THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES u NEW NOVELS BY JULIE P. SMITH. 1. wTDO'w GOLDSMITH'S 2. CHRIS AND OTHO. 3. THE WIDOWEK. 4. THE MARRIED BELLE. 5. TEN OLD MAIDS. 6. COURTING AND FARMING. [In press.] "The novels by this author are of unusual merit, un commonly well written, clever, and character ized by great wit and vivacity. They are growing popular and more popular every day." All issued uniform with this volume. Price $1.75 each, and sent by mail, postage free, on receipt of price, BY G. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers, New York. SHIFTLESS FOLKS. AN" UNDILUTED LOVE STORY. BY CHRISTABEL GOLDSMITH. 'My mother chides me when she asks me Why those tears in silence move. I could tell her, but I dare not, All those tears are for my love." GARDENER'S Music IN NATURE. NEW YOKK: G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers. LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO., MDCCCLXXV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by G. W. CARLETON & CO., In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. JOHN F. TROW & SON, PRINTERS, 205-213 EAST I2TH ST., NEW YORK. Maclauchlan. Stereotyper, 145 & 147 Mulberry St., near Grand, N. Y. TO fjtr Jlcar SSIoman JENNIE OWEN KEIM, IN MEMORY OH SEVEN LONG YEARS OF COMPANIONSHIP IN LOVE AND LABOR, THE AUTHOR OFFERS THIS COD-CHILD. 1293878 CONTENTS. CHAPTER 1 7 CHAPTER II 12 CHAPTER HI 29 CHAPTER IV 45 CHAPTER V 71 CHAPTER VI 78 CHAPTER VII 101 CHAPTER VIH 114 CHAPTER IX 131 CHAPTER X 144 CHAPTER XI 155 CHAPTER XII 1G5 CHAPTER XIII 1 75 CHAPTER XIV 182 CHAPTER XV 189 CHAPTER XVI 205 CHAPTER XVII 220 CHAPTER XVIII 243 CHAPTER XIX 25 1 CHAPTER XX 264 CHAPTER XXI ] ' 289 CHAPTER XXII 897 CHAPTER XXIII 806 CHAPTER XXIV 317 CHAPTER XXV 325 CHAPTER XXVI .." ' 349 CHAPTER XXVII 365 CHAPTER XXVIII ....." ! 394 CHAPTER XXIX. ...." " 493 CHAPTER XXX .'. 418 CHAPTER XXXI .428 CHAPTER XXXII ..........].. 439 CHAPTER XXXTTI ..] " 443 SHIFTLESS FOLKS: AN UNDILUTED LOVE STORY. CHAPTER I. " Eub-a-dub, dub ; three maids in a tub." JHIS narration is the tub : and I purpose to have three heroines, and three heroes. Their names are: MARY McCnoss, Spinster. PEACE PELICAN, " DOROTHEA MULLIGAN, " CYMBALINUS ADOLPHUS BROWN, Bachelor. FRANCIS HAYTHORNE, " Louis ALLWOOD, " AMOS DALEY, " Besides these there are Mr. and Mrs. McCross, and Mr. and Mrs. Pelican : moreover, as Shakespeare would have it, other knights and attendant spirits, who, being for the most part married and settled, cannot be supposed capable of engrossing the attention of the novel-reading world. If Mr. Hale should look over my list, he would probably think I didn't know "how to do it," as well as himself, for I have set down more than my pair of trigemini. But I did it on purpose. Do you suppose SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 1 am going to tell which is which on the first page, and then roar gently as a suckling dove forever after ? Hea ven forbid ! I have a higher ideal of a novel. In this day of exact knowledge, when Agassiz clamors of bones and Huxley of protoplasm, who that studies the millions in the stars, and the millionths in the globule, will be unfair enough to drop from the catalogue of sciences the most profoundly important of all human- soul life? How awful is the task of the heart of the historian, poet or novelist ! and the two gifts are so twin to each other, that few profess the one without dabbling in its complement. To understand their fellows, is the pursuit of all men. To know life, feel its experiences, see its sights, is the dominant longing of the young. What reverence did not our ten years of humanity give us for Pa's silly cousin, who had been disappointed in love ! The novelist endeavors to make life's mysteries plain. He it is who delineates the passion, the sorrow, the strength ; who photographs the pangs of mankind ; who teaches people to know and love each other through the sympathy of a kindred, now revealed, humanity. It is to the novel that we go for our life pictures. In our favorite characters we are unconsciously fashioned. Na tional taste, politics, religion, are more moulded in the masses by the novel, than any other one means of educa tion. There is no sorrow so deep, no terror so ominous, that the novelist dare not depict it. To lodge a true principle in the hard heads of man kind through the unsuspicious sympathy of their hearts, to help us avoid or bear misery, is the noblest sphere of novelist or poet ; and the trifler who mangles or dis- SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 9 torts truth must e'en see his work in human souls burnt out in fire of repentance and agony when he might have given the world a torch to light it on to good. There is no calling which does not in its complete development touch infinity and therefore God ; or his opposite. Nor need the artist, who cares rather for art than humanity, beauty than moral beauty, be outraged hereby. For to present a just type of beauty is to show forth God ; who, however, knew no better way to reveal Him self to us than to become man. So from these poles of dissent we travel around the same circle. Who best shows man reveals God ; to re veal God is to instruct man. It is all one. All good things tend to one end. But the poet and novelist are nothing more than professors of the science to whose province belong three eras passion or motive ; action ; and condition or result, as you please to call it. Which after all are but three stages of one thing the fretting of the divinity in man against his carnal limitations. People can never judge of the worth of a novel to any one but themselves, because its value to a man is always exactly measured by the points where instinct, or instinct worked into experience, touches the thing in hand. " O dear," said Peace Pelican, settling herself to "Barbara's History;" "one can never properly appre ciate a novel till one's been in love and travelled in Eu rope, and I haven't done either ! " I am, as you know, Christabel Goldsmith. I tell the story. I'm not in it, because Serena, as the saying is, nabbed me in my innocont youth, and put me in hers ; so, when long reflection on the above thoughts set me to writing, my best resource was gone, and I had to fall back on my friends. 