The fields were turning brown, and in the dusty gray of the roadside,
closed gentians gloomed, and the aster burned like a purple star. It
was the finest autumn for many years. People said, with every clear
day, "Now this must be a weather-breeder;" but still the storm delayed.
Then they anxiously scanned the heavens, as if, weeks beforehand, the
signs of the time might be written there; for this was the fall of all
others when wind and sky should be kind to Tiverton. She was going to
celebrate her two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and she was big
with the importance of it.
On a still afternoon, over three weeks before that happy day, a slender
old man walked erectly along the country road. He carried a cane over
his shoulder, and, slung upon it, a small black leather bag, bearing
the words, painted in careful letters, "Clocks repaired by N.
Oldfield." As he went on, he cast a glance, now and then, to either
side, from challenging blue eyes, strong yet in the indomitable quality
of youth. He knew every varying step of the road, and could have
numbered, from memory, the trees and bushes that fringed its length;
and now, after a week's absence, he swept the landscape with the air of
a manorial lord, to see what changes might have slipped in unawares. At
one point, a flat triangular stone had been tilted up on edge, and an
unpracticed hand had scrawled on it, in chalk, "4 M to Sudleigh." The
old man stopped, took the bag from his shoulder, and laid it tenderly
on a stone of the wall. Then, with straining hands, he pulled the rock
down into the worn spot where it had lain, and gave a sigh of relief
when it settled into its accustomed place, and the tall grass received
it tremulously. Now he opened his bag, took from it a cloth, carefully
folded, and rubbed the rock until those defiling chalk marks were
partially effaced.
"Little varmints!" he said, apostrophizing the absent school children
who had wrought the deed. "Can't they let nothin' alone?" He took up
his bag, and went on.
Nicholas Oldfield, as he walked the road that day, was a familiar
figure to all the county round. He had a smooth, carefully shaven face,
with a fine outline of nose and chin, and his straight gray hair shone
from faithful brushing. He was almost aggressively clean. Even his blue
eyes had the appearance of having just been washed, like a spring day
after a shower. It was a frequent remark that he looked as if he had
come out of a bandbox; and one critic even went so far as to assert
that on Sundays he sandpapered his eyes and gave a little extra polish
to his bones. But these were calumnies; though to-day his suit of
home-made blue was quite speckless, and the checked gingham
neckerchief, which made his ordinary wear, still kept its stiff,
starched creases.
"Dirt don't stick to _you_, Mr. Oldfield," once said a seeking widow.
"Your washing can't be much. I guess anybody'd be glad to undertake it
for you." Mr. Oldfield nodded gravely, as one receiving the tribute
which was justly his, and continued to do his washing himself.
As he walked the dusty road, bearing his little bag, so he had walked
it for years, sometimes within a few miles of home, and again at the
extreme limit of the county edge. The clocks of the region were all his
clients, some regarded with compassion ("ramshackle things" that needed
perpetual tinkering) and others with a holy awe. "The only thing
Nicholas Oldfield bows the knee before is a double-back-action clock a
thousand years old," said Brad Freeman, the regardless. "That's how he
reads Ancient of Days." The justice of the remark was acknowledged,
though, as touching Mr. Oldfield, it was felt to be striking rather too
keenly at the root of things. For Nicholas Oldfield was looked upon
with a respect not so much inspired by his outward circumstances as by
his method of taking them. There are, indeed, ways and ways among us
who serve the public. When Tom O'Neil went round peddling essences,
children saw him from afar, ran to meet him, and, falling on his pack,
besought him for "two-three-drops-o'-c'logne" with such fervor that the
mothers had to haul them off by main force, in order themselves to
approach his redolence; but when the clock-mender appeared, with his
little bag, propriety walked before him, and the naughtiest scion of
the flock would come soberly in, to announce:--
"Mother, here's Mr. Oldfield."
It is true that this little old man did exemplify the dignity and
restraint of life to such a degree that, had it not been for his one
colossal weakness, the town might have condemned him, in good old
Athenian fashion. Clock-mending was a legitimate industry; but there
were those who felt it to be, in his case, a mere pretext for nosing
round and identifying ridiculous old things which nobody prized until
Nicholas Oldfield told them it was conformable so to do. Some believed
him and some did not; but it was known that a MacDonough's Victory
tea-set drove him to an almost outspoken rapture, and that the mere
mention of the Bay Psalm Book (a copy of which he sought with the
haggard fervor of one who worships but has ceased to hope) was enough
to make him "wild as a hawk." Old papers, too, drew him by their very
mildew; and when his townsfolk were in danger of respecting him too
tediously, they recalled these amiable puerilities, drew a breath of
relief, and marked his value down.
Many facts in his life were not in the least understood, because he
never saw the possibility of talking about them. For example, when at
the marriage of his son, Young Nick, he made over the farm, and kept
his own residence in the little gambrel-roofed house where he had been
born, and his father and grandfather before him, the act was, for a
time, regarded somewhat gloomily by the public at large. There were
Young Nick and his Hattie, living in the big new house, with its
spacious piazza and cool green blinds; there the two daughters were
born and bred, and the elder of them was married. The new house had its
hired girl and man; and meantime the other Nicholas (nobody ever
dreamed of calling him Old Nick) was cooking his own meals, and even,
of a Saturday, scouring his kitchen floor. It was easy to see in him
the pathetic symbol of a bygone generation relegated to the past. A
little wave of sympathy crept to his very feet, and then, finding
itself unnoted, ebbed away again. Only one village censor dared speak,
saying slyly to Young Nick's Hattie:--
"Ain't no room for grandpa in the new house, is there?"
