By Mary Hallock Foote.
(_Scribner's Magazine, July,_ 1879.)
It had been "borne in" upon him, more or less, during the long winter;
it had not relaxed its hold when the frosts unlocked and the streams
were set free from their long winter's silence among the hills. He grew
restless and abstracted under "the turnings of the Lord's hand upon
him," and his speech unconsciously shaped itself into the Biblical
cadences which came to him in his moments of spiritual exercise.
The bedrabbled snows of March shrank away before the keen, quickening
sunbeams; the hills emerged, brown and sodden, like the chrysalis of
the new year. The streams woke in a tumult, and all day and night their
voices called from the hills back of the mill. The waste-weir was a
foaming torrent, and spread itself in muddy shallows across the meadow
beyond the old garden where the robins and blue birds were
house-hunting. Friend Barton's trouble stirred with the life-blood of
the year, and pressed upon him sorely; but as yet he gave it no words.
He plodded about among his lean kine, tempering the winds of March to
his untimely lambs, and reconciling unnatural ewes to their maternal
duties.
Friend Barton had never heard of the doctrine of the survival of the
fittest; though it was the spring of 1812, and England and America were
investigating the subject on the seas, while the nations of Europe were
practically illustrating it. The "hospital tent," as the boys called an
old corn-basket, covered with carpet, which stood beside the kitchen
chimney, was seldom without an occupant,--a brood of chilled chickens,
a weakly lamb, or a wee pig (with too much blue in its pinkness), which
had been left behind by its stouter brethren in the race for existence.
The old mill hummed away through the day, and often late in the evening
if time pressed, upon the grists which added a thin, intermittent
stream of tribute to the family income. Whenever work was "slack,"
Friend Barton was sawing or chopping in the wood-shed adjoining the
kitchen; every moment he could seize or make he was there, stooping
over the rapidly growing pile.
"Seems to me, father, thee's in a great hurry with the wood this
spring. I don't know when we've had such a pile ahead."
"'Twon't burn up any faster for being chopped," Friend Barton said; and
then his wife Rachel knew that if he had a reason for being
"forehanded" with the wood, he was not ready to give it.
One rainy April afternoon, when the smoky gray distances began to take
a tinge of green, and through the drip and rustle of the rain the call
of the robins sounded, Friend Barton sat in the door of the barn,
oiling the road-harness. The old chaise had been wheeled out and
greased, and its cushions beaten and dusted.
An ox team with a load of grain creaked up the hill and stopped at the
mill door. The driver, seeing Friend Barton's broad-brimmed drab felt
hat against the dark interior of the barn, came down the short lane
leading from the mill past the house and farm-buildings.
"Fixin' up for travellin', Uncle Tommy?"
Vain compliments were unacceptable to Thomas Barton, and he was
generally known and addressed as "Uncle Tommy" by the world's people of
a younger generation.
"It is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps, neighbor
Gordon. I am getting myself in readiness to obey the Lord, whichever
way He calls me."
Farmer Gordon cast a shrewd eye over the premises. They wore that
patient, sad, exhumed look which old farm-buildings are apt to have in
early spring. The roofs were black with rain, and brightened with
patches of green moss. Farmer Gordon instinctively calculated how many
"bunches o' shingle" would be required to rescue them from the decline
into which they had fallen, in spite of the hectic green spots.
"Wal, the Lord calls most of us to stay at home and look after things,
such weather as this. Good plantin' weather; good weather for breakin'
ground; fust-rate weather for millin'! This is a reg'lar miller's rain,
Uncle Tommy. You ought to be takin' advantage of it. I've got a grist
back here; wish ye could manage to let me have it when I come back from
store."
The grist was ground and delivered before Friend Barton went in to his
supper that night. Dorothy Barton had been mixing bread, and was wiping
her white arms and hands on the roller towel by the kitchen door, as
her father stamped and scraped his feet on the stones outside.
"I do believe I forgot to toll neighbor Gordon's rye," he said, as he
gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's
wonderful how careless I get!"
"Well, father, I don't suppose thee'd ever forget, and toll a grist
twice!"
"I believe I've been mostly preserved from mistakes of that kind," said
Friend Barton gently. "It may have been the Lord who stayed my hand
from gathering profit unto myself while his lambs go unfed."
Dorothy put her hands on her father's shoulders. She was almost as tall
as he, and could look into his patient, troubled eyes.
"Father, I know what thee is thinking of; but do think _long_. It will
be a hard year; the boys _ought_ to go to school; and mother is so
feeble."
Friend Barton's "concern" kept him awake long that night. His wife
watched by his side, giving no sign, lest her wakeful presence should
disturb his silent wrestlings. The tall, cherry-wood clock in the entry
measured the hours as they passed with its slow, dispassionate tick.
At two o'clock Rachel Barton was awakened from her first sleep of
weariness by her husband's voice whispering heavily in the darkness.
"My way is hedged up! I see no way to go forward. Lord, strengthen my
patience, that I murmur not, after all I have seen of Thy goodness. I
find daily bread is very desirable; want and necessity are painful to
nature; but shall I follow Thee for the sake of the loaves, or will it
do to forsake Thee in times of emptiness and abasement?"
There was silence again, and restless tossings and sighings continued
the struggle.
"Thomas," the wife's voice spoke tremulously in the darkness, "my dear
husband, I know where thy thoughts are tending. If the Spirit is with
thee, do not deny it for our sakes, I pray thee. The Lord did not give
thee thy wife and children to hang as a millstone round thy neck. I am
thy helpmeet, to strengthen thee in his service. I am thankful that I
have my health this spring better than usual, and Dorothy is a
wonderful help. Her spirit was sent to sustain me in thy long absences.
Go, dear, and serve our Master, who has called thee in these bitter
strivings! Dorothy and I will keep things together as well as we can.
The way will open--never fear!" She put out her hand and touched his
face in the darkness; there were tears on the furrowed cheeks. "Try to
sleep, dear, and let thy spirit have rest. There is but one answer to
this call."
With the first drowsy twitterings of the birds, when the
crescent-shaped openings in the board shutters began to define
themselves clearly in the shadowy room, they arose and went about their
morning tasks in silence. Friend Barton's step was a little heavier
than usual, and the hollows round his wife's pale brown eyes were a
little deeper. As he sat on the splint-bottomed chair by the kitchen
fireplace, drawing on his boots, she laid her hands on his shoulders,
and her cheek on the worn spot on the top of his head.
"Thee will lay this concern before meeting to-morrow, father?"
"I had it on my mind to do so,--if my light be not quenched before
then."
Friend Barton's light was not quenched. Words came to him without
seeking, in which to "open the concern which had ripened in his mind,"
of a religious visit to the meeting constituting the yearly meetings of
Philadelphia and Baltimore. A "minute" was given him encouraging him in
the name of, and with the full concurrence of, the monthly meetings of
Nine Partners, and Stony Valley, to go wherever the Truth might lead
him. While Friend Barton was thus freshly anointed, and "abundantly
encouraged," his wife, Rachel, was talking with Dorothy in the low
upper chamber, known as the "wheel-room."
Dorothy was spinning wool on the big wheel, dressed in her light calico
short-gown and brown quilted petticoat; her arms were bare, and her
hair was gathered away from her flushed cheeks and knotted behind her
ears. The roof sloped down on one side, and the light came from a long
low window under the eaves. There was another window (shaped like a
half moon high up in the peak), but it sent down only one long beam of
sunlight, which glimmered across the dust and fell upon Dorothy's white
neck.
The wheel was humming a quick measure, and Dorothy trod lightly back
and forth, the wheel-pin in one hand, the other upraised holding the
tense, lengthening thread, which the spindle devoured again.
"Dorothy, thee looks warm:--can't thee sit down a moment, while I talk
to thee?"
"Is it anything important, mother? I want to get my twenty knots before
dinner." She paused as she joined a long tress of wool at the spindle.
"Is it anything about father?"
"Yes, it's about father, and all of us."
