MAKING HAY.
June had changed for July; but no heats ever withered the green of the
Pleasant Valley hills, nor browned its pastures; and no droughts ever
stopped the tinkling of its rills and brooks, which rolled down, every
one of them, over gravelly pebbly beds to lose themselves in lake or
river. Sun enough to cure the hay and ripen the grain, they had; and
July was sweet with the perfume of hayfield, and lovely with brown
hayricks, and musical with the whetting of scythes. Mrs. Starling's
little farm had a good deal of grass land; and the haying was
proportionally a busy season. For haymakers, according to the general
tradition of the country, in common with reapers, are expected to eat
more than ordinary men, or men in ordinary employments; and to furnish
the meals for the day kept both Mrs. Starling and her daughter busy.
It was mid-afternoon, sunny, perfumed, still; the afternoon luncheon
had gone out to the men, who were cutting then in the meadow which
surrounded the house. Diana found her hands free; and had gone up to
her room, not to rest, for she was not tired, but to get out of the
atmosphere of the kitchen and breathe a few minutes without thinking of
cheese and gingerbread. She had begun to change her dress; but leisure
wooed her, and she took up a book and presently forgot even that care
in the delight of getting into a region of _thought_. For Diana's book
was not a novel; few such found their way to Pleasant Valley, and
seldom one to Mrs. Starling's house. Her father's library was quite
unexhausted still, its volumes took so long to read and needed so much
thinking over; and now she was deep in a treatise more solid and less
attractive than most young women are willing to read. It carried her
out of the round of daily duties and took her away from Pleasant Valley
altogether, and so was a great refreshment. Besides, Diana liked
thinking.
Once or twice a creak of a farm waggon was heard along the road; it was
too well known a sound to awake her attention; then came a sound far
less common--the sharp trot of a horse moving without wheels behind
him. Diana started instantly and went to a window that commanded the
road. The sound ceased, but she saw why; the rider had reined in his
steed and was walking slowly past; the same rider she had expected to
see, with the dark uniform and the soldier's cap. He looked hard at
the place; could he be stopping? The next moment Diana had flown back
to her own room, had dropped the dress which was half off, and was
arraying herself in a fresh print; and she was down-stairs almost as
soon as the visitor knocked. Diana opened the door. She knew Mrs.
Starling was deep in supper preparations, mingled with provisions for
the next day's lunches.
Uniforms have a great effect, to eyes unaccustomed to them. How Lieut.
Knowlton came to be wearing his uniform in the country, so far away
from any post, I don't know; perhaps he did. He _said_, that he had
nothing else he liked for riding in. But a blue frock, with gold bars
across the shoulders and military buttons, is more graceful than a
frieze coat. And it was a gracious, graceful head that was bared at the
sight of the door-opener.
"You see," he said with a smile, "I couldn't go by! The other day I was
your pensioner, in kindness. Now I want to come in my own character, if
you'll let me."
"Is it different from the character I saw the other day?" said Diana,
as she led the way into the parlour.
"You did not see my character the other day, did you?"
"I saw what you showed me!"
He laughed, and then laughed again; looking a little surprised, a good
deal amused.
"I would give a great deal to know what you thought of me."
"Why would you?" Diana said, quite quietly.
"That I might correct your mistakes, of course."
"Suppose I made any mistakes," said Diana, "you could only tell me that
you thought differently. I don't see that I should be much wiser."
"I find I made a mistake about you!" he said, laughing again, but
shaking his head. "But every person is like a new language to those
that see him for the first time; don't you think so? One has to learn
the signs of the language by degrees, before one can read it off like a
book."
"I never thought about that," said Diana. "No; I think that is true of
_some_ people; not everybody. All the Pleasant Valley people seem to me
to belong to one language. All except one, perhaps."
"Who is the exception?" Mr. Knowlton asked quickly.
"I don't know whether you know him."
"O, I know everybody here--or I used to."
"I was thinking of somebody who didn't use to be here. He has only just
come. I mean Mr. Masters."
"The parson?"
"Yes."
"I don't know him much. I suppose he belongs to the _parson_ language,
to carry on our figure. They all do."
"He don't," said Diana. "That is what struck me in him. What are the
signs of the 'parson' language?"
"A black coat and a white neckcloth, to begin with."
"He dresses in grey," said Diana laughing, "or in white; and wears any
sort of a cravat."
"To go on,--Generally a grave face and a manner of great propriety;
with a square way of arranging words."
"Mr. Masters has no manner at all; and he is one of the most
entertaining people I ever knew."
"Jolly sort, eh?"
