_Pleasant River._
JABE SLOCUM ASSUMES THE RÔLE OF GUARDIAN ANGEL.
Jabe Slocum had been down to Edgewood, and was just returning to the
White Farm, by way of the cross-roads and Hard Scrabble school-house. He
was in no hurry, though he always had more work on hand than he could
leave undone for a month; and Maria also was taking her own time, as
usual, even stopping now and then to crop an unusually sweet tuft of
grass that grew within smelling distance, and which no mare (with a
driver like Jabe) could afford to pass without notice.
Jabe was ostensibly out on an "errant" for Miss Avilda Cummins; but, as
he had been in her service for six years, she had no expectations of his
accomplishing anything beyond getting to a place and getting back in the
same day, the distance covered being no factor at all in the matter.
But one needn't go to Miss Avilda Cummins for a description of Jabe
Slocum's peculiarities. They were all so written upon his face and
figure and speech that the wayfaring man, though a fool, could not err
in his judgment. He was a long, loose, knock-kneed, slack-twisted
person, and would have been "longer yit if he hedn't hed so much turned
up for feet,"--so Aunt Hitty Tarbox said. (Aunt Hitty went from house to
house in Edgewood and Pleasant River, making over boys' clothes; and as
her tongue flew as fast as her needle, her sharp speeches were always in
circulation in both villages.)
Mr. Slocum had sandy hair, high cheekbones, a pair of kindly light blue
eyes, and a most unique nose: I hardly know to what order of
architecture it belonged,--perhaps Old Colonial would describe it as
well as anything else. It was a wide, flat, well-ventilated, hospitable
edifice (so to speak), so peculiarly constructed and applied that
Samantha Ann Ripley (of whom more anon) declared that "the reason Jabe
Slocum ketched cold so easy was that, if he didn't hold his head jess
so, it kep' a-rainin' in!"
His mouth was simply an enormous slit in his face, and served all the
purposes for which a mouth is presumably intended, save, perhaps, the
trivial one of decoration. In short (a ludicrously inappropriate word
for the subject), it was a capital medium for exits and entrances, but
no ornament to his countenance. When Rhapsena Crabb, now deceased, was
first engaged to Jabez Slocum, Aunt Hitty Tarbox said it beat her "how
Rhapseny ever got over Jabe's mouth; though she could 'a' got intew it
easy 'nough, or raound it, if she took plenty o' time." But perhaps
Rhapsena appreciated a mouth (in a husband) that never was given to
"jawin'," and which uttered only kind words during her brief span of
married life. And there was precious little leisure for kissing at
Pleasant River!
As Jabe had passed the store, a few minutes before, one of the boys had
called out, facetiously, "Shet yer mouth when ye go by the deepot,
Laigs; the train's comin' in!" But he only smiled placidly, though it
was an ancient joke, the flavor of which had just fully penetrated the
rustic skull; and the villagers could not resist titillating the sense
of humor with it once or twice a month. Neither did Jabez mind being
called "Laigs," the local pronunciation of the word "legs;" in fact,
his good humor was too deep to be ruffled. His "cistern of wrathfulness
was so small, and the supply pipe so unready," that it was next to
impossible to "put him out," so the natives said.
He was a man of tolerable education; the only son of his parents, who
had endeavored to make great things of him, and might perhaps have
succeeded, if he hadn't always had so little time at his
disposal,--hadn't been "so drove," as he expressed it. He went to the
village school as regularly as he couldn't help, that is, as many days
as he couldn't contrive to stay away, until he was fourteen. From there
he was sent to the Academy, three miles distant; but his mother soon
found that he couldn't make the two trips a day and be "under cover by
candlelight;" so the plan of a classical education was abandoned, and he
was allowed to speed the home plough,--a profession which he pursued
with such moderation that his father, when starting him down a furrow,
used to hang his dinner-pail on his arm and, bidding him good-by, beg
him, with tears in his eyes, to be back before sun-down.
At the present moment Jabe was enjoying a cud of Old Virginia plug
tobacco, and taking in no more of the landscape than he could avoid,
when Maria, having wound up to the top of Marm Berry's hill, in spite of
herself walked directly out on one side of the road, and stopped short
to make room for the passage of an imposing procession, made up of one
straw phaeton, one baby, one strange boy, and one strange dog.
Jabe eyed the party with some placid interest, for he loved children,
but with no undue excitement. Shifting his huge quid, he inquired in his
usual leisurely manner, "Which way yer goin', bub,--t' the Swamp or t'
the Falls?"
Timothy thought neither sounded especially inviting, but, rapidly
choosing the lesser evil, replied, "To the Falls, sir."
"Thy way happens to be my way, 's Rewth said to Naomi; so 'f gittin'
over the road's your objeck, 'n' y' ain't pertickler 'baout the gait ye
travel, ye can git in 'n' ride a piece. We don't b'lieve in hurryin',
Mariar 'n' me. Slow 'n' easy goes fur in a day, 's our motto. Can ye git
your folks aboard withaout spillin' any of 'em?"
No wonder he asked, for Gay was in such a wild state of excitement that
she could hardly be held.
"I can lift Gay up, if you'll please take her, sir," said Timothy; "and
if you're quite sure the horse will stand still."
"Bless your soul, she'll stan' all right; she likes stan'in' a heap
better 'n she doos goin'; runnin' away ain't no temptation to Maria
Cummins; let well enough alone 's her motto. Jump in, sissy! There ye
be! Now git yer baby-shay in the back of the wagon, bubby, 'n' we'll be
's snug 's a bug in a rug."
Timothy, whose creed was simple and whose beliefs were crystal clear,
now felt that his morning prayer had been heard, and that the Lord was
on his side; so he abandoned all idea of commanding the situation, and
gave himself up to the full ecstasy of the ride, as they jogged
peacefully along the river road.
Gay held a piece of a rein that peeped from Jabe's colossal hand (which
was said by the villagers to cover most as much territory as the hand of
Providence), and was convinced that she was driving Maria, an idea that
made her speechless with joy.
Rags' wildest dreams of squirrels came true; and, reconciled at length
to cleanliness, he was capering in and out of the woods, thinking what
an Arabian Nights' entertainment he would give the Minerva Court dogs
when he returned, if return he ever must to that miserable, squirrelless
hole.
The meadows on the other side of the river were gorgeous with yellow
buttercups, and here and there a patch of blue iris or wild sage. The
black cherry trees were masses of snowy bloom; the water at the river's
edge held spikes of blue arrowweed in its crystal shallows; while the
roadside itself was gay with daisies and feathery grasses.
In the midst of this loveliness flowed Pleasant River,
"Vexed in all its seaward course by bridges, dams, and mills,"
but finding time, during the busy summer months, to flush its fertile
banks with beauty.
Suddenly (a word that could seldom be truthfully applied to the
description of Jabe Slocum's movements) the reins were ruthlessly drawn
from Lady Gay's hands and wound about the whipstock.
"Gorry!" ejaculated Mr. Slocum, "ef I hain't left the widder Foss
settin' on Aunt Hitty's hoss-block, 'n' I promised to pick her up when I
come along back! That all comes o' my drivin' by the store so fast on
account o' the boys hectorin' of me, so 't when I got to the turn I was
so kind of het up I jogged right along the straight road. Haste makes
waste 's an awful good motto. Pile out, young ones! It's only half a
mile from here to the Falls, 'n' you'll have to get there on Shank's
mare!"
So saying, he dumped the astonished children into the middle of the
road, from whence he had plucked them, turned the docile mare, and with
a "Git, Mariar!" went four miles back to relieve Aunt Hitty's
horse-block from the weight of the widder Foss (which was no joke!).
This turn of affairs was most unexpected, and Gay seemed on the point of
tears; but Timothy gathered her a handful of wild flowers, wiped the
dust from her face, put on the clean blue gingham apron, and established
her in the basket, where she soon fell asleep, wearied by the
excitements of the day.
Timothy's heart began to be a little troubled as he walked on and on
through the leafy woods, trundling the basket behind him. Nothing had
gone wrong; indeed, everything had been much easier than he could have
hoped. Perhaps it was the weariness that had crept into his legs, and
the hollowness that began to appear in his stomach; but, somehow,
although in the morning he had expected to find Gay's new mothers
beckoning from every window, so that he could scarcely choose between
them, he now felt as if the whole race of mothers had suddenly become
extinct.
Soon the village came in sight, nestled in the laps of the green hills
on both sides of the river. Timothy trudged bravely on, scanning all the
dwellings, but finding none of them just the thing. At last he turned
deliberately off the main road, where the houses seemed too near
together and too near the street, for his taste, and trundled his family
down a shady sort of avenue, over which the arching elms met and clasped
hands.
Rags had by this time lowered his tail to half-mast, and kept strictly
to the beaten path, notwithstanding manifold temptations to forsake it.
He passed two cats without a single insulting remark, and his entire
demeanor was eloquent of nostalgia.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Timothy disconsolately; "there's something wrong with
all the places. Either there's no pigeon-house, like in all the
pictures, or no flower garden, or no chickens, or no lady at the window,
or else there's lots of baby-clothes hanging on the wash-lines. I don't
believe I shall ever find"--
At this moment a large, comfortable white house, that had been
heretofore hidden by great trees, came into view. Timothy drew nearer to
the spotless picket fence, and gazed upon the beauties of the side yard
and the front garden,--gazed and gazed, and fell desperately in love at
first sight.
The whole thing had been made as if to order; that is all there is to
say about it. There was an orchard, and, oh, ecstasy! what hosts of
green apples! There was an interesting grindstone under one tree, and a
bright blue chair and stool under another; a thicket of currant and
gooseberry bushes; and a flock of young turkeys ambling awkwardly
through the barn. Timothy stepped gently along in the thick grass, past
a pump and a mossy trough, till a side porch came into view, with a
woman sitting there sewing bright-colored rags. A row of shining tin
pans caught the sun's rays, and threw them back in a thousand glittering
prisms of light; the grasshoppers and crickets chirped sleepily in the
warm grass, and a score of tiny yellow butterflies hovered over a group
of odorous hollyhocks.
Suddenly the person on the porch broke into this cheerful song, which
she pitched in so high a key and gave with such emphasis that the
crickets and grasshoppers retired by mutual consent from any further
competition, and the butterflies suspended operations for several
seconds:--
"I'll chase the antelope over the plain,
The tiger's cob I'll bind with a chain,
And the wild gazelle with the silv'ry feet
I'll bring to thee for a playmate sweet."
Timothy listened intently for some moments, but could not understand the
words, unless the lady happened to be in the menagerie business, which
he thought unlikely, but delightful should it prove true.
His eye then fell on a little marble slab under a tree in a shady corner
of the orchard.
"That's a country doorplate," he thought; "yes, it's got the lady's
name, 'Martha Cummins,' printed on it. Now I'll know what to call her."
He crept softly on to the front side of the house. There were flower
beds, a lovable white cat snoozing on the doorsteps, and--a lady sitting
at the open window knitting!
At this vision Timothy's heart beat so hard against his little jacket
that he could only stagger back to the basket, where Rags and Lady Gay
were snuggled together, fast asleep. He anxiously scanned Gay's face;
moistened his rag of a handkerchief at the only available source of
supply; scrubbed an atrocious dirt spot from the tip of her spirited
nose; and then, dragging the basket along the path leading to the front
gate, he opened it and went in, mounted the steps, plied the brass
knocker, and waited in childlike faith for a summons to enter and make
himself at home.