"I know," said Dorothy, stretching herself back with a sigh. "He's
going away again!"
"Yes, dear. He feels that he is called. It is a time of trouble and
contention everywhere,--'the harvest truly is plenteous, but the
laborers are few.'"
"There are not so _many_ 'laborers' _here_, mother, though to be sure,
the harvest--"
"Dorothy, my daughter! don't let a spirit of levity creep into thy
speech. Thy father has striven and wrestled with his urgings. I've seen
it working on him all winter; he feels now it is the Lord's will."
"I don't see how he can be so sure," said Dorothy, swaying gloomily to
and fro against the wheel. "I don't care for myself,--I'm not afraid of
work,--but _thee's_ not able to do what thee does _now_, mother. If I
have outside things to look after, how can I help thee as I should? The
boys are about as much dependence as a flock of barn swallows!"
"Don't fret about me, dear; the way will open. Thy father has thought
and planned for us; have patience while I tell thee. Thee knows Walter
Evesham's pond is small and his mill is doing a thriving business?"
"Yes, I know it!" Dorothy exclaimed. "He has his own share, and ours
too--most of it!"
"Wait, dear, wait! Thy father has rented him the ponds to use when his
own gives out. He is to have the control of the water, and it will give
us a little income, even though the old mill does stand idle."
"He may as well take the mill, too. If father is away all summer it
will be useless ever to start it again. Thee'll see, mother, how it
will end if Walter Evesham has the custom and the water all summer. I
think it's miserable for a young man to be so keen about money."
"Dorothy, seems to me thee's hasty in thy judgments. I never heard that
said of Walter Evesham. His father left him with capital to improve his
mill. It does better work than ours; we can't complain of that. Thy
father was never one to study much after ways of making money. He felt
he had no right to more than an honest livelihood. I don't say that
Walter Evesham's in the wrong. We know that Joseph took advantage of
his opportunities, though I can't say that I ever felt much unity with
some of his transactions. What would thee have, my dear? Thee's
discouraged with thy father for choosing the thorny way, which we tread
with him; but thee seems no better satisfied with one who considers the
flesh and its wants!"
"I don't _know_, mother, _what_ I want for myself. It doesn't matter,
but for thee I would have rest from all these cruel worries thee has
borne so long."
She buried her face in her mother's lap and put her strong young arms
about the frail, toil-bent form.
"There, there, dear. Try to rule thy spirit, Dorothy. Thee's too much
worked up about this. They are not worries to me. I am thankful we have
nothing to decide, one way or the other--only to do our best with what
is given us. Thee's not thyself, dear. Go down-stairs and fetch in the
clothes, and don't hurry; stay out till thee gets more composed."
Dorothy did not succeed in bringing herself into unity with her
father's call, but she came to a fuller realization of his struggle.
When he bade them good-by, his face showed what it had cost him, but
Rachel was calm and cheerful. The pain of parting is keenest to those
who go, but it stays longer with those who are left behind.
"Dorothy, take good care of thy mother!" Friend Barton said, taking his
daughter's face between his hands and gravely kissing her brow between
the low-parted ripples of her hair.
"Yes, father," she said, looking into his eyes. "Thee knows I'm thy
eldest son."
They watched the old chaise swing round the corner of the lane, then
the pollard willows shut it from sight.
"Come, mother," said Dorothy, hurrying her in at the gate. "I'm going
to make a great pot of mush, and have it hot for supper, and fried for
breakfast, and warmed up with molasses for dinner, and there'll be some
cold with milk for supper, and we shan't have any cooking to do at
all."
They went round to the kitchen door. Rachel stopped in the wood-shed,
and the tears rushed to her eyes.
"Dear father! How he has worked over that wood, early and late, to
spare us!"
We will not revive Dorothy's struggles with the farm-work and with the
boys. They were an isolated family at the mill-house; their peculiar
faith isolated them still more, and they were twelve miles from meeting
and the settlement of Friends at Stony Valley. Dorothy's pride kept her
silent about her needs, lest they might bring reproach upon her father
among the neighbors, who would not be likely to feel the urgency of his
spiritual summons.
The summer heats came on apace and the nights grew shorter. It seemed
to Dorothy that she had hardly stretched out her tired young body and
forgotten her cares in the low attic bedroom, before the east was
streaked with light and the birds were singing in the apple-trees,
whose falling blossoms drifted in at the window.
One day in early June, Friend Barton's flock of sheep--consisting of
nine experienced ewes, six yearlings, and a sprinkling of close-curled
lambs whose legs had not yet come into mature relations with their
bodies--were gathered in a little railed inclosure, beside the stream
which flowed into the "mill head." It was supplied by the waste from
the pond, and when the gate was shut, rambled easily over the gray
slate pebbles, with here and there a fall, just forcible enough to
serve as a douche bath for a well-grown sheep. The victims were panting
in their heavy fleeces, and their hoarse, plaintive tremolo mingled
with the ripple of the water and the sound of young voices in a frolic.
Dorothy had divided her forces for the washing to the best advantage.
The two elder boys stood in the stream to receive the sheep, which she,
with the help of little Jimmy, caught and dragged to the bank.
The boys were at work now upon an elderly ewe, while Dorothy stood on
the brink of the stream, braced against an ash sapling, dragging at the
fleece of a beautiful but reluctant yearling. Her bare feet were
incased in a pair of moccasins which laced around the ankle; her
petticoats were kilted, and her broad hat bound down with a ribbon; one
sleeve was rolled up, the other had been sacrificed in a scuffle in the
sheep-pen. The new candidate for immersion stood bleating and
trembling, with her fore feet planted against the slippery bank,
pushing back with all her strength, while Jimmy propelled from the
rear.
"Boys!" Dorothy's clear voice called across the stream. "_Do_ hurry!
She's been in long enough, now! Keep her head up, can't you, and
squeeze the wool _hard_! You're not _half_ washing! Oh, Reuby! thee'll
drown her! Keep her _head_ up!"
Another unlucky douse and another half-smothered bleat,--Dorothy
released the yearling and plunged to the rescue. "Go after that lamb,
Reuby!" she cried, with exasperation in her voice. Reuby followed the
yearling, which had disappeared over the orchard slope, upsetting an
obstacle in its path, which happened to be Jimmy. He was now wailing on
the bank, while Dorothy, with the ewe's nose tucked comfortably in the
bend of her arm, was parting and squeezing the fleece, with the water
swirling round her. Her stout arms ached, and her ears were stunned
with the incessant bleating; she counted with dismay the sheep still
waiting in the pen. "Oh, Jimmy! _do_ stop crying, or else go to the
house!"
"He'd better go after Reuby," said Sheppard Barton, who was now
Dorothy's sole dependence.
"Oh yes; do, Jimmy, that's a good boy. Tell him to let the yearling go,
and come back quick."
The water had run low that morning in Evesham's pond. He shut down the
mill, and strode up the hills, across lots, to raise the gate of the
lower Barton Pond, which had been heading up for his use. He passed the
corn-field where, a month before, he had seen pretty Dorothy Barton
dropping corn with her brothers. It made him ache to think of Dorothy,
with her feeble mother, the boys, as wild as preacher's sons
proverbially are, and the old farm running down on her hands; the
fences all needed mending, and there went Reuben Barton, now, careering
over the fields in chase of a stray yearling. His mother's house was
big, and lonely, and empty; and he flushed as he thought of the "one
ewe-lamb" he coveted, out of Friend Barton's rugged pastures. As he
raised the gate, and leaned to watch the water swirl and gurgle through
the "trunk," sucking the long weeds with it, and thickening with its
tumult the clear current of the stream, the sound of voices and
bleating of sheep came up from below. He had not the farming instincts
in his blood;--the distant bleating, the hot June sunshine and
cloudless sky, did not suggest to him sheep-washing;--but now came a
boy's voice shouting and a cry of distress, and he remembered, with a
thrill, that Friend Barton used the stream for that peaceful purpose.
