"Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep."
SHELLEY.
The days of summer flew by, for the most part lightly, over
the heads of Hugh and Fleda. The farm was little to them but a
place of pretty and picturesque doings, and the scene of
nameless delights by wood and stream, in all which, all that
summer, Fleda rejoiced; pulling Hugh along with her, even when
sometimes he would rather have been poring over his books at
home. She laughingly said it was good for him, and one half,
at least, of every fine day their feet were abroad. They knew
nothing, practically, of the dairy, but that it was an
inexhaustible source of the sweetest milk and butter, and,
indirectly, of the richest custards and syllabubs. The flock
of sheep that now and then came in sight, running over the
hill-side, were to them only an image of pastoral beauty, and
a soft link with the beauty of the past. The two children took
the very cream of country life. The books they had left were
read with greater eagerness than ever. When the weather was
"too lovely to stay in the house," Shakespeare, or Massillon,
or Sully, or the "Curiosities of Literature," or "Corinne," or
Milner's Church History for Fleda's reading was as
miscellaneous as ever was enjoyed under the flutter of
leaves and along with the rippling of the mountain spring;
whilst King curled himself up on the skirt of his mistress's
gown, and slept for company; hardly more thoughtless and
fearless of harm than his two companions. Now and then Fleda
opened her eyes to see that her uncle was moody and not like
himself, and that her aunt's gentle face was clouded in
consequence; and she could not sometimes help the suspicion
that he was not making a farmer of himself; but the next
summer-wind would blow these thoughts away, or the next look
of her flowers would put them out of her head. The whole
courtyard in front of the house had been given up to her
peculiar use as a flower garden, and there she and Hugh made
themselves very busy.
But the summer-time came to an end.
It was a November morning, and Fleda had been doing some of
the last jobs in her flower-beds. She was coming in with
spirits as bright as her cheeks, when her aunt's attitude and
look, more than usually spiritless, suddenly checked them.
Fleda gave her a hopeful kiss, and asked for the explanation.
"How bright you look, darling!" said her aunt, stroking her
cheek.
"Yes, but you don't, aunt Lucy. What has happened?"
"Mary and Jane are going away."
"Going away! What for?"
"They are tired of the place don't like it, I suppose."
"Very foolish of them! Well, aunt Lucy, what matter? we can
get plenty more in their room."
"Not from the city not possible; they would not come at this
time of year."
"Sure? Well, then, here we can, at any rate."
"Here! But what sort of persons shall we get here? And your
uncle just think!"
"Oh, but I think we can manage," said Fleda. "When do Mary and
Jane want to go?"
"Immediately! to-morrow; they are not willing to wait till
we can get somebody. Think of it!"
"Well, let them go," said Fleda; "the sooner the better."
"Yes: and I am sure I don't want to keep them; but" and Mrs.
Rossitur wrung her hands "I haven't money enough to pay them
quite and they wont go without it."
Fleda felt shocked; so much that she could not help looking
it.
"But can't uncle Rolf give it you?"
Mrs. Rossitur shook her head. "I have asked him."
"How much is wanting?"
"Twenty-five. Think of his not being able to give me that!"
Mrs. Rossitur burst into tears.
"Now don't, aunt Lucy!" said Fleda, guarding well her own
composure; "you know he has had a great deal to spend upon the
farm, and paying men, and all, and it is no wonder that he
should be a little short just now now, cheer up! we can
get along with this, anyhow."
"I asked him," said Mrs. Rossitur, through her tears, "when he
would be able to give it to me; and he told me he didn't
know!"
Fleda ventured no reply, but some of the tenderest caresses
that lips and arms could give; and then sprang away, and in
three minutes was at her aunt's side again.
"Look here, aunt Lucy," said she, gently, "here is twenty
dollars, if you can manage the five."
"Where did you get this?" Mrs. Rossitur exclaimed.
"I got it honestly. It is mine, aunt Lucy," said Fleda,
smiling. "Uncle Orrin gave me some money, just before we came
away, to do what I liked with; and I haven't wanted to do
anything with it till now."
But this seemed to hurt Mrs. Rossitur more than all the rest.
Leaning her head forward upon Fleda's breast, and clasping her
arms about her, she cried worse tears than Fleda had seen her
shed. If it had not been for the emergency, Fleda would have
broken down utterly too.