1* 10 SUFITLESS FOLKS. The people in this book are " Eeal Folks," and to my mind shiftless withal. But I like them on that account. There was a time when I was shiftless myself. That is one reason why I refused the offers of sittings from my present dear half dozen, and chose my characters from the companions of my early youth, who, thank God, have not failed me in my maturer age. I have no objection to telling you how I became ac quainted with them. Mary McCross is my own cousin. Her mother and mine were Miranda and Hannah Price respectively. I was very young when they quarrelled, but I remember dining at Fir Covert, and seeing Mollie, a little girl about my own age, with childish flaxen curls and blue eyes. She stood up in a state of open mutiny on the step of her high chair, and called for chicken pie, and rejoined, " Keep 'em up, Pop," with immovable resolution, when her father commanded her to be seated. Her will was like iron, and is to this day. People with soft brown hair and blue eyes frequently have such especially when they possess a pleasant smile, a tolerably even cut forehead, not over, nor under, common breadth and height, and what we call English complexion. Mollie's infant features gradually took on these peculiarities, or perhaps lacks of peculiarity, witlx womanhood. And when I met her again in after life, I knew her just as well as you do, now I have intro duced her to your notice. There was a little boy, a ward of Uncle McCross, in the house the day we dined there. He lay flat on the ground reading, with his fingers stuffed in his ears most of the time. After dinner he brought me some bumble bees he caught fearlessly in his hands, and entertained me with the Pedler's Quickstep," performed on the black keys of the piuuo, by means of both forefingers. Mollie, SHIFTLESS FOLKS. H who had not mastered this scientific performance, stood meanwhile at his elbow, in hearty admiration. I met Peace Pelican at Herr Groen veldt's school, which we both attended. She was a general favorite, and fore most in all matters of fun took a prize in mathematics. I don't know anything first hand about Francis Hay- thorne's youth. It has been whispered that his mother, a devoted house-keeper, brought him up on " Helen Mor ris," "Mamma's Bible Stories," and "Tender Truths for Tender Minds." He wore blue and white calico aprons till he was nine years old, roundabouts and slippers till he was turned fifteen, had a tutor, and a pony, whose legs were so short that he used to take his feet from the stir rups and walk up the steep places. His mother, too, en tertained a horror of subjecting him to contamination from plebeians and boys, and was a shining light in the mothers' meeting. It was some years after the Fir Covert visit that I first saw Little Doppy more correctly, Miss Dorothea Mulli gan. The rain had fallen heavily all day, but, clearing at night, papa and I ventured a walk down through Sylla bub. Before a puddle of lovely mud, black as jet and thick as pudding, stood this heroine eying it with long ing. Her cheeks were very red, her short hair stood in ringlets all over her pretty head, her pink gingham dress wasn't buttoned up behind, and disclosed white plump shoulders. She swung her fat little arms, said " one ! two ! three ! " and plumped straight into the beautiful gutter. Then she waded out, and, pointing to the adher ing soil with exulting glee, cried, " See my new shoes ! " Thereupon a rough, black-bearded man, with a pipe in his mouth, took her into the " Solomon Rodgers," kick ing and screaming, and Shut the door. Miss Ahuira Petingil has always been the village tail- j2 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. oress. The other folks came into my knowledge pre cisely as they will into yours. CHAPTER II. "And will you have her, Robin, to be your wedded wife ? " " Yes, I will," says Robin, " and love her all iny life." " And will you have him, Jennie, your husband now to be ? " " Yes, I will," says Jennie, " and love him heartily." | T had all come about as herein stated, and now the pair were beginning to weave plans and promises, and hopes and reminiscences, in that happy, inextricable tangle that lovers always will weave, and I for one rejoice to have them. Throughout my tolerably eventful career, I have been the chosen repository of my friends' love affairs, whether because I have happily settled my own, or because my vivid interest in such matters paves the way. Of all the young folks who have rested their joys and sorrows in my intact (of course!) confidence, these two come nearest to my heart. But they never gave me more than the shell of their affairs the kernel seemed too sacred in their eyes, even for speech. I have seen trembling lovers and exultant lovers, proud lovers and humble lovers, lovers- who said their future spouses' goodness was a constant reproach to them, lovers whose conduct was sure to be a reproach to their spouses. The two people before us do not come iuto this list. Indeed, while I am on the subject, let me -say that I am critical in lovo. I have no faith iu the " woful sonnet to his mis- SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 13 tress' .eyebrow" class. I abominate lovers' pains, and darts and follies. True love, to ine, means perfect strength, and is therefore perfect peace. Whether Louis and Mollie realized it, is a different matter. Further, perhaps, I doubted their wisdom in loving at all. What right had two gentle, modest, retiring people, who neither of them knew more of the world than could be gathered from the simplest of village lives, thus to set out to bat tle the storms of life together ? One is reminded of the " children in the wood : " " These pretty babes, with hand in hand, Went wandering up and down." And so on to a finale of starvation on huckleberries, and covering of oak leaves, which last about Roaring River are apt to be a little worm-eaten. Yet, after all, why should I trouble for them ? In love's sweet old story, which every one lives (or dreams of living) just once in a lifetime, there is a mighty quality of hope and God-so-orders-it-ness. Touching the place where all this moralizing has gone on, it is as homely as tradition paints the cradle of true love being nowhere else than Mrs. McCross' kitchen. And the actors, who are too much absorbed in each other to heed our scrutiny, are your old childish friends, Louis Allwood and Mary McCross both at your service. The concomitants are fit enough a tabby cat purring content edly in the window, a tall clock ticking behind the door, a great pan of flour set near the moulding-board and rolling-pins on the snowy table, a maple-wood fire crack ling in the open stove. I confess, however, that my interest is chiefly in the oc cupants of the unpoetic, feather-pillowed, chintz-covered settle one head laid so close to the other that the short 14 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. rin^s of his nut-brown hair swept her smooth braids scarcely a shade lighter. " So you take me for better and for worse ? " in a half- proud, half-anxious whisper. " Yes, Louis," laying the face she raised to look into her lover's eyes back on his shoulder composedly. " Through good report and evil report ? " with a smile at the possibility that he would ever bear any repute but good. Mary straightened herself, took both his hands in hers, and looking right into his soul answered solemnly : " Through good report and evil report, and sickness and sorrow, and death." She was putting her whole purpose into the compact he was too much a boy to fully compre hend. You could see it in every gesture, every expression of her earnest face. Even when she broke the pause that followed her declaration, by archly humming the old song, "But my heart will be