THE FEAST was a noble feast, as has already been said. There was an
elegant ingenuity displayed in the form of pies which delighted my
heart. Once acknowledge that an American pie is far to be preferred to
its humble ancestor, the English tart, and it is joyful to be reassured
at a Bowden reunion that invention has not yet failed. Beside a
delightful variety of material, the decorations went beyond all my
former experience; dates and names were wrought in lines of pastry and
frosting on the tops. There was even more elaborate reading matter on an
excellent early-apple pie which we began to share and eat, precept upon
precept. Mrs. Todd helped me generously to the whole word BOWDEN, and
consumed REUNION herself, save an undecipherable fragment; but the most
renowned essay in cookery on the tables was a model of the old Bowden
house made of durable gingerbread, with all the windows and doors in the
right places, and sprigs of genuine lilac set at the front. It must have
been baked in sections, in one of the last of the great brick ovens, and
fastened together on the morning of the day. There was a general sigh
when this fell into ruin at the feast's end, and it was shared by a
great part of the assembly, not without seriousness, and as if it were
a pledge and token of loyalty. I met the maker of the gingerbread house,
which had called up lively remembrances of a childish story. She had the
gleaming eye of an enthusiast and a look of high ideals.
“I could just as well have made it all of frosted cake,” she said, “but
'twouldn't have been the right shade; the old house, as you observe, was
never painted, and I concluded that plain gingerbread would represent it
best. It wasn't all I expected it would be,” she said sadly, as many an
artist had said before her of his work.
There were speeches by the ministers; and there proved to be a historian
among the Bowdens, who gave some fine anecdotes of the family history;
and then appeared a poetess, whom Mrs. Todd regarded with wistful
compassion and indulgence, and when the long faded garland of verses
came to an appealing end, she turned to me with words of praise.
“Sounded pretty,” said the generous listener. “Yes, I thought she did
very well. We went to school together, an' Mary Anna had a very hard
time; trouble was, her mother thought she'd given birth to a genius,
an' Mary Anna's come to believe it herself. There, I don't know what
we should have done without her; there ain't nobody else that can write
poetry between here and 'way up towards Rockland; it adds a great deal
at such a time. When she speaks o' those that are gone, she feels it
all, and so does everybody else, but she harps too much. I'd laid half
of that away for next time, if I was Mary Anna. There comes mother to
speak to her, an' old Mr. Gilbreath's sister; now she'll be heartened
right up. Mother'll say just the right thing.”
The leave-takings were as affecting as the meetings of these old friends
had been. There were enough young persons at the reunion, but it is the
old who really value such opportunities; as for the young, it is the
habit of every day to meet their comrades,--the time of separation
has not come. To see the joy with which these elder kinsfolk and
acquaintances had looked in one another's faces, and the lingering touch
of their friendly hands; to see these affectionate meetings and then the
reluctant partings, gave one a new idea of the isolation in which it was
possible to live in that after all thinly settled region. They did not
expect to see one another again very soon; the steady, hard work on
the farms, the difficulty of getting from place to place, especially in
winter when boats were laid up, gave double value to any occasion which
could bring a large number of families together. Even funerals in this
country of the pointed firs were not without their social advantages
and satisfactions. I heard the words “next summer” repeated many times,
though summer was still ours and all the leaves were green.
The boats began to put out from shore, and the wagons to drive away.
Mrs. Blackett took me into the old house when we came back from the
grove: it was her father's birthplace and early home, and she had spent
much of her own childhood there with her grandmother. She spoke of those
days as if they had but lately passed; in fact, I could imagine that
the house looked almost exactly the same to her. I could see the brown
rafters of the unfinished roof as I looked up the steep staircase,
though the best room was as handsome with its good wainscoting and touch
of ornament on the cornice as any old room of its day in a town.
Some of the guests who came from a distance were still sitting in the
best room when we went in to take leave of the master and mistress of
the house. We all said eagerly what a pleasant day it had been, and
how swiftly the time had passed. Perhaps it is the great national
anniversaries which our country has lately kept, and the soldiers'
meetings that take place everywhere, which have made reunions of every
sort the fashion. This one, at least, had been very interesting. I
fancied that old feuds had been overlooked, and the old saying that
blood is thicker than water had again proved itself true, though from
the variety of names one argued a certain adulteration of the Bowden
traits and belongings. Clannishness is an instinct of the heart,--it is
more than a birthright, or a custom; and lesser rights were forgotten in
the claim to a common inheritance.
