"If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows that thou wouldst forget;
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills; no tears
Dim the sweet looks that nature wears."
The village of Ovid lay in a valley hollowed out of an otherwise level
country into a shallow basin. It called those who dwelt to the north
of it, Mountain Hayseeds; and those to the south of it, Swamp
Angels--compliments returned in kind, for the youths of the sections
thus flattered by Ovidian attention always referred to the villagers as
Ovid Idiots.
For the most part the houses in Ovid clustered closely together. Some
few of them were scattered half way up the sloping hill-sides, but
these dwellings were all built facing the village proper, and besides
being absurdly fore-shortened always wore a deprecating look as if
mutely conscious of their invidious positions. These hills of Ovid
were not very formidable, and from a short distance off, say, from
Andrew Cutler's clearing, one could see over their crests the gables of
the village.
There were but two long streets in the village, denominated the Front
Street and the Back Street.
Upon the Front Street stood the two churches, facing each other, being,
however, only in physical juxtaposition, for spiritually they were as
far as the poles apart. The one was a Methodist Church, and bore high
above its door the inscription, _Eva Methodist Church, A.D. 1860_.
This legend must once have been very glaring, seemingly jet black upon
a white surface, but some painter, well disposed to mankind evidently,
had swept his brush laden with white paint over this inscription. The
result was grateful to the eye, even if it did give rise to some
uncertainty as to what the words actually were. Great truths often
come home to one intuitively; perhaps that is how every one knew what
was writ above that door.
The Baptist Church was stone, and bore only a date, _1854 A.D._, but it
rejoiced in a tin-clad spire that glimmered gayly in the sunlight or
shone cold and chill beneath the wintry moon.
Between these two churches and the members thereof there was no
animosity, but there was a "feeling." A "feeling" is one of those
intangible, elusive things, of which no acceptable definition can be
given; but every new-comer to Ovid grew into that "feeling" before he
had been there a week. Perhaps some perception of this peculiar
condition may be gathered by considering the various improvements which
took place in the two churches during one autumn in Ovid.
They were inaugurated by Hiram Green, who presented a stone tie-post to
the Methodist Church. Hiram kept the village grocery store, and had
accepted six stone tie-posts in lieu of certain goods supplied to the
boarding-house at the stone quarries. The boarding-house keeper had
taken them in default of cash from his quarryman boarders. Hiram
erected three of the posts before his shop door, at such short
distances from each other that it precluded the tying up of more than
two horses at a time, and then only to the end posts and facing each
other. Having adorned the path before his house with two others, he,
at the instigation of his wife, presented the sixth to the Methodist
Church. This post was adorned with an iron ring at the top and a
somewhat frisky damsel in rude carving on the side.
It was a matter of grave consideration whether this carving should be
turned to the street or towards the sidewalk, it being debatable in
which position she would do the most harm. She was finally turned
towards the street, upon the reasonable supposition that persons
driving past would pass more swiftly than persons walking; hence, their
exposure to evil would be briefer. To further mitigate the
demoralizing effect of this bit of stonework, Solomon Ware took a
chisel and carefully obliterated the outlines of the figure, missing
only one foot, which, in terpsichorean fashion, pointed skyward in a
meaningless, disjointed way from a chaos of chisel marks.
The week following, the Baptists put up two wooden tie-posts, each
surmounted by an iron horse's head.
Two weeks later a block of wooden steps appeared beside the stone
tie-post, to facilitate those driving to church in alighting from, or
mounting to, their conveyances. This was on Wednesday. By the Sunday
following, its duplicate stood between the wooden tie-posts, with the
additional glory of drab paint.
A month later a new fence encircled the Methodist temple, and the
Baptist sanctuary was re-shingled.
As the autumn advanced the Methodist Church had sheds for its horses
erected in the rear of the church. Ere the first snow flew, the
Baptist Church was similarly adorned, and its shed rejoiced in
elaborate scroll work brackets at the dividing posts.