"No, I think not," said Diana; "I don't know exactly what you mean by
jolly; he is never silly, and he does not laugh much particularly; but
he can make other people laugh."
"Well, another sign is, they put a religious varnish over common
things. Do you recognise that?"
"I recognise that, for I have seen it; but it isn't true of Mr.
Masters."
"I give him up," said young Knowlton. "I am sure I shouldn't like him."
"Why, do you _like_ these common signs of the 'parson language,' as you
call it, that you have been reckoning?"
The answer was a decided negative accompanied with a laugh again; and
then Diana's visitor turned the conversation to the country, and the
place, and the elm trees; looked out of the window and observed that
the haymakers were at work near the house, and finally said he must go
out to look at them nearer--he had not made hay since he was a boy.
He went out, and Diana went back to her mother in the lean-to.
"Mother, young Mr. Knowlton is here."
"Well, keep him out o' _my_ way; that's all I ask."
"Haven't you got through yet?"
"Through! There was but one single pan of ginger-bread left this noon;
and there ain't more'n three loaves o' bread in the pantry. What's that
among a tribe o' such grampuses? I've got to make biscuits for tea, Di;
and I may as well get the pie-crust off my hands at the same time;
it'll be so much done for to-morrow. I wish you'd pick over the
berries. And then I'll find you something else to do. If I had six
hands and two heads, I guess I could about get along."
"But, mother, it won't do for nobody to be in the parlour."
"I thought he was gone?"
"Only gone out into the field to see the haymakers."
"Queer company!" said Mrs. Starling, leaving her bowl of dough, with
flowery hands, to peer out of a window. "You may make your mind easy,
Di; he won't come in again. I declare! he's got his coat off and he's
gone at it himself; ain't that him?"
Diana looked and allowed that it was. Mr. Knowlton had got a rake in
hand, his coat hung on the fence, and he was raking hay as busily as
the best of them. Diana gave a little sigh, and turned to her pan of
berries. This young officer was a new language to her, and she would
have liked, she thought, to spell out a little more of its graceful
peculiarities. The berries took a good while. Meantime Mrs. Starling's
biscuit went into the oven, and a sweet smell began to come thereout.
Mrs. Starling bustled about setting the table; with cold pork and
pickles, and cheese and berry pie, and piles of bread brown and white.
Clearly the haymakers were expected to supper.
"Mother," said Diana doubtfully, when she had washed her hands from the
berry stains, "will you bring Mr. Knowlton out _here_ to tea, if he
should possibly stay?"
"He's gone, child, this age."
"No, he isn't."
"He ain't out yonder any more."
"But his horse stands by the fence under the elm."
"I wish he was farther, then! Yes, of course he'll come here, if he
takes supper with _me_ to-night. I don't think he will. I don't know
him, and I don't know as I want to."
But this vaguely expressed hope was disappointed. The young officer
came in, a little while before supper; laughingly asked Diana for some
water to wash his hands; and followed her out to the lean-to. There he
was introduced to Mrs. Starling, and informed her he had been doing her
work, begging to know if that did not entitle him to some supper. I
think Mrs. Starling was a little sorry then that she had not made
preparations to receive him more elegantly; but it was too late now;
she only rushed a little nervously to fetch him a finer white towel
than those which usually did kitchen duty for herself and Diana; and
then the biscuits were baked, and the farm hands came streaming in.
There were several of them, now in haying time, headed by Josiah Davis,
Mrs. Starling's ordinary stand-by. Heavy and clumsy, warm from the
hay-field, a little awkward at sight of the company, they filed in and
dropped into their several seats round one end of the table; and Mrs.
Starling could only play all her hospitable arts around her guest, to
make him forget if possible his unwonted companions. She served him
assiduously with the best she had on the table; she would not bring on
any dainties extra; and the young officer took kindly even to the pork
and pickles, and declared the brown bread was worth working for; and
when Mrs. Starling let fall a word of regretful apology, assured her
that in the times when he was a cadet he would have risked getting a
good many marks for the sake of such a meal.
"What are the marks for?" inquired Mrs. Starling curiously.
"Bad boys," he told her; and then went off to a discussion of her hay
crop, and a dissertation on the delights of making hay and the pleasure
he had had from it that afternoon; "something he did not very often
enjoy."
"Can't you make hay anywheres?" Mrs. Starling asked a little dryly.
He gravely assured her it would not be considered military.
"I don't know what military means," said Mrs. Starling. "_You_ are
military, ain't you?"
"Mean to be," he answered seriously.
"Well, you are. Then, I should think, whatever you do would be
military."