We were among the very last to return to our proper lives and lodgings.
I came near to feeling like a true Bowden, and parted from certain new
friends as if they were old friends; we were rich with the treasure of a
new remembrance.
At last we were in the high wagon again; the old white horse had been
well fed in the Bowden barn, and we drove away and soon began to climb
the long hill toward the wooded ridge. The road was new to me, as roads
always are, going back. Most of our companions had been full of anxious
thoughts of home,--of the cows, or of young children likely to fall
into disaster,--but we had no reasons for haste, and drove slowly along,
talking and resting by the way. Mrs. Todd said once that she really
hoped her front door had been shut on account of the dust blowing in,
but added that nothing made any weight on her mind except not to forget
to turn a few late mullein leaves that were drying on a newspaper in the
little loft. Mrs. Blackett and I gave our word of honor that we would
remind her of this heavy responsibility. The way seemed short, we had
so much to talk about. We climbed hills where we could see the great
bay and the islands, and then went down into shady valleys where the air
began to feel like evening, cool and camp with a fragrance of wet ferns.
Mrs. Todd alighted once or twice, refusing all assistance in securing
some boughs of a rare shrub which she valued for its bark, though she
proved incommunicative as to her reasons. We passed the house where we
had been so kindly entertained with doughnuts earlier in the day, and
found it closed and deserted, which was a disappointment.
“They must have stopped to tea somewheres and thought they'd finish up
the day,” said Mrs. Todd. “Those that enjoyed it best'll want to get
right home so's to think it over.”
“I didn't see the woman there after all, did you?” asked Mrs. Blackett
as the horse stopped to drink at the trough.
“Oh yes, I spoke with her,” answered Mrs. Todd, with but scant interest
or approval. “She ain't a member o' our family.”
“I thought you said she resembled Cousin Pa'lina Bowden about the
forehead,” suggested Mrs. Blackett.
“Well, she don't,” answered Mrs. Todd impatiently. “I ain't one that's
ord'narily mistaken about family likenesses, and she didn't seem to meet
with friends, so I went square up to her. 'I expect you're a Bowden by
your looks,' says I. 'Yes, I can take it you're one o' the Bowdens.'
'Lor', no,' says she. 'Dennett was my maiden name, but I married a
Bowden for my first husband. I thought I'd come an' just see what was
a-goin' on!”
Mrs. Blackett laughed heartily. “I'm goin' to remember to tell William
o' that,” she said. “There, Almiry, the only thing that's troubled me
all this day is to think how William would have enjoyed it. I do so wish
William had been there.”
“I sort of wish he had, myself,” said Mrs. Todd frankly.
“There wa'n't many old folks there, somehow,” said Mrs. Blackett, with
a touch of sadness in her voice. “There ain't so many to come as there
used to be, I'm aware, but I expected to see more.”
“I thought they turned out pretty well, when you come to think of it;
why, everybody was sayin' so an' feelin' gratified,” answered Mrs. Todd
hastily with pleasing unconsciousness; then I saw the quick color flash
into her cheek, and presently she made some excuse to turn and steal an
anxious look at her mother. Mrs. Blackett was smiling and thinking about
her happy day, though she began to look a little tired. Neither of my
companions was troubled by her burden of years. I hoped in my heart that
I might be like them as I lived on into age, and then smiled to think
that I too was no longer very young. So we always keep the same hearts,
though our outer framework fails and shows the touch of time.
“'Twas pretty when they sang the hymn, wasn't it?” asked Mrs. Blackett
at suppertime, with real enthusiasm. “There was such a plenty o' men's
voices; where I sat it did sound beautiful. I had to stop and listen
when they came to the last verse.”
I saw that Mrs. Todd's broad shoulders began to shake. “There was good
singers there; yes, there was excellent singers,” she agreed heartily,
putting down her teacup, “but I chanced to drift alongside Mis' Peter
Bowden o' Great Bay, an' I couldn't help thinkin' if she was as far out
o' town as she was out o' tune, she wouldn't get back in a day.”