THE PORTRAIT SMILES.
Our fine Virginia autumn not only dowers the world with beautiful
forests, and fresh breezes, and a thousand lovely aspects of the
beautiful world--fine golden sunsets, musical dawns, and gorgeous
noontides full of languid glory;--it also has its direct influence on
the mind.
Would you dream? Go to the autumn woods; the life there is one golden
round of fancies, such as come alone beneath waning forests, where
the glories of the flower-crowned summer have yielded to a spell more
powerful, objects more enthralling--because those objects have the
charm of a maiden slowly passing, with a loveliness a thousand times
increased, and sublimated, to the holy skies.
Would you have active life? That is there too--the deer, and sound
of bugles rattling through the trees, and rousing echoes which go
flashing through the hills, and filling the whole universe with
jubilant laughter. Every mood has something offered for its
entertainment in the grand autumns of our Blue-Ridge dominated land:
chiefly the thoughtful, however, the serene and happy.
You dream there, under the boughs all gold, and blue, and crimson.
Little things which obscured the eternal landscape, pass away, and the
great stars, above the world, come out and flood the mind with a far
other light than that which flowed from earthly tapers and rushlights.
The heart is purer for such hours of thought; and as the splendid
autumn marches on with pensive smiles, you see a glory in his waning
cheek which neither the tender Spring, nor the rich, glittering Summer
ever approached--an expression of hope and resignation which is
greater than strength and victory. Ah, me! if we could always look,
like autumn, on the coming storms and freezing snows, and see the
light and warmth beyond the veil!
Verty went on beneath the autumn skies, and through the woods, the
rustle of whose leaves was music to his forest-trained ear; and so
arrived at Apple Orchard as the sun was setting brightly behind the
pines, which he kindled gloriously.
Redbud was seated at the window; and the kind eyes and lips
brightened, as the form of the young man became visible.
Verty dismounted and entered.
"I am very glad to see you!" said Redbud, smiling, and holding out her
small hand; "what a sweet evening for your ride home."
Redbud was clad with her usual grace and simplicity. Her beautiful
golden hair was brushed back from the pure, white forehead; her throat
was enveloped in a circlet of diaphanous lace, and beneath this, as
she breathed, the red beads of the coral necklace were visible, rising
and falling with the pulsations of her heart. Redbud could not have
very readily explained the reason for her fancy in wearing the
necklace constantly. It was one of those caprices which every one
experiences at times;--and so, although the girl had quite a magazine
of such ornaments, she persisted in wearing the old necklace bought
from the pedlar. Perhaps the word Providence may explain the matter.
To the girl's observation, that he had a fine evening for his ride
homeward, Verty replied--Yes, that he had; that he could not go by,
however, without coming to see her.
And as he uttered these words, the simple and tender glances of the
two young persons encountered each other; and they both smiled.
"You know you are not very well," added Verty; "and I could'nt sleep
well if I did not know how you were, Redbud."
The girl thanked him with another smile, and said:
"I believe I am nearly well now; the cold I caught the other day has
entirely left me. I almost think I might take a stroll, if the sun was
not so low."
"It is half an hour high--that is, it will not get cool until then,"
Verty said.
"Do you think I would catch cold?" asked the girl, smiling.
"I don't know," Verty said.
"Well, I do not think I will, and you shall wrap me in your coat, if I
do," she said, laughing.
In ten minutes, Redbud and Verty were strolling through the grove, and
admiring the sunset.
"How pretty it is," she said, gazing with pensive pleasure on the
clouds; "and the old grove here is so still."
"Yes," Verty said, "I like the old grove very much. Do you see that
locust? It was just at the foot of it, that we found the hare's form,
when Dick mowed the grass. You recollect?"
"Oh, yes," Redbud replied; "and I remember what dear little creatures
they were--not bigger than an apple, and with such frightened eyes.
We put them back, you know, Verty--that is, I made you," she added,
laughing.
