The echoes rang again to the old woman's great laugh. "We might as well
ha' asked her 'bout the back side of th' moon! So we gave up on olives and
lemons! Then Eben he asked her 'bout taxes there. Were they on land mostly
and were they high and who 'sessed 'em and how 'bout school tax. Did the
state pay part o' that? You see town meetin' being so all tore up every
year 'bout taxes, Eben he thought 'twould be a chance to hear how other
folks did, and maybe learn somethin'. Good land, Abby, I've set there and
'most died, trying to keep from yellin' right out with laugh to see our
folks tryin' to learn somethin' 'bout foreign parts from that woman that's
traveled in 'em steady for five years. I bet she was blind-folded and
gagged and had cotton in her ears the hull time she was there!"
"Didn't she tell you anythin' 'bout taxes?"
"Taxes? You'd ha' thought 'twas bumble-bees' hind legs we was askin'
'bout! She ackshilly seemed s'prised to be asked. Land! What had she ever
thought 'bout such triflin' things as taxes. She didn't know how they was
taxed in Italy, or _if_ they was ... nor anywhere else. That what it come
down to, every time. She didn't know! She didn't know what kind of schools
they had, nor what the roads was made of, nor who made 'em. She couldn't
tell you what hired men got, nor _any_ wages, nor what girls that didn't
get married did for a living, nor what rent they paid, nor how they 'mused
themselves, nor how much land was worth, nor if they had factories, nor if
there was any lumberin' done, nor how they managed to keep milk in such
awful hot weather without ice. Honest, Abby, she couldn't even say if the
houses had cellars or not. Why, it come out she never was _in_ a real
house that anybody lived in ... only hotels. She hadn't got to know a
single real person that b'longed there. Of course she never found out
anything 'bout how they lived. Her mother was there, she said, and her
aunt, and that Bilson family that comes to th' village summers, an' the
Goodriches an' the Phippses an' the ... oh, sakes alive, you know that
same old crowd that rides 'roun' here summers and thinks to be sociable by
sayin' how nice an' yellow your oats is blossomin'! You could go ten times
'roun' the world with them and know less 'bout what folks is like than
when you started. When I heard 'bout them being there, I called Eben and
Joel and Em'ly off and I says, 'Now, don't pester that poor do-less
critter with questions any more. How much do the summer folks down to th'
village know 'bout the way we live?' Well, they burst out laughin', of
course. Well, then,' I says, ''tis plain to be seen that all they do in
winter is to go off to some foreign part and do the same as here,' so I
says to them, same's I said to you, Abby, a while back, that they'd better
save their breath to cool their porridge. But it's awful solemn eatin'
now, without a word spoke."
The other woman laughed. "Why, you don't have to talk 'bout foreign parts
or else keep still, do ye?"
"Oh, it's just so 'bout everythin'. We heard she'd been in Washington last
winter, so Eben he brisked up and tried her on politics. Well, she'd never
heard of direct primaries, they're raisin' such a holler 'bout in York
State; she didn't know what th' 'nsurgent senators are up to near as much
as we did, and to judge by the way she looked, she'd only just barely
heard of th' tariff." The word was pronounced with true New England
reverence. "Then we tried bringin' up children, and lumberin' an' roads,
an' cookin', an' crops, an' stock, an' wages, an' schools, an' gardenin',
but we couldn't touch bottom nowhere. Never a word to be had out'n her. So
we give up and now we just sit like stotin' bottles, an' eat--an' do our
visitin' with each other odd minutes afterward."
"Why, she don't look to be half-witted," said the other.
"She ain't!" cried Mrs. Pritchard with emphasis. "She's got as good a
headpiece, natchilly, as anybody. I remember her when she was a young one.
It's the fool way they're brung up! Everythin' that's any fun or intrust,
they hire somebody else to do it for 'em. Here she is a great strappin'
woman of twenty-two or three, with nothing in the world to do but to
traipse off 'cross the fields from mornin' to night--an' nobody to need
her there nor here, nor anywhere. No wonder she looks peaked. Sometimes
when I see her set and stare off, so sort o' dull and hopeless, I'm so
sorry for her I could cry! Good land! I'd as lief hire somebody to chew my
vittles for me and give me the dry cud to live off of, as do the way those
kind of folks do."
