Produced by David Widger
OLDTOWN FIRESIDE STORIES.
By Harriet Beecher Stowe.
BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY
1872.
[Illustration: Titlepage]
[Illustration: Frontispiece]
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871
By James R. Osgood & Co.
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS:
THE GHOST IN THE MILL
THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS.
THE MINISTER’S HOUSEKEEPER.
THE WIDOW’S BANDBOX.
CAPTAIN KIDD’S MONEY.
“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.”
THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWNHOUSE.
[Illustration: The Ghost in the Mill, page 001]
THE GHOST IN THE MILL
“Come, Sam, tell us a story,” said I, as Harry and I crept to his knees,
in the glow of the bright evening firelight; while Aunt Lois was
busily rattling the tea-things, and grandmamma, at the other end of the
fireplace, was quietly setting the heel of a blue-mixed yarn stocking.
In those days we had no magazines and daily papers, each reeling off
a serial story. Once a week, “The Columbian Sentinel” came from Boston
with its slender stock of news and editorial; but all the multiform
devices--pictorial, narrative, and poetical--which keep the mind of
the present generation ablaze with excitement, had not then even an
existence. There was no theatre, no opera; there were in Oldtown no
parties or balls, except, perhaps, the annual election, or Thanksgiving
festival; and when winter came, and the sun went down at half-past four
o’clock, and left the long, dark hours of evening to be provided
for, the necessity of amusement became urgent. Hence, in those days,
chimney-corner story-telling became an art and an accomplishment.
Society then was full of traditions and narratives which had all the
uncertain glow and shifting mystery of the firelit hearth upon them.
They were told to sympathetic audiences, by the rising and falling light
of the solemn embers, with the hearth-crickets filling up every pause.
Then the aged told their stories to the young,--tales of early life;
tales of war and adventure, of forest-days, of Indian captivities
and escapes, of bears and wild-cats and panthers, of rattlesnakes, of
witches and wizards, and strange and wonderful dreams and appearances
and providences.
In those days of early Massachusetts, faith and credence were in the
very air. Two-thirds of New England was then dark, unbroken forests,
through whose tangled paths the mysterious winter wind groaned and
shrieked and howled with weird noises and unaccountable clamors. Along
the iron-bound shore, the stormful Atlantic raved and thundered, and
dashed its moaning waters, as if to deaden and deafen any voice that
might tell of the settled life of the old civilized world, and shut us
forever into the wilderness. A good story-teller, in those days, was
always sure of a warm seat at the hearthstone, and the delighted homage
of children; and in all Oldtown there was no better story-teller than
Sam Lawson.
“Do, do, tell us a story,” said Harry, pressing upon him, and opening
very wide blue eyes, in which undoubting faith shone as in a mirror;
“and let it be something strange, and different from common.”
“Wal, I know lots o’ strange things,” said Sam, looking mysteriously
into the fire. “Why, I know things, that ef I should tell,--why, people
might say they wa’n’t so; but then they _is_ so for all that.”
“Oh, _do_, do, tell us!”
“Why, I should scare ye to death, mebbe,” said Sam doubtingly.
“Oh, pooh! no, you wouldn’t,” we both burst out at once.
But Sam was possessed by a reticent spirit, and loved dearly to be wooed
and importuned; and so he only took up the great kitchen-tongs, and
smote on the hickory forestick, when it flew apart in the middle, and
scattered a shower of clear bright coals all over the hearth.
“Mercy on us, Sam Lawson!” said Aunt Lois in an indignant voice,
spinning round from her dishwashing.
“Don’t you worry a grain, Miss Lois,” said Sam composedly. “I see that
are stick was e’en a’most in two, and I thought I’d jest settle it. I’ll
sweep up the coals now,” he added, vigorously applying a turkey-wing to
the purpose, as he knelt on the hearth, his spare, lean figure glowing
in the blaze of the firelight, and getting quite flushed with exertion.
“There, now!” he said, when he had brushed over and under and between
the fire-irons, and pursued the retreating ashes so far into the red,
fiery citadel, that his finger-ends were burning and tingling, “that
are’s done now as well as Hepsy herself could ’a’ done it. I allers
sweeps up the haarth: I think it’s part o’ the man’s bisness when he
makes the fire. But Hepsy’s so used to seein’ me a-doin’ on’t, that she
don’t see no kind o’ merit in’t. It’s just as Parson Lothrop said in his
sermon,--folks allers overlook their common marcies”--
“But come, Sam, that story,” said Harry and I coaxingly, pressing upon
him, and pulling him down into his seat in the corner.
“Lordy massy, these ’ere young uns!” said Sam. “There’s never no
contentin’ on ’em: ye tell ’em one story, and they jest swallows it as
a dog does a gob o’ meat; and they’re all ready for another. What do ye
want to hear now?”
Now, the fact was, that Sam’s stories had been told us so often, that
they were all arranged and ticketed in our minds. We knew every word in
them, and could set him right if he varied a hair from the usual track;
and still the interest in them was unabated. Still we shivered, and
clung to his knee, at the mysterious parts, and felt gentle, cold chills
run down our spines at appropriate places. We were always in the most
receptive and sympathetic condition. To-night, in particular, was one
of those thundering stormy ones, when the winds appeared to be holding
a perfect mad carnival over my grandfather’s house. They yelled and
squealed round the corners; they collected in troops, and came tumbling
and roaring down chimney; they shook and tattled the buttery-door and
the sinkroom-door and the cellar-door and the chamber-door, with a
constant undertone of squeak and clatter, as if at every door were a
cold, discontented spirit, tired of the chill outside, and longing for
the warmth and comfort within.
“Wal, boys,” said Sam confidentially, “what’ll ye have?”
“Tell us ’Come down, come down!’” we both shouted with one voice. This
was, in our mind, an “A No. 1” among Sam’s stories.
