AUNT HANNAH AND UNCLE NATHAN.
The apple trees were all growing old,
And old was the house that sheltered him;
But that brave, warm heart, was a heart of gold!
Though his head was grey, and his eyes were dim.
Aunt Hannah arose, and walked with a precise and firm step from the
room. Enoch Sharp led the way into a low back porch that overlooked
that portion of the garden devoted to vegetables. In one end of this
porch stood a huge cheese-press; and on the dresser opposite, a wooden
churn was turned bottom up, with the dasher leaning against it.
Several milking-pails of wood, scoured to a spotless whiteness, were
ranged on each side, while nicely kept strainers hung over them. There
was a faint, pure smell of the dairy near, as if the porch opened to a
butter and cheese-room; but the exquisite cleanliness of everything
around made this rather agreeable than otherwise.
The principal object in the porch, however, was an old man seated in a
huge armed-chair of unpainted oak, with a splint bottom worn smooth by
constant use. The chair stood near the back entrance, and the old man
seemed quite too large and unwieldy for any attempt at exercise; but
his broad, rosy face was turned toward the door, as he heard Enoch
Sharp and his sister coming through the kitchen; and one of the
frankest smiles you ever beheld, beamed from his soft brown eyes over
the benevolent expanse of his face.
"Well, Nathan, what do you want of me?" inquired the austere lady in
her usual cold tones.
The good man seemed taken aback by this short address. He looked at
the Judge as if for help, saying,
"Hasn't he told you, Hannah?"
"Yes, he wants us to keep this little thing in yonder, and let others
pay us for it. I don't sell kindness--do you, Nathan?"
"No, no, certainly not; but then, Hannah, you must reflect; the
Judge's own house is not exactly suited for a person like this little
girl; and if we don't take her who will?"
The woman stood musing, her cold face unchanged, her eyes cast
thoughtfully downward.
"You see, sister," persisted uncle Nathan, "this little girl isn't as
the Judge says, a sort of person to make a pet of, like the one Mrs.
Farnham has adopted."
Aunt Hannah started, and looked up with one of those sharp glances,
that we have once seen disturb the cold monotony of her face. There
was something in the name of Mrs. Farnham, that seemed to sting her
into life.
"She isn't handsome, you know," persisted the good man, "but you won't
care for that, Hannah. The Judge says she's a bright, good little
creature, and she'll be company for us, don't you think so?"
Aunt Hannah looked at the Judge, who stood regarding her with some
degree of anxiety.
"Judge," she said, "that woman yonder? She is rich, and these two
children loved each other--why did she send this girl to me?"
"She did not; I brought her without her knowledge," said the Judge.
"Young Farnham first suggested it."
"Young Farnham?" said the woman, and a glow came to her forehead.
"But why were they put asunder?"
"Mrs. Farnham seems to have taken a dislike to poor Mary," was the
reply. "The other child is very pretty, and this was a great
recommendation, for a lady like her, you know; besides my ward was
very anxious that you should take charge of her."
The quick fire once more came to aunt Hannah's eyes. She drew herself
up, and looking at Enoch Sharp, said, with a degree of feeling very
unusual to her,
"Judge Sharp, you can go home. I will take the girl and bring her up
after my own fashion; but, as for your money, we are not poor
enough--my brother and I--to sell kindness--not, not even to him."
The Judge would have spoken, but aunt Hannah waved her hand, after her
usual cold, stately fashion, saying, "take the girl--or leave her with
me."
"But she will be a burden upon you!" he began to say.
Aunt Hannah did not answer, but going into "the out room," removed
Mary's bonnet and mantilla, then, taking her by the hand, she led her
into the porch directly before uncle Nathan.
"Talk with her," she said; "I have the chores to do up yet."
"Yes, yes, talk with uncle Nathan, Mary; you will feel at home at
once," cried the Judge, somewhat annoyed that all his benevolent plans
could not be carried out, but glad, nevertheless, that his poor
favorite had found a home.
There are faces in the world which a warm-hearted person cannot look
upon without a glow of generous emotion. Those faces are seldom among
the most beautiful. Certainly, I have never found them so; but, this
power of waking up all the sweet emotions of an irrepressible nature
is worth all the beauty on earth. Uncle Nathan Heap's face was of this
character. Full and ruddy, it beamed with an expression so benevolent,
so warm and true, that you were ready to love and trust him at the
first glance.
Mary Fuller had too much character in herself not to feel all that was
noble in his. Her eye lighted up, the color came in a faint hue to her
cheeks, and, without a word, she placed her little hands between the
plump brown palms that were extended to receive her.
Uncle Nathan drew her close up to his knees, pressing her little hands
kindly between his, and perusing her face with his friendly brown
eyes.
"There, that will do, you are a nice little girl," he said, "I'm glad
the Judge thought of bringing you here."
Mary was ready to cry. This reception was so cheering, after the cold
interrogations of aunt Hannah.
