THE HOUSEHOLD SACRIFICE.
Like a human thing she looked on me,
As I stood trembling there.
For many a day those dreamy eyes
Went with me everywhere.
"Well," said Salina, seating herself on Mary Fuller's bed, "if you
insist on it, I'll do my best, but I can't make up nothing, never
could, and what I've got on my mind is the genuine truth."
"That's right, tell us a true story, made up things are like novels,
and they're so wicked," cried the girls, swarming around the
strong-minded one full of curiosity, but arranging their ribbons and
smoothing down their dresses all the time, like a flock of pigeons
pluming themselves in the sunshine.
"Come, now, Salina, begin, or the young fellers will be through
supper."
"Well," said Salina, settling herself comfortably on the bed, and
deranging her attitude the next moment, "that sneaking constable who
came into the barn among the first, and went out again so sly, has
riled me up awfully. I've a nat'ral born hatred to all constables.
What business had he there, I'd like to know?"
"True enough," cried one of the girls, "An old married man! why don't
he stay home with his wife and children? Nobody wants him."
"I declare to man!" said Salina, "it made my blood bile to see him
sneaking about with both hands in his pockets, whistling to himself,
as if nobody was by; oh, I hate a constable like rank poison. They
always put me in mind of old times--when I was a young gal a year or
two ago."
Here the girls looked at each other; none of them remembered the time
when she had appeared a day younger than now.
"Well, as I was a saying, when I was a gal, my father and mother moved
from old Connecticut into the Lackawana valley in Pennsylvania, with
ten little children, all younger than I was. They had lost everything,
and went out into that dark, piny region to begin life agin.
"Well, they got a patch of wild land, partly on credit, built a
log-house, and went to work. Before the year was out father died, and
we found it hard dragging to get along without crops, and deep in
debt. We gave up everything to pay store debts, and should have felt
as rich as kings, if we could only have raised what the law allowed
us. But we had no barrel of beef and pork, which even the law leaves
to a poor family, but we lived on rye and injun, with a little
molasses when we couldn't get milk.
"The law allowed us two pigs and a cow with her calf. Our cow was a
grand good critter, capital for milk, and gentle as a lamb--you don't
know how the children took to her, and well they might--she more than
half supported them.
"Marm did her best for the children, and I worked as hard as she did,
spinning and carding wool, which she wove into cloth on a hand-loom.
"Well, in a year or two the calf grew into a fine heifer, and we
calculated on having milk from her after a little. So we began to fat
up the old cow, though I hain't no idea that we should ever have made
up our minds to kill her.
"There was some debts, still, but we had given up everything once, and
neither marm nor I thought of any body's coming on us agin. So we were
proud enough of our two cows, and as long as the children had plenty
of milk, never thought of wanting beef, and the old cow might have
lived to this time for what I know if we'd been left to ourselves."
Here Salina's voice became disturbed, and the girls settled themselves
in an attitude of profound attention.
"Well, as I was saying, things began to brighten with us, when one day
in came the town-constable with a printed writ in his hand.
"He'd found out that we had one more cow than the law allowed, and
came after it.
"I thought poor marm would a-gone crazy, she felt so bad, and no
wonder, with all them children, and she a widder. It came hard, I can
tell you.
"But the constable was determined, and what could she do but give up.
There stood the little children huddled together on the hearth, crying
as if their hearts were broke, at the bare thought of having the cow
drove off, and there was poor marm, with her apron up to her face,
a-sobbing so pitiful!
"I couldn't stand it; my heart rose like a yeasting of bread. I
detarmined that them children and that hard-working woman should have
enough to eat, constable or no constable.
"'Wait,' says I to the constable, 'till I go drive up the cow; she's
hard to find.'
"He sat down. Marm and the children began to sob and cry agin. I tell
you, gals, it was cruel as the grave.
"I went to the wood-pile and took the axe from between two logs.
Across the clearing and just in the edge of the woods I saw the old
cow and heifer browsing on the undergrowth. The old cow had a bell on
and every tinkle as she moved her head went to my heart. I had to
think of marm and the children before I could get courage to go on,
and with that to encourage me, I shook and trembled, like a murderer,
all the way across the clearing.
"The old cow and the heifer were close by each other, browsing on the
sweet birch undergrowth that grew thick there. When I came up they
both stopped and stood looking at me with their great earnest eyes, so
wistfully, as if they wondered which I was after."
Here Salina dashed a hand across her eyes and the color rushed into
her face, as if she were opposing a pressure of tears with great
bravery.
"It was enough to break any one's heart to see that old cow, with the
birch twigs in her mouth, coming toward me so innocent. She
thought--poor old critter--that I'd come to milk her; but instead of
the milk-pail I had that axe in my hand. She couldn't a-known what it
meant, and yet, as true as I live, it seemed as if she did."
"There she stood, looking in my face, wondering, I hain't no doubt,
why I didn't sit down on a log as usual, and fix my pail--and there I
stood, trembling, before the poor dumb animal, ready to fall down on
my knees and ask pardon for my cruel thoughts, and there was the
heifer looking on us both--oh, gals, gals, I hope none of you will
ever have to go through a thing like that."
The girls thus addressed were very still, and a sob or two was just
heard while the tears leaped like hail-stones down Salina's cheeks.
"My heart misgive me--I would't a done it. Those great innocent eyes
seemed as if they were human, I grew so weak that the axe almost fell.
I turned to go back ready to starve or anything rather than look that
animal in the face again with the axe in my hand. Yes, I turned away,
but there half across the clearing was the constable with the writ
flying out in his hand. My blood rose--I thought of the children with
nothing to eat--I don't know what I didn't think of. He was walking
fast, I turned; the cow was right before me. Oh, girls, there she
stood so quiet, chewing the green birch leaves, I was like a baby, the
axe wouldn't rise from the ground, I could not do it.
"He called out, I heard his step in the underbrush. Then my strength
flew back. I was wild--strong as a lion, but my eyes seemed hot with
sparks of fire. I shut them, the axe swung back--a crash, a deep, wild
bellow, and she fell like a log. I had struck in the white star on her
forehead. When I opened my eyes she was looking at me, and so her eyes
stiffened in their film. I had to hold myself up by the axe-helve with
both hands. It seemed to me as if I was dying too.
"'What have you been about, where is the cow?' said the constable, in
a passion, as he came up.
"'There,' said I, pointing to the poor murdered critter with my
finger, 'the law, you say, won't allow us two cows, but it does give
us a barrel of beef. This is our beef--touch it if you dare!'
"He skulked away and I fell down on my knees by the poor critter my
own hands had killed. It seemed as if my heart would break! There she
lay with the fresh green leaves in her mouth, so still, and there
stood the heifer looking at me steadily as if she wanted to speak, and
I couldn't make her understand why it had to be done. Oh, gals, gals
it was tough!"
There was silence for a moment, they had no disposition to speak.
"There, now, I've made you all miserable," said Salina, wiping her
eyes and making a great effort to laugh. "Hark! what's that?"
The girls jumped up and listened, smiles chased the tears from their
eyes, the young men were coming out from supper, and joy of joys, they
heard the tones of a violin from the back stoop.
You should have seen that group of mountain girls, struck by the
music, as each threw herself into some posture of natural grace and
listened.
"It is, it _is_ a fiddle--where _did_ it come from? a fiddle, a
fiddle, how delightful!" and they broke into an impromptu dance,
graceful as it was wild.