AS IT WAS WRITTEN
The twilight had been long for April, as though the vivid sunset colors
had fairly dazzled night, but now it was fading. Oliver Gilbert sat
before his desk in the workshop. He was not looking at what was before
him, but out of the window across road and fields to where a pearly
mist, in which floated the crescent of the new moon, hung above
Moosatuck. The rush of the river over the last dam that checked it above
the mills was occasionally punctuated by the cry of a little screech-owl
or the call of a robin shifting its perch, while the rhythmic chorus of
peeping frogs insisted upon "sleep-sleep-sleep."
That Gilbert was tired was apparent in the deepened lines of his face
and droop of his shoulders, but it was wholly fatigue of mind. The
adoption which had for a month filled his waking and sleeping thoughts
was a thing accomplished. A week before, when the matter hung in the
balance, possession of the child had seemed the finality. To-night it
appeared as merely an open gate through which stretched a vista beyond
ken; across this many figures passed to and fro, but with faces in
shadow or averted. A question asked by Satira Pegrim at supper had given
birth to the entire throng.
"Don't you calkerlate, Gilbert, it'll be best to lead her up to calling
us aunty and uncle? Then byme-by, when she comes to know, as know she
must, there won't be such a mess o' unravellin' to do."
Gilbert had answered hotly, chided her unreasonably, ending by saying
that the child called him Daddy already, and that it could do no harm as
she grew up for the two white stones on the hillside to stand for Mother
and little sister. Perhaps, God helping, she might not learn the truth
until she was a woman and married. Then it need not hurt so much. Thus
Gilbert drugged himself reckless with hope, after the manner of us all.
Darkness fell about him as he sat, his head fallen between his hands,
the side rays of the post-office lamp only seeming to draw the shadows
closer. Presently he pulled himself together, lighted the other lamps in
office and workshop, talking to himself in an argumentative strain as he
walked about. One man came in for a paper of tobacco and another for
some stamps, but seeing that the postmaster was preoccupied, they did
not linger.
"That's just what I'll do," he said, as though after arguing with some
one he had suddenly achieved a conclusion. Again seating himself before
the desk and selecting a particular key from the chain he continued the
conversation with the opponent who, being speechless, could not
contradict. "When I was a boy, I always was scheming to write a book
some day that should be printed out like them in Squire Oldys's study.
The printing won't be compassed, but I can write out all that happens
from _that night_ on concerning the child, and the village doings, so's
it'll be there plain and no hearsay when she comes to read it and I'm
not here perhaps. Yes, and I must not forget discretion in the doing of
it. Mr. Esterbrook lent me some books of Mr. Pepys's, his remarks on his
own and neighborhood doings. They were fine and edifying in parts, but
lacked the discreetness and holding back I always find in Mr. Plutarch.
I wonder anyhow, if in the beginning books weren't written just for the
sake of talking to some one."
After searching in a cupboard under the desk, Gilbert drew out a large
ledgerlike volume, bound in sheep. The cover was worn merely by lying
for years side by side with its shelf mates. The pages within were of
thick smooth paper, finely ruled. Gilbert tried several pens, quill and
steel, and finally brought a new one from the office; then slowly and
painfully he inscribed on the first page:--
_As it was written--by Oliver G. Gilbert for Julia Poppea, beginning
March 10, 1862._ Next he took his two precious Lincoln letters from
their drawer and fastened them between the first and second pages by
corner strips of gummed paper. Then began the diary.
Two hours passed ere he had finished the first week, but as time went
on, he would naturally grow more brief--the more action the fewer words.