He shut down the gate and tore along through the ferns and tangled
grass till he came to the sheep-pen, where the bank was muddy and
trampled. The prisoners were bleating drearily and looking with longing
eyes across to the other side, where those who had suffered were now
straying and cropping the short turf, through the lights and shadows of
the orchard.
There was no other sign of life, except a broad hat with a brown
ribbon, buffeted about in an eddy, among the stones. The stream dipped
now below the hill, and the current, still racing fast with the impetus
he had given it, shot away among the hazel thickets which crowded close
to the brink. He was obliged to make a detour by the orchard, and come
out at the "mill-head" below;--a black, deep pool, with an ugly ripple
setting across it to the "head-gate." He saw something white clinging
there and ran round the brink. It was the sodden fleece of the old ewe
which had been drifted against the "head-gate," and held there to her
death. Evesham, with a sickening contraction of the heart, threw off
his jacket for a plunge, when Dorothy's voice called rather faintly
from the willows on the opposite bank.
"Don't jump! I'm here," she said. Evesham searched the willows, and
found her seated in the sun just beyond, half buried in a bed of ferns.
"I wouldn't have called thee," she said shyly, as he sank, pale and
panting, beside her, "but thee looked--I thought thee was going to jump
into the mill-head!"
"I thought _you_ were there, Dorothy!"
"I was there quite long enough. Shep pulled me out; I was too tired to
help myself much." Dorothy held her palm pressed against her temple,
and the blood trickled from beneath, streaking her pale, wet cheek.
"He's gone to the house to get me a cloak. I don't want mother to see
me--not yet," she said.
"I'm afraid you ought not to wait, Dorothy. Let me take you to the
house, won't you? I'm afraid you'll get a deadly chill."
Dorothy did not look in the least like death. She was blushing now,
because Evesham would think it so strange of her to stay, and yet she
could not rise in her wet clothes, which clung to her like the calyx to
a bud.
"Let me see that cut, Dorothy, _please_!"
"Oh, it's nothing. I don't _wish_ thee to look at it!"
"But I will! Do you want to make me your murderer--sitting there in
your wet clothes, with a cut on your head?"
He drew away her hand, and the wound, indeed, was no great affair, but
he bound it up deftly with strips of his handkerchief. Dorothy's wet
curls touched his fingers and clung to them, and her eyelashes drooped
lower and lower.
"I think it was _very_ stupid of thee. Didn't thee hear us from the
dam? I'm sure we made noise enough."
"Yes, I heard you when it was too late. I heard the sheep before, but
how could I imagine that _you_, Dorothy, and three boys, as big as
cockerels, were sheep-washing? It's the most preposterous thing I ever
heard of!"
"Well, I can't help being a woman, and the sheep had to be washed. I
think there ought to be more men in the world when half of them are
preaching and fighting."
"If you'd only let the men who are left help you a little, Dorothy!"
"I don't want any help. I only _don't_ want to be washed into the
mill-head."
They both laughed, and Evesham began again entreating her to let him
take her to the house.
"Hasn't thee a coat or something I could put around me until Shep
comes?" said Dorothy. "He must be here soon."
"Yes, I've got a jacket here somewhere."
He sped away to find it, and faithless Dorothy, as the willows closed
between them, sprang to her feet and fled like a startled Naiad to the
house.
When Evesham, pushing through the willows, saw nothing but the bed of
wet, crushed ferns and the trail through the long grass where Dorothy's
feet had fled, he smiled grimly to himself, remembering that
"ewe-lambs" are not always as meek as they look.
That evening Rachel had received a letter from Friend Barton, and was
preparing to read it aloud to the children. They were in the kitchen,
where the boys had been helping Dorothy, in a desultory manner, to
shell corn for the chickens; but now all was silence, while Rachel
wiped her glasses and turned the large sheet of paper, squared with
many foldings, to the candle.
She read the date, "London Grove, 5th month, 22nd.--Most affectionately
beloved." "He means us all," said Rachel, turning to the children with
a tender smile. "It's spelled with a small b."
"He means thee!" said Dorothy, laughing. "Thee's not such a very big
beloved."
There was a moment's silence. "I don't know that the opening of the
letter is of general interest," Rachel mused, with her eyes travelling
slowly down the page. "He says: 'In regard to my health, lest thee
should concern thyself, I am thankful to say I have never enjoyed
better since years have made me acquainted with my infirmities of body,
and I earnestly hope that my dear wife and children are enjoying the
same blessing.
"'I trust the boys are not deficient in obedience and helpfulness. At
Sheppard's age I had already begun to take the duties of a man upon my
shoulders.'"
Sheppard giggled uncomfortably, and Dorothy laughed outright.
"Oh! if father only _knew_ how good the boys are! Mother, thee must
write and tell him about their 'helpfulness and obedience'! Thee can
tell him their appetites keep up pretty well; they manage to take their
meals regularly, and they are _always_ out of bed by eight o'clock, to
help me hang up the milking-stool!"
"Just wait till thee gets in the mill-head again, Dorothy Barton! Thee
needn't come to _me_ to help thee out!"
"Go on, mother! Don't let the boys interrupt thee!"
"Well," said Rachel, rousing herself, "where was I? Oh, 'when I was
Sheppard's age'! Well, next come some allusions to the places where he
has visited, and his spiritual exercises there. I don't know that the
boys are quite old enough to enter into this yet. Thee'd better read it
thyself, Dorothy. I'm keeping all father's letters for the boys to
read, when they are old enough to appreciate them."
"Well, I think thee might read us about where he's been preachin'! We
can understand a great deal more than thee thinks we can!" said Shep,
in an injured voice. "Reuby, he can preach some himself! Thee ought to
hear him, mother. It's almost as good as meetin'!"
"I _wondered_ how Reuby spent his time!" said Dorothy, and the mother
hastened to interpose.
"Well, here's a passage that may be interesting: 'On sixth day attended
the youths' meeting here,--a pretty favored time on the whole. Joseph'
[that's Joseph Carpenter; he mentions him aways back] 'had good service
in lively testimony, while I was calm and easy, without a word to say.
At a meeting at Plumstead, we suffered long, but at length we felt
relieved. The unfaithful were admonished, the youth invited, and the
heavy-hearted encouraged. It was a heavenly time!' Heretofore he seems
to have been closed up with silence a good deal; but now the way opens
continually for him to free himself. He's been 'much favored,' he says,
'of late.' Reuby, what's thee doing to thy brothers?" (Shep and Reuby,
who had been persecuting Jimmy by pouring handfuls of corn down the
neck of his jacket until he had taken refuge behind Dorothy's chair,
were now recriminating with corn-cobs on each other's faces.) "Dorothy,
can't thee keep those boys quiet?"
"Did thee ever know them to be quiet?" said Dorothy, helping Jimmy to
relieve himself of his corn.
"Well now, listen!" Rachel continued placidly, "'Second day, 27th' (of
fifth month, he means, the letter's been a _long time_ coming),
'attended their mid-week meeting at London Grove, where my tongue as it
were clave to the roof of my mouth, while Hannah Husbands was much
favored, and enabled to lift up her voice like the song of an angel'"--
"Who's Hannah Husbands?" cried Dorothy.
"Thee don't know her, dear. She was second cousin to thy father's
step-mother; the families were not congenial, I believe; but she has a
great gift for the ministry."
"I should think she'd better be at home with her children,--if she has
any. Fancy _thee_, mother, going about to strange meetings, and lifting
up thy voice."
"Hush! hush! Dorothy! Thy tongue's running away with thee. Consider the
example thee's setting the boys."
"Thee'd better write to father about Dorothy, mother! Perhaps Hannah
Husbands would like to know what she thinks about her preachin'!"
"Well now, be quiet, all of you. Here's something about Dorothy: 'I
know that my dear daughter Dorothy is faithful and loving, albeit
somewhat quick of speech, and restive under obligation. I would have
thee remind her that an unwillingness to accept help from others argues
a want of Christian Meekness. Entreat her, from me, not to conceal her
needs from our neighbors, if so be she find her work oppressive. We
know them to be of kindly intention, though not of our way of thinking
in all particulars. Let her receive help from them, not as individuals,
but as instruments of the Lord's protection, which it were impiety and
ingratitude to deny.'"