“Ye mus’n’t be frightened now,” said Sam paternally.
“Oh, no! we ar’n’t frightened ever,” said we both in one breath.
“Not when ye go down the cellar arter cider?” said Sam with severe
scrutiny. “Ef ye should be down cellar, and the candle should go out,
now?”
“I ain’t,” said I: “I ain’t afraid of any thing. I never knew what it
was to be afraid in my life.”
“Wal, then,” said Sam, “I’ll tell ye. This ’ere’s what Cap’n Eb Sawin
told me when I was a boy about your bigness, I reckon.
“Cap’n Eb Sawin was a most respectable man. Your gran’ther knew him very
well; and he was a deacon in the church in Dedham afore he died. He
was at Lexington when the fust gun was fired agin the British. He was a
dreffle smart man, Cap’n Eb was, and driv team a good many years atween
here and Boston. He married Lois Peabody, that was cousin to your
gran’ther then. Lois was a rael sensible woman; and I’ve heard her tell
the story as he told her, and it was jest as he told it to me,--jest
exactly; and I shall never forget it if I live to be nine hundred years
old, like Mathuselah.
“Ye see, along back in them times, there used to be a fellow come round
these ’ere parts, spring and fall, a-peddlin’ goods, with his pack on
his back; and his name was Jehiel Lommedieu. Nobody rightly knew where
he come from. He wasn’t much of a talker; but the women rather liked
him, and kind o’ liked to have him round. Women will like some fellows,
when men can’t see no sort o’ reason why they should; and they liked
this ’ere Lommedieu, though he was kind o’ mournful and thin and
shad-bellied, and hadn’t nothin’ to say for himself. But it got to be
so, that the women would count and calculate so many weeks afore ’twas
time for Lommedieu to be along; and they’d make up ginger-snaps and
preserves and pies, and make him stay to tea at the houses, and feed
him up on the best there was: and the story went round, that he was
a-courtin’ Phebe Ann Parker, or Phebe Ann was a-courtin’ him,--folks
didn’t rightly know which. Wal, all of a sudden, Lommedieu stopped
comin’ round; and nobody knew why,--only jest he didn’t come. It turned
out that Phebe Ann Parker had got a letter from him, sayin’ he’d be
along afore Thanksgiving; but he didn’t come, neither afore nor at
Thanksgiving time, nor arter, nor next spring: and finally the women
they gin up lookin’ for him. Some said he was dead; some said he was
gone to Canada; and some said he hed gone over to the Old Country.
“Wal, as to Phebe Ann, she acted like a gal o’ sense, and married ’Bijah
Moss, and thought no more ’bout it. She took the right view on’t, and
said she was sartin that all things was ordered out for the best; and
it was jest as well folks couldn’t always have their own way. And so,
in time, Lommedieu was gone out o’ folks’s minds, much as a last year’s
apple-blossom.
“It’s relly affectin’ to think how little these ’ere folks is missed
that’s so much sot by. There ain’t nobody, ef they’s ever so important,
but what the world gets to goin’ on without ’em, pretty much as it did
with ’em, though there’s some little flurry at fust. Wal, the last
thing that was in anybody’s mind was, that they ever should hear from
Lommedieu agin. But there ain’t nothin’ but what has its time o’ turnin’
up; and it seems his turn was to come.
“Wal, ye see, ’twas the 19th o’ March, when Cap’n Eb Sawin started with
a team for Boston. That day, there come on about the biggest snow-storm
that there’d been in them parts sence the oldest man could remember.
’Twas this ’ere fine, siftin’ snow, that drives in your face like
needles, with a wind to cut your nose off: it made teamin’ pretty
tedious work. Cap’n Eb was about the toughest man in them parts. He’d
spent days in the woods a-loggin’, and he’d been up to the deestrict o’
Maine a-lumberin’, and was about up to any sort o’ thing a man gen’ally
could be up to; but these ’ere March winds sometimes does set on a
fellow so, that neither natur’ nor grace can stan’ ’em. The cap’n
used to say he could stan’ any wind that blew one way ’t time for
five minutes; but come to winds that blew all four p’ints at the same
minit,--why, they flustered him.
“Wal, that was the sort o’ weather it was all day: and by sundown Cap’n
Eb he got clean bewildered, so that he lost his road; and, when night
came on, he didn’t know nothin’ where he was. Ye see the country was all
under drift, and the air so thick with snow, that he couldn’t see a foot
afore him; and the fact was, he got off the Boston road without knowin’
it, and came out at a pair o’ bars nigh upon Sherburn, where old Cack
Sparrock’s mill is.
“Your gran’ther used to know old Cack, boys. He was a drefful drinkin’
old crittur, that lived there all alone in the woods by himself
a-tendin’ saw and grist mill. He wasn’t allers jest what he was then.
Time was that Cack was a pretty consid’ably likely young man, and his
wife was a very respectable woman,--Deacon Amos Petengall’s dater from
Sherburn.
“But ye see, the year arter his wife died, Cack he gin up goin’ to
meetin’ Sundays, and, all the tithing-men and selectmen could do, they
couldn’t get him out to meetin’; and, when a man neglects means o’ grace
and sanctuary privileges, there ain’t no sayin’ _what_ he’ll do next.
Why, boys, jist think on’t!--an immortal crittur lyin’ round loose
all day Sunday, and not puttin’ on so much as a clean shirt, when all
’spectable folks has on their best close, and is to meetin’ worshippin’
the Lord! What can you spect to come of it, when he lies idlin’ round in
his old week-day close, fishing, or some sich, but what the Devil should
be arter him at last, as he was arter old Cack?”
Here Sam winked impressively to my grandfather in the opposite corner,
to call his attention to the moral which he was interweaving with his
narrative.
