Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Jeannie Howse and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
* * * * *
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note: |
| |
| Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has |
| been preserved. |
| |
| This e-book contains dialect. |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
* * * * *
THE LAND OF LONG AGO
[Illustration: "'HERE'S A PICTURE O' HENRIETTA'S HOUSE, CHILD.'"
FRONTISPIECE, _See Page 119_.]
The Land of
Long Ago
By
Eliza Calvert Hall
Author of
"Aunt Jane of Kentucky"
Illustrated by
G. Patrick Nelson
&
Beulah Strong
Boston
Little, Brown, & Company
1909
_Copyright, 1907, 1908, 1909_,
BY COSMOPOLITAN PUBLISHING COMPANY.
_Copyright, 1909_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published, September, 1909
Printers
S.J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S.A.
TO
My Children,
MARGERY, ALEXANDER, THOMAS, AND CECILIA,
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
[Illustration]
CHAPTERS
PAGE
I. A RIDE TO TOWN 1
II. THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE 37
III. THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS 75
IV. AUNT JANE GOES A-VISITING 109
V. THE MARRIAGE PROBLEM IN GOSHEN 143
VI. AN EYE FOR AN EYE 171
VII. THE REFORMATION OF SAM AMOS 207
VIII. IN WAR TIME 235
IX. THE WATCH MEETING 271
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
"'HERE'S A PICTURE O' HENRIETTA'S HOUSE, CHILD'" FRONTISPIECE
"I KNOW THE DELICATE DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES
BETWEEN THE ODORS OF INDIVIDUAL ROSES" _Page_ 14
MISS PENELOPE AND MISS AMARYLLIS " 80
"'ONE MORNING SHE CONCLUDED SHE'D STRAIGHTEN OUT
HENRY'S TRUNK'" " 148
"IT WAS THE TIME OF THE BLOOMING OF THE WISTARIA" " 173
"'THE GLASS BROKE INTO A HUNDRED PIECES'" " 229
"'DAVID! JONATHAN! MY BOYS! WHERE ARE YOU?'" " 257
"REVERENTLY SHE LAID THE HEAVY CALF-BOUND VOLUME
ACROSS HER KNEES" " 290
PROLOGUE
We are so near to those who dwell
In the dear land whereof I tell!
Sometimes when we are far astray,
Their spirit-hands may guide our way;
And if we would but pause to hear,
What whispered words of tender cheer
Might come on those fine airs that blow
From the strange Land of Long Ago!
The scenes are changed, but we and they
Are actors in the same old play.
Their blood is in our throbbing veins;
Their hopes and joys, their griefs and pains,
Bind us fore'er to squire or churl,
To stately dame or laughing girl,--
Those shades that wander to and fro
In the dim Land of Long Ago.
Then let the present hour go by.
Turn back awhile, and you and I
Through quiet garden paths may stray
Where blooms the rose of yesterday,
May meet brave men and women fair
Who sang life's song to simple air;
Mark how their homely virtues glow!--
O pleasant Land of Long Ago!
I
A RIDE TO TOWN
[Illustration]
I
A RIDE TO TOWN
"Make haste, child," called Aunt Jane; "there's mighty little time
between dinner and sundown, and if we're goin' to town we'd better be
startin'."
Aunt Jane came out of the house, drawing on a pair of silk gloves. She
was arrayed in her best gown of black alpaca, a silk-fringed cape
covered her shoulders, her poke bonnet was draped with a veil of
figured lace, and under the lace her face shone with happy
anticipation, for a lifetime of trips to town had not dulled her
enjoyment of such an event.
The horse and buggy stood at the gate. The former had a pedigree as
long as that of the penniless lass, and Aunt Jane could tell many
wonderful tales of Nelly's spirit and speed in the days of her youth.
Some remnant of this fire was supposed to smolder yet in the old
thoroughbred, but as I looked at the drooping head and half-shut eyes,
I saw there was good reason for Aunt Jane's haste, if we were expected
to get back from town before nightfall.
"What are we going to town for?" I asked, as I stepped into the buggy
and took up the reins.
Aunt Jane hesitated. "Well," she said, "I'm goin' to lay in a supply
o' soda and cream o' tartar, and I may buy some gyarden seed and one
thing or another. I ain't exactly out o' soda and cream o' tartar, and
I could git the seed from some o' the neighbors. I reckon if the truth
was told, I'm goin' to town jest to be a-goin'."
A certain English humorist, who is not so well known to this
generation as Mark Twain, once wrote a page of gentle satire about
those misguided people who leave their native land to travel in
foreign countries. He finds but three reasons for their folly:
"infirmity of body, imbecility of mind, and inevitable necessity"; and
the whole circle of such travelers he classifies under the following
heads: the Idle, the Inquisitive, the Lying, the Proud, the Vain, and
the Splenetic. Had he gone a little farther into his subject, he might
have written approvingly of the Innocent Traveler, who, on a May day,
sets forth to go from his home in the country to the near-by town, all
for the mere pleasure of traveling.
Why, indeed, should the desire for travel send one across oceans or
over continents? Wherever we go we find only the old earth and the old
sky, and, under varying forms of dress and complexion, the same old
humanity of which we are a part. Does not the sun rise or set as
splendidly over some blue Kentucky hill as over the Jungfrau? Is the
daisy on Mars Hill any fairer than the daisy that opens its petals on
any meadow of the New World? And if historic associations are the aim
of your wanderings, turn the pages of some old school history, or send
your memory on a backward pilgrimage to the olden days, and a country
road may carry you into a past as glorious as that which lies along
the Appian Way.