"That it should have come to this! I can't take it, dear
Fleda! "
"Yes, you must, aunt Lucy," said Fleda, soothingly. "I
couldn't do anything else with it that would give me so much
pleasure. I don't want it; it would lie in my drawer till I
don't know when. We'll let these people be off as soon as they
please. Don't take it so; uncle Rolf will have money again
only just now he is out, I suppose and we'll get somebody
else in the kitchen that will do nicely; you see if we don't."
Mrs. Rossitur's embrace said what words were powerless to say.
"But I don't know how we're to find any one here in the
country I don't know who'll go to look I am sure your
uncle wont want to; and Hugh wouldn't know "
"I'll go," said Fleda, cheerfully "Hugh and I. We can do
famously, if you'll trust me. I wont promise to bring home a
French cook."
"No, indeed; we must take what we can get. But you can get no
one to-day, and they will be off by the morning's coach; what
shall we do to-morrow for dinner? your uncle "
"I'll get dinner," said Fleda, caressing her; "I'll take all
that on myself. It sha'n't be a bad dinner either. Uncle Rolf
will like what I do for him, I dare say. Now, cheer up, aunt
Lucy; do; that's all I ask of you. Wont you for me?"
She longed to speak a word of that quiet hope with which in
every trouble she secretly comforted herself she wanted to
whisper the words that were that moment in her own mind,
"Truly, I know that it shall be well with them that fear God;"
but her natural reserve and timidity kept her lips shut to her
grief.
The women were paid off and dismissed, and departed in the
next day's coach from Montepoole. Fleda stood at the front
door to see them go, with a curious sense that there was an
empty house at her back, and indeed upon her back. And in
spite of all the cheeriness of her tone to her aunt, she was
not without some shadowy feeling that soberer times might be
coming upon them.
"What is to be done now?" said Hugh, close beside her.
"Oh, we are going to get somebody else," said Fleda.
"Where?"
"I don't know! You and I are going to find out."
"You and I!"
"Yes. We are going out after dinner, Hugh, dear," said she,
turning her bright merry face towards him "to pick up
somebody."
Linking her arm within his, she went back to the deserted
kitchen premises, to see how her promise about talking Mary's
place was to be fulfilled.
"Do you know where to look?" said Hugh.
"I've a notion; but the first thing is dinner, that uncle Rolf
mayn't think the world is turning topsy-turvy. There is
nothing at all here, Hugh nothing in the world but bread
it's a blessing there is that. Uncle Rolf will have to be
satisfied with a coffee dinner to-day, and I'll make him the
most superb omelette that my skill is equal to! Hugh, dear,
you shall set the table. You don't know how? then you
shall make the toast, and I will set it the first thing of
all. You perceive it is well to know how to do everything, Mr.
Hugh Rossitur."
"Where did you learn to make omelettes?" said Hugh, with
laughing admiration, as Fleda bared two pretty arms, and ran
about, the very impersonation of good-humoured activity. The
table was set the coffee was making and she had him
established at the fire with two great plates, a pile of
slices of bread, and the toasting-iron.
"Where? oh, don't you remember the days of Mrs. Renney? I have
seen Emile make them. And by dint of trying to teach Mary this
summer, I have taught myself. There is no knowing, you see,
what a person may come to."
"I wonder what father would say, if he knew you had made all
the coffee this summer?"
"That is an unnecessary speculation, my dear Hugh, as I have
no intention of telling him. But see! that is the way with
speculators! 'while they go on refining,' the toast burns!"
The coffee, and the omelette, and the toast, and Mr.
Rossitur's favourite French salad, were served with beautiful
accuracy; and he was quite satisfied. But aunt Lucy looked
sadly at Fleda's flushed face, and saw that her appetite
seemed to have gone off in the steam of her preparations.
Fleda had a kind of heart-feast, however, which answered as
well.
Hugh harnessed the little wagon, for no one was at hand to do
it, and he and Fleda set off as early as possible after
dinner. Fleda's thoughts had turned to her old acquaintance,
Cynthia Gall, who she knew was out of employment, and staying
at home somewhere near Montepoole. They got the exact
direction from aunt Miriam, who approved of her plan.
It was a pleasant, peaceful drive they had. They never were
alone together, they two, but vexations seemed to lose their
power, or be forgotten; and an atmosphere of quietness gather
about them, the natural element of both hearts. It might
refuse its presence to one, but the attraction of both
together was too strong to be resisted.
Miss Cynthia's present abode was in an out-of-the-way place,
and a good distance off; they were some time in reaching it.
