A DANCE AFTER HUSKING
Merrily--merrily went the night
The laugh rang out
And a gleeful shout,
Shook the autumn leaves in that starry light.
In their haste the young people had left the strange youth seated in
the chair, in a dark end of the porch.
"Come," said uncle Nat, in his kindly fashion, "you and I will follow
them."
"Thank you;" said the youth, rising, "it has been a long ride, and I
was growing weary."
"Have you been sick?" said the old man, sorrowfully.
"It's hard!"
He paused. A strange thrill shot over him, as the hand of the youth
touched his. "Come," he added, tenderly, leading the stranger on, "I
have strength for us both."
The slender hand trembled in his clasp; the agitation was mutual; for
through the young man's delicately organized frame ran a spark of joy
that warmed him to the heart. They walked on together in silence, both
thrilled with a strange sensation of pleasure, and drawn, as it were,
by invisible influences toward each other.
"I'm afraid," said the youth, "I'm afraid my music will disappoint
them. I know hardly any but sacred or sad airs."
His voice made all the blood in uncle Nathan's veins start again; it
was music in itself, such music as brought back his youth, sad and
ineffably sweet.
"Oh," answered uncle Nathan, drawing a deep, pleasant breath, "you
must have a dancing tune or so, Yankee Doodle, Money-Musk, and
Money-in-both-pockets, as like as not."
"Yankee Doodle, oh, yes, it was the first air I ever learned, how my
poor father loved it--as for the rest--well, we shall see."
Uncle Nathan's chair had been placed near the door as it happened,
away from the light which fell warmest in the centre of the barn.
Thus, during the whole evening, the young musician had been constantly
surrounded by shadows that left his features mysteriously undefined.
Still, uncle Nathan hovered by; his warm heart yearned to sun itself
near the youth.
When the stranger drew forth his bow, and, without a prelude, dashed
into Yankee Doodle, uncle Nat sunk to a rustic bench, covered his face
with both bands, and absolutely shivered under the floods of
tenderness let into his soul with the music.
But no one heeded the old man; why should they? Couple after couple
rushed up to the centre of the barn, gaily disputing for places
beneath the rustic chandelier, while here and there a young fellow,
more eager than the rest, broke into a double shuffle or cut a subdued
pigeon-wing as an impromptu while the set was forming.
It was no wonder. The violin was absolutely showering down music. A
thousand strings seemed to find voice beneath those slender fingers.
It set the young people off like birds in a thicket, down the outside,
up, down the middle, swinging corners, oh, it is impossible for a pen
to keep up with them, that is not naturally musical.
There they go, whirling, smiling, dancing higher and faster, flying
with the music till they pause, flushed and panting, at the bottom of
the set. Even now they cannot be still, but give each other a
superfluous twirl, or go on in a promiscuous way, doing over again the
dance in fragments, till their turn comes back.
Somehow Yankee Doodle wavered off into various other airs quite
unknown to the dancers, all swelling free and with a bold sweep of
sound, as if the musician improvised as much in his music as the
company certainly did in their dancing. But it was the more
exhilarating for that, and never did enjoyment run higher or mirth
gush out more cheerily.
Mary Fuller had made her way quietly into the barn, and seating
herself by uncle Nathan, watched the bright revel as it went on,
filled with a pleasant sort of wonder that anything could be so happy
as these gay revellers seemed. Once or twice she was asked to dance,
but shrunk sensitively from the proposition.
Salina stood erect by uncle Nathan, with her arms folded and her head
on one side, filled with burning indignation against mankind in
general, and dear old uncle Nathan in particular, because she was left
a solitary wall-flower planted in the very calf-skin shoes which she
had expected to exhibit, at least in a French Four, with that rotund
gentleman.
There was a change in the music. The strings trembled and thrilled a
moment, then out came a wild gush of melody that made the very dancers
pause and hold their breath to listen.
Mary Fuller started to her feet one moment. The color left her lips,
and then back it came, firing her face with scarlet to the brows.
"Uncle Nat, uncle Nat," she said, seizing him by the arm, "that
music!--I've heard it before--listen--listen!"
She sat down trembling from head to foot, but her grey eyes flashed
from beneath their drooping lids, and her mouth grew tremulous with
agitation. When the air was finished, for it died off in a few
plaintive notes, as if the violinist had entirely forgotten the
dancers, Mary arose and crept softly toward the musician, till she
could obtain a view of his face. By the stray candles that wavered to
and fro among the evergreens, she could dimly see the white outline of
those pure features and the mysterious beauty of the eyes.
Now her countenance, hitherto varying and anxious, settled into a warm
flush of joy; she drew close to the musician, and resting one hand on
the back of his chair, placed the other softly on his arm.
"Joseph--Joseph Esmond," she said, in a voice that scarcely rose above
a whisper. "Is it you, Joseph?"
He started and turned his eyes toward her.
"I know the touch of your hand, Mary Fuller; and your voice is full of
the old music. Where am I? How does it happen that you and I meet
here?"
