The birthday fell on a day in June. It so happened that Hetty was later
than usual in leaving her patients that night; and her purpose had been
to go home by the nearest way, and not pass through the Square. The
villagers had feared this, and had forestalled her; at the turning
where she would have left the main road, she found waiting for her the
swiftest-footed urchin in all St. Mary's, little Pierre Michaud. The
readiest witted, too, and of the freest tongue, and he was charged to
bring Aunt Hibba by the way of the Square, but by no means to tell her
the reason.
“And if she say me nay, what is it that I am to tell her, then?” urged
Pierrre.
“Art thou a fool, Pierre?” said his mother, sharply. “Thou'rt ready
enough with excuses, I'll warrant, for thy own purposes: invent one now.
It matters not, so that thou bring her here.” And Pierre, reassured by
this maternal _carte blanche_ for the best lie he could think of, raced
away, first tucking securely into a niche of the stone basin the little
pot with a red carnation in it which he had brought for his contribution
to the birthday _fète_.
When Hetty saw Pierre waiting at the corner, she exclaimed:
“What, Pierre, loitering here! The sunset is no time to idle. Where are
your goats?”
“Milked an hour ago, Tantibba,[1] and in the shed,” replied Pierre, with
a saucy air of having the best of the argument, “and my mother waits in
the Square to speak to thee as thou passest.”
“I was not going that way, to-night,” replied Hetty. “I am in haste.
What does she wish? Will it not do as well in the morning?”
Alarmed at this suggestion, young Pierre made a master-stroke of
invention, and replied on the instant:
“Nay, Bo Tantibba,[2] that it will not; for it is the little sister of
Jean Cochot which has been badly bitten by a fierce dog, and the mother
has her there in her arms waiting for thee to dress her wounds. Oh, but
the blood doth run! and the little one's cries would pierce thy heart!”
And the rascally Pierre pretended to sob.
[Footnote 1: “Tante Hibba.”]
[Footnote 2: The French Canadians often contract “bonne” and “bon” in
this way. “Bo Tantibba” is contraction for “Bonne Tante Hibba.”]
“Eh, eh, how happened that?” said Hetty, hurrying on so swiftly towards
the Square that even Pierre's brisk little legs could hardly keep up
with her. Pierre's inventive faculty came to a halt.
“Nay, that I do not know,” he replied; “but the people are all gathered
around her, and they all cry out for thee by thy name. There is none
like thee, Tantibba, they say, if one has a wound.”
Hetty quickened her pace to a run. As she entered the Square, she
saw such crowds around the basin that Pierre's tale seemed amply
corroborated. Pressing in at the outer edge of the circle, she
exclaimed, looking to right and left, “Where is the child? Where is Mère
Michaud?” Every one looked bewildered; no one answered. Pierre, with an
upward fling of his agile legs, disappeared to seek his carnation;
and Hetty found herself, in an instant more, surrounded by a crowd of
children, each in its finest clothes, and each bearing a small pot with
a flowering-plant in it.
“For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!” they
all cried, pressing nearer, and lifting high their little pots. “See
my carnation!” shouted Pierre, struggling nearer to Hetty. “And
my jonquil!” “And my pansies!” “And this forget-me-not!” cried the
children, growing more and more excited each moment; while the chorus,
“For thee! For thee! The good saints bless the day thou wert born!” rose
on all sides.
Hetty was bewildered.
“What does all this mean?” she said helplessly.
Then, catching Pierre by the shoulder so suddenly that his red carnation
tottered and nearly fell, she exclaimed:
“You mischievous boy! Where is the child that was bitten? Have you told
me a lie?”
At this moment, Pierre's mother, pushing through the crowd, exclaimed:
“Ah! but thou must forgive him. It was I that sent him to lie to thee,
that thou shouldst not go home. We go with thee, to do our honor to the
day on which thou wert born!”