with you wherever you may go ; Can you look me in the face and say the same, Jeannot ? " it was a mere surface ripple in the steadfast current of a resolve that carried with it all the forces of her life. But he was earnest too as far as life had knit him into capacity for it. He was truthful, and sweet in his boyish affection, and enthusiastic with the easy spring ing into being of purposes that he had not followed into action enough even to tell their nature. Boy or man, the young girl was satisfied ; and, when he drew her pretty head before him, and gazed a long time into her pleasant eyes so intent now in their out look at vowed and faithful love, he saw a depth of some thing behind their blue, that made him strong for good, though he only knew of it that it was there for him. Fidus Achates told me, the other day, that civil con tracts and weddings had little to do with true marriage. SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 15 " That," said he, " is the simple yielding of two souls to each other, so that they are henceforth one ; the rest is only a blessing upon this deed." Perhaps our pair felt it. They were silent a long while, each thinking his own thoughts. By and by the door opened and admitted Deacon McCross. " What are you doing ? " asked he, in rather short tones for so long a man. The girl looked up with a strong glad light in her face. " Making love, father," said she quietly. Louis rose with timid respect. " I have been asking your daughter to be my wife ; " and the delicate color which had faded from his cheeks flushed and paled more than once before he finished his explanation. " We have been like brother and sister all our lives. We want to be something more. You will not refuse us ? " The Deacon twisted uneasily under his daughter's glance. " Not as I know of," said he, looking very un comfortable. " Her mother '11 make an awful time." The trio gazed at each other in silence. His words were too true for prophecy. Louis was hurt. Mollie resolved, her father weak and hesitating. The girl spoke first. " Perhaps she won't mind so much if you don't, dear," said she, hopefully. " Perhaps she won't," answered the Deacon in a blank tone. " Mrs. McCross may be more reconciled when she knows how my prospects have improved," began the strip ling, in eager longing that an impossible joy should occur. As the Deacon's meek, wrinkled face, and pale blue eyes persisted in their expression of stolid disbelief, he stopped nervously. Mollie thereupon slipped her hand into his to reassure him, and he proceeded with more confidence : t{ I have accepted a position in the Pelicans' store in Top IQ SHIFTLESS FOLKS. Town, and Charley's father offers me a partnership at the end of three years if I like the position and seem fitted for it." " Liquor trade is money-makin' business," said Mr. McOross, relaxing. " Them Pelicans knows what's what. But my wife ain't agoin' to be satisfied with no expectations ! " " I shall do my best," answered Louis. " I will suc ceed only give me time." Did you ever see a young rooster try to crow when the old one was present ? What a disagreement arose directly, and how, sans tail feathers and comb, did the poor little fowl limp away, followed by the exultant clarion of his conqueror. I have noticed something of the same instinct in the dealings of older toward young men. They snub them, criticise them, put them down in the presence of the people they admire most, and rejoice in it. In my day I have seen a great many boys started in stores. I like boys. They are energetic, honest, and free-spoken. A great deal of unpleasant work can be, and always is, got out of them. Yet I never asked after one of these earnest beginners in life, but his employer answered not, " He does his best ; he'll learn ; " but, "Oh, he does tolerably; he makes mistakes ; it takes a great deal of time to teach him ; he'll know more when he's older ; " or, meanest of all, " I may make a man of him some day ; one never gets to the end of a business edu cation." You contemptible old humbug. Don't he run your errands, handle your goods, stand your ill-temper, fill all the gaps in everything, keep good-humored, and wor ship " our store " ? What more could he do if you asked him ? Even Deacon McCross, whose long discipline in life SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 17 ought to have taught him better, turned combative, when Louis tried to talk business with the air of a man who knew about it. " Young man," said he, putting on a pair of large, sil ver-bowed spectacles, and bestowing a look of superior wisdom on his wretched victim, " ef there's one thing I hate and despise, its shiftlessness, an' Mirandy sez you ain't nowise free from it." Meanwhile Mollie sets the table the McCrosses are as usual without servants and turns her attention to the neglected biscuits, which go into the oven in no time and come out the perfection of that indigestible dainty. Mollie was not small nor large, neither slender nor stout, neither beautiful nor homely. She was refined, perfectly free from self-consciousness, and had never had a week's illness in her life. She was therefore graceful. Perhaps the one adjective that describes her is " pleas ant." She was pleasant to look upon, pleasant to hear, pleasant as a companion, and like any other pleasant thing, had nothing intrusive about her. She might have been an indigo bird, or a Java sparrow bating the melancholy creak, or a forget-me-not. Ah ! now we have it ! a personified, modest, honest, stout-hearted, blue-eyed forget-me-not, describes her exactly. She glided about the place in a deft, easy way from dining-room to kitchen, from closet to cupboard setting down the dishes one by 'one, just where they belonged, and where they stayed with a contented appearance, as if it was a real pleasure to be where she put them. Her father watched her a fond, proud look glorifying his wrinkled old face. She was the one love of his heart. Mrs. McCross had gone to tea and a social prayer-meet ing at Squire Hitchcock's, so Mollie's table was only laid for three, and, in spite of the business ordeal poor Louis 18 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. was passing, they had a cosy supper. Mrs. McCross said her husband drank his tea strong enough to bear up an egg. To-night his daughter had brewed it green as an emerald, and fragrant as a clover-field in full bloom. If Mollie had a weakness, it was for genuine gunpowder without sugar. Her father and she found immense com fort in their kindred dissipation the maternal head tak ing frequent occasion to stigmatize their decoction as " Devil's broth," and generally assuming her seat at breakfast with the remark : " Well, Teapot, I suppose you've got to fill up your stomach and addle your brains as usual." Under the exhilarating influence of his draught, the old gentleman waxed eloquent upon his favorite theme. " There is two kinds of shiftlessness," quoth he, dangling his tea-cup upon his thumb and forefinger in the charac teristic