"There!" cried Shep. "That means thee's to let Luke Jordan finish the
sheep-washing. Thee'd better have done it in the first place. We
wouldn't have the old ewe to pick if thee had!"
Dorothy was dimpling at the idea of Luke Jordan in the character of an
instrument of heavenly protection. She had not regarded him in that
light, it must be confessed, and had rejected him with scorn.
"He may if he wants to," she said; "but you boys shall drive them over.
I'll have nothing to do with it."
"And shear them too, Dorothy? He asked to shear them long ago."
"Well, _let_ him shear them, and keep the wool too."
"I wouldn't say that, Dorothy!" said Rachel Barton. "We need the wool,
and it seems as if over-payment might not be quite honest either."
"Oh! mother, mother! What a mother thee is!" cried Dorothy laughing,
and rumpling her cap-strings in a tumultuous embrace.
"She's a great deal too good for _thee_, Dorothy Barton."
"She's too good for all of us! How did thee ever come to have such a
graceless set of children, mother?"
"I'm very well satisfied," said Rachel. "But now do be quiet, and let's
finish the letter. We must get to bed some time to-night!"
The wild clematis was in blossom now--the fences were white with it,
and the rusty cedars were crowned with virgin wreaths, but the weeds
were thick in the garden and in the potato patch. Dorothy, stretching
her cramped back, looked longingly up the shadowy vista of the
farm-lane, which had nothing to do but ramble off into the remotest
green fields, where the daisies' faces were as white and clear as in
early June.
One hot August night she came home late from the store. The stars were
thick in the sky; the katydids made the night oppressive with their
rasping questionings, and a hoarse revel of frogs kept the ponds from
falling asleep in the shadow of the hills.
"Is thee very tired to-night, Dorothy?" her mother asked, as she took
her seat on the low step of the porch. "Would thee mind turning old
John out thyself?"
"No, mother, I'm not tired. But why--oh, _I_ know!" cried Dorothy, with
a quick laugh. "The dance--at Slocum's barn. I _thought_ those boys
were uncommonly helpful."
"Yes, dear, it's but natural they should want to see it. Hark! we can
hear the music from here."
They listened, and the breeze brought across the fields the sound of
fiddles and the rhythmic tramp of feet, softened by the distance.
Dorothy's young pulses leaped.
"Mother, is it any harm for them just to _see_ it? They have so little
fun except what they get out of teasing and shirking."
"My dear, thy father would never countenance such a scene of frivolity,
or permit one of his children to look upon it."
Through our eyes and ears the world takes possession of our hearts.
"Then I'm to spare the boys this temptation, mother? Thee will trust
_me_ to pass the barn?"
"I would trust my boys, if they were thy age Dorothy. But their
resolution is tender, like their years."
It might be questioned whether the frame of mind in which the boys went
to bed that night, under their mother's eye,--for Rachel could be firm
in a case of conscience,--was more improving than the frivolity of
Slocum's barn.
"Mother," called Dorothy, looking in at the kitchen window, where
Rachel was stooping over the embers in the fireplace, to light a
bedroom candle, "I want to speak to thee."
Rachel came to the window, screening the candle with her hand.
"Will thee trust _me_ to look at the dancing a little while? It is so
very near."
"Why, Dorothy, does thee _want_ to?"
"Yes, mother, I believe I do. I've never seen a dance in my life. It
cannot ruin me to look just once."
Rachel stood puzzled.
"Thee's old enough to judge for thyself, Dorothy. But, my child, do not
tamper with thy inclinations through heedless curiosity. Thee knows
thee's more impulsive than I could wish--for thy own peace."
"I'll be very careful, mother. If I feel in the _least_ wicked I will
not look."
She kissed her mother's hand, which rested on the window-sill. Rachel
did not like the kiss, or Dorothy's brilliant eyes and flushed cheeks,
as the candle revealed them like a fair picture painted on the
darkness. She hesitated, and Dorothy sped away up the lane with old
John lagging at his halter.
Was it the music growing nearer that quickened her breathing, or only
the closeness of the night, shut in between the wild grape-vine
curtains, swung from one dark cedar column to another? She caught the
sweet-brier breath as she hurried by, and now, a loop in the leafy
curtain revealed the pond lying black in a hollow of the hills, with a
whole heaven of stars reflected in it. Old John stumbled along over the
stones, cropping the grass as he went. Dorothy tugged at his halter and
urged him on to the head of the lane where two farm-gates stood at
right angles. One of them was open, and a number of horses were
tethered in a row along the fence within. They whinneyed a cheerful
greeting to John as Dorothy slipped his halter and shut him into the
field adjoining. Now should she walk into temptation with her eyes and
ears open? The gate stood wide, with only one field of perfumed
meadow-grass between her and the lights and music of Slocum's barn! The
sound of revelry by night could hardly have taken a more innocent form
than this rustic dancing of neighbors after a "raisin' bee," but had it
been the rout of Comus and his crew, and Dorothy the Lady Una,
trembling near, her heart could hardly have throbbed more thickly as
she crossed the dewy meadow. A young maple stood within ten rods of the
barn, and here she crouched in shadow.
The great doors stood wide open, and lanterns were hung from the beams
lighting the space between the mows, where a dance was set, with youths
and maidens in two long rows. The fiddlers sat on barrel-heads near the
door; a lantern hanging just behind projected their shadows across the
square of light on the trodden space in front where they executed a
grotesque pantomime, keeping time to the music with spectral wavings
and noddings. The dancers were Dorothy's young neighbors, whom she had
known and yet not known all her life, but they had the strangeness of
familiar faces seen suddenly in some fantastic dream.
Surely that was Nancy Slocum, in the bright pink gown, heading the line
of girls, and that was Luke Jordan's sunburnt profile leaning from his
place to pluck a straw from the mow behind him. They were marching now,
and the measured tramp of feet, keeping solid time to the fiddles, set
a strange tumult vibrating in Dorothy's blood; and now it stopped with
a thrill as she recognized that Evesham was there marching with the
young men, and that his peer was not among them. The perception of his
difference came to her with a vivid shock. He was coming forward now,
with his light, firm step, formidable in evening dress, and with a
smile of subtle triumph in his eyes, to meet Nancy Slocum, in the
bright pink gown; Dorothy felt she hated pink, of all the colors her
faith had abjured. She could see, in spite of the obnoxious gown, that
Nancy was very pretty. He was taking her first by the right hand, then
by the left, and turning her gayly about;--and now they were meeting
again, for the fourth or fifth time, in the centre of the barn, with
all eyes upon them, and the music lingered while Nancy, holding out her
pink petticoats, coyly revolved around him. Then began a mysterious
turning, and clasping of hands, and weaving of Nancy's pink frock and
Evesham's dark blue coat and white breeches in and out of the line of
figures, until they met at the door, and taking each other by both
hands, swept with a joyous measure to the head of the barn. Dorothy
gave a little choking sigh.
What a senseless whirl it was! But she was thrilling with a new and
strange excitement, too near the edge of pain to be long endured as a
pleasure. If this were the influence of dancing, she did not wonder so
much at her father's scruples,--and yet it held her like a spell.
All hands were lifted now, making an arch, through which Evesham,
holding Nancy by the hands, raced stooping and laughing. As they
emerged at the door, he threw up his head to shake a brown lock back.
He looked flushed, and boyishly gay, and his hazel eye searched the
darkness with that subtle ray of triumph in it which had made Dorothy
afraid. She drew back behind the tree and pressed her hot cheek to the
cool, rough bark. She longed for the stillness of the starlit meadow,
and the dim lane, with its faint perfumes and whispering leaves.