Hattie opened her eyes wide at this discovery, though now she realized
that echoes of a like benevolence had reached her ears before. She went
home very early from the quilting, and that night she said to her
husband, as they sat on the doorstone, waiting for the milk to cool:--
"Nicholas, little things I've got hold of, first an' last, make me
conclude folks pity father. Do you s'pose they do?"
Young Nick selected a fat plantain spike, and began stripping the
seeds.
"Well, I dunno what for," said he, after consideration. "Father seems
to be pretty rugged."
Hattie was one of those who find no quicker remedy than that of
plentiful speech; and later in the evening, she sped over to the little
house, across the dewy orchard. Mr. Oldfield had come home only that
afternoon, and now he had drawn up at his kitchen table, which was
covered by a hand-woven cloth, beautifully ironed, and set with
old-fashioned dishes. He had hot biscuits and apple-pie, and the odor
of them rose soothingly to Hattie's nostrils, dissipating, for a
moment, her consciousness of tragedy and wrong. A man could not be
quite forlorn who cooked such "victuals," and sat before them so
serenely.
"See here, father," said she, with the desperation of speaking her mind
for the first time to one from whom she had hitherto kept awesomely
remote; "when we moved into the new house, I dunno's there was any talk
about your comin', too. I guess it never entered into our heads you'd
do anything but to stick to the old place. An' now, after it's all past
an' gone, the neighbors say"--
Nicholas Oldfield had been smiling his slight, dry smile. At this
point, he took up a knife, and cut a careful triangle of pie. He did
all these things as if each one were very important.
"Here, Hattie," Said he, "you taste o' this dried apple. I put a mite
o' lemon in."
Hattie, somehow abashed by the mental impact of the little man, ate her
pie meekly, and thenceforth waived the larger issue. All the same, she
knew the neighbors "pitied father," and that they would continue to
pity him so long as he lived alone in the little peaceful house, doing
his own washing and making his own pie.
To-night was a duplication of many another when Nicholas Oldfield had
turned the corner and come in sight of his own home; but often as it
had been repeated, the experience was never the same. Some would have
named his springing emotion delight; but it neither quickened his pace
nor made him draw his breath the faster. Perhaps he even walked a
little more slowly, to enjoy the taste, for he was a saving man. There
was the little house, white as paint could make it, and snug in
bowering foliage. He noted, with an approving eye, that the dahlias in
the front yard, set in stiff nodding rows, were holding their own
bravely against the dry fall weather, and that the asters were blooming
profusely, purple and pink. A rare softness came over his features when
he stepped into the yard; and though he examined the roof critically in
passing, it was with the eye of love. He fitted the key in the lock;
the sound of its turning made music in his ears, and, setting his foot
upon the sill, he was a man for whom that little was enough. Nicholas
Oldfield was at home.
He laid down his bag, and went, without an instant's pause, straight
through to the sitting-room, and stood before the tall eight-day clock.
He put his hand on the woodwork, as if it might have been the shoulder
of a friend, and looked up understandingly in its face.
"Well, here we be," said he. "You'd ha' hil' out till mornin',
though."
For wherever he might travel, he always made it a point to be home in
time to wind the clocks; and however early he might hurry away again,
under stress of some antiquarian impulse, they were left alive and
pulsing behind him. There was one in each room, besides the tall
eight-day in the parlor, and they were all soft-voiced and leisurely,
reminiscent of another age than ours. Though three of them had been
inherited, it almost seemed as if Nicholas must have selected the
entire company, so harmonious were they, so serenely fitted to the calm
decorum of his own desires.
In half an hour he had accomplished many things, and his fire sent a
spiral breath toward heaven. The dark old kitchen lay open, door and
window, to the still opulent sun, and from the pantry and a corner
cupboard came gleams of color, to delight the eye. Here were riches,
indeed: old India china, an unbroken set of Sheltered Peasant, and, on
the top shelf, little mugs and cups of a pink lustre, soft and sweet as
flowers. Many a collector had wooed Nicholas Oldfield to part with his
china (for the fame of it had spread afar,) but his only response to
solicitation was to open the doors more widely on his treasures,
remarking, without emphasis:--
"I guess they might as well stay where they be."
So passive was he, that many among merchants judged they had impressed
him, and returned again and again to the charge; but when they found
always the same imperturbable front, the same mild neutrality of
demeanor, they melted sadly away, and were seen no more, leaving their
places to be taken by others equally hopeful and as sure to be
betrayed.
One creature only was capable of rousing Nicholas Oldfield from that
calm wherein he went ticking on through life. She it was who, by some
natal likeness, understood him wholly; and to-night, just as he was
sitting down to his supper of "cream o' tartar" biscuits and smoking
tea, her clear voice broke upon his solitude.
"Gran'ther," called Mary Oldfield from the door, "mother says, 'Won't
you come over to supper?' She saw your smoke."
Nicholas pushed back his chair a little; he felt himself completed.
"You had yours?" he asked, in his usual even tones.
"No, I waited for you."
"Then you come right in an' git it. Take your mug--here, I'll reach it
down for ye--an' there's the Good-Girl plate."