attitude taken by a lover of the drug just at such a slant that the contents remained inside by sheer defiance to the laws of gravitation ; " leastwise there's more, but two especially. It's my belief that the raft of folks is shiftless in something. Ef they ain't in one they be in another. There's shiftlessness in business cm' shift lessness in piety. It's darned shiftless of a man to waste the opportunities of the gospel." Here Louis looked un comfortable, but the Deacon didn't intend to be personal, and ambled on thoughtfully, " Yes, throw them by year in an' year out, an' not get religion ; an' its wuss'n that not to meet a sixty-day note. Ef you bear this well in mind, children, your firm '11 always have a good name on 'Change Street an' Church Street ; an' them two is all any body needs," Here the tea-cup, which Mollie had been sometime eying with painful fascination, turned clear over, and in flicted a beauty spot on Mrs. McCross' beloved table- SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 19 cloth, but the originator only sighed sorrowfully, and, ob taining a fresh supply of the treacherous mixture, rein stated it in its former position, where it wiggled and wavered as before. During his discourse the lovers held a kind of mute conversation, in which every simple action was made elo quent of their happiness. In a true wooing all things become conductors to the electric fluid of love. " Louis," said Mr. McCross, dismounting from his hobby, " where are you going to board ? " "With Charley, at the Pelicans'. They offered to take me." The Deacon, who had a belief common to the old that a dish of bread and water and the soft side of a stone is proper fare for the rising generation of his own sex, looked as forbidding as his lank and meek benevolence could compass. " Is that economy ? " he began ; " when I was a farmer's boy, and went to New York to make my living, I owned just one suit of clothes and slept under the counter. For three months all I had to eat was beans ; and I put my first wages at interest and began my fortune." Louis had been very proud of his arrangements, and, boy like, looked forward to relating them to Mollie with eager enthusiasm. But now his face fell and he began to think it was all a mistake, and himself not fit to make plans. In short, the golden clouds about his sun of suc cess had faded into dismal gray. He hadn't even cour age to defend the course he had taken, and sat nibbling a biscuit he had forgotten to butter, with downcast glances, and bright, evanescent color. Mollie had appeared far from happy when the Pelican partnership obtruded itself into the conversation ; but she would not have him put down. If she disagreed in 20 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. private, it was all the more reason why he should show a bold front in face of the adversary. She therefore offered him peach preserves with her brightest smile, and proceeded to ask every imaginable question about the Pelican household, and the business, and Top Town, and his ideas of a proper financial basis of operation ; under which deferential treatment he once more recovered his equanimity, and answered with cheerful resolution. Even Deacon McCross relaxed his disparaging expres sion, and joined in the talk with an air of interest and approval. " I remember Charley Pelican," said he, setting down his tea-cup for freedom of gesture ; " he was a great boy, up to anything ! " It is a curious fact that the very traits which bring a lad into an old man's detestation, reflect a kind of sav age credit on him when he becomes of age. " They used to call him Seed Pelican," went on the Deacon, rubbing his wrinkled forehead thoughtfully ; "he put apple-seeds on the stove at protracted meeting. I recollect it well. Miss Goldsmith was there, and her husband, young Fred. Deacon Williams had took a notion to repeat the genealogy of Christ, to show off his memory, and the seeds kept poppin' like a chorus at the end of every line. Then Deacon Proddy rose to pray, an' all the while the seeds kep' on explodin', till, after he'd ben laborin' full fifteen minutes by the clock, he said he'd be brief, as some evil-minded person was disturbin' the meetin'. You see he'd been licensed to preach once, an' was always itchin' to knock his elbows agin the pulpit." The narrator picked his teeth reflectively, a few min utes, while Mollie entered upon a disagreeable train of thought relative to Louis' probable treatment at the SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 21 hands of this incorrigible, and the object of her solici tude recollected how Charley was the best hand to skitter stones in his whole knowledge, and how no one could be gin to match him at marbles, or base ball, or wrestling ; the old man finally relaxing into a chuckle as he be thought him of a certain day, when the thin, lean fish monger of the village, John Smith by name, found his too generalistic door-plate reduced to more particularity by addition of " Lamprey -eel " in red letters, the reflective Charley being the author of the amendment. Supper having been now concluded, Deacon McCross stretched out his now not over stout legs, shaped indeed a good deal like riding whips, with the tassel for the foot, and throwing a red-and-yellow handkerchief over his head, prepared for a nap. Suddenly an idea struck him. " Daughter," said he, sitting up straight, still covered with his brilliant head-gear, " let's sing a hymn." " Do," answered she gayly, and came near to give him a loving little pat. " Shall it be China, or Windham ? " Mollie always aided and abetted her father in his bursts of gayety, never failing to look at him fondly when he thus took courage, of a tremulous order at best, to as sert his right to be jovial, and she frequently assured him that she thought him very cunning, which she truly did. He reflected gazing with comfortable benevolence from beneath the pendant ends of his head-gear at the two young people, who in putting away the tea things had just bidden themselves, quite unnecessarily, behind the closet door. " Neither," he observed at length, brightening still more under the influence of a happy thought ; " it's a trifle different, and quite appropriate ; your mother and I used to sing it when we were courtin' Saturday nights." 