The distant call of a steam-whistle, silvered by the great distance into a
flute-like note, interrupted her. "That's the milk-train, whistling for
the Millbrook cross in'," she said. "We must be thinkin' of goin' home
before long. Where be those young ones?" She raised her voice in a call as
unexpectedly strong and vibrant as her laugh. "_Susie! Eddie_! Did they
answer? I'm gittin' that hard o' hearin' 'tis hard for me to make out."
"Yes, they hollered back," said the other. "An' I see 'em comin' through
the pasture yonder. I guess they got their pails full by the way they
carry 'em."
"That's good," said Mrs. Pritchard with satisfaction. "They can get
twenty-five cents a quart hulled, off'n summer folks. They're savin' up to
help Joel go to Middletown College in the fall."
"They think a lot o' Joel, don't they?" commented the other.
"Oh, the Pritchards has always been a family that knew how to set store by
their own folks," said the old woman proudly, "and Joel he'll pay 'em back
as soon as he gets ahead a little."
The children had evidently now come up, for Virginia heard congratulations
over the berries and exclamations over their sun-flushed cheeks. "Why,
Susie, you look like a pickled beet in your face. Set down, child, an'
cool off. Grandma called you an' Eddie down to tell you an old-timey
story."
There was an outbreak of delighted cries from the children and Mrs.
Pritchard said deprecatingly, "You know, Abby, there never was children
yet that wasn't crazy 'bout old-timey stories. I remember how I used to
hang onto Aunt Debby's skirts and beg her to tell me some more.
"The story I'm goin' to tell you is about this Great-aunt Debby," she
announced formally to her auditors, "when she was 'bout fourteen years old
and lived up here in this very house, pretty soon after th' Rev'lution.
There was only just a field or two cleared off 'round it then, and all
over th' mounting the woods were as black as any cellar with pines and
spruce. Great-aunt Debby was the oldest one of five children and my
grandfather--your great-great-grandfather--was the youngest. In them days
there wa'n't but a few families in the valley and they lived far apart, so
when Great-aunt Debby's father got awful sick a few days after he'd been
away to get some grist ground, Aunt Debby's mother had to send her 'bout
six miles through th' woods to the nearest house--it stood where the old
Perkins barn is now. The man come back with Debby, but as soon as he saw
great-grandfather he give one yell--'smallpox!'--and lit out for home.
Folks was tur'ble afraid of it then an' he had seven children of his own
an' nobody for 'em to look to if he died, so you couldn't blame him none.
They was all like that then, every fam'ly just barely holdin' on, an'
scratchin' for dear life.
"Well, he spread the news, and the next day, while Debby was helpin' her
mother nurse her father the best she could, somebody called her over
toward th' woods. They made her stand still 'bout three rods from 'em and
shouted to her that the best they could do was to see that the fam'ly had
vittles enough. The neighbors would cook up a lot and leave it every day
in the fence corner and Debbie could come and git it.
"That was the way they fixed it. Aunt Debby said they was awful faithful
and good 'bout it and never failed, rain or shine, to leave a lot of the
best stuff they could git in them days. But before long she left some of
it there, to show they didn't need so much, because they wasn't so many to
eat.
"First, Aunt Debby's father died. Her mother an she dug the grave in
th' corner of th' clearin', down there where I'm pointin'. Aunt Debby said
she couldn't never forget how her mother looked as she said a prayer
before they shoveled the dirt back in. Then the two of 'em took care of
the cow and tried to get in a few garden seeds while they nursed one of
the children--the boy that was next to Debby. That turned out to be
smallpox, of course, and he died and they buried him alongside his father.
Then the two youngest girls, twins they was, took sick, and before they
died Aunt Debby's mother fell over in a faint while she was tryin' to
spade up the garden. Aunt Debby got her into the house and put her to bed.
