III.

Mrs. Todd was swinging her basket to and fro like a schoolgirl as she

walked, and at this moment it slipped from her hand and rolled lightly

along the ground as if there were nothing in it. I picked it up and

gave it to her, whereupon she lifted the cover and looked in with

anxiety.

"'T is only a few little things, but I don't want to lose 'em," she

explained humbly. "'T was lucky you took the other basket if I was

goin' to roll it round. Mis' Abby Martin complained o' lacking some

pretty pink silk to finish one o' her little frames, an' I thought I 'd

carry her some, and I had a bunch o' gold thread that had been in a box

o' mine this twenty year. I never was one to do much fancy work, but

we 're all liable to be swept away by fashion. And then there's a

small packet o' very choice herbs that I gave a good deal of attention

to; they 'll smarten her up and give her the best of appetites, come

spring. She was tellin' me that spring weather is very wiltin' an'

tryin' to her, and she was beginnin' to dread it already. Mother 's

just the same way; if I could prevail on mother to take some o' these

remedies in good season 'twould make a world o' difference, but she

gets all down hill before I have a chance to hear of it, and then

William comes in to tell me, sighin' and bewailin', how feeble mother

is. 'Why can't you remember 'bout them good herbs that I never let her

be without?' I say to him--he does provoke me so; and then off he goes,

sulky enough, down to his boat. Next thing I know, she comes in to go

to meetin', wantin' to speak to everybody and feelin' like a girl.

Mis' Martin's case is very much the same; but she 's nobody to watch

her. William's kind o' slow-moulded; but there, any William's better

than none when you get to be Mis' Martin's age."

"Hadn't she any children?" I asked.

"Quite a number," replied Mrs. Todd grandly, "but some are gone and the

rest are married and settled. She never was a great hand to go about

visitin'. I don't know but Mis' Martin might be called a little

peculiar. Even her own folks has to make company of her; she never

slips in and lives right along with the rest as if 'twas at home, even

in her own children's houses. I heard one o' her sons' wives say once

she 'd much rather have the Queen to spend the day if she could choose

between the two, but I never thought Abby was so difficult as that. I

used to love to have her come; she may have been sort o' ceremonious,

but very pleasant and sprightly if you had sense enough to treat her

her own way. I always think she 'd know just how to live with great

folks, and feel easier 'long of them an' their ways. Her son's wife 's

a great driver with farm-work, boards a great tableful o' men in hayin'

time, an' feels right in her element. I don't say but she 's a good

woman an' smart, but sort o' rough. Anybody that's gentle-mannered an'

precise like Mis' Martin would be a sort o' restraint.

"There's all sorts o' folks in the country, same 's there is in the

city," concluded Mrs. Todd gravely, and I as gravely agreed. The thick

woods were behind us now, and the sun was shining clear overhead, the

morning mists were gone, and a faint blue haze softened the distance;

as we climbed the hill where we were to see the view, it seemed like a

summer day. There was an old house on the height, facing southward,--a

mere forsaken shell of an old house, with empty windows that looked

like blind eyes. The frost-bitten grass grew close about it like brown

fur, and there was a single crooked bough of lilac holding its green

leaves close by the door.

"We 'll just have a good piece of bread-an'-butter now," said the

commander of the expedition, "and then we 'll hang up the basket on

some peg inside the house out o' the way o' the sheep, and have a

han'some entertainment as we 're comin' back. She 'll be all through

her little dinner when we get there, Mis' Martin will; but she 'll want

to make us some tea, an' we must have our visit an' be startin' back

pretty soon after two. I don't want to cross all that low ground again

after it's begun to grow chilly. An' it looks to me as if the clouds

might begin to gather late in the afternoon."

Before us lay a splendid world of sea and shore. The autumn colors

already brightened the landscape; and here and there at the edge of a

dark tract of pointed firs stood a row of bright swamp-maples like

scarlet flowers. The blue sea and the great tide inlets were

untroubled by the lightest winds.

"Poor land, this is!" sighed Mrs. Todd as we sat down to rest on the

worn doorstep. "I 've known three good hard-workin' families that come

here full o' hope an' pride and tried to make something o' this farm,

but it beat 'em all. There 's one small field that's excellent for

potatoes if you let half of it rest every year; but the land 's always

hungry. Now, you see them little peaked-topped spruces an' fir balsams

comin' up over the hill all green an' hearty; they 've got it all their

own way! Seems sometimes as if wild Natur' got jealous over a certain

spot, and wanted to do just as she 'd a mind to. You 'll see here; she

'll do her own ploughin' an' harrowin' with frost an' wet, an' plant

just what she wants and wait for her own crops. Man can't do nothin'

with it, try as he may. I tell you those little trees means business!"