"Go, bring that milking-stool, yonder, and sit down here while I talk
with you a little," said uncle Nathan, pointing toward three or four
stools, that hung on the picket fence in the back garden.
Mary ran across the cabbage patch, and brought the milking-stool,
which she placed near the old man.
"Close up, close up," he said, patting his fat knee, as if he expected
her to lean against it. "There, now, this will do. Sit still and see
how you like the garden while the sunshine strikes it."
Mary looked around full of serious curiosity. The sunshine was falling
across the cabbage patch, which she had just crossed, tinging the great
heads with gold. The massive effect of this blended green and gold;
the deep tints of the outer leaves, lined and crimped into a curious
network; the inner leaves folded so hard and crisp, in their lighter
green; all struck the child as singularly beautiful. Then the dun red
of the beet leaves, that took up the slanting sunbeams as they strayed
over the garden, scattering gold everywhere; and the delicate and
feathery green of the parsnip beds: these all had a charm for her
young eyes, a charm that one must feel for the first time to
appreciate.
"Don't you think it a pleasant place out here?" said uncle Nathan,
looking blandly down upon her.
"Oh! yes, very, very nice. I never saw so many things growing at once
before."
"No! Don't they have gardens in New York then?"
"Some persons do, but not with these things in them: but they have
beautiful roses and honeysuckles, and sights of flowers; don't you
like flowers, sir?"
"Like flowers? Why, yes. Didn't you see the coxcombs and marigolds in
the front garden?"
"Yes," said Mary, a little disappointed; for, to say the truth, she
found more beauty in the nicely arranged vegetable beds, with their
rich variety of tints, just then bathed in the sunset; besides, a
taste for rare flowers had been excited, by many a childish visit to
those pretty angles and grass plats, bright with choice flowers, that
beautify many of our up-town dwellings in New York. "Yes, they are
large and grand, but I like little tiny flowers, with stems that shake
when you only touch them."
"Oh, you'll find lots of flowers like that in the spring time, I can
tell you. Among the rocks and trees up there, the ground is covered
with them."
"And can I pick them?" asked the child, lifting her brightening eyes
on uncle Nathan, with a world of confiding earnestness in them, but
still doubtful if she would dare to touch even a wild blossom without
permission.
"Pick them!" repeated the old man, laughing till his double chin
trembled like a jelly. "Why the cattle tramp over thousands of them
every day. You may pick aprons full, if you have a mind to."
"I shouldn't like much to pick them in that way," said the child,
thoughtfully.
"Why not, ha?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Call me uncle Nathan!"
"Well, I don't know, uncle Nathan," repeated the child, blushing, "but
it seems to me as if it must hurt the pretty flowers to be picked, as
if they had feeling like us, and would cry out in my fingers."
"That is a queer thought," said uncle Nathan, and he looked curiously
on the child.
"Is it? I don't know," was the modest reply, "but I always feel that
way about flowers."
"She is a strange little creature," thought uncle Nathan, who had a
world of sympathy for every generous emotion the human soul ever knew,
"what company she will be here in the old stoop nights like this."
Then in a quiet, gentle way, uncle Nathan began to question the child,
as his sister had done; but Mary did not shrink from him as she had
from his relative; and the sunset gathered around them, while she was
telling her mournful little history.
The old man's eyes filled with tears more than once, as he listened.
Mary saw it and drew close to him as she spoke, till her little
clasped hands rested on his knees.
Just then aunt Hannah came into the porch with a pail in her hand,
foaming over with milk.
"Oh!" exclaimed uncle Nathan, lifting himself from the arm-chair with
a heavy sigh, "I oughtn't to have been sitting here, in this way,
while you are doing up the chores, Hannah. Give me the stool, little
darter, I must do my share of the milking, any how."
"Sit still! The child's strange yet; I can do up the chores for once,
I suppose," answered aunt Hannah, placing a bright tin pan on the
dresser, and tightening a snow-white strainer over the pail. "Sit
down, I say."
Uncle Nathan dropped into his capacious chair, with a relieving sigh,
though half the authority in aunt Hannah's command was lost in the
flow of a pearly torrent of milk which soon filled the pan.
"Can't I help?" inquired Mary, going up to aunt Hannah, as she lifted
the brimming pan with both hands, and bore it toward a swinging shelf
in the pantry.
"Not now; when you are rested. Go back to Nathan," answered aunt
Hannah, looking sideway over the uplifted milk pan.
Mary drew back to her place by the old man, and they watched the sun
as it set redly behind the hills, covering the garden and all the
hills with its dusky gold.
"See!" said uncle Nathan, pointing to an immense sun flower crowning a
stalk at least eight feet high. "See how that great flower wheels
round as the sun travels toward the mountains; and stands with its
face to the west, when it goes down. Did you ever see that before?"
"The great, brown flower, fringed with yellow leaves--does it really
do that?" cried Mary, with her bright eyes wandering from the stately
flower to uncle Nathan's face. "Oh! how I should love to sit and watch
it all day!"
