AUNT HETTY.
When Daniel Hart rode up in front of his house, Martha stood in the
door, waiting his approach with some impatience. It was baking-day, her
flour had given out, the great oven in the back kitchen had burned down,
and was getting cold; in short the family baking for that whole week was
in danger for want of a measure of flour to mould the bread with, and
that lay in the bags swung across her father’s saddle. So out she ran at
once, with her sleeves tucked up, her plump, white arms ready for
instant work, and a tin basin in her hand.
“Come, father, jump down and untie the bags: I am in a desperate hurry.
Another ten minutes and we should have had to heat over again. I’ve got
the most splendid pan of beans, all ready for baking, with such a lump
of pork on the top, all cut in checkers, and dropping open like a rose.
Come, hurry up, do!”
Daniel Hart got down from his horse, and swung one of the bags over his
shoulder, and marched into the porch. Somehow he did not feel able to
speak on commonplace things, but untied the bag in silence, watching
Martha as she took out the flour in handfuls and filled her basin.
“Martha,” he said, at last, “is Aunt Hetty in the kitchen?”
The girl lifted her rosy face, with a look of surprise. There was
something unusual in the father’s voice.
“Aunt Hetty? Yes, father. Where else should she be? I left her raking up
the coals with a long shovel.”
“Martha, wait a moment. There’ll be company here in a little while. I
met your uncle, Joseph Bentley, and his darter on the cross-roads; and
they’ll be here in a few minutes, without fail.”
“Uncle Joseph Bentley and his daughter from foreign parts!” cried
Martha, all in a flutter of excitement. “Goodness me, what shall we get
for supper? The baking won’t be out of the oven this two hours. Oh,
father, do go kill a chicken, and I’ll put down a short-cake—that, with
preserves and honey, will have to answer.”
Away Martha ran, bearing the flour between her plump little hands, while
her apron streamed behind her, and the bright curls danced and twinkled
around her face.
“Aunt Hetty! I say, Aunt Hetty, what do you think? Uncle Joseph Bentley
and Cousin Gillian—what a name—are coming here to-day. You can hear the
wagon tugging up the hill. Hetty! Hetty! where have you hid? Aunt
Hetty!”
“I am here,” answered a faint, struggling voice, from the back porch;
and Mehitable Hart came in, white and still as usual. But a less excited
person would have remarked that her face, always colorless, was now
almost ghostly, and that her small hands shook like leaves when she
attempted to take the basin from her niece.
“Don’t take it all. Leave me enough for a short-cake. No! that’s not it.
Leave enough out for that, and I’ll mould the bread. You look tired out.
Here’s the butter, and there lies the rolling-pin. Goodness gracious!
how fast they come! You can fairly hear the wheels clatter. But there’s
a good deal of work in ten minutes: so now for it!”
Suiting the action to the words, Martha dusted the table with flour,
plunged her arms into the kneading-tray, cut off a mass of dough, and
went to work with wonderful vigor, rolling, pinching, and smoothing the
shapeless substance into as dainty a loaf as ever dexterous hands
moulded.
“There!” she exclaimed, smiling, as she laid the first white globe in
its pan, “if they want a handsomer loaf than that, let them knead it, I
say. Dear me, Aunt Hetty, how your hands shake! Do call old Dinah to
roll out the cake, and go fix up a little. Put on a black silk apron and
a nice cap: that’ll make a lady of you in no time!”
“Yes!” answered Aunt Hetty, in a low, hoarse voice, wringing her hands
together with passionate violence, rather than from an effort to divest
themselves of the clinging flour, “yes! niece, I am almost tired out;”
and with these words trembling on her lips, the little woman opened a
door and glided up a flight of back stairs to her own room.
When once there, she flung up the sash, looked wildly down the road;
then creeping back to a far corner of the room, sat down, moaning
softly, like a wounded kid.
At each new rattle of the wheels, she gave a start, and looked piteously
around, as if seeking some covert; and when Martha came in, dusting her
hands, all rosy and smiling with excitement, the little woman darted to
her bureau, and began a vague search after something, while a timid
apology for not being ready trembled unuttered on her white lips.
“Here, aunt! what on earth possesses you? That’s my bureau, and here’s
your cap. Let me put it on for you. Why, how you shiver, and this poor
little face is as white as curd. Wait a minute: this’ll never do. Let me
hunt up the pink bows, and pin them on: with all this white you look
like a ghost!”
Aunt Hetty sat down, both hands dropping helplessly to her lap, while
she resigned herself to the busy fingers of her niece, with a frightened
look, growing paler and paler, spite of the pink ribbons, as the wagon
drew near the house.
“Here,” said Martha, taking the old lady’s face between her hands, and
kissing her cold lips, “you are neat as a new pin: only do cheer up a
little! What always frightens you so when company comes? Now I’ll fix up
a trifle myself, and go down. Where on earth is my brown dress? Dear me,
this hook never will fasten!”
Uttering these broken ejaculations, Martha Hart arrayed her pretty
figure in a dress of dark merino, put on a neat muslin collar with cuffs
to match, and hurried down to receive the coming guests. She had so long
been the leading spirit of the household, that it seemed the most
natural thing in the world for her to go out on the front porch, where
the flour bags still lay in a heap, and wait for the visitors to descend
from their homely conveyance; for, though a mere girl in all essentials
she was far more mistress of the house than Aunt Hetty, its nominal
head.
Still, with all her brightness and sweet ways, as her father called
them, Martha was a little shy, and really modest. The presence of
strangers made her cheeks glow like a peach, while her large, brown eyes
cast timid glances from under the long fringes that would have provoked
admiration from an artist, and which sent John Downs’s heart into his
mouth the moment he sat his eyes on her.
Daniel Hart went out to the wagon as it drew up, and, before Mr. Bentley
could dismount, took Gillian in his arms, holding her close to his
bosom, while he looked in her face.
Gillian was surprised to feel his great heart swell against her side,
and to see his massive features quivering like those of an infant. When
he set her upon the ground his eyes were full of tears—so full that he
could not see his daughter through the mist. She drew close to her
father, whispering softly,
“Did he love my mother very much, papa?”
But Mr. Bentley did not answer. His feelings were not so warmly
impulsive as those he witnessed: contact with society had driven them
deeper into his nature. While the farmer’s heart heaved, his only stood
still.
“And this,” he said, approaching Martha, “is my niece, no doubt.
Gillian, she should be about your own age.”
The two girls looked at each other shyly at first, but after a moment
Gillian ran up the steps with a bright smile on her face, and one hand
extended, for she saw, by the blushes that came and went on Martha’s
face, a thousand unspoken welcomes that went to her heart at once.
“So you are my cousin; I am very glad!” she exclaimed. “Why, it seems
like home already!”
“This is your home,” said Daniel Hart, coming up the steps, with a
spirit of self-abnegation breaking from every feature. “The house, the
land, from the hill top to the turnpike, is all your father’s: as for
us, we do not own a foot.”
“Indeed! well, that’s of no sort of consequence, I fancy!” cried
Gillian, looking around: “oh! there is the orchard, and here is the
great walnut. I remember it all—all but the—the——”
Gillian broke off suddenly, shocked by her own thoughtlessness. She saw
at once that it was the memory of her mother which had made her father
so pale, and filled that strong man’s eyes with tears.
“It is a beautiful view,” she added, softly; “some day, my cousin, we
will go all over it. Dear me! who is that?”
The two girls had walked into the hall as Gillian was speaking, and
stood in the door of the family sitting-room. Opposite them was a long,
old-fashioned mantle-glass, and in it Gillian saw the figure of a little
woman shrinking away behind the window drapery, so pale and terrified
that it made her start and open her eyes with wonder.
“Oh! it is only Aunt Hetty; you are sure to like Aunt Hetty; come in and
speak to her!” cried Martha, cheerfully; “she’s a little backward with
company, but the dearest, nicest—oh! indeed——”
Martha broke off with a little start, for that instant Aunt Hetty came
forward, with a swift, noiseless movement, and stood close to Gillian,
gazing in her face, with a scared, earnest look.
“Sister! oh, sister!”
The words dropped rapidly from her lips, and she caught hold of
Gillian’s dress, with a tender, pleading motion that perplexed the young
girl exceedingly.
“Why, aunt, what is the matter? You haven’t got a sister in the wide
world that I know of. This is our lady cousin from foreign parts. I told
you all about it up-stairs,” said Martha.
“I know—I know!” said Aunt Hetty, lifting one little hand to her
forehead. “It is Sarah’s child, not—not herself. I know that, but cannot
realize it. Let me look at myself.”
She went up to the mantle-glass, and peered at the pale face that met
her for more than a minute. When she turned away, the most wan smile
that Gillian ever saw gleamed on her lips.
“Can you believe it?” she said, mournfully, pointing to Martha. “I was
like her then!”
“Why, aunt, how strangely you talk!” said Martha, bewildered by this
singular address.
“Do I?” murmured the old lady. “Do I? What was it all about?” She seemed
tempted to address Gillian again, in the same vague way, but with one of
her warm-hearted impulses the young girl threw her arms around the
little woman and kissed her two or three times. “So you were my mother’s
sister. I understand it now—and I look so much like her; of course that
must be it. No wonder it disturbs you, aunt. Dear! how strange it seems
to call any one aunt. Won’t you kiss me, dear lady?”
The old lady began to tremble under the caresses which the bright girl
lavished on her, and Gillian remembered, after, that she did not return
her kiss, but rather struggled in her embrace than responded to it.
“Oh, that’s right,” the farmer called out, entering the hall. “That’s
right, Mehitable: welcome the gal with a whole heart; she must not feel
strange among us.”
“I could not feel strange here, Uncle Daniel,” cried Gillian, smiling
brightly while the tears leaped to her eyes. “See how I have got all the
names! I, who never had a relative before. Uncle, aunt, cousin! Isn’t it
delightful?”
“That’s kind and hearty,” replied the farmer. “Take our cousin
up-stairs, Martha, while this young chap and I bring in the trunks. Aunt
Hetty will see about supper while you get acquainted.”
The two girls went up-stairs, but directly Martha came down again to
hurry the trunks. John Downs had one on his shoulder, mounting the
stairs. Martha stepped aside to let him pass, and then she observed,
with a blush, what remarkably fine eyes the young fellow had. Amid all
her excitement this thought would come back to her mind all the evening;
for, according to the custom of those times, the driver sat down at the
same table with his passengers, and Martha was placed directly opposite
him during supper.
I don’t pretend to know how it happened, but when Martha Hart went to
bed that night she had learned that John Downs owned two-thirds of a
sloop on the river, beside the iron-gray horses, the Pennsylvania wagon,
and some bank-stock in New York—that his father had been one of the
first settlers in the river town where he made his home; and altogether
she gathered a very satisfactory account of his antecedents, though she
certainly had no sort of business with the information; but then Martha
came naturally to her curiosity, for all that part of the country had
been settled from New England.