For a long time we rode in silence. On crowded streets and in towns
one must talk; but out of doors in the country there is a Voice
continually speaking in a language as old as the song of the morning
stars, and if the soul hears that, human words are not needed.
Aunt Jane was the first to speak. "Ain't it sweet and peaceful this
time o' the year!" she said. "I look at these pretty fields and woods
all fenced in, with good roads runnin' alongside, and it don't seem
like it could be jest a little more'n two generations between now and
the time when this was the Dark and Bloody Ground, and the white men
was fightin' with Indians and bears and wildcats to git possession of
it. Why, right over there on that ridge o' hills is the place where
Sam Amos's grandfather run the ga'ntlet when he was captured by the
Indians. Sam used to have the old tow-linen shirt with the bloodstains
and the cut on the shoulder where one o' the Indians struck him with a
tomahawk. I ricollect Parson Page used to say that life was jest a
runnin' of the ga'ntlet. There's enemies on each side of us, and every
one of 'em is strikin' at us. And we can't run away, and we know that
there's one stroke comin' some time or other that's certain to bring
us down. And all we've got to do is to stand up and keep goin' right
on, and be ready for the last blow, whenever it happens to fall. And
here's Devil's Holler," she continued; "look down that bluff, and
you'll see it."
I looked and saw a deep cup-shaped valley, dark with the shadows of
overhanging rocks and trees, and luxuriant with ferns and underbrush
that grew rankly out of soil made rich by the drifted leaves of a
hundred autumns.
"Some folks say that the old stage road used to run past here, and a
band o' robbers used to hide by the side o' the road and waylay the
stage and rob the passengers, and maybe murder 'em and bury their
bodies at the bottom o' the holler. And"--she lowered her voice--"some
folks say the place is ha'nted. Sam Amos declared the devil come out
o' that holler and chased him for half a mile one dark night when he
was late comin' home from town. But I reckon the only devil that
chased Sam was the devil in the bottom of his whiskey-jug, and Uncle
Billy Bascom says there never was any stage line along this road
within his ricollection. So there you are; don't know what to believe
and what not to believe."
Just here the road made a steep, upward curve, and we looked down on
the clear, green ripples of a river that wound between high rocky
cliffs on one hand, and on the other vast fields of corn growing
lustily in the deep, rich soil.
"Why should such a pretty little river be called the Barren River?" I
asked. "There isn't anything barren about the river or the country
around it."
Aunt Jane's eyes sparkled. She was capable of answering the question,
for it touched a page of ancient history that was to her a twice-told
tale. "You see all these trees, child?" she said impressively, waving
her hand in the direction of the luxuriant masses of foliage. "Jest
look at that tulip-tree yonder, eighty feet high, I reckon, and the
flowers standin' up all over it like the gold candlesticks the Bible
tells about. You wouldn't think all these trees could grow up since
the first settlers come through here. But I've heard father tell about
it many a time. He said the Indians used to set fire to the woods and
the fields, and when the first settlers come through here, they called
this the Barrens on account o' there bein' no trees, and they passed
by all this good land and went further up on Gasper River, where there
was springs comin' out o' the hills and plenty of trees. You see,
there's two things a settler has to have: wood and water; and that's
why the country up around Gasper was settled before this was, and this
got the name of the Barrens, when there ain't a richer lot o' ground
anywhere.
"And speakin' of names, honey, did I ever tell you how Kittle Creek
got its name?
"Well, now, folks has been laughin' about that story for the last
seventy-five years, and I reckon they'll keep on laughin' as long as
there's a old man or a old woman like me livin' to tell it;" and Aunt
Jane began laughing in advance of the story.
"The right name o' Kittle Creek is Clear Fork," she said, "but it's
been Kittle Creek ever since old man Sam Stapleton give it that name.
And this was the way of it. Old man Sam lived on the fur side o' the
creek, and he was in the habit o' comin' to town every once in a while
to lay in his groceries and such things, and every time he'd come to
town he'd git his jug filled, of course, and drink all along the way
home; but by the time he'd git to Clear Fork he wouldn't know where he
was, or who he was, or which way he was goin'. He was a mighty
good-hearted man, but that jug was his besettin' sin.
"Well, one evenin' he was comin' home the usual way, him and the jug,
and he got to the creek and concluded he'd git off his horse and lay
down and take a little nap. Some o' the women folks in that
neighborhood had been doin' their washin' that day, and there was a
big iron kittle on the bank set up on some stones where they'd b'iled
their clothes. Old man Sam laid down by the kittle and went to sleep.
Pretty soon he got awake and set up and rubbed his eyes, and took
notice of the kittle, and says he,
"'Have I crossed this creek or not?' says he. 'It appears to me like
I've seen this kittle before, but whether it was on this side o' the
creek or the other, to save my life I can't tell.'
"Then he studied a while and says he,
"'Well, I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt.' So he crossed the
creek, got off his horse and set down in the shade, and took a drink
out o' the jug and fell asleep again. After a while he woke up and
looked around, and says he: 'Here I am again, and here's the creek,
and yonder's that old kittle jest as natural as life. But what I want
to know is, am I agoin' to town, or am I comin' back home?' And he
looked at the sun, and says he, 'Judgin' by the way that sun looks, it
might be nine o'clock in the mornin', and it might be three o'clock
in the evenin'; and not bein' a Solomon I ain't able to decide which
it is, but I'll take my chances and go across the creek.'