In November the Baptists held a series of revival meetings, and the
Methodists commenced a weekly service of song. At New Year's the
Methodists raised their pastor's salary fifty dollars a year. In
February the Baptists held a memorial service, and had four ministers
preach upon one Sunday. It is true, as Hester Green took occasion to
remark, that two of them were only students, but the Baptist Church had
vindicated the priority of its establishment, and rested on its
laurels,--besides the spring work was coming on.
The speech of the Ovidians was not in any sense a dialect peculiar to
themselves. There were, of course, certain words and phrases which
were regular stand-bys, and from which no Ovidian speech was free. For
example, when an Ovidian was out of conversational matter, he did not
let the talk die away, or the argument fall to pieces whilst waiting
for the tardy ideas of his friends to evolve themselves. Far from it.
He simply said, in a tone suitable to the occasion, "Well, it beats
all!" Closer scrutiny will reveal the resources of this phrase. Did
an Ovidian attend a funeral? Then this expression formed the chief
staple of his conversation, and its enunciation ran the gamut of
emotion, from grief to amazement. Did an Ovidian hear a more than
usually spicy piece of gossip? Then he ejaculated the same phrase in a
tone of scandalized enjoyment. Was a subject upon which he could not,
or would not, give a direct opinion under discussion? Then this
non-committal formula answered admirably, entailing no after
responsibility upon the speaker, and yet giving him a pleasant sense of
conversational duty properly performed.
There were a few idioms, also, dear to the Ovidian mind. To be
"ambitious" meant simply to be energetic; to be "big feeling," "stuck
up," or "toney," meant to be proud (in the sense of despising one's
neighbours); to "conjure," with the accent strongly upon the first
syllable, meant to think over a thing.
Apart, however, from a dozen or two of these lingual idiosyncrasies,
the Ovidian speech was the ordinary English of Canadian rural
districts, delivered in a peculiar drawling, nasal style, with a
clinging to the last syllable of a word and the last word of a
sentence. The only interest Ovidians had, apart from Ovid and the
dwellers therein, was in watching the progress of the world, as shown
by the trend of Canadian politics; and as Ovid they had always with
them, and the world only when the weekly papers came in, it was natural
they should know Ovid best--and they did. Every one's pet hobby, every
one's worst weakness, every one's ambition, every one's circumstances,
everyone's antipathies, every one's preferences, every one's record and
family record--all this was known and well known, aye, even to the
third generation back.
But of all Ovidians none knew so much of his fellows' history as did
old Sam Symmons. The one attribute that assured Sam a welcome wherever
he went, was his knowledge of the generation passed away, the fathers
of the present Ovidians: not that his stories were flattering (far from
it), but they were never ill-natured, at least upon Sam's part. It was
true they were illustrative of the weak points of their heroes rather
than their virtues, but then Sam did not make history; he only repeated
it, and he was very impartial. So where a dozen Ovidians were gathered
together, there Sam would be in the midst.
There was a perilous stimulus about their anticipation. He was sure to
evolve some personal reminiscence from the chaotic mass of his old
memories, and each of the expectant auditors felt that his forebears
might be the subject of it. When Sam did choose a victim, and plunged
into some old tale about his grandfather or father, then all the others
drew in their breath with swift enjoyment of the various points of the
story. There was something Druidical and bard-like in this oral
handing down of history, and it differed from more pretentious history
in one respect. Sam's stories might be oft-repeated, but he never
altered a syllable, never deepened the shading to suit some different
element in his audience, never swerved from the first intent of the
recital, never slurred the truth to let any one off lightly. Perhaps
the reason Sam's stories preserved their identity so well was because
they were tacitly copyrighted; no one ever tried to tell them but
himself, and indeed they would not have sounded the same from other
lips, for Sam spoke of the past as one having authority.
The loss of his old mare was quite a serious one to Sam, and he went
about a shade more irresolute than he was before. Poor old Sam! He
had had so many blows, big and little, from fate, that it is not to be
wondered at if he did become a little haphazard in his methods of work
and business.
