WHATEVER DOUBTS and anxieties I may have had about the inconvenience of
the Begg's high wagon for a person of Mrs. Blackett's age and shortness,
they were happily overcome by the aid of a chair and her own valiant
spirit. Mrs. Todd bestowed great care upon seating us as if we were
taking passage by boat, but she finally pronounced that we were properly
trimmed. When we had gone only a little way up the hill she remembered
that she had left the house door wide open, though the large key was
safe in her pocket. I offered to run back, but my offer was met with
lofty scorn, and we lightly dismissed the matter from our minds, until
two or three miles further on we met the doctor, and Mrs. Todd asked him
to stop and ask her nearest neighbor to step over and close the door if
the dust seemed to blow in the afternoon.
“She'll be there in her kitchen; she'll hear you the minute you call;
'twont give you no delay,” said Mrs. Todd to the doctor. “Yes, Mis'
Dennett's right there, with the windows all open. It isn't as if my fore
door opened right on the road, anyway.” At which proof of composure Mrs.
Blackett smiled wisely at me.
The doctor seemed delighted to see our guest; they were evidently the
warmest friends, and I saw a look of affectionate confidence in their
eyes. The good man left his carriage to speak to us, but as he took Mrs.
Blackett's hand he held it a moment, and, as if merely from force of
habit, felt her pulse as they talked; then to my delight he gave the
firm old wrist a commending pat.
“You're wearing well; good for another ten years at this rate,” he
assured her cheerfully, and she smiled back. “I like to keep a strict
account of my old stand-bys,” and he turned to me. “Don't you let Mrs.
Todd overdo to-day,--old folks like her are apt to be thoughtless;” and
then we all laughed, and, parting, went our ways gayly.
“I suppose he puts up with your rivalry the same as ever?” asked Mrs.
Blackett. “You and he are as friendly as ever, I see, Almiry,” and
Almira sagely nodded.
“He's got too many long routes now to stop to 'tend to all his door
patients,” she said, “especially them that takes pleasure in talkin'
themselves over. The doctor and me have got to be kind of partners; he's
gone a good deal, far an' wide. Looked tired, didn't he? I shall have to
advise with him an' get him off for a good rest. He'll take the big boat
from Rockland an' go off up to Boston an' mouse round among the other
doctors, one in two or three years, and come home fresh as a boy. I
guess they think consider'ble of him up there.” Mrs. Todd shook the
reins and reached determinedly for the whip, as if she were compelling
public opinion.
Whatever energy and spirit the white horse had to begin with were soon
exhausted by the steep hills and his discernment of a long expedition
ahead. We toiled slowly along. Mrs. Blackett and I sat together, and
Mrs. Todd sat alone in front with much majesty and the large basket of
provisions. Part of the way the road was shaded by thick woods, but we
also passed one farmhouse after another on the high uplands, which we
all three regarded with deep interest, the house itself and the barns
and garden-spots and poultry all having to suffer an inspection of the
shrewdest sort. This was a highway quite new to me; in fact, most of my
journeys with Mrs. Todd had been made afoot and between the roads, in
open pasturelands. My friends stopped several times for brief dooryard
visits, and made so many promises of stopping again on the way home
that I began to wonder how long the expedition would last. I had often
noticed how warmly Mrs. Todd was greeted by her friends, but it was
hardly to be compared with the feeling now shown toward Mrs. Blackett.
A look of delight came to the faces of those who recognized the plain,
dear old figure beside me; one revelation after another was made of the
constant interest and intercourse that had linked the far island and
these scattered farms into a golden chain of love and dependence.
“Now, we mustn't stop again if we can help it,” insisted Mrs. Todd at
last. “You'll get tired, mother, and you'll think the less o' reunions.
We can visit along here any day. There, if they ain't frying doughnuts
in this next house, too! These are new folks, you know, from over St.
George way; they took this old Talcot farm last year. 'Tis the best
water on the road, and the check-rein's come undone--yes, we'd best
delay a little and water the horse.”
We stopped, and seeing a party of pleasure-seekers in holiday attire,
the thin, anxious mistress of the farmhouse came out with wistful
sympathy to hear what news we might have to give. Mrs. Blackett
first spied her at the half-closed door, and asked with such cheerful
directness if we were trespassing that, after a few words, she went back
to her kitchen and reappeared with a plateful of doughnuts.
“Entertainment for man and beast,” announced Mrs. Todd with
satisfaction. “Why, we've perceived there was new doughnuts all along
the road, but you're the first that has treated us.”
Our new acquaintance flushed with pleasure, but said nothing.
“They're very nice; you've had good luck with 'em,” pronounced Mrs.
Todd. “Yes, we've observed there was doughnuts all the way along; if one
house is frying all the rest is; 'tis so with a great many things.”
“I don't suppose likely you're goin' up to the Bowden reunion?” asked
the hostess as the white horse lifted his head and we were saying
good-by.
“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Blackett and Mrs. Todd and I, all together.
“I am connected with the family. Yes, I expect to be there this
afternoon. I've been lookin' forward to it,” she told us eagerly.
“We shall see you there. Come and sit with us if it's convenient,” said
dear Mrs. Blackett, and we drove away.
“I wonder who she was before she was married?” said Mrs. Todd, who was
usually unerring in matters of genealogy. “She must have been one of
that remote branch that lived down beyond Thomaston. We can find out
this afternoon. I expect that the families'll march together, or be
sorted out some way. I'm willing to own a relation that has such proper
ideas of doughnuts.”
