A SUPPER AT PARKER WILLETT’S
The summer had come upon them before Parker was ready to issue his
invitation for his friends to come to take supper with him in his
little shanty, for being very comfortable at Dod Hunter’s, and being in
no hurry to exchange hearty, cheerful society for utter loneliness, the
young man set to work to prepare his garden and plant his corn-field
before he should occupy his cabin. Agnes had seen him but once or twice
since the wedding, but she had little time to fret over it, for with so
many little mouths to feed there was plenty for her to do, and she was
too weary at night to lie awake long indulging in girlish dreams. Dod
Hunter, as nearest neighbor and oldest friend of Mrs. Kennedy’s father,
had been appointed executor, and probably no better choice could have
been made. The disappearance of the copy of the will still remained a
mystery over which all interested were puzzled.
It was June before Parker appeared to bid his friends to his modest
attempt at a housewarming. “This is to be strictly a party for ladies,”
he said, laughing, to Jimmy O’Neill, “and when I set up for a
householder and a benedict, I’ll have a real housewarming. My one room
will hardly accommodate all my friends.”
“Fergus and me’ll stay at home and look after the young uns,” Jimmy
agreed cheerfully, “an’ let the women folk have their frolic. But ye’ll
be enlargin’ yer borders an’ takin’ a wife before a year,” he added
with a sly smile. “Have ye heerd no more o’ Hump Muirhead?”
“Not I; he hasn’t troubled me and I haven’t troubled him. Dod assured
me that he was able to attend to his business as executor, and I
therefore gracefully retired from the case. Of course the court will
give him a reasonable time to get out, and though he’s no coward in
most directions, he’s well aware of the attitude of the neighbors
toward him and he’ll not be swaggering around much. You and Mr. Kennedy
will be coming over to my clearing, Jimmy, and I’ll promise you as fine
a johnny-cake as you ever ate at home.”
“We’ll come,” Jimmy answered, “after the women folk have had their
time. Ay lad, but it’s buildin’ up the country is since the Injuns
have come to terms, and we’ve the treaty of Greenville. The Range is
fillin’ up, the Reserve north av us is like to see good times, and the
Ohio Company south is runnin’ ’em close. We are in the thick av the
immigration. I heerd, the time I went up to Marietta, that nigh twenty
thousand had come along in the past year, and it’s towns they’ll be
showin’ soon. Look at Marietta with her streets an’ her churches an’
a flock o’ people roamin’ about. We’ve got close to ceevilization, Mr.
Willett. No more standin’ wid a musket in wan hand whilst ye plant yer
corn wid the other.”
“That’s all very true, Jimmy; I am impressed by it every time I come
this way. I realize that our own little township is growing by the
number of new faces I meet on the road.”
“Thrue for ye. Weel, ‘it takes nae butter off my bannock’ to have them
comin,’ for they open up the country, and the more the merrier.” He
turned back to his forge, and Parker walked toward the house where
he found Mrs. Kennedy busily sewing. Agnes was helping Polly at the
dye-kettle; Margret, with the children around her, was playing school
under the trees. Mr. Kennedy was at work in the garden, for, though
this was considered the women’s province, since Jimmy’s arrival it had
fallen to Fergus’s share.
It was a pleasant, busy scene and showed thrift and content and
peace. In a sty back of the house grunted a sow and her young pigs;
Agnes’s chickens crooned their sleepy song with much content among the
dust-heaps which they sought out; a swarm of wild bees which Polly
had hived, now quite at home, were droning about the garden beds. Two
new rooms having been added, one above and one below, there was now
sufficient space to house the two families comfortably. Jimmy had set
up his forge and the place was frequented by those neighbors who had
not a like convenience upon their own clearings, and it was quite a
gathering-place for news-gatherers, though the clearings lay closer
together around the little log church.
Mrs. Kennedy looked up with a smiling welcome, but she did not stop her
swift stitches. “Good morning, stranger,” she said.
“I am something of a stranger,” the young man replied, coming in, “but
it is not of choice that I am so, Mrs. Kennedy. I have come over to ask
if you and Polly and Agnes will honor my little cabin this afternoon
and take that long-promised supper with me. Jimmy says he and your
husband will look after the children.”
“Yes? That is kind of Jimmy. They will be no trouble, however, for they
are always good with Margret.”
“Where is Polly?”
“She and Agnes are at the dye-kettle. It seemed a fine day for the
work. They are around at the back of the house.”
“I think I could find them without trouble,” said Parker, smiling,
as Polly’s laugh smote his ear. Polly was always merry over the
dye-kettle. “You’ll come this evening, Mrs. Kennedy?”
“Gladly. I have never crossed the river, you know.”