"I live here--I have friends, oh! such kind friends. And you, Joseph,
how came you here? Where is your father--that dear, good father?
Surely he is well."
"My father," said the youth, bowing his head, with a look of touching
sorrow, "my father is dead--I am alone in the world, but for this!"
He touched his violin with a mournful smile.
"Then you and I are orphans alike." But she added more cheerfully, "we
are not alone, you have your music, and your art, and I have my,
my--oh, I have many things."
"Music, music!" called out the dancers, impatiently, from the floor.
Mary drew back.
"Don't leave me," said the youth, anxiously. "Come listen to my old
friend here, and we will talk between the dances."
"Leave you?" replied the young girl; "you do not know, you cannot
guess how happy I am to see you again."
"And I," answered the youth, smiling softly, "I can feel how beautiful
everything is around me when you are near. Did you know how my father
loved you, and how he grieved over it when you left us?"
"Did he?" answered Mary, with a low sob, "how often I thought of you
and him; but he must have known where we went."
"Not till Frederick came back at vacation; soon after you began to
write, Mary. Then he was so pleased to hear from you. We heard you had
been taken from the Alms-House."
"Music, music!" clamored the dancers once more. The young man took up
his bow with a sigh.
"Listen, listen," he said, softly, drawing it across the strings. "Do
you remember the music we had that night? I will give it to you
again."
He began to play, and while others were dancing merrily, she listened
till her young heart filled and her eyes were crowded full of tears.
She remembered that small room high up in a city dwelling. The
furniture was scant but neat, and so daintily arranged. The bright
cooking-stove, the bird-cage, the little round work-stand, above all,
the handsome, cheerful woman, with her household love and genial
benevolence, Isabel Chester's mother--how vividly the sight of that
young minstrel brought all this to her memory.
The music was ringing cheerily through the barn, which trembled to the
buoyant movements of the dancers, till the garlands shook upon the
walls, and all the lights seemed to twinkle and reel with sympathetic
motion. But the face of the violinist grew sad in its expression, and
as Mary Fuller gazed at it through her tears, her heart trembled
within her, though a gleam of most exquisite pleasure lay at the
bottom--pleasure so unlike anything she had ever felt that its very
newness made her tremble.
"Don't you dance, Mary?" inquired the musician, speaking to her, but
without a break in his music.
"Dance!" she answered, smiling upon him, "no, I never have danced in
my life."
"Oh! if you would dance now. I should like to see how you look when
quite happy--my heart used to ache to see you thus, Mary."
Mary shrunk back blushing and frightened, he spoke so earnestly.
"No, no," she stammered, "I don't know how to dance; but I am very,
very happy."
The young musician shook his head, and the light of a stray candle
rippled through his hair like gold. There was something angelic in his
aspect, as he murmured amid the music,
"Oh! but she is heavenly. Never on earth have I heard a voice so full
of melody. Sweet spring sounds and the breath of flowers seem floating
in it. Oh! she is so good, this dear child."
Then he began to smile again; richer sounds gushed from beneath his
fingers; the dancers fell into a circle; the steps grew lighter. The
ring of life flashed round beneath the lights, whirling its way amid
floods of laughter, like a water-wheel casting off rainbows and foam
in the sunshine. The ring gave way; its sunny links broke into pairs;
balancing, smiling, and gliding off to the half-hushed music; all glad
to rest, but eager to begin again.
That moment the double doors were softly pushed open, and a group of
visitors entered the barn, almost unnoticed at first, but that soon
cast a restraint upon all this hilarity.
It was a young man, evidently from the city, and a fair girl so
beautiful that the whole company paused to look at her.
She was dressed very plainly, in a dark silk travelling-dress, and her
air was remarkable only for its simple quietness, though her large
eyes turned with a look of eager haste from form to form, as if she
were searching for some one.
Mary Fuller, who had been standing by the violinist, very thoughtful,
and with her eyes dim with heart-mist, saw the group come in. She drew
her hands across her eyes to clear their sight, clasped them with an
exclamation of joy, and moving down through the shadows stood close to
the young stranger.
"Isabel! Isabel!" broke from her eager lips.
Isabel Chester turned. Her face was radiant. She opened her arms, and
with an exclamation of delight, received Mary to her bosom.
"Mary, dear, dear little Mary Fuller--how glad I am. You love me yet,
I know. She never would forget me, any more than I could forget her.
Come, talk to me, I was determined to see you before I slept, and so
persuaded Fred--Mr. Farnham, I mean--oh, Frederick, isn't she a dear
creature?"
Isabel drew Mary's face from her bosom, and stood with one arm around
her as she said this.
Young Farnham reached forth his hand; before he could speak, Isabel
went on.
"She has grown a little, too; reaches to my shoulder and rather more;
her eyes, oh! I knew her eyes would be beautiful; and, and there is
something about her that I didn't expect. Frederick, why don't you
tell Mary Fuller that she's handsome? There now, isn't that look
something better than beauty? Oh! Mary Fuller, how glad I am to see
you."