But now suddenly the music stopped, and the dance broke up in a tumult
of voices. Dorothy stole backward in the shadow of the tree-trunk, till
it joined the darkness of the meadow, and then fled,--stumbling along
with blinded eyes, and the music still vibrating in her ears. There
came a quick rush of footsteps behind her, swishing through the long
grass. She did not look back, but quickened her pace, struggling to
reach the gate. Evesham was there before her. He had swung the gate to
and was leaning with his back against it, laughing and panting.
"I've caught you, Dorothy, you little deceiver! You'll not get rid of
me to-night with any of your tricks. I'm going to take you home to your
mother, and tell her you were peeping at the dancing."
"Mother knows I am here," said Dorothy. "I asked her!" Her knees were
trembling, and her heart almost choked her with its throbbing.
"I'm so glad you don't dance, Dorothy. This is much nicer than the
barn; and the katydids are better fiddlers than old Darby and his son.
I'll open the gate if you will put your hand in mine, so I can be sure
of you--you little runaway!"
"I will stay here all night, first!" said Dorothy, in a low quivering
voice.
"As you choose. I shall be happy as long as you are here."
Dead silence, while the katydids seemed to keep time to their
heart-beats; the fiddles began tuning for another reel, and the horses
tethered near stretched out their necks with low inquiring whinneys.
"Dorothy," said Evesham, softly, leaning toward her and trying to see
her face in the darkness, "are you angry with me? Don't you think you
deserve a little punishment for the trick you played me at the
mill-head?"
"It was thy fault for wetting me!" Dorothy was too excited and angry to
cry, but she was as miserable as she had ever been in her life before.
"I didn't _want_ thee to stay. People who force themselves where they
are not wanted must take what they get!"
"What did you say, Dorothy?"
"I say I didn't want thee then. I do not want thee now! Thee may go
back to thy fiddling and dancing! I'd rather have one of those dumb
brutes for company to-night than thee, Walter Evesham!"
"Very well! The reel has begun," said Evesham. "Fanny Jordan is waiting
to dance it with me, or if she isn't she ought to be! Shall I open the
gate for you?"
She passed out in silence, and the gate swung to with a heavy jar. She
made good speed down the lane, and then waited outside the fence till
her breath came more quietly.
"Is that thee, Dorothy?" Rachel's voice called from the porch. She came
out to meet her, and they went along the walk together. "How damp thy
forehead is, child! is the night so warm?" They sat down on the low
steps, and Dorothy slid her arm under her mother's and laid her soft
palm against the one less soft by twenty years of toil for others.
"Thee's not been long, dear; was it as much as thee expected?"
"Mother, it was dreadful! I never wish to hear a fiddle again as long
as I live!"
Rachel opened the way for Dorothy to speak further; she was not without
some mild stirrings of curiosity on the subject herself; but Dorothy
had no more to say.
They went into the house soon after, and as they separated for the
night, Dorothy clung to her mother with a little nervous laugh.
"Mother, what is that text about Ephraim?"
"Ephraim is joined to idols?" Rachel suggested.
"Yes! Ephraim is joined to his idols!" said Dorothy, lifting her head.
"Let him go!"
"Let him _alone_," corrected Rachel.
"Let him _alone!_" Dorothy repeated. "That is better yet."
"What's thee thinking of, dear?"
"Oh, I'm thinking about the dance in the barn."
"I'm glad thee looks at it in that light," said Rachel.
* * * * *
Dorothy knelt by her bed in the low chamber under the eaves, crying to
herself that she was not the child of her mother any more.
She felt she had lost something, which, in truth, had never been hers.
It was only the unconscious poise of her unawakened girlhood which had
been stirred. She had mistaken it for that abiding peace which is not
lost or won in a day.
Dorothy could not stifle the spring thrills in her blood any more than
she could crush its color out of her cheek or brush the ripples out of
her bright hair, but she longed for the cool grays and the still
waters. She prayed that the "grave and beautiful damsel called
Discretion" might take her by the hand and lead her to that "upper
chamber, whose name is Peace." She lay awake, listening to the music
from the barn, and waiting through breathless silences for it to begin
again. She wondered if Fanny Jordan had grown any prettier since she
had seen her as a half-grown girl; and then she despised herself for
the thought. The katydids seemed to beat their wings upon her brain,
and all the noises of the night, far and near, came to her strained
senses, as if her silent chamber were a whispering gallery. The clock
struck twelve, and in the silence that followed she missed the music;
but voices, talking and laughing, were coming down the lane. There was
the clink of a horse's hoof on the stones; now it was lost on the turf;
and now they were all trooping noisily past the house. She buried her
head in her pillow, and tried to bury with it the consciousness that
she was wondering if Evesham were there, laughing with the rest.
Yes, Evesham was there. He walked with Farmer Jordan, behind the young
men and girls, and discussed with him, somewhat absently, the war news
and the prices of grain.
As they passed the dark old house, spreading its wide roofs, like a hen
gathering her chickens under her wing, he became suddenly silent. A
white curtain flapped in and out of an upper window. It was the window
of the boys' room; but Evesham's instincts failed him there.
"Queer kinks them old Friend preachers git into their heads sometimes!"
said farmer Jordan, as they passed the empty mill. "Now what do you
s'pose took Uncle Tommy Barton off right on top of plantin', leavin'
his wife 'n' critters 'n' child'en to look after themselves? Mighty
good preachin' it ought to be, to make up for such practicin'.
Wonderful set ag'in the war, Uncle Tommy is! He's a-preachin' up peace
now. But Lord! all the preachin' sence Moses won't keep men from
fightin' when their blood's up and there's ter'tory in it!"
"It makes saints of the women," said Evesham shortly.
"Wal, yes! Saints in heaven before their time, some of 'em. There's
Dorothy, now. _She'll_ hoe her row with any saint _in_ the kingdom or
out of it. I never see a hulsomer-lookin' gal. My Luke, he run the
furrers in her corn-patch last May. Said it made him sick to see a gal
like that a-staggerin' after a plow. She wouldn't more'n _half let_
him! She's a proud little piece. They're all proud, Quakers is. I never
could see no 'poorness of spirit,' come to git at 'em! And they're
wonderful clannish, too. My Luke, he'd a notion he'd like to run the
hull concern--Dorothy 'n' all; but I told him he might 's well p'int
off. Them Quaker gals don't never marry out o' meetin'. Besides, the
farm's too poor!"
"Good-night, Mr. Jordan!" said Evesham suddenly. "I'm off across lots!"
He leaped the fence, crashed through the alder hedge-row, and
disappeared in the dusky meadow.
Evesham was by no means satisfied with his experiments in planetary
distances. Somewhere, he felt sure, either in his orbit or hers, there
must be a point where Dorothy would be less insensible to the
attraction of atoms in the mass. Thus far, she had reversed the laws of
the spheres, and the greater had followed the less. When she had first
begun to hold a permanent place in his thoughts, he had invested her
with something of that atmosphere of peace and cool passivity which
hedges in the women of her faith. It had been like a thin, clear glass,
revealing her loveliness, but cutting off the magnetic currents. A
young man is not long satisfied with the mystery his thoughts have
woven around the woman who is their object. Evesham had grown
impatient; he had broken the spell of her sweet remoteness. He had
touched her, and found her human,--deliciously, distractingly human,
but with a streak of obduracy which history has attributed to the
Quakers under persecution. In vain he haunted the mill-dam, and bribed
the boys with traps and pop-guns, and lingered at the well-curb to ask
Dorothy for water, which did not reach his thirst. She was there in the
flesh, with her arms aloft, balancing the well-sweep, while he stooped
with his lips at the bucket; but in spirit she was unapproachable. He
felt, with disgust at his own persistence, that she even grudged him
the water! He grew savage and restless, and fretted over the subtle
changes which he counted in Dorothy, as the summer waned. She was
thinner and paler,--perhaps with the heats of harvest, which had not,
indeed, been burdensome from its abundance. Her eyes were darker and
shyer, and her voice more languid. Was she wearing down, with all this
work and care? A fierce disgust possessed him, that this sweet life
should be cast into the breach between faith and works.