* * * * *
By the first of May the reconstructed post-office household was accepted
as a matter of course, Satira Pegrim having leased her farm for a three
years' term to 'Lisha Potts, and stored her furnishings in the empty
half hayloft of the post-office barn. When urged by Potts to sell her
farm, she had answered: "No, Gilbert or I either one of us may feel
called to marry, then what's to do? 'Cause I wouldn't be number four to
Deacon Green with his white chin whiskers, and his 'it's all for the
best' and other heartless sayings when number one, two, and three was
took, or, I claim, clean froze to death, isn't to say I'm set against
the institution. To camp 'longside of an ice pond isn't marriage. I
never did like lizards, real or human, since brother Cotton Mather put
one down my neck in Sunday-school the day sister Clarissy Harlow
'sperienced religion and I screeched so folks thought I had it too."
On May Day itself, Poppea emerged from the hands of Satira Pegrim
clad in the first attempts for many a year of that good woman in
fashioning clothes for a child. The result was a sunbonnet of
brown-and-white-checked gingham, a sack-shaped slip of the same
material, reenforced by the species of extension-legged underwear called
pantalets, below which came a glimpse of sturdy ankles and feet shod in
stout ties. This being the universal garb of children of her age and
station all over Newfield County, the color of the gingham being
diversified.
Miss Emmy Felton had protested and begged to be allowed to keep the
child in dainty nainsook and dimities, ribbons, and flowery hats, but
Gilbert had stood firm that in clothing at least she must be like the
neighborhood children, as he expressed it. Thus Poppea began life at
Harley's Mills without pretence, having for guardian Mack, who was fast
developing into a brown-and-white hound of medium size, a trace of
setter blood showing in the grain of his hair, and having the
forethought and human intelligence that is more often found in dogs of
unknown parentage than in pampered thoroughbreds.
The parapet that made a barrier between the Angus garden and Gilbert's
home acres was finished. A series of massive stone urns, filled with
foliage plants that topped it, seemed in the half light of night and
morning like seneschals in plumed helmets, keeping watch over the doings
of those humbly encamped below, whom they suspected, but might not
displace. Yet what does Nature care for such distinctions and
boundaries? She does not even stop to snap her fingers at them, but
simply keeps on surrounding, overlapping, or undermining all barriers
that oppose her plans.
The wash of earth and water from Windy Hill was toward Gilbert's
orchard, with its trees of mossed-branch crannies and knot holes,
beloved of robins, bluebirds, and woodpeckers, where the ample red cow
flavored her cud with apple blossoms, meadow mint, or nips of the sweet
corn in the vegetable patch, according to season and the location and
length of her tether.
Down through the ground gaps in the parapet, a combination of
architectural design and necessity, came the spirit of that other garden
that the roseleaf wife had created, tended, and left to outlive her.
From the bank presently there sprang a bunch of tulips here, a crimson
peony there, a musk rose-bush in the débris put forth new branches
reaching toward the light, then came the matted green of violets, tufts
of velvet sweet william, a wand of madonna lilies. All through this
season and others some deep-sleeping seed or bulb put forth,
Johnny-jump-ups, prim quilled asters, and, with June, there swayed a
flock of butterfly-winged poppies that in still other seasons would
wander from their earth bank and alight among the plumes of orchard
grass to colonize all the sunny spaces. This was the child's playground,
where she first rolled among the daisies, while Mack, led by his nose,
made quest of ground-hog and cottontail; there she sucked clover honey,
was stung by jealous bees, solved the first mystery of the nest and
eggs, told time by puff-ball clocks, and by and by, through playing
make-believe, approached the real. Like the good fairy of a story who
always comes to the christening to mend with her gift any evil that
others have wrought, so at Poppea's naming, Nature the mother was the
invisible sponsor, who gave her three gifts: love of the beautiful
through eye and ear, love of the best through a warm heart, and the
precious gift of the tears that cleanse the spirit.