22 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. So saying, lie brought from the book -case, with fond pride, a certain venerable and battered singing-book, bearing " White and King" conspicuously printed on the cover, and still enveloped in the mists of those youthful memories, peered over his glasses a long time at the dia bolical patent notes. Then he adjusted his children 011 either side his rocking chair, and named the tune Greenland solemnly beating time with his thumb. As you may not have the pleasure of familiarity with *' White and King," I will subjoin this ancient ditty : " "When Adam was created, he dwelt in Eden's shade, As Moses has related, before a bride was made ; He had no consolation, but seemed as one alone, Till to his admiration he found he'd lost a bone. " This woman was not taken from Adam's head, we know, And she must not rule o'er him, it's evidently so. Great was his exultation to have her by his side; Great was his elevation to have a loving bride. " This woman was not taken from Adam's feet, we see ; And she must not be abused, the meaning seems to be. This woman she was taken from near to Adam' s heart, By which we are directed that they should never part." There had been some small by -play during the singing. First the good Deacon smiled a curiously compassionate smile at the young man, and poked him jocularly with his left forefinger, his right hand being occupied in marking the accents. Then Louis sniffed significantly at Mollie when submission was discussed in the second verse, and their leader also turned to her with some emphasis. Then Mollie reached round behind her father's chair, and revenged herself on her lover by a little vicious pinch, as his duties came under observation, and all SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 23 three burst into a delighted giggle when the happy con summation was reached. " Tli ere ! " said the Deacon, authoritatively tapping the cover with his spectacles. " That's the talk for me ; an' all I've got to say is, that in this undertaking which you've entered upon, I hope you'll be successful." The next day was warm and hazy, and Sunday besides. That is how the pair came to be spending it together in the orchard. " Louis," said Mollie, knitting up a memorial of Pastor Harms, Wichern, and Kaiserworth. " I long for work real work. I envy you your path among opposing cir cumstances. When your life is over, you will have borne mankind's burdens and accomplished something, and reared a better pillar than Absalom's a structure tangible, created, done ! " " Done brown ? " asked the other, looking lazily up at her earnest face from the support of his crossed hands, as he lay stretched out on the grass. " Not exactly," said Mollie, too much interested in her thought to care for his quirks. " I think there is so much difference between real work, and such as tires us out, and never betters ourselves or any one else. It seems to me that women don't get the right notion of life as men do. I would be willing to suffer a great deal if I could only give the world a very small good. I can't seem to make a little study, a little music, a little German, a little sewing, and all the rest idling, come into my ideal of life." " You ought to live for your friends," suggested Louis ; much as to say, " me for instance." " You can't," answered Mollie, with the air of one who has travelled wearily through an unsatisfactory train of thought. " They can't live for you, nor you for 24 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. them as an end. The minute you try it, you prey on your friend's life, and lie on yours. Friendship is the richness of two busy lives flowing into each other; thereby both are strengthened for their own duties and battles. What I want is work ; I must have it, or I can't be your helpmeet." " O dear," said Louis, looking at her with a mixture of admiration and compassion. " Why aren't you satisfied to sit here passive, and sway with the shadows, and be quiet, listening to the beautiful voices the earth has for you, and not fret, out of harmony with it all. It makes me perfectly happy to lie so beside you. I never want the day to end." This was very sweet. Mollie smiled at the dreamer ; but she would not be put off. " Because," she said eagerly, " you are taking a man's earned rest after toil ; and the charms of the day are half by contrast with the labor that makes you a firm-muscled man. But you would despise a life of lounging under the apple-trees, with no better end or purpose, and so do I." " So I should," said the young man, with kindling eye, half rising as he spoke. " I too wish to be something, a man among men. I want to earn wealth and a home, and put you in it. And then we will go onward together. But I think you are wrong about the German and music and culture, they are worthy aims for a life's devotion. Think of Orlandus Lassus' epitaph : ' Here lies the weaiy who refreshed the weary.' " " Well, perhaps," said Mollie doubtfully, and then brightening. " Yes, to excel, to help others on, to identify one's self with, as a master ; but not to dabble in, Louis ; not to dabble in. What I would choose would be to minister to my fellows as an end, and then bend every department of culture to its aid. I have been thinking SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 25 a great deal about Enoch. You remember Enoch ? He walked with God, and was not, for God took him. The idea haunted me, till I bad to write it out." "I don't like Enoch," said Louis, perversely. "I want to have a good time and that dreadful suggestion of being hurried from danger to desert and desert to danger by a power outside of one's self, is too repugnant to be entertained for a moment. I'd rather lie amid some sylvan scene and be comfortable. Or, no," seeing a shadow play over his friend's face, " not that ; I am glad to work ; I am never idle. Now you know I'm not, Mollie " she nodded " but I want to choose congenial work. Please read the verses. I see them sticking out of your pocket ; that's something I like. I'd suffer, as you say, if it would make me a poet." Moliie produced her labor without any comment, and read the whole to Louis, who listened critically, and smiled occasional approval : ' ' And Enoch walked with God known through the land As one all feared, few loved Jehovah's friend. Mayhap thou'st slowly climbed the granite hills Pushed through the dim fir woods that make their heads So wild and fearsome, and come out upon Some huge gray rock the mountain's naked rib : Sheer below thee lay the matted tree-tops, Wove so close, it seemed a feather trembling Down the thin blue air could never pass their leafage. Towering in circle stand the hills, Joined, as if hand in hand, quiet as silence, And half veiled with cedar. Above, the summer sky ; Poised in its blue so high, a very mote Would hide its flight an eagle. All the Faces of the hills full of a mastered sorrow ; A grand peace, a stilly power, vast as a thought of God. Akin in nature this to Enoch ; and the Presence with him, Even so lonely 'mid the crowd of life, 2 26 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. Kept him forever. Yet the children loved him ; Those happy beings, still too young in life To have a dread of God, walking with Enoch. Sad it is that at one gate of earth We should strike hands with God, our friend ; And, walking through earth's space, Find at the other gate but a stern Judge, Who says, ' I never knew you.' Can He change ? Or is it we who have forgot His face ? But Enoch walked with God, did not forget. When from the grass, in the still summer morn, Lifting himself, he turned to meet the sun, Or when the romping children in the town, Loving to hang upon his