Mary Oldfield was a tall, pleasant looking maid of sixteen, and
standing quietly by, while her grandfather got out her own plate and
mug, she was an amazingly faithful copy of him. They smiled a little at
each other, in sitting down, but there was no closer greeting between
them. They were exceedingly well content to be together again, and this
was so simple and natural a state that there was nothing to say about
it. Only Nicholas looked at her from time to time--her capable brown
hands and careful braids of hair,--and nodded briefly, as he had a way
of nodding at his clocks.
"You know what I told you, Mary, about the Flat-Iron Lot?" he asked,
while Mary buttered her biscuit.
She looked at him in assent.
"Well, I've proved it."
"You don't say!"
Mary had certain antique methods of speech, which the new-fangled
school teacher, not liking to pronounce them vulgar, had tactfully
dubbed "obsolete." "If we used 'em all the time they wouldn't get
obsolete, would they?" asked Mary; and the school teacher, being a
logical person, made no answer. So Mary went on plying them with a
conscientious calmness like one determined to keep a precious and
misprized metal in circulation. She even called Nicholas gran'ther,
because he liked it, and because he had called his own grandfather so.
"Ye see," said Nicholas, "the fust rec'ids were missin'. 'Burnt up!'
says that town clerk over to Sudleigh. 'Burnt when the old
meetin'-house ketched fire, arter the Injun raid.' 'Burnt up!' thinks
I. 'The cat's foot! I guess so, when the communion service was carried
over fifteen mile an' left in a potato sullar.' So I says to myself,
'What become o' that fust communion set?' Why, before the meetin'-house
was repaired, they all rode over to what's now Saltash, to worship in
Square Billin's's kitchen. Now, when Square Billin's died of a fever,
that same winter, they hove all his books into that old lumber-room
over Sudleigh court-house. So, when I was fixin' up the court-house
clock, t'other day, I clim' up to that room, an' shet myself in there.
An', Mary, I found them rec'ids!" He looked at her with that complete
and awe-stricken triumph which nobody else had ever seen upon his face.
Her own reflected it.
"Where are they, gran'ther?" asked Mary. But she was the more excited;
she could only whisper.
"They're loose sheets o' paper," returned Nicholas, "an' _they 're in
my bag_!"
Mary made an involuntary movement toward the bag, which lay, innocently
secretive, on a neighboring chair. Even its advertising legend had a
knowing look. Nicholas followed her glance.
"No," said he firmly, "not now. We'll read 'em all over this evenin',
when I've done the dishes. But, Mary, I'll tell ye this much: it's got
the whole story of the settlers comin' into town, an' which way they
come, an' all about it, writ down by Simeon Gerry, the fust minister,
the one that killed five Injuns, stoppin' to load an' fire, an' then
opened on the rest with bilin' fat. An', Mary, the fust settler of all
was Nicholas Oldfield, haulin' his wife on a kind of a drag made o'
withes; an' the path they took led straight over our Flat-Iron Lot.
An', Mary, 't was there they rested, an' offered up prayer to God."
"O my soul, gran'ther!" breathed Mary, clasping her little brown hands.
"O my soul!" Her face grew curiously mature. It seemed to mirror his.
She leaned forward, in a deadly earnestness. "Gran'ther," said she,
"did they settle here first? Or--or was it Sudleigh?"
Now, indeed, was Nicholas Oldfield the herald of news good both to tell
and hear.
"The fust settlement," said he, as if he read it from the book of fate,
"was made in Tiverton, on the sixteenth day of the month; the second in
Sudleigh, on the twenty-fifth."
"So, when you guessed at the date, and told parson to have the
celebration then, you got it right?"
"I got it right," replied Nicholas quietly. "But pa'son shall see the
rec'ids, an' I'll recommend him to put 'em under lock an' key."
The two sat there and looked at each other, with an outwelling of great
content. Then Mary passed her mug, and while Nicholas filled it, he
gave her an oft-repeated charge:--
"Don't you open your head now, Mary. All this is between you an' me.
I'll just mention it to pa'son, an' make up my mind whether he sees the
meanin' on't. But don't you say one word to your father an' mother. To
them it don't signify."
Mary nodded wisely. She knew, with the philosophy of a much older
experience, that she and gran'ther lived alone in a nest of kindly
aliens. As if their mention evoked a foreign presence, her mother's
voice sounded that instant from the door:--
"Mary, why under the sun didn't you come back? I sent word for you to
run over with her, father, an' have some supper. Well, if you two ain't
thick!".
"We're havin' a dish o' discourse," returned Nicholas quietly.
Young Nick's Hattie was forty-five, but she looked much younger.
Extreme plumpness had insured her against wrinkles, and her light brown
hair was banded smoothly back. Hattie's originality lay in a desire for
color, and therein she overstepped the bounds of all decorum. It was
customary to see her barred across with enormous plaids, or stripes
going the broad way; and so long had she lived under such insignia that
no one would have known her without them. She came in with soft, heavy
footfalls, and sat down in the little rocking-chair at Mr. Oldfield's
right hand. She smiled at him, somewhat nervously.
"Well, father," said she, "you got home!"
Nicholas helped himself to another half cup of tea, after holding the
teapot tentatively across to Mary's mug.
"Yes," he answered, in his dry and gentle fashion, "I've got home."
Hattie began rocking, in a rapid staccato, to punctuate her speech.
"Well," she began, "I'll say my say an' done with it. There's goin' to
be a town-meetin' to-night, an' Nicholas sent me over to mention it.
'Father'll want to be on hand,' says he."
Mr. Oldfield pushed back his cup, and then his chair. He bent his keen
blue eyes upon her.
