The thresher's weary flingin-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me:
And whan the day bad closed his e'e,
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I 'gaed to rest.
Burns.
Queechy was reached at night. Fleda had promised herself to be off almost
with the dawn of light the next morning to see aunt Miriam, but a heavy
rain kept her fast at home the whole day. It was very well; she was
wanted there.
Despite the rain and her disappointment it was impossible for Fleda to lie
abed from the time the first grey light began to break in at her
windows,--those old windows that had rattled their welcome to her all
night. She was up and dressed and had had a long consultation with herself
over matters and prospects, before anybody else had thought of leaving the
indubitable comfort of a feather bed for the doubtful contingency of
happiness that awaited them down stairs. Fleda took in the whole length
and breadth of it, half wittingly and half through some finer sense than
that of the understanding.
The first view of things could not strike them pleasantly; it was not to
be looked for. The doors did not happen to be painted blue; they were a
deep chocolate colour; doors and wainscot. The fireplaces were not all
furnished with cranes, but they were all uncouthly wide and deep. Nobody
would have thought them so indeed in the winter, when piled up with
blazing hickory logs, but in summer they yawned uncomfortably upon the
eye. The ceilings were low; the walls rough papered or rougher
white-washed; the sashes not hung; the rooms, otherwise well enough
proportioned, stuck with little cupboards, in recesses and corners and out
of the way places, in a style impertinently suggestive of housekeeping,
and fitted to shock any symmetrical set of nerves. The old house had
undergone a thorough putting in order, it is true; the chocolate paint was
just dry, and the paper hangings freshly put up; and the bulk of the new
furniture had been sent on before and unpacked, though not a single
article of it was in its right place. The house was clean and tight, that
is, as tight as it ever was. But the colour had been unfortunately
chosen--perhaps there was no help for that;--the paper was _very_ coarse
and countryfied; the big windows were startling, they looked so bare,
without any manner of drapery; and the long reaches of wall were unbroken
by mirror or picture-frame. And this to eyes trained to eschew
ungracefulness and that abhorred a vacuum as much as nature is said to do!
Even Fleda felt there was something disagreeable in the change, though it
reached her more through the channel of other people's sensitiveness than
her own. To her it was the dear old house still, though her eyes had seen
better things since they loved it. No corner or recess had a pleasanter
filling, to her fancy, than the old brown cupboard or shelves which had
always been there. But what _would_ her uncle say to them! and to that
dismal paper! and what would aunt Lucy think of those rattling window
sashes! this cool raw day too, for the first!--
Think as she might Fleda did not stand still to think. She had gone softly
all over the house, taking a strange look at the old places and the images
with which memory filled them, thinking of the last time, and many a time
before that;--and she had at last come back to the sitting-room, long
before anybody else was down stairs; the two tired servants were just
rubbing their eyes open in the kitchen and speculating themselves awake.
Leaving them, at their peril, to get ready a decent breakfast, (by the way
she grudged them the old kitchen) Fleda set about trying what her wand
could do towards brightening the face of affairs in the other part of the
house. It was quite cold enough for a fire, luckily. She ordered one made,
and meanwhile busied herself with the various stray packages and articles
of wearing apparel that lay scattered about giving the whole place a look
of discomfort. Fleda gathered them up and bestowed them in one or two of
the impertinent cupboards, and then undertook the labour of carrying out
all the wrong furniture that had got into the breakfast-room and bringing
in that which really belonged there from the hall and the parlour beyond;
moving like a mouse that she might not disturb the people up stairs. A
quarter of an hour was spent in arranging to the best advantage these
various pieces of furniture in the room; it was the very same in which Mr.
