rest kind o’ sot round. It was so still it was kind o’ solemn. Ye see,
it was past twelve o’clock, and every critter in Oldtown was asleep;
and there was two whippoorwills on the great Cap’n Brown elm-trees, that
kep’ a answerin’ each other back and forward sort o’ solitary like; and
then every once in a while there’d come a sort o’ strange whisper up
among the elm-tree leaves, jest as if there was talkin’ goin’ on; and
every time Primus struck his spade into the ground it sounded sort
o’ holler, jest as if he’d been a diggin’ a grave. ‘It’s kind o’
melancholy,’ says I, ‘to think o’ them poor critters that had to be
killed and buried jest to keep this ’ere treasure. What awful things ’ll
be brought to light in the judgment day! Them poor critters they loved
to live and hated to die as much as any on us; but no, they hed to die
jest to satisfy that critter’s wicked will. I’ve heard them as thought
they could tell the Cap’n Kidd places by layin’ their ear to the ground
at midnight, and they’d hear groans and wailin’s.”
“Why, Sam! were there really people who could tell where Kidd’s money
was?” I here interposed.
“Oh, sartin! why, yis. There was Shebna Basconx, he was one. Shebna
could always tell what was under the earth. He’d cut a hazel-stick, and
hold it in his hand when folks was wantin’ to know where to dig wells;
and that ’are stick would jest turn in his hand, and p’int down till it
would fairly grind the bark off; and ef you dug in that place you was
sure to find a spring. Oh, yis! Shebna he’s told many where the Kidd
money was, and been with ’em when they dug for it; but the pester on’t
was they allers lost it, ’cause they would some on ’em speak afore they
thought.”
“But, Sam, what about this digging? Let’s know what came of it,” said
we, as Sam appeared to lose his way in his story.
“Wal, ye see, they dug down about five feet, when Primus he struck his
spade smack on something that chincked like iron.
[Illustration: They dug down about five feet, Page 119]
“Wal, then Hokum and Toddy Whitney was into the hole in a minute: they
made Primus get out, and they took the spade, ’cause they wanted to be
sure to come on it themselves.
“Wal, they begun, and they dug and he scraped, and sure enough they come
to a gret iron pot as big as your granny’s dinner-pot, with an iron bale
to it.
“Wal, then they put down a rope, and he put the rope through the handle;
then Hokum and Toddy they clambered upon the bank, and all on ’em began
to draw, up jest as still and silent as could be. They drawed and they
drawed, till they jest got it even with the ground, when Toddy spoke out
all in a tremble, ’There,’. says he, ’_we’ve got it!_’ And the minit he
spoke they was both struck by _suthin_ that knocked ’em clean over; and
the rope give a crack like a pistol-shot, and broke short off; and the
pot went down, down, down, and they heard it goin’, jink, jink, jink;
and it went way down into the earth, and the ground closed over it; and
then they heard the screechin’est laugh ye ever did hear.”
“I want to know, Sam, did you see that pot?” I exclaimed at this part of
the story.
“Wal, no, I didn’t. Ye see, I jest happened to drop asleep while they
was diggin’, I was so kind o’ tired, and I didn’t wake up till it was
all over.
“I was waked up, ’cause there was consid’able of a scuffle; for Hokum
was so mad at Toddy for speakin’, that he was a fistin’ on him; and
old Primus he jest haw-hawed and laughed. ‘Wal, I got _my_ money safe,
anyhow,’ says he.
“‘Wal, come to,’ says I. ‘’Tain’t no use cryin’ for spilt milk: you’ve
jest got to turn in now and fill up this ’ere hole, else the selectmen
’ll be down on ye.’
“‘Wal,’ says Primus, ‘I didn’t engage to fill up no holes;’ and he put
his spade on his shoulder and trudged off.
“Wal, it was putty hard work, fillin’ in that hole; but Hokum and Toddy
and Wiggin had to do it, ’cause they didn’t want to have everybody a
laughin’ at ’em; and I kind o’ tried to set it home to ’em, showin’ on
’em that ’twas all for the best.
“‘Ef you’d a been left to get that ’are money, there’d a come a cuss
with it,’ says I. ‘It shows the vanity o’ hastin’ to be rich.’