"Town meetin' this time o' year?" said he. "What for?"
"Oh, it's about the celebration. Old Mr. Eaton"--
"What Eaton?"
"William W."
"He that went away in war time, an' made money in wool? Old War-Wool
Eaton?"
Nicholas nodded, at her assent, and his look blackened. He knew what
was coming.
"Well, he sent word he meant to give us a clock, same as he had other
towns, an' he wanted we should have it up before the celebration."
"Yes," said Nicholas Oldfield, "he'll give us a clock, will he? I knew
he would. I've said 'twas comin'. He give one to Saltash; he's gi'n 'em
all over the county. Do you know what them clocks be? They've got
letters round the dial, in place o' figgers; an' the letters spell out,
'In Memory of Me.' An' down to Saltash they've gi'n up sayin' it's
quarter arter twelve, or the like o' that. They say it's O minutes past
I."
He glared at her. Young Nick's Hattie thought she had never heard
father speak with such bitterness; and indeed it was true. Never before
had he been assailed on his own ground; it seemed as if the whole
township now conspired to bait him.
"Well" she remarked weakly, "I dunno's it does any hurt, so long as
they can tell what they mean by it."
Nicholas threw her a pitying glance. He scorned to waste eternal truth
on one so dull.
"Well," she went on, in desperation, "that ain't all, neither. I might
as well say the whole, an' done with it. He wants 'em to set up the
clock on the meetin'-house; an' seeing the tower mightn't be firm
enough, he'll build it up higher, an' give 'em a new bell."
Now, indeed, Nicholas Oldfield was in the case of Shylock, when he
learned his daughter's limit of larceny. "The curse never fell upon our
nation till now," so he might have quoted. "I never felt it till now."
He rose from his chair.
"In the name of God Almighty," he asked solemnly, "what do they want of
a new bell?"
Young Nick's Hattie gave an involuntary cry.
"O father!" she entreated, "don't say such words. I never see you take
on so. What under the sun has got into you?"
Nicholas made no reply. Slowly and methodically he was putting the
dishes into the wooden sink. When he touched Mary's pink mug, his
fingers trembled a little; but he did not look at her. He knew she
understood. Young Nick's Hattie rolled her hands nervously in her
apron, and then unrolled them, and smoothed the apron down. She
gathered herself desperately.
"Well, father," she said, "I've got another arrant. I said I'd do it,
an' I will; but I dunno how you'll take it."
"O mother!" cried Mary, "don't!"
"What is it?" asked Nicholas, folding the tablecloth in careful
creases. "Say your say and git it over."
Hattie rocked faster and faster. Even in the stress of the moment
Nicholas remembered that the old chair was well made, and true to its
equilibrium.
"Well," said she, "Luella an' Freeman Henry come over here this very
day, an' Freeman Henry's possessed you should sell him the Flat-Iron
Lot."
"Wants the Flat-Iron Lot, does he?" inquired Nicholas grimly. "What's
he made up his mind to do with it?"
"He wants to build," answered Hattie, momentarily encouraged. "He says
he'll be glad to ride over to work, every mornin' of his life, if he
can only feel 't he's settled in Tiverton for good. An' there's that
lot on high ground, right near the meetin'-house, as sightly a place as
ever was, an' no good to you,--there ain't half a load o' hay cut there
in a season,--an' he'd pay the full vally"--
"Stop!" called Nicholas; and though his tone was conversational, Hattie
paused, open-mouthed, in full swing. He turned and faced her. "Hattie,"
said he, "did you know that the fust settlers of this town had anything
to do with that lot o' land?"
"No, I didn't know it," answered Hattie blankly.
"I guess you didn't," concurred Nicholas. He had gone back to his old
gentleness of voice. "An' 't wouldn't ha' meant nothin' to ye, if ye
had known it. Now, you harken to me! It's my last word. That Flat-Iron
Lot stays under this name so long as I'm above ground. When I'm gone,
you can do as ye like. Now, I don't want to hurry ye, but I'm goin'
down to vote."
Hattie rose, abashed and nearly terrified. "Well!" said she vacantly.
"Well!" Nicholas had taken the broom, under pretext of brushing up the
crumbs, and he seemed literally to be sweeping her away. It was a wind
of destiny; and scudding softly and heavily before it, she disappeared
in the gathering dusk.
"Mary!" she called from the gate, "Mary! Guess you better come along
with me."
Mary did not hear. She was standing by Nicholas, holding the edge of
his sleeve. The unaccustomed action was significant; it bespoke a
passionate loyalty. Her blue eyes were on fire, and two hot tears stood
in them, unstanched. "O gran'ther!" she cried, "don't you let 'em have
it. I wish I was father. I'd see!"
Nicholas Oldfield stood quite still, obedient to that touch upon his
arm.
"It's the name, Mary," said he. "Why, Freeman Henry's a Titcomb! He
can't help that. But he needn't think he can buy Oldfield land, an' set
up a house there, as if 't was all in the day's work. Why, Mary, I
meant to leave that land to you! An' p'raps you won't marry. Nobody
knows. Then, 't would stand in the name a mite longer."
Mary blushed a little, but her eyes never wavered.
"No, gran'ther," said she firmly, "I sha'n't ever marry anybody."
"Well, ye can't tell," responded Nicholas, with a sigh. "Ye can't tell.
He might take your name if he wanted ye enough; but I should call it a
poor tool that would do that."
He sighed again, as he reached for his hat, and Mary and he went out of
the house together, hand in hand. At the gate they parted, and Nicholas
took his way to the schoolhouse, where the town fathers were already
assembled.