Verty laughed too.
"They were funny little creatures," he said; "and they would have
died--you know we never could have got the right things for them to
eat--yes! there, in the long grass! How Molly Cotton jumped away."
They walked on.
"Here, by the filbert bush, we used to bury the apples to get mellow,"
Verty said; "nice, yellow, soft things they were, when we dug them
up, with a smell of the earth about 'em! They were not like the June
apples we used to get in the garden, where they dropped among the
corn--their striped, red sides all covered with dust!"
"I liked the June apples the best," Redbud said, "but I think October
is finer than June."
"Oh, yes. Redbud, I am going to get some filberts--will you have
some?"
"If you please."
So Verty went to the bushes, and brought his hat full of them, and
cracked them on a stone--the sun lighting up his long, tangled curls,
and making brighter his bright smile.
Redbud stooped down, and gathered the kernels as they jumped from the
shell, laughing and happy.
They had returned to their childhood again--bright and tender
childhood, which dowers our after life with so many tender, mournful,
happy memorials;--whose breezes fan our weary brows so often as we go
on over the thorny path, once a path of flowers. They were once
more children, and they wandered thus through the beautiful forest,
collecting their memories, laughing here, sighing there--and giving an
association or a word to every feature of the little landscape.
"How many things I remember," Verty said, thoughtfully, and smiling;
"there, where Milo, the good dog, was buried, and a shot fired over
him--there, where we treed the squirrel--and over yonder, by the run,
which I used to think flowed by from fairy land--I remember so many
things!"
"Yes--I do too," replied the girl, thoughtfully, bending her head.
"How singular it is that an Indian boy like me should have been
brought up here," Verty said, buried in thought; "I think my life is
stranger than what they call a romance."
Redbud made no reply.
"_Ma mere_ would never tell me anything about myself," the young man
went on, wistfully, "and I can't know anything except from her. I must
be a Dacotah or a Delaware."
Redbud remained thoughtful for some moments, then raising her head,
said:
"I do not believe you are an Indian, Verty. There is some mystery
about you which I think the old Indian woman should tell. She
certainly is not your mother," said Redbud, with a little smiling air
of dogmatism.
"I don't know," Verty replied, "but I wish I did know. I used to be
proud of being an Indian, but since I have grown up, and read how
wicked they were, I wish I was not.
"You are not."
"Well, I think so, too," he replied; "I am not a bit like _ma mere_,
who has long, straight black hair, and a face the color of that
maple--dear _ma mere_!--while I have light hair, always getting rolled
up. My face is different, too--I mean the color--I am sun-burned, but
I remember when my face was very white."
And Verty smiled.
"I would ask her all about it," Redbud said.
"I think I will," was the reply; "but she don't seem to like it,
Redbud--it seems to worry her."
"But it is important to you, Verty."
"Yes, indeed it is."
"Ask her this evening."
"Do you advise me?"
"Yes. I think you ought to; indeed I do."
"Well, I will," Verty said; "and I know when _ma mere_ understands
that I am not happy as long as she does not tell me everything, she
will speak to me."
"I think so, too," said Redbud; "and now, Verty, there is one thing
more--trust in God, you know, is everything. He will do all for the
best."
"Oh, yes," the young man said, as they turned toward Apple Orchard
house again, "I am getting to do that--and I pray now, Redbud," he
added, looking toward the sky, "I pray to the Great Spirit, as we call
him--"
Redbud looked greatly delighted, and said:
"That is better than all; I do not see how any one can live without
praying."
"I used to," Verty replied.
"It was so wrong."
"Yes, yes."
"And Verty gazed at the sunset with his dreamy, yet kindling eyes.
"If there is a Great Spirit, we ought to talk to him," he said, "and
tell him what we want, and ask him to make us good; I think so at
least--"
"Indeed we should."
