"The thresher's weary flinging-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me:
And whan the day had closed his e'e,
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest."
BURNS.
Queechy was reached at night. Fleda had promised herself to be
off almost with the dawn of light the next morning to see aunt
Miriam, but a heavy rain kept her fast at home the whole day.
It was very well; she was wanted there.
Despite the rain and her disappointment it was impossible for
Fleda to lie abed from the time the first grey light began to
break in at her windows those old windows that had rattled
their welcome to her all night. She was up and dressed, and
had had a long consultation with herself over matters and
prospects before anybody else had thought of leaving the
indubitable comfort of a feather bed for the doubtful
contingency of happiness that awaited them down stairs. Fleda
took in the whole length and breadth of it, half wittingly and
half through some finer sense than that of the understanding.
The first view of things could not strike them pleasantly; it
was not to be looked for. The doors did not happen to be
painted blue; they were a deep chocolate colour doors and
wainscot. The fire-places were not all furnished with cranes,
but they were all uncouthly wide and deep. Nobody would have
thought them so indeed in the winter, when piled up with
blazing hickory logs; but in summer they yawned uncomfortably
upon the eye. The ceilings were low; the walls rough papered
or rougher whitewashed; the sashes not hung; the rooms,
otherwise well enough proportioned, stuck with little
cupboards, in recesses and corners, and out-of-the-way places,
in a style impertinently suggestive of housekeeping, and
fitted to shock any symmetrical set of nerves. The old house
had undergone a thorough putting in order, it is true; the
chocolate paint was just dry, and the paper-hangings freshly
put up; and the bulk of the new furniture had been sent on
before and unpacked, though not a single article of it was in
its right place. The house was clean and tight that is, as
tight as it ever was. But the colour had been unfortunately
chosen perhaps there was no help for that; the paper was
very coarse and countrified; the big windows were startling,
they looked so bare, without any manner of drapery; and the
long reaches of wall were unbroken by mirror or picture-frame.
And this to eyes trained to eschew ungracefulness and that
abhorred a vacuum as much as nature is said to do! Even Fleda
felt there was something disagreeable in the change, though it
reached her more through the channel of other people's
sensitiveness than her own. To her it was the dear old house
still, though her eyes had seen better things since they loved
it. No corner or recess could have a pleasanter filling, to
her fancy, than the old brown cupboard or shelves which had
always been there. But what would her uncle say to them! and
to that dismal paper! and what would aunt Lucy think of those
rattling window sashes! this cool raw day, too, for the first!
Think as she might, Fleda did not stand still to think. She
had gone softly all over the house, taking a strange look at
the old places and the images with which memory filled them,
thinking of the last time, and many a time before that and
she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long before
anybody else was down stairs; the two tired servants were just
rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen, and speculating
themselves awake. Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a
decent breakfast (by the way she grudged them the old
kitchen), Fleda set about trying what her wand could do
towards brightening the face of affairs in the other part of
the house. It was quite cold enough for a fire, luckily. She
ordered one to be made, and meanwhile busied herself with the
various stray packages and articles of wearing apparel that
lay scattered about, giving the whole place a look of
discomfort. Fleda gathered them up, and bestowed them in one
or two of the impertinent cupboards, and then undertook the
labour of carrying out all the wrong furniture that had got
into the breakfast-room, and bringing in that which really
belonged there from the hall and the parlour beyond, moving
like a mouse that she might not disturb the people up stairs.
A quarter of an hour was spent in arranging to the best
advantage these various pieces of furniture in the room; it
was the very same in which Mr. Carleton and Charlton Rossitur
had been received the memorable day of the roast-pig dinner,
but that was not the uppermost association in Fleda's mind.