He did not see that Rachel Barton had changed, too,--with a change that
meant more, at her age, than Dorothy's flushings and palings. He did
not miss the mother's bent form from the garden, or the bench by the
kitchen door, where she had been used to wash the milk-things.
Dorothy washed the milk-things now, and the mother spent her days in
the sunny east room, between her bed and the easy-chair, where she sat
and mused for hours over the five letters she had received from her
husband in as many months. The boys had, in a measure, justified their
father's faith in them, since Rachel's illness, and Dorothy was
released from much of her out-door work; but the silence of the
kitchen, when she was there alone with her ironing and dish-washing,
was a heavier burden than she had yet known.
Nature sometimes strikes in upon the hopeless monotony of life in
remote farm-houses, with one of her phenomenal moods. They come like
besoms of destruction; but they scatter the web of stifling routine;
they fling into the stiffening pool the stone which jars the atoms into
crystal.
The storms which had ambushed in the lurid August skies, and circled
ominously round the horizon during the first weeks of September, broke
at last in an equinoctial which was long remembered in the mill-house.
It took its place in the family calendar of momentous dates with the
hard winter of 1800; with the late frost, which coated the incipient
apples with ice, and froze the new potatoes in the ground; and with the
year the typhus got into the valley.
The rain had been falling a night and a day. It had been welcomed with
thanksgiving; but it had worn out its welcome some hours since, and now
the early darkness was coming on without a lull in the storm. Dorothy
and the two biggest boys had made the rounds of the farm-buildings,
seeing all safe for the second night. The barns and mill stood on high
ground, while the house occupied the sheltered hollow between. Little
streams from the hills were washing in turbid currents across the lower
levels; the waste-weir roared as in early spring; the garden was
inundated, and the meadow a shallow pond. The sheep had been driven
into the upper barn floor; the chickens were in the corn-bin; and old
John and the cows had been transferred from the stable, which stood
low, to the weighing-floor of the mill. A gloomy echoing and gurgling
sounded from the dark wheel-chamber, where the water was rushing under
the wheel, and jarring it with its tumult. At eight o'clock the
wood-shed was flooded, and water began to creep under the kitchen door.
Dorothy and the boys carried armfuls of wood, and stacked them in the
passage to the sitting-room, two steps higher up. At nine o'clock the
boys were sent, protesting, to bed; and Dorothy, looking out of their
window, as she fumbled about in the dark for a pair of Shep's trowsers
which needed mending, saw a lantern flickering up the road. It was
Evesham, on his way to the mill-dams. The light glimmered on his
oil-skin coat as he climbed the stile behind the well-curb.
"He raised the flood-gates at noon," Dorothy said to herself. "I wonder
if he is anxious about the dams." She resolved to watch for his return,
but she was busy settling her mother for the night when she heard his
footsteps on the porch. The roar of water from the hills startled
Dorothy as she opened the door;--it had increased in violence within an
hour. A gust of wind and rain followed Evesham into the entry.
"Come in," she said, running lightly across the sitting-room to close
the door of her mother's room.
He stood opposite her on the hearth-rug and looked into her eyes across
the estrangement of the summer. It was not Dorothy of the mill-head, or
of Slocum's meadow, or the cold maid of the well: it was a very
anxious, lovely little girl, in a crumbling old house, with a foot of
water in the cellar, and a sick mother in the next room. She had
forgotten about Ephraim and his idols; she picked up Shep's trowsers
from the rug, where she had dropped them, and looking intently at her
thimble finger, told him she was very glad he had come.
"Did you think I wouldn't come?" said he. "I'm going to take you home
with me, Dorothy,--you and your mother and the boys. It's not fit for
you to be here alone!"
"Do you know of any danger?"
"I _know_ of none, but water's a thing you can't depend on. It's an
ugly rain; older men than your father remember nothing like it."
"I shall be glad to have mother go, and Jimmy;--the house is very damp.
It's an awful night for her to be out, though!"
"She _must_ go!" said Evesham. "You must all go. I'll be back in half
an hour--"
"_I_ shall not go," Dorothy said; "the boys and I must stay and look
after the stock."
"What's that?" Evesham was listening to a trickling of water outside
the door.
"Oh! it's from the kitchen! The door's blown open, I guess!"
Dorothy looked out into the passage; a strong wind was blowing in from
the kitchen, where the water covered the floor and washed against the
chimney.
"This is a nice state of things! What's all this wood here for?"
"The wood-shed's under water, you know."
"You must get yourself ready, Dorothy! I'll come for your mother first
in the chaise."
"I cannot go," she said; "I don't believe there is any danger. This old
house has stood for eighty years; it's not likely this is the first big
rain in all that time." Dorothy's spirits had risen. "Besides, I have a
family of orphans to take care of! See here," she said, stooping over a
basket in the shadow of the chimney. It was the "hospital tent," and as
she uncovered it, a brood of belated chickens stretched out their thin
necks with plaintive peeps.
Dorothy covered them with her hands, and they nestled with cozy
twitterings into silence.
"You're a kind of special providence, aren't you, Dorothy? But I've no
sympathy with chickens who _will_ be born just in time for the
equinoctial."
"_I_ didn't want them," said Dorothy, anxious to defend her management.
"The old hen stole her nest, and she left them the day before the rain.
She's making herself comfortable now in the corn-bin."
"She ought to be made an example of;--that's the way of the world,
however;--retribution don't fall always on the right shoulders. I must
go now. We'll take your mother and Jimmy first, and then, if you
_won't_ come, you shall let me stay with you. The mill is safe enough,
anyhow."
Evesham returned with the chaise and a man who he insisted should drive
away old John and the cows, so Dorothy should have less care. The
mother was packed into the chaise with a vast collection of wraps,
which almost obliterated Jimmy. As they started, Dorothy ran out in the
rain with her mother's spectacles and the five letters, which always
lay in a box on the table by her bed. Evesham took her gently by the
arms and lifted her back across the puddles to the stoop.
As the chaise drove off, she went back to the sitting-room and crouched
on the rug, her wet hair shining in the firelight. She took out her
chickens one by one and held them under her chin, with tender words and
finger-touches. If September chickens have hearts as susceptible as
their bodies, Dorothy's orphans must have been imperilled by her
caresses.
"Look here, Dorothy! Where's my trowsers?" cried Shep, opening the door
at the foot of the stairs.
Reuby was behind him, fully arrayed in the aforesaid articles, and
carrying the bedroom candle.
"Here they are--with a needle in them," said Dorothy. "What are you
getting up in the middle of the night for?"
"Well, I guess it's time somebody's up. Who's that man driving off our
cows?"
"Goosey! It's Walter Evesham's man. He came for mother and all of us,
and he's taken old John and the cows to save us so much foddering."
"Ain't we going too?"
"I don't see why we should, just because there happens to be a little
water in the kitchen. I've often seen it come in there before."
"Well, thee never saw anything like _this_ before--nor anybody else,
either," said Shep.
"I don't care," said Reuby; "I wish there'd come a reg'lar flood. We
could climb up in the mill-loft and go sailin' down over Jordan's
meadows. Wouldn't Luke Jordan open that big mouth of his to see us
heave in sight about cock-crow--three sheets in the wind, and the old
tackle a-swingin'!"
"Do hush!" said Dorothy. "We may have to try it yet."
"There's an awful roarin' from our window," said Shep. "Thee can't half
hear it down here. Come out on the stoop. The old ponds have got their
dander up this time."
They opened the door and listened, standing together on the low step.
There was, indeed, a hoarse murmur from the hills which grew louder as
they listened.
"Now she's comin'! There goes the stable-door! There was only one hinge
left, anyway," said Reuby. "Mighty! Look at that wave!"
It crashed through the gate, swept across the garden, and broke at
their feet, sending a thin sheet of water over the floor and stoop.
"Now it's gone into the entry. Why didn't thee shut the door, Shep?"
"Well, I think we'd better clear out, anyhow. Let's go over to the
mill. Say, Dorothy, sha'n't we?"
"Wait. There comes another wave!"
