GATHERING APPLES.
Little Paul was standing under the apple tree, with Rose Mason close by.
The thick grass under their feet was littered with golden apples,
streaked with rosy red, which Jube had shaken from the boughs.
"Here, little missus," cried the negro, looking down through the thick
leaves, and balancing a noble apple in his hand. "Hold up your apron,
little missus, and down it will come so pretty into the white nest, so."
Rose lifted her little apron of ruffled dimity, and held it up, laughing
and shaking her golden curls in the sunbeams, the happiest little
creature alive.
"Be careful," cried Paul, looking fondly on the beautiful creature.
"Don't you drop it on her head, Jube; it would almost kill her."
Jube laughed, and dropped the apple, which fell plump into the apron,
but with a force that tore it from the grasp of those tiny hands; so,
after all, the apple rolled away into the grass.
Both Paul and Rose made a plunge. The boy seized upon the apple first,
and held it over his head, tempting Rose, with his bright eyes laughing
pleasantly. She leaped after it, and danced up and down like a fairy,
for her little feet scarcely trampled the grass.
Paul was taller, by a whole foot, than the little girl, so he held the
fruit out of reach, smiling with his lips, and laughing with his eyes,
at her graceful efforts. Jube got astride a huge limb of the apple
tree, and looked down upon the fun, showing his teeth through the
leaves. The minister stood at his study window, benignly regarding them,
drawn from his manuscript sermon by their riotous shouts of laughter;
while his wife, who was sewing on the back porch, sat with her needle
half suspended, smiling brightly on the scene.
It was a pleasant sight, and the whole family enjoyed it with all the
zest of innocent hearts. The good housewife loved those two children
almost as if they had been her own, and as for Jube, the heart must have
been hard indeed which did not turn kindly to the good negro, who
brought his huge bodily strength to the aid of every thing that required
it, and who was good-natured as a Newfoundland dog.
The housewife was so occupied with the pretty strife under the apple
tree that she did not hear a knock at the front door, and was quite
taken by surprise when the help flung open that leading to the porch,
and revealed two strange men standing in the hall behind her.
When the door was opened, shouts of laughter swept through it from the
orchard, and one of the men, without heeding the lady, passed by her,
saying:
"Excuse me! It is my child--my little daughter!" and with quick strides
he advanced toward the apple tree, leaving his companion behind.
"Don't be skeered nor nothing, marm," said Rice, looking eagerly toward
the apple tree. "It's his little darter, and he's just found out where
she is, arter a tough siege among the niggers in St. Domingo, where we
thought he was left dead. I seed him fall down like an ox with the blow
of an axe, among a hull swarm of 'em in the cellar of one of them St.
Domingo houses, and arterward I saw 'em carry him off to be buried.
They took him up into the mountains, marm, and his goodness saved his
life arter all; for one of the niggers that he'd saved from a flogging
once knew him, and when the rest wanted to kill him over agin, this 'ere
chap jest begged him off and took him away to his own hut and kinder
nussed him up, you see; but it was a good while afore he got well, and
he had a tough time getting away--had to take a vessel going 'round the
Horn."
The minister had been disturbed by the knock which his wife had failed
to hear, and now stood in the back door listening to this rapid
narrative with a look of wonder in his face, while his wife sat with her
breath suspended, and the color dying gradually from her cheek, appalled
by the first glimpse of a crime in which she felt almost like a
participant.
Meanwhile, Captain Mason reached the apple tree, and paused a few feet
from Rose, with his arms extended, striving to call out, "My daughter,
my daughter," but the words died on his lips, and broke up in tears;
thus he stood before the child trembling like a criminal, and with his
noble features all in a tumult of tender agitation.
Rose had just succeeded in coaxing the apple from Paul, and tossing it
into the air, was intent on catching it with her hands, but her eyes
fell upon the stranger, and the sight seemed to harden her into stone.
The apple fell through her half-lifted hands, the laughter froze on her
lips, and her blue eyes opened wide and wild.
"Rose, my own little Rose, have you forgotten me so soon?"
The child uttered a faint wail; her hands fell down; she stood before
him like a flower withering at the stalk.
"Father! oh, father!"