"So across the creek he went, took another drink, and laid down and
fell asleep right by the kittle. Pretty soon he woke up the third
time, and says he: 'Well, if here ain't that old kittle again! Howdy,
Mr. Kittle! Can you tell me which way I'm goin', and whether it's
mornin' or evenin'?'
"Well, the kittle didn't answer; and the old man set there and thought
a while, and then he crossed the creek and took another drink and
another nap, and crossed again, and there was the same old kittle, and
he looked at it and give it a kick, and says he: 'I never saw as many
blame kittles in all my life as I've seen to-day. I reckon this must
be Kittle Creek.'"
Aunt Jane paused to join in my laughter.
"I always thought it was a shame to laugh at a poor drunkard," she
resumed, "but old man Sam told the Kittle Creek story on himself. I
don't reckon he thought he was changin' the name of Clear Fork Creek,
but from that time on nobody ever called it anything but Kittle
Creek."
She stopped and peered over the side of the buggy. Her keen eyes had
detected a change in the road. There had been no rain for a week, but
the horse's hoofs and the wheels of our buggy had suddenly ceased to
raise any dust.
"Looks like there'd been a shower here lately," she remarked; "but I
don't see any sign o' rain except right here in the middle o' the
road."
"Perhaps this is the oiled road, Aunt Jane," said I.
"That's jest what it is!" exclaimed Aunt Jane delightedly. "Uncle
Billy Bascom was tellin' me about the new-fangled way they had of
layin' the dust, but it didn't seem to me like oil'd mix with dust any
more'n it will with water. That shows how little old folks knows.
Well, ain't this nice! Ridin' along in dry weather and never raisin' a
bit o' dust! Uncle Billy didn't approve o' the oiled roads. He says,
says he, 'Jane, it looks to me like them town folks won't never git
through circumventin' Providence.' Says he, 'They've got their gas and
their 'lectricity, so's it don't make a bit o' difference whether the
sun or the moon or the stars shines or not. And they've got their
'lectric fans, which makes 'em independent of the wind blowin', and
now they're fixin' the roads so's they won't have to pray for rain.'
Says he, 'It looks like they're tryin' to git rid of all sense o'
dependence on the Almighty; but as for me,' says he, 'I've got my pegs
sot, and I ain't goin' to have my brains all tore up follerin' after
new ways.'
"That's jest like Uncle Billy. But all the time I'm ridin' along this
road I'm feelin' thankful to Providence that he made the oil, and then
made people with enough sense to know that oil would settle dust.
There's no use stickin' to old ways unless they're better than the new
ways."
Just then there was a whir of wings from a fence corner, and a moment
later a liquid voice sounded over the clover field,
Bob White, is your wheat ripe?
Most birds have a song of but one season. The bluebird, for instance,
sings only of spring; but in the two simple notes of the partridge
there is the melody of falling water, a song of April's pale-green
fields, a song of summer's golden grain, and another of autumn's
scarlet leaf and frosty morning.
"That's a voice that won't be heard in the land much longer," remarked
Aunt Jane; "and when it does stop, it'll be like missin' a voice from
the church choir. The wild things are disappearin' one by one. The
deer's all gone, and even squirrels are gittin' so skeerce the
legislature'll have to pass a law to protect 'em. And I'm bound to say
the first settlers is a good deal to blame for it all. Game was so
plentiful in them early days that nobody thought about it ever givin'
out. Every man was a hunter--he had to be to provide his family with
meat--and I've heard father say that every boy in them days was born
with a gun in his hand. Old Jonathan Petty, Silas's father, had nine
sons, all of 'em sharpshooters. They used to shoot at squirrels for a
mark, and if they hit the squirrel anywhere but in the head, old
Jonathan'd give 'em a good whippin'. That sort o' trainin' was bound
to make a boy a good marksman, but it was hard on the squirrels."
[Illustration: "I know the delicate differences and resemblances
between the odors of individual roses"
Drawn by G. Patrick Nelson]
I had thought myself deeply learned in the lore of sweet odors. I know
that the orient spells of sandal-wood can intoxicate like the
opium-pipe or the draught of Indian hemp. I know the delicate
differences and resemblances between the odors of individual roses. I
know that when nature made the coarse hollyhock, she gave it the
almond perfume that floats over the waves of the Hellespont from the
petals of the patrician oleander growing on its banks. And I know
that, in the same mood, she dowered the vulgar horseweed with the
breath of the mignonette. Every odor is to me as a note of music, and
I know the discords and harmonies in the long, long scale of perfume.
I know that heliotrope and mignonette make a dissonance, and
heliotrope and tea-roses a perfect third; that there is a chord of
melody in heliotrope, tea-roses, and honeysuckle; and in the
orange-blossom or tuberose a dominant note that is stronger than any
symphony of perfume that can be composed from summer's garden-beds.
There are perfumes as evanescent as the dreams of youth, and others as
persistent as the memories of childhood. Go into the fields in
February, gather the dead penny-royal that has stood through the rains
and snows of a long winter, and you will find in its dry stems and
shriveled leaves the same gracious scent the green plant has in June.