"I do sometimes, Sundays, when it's too warm for anything else," said
uncle Nathan; "but supposing you go to bed early, and get up in the
morning, as sure as you do, that sunflower will be found looking
straight to the east."
Aunt Hannah, who had bustled about the porch and pantry some time,
appeared after a short interval, at the back door. Uncle Nathan
understood the signal, and taking Mary by the hand, led her into a
kitchen, neatly covered with a rag carpet, and furnished with
old-fashioned wooden chairs. A little round tea-table stood in the
middle of the room, covered with warm tea-biscuit, preserved plums
in china saucers, and plates of molasses-pound-cake, with a saucer of
golden butter, and one of cheese, placed at equal distances.
Aunt Hannah took her seat behind an oblong tray of dark japaned tin,
on which stood a conical little pewter tea-pot, bright as silver, and
a pile of tea-spoons small enough for a modern play-house, but so
bright that they scattered cheerful gleams over the whole tray. Three
chairs stood around the table, and in one of these Mary placed
herself, obedient to a move of aunt Hannah's hand. A bowl of bread and
milk stood by her plate, to which she betook herself with hearty
relish, while aunt Hannah performed the honors of her pewter tea-pot,
mingling a judicious quantity of water with Mary's portion of her
favorite beverage, while uncle Nathan reached over and sweetened it
with prodigality, observing that "it was the nature of children to
love sweets," at which aunt Hannah gave a cold smile of assent.
After tea, uncle Nathan withdrew to his seat on the porch again. Mary
would have made herself useful about the tea-things, but aunt Hannah
dismissed her with an observation that she might rest herself in the
porch.
It was very pleasant to keep close up to the side of that old man, and
find protection from her loneliness, in the shadow of his great chair.
Still, a sadness crept over her poor heart, for with all her
simple-hearted courage, the place was strange, and in spite of the
cordial voice of uncle Nathan that came cheerfully through the
gathering darkness, she felt a moisture creeping into her eyes. The
very stillness and beautiful quiet of everything around had elements
of sadness in it to a creature so sensitively organized as she was.
She thought of her father, and fixing her meek eyes on the stars, as
they came one by one into the sky, began to wonder if he knew where
she was, and how much like a father that good old man was acting
toward his little girl.
Then she thought of Isabel; and of Judge Sharp; of the great, good
fortune that had befallen her in being so near them both, and her poor
little heart swelled with a world of thankful feelings. I do think the
sweetest tears ever shed by mortal, come from those grateful feelings,
that, too exquisite for words, and too powerful for silence, can find
no language to express themselves in but tears.
Mary Fuller began to sob. She had for the moment forgotten the old
man's presence.
"What is this?" cried uncle Nathan, laying one hand over her head, and
patting her cheeks with his broad palm, "homesick a'ready?"
"No, no," sobbed Mary, "I, I was only thinking how good you all are to
me, how very, very happy I ought to feel."
"And can't. Is that it?"
"I don't know," answered the child, wiping her eyes, and looking up,
searching for uncle Nathan's face in the star-light. "There is
something here that isn't happy entirely, or a bit like sorrow, but
sometimes it almost chokes me, and would quite if I couldn't cry it
off."
"I used to feel that way once, I remember," said uncle Nathan,
thoughtfully, "but it wore off as I grew older."
"I shouldn't quite like to have it wear off," said the child, fixing
her eyes on the stars, and clinging to the golden dreams that so
haunted her, just before this fit of weeping came on, "altogether, I
don't think one would like to part with one's thoughts, you know."
"Not even when they make you cry?"
"No, I think not--those are the thoughts that one loves to remember
best."
"Come, Nathan," said aunt Hannah, appearing in the porch with a tallow
candle in her hand, "it's almost bed-time."
Uncle Nathan arose and entered the kitchen. Seating himself at the
little round stand, he opened a huge old Bible, that lay upon it, and
putting on a pair of iron spectacles began to read.
Mary, seated by aunt Hannah, listened with gentle interest with her
little hands folded in her lap, and her large grey eyes dwelling
earnestly on the face of the white-haired reader.
When the chapter was done, they all knelt down, and uncle Nathan
poured forth the fullness of his faith in a prayer, that went over the
child's heart like the summer wind upon a water-lily, stirring all its
young thought to their gentle depths, as the fragrant leaves of the
lily give forth their sweetness. Two or three times she heard aunt
Hannah murmur some words uneasily, as if a thought, at variance with
her brother's prayer, disturbed her. But directly the child was
enwrapped, heart and soul, in the earnest words that fell from the old
man's lips, and when she stood up again, her face had a sort of glory
in its expression. It was the first night in a long, long time that
Mary had been so near heaven.
And this was the kind of home which Enoch Sharp had given to the
orphan. Did she sleep well? If grateful thoughts can summon angels,
many bright spirits hovered over her little bed that night.
But aunt Hannah never closed her eyes.