dollar if he'd help 'em, and they hitched the two yoke, his
and their'n, to Joseph's house. There wa'n't any foundation to speak of,
the sills set right on the ground, and he'd banked it up with a few old
boards and some pine spills and sand and stuff, just to keep the cold
out. There wa'n't but a little snow, and the roads was smooth and icy,
and they slipped it along as if it had been a hand-sled, and got it down
the road a half a mile or so to the fork of the roads, and left it
settin' there right on the heater-piece. Jacobs told afterward that he
kind of disliked to do it, but he thought as long as their minds were
set, he might as well have the dollar as anybody. He said when the house
give a slew on a sideling piece in the road, he heard some of the
crockery-ware smash down, and a branch of an oak they passed by caught
hold of the stove-pipe that come out through one of the walls, and give
that a wrench, but he guessed there wa'n't no great damage. Joseph may
have given 'em some provocation before he went away in the morning,--I
don't know _but_ he did, and I don't know _as_ he did,--but
at any rate when he was coming home late in the afternoon he caught
sight of his house (some of our folks was right behind, and they saw
him), and he stood right up in the sleigh and shook his fist, he was so
mad; but afterwards he bu'st out laughin'. It did look kind of curi's;
it wa'n't bigger than a front entry, and it set up so pert right there
on the heater-piece, as if he was calc'latin' to farm it. The folks said
Susan Ellen covered up her face in her shawl and began to cry. I s'pose
the pore thing was discouraged. Joseph was awful mad,--he was kind of
laughing and cryin' together. Our folks stopped and asked him if there
was anything they could do, and he said no; but Susan Ellen went in to
view how things were, and they made up a fire, and then Joe took the
horse home, and I guess they had it hot and heavy. Nobody supposed
they'd ever make up 'less there was a funeral in the family to bring 'em
together, the fight had gone so far,--but 'long in the winter old Mr.
Ashby, the boys' father, was taken down with a spell o' sickness, and
there wa'n't anybody they could get to come and look after the house.
The doctor hunted, and they all hunted, but there didn't seem to be
anybody--'twa'n't so thick settled as now, and there was no spare
help--so John had to eat humble pie, and go and ask Susan Ellen if she
wouldn't come back and let by-gones be by-gones. She was as good-natured
a creatur' as ever stepped, and did the best she knew, and she spoke up
as pleasant as could be, and said she'd go right off that afternoon and
help 'em through.
"The old Ashby had been a hard drinker in his day and he was all broke
down. Nobody ever saw him that he couldn't walk straight, but he got a
crooked disposition out of it, if nothing else. I s'pose there never was
a man loved sperit better. They said one year he was over to Cyrus
Barker's to help with the haying, and there was a jug o' New England rum
over by the spring with some gingerbread and cheese and stuff; and he
went over about every half an hour to take something, and along about
half-past ten he got the jug middling low, so he went to fill it up with
a little water, and lost holt of it and it sunk, and they said he drunk
the spring dry three times!
"Joe and Susan Ellen stayed there at the old place well into the summer,
and then after planting they moved down to the Four Corners where they
had bought a nice little place. Joe did well there,--he carried on the
carpenter trade, and got smoothed down considerable, being amongst
folks. John he married a Pecker girl, and got his match too; she was the
only living soul he ever was afraid of. They lived on there a spell
and--why, they must have lived there all of fifteen or twenty years, now
I come to think of it, for the time they moved was after the railroad
was built. 'Twas along in the winter and his wife she got a notion to
buy a place down to the Falls below the Corners after the mills got
started and have John work in the spinning-room while she took boarders.
She said 'twa'n't no use staying on the farm, they couldn't make a
living off from it now they'd cut the growth. Joe's folks and she never
could get along, and they said she was dreadfully riled up hearing how
much Joe was getting in the machine shop.
"They needn't tell me about special providences being all moonshine,"
said Miss Debby for the second time, "if here wa'n't a plain one, I'll
never say one word more about it. You see, that very time Joe Ashby got
a splinter in his eye and they were afraid he was going to lose his
sight, and he got a notion that he wanted to go back to farming. He
always set everything by the old place, and he had a boy growing up that
neither took to his book nor to mill work, and he wanted to farm it too.
So Joe got hold of John one day when he come in with some wood, and
asked him why he wouldn't take his place for a year or two, if he wanted
to get to the village, and let him go out to the old place. My brother
Jonas was standin' right by and heard 'em and said he never heard nobody
speak civiller. But John swore and said he wa'n't going to be caught in
no such a trap as that. His father left him the place and he was going
to do as he'd a mind to. There'd be'n trouble about the property, for
old Mr. Ashby had given Joe some money he had in the bank. Joe had got
to be well off, he could have bought most any farm about here, but he
wanted the old place 'count of his attachment. He set everything by his
mother, spite of her being dead so long. John hadn't done very well
spite of his being so sharp, but he let out the best of the farm on
shares, and bought a mis'able sham-built little house down close by the
mills,--and then some idea or other got into his head to fit that up to
let and move it to one side of the lot, and haul down the old house from
the farm to live in themselves. There wa'n't no time to lose, else the
snow would be gone; so he got a gang o' men up there and put shoes
underneath the sills, and then they assembled all the oxen they could
call in, and started. Mother was living then, though she'd got to be
very feeble, and when they come for our yoke she wouldn't have Jonas let
'em go. She said the old house ought to stay in its place. Everybody had
been telling John Ashby that the road was too hilly, and besides the
house was too old to move, they'd rack it all to pieces dragging it so
fur; but he wouldn't listen to no reason.