strong, firm hands, Would frame their steps to match his bold, free stride, And watch with questioning eyes his mouth so sweet ; Or when he bargained in the noisy arch, Where surged the traffic from first morn till even, There was a Presence with him all men felt And feared, and, fearing, hated Enoch, who Alone feared not. Not in wrenched nature, or rude risings up Of power, this presence came. He never trembled forth in purple mists At the gray dawn, or, standing lone, Forced to the desert by imperious power. Enoch heard no inarticulate murmur of a loving voice Call in his ear. Or in marches long Resting an hour in balsamy cedar groves, Stooping to drink from the clear running brook, No loved grave face mirrored beside his own, Thrown back in broken dimples from the spring. It was a Presence deeper, grander yet, Than these fantastic utterances would show A calm, full rest within his inmost heart A mighty stirring of his deepest self, That moved the man to proclaim awful words SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 27 Pity and wrath, vengeance and love and pain, Felt by the Highest, touching Enoch's soul. For 'twas with soul matched to the Almighty pulse Of the Great Heart, that Enoch walked with God." " Now, Mollie," said Louis, getting off his grassy couch and shaking himself, "that's theology, and you promised to stop flinging it at me. It's no fair." He stretched out his hand for the paper as he spoke, and scanned the lines, with a provoking little smile that only made him more delicately handsome. " I won't be pelted with religion," he continued, pet tishly. " Baxter quarrelled so, the only rest the neigh boring saints had was in his absence, and I don't be lieve in it, anyway. I love you, but oh ! Mollie sweet, not your hobby. Let us have peace. Besides, how can I believe without a change of heart? and really I can't change it, because you've had it these dozen years. Now truly, honest Injin, is it fair ? " He was so playful, and so coaxing, and so really in love with her, that she gave a little sigh to the despised theology, and only looked at him with happy eyes. Brown- haired, brown-eyed, slender, with a cheek that paled and flushed with every varying emotion, she could find no fault in him, religionist or sceptic. It was all the same to her, in her craving, over-mastering love. " Come back ! come back ! " said she ; " I'll be quiet while you read ' Phantasties.' " " Ah ! that's better ; " and the stripling returned to accept the proffered book, and walk an afternoon's march further into Mollie's life. . " I'll sing a hymn, if that will comfort you," said he, throwing down the volume, and studying her face, for fear a shadow might have come upon it from his resolved following of his own humor. I'm not a statue or be- 28 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. witched, but I feel sore from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, I've been so belabored with the Bible. From Aaron's rod to Elijah's staff, all the cud gels have come upon my back. He took up a guitar lying on the grass beside them, and set the strings vibra ting among themselves as if they spoke by their own im pulse, not his. Shall it be, " When marshalled on the nightly plain," or " Brightest and best," sweet heart ? " Louis," said Mollie obstinately, " I believe I was right in the matter of Enoch. I stick to it. If you liked you could see it too. I know the metre is wrong, but the spirit is correct, anyway." " The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Eh ? " re torted he, airily. " Well, if I can't sing your Calvinistic theories asleep, I'll take to slumber myself. After all, Mollie, you are my best religion. ' Plus blanche que la blanche hermine, Plus pure qu'un jour de printemps, Tin ange, une vierge divine.' " His silver tenor half sung, half whispered the words, and before the Huguenotish strain was concluded, he had really slipped into dreamland lying with his arm thrown under his head, in the careless, boyish grace of youth. Mollie dropped her book to watch the shadows play to and fro on his upturned face, and indulge in the luxury of loving him her own never to be shared with an other all hers and forever. SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 29 CHAPTER III. ' ' Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall ; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall." I HE scene shifts from the McCross' pleasant orchard, in the heart of Millville, to the streets of its humble dependant Syllabub. Time an other warm autumn afternoon. Dramatis persona? two ragged boys disputing over a pile of worm-eaten boards. In the foreground a small story-and-a-half unpainted cottage, with a hieroglyphical sign swinging over the door " Old Solomon Eodgers, with Affords entertainment to That sign had been put there in Revolutionary days, when the tavern was the resort of all the country-side, from the red-coated gentleman who called for his ale at the door without dismounting from his handsome steed, to the louting plough-boy leaning against the fence to stare at his betters. Old Solomon himself, a portly red-faced Englishman, who had watched the gentry build their quaint houses and plant their rambling gardens about his humble mansion, and had drunk to King George till the last of his patrons found a refuge from patriotic treason in the village church-yard, was fain to follow them loyally to the end. If any one cares to push aside the tangled grass that hides his weather-worn tomb- 30 fUITFTLESS FOLKS. stone, he can read in mossy letters, deep cut in the glitter ing mica-schist (Latin to match the times) : HIC JACET SOLOMON RODGERS OF THE KING'S ARMS, WHO DIED A LOYAL SUBJECT OP ENGLAND, A.D. 1812." And now that he and those he reverenced are alike gathered to their fathers, the brawling occupants of a factory suburb spank their children and anathematize each other amid the carved stairways and decayed grandeur of the gentle ; and to-day, when our story begins, one Patrick Michael Mulligan dispenses goat's milk manufac tured, and cherry brandy of suspicious parentage, at the stand of their simple neophyte. The gardens where blue-eyed Faith and sparkling Prudence wandered and dreamed are crowded with un couth brick tenements ; and white-headed, dirty children play in gutters, which net the very thyme-bordered plots once sacred to the old-fashioned fellowship of the hollyhock and rose. Squalor and filth have reign ; and decency, compelled by fear in daylight, leaves free course to folly and crime when once the shadows have fallen. Nay the less, the old sign, as I have said, creaked through all these changes, and on the day when the events I chronicle befell, two weeks' rain had rusted its fastenings to a more mournful tune than ever. I have al ways thought these hoarse mutters had vast meaning, but time, alas! has made them as unintelligible as the black ened inscription which I can read only because my grand mother remembers it. The conversation going on beneath its antiquated dig- 8H1FTLEKK FOLKS. 