Since he passed over it that afternoon, the road had changed,
responsive to twilight and the coming dark. Nicholas knew it in all its
phases, from the dawn of spring, vocal with the peeping of frogs, to
the revery of winter, the silence of snow, and a hopeful glow in the
west. Just here, by the barberry bush at the corner, he had stood still
under the spell of Northern Lights. That was the night when his wife
lay first in Tiverton churchyard; and he remembered, as a part of the
strangeness and wonder of the time, how the north had streamed, and the
neighboring houses had been rosy red. But at this hour of the brooding,
sultry fall, there was a bitter fragrance in the air, and the world
seemed tuned to the somnolent sound of crickets, singing the fields to
sleep; That one little note brooded over the earth, and all the living
things upon it: hovering, and crooning, and lulling them to the rest
decreed from of old. The homely beauty of it smote upon him, though it
could not cheer. A hideous progress seemed to threaten, not alone the
few details it touched, but all the sweet, familiar things of life. Old
War-Wool Eaton, in assailing the town's historic peace, menaced also
the crickets and the breath of asters in the air. He was the rampant
spirit of an awful change. So, in the bitterness of revolt, Nicholas
Oldfield marched on, and stepped silently into the little schoolhouse,
to meet his fellows. They were standing about in groups, each laying
down the law according to his kind. The doors were wide open, and
Nicholas felt as if he had brought in with him the sounds of coming
night. They kept him sane, so that he could hold his own, as he might
not have done in a room full of winter brightness.
"Hullo!" cried Caleb Rivers, in his neutral voice. "Here's Mr.
Oldfield. Well, Mr. Oldfield, there's a good deal on hand."
"Called any votes?" asked Nicholas.
"Well, no," said Caleb, scraping his chin. "I guess we're sort o'
takin' the sense o' the meetin'."
"Good deal like a quiltin' so fur," remarked Brad Freeman indulgently.
"All gab an' no git there!"
"They tell me," said Uncle Eli Pike, approaching Nicholas as if he had
something to confide, "that out west, where they have them new-fangled
clocks, they're all lighted up with 'lectricity."
"Do they so?" asked Caleb, but Nicholas returned, with an unwonted
fierceness:--
"Does that go to the right spot with you? Do you want to see a
clock-face starin' over Tiverton, like a full moon, chargin' ye to keep
Old War-Wool Eaton in memory?"
"Well, no," replied Eli gently, "I dunno's I do, an' I dunno _but_ I
do."
"Might set a lantern back' o' the dial, an' take turns lightin' on 't,"
suggested Brad Freeman.
"Might carve out a jack-o'-lantern like Old Eaton's face," supplemented
Tom O'Neil irreverently.
"Well," concluded Rivers, "I guess, when all's said and done, we might
as well take the clock, an' bell, too. When a man makes a fair offer,
it's no more 'n civil to close with it. Ye can't rightly heave it back
ag'in."
"My argyment is," put in Ebenezer Tolman, who knew how to lay dollar by
dollar, "if he's willin' to do one thing for the town, he's willin' to
do another. S'pose he offered us a new brick meetin'-house--or a fancy
gate to the cemet'ry! Or s'pose he had it in mind to fill in that low
land, so 't we could bury there! Why, he could bring the town right up!
Or, take it t'other way round; he could put every dollar he's got into
Sudleigh."
Nicholas Oldfield groaned, but in the stress of voices no one heard
him. He slipped about from one group to another, and always the
sentiment was the same. A few smiled at Old War-Wool Eaton, who desired
so urgently to be remembered, when no one was likely to forget him; but
all agreed that it was, at the worst, a harmless and natural folly.
"Let him be remembered," said one, with a large impartiality. "'T won't
do us no hurt, an' we shall have the clock an' bell."
Just as the meeting was called to order, Nicholas Oldfield stole away,
and no one missed him. The proceedings began with some animated
discussion, all tending one way. Cupidity had entered into the public
soul, and everybody professed himself willing to take the clock, lest,
by refusing, some golden future should be marred. Let Old Eaton have
his way, if thereby they might beguile him into paving theirs. Let the
town grow. Talk was very full and free; but when the moment came for
taking a vote, an unexpected sound broke roundly on the air. It was the
bell of the old church. One! it tolled. Each man looked at his
neighbor. Had death entered the village, and they unaware? Two! three!
it went solemnly on, the mellow cadence scarcely dying before another
stroke renewed it. The sexton was Simeon Pease, a little red-headed
man, a hunchback, abnormally strong. Suddenly he rose in amazement. His
face looked ashen.
"Suthin's tollin' the bell!" he gasped. "The bell's a-tollin' an' _I
ain't there_!"
A new element of mystery and terror sprang to life.
"The sax'on 's here!" whispered one and another. But nobody stirred,
for nobody would lose count. Twenty-three! the dead was young.
Twenty-four! and so it marched and marched, to thirty and thirty-five.
They looked about them, taking a swift inventory of familiar faces, and
more than one man felt a tightening about his heart, at thought of the
womenfolk at home. The record climbed to middle-age, and tolled
majestically beyond it, like a life ripening to victorious close.
Sixty! seventy! eighty-one!
"It ain't Pa'son True!" whispered an awestruck voice.
Then on it beat, to the completed century.
The women of Tiverton, in afterwards weighing the immobility of their
public representatives under this mysterious clangor, dwelt upon the
fact with scorn.
