THE BLUE PLATTER.
"Merry it is in the green forést,
Among the leavés green!"
Thus sang Hildegarde as she sat in the west window, busily stringing her
currants. She had been thinking a great deal about Bubble Chirk, making
plans for his education, and wondering what his sister Pink was like. He
reminded her, she could not tell why, of the "lytel boy" who kept fair
Alyce's swine, in her favorite ballad of "Adam Bell, Clym o' the Clough,
and William of Cloudeslee;" and the words of the ballad rose half
unconsciously to her lips as she bent over the great yellow bowl, heaped
with scarlet and pale-gold clusters.
"Merry it is in the green forést,
Among the leavés green,
Whenas men hunt east and west
With bows and arrowés keen,
"For to raise the deer out of their denne,--
Such sights have oft been seen;
As by three yemen of the north countree:
By them it is, I mean.
"The one of them hight Adam Bell,
The other Clym o' the Clough;
The third was Willyam of Cloudeslee,--
An archer good enough.
"They were outlawed for venison,
These yemen every one.
They swore them brethren on a day
To English wood for to gone.
"Now lythe and listen, gentylmen,
That of myrthes loveth to hear!"
At this moment the door opened, and Farmer Hartley entered, taking off
his battered straw hat as he did so, and wiping his forehead with a red
bandanna handkerchief. Hilda looked up with a pleasant smile, meaning to
thank him for the raspberries which he had gathered for her breakfast;
but to her utter astonishment the moment his eyes fell upon her he gave
a violent start and turned very pale; then, muttering something under
his breath, he turned hastily and left the room.
"Oh! what is the matter?" cried Hilda, jumping up from her chair. "What
have I done, Nurse Lucy? I have made the farmer angry, somehow. Is this
his chair? I thought--"
"No, no, honey dear!" said Nurse Lucy soothingly. "Sit ye down; sit ye
down! You have done nothing. I'm right glad of it," she added, with a
tone of sadness in her pleasant voice. "Seeing as 'tis all in God's
wisdom, Jacob must come to see it so; and 'tis no help, but a deal of
hindrance, when folks set aside chairs and the like, and see only them
that's gone sitting in them." Then, seeing Hilda's look of bewilderment,
she added, laying her hand gently on the girl's soft hair: "You see,
dear, we had a daughter of our own this time last year. Our only one she
was, and just about your age,--the light of our eyes, our Faith. She
was a good girl, strong and loving and heartsome, and almost as pretty
as yourself, Hilda dear; but the Father had need of her, so she was
taken from us for a while. It was cruel hard for Jacob; cruel, cruel
hard. He can't seem to see, even now, that it was right, or it wouldn't
have been so. And so I can tell just what he felt, coming in just now,
sudden like, and seeing you sitting in Faith's chair. Like as not he
forgot it all for a minute, and thought it was herself. She had a blue
dress that he always liked, and she'd sit here and sing, and the sun
coming in on her through her own window there, as she always called it:
like a pretty picture she was, our Faith."
"Oh!" cried Hilda, taking the brown, motherly hand in both of hers, "I
am so very, very sorry, dear Nurse Lucy! I did not know! I will never
sit here again. I thought--"
But she was ashamed to say what she had thought,--that this chair and
table had been set for her to tempt her to sit down "in a kitchen!" She
could hear herself say it as she had said it last night, with a world of
scornful emphasis. How long it seemed since last night; how much older
she had grown! And yet--and yet somehow she felt a great deal younger.
All this passed through her mind in a moment; but Nurse Lucy was petting
her, and saying: "Nay, dearie; nay, child! This is just where I want you
to sit. 'Twill be a real help to Farmer, once he is used to it. Hark! I
hear him coming now. Sit still! To please me, my dear, sit still where
ye are."
[Illustration: "SHE BENT IN REAL DISTRESS OVER THE CURRANTS."]
Hilda obeyed, though her heart beat painfully; and she bent in real
distress over the currants as Farmer Hartley once more entered the room.
She hardly knew what she feared or expected; but her relief was great
when he bade her a quiet but cheerful "Good-day!" and crossing the
room, sat down in his great leather arm-chair.
"Dinner'll be ready in five minutes, Jacob!" said the good dame,
cheerily; "I've only to lay the table and dish the mutton."
"Oh! let me help," cried Hilda, springing up and setting her bowl of
currants on the window-sill.
So between the two the snowy cloth was laid, and the blue plates and the
shining knives and forks laid out. Then they all sat down, and the
little maid-servant came too, and took her place at the end of the
table; and presently in came a great loutish-looking fellow, about one
or two and twenty, with a great shock of sandy hair and little
ferret-eyes set too near together, whom Dame Hartley introduced as her
nephew. He sat down too, and ate more than all the rest of them put
together. At sight of this man, who gobbled his food noisily, and
uttered loud snorts between the mouthfuls, the old Hilda awoke in full
force. She could _not_ endure this; mamma never could have intended it!