31 nity had nothing of these reminiscences to mar its real ism. Shade of gentle Lady Arabella, draw not near ! " If you don't tote them ere boards to the Cross-Roads, I'll lick you," exclaimed Amos Daley, who was tall, with black hair and gray blue eyes. He stood full half a head higher than Hugh, and looked able. " I won't," said Hugh, setting his arms akimbo, much as to say, " Come on, if you dare." The miserable, worm-eaten, snail-tracked, mud-crusted heap of contention didn't seem worth the challenge, but neither boy was insensible to the charming prospect of " punching his adversary's head," and, when he was sub dued, crowing over him. They were evenly matched. Hugh had the advantage of a better fitting dress and firmer flesh than Amos ; he was, indeed, rather cat-like in motion and muscle; whereas Mr. Daley had just reached that stage of growth where his joints were loose, his motions sluggish and un couth, and his bones gave the impression of being far too big for his body. There can be no aggravation to a Syllabub boy equal to a clog-dance of defiance, performed by a little chap on the other side of an insignificant defence, such as the pres ent heap of kindlings. Mr. Daley made a lunge forward over the same, caught his foot therein, and sprawled ; while Hugh^ who had darted clear round it and hit his foe a blow in the back, performed another dance, enlivened with whistling and snapping of fingers. A big dog also rushed from behind a pig-pen and took the nether integu ments of our hero in his teeth, with vicious growls. " Sheure for onctht yer gittin yer due, Amos Daley. An' is it to steal yer here ? Hold 'im, Skip ! " cried a ragged girl, appearing in the door- way. Little Doppy had not fulfilled the promise of her babyhood lean, 32 SHIFTLESS POLES. skinny, freckled, with a pair of brown eyes large enough for the Nova Scotia Giantess, she quite warranted Amos' sulky retort : " Yis, 'n more'n my due whin I have to look at yer ugly mug darn your pup, he's enough like you to be yer own brother, he is." This was also true, if bony form and ragged hair be likeness. Doppy, however, felt the insolence of the rejoinder, the more that Hugh added a rasping laugh at her expense. She therefore sent the contents of a water dipper with a vigorous aim full in the grinning face of the prostrate foe, and shying the utensil itself at his accomplice, banged the door ; then instantly reappearing at a window up-stairs, shrieked, " Larn manners next time," in flush of victory. " Oh, I'll be as iley as a barrl of kerrycine if you'll call off the dog," said Amos, fain to retrieve by art the losses of war. We may well say loss, for if Skip's atten tions continued much longer, he felt that there would be a separation from the garment of the particular blue patch now tackled so vivaciously, and had a reasonable dread of the next canine procedure. " Do," said Doppy, with withering scorn ; " but you wouldn't be nothin' better 'n fish ile." After which she complied with his request. Enter Aleck Heffron, with boards. "Where were yees after gittin' 'em?" cried Amos, feeling inquisitively at the point of doggish attack, arid sighing with relief to find the aforesaid patch still there. " You hain't missed 'em from the great River Hotel, where you board?" inquired the new-comer with biting irony. " No, I'd turn up my landlord if he didn't keep better at our house," SHTFTLE8S FOLKS. 33 " Town-house," corrected Hugh ; " jest comin' from there, you'd orter know." As Doppy was still within sight at the window, the trio shouted a stave in shrill chorus just out of range from chance missiles, while they picked up their dusty burden, and they jumped and yelped long after the house was left behind : " If I had an old wife to bother rny life, I'll tell you what I'd do, woo-woo-wooow I'd set her afloat in a leaky boat, To paddle her own canoe, woo-woo-wooow." " Bow-wow-wow," chorused Skip, who, urged on by Doppy, had followed up the amiable serenaders. " You'd better git, or I'll go for you," shrieked she, shaking her dirty little fist. Hereupon the cavalcade took to their heels in good earnest, and arrived at the spot destined by their aspiring ambition for the store, much panting, and looking back fearfully ; and we may as well follow Doppy's scornful example, and leave them to their work. Just at this moment a riding party were moving away from Fir Covert. Mary McCross, in a sage-green habit, we know ; and you may have met Mr. Cymbaline Adol- phus Brown, nephew of Captain Slocum. He has ac companied friend Serena to the Catskills, and traw veiled in Euwope with a party, since the date of our present equestrian excursion. The magnificent brunette, in maroon velvet, v/ith a long white ostrich plume in her coquettish cap, is Peace Pelican, who has come down to Millville to visit Susy Jenkens. Francis Haythorne rides beside her, tall, spare, with clear, sharply cut features, and hair, eyes, and beard, all shades of the same splendid fiery hue. You know the old couplet : 34 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. " With a red man, read thy read ; With a brown man, break thy bread. With a white man, draw thy knife ; From a black man, keep thy wife. " There is something profoundly repulsive in a white- eyed, red-lidded, white-faced, white-lipped, white-haired man, deny it if you can. But all honor to the red peo ple. I never met one whose temper was not as true and good as hasty, and the tale of whose virtues and freckles was not exactly equal. A red head may outlast its ruddy color, the bright cheek it emulates may pale, but the hot pulsations of the heart that lights them, can never cool to generosity or faithfulness ; or energetic kindness to its loved, and quick forgiveness of its hated. Yet, for all this, do not pray for a red-haired millennium, unless you are equal to a counter-irritative diet of Cayenne. For this people, the sun always rolls itself in thunder or in smiles ; the path of life leads either straight up hill, or down. Still, as only ruddy David could have assembled about him a Jonathan, a Joab, a Bathsheba, and a Solo mon, my opinion is firm. There are two kinds of red- haired : those, my favorites, who flame like lighted char coal in open air ; and those, better students, but less lov able, who smoulder like charcoal in the pit, ready to burn bright on occasion. Mr. Haythorne belonged to class number two. His hair had grown with years into a rich chestnut, and curled slightly ; his eyes were reddish hazel, like a fox's tail. He rode indolently ; as if, being fairly on horseback, he never meant to go to the trouble of dismounting, and had grown there. Here he made a sharp contrast to Mr. Brown, who gave snobbish attention to toes and elbows, and airily cleared his saddle at every step. Peace Pelican, too, displayed all the elegant graces of a Top SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 35 Town riding-school, while Mollie went on in her usu ally unobtrusive style, so that no one knew whether she performed her part