A rose of last October is a poor deflowered thing; but turn to the
ice-bound garden-walks where, a month before, the chrysanthemum stood
in autumn splendor. The beautiful acanthus-like leaves and the once
gorgeous blossoms hang in brown tatters, but still they hold the
perfume of lavender and camphor, and from autumn to spring the plant
stands embalmed in its own sweetness, like the body of a mummied
Pharaoh wrapped in precious gums and spices. I know that the flowers
called scentless have their hours when the spirit of perfume visits
them and lends them, for a brief season, the charm without which a
flower is only half a flower. I have found the fragrance of ripe
cherries in the wood of the cherry parted a lifetime from the parent
tree. I have marveled over the alchemy that gives to the bitter
shriveled fruit of the wild crab-apple tree a fragrance as sweet as
its blossom. The heart of a child beats in me at the scent of a green
walnut or a handful of fresh hickory leaves; and I have cried out for
words to express what I feel when the incense of the wild grape
blossom rises from the woodland altars of late spring, and I stand, a
lonely worshiper, at a shrine deserted "since the old Hellenic days."
But what was that breath coming across the meadows on the sun-warmed
air? Was it a lost breeze from the Indian Ocean, caught in some
gulf-stream of the air and drifted down into the wind-currents that
blow across Kentucky fields in May?
"Strawberries, strawberries, child," said Aunt Jane. "Didn't you ever
smell strawberries when the evenin' sun's shinin' on 'em and ripenin'
'em, and the wind's blowin' over 'em like it's blowin' now? There's a
ten-acre patch o' strawberries jest across that medder."
It was impossible to go on while that perfume came and went like a
far-off, exquisite voice, and even Aunt Jane forgot her hurry to get
to town, as we sat with our faces eagerly turned toward the unseen
field of strawberries.
"I've heard folks say," said Aunt Jane, "that Kentucky is the natural
home o' the strawberry, and I reckon it's so, for I ricollect how,
when I was a child, the strawberries grew wild in the pastures, and
the cows'd come home at night with their hoofs dyed red with the juice
o' the berries they'd been treadin' on all day. Parson Page used to
say there was some things that showed the goodness of the Lord, and
some things, such as strawberries and grapes and apples and peaches,
that showed the exceeding great goodness of the Lord. He'd never eat a
strawberry without first holdin' it up and lookin' at it and smellin'
it, and he'd say:
"'Now wouldn't you think it was enough to have a strawberry tastin'
like it does? But here it is, the prettiest color in the world, pretty
as any rose, and, besides that, smellin' like the sweetest flower
that grows.'"
"What is the sweetest flower that grows?" I asked.
"Don't ask me such a question as that," said Aunt Jane with emphasis.
"Every one's the sweetest while I'm smellin' it. But when Parson Page
talked about the sweetest flower, he meant the calycanthus. There's
mighty little difference between smellin' a bowl o' strawberries and a
handful o' calycanthuses. Yes, the world's full o' sweet things,
child, and you don't have to look in gyardens to find 'em, either.
They're scattered around everywhere and free for everybody. Jest look
yonder in that old fence corner. There's catnip and hoarhound and
horsemint and pennyroy'l, and pretty soon there'll be wild
life-everlastin'. Yes, it's a mighty sweet world. I'm glad I've lived
in it this long, and heaven'll have to be somethin' mighty fine if
it's any better'n this old earth. Now hurry up, child, or we won't
have time to see the town sights before dark comes."
Within a mile of town I noticed a house barely visible at the end of
an avenue so long that it made me think of the "lane that knows no
turning."
"What house is that?" I asked.
Aunt Jane's eyes twinkled. "That's the house that was a weddin' fee,"
she said mysteriously.
"A wedding fee?" I echoed doubtfully.
"A weddin' fee," repeated Aunt Jane. "But don't ask me any questions
about it now, for there ain't time to tell it before we git to town."
"But you'll tell it on the way back?" I urged eagerly.
"Yes, child, yes. But hurry up now. I don't believe you care whether
we git to town or not."
I shook the lines over Nelly's back, tapped her gently with the whip,
and on we went. Aunt Jane was impatient to get to town, but I--I
wished for a longer road, a slower steed, and a Joshua to command the
afternoon sun to stand still a while in the heavens. For it was the
last day of May. Time stood reluctant on the border line between
spring and summer, and in every bird-song and every whisper of the
wind I seemed to hear,
"Farewell, farewell, to another spring!"
"You see that pretty farm yonder?" said Aunt Jane, pointing to the
left. "Fields as level as a parlor floor and soil like a river-bottom?
That farm belonged to Henry Amos, Sam Amos's youngest brother. Henry
got the gold-fever back in '49, him and a lot of other young fellers,
and nothin' would do but he must go to California. And here's Henry's
farm, but where Henry is nobody knows. Every time I see the yeller
wheat standin' in these fields, I think of how Henry's grandfather
begged him not to go. Henry was his favorite grandchild, and it broke
the old man's heart to see him leave. He took hold o' Henry's hand and
led him to the front door and says he,
"'Son, do you think the Lord was so forgetful of his children as to
put all the gold in the world out yonder in California?' Says he,
'That potato-patch over there is a gold-mine, and there's a gold-mine
in that wheat-field, and another one in the corn-field. And if you'll
go down in the orchard and gether a load o' them pippin apples and a
few punkins, and haul 'em to town and sell 'em, you'll find there's
some gold in them.' Says he, 'The whole earth's a gold-mine, if men
jest have the patience to dig it out.' But Henry would go, and I
reckon he couldn't help it, poor boy! Some folks are born to stay at
home, and some are born with the wanderin' fever in their bones."
