A mind that in a calm angelic mood
Of happy wisdom, meditating good,
Beholds, of all from her high powers required,
Much done, and much designed, and more desired.
WORDSWORTH.
"I've had such a delicious day, dear grandpa," said little
Fleda, as they sat at supper; "you can't think how kind Mr.
Carleton has been."
"Has he? Well, dear, I'm glad on't; he seems a very nice young
man."
"He's a smart-looking feller," said Cynthy, who was pouring
out the tea.
"And we have got the greatest quantity of nuts!" Fleda went
on; "enough for all winter. Cynthy and I will have to make
ever so many journeys to fetch 'em all; and they are splendid
big ones. Don't you say anything to Mr. Didenhover, Cynthy."
"I don't desire to meddle with Mr. Didenhover unless I've got
to," said Cynthy, with an expression of considerable disgust.
"You needn't give no charges to me."
"But you'll go with me, Cynthy?"
"I s'pose I'll have to," said Miss Gall, drily, after a short
interval of sipping tea and helping herself to sweet-meats.
This lady had a pervading acidity of face and temper, but it
was no more. To take her name as standing for a fair setting
forth of her character would be highly injurious to a really
respectable composition, which the world's neglect (there was
no other imaginable cause) had soured a little.
Almost Fleda's first thought on coming home had been about Mr.
Jolly. But she knew very well, without asking, that he had not
been there; she would not touch the subject.
"I haven't had such a fine day of nutting in a great while,
grandpa," she said again; "and you never saw such a good hand
as Mr. Carleton is at whipping the trees."
"How came he to go with you?"
"I don't know; I suppose it was to please me, in the first
place; but I am sure he enjoyed it himself; and he liked the
pie and cheese, too, Cynthy."
"Where did your cousin go?"
"O, he went off after the woodcock. I hope he didn't find
any."
"What do you think of those two young men, Fairy?"
"In what way, grandpa?"
"I mean, which of them do you like the best?"
"Mr. Carleton."
"But t'other one's your cousin," said Mr. Ringgan, bending
forward and examining his little granddaughter's face with a
curious, pleased look, as he often did when expecting an
answer from her.
"Yes," said Fleda; "but he isn't so much of a gentleman."
"How do you know that?"
"I don't think he is," said Fleda, quietly.
"But why, Fairy?"
"He doesn't know how to keep his word as well, grandpa."
"Ay, ay? let's hear about that," said Mr. Ringgan.
A little reluctantly, for Cynthia was present, Fleda told the
story of the robins, and how Mr. Carleton would not let the
gun be fired.
"Wa'n't your cousin a little put out by that?"
"They were both put out," said Fleda; "Mr. Carleton was very
angry for a minute, and then Mr. Rossitur was angry, but I
think he could have been angrier if he had chosen."
Mr. Ringgan laughed, and then seemed in a sort of amused
triumph about something.
"Well, dear!" he remarked after a while; "you'll never buy
wooden nutmegs, I expect."
Fleda laughed, and hoped not, and asked him why he said so.
But he didn't tell her.
"Mr. Ringgan," said Cynthy, "hadn't I better run up the hill
after supper, and ask Mis' Plumfield to come down and help to-
morrow? I s'pose you'll want considerable of a set-out; and if
both them young men comes, you'll want some more help to
entertain 'em than I can give you, it's likely."
"Do so do so," said the old gentleman. "Tell her who I
expect, and ask her if she can come and help you, and me too."
"O, and I'll go with you, Cynthy," said Fleda. "I'll get aunt
Miriam to come, I know."
"I should think you'd be run off your legs already, Flidda,"
said Miss Cynthia; " what ails you to want to be going again?"
But this remonstrance availed nothing. Supper was hurried
through, and leaving the table standing, Cynthia and Fleda set
off to "run up the hill."
They were hardly a few steps from the gate when they heard the
clatter of horses' hoofs behind them, and the two young
gentlemen came riding hurriedly past, having joined company
and taken their horses at Queechy Run. Rossitur did not seem
to see his little cousin and her companion; but the doffed cap
and low inclination of the other rider as they flew by called
up a smile and blush of pleasure to Fleda's face; and the
sound of their horses' hoofs had died away in the distance,
before the light had faded from her cheeks, or she was quite
at home to Cynthia's observations. She was possessed with the
feeling, what a delightful thing it was to have people do
things in such a manner.