And so saying, Mère Michaud turned, and swinging high up in the air one
end of a long wreath of feathery ground-pine, led off the procession.
The rest followed in preconcerted order, till some forty men and women,
all linked together by the swinging loops of the pine wreath, were in
line. Then they suddenly wheeled and surrounded the bewildered Hetty,
and bore her with them. The children, carrying their little pots of
flowers, ran along shouting and screaming with laughter to see the good
“Tantibba” so amazed. Louder and louder rose the chorus:
“For thee! For thee! May the good saints bless the day thou wert born!”
Hetty was speechless: her cheeks flushed. She looked from one to the
other, and all she could do was to clasp her hands and smile. If she
had spoken, she would have cried. When they came to Father Antoine's
cottage, there he stood waiting at the gate, wearing his Sunday robes,
and behind him stood Marie, also in her best, and with her broad silver
necklace on, which the villagers had only two or three times seen her
wear. Marie had her hands behind her, and was trying to hold out her
narrow black petticoat on each side to hide something. Mysterious and
plaintive noises struggled through the woollen folds, and, at each
sound, Marie stamped her foot and exclaimed angrily:
“Bah! thou silly beast, be quiet! Wilt thou spoil all our sport?”
The procession halted before the house, and Father Antoine advanced,
bearing in his hands a gay wreath of flowers. The people had wished that
this should be placed on Hetty's head, but Father Antoine had persuaded
them to waive this part of the ceremony. He knew well that this would be
more than Hetty could bear. Holding the wreath in his hands, therefore,
he addressed a few words to Hetty, and then took his place by her side.
Now was Marie's moment of joy. Springing to one side as quickly as her
rheumatic old joints would permit, she revealed what she had been trying
to hide behind her scant petticoat. It was a white lamb, decorated from
ears to tail with knots of ribbon and with flowers. The poor little
thing tugged hard at the string by which it was held, and shook its
pretty head in restless impatience under its load of finery, and bleated
piteously: but for all that it was a very pretty sight; and the broken
English with which Marie, on behalf of the villagers, presented the
little creature to Hetty, was prettier still. When they reached Hetty's
gate, all the women who had hold of the long pine wreath gave their
places to men; and, in the twinkling of an eye, the lithe vigorous
fellows were on the fences, on the posts of the porch, nailing the
wreath in festoons everywhere; from the gateway to the door in long
swinging loops, above the porch, in festoons over the windows, under the
eaves, and hanging in long waving ends on the walls. Then they hung upon
the door the crown which Hetty had not worn, and the little children set
their gay pots of flowers on the window-sills and around the porch;
and all was a merry hubbub of voices and laughter. Hetty grasped Father
Antoine by the arm.
“Oh, do you speak to them, and thank them for me! I can't!” she said;
and Father Antoine saw tears in her eyes.
“But you must speak to them, my daughter,” he replied, “else they will
be grieved. They cannot understand that you are pleased if you say no
word. I will speak first till you are more calm.”
When Father Antoine had finished his speech, Hetty stepped forward, and
looking round on all their faces, said:
“I do not know how to thank you, friends. I never saw any thing like
this before, and it makes me dumb. All I can say is that you have filled
my heart with joy, and I feel no more a stranger: your village is my
home.”
“Thanks to thee, then, for that! Thanks to thee! And the good saints
bless the day thou wert born,” shouted the people, and the little
children catching the enthusiasm, and wanting to shout something,
shouted: “Bo Tantibba! Bo Tantibba!” till the place rang. Then they
placed the pet lamb in a little enclosed paddock which had been built
for him during the day, and the children fed him with red clover
blossoms through the paling; and presently, Father Antoine considerately
led his flock away, saying,--“The good Aunt is weary. See you not that
her eyes droop, and she has no words? It is now kind that we go away,
and leave her to rest.”