“Wal, ye see, Cap’n Eb he told me, that when he come to them bars and
looked up, and saw the dark a-comin’ down, and the storm a-thickenin’
up, he felt that things was gettin’ pretty consid’able serious. There
was a dark piece o’ woods on ahead of him inside the bars; and he knew,
come to get in there, the light would give out clean. So he jest thought
he’d take the hoss out o’ the team, and go ahead a little, and see where
he was. So he driv his oxen up ag’in the fence, and took out the hoss,
and got on him, and pushed along through the woods, not rightly knowin’
where he was goin’.
“Wal, afore long he see a light through the trees; and, sure enough, he
come out to Cack Sparrock’s old mill.
“It was a pretty consid’able gloomy sort of a place, that are old mill
was. There was a great fall of water that come rushin’ down the rocks,
and fell in a deep pool; and it sounded sort o’ wild and lonesome: but
Cap’n Eb he knocked on the door with his whip-handle, and got in.
“There, to be sure, sot old Cack beside a great blazin’ fire, with his
rum-jug at his elbow. He was a drefful fellow to drink, Cack was! For
all that, there was some good in him, for he was pleasant-spoken and
’bliging; and he made the cap’n welcome.
“‘Ye see, Cack,’ said Cap’n Eb, ‘I ’m off my road, and got snowed up
down by your bars,’ says he.
“‘Want ter know!’ says Cack. ‘Calculate you’ll jest have to camp down
here till mornin’,’ says he.
“Wal, so old Cack he got out his tin lantern, and went with Cap’n Eb
back to the bars to help him fetch along his critturs. He told him he
could put ’em under the mill-shed. So they got the critturs up to the
shed, and got the cart under; and by that time the storm was awful.
“But Cack he made a great roarin’ fire, ’cause, ye see, Cack allers had
slab-wood a plenty from his mill; and a roarin’ fire is jest so much
company. It sort o’ keeps a fellow’s spirits up, a good fire does. So
Cack he sot on his old teakettle, and made a swingeing lot o’ toddy; and
he and Cap’n Eb were havin’ a tol’able comfortable time there. Cack was
a pretty good hand to tell stories; and Cap’n Eb warn’t no way backward
in that line, and kep’ up his end pretty well: and pretty soon they was
a-roarin’ and haw-hawin’ inside about as loud as the storm outside; when
all of a sudden, ’bout midnight, there come a loud rap on the door.
“‘Lordy massy! what’s that?’ says Cack. Folks is rather startled allers
to be checked up sudden when they are a-carryin’ on and laughin’; and
it was such an awful blowy night, it was a little scary to have a rap on
the door.
“Wal, they waited a minit, and didn’t hear nothin’ but the wind
a-screechin’ round the chimbley; and old Cack was jest goin’ on with his
story, when the rap come ag’in, harder’n ever, as if it’d shook the door
open.
“‘Wal,’ says old Cack,’ if ‘tis the Devil, we’d jest as good’s open, and
have it out with him to onst,’ says he; and so he got up and opened the
door, and, sure enough, there was old Ketury there. Expect you’ve
heard your grandma tell about old Ketury. She used to come to meetin’s
sometimes, and her husband was one o’ the prayin’ Indians; but Ketury
was one of the rael wild sort, and you couldn’t no more convert _her_
than you could convert a wild-cat or a painter [panther]. Lordy massy!
Ketury used to come to meetin’, and sit there on them Indian benches;
and when the second bell was a-tollin’, and when Parson Lothrop and his
wife was comin’ up the broad aisle, and everybody in the house ris’ up
and stood, Ketury would sit there, and look at ’em out o’ the corner
o’ her eyes; and folks used to say she rattled them necklaces o’
rattlesnakes’ tails and wild-cat teeth, and sich like heathen trumpery,
and looked for all the world as if the spirit of the old Sarpent himself
was in her. I’ve seen her sit and look at Lady Lothrop out o’ the corner
o’ her eyes; and her old brown baggy neck would kind o’ twist and work;
and her eyes they looked so, that ’twas enough to scare a body. For all
the world, she looked jest as if she was a-workin’ up to spring at her.
Lady Lothrop was jest as kind to Ketury as she always was to every poor
crittur. She’d bow and smile as gracious to her when meetin’ was over,
and she come down the aisle, passin’ oot o, meetin’; but Ketury never
took no notice. Ye see, Ketury’s father was one o’ them great powwows
down to Martha’s Vineyard; and people used to say she was set apart,
when she was a child, to the sarvice o’ the Devil: any way, she never
could be made nothin’ of in a Christian way. She come down to Parson
Lothrop’s study once or twice to be catechised; but he couldn’t get a
word out o’ her, and she kind o’ seemed to sit scornful while he was
a-talkin’. Folks said, if it was in old times, Ketury wouldn’t have been
allowed to go on so; but Parson Lothrop’s so sort o’ mild, he let her
take pretty much her own way. Everybody thought that Ketury was a witch:
at least, she knew consid’able more’n she ought to know, and so they was
kind o’ ’fraid on her. Cap’n Eb says he never see a fellow seem scareder
than Cack did when he see Ketury a-standin’ there.
“Why, ye see, boys, she was as withered and wrinkled and brown as an old
frosted punkin-vine; and her little snaky eyes sparkled and snapped,
and it made yer head kind o’ dizzy to look at ’em; and folks used to say
that anybody that Ketury got mad at was sure to get the worst of it fust
or last. And so, no matter what day or hour Ketury had a mind to rap
at anybody’s door, folks gen’lly thought it was best to let her in; but
then, they never thought her coming was for any good, for she was just
like the wind,--she came when the fit was on her, she staid jest so long
as it pleased her, and went when she got ready, and not before. Ketury
understood English, and could talk it well enough, but always seemed to
scorn it, and was allers mo win’ and mutterin’ to herself in Indian,
and winkin’ and blinkin’ as if she saw more folks round than you did,
so that she wa’n’t no way pleasant company; and yet everybody took good
care to be polite to her. So old Cack asked her to come in, and didn’t
make no question where she come from, or what she come on; but he knew
it was twelve good miles from where she lived to his hut, and the snow
was drifted above her middle: and Cap’n Eb declared that there wa’n’t no
track, nor sign o’ a track, of anybody’s coming through that snow next
morning.”