Carleton and Charlton Rossitur had been received the memorable day of the
roast pig dinner, but that was not the uppermost association in Fleda's
mind. Satisfied at last that a happier effect could not be produced with
the given materials, and well pleased too with her success, Fleda turned
to the fire. It was made, but not by any means doing its part to encourage
the other portions of the room to look their best. Fleda knew something of
wood fires from old times; she laid hold of the tongs, and touched and
loosened and coaxed a stick here and there, with a delicate hand, till,
seeing the very opening it had wanted,--without which neither fire nor
hope can keep its activity,--the blaze sprang up energetically, crackling
through all the piled oak and hickory and driving the smoke clean out of
sight. Fleda had done her work. It would have been a misanthropical person
indeed that could have come into the room then and not felt his face
brighten. One other thing remained,--setting the breakfast table; and
Fleda would let no hands but hers do it this morning; she was curious
about the setting of tables. How she remembered or divined where
everything had been stowed; how quietly and efficiently her little fingers
unfastened hampers and pried into baskets, without making any noise; till
all the breakfast paraphernalia of silver, china, and table-linen was
found, gathered from various receptacles, and laid in most exquisite order
on the table. State street never saw better. Fleda stood and looked at it
then, in immense satisfaction, seeing that her uncle's eye would miss
nothing of its accustomed gratification. To her the old room, shining with
firelight and new furniture, was perfectly charming. If those great
windows were staringly bright, health and cheerfulness seemed to look in
at them. And what other images of association, with "nods and becks and
wreathed smiles," looked at her out of the curling flames in the old wide
fireplace! And one other angel stood there unseen,--the one whose errand
it is to see fulfilled the promise, "Give and it shall be given to you;
full measure, and pressed down, and heaped up, and running over."
A little while Fleda sat contentedly eying her work; then a new idea
struck her and she sprang up. In the next meadow, only one fence between,
a little spring of purest water ran through from the woodland; water
cresses used to grow there. Uncle Rolf was very fond of them. It was
pouring with rain, but no matter. Her heart beating between haste and
delight, Fleda slipped her feet into galoches and put an old cloak of
Hugh's over her head, and ran out through the kitchen, the old accustomed
way. The servants exclaimed and entreated, but Fleda only flashed a bright
look at them from under her cloak as she opened the door, and ran off,
over the wet grass, under the fence, and over half the meadow, till she
came to the stream. She was getting a delicious taste of old times, and
though the spring water was very cold and with it and the rain one-half of
each sleeve was soon thoroughly wetted, she gathered her cresses and
scampered back with a pair of eyes and cheeks that might have struck any
city belle chill with envy.
"Then but that's a sweet girl!" said Mary the cook to Jane the housemaid.
"A lovely countenance she has," answered Jane, who was refined in
her speech.
"Take her away and you've taken the best of the house, I'm a thinking."
"Mrs. Rossitur is a lady," said Jane in a low voice.
"Ay, and a very proper-behaved one she is, and him the same, that is, for
a gentleman I maan; but Jane! I say, I'm thinking he'll have eat too much
sour bread lately! I wish I knowed how they'd have their eggs boiled, till
I'd have 'em ready."
"Sure it's on the table itself they'll do 'em," said Jane. "They've an
elegant little fixture in there for the purpose."
"Is that it!"
Nobody found out how busy Fleda's wand had been in the old breakfast room.
But she was not disappointed; she had not worked for praise. Her cresses
were appreciated; that was enough. She enjoyed her breakfast, the only one
of the party that did. Mr. Rossitur looked moody; his wife looked anxious;
and Hugh's face was the reflection of theirs. If Fleda's face reflected
anything it was the sunlight of heaven.
"How sweet the air is after New York!" said she.
They looked at her. There was a fresh sweetness of another kind about that
breakfast-table. They all felt it, and breathed more freely.
"Delicious cresses!" said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Yes, I wonder where they came from," said her husband. "Who got them?"
"I guess Fleda knows," said Hugh.
"They grow in a little stream of spring water over here in the meadow,"
said Fleda demurely.
"Yes, but you don't answer my question," said her uncle, putting his hand
under her chin and smiling at the blushing face he brought round to
view;--"Who got them?"
"I did."
"You have been out in the rain?"
"O Queechy rain don't hurt me, uncle Rolf."
"And don't it wet you either?"
"Yes sir--a little."
"How much?"
"My sleeves,--O I dried them long ago."
"Don't you repeat that experiment, Fleda," said he seriously, but with a
look that was a good reward to her nevertheless.
"It is a raw day!" said Mrs. Rossitur, drawing her shoulders together as
an ill-disposed window sash gave one of its admonitory shakes.
"What little panes of glass for such big windows!" said Hugh.
"But what a pleasant prospect through them," said Fleda,--"look,
Hugh!--worth all the Batteries and Parks in the world."
"In the world!--in New York you mean," said her uncle. "Not better than
the Champs Elysées?"