Satisfied at last that a happier effect could not be produced
with the given materials, and well pleased too, with her
success, Fleda turned to the fire. It was made, but not by any
means doing its part to encourage the other portions of the
room to look their best. Fleda knew something of wood fires
from old times; she laid hold of the tongs, and touched and
loosened and coaxed a stick here and there, with a delicate
hand, till, seeing the very opening it had wanted without
which neither fire nor hope can keep its activity the blaze
sprang up energetically, crackling through all the piled oak
and hickory, and driving the smoke clean out of sight. Fleda
had done her work. It would have been a misanthropical person
indeed that could have come into the room then, and not felt
his face brighten. One other thing remained setting the
breakfast-table; and Fleda would let no hands but hers do it
this morning; she was curious about the setting of tables. How
she remembered or divined where everything had been stowed;
how quietly and efficiently her little fingers unfastened
hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till
all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table-
linen was found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid
in most exquisite order on the table. State Street never saw
better. Fleda stood and looked at it then, in immense
satisfaction, seeing that her uncle's eye would miss nothing
of its accustomed gratification. To her the old room, shining
with firelight and new furniture, was perfectly charming. If
those great windows were staringly bright, health and
cheerfulness seemed to look in at them. And what other images
of association, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles,"
looked at her out of the curling flames in the old wide fire-
place! And one other angel stood there unseen the one whose
errand it is to see fulfilled the promise, "Give, and it shall
be given to you; full measure, and pressed down, and heaped
up, and running over."
A little while Fleda sat contentedly eyeing her work; then a
new idea struck her and she sprang up. In the next meadow,
only one fence between, a little spring of purest water ran
through from the woodland; water-cresses used to grow there.
Uncle Rolf was very fond of them. It was pouring with rain;
but no matter. Her heart beating between haste and delight,
Fleda slipped her feet into galoches, and put an old cloak of
Hugh's over her head, and ran out through the kitchen, the old
accustomed way. The servants exclaimed and entreated, but
Fleda only flashed a bright look at them from under her cloak
as she opened the door, and ran off, over the wet grass, under
the fence, and over half the meadow, till she came to the
stream. She was getting a delicious taste of old times; and
though the spring water was very cold, and with it and the
rain one-half of each sleeve was soon thoroughly wetted, she
gathered her cresses, and scampered back with a pair of eyes
and cheeks that might have struck any city belle chill with
envy.
"Then, but that's a sweet girl!" said Mary the cook to Jane
the housemaid.
"A lovely countenance she has," answered Jane, who was refined
in her speech.
"Take her away, and you've taken the best of the house, I'm a
thinking."
"Mrs. Rossitur is a lady," said Jane, in a low voice.
"Ay, and a very proper behaved one she is, and him the same,
that is, for a gentleman I mean; but Jane; I say, I'm thinking
he'll have eat too much sour bread lately! I wish I knowed how
they'd have their eggs boiled till I'd have them ready."
"Sure it's on the table itself they'll do 'em," said Jane.
"They've an elegant little fixture in there for the purpose."
"Is that it!"
Nobody found out how busy Fleda's wand had been in the old
breakfast-room. But she was not disappointed; she had not
worked for praise. Her cresses were appreciated; that was
enough. She enjoyed her breakfast the only one of the party
that did. Mr. Rossitur looked moody; his wife looked anxious;
and Hugh's face was the reflection of theirs. If Fleda's face
reflected anything, it was the sunlight of heaven.
"How sweet the air is after New York!" said she.
They looked at her. There was a fresh sweetness of another
kind about that breakfast-table. They all felt it, and
breathed more freely.
"Delicious cresses!' said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Yes; I wonder where they came from," said her husband. "Who
got them?"
"I guess Fleda knows," said Hugh.
"They grow in a little stream of spring water over here in the
meadow," said Fleda, demurely.
"Yes, but you don't answer my question," said her uncle,
putting his hand under her chin, and smiling at the blushing
face he brought round to view. "Who got them?"
"I did."
"You have been out in the rain?"
"Oh, Queechy rain don't hurt me, uncle Rolf."
"And don't it wet you either?"
"Yes, Sir a little."
"How much?"
"My sleeves oh, I dried them long ago."
"Don't you repeat that experiment, Fleda," said he, seriously,
but with a look that was a good reward to her, nevertheless.
"It is a raw day!" said Mrs. Rossitur, drawing her shoulders
together, as an ill-disposed window-sash gave one of its
admonitory shakes.
"What little panes of glass for such big windows!" said Hugh.
"But what a pleasant prospect through them," said Fleda
"look, Hugh! worth all the Batteries and Parks in the
world."
"In the world! in New York, you mean," said her uncle. "Not
better than the Champs Elysées?"
"Better to me," said Fleda.
"For to-day I must attend to the prospect in-doors," said Mrs.