I looked at the fertile fields that were the dead man's heritage, and
read again the old story of restless human ambition that loses the
near and the familiar by grasping at the far-off and unknown.
We were nearing the town limits now. Instead of the infrequent
farmhouses, we were passing rows of pretty suburban homes. Now and
then a fine old elm by the roadside, or within some neat, flowery
yard, spoke of the "forest primeval" vanishing before the stealthy
march of a growing town.
Aunt Jane's face wore the look of the pilgrim who approaches the City
Beautiful. She loved the country, and nature had kindly given her the
power to love one thing without hating its antithesis. But, apart from
Aunt Jane's company, going to town had no attraction for me, to whom a
town is only one of those necessary evils whose sum total we call
civilization. And while Aunt Jane took delighted notice of the
street-cars, the newly laid concrete walks, the sprinkling-cart, and
the automobile with its discordant warning voice, my heart turned back
regretfully to the narrow wayside path bordered by dusty weeds and
watered only by the dew and rain, to the old "dirt road," marked by
the track of the lazy ox-team or the two-horse wagon, and hushed and
bounded by the great silences of field and wood.
Aunt Jane was smiling and looking to right and left, and the children
on the street were quick to respond with answering smiles, as the kind
old face beamed on them. Chauffeurs and drivers of stylish carriages
politely gave us the road, and so we jogged into the little square,
the heart of the town. The park was in its spring raiment of young
leaves and grass, and the waters of the fountain sparkled in the
sunshine.
"It's the prettiest little town in the State," said Aunt Jane proudly.
"Where shall we go first?" I asked.
"There's one place in this town where all us country folks goes
first," said Aunt Jane oracularly, "and that's the old drug-store on
the corner yonder. Let the mare alone, and she'll go right there
without guidin'."
And so she did, stopping at a corner of the square before a
three-story brick building with none of the usual signs of a
drug-store about it. Aunt Jane stepped out to make her purchases, and
I stayed in the buggy to hold the horse, an unnecessary precaution,
for old Nelly at once dropped her head in a drowsy, meditative way
that showed she had no intention of leaving the familiar
stopping-place.
I heard a cheery voice within giving Aunt Jane an old friend's
greeting, and while she made her purchases and gossiped with the
proprietor over the high, old-fashioned counter, I stared into the
dark, dingy vista of the ancient store. The stone door-step, hollowed
like the steps to the Blarney stone, had borne the steady tread of
feet for sixty years, and the floor within was worn in the same way.
At the far end of the store, I discerned a group of elderly men. Some
were seated on packing-boxes, conveniently placed around the store for
the use of those who desired to stay a while to rest and whittle;
others reposed on the small of their backs in rickety, splint-bottomed
chairs tilted against the wall, their feet on the rounds of the
chairs, their knees on a level with their chins, and about them an air
of profound repose that showed them to be as much a part of the store
as the old iron stove. The window proclaimed the place the den of an
archaeologist, for it was filled with arrow-heads neatly mounted on
pasteboard, Indian pottery, petrifactions, stone hammers, tomahawks,
relics of aboriginal and prehistoric man that the mounds and caves of
Kentucky yield up to the seeker of such buried treasure. Both within
and without, the old store was like an embodiment of conservatism
standing unmoved while the swift currents of modern progress were
sweeping around it and beating against it.
While I was gazing and wondering, Aunt Jane came out. "I reckon you
think this is a curious-lookin' place, honey," she said, as she stowed
away her packages on the seat. "This old store is one o' the places
that ain't changed in my memory. 'Stablished in 1847, and I don't
reckon it's had a right good cleanin' from that day to this, but the
best of everything a drug-store keeps is in them old dusty bottles and
jars. It does me good to come to town and find one place lookin' jest
like it did when me and Abram used to come on county-court days and
circus days. And there's the old men sittin' around that stove.
They've been there for the last twenty-five years, and they'll be
there till death comes along and picks 'em up and carries 'em away.
And now, child, give me the lines. I'm goin' to drive around a little
while, and then we'll go home."
She took the lines and began what seemed to me an aimless ramble
through the streets of the town. She grew strangely silent, and that
look on her face--was it sadness or only joy in retrospect? I began to
see the meaning of our ride to town. The garden-seed and other
purchases were but a vain pretext. In reality, she had come to keep a
tryst with the past. Now and then she remembered my presence, and
would point to some place that was a link between to-day and
yesterday. Here was the place in which General Buckner had made his
headquarters during the Civil War; in that house Charles Sumner was
once a guest; on yonder height stood a Confederate fortification, and
on a similar elevation on the opposite side of town was another fort
erected by a Federal commander, afterward a president; and--wondrous
miracle!--the angel of peace had turned the old fort into a garden. As
Aunt Jane spoke, the light of other days shone for me, too, and in its
radiance the commonplace faded out of sight.
We traveled in a circle, and our ride ended where it had begun. As we
paused at the drinking-fountain to let old Nelly quench her thirst,
Aunt Jane leaned out of the buggy and looked wistfully up and down the
square. I knew what was in her heart. She was thinking that, perhaps,
this was the last time she would see the town.