"That was your cousin, wa'n't it?" said Cynthy, when the spell
was off.
"No," said Fleda, "the other one was my cousin."
"Well I mean one of them fellers that went by. He's a
soldier, ain't he?"
"An officer," said Fleda.
"Well, it does give a man an elegant look to be in the
militie, don't it? I should admire to have a cousin like that.
It's dreadful becoming to have that what is it they call it?
to let the beard grow over the mouth. I s'pose they can't do
that without they be in the army, can they?"
"I don't know," said Fleda. "I hope not. I think it is very
ugly."
"Do you? Oh! I admire it. It makes a man look so spry!"
A few hundred yards from Mr. Ringgan's gate the road began to
wind up a very long heavy hill. Just at the hill's foot, it
crossed by a rude bridge the bed of a noisy brook that came
roaring down from the higher grounds turning sundry mill and
factory wheels in its way. About half-way up the hill one of
these was placed, belonging to a mill for sawing boards. The
little building stood alone, no other in sight, with a dark
background of wood rising behind it on the other side of the
brook; the stream itself running smoothly for a small space
above the mill, and leaping down madly below, as if it
disdained its bed, and would clear at a bound every impediment
in its way to the sea. When the mill was not going, the
quantity of water that found its way down the hill was indeed
very small, enough only to keep up a pleasant chattering with
the stones; but as soon as the stream was allowed to gather
all its force and run free, its loquacity was such that it
would prevent a traveller from suspecting his approach to the
mill, until, very near, the monotonous hum of its saw could be
heard. This was a place Fleda dearly loved. The wild sound of
the waters, and the lonely keeping of the scene, with the
delicious smell of the new-sawn boards, and the fascination of
seeing the great logs of wood walk up to the relentless,
tireless, up-and-down-going steel; as the generations of men
in turn present themselves to the course of those sharp events
which are the teeth of Time's saw; until all of a sudden the
master spirit, the man regulator of this machinery, would
perform some conjuration on lever and wheel, and at once, as
at the touch of an enchanter, the log would be still and the
saw stay its work; the business of life came to a stand, and
the romance of the little brook sprang up again. Fleda never
tired of it never. She would watch the saw play and stop,
and go on again; she would have her ears dinned with the
hoarse clang of the machinery, and then listen to the laugh of
the mill-stream; she would see with untiring patience one
board after another cut and cast aside, and log succeed to
log; and never turned weary away from that mysterious image of
Time's doings. Fleda had, besides, without knowing it, the eye
of a painter. In the lonely hill-side, the odd-shaped little
mill, with its accompaniments of wood and water, and the great
logs of timber lying about the ground in all directions and
varieties of position, there was a picturesque charm for her,
where the country people saw nothing but business and a place
fit for it. Their hands grew hard where her mind was refining.
Where they made dollars and cents, she was growing rich in
stores of thought and associations of beauty. How many
purposes the same thing serves!
"That had ought to be your grandpa's mill this minute,"
observed Cynthy.
"I wish it was!" sighed Fleda. "Who's got it now, Cynthy?"
"O, it's that chap McGowan, I expect; he's got pretty much the
hull of everything. I told Mr. Ringgan I wouldn't let him have
it if it was me, at the time. Your grandpa 'd be glad to get
it back now, I guess."
Fleda guessed so too; but also guessed that Miss Gall was
probably very far from being possessed of the whole rationale
of the matter. So she made her no answer.
After reaching the brow of the hill, the road continued on a
very gentle ascent towards a little settlement half a quarter
of a mile off; passing, now and then, a few scattered
cottages, or an occasional mill or turner's shop. Several
mills and factories, with a store and a very few dwelling-
houses, were all the settlement; not enough to entitle it to
the name of a village. Beyond these and the millponds, of
which in the course of the road there were three or four, and
with a brief intervening space of cultivated fields, a single
farmhouse stood alone; just upon the borders of a large and
very fair sheet of water, from which all the others had their
supply; so large and fair, that nobody cavilled at its taking
the style of a lake, and giving its own pretty name of
Deepwater both to the settlement and the farm that half
embraced it. This farm was Seth Plumfield's.
At the garden gate Fleda quitted Cynthy, and rushed forward to
meet her aunt, whom she saw coming round the corner of the
house, with her gown pinned up behind her, from attending to
some domestic concern among the pigs, the cows, or the
poultry.