“It is not much of a journey if one rows over from this side;
sometimes, though, I find it easier to come by the ford. I think if you
row over and I meet you with horses on the other side, it will be the
best way. It will be bright moonlight coming back, and you need not be
afraid even if you do hear uncanny noises.”
“I shall know what they are. I am getting quite used to the sound of
wolves and wildcats.”
“I will go and make my request to Polly, then.”
Guided by the peals of laughter, Parker took his way toward the back of
the house where Polly was chasing Agnes around with threatening blued
hands. “Once I get me hands on that red poll, I’ll make it purple,” she
was crying, and Agnes was laughingly defying her with the big stick she
had been using to stir the dye.
“I will surely give you a taste of this, Polly, if you come a step
nearer,” she was saying.
“You romping children,” cried Parker. “Will you cease your play for a
moment and speak to me?”
Polly advanced holding out her blue-stained hand. “I’ll be glad to
shake hands with ye, Mr. Willett,” she declared, and laughed with glee
as he backed off.
“Polly is so reckless, and she calls my hair red, Mr. Willett,” Agnes
complained.
“It’s nearer that than anything else; ye wouldn’t call it black, would
ye?” Polly asked.
“No, but mother calls it auburn, and that has a nice sound.”
“Go ’long wid ye,” cried Polly, “wid yer fancy names. Weel, Mr.
Willett, yer no fashin’ yersel’ about us, these days, it’s clear.”
“It’s not what one desires in this world, but what he finds time to do,
Polly. To prove that I’ve been thinking of you I have come over to ask
you all to sup with me.”
Polly looked at her stained hands. “They’re a pretty looking pair for a
party,” she declared.
“It’s no party; it is only for a very select and chosen few--yourself,
Mrs. Kennedy, and Agnes. Will the dyeing be finished in time for you to
come over this afternoon?”
“Why will it not? I’ll stop now.” She lifted the boiling dye from the
fire, and with two sticks raised the pieces of cloth from the hot
liquid, flinging them into a tub near by. “They’re weel enow colored,”
she decided, “and I’ll finish up gin dinner-time. I’ve no gloves, Mr.
Willett, an’ I’ll not get back the color of me hands afore the week’s
out. Gin Sabbath day they beeta look better. Will ye have me so? I can
never do a bit of dyeing, but I must give me hands the color of me
goods, be it butternut, blue, or yellow. Agnes, there, gets but the
tips of her fingers in, and is nigh greetin’ at that, so I threatened
to give her hair the same color.”
“Be done, Polly,” cried Agnes, as Polly advanced upon her again, “I’ll
not help you with the dyeing if you treat me so. Do be quiet. If you
stop now, when will I get my linen dyed?”
“You’ll get it gin Tibb’s eve,” returned Polly, “if ye fa’ out wi’ me
now.”
“Ah, but Polly--”
“Go long into the house wid ye, ye two, an’ I’ll finish up. Ye might be
gittin’ the vegetables for dinner, Nancy, an’ I’ll come make a puddin’.
I beeta be makin’ one in honor of the stranger.”
“You’d better not be giving me too good a dinner,” said Parker, “or
you’ll be putting my supper to shame.”
“No fear o’ that. In wid ye.” She brandished her stick, and the two
departed to the garden to gather such early vegetables as they might
find ready for use.
“It’s been a long time since I saw you,” said Parker, speaking his
thought.
“Yes?” Agnes was well aware of it, and was disposed to be a little
distant in consequence, though she well knew his reason for absenting
himself. “I have been busy, too, and I have been two or three times to
see Jeanie. The last mail brought good news from Archie; he is hard
at work and hopes by diligence to complete his course in a less time
than we at first thought he could. He wrote me quite a long letter; he
really can write more freely than he can talk.” She looked serenely
unconscious as Parker stole a glance at her.
“I suppose you were delighted to hear from him?”
“Oh, yes. Who wouldn’t be glad to hear from an old friend? You would
be, wouldn’t you, to hear from Alicia, for example?”
[Illustration: PARKER WATCHED HER FOR A FEW MINUTES, NOT ATTEMPTING TO
HELP.]
“Agnes!” His voice was reproachful. “I didn’t think you were a
coquette.”
The flush which dyed Agnes’s cheek was caused by both wrath and
contrition. “I don’t see what cause you have to say that,” she replied
lightly. “You know perfectly well how it is with Archie and me. I shall
probably marry him if I find no one more likable before he returns.”
“More likable? No, I didn’t know that. You didn’t tell me before. And
Archie is very likable?”
“Yes, very; and so good and constant and thoughtful of pleasing me. He
never neglected me in his life.”