"It's a curious thing, child," she said finally, "that while folks are
growin' old, the towns they live in are growin' young. The town I
ricollect when I was a young gyirl is the old town, and now, when I'm
old, the town's young, and growin' younger and newer every day. Ain't
it a pity folks can't grow young instead of growin' old?" She paused,
and I felt the distance of a lifetime growing up between us.
Presently she came out of her reverie, smiling brightly. "We're
lookin' at the same things, honey," she said, "but you see jest one
thing, and I'm seein' double all the time. You see this square with
the park in the middle and the fine four-and five-story buildin's all
around it, and I see it, too; but back of it I can see the old square
with the court-house in the middle of it and the scraggly locust-trees
growin' around it and the market-house back of it. That market-house
wasn't much to look at, but the meat they sold there was the sort a
king can't git nowadays. And there was the clerk's office in front of
the court-house, and the county clerk used to stand on the door-step
and call out the names of the witnesses that was wanted when they was
tryin' a case in court. I can see him now, holdin' up a piece o' paper
to read the names off, and the sun shinin' on his gray head. And that
three-story hotel over yonder on the corner--that used to be the old
tavern in the days when there wasn't any railroad, and the stage'd
come rumblin' up, and everybody'd come runnin' to their front doors to
see who the passengers was.
"The town was so quiet in them days, child, that you could lay down in
the court-house yard and go to sleep, and so little that if you put
your head out o' the winder and hollered for John Smith, you'd be
pretty certain to git John Smith. If he didn't hear you, some of his
neighbors would, and they'd hunt him up for you. Things wasn't as well
kept then as they are now. I ricollect the jimson-weeds growin' in the
court-house yard, and one year the dog-fennel was so plentiful that
Uncle Jim Matthews says to me, says he, 'It looks to me like the
Smiths and the Joneses and the dog-fennel are about to take the
town.'"
She laughed gaily and handed the reins to me. "And now, child, we've
got to make tracks for home, unless we want to be out after sundown."
As we passed out of the square, our faces turned homeward, I noticed
an old Gothic church on the corner of the street leading to the
court-house.
"There's another thing that ain't changed much," said Aunt Jane, with
great satisfaction in her voice. "The inside's all new, and there's a
new congregation, for all the old congregation's lyin' out in the new
cemetery or the old graveyard. But there's the same walls standin' and
lookin' jest like they did when I used to come to town with father and
mother. Makes me think of a body with a new soul in it. Wonder if the
old bell's still up yonder in the steeple.
"Speakin' o' that bell reminds me o' Martin Luther Wilson and the time
he kept it from ringin'. Now, wait till we're fairly outside o'town,
and I'll tell you about it."
When all signs of town were fully half a mile behind us the story
began.
"That church you saw back yonder, honey," she said, "was built when
the Rev. Samuel Wilson was the pastor, and as soon as it was done and
the bell put up in the belfry, Brother Wilson said that bell had to
ring every Saturday mornin' to call the children of the congregation
together in the basement o' the church to receive religious
instruction. He'd been visitin' amongst the church-members, and he'd
found out that some o' the children didn't know the Ten Commandments
or the Shorter Catechism or the Lord's Prayer, and when he asked one
child what a foreign missionary was, the little thing thought a minute
and says she, 'Why, it's a rabbit, ain't it? 'Well, of course Brother
Wilson was clean scandalized, and says he, 'Such a state of things is
a disgrace to a civilized community. And,' says he, 'if the parents of
the church haven't got time to instruct their children, I'll do it
myself, for it's part of my pastoral duty to feed the lambs of this
flock as well as the sheep.'
"Well, of course the parents had no objection to havin' the children
taught. I ricollect old Mis' Zerilda Moore said that if Brother Wilson
could teach her boy Joe to say the Ten Commandments, he was welcome to
the job, for all her time was taken up tryin' to git Joe to keep a few
of 'em. The little gyirls didn't mind goin' to Saturday-mornin' Sunday
School, as they called it, but the boys objected mightily, especially
Brother Wilson's boys, Martin Luther and John Calvin. And Martin
Luther says, says he, 'It ain't fair to take a lamb's play-time away
from it to feed it on such fodder as that Shorter Catechism.' Says he,
'Any healthy lamb can stand the Ten Commandments and the Lord's
Prayer; I can say 'em frontwards and backwards myself, but,' says he,
'when it comes to the catechism, there'll be some lambs missin' from
this flock when Saturday mornin' comes.'
"Well, one mornin' not long after this, the old sexton went to ring
the bell for the children to come to the church, and he pulled the
rope and pulled the rope and couldn't make a sound; and while he was
standin' lookin' up in the belfry and pullin' and wonderin', here come
Brother Wilson wantin' to know why that bell hadn't been rung. Brother
Wilson was a man that was always on time himself, and he hadn't any
patience with folks that wasn't.
"And old Uncle Gloster says, 'Boss, I'm doin' my best, but it looks
like somebody's done hoodooed this bell.' Says he, 'I'm jest gittin'
over a spell o' rheumatism, and my old j'ints won't stand a climb up
that ladder, and you'll have to git somebody that's young and spry to
go up and see what's the matter.'