“‘Oh, you shet up!’ says Hokum, says he. ‘You never hasted to any
thing,’ says he. Ye see, he was riled, that’s why he spoke so.”
“Sam,” said we, after maturely reflecting over the story, “what do you
suppose was in that pot?”
“Lordy massy! boys: ye never will be done askin’ questions. Why, how
should I know?”
[Illustration: Mis’ Elderkin’s Pitcher, Page 122]
“MIS’ ELDERKIN’S PITCHER.”
“Ye see, boys,” said Sam Lawson, as we were gathering young wintergreen
on a sunny hillside in June,--“ye see, folks don’t allers know what
their marcies is when they sees ’em. Folks is kind o’ blinded; and, when
a providence comes along, they don’t seem to know how to take it, and
they growl and grumble about what turns out the best things that ever
happened to ’em in their lives. It’s like Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher.”
“What about Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher?” said both of us in one breath.
“Didn’t I never tell ye, now?” said Sam: “why, I wanter know?”
No, we were sure he never had told us; and Sam, as usual, began clearing
the ground by a thorough introduction, with statistical expositions.
“Wal, ye see, Mis’ Elderkin she lives now over to Sherburne in about the
handsomest house in Sherburne,--a high white house, with green blinds
and white pillars in front,--and she rides out in her own kerridge;
and Mr. Elderkin, he ’s a deakin in the church, and a colonel in the
malitia, and a s’lectman, and pretty much atop every thing there is
goin’ in Sherburne, and it all come of that ’are pitcher.”
“What pitcher?” we shouted in chorus.
“Lordy massy! that ’are ’s jest what I’m a goin’ to tell you about; but,
ye see, a feller’s jest got to make a beginnin’ to all things.
“Mis’ Elderkin she thinks she’s a gret lady nowadays, I s’pose; but I
’member when she was Miry Brown over here ’n Oldtown, and I used to be
waitin’ on her to singing-school.
“Miry and I was putty good friends along in them days,--we was putty
consid’able kind o’ intimate. Fact is, boys, there was times in them
days when I thought whether or no I wouldn’t _take_ Miry myself,” said
Sam, his face growing luminous with the pleasing idea of his former
masculine attractions and privileges. “Yis,” he continued, “there was
a time when folks said I could a hed Miry ef I’d asked her; and I putty
much think so myself, but I didn’t say nothin’: marriage is allers kind
o’ventursome; an’ Miry had such up-and-down kind o’ ways, I was sort o’
fraid on’t.
“But Lordy massy! boys, you mustn’t never tell Hepsy I said so, ’cause
she’d be mad enough to bite a shingle-nail in two. Not that she sets
so very gret by me neither; but then women’s backs is allers up ef they
think anybody else could a hed you, whether they want you themselves or
not.
“Ye see, Miry she was old Black Hoss John Brown’s da’ter, and lived up
there in that ’are big brown house by the meetin’-house, that hes the
red hollyhock in the front yard. Miry was about the handsomest gal that
went into the singers’ seat a Sunday.
“I tell you she wa’n’t none o’ your milk-and-sugar gals neither,--she
was ’mazin’ strong built. She was the strongest gal in her arms that I
ever see. Why, I ’ve seen Miry take up a barrel o’ flour, and lift it
right into the kitchen; and it would jest make the pink come into her
cheeks like two roses, but she never seemed to mind it a grain. She had
a good strong back of her own, and she was straight as a poplar, with
snappin’ black eyes, and I tell you there was a snap to her tongue too.
Nobody never got ahead o’ Miry; she’d give every fellow as good as he
sent, but for all that she was a gret favorite.
“Miry was one o’ your briery, scratchy gals, that seems to catch fellers
in thorns. She allers fit and flouted her beaux, and the more she fit
and flouted ’em the more they ’d be arter her. There wa’n’t a gal in all
Oldtown that led such a string o’ fellers arter her; ’cause, you see,
she’d now and then throw ’em a good word over her shoulder, and then
they ’d all fight who should get it, and she’d jest laugh to see ’em do
it.