The second onset was not so violent, but they hastened to gather
together a few blankets, and the boys filled their pockets, with a
delightful sense of unusualness and peril, almost equal to a shipwreck
or an attack by Indians. Dorothy took her unlucky chickens under her
cloak and they made a rush, all together, across the road and up the
slope to the mill.
"Why didn't we think to bring a lantern?" said Dorothy, as they huddled
together on the platform of the scale. "Will _thee_ go back after one,
Shep?"
"If Reuby'll go, too."
"Well, _my_ legs are wet enough now! What's the use of a lantern?
Mighty Moses! What's that?"
"The old mill's got under weigh!" cried Shep. "_She's_ going to tune up
for Kingdom Come!"
A furious head of water was rushing along the race. The great wheel
creaked and swung over, and with a shudder the old mill awoke from its
long sleep. The cogs clenched their teeth, the shafting shook and
rattled, the stones whirled merrily round.
"Now she goes it!" cried Shep, as the humming increased to a tremor,
and the tremor to a wild, unsteady din, till the timbers shook and the
bolts and windows rattled. "I just wish _father_ could hear them old
stones hum."
"Oh, this is awful!" said Dorothy. She was shivering, and sick with
terror at this unseemly midnight revelry of her grandfather's old mill.
It was as if it had awakened in a fit of delirium, and given itself up
to a wild travesty of its years of peaceful work.
Shep was creeping about in the darkness.
"Look here! We've got to stop this clatter somehow. The stones are hot
now. The whole thing'll burn up like tinder if we can't chock her
wheels."
"Shep! Does thee _mean_ it?"
"Thee'll see if I don't. Thee won't need any lantern either."
"Can't we break away the race?"
"Oh, there's a way to stop it. There's the tip-trough, but it's
down-stairs, and we can't reach the pole."
"I'll go," said Dorothy.
"It's outside, thee knows. Thee'll get awful _wet_, Dorothy."
"Well, I'd just as soon be drowned as burned up. Come with me to the
head of the stairs."
They felt their way hand in hand in the darkness, and Dorothy went down
alone. She had forgotten about the "tip-trough," but she understood its
significance. In a few moments a cascade shot out over the wheel,
sending the water far into the garden.
"Right over my chrysanthemum bed!" sighed Dorothy.
The wheel swung slower and slower, the mocking tumult subsided, and the
old mill sank into sleep again.
There was nothing now to drown the roaring of the floods and the steady
drive of the storm.
"There's a lantern," Shep called from the door. He had opened the upper
half, and was shielding himself behind it. "I guess it's Evesham coming
back for us. He's a pretty good sort of a fellow, after all; don't thee
think so, Dorothy? He owes us something for drowning us out at the
sheep-washing."
"What _does all_ this mean?" said Dorothy, as Evesham swung himself
over the half-door, and his lantern showed them in their various phases
of wetness.
"There's a big leak in the lower dam! I've been afraid of it all along;
there's something wrong in the principle of the thing."
Dorothy felt as if he had called her grandfather a fraud, and her
father a delusion and a snare. She had grown up in the belief that the
mill-dams were part of Nature's original plan, in laying the
foundations of the hills;--but it was no time to be resentful, and the
facts were against her.
"Dorothy," said Evesham, as he tucked the buffalo about her, "this is
the second time I've tried to save you from drowning, but you never
will wait! _I'm_ all ready to be a hero, but _you_ won't be a heroine."
"I'm too practical for a heroine," said Dorothy. "There! I've forgotten
my chickens."
"I'm glad of it! Those chickens were a mistake. They oughtn't to be
perpetuated."
Youth and happiness can stand a great deal of cold water; but it was
not to be expected that Rachel Barton should be especially benefited by
her night journey through the floods. Evesham waited in the hall when
he heard the door of her room open next morning. Dorothy came slowly
down the stairs; he knew by her lingering step and the softly closed
door that she was not happy.
"Mother is very sick," she answered his inquiry.
"It is like the turn of inflammation and rheumatism she had once
before. It will be very slow,--and oh! it is such suffering! Why _do_
the best women in the world have to suffer so?"
"Will you let me talk things over with you after breakfast, Dorothy?"
"Oh yes!" she said; "there is so much to do and think about. I _wish_
father _would_ come home!"
The tears came into Dorothy's eyes as she looked at him. Rest--such as
she had never known, or felt the need of till now--and strength
immeasurable, since it would multiply her own by an unknown quantity,
stood within reach of her hand, but she might not put it out! And
Evesham was dizzy with the struggle between longing and resolution.
He had braced his nerves for a long and hungry waiting, but fate had
yielded suddenly;--the floods had brought her to him,--his flotsam and
jetsam, more precious than all the guarded treasures of the earth. She
had come, with all her girlish, unconscious beguilements, and all her
womanly cares, and anxieties too. He must strive against her sweetness,
while he helped her to bear her burdens.
"Now about the boys, Dorothy," he said two hours later, as they stood
together by the fire in the low, oak-finished room at the foot of the
stairs, which was his office and book-room. The door was ajar, so
Dorothy might hear her mother's bell. "Don't you think they had better
be sent to school somewhere?"
"Yes," said Dorothy, "they _ought_ to go to school--but--well, I may as
well tell thee the truth! There's very little to do it with. We've had
a poor summer. I suppose I've managed badly, and mother has been sick a
good while."
"You've forgotten about the pond-rent, Dorothy."
"No," she said, with a quick flush; "I hadn't forgotten it; but I
couldn't _ask_ thee for it!"
"I spoke to your father about monthly payments; but he said better
leave it to accumulate for emergencies. Shouldn't you call this an
'emergency,' Dorothy?"
"But does thee think we ought to ask rent for a pond that has all
leaked away?"
"Oh, there's pond enough left, and I've used it a dozen times over this
summer! I would be ashamed to tell you, Dorothy, how my horn has been
exalted in your father's absence. However, retribution has overtaken me
at last; I'm responsible, you know, for all the damage last night. It
was in the agreement that I should keep up the dams."
"Oh!" said Dorothy; "is thee sure?"
Evesham laughed.
"If your father were like any other man, Dorothy, he'd make me 'sure,'
when he gets home! I will defend myself to this extent: I've patched
and propped them all summer, after every rain, and tried to provide for
the fall storms; but there's a flaw in the original plan--"
"Thee said that once before," said Dorothy. "I wish thee wouldn't say
it again."
"Why not?"
"Because I love those old mill-dams! I've trotted over them ever since
I could walk alone!"
"You shall trot over them still! We will make them as strong as the
everlasting hills. They shall outlast our time, Dorothy."
"Well, about the rent," said Dorothy. "I'm afraid it will not take us
through the winter, unless there is something I can do. Mother couldn't
possibly be moved now, and if she could, it will be months before the
house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy
mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the
time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin."
"She'll let you do all you like, if it will make you any happier. But
you don't know how much money is coming to you. Come, let us look over
the figures."
He lowered the lid of the black mahogany secretary, placed a chair for
Dorothy, and opened a great ledger before her, bending down, with one
hand on the back of the chair, the other turning the leaves of the
ledger. Considering the index, and the position of the letter B in the
alphabet, he was a long time finding his place. Dorothy looked out of
the window, over the tops of the yellowing woods, to the gray and
turbid river below. Where the hemlocks darkened the channel of the
glen, she heard the angry floods rushing down. The formless rain mists
hung low, and hid the opposite shore.
"See!" said Evesham, with his finger wandering rather vaguely down the
page. "Your father went away on the third of May. The first month's
rent came due on the third of June. That was the day I opened the gate
and let the water down on you, Dorothy. I'm responsible for everything,
you see,--even for the old ewe that was drowned!"
His words came in a dream as he bent over her, resting his unsteady
hand heavily on the ledger.
Dorothy laid her cheek on the date she could not see, and burst into
tears.
"Don't--please don't!" he said, straightening himself, and locking his
hands behind him. "I am human, Dorothy!"