It is hardly worth while making plans when some evil chance seems to
thwart them every time; even if one works till his stiff old limbs are
trembling with fatigue, it doesn't seem to make much headway against
adverse circumstances; and when fate buffets down even the strongest
guard, how can one poor old man fend off its blows? But if his brave
old heart was shaken a little within him, Sam still turned a resolute
face to the foe. The week after the mare's death, and before he had
got used to the blind horse he had bought to replace her, he found his
way to Hiram Green's store.
The talk turned on drinking.
"Yes," said Sam, "there's many a way of drinking"--in a reminiscent
tone--"many a way! When I was young, there were three brothers with
their three wives, doing settlement duty on a grant of land given one
of the officers, in Bruce County. Well, they were fine big fellows,
and their wives were big, strapping, healthy women. Strong, too, they
were, and had good judgment. Why, one of them went one morning to the
wood-pile to get some wood, and when she came back there was a wolf,
lean and hungry (for it had been a bitter winter), standing over the
cradle where her baby lay. Now, what did she do? Run away and yowl?
Not she. Hit it a clip with a billet of wood, and killed it where it
stood. Well, the lads used to drive off forty miles with an ox team
for provisions, and each would bring his keg of rye back with him; but
the women always drank more than their share, and it got to be that
there was mostly no meals ready when the lads got back from felling the
timber. So the lads hit on the plan of tying the kegs to the roof,
where the women could not get at them, and they went away well pleased
with themselves. But they were finely taken down when they got back,
for the women shot holes in the kegs, and caught the whiskey in a
washtub. Yes, yes, there's many a way of drinking. There was your
wife's grand-uncle, now"--suddenly becoming personal in his memory, and
addressing Hiram--"'twas when he was running for reeve the first time,
and he came into Fossil's tavern, and not seeing James Lawson, the
younger, and me, where we sat on the settle by the door, he went up to
the bar to get a drink. He called for whiskey. He had his drink and
laid down the five cents to pay for it. Now, 'twas his way to fill his
glass very full, and Fossil, being a close man, was very grouty at
that. So, out of the five cents, he pushed back a penny. 'Here,' says
he, 'is your change, Mr. Mowbray. I don't charge as much wholesale as
I do for single drinks.' Your wife's grand-uncle did not like that.
'Twas just before the polling day when he got overtaken in liquor one
night at old Squire Fraser's. 'Twas a bright moonlight night, and some
of the lads going home late, also, heard a noise at the village pump,
which, coming at, they saw was your wife's grand-uncle, pulling at the
pump-handle, and saying, with many oaths, 'Come home, Jack: come home.
There will be a sore broil for thee if Mrs. Mowbray see thee. Come
home, Jack: come home.' To which persuasion he put many threats and
moral advisements to Jack to cease from liquor. Jack was his nephew, a
quiet youth, being bred to the pulpit. Well, the boys got hold of both
these tales, and when the voting came on, they would seize at anything,
a tree, a post, or the fence, when your wife's grand-uncle came by,
and, straining at it manfully, would beseech Jack to come home, using
many moral persuasions and many oaths also, as he had done to the pump,
and feigning to weep sore over the stubbornness of Jack's heart. Then
they would say, 'Come home, Jack, and I'll buy thee a drink wholesale
at good, generous Master Fossil's.' Yes, yes"--Sam's voice began to
weaken--"yes, there's many a way of drinking."
There was a pause. No one ever commented upon Sam's stories; there was
no need. To deprecate them would be to stir up, who knew what, of
oblique reflection upon one's ancestors. For any of those not
immediately interested to interfere would be to invite Sam's attention
to their cases.
"Did you hear that the school-teacher leaves next week?" asked Hiram.
"No. Why?" asked Jack Mackinnon, glad of a chance of hearing his own
voice.
"Because he says he can't afford to keep himself here and his wife in
Toronto on three hundred a year."
"Then he'd better get," said old Mrs. Slick, as she took the packet of
cream of tartar Hiram was weighing. "He'd better get." She hobbled
out, giving malevolent sniffs at the thought of the teacher's
extravagant ideas.