“How did she get there, then?” said I.
“Didn’t ye never see brown leaves a-ridin’ on the wind? Well, Cap’n Eb
he says, ‘she came on the wind,’ and I’m sure it was strong enough to
fetch her. But Cack he got her down into the warm corner, and he poured
her out a mug o’ hot toddy, and give her: but ye see her bein’ there
sort o’ stopped the conversation; for she sot there a-rockin’ back’ards
and for’ards, a-sippin her toddy, and a-mutterin’, and lookin’ up
chimbley.
“Cap’n Eb says in all his born days he never hearn such screeches
and yells as the wind give over that chimbley; and old Cack got so
frightened, you could fairly hear his teeth chatter.
“But Cap’n Eb he was a putty brave man, and he wa’n’t goin’ to have
conversation stopped by no woman, witch or no witch; and so, when he see
her mutterin’, and lookin’ up chimbley, he spoke up, and says he, ‘Well,
Ketury, what do you see?’ says he. Come, out with it; don’t keep it to
yourself.’ Ye see Cap’n Eb was a hearty fellow, and then he was a leetle
warmed up with the toddy.
“Then he said he see an evil kind o’ smile on Ketury’s face, and she
rattled her necklace o’ bones and snakes’ tails; and her eyes seemed to
snap; and she looked up the chimbley, and called out, ’Come down, come
down! let’s see who ye be.’
“Then there was a scratchin’ and a rumblin’ and a groan; and a pair
of feet come down the chimbley, and stood right in the middle of
the haarth, the toes pi’ntin’ out’rds, with shoes and silver buckles
a-shinin’ in the firelight. Cap’n Eb says he never come so near bein’
scared in his life; and, as to old Cack, he jest wilted right down in
his chair.
“Then old Ketury got up, and reached her stick up chimbley, and called
out louder, ‘Come down, come down! let’s see who ye be.’ And, sure
enough, down came a pair o’ legs, and j’ined right on to the feet: good
fair legs they was, with ribbed stockings and leather breeches.
“‘Wal, we’re in for it now,’ says Cap’n Eb. ‘Go it, Ketury, and let’s
have the rest on him.’
“Ketury didn’t seem to mind him: she stood there as stiff as a stake,
and kep’ callin’ out, ‘Come down, come down! let’s see who ye be.’ And
then come down the body of a man with a brown coat and yellow vest, and
j’ined right on to the legs; but there wa’n’t no arms to it. Then Ketury
shook her stick up chimbley, and called, ‘_Come down, come down!_’ And
there came down a pair o’ arms, and went on each side o’ the body; and
there stood a man all finished, only there wa’n’t no head on him.
“‘Wal, Ketury,’ says Cap’n Eb, ‘this ’ere’s getting serious. I ’spec’
you must finish him up, and let’s see what he wants of us.’
“Then Ketury called out once more, louder’n ever, ‘Come down, come down!
let’s see who ye be.’ And, sure enough, down comes a man’s head, and
settled on the shoulders straight enough; and Cap’n Eb, the minit he sot
eyes on him, knew he was Jehiel Lommedieu.
[Illustration: Old Cack knew him too, Page 020]
“Old Cack knew him too; and he fell flat on his face, and prayed the
Lord to have mercy on his soul: but Cap’n Eb he was for gettin’ to the
bottom of matters, and not have his scare for nothin’; so he says to
him, ‘What do you want, now you hev come?’
“The man he didn’t speak; he only sort o’ moaned, and p’inted to the
chimbley. He seemed to try to speak, but couldn’t; for ye see it isn’t
often that his sort o’ folks is permitted to speak: but just then there
came a screechin’ blast o’ wind, and blowed the door open, and blowed
the smoke and fire all out into the room, and there seemed to be a
whirlwind and darkness and moans and screeches; and, when it all cleared
up, Ketury and the man was both gone, and only old Cack lay on the
ground, rolling and moaning as if he’d die.
“Wal, Cap’n Eb he picked him up, and built up the fire, and sort o’
comforted him up, ’cause the crittur was in distress o’ mind that was
drefful. The awful Providence, ye see, had awakened him, and his sin had
been set home to his soul; and he was under such conviction, that it all
had to come out,--how old Cack’s father had murdered poor Lommedieu for
his money, and Cack had been privy to it, and helped his father build
the body up in that very chimbley; and he said that he hadn’t had
neither peace nor rest since then, and that was what had driv’ him
away from ordinances; for ye know sinnin’ will always make a man leave
prayin’. Wal, Cack didn’t live but a day or two. Cap’n Eb he got the
minister o’ Sherburn and one o’ the selectmen down to see him; and they
took his deposition. He seemed railly quite penitent; and Parson Carryl
he prayed with him, and was faithful in settin’ home the providence to
his soul: and so, at the eleventh hour, poor old Cack might have got
in; at least it looks a leetle like it. He was distressed to think he
couldn’t live to be hung. He sort o’ seemed to think, that if he was
fairly tried, and hung, it would make it all square. He made Parson
Carryl promise to have the old mill pulled down, and bury the body; and,
after he was dead, they did it.
“Cap’n Eb he was one of a party o’ eight that pulled down the chimbley;
and there, sure enough, was the skeleton of poor Lommedieu.
“So there you see, boys, there can’t be no iniquity so hid but what
it’ll come out. The Wild Indians of the forest, and the stormy winds and
tempests, j’ined together to bring out this ’ere.”
“For my part,” said Aunt Lois sharply, “I never believed that story.”
“Why, Lois,” said my grandmother, “Cap’n Eb Sawin was a regular
church-member, and a most respectable man.”
