UNEXPECTED CHESTNUT BURRS
Gregory's afternoon walk was not very prolonged, for a shivering sense
of discomfort soon drove him back to the house. Although the morning
had been cool, the sun had shone bright and warm, but now the
fore-shadowing of a storm was evident. A haze had spread over the sky,
increasing in leaden hue toward the west. The chilly wind moaned
fitfully through the trees, and the landscape darkened like a face
shadowed by coming trouble.
Walter dreaded a storm, fearing it would shut him up with the family
without escape; but at last the sun so enshrouded itself in gloom that
he was compelled to return. He went to his room, for a book, hoping
that when they saw him engaged they would leave him more to himself.
But to his agreeable surprise he found a cheerful fire blazing on the
hearth, and an ample supply of wood in a box near. The easy-chair was
wheeled forward, and a plate of grapes and the latest magazine were
placed invitingly on the table. Even his cynicism was not proof against
this, delicate thoughtfulness, and he exclaimed, "Ah, this is better
than I expected, and a hundred-fold better than I deserve. I make but
poor return for their kindness. This cosey room seems to say, 'We won't
force ourselves on you. You can be alone as much as you like,' for I
suppose they must have noticed my disinclination for society. But they
are wise after all, for I am cursed poor company for myself and worse
than none at all for others."
Eating from time to time a purple grape, he so lost himself in the
fresh thoughts of the magazine that the tea-bell rang ere he was aware.
"In the name of decency I must try to make myself agreeable for a
little while this evening," he muttered, as he descended to the
cheerful supper-room.
To their solicitude for his health and their regret that the
approaching storm had driven him so early to the house, he replied, "I
found in my room a better substitute for the sunlight I had lost;
though as a votary of nature, Miss Walton, I suppose you will regard
this assertion as rank heresy."
"Not at all, for your firelight is the result of sunlight." answered
Annie, smiling.
"How is that?"
"It required many summers to ripen the wood that blazed on your hearth.
Indeed, good dry wood is but concentrated sunshine put by for cold,
gloomy days and chilly nights."
"That is an odd fancy. I wish there were other ways of storing up
sunshine for future use."
"There are," said Miss Walton, cheerfully; and she looked up as if she
would like to say more, but he instantly changed the subject in his
instinctive wish to avoid the faintest approach to moralizing. Still,
conversation continued brisk till Mr. Walton asked suddenly, "By the
way, Mr. Gregory, have you ever met Mr. Hunting of Wall Street?"
There was no immediate answer, and they all looked inquiringly at him.
To their surprise his face was darkened by the heaviest frown. After a
moment he said, with peculiar emphasis, "Yes; I know him well."
A chill seemed to fall on them after that; and he, glancing up, saw
that Annie looked flushed and indignant, Miss Eulie pained, and Mr.
Walton very grave. Even the little boy shot vindictive glances at him.
He at once surmised that Hunting was related to the family, and was
oppressed with the thought that he was fast losing the welcome given
him on his father's account. But in a few moments Annie rallied and
made unwonted efforts to banish the general embarrassment, and with
partial success, for Gregory had tact and good conversational powers if
he chose to exert them. When, soon after, they adjourned to the parlor,
outward serenity reigned.
On either side of the ample hearth, on which blazed a hickory fire, a
table was drawn up. An easy-chair stood invitingly by each, with a
little carpet bench on which to rest the feet.
"Take one of these," said Mr. Walton, cordially, "and join me with a
cigar. The ladies of my household are indulgent to my small vices."
"And I will send for your magazine," said Annie, "and then you can read
and chat according to your mood. You gee that we do not intend to make
a stranger of you."
"For which I am very glad. You treat me far better than I deserve."
Instead of some deprecatory remark, Annie gave him a quick,
half-comical look which he did not fully understand.
"There is more in her than I at first imagined," he thought.
Seated with the magazine, Gregory found himself in the enjoyment of
every element of comfort. That he might be under no constraint to talk,
Annie commenced speaking to her father and Miss Eulie of some
neighborhood affairs, of which he knew nothing. The children and a
large greyhound were dividing the rug between them. The former were
chatting in low tones and roasting the first chestnuts of the season on
a broad shovel that was placed on the glowing coals. The dog was
sleepily watching them lest in their quick movements his tail should
come to grief.
Gregory had something of an artist's eye, and he could not help
glancing up from his reading occasionally, and thinking what a pretty
picture the roomy parlor made.
"Annie," said Mr. Walton, after a little while, "I can't get through
this article with my old eyes. Won't you finish it for me? Shall we
disturb you, Mr. Gregory?"
"Not at all."
Gregory soon forgot to read himself in listening to her. Not that he
heard the subject-matter with any interest, but her sweet, natural
tones and simplicity arrested and retained his attention. Even the
statistics and the prose of political economy seemed to fall from her
lips in musical cadence, and yet there was no apparent effort and not a
thought of effect. Walter mused as he listened.
"I should like to hear some quiet, genial book read in that style,
though it is evident that Miss Walton is no tragedy queen."
Having finished the reading, Annie started briskly up and said, "Come,
little people, your chestnuts are roasted and eaten. It's bedtime. The
turkeys and squirrels will be at the nut-trees long before you
to-morrow unless you scamper off at once."