"Yes, he's going," continued Hiram. "He's going, and there's a school
meeting to-morrow."
Andrew Cutler, Hiram Green and Ben Braddon were school trustees, and it
had occurred to each of them that Sam Symmons' Suse would be sure to
apply for the position. She held a county certificate permitting her
to teach for three years.
"I wonder," Andrew said that morning to his aunt, Miss Hannah Myers, "I
wonder if Suse will know enough to apply for the place."
"Not she! too empty-headed," said Miss Myers, briskly. "I'll go down
this afternoon and tell her what I think of her, and make her apply."
"Do," said Andrew, heartily.
Andrew liked old Sam, and he was a special favourite of the old man's.
Many a long story of election fights and tricks, secrets Sam kept even
yet, of how votes had been gained and lost, many tales of drinking
bouts and more gallant adventures, did old Sam retell for Andrew's
benefit.
Andrew was not at all worried by Miss Myers' brusqueness of speech. He
knew how kind she was to everybody in her own vinegary way. Tall,
angular, hatchet-faced and sharp-tongued, Hannah Myers had a heart full
of love for every living creature that needed help, only, 'the beggar
at her door had first abuse and then a shilling.'
And how well the tramps knew the way up to that quaint old kitchen
door, with the uneven flag-stones set in a little court-yard round it!
A table always covered with glistening tin milk-pans stood outside, and
many a good meal had the gentlemen of the road had off that table;
scolded vigorously by Miss Myers whilst they ate, the tirade only
interrupted by sudden journeys she made to find perhaps a pair of
socks, a shirt, or something else she saw they needed: now and then a
surly tramp would answer her back, and she would laugh at him in her
grim way and say, "Hear the man! Why, don't you see, I like to scold
as much as you like to eat; so if you enjoy the one, why mayn't I the
other?" Upon one memorable occasion an ungrateful tramp, (and however
much he may be idealized nowadays, there are instances of the
ingratitude of tramps) attempted to impose upon her, thinking her
alone. He had, unfortunately for him, reckoned without his host.
Andrew suddenly appeared upon the scene, seized his trampship by the
most convenient portion of his attire, and dropped him with quiet, but
forcible, precision into a somewhat unappetizing duck pond near by,
giving him at the same time a picturesque, but somewhat profane, bit of
advice. The fellow took himself off, and Andrew turned his attention
to poor Miss Hannah, who was quivering and trembling and crying as the
meekest and mildest woman might do. Miss Myers' tongue was a
deception, and, as a matter of fact, that and her vinegary aspect were
the only defences she had against imposition, for whilst always
vaunting her hard-heartedness, she was, in reality, the most gullible
of women.
She never could resist a pedlar: she always bought their trashy wares.
And once, she never forgot it, she burdened herself with a lot of cheap
brassy hairpins and extraordinary glass breast pins. That purchase
fairly haunted her. Get rid of it she couldn't. Did she try to burn
it? Some one came and caught her. Did she intend to throw it away?
She did not dare, she knew some one would find it. She did manage
finally to find a watery hiding-place for it in the horse pond. Even
then its meretricious sparkle assailed her from the mud when the pond
went dry. She related this to Judith Moore, and told her with all
soberness that she should always pity a murderer trying to get rid of
the corpse.
As Mrs. Morris had told Judith, Miss Myers was of U. E. Loyalist stock.
She might have added that the Cutlers were also. Both families had
been given grants of land in Canada. The property in the Myers family
had been divided and sub-divided amongst a big family connection. Miss
Myers had a little fifty-acre farm as her share of it; it lay some
fifteen miles from Ovid.