The Hartleys were different, of course. She was willing to acknowledge
that she had been in the wrong about them; but this lout, this oaf, this
villainous-looking churl,--to expect a lady to sit at the same table
with him: it was too much! She would ask if she might not dine in her
own room after this, as apparently it was only at dinner that this
"creature" made his appearance.
Farmer Hartley had been very silent since he came in, but now he seemed
to feel that he must make an effort to be sociable, so he said kindly,
though gravely,--
"I see ye're lookin' at that old dish, Huldy. 'Tis a curus old piece,
'n' that's a fact. Kin ye read the motter on it?"
Hilda had not been _looking_ at the dish, though her eyes had been
unconsciously fixed upon it, and she now bent forward to examine it. It
was an oblong platter, of old blue and white crockery. In the middle
(which was now visible, as the "creature" had just transferred the last
potato to his own plate, stabbing it with his knife for that purpose)
was a quaint representation of a mournful-looking couple, clad in
singularly ill-fitting aprons of fig-leaves. The man was digging with a
spade, while the woman sat at a spinning-wheel placed dangerously near
the edge of the deep ditch which her husband had already dug. Round the
edge ran an inscription, which, after some study, Hilda made out to be
the old distich:
"When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Where was then the gentleman?"
Hilda burst out laughing in spite of her self.
"Oh, it is wonderful!" she cried. "Who ever heard of Eve with a
spinning-wheel? Where did this come from, Farmer Hartley? I am sure it
must have a history."
"Wa-al," said the farmer, smiling, "I d'no ez 't' hes so to speak a
hist'ry, an' yit there's allays somethin' amoosin' to me about that
platter. My father was a sea-farin' man most o' his life, an' only came
to the farm late in life, 'count of his older brother dyin', as owned
it. Well, he'd picked up a sight o' queer things in his voyages, father
had; he kep' some of 'em stowed away in boxes, and brought 'em out from
time to time, ez he happened to think of 'em. Wa-al, we young uns growed
up (four of us there was, all boys, and likely boys too, if I do say
it), and my brother Simon, who was nex' to me, he went to college. He
was a clever chap, Simon was, an' nothin' would do for _him_ but he must
be a gentleman.
"'Jacob kin stick to the farm an' the mill; if he likes,' says he, 'an'
Tom kin go to sea, an' William kin be a minister,--'t's all he's good
fer, I reckon; but _I'm_ goin' ter be a _gentleman_!' says Simon. He
said it in father's hearin' one day, an' father lay back in his cheer
an' laughed; he was allays laughin', father was. An' then he went off
upstairs, an' we heard him rummagin' about among his boxes up in the
loft-chamber. We dassn't none of us tech them boxes, we boys, though we
warn't afeard of nothin' else in the world, only father. Presently he
comes down again, still a-laughin', an' kerryin' that platter in his
hand. He sets it down afore Simon, an' says he, 'Wealthy,' says he (that
was my mother), 'Wealthy,' says he, 'let Simon have his victuals off o'
this platter every day, d'ye hear? The' ain't none other that's good
enough for him!' an' then he laughed again, till he fairly shook, an'
Simon looked black as thunder, an' took his hat an' went out. An' so
after Simon went to college, every time he come home for vacation and
set down to table with his nose kind o' turned up, like he was too good
to set with his own kith and kin, father 'ud go an git the old blue
platter and set it afore him, an' say, 'Here's _your_ dish, Simon; been
diggin' any lately, my son?' and then lay back in his cheer and laugh."
"And did Simon become--a--a gentleman?" asked Hilda, taking her own
little lesson very meekly, in her desire to know more.
Farmer Hartley's brow clouded instantly, and the smile vanished from his
lips. "Poor Simon!" he said, sadly. "He might ha' been anythin' he
liked, if he'd lived and--been fortunate."
"Simon Hartley is dead, Hilda dear," interposed Dame Hartley, gently;
"he died some years ago. Will you have some of your own currants, my
dear?--Hilda has been helping me a great deal, Father," she added,
addressing her husband. "I don't know how I should have got all my
currants picked without her help."
"Has she so?" exclaimed the farmer, fixing his keen gray eyes on the
girl. "Waal! waal! to think o' that! Why, we sh'll hev her milkin' that
cow soon, after all; hey, Huldy?"
Hildegarde looked up bravely, with a little smile. "I will try," she
said, cheerfully, "if you will risk the milk, Farmer Hartley."
The old farmer returned her smile with one so bright and kind and genial
that somehow the ice bent, then cracked, and then broke. The old Hilda
shrank into so small a space that there was really very little left of
her, and the new Hilda rose from table feeling that she had gained a new
friend.