As soon as the wind-flowers starred the lowlands and the red bells of
the columbine swung from their many shrines in the rocky banks, Oliver
Gilbert once more resumed his Sunday habit of taking a posy to Mary and
Marygold in God's-acre on the hillside. When the afternoon was right,
Poppea went with him, riding in the old chaise safe in the grasp of
Daddy's left arm. It was on one of the first of these visits that
Gilbert began to train the five-fingered woodbine, that, creeping
through the half-wild grass, clung to the two white stones and would not
be denied. Heretofore he had always pulled it away ruthlessly, but now
he plucked a leaf here, a tendril there, coaxing it gently to make a
living frame about the names and date of day and month, but praying it
to overgrow the _year_ that filled a sunken oval near the base of both
the stones.
While he worked, he prattled unceasingly, as a child might, to the
little one crawling in the mossy grass to gather the light-hued,
short-stemmed violets and soft-pawed "pussy-toes." She neither paused
nor seemed to heed, yet two sounds heard week after week lingered in her
brain until her tongue should one day release them, and these words were
"Mother" and "Ma'gold."
There was no Fourth of July celebration at Harley's Mills that year,--no
picnics, no speeches. The depressing summer of McClellan's fruitless
meanderings, as well as lack of money, forbade crackers or fireworks, so
that the return of John Angus with his bride, the second week of the
month, was an event that helped to relieve the general tension.
Mr. Binks, who saw Mrs. Angus on her arrival as she crossed the platform
of the little station, reported:--
"She's good-lookin', middlin' young 'n' dark haired with pale skin.
She's a high stepper 'at knows which way she wants to go, 'n' mark my
words, if John Angus's goin' to foller like she 'spects him to, he'll
have to act freer and more quick'n he ever did for t'other one."
Next day the village had a shock almost as great as if Lee had suddenly
entered Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Angus appeared, walking in the village
street, he holding her sunshade to the best advantage, while she let her
flounced, fresh organdie gown brush the ground that she might clasp both
her hands over her husband's arm, the white roses on her wide chip hat
tickling his ear the while as she moved her head in talking.
In and out of the half dozen shops they went marketing (John Angus had
habitually marketed in Bridgeton), she chatting gayly. Presently, as
they reached the post-office, there was a pause. Then she was heard to
say, by a loiterer who sat upon the steps:--
"Don't be tiresome, Jack; you mustn't expect me to help keep afloat
senseless old grudges. Please open the door, it hurts my hand. Oh, what
a lovely child!" For though Angus did not actually enter with her, he
held the door back without further opposition.
"I will take box fifteen," she said to Gilbert with decision. "I see
that it is vacant. Is that your little grandchild? No, your daughter?
You must let your wife bring her up to see me some day. I'm devoted to
little children."
"I thought that he looked red and was getting mad," the witness said,
"but when she come out, she stuck a big yaller rose she was wearing in
her belt right under his chin, and says she, 'Jack, do you love butter?'
Oh, Lordy, I thought I'd die, her callin' John Angus Jack, and ticklin'
of his chin!"
Quality Hill called immediately, both those who had previously known
Mrs. Angus in New York as Miss Duane and those who had not. Meanwhile
the stern mansion on Windy Hill relaxed and bade fair to become a factor
in the town, drawing its social life westward.
There was much discussion among the village people as to Mrs. Angus's
age; at one of the Feltons' piazza days at home, Miss Emmy, by a process
of calculation all her own, said thirty-six, but Mr. Esterbrook
gallantly declared that as looks should be the only way of reckoning
such matters, the lady could be barely twenty-five.
When Mrs. Angus returned her calls, a trim footman in white tops seated
by the coachman on the box of the barouche, the first ever brought to
Harley's Mills, the good folks stared and raised their hands. When she
took a pew at St. Luke's church, her husband escorting her to the door
each Sunday, they lost their breaths completely. But when she invited
all to a garden party to see a new lawn game called _croquet_ that had
been sent her direct from London by a married sister, they found their
tongues again to wonder if the mastering of its fascinating mysteries
would in any way impeach their loyalty to the Declaration of
Independence; then straightway succumbed as to an epidemic, grace hoops,
battledore and shuttlecock, and even archery having to yield it place.