"Well, I should think you was smart!" cried sundry of them in turn.
"Set there like a bump on a log, an' wonder what's the matter! Never
heard of anything so numb in all my born days. If I was a man, I guess
I'd see!"
It was Brad Freeman who broke the spell, with a sudden thought and
cry,--
"By thunder! maybe's suthin 's afire!"
He leaped to his feet, and with long, loping strides made his way up
the hill to Tiverton church. The men, in one excited, surging rabble,
followed him. The women were before them. They, too, had heard the
tolling for the unknown dead, and had climbed a quicker way, leaving
fire and cradle behind. At the very moment when they were pressing, men
and women, to the open church door, the last lingering clang had
ceased, the bell lay humming itself to rest, and Nicholas Oldfield
strode out and faced them. By this time, factions had broken up, and
each woman instinctively sought her husband's side, assuring herself of
protection against the unresting things of the spirit. Young Nick's
Hattie found her lawful ally, with the rest.
"My soul!" said she in a whisper, "it's father!"
Nicholas touched her arm in warning, and stood silent. He felt that the
waters were troubled, as he had known them to be once or twice in his
boyhood.
"He's got his mad up," remarked Young Nick to himself. "Stan' from
under!"
Nicholas strode through the crowd, and it separated to let him pass.
There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent
even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to
another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller."
He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him.
There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he
stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about.
"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set
foot on it."
The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping
elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within
the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was;
then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the
rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there,
illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal.
"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But
no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak.
"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you
know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place
that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to
prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled
that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the
age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that
made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was
cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 'twas sent over here."
"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly.
"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll
have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this
God-forsaken town, I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in
open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit
hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he
continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice.
"When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or
bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't nobody'll git at her till the
Judgment Day."
With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and
though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save
that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them
trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange
herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere.
"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could
shiver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the
hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little,
and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had
walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them,
reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly
and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk
thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A passionate protest rose
within her.
That night, everybody watched the old house, in the shade of the
poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark,
and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother
thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it
wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel
hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated
clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the
stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all
the unresponsive presences of night.
For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle
seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really
closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed,
interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after
Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed
father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high
tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction
that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly;
and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much
about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o'
doom to say so. But,' somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not
be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the
prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no
decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in
preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over
two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was
that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of
the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side
with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of
Nicholas Oldfield's wrath. The trembling consciousness prevailed that
he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable
atmosphere of loftier meanings.
Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to
do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only
Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod
or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For
he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for
that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public
conclave assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an
elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him
gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It
seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He
would fain fashion an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein,
he lacked anticipation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a
meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his
own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark
bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that
he "wanted to make the critter," and he thought he could do it.
Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to
draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the
youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were
with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of
goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for
their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped
down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the
atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker,
and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to
the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework
together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had
brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was
"jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's
brain," and the brain was ready.
Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when
Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have
realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have
been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when
Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the
cooper; bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy:
only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's
wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's
hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the
shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a
pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine
shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an
intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were
inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise.
Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying
meantime to the smallest Crane boy,--
"You crawl up there!"
The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to
seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal
glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed.
"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there,"
commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats
fast when we approach a great fruition.
"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!"
The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out,
he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk
with glory, clapped and shouted until the women folk clutched their
sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited
such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural
rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What
lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his
trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of
possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and
argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young
scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other
from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and
grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and
over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only
remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants
apart:--
"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he
thinks best. He's got the say."
In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs
in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for
the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the
rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that
specious plea.
"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that
elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail
was repeated in many keys.
Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before
the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the
cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became
suddenly and dramatically dignified.
"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it
standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it?
Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of
Injuns tackle it?"
The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's
desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears
of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over
the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to
seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first
desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came
into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping
dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and
leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this
aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being
unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened
with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race,
greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then
the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But
each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing
to suffer the attack.
"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every
time," said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be
dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that
glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what
loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking
redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful
solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of
settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's
wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed
logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm
horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and
pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled
realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a
daughter of Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the
popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when
young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic
yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:--
"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day
comes, who's goin' to beat?"
An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not
yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at
home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!"
"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in
unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against
red.
"Well by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned
their chief. "_My_ last gun 's fired."
Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two
separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went
faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those
days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and
undefended. Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle.
Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are
ye?" and passed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the
oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his
Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside
her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud.
Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot
as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced,
brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an
attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor
had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of
mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so,
being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in
village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on
Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at
the front door.
"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your
grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like
as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got
out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think."
Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting.
"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother,
absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a
shaken head, and pursed-up lips.
A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week
had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were
telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without
her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew
well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what
the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in
the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was
still up. Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not
expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she
saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next
day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed
her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which
was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little
house. Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the
clock, she laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely,
as of old. Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the
night, and slipped away again in silence!
* * * * *
"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister.
"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin'
here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My
soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I
wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!"
Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she
might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever
a chip o' the old block.
When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front
steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little
chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new
cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant
wine.
"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle
righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal."
The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay.
"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about
Mr. Oldfield?"
So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in
disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an
apologetic cough.
"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular
about father."
"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got
to."
"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and
loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost
her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It
seemed as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister
bent his brows impatiently.
"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the
fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me
back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what
to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then
when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all
at his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without
him."
This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever
looked upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A
frown of perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in
expanding. Mary leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight.
