_The New Homestead._
TIMOTHY'S QUEST IS ENDED, AND SAMANTHA SAYS "COME ALONG, DAVE!"
"Jabe Slocum! Do you know it's goin' on seven o'clock 'n' not a single
chore done?"
Jabe yawned, turned over, and listened to Samantha's unwelcome voice,
which (considerably louder than the voice of conscience) came from the
outside world to disturb his delicious morning slumbers.
"Jabe Slocum! Do you hear me?"
"Hear you? Gorry! you'd wake the seven sleepers if they was any whar
within ear-shot!"
"Well, will you git up?"
"Yes, I'll git up if you're goin' to hev a brash 'bout it, but I wish
you hedn't waked me so awful suddent. 'Don't ontwist the mornin' glory'
's my motto. Wait a spell 'n' the sun 'll do it, 'n' save a heap o' wear
'n' tear besides. Go 'long! I'll git up."
"I've heerd that story afore, 'n' I won't go 'long tell I hear you step
foot on the floor."
"Scoot! I tell yer I'll be out in a jiffy."
"Yes, I think I see yer. Your jiffies are consid'able like golden
opportunities, there ain't more 'n one of 'em in a lifetime!" and having
shot this Parthian arrow Samantha departed, as one having done her duty
in that humble sphere of action to which it had pleased Providence to
call her.
These were beautiful autumn days at the White Farm. The orchards were
gleaming, the grapes hung purple on the vines, and the odor of ripening
fruit was in the hazy air. The pink spirea had cast its feathery petals
by the gray stone walls, but the welcome golden-rod bloomed in royal
profusion along the brown waysides, and a crimson leaf hung here and
there in the treetops, just to give a hint of the fall styles in color.
Heaps of yellow pumpkins and squashes lay in the corners of the fields;
cornstalks bowed their heads beneath the weight of ripened ears; beans
threatened to burst through their yellow pods; the sound of the
threshing machine was heard in the land; and the "hull univarse wanted
to be waited on to once," according to Jabe Slocum; for, as he
affirmed, "Yer couldn't ketch up with your work nohow, for if yer set up
nights 'n' worked Sundays, the craps 'd ripen 'n' go to seed on yer
'fore yer could git 'em harvested!"
And if there was peace and plenty without there was quite as much within
doors.
"I can't hardly tell what's the matter with me these days," said
Samantha Ann to Miss Vilda, as they sat peeling and slicing apples for
drying. "My heart has felt like a stun these last years, and now all to
once it's so soft I'm ashamed of it. Seems to me there never was such a
summer! The hay never smelt so sweet, the birds never sang so well, the
currants never jelled so hard! Why I can't kick the cat, though she's
more everlastin'ly under foot 'n ever, 'n' pretty soon I sha'n't even
have sprawl enough to jaw Jabe Slocum. I b'lieve it's nothin' in the
world but them children! They keep a runnin' after me, 'n' it's dear
Samanthy here, 'n' dear Samanthy there, jest as if I warn't a hombly old
maid; 'n' they take holt o' my hands on both sides o' me, 'n' won't stir
a step tell I go to see the chickens with 'em, 'n' the pig, 'n' one
thing 'n' 'nother, 'n' clappin' their hands when I make 'em gingerbread
men! And that reminds me, I see the school-teacher goin' down along this
mornin', 'n' I run out to see how Timothy was gittin' along in his
studies. She says he's the most ex-tra-ordi-nary scholar in this
deestrick. She says he takes holt of every book she gives him jest as if
't was reviewin' 'stid o' the first time over. She says when he speaks
pieces, Friday afternoons, all the rest o' the young ones set there with
their jaws hanging 'n' some of 'em laughin' 'n' cryin' 't the same time.
She says we'd oughter see some of his comp'sitions, 'n' she'll show us
some as soon as she gits 'em back from her beau that works at the
Waterbury Watch Factory, and they're goin' to be married 's quick as she
gits money enough saved up to buy her weddin' close; 'n' I told her not
to put it off too long or she'd hev her close on her hands, 'stid of her
back. She says Timothy's at the head of the hull class, but, land! there
ain't a boy in it that knows enough to git his close on right sid' out.