"Well, Brother Wilson started off to find somebody who could climb the
ladder, and as soon as he got outside the church, he met Judge Grace
and old Doctor Brigham, both of 'em members of the church, and he told
'em about the trouble with the bell, and they went in to see what they
could do. By the time Brother Wilson had walked around the square,
everybody in town knew that the Presbyterian bell wouldn't ring, and
all the folks come flockin' to the church; but nobody wanted to risk
their neck goin' up the old rickety ladder. While they was all
standin' there stretchin' their necks and reckonin' about what was the
matter, here come John Calvin, and says he, 'Gimme fifty cents, and
I'll go up the ladder.'
"And Brother Wilson says, 'No child o' mine shall be hired to do his
duty.' Says he, 'John Calvin, if that ladder was a green-apple tree,
you'd be at the top of it in less than half a minute. Go up, sir, this
instant, and find out what's the matter with that bell.'
"But Judge Grace and Doctor Brigham and the rest o' the men said
they'd throw in and make up the fifty cents, and John Calvin put the
money in his pocket and went up the ladder. As soon as he got to the
top round he hollered down and says he:
"'No wonder the bell won't ring. Here's a yarn sock tied around the
clapper.' And down he come with the sock in his hand, and handed it to
his father. It turned out afterwards that him and Martin Luther had
had a fallin' out that mornin', and he went up and got the sock jest
to git even with his brother.
"Well, while they was passin' the sock around and speculatin' about
it, old Mis' Maria Morris come along with her bag o' knittin' on her
arm, goin' to spend the day with some of her friends. She stopped to
see what was the matter, and when they told her she says, 'Let me look
at the sock,' and she took it and looked at it right close and says
she, 'That's Martin Luther Wilson's sock,' says she. 'I spent the day
with Mis' Wilson three or four weeks ago, and I saw her round off the
toe of this very sock.'
"Well, of course, Brother Wilson started off to look for Martin
Luther, and as soon as he was out o' hearin', Judge Grace brought his
cane down on the pavement, and says he, 'I hate to say such a thing of
my own pastor's son, but they named that boy after the wrong man when
they named him Martin Luther,' says he. 'They ought to 'a' named him
Beelzebub. That's one good old Bible name,' says he, 'that'll fit a
preacher's son nine times out of ten.'
"Brother Wilson went all around the square inquirin' for Martin
Luther, and found out that Martin and the rest o' the boys had been
seen goin' towards the river, all of 'em bleatin' like young lambs
callin' for their mothers. So he come back to the church, and says he
to Judge Grace, 'What mortifies me most in this matter is that a boy
of mine should have so little sense as to tie his own sock on the
bell. It was the act of a fool,' says he, 'and I shall see that it is
properly punished.'
"So when Martin Luther got home late that evenin', his mother was
standin' on the front door-step waitin' for him, and she took him by
the hand and led him into his father's study. And Brother Wilson held
up the sock, and says he, 'My son, can you tell me how this came to be
tied on the clapper of the church bell?' And Martin Luther says, as
prompt as you please, 'Yes, sir; I tied it on myself.' Martin's mother
said Brother Wilson looked mighty pleased at that. And then he says,
'Well, didn't you know you'd be found out if you tied your own sock
on?' And Martin Luther says, 'Yes, but I had to take my chances on
that, for if I'd gone home to git a rag or anything like that, Uncle
Gloster might 'a' had the church locked up before I could git back.'
Mis' Wilson used to say that Brother Wilson laughed like he'd heard
good news when Martin Luther said that, and says he, 'Well, I'm glad
to know you are neither a liar nor a fool, but, all the same, I shall
have to correct you severely for this offense.'
"Brother Wilson believed in Solomon's plan for raisin' children, and
in them days preachers didn't try to explain away the meanin' of a
Bible text like they do now. So he give Martin Luther a good
old-fashioned whippin', and then he called for John Calvin, and says
he, 'I know you were as deep in the mud as your brother was in the
mire, and I understand now why you were so anxious to climb the ladder
and see what was the matter with the bell: you only wanted to get your
brother into trouble, so I shall give you a double punishment.'
"And besides the whippin', Martin Luther said they made him and John
Calvin learn pretty near all the psalms. That's the way children was
dealt with in old times. Martin Luther used to say, 'Boys, if I got
all this for tyin' one sock on that old bell-clapper, what would it
'a' been if I'd tied a pair o' socks on it?'"
The old farmhouse was in sight, and Nelly's brisk gait showed what she
could do if she would. Such inspiration is the thought of home, even
to dumb animals. Suddenly I drew rein and assumed a look of deep
dismay.
"Aunt Jane," I cried, "we have forgotten something."
"La, child, you don't say so," said Aunt Jane, turning over the
parcels in her lap and hurriedly counting them. "Why, no we ain't.
Here's the soda and the cream o' tartar and the gyarden seed all
right."
"But you forgot to tell me the story of the house that was a wedding
fee," said I with dramatic solemnity.
"Now did anybody ever!" laughed Aunt Jane. "Skeerin' me to death about
a old yarn like that! Well, honey, that story's sixty years old
already, and I reckon it'll keep a little longer yet. Some o' these
days I'll tell you the story of that old house. I reckon I owe you
another story for takin' me to town and bringin' me home so nice. I'm
mighty glad I've seen the old place once more, for the next time I go
to town maybe I'll go in the direction of the New Jerusalem."