"O, aunt Miriam," said Fleda, eagerly, "we are going to have
company to tea to-morrow wont you come and help us?"
Aunt Miriam laid her hands upon Fleda's shoulders, and looked
at Cynthy.
"I came up to see if you wouldn't come down to-morrow, Mis'
Plumfield," said that personage, with her usual dry, business
tone, always a little on the wrong side of sweet; "your
brother has taken a notion to ask two young fellers from the
Pool to supper, and they're grand folks, I s'pose, and have
got to have a fuss made for 'em. I don't know what Mr. Ringgan
was thinkin' of, or whether he thinks I have got anything to
do or not; but anyhow, they're a comin', I s'pose, and must
have somethin' to eat; and I thought the best thing I could do
would be to come and get you into the works, if I could. I
should feel a little queer to have nobody but me to say
nothin' to them at the table."
"Ah, do come, aunt Miriam!" said Fleda; "it will be twice as
pleasant if you do; and besides, we want to have everything
very nice, you know."
Aunt Miriam smiled at Fleda, and inquired of Miss Gall what
she had in the house.
"Why, I don't know, Mis' Plumfield," said the lady, while
Fleda threw her arms round her aunt, and thanked her; "there
ain't nothin' particler pork and beef, and the old story.
I've got some first-rate pickles. I calculated to make some
sort o' cake in the morning."
"Any of those small hams left?"
"Not a bone of 'em, these six weeks. _I_ don't see how they've
gone, for my part. I'd lay any wager there were two in the
smoke-house when I took the last one out. If Mr. Didenhover
was a little more like a weasel I should think he'd been in."
"Have you cooked that roaster I sent down."
"No, Mis' Plumfield, I ha'n't; it's such a plaguy sight of
trouble!" said Cynthy, with a little apologetic giggle; "I was
keepin' it for some day when I hadn't much to do."
"I'll take the trouble of it. l'll be down bright and early in
the morning, and we'll see what's best to do. How's your last
churning, Cynthy?"
"Well, I guess it's pretty middlin', Mis' Plumfield."
" 'T isn't anything very remarkable, aunt Miriam," said Fleda,
shaking her head.
"Well, well," said Mrs. Plumfield, smiling; "run away down
home now, and I'll come to-morrow, and I guess we'll fix it.
But who is it that grandpa has asked?"
Fleda and Cynthy both opened at once.
"One of them is my cousin, aunt Miriam, that was at West
Point, and the other is the nicest English gentleman you ever
saw; you will like him very much; he has been with me getting
nuts all to-day."
"They're a smart enough couple of chaps," said Cynthia; "they
look as if they lived where money was plenty."
"Well, I'll come to-morrow," repeated Mrs. Plumfield, "and
we'll see about it. Good night, dear!"
She took Fleda's head in both her hands, and gave her a most
affectionate kiss; and the two petitioners set off homewards
again.
Aunt Miriam was not at all like her brother, in feature,
though the moral characteristics suited the relationship
sufficiently well. There was the expression of strong sense
and great benevolence; the unbending uprightness of mind and
body at once; and the dignity of an essentially noble
character, not the same as Mr. Ringgan's, but such as well
became his sister. She had been brought up among the Quakers,
and though now, and for many years, a staunch Presbyterian,
she still retained a tincture of the calm efficient gentleness
of mind and manner that belongs so inexplicably to them. More
womanly sweetness than was in Mr. Ringgan's blue eye, a woman
need not wish to have; and perhaps his sister's had not so
much. There was no want of it in her heart, nor in her manner,
but the many and singular excellences of her character were a
little overshadowed by super-excellent housekeeping. Not a
taint of the littleness that sometimes grows therefrom, not
a trace of the narrowness of mind that over-attention to such
pursuits is too apt to bring; on every important occasion
aunt Miriam would come out, free and unshackled, from all the
cobweb entanglements of housewifery; she would have tossed
housewifery to the winds, if need were, (but it never was, for
in a new sense she always contrived to make both ends meet).
It was only in the unbroken everyday course of affairs that
aunt Miriam's face showed any tokens of that incessant train
of _small cares_ which had never left their impertinent
footprints upon the broad high brow of her brother. Mr.
Ringgan had no affinity with small cares; deep serious matters
received his deep and serious consideration; but he had as
dignified a disdain of trifling annoyances or concernments as
any great mastiff or Newfoundlander ever had for the yelping
of a little cur.