The barest-looking and dingiest of houses, set plump in a
green field, without one softening or home-like touch from any
home-feeling within; not a flower, not a shrub, not an out-
house, not a tree near. One would have thought it a deserted
house, but that a thin wreath of smoke lazily stole up from
one of the brown chimneys; and graceful as that was, it took
nothing from the hard, stern barrenness below, which told of a
worse poverty than that of paint and glazing.
"Can this be the place?" said Hugh.
"It must be. You stay here with the horse, and I'll go in and
seek my fortune. Don't promise much," said Fleda, shaking
her head.
The house stood back from the road. Fleda picked her way to it
along a little footpath which seemed to be the equal property
of the geese. Her knock brought an invitation to "come in."
An elderly woman was sitting there, whose appearance did not
mend the general impression. She had the same dull and
unhopeful look that her house had.
"Does Mrs. Gall live here?"
"I do," said this person.
"Is Cynthia at home?"
The woman, upon this, raised her voice, and directed it at an
inner door.
"Lucindy!" said she, in a diversity of tones; "Lucindy! tell
Cynthy here's somebody wants to see her." But no one answered;
and throwing the work from her lap, the woman muttered she
would go and see, and left Fleda, with a cold invitation to
sit down.
Dismal work! Fleda wished herself out of it. The house did not
look poverty-stricken within, but poverty must have struck to
the very heart, Fleda thought, where there was no apparent
cherishing of anything. There was no absolute distress
visible, neither was there a sign of real comfort, or of a
happy home. She could not fancy it was one.
She waited so long, that she was sure Cynthia did not hold
herself in readiness to see company. And when the lady at last
came in, it was with very evident marks of "smarting up" about
her.
"Why, it's Flidda Ringgan!" said Miss Gall, after a dubious
look or two at her visitor. "How do you do? I didn't 'spect to
see you. How much you have growed!"
She looked really pleased, and gave Fleda's hand a very strong
grasp as she shook it.
"There aint no fire here to-day," pursued Cynthy, paying her
attentions to the fire-place; "we let it go down on account of
our being all busy out at the back of the house. I guess
you're cold, aint you."
Fleda said, "No;" and remembered that the woman she had first
seen was certainly not busy at the back of the house, nor
anywhere else but in that very room, where she had found her
deep in a pile of patchwork.
"I heerd you had come to the old place. Were you glad to be
back again?" Cynthy asked, with a smile that might be taken to
express some doubt upon the subject.
"I was very glad to see it again."
"I ha'n't seen it in a great while. I've been staying to hum
this year or two. I got tired o' going out," Cynthy remarked,
with again a smile very peculiar, and, Fleda thought, a little
sardonical. She did not know how to answer.
"Well, how do you come along down yonder?" Cynthy went on,
making a great fuss with the shovel and tongs to very little
purpose. "Ha' you come all the way from Queechy?"
"Yes. I came on purpose to see you, Cynthy."
Without staying to ask what for, Miss Gall now went out to
"the back of the house," and came running in again with a live
brand pinched in the tongs, and a long tail of smoke running
after it. Fleda would have compounded for no fire and no
choking. The choking was only useful to give her time to
think. She was uncertain how to bring in her errand.
"And how is Mis' Plumfield?" said Cynthy, in an interval of
blowing the brand.
"She is quite well; but, Cynthy, you need not have taken all
that trouble for me. I cannot stay but a few minutes."
"There is wood enough!" Cynthia remarked, with one of her grim
smiles an assertion Fleda could not help doubting. Indeed,
she thought Miss Gall had grown altogether more disagreeable
than she used to be in old times. Why, she could not divine,
unless the souring effect had gone on with the years.
"And what's become of Earl Douglass and Mis' Douglass? I
hain't heerd nothin' of 'em this great while. I always told
your grandpa he'd ha' saved himself a great deal o' trouble if
he'd ha' let Earl Douglass take hold of things. You han't got
Mr. Didenhover into the works again, I guess, have you? He was
there a good spell after your grandpa died.''
"I haven't seen Mrs. Douglass," said Fleda. "But, Cynthy, what
do you think I have come here for?"
"I don't know," said Cynthy, with another of her peculiar
looks directed at the fire. "I s'pose you want someh'n nother
of me."
"I have come to see if you wouldn't come and live with my
aunt, Mrs. Rossitur. We are left alone, and want somebody very
much; and I thought I would find you out and see if we
couldn't have you, first of all, before I looked for anybody
else."