Andrew's farm at Ovid had descended to him through his father and
grandfather, old Captain Cutler, the stern old fighter whose sword,
with its woven crimson sash, hung in the hall of Andrew's house, with
some quaint old pistols and a clumsy musket, relics from Canadian
battle fields. Besides the property in Ovid, Andrew owned another fine
farm and a wide stretch of woodland in Muskoka. These properties
accrued to him through the death of some of his father's relatives. So
Andrew was very well off, in a modest way. The Muskoka property bore
much fine timber, and an enthusiastic "prospector" assailed Andrew,
month in and month out, with tales of the "indications" of minerals he
had found beneath the ferns and mosses of his Muskoka woods. But
Andrew was content with them as they were, with the trees growing
solemnly upward, aspiring to the blue: the wandering streams, a network
of silver tracery, starred here and there by broad discs where one
widened to a little placid lake or where two or more streams, meeting,
gushed together. The sound of their soft confluence and the soughing
of the wind, that without moving the leaves seemed ever to sigh between
the tree trunks, blent into a soft sensation, half sound, half stir,
something perceived nowhere but in the woods, seeming indeed as if
there we were very close to Nature's sweet and beautiful breast,
hearing in this mysterious pulsation the beating of her kindly heart.
Andrew had grown to be in very close touch with Nature during many
solitary weeks spent in hunting: in long tramps through the Muskoka
woods, shooting the fawn-coloured deers, and the wild fowl that nested
in the tiny lakes; and in many a long night when he lay _perdu_
watching for lynx, forgetting his quest in the marvel of the stars, or
in wakeful watches, seeing the resinous camp-fire die down to embers
and hearing the shrill laughing of the loon, the weird wail of the
lynx, the cry of the great owl or the call of the coon. Andrew was
past-master of all woodland lore. He had hunted Muskoka through and
through. Many a wild duck's breast and fox's mask, and many a pair of
antlers proved his prowess.
Besides, he had spent many a winter in northern Quebec, snow-shoeing
over its silent white wastes upon the traces of moose; the intense cold
parching his throat, his half-breed guide padding* along at his side;
sometimes faring royally upon juicy steaks and birds, broiled as only
hunters can broil--not scorched, yet savoured with fire; sometimes upon
a long trail with a bit of frozen bacon in one pocket and a lump of
frozen bread in the other, gnawing a morsel off each with care, so that
he might not break off his moustache which was frozen in a solid mass
with the moisture of his breath.
* "Padding" is a term applied by hunters to the silent flat-footed gait
of Indian guides.
Andrew often heard people say that one did not feel the intense cold in
these northern regions; he always longed to have them there and let
them try it. He had felt pretty cold up there, only he never
remembered the time when he couldn't hold his gun with naked hands.
That, though, as every one knows, is the mark of a mighty Nimrod. So
soon as his half-breed guide discovered this, he grunted out a guttural
prophecy that the shoot would be good.
Strange mixtures these guides were; the combination of French suavity
and redskin cunning being a continual wonder to Andrew, accustomed as
he was to less complex types.
This man who slept sometimes rolled close in the same blankets with him
for warmth, whose woodcraft made his less intuitive knowledge seem
absolute ignorance, whose judgment in matters of the chase was almost
flawless, whose strength and agility would not have shamed a
Greek--this man cooked his meals, washed the dishes, waited upon him
deferentially, and was not to be persuaded to eat at the same time. In
the chase, a hero; in the camp, a slave.
What tramps those were through the silent solitudes of these untrodden
woods! What moments had been his, when, leaving his guide preparing
the camp for the night, Andrew had gained some high ridge, and pausing,
looked far across the peaks of graduated hills, clad in sombre cedars
weighted down with snow, white, silent, yet instinct with that mystery
which presses upon us pleading for elucidation, and never so strongly
as when we are alone with the unblotted world before us, away from the
signs of man's desecration. There is something very pitiful in that
mute appeal of nature to be understood--like some sweet woman, smitten
into a spell of suffering silence, till such time as the magic word
shall release her. A word she knows, yet cannot, of her own power,
speak. What magical mysteries shall not be revealed when speech is
restored to her! And how her eyes plead and accuse at once! Of a
verity, having ears we hear not: truly, having eyes to see, yet are we
blind!
