A quiet smile played round his lips,
As the eddies and dimples of the tide
Play round the bows of ships,
That steadily at anchor ride.
And with a voice that was full of glee,
He answered, "ere long we will launch
A vessel as goodly, and strong, and staunch,
As ever weathered a wintry sea!"
LONGFELLOW.
"The ploughing's all done; thank fortune!" exclaimed Rufus as
he came into the kitchen.
"Well, don't leave your hat there in the middle of the floor,"
said his mother.
"Yes, it just missed knocking the tea-cups and saucers off the
table," said little Asahel.
"It hasn't missed knocking you off your balance," said his
brother tartly. "Do you know where your own hat is?"
"It hain't knocked me off anything!" said Asahel. "It didn't
touch me!"
"Do you know where your own hat is?"
"No."
"What does it matter, Will?" said his mother.
"It's hanging out of doors, on the handle of the grindstone."
"It ain't!"
"Yes it is; -- on the grindstone."
"No it isn't," said Winthrop coming in, "for I've got it here.
There -- see to it, Asahel. Mamma, papa's come. We've done
ploughing."
And down went his hat, but not on the floor.
"Look at Winifred, Governor -- she has been calling for you all
day."
The boy turned to a flaxen-haired, rosy-cheeked, little
toddling thing of three or four years old, at his feet, and
took her up, to the perfect satisfaction of both parties. Her
head nestled in his neck and her little hand patted his cheek
with great approval and contentment.
"Mamma," said Asahel, "what makes you call Winthrop Governor?
-- he isn't a governor."
"Ask your father. And run and tell him tea's just ready."
The father came in; and the tea was made, and the whole party
sat down to table. A homely, but a very cheerful and happy
board. The supper was had in the kitchen; the little remains
of the fire that had boiled the kettle were not amiss after
the damps of evening fell; and the room itself, with its big
fireplace, high dark-painted wainscoting, and even the clean
board floor, was not the least agreeable in the house. And the
faces and figures that surrounded the table were manly,
comely, and intelligent, in a high degree.
"Well, -- I've got through with that wheat field," said Mr.
Landholm, as he disposed of a chicken bone.
"Have you got through sowing?" said his wife.
"Sowing! -- no! -- Winthrop, I guess you must go into the garden
to-morrow -- I can't attend to anything else till I get my
grain in."
"Won't you plant some sweet corn this year, Mr. Landholm? --
it's a great deal better for cooking."
"Well, I don't know -- I guess the field corn's sweet enough. I
haven't much time to attend to sugar things. What _I_ look for
is substantials."
"Aren't sweet things substantial, sir?" said Winthrop.
"Well -- yes, -- in a sort they are," said his father laughing,
and looking at the little fat creature who was still in her
brother's arms and giving him the charge of her supper as well
as his own. "I know _some_ sweet things I shouldn't like to do
without."
"Talking of substantials," said Mrs. Landholm, "there's wood
wanting to be got. I am almost out. I had hardly enough to
cook supper."
"Don't want much fire in this weather," said the father,
"However -- we can't get along very well without supper. --
Rufus, I guess you'll have to go up into the woods to-morrow
with the ox-sled -- you and Sam Doolittle -- back of the pine
wood -- you'll find enough dead trees there, I guess."
"I think," said Rufus, "that if you think of it, what are
called substantial things are the least substantial of any --
they are only the scaffolding of the other."
"Of what other?" said his father.
"Of the things which really last, sir, -- the things which
belong to the _mind_ -- things which have to do with something
besides the labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow."
"The labour of to-day and the labour of to-morrow are pretty
necessary though," said his father dryly; "we must eat, in the
first place. You must keep the body alive before the mind can
do much -- at least I have found it so in my own experience."
"But you don't think the less of the other kind of work, sir,
do you?" said Winthrop looking up; -- "when one can get at it?"
"No, my boy," said the father, -- "no, Governor; no man thinks
more highly of it than I do. It has always been my desire that
you and Will should be better off in this respect than I have
ever been; -- my great desire; and I haven't given it up,
neither."
A little silence of all parties.
"What are the things which 'really last,' Rufus?" said his
mother.
Rufus made some slight and not very direct answer, but the
question set Winthrop to thinking.
He thought all the evening; or rather thought and fancy took a
kind of whirligig dance, where it was hard to tell which was
which. Visions of better opportunities than his father ever
had; -- of reaching a nobler scale of being than his own early
life had promised him; -- of higher walks than his young feet
had trod: they made his heart big. There came the indistinct
possibility of raising up with him the little sister he held
in his arms, not to the life of toil which their mother had
led, but to some airy unknown region of cultivation and
refinement and elegant leisure; -- hugely unknown, and yet
surely laid hold of by the mind's want. But though fancy saw
her for a moment in some strange travestie of years and
education and circumstances, that was only a flash of fancy --
not dwelt upon. Other thoughts were more near and pressing,
though almost as vague. In vain he endeavoured to calculate
expenses that he did not know, wants that he could not
estimate, difficulties that loomed up with no certain outline,
means that were far beyond ken. It was but confusion; except
his purpose, clear and steady as the sun, though as yet it
lighted not the way but only the distant goal; _that_ was always
in sight. And under all these thoughts, little looked at yet
fully recognized, his mother's question; and a certain
security that _she_ had that which would 'really last.' He knew
it. And oddly enough, when he took his candle from her hand
that night, Winthrop, though himself no believer unless with
head belief, thanked God in his heart that his mother was a
Christian.