She never said another thing, but just died without so much as knowin'
Debby. She and the twins went the same day, and Debby buried 'em in one
grave.
"It took her all day to dig it, she said. They was afraid of wolves in
them days and had to have their graves deep. The baby, the one that was to
be my grandfather, played 'round while she was diggin', and she had to
stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him. She got the bodies over to
the grave, one at a time, draggin' 'em on the wood-sled. When she was
ready to shovel the dirt back in, 'twas gettin' to be twilight, and she
said the thrushes were beginnin' to sing--she made the baby kneel down and
she got on her knees beside him and took hold of his hand to say a prayer.
She was just about wore out, as you can think, and scared to death, and
she'd never known any prayer, anyhow. All she could think to say was
'Lord--Lord--Lord!' And she made the baby say it, over and over. I guess
'twas a good enough prayer too. When I married and come up here to live,
seems as though I never heard the thrushes begin to sing in the evening
without I looked down there and could almost see them two on their knees.
"Well, there she was, fourteen years old, with a two-year-old baby to look
out for, and all the rest of the family gone as though she'd dreamed 'em.
She was sure she and little Eddie--you're named for him, Eddie, and don't
you never forget it--would die, of course, like the others, but she wa'n't
any hand to give up till she had to, and she wanted to die last, so to
look out for the baby. So when she took sick she fought the smallpox just
like a wolf, she used to tell us. She had to live, to take care of Eddie.
She gritted her teeth and _wouldn't_ die, though, as she always said,
'twould ha' been enough sight more comfortable than to live through what
she did.
"Some folks nowadays say it couldn't ha' been smallpox she had, or she
couldn't ha' managed. I don't know 'bout that. I guess 'twas plenty bad
enough, anyhow. She was out of her head a good share of th' time, but she
never forgot to milk the cow and give Eddie his meals. She used to fight
up on her knees (there was a week when she couldn't stand without fallin'
over in faint) and then crawl out to the cow-shed and sit down flat on
the ground and reach up to milk. One day the fever was so bad she was
clear crazy and she thought angels in silver shoes come right out there,
in the manure an' all, and milked for her and held the cup to
Eddie's mouth.
"An' one night she thought somebody, with a big black cape on, come and
stood over her with a knife. She riz up in bed and told him to '_git out_!
She'd _have_ to stay to take care of the baby!' And she hit at the knife
so fierce she knocked it right out'n his hand. Then she fainted away agin.
She didn't come to till mornin', and when she woke up she knew she was
goin' to live. She always said her hand was all bloody that morning from a
big cut in it, and she used to show us the scar--a big one 'twas, too. But
I guess most likely that come from something else. Folks was awful
superstitious in them days, and Aunt Debby was always kind o' queer.
"Well, an' so she did live and got well, though she never grew a mite from
that time. A little wizened-up thing she was, always; but I tell you folks
'round here thought a nawful lot of Aunt Debby! And Eddie, if you'll
believe it, never took the sickness at all. They say, sometimes, babies
don't.
"They got a fam'ly to come and work the farm for 'em, and Debby she took
care of her little brother, same as she always had. And he grew up and got
married and come to live in this house and Aunt Debby lived with him.
They did set great store by each other! Grandmother used to laugh and say
grandfather and Aunt Debby didn't need no words to talk together. I was
eight, goin' on nine--why, Susie, just your age--when Aunt Debby died. I
remember as well the last thing she said. Somebody asked her if she was
afraid. She looked down over the covers--I can see her now, like a old
baby she looked, so little and so light on the big feather-bed, and she
said, 'Is a grain o' wheat scared when you drop it in the ground?' I
always thought that wa'n't such a bad thing for a child to hear said.
"She'd wanted to be buried there beside the others and grandfather did it
so. While he was alive he took care of the graves and kept 'em in good
order; and after I married and come here to live I did. But I'm gettin' on
now, and I want you young folks should know 'bout it and do it after I'm
gone.