"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend,
"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything."
"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts
enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them.
The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the
town? From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline
to the river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take
the procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came
in. But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's
Nicholas Oldfield."
Mary folded her hands, in proud composure.
"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was
here."
"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield,"
asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I
should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor
ain't neither of 'em heard of?"
"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town
legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But
then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has
been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie
realized with awe, to offer prayer.
Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye
Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not
until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed"
rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her
mouth and spoke.
"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great
shakes?"
Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered
demurely, "I don't know as I can say."
"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear
your father was smarter 'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't
they had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?"
Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it
carefully on the shelf.
"I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set forth for Eli Pike's
barn, where it was customary now to stand about the elephant and
prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie, realizing how
little light she was likely to borrow from those who were nearest and
dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them both.
The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that
the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the
celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable
warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for
him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to
lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding
cashier; and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming
headline, "No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!"
Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why
gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him
sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print,
she stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance
at the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little
room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being
careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the
truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in
comparison.
It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of
the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world.
"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full
of faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed
incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing.
"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from
one end to t'other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite
right, that time he tolled the bell."
They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in
byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low
degree, who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and
remained there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until
the family came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way.
"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never
was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold."
Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill,
there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet
morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the
night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to
the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the
celebration had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in
the main, and closely welded in union against rival towns, now it
seemed as if the hand of every man were raised against his brother.
Settlers and Indians were still implacable; neither would ride, save
each might slay the other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the
eyes with an evil tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad
Freeman for preferment, that even that philosopher's patience gave way,
and he said he'd be hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if
there was going to be such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked,
though he wore a pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short
address with very little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the
doctor had said lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of
it, is there? But there's enough of it, such as it is."
It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism
which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister,
justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed
the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went
whistling drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse
about the address, without doing it justice.
The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty
toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The
air was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they
were looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when,
something before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went
up the path to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the
step.
"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon
him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held
her hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly.
"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!"
Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as
he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the
big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he
could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed
very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words,
and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began,
catching her breath tremulously:--
"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the
county; and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the
pond!"
"Well; I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded
Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about
a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't
in a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?"
"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister."
"The minister? What's he want?"
"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to
say."
Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas
Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave.
"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's
needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've
got nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I
ain't goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me
timekeeper an' murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they
needn't go to muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can
carry 'em out as they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em.".
Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew
her arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of
plots and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back;
and being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast
asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had
only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and
saw the doctor come striding into the yard.
"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers.
Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?"
Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a
hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at
the situation without delay.
"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've
got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out.
He's all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we
don't know enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you
think we don't prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if
nobody tells us anything about them? And here's the town going to
pieces over a celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because
you're so obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning
to toot, and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs,
and Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!"
Nicholas stood quite calmly looking through the window into the morning
dew and mist. He wore his habitual air of gentle indifference, and the
doctor saw in him those everlasting hills which persuasion may not
climb. Suddenly there was a rustling from the other room, and Mary
appeared in the doorway, standing there expectant. Her face was pink
and a little vague from sleep, but she looked very dear and good.
Though Nicholas had "lost himself" that night, he had kept time for
thought; and perhaps he realized how precious a thing it is to lay up
treasure of inheritance for one who loves us, and is truly of our kind.
He turned quite meekly to the doctor.
"Should you think," he inquired, "should you think pa'son would be up
an' dressed?"
Ten minutes thereafter, the two were knocking at the parson's door.
Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield
settled her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it
ready, like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless
while he laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both
knew well.
"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old
cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road.
Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you
understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But
they concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they
wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up
Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An'
there"--Nicholas Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he
told the story of the Flat-Iron Lot.
"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We
might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the
church."
"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on 't," said Nicholas
quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He
could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it
quivered and betrayed him.
"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the
Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at loggerheads there."
But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had
the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain.
"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides
gi'n up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an'
dispersed 'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a
jack-o'-lantern on a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more 'n nine
feet high. The settlers thought 'twas a spirit; an' as for the Injuns,
Lord knows what 't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over."
"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and
you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson
while I start up the town."
The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did
some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul
Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was
ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind
kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eager to
be urged. Settlers, gloomily acquiescent in an unjust fate, brightened
at his heralding. The ghost was the thing. It took the popular fancy;
and everybody wondered, as after all illuminings of genius, why nobody
had thought of it before. Brad Freeman was unanimously elected to act
the part, as the only living man likely to manage a supplementary head
without rehearsal; and Pillsbury's white colt was hastily groomed for
the onslaught. Brad had at once seen the possibilities of the situation
and decided, with an unerring certainty, that as a jack-o'-lantern is
naught by day, the pumpkin face must be cunningly veiled. He was a busy
man that morning; for he not only had to arrange his own ghostly
progress, but settle the elephant on its platform, to be dragged by
vine-wreathed oxen, and also, at the doctor's instigation, to make the
sledge on which the first Nicholas Oldfield should draw his wife into
town. The doctor sought out Young Nick, and asked him to undertake the
part, as tribute to his illustrious name; but he was of a prudent
nature and declined. What if the town should laugh! "I guess I won't,"
said he.
But Mary, regardless of maternal cacklings, sped after the doctor as he
turned his horse.
"O doctor!" she besought, "let me be the first settler's wife! Please,
_please_ let me be Mary Oldfield!"