Gradually the boys disclosed their plan; or rather the elder
of the boys; for Winthrop being so much the younger, for the
present was content to be silent. But their caution was little
needed. Rufus was hardly more ready to go than his parents
were to send him, -- if they could; and in their case, as in
his, the lack of power was made up by will. Rufus should have
an education. He should go to College. Not more cheerfully on
his part than on theirs the necessary privations were met, the
necessary penalty submitted to. The son should stand on better
ground than the father, though the father were himself the
stepping-stone that he might reach it.
It had nothing to do with Winthrop, all this. Nothing was said
of him. To send one son to College was already a great stretch
of effort, and of possibility; to send _two_ was far beyond
both. Nobody thought of it. Except the one left out of their
thoughts.
The summer passed in the diligent companionship of the oxen
and Sam Doolittle. But when the harvests were gathered, and
the fall work was pretty well done; the winter grain in the
ground, and the November winds rustling the dry leaves from
the trees, -- the strongest branch was parted from the family
tree, in the hope that it might take root and thrive better on
its own stock elsewhere. It was cheerfully done, all round.
The father took bravely the added burden with the lessened
means; the mother gave her strength and her eyesight to make
the needed preparations; and to supply the means for them, all
pinched themselves; and Winthrop had laid upon him the
threefold charge of his own, his brother's, and his father's
duty. For Mr. Landholm had been chosen a member of the State
Legislature; and he too would be away from home all winter.
What sort of a winter it would be, no one stopped to think,
but all were willing to bear.
The morning came of the day before the dreaded Saturday, and
no one cared to look at another. It was a relief, though a
hated one, to see a neighbour come in. Even that, Winthrop
shunned; he was cleaning the harness of the wagon, and he took
it out into the broad stoop outside of the kitchen door. His
mother and brother and the children soon scattered to other
parts of the house.
"So neighbour," said Mr. Underhill, -- "I hear tell one of your
sons is goin' off, away from you?"
"Yes," -- said Mr. Landholm, pride and sorrow struggling
together in his manner, -- "I believe he is."
"Where's he goin'?"
"To Asphodel -- in the first place."
"Asphodel, eh? -- What's at Asphodel?"
"What do you mean?"
"What's he goin' there for?"
"To pursue his studies -- there's an Academy at Asphodel."
"An Academy. -- Hum. -- And so he's goin' after larnin' is he?
And what'll the farmer do without him to hum?"
"Do the best I can -- send for you, neighbour Underhill."
"Ha, ha! -- well, I reckon I've got enough to do to attend to
my own."
"I guess you don't do much but fish, do you? -- there under the
mountain?"
"Well, you see, I hain't a great deal of ground. You can't run
corn _straight_ up a hill, can you? -- without somethin' to stand
on?"
"Not very well."
"There be folks that like that kind o' way o' farming -- but I
never did myself."
"No, I'll warrant you," said Mr. Landholm, with a little
attempt at a laugh.
"Well -- you say there's an Academy at Asphodel; then he aint
going to -- a -- what do you call it? -- Collegiate Institution?"
"No, not just yet; by and by he'll go to College, I expect. --
That's what he wants to do."
"And you want it too, I suppose?"
"Yes -- I'll do the best I can by my children. I can't do as I
would by them all," said the father, with a mixture of pride
expressed and pride not expressed, -- "but I'll try to make a
man of Will!"
"And t'other'll make a man of himself," said Mr. Underhill, as
he saw Winthrop quit the stoop. "_He'll_ never run a plough up
the side of a house. But what kind of a man are you going to
make of Will? -- a great man?"
"Ah, I don't know!" said Mr. Landholm with a sigh. "That must
be as Providence directs."
"Hum -- I should say that Providence directs you to keep 'em
both to hum," said Mr. Underhill; -- "but that's not my affair.
Well, I'm going. -- I hear you are goin' to be in Vantassel
this winter?"
"Yes -- I'm going to make laws for you," Mr. Landholm answered
laughing.
"Well --" said Mr. Underhill taking his hat, -- "I wish they'd
put you up for President -- I'd vote for you!"
"Thank you. Why?"
"'Cause I should expect you'd give me somethin' nother and
make a great man of _me!_"
With a laugh at his own wit, Mr. Underhill departed.