"I never saw mother so stirred up as she was that day, and when she see
the old thing a moving she burst right out crying. We could see one end
of it looking over the slope of the hill in the pasture between it and
our house. There was two windows that looked our way, and I know Mis'
Ashby used to hang a piece o' something white out o' one of 'em when she
wanted mother to step over for anything. They set a good deal by each
other, and Mis' Ashby was a lame woman. I shouldn't ha' thought John
would had 'em haul the house right over the little gardin she thought so
much of, and broke down the laylocks and flowering currant she set
everything by. I remember when she died I wasn't more'n seven or eight
year old, it was all in full bloom and mother she broke off a branch and
laid into the coffin. I do' know as I've ever seen any since or set in a
room and had the sweetness of it blow in at the windows without
remembering that day,--'twas the first funeral I ever went to, and that
may be some reason. Well, the old house started off and mother watched
it as long as she could see it. She was sort o' feeble herself then, as
I said, and we went on with the work,--'twas a Saturday, and we was
baking and churning and getting things to rights generally. Jonas had
been over in the swamp getting out some wood he'd cut earlier in the
winter--and along in the afternoon he come in and said he s'posed I
wouldn't want to ride down to the Corners so late, and I said I did feel
just like it, so we started off. We went the Birch Ridge road, because
he wanted to see somebody over that way,--and when we was going home by
the straight road, Jonas laughed and said we hadn't seen anything of
John Ashby's moving, and he guessed he'd got stuck somewhere. He was
glad he hadn't nothing to do with it. We drove along pretty quick, for
we were some belated, and we didn't like to leave mother all alone after
it come dark. All of a sudden Jonas stood up in the sleigh, and says he,
'I don't believe but the cars is off the track;' and I looked and there
did seem to be something the matter with 'em. They hadn't been running
more than a couple o' years then, and we was prepared for anything.
"Jonas he whipped up the horse and we got there pretty quick, and I'll
be bound if the Ashby house hadn't got stuck fast right on the track,
and stir it one way or another they couldn't. They'd been there since
quarter-past one, pulling and hauling,--and the men was all hoarse with
yelling, and the cars had come from both ways and met there,--one each
side of the crossing,--and the passengers was walking about, scolding
and swearing,--and somebody'd gone and lit up a gre't bonfire. You never
see such a sight in all your life! I happened to look up at the old
house, and there were them two top windows that used to look over to our
place, and they had caught the shine of the firelight, and made the poor
old thing look as if it was scared to death. The men was banging at it
with axes and crowbars, and it was dreadful distressing. You pitied it
as if it was a live creatur'. It come from such a quiet place, and
always looked kind of comfortable, though so much war had gone on
amongst the Ashbys. I tell you it was a judgment on John, for they got
it shoved back after a while, and then wouldn't touch it again,--not one
of the men,--nor let their oxen. The plastering was all stove, and the
outside walls all wrenched apart,--and John never did anything more
about it; but let it set there all summer, till it burnt down, and there
was an end, one night in September. They supposed some traveling folks
slept in it and set it afire, or else some boys did it for fun. I was
glad it was out of the way. One day, I know, I was coming by with
mother, and she said it made her feel bad to see the little strips of
leather by the fore door, where Mis' Ashby had nailed up a rosebush
once. There! there ain't an Ashby alive now of the old stock, except
young John. Joe's son went off to sea, and I believe he was lost
somewhere in the China seas, or else he died of a fever; I seem to
forget. He was called a smart boy, but he never could seem to settle
down to anything. Sometimes I wonder folks is as good as they be, when I
consider what comes to 'em from their folks before 'em, and how they're
misshaped by nature. Them Ashbys never was like other folks, and yet
some good streak or other there was in every one of 'em. You can't
expect much from such hindered creator's,--it's just like beratin' a
black and white cat for being a poor mouser. It ain't her fault that the
mice see her quicker than they can a gray one. If you get one of them
masterful dispositions put with a good strong will towards the right,
that's what makes the best of men; but all them Ashbys cared about was
to grasp and get, and be cap'ns. They liked to see other folks put down,
just as if it was going to set them up. And they didn't know nothing.
They make me think of some o' them old marauders that used to hive up
into their castles, in old times, and then go out a-over-setting and
plundering. And I tell you that same sperit was in 'em. They was born a
couple o' hundred years too late. Kind of left-over folks, as it were."
And Miss Debby indulged in a quiet chuckle as she bent over her work.
"John he got captured by his wife,--she carried too many guns for him. I
believe he died very poor and her own son wouldn't support her, so she
died over in Freeport poor-house. And Joe got along better; his wife was
clever but rather slack, and it took her a good while to see through
things. She married again pretty quick after he died. She had as much as
seven or eight thousand dollars, and she was taken just as she stood by
a roving preacher that was holding meetings here in the winter time. He
sold out her place here, and they went up country somewheres that he
come from. Her boy was lost before that, so there was nothing to hinder
her. There, don't you think I'm always a-fault-finding! When I get hold
of the real thing in folks, I stick to 'em,--but there's an awful sight
of poor material walking about that ain't worth the ground it steps on.
But when I look back a little ways, I can't blame some of 'em; though it
does often seem as if people might do better if they only set to work
and tried. I must say I always do feel pleased when I think how mad John
was,--this John's father,--when he couldn't do just as he'd a mind to
with the pore old house. I couldn't help thinking of Joe's mansion, that
he and his father hauled down to the heater piece in the fork of the
roads. Sometimes I wonder where them Ashbys all went to. They'd mistake
one place for the other in the next world, for 'twould make heaven out
o' hell, because they could be disagreeing with somebody, and--well, I
don't know,--I'm sure they kep' a good row going while they was in this
world. Only with mother;--somehow she could get along with anybody, and
not always give 'em their way either."