"Better to me," said Fleda.
"For to-day I must attend to the prospect in-doors," said Mrs. Rossitur.
"Now aunt Lucy," said Fleda, "you are just going to put yourself down in
the corner, in the rocking-chair there, with your book, and make yourself
comfortable; and Hugh and I will see to all these things. Hugh and I and
Mary and Jane,--that makes quite an army of us, and we can do everything
without you, and you must just keep quiet. I'll build you up a fine fire,
and then when I don't know what to do I will come to you for orders.
Uncle Rolf, would you be so good as just to open that box of books in the
hall? because I am afraid Hugh isn't strong enough. I'll take care of
you, aunt Lucy."
Fleda's plans were not entirely carried out, but she contrived pretty well
to take the brunt of the business on her own shoulders. She was as busy as
a bee the whole day. To her all the ins and outs of the house, its
advantages and disadvantages, were much better known than to anybody else;
nothing could be done but by her advice; and more than that, she contrived
by some sweet management to baffle Mrs. Rossitur's desire to spare her,
and to bear the larger half of every burden that should have come upon her
aunt. What she had done in the breakfast room she did or helped to do in
the other parts of the house; she unpacked boxes and put away clothes and
linen, in which Hugh was her excellent helper; she arranged her uncle's
dressing-table with a scrupulosity that left nothing uncared-for;--and the
last thing before tea she and Hugh dived into the book-box to get out some
favourite volumes to lay upon the table in the evening, that the room
might not look to her uncle quite so dismally bare. He had been abroad
notwithstanding the rain near the whole day.
It was a weary party that gathered round the supper-table that night,
weary it seemed as much in mind as in body; and the meal exerted its
cheering influence over only two of them; Mr. and Mrs. Rossitur sipped
their cups of tea abstractedly.
"I don't believe that fellow Donohan knows much about his business,"
remarked the former at length.
"Why don't you get somebody else, then?" said his wife.
"I happen to have engaged him, unfortunately."
A pause.--
"What doesn't he know?"
Mr. Rossitur laughed, not a pleasant laugh.
"It would take too long to enumerate. If you had asked me what part of
his business he _does_ understand, I could have told you shortly that I
don't know."
"But you do not understand it very well yourself. Are you sure?"
"Am I sure of what?"
"That this man does not know his business?"
"No further sure than I can have confidence in my own common sense."
"What will you do?" said Mrs. Rossitur after a moment
A question men are not fond of answering, especially when they have
not made up their minds. Mr. Rossitur was silent, and his wife too,
after that.
"If I could get some long-headed Yankee to go along with him"--he remarked
again, balancing his spoon on the edge of his cup in curious illustration
of his own mental position at the moment; Donohan being the only fixed
point and all the rest wavering in uncertainty. There were a few silent
minutes before anybody answered.
"If you want one and don't know of one, uncle Rolf," said Fleda, "I dare
say cousin Seth might."
That gentle modest speech brought his attention round upon her. His
face softened.
"Cousin Seth? who is cousin Seth?"
"He is aunt Miriam's son," said Fleda. "Seth Plumfield. He's a very good
farmer, I know; grandpa used to say he was; and he knows everybody."
"Mrs. Plumfield," said Mrs. Rossitur, as her husband's eyes went
inquiringly to her,--"Mrs. Plumfield was Mr. Ringgan's sister, you
remember. This is her son."
"Cousin Seth, eh?" said Mr. Rossitur dubiously. "Well--Why Fleda, your
sweet air don't seem to agree with you, as far as I see; I have not known
you look so--so _triste_--since we left Paris. What have you been doing,
my child?"
"She has been doing everything, father," said Hugh.
"O! it's nothing," said Fleda, answering Mr. Rossitur's look and tone of
affection with a bright smile. "I'm a little tired, that's all."
'A little tired!' She went to sleep on the sofa directly after supper and
slept like a baby all the evening; but her power did not sleep with her;
for that quiet, sweet, tired face, tired in their service, seemed to bear
witness against the indulgence of anything harsh or unlovely in the same
atmosphere. A gentle witness-bearing, but strong in its gentleness. They
sat close together round the fire, talked softly, and from time to time
cast loving glances at the quiet little sleeper by their side. They did
not know that she was a fairy, and that though her wand had fallen out of
her hand it was still resting upon them.