“Why, there was Tom Sawin, he was one o’ her beaux, and Jim Moss, and
Ike Bacon; and there was a Boston boy, Tom Beacon, he came up from
Cambridge to rusticate with Parson Lothrop; he thought he must have his
say with Miry, but he got pretty well come up with. You see, he thought
’cause he was Boston born that he was kind o’ aristocracy, and hed a
right jest to pick and choose ’mong country gals; but the way he got
come up with by Miry was too funny for any thing.”
“Do tell us about it,” we said, as Sam made an artful pause, designed to
draw forth solicitation.
“Wal, ye see, Tom Beacon he told Ike Bacon about it, and Ike he told me.
’Twas this way. Ye see, there was a quiltin’ up to Mis’ Cap’n Broad’s,
and Tom Beacon he was there; and come to goin’ home with the gals, Tom
he cut Ike out, and got Miry all to himself; and ’twas a putty long
piece of a walk from Mis’ Cap’n Broad’s up past the swamp and the stone
pastur’ clear up to old Black Hoss John’s.
“Wal, Tom he was in high feather ’cause Miry took him, so that he didn’t
reelly know how to behave; and so, as they was walkin’ along past Parson
Lothrop’s apple-orchard, Tom thought he’d try bein’ familiar, and he
undertook to put his arm round Miry. Wal, if she didn’t jest take that
little fellow by his two shoulders and whirl him over the fence into
the orchard quicker ’n no time. ’Why,’ says Tom, ‘the fust I knew I was
lyin’ on my back under the apple-trees lookin’ up at the stars.’ Miry
she jest walked off home and said nothin’ to nobody,--it wa’n’t her way
to talk much about things; and, if it hedn’t ben for Tom Beacon himself,
nobody need ’a’ known nothin’ about it. Tom was a little fellow, you
see, and ’mazin’ good-natured, and one o’ the sort that couldn’t keep
nothin’ to himself; and so he let the cat out o’ the bag himself. Wal,
there didn’t nobody think the worse o’ Miry. When fellers find a gal
won’t take saace from no man, they kind o’ respect her; and then fellers
allers thinks ef it hed ben _them_, now, things ’d ’a’ been different.
That’s jest what Jim Moss and Ike Bacon said: they said, why Tom Beacon
was a fool not to know better how to get along with Miry,--_they_ never
had no trouble. The fun of it was, that Tom Beacon himself was more
crazy after her than he was afore; and they say he made Miry a right
up-and-down offer, and Miry she jest wouldn’t have him.
“Wal, you see, that went agin old Black Hoss John’s idees: old Black
Hoss was about as close as a nut and as contrairy as a pipperage-tree.
You ought to ’a’ seen him. Why, his face was all a perfect crisscross o’
wrinkles. There wa’n’t a spot where you could put a pin down that there
wa’n’t a wrinkle; and they used to say that he held on to every cent
that went through his fingers till he’d pinched it into two. You
couldn’t say that his god was his belly, for he hedn’t none, no more’n
an old file: folks said that he’d starved himself till the moon’d shine
through him.
“Old Black Hoss was awfully grouty about Miry’s refusin’ Tom Beacon,
’cause there was his houses and lots o’ land in Boston. A drefful
worldly old critter Black Hoss John was: he was like the rich fool in
the gospel. Wal, he’s dead and gone now, poor critter, and what good has
it all done him? It’s as the Scriptur’ says, ’He heapeth up riches, and
knoweth not who shall gather them.’
“Miry hed a pretty hard row to hoe with old Black Hoss John. She was up
early and down late, and kep’ every thing a goin’. She made the cheese
and made the butter, and between spells she braided herself handsome
straw bunnets, and fixed up her clothes; and somehow she worked it so
when she sold her butter and cheese that there was somethin’ for
ribbins and flowers. You know the Scriptur’ says, ’Can a maid forget her
ornaments?’ Wal, Miry didn’t. I ’member I used to lead the singin’
in them days, and Miry she used to sing counter, so we sot putty near
together in the singers’ seats; and I used to think Sunday mornin’s
when she come to meetin’ in her white dress and her red cheeks, and her
bunnet all tipped off with laylock, that ’twas for all the world jest
like sunshine to have her come into the singers’ seats. Them was the
days that I didn’t improve my privileges, boys,” said Sam, sighing
deeply. “There was times that ef I’d a spoke, there’s no knowin’ what
mightn’t ’a’ happened, ’cause, you see, boys, I was better lookin’ in
them days than I be now. Now you mind, boys, when you grow up, ef you
get to waitin’ on a nice gal, and you’re ’most a mind to speak up to
her, don’t you go and put it off, ’cause, ef you do, you may live to
repent it.