“You have a very good opinion of him.”
“There is no one quite like Archie.” Agnes was picking her peas without
proper regard to the fulness of their pods, her blue-tipped fingers
slipping in and out among the vines swiftly. Parker watched her for a
few minutes, not attempting to help. When he spoke again, it was in a
constrained tone. “Shall you care to come over with your mother and
Polly to sup with me?”
Agnes’s heart had leaped at the prospect, but she said indifferently:
“Oh, yes, I’d enjoy going anywhere with mother. There, I think I have
enough of these. I must take them in and shell them.” She picked up
her rudely made basket, but Parker took it from her, as a matter of
course. He was singularly silent, and the tears smarted in Agnes’s
eyes. Why had she been so contrary? What had possessed her to mislead
him? The beautiful bright summer day would be spoiled because of her
unreasonableness. But she was too proud to alter the state of things by
making advances, and they entered the house with no attempt on either
side toward a better understanding, and neither one was in a very happy
frame of mind.
Polly had left her dye-kettle and was deep in the mystery of the
pudding she had promised to make. Agnes called on the children to
shell the peas, and gave her own attention to some other things. Mrs.
Kennedy, meanwhile, was preparing a pair of fowls, and Parker left them
in the midst of their dinner-getting and strolled down to the forge.
Agnes saw him depart. Why had things gone wrong? They might now have
been sitting together over the basket of peas in happy converse. They
had often shared such a piece of work. It did not add to her comfort to
be aware that it was all her own fault. The unusually sumptuous dinner
meant nothing to her, and she scarcely touched it.
“Nancy is saving up her appetite for this evening,” said Polly,
laughing. “You’d better not be too sure of what you’ll get at a
bachelor’s, Nancy.”
Parker smiled. “I can’t promise you such a feast as this, Polly, though
you know you are pledged to do the cooking. I can make good corn-pone
and hoe-cake, and I can cook a fish or a bit of bacon, but I am not
very skilful, I warn you.”
“It seems like old times to see him settin’ there,” said Polly. “I
declare, Park, I never knew how much I missed ye till I see ye back
agen.”
“That is certainly complimentary, and I appreciate it. I am being
treated with the fat of the land. I am afraid from the spread you have
here that you have robbed the family of a week’s provender; you know I
am very well acquainted with the resources of the place.”
“Ah but, ‘it’s nae loss what ye gie a freen’,’ as the old saying is,
and ye need think nae more of it.” Polly was in high spirits. The
prospect of any kind of frolic always put her in the best of humors.
The dinner over, Parker took his departure, and his invited guests
set out in due time to meet him on the other side of the river. The
days were now so long that there was no fear of their being belated in
getting back, and a short stay was not to be thought of when one went
out to supper; it meant the whole afternoon and the evening too, if
possible. Polly was full of her quips and jokes, and pulled lustily
across the stream, but she sobered down when she got across. “Ye’ll not
be far from yer ain, Mrs. Kennedy,” she said, “for Parker’s got the
land next yer father’s, an’ ye’ll be seein’ what it’s like. I’ll be
bound Hump’ll look glum as a mustard-pot when he gets his summons to
quit. I’ll miss ye all, but I’ll be glad when ye come to yer ain. Here
we are and here’s Park.”
Parker came forward with two horses. “How shall we travel?” he asked.
“Shall I take you, Mrs. Kennedy?”
But Polly spoke up. “I’ve bespoke her, and ye’ll be takin’ Agnes. Come,
Mrs. Kennedy, up behind me,” and Agnes found herself starting off with
Parker, her arm about his waist.
The way was not very long, and it should have been rarely pleasant to
be riding through the leafy woods this summer afternoon, tall trees
about them, and the air sweet with the smell of the grape blossoms,
yet it was Polly who did most of the talking. Parker rarely spoke.
Once his hand touched Agnes’s fingers, resting lightly upon his belt,
but he withdrew from the contact as if it hurt him. It was of the most
indifferent things that the two young persons spoke, when they spoke at
all, and the girl felt that she would have been happier with Polly or
her mother.
Before the door of the small cabin the horses at last stopped. The
woods came close about the small dwelling, for it takes time to fell
trees, and though the clearing for the corn-field and the garden
had been made, the space seemed small in the midst of the limitless
forest, and so small, so lonely seemed the little cabin set there in a
wilderness, that one wondered how a man could be content to make it his
abode.
“Welcome to my hut,” said Parker, bowing Mrs. Kennedy in. Polly
followed and Agnes came last. The girl gave an exclamation of surprise
and pleasure as she entered the room. It showed only the barest
necessities in the way of furnishings, but the walls were festooned
with vines, and upon the table stood a huge bowl of swamp magnolias.