After Nelly had been unharnessed and fed, I sat down on the porch to
watch the passing of day. Ah! surely it is worth while to go to town
now and then just for the pleasure of getting back to the country, to
its purer air, its solitude, its blessed stillness. I lifted up my
eyes unto the hills and let the sunset and the twilight hold me in
their spells till Aunt Jane's voice called me in with a warning of the
danger that lurks in falling dew; and when I closed my eyes in sleep
that night, my brain was a panorama of strange scenes. Past and
present were mingled, as a picture painted within a picture, for,
through Aunt Jane's eyes, I, too, had seen double. I had gone to town
over the old 'pike, but I had also traveled the road of dead years,
and it had led me into the Land of Long Ago.
II
THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE
[Illustration]
II
THE HOUSE THAT WAS A WEDDING FEE
It was September, the sad month of the year before I heard the
promised story of the house that was a wedding fee; for it was Aunt
Jane's whim that, as a dramatic sequence, a visit to the house should
follow the telling of the tale, and it was hard to find a convenient
time for the happening of both events. Meanwhile, I was tantalized by
the memory of that half-seen house at the end of the long avenue, and
again and again I tried by adroit questions to draw from Aunt Jane the
story about which my imagination hovered like a bee about a flower.
"Well," she finally remarked with smiling resignation, "I see there
ain't any peace for me till that story's told. Ain't that Johnny Amos
goin' by on horseback? Holler to him, child, and ask him to stop here
on his way back and hitch old Nelly to the buggy for me. Tell him I'll
dance at his weddin' if he'll do that favor for me.
"And now, while we're waitin' for Johnny to come, I'll tell all I can
ricollect about that old house. Fetch my basket o' cyarpet-rags, and
we'll sit out here on the porch. Here's a needle for you, too, child.
If I can sew and talk at the same time, I reckon you can sew and
listen. Jest mix your colors any way you please. I never made a
cyarpet except the hit-or-miss kind."
I took my needle and began to sew, first a black, then a red, then a
blue strip, but Aunt Jane showed no haste to begin her story.
"Goin' back sixty years," she remarked meditatively, "is like goin' up
and rummagin' around in a garret. You don't know what you'll lay your
hands on in the dark, and you can't be certain of findin' what you
went after. I'm tryin' to think whereabouts I'd better begin so as to
git to that old house the quickest."
"No, Aunt Jane, please take the long, roundabout way," I urged.
"Well," she laughed, "come to think about it, it don't make much
difference which way I take, for if I start on the short road, it'll
be roundabout before I git through with it. You know my failin',
child. Well, I reckon the old church is as good a startin'-place as
any. You ricollect me p'intin' it out to you the day we went to town,
and tellin' you about Martin Luther and the bell. That buildin' was
put up when Brother Wilson was pastor of the Presbyterian church.
Before his time they'd been without a preacher for a good while, and
things was in a run-down and gone-to-seed sort o' condition when he
come up from Tennessee to take the charge.
"Brother Wilson's father and mother was Georgia people, and I
ricollect one of his brothers comin' through here with all his slaves
on his way to Mizzourah to set 'em free. The family moved from Georgia
to Tennessee because there was better schools there, and they wanted
to educate their children. They was the sort o' people that thought
more of books and learnin' than they did of money. But before Brother
Wilson got his schoolin', he took a notion he'd go into the army, and
when he wasn't but sixteen or seventeen years old, he was fightin'
under Gen. Andrew Jackson, and went through two campaigns. Then he
come home and went to college, and the next thing he was preachin' the
gospel.
"It's sort o' curious to think of a man bein' a soldier and a
preacher, too. But then, you know, the Bible talks about Christians
jest like they was soldiers, and the Christian's life jest like it was
a warfare. The Apostle tells us to put on the whole armor of God, and
when he was ready to depart he said, 'I have fought a good fight.' And
I used to think that maybe Brother Wilson wouldn't 'a' been as good a
preacher as he was if he hadn't first been a good soldier. He used to
say, 'I come of fighting stock and preaching stock, and the fighting
blood in me had to have its day.' The preachin' blood didn't seem to
come out in Martin Luther and John Calvin, but the fightin' blood was
there mighty strong. Folks used to say that one or the other of 'em
had a fight every day in the week, and if they couldn't git up a fight
with some other boy, they'd fight with each other. The druggist said
that after Brother Wilson come, he sold as much court-plaster and
arnica in a month as he used to sell in six months, and Mis' Zerilda
Moore used to declare she never had seen Martin Luther but once when
his eyes and nose was the natural shape and color. Some of the
church-members was scandalized at havin' their preacher's sons set
such a bad example to the rest o' the town boys, and they went to
Brother Wilson to talk to him about it. But he jest laughed and says
he, 'There's no commandment that says, "Thou shalt not fight," and I
can't whip my boys for having the spirit of their forefathers on both
sides of the house.' Says he, 'Their great-grandfather on their
mother's side was a fighting parson in Revolutionary times. He was in
his pulpit one Sunday morning when news was brought that the British
were coming, and he stepped down out of his pulpit and organized a
company from the men of his congregation, and marched out and whipped
the British; and then he went back to the church and finished his
sermon.' Says he, 'My boys can't help fighting like their mother's
grandfather any more than they can help having their mother's eyes and
hair.'
"Now here I am talkin' about Martin Luther Wilson's great-grandfather
when I started out to tell you about the old church. Le's see if I
can't git back to the straight road and keep on it the rest of the
way.