“Law, mother! I don’t doubt he thought so. I suppose he and Cack got
drinking toddy together, till he got asleep, and dreamed it. I wouldn’t
believe such a thing if it did happen right before my face and eyes. I
should only think I was crazy, that’s all.”
“Come, Lois, if I was you, I wouldn’t talk so like a Sadducee,” said
my grandmother. “What would become of all the accounts in Dr. Cotton
Mather’s ’Magnilly’ if folks were like you?”
“Wal,” said Sam Lawson, drooping contemplatively over the coals, and
gazing into the fire, “there’s a putty consid’able sight o’ things in
this world that’s true; and then ag’in there’s a sight o’ things that
ain’t true. Now, my old gran’ther used to say, ‘Boys, says he, ‘if ye
want to lead a pleasant and prosperous life, ye must contrive allers
to keep jest the _happy medium_ between truth and falsehood.’ Now, that
are’s my doctrine.”
Aunt Lois knit severely.
“Boys,” said Sam, “don’t you want ter go down with me and get a mug o’
cider?”
Of course we did, and took down a basket to bring up some apples to
roast.
“Boys,” says Sam mysteriously, while he was drawing the cider, “you jest
ask your Aunt Lois to tell you what she knows ’bout Ruth Sullivan.”
“Why, what is it?”
“Oh! you must ask her. These ’ere folks that’s so kind o’ toppin’ about
sperits and sich, come sift ’em down, you gen’lly find they knows one
story that kind o’ puzzles ’em. Now you mind, and jist ask your Aunt
Lois about Ruth Sullivan.”
[Illustration: Tailpiece, Page 024]
[Illustration: The Sullivan Looking-Glass, Page 025]
THE SULLIVAN LOOKING-GLASS.
“Aunt Lois,” said I, “what was that story about Ruth Sullivan?”
Aunt Lois’s quick black eyes gave a surprised flash; and she and my
grandmother looked at each other a minute significantly. “Who told you
any thing about Ruth Sullivan,” she said sharply.
“Nobody. Somebody said _you_ knew something about her,” said I.
I was holding a skein of yarn for Aunt Lois; and she went on winding in
silence, putting the ball through loops and tangled places.
“Little boys shouldn’t ask questions,” she concluded at last
sententiously. “Little boys that ask too many questions get sent to
bed.”
I knew that of old, and rather wondered at my own hardihood.
Aunt Lois wound on in silence; but, looking in her face, I could see
plainly that I had started an exciting topic.
“I should think,” pursued my grandmother in her corner, “that Ruth’s
case might show you, Lois, that a good many things may happen,--more
than you believe.”
“Oh, well, mother! Ruth’s was a strange case; but I suppose there are
ways of accounting for it.”
“You believed Ruth, didn’t you?”
“Oh, certainly, I believed Ruth! Why shouldn’t I? Ruth was one of my
best friends, and as true a girl as lives: there wasn’t any nonsense
about Ruth. She was one of the sort,” said Aunt Lois reflectively, “that
I’d as soon trust as myself: when she said a thing was so and so, I knew
it was so.”
“Then, if you think Ruth’s story was true,” pursued my grandmother,
“what’s the reason you are always cavilling at things just ’cause you
can’t understand how they came to be so?”
Aunt Lois set her lips firmly, and wound with grim resolve. She was the
very impersonation of that obstinate rationalism that grew up at the
New-England fireside, close alongside of the most undoubting faith in
the supernatural.
“I don’t believe such things,” at last she snapped out, “and I don’t
disbelieve them. I just let ’em alone. What do I know about ’em? Ruth
tells me a story; and I believe her. I know what she saw beforehand,
came true in a most remarkable way. Well, I’m sure I’ve no objection.
One thing may be true, or another, for all me; but, just because I
believe Ruth Sullivan, I’m not going to believe, right and left, all the
stories in Cotton Mather, and all that anybody can hawk up to tell. Not
I.”
This whole conversation made me all the more curious to get at the story
thus dimly indicated; and so we beset Sam for information.
“So your Aunt Lois wouldn’t tell ye nothin’,” said Sam. “Wanter know,
neow! sho!”
“No: she said we must go to bed if we asked her.”
“That ’are’s a way folks has; but, ye see, boys,” said Sam, while a
droll confidential expression crossed the lack-lustre dolefulness of
his visage, “ye see, I put ye up to it, ’cause Miss Lois is so large and
commandin’ in her ways, and so kind o’ up and down in all her doin’s,
that I like once and a while to sort o’ gravel her; and I knowed enough
to know that that ’are question would git her in a tight place.
“Ye see, yer Aunt Lois was knowin’ to all this ’ere about Ruth, so
there wer’n’t no gettin’ away from it; and it’s about as remarkable a
providence as any o’ them of Mister Cotton Marther’s ‘Magnilly.’ So if
you’ll come up in the barn-chamber this arternoon, where I’ve got a lot
o’ flax to hatchel out, I’ll tell ye all about it.”
So that afternoon beheld Sam arranged at full length on a pile of
top-tow in the barn-chamber, hatchelling by proxy by putting Harry and
myself to the service.
“Wal, now, boys, it’s kind o’ refreshing to see how wal ye take hold,”
he observed. “Nothin’ like bein’ industrious while ye’r young: gret
sight better now than loafin off, down in them medders.
“‘In books and work and useful play
Let my fust years be past:
So shall I give for every day
Some good account at last.’”
“But, Sam, if we work for you, you must tell us that story about Ruth
Sullivan.”