"Then," continued Verty, "if that is true, we ought to think whether
there is or is not such a spirit. There may be people in towns
who don't believe there is--but I am obliged to. Look at the sun,
Redbud--the beautiful sun going away like a great torch dying
out;--and look at the clouds, as red as if a thousand deer had come to
their death, and poured their blood out in a river! Look at the woods
here, every color of the bow in the cloud, and the streams, and rocks,
and all! There must be a Great Spirit who loves men, or he never would
have made the world so beautiful."
Verty paused, and they went on slowly.
"We love him because he first loved us," said Redbud, thoughtfully.
"Yes, and what a love it must have been. Oh me!" said the young man,
"I sometimes think of it until my heart is melted to water, and my
eyes begin to feel heavy. What love it was!--and if we do not love in
return, what punishment is great enough for such a crime!"
And Verty's face was raised with a dreamy, reverent look toward the
sky. Youth, manhood, age--if they but thought of it!--but youth is a
dream--manhood the waking--age the return to slumber. Busy, arranging
the drapery of their couches, whether of royal purple or of beggar's
rags, they cannot find the time to think of other things--even to
listen to the grim breakers, with their awful voices roaring on the
lee!
So, under the autumn skies, the young man and the maiden drew near
home. Apple Orchard smiled on them as they came, and the bluff Squire,
seated upon the portico, and reading that "Virginia Gazette" maligned
by Roundjacket, gave them welcome with a hearty, laughing greeting.
The Squire declared that Redbud's cheeks were beginning to be
tolerably red again; that she had been pretending sickness only--and
then, with a vituperative epithet addressed to Caesar, the old
gentleman re-commenced reading.
Redbud and Verty entered; and then the young man held out his hand.
"Are you going?" said the girl.
"Yes," he said, smiling, "unless you will sing me something. Oh, yes!
let me go away with music in my ears. Sing '_Dulce Domum_' for me,
Redbud."
The young girl assented, with a smile; and sitting down at the
harpsichord, sang the fine old ditty in her soft, tender voice, which
was the very echo of joy and kindness. The gentle carol floated on
the evening air, and seemed to make the autumn twilight brighter,
everything more lovely--and Verty listened with a look more dreamy
than before.
Then, as she sung, his eye was turned to the picture on the wall,
which looked down with its loving eyes upon them.
Redbud ceased, and turned and saw the object of his regard.
"Mamma," she said, in a low, thoughtful voice,--"I love to think of
her."
And rising, she stood beside Verty, who was still looking at the
portrait.
"She must have been very good," he murmured; "I think her face is full
of kindness."
Redbud gazed softly at the portrait, and, as she mused, the dews of
love and memory suffused her tender eyes, and she turned away.
"I love the face," said Verty, softly; "and I think she must have been
a kind, good mother, Redbud. I thought just now that she was listening
to you as you sang."
And Verty gazed at the young girl, with a tenderness which filled her
eyes with delight.
"She will bless you out of Heaven," he continued, timidly; "for you
are so beautiful and good--so very beautiful!"
And a slight tremor passed over the young man's frame as he spoke.
Redbud did not reply; a deep blush suffused her face, and she murmured
something. Then the young head drooped, and the face turned away.
The last ray of sunlight gleamed upon her hair and pure white
forehead, and then fled away--the day was ended.
Verty saw it, and held out his hand.
"We have had a happy evening, at least I have," he said, in a low
voice; "the autumn is so beautiful, and you are so kind and good."
She did not speak; but a faint wistful smile came to her lips as she
placed her hand softly in his own.
"Look! the picture is smiling on you now!" said Verty; "you are just
alike--both so beautiful!"
"Oh!" murmured Redbud, blushing; "like mamma?"
"Yes," said Verty, "and I saw the lips smile when I spoke."
They stood thus hand in hand--the tender mother-eyes upon them: then
he turned and went away, looking back tenderly to the last.
Had the dim canvas smiled upon them, as they stood there hand in
hand--a blessing on them from the far other world?