Cynthy was absolutely silent. She sat before the fire, her
feet stretched out towards it as far as they would go, and her
arms crossed, and not moving her steady gaze at the smoking
wood, or the chimney-back, whichever it might be; but there
was in the corners of her mouth the threatening of a smile
that Fleda did not at all like.
"What do you say to it, Cynthy?"
"I reckon you'd best get somebody else," said Miss Gall, with
a kind of condescending dryness, and the smile showing a
little more.
"Why?" said Fleda. "I would a great deal rather have an old
friend than a stranger."
"Be you the housekeeper?" said Cynthy, a little abruptly.
"Oh, I am a little of everything," said Fleda "cook and
housekeeper, and whatever comes first. I want you to come and
be housekeeper, Cynthy."
"I reckon Mis' Rossitur don't have much to do with her help,
does she?" said Cynthy, after a pause, during which the
corners of her mouth never changed. The tone of piqued
independence let some light into Fleda's mind.
"She is not strong enough to do much herself, and she wants
some one that will take all the trouble from her. You'd have
the field all to yourself, Cynthy."
"Your aunt sets two tables, I calculate, don't she?"
"Yes; my uncle doesn't like to have any but his own family
around him."
"I guess I shouldn't suit!" said Miss Gall, after another
little pause, and stooping very diligently to pick up some
scattered shreds from the floor. But Fleda could see the
flushed face, and the smile which pride and a touch of
spiteful pleasure in the revenge she was taking made
particularly hateful. She needed no more convincing that Miss
Gall "wouldn't suit;" but she was sorry, at the same time, for
the perverseness that had so needlessly disappointed her; and
went rather pensively back again down the little footpath to
the waiting wagon.
"This is hardly the romance of life, dear Hugh," she said, as
she seated herself.
"Haven't you succeeded?"
Fleda shook her head.
"What's the matter?"
"Oh pride injured pride of station! The wrong of not
coming to our table and putting her knife into our butter."
"And living in such a place!" said Hugh.
"You don't know what a place. They are rniserably poor, I am
sure; and yet I suppose that the less people have to be
proud of, the more they make of what is left. Poor people!"
"Poor Fleda!" said Hugh, looking at her. "What will you do
now?"
"Oh, we'll do somehow," said she, cheerfully. "Perhaps it is
just as well, after all; for Cynthy isn't the smartest woman
in the world. I remember grandpa used to say he didn't believe
she could get a bean into the middle of her bread."
"A bean into the middle of her bread!" said Hugh.
But Fleda's sobriety was quite banished by his mystified look,
and her laugh rang along over the fields before she answered
him.
That laugh had blown away all the vapours, for the present at
least, and they jogged on again very sociably.
"Do you know," said Fleda, after a while of silent enjoyment
in the changes of scene and the mild autumn weather "I am
not sure that it wasn't very well for me that we came away
from New York."
"I dare say it was," said Hugh "since we came; but what
makes you say so?"
"I don't mean that it was for anybody else, but for me. I
think I was a little proud of our nice things there."
"You, Fleda!" said Hugh, with a look of appreciating
affection.
"Yes, I was, a little. It didn't make the greatest part of my
love for them, I am sure; but I think I had a little undefined
sort of pleasure in the feeling that they were better and
prettier than other people had."
"You are sure you are not proud of your little King Charles
now?" said Hugh.
"I don't know but I am," said Fleda, laughing. "But how much
pleasanter it is here on almost every account! Look at the
beautiful sweep of the ground off among those hills isn't
it? What an exquisite horizon line, Hugh!"
"And what a sky over it!"
"Yes I love these fall skies. Oh, I would a great deal
rather be here than in any city that ever was built!"
"So would I," said Hugh. "But the thing is "
Fleda knew quite well what the thing was, and did not answer.
"But, my dear Hugh," she said, presently "I don't remember
that sweep of hills when we were coming?"
"You were going the other way," said Hugh.
"Yes, but Hugh I am sure we did not pass these grain fields.
We must have got into the wrong road."
Hugh drew the reins, and looked and doubted.
"There is a house yonder," said Fleda we had better drive
on, and ask."
"There is no house "
"Yes, there is behind that piece of wood. Look over it;
don't you see a light curl of blue smoke against the sky? We
never passed that house and wood, I am certain. We ought to
make haste, for the afternoons are short now, and you will
please to recollect there is nobody at home to get tea."