“Lordy massy! yis,--course I will. I’ve had the best kind o’ chances
of knowin’ all about that ’are. Wal, you see there was old Gineral
Sullivan, he lived in state and grande’r in the old Sullivan house out
to Roxberry. I been to Roxberry, and seen that ’are house o’ Gineral
Sullivan’s. There was one time that I was a consid’able spell lookin’
round in Roxberry, a kind o’ seein’ how things wuz there, and whether
or no there mightn’t be some sort o’ providential openin’ or suthin’. I
used to stay with Aunt Polly Ginger. She was sister to Mehitable Ginger,
Gineral Sullivan’s housekeeper, and hed the in and out o’ the Sullivan
house, and kind o’ kept the run o’ how things went and came in it. Polly
she was a kind o’ cousin o’ my mother’s, and allers glad to see me. Fact
was, I was putty handy round house; and she used to save up her broken
things and sich till I come round in the fall; and then I’d mend ’em up,
and put the clock right, and split her up a lot o’ kindlings, and board
up the cellar-windows, and kind o’ make her sort o’ comfortable,--she
bein’ a lone body, and no man round. As I said, it was sort o’
convenient to hev me; and so I jest got the run o’ things in the
Sullivan house pretty much as ef I was one on ’em, Gineral Sullivan he
kept a grand house, I tell you. You see, he cum from the old country,
and felt sort o’ lordly and grand; and they used to hev the gretest kind
o’ doin’s there to the Sullivan house. Ye ought ter a seen that ’are
house,--gret big front hall and gret wide stairs; none o’ your steep
kind that breaks a feller’s neck to get up and down, but gret broad
stairs with easy risers, so they used to say you could a cantered a pony
up that ’are stairway easy as not. Then there was gret wide rooms, and
sofys, and curtains, and gret curtained bedsteads that looked sort o’
like fortifications, and pictur’s that was got in Italy and Rome and all
them ’are heathen places. Ye see, the Gineral was a drefful worldly
old critter, and was all for the pomps and the vanities. Lordy massy!
I wonder what the poor old critter thinks about it all now, when his
body’s all gone to dust and ashes in the graveyard, and his soul’s gone
to ’tarnity! Wal, that are ain’t none o’ my business; only it shows the
vanity o’ riches in a kind o’ strikin’ light, and makes me content that
I never hed none.”
“But, Sam, I hope General Sullivan wasn’t a wicked man, _was_ he?”
“Wal, I wouldn’t say he was railly wickeder than the run; but he was
one o’ these ’ere high-stepping, big-feeling fellers, that seem to be
a hevin’ their portion in this life. Drefful proud he was; and he was
pretty much sot on this world, and kep’ a sort o’ court goin’ on round
him. Wal, I don’t jedge him nor nobody: folks that hes the world is apt
to get sot on it. Don’t none on us do more than middlin’ well.”
“But, Sam, what about Ruth Sullivan?”
“Ruth?--Oh, yis!--Ruth--
“Wal, ye see, the only crook in the old Gineral’s lot was he didn’t hev
no children. Mis’ Sullivan, she was a beautiful woman, as handsome as a
pictur’; but she never had but one child; and he was a son who died when
he was a baby, and about broke her heart. And then this ’ere Ruth was
her sister’s child, that was born about the same time; and, when the boy
died, they took Ruth home to sort o’ fill his place, and kind o’ comfort
up Mis’ Sullivan. And then Ruth’s father and mother died; and they
adopted her for their own, and brought her up.
“Wal, she grew up to be amazin’ handsome. Why, everybody said that she
was jest the light and glory of that ’are old Sullivan place, and worth
more’n all the pictur’s and the silver and the jewels, and all there was
in the house; and she was jest so innercent and sweet, that you never
see nothing to beat it. Wal, your Aunt Lois she got acquainted with Ruth
one summer when she was up to Old Town a visitin’ at Parson Lothrop’s.
Your Aunt Lois was a gal then, and a pretty good-lookin’ one too; and,
somehow or other, she took to Ruth, and Ruth took to her. And when Ruth
went home, they used to be a writin’ backwards and forads; and I guess
the fact was, Ruth thought about as much of your Aunt Lois as she did o’
anybody. Ye see, your aunt was a kind o’ strong up-and-down woman that
always knew certain jest what she did know; and Ruth, she was one o’
them gals that seems sort o’ like a stray lamb or a dove that’s sort o’
lost their way in the world, and wants some one to show ’em where to go
next. For, ye see, the fact was, the old Gineral and Madam, they
didn’t agree very well. He wa’n’t well pleased that she didn’t have no
children; and she was sort o’ jealous o’ him ’cause she got hold o’ some
sort of story about how he was to a married somebody else over there in
England: so she got sort o’ riled up, jest as wimmen will, the best on
’em; and they was pretty apt to have spats, and one could give t’other
as good as they sent; and, by all accounts, they fit putty lively
sometimes. And, between the two, Ruth she was sort o’ scared, and
fluttered like a dove that didn’t know jest where to settle. Ye see,
there she was in; that ’are great wide house, where they was a feastin’
and a prancin’ and a dancin’, and a goin’ on like Ahashuerus and
Herodias and all them old Scripture days. There was acomin’ and goin,’
and there was gret dinners and gret doin’s, but no love; and, you know,
the Scriptur’ says, ’Better is a dinner o’ yarbs, where love is, than a
stalled ox, and hatred therewith.’
“Wal, I don’t orter say _hatred_, arter all. I kind o’ reckon, the old
Gineral did the best he could: the fact is, when a woman gits a kink
in her head agin a man, the best on us don’t allers do jest the right
thing.
“Any way, Ruth, she was sort o’ forlorn, and didn’t seem to take no
comfort in the goin’s on. The Gineral he was mighty fond on her,
and proud on her; and there wa’n’t nothin’ too good for Ruth. He was
free-handed, the Gineral wuz. He dressed her up in silks and satins, and
she hed a maid to wait on her, and she hed sets o’ pearl and dimond; and
Madam Sullivan she thought all the world on her, and kind o’ worshipped
the ground she trod on. And yet Ruth was sort o’ lonesome.