She's a splendid teacher, Miss Boothby is! She tells me the seeleck men
hev raised her pay to four dollars a week 'n' she to board herself, 'n'
she's wuth every cent of it. I like to see folks well paid that's got
the patience to set in doors 'n' cram information inter young ones that
don't care no more 'bout learn in' 'n' a skunk-blackbird. She give me
Timothy's writin' book, for you to see what he writ in it yesterday, 'n'
she hed to keep him in 't recess 'cause he didn't copy 'Go to the ant
thou sluggard and be wise,' as he'd oughter. Now let's see what 't is.
My grief! it's poetry sure 's you're born. I can tell it in a minute
'cause it don't come out to the aidge o' the book one side or the other.
Read it out loud, Vildy."
"'Oh! the White Farm and the White Farm!
I love it with all my heart;
And I'm to live at the White Farm,
Till death it do us part.'"
Miss Vilda lifted her head, intoxicated with the melody she had evoked.
"Did you ever hear anything like that," she exclaimed proudly.
"'Oh! the White Farm and the White Farm!
I love it with all my heart;
And I'm to live at the White Farm,
Till death it do us part.'"
"Just hear the sent'ment of it, and the way it sings along like a tune.
I'm goin' to show that to the minister this very night, and that boy's
got to have the best education there is to be had if we have to
mortgage the farm."
Samantha Ann was right. The old homestead wore a new aspect these days,
and a love of all things seemed to have crept into the hearts of its
inmates, as if some beneficent fairy of a spider were spinning a web of
tenderness all about the house, or as if a soft light had dawned in the
midst of great darkness and was gradually brightening into the perfect
day.
In the midst of this new-found gladness and the sweet cares that grew
and multiplied as the busy days went on, Samantha's appetite for
happiness grew by what it fed upon, so that before long she was a little
unhappy that other people (some more than others) were not as happy as
she; and Aunt Hitty was heard to say at the sewing-circle (which had
facilities for gathering and disseminating news infinitely superior to
those of the Associated Press), that Samantha Ann Ripley looked so peart
and young this summer, Dave Milliken had better spunk up and try again.
But, alas! the younger and fresher and happier Samantha looked, the
older and sadder and meeker David appeared, till all hopes of his
"spunking up" died out of the village heart; and, it might as well be
stated, out of Samantha's also. She always thought about it at sun-down,
for it was at sun-down that all their quarrels and reconciliations had
taken place, inasmuch as it was the only leisure time for week-day
courting at Pleasant River.
It was sun-down now; Miss Vilda and Jabez Slocum had gone to Wednesday
evening prayer-meeting, and Samantha was looking for Timothy to go to
the store with her on some household errands. She had seen the children
go into the garden a half hour before, Timothy walking gravely, with his
book before him, Gay blowing over the grass like a feather, and so she
walked towards the summer-house.
Timothy was not there, but little Lady Gay was having a party all to
herself, and the scene was such a pretty one that Samantha stooped
behind the lattice and listened.
There was a table spread for four, with bits of broken china and shells
for dishes, and pieces of apple and gingerbread for the feast. There
were several dolls present (notably one without any head, who was not
likely to shine at a dinner party), but Gay's first-born sat in her lap;
and only a mother could have gazed upon such a battered thing and loved
it. For Gay took her pleasures madly, and this faithful creature had
shared them all; but not having inherited her mother's somewhat rare
recuperative powers, she was now fit only for a free bed in a
hospital,--a state of mind and body which she did not in the least
endeavor to conceal. One of her shoe-button eyes dangled by a linen
thread in a blood-curdling sort of way; her nose, which had been a pink
glass bead, was now a mere spot, ambiguously located. Her red worsted
lips were sadly raveled, but that she did not regret, "for it was
kissin' as done it." Her yarn hair was attached to her head with
safety-pins, and her internal organs intruded themselves on the public
through a gaping wound in the side. Never mind! if you have any
curiosity to measure the strength of the ideal, watch a child with her
oldest doll. Rags sat at the head of the dinner-table, and had taken the
precaution to get the headless doll on his right, with a view to eating
her gingerbread as well as his own,--doing no violence to the
proprieties in this way, but rather concealing her defects from a
carping public.