"I hope Lucas will get upon one of his everlasting talks with
father," said Hugh.
"And that it will hold till we get home," said Fleda. "It will
be the happiest use Lucas has made of his tongue in a good
while."
Just as they stopped before a substantial-looking farm-house,
a man came from the other way and stopped there too, with his
hand upon the gate.
"How far are we from Queechy, Sir?" said Hugh.
"You're not from it at all, Sir," said the man, politely.
"You're in Queechy, Sir, at present."
"Is this the right road from Montepoole to Queechy village?"
"It is not, Sir. It is a very tortuous direction, indeed. Have
I not the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Rossitur's young
gentleman?"
Mr. Rossitur's young gentleman acknowledged his relationship,
and begged the favour of being set in the right way home.
"With much pleasure! You have been showing Miss Rossitur the
picturesque country about Montepoole?"
"My cousin and I have been there on business, and lost our way
coming back."
"Ah, I dare say! Very easy. First time you have been there?"
"Yes, Sir; and we are in a hurry to get home."
"Well, Sir you know the road by Deacon Patterson's? comes
out just above the lake."
Hugh did not remember.
"Well you keep this road straight on, I'm sorry you are in
a hurry, you keep on till do you know when you strike Mr.
Harris's ground?"
No, Hugh knew nothing about it, nor Fleda.
"Well, I'll tell you now how it is," said the stranger, "if
you'll permit me. You and your a cousin come in and do
us the pleasure of taking some refreshment. I know my sister
'll have her table set out by this time and I'll do myself
the honour of introducing you to a these strange roads,
afterwards."
"Thank you, Sir, but that trouble is unnecessary cannot you
direct us?"
"No trouble indeed, Sir, I assure you, I should esteem it a
favour very highly. I I am Dr. Quackenboss, Sir; you may
have heard "
"Thank you, Dr. Quackenboss, but we have no time this
afternoon we are very anxious to reach home as soon as
possible, if you would be so good as to put us in the way."
"I really, Sir, I am afraid to a person ignorant of the
various localities you will lose no time I will just hitch
your horse here, and I'll have mine ready by the time this
young lady has rested. Miss a wont you join with me? I
assure you I will not put you to the expense of a minute.
Thank you, Mr. Harden! just clap the saddle on to Lollypop,
and have him up here in three seconds. Thank you! My dear
Miss a wont you take my arm? I am gratified, I assure
you."
Yielding to the apparent impossibility of getting anything out
of Dr. Quackenboss, except civility, and to the real
difficulty of disappointing such very earnest good will, Fleda
and Hugh did what older persons would not have done alighted
and walked up to the house.
"This is quite a fortuitous occurrence," the doctor went on.
"I have often had the pleasure of seeing Mr. Rossitur's family
in church in the little church at Queechy Run and that
enabled me to recognise your cousin, as soon as I saw him in
the wagon. Perhaps, Miss a you may have possibly heard of
my name? Quackenboss I don't know that you understood "
"I have heard it, Sir."
"My Irishmen, Miss a my Irish labourers, can't get hold of
but one end of it they call me Boss ha, ha, ha!"
Fleda hoped his patients did not get hold of the other end of
it, and trembled, visibly.
"Hard to pull a man's name to pieces before his face ha, ha!
but I am a not one thing myself a kind of heterogynous
I am a piece of a physician, and a little in the agricultural
line also; so it's all fair."
"The Irish treat my name as hardly, Dr. Quackenboss they
call me nothing but Miss Ring-again."
And then Fleda could laugh and laugh she did so heartily,
that the doctor was delighted.
"Ring-again! ha, ha! very good! Well, Miss a I shouldn't
think that anybody in your service would ever a ever let
you put your name in practice."
But Fleda's delight at the excessive gallantry and awkwardness
of this speech was almost too much; or, as the doctor
pleasantly remarked, her nerves were too many for her; and
every one of them was dancing by the time they reached the
hall door. The doctor's flourishes lost not a bit of their
angularity from his tall, ungainly figure, and a lantern-jawed
face, the lower member of which had now and then a somewhat
lateral play when he was speaking, which curiously aided the
quaint effect of his words. He ushered his guests into the
house, seeming in a flow of self-gratulation.
