RUSTIC HOSPITALITY.
"Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crowned,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale."--_Goldsmith_.
Sanderson's clothes, his manner, his slightly English accent, were all
so many items in a good letter of credit to those simple people. The
Squire was secretly proud at having a city man like young Sanderson for
a neighbor. It would unquestionably add tone to Wakefield society.
Kate regarded him with the frank admiration of a young woman who
appreciates a smart appearance, good manner, and the indefinable
something that goes to make up the ensemble of the man of the world.
He could say nothing, cleverly; he had little subtleties of manner that
put the other men she had met to poor advantage beside him. On the
night in question the Squire was giving a supper in honor of the
berry-pickers who had helped to gather in the crop the week before.
Afterwards, they would sing the sweet, homely songs that all the
village loved, and then troop home by moonlight to the accompaniment of
their own music.
"Well, Mr. Sanderson," said the Squire, "suppose you stay to supper
with us. See, we've lots of good company"--and he waved his hand,
indicating the different groups, "and we'll talk about the stock
afterwards."
He accepted their invitation to supper with flattering alacrity; they
were so good to take pity on a solitaire, and Mrs. Bartlett was such a
famous housekeeper; he had heard of her apple-pies in Boston. Dave
scented patronage in his "citified" air; he and other young men at the
table--young men who helped about the farm--resented everything about
the stranger from the self-satisfied poise of his head to the
aggressive gloss on his riding-boots.
"Why, Dave," said Kate to her cousin in an undertone, "you look
positively fierce. If I had a particle of vanity I should say you were
jealous."
"When I get jealous, Kate, it will be of a man, not of a tailor's sign."
"Say, Miss Kate," said Hi Holler, "they're a couple of old lengths of
stove-pipes out in the loft; I'm going to polish 'em up for leggins.
Darned if I let any city dude get ahead o' me."
"The green-eyed monster is driving you all crazy," laughed Kate, in
great good humor. "The girls don't seem to find any fault with him."
Cynthia and Amelia were both regarding him with admiring glances.
Dave turned away in some impatience. Involuntarily his eyes sought out
Anna Moore to see if she, too, was adding her quota of admiration to
the stranger's account. But Anna had no eyes or ears for anything but
the business of the moment, which was attending to the Squire's guests.
Evidently one woman could retain her senses in the presence of this
tailor's figure. Dave's admiration of Anna went up several points.
She slipped about as quietly as a spirit, removing and replacing dishes
with exquisite deftness. Even the Squire was forced to acknowledge
that she was a great acquisition to the household. She neither sought
to avoid nor to attract the attention of Sanderson; she waited on him
attentively and unobtrusively as she would have waited on any other
guest at the Squire's table. The Squire and Sanderson retired to the
porch to discuss the purchase of the stock, and Mrs. Bartlett and Anna
set to work to clear away the dishes. Kate excused herself from
assisting, as she had to assume the position as hostess and soon had
the church choir singing in its very best style. Song after song rang
out on the clear summer air. It was a treat not likely to be forgotten
soon by the listeners. All the members of the choir had what is known
as "natural talent," joined to which there was a very fair amount of
cultivation, and the result was music of a most pleasing type, music
that touches the heart--not a mere display Of vocal gymnastics.
Toward the close of the festivities, the sound of wheels was heard, and
the cracked voice of Rube Whipple, the town constable, urging his
ancient nag to greater speed, issued out of the darkness. Rube was
what is known as a "character." He had held the office, which on
account of being associated with him had become a sort of municipal
joke, in the earliest recollections of the oldest inhabitants. He
apparently got no older. For the past fifty years he had looked as if
he had been ready to totter into the grave at any moment, but he took
it out apparently, in attending to other people's funerals instead.
His voice was cracked, he walked with a limp, and his clothes, Hi
Holler said: "was the old suit Noah left in the ark."
The choir had just finished singing "Rock of Ages" as the constable
turned his venerable piece of horseflesh into the front yard.
"Well, well," he said, in a voice like a graphophone badly in need of
repair, "I might have knowed it was the choir kicking up all that
rumpus. Heard the row clear up to the postoffice, and thought I'd come
up to see if anyone was getting murdered."