well or ill. It is delightful to whip Pegasus to a gallop when the day is cool and the roads are fine. So our troop thought, at least. The clear, white sunlight of New England lay over hill and wood. I have always believed New Eng land's religion and Sabbaths were as much fed on her sunshine as the Bible. It's holy purity has something of heaven in it. On this autumn afternoon it penetrated the gray-green, granite-dotted pastures, the clumps of dark-leaved chestnuts, the pale willows by the water- coxirses, the lichen-decked fences, the gurgling, hurrying river, the black, fir-crowned mountains that framed the scene. Autumn butterflies floated over the haycocked fields, aged crickets wooed loudly in the meadows, dragon- flies shimmered above the ponds, bobolinks and blue birds and starlings aired gayly the mysteries of wings. All was as peaceful and strong and delicate as is the home of the Puritans in its very essence. It needs not Bret Hurte's exquisite words to recall ' ' Some boyish vision of an Eastern village, Of uneventful toil, Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage Above a scanty soil." The white-spired church, with its row of drooping elms, the busy red mill nestled in a hollow half up the steep, the spotted lilies and dodder, and cardinal flowers of meadow and wood how do they stand to us Godward, emblems of purity and peace, in all the weariness and wants of after life ! Still, as I have said, the secret is mostly in the sun shine, and under its spell our young folks raced and 36 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. frisked and caracoled, till steer lack of breath brought them, in a staid quartette amble, down the steep hill side. Said Mr. Haythorne, pulling off his hat and letting the sun gild his auburn mane, " This afternoon is enough to make even poor Yorick replace his night-cap 011 his battered crown, and see beauty in life. On such a day as this, I am a saint." Mollie surveyed him playfully. " I echo Sancho Pauza," quoth she. " Thou art the first saint on horse back that ever I saw." "Where else do you see them nowadays," said Peace, secretly tickling her indolent escort's steed, in the hope that it would give him a little shake-up, and venting some inwrought bitterness in her speech. The mettlesome ani mal shied out a couple of yards, and stood on his hind feet once or twice ; but his rider was glued to his saddle, and only smiled a complacent " Thank you " at the atten tive friend. " One hardly expects to find them among the Great Unwashed," resumed he, reining his horse into line again. The relation these two held was peculiar. Something in his egotistic he was egotistic unruifleable, lazy tran quillity aggravated Peace to fever heat ; and he, on his side, could never make up his mind to let her alone, in spite of her flouts and jeers, which she aimed so inces santly that some must needs rankle. Now she eyed him with vivacious disfavor a moment, and then retorted, " For my part, I never see a broad- clothed, self-satisfied biped, bestriding his sleek steed like a clothes-pin on a pumpkin, without remembering Oliver Wendell Holmes on the subject." The color mounted to the roots of his auburn hair, but he gave a placid smile, and snatched from an overhanging SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 37 tree a handsome cluster of wild cherries, which he tossed gallantly into her lap. Mr. Brown, who had overheard the colloquy, pushed the other side of Miss Pelican, and cried artlessly, " Do repeat them ; I haven't seen anything spicy since I read Plurabustah in bed last week." " I thought you meant to say, ' Boots at Holly Tree Inn,' " retorted she, facing round, and alluding to Mr. Brown's favorite topic of conversation. " No ! if you want to hear them, ask Mr. Haythorne." " Certainly, if smiling Peace wishes it," said he in a low distinct voice. " These are the lines to which I be lieve she alludes : " ' Come, gather your reins, and crack your thong, And make your steed go faster ; He doesn't know, as he ambles along, That he has a fool for his master.' " He looked square in her face as he repeated them, so that she reddened with consciousness of her unlady like implication, and giving her horse a sharp blow, sent him prancing and rearing up the road till he reached a lit tle bridge over a certain pretty shady brook, where he turned round and round a full do/en times, and then shot forward like mad. It was quite impossible to be long angry with Peace. She was so royally, piquantly handsome, and her malice was so childish, her storms so thoroughly the offspring of her own soul fret, which only broke upon their victim by accident she was so generous and impulsive and true, one must needs forgive her from mere admiration of her beauty and amusement at her freaks. And Francis Hay- thorue forgot her biting tongue before he had spent five minutes watching her white plume dancing on before 38 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. him, and her tall, graceful figure swaying liraberly to the motion of her shying yellow horse. He was the most thin-skinned of men, though he had never gauged his strength with opposition enough to learn the first lesson of self-distrust. But instead of wounding, she interested his lazy complacency ; so, without any apparent hurry or intention, he was again beside her, calm- and deliberate as before. She did not seem to have at all composed her ruffled feathers, however ; and rode along the stony margin of the foot-path, leaping an occasional log, and holding her face averted till they reached a second brook this time shal low and sunny as brook could be. She might take her road over the bridge beside her escort, who was politely waiting her, or wade through the rivulet, which would scarcely wet her horse's hoofs. She cast a quick glance on his pleasantly smiling face, and resolved shame in ducing a certain angry meeting of her handsome black brows to give him the whole road though the stream reached the saddle girth. Which it really did, for her charming steed, after a vicious kicking at the clear bright water which sent his rider in a hasty leap to the ground, deliberately knelt down, and rolled, saddle, bridle, stirrup, all over and over and over in the refreshing liquid. He was beginning a fourth revolution when she caught the reins as they came uppermost, and, jerking his head out, let the brute through the brook, which she crossed herself with a prodigious jump, that nothing but the bitterest wrath could have accomplished in safety. The smile was so broad on Francis Haythorne's well-bred features, that he beamed like the full moon turned sarcastic ; and, ruling his delight into solemnity perfectly maddening, he dis mounted and held the dripping stirrup up with the gent lest care. FMTFTLERR FOLKS. 39 " Do take my horse," said he ; " this saddle is wet through. I can easily change my dress, and I know you can ride without the horns." But Peace waved him off, mortified and stormy. '' If you want me to mount, do so yourself," