In the latter part of the summer of 1826,--a reasonable time having now
elapsed since the death of poor Rachel,--the gossips of Ashfield began
to discuss the lonely condition of their pastor, in connection with any
desirable or feasible amendment of it. The sin of such gossip--if it be
a sin--is one that all the preaching in the world will never extirpate
from country towns, where the range of talk is by the necessity of the
case exceedingly limited. In the city, curiosity has an omnivorous maw
by reason of position, and finds such variety to feed upon that it is
rarely--except in the case of great political or public
scandal--personal in its attentions; and what we too freely reckon a
perverted and impertinent country taste is but an ordinary appetite of
humanity, which, by the limitation of its feeding-ground, seems to
attach itself perversely to private relations.
There were some invidious persons in the town who had remarked that Miss
Almira Tourtelot had brought quite a new fervor to her devotional
exercises in the parish within the last year, as well as a new set of
ribbons to her hat; and two maiden ladies opposite, of distinguished
pretensions and long experience of life, had observed that the young
Reuben, on his passage back and forth from the Elderkins, had sometimes
been decoyed within the Tourtelot yard, and presented by the admiring
Dame Tourtelot with fresh doughnuts. The elderly maiden ladies were
perhaps uncharitable in their conclusions; yet it is altogether probable
that the Deacon and his wife may have considered, in the intimacy of
their fireside talk, the possibility of some time claiming the minister
as a son-in-law. Questions like this are discussed in a great many
families even now.
Dame Tourtelot had crowned with success all her schemes in life, save
one. Almira, her daughter, now verging upon her thirty-second year, had
long been upon the anxious-seat as regarded matrimony; and with a
sentimental turn that incited much reading of Cowper and Montgomery and
(if it must be told) "Thaddeus of Warsaw," the poor girl united a
sickly, in-door look, and a peaked countenance, which had not attracted
wooers. The wonderful executive capacity of the mother had unfortunately
debarred her from any active interest in the household; and though the
Tourtelots had actually been at the expense of providing a piano for
Almira, (the only one in Ashfield,)--upon which the poor girl thrummed,
thinking of "Thaddeus," and, we trust, of better things,--this had not
won a roseate hue to her face, or quickened in any perceptible degree
the alacrity of her admirers.
Upon a certain night of later October, after Almira has retired, and
when the Tourtelots are seated by the little fire, which the autumn
chills have rendered necessary, and into the embers of which the Deacon
has cautiously thrust the leg of one of the fire-dogs, preparatory to a
modest mug of flip, (with which, by his wife's permission, he
occasionally indulges himself,) the good dame calls out to her husband,
who is dozing in his chair,--
"Tourtelot!"
But she is not loud enough.
"TOURTELOT! you're asleep!"
"No," says the Deacon, rousing himself,--"only thinkin'."
"What are you thinkin' of, Tourtelot?"
"Thinkin'--thinkin'," says the Deacon, rasped by the dame's sharpness
into sudden mental effort,--"thinkin', Huldy, if it isn't about time to
butcher: we butchered last year nigh upon the twentieth."
"Nonsense!" says the dame; "what about the parson?"
"The parson? Oh! Why, the parson'll take a side and two hams."
"Nonsense!" says the dame, with a great voice; "you're asleep,
Tourtelot. Is the parson goin' to marry, or isn't he? that's what I want
to know"; and she rethreads her needle.
(She can do it by candle-light at fifty-five, that woman!)
"Oh, marry!" replies the Deacon, rousing himself more
thoroughly,--"waael, I don't see no signs, Huldy. If he _doos_ mean to,
he's sly about it; don't you think so, Huldy?"
The dame, who is intent upon her sewing again,--she is never without her
work, that woman!--does not deign a reply.
The Deacon, after lifting the fire-dog, blowing off the ashes, and
holding it to his face to try the heat, says,--
"I guess Almiry ha'n't much of a chance."
"What's the use of your guessin'?" says the dame; "better mind your
flip."
Which the Deacon accordingly does, stirring it in a mild manner, until
the dame breaks out upon him again explosively:--
"Tourtelot, you men of the parish ought to _talk_ to the parson; it
a'n't right for things to go on this way. That boy Reuben is growin' up
wild; he wants a woman in the house to look arter him. Besides, a
minister ought to have a wife; it a'n't decent to have the house empty,
and only Esther there. Women want to feel they can drop in at the
parsonage for a chat, or to take tea. But who's to serve tea, I want to
know? Who's to mind Reuben in meetin'? He broke the cover off the best
hymn-book in the parson's pew last Sunday. Who's to prevent him
a-breakin' all the hymn-books that belong to the parish? You men ought
to speak to the parson; and, Tourtelot, if the others won't do it, you
_must_."
The Deacon was fairly awake now. He pulled at his whiskers
deprecatingly. Yet he clearly foresaw that the emergency was one to be
met; the manner of Dame Tourtelot left no room for doubt; and he was
casting about for such Scriptural injunctions as might be made
available, when the dame interrupted his reflections in more amiable
humor,--
"It isn't Almiry, Samuel, I think of, but Mr. Johns and the good of the
parish. I really don't know if Almiry would fancy the parson; the girl
is a good deal taken up with her pianny and books; but there's the
Hapgoods, opposite; there's Joanny Meacham"----
"You'll never make that do, Huldy," said the Deacon, stirring his flip
composedly; "they're nigh on as old as parson."
"Never you mind, Tourtelot," said the dame, sharply; "only you hint to
the parson that they're good, pious women, all of them, and would make
proper ministers' wives. Do you think I don't know what a man is,
Tourtelot? Humph!" And she threads her needle again.
The Deacon was apt to keep in mind his wife's advices, whatever he might
do with Scripture quotations. So when he called at the parsonage, a few
days after,--ostensibly to learn how the minister would like his pork
cut,--it happened that little Reuben came bounding in, and that the
Deacon gave him a fatherly pat upon the shoulder.
"Likely boy you've got here, Mr. Johns,--likely boy. But, Parson, don't
you think he must feel a kind o' hankerin' arter somebody to be motherly
to him? I 'most wonder that you don't feel that way yourself, Mr.
Johns."
"God comforts the mourners," said the clergyman, seriously.
"No doubt, no doubt, Parson; but He sometimes provides comforts ag'in
which we shet our eyes. You won't think hard o' me, Parson, but I've
heerd say about the village that Miss Meacham or one of the Miss
Hapgoods would make an excellent wife for the minister."
The parson is suddenly very grave.
"Don't repeat such idle gossip, Deacon. I'm married to my work. The
Gospel is my bride now."
"And a very good one it is, Parson. But don't you think that a godly
woman for helpmeet would make the work more effectooal? Miss Meacham is
a pattern of a person in the Sunday school. The women of the parish
would rather like to find the doors of the parsonage openin' for 'em
ag'in."
"That is to be thought of certainly," said the minister, musingly.
"You won't think hard o' me, Mr. Johns, for droppin' a word about this
matter?" says the Deacon, rising to leave. "And while I think on 't,
Parson, I see the sill under the no'theast corner o' the meetin'-house
has a little settle to it. I've jest been cuttin' a few sticks o' good
smart chestnut timber; and if the Committee thinks best, I could haul
down one or two on 'em for repairs. It won't cost nigh as much as pine
lumber, and it's every bit as good."
Even Dame Tourtelot would have been satisfied with the politic way of
the Deacon, both as regarded the wife and the prospective bargain. The
next evening the good woman invited the clergyman--begging him "not to
forget the dear little boy"--to tea.
This was by no means the first hint which the minister had had of the
tendency of village gossip. The Tew partners, with whom he had fallen
upon very easy terms of familiarity,--both by reason of frequent visits
at their little shop, and by reason of their steady attendance upon his
ministrations,--often dropped hints of the smallness of the good man's
grocery account, and insidious hopes that it might be doubled in size at
some day not far off.
Squire Elderkin, too, in his bluff, hearty way, had occasionally
complimented the clergyman upon the increased attendance latterly of
ladies of a certain age, and had drawn his attention particularly to the
ardent zeal of a buxom, middle-aged widow, who lived upon the skirts of
the town, and was "the owner," he said, "of as pretty a piece of
property as lay in the county."
"Have you any knack at farming, Mr. Johns?" continued he, playfully.
"Farming? why?" says the innocent parson, in a maze.
"Because I am of opinion, Mr. Johns, that the widow's little property
might be rented by you, under conditions of joint occupancy, on very
easy terms."
Such badinage was so warded off by the ponderous gravity which the
parson habitually wore, that men like Elderkin loved occasionally to
launch a quiet joke at him, for the pleasure of watching the rebound.
When, however, the wide-spread gossip of the town had taken the shape
(as in the talk of Deacon Tourtelot) of an incentive to duty, the grave
clergyman gave to it his undivided and prayerful attention. It was
over-true that the boy Reuben was running wild. No lad in Ashfield, of
his years, could match him in mischief. There was surely need of womanly
direction and remonstrance. It was eminently proper, too, that the
parsonage, so long closed, should be opened freely to all his flock; and
the truth was so plain, he wondered it could have escaped him so long.
Duty required that his home should have an established mistress; and a
mistress he forthwith determined it should have.
Within three weeks from the day of the tea-drinking with the Tourtelots,
the minister suggested certain changes in the long-deserted chamber
which should bring it into more habitable condition. He hinted to his
man Larkin that an additional fire might probably be needed in the house
during the latter part of winter; and before January had gone out, he
had most agreeably surprised the delighted and curious Tew partners with
a very large addition to his usual orders,--embracing certain condiments
in the way of spices, dried fruits, and cordials, which had for a long
time been foreign to the larder of the parsonage.
Such indications, duly commented on, as they were most zealously, could
not fail to excite a great buzz of talk and of curiosity throughout the
town.
"I knew it," says Mrs. Tew, authoritatively, setting back her spectacles
from her postal duties;--"these 'ere grave widowers are allers the first
to pop off, and git married."
"Tourtelot!" said the dame, on a January night, when the evidence had
come in overwhelmingly,--"Tourtelot! what does it all mean?"
"D'n' know," says the Deacon, stirring his flip,--"d'n' know. It's my
opinion the parson has his sly humors about him."
"Do you think it's true, Samuel?"
"Waael, Huldy,--I _du_."
"Tourtelot! finish your flip, and go to bed; it's past ten."
And the Deacon went.