The words came forth in a cry of pain, yet joy shone in her face.
He knelt down on the grass and folded her close to his heart, raining
kisses on her forehead, her hair, and her pretty hands. "My child, my
child," he murmured, with eager tenderness. "She is frightened. She
believed me dead. She has not had time to be glad. Oh, Rose, it is your
father; kiss me, kiss me, little Rose."
The child trembled in his arms, but reached up her lips and kissed him
over and over again.
"Now," said Mason, putting her away from his bosom, and examining her
with tears of proud fondness in his eye, "now, my little Rose, go with
me to your mother; is she in the house?"
Again that shiver came over the child; she bent her eyes to the earth,
and seemed to wither under his look.
"Oh, father, father, don't."
"What is the matter, Rose--why are you afraid? Come, come, go with me to
your mother."
"Mother isn't here," faltered the child.
A look of keen disappointment swept Mason's face. "Not here! Not with
her child! Then, where is she?"
"I don't know, father, indeed I don't; she would marry Captain Thrasher,
and go away. I begged and begged her not to; but she would do it."
Rose began to cry bitterly, in the midst of these words. Captain Mason
put her away with horror.
"Would marry Captain Thrasher! Captain Thrasher!" He spoke in a hoarse
whisper, as if the words chilled him.
"Oh, I couldn't help it!" pleaded poor Rose, dropping on her knees, and
holding up both hands like an infant Samuel.
"No, sir; Rose tells the truth. She tried and tried, but madame would
go," said Paul, dropping on one knee by Rose, and pleading for her with
his eyes. "That bad man came after madame, and put my mother's jewels on
her neck. It was them which carried her away from Rose."
"Married to Captain Thrasher!" The words came forth hoarsely from his
white lips. "My wife!"
Rice came up at the moment, looking fierce and agitated.
"Come away, captin, come away; this isn't no place for us," he said. "I
will search the rascal out, though he were hid away in the icebergs of
the frozen ocean. I'll neither eat nor sleep till he's handcuffed and
shackled down in jail."
"Is this thing true, Rice?" inquired Mason, in a deadly whisper.
"True as the gospel, captin. He married 'em both--your wife and my
sister. Oh!"
The sailor ground his teeth, and clenched his hand until it looked like
a mass of iron.
"Married to your sister?"
"Yes, captin; it was his name she wouldn't give up. She sot there on the
gallows with that marriage writing in her bosom, and let the women sneer
at her without a word, all to save that villain from disgrace. When she
fainted away in my arms after they took her down, the old woman found
this a lying agin her heart. I took it out, and swore an oath to search
the sarpent out; but his father told me that he'd gone off on a whaling
ship afore she was took up, and didn't know nothing about it, so I
waited. But I'm on his track now. He's on this 'ere continent, and I'll
find him, or die on the hunt. Don't look so skeered, little Paul; you
haint got nothing to do with this; so you needn't look at a chap in that
'ere pitiful way, no how. I aint mad with you, if I didn't shake hands."
"But Rose, poor Rose," pleaded the boy.
Rice looked kindly on the little girl. "Poor gal, poor little critter,"
he muttered, shaking his head; "but what is her suffering to his'n, I
should like to know. If his heart isn't broke, I don't know the signs.
Come, captin, don't look so down in the mouth; we've both got a job
afore us, and had better be a doing uv it."
Mason stood with his back to the group, gazing heavily on the earth.
"She thought I was dead; he told her so; and, perhaps, believed it. The
wretch persecuted her before she was married. She was alone and
destitute--a widow--very proud, and so helpless. Poor Ellen."
"Come, captin, my heart burns like a live coal. I long to be after the
villain," said Rice.
"Be after him--oh, yes; but where? He is your sister's husband--that
paper proves it. Legally married--and yet--and yet----"
He paused--cold shudders crept through his frame--tears of agony heaved
his chest--then the might of his grief broke forth, and covering his
face with both hands, he wept like a little child.
"Captin--Captin Mason, I say, look up--don't, don't--I can't stand it,"
cried Rice. "It's bad enough to see a woman cry; but this 'ere is more
than I can bear, darn me if it aint."