The supper-table was spread, sure enough, and hovering about
it was the doctor's sister; a lady in whom Fleda only saw a
Dutch face, with eyes that made no impression, disagreeable
fair hair, and a string of gilt beads round her neck. A
painted yellow floor under foot, a room that looked
excessively _wooden_ and smelt of cheese, bare walls, and a
well-filled table, was all that she took in besides.
"I have the honour of presenting you to my sister," said the
doctor, with suavity. "Flora, the Irish domestics of this
young lady call her name Miss Ring-again if she will let us
know how it ought to be called, we shall be happy to be
informed."
Dr. Quackenboss was made happy.
"Miss _Ringgan_ and this young gentleman is young Mr. Rossitur
the gentleman that has taken Squire Ringgan's old place. We
were so fortunate as to have them lose their way this
afternoon, coming from the Pool, and they have just stepped in
to see if you can't find 'em a mouthful of something they can
eat, while Lollypop is a-getting ready to see them home."
Poor Miss Flora immediately disappeared into the kitchen, to
order a bit of superior cheese, and to have some slices of ham
put on the gridiron, and then, coming back to the common room,
went rummaging about, from cupboard to cupboard, in search of
cake and sweetmeats. Fleda protested and begged in vain.
"She was so sorry she hadn't knowed," Miss Flora said "she'd
ha' had some cakes made that maybe they could have eaten, but
the bread was dry; and the cheese wa'n't as good somehow as
the last one they cut; maybe Miss Ringgan would prefer a piece
of newer made, if she liked it; and she hadn't had good luck
with her preserves last summer the most of 'em had fomented
she thought it was the damp weather; but there was some
stewed pears that maybe she would be so good as to approve
and there was some ham! whatever else it was, it was hot!"
It was impossible it was impossible, to do dishonour to all
this hospitality and kindness and pride that was brought out
for them. Early or late, they must eat, in mere gratitude. The
difficulty was to avoid eating everything. Hugh and Fleda
managed to compound the matter with each other, one taking the
cake and pears, and the other the ham and cheese. In the midst
of all this overflow of goodwill, Fleda bethought her to ask
if Miss Flora knew of any girl or woman that would go out to
service. Miss Flora took the matter into grave consideration
as soon as her anxiety on the subject of their cups of tea had
subsided. She did not commit herself, but thought it possible
that one of the Finns might be willing to go out.
"Where do they live?"
"It's a not far from Queechy Run," said the doctor, whose
now and then hesitation in the midst of his speech was never
for want of a thought, but simply and merely for the best
words to clothe it in.
"Is it in our way to-night?"
He could make it so, the doctor said, with pleasure, for it
would give him permission to gallant them a little further.
They had several miles yet to go, and the sun went down as
they were passing through Queechy Run. Under that still, cool,
clear, autumn sky, Fleda would have enjoyed the ride very
much, but that her unfulfilled errand was weighing upon her,
and she feared her aunt and uncle might want her services
before she could be at home. Still, late as it was, she
determined to stop for a minute at Mrs. Finn's, and go home
with a clear conscience. At her door, and not till there, the
doctor was prevailed upon to part company, the rest of the way
being perfectly plain.
Mrs. Finn's house was a great unprepossessing building, washed
and dried by the rain and sun into a dark, dingy colour, the
only one that had ever supplanted the original hue of the
freshsawn boards. This, indeed, was not an uncommon thing in
the country; near all the houses of the Deepwater settlement
were in the same case. Fleda went up a flight of steps to what
seemed the front door, but the girl that answered her knock
led her down them again, and round to a lower entrance on the
other side. This introduced Fleda to a large ground-floor
apartment, probably the common room of the family, with the
large kitchen fireplace, and flagged hearth, and wall
cupboards, and the only furniture, the usual red backed
splinter chairs and wooden table. A woman standing before the
fire with a broom in her hand, answered Fleda's inclination
with a saturnine nod of the head, and, fetching one of the
red-backs from the wall, bade her "sit down."
Poor Fleda's nerves bade her "go away." The people looked like
their house. The principal woman, who remained standing, broom
in hand, to hear Fleda's business, was, in good truth, a dark
personage her head covered with black hair, her person with
a dingy black calico, and a sullen cloud lowering over her
eye. At the corner of the fireplace was an old woman, laid by
in an easy-chair; disabled, it was plain, not from mental but
bodily infirmity; for her face had a cast of mischief which
could not stand with the innocence of second childhood. At the
other corner sat an elderly woman sewing, with tokens of her
trade for yards on the floor around her. Back at the far side
of the room, a young man was eating his supper at the table,
alone; and under the table, on the floor, the enormous family
bread-trough was unwontedly filled with the sewing-woman's
child, which had with superhuman efforts crawled into it, and
lay kicking and crowing in delight at its new cradle. Fleda
did not know how to enter upon her business.