Rossitur.
"Now, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, "you are just going to put
yourself down in the corner, in the rocking-chair there, with
your book, and make yourself comfortable; and Hugh and I will
see to all these things. Hugh and I and Mary and Jane that
makes quite an army of us, and we can do everything without
you, and you must just keep quiet. I'll build you up a fine
fire, and then, when I don't know what to do, I will come to
you for orders. Uncle Rolf, would you be so good as just to
open that box of books in the hall, because I am afraid Hugh
isn't strong enough. I'll take care of you, aunt Lucy."
Fleda's plans were not entirely carried out, but she contrived
pretty well to take the brunt of the business on her own
shoulders. She was as busy as a bee the whole day. To her all
the ins and outs of the house, its advantages and
disadvantages, were much better known than to anybody else;
nothing could be done but by her advice; and, more than that,
she contrived by some sweet management to baffle Mrs.
Rossitur's desire to spare her, and to bear the larger half of
every burden that should have come upon her aunt. What she had
done in the breakfast-room, she did or helped to do in the
other parts of the house; she unpacked boxes and put away
clothes and linen, in which Hugh was her excellent helper; she
arranged her uncle's dressing-table with a scrupulosity that
left nothing uncared-for; and the last thing before tea she
and Hugh dived into the book-box to get out some favourite
volumes to lay upon the table in the evening, that the room
might not look to her uncle quite so dismally bare. He had
been abroad, notwithstanding the rain, near the whole day.
It was a weary party that gathered round the supper-table that
night weary, it seemed, as much in mind as in body; and the
meal exerted its cheering influence over only two of them; Mr.
and Mrs. Rossitur sipped their cups of tea abstractedly.
"I don't believe that fellow, Donohan, knows much about his
business," remarked the former at length.
"Why don't you get somebody else, then?" said his wife.
"I happen to have engaged him, unfortunately."
A pause.
"What doesn't he know?"
Mr. Rossitur laughed, not a pleasant laugh.
"It would take too long to enumerate. If you had asked me what
part of his business he does understand, I could have told you
shortly that I don't know."
"But you do not understand it very well yourself. Are you
sure?"
"Am I sure of what?"
"That this man does not know his business?"
"No further sure than I can have confidence in my own common
sense."
"What will you do?" said Mrs. Rossitur, after a moment.
A question men are not fond of answering, especially when they
have not made up their minds. Mr. Rossitur was silent, and his
wife too, after that.
"If I could get some long-headed Yankee to go along with him,"
he remarked again, balancing his spoon on the edge of his cup,
in curious illustration of his own mental position at the
moment Donohan being the only fixed point, and all the rest
wavering in uncertainty. There were a few silent minutes
before anybody answered.
"If you want one, and don't know of one, uncle Rolf," said
Fleda, "I dare say cousin Seth might."
That gentle modest speech brought his attention round upon
her. His face softened.
"Cousin Seth? who is cousin Seth?"
"He is aunt Miriam's son," said Fleda. "Seth Plumfield. He's a
very good farmer, I know; grandpa used to say he was; and he
knows everybody."
"Mrs. Plumfield," said Mrs. Rossitur, as her husband's eyes
went inquiringly to her "Mrs. Plumfield was Mr. Ringgan's
sister, you remember. This is her son."
"Cousin Seth, eh?" said Mr. Rossitur, dubiously. " Well Why,
Fleda, your sweet air don't seem to agree with you, as far as
I see; I have not known you look so so triste since we
left Paris. What have you been doing, my child?"
"She has been doing everything, father," said Hugh.
"Oh! it's nothing," said Fleda, answering Mr. Rossitur's look
and tone of affection with a bright smile. " I'm a little
tired, that's all!"
"A little tired!' She went to sleep on the sofa directly after
supper, and slept like a baby all the evening; but her power
did not sleep with her; for that quiet, sweet, tired face,
tired in their service, seemed to bear witness against the
indulgence of anything harsh or unlovely in the same
atmosphere. A gentle witness-bearing, but strong in its
gentleness. They sat close together round the fire, talked
softly, and from time to time cast loving glances at the quiet
little sleeper by their side. They did not know that she was a
fairy, and that though her wand had fallen out of her hand it
was still resting upon them.