Heaped high at one end upon large leaves were ripe strawberries, and at
the other were cherries as brightly red. Around the table was twisted
a grape-vine, and each rough stool was covered with a piece of fringed
deerskin.
Polly looked about her in surprise. “Who’d ha’ thought a man would ha’
done all this; it looks like a woman’s work, an’ a kind that we don’t
see about here. I’ve niver seen the beat, even at a weddin’. How’d you
get a holt o’ them cherries?”
“They came from Dod Hunter’s, and the strawberries, too,” Parker told
her.
“It surely is very tasteful,” said Mrs. Kennedy. “You are very poetical
I should think, Mr. Willett. You have honored us very much by taking
all this trouble, yet I know it was a pleasure, too. How sweet those
magnolias are! There is not any perfume equal to theirs.”
Fresh fish and venison were considered enough in the way of meats, and
Polly proceeded to make some of her famous bannocks to match Parker’s
corn-pone, and the two waxed very merry over their competition.
Once in a while Agnes stole a look at her host, but though he was
courteously polite, there was no answering glance to hers. It thrilled
the girl to be beneath this roof that must now shelter the man who had
grown so dear to her; to see there his rifle and shot pouch hanging
on two buck horns, his hunting-shirts on pegs by the ladder which
led aloft, the little row of his precious books upon a shelf on the
rough wall, his silver drinking-cup full of wild flowers on the high
mantel-shelf; all these things so distinctly personal, so associated
with his daily life. She bit her lip, and her eyes filled with tears as
she realized that by her own wilfulness she had lost half the delight
of this June day. What could she say to make him understand her girlish
pettishness? How could she undo the impression she had given him? There
was no excuse she could offer that would seem adequate. She could not
tell him that in a fit of mere foolish annoyance at his prolonged
absence she had chosen to deceive him with regard to her relations
with Archie. How courteous he was; with what deference he waited on
her mother; how anxious he was for the comfort of his guests--he had
planned this for their pleasure and she had made it but a bitter trial
for herself.
“Shall you put a good crop in?” said the practical Polly, looking
interestedly toward the corn-field, and addressing Parker.
“I hope to have enough; it does not take much to feed one man and his
horse. I do not know all I ought about farming, but I am willing to
learn, and I think I shall get along.”
“It’s well enough to have yer manger full,” Polly returned. “Ah, these
are aisy times, Nancy, to those we had when no man durst go out alone
to plant or hoe, and when working parties had to have their sentries
armed and watchful of the Injuns. Manny a time their men have scuttled
in from the fields, and manny a time has my Jimmy gone out with half
a dozen others to guard some foolhardy man back to the fort who had
trusted to his own two legs to get away, and would have been scalped
in sight of his own house if it hadn’t been for his more cautious
neighbors.”
“And I suppose those same men were ready to fly in the face of
Providence again at the first chance, and would go out by themselves to
their fields, trusting to luck to get back safe.”
“Yes, an’ if they didn’t happen to get ketched, they’d boast of how
much bigger crops they had than anybody else. I never felt in peace
mesel’ till Wayne’s treaty.”
“Yet you wouldn’t leave the first settlement till you had to,” Agnes
reminded her.
“We all have our follies,” Polly replied calmly. “Yer no done bein’
foolish yersel’, Nancy.” A remark which Agnes at that moment silently
indorsed.
The supper over and the table cleared, Parker took from the shelf
his flute, and played for them many plaintive airs, so that Agnes’s
heartache was made worse instead of better. She sat by her mother on
the doorsill, Parker leaning against a tree near by. It seemed as if
his melancholy strains were a reproach to her, and she could have wept.
Polly, too, felt the spell of the plaintive melodies, and furtively
wiped her eyes. Then her strong voice demanded something lively.
“We’ll all have the doldrums; it’s worse ‘an a banshee’s wailin’,” she
remarked vehemently, and to please her Parker struck up “St. Patrick’s
Day in the Morning,” which broke the spell and set Polly’s foot to
tapping time.
Then came the ride to the river which they desired to reach before
dark, and this time Agnes sprang up before Polly, taking her mother’s
place and declaring that it was but fair that they should change
partners, and when they reached the river, though Parker would have
rowed them across, they saw Jimmy waiting on the other side, and so
their host left them to glide out into the moonlight, and all Agnes had
for comfort was a remembrance that to her was given his last hand-clasp
as he helped her into the boat, and that she so sat that her back was
toward her home, and she could behold him standing there watching, till
his figure, a silhouette in the moonlight, was hidden behind the trees.
At the hilltop she turned to look once more, but he had gone, and what
was silver moonlight or June weather to her?