"I have been looking," she began, "for a person who is willing
to go out to work. Miss Flora Quackenboss told me perhaps I
might find somebody here."
"Somebody to help?" said the woman, beginning to use her broom
upon the hearth. "Who wants 'em?"
"Mrs. Rossitur my aunt."
"Mrs. Rossitur? what, down to old Squire Ringgan's place?"
"Yes. We are left alone, and want somebody very much."
"Do you want her only a few days, or do you calculate to have
her stop longer? because you know it wouldn't be worth the
while to put oneself out for a week."
"Oh, we want her to stay; if we suit each other."
"Well, I don't know," said the woman, going on with her
sweeping. "I could let you have Hannah, but I 'spect I'll want
her to hum. What does Mis' Rossitur calculate to give?"
"I don't know anything that's reasonable."
"Hannah kin go just as good as not," said the old woman in
the corner, rubbing her hands up and down her lap "Hannah
kin go, just as good as not!"
"Hannah ain't a-going," said the first speaker, answering
without looking at her. "Hannah 'll be wanted to hum; and she
aint a well girl neither; she's kind o' weak in her muscles;
and I calculate you'll want somebody that call take hold
lively. There's Lucy, if she took a notion, she could go but
she'd please herself about it. She wont do nothing without she
has a notion."
This was inconclusive, and desiring to bring matters to a
point, Fleda, after a pause, asked if this lady thought Lucy
would have a notion to go.
"Well, I can't say she ain't to hum, or you could ask her.
She's down to Mis' Douglass's, working for her to-day. Do you
know Mis' Douglass? Earl Douglass's wife?"
"O yes, I knew her long ago," said Fleda, thinking it might be
as well to throw in a spice of ingratiation. "I am Fleda
Ringgan. I used to live here with my grandfather."
"Don't say! Well, I thought you had a kind o' look the old
Squire's granddarter, ain't you?"
"She looks like her father," said the sewing-woman, laying
down her needle, which indeed had been little hindrance to her
admiration since Fleda came in.
"She's a real pretty gal," said the old woman in the corner.
"He was as smart a looking man as there was in Queechy
township, or Montepoole either," the sewing-woman went on, "Do
you mind him, Flidda?"
"Anastasy," said the old woman aside, "let Hannah go!"
"Hannah's a-going to keep to hum Well, about Lucy," she
said, as Fleda rose to go "I can't just say suppos'n you
come here to-morrow afternoon there's a few coming to quilt
and Lucy 'll be to hum then. I should admire to have you,
and then you and Lucy can agree what you'll fix upon. You can
get somebody to bring you, can't you?"
Fleda inwardly shrank, but managed to get off with thanks, and
without making a positive promise, which Miss Anastasia would
fain have had. She was glad to be out of the house, and
driving off with Hugh.
"How delicious the open air feels!"
"What has this visit produced?" said Hugh.
"An invitation to a party, and a slight possibility that at
the party I may find what I want."
"A party," said Hugh. Fleda laughed and explained.
"And do you intend to go?"
"Not I at least I think not. But, Hugh, don't say anything
about all this to aunt Lucy. She would be troubled."
Fleda had certainly, when she came away, no notion of
improving her acquaintance with Miss Anastasia; but the
supper, and the breakfast and the dinner of the next day, with
all the nameless and almost numberless duties of house work
that filled up the time between, wrought her to a very strong
sense of the necessity of having some kind of "help" soon.
Mrs. Rossitur wearied herself excessively with doing very
little, and then looked so sad to see Fleda working on, that
it was more disheartening and harder to bear than the fatigue.
Hugh was a most faithful and invaluable coadjutor, and his
lack of strength was, like her own, made up by energy of will;
but neither of them could bear the strain long; and when the
final clearing away of the dinner-dishes gave her a breathing-
time, she resolved to dress herself, and put her thimble in
her pocket, and go over to Miss Finn's quilting. Miss Lucy
might not be like Miss Anastasia; and if she were, anything
that had hands and feet to move instead of her own, would be
welcome.
Hugh went with her to the door, and was to come for her at
sunset.