I'll tell you what. You go along and get your place, and see about
your rent. Don't engage it, but get the refusal of it, if it belongs
to a friend, as you say. Then you come back here and find your girl
all well and peart again, and you say your say, and let her say hers.
You don't want to take advantage of her being sick and weakly
now--now, you no need to flare up! I say you don't want to, and I mean
it. You'll need a box of my salve, if you're so thin-skinned as all
that comes to.
"You go along, I say, and when you come back, come over to my place,
Tupham Corner, third house from the cross-road, white house with a
yeller door. Everybody knows Mis' Transom's house. You'll find your
gal there, and you'll marry her there, with her mother's cousin to
stand up with her. There, don't be scairt! Pity some gals haven't got
the trick of blushin' as you have, young man. I've got as good a black
silk as any in Tupham or Cyrus, and nobody's goin' to say 'Bloomer
Joe' round where my own folks live, you'd better believe. What say?
Like my idee, or have you got a better one yourself?"
"You're real good!" Romulus cried. "Poor little Narcissa! It does seem
as if she had found all her friends at once, and she never having any
in her life before, as you may say. I tell you, Mis' Transom, I'll
treat her as well as I know how. If she was a queen, she shouldn't
have any more care than what I'll give her. I--I think a sight of
her!" he added simply. "Seems as if she always belonged to me,
somehow."
"That's right!" said Mrs. Transom, who was as romantic as any lady in
silk and satin. "That's right, young man. We'll get her away from this
old rathole, and then I guess it'll be a good while before either you
or I travels this way again, hey?"
"I don't know as I have anything to say against the country," said
Romulus Patten, with another loving look at the sleeper. "It isn't
exactly the place to sell trees, but yet there's good things to be
found on this road,--the road to Rome."
IN VERONA.
IN VERONA.
First of all, let me correct the mistaken impression that my title
cannot fail to make upon the patient reader. On reading the words, "In
Verona," his mind instantly conjures up a vision of white palaces; of
narrow streets across which the tall houses nod at each other, hinting
at the mysteries they dare not reveal; of ancient fountains, embowered
in myrtle and laurel; finally, of Juliet's tomb, and a thousand
memories of the immortal lovers.
All this is natural, but it will not do. Here in Verona are no
fountains, but half a dozen old well-sweeps, and all the rest
cucumber-wood pumps; no palaces, but neat white houses with green
blinds, and flowers in their front-yards; no laurel, but good honest
sunflowers instead; finally, no tomb of Juliet, for our Juliet did not
die; briefly, and to have done with mystery, our Verona is in the
State of Maine.
I have often wondered what manner of men they were, who named the
towns in the good old State. Lyceum teachers for the most part, one
would think,--men who had read books, and whose hearts yearned for
the historic glories of the old world, glories which their narrow
lives might never see. So, disagreeing with this same Juliet in the
matter of names, they did what they could, and not being able to go to
Europe, did their best to bring Europe over into their own new
country. So we have here in Maine Rome and Paris, Palermo and Vi-enny
(miscalled "Vienna" by pedants, and those thinking themselves better
than other people), Berlin Falls and South China,--in fact, half the
continent to choose from, all in our own door-yard, as it were.
You may not find Verona on the county-map; you certainly will not see
it as you flash by on the Maine Central Railway, on your way to Bar
Harbor. But if you travel for a certain length of time on a certain
quiet road, grass-grown for the most part, and with only a few
straggling cottages dotting it here and there,--if, as I say, you
travel long enough, and do not get out of patience and turn back
towards Vi-enny, you will come suddenly round a bend of the road, and
there will be Verona before you, all white and smiling, tucked away
under the great hill-shoulder that curls lovingly round it. The
cleanest, freshest, sleepiest little New England village! No myrtle,
no laurel, not the faintest suggestion of a fountain! Yet here lived
and loved, not so very long ago, Romeo and Juliet.
They were simple young people; they did not even know their own
names, for Juliet answered to the name of Betsy Garlick, while Romeo
was known only as Bije Green; and they worked for the Bute girls.