"O, Aunt Annie," chimed their voices, "you must sing us the chestnut
song first; you promised to."
"With your permission, Mr. Gregory, I suppose I must make my promise
good," said Annie.
"I join the children in asking for the song," he replied, glad to get
them out of the way on such easy conditions, though he expected a
nursery ditty or a juvenile hymn from some Sabbath-school collection,
wherein healthy, growing boys are made to sing, "I want to be an
angel." "Moreover," he added, "I have read that one must always keep
one's word to a child."
"Which is a very important truth: do you not think so?"
"Since you are using the word 'truth' so prominently, Miss Walton, I
must say that I have not thought much about it. But I certainly would
have you keep your word on this occasion."
"Aunt Annie always keeps her word," said Johnny, rather bluntly. By
some childish instinct he divined that Gregory did not appreciate Aunt
Annie sufficiently, and this added to his prejudice.
"You have a stout little champion there," Gregory remarked.
"I cannot complain of his zeal," she answered significantly, at the
same time giving the boy a caress. "Mr. Gregory, this is a rude country
ballad, and we are going to sing it in our accustomed way, even though
it shock your city ears. Johnny and Susie, you can join in the chorus;"
and she sang the following simple October glee:
Katydid, your throat is sore,
You can chirp this fall no more;
Robin red-breast, summer's past,
Did you think 'twould always last?
Fly away to sunny climes,
Lands of oranges and limes;
With the squirrels we shall stay
And put our store of nuts away.
O the spiny chestnut burrs! O the prickly chestnut burrs!
Harsh without, but lined with down,
And full of chestnuts, plump and brown.
Sorry are we for the flowers;
We shall miss our summer bowers;
Still we welcome frosty Jack,
Stealing now from Greenland back.
And the burrs will welcome him;
When he knocks, they'll let him in.
They don't know what Jack's about;
Soon he'll turn the chestnuts out.
O the spiny, etc.--
Turkey gobbler, with your train,
You shall scratch the leaves in vain;
Squirrel, with your whisking tail,
Your sharp eyes shall not avail;
In the crisp and early dawn,
Scampering across the lawn.
We will beat you to the trees,
Come you then whene'er you please.
O the spiny, etc.--
Gregory's expression as she played a simple prelude was one of
endurance, but when she began to sing the changes of his face were
rapid. First he turned toward her with a look of interest, then of
surprise. Miss Eulie could not help watching him, for, though she was
well on in life, just such a character had never risen above her
horizon. Too gentle to censure, she felt that she had much cause for
regret.
At first she was pleased to see that he found the ditty far more to his
taste than he had expected. But the rapid alternation from pleased
surprise and enjoyment to something like a scowl of despair and almost
hate she could not understand. Following his eyes she saw them resting
on the boy, who was now eagerly joining in the chorus of the last
verse. She was not sufficiently skilled to know that to Gregory's
diseased moral nature things most simple and wholesome in themselves
were most repugnant. She could not understand that the tripping little
song, with its wild-wood life and movement--that the boy singing with
the delight of a pure, fresh heart--told him, beyond the power of
labored language, how hackneyed and blase he had become, how far and
hopelessly he had drifted from the same true childhood.
And Miss Walton, turning suddenly toward him, saw the same dark
expression, full of suffering and impotent revolt at his destiny, as he
regarded it, and she too was puzzled.
"You do not like our foolish little song," she said.
"I envy that boy, Miss Walton," was his reply.
Then she began to understand him, and said, gently, "You have no
occasion to."
"I wish you, or any one, could find the logic to prove that."
"The proof is not in logic but in nature, that is ever young. They who
draw their life from nature do not fall into the only age we need
dread."
"Do you not expect to grow old?"
She shook her head half humorously and said, "But these children will
before I get them to bed."
He ostensibly resumed his magazine, but did not turn any leaves.
His first mental query was, "Have I rightly gauged Miss Walton? I half
believe she understands me better than I do her. I estimated her as a
goodish, fairly educated country girl, of the church-going sort, one
that would be dreadfully shocked at finding me out, and deem it at once
her mission to pluck me as a brand from the burning. I know all about
the goodness of such girls. They are ignorant of the world; they have
never been tempted, and they have a brood of little feminine weaknesses
that of course are not paraded in public.
"And no doubt all this is true of Miss Walton, and yet, for some
reason, she interests me a little this evening. She is refined, but
nowhere in the world will you meet drearier monotony and barrenness
than among refined people. Having no real originality, their little
oddities are polished away. In Miss Walton I'm beginning to catch
glimpses of vistas unexplored, though perhaps I am a fool for thinking
so.
"What a peculiar voice she has! She would make a poor figure, no doubt,
in an opera; and yet she might render a simple aria very well. But for
songs of nature and ballads I have never heard so sympathetic a voice.
It suggests a power of making music a sweet home language instead of a
difficult, high art, attainable by few. Really Miss Walton is worth
investigation, for no one with such a voice can be utterly commonplace.
Strange as it is, I cannot ignore her. Though she makes no effort to
attract my attention, I am ever conscious of her presence."