Tears were flashing like diamonds down the peachy bloom of Isabel's
cheek; for Mary had crept to her bosom again, and she felt the shiver
of delight that shook the young creature from head to foot. Her own
heart leaped back to its old memories, and swelled against the
clinging form of her friend.
"That's right, that's just about as it ought to be," exclaimed Salina,
coming forward triumphantly, for her honest heart rose to meet the
scene. "I knew she'd be here afore bed-time, if New York finery and
foreign countries hadn't completely upset her. Isabel Chester, you're
a fust rate gal, and I say it. Mr. Farnham, she's a credit to human
nature. You may reckon on that, now I tell you. Says I to myself, says
I, 'that are gal is sure to come up to the Old Homestead afore
bed-time or I lose my guess.' Wasn't I right?"
"You always think too well of me," said Isabel, laughing through her
tears. "Come, Mary, let me hear your voice. You haven't spoken a word
yet."
"Oh! I love you so much Isabel! I'm _so_ happy, Isabel."
Isabel bent down and kissed the happy face upon her bosom. As she
lifted her eyes again, they fell upon the strange musician, who,
disturbed by voices that he recognized, had moved toward them
unnoticed.
"Who, who is this, Mary Fuller? I remember the face. No, no, it's one
of Guido's heads that has bewildered me. Surely I never saw anything
living like that before. It is Guido's Michael in repose. Look up,
Mary, and tell me who this young man is."
Isabel spoke in a low voice, regarding the youth with a look of
mingled admiration and surprise, while the tears still sparkled on her
cheeks.
Mary looked up; her eyes kindled, and she smiled proudly through her
tears.
"Isabel? Can't you remember something that you have seen before in his
face?"
"I don't know. The memory of a picture I saw at Rome blinds me. Who is
it, say?"
"Hush, Isabel! you will grow sad when I tell you. That night when you
and I watched"--
"Yes," answered Isabel, drooping her head, "I shall never forget that
night."
"Do you remember who was with us, Isabel?"
"That angel boy."
"Yes, Isabel. It is Joseph Esmond."
"Oh! this is too much happiness. All of us together again," and with
her arm still flung caressingly over Mary's shoulder, Isabel Chester
moved toward the youth; but she was checked by the capacious person of
uncle Nat, who came between her and her object with a look of strange
interest on his face. His hands were clasped, and you could see the
plump fingers working nervously around each other; while his eyes
filled and shone with anxious tenderness. At length, after a long
gaze, his chest swelled like the heave of an ocean wave; his hands
fell apart, and he murmured softly, as if speaking only to himself.
"It is little Anna's boy!"
"Who speaks my mother's name?" inquired the youth, in his low, gentle
way; "surely some one is near that I ought to love."
"Ought to love?" cried uncle Nat, seizing the hand which had been half
extended. "Ought to love? Why it would be again nature and the Lord's
Providence, if you didn't love Nathan Heap, the old man that"--
Uncle Nat checked himself; a crowd had gathered around him; but the
feelings he was constrained to suppress broke forth in two large tears
that rolled down his broad cheeks.
"Nephew," he sobbed, shaking the hand that he still grasped, "you're
welcome to the Old Homestead. Neighbors," he added with dignity,
"suppose you make out the evening with blind-man's-buff, or
Who's-got-the-button? This is my own nephew, that I haven't seen since
he was a baby. You won't expect him to play any more to-night; he's
tired out; and I"--
The old man's lips began to tremble, and tears came again to his eyes,
and coursed rapidly after those that had fallen. He shook his head;
tried to go on without success; and taking Joseph by the hand led him
toward the door.
"Stop, just one minute, now, till I've done a little chance of
business," cried the constable, creeping out from a corner of the
barn, where the husked ears had been piled, and planting himself, like
a pert exclamation point, before the old man. "I've got to make a levy
on this corn heap," he said; "the oxen out yonder, and sundry other
goods and chattels about the Old Homestead. I want to do everything
fair and above board, so just wait to see the law executed."
Uncle Nathan paused, half wondering, half shocked at the man's words.
"What! the corn that my kind neighbors have just husked? the oxen I
brought up from steers? who has a right to take them?"
"There's the writ. All correct you'll find. Madam Farnham claims a
right to her own, and I'm here to see that she gets it."
"Madam Farnham, my mother!" cried young Farnham, indignantly. "Knave,
you slander my mother."
"You'll find it there," said the little constable, dashing the back of
his dirty hand against the open writ. "Your mother, if she is your
mother, authorized me to buy up all claims agin uncle Nat here and
aunt Hannah, six months ago; and I've done it. Five hundred and ten
dollars with costs."
"Come with me," answered the young man, sternly. "Isabel, go to the
house with Salina. I will return."
He took the constable by the arm and led him out, followed by hoots
and cheers from the young farmers.
Uncle Nathan stood for a moment, dumb with amazement; then he drew a
deep breath and grasped his nephew's hand more firmly.
"It seems as if the Old Homestead was falling around us," he said,
"but so long as a shingle is left, it shall shelter my sister Anna's
son."
And he led the young man forth into the starlight.