For there is some great open secret surely in the universe, that being
deciphered will set all our jangling dreams in chime. It is about us,
around us, above us; the tiniest leaf tells it, the stars of heaven
proclaim it, the water manifests it and the earth declares it, and yet
we do not see it. When we do, it will be some simple vital principle
that we have breathed with the breath of our lips, and handled with the
familiar fingers of the flesh. We will be so unable to conceive of the
world moving on in ignorance of it, that all the wisdom of the ages
past will seem but as the howling of wolves in waste places, or at
best, as the babbling of children that play with dry sand, now letting
it slip through their fingers, leaving them with empty hands, now
getting it in their eyes to torture them, or treading on it with vague
discomfort and unease.
We have all seen these childish puzzles with hidden faces concealed in
the traceries. How hard it is to find these faces, although we know
they are there! And yet, when found, it is impossible to see anything
else in the picture. They obtrude themselves upon us, and what was
formerly the picture becomes now only the background for what at first
it completely concealed. So everything will but subserve to show us
how palpable the great Central Truth has always been if we could but
find it, _and some one will_. So let us go on bravely, each resolving
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." There is indeed
within us some spark of the Divine Fire. Let it but once flame fairly
up and we shall be gods indeed, moving in the glory of our own
transfiguration.
There is no destiny too great for man.
* * * * * *
The northern stars are very clear and cold, the northern skies are very
blue and chill, the snowy plains are places meant for thought, and in
the silence of those scenes the soul awakes.
Andrew bore away with him some reflex of their austerity and intensity,
which tempered his mind as the steel is strengthened.
His mother's story had been a sad one. She was Miss Myers' elder
sister--Isabella Myers; very like Miss Myers yet very unlike; with all
those resemblances which pronounce two near of kin, yet all those
variations of the type which constitute the difference between beauty
and every-day flesh and blood.
Isabella had been engaged to a minister's son named Harkness. He was a
young man who justified in every respect the many pleasing proverbs
about ministers' sons: yet, in spite of all, had a leal heart, a
handsome form and face, a tender touch, and a personal magnetism that
enabled him to wring an unwilling consent out of stern old Abraham
Myers to his betrothal with his daughter Isabella.
These two young folk worshipped each other, and the wedding day was
set. Isabella was to wear a white taffeta frock and white thread
mitts. But troublous times had come to Canada. Young Harkness went to
the war. Isabella and he had a sad, sad parting, for the imaginative
girl was fey of her fate, and clung to him till his heart melted within
him. And as he rode away with a long tress of her dark hair on his
breast, it was not the sunshine alone that made his eyes so bright and
his vision so uncertain.
It was but a puny affray that in the history of the world's wars, but
it does not take big battles to make men brave and women's hearts ache.
The dark braid had hardly warmed in its place before it was soaked with
the blood of the heart on which it lay. The real Isabella Myers died
then, too. But a pale apathetic woman in her shape and semblance still
went wearily on her way.
Ten years later they married her to Andrew Cutler, a man considerably
older than herself, and as her father said, "of the old true blue
stock." She gave him a boy and died, well rid of the world. Miss
Hannah Myers came to keep house for her brother-in-law. She brought up
the baby and took charge of the little hide-covered chest which was
full of the books ("poetry books and such," Miss Myers called them)
that young Harkness had given Isabella long before. Andrew Cutler
lived on after his wife's death to a good old age, being killed at last
by falling through the trap-door in his hay-loft. Then Andrew was head
of his house.
As Andrew grew up, he developed such a strange resemblance to one long
dead, that sometimes, when a movement, gesture, or expression of his
brought it more clearly to Miss Myers' eyes, she felt an eerie thrill
creep over her. She described the sensation as "cold chills." For it
was not a resemblance to his father, or his grandfather, or even to his
mother (although he resembled her, too), but he imaged forth the brave,
handsome, devil-may-care lover of his mother's girlhood, he who had
died ten years before Andrew's birth. Surely the image of that
long-lost lover had been deeply graven on that broken heart.