“Ye see, Ruth wa’n’t calculated for grande’r. Some folks ain’t.
“Why, that ’are summer she spent out to Old Town, she was jest as chirk
and chipper as a wren, a wearin’ her little sun-bunnet, and goin’ a
huckle-berryin’ and a black-berryin’ and diggin’ sweet-flag, and gettin
cowslops and dandelions; and she hed a word for everybody. And everybody
liked Ruth, and wished her well. Wal, she was sent for her health; and
she got that, and more too: she got a sweetheart.
“Ye see, there was a Cap’n Oliver a visitin’ at the minister’s that
summer,--a nice, handsome young man as ever was. He and Ruth and your
Aunt Lois, they was together a good deal; and they was a ramblin’ and
a ridin’ and a sailin’: and so Ruth and the Capting went the way o’ all
the airth, and fell dead in love with each other. Your Aunt Lois she
was knowing to it and all about it, ’cause Ruth she was jest one of them
that couldn’t take a step without somebody to talk to.
“Captain Oliver was of a good family in England; and so, when he made
bold to ask the old Gineral for Ruth, he didn’t say him nay: and it was
agreed, as they was young, they should wait a year or two. If he and
she was of the same mind, he should be free to marry her. Jest right on
that, the Captain’s regiment was ordered home, and he had to go; and,
the next they heard, it was sent off to India. And poor little Ruth she
kind o’ drooped and pined; but she kept true, and wouldn’t have nothin’
to say to nobody that came arter her, for there was lots and cords o’
fellows as did come arter her. Ye see, Ruth had a takin’ way with her;
and then she had the name of bein’ a great heiress, and that allers
draws fellers, as molasses does flies.
“Wal, then the news came, that Captain Oliver was comin’ home to
England, and the ship was took by the Algerenes, and he was gone into
slavery there among them heathen Mahomedans and what not.
“Folks seemed to think it was all over with him, and Ruth might jest as
well give up fust as last. And the old Gineral he’d come to think she
might do better; and he kep’ a introducin’ one and another, and tryin’
to marry her off; but Ruth she wouldn’t. She used to write sheets and
sheets to your Aunt Lois about it; and I think Aunt Lois she kep’ her
grit up. Your Aunt Lois she’d a stuck by a man to the end o’ time eft
ben her case; and so she told Ruth.
“Wal, then there was young Jeff Sullivan, the Gineral’s nephew, he
turned up; and the Gineral he took a gret fancy to him. He was next heir
to the Gineral; but he’d ben a pretty rackety youngster in his young
days,--off to sea, and what not, and sowed a consid’able crop o’ wild
oats. People said he’d been a pirating off there in South Ameriky. Lordy
massy! nobody rightly knew where he hed ben or where he hadn’t: all was,
he turned up at last all alive, and chipper as a skunk blackbird. Wal,
of course he made his court to Ruth; and the Gineral, he rather backed
him up in it; but Ruth she wouldn’t have nothin’ to say to him. Wal,
he come and took up his lodgin’ at the Gineral’s; and he was jest as
slippery as an eel, and sort o’ slid into every thing, that was a goin’
on in the house and about it. He was here, and he was there, and he
was everywhere, and a havin’ his say about this and that; and he got
everybody putty much under his thumb. And they used to say, he wound the
Gineral round and round like a skein o’ yarn; but he couldn’t come it
round Ruth.
“Wal, the Gineral said she shouldn’t be forced; and Jeff, he was smooth
as satin, and said he’d be willing to wait as long as Jacob did for
Rachel. And so there he sot down, a watchin’ as patient as a cat at a
mouse-hole; ’cause the Gineral he was thick-set and short-necked, and
drank pretty free, and was one o’ the sort that might pop off any time.
“Wal, Mis’ Sullivan, she beset the Gineral to make a provision for Ruth;
’cause she told him very sensible, that he’d brought her up in luxury,
and that it wa’n’t fair not to settle somethin’ on her; and so the
Gineral he said he’d make a will, and part the property equally between
them. And he says to Jeff, that, if he played his part as a young fellow
oughter know how, it would all come to him in the end; ’cause they
hadn’t heard nothing from Captain Oliver for three or four years, and
folks about settled it that he must be dead.
“Wal, the Gineral he got a letter about an estate that had come to him
in England; and he had to go over. Wal, livin’ on the next estate, was
the very cousin of the Gineral’s that he was to a married when they was
both young: the lands joined so that the grounds run together. What came
between them two nobody knows; but she never married, and there she was.
There was high words between the Gineral and Madam Sullivan about his
goin’ over. She said there wa’n’t no sort o’ need on’t, and he said
there was; and she said she hoped _she_ should be in her grave afore he
come back; and he said she might suit herself about that for all him.
That ’are was the story that the housekeeper told to Aunt Polly; and
Aunt Polly she told me. These ’ere squabbles somehow allers does kind o’
leak out one way or t’other. Anyhow, it was a house divided agin itself
at the Gineral’s, when he was a fixin’ out for the voyage. There was
Ruth a goin’ fust to one, and then to t’other, and tryin’ all she could
to keep peace beteen ’em; and there was this ’ere Master Slick Tongue
talkin’ this way to one side, and that way to t’other, and the old
Gineral kind o’ like a shuttle-cock atween ’em.
“Wal, then, the night afore he sailed, the Gineral he hed his lawyer
up in his library there, a lookin’ over all his papers and bonds and
things, and a witnessing his will; and Master Jeff was there, as lively
as a cricket, a goin’ into all affairs, and offerin’ to take precious
good care while he was gone; and the Gineral he had his papers and
letters out, a sortin’ on ’em over, which was to be took to the old
country, and which was to be put in a trunk to go back to Lawyer
Dennis’s office.