"Now, here, Susie, take this pot of petunias and set it out on the head of
the grave that's got a stone over it. And if you're ever inclined to think
you have a hard time, just you remember Aunt Debby and shut your teeth and
_hang on_! If you tip the pot bottom-side up, and knock on it with a
stone, it'll all slip out easy. Now go along with you. We've got to be
starting for home soon."
There was a brief pause and then the cheerful voice went on: "If there's
any flower I do despise, it's petunias! But 'twas Aunt Debby's 'special
favorite, so I always start a pot real early and have it in blossom when
her birthday comes 'round."
By the sound she was struggling heavily to her feet. "Yes, do, for
goodness' sakes, haul me up, will ye? I'm as stiff as an old horse.
I don't know what makes me so rheumaticky. My folks ain't, as a
general thing."
There was so long a silence that the girl inside the house wondered if
they were gone, when Mrs. Pritchard's voice began again: "I do like to
come up here! It 'minds me of him an' me livin' here when we was young. We
had a good time of it!"
"I never could see," commented the other, "how you managed when he went
away t' th' war."
"Oh, I did the way you do when you _have_ to! I'd felt he ought to go, you
know, as much as he did, so I was willin' to put in my best licks. An' I
was young too--twenty-three--and only two of the children born then--and I
was as strong as a ox. I never minded the work any. 'Twas the days after
battles, when we couldn't get no news, that was the bad part. Why, I could
go to the very spot, over there where the butternut tree stands--'twas
our garden then--where I heard he was killed at Gettysburg."
"What did you do?" asked the other.
"I went on hoein' my beans. There was the two children to be looked out
for, you know. But I ain't mindin' tellin' you that I can't look at a
bean-row since without gettin' sick to my stomach and feelin' the
goose-pimples start all over me."
"How did you hear 'twan't so?"
"Why, I was gettin' in the hay--up there where the oaks stand was our
hay-field. I remember how sick the smell of the hay made me, and when the
sweat run down into my eyes I was glad to feel 'em smart and sting--well,
Abby, you just wait till you hear your Nathan'l is shot through the head
and you'll know how it was--well, all of a sudden--somebody took the fork
out'n my hand an'--an' said--'here, you drive an' I'll pitch '--and
there--'twas--'twas----"
"Why, Grandma Pritchard! You're----"
"No, I ain't, either; I ain't such a fool, I hope! Why, see me cry like a
old numskull! Ain't it ridic'lous how you can talk 'bout deaths and
buryin's all right, and can't tell of how somebody come back from the
grave without--where in th' nation is my handkerchief! Why, Abby, things
ain't never looked the same to me from that minute on. I tell you--I tell
you--_I was real glad to see him_!
"Good land, what time o' day do you suppose it can be? Susie! Eddie! Come,
git your berries and start home!"
The two voices began to sound more faintly as the old woman's crutch rang
on the stones. "Well, Abby, when I come up here and remember how I farmed
it alone for four years, I say to myself that 'twan't only th' men that
set the slaves free. Them that stayed to home was allowed to have their
share in the good----" The syllables blurred into an indistinguishable hum
and there fell again upon the house its old mantle of silence.
As if aroused by this from an hypnotic spell, the girl on the hay sat up
suddenly, pressing her hands over her eyes; but she did not shut out a
thousand thronging visions. There was not a sound but the loud throbbing
of the pulses at her temples; but never again could there be silence for
her in that spot. The air was thick with murmurs which beat against her
ears. She was trembling as she slipped down from the hay and, walking
unsteadily to the door, stood looking half-wildly out into the haunted
twilight.
The faint sound of the brook rose liquid in the quiet evening air.
There, where the butternut tree stood, had been the garden!
The white birches answered with a rustling stir in all their lightly
poised leaves.
Up there, where the oaks were, had been the hay-field!
The twilight darkened. Through the forest, black on the crest of the
overhanging mountain, shone suddenly the evening star.
There, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled!
The girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the
corner of the clearing.
Two hermit thrushes, distant in the forest, began to send up their
poignant antiphonal evening chant.