It is well known that the Bute girls--who might better be spoken of,
if the custom of the country allowed it, as the Misses Bute--did not
speak to each other. They lived in two white cottages, side by side,
on the Indiana road; and though they could not avoid seeing each other
every day, no communication had taken place between them since the
time of their mother's death, some ten years ago. Old Mrs. Bute had
been partly responsible, all the neighbors thought, for this
unfortunate state of things. She was a masterful woman, and never
allowed her daughters to call their souls their own, even when they
were middle-aged women. Though both gifted with strong wills, they
lived in absolute subjection to the small withered autocrat who hardly
ever stirred from her armchair in the chimney-corner.
She persisted in treating her daughters, either of whom could have
picked her up with one hand and set her on the mantelpiece, as if they
were little children; and they accepted the position with meekness.
It was even said that when Mrs. Bute felt called on to die, as we say
in Verona, she insisted on having her daughters' mourning made and
tried on in her presence, that she might be sure of its being
respectable, and fitting properly. "Neither one of you has sense to
know when a gown wrinkles in the back," she said. "I couldn't lay easy
in my grave, and you going round all hitched up between the
shoulders."
So the village dressmaker cut the clothes (black stuff dresses, and
black cambric pelisses lined with flannel), and came in fear and
trembling to try them on. It must have been a grim scene: the two
gaunt, middle-aged women standing meekly before the bed, turning this
way and that at command; the dying woman issuing, in halting whispers,
her directions for "seam and gusset and band," while death had her by
the throat, fitting her for the straight white garment which was
making in the next room. Not till she had seen her daughters arrayed
in the completed costumes, with bonnet and veil to match, would Eliza
Bute turn her face to the wall and go, feeling that she had done her
duty.
Perhaps it was hardly to be wondered at, if, so soon as the iron grasp
was loosened which had held them all their days, the two women went to
the other extreme, and could brook no suggestion of authority from any
one, least of all from each other. Perhaps each was sure that Mother
(awful shade, still hovering on the borders of their life!) would be
of her way of thinking; however it was, the two sisters quarrelled the
day after the funeral. The will was read, and it was found that the
property was to be evenly divided between them. Evenly divided! It was
a dangerous phrase. Miss Duty had her idea of what "even" meant, and
Miss Resigned Elizabeth had hers; and neither was likely to give up to
the other. They listened in grim silence as the lawyer read the will;
and each decided that she knew what Mother meant, and 'twasn't likely
the other did.
The strife that followed was grim, though not loud. No wrangling was
heard; no neighbor was called in to keep the peace; but after three
days, Miss Resigned Elizabeth sent for a man and a wheelbarrow, and
removed with all her goods and chattels to the house next door, which
was hers by right of inheritance from her grandmother.
A neighbor calling on Miss Duty the day after the separation, found
her in the spare chamber, seated before the bed, on which were spread
out divers articles of the personal property which had been her
mother's. There was one black lace mitt, six white stockings and six
gray ones, half of an embroidered apron, ditto of a nankeen waistcoat
in which Father Bute had been married; item, one infant's sock; item,
three left-hand shoes. Here, on what was evidently the half of a green
veil, lay a slender store of trinkets: one mosaic earring, one garnet
one, half of a string of gold beads, and--piteous sight!--half of a
hair bracelet, its strands, roughly cut, already half unbraided, and
sticking out in silent protest against the inhuman treatment they had
received.
The neighbor broke out into indignant inquiry, but was quickly
silenced. Miss Duty was satisfied, and so was her sister; that being
so, she didn't know that the neighbors had any call to be distressed.
Good Mrs. Dill went home in high indignation, and before night all
Verona knew how "ridiklous" the Bute girls had behaved, and joined
with Mrs. Dill in thinking that Old Ma'am Bute had better have left
them a "gardeen," if that was all they knew about how to treat good
stuff, as had cost more money than ever they were likely to earn.
When Bije Green came to work for Miss Duty Bute, he knew nothing of
the feud between the two houses. He was not a Veronese, but came from
that mysterious region known as "out back," meaning the remote
country. When, working in the garden, he saw on the other side of the
fence an old woman (any person above thirty was old to Bije) who
looked almost exactly like the old woman who had hired him, it seemed
the proper thing to say "hullo!" to her, that being the one form of
salutation known to Bije; but instead of an answering "hullo!" he met
a stony stare, which sent him back in confusion to his potatoes.