"I tell you sompfin' ittle Mit Vildy Tummins," Gay was saying to her
battered offspring. "You 's doin' to have a new ittle sit-ter
to-mowowday, if you 's a dood ittle dirl an does to seep nite an kick,
you _ser-weet_ ittle Vildy Tummins!" (All this punctuated with ardent
squeezes fraught with delicious agony to one who had a wound in her
side!) "Vay fink you 's worn out, 'weety, but we know you isn't, don'
we, 'weety? An I'll tell you nite ittle tory to-night, tause you isn't
seepy. Wunt there was a ittle day hen 'at tole a net an' laid fir-teen
waw edds in it, an bime bye erleven or seventeen ittle chits f'ew out of
'em, an Mit Vildy 'dopted 'em all! In 't that a nite tory, you
_ser-weet_ ittle Mit Vildy Tummins?"
Samantha hardly knew why the tears should spring to her eyes as she
watched the dinner party,--unless it was because we can scarcely look at
little children in their unconscious play without a sort of sadness,
partly of pity and partly of envy, and of longing too, as for something
lost and gone. And Samantha could look back to the time when she had sat
at little tables set with bits of broken china, yes, in this very
summer-house, and little Martha was always so gay, and David used to
laugh so! "But there was no use in tryin' to make folks any dif'rent,
'specially if they was such nat'ral born fools they couldn't see a hole
in a grindstun 'thout hevin' it hung on their noses!" and with these
large and charitable views of human nature, Samantha walked back to the
gate, and met Timothy as he came out of the orchard. She knew then what
he had been doing. The boy had certain quaint thoughts and ways that
were at once a revelation and an inspiration to these two plain women,
and one of them was this. To step softly into the side orchard on
pleasant evenings, and without a word, before or afterwards, to lay a
nosegay on Martha's little white doorplate. And if Miss Vilda chanced to
be at the window he would give her a quiet little smile, as much as to
say, "We have no need of words, we two!" And Vilda, like one of old, hid
all these doings in her heart of hearts, and loved the boy with a love
passing knowledge.
Samantha and Timothy walked down the hill to the store. Yes, David
Milliken was sitting all alone on the loafer's bench at the door, and
why wasn't he at prayer-meetin' where he ought to be? She was glad she
chanced to have on her clean purple calico, and that Timothy had
insisted on putting a pink Ma'thy Washington geranium in her collar, for
it was just as well to make folks' mouth water whether they had sense
enough to eat or not.
"Who is that sorry-looking man that always sits on the bench at the
store, Samanthy?"
"That's David Milliken."
"Why does he look so sorry, Samanthy?"
"Oh, he's all right. He likes it fust-rate, wearin' out that hard bench
settin' on it night in 'n' night out, like a bump on a log! But, there,
Timothy, I've gone 'n' forgot the whole pepper, 'n' we're goin' to
pickle seed cowcumbers to-morrer. You take the lard home 'n' put it in
the cold room, 'n' ondress Gay 'n' git her to bed, for I've got to call
int' Mis' Mayhew's goin' along back."
It was very vexatious to be obliged to pass David Milliken a second
time; "though there warn't no sign that he cared anything about it one
way or 'nother, bein' blind as a bat, 'n' deef as an adder, 'n' dumb as
a fish, 'n' settin' stockstill there with no coat on, 'n' the wind
blowin' up for rain, 'n' four o' the Millikens layin' in the churchyard
with gallopin' consumption." It was in this frame of mind that she
purchased the whole pepper, which she could have eaten at that moment as
calmly as if it had been marrow-fat peas; and in this frame of mind she
might have continued to the end of time had it not been for one of those
unconsidered trifles that move the world when the great forces have
given up trying. As she came out of the store and passed David, her eye
fell on a patch in the flannel shirt that covered his bent shoulders.
The shirt was gray and (oh, the pity of it!) the patch was red; and it
was laid forlornly on outside, and held by straggling stitches of carpet
thread put on by patient, clumsy fingers. That patch had an irresistible
pathos for a woman!
Samantha Ann Ripley never exactly knew what happened. Even the wisest of
down-East virgins has emotional lapses once in a while, and she
confessed afterwards that her heart riz right up inside of her like a
yeast cake. Mr. Berry, the postmaster, was in the back of the store
reading postal cards. Not a soul was in sight. She managed to get down
over the steps, though something with the strength of tarred ship-ropes
was drawing her back; and then, looking over her shoulder with her whole
brave, womanly heart in her swimming eyes, she put out her hand and
said, "Come along, Dave!"
And David straightway gat him up from the loafer's bench and went unto
Samantha gladly.
And they remembered not past unhappiness because of present joy; nor
that the chill of coming winter was in the air, because it was summer in
their hearts: and this is the eternal magic of love.