"The Cutler house on the hill," as the villagers described it, was
quite a pretentious one in its way. Old Captain Cutler, he of the
sword and sash, had not been penniless, by any means, when he left the
United States, although he left behind him much valuable property. So
when the Canadian Government made him a generous grant, he promptly
spent his money in building a house. Now, the forebears of this
Captain Cutler had come from England, and many a tale his grandfather
had told him of the old farm homestead there, of the garden with
brick-paven walks, and brick-built walls upon which grew the espaliered
fruit, of the old sun-dial beside the larch tree, and the oaken beams
that traversed the plaster of the ceilings, of the flagged kitchen, and
the big fire-places. So here on the hill-top overlooking the valley,
where later Ovid was to be built, Captain Cutler erected his house, a
big stone one with oaken floors, stairways and doors, with heavy
rafters of the same sturdy growth, a wide-flagged kitchen, and a hall
sheathed in wood half way to the roof, with huge open fire-places. He
put a brick wall about his gardens, and over it trained the sprawling
branches of currant bushes--red ones, and white and black. Later on,
hop vines had been planted here and there along the wall; still later,
a row of grape vines had superseded them, and clad the old bricks with
fresh festoons of leaves. This made, when the grapes were ripe, a
beautiful Bacchanal arabesque of purple fruit and brown stem, twisted
tendril and green leaf.
He laid down narrow brick walks, too, and by them planted
horse-chestnut trees. He put a sun-dial up, a grey stone column with a
round top, whereon was rudely carven the symbols of the hours and a
lob-sided hour-glass; for lack of a larch tree he filched a linden from
the hill-side.
The garden took in the level plateau on top of the hill, and some of
the slope upon the side farthest from Ovid. The hill-side next the
village was laden with lindens, which in spring were covered in
blossom. Old Captain Cutler sent to England for English ox-heart
cherry trees, and for boxwood, and for hawthorns to plant hedges.
The cherry trees flourished and perpetuated themselves in generations
of younger trees, the box grew and multiplied, but the hawthorn hedges
were failures. All that remained of them was a few scattered hawthorns
that had long outgrown the status of the hedge row, and become old
gnarled trees.
Miss Myers was very proud of her flower garden, which was a mass of
circular, oval and diamond-shaped flower beds, bordered by box, spaced
off by narrow bricked walks. There were honeysuckles growing over
old-fashioned wooden trellises; and roses, crown imperials and lemon
lilies; huge clumps of peonies, pink, white and the common crimson;
clove pinks and thyme; lilies of the valley and violets, with bushes of
rosemary and patches of balm; spotted tiger lilies, and a fragrant
white lily called the day lily; little shrubs of the pink flowering
almond, "snow on the mountain," "mist on the hill" and acacia shrubs.
And beside these, many more old-fashioned perennial plants, like queen
of the meadow and thrift; and every summer Andrew brought her
heliotropes, and scented geraniums, and mignonette from town.
The barns were away down at the foot of the hill. Andrew's men usually
all lived in the village, unless he happened to have hired strangers
for the stress of harvest or haying, or in winter time when they were
needed about the house.
Miss Myers, as the village phrased it, "kep' help regular," and often
had up old Mrs. Greer from the village, for there was a deal of work to
be done in that house.
For the rest, Andrew was a practical farmer; it had not occurred to him
that he did not need to work so hard, and the active life did him no
harm. He was up at daylight in summer, and by candle-light in winter.
He ploughed, sowed, reaped and threshed his grain. And when at the
threshings he sat at the head of the long table, lined on each side
with men "feeding like horses, when you hear them feed," he looked like
some young chief among his serfs, albeit he wore blue jeans and flannel
shirts as they did.
He did not know himself to be so different from his neighbours as he
was, only he never seemed to contemplate marrying one of their women,
and he pitied them. For they did not recognize the pathos of their own
narrow lives. They did not see their surroundings as he did--the
beauties of the skies above, and of the earth beneath, and the marvel
and mystery of the water.
Andrew could not have said this was what made him pity them, for he was
one of the inarticulate ones, whose speech is shackled; one of those,
too, who know their own limitations in this way, and feel their
fetters. At times they seemed to weigh his spirit down.