If Marcia Angus handled her husband somewhat dramatically, his
satisfaction seemed complete as it was deep. Only two in the place,
Gilbert and Miss Emmy, ever whispered even to themselves that she was
playing the sort of comedy that is only possible to a woman when some
motive of ambition rather than her affections has sway. So that it was a
relief to both when, on the Anguses' return from town late the next
spring, the touch of nature that makes all women kin colored the village
gossip, and it was known that at last there would be a child born in the
great house on Windy Hill. Satira Pegrim, who chatted often with the
gardener's wife, though her brother had never let her take Poppea for
the oft-requested visit to the hill, repeated wild tales of the fineness
of the cambric needlework and lace upon the little wardrobe; of the blue
silk draperies of the south room now fitted for a nursery; of the gilt
bassinet, with its pillow and spread of real lace, and bed, they said,
of swan's-down.
Finally a new rumor was whispered and then took visible shape. Harley's
Mills, with its staff of competent women, single and widowed, who were
ready and willing to "accommodate," was overlooked; an English head
nurse of the brand accustomed to rear an infant from its birth and
chosen by Mrs. Angus's sister, who had sent croquet, appeared in the
stalwart person of a Mrs. Shandy.
Then the village pursed its lips, folded its hands, and waited.
* * * * *
_Some random extracts from Oliver Gilbert's book, 1863, Jan. 1._--Three
million slaves were freed to-day according to the promise of September.
It had to be, but now I'm wondering what will become of them. Poppea may
see the working out of this, though I shall not. Having her, there's
somebody ahead to hand out hopes and fears to. Without somebody ahead to
keep up with, old feet must stumble and get tired on the march.
_July the 3._--Meade is in command and they're at it again hot and heavy
around Gettysburg. Morse's boy is there and his grandson, or they were
when it began. We've all been living around the station for the last
three days, just gasping for news like stranded fish for water, but half
the time the operator can't get the wire, and then it's only that
they're at it still, with Lee to the better last night.
My head is on fire and seem's as if my hands can't feel. What if they
should win--but they _can't while Lincoln's above ground_.
_July 4._--We've won Gettysburg; but now the fight's over, the fields
yonder are just seeded down with bodies, blue and gray together. The
Union's safe, and all the town boys, big and little, are firing cannons
and muskets, there not being a store that's charging for powder! There's
been hallelujahs in the meeting-house, bell-ringings and speeches on the
green. I've run up both the flags, one atop of t'other, and yet now it's
night and I've come in out of the crowd, it seems like I must put a bit
of black out somewhere for _those others_! The picture of them in the
glass looks darkly, but byme-by, when Poppea comes to read this, mebbe
it'll shine up clear and be seen face to face. Joy and sorrow, there's
always the two around; the matter is _which of us gets which_.
_July 5._--It's just come in by 'Lisha Potts that plucky Grant, who's
been meandering down-stream and in the marshes this long time, got safe
down the river past the fort and in back of Pemberton's men, and through
battering and starving, Vicksburg has given in! _Hallelujah for
victory!_ say I with the rest, yet I can't get the thought out of my
head of those famished women and children living in ground-holes and
caves to keep out of shot range. Maybe when Poppea is grown, there'll be
some way of keeping peace and right _without this murder_. Perhaps it
might come about even through women themselves! Who knows?
_July 7._--Joy and sorrow! Both amongst us in this village. John Angus's
wife has borne him his long-wished-for son, but she is dead!
Oh, God! what has he done to be so dealt with? He bent his will
considerable through love of her, or maybe it was pride. Must it be
altogether broke? Or is it because he withered little Roseleaf? I hauled
my victory flags down just so soon as Dr. Morewood told me. Then I run
the little one back, halfway up. I wouldn't want Angus to think that I
bear malice or was aught but sorry; though if I told him so, he'd likely
read it as a taunt. Mrs. Angus was pleasant spoken to the child and me;
mebbe some day Poppea can pass those kind words back _to the little
boy_.
_July 10._--To-day they buried her up in God's-acre on the hill. The
flowers and singing were beautiful,--'specially the little boys from
Mr. Latimer's church that he teaches music. Hughey Oldys sang one piece
all alone about flying away on the wings of a dove to find rest. It took
me straight up after it and set me down far away, wondering where little
Roseleaf lies and if any bedded her with flowers and singing.
The women folks brought home satisfaction from the funeral anyhow, for
there on a graven silver plate was the age out plain--"In her
thirty-seventh year."
* * * * *
_1864, July 13._--Early tried to get into Washington yesterday, but he
didn't. What a terrible year it's been so far, and only half over. Blood
it seems everywhere, in earth and sky and sea. Our boys dropping down at
more'n a thousand a day, week in and week out. Can we hold out? Yes, to
the end, with patience; for Lincoln says, "Victory will come, but it
comes slowly."
There's nobody else left to go soldiering from this town. 'Lisha Potts
was the last likely one and went yesterday. His mother has come down to
widow Baker's and they've sold most of their stock,--fodder and labor
both being so high. Three dollars a day for a man at haying. Tough bull
beef at thirty cents the pound; sack flour taken over from the Mills is
at the rate of seventeen dollars a barrel, and taxes up to eight mills
from five, they say, to help pay the war debt; things look pretty blue
in my purse. Did I do wrong in keeping the child from those who could do
better by her?
Sister Satira is all shook up by 'Lisha's going. I never suspicioned
before that they were courting. But she claims ever since he hired her
farm it sort of seems as if she belonged with it, and he claims ever
since she left and shut the door more'n half the place is missing.
Satira isn't in any hurry, even if 'Lisha hadn't enlisted, for she says
she had less than a month's courting before and poor quality at that, so
now she means to make it last.
I pray she does. What would become of us?
_Nov. 12._--_The Union is safe for Lincoln is reëlected!_
* * * * *
_1865, Feb. 10._--Lincoln wanted to pay the owners something for the
slaves set free, but the cabinet would not let _him_! Others wanted to
hang the chief Rebel leaders, but he would not let _them_. So it goes. I
want the child by and by to think of this every time she sees those
letters that he wrote her Daddy, so's she'll remember what times and
doings she came into to make her loyal to the land and the folks that
stand next her.
This month the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution was passed that
cuts out slavery from every State and Territory. So help us, God! that
every soul of us on this soil may be free forever more, black or white,
man, woman, or child. Keep us from bondage to ourselves, for slavery
isn't only the body being bought and sold.
_March 5._--Yesterday, Lincoln took oath again.
_March 12._--'Lisha Potts came home to-day, honorably discharged and
wounded some, but not past mending. He's been in three battles, and
looks old enough to count out those four years that he's younger than
Satira. Dave Morse came with him, but little Davy lies at Gettysburg.
It seems as if we ones behind can't keep our hands from touching and
feeling of the flesh of them that was there, or our eyes from searching
the eyes of them that have seen!
_April 5._--Yesterday, Lee surrendered and Richmond fell. This ends the
war. Yet woe is still upon the land. What martyrs' blood must be shed to
cleanse it?
_April 15._--_He is dead! Assassinated! None else would suffice!_
_April 24._--To-morrow we are going to see them take him home, the
child and I. The Fennimans have made me free of their front porch; they
have a house on Union Square, New York. He will pass that way. The
neighbors think I'm crazy to take a child of four or five. She may not
understand, but she will see, and byme-by, some day, it will come back
to her, and she'll be glad that Daddy took her with him.
_April 25._--We left at daybreak. As it was raw and threatening, the
child wore a little blue cloak and cap like a soldier's that Satira made
to please her last winter. It being eight years since I've seen the
city, I was forced to ask my way, but Mr. Esterbrook being at the
station to meet some friends, he counselled me. Carrying Poppea, for the
streets were thronged, I went out to Madison Square and so down to Fifth
Avenue. Black on every side, hanging from roof to street, black-banded
flags, black bands on people's arms, the great clock shrouded in black.
There were no public stages on the streets that I could see, so I walked
down Fifth Avenue to Seventeenth Street, then eastward to Union Square,
and so down to Fourteenth Street.
One large building in particular was covered with black from the dormers
down to the street, with all the windows hid by black-trimmed flags. I
asked a passer-by whose house it was, and he told me that it was the
home of a society called the Union League, formed by the best men of
this city for the upholding of the Union.
We got to the house at half after one o'clock. I don't know how long we
waited, bells tolling. A groan ran up and down the street, and then a
great silence. From where I stood out by the fence, the porch and
verandy being crowded, I could see the black-covered horses swinging
round the corner from Broadway, and after them the car. Down the street
it came, from the corner seemed an hour. I lifted Poppea to the iron
fence post by the walk. The groan rose once more, and then silence, with
all hats off. When the car passed, it seemed as though the world was
dead, and that after the minute guns would follow the last trump!
Gazing before her at the car, the child pulled her little soldier cap
off, then whispered to me, drawing my head down, "I don't see him,
Daddy. Is he going to heaven in that bed asleep?" "Yes, yes," I said.
"'N' when he wakes up, will he see muvver and Ma'gold and tell 'em we
was here?"
A band struck up a dirge, so I didn't have to answer. I can't but think
perhaps he'll find _her_ mother, and tell her that there's an old fellow
who couldn't fight, that just lives to right her wrongs.
After the car a stream of faces followed, men and more men of high-up
societies and committees. I was looking at them without seeing, until
one man passed and looked back as he went, at us I thought. It was John
Angus! My suz, but he's aged or something. His face was drawn as if by
pain or anger, I can't judge which.
Poppea saw him too, and as he passed she waved her hand, she's such an
eye for faces. Then she turned her mind to some cakes the ladies gave
her, with pink tops. It's wonderful how nature eases things for
children.
_May 10._--The Anguses are back, and folks say that Philip is not well,
does not keep his footing as a boy should who is turning three. Satira
saw him yesterday, sitting in his little coach behind the parapet, and
she says he looks old and tired across the eyes.
Some doctors are coming from New York to-night to see him. Morewood only
shakes his head when asked, as much as saying, _I know_, but he will not
believe _me_.
_May 12._--Mrs. Shandy came down to Satira last evening crying, and
blurted out that Philip has a twist or something in his
backbone,--Pott's disease they call it. He will be a hunchback. "An'
when he looks at me so lovin' with those big gray eyes of his, it seems
that I can't bear it," she sobbed right on Satira's shoulder.
"What did his father say?" asked she.
"Mr. Angus? Well he was hard struck and stayed above stairs all
yesterday. But this morning he came down and says to us help standing
by, 'Do all the doctors say, but never mention to my son or to me that
he is different from other boys. Who breaks my order--goes.' Ah! Mrs.
Pegrim, but he's got an awful pride and will; I have my _doubts if God
himself could break it_."
* * * * *
_1867, May._ Poppea is past six now and the Misses Felton think she
should have lessons. She knows her letters from her blocks, and Hughey
Oldys reads fairy books to her, but it's the hill-country speech that
worries me, and also the Felton ladies. When I talk, I talk like those I
live among, but when I put pen to paper, I do better, and write more
like those I've met in reading.
Miss Emmy wants to learn her every day so when she's eight she can go to
the Academy, and being a lady baby as she was, not shame her breeding.
For manners, she's catching them already, and Stephen Latimer says she
has a great ear for music, and can sing anything she hears Hugh sing in
Sunday-school; not out loud, of course, but soft and strange, like a
young bird that's trying.