"She's deef!" said Bije to himself, charitably. "And my old woman's
nigh about dumb,--quite an asylum between 'em." And he whistled "Old
Dog Tray" till Miss Duty came and told him to stop that racket!
Poor Bije! he found life dull, at first, on the Indiana road. He was
shy, and not one to make acquaintances easily, even if Miss Duty had
approved of his running down to the village, which she did not. But he
was used to cheerful conversation at home, and felt the need of it
strongly here. His innocent attempts at entertaining Miss Duty were
generally met with a "H'm!" which did not encourage further remarks.
"Nice day!" he would say in a conciliating manner, when he brought in
the wood in the early morning. "H'm!" Miss Duty would reply, with a
frosty glance in his direction.
"Havin' nice weather right along!"
If he met with any reply to this suggestion, it would be a "H'm!" even
more forbidding; while a third remark, if he ever ventured on one,
would be answered by swift dismissal to the woodshed, with the
admonition not to be "gormin' round here, with all the work to do."
These things being so, Bije was sad at heart, and pined for a certain
corner of the fence at home, and his sister Delilah leaning over it,
talking while he hoed. Delilah was only a girl, but she could be some
company; and what was the use of having a tongue, if you never used
it, 'cept just to jaw people? Jawing never did no good that he could
make out, though he didn't know but he'd ruther be jawed than hear
nothing at all from get up to go to bed.
Such thoughts as these were in Bije's mind one morning, as he
wrestled with the witch-grass on the strip of green near the fence
which divided Miss Duty's lot from her sister's. He did not like
witch-grass; he never could see the use of the pesky stuff. Delilah
was always saying that there was use for everything; Bije wished she
were here, to tell him the use of witch-grass. He guessed--At this
moment the tail of his eye caught a flutter, as of a petticoat, beyond
the dividing fence. Now Miss Resigned Elizabeth's petticoats never
fluttered; they were not full enough. Bije looked up, and saw--a girl.
She was standing in the porch, polishing the milk-pails. She had
curly, fair hair, which she kept shaking back out of her eyes,--blue
eyes, as bright as the little pond at home, when the sun shone on it
in the morning. The red-and-white of her cheeks was so pure and clear,
that Bije thought at once of a snow-apple; and his hand made an
instinctive movement towards his pocket, though it was not near the
time for "snows." There was not much wind, and yet this girl's things
seemed "all of a flutter;" her pink calico gown, her blue-checked
apron, her flying curls,--all were full of life and dancing motion.
The milk-pails twinkled in the morning sun, catching fresh gleams as
she turned them this way and that. They were not common milk-pails, it
appeared, but pure silver, or they could not twinkle so. Also, the sun
was brighter than usual. Bije stood gazing, with no knowledge that his
mouth was open and his brown eyes staring in a very rude way. The
witch-grass took breath, and rested from the fierce assaults of the
hoe. Bije knew nothing of witch-grass. He had never heard of such a
thing. There were only two things in the whole world, so far as he
knew: a milk-pail and Betsy Garlick.
When Betsy looked up, as of course she did in a moment, she saw no
fairy vision, but only a boy: a brown boy, in brown overalls, with his
mouth open, staring as if he had never seen a girl in his life before.
Betsy had seen plenty of boys, and she was not in the least afraid of
them; so she returned Bije's stare with a calm survey which took him
all in, from his conscious head to his awkward heels, and then, with a
toss of her curls and a click of pails, disappeared into the house.
All that day, Bije went about in a dream. When Miss Duty asked him
what he had been doing all the morning, he answered "Milk-pails;" and
when she asked what they used to keep off potato-bugs out his way, he
could only say "Pink calico." At this atrocious statement, Miss Duty
turned sharply on him. "Bijah Green," she said, "if you are goin'
loony, I'll thank you to take yourself off home. I don't want no
naturals round here, so now you know."
Bije was terribly frightened at this. Yesterday it would have been
rather a good joke to be discharged by the old lady, and go home to
the farm with a month's wages in his pocket; to-day, it seemed the
most dreadful calamity that could happen to him; and he hastened to
give such an eloquent description of the potato-bug war, as carried on
in West Athens (pronounced Aythens) that Miss Duty was mollified, and
reckoned she must try paris green herself. When evening came, Bije
went early for his cow, and milked that good beast with undue haste
and trepidation. Then, having carried the brimming pails into the
kitchen, he returned to the shed, and looked about him with gleaming
eyes. Yes, there it was! the knot-hole that he had found the other
day, when he was brushing down the cobwebs,--just opposite the
back-porch of the house across the way. She would be coming out again
in a minute; it wasn't likely that she had done milking yet. He drew
up a broken stool, and seating himself on it, flattened his face
against the rough boards of the shed, and waited. The door of the
house across the way opened, and Miss Resigned Elizabeth came slowly
out. She was younger than Miss Duty, but she looked older, being
near-sighted, and walking with a stoop and a shuffle. She was rather
good-looking, with soft brown hair, and a little autumnal red in her
thin cheeks; but to Bije's distorted vision, she seemed the most
horrible old hag that had ever darkened the earth. Her scant gray
skirt (made out of her half of a dress of Mother Bute's, who wore her
skirts full), her neck-handkerchief, her carpet slippers, all were an
offence to him; and he could hardly resist the impulse to call out to
her to take herself out of his field of vision, and leave it clear for
the desired one. The dreadful old woman! how she stood round, as if
folks wanted to see her, instead of wishing she was in Jericho. She
was actually sitting down, taking out her old knitting! Such things
ought not to be allowed. There ought to be a law against ugly
women--Hark! what was that? Miss Resigned Elizabeth was calling to
somebody,--to somebody in the house. "Betsy! Betsy Garlick! come out
here, will you?"
Why, this was not such a horrid old lady after all. Now he thought of
it, she was rather nice-looking, for an old one. The door was opening,
opening wider. There she came with her pails. The wonderful girl! not
flashing and sparkling, as in the morning light, but with the softness
of twilight in her eyes and her lovely waving hair. What was it the
other lad said, over there in the old Verona, at a minute like this?
"Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear!"
and so on, in his glowing, tropical way. But Bije could not say
anything of that sort. His heart was as high as Borneo's, and seemed
to be beating in his throat, as he gazed at the fair vision; but he
knew nothing of language, and if he had tried to put his thoughts
into words, he would only have said: "Ain't she slick!" A most
un-Shakespearian Bije! an ordinary, good country-boy! But no fiery
gallant of them all was ever thrilled with purer fire than burned now
in his veins. He wanted to do something, something wonderful, for this
girl. What did all those fellers do, in the story-books Delilah was
everlastingly reading? He wished he had read some of the stories,
instead of laughing at them for girl's fool-talk. She was smiling now;
did anybody ever smile like that before? Of course not! He wished he
were Miss Resigned Elizabeth, to be smiled at in that way; he wondered
what it felt like. But no! the poor old lady was deef! (she was not in
the least deaf, be it said, by the way). Deef, and that girl talking
to her! Poor old lady! It was a dreadful thing to be deef.
And so on, and so on: Ossa on Pelion of rapture and young delight and
wonder, when suddenly a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder. The boy
started as if he had been shot. Miss Duty Bute whirled him round, away
from the opening into Paradise,--I should say the knot-hole,--and
stooping down, applied her eye to the aperture.
The little scene on the porch of the opposite house had no special
charm for Miss Duty: she only saw her sister, Resigned Eliz, as she
had called her in former days, and her hired girl. The butcher had
told her that Resigned Eliz had hired a girl; also, she, Miss Duty,
had rheumatism in her joints, which made stooping painful to her.
Therefore, when she straightened her poor back, and turned once more
upon the trembling Bije, her mood was none of the softest.
Briefly, he was told that if ever she caught him spying upon the other
house, whensoever or howsoever, he would pack off that moment of time.
He had no more to do with the other house than he had with the Plagues
of Egypt, she'd have him to know; and when she wanted spying done, she
could do it herself, without hiring no shif'less, long-legged,
trifling boys to do it for her. Finally, was she to have any
kindling-wood split that night, or was she not?
This was very dreadful, and for some days Bije hardly dared to look
over the fence, much less to loiter in the shed for an instant. But
what says the old song, the Lover's song, that perhaps (who knows?)
may have been sung in the streets when Will Shakespeare was a little
naughty boy?
"Over the mountain,
And over the waves;
Under the fountains,
And under the graves;
Under floods that are deepest,
Which Neptune obey,
Over rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way."
This being so, what could two elderly ladies, who seldom stirred from
their own door-yards, save to go to meeting--what were they to do
against the all-conquering little god, or against Abijah Green, his
soldier and slave? Bije found out the way, unconscious of any
fluttering wings about him, any mischievous, rosy imp with bow and
arrow.
A posy laid on the fence; then an apple, polished on the coat-sleeve
till it shone again; then two more apples and a posy beside them, to
show that there could be no mistake about it.
Betsy was only eighteen, and if life was dull at Miss Duty's, it was
not exciting at Miss Resigned Elizabeth's. She, too, had been
cautioned to have nothing to do with "that bold-lookin' boy over t'
the other house!" But Betsy did not think the boy was bold-looking.
Anyhow, she hoped (but her hopes were not expressed aloud) she had
manners enough to say thank you, when any one was pretty-behaved. So
she said thank you, first with her eyes (because Miss Resigned
Elizabeth was close by, watering the flower-beds), then with her lips;
and it became evident to Bije that she had the sweetest voice that
ever was heard in the world. The flowers were real pretty! Betsy
thought a sight o' flowers. They had lots of pansies to home, and she
did miss 'em, so these seemed real homelike. Did Mr.--well, there!
some might think 'twas queer for her to be talkin' to him, and never
knowin' what his name was! Bijah Green? Betsy wanted to know! Why, she
had an uncle named Green, over to South Beulah. Not her own uncle--he
married her aunt Phrony; real nice man, he was. She wondered if he was
any relation. But what she was goin' to say? She didn't suppose Mr.
Green cared for southernwood. There was a great root of it round by
the back-door here; 'twas dretful sweet, and she had to set it over,
Miss Bute said. He could have a piece off the root, just as well as
not; only she didn't s'pose he cared for such common doin's as
southernwood.
It appeared that southernwood had been Mr. Green's favorite plant from
his cradle, as one might say. If there was one thing he did hanker
after, it was southernwood; but he couldn't see her grubbin' up things
that way. If he knew where the bush was, he could get it himself, just
as easy--
Betsy would not hear of that! Besides, _she_ was dretful pernickety
about folks comin' into the yard. There! Betsy didn't know what she'd
say this minute, if she was to see her talkin' to him; but for her,
Betsy's, part, she had allers been brought up to be neighborly. Bije
chimed in eagerly. 'Twas dretful lonesome, specially come evenin's. To
see her ("her" in this case meant Miss Duty) settin' there, knittin'
for dear life, and never a word to say to any one--'twas enough to
make any one feel homesick. Not but what she was good, in her way,
only 'twas a tormentin', up-stiff kind o' way. Drivin' the cow, too!
It did seem as though he should fly, sometimes, drivin' that critter
all alone from pasture. His sister allers went with him, to home; he
s'posed that's why it seemed so lonesome now. Where did _she_ (oh, New
England! oh, poor little hard-worked pronouns! this "she" was Miss
Resigned Elizabeth),--where did she keep her cow? Seem's though--
Seems, Bijah? Nay, it is!
What are cows and country roads made for, I should like to know, save
for the pleasure of youths and maidens? Miss Duty's cow was kept in
the humplety field, as the children called it, a mile and more from
Cuttyhunk, the pasture where Miss Resigned Elizabeth's good Brindle
spent her peaceful days; yet it was strange to see the intimacy that
sprung up between these two creatures in the next few weeks.
At a certain turn of the road, Brindle would stop and fall to cropping
the grass by the road-side, swinging her body about and switching the
flies off comfortably; while her driver, loitering a few steps behind,
pulled the early golden-rod or plaited sweet rushes together,
apparently absorbed in her task, and only from time to time casting
shy glances down the other road, which led off, over hill and dale, to
Cuttyhunk. But, by-and-by, down this other road would come another
cow,--not a happy, leisurely cow like Brindle, but a breathless and
much-tormented beast who had been hurried out of all nature ever since
she left the pasture, absolutely goaded along the way by urgent word
and gesture, by shakings of her tail, and apostrophes most
unreasonable.
"Go lang, you old snail! what you gormin' all over the road for? Want
to sleep here, do ye? Of all slow critters ever I see, you're the beat
'em; cold molasses kin gallop, 'longside o' you."