The doctor was glad enough. All the tides of destiny were surging his
way. Even when he paused, in his progress, to pull the Crane boy's
tooth, it seemed to work out public harmony. For the victim, cannily
anxious to prove his valor, insisted on having the operation conducted
before the front window; and after it was accomplished, the squads of
boys waiting at the gate for his apotheosis or downfall, gave an
unwilling yet delighted yell. He had not winced; and when, with the
fire of a dear ambition still shining in his eyes, he held up the tooth
to them, through the glass, they realized that he, and he only, could
with justice take the crown of that most glorious day. He must ride
inside the elephant.
So it came to pass that when the procession wound slowly up from the
cross-road, preceded by the elephant, lifting his trunk at rhythmic
intervals, Nicholas Oldfield saw his little Mary, her eyes shining and
her cheeks aglow, sitting proudly upon a sledge, drawn by the
handsomest young man in town. A pang may have struck the old man's
heart, realizing that Phil Marden was so splendid in his strength, and
that he wore so sweet a look of invitation; but he remembered Mary's
vow and was content. A great pride and peace enwrapped him when the
procession halted at the Flat-Iron Lot, and the minister, lifting up
his voice, explained to the townspeople why they were called upon to
pause. The name of Oldfield sounded clearly on the air.
"Now," said the minister, "let us pray." The petition went forth, and
Mr. Oldfield stood brooding there, his thoughts running back through a
long chain of ancestry to the Almighty, Who is the fount of all.
When heads were covered again, and this little world began to surge
into the church, young Nick's Hattie moved closer to her husband and
shot out a sibilant whisper:--
"Did you know that?--about the Flat-Iron Lot?"
Young Nick shook his head. He was entirely dazed.
"Well," continued Hattie, full of awe, "I guess I never was nearer my
end than when I let myself be go-between for Freeman Henry. I wonder
father let me get out alive."
The minister's address was very short and unpretending. He dwelt on the
sacredness of the past, and all its memories, and closed by saying
that, while we need not shrink from signs of progress, we should guard
against tampering with those ancient landmarks which serve as beacon
lights, to point the brighter way. Hearing that, every man steeled his
heart against Memory-of-Me clocks, and resolved to vote against them.
Then the minister explained that, since he had been unable to prepare a
suitable address, Mr. Oldfield had kindly consented to read some
precious records recently discovered by him. A little rustling breath
went over the audience. So this amiable lunacy had its bearing on the
economy of life! They were amazed, as may befall us at any judgment
day, when grays are strangely alchemized to white.
Mr. Oldfield, unmoved as ever, save in a certain dominating quality of
presence, rose and stood before them, the records in his hands. He read
them firmly, explaining here and there, his simple speech untouched by
finer usage; and when the minister interposed a question, he dropped
into such quaintness of rich legendry that his hearers sat astounded.
So they were a part of the world! and not the world to-day, but the
universe in its making.
It was long before Nicholas concluded; but the time seemed brief. He
sat down, and the minister took the floor. He thanked Mr. Oldfield and
then went on to say that, although it might be informal, he would
suggest that the town, with Mr. Oldfield's permission, place an
inscription on the boulder in the Flat-Iron Lot, stating why it, was to
be held historically sacred. The town roared and stamped, but meanwhile
Nicholas Oldfield was quietly rising.
"In that case, pa'son," said he, "I should like to state that it would
be my purpose to make over that lot to the town to be held as public
land forever."
Again the village folk outdid themselves in applause, while Young Nick
muttered, "Well, I vum!" beneath his breath, and Hattie replied,
antiphonally, "My soul!" These were not the notes of mere surprise.
They were prayers for guidance in this exigency of finding a despised
intelligence exalted.
The celebration went on to a victorious close. Who shall sing the
sweetness of Isabel North, as she sat by the log-cabin door, placidly
spinning flax, or the horror of the moment when, redskins swooping down
on her and settlers on them, the ghost swept in and put them all to
flight? Who will ever forget the exercises in the hall, when the
"Suwanee River" was sung by minstrels, to a set of tableaux
representing the "old folks" at their cabin door, "playin' wid my
brudder" as a game of stick-knife, and the "Swanny" River itself by a
frieze of white pasteboard swans in the background? There were
patriotic songs, accompanied by remarks laudatory of England; since it
was justly felt that our mother-land might be wounded if, on an
occasion of this sort, we fomented international differences by
"America" or the reminiscent triumph of "The Sword of Bunker Hill." A
very noble sentiment pervaded Tiverton when, at twilight, little groups
of tired and very happy people lingered here and there before
"harnessing up" and betaking themselves to their homes. The homes
themselves meant more to them now, not as shelters, but as sacred
shrines; and many a glance sought out Nicholas Oldfield standing
quietly by--the reverential glance accorded those who find out
unsuspected wealth. Young Nick approached his father with an
awkwardness sitting more heavily upon him than usual.
"Well," said he, "I'm mighty glad you gi'n 'em that lot."
Old Nicholas nodded gravely, and at that moment Hattie came up, all in
a flutter.
"Father," said she quite appealingly, "I wisht you'd come over to
supper. Luella an' Freeman Henry'll be there. It's a great day, an'"--
"Yes, I know 'tis," answered Nicholas kindly. "I'm much obleeged, but
Mary's goin' to eat with me. Mebbe we might look in, along in the
evenin'. Come, Mary!"
Mary, very sweet in her plain dress and white kerchief, was talking
with young Marden, her husband for the day; but she turned about
contentedly.
"Yes, gran'ther," said she, without a look behind, "I'm coming!"