The weeks of Rachel's sickness that followed were perhaps the best
discipline Evesham's life had ever known. He held the perfect flower of
his bliss, unclosing in his hand; yet he might barely permit himself to
breathe its fragrance! His mother had been a strong and prosperous
woman; there was little he could ever do for her. It was well for him
to feel the weight of helpless infirmity in his arms, as he lifted
Dorothy's mother from side to side of her bed, while Dorothy's hands
smoothed the coverings. It was well for him to see the patient
endurance of suffering, such as his youth and strength defied. It was
bliss to wait on Dorothy, and follow her with little watchful homages,
received with a shy wonder which was delicious to him,--for Dorothy's
nineteen years had been too full of service to others to leave much
room for dreams of a kingdom of her own. Her silent presence in her
mother's sick-room awed him. Her gentle, decisive voice and ways, her
composure and unshaken endurance through nights of watching and days of
anxious confinement and toil, gave him a new reverence for the
mysteries of her unfathomable womanhood.
The time of Friend Barton's return drew near. It must be confessed that
Dorothy welcomed it with a little dread, and Evesham did not welcome it
at all. On the contrary, the thought of it roused all his latent
obstinacy and aggressiveness. The first day or two after the momentous
arrival wore a good deal upon every member of the family, except
Margaret Evesham, who was provided with a philosophy of her own, which
amounted almost to a gentle obtuseness, and made her a comfortable
non-conductor, preventing more electric souls from shocking each other.
On the morning of the fourth day, Dorothy came out of her mother's room
with a tray of empty dishes in her hands. She saw Evesham at the
stair-head and hovered about in the shadowy part of the hall till he
should go down.
"Dorothy," he said, "I'm waiting for you." He took the tray from her
and rested it on the banisters. "Your father and I have talked over all
the business. He's got the impression I'm one of the most generous
fellows in the world. I intend to let him rest in that delusion for the
present. Now may I speak to him about something else, Dorothy? Have I
not waited long enough for my heart's desire?"
"Take care!" said Dorothy, softly,--"thee'll upset the tea-cups!"
"Confound the tea-cups!" He stooped to place the irrelevant tray on the
floor, but now Dorothy was half-way down the staircase. He caught her
on the landing, and taking both her hands, drew her down on the step
beside him.
"Dorothy, this is the second time you've taken advantage of my
unsuspicious nature! This time you shall be punished! You needn't try
to hide your face, you little traitor! There's no repentance in you!"
"If I'm to be punished there's no need of repentance."
"Dorothy, do you know, I've never heard you speak my name, except once,
when you were angry with me."
"When was that?"
"The night I caught you at the gate. You said, 'I would rather have one
of those dumb brutes for company than thee, Walter Evesham.' You said
it in the fiercest little voice! Even the 'thee' sounded as if you
hated me."
"I did," said Dorothy promptly. "I had reason to."
"Do you hate me now, Dorothy?"
"Not so much as I did then."
"What an implacable little Quaker you are!"
"A tyrant is _always_ hated," said Dorothy, trying to release her
hands.
"If you will look in my eyes, Dorothy, and call me by my name, just
once,--I'll let 'thee' go."
"Walter Evesham!" said Dorothy, with great firmness and decision.
"No! that won't do! You must look at me,--and say it softly,--in a
little sentence, Dorothy!"
"Will thee please let me go, Walter?"
Walter Evesham was a man of his word, but as Dorothy sped away, he
looked as if he wished he were not.
The next evening, Friend Barton sat by his wife's easy-chair, drawn
into the circle of firelight, with his elbows on his knees, and his
head between his hands.
The worn spot on the top of his head had widened considerably during
the summer, but Rachel looked stronger and brighter than she had for
many a day. There was even a little flush on her cheek, but that might
have come from the excitement of a long talk with her husband.
"I'm sorry thee takes it so hard, Thomas; I was afraid thee would. But
the way didn't seem to open for me to do much. I can see now, that
Dorothy's inclinations have been turning this way for some time, though
it's not likely she would own it, poor child; and Walter Evesham's not
one who is easily gainsayed. If _thee_ could only feel differently
about it, I can't say but it would make me very happy to see Dorothy's
heart satisfied. Can't thee bring thyself into unity with it, father?
He's a nice young man. They're nice folks. Thee can't complain of the
_blood_. Margaret Evesham tells me a cousin of hers married one of the
Lawrences, so we are kind of kin, after all."
"I don't complain of the blood; they're well enough placed as far as
the world is concerned! But their ways are not our ways, Rachel! Their
faith is not our faith!"
"Well! I can't see such a very great difference, come to live among
them! 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' To comfort the widow and
the fatherless, and keep ourselves unspotted from the world!--thee's
always preached that, father! I really can't see any more worldliness
here than among many households with us,--and I'm sure if we haven't
been the widow and the fatherless this summer, we've been next to it!"
Friend Barton raised his head a little, and rested his forehead on his
clasped hands.
"Rachel," he said, "look at that!" He pointed upward to an ancient
sword with belt and trappings, which gleamed on the panelled
chimney-piece--crossed by an old queen's arm. Evesham had given up his
large sunny room to Dorothy's mother, but he had not removed all his
lares and penates.
"Yes, dear; that's his grandfather's sword--Colonel Evesham, who was
killed at Saratoga!"
"Why does he hang up that thing of abomination for a light and a guide
to his footsteps, if his way be not far from ours?"
"Why, father! Colonel Evesham was a good man!--I dare say he fought for
the same reason that thee preaches--because he felt it his duty!"
"I find no fault with _him_, Rachel. Doubtless he followed his light,
as thee says; but he followed it in better ways too. He cleared land
and built a homestead and a meeting-house. Why don't his grandson hang
up his old broad-ax and ploughshare, and worship _them_, if he must
have idols, instead of that symbol of strife and bloodshed. Does thee
want our Dorothy's children to grow up under the shadow of that sword?"
There was a stern light of prophecy in the old man's eyes.
"Maybe Walter Evesham would take it down," said Rachel, leaning back
wearily and closing her eyes. "I never was much of a hand to argue,
even if I had the strength for it; but it would hurt me a good deal--I
must say it--if thee denies Dorothy in this matter, Thomas. It's a very
serious thing to have old folks try to turn young hearts the way they
think they ought to go. I remember now,--I was thinking about it last
night, and it all came back as fresh! I don't know that I ever told
thee about that young friend who visited me before I heard thee preach
at Stony Valley? Well! _father, he_ was wonderful pleased with him, but
I didn't feel any drawing that way. He urged me a good deal, more than
was pleasant for either of us. He wasn't at all reconciled to thee,
Thomas, if thee remember."
"I remember," said Thomas Barton, "it was an anxious time."
"Well dear, if father _had_ insisted, and sent thee away, I can't say
but life would have been a very different thing to me."
"I thank thee for saying it, Rachel." Friend Barton's head drooped
between his hands.
"Thee's suffered much through me; thee's had a hard life, but thee's
been well beloved."
The flames leaped and flickered in the chimney, they touched the
wrinkled hands, whose only beauty was in their deeds; they crossed the
room and lit the pillows where, for three generations, young heads had
dreamed, and gray heads had watched and suffered; then they mounted to
the chimney and struck a gleam from the sword.
"Well, father," said Rachel, "what answer is thee going to give Walter
Evesham?"
"I shall say no more, my dear. Let the young folks have their way.
There's strife and contention enough in the world without my stirring
up more. And it may be I'm resisting the Master's will; I left her in
His care: this may be His way of dealing with her."
Walter Evesham did not take down his grandfather's sword. Fifty years
later another went up beside it,--the sword of a young Evesham who
never left the field of Shiloh; and beneath them both hangs the
portrait of the Quaker grandmother, Dorothy Evesham, at the age of
sixty-nine.
The golden ripples, silver now, are hidden under a "round-eared cap,"
the quick flush has faded in her cheek, and fold upon fold of snowy
gauze and creamy silk are crossed over the bosom that thrilled to the
fiddles of Slocum's barn. She has found the cool grays and the still
waters; but on Dorothy's children rests the "Shadow of the Sword"!