“Wal, you see, from the time that Bill Elderkin come and took the
academy, I could see plain enough that it was time for me to hang up
my fiddle. Bill he used to set in the singers’ seats, too, and he
would have it that he sung tenor. He no more sung tenor than a
skunk-blackbird; but he made b’lieve he did, jest to git next to Miry
in the singers’ seats. They used to set there in the seats a writin’
backward and forward to each other till they tore out all the leaves of
the hymn-books, and the singin’-books besides. Wal, I never thought that
the house o’ the Lord was jest the place to be courtin’ in, and I used
to get consid’able shocked at the way things went on atween ’em. Why,
they’d be a writin’ all sermon-time; and I’ve seen him a lookin’ at her
all through the long prayer in a way that wa’n’t right, considerin’ they
was both professors of religion. But then the fact was, old Black Hoss
John was to blame for it, ’cause he never let ’em have no chance to hum.
Ye see, old Black Hoss he was sot agin Elderkin ’cause he was poor.
You see, his mother, the old Widdah Elderkin, she was jest about the
poorest, peakedest old body over to Sherburne, and went out to days’
works; and Bill Elderkin he was all for books and larnin’, and old Black
Hoss John he thought it was just shiftlessness: but Miry she thought
he was a genius; and she got it sot in her mind that he was goin’ to be
President o’ the United States, or some sich.
“Wal, old Black Hoss he wa’n’t none too polite to Miry’s beaux in
gineral, but when Elderkin used to come to see her he was snarlier than
a saw: he hadn’t a good word for him noways; and he’d rake up the
fire right before his face and eyes, and rattle about fastenin’ up the
windows, and tramp up to bed, and call down the chamber-stairs to Miry
to go to bed, and was sort o’ aggravatin’ every way.
“Wal, ef folks wants to get a gal set on havin’ a man, that ’ere’s the
way to go to work. Miry had a consid’able stiff will of her own; and, ef
she didn’t care about Tom Beacon before, she hated him now; and, if she
liked Bill Elderkin before, she was clean gone over to him now. And
so she took to goin’ to the Wednesday-evenin’ lecture, and the
Friday-even-in’ prayer-meetin’, and the singin’-school, jest as regular
as a clock, and so did he; and arterwards they allers walked home the
longest way. Fathers may jest as well let their gals be courted in the
house, peaceable, ’cause, if they can’t be courted there, they’ll find
places where they can be: it’s jest human natur’.
“Wal, come fall, Elderkin he went to college up to Brunswick; and then I
used to see the letters as regular up to the store every week, comin’ in
from Brunswick, and old Black Hoss John he see ’em too, and got a way
of droppin’ on ’em in his coat-pocket when he come up to the store, and
folks used to say that the letters that went into his coat-pocket didn’t
get to Miry. Anyhow, Miry she says to me one day says she, ‘Sam, you’re
up round the post-office a good deal,’ says she. ‘I wish, if you see any
letters for me, you’d jest bring ’em along.’ I see right into it, and I
told her to be sure I would; and so I used to have the carryin’ of great
thick letters every week. Wal, I was waitin’ on Hepsy along about them
times, and so Miry and I kind o’ sympathized. Hepsy was a pretty gal,
and I thought it was all best as ’twas; any way, I knew I couldn’t get
Miry, and I could get Hepsy, and that made all the difference in the
world.
“Wal, that next winter old Black Hoss was took down with rheumatism,
and I tell you if Miry didn’t have a time on’t! He wa’n’t noways
sweet-tempered when he was well; but come to be crooked up with the
rheumatis’ and kep’ awake nights, it seemed as if he was determined
there shouldn’t nobody have no peace so long as he couldn’t.
“He’d get Miry up and down with him night after night a makin’ her
heat flannels and vinegar, and then he’d jaw and scold so that she was
eenymost beat out. He wouldn’t have nobody set up with him, though
there was offers made. No: he said Miry was his daughter, and ’twas her
bisness to take care on him.