But at this giving of judgment, after a minute of, perhaps, endeavour
for self-control, Mr. Knowlton broke down and laughed furiously. Mrs.
Starling looked stern. Diana was in a state of indecision, whether to
laugh with her friend or frown with her mother; but the infection of
fun was too much for her--the pretty lips gave way. Maybe that was
encouragement for the offender; for he did not show any embarrassment
or express any contrition.
"You do me too much honour," he said as soon as he could make his voice
steady; "you do me too much honour, Mrs. Starling. I assure you, I have
been most unmilitary this afternoon; but really I am no better than a
boy when the temptation takes me; and the temptation of your meadow and
those long windrows was too much for me. I enjoyed it hugely. I am
coming again, may I?"
"You'll have to be quick about it, then," said Mrs Starling, not much
mollified; "there ain't much more haying to do on the home lot, I
guess. Ain't you 'most done, Josiah?"
"How?" said that worthy from the other end of the table. Mrs. Starling
had raised her voice, but Josiah's wits always wanted a knock at the
door before they would come forth to action.
"Hain't you 'most got through haying?"
"Not nigh."
"Why, what's to do?" inquired the mistress, with a new interest.
"There's all this here lot to finish, and all of Savin hill."
"Savin hill ain't but half in grass."
"Jes' so. There ain't a lock of it cut, though."
"If I was a man," said Mrs. Starling, "I believe I could get the better
o' twenty acres o' hay in less time than you take for it. However, I
ain't. Mr. Knowlton, do take one o' those cucumbers. I think there
ain't a green pickle equal to a cucumber--when it's tender and sharp,
as it had ought to be."
"I am sure everything under your hands is as it ought to be," said the
young officer, taking the cucumber. "I know these are. Your haymakers
have a good time," he added as the men rose, and there was a heavy
clangour of boots and grating chairs at the lower end of the table.
"They calculate to have it," said Mrs. Starling. "And all through
Pleasant Valley they do have it. There are no poor folks in the place;
and there ain't many that calls themselves rich; they all expect to be
comfortable; and I guess most of 'em be."
"Just the state of society in which-- There's a sweet little stream
running through your meadow, Miss Diana," said the young officer with a
sudden change of subject. "Where does it go to?"
"It makes a great many turns, through different farms, and then joins
your river--the Yellow River--that runs round Elmfield."
"That's a river; this brook is just what I like. I got tired with my
labours this afternoon, and then I threw myself down by the side of the
water to look at it. I lay there till I had almost forgotten what I was
about."
"Not in your shirt sleeves, just as you was?" inquired Mrs. Starling.
The inquiry drew another laugh from her guest; and he then asked Diana
where the brook came from. If it was pretty, followed up?
"Very pretty!" Diana said. "As soon as you get among the hills and in
the woods with it, it is as pretty as it can be; not a bit like what it
is here; full of rocks and pools and waterfalls; lovely!"
"Any fish?"
"Beautiful trout."
"Miss Diana, can you fish?"
"No. I never tried."
"Well, trout fishing is not exactly a thing that comes by nature. I
must go up that brook. I wish you would go and show me the way. When I
see anything pretty, I always want some one to point it out to, or I
can't half enjoy it."
"I think it would be the other way," said Diana. "I should be the one
to show the brook to you."
"You see if I don't make you find more pretty things than you ever knew
were there. Come! is it a bargain? I'll take my line and bring Mrs.
Starling some trout."
"When?" said Diana.
"Seems to me," said Mrs. Starling, "I could keep along a brook if I
could once get hold of it."
"Ah," said Mr. Knowlton, laughing, "you are a great deal cleverer than
I am. You have no idea how fast I can lose myself. Miss Diana, the
sooner the better, while this lovely weather lasts. Shall we say
to-morrow?"
"I'll be ready," said Diana.
"This weather ain't goin' to change in a hurry," remarked Mrs. Starling.
But the remark did not seem to be to the purpose. The appointment was
made for the following day at three o'clock; and Mr. Knowlton's visit
having come to an end, he mounted and galloped away.
"Three o'clock!" said Mrs. Starling. "Just the heat o' the day. And
trout, indeed! Don't you be a silly fish yourself, Diana."
"Mother!" said Diana. "I couldn't help going, when he asked me."
"You could ha' helped it if you'd wanted to, I s'pose."
Which was no doubt true, and Diana made no response; for she wanted to
go. She watched the golden promise of dawn the next morning; she
watched the cloudless vault of the sky, and secretly rejoiced within
herself that she would be ready.