I looked down the slope, and felt as if we ourselves were likely to be

surrounded and overcome if we lingered too long. There was a vigor of

growth, a persistence and savagery about the sturdy little trees that

put weak human nature at complete defiance. One felt a sudden pity for

the men and women who had been worsted after a long fight in that

lonely place; one felt a sudden fear of the unconquerable, immediate

forces of Nature, as in the irresistible moment of a thunderstorm.

"I can recollect the time when folks were shy o' these woods we just

come through," said Mrs. Todd seriously. "The men-folks themselves

never 'd venture into 'em alone; if their cattle got strayed they 'd

collect whoever they could get, and start off all together. They said

a person was liable to get bewildered in there alone, and in old times

folks had been lost. I expect there was considerable fear left over

from the old Indian times, and the poor days o' witchcraft; anyway, I

've seen bold men act kind o' timid. Some women o' the Asa Bowden

family went out one afternoon berryin' when I was a girl, and got lost

and was out all night; they found 'em middle o' the mornin' next day,

not half a mile from home, scared most to death, an' sayin' they'd

heard wolves and other beasts sufficient for a caravan. Poor

creatur's! they 'd strayed at last into a kind of low place amongst

some alders, an' one of 'em was so overset she never got over it, an'

went off in a sort o' slow decline. 'T was like them victims that

drowns in a foot o' water; but their minds did suffer dreadful. Some

folks is born afraid of the woods and all wild places, but I must say

they 've always been like home to me."

I glanced at the resolute, confident face of my companion. Life was

very strong in her, as if some force of Nature were personified in this

simple-hearted woman and gave her cousinship to the ancient deities.

She might have walked the primeval fields of Sicily; her strong gingham

skirts might at that very moment bend the slender stalks of asphodel

and be fragrant with trodden thyme, instead of the brown wind-brushed

grass of New England and frost-bitten goldenrod. She was a great soul,

was Mrs. Todd, and I her humble follower, as we went our way to visit

the Queen's Twin, leaving the bright view of the sea behind us, and

descending to a lower country-side through the dry pastures and fields.

The farms all wore a look of gathering age, though the settlement was,

after all, so young. The fences were already fragile, and it seemed as

if the first impulse of agriculture had soon spent itself without hope

of renewal. The better houses were always those that had some hold

upon the riches of the sea; a house that could not harbor a

fishing-boat in some neighboring inlet was far from being sure of

every-day comforts. The land alone was not enough to live upon in that

stony region; it belonged by right to the forest, and to the forest it

fast returned. From the top of the hill where we had been sitting we

had seen prosperity in the dim distance, where the land was good and

the sun shone upon fat barns, and where warm-looking houses with three

or four chimneys apiece stood high on their solid ridge above the bay.

As we drew nearer to Mrs. Martin's it was sad to see what poor bushy

fields, what thin and empty dwelling-places had been left by those who

had chosen this disappointing part of the northern country for their

home. We crossed the last field and came into a narrow rain-washed

road, and Mrs. Todd looked eager and expectant and said that we were

almost at our journey's end. "I do hope Mis' Martin 'll ask you into

her best room where she keeps all the Queen's pictures. Yes, I think

likely she will ask you; but 't ain't everybody she deems worthy to

visit 'em, I can tell you!" said Mrs. Todd warningly. "She 's been

collectin' 'em an' cuttin' 'em out o' newspapers an' magazines time out

o' mind, and if she heard of anybody sailin' for an English port she 'd

contrive to get a little money to 'em and ask to have the last likeness

there was. She 's most covered her best-room wall now; she keeps that

room shut up sacred as a meetin'-house! 'I won't say but I have my

favorites amongst 'em,' she told me t' other day, 'but they 're all

beautiful to me as they can be!' And she's made some kind o' pretty

little frames for 'em all--you know there's always a new fashion o'

frames comin' round; first 't was shell-work, and then 't was

pine-cones, and bead-work's had its day, and now she 's much concerned

with perforated cardboard worked with silk. I tell you that best

room's a sight to see! But you must n't look for anything elegant,"

continued Mrs. Todd, after a moment's reflection. "Mis' Martin's

always been in very poor, strugglin' circumstances. She had ambition

for her children, though they took right after their father an' had

little for themselves; she wa'n't over an' above well married, however

kind she may see fit to speak. She's been patient an' hard-workin' all

her life, and always high above makin' mean complaints of other folks.

I expect all this business about the Queen has buoyed her over many a

shoal place in life. Yes, you might say that Abby 'd been a slave, but

there ain't any slave but has some freedom."