"Thought you'd be on the spot for once, did you, Rube?" inquired Hi
Holler. "Well, seeing you're here, we might accommodate you, by
getting up a murder, or a row, or something. 'Twould be too bad to
have nothing happen, seeing you are on hand for once."
The choir joined heartily in the laugh on the constable, who waited
till it had subsided and then said:
"Well, what's the matter with jailing all of you for disturbing the
public peace. There's law for it--'disturbin' the public peace with
strange sounds at late and unusual hours of the night.'"
"All right, constable," said Cynthia, "I suppose you'll drive us to
jail in that rig o' yourn. I'd be willing to stay there six months for
the sake o' driving behind so spry a piece of horse-flesh as that."
"'Tain't the horseflesh she's after, constable, it's the driver.
Everyone 'round here knows how Cynthia dew admire you."
"Professional jealousy is what's at the bottom of this," declared Kate,
"the choir is jealous of Uncle Rube's reputation as a singer, and Uncle
Rube does not care for the choir's new-fangled methods of singing.
Rivalry! Rivalry! That's what the matter."
"That's right, Miss Kate," squeaked the constable, "they're jealous of
my singing. There ain't one of 'em, with all their scaling, and
do-re-mi-ing can touch me. If I turned professional to-day, I'd make
more'n all of 'em put together."
"That's cause they'd pay you to quit. Ha, ha," said Hi Holler.
And so the evening passed with the banter that invariably took place
when Rube was of the party. It was late when they left the Squire's,
the constable going along with them, and all singing merrily as birds
on a summer morning.
David went out under the stars and smoked innumerable pipes, but they
did not give their customary solace to-night. There was an upheaval
going on in his well regulated mind. "Who was she? What was the
mystery about her? How did a girl like that come to be tramping about
the country looking for work?" Her manner of speaking, the very
intonations of her voice, her choice of words, all proclaimed her from
a different world from theirs. He had noticed her hands, white and
fragile, and her small delicate wrists. They did not belong to a
working woman.
And her eyes, that seemed to hold the sorrows of centuries in their
liquid depths. What was the mystery of it all? And that insolent city
chap! What a look he had given her. The memory of it made Dave's
hands come together as if he were strangling something. But it was all
too deep for him. The lights glimmered in the rooms upstairs. His
father walked to the outer gate to say good-night to Mr. Sanderson--and
he tried to justify the feeling of hatred he felt toward Sanderson, but
could not. The sound of a shutter being drawn in, caused him to look
up. Anna, leaned out in the moonlight for a moment before drawing in
the blind. Dave took off his hat--it was an unconscious act of
reverence. The next moment, the grave, shy countryman had smiled at
his sentimentality. The shutters closed and all was dark, but Dave
continued to think and smoke far into the night.
The days slipped by in pleasant and even tenor. The summer burned
itself out in a riot of glorious colors, the harvest was gathered in,
and the ripe apples fell from the trees--and there was a wail of coming
winter to the night wind. Anna Moore had made her place in the
Bartlett family. The Squire could not imagine how he ever got along
without her; she always thought of everyone's comfort and remembered
their little individual likes and dislikes, till the whole household
grew to depend on her.
But she never spoke of herself nor referred to her family, friends or
manner of living, before coming to the Bartlett farm.
When she had first come among them, her beauty had caused a little
ripple of excitement among the neighbors; the young men, in particular,
were all anxious to take her to husking bees and quilting parties, but
she always had some excellent excuse for not going, and while her
refusals were offered with the utmost kindness, there was a quiet
dignity about the girl that made any attempt at rustic playfulness or
familiarity impossible.
Sanderson came to the house from time to time, but Anna treated him
precisely as she would have treated any other young man who came to the
Squire's. She was the family "help," her duty stopped in announcing
the guests--or sometimes, and then she felt that fate had been
particularly cruel--in waiting on him at table.
Once or twice when Sanderson had found her alone, he had attempted to
speak to her. But she silenced him with a look that seat him away
cowering like a whipped cur. If he had any interest in any member of
the Squire's family, Anna did not notice it. He was an ugly scar on
her memory, and when not actually in his presence she tried to forget
that he lived.