“Miry was clear worked down: folks kind o’ pitied her. She was a strong
gal, but there’s things that wears out the strongest. The worst
on’t was, it hung on so. Old Black Hoss had a most amazin’ sight o’
constitution. He’d go all down to death’s door, and seem hardly to have
the breath, o’ life in him, and then up he’d come agin! These ’ere old
folks that nobody wants to have live allers hev such a sight o’ wear
in ’em, they jest last and last; and it really did seem as if he’d wear
Miry out and get her into the grave fust, for she got a cough with bein’
up so much in the cold, and grew thin as a shadder. ’Member one time I
went up there to offer to watch jest in the spring o’ the year, when the
laylocks was jest a buddin’ out, and Miry she come and talked with me
over the fence; and the poor gal she fairly broke down, and sobbed as if
her heart would break, a tellin’ me her trouble.
“Wal, it reelly affected me more to have Miry give up so than most gals,
’cause she’d allers held her head up, and hed sich a sight o’ grit and
resolution; but she told me all about it.
“It seems old Black Hoss he wa’n’t content with worryin’ on her,
and gettin’ on her up nights, but he kep’ a hectorin’ her about Bill
Elderkin, and wantin’ on her to promise that she wouldn’t hev Bill when
he was dead and gone; and Miry she wouldn’t promise, and then the old
man said she shouldn’t have a cent from him if she didn’t, and so they
had it back and forth. Everybody in town was sayin’ what a shame ’twas
that he should sarve her so; for though he hed other children, they was
married and gone, and there wa’n’t none of them to do for him but jest
Miry.
“Wal, he hung on till jest as the pinys in the front yard was beginnin’
to blow out, and then he began, to feel he was a goin’, and he sent for
Parson Lothrop to know what was to be done about his soul.
“‘Wal,’ says Parson Lothrop, ‘you must settle up all your worldly
affairs; you must be in peace and love with all mankind; and, if you’ve
wronged anybody, you must make it good to ’em.’
“Old Black Hoss he bounced right over in his bed with his back to the
minister.
“‘The devil!’ says he: ‘’twill take all I’ve got.’ And he never spoke
another word, though Parson Lothrop he prayed with him, and did what he
could for him.
“Wal, that night I sot up with him; and he went off ’tween two and three
in the mornin’, and I laid him out regular. Of all the racks o’ bone
I ever see, I never see a human critter so poor as he was. ’Twa’n’t
nothin’ but his awful will kep’ his soul in his body so long, as it was.
“We had the funeral in the meetin’-house a Sunday; and Parson Lothrop he
preached a sarmon on contentment on the text, ‘We brought nothin’ into
the world, and it’s sartin we can carry nothin’ out; and having food and
raiment, let us be therewith content.’ Parson Lothrop he got round the
subject about as handsome as he could: he didn’t say what a skinflint
old Black Hoss was, but he talked in a gineral way about the vanity o’
worryin’ an’ scrapin’ to heap up riches. Ye see, Parson Lothrop he could
say it all putty easy, too, ’cause since he married a rich wife he never
hed no occasion to worry about temporal matters. Folks allers
preaches better on the vanity o’ riches when they’s in tol’able easy
circumstances. Ye see, when folks is pestered and worried to pay their
bills, and don’t know where the next dollar’s to come from, it’s a great
temptation to be kind o’ valooin’ riches, and mebbe envyin’ those that’s
got ’em; whereas when one’s accounts all pays themselves, and the money
comes jest when its wanted regular, a body feels sort o’ composed like,
and able to take the right view o’ things, like Parson Lothrop.
“Wal, arter sermon the relations all went over to the old house to hear
the will read; and, as I was kind o’ friend with the family, I jest
slipped in along with the rest.
“Squire Jones he had the will; and so when they all got sot round all
solemn, he broke the seals and unfolded it, cracklin’ it a good while
afore he begun; and it was so still you might a heard a pin drop when
he begun to read. Fust, there was the farm and stock, he left to his son
John Brown over in Sherburne. Then there was the household stuff and all
them things, spoons and dishes, and beds and kiver-lids, and so on, to
his da’ter Polly Blanchard. And then, last of all, he says, he left to
his da’ter Miry _the pitcher that was on the top o’ the shelf in his
bedroom closet_.