So it came to pass that about an hour later our heroine was walking
beside the farmer on the way to the barnyard, talking merrily, and
swinging the basket which she was going to fill with eggs. "But how
shall I find them," she asked, "if the hens hide them away so
carefully?"
"Oh, you'll hear 'em scrattlin' round!" replied the farmer. "They're
gret fools, hens are,--greter than folks, as a rule; an' that is sayin'
a good deal."
They crossed the great sunny barn-yard, and paused at the barn-door,
while Hilda looked in with delight. A broad floor, big enough for a
ballroom, with towering walls of fragrant hay on either side reaching
up to the rafters; great doors open at the farther end, showing a snatch
of blue, radiant sky, and a lovely wood-road winding away into deep
thickets of birch and linden; dusty, golden, cobwebby sunbeams slanting
down through the little windows, and touching the tossed hay-piles into
gold; and in the middle, hanging by iron chains from the great central
beam, a swing, almost big enough for a giant,--such was the barn at
Hartley Farm; as pleasant a place, Hilda thought, as she had ever seen.
"Waal, Huldy, I'll leave ye heer," said the farmer; "ye kin find yer way
home, I reckon."
"Oh, yes, indeed!" said Hilda. "But stop one moment, please, Farmer
Hartley. I want to know--will you please--may I teach Bubble Chirk a
little?" The farmer gave a low whistle of surprise; but Hilda went on
eagerly: "I found him studying, this morning, while he was weeding the
garden,--oh! studying so hard, and yet not neglecting his work for a
minute. He seems a very bright boy, and it is a pity he should not have
a good education. Could you spare him, do you think, for an hour every
day?" She stopped, while the farmer looked at her with a merry twinkle
in his eye.
"You teach Bubble Chirk!" he said. "Why, what would your fine friends
say to that, Miss Huldy? Bubble ain't nothin' but a common farm-boy, if
he _is_ bright; an' I ain't denyin' that he is."
"I don't know what they would say," said Hildegarde, blushing hotly,
"and I don't care, either! I know what mamma would do in my place; and
so do you, Farmer Hartley!" she added, with a little touch of
indignation.
"Waal, I reckon I do!" said Farmer Hartley. "And I know who looks like
her mother, this minute, though I never thought she would. Yes!" he
said, more seriously, "you shall teach Bubble Chirk, my gal; and it's my
belief 'twill bring you a blessin' as well as him. Ye are yer mother's
darter, after all. Shall I give ye a swing now, before I go; or are ye
too big to swing!"
"I--don't--know!" said Hildegarde, eying the swing wistfully. "Am I too
big, I wonder?"
"Yer ma warn't, when she was here three weeks ago!" said the farmer. "She
just sot heer and took a good solid swing, for the sake of old times,
she said."
"Then I will take one for the sake of new times!" cried Hilda, running
to the swing and seating herself on its broad, roomy seat. "For the sake
of this new time, which I know is going to be a happy one, give me three
_good_ pushes, please, Farmer Hartley, and then I can take care of
myself."
One! two! three! up goes Queen Hildegarde, up and up, among the dusty,
cobwebby sunbeams, which settle like a crown upon her fair head. Down
with a rush, through the sweet, hay-scented air; then up again,
startling the swallows from under the eaves, and making the staid and
conservative old hens frantic with anxiety. Up and down, in broad, free
sweeps, growing slower now, as the farmer left her and went to his work.
How perfect it was! Did the world hold anything else so delightful as
swinging in a barn? She began to sing, for pure joy, a little song that
her mother had made for her when she was a little child, and used to
swing in the garden at home. And Farmer Hartley, with his hand on the
brown heifer's back, paused with a smile and a sigh as he heard the
girl's sweet fresh voice ring out gladly from the old barn. This was the
song she sang:--
If I were a fairy king
(Swinging high, swinging low),
I would give to you a ring
(Swinging, oh!)
With a diamond set so bright
That the shining of its light
Should make morning of the night
(Swinging high, swinging low)--
Should make morning of the night
(Swinging, oh!).
On each ringlet as it fell
(Swinging high, swinging low)
I would tie a golden bell
(Swinging, oh!);
And the golden bells would chime
In a little merry rhyme,
In the merry morning time
(Swinging high, swinging low)--
In the happy morning time
(Swinging, oh!).
You should wear a satin gown
(Swinging high, swinging low),
All with ribbons falling down
(Swinging, oh!).
And your little twinkling feet,
O my Pretty and my Sweet!
Should be shod with silver neat
(Swinging high, swinging low)--
Shod with silver slippers neat
(Swinging, oh!).
But I'm not a fairy, Pet
(Swinging high, swinging low),
Am not even a king, as yet
(Swinging, oh!).
So all that I can do
Is to kiss your little shoe,
And to make a queen of you
(Swinging high, swinging low),
Make a fairy queen of you
(Swinging, oh!).