“I seem to see the family looks,” said Mrs. Blackett. “I wish we'd asked
her name. She's a stranger, and I want to help make it pleasant for all
such.”
“She resembles Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about the forehead,” said Mrs. Todd
with decision.
We had just passed a piece of woodland that shaded the road, and come
out to some open fields beyond, when Mrs. Todd suddenly reined in the
horse as if somebody had stood on the roadside and stopped her. She even
gave that quick reassuring nod of her head which was usually made to
answer for a bow, but I discovered that she was looking eagerly at a
tall ash-tree that grew just inside the field fence.
“I thought 'twas goin' to do well,” she said complacently as we went on
again. “Last time I was up this way that tree was kind of drooping and
discouraged. Grown trees act that way sometimes, same's folks; then
they'll put right to it and strike their roots off into new ground and
start all over again with real good courage. Ash-trees is very likely to
have poor spells; they ain't got the resolution of other trees.”
I listened hopefully for more; it was this peculiar wisdom that made one
value Mrs. Todd's pleasant company.
“There's sometimes a good hearty tree growin' right out of the bare
rock, out o' some crack that just holds the roots;” she went on to say,
“right on the pitch o' one o' them bare stony hills where you can't seem
to see a wheel-barrowful o' good earth in a place, but that tree'll keep
a green top in the driest summer. You lay your ear down to the ground
an' you'll hear a little stream runnin'. Every such tree has got its own
livin' spring; there's folk made to match 'em.”
I could not help turning to look at Mrs. Blackett, close beside me. Her
hands were clasped placidly in their thin black woolen gloves, and
she was looking at the flowery wayside as we went slowly along, with a
pleased, expectant smile. I do not think she had heard a word about the
trees.
“I just saw a nice plant o' elecampane growin' back there,” she said
presently to her daughter.
“I haven't got my mind on herbs to-day,” responded Mrs. Todd, in the
most matter-of-fact way. “I'm bent on seeing folks,” and she shook the
reins again.
I for one had no wish to hurry, it was so pleasant in the shady roads.
The woods stood close to the road on the right; on the left were narrow
fields and pastures where there were as many acres of spruces and pines
as there were acres of bay and juniper and huckleberry, with a little
turf between. When I thought we were in the heart of the inland country,
we reached the top of a hill, and suddenly there lay spread out before
us a wonderful great view of well-cleared fields that swept down to
the wide water of a bay. Beyond this were distant shores like another
country in the midday haze which half hid the hills beyond, and the
faraway pale blue mountains on the northern horizon. There was a
schooner with all sails set coming down the bay from a white village
that was sprinkled on the shore, and there were many sailboats flitting
about it. It was a noble landscape, and my eyes, which had grown used to
the narrow inspection of a shaded roadside, could hardly take it in.
“Why, it's the upper bay,” said Mrs. Todd. “You can see 'way over into
the town of Fessenden. Those farms 'way over there are all in Fessenden.
Mother used to have a sister that lived up that shore. If we started as
early's we could on a summer mornin', we couldn't get to her place from
Green Island till late afternoon, even with a fair, steady breeze, and
you had to strike the time just right so as to fetch up 'long o' the
tide and land near the flood. 'Twas ticklish business, an' we didn't
visit back an' forth as much as mother desired. You have to go 'way down
the co'st to Cold Spring Light an' round that long point,--up here's
what they call the Back Shore.”
“No, we were 'most always separated, my dear sister and me, after the
first year she was married,” said Mrs. Blackett. “We had our little
families an' plenty o' cares. We were always lookin' forward to the time
we could see each other more. Now and then she'd get out to the island
for a few days while her husband'd go fishin'; and once he stopped with
her an' two children, and made him some flakes right there and cured all
his fish for winter. We did have a beautiful time together, sister an'
me; she used to look back to it long's she lived.
“I do love to look over there where she used to live,” Mrs. Blackett
went on as we began to go down the hill. “It seems as if she must still
be there, though she's long been gone. She loved their farm,--she didn't
see how I got so used to our island; but somehow I was always happy from
the first.”
“Yes, it's very dull to me up among those slow farms,” declared Mrs.
Todd. “The snow troubles 'em in winter. They're all besieged by winter,
as you may say; 'tis far better by the shore than up among such places.
I never thought I should like to live up country.”
“Why, just see the carriages ahead of us on the next rise!” exclaimed
Mrs. Blackett. “There's going to be a great gathering, don't you believe
there is, Almiry? It hasn't seemed up to now as if anybody was going but
us. An' 'tis such a beautiful day, with yesterday cool and pleasant to
work an' get ready, I shouldn't wonder if everybody was there, even the
slow ones like Phebe Ann Brock.”
Mrs. Blackett's eyes were bright with excitement, and even Mrs. Todd
showed remarkable enthusiasm. She hurried the horse and caught up with
the holiday-makers ahead. “There's all the Dep'fords goin', six in the
wagon,” she told us joyfully; “an' Mis' Alva Tilley's folks are now
risin' the hill in their new carry-all.”
Mrs. Blackett pulled at the neat bow of her black bonnet-strings, and
tied them again with careful precision. “I believe your bonnet's on
a little bit sideways, dear,” she advised Mrs. Todd as if she were a
child; but Mrs. Todd was too much occupied to pay proper heed. We began
to feel a new sense of gayety and of taking part in the great occasion
as we joined the little train.