As the gay procession moved away crying, “Good-night, good-night!” Hetty
stood on the porch and watched them. She was on the point of calling
them back. A strange dread of being left alone seized upon her. Never
since she had forsaken her home had she felt such a sense of loneliness,
except when she was crouched under the hemlock-trees by the lake. She
watched till she could no longer see even a fluttering motion in the
distance. Then she went into the house. The silence smote her. She
turned and went out again, and went to the paddock, where the little
lamb was bleating.
“Poor little creature!” she said, “wert thou torn from thy mother?
Dost thou pine for one thou see'st not?” She untied it, led it into the
house, and spread down hay and blankets for it, in one corner of her
kitchen. The little creature seemed cheered by the light and warmth;
cuddled down and went to sleep.
Hetty's heart was full of thoughts. “Oh! what would Eben have said if he
could have seen me to-night?” “How Raby would have delighted in it all!”
“How long am I to live this strange life?” “Can this be really I?” “What
has become of my old life, of my old self?” Like restless waves driven
by a wind too powerful to be resisted, thoughts and emotions surged
through Hetty's breast. She buried her face in her hands and wept;
wept the first unrestrained tears she had wept. Only for a few moments,
however. Like the old Hetty Gunn of the old life, she presently sprang
to her feet, and said to herself, “Oh, what a selfish soul I am to
be spending all my strength this way! I shan't be fit for any thing
to-morrow if I go on so.” Then she patted the lamb on its head, and
said with a comforting sense of comradeship in the little creature's
presence, “Good-night, little motherless one! Sleep warm,” and then she
went to bed and slept till morning.
I have dwelt on the surface details of Hetty's life at St. Mary's, and
have said little about her mental condition and experiences: this is
because I have endeavored to present this part of her life, exactly as
she lived it, and as she would tell it herself. That there were many
hours of acute suffering; many moments when her courage wellnigh failed;
when she was almost ready to go back to her home, fling herself at her
husband's feet, and cry, “Let me be but as a servant in thy house,”--it
is not needful to say.
Hearts answer to hearts, and no heart could fail to know that a woman in
Hetty's position must suffer keenly and constantly. But this story would
do great injustice to her, and would be essentially false, if it spoke
often of, or dwelt at any length upon the sufferings which Hetty herself
never mentioned, and put always away from her with an unflinching
resolution. Year after year, the routine of her days went on as we
have described; unchanged except that she grew more and more into the
affections of the villagers among whom she came and went, and of the
hundreds of ill and suffering men and women whom she nursed. She was no
nearer becoming a Roman Catholic than she had been when she sat in the
Welbury meeting-house: even Father Antoine had given over hoping for her
conversion; but her position in St. Mary's was like the position of a
Lady Abbess in a religious community; her authority, which rarely took
on an authoritative shape, was great; and her influence was greater than
her authority. In Dr. Macgowan's House of Cure, she was second only to
the doctor himself; and, if the truth were told, it might have been said
she was second to none.
Patients went away from St. Mary's every year who stoutly ascribed
their cure to her, and not to the waters nor to the physicians. Her
straightforward, kindly, common sense was a powerful tonic, morally and
physically, to all invalids whom she nursed. She had no tolerance for
any weakness which could be conquered. She had infinite tenderness for
all weakness which was inevitable; and her discriminations between the
two were always just. “I'd trust more to Mrs. Smailli's diagnosis of any
case than I would to my own,” said Dr. Macgowan to his fellow-physicians
more than once. And, when they scoffed at the idea, he replied: “I
do not mean in the technicalities of specific disease, of course. The
recognition of those is a matter of specific training; but, in all those
respects, a physician's diagnosis may be faultless; and yet he be much
mistaken in regard to the true condition of the patient. In this finer,
subtler diagnosis of general conditions, especially of moral conditions,
Mrs. Smailli is worth more than all the doctors in Canada put together.
If she says a patient will get well, he always does, and _vice versa_.
She knows where the real possibility of recuperation lies, and detects
it often in patients I despair of.”