“That ’are was an old cracked pitcher that Miry allers hed hated the
sight of, and spring and fall she used to beg her father to let her
throw it away; but no, he wouldn’t let her touch it, and so it stood
gatherin’ dust.
“Some on ’em run and handed it down; and it seemed jest full o’
scourin’-sand and nothin’ else, and they handed it to Miry.
“Wal, Miry she was wrathy then. She didn’t so much mind bein’ left out
in the will, ’cause she expected that; but to have that ’are old pitcher
poked at her so sort o’ scornful was more’n she could bear.
“She took it and gin it a throw across the room with all her might; and
it hit agin the wall and broke into a thousand bits, when out rolled
hundreds of gold pieces; great gold eagles and guineas flew round
the kitchen jest as thick as dandelions in a meadow. I tell you, she
scrabbled them up pretty quick, and we all helped her.
“Come to count ’em over, Miry had the best fortin of the whole, as
’twas right and proper she should. Miry she was a sensible gal, and
she invested her money well; and so, when Bill Elderkin got through his
law-studies, he found a wife that could make a nice beginnin’ with him.
And that’s the way, you see, they came to be doin’ as well as they be.
“So, boys, you jest mind and remember and allers see what there is in a
providence afore you quarrel with it, ’cause there’s a good many things
in this world turns out like Mis’ Elderkin’s pitcher.”
[Illustration: Ghost in Cap’n Brown House, Page 139]
THE GHOST IN THE CAP’N BROWNHOUSE.
“Now, Sam, tell us certain true, is there any such things as ghosts?”
“Be there ghosts?” said Sam, immediately translating into his vernacular
grammar: “wal, now, that are’s jest the question, ye see.” “Well,
grandma thinks there are, and Aunt Lois thinks it’s all nonsense. Why,
Aunt Lois don’t even believe the stories in Cotton Mather’s ’Magnalia.’”
“Wanter know?” said Sam, with a tone of slow, languid meditation.
We were sitting on a bank of the Charles River, fishing. The soft
melancholy red of evening was fading off in streaks on the glassy water,
and the houses of Oldtown were beginning to loom through the gloom,
solemn and ghostly. There are times and tones and moods of nature that
make all the vulgar, daily real seem shadowy, vague, and supernatural,
as if the outlines of this hard material present were fading into the
invisible and unknown. So Oldtown, with its elm-trees, its great square
white houses, its meeting-house and tavern and blacksmith’s shop and
milly which at high noon seem as real and as commonplace as possible, at
this hour of the evening were dreamy and solemn. They rose up blurred,
indistinct, dark; here and there winking candles sent long lines of
light through the shadows, and little drops of unforeseen rain rippled
the sheeny darkness of the water.
“Wal, you see, boys, in them things it’s jest as well to mind your
granny. There’s a consid’able sight o’ gumption in grandmas. You look at
the folks that’s alius tellin’ you what they don’t believe,--they don’t
believe this, and they don’t believe that,--and what sort o’ folks is
they? Why, like yer Aunt Lois, sort o’ stringy and dry. There ain’t no
’sorption got out o’ not believin’ nothin’.
“Lord a massy! we don’t know nothin’ ’bout them things. We hain’t ben
there, and can’t say that there ain’t no ghosts and sich; can we, now?”
We agreed to that fact, and sat a little closer to Sam in the gathering
gloom.
“Tell us about the Cap’n Brown house, Sam.”
“Ye didn’t never go over the Cap’n Brown house?”
No, we had not that advantage.
“Wal, yer see, Cap’n Brown he made all his money to sea, in furrin
parts, and then come here to Oldtown to settle down.
“Now, there ain’t no knowin’ ’bout these ’ere old ship-masters, where
they’s ben, or what they’s ben a doin’, or how they got their money. Ask
me no questions, and I’ll tell ye no lies, is ’bout the best philosophy
for them. Wal, it didn’t do no good to ask Cap’n Brown questions too
close, ’cause you didn’t git no satisfaction. Nobody rightly knew ’bout
who his folks was, or where they come from; and, ef a body asked him,
he used to say that the very fust he know’d ’bout himself he was a young
man walkin’ the streets in London.