“Wal, Abner Ginger, Polly’s boy, he that was footman and waiter then
at the Gineral’s, he told me, that, about eight o’clock that evening he
went up with hot water and lemons and sperits and sich, and he see the
gret green table in the library all strewed and covered with piles o’
papers; and there was tin boxes a standin’ round; and the Gineral a
packin’ a trunk, and young Master Jeff, as lively and helpful as a rat
that smells cheese. And then the Gineral he says, ‘Abner,’ says he, ‘can
you write your name?’--‘I should hope so, Gineral.’ says Abner.--‘Wal,
then, Abner,’ says he, ‘this is my last will; and I want you to witness
it,’ and so Abner he put down his name opposite to a place with a wafer
and a seal; and then the Gineral, he says, ‘Abner, you tell Ginger to
come here.’ That, you see, was his housekeeper, my Aunt Polly’s sister,
and a likely woman as ever was. And so they had her up, and she put
down her name to the will; and then Aunt Polly she was had up (she was
drinking tea there that night), and she put down her name. And all of
’em did it with good heart, ’cause it had got about among ’em that the
will was to provide for Miss Ruth; for everybody loved Ruth, ye see, and
there was consid’ble many stories kind o’ goin’ the rounds about Master
Jeff and his doin’s. And they did say he sort o’ kep’ up the strife
atween the Gineral and my lady, and so they didn’t think none too well
o’ him; and, as he was next o’ kin, and Miss Ruth wa’n’t none o’ the
Gineral’s blood (ye see, she was Mis’ Sullivan’s sister’s child), of
course there wouldn’t nothin’ go to Miss Ruth in way o’ law, and so that
was why the signin’ o’ that ’are will was so much talked about among
’em.”
“Wal, you see, the Gineral he sailed the next day; and Jeff he staid by
to keep watch o’ things.
“Wal, the old Gineral he got over safe; for Miss Sullivan, she had a
letter from him all right. When he got away, his conscience sort o’
nagged him, and he was minded to be a good husband. At any rate, he
wrote a good loving letter to her, and sent his love to Ruth, and sent
over lots o’ little keepsakes and things for her, and told her that he
left her under good protection, and wanted her to try and make up her
mind to marry Jeff, as that would keep the property together.
“Wal, now there couldn’t be no sort o’ sugar sweeter than Jeff was to
them lone wimmen. Jeff was one o’ the sort that could be all things to
all wimmen. He waited and he tended, and he was as humble as any snake
in the grass that ever ye see and the old lady, she clean fell in with
him, but Ruth, she seemed to have a regular spite agin him. And she that
war as gentle as a lamb, that never had so much as a hard thought of a
mortal critter, and wouldn’t tread on a worm, she was so set agin Jeff,
that she wouldn’t so much as touch his hand when she got out o’ her
kerridge.
“Wal, now comes the strange part o’ my story. Ruth was one o’ the kind
that _hes the gift o’ seein’. She was born with a veil over her face!_”
This mysterious piece of physiological information about Ruth was given
with a look and air that announced something very profound and awful;
and we both took up the inquiry, “Born with a veil over her face? How
should _that_ make her see?”
“Wal, boys; how should I know? But the fact _is so_. There’s those as is
wal known as hes the gift o’ seein’ what others can’t see: they can see
through walls and houses; they can see people’s hearts; they can
see what’s to come. They don’t know nothin’ how ’tis, but this ’ere
knowledge comes to ’em: it’s a gret gift; and that sort’s born with the
veil over their faces. Ruth was o’ these ’ere. Old Granny Badger she
was the knowingest old nuss in all these parts; and she was with Ruth’s
mother when she was born, and she told Lady Lothrop all about it. Says
she, ’You may depend upon it that child ’ll have the “second-sight”’
says she. Oh, that ’are fact was wal known! Wal, that was the reason
why Jeff Sullivan couldn’t come it round Ruth tho’ he was silkier than
a milkweed-pod, and jest about as patient as a spider in his hole a
watchin’ to get his grip on a fly. Ruth wouldn’t argue with him, and she
wouldn’t flout him; but she jest shut herself up in herself, and kept a
lookout on him; but she told your Aunt Lois jest what she thought about
him.
“Wal, in about six months, come the news that the Gineral was dead. He
dropped right down in his tracks, dead with apoplexy, as if he had been
shot; and Lady Maxwell she writ a long letter to my lady and Ruth. Ye
see, he’d got to be Sir Thomas Sullivan over there; and he was a comin’
home to take ’em all over to England to live in grande’r. Wal, my Lady
Sullivan (she was then, ye see) she took it drefful hard. Ef they’d a
been the lovingest couple in the world, she couldn’t a took it harder.
Aunt Polly, she said it was all ’cause she thought so much of him, that
she fit him so. There’s women that thinks so much o’ their husbands,
that they won’t let ’em hev no peace o’ their life; and I expect it war
so with her, poor soul! Any way, she went right down smack, when she
heard he was dead. She was abed, sick, when the news come; and she never
spoke nor smiled, jest turned her back to everybody, and kinder wilted
and wilted, and was dead in a week. And there was poor little Ruth left
all alone in the world, with neither kith nor kin but Jeff.
“Wal, when the funeral was over, and the time app’inted to read the will
and settle up matters, there wa’n’t no will to be found nowhere, high
nor low.
“Lawyer Dean he flew round like a parched pea on a shovel. He said he
thought he could a gone in the darkest night, and put his hand on that
’ere will; but when he went where he thought it was, he found it warn’t
there, and he knowed he’d kep’ it under lock and key. What he thought
was the will turned out to be an old mortgage. Wal, there was an awful
row and a to-do about it, you may be sure. Ruth, she jist said nothin’
good or bad. And her not speakin’ made Jeff a sight more uncomfortable
than ef she’d a hed it out with him. He told her it shouldn’t make no
sort o’ difference; that he should allers stand ready to give her all he
hed, if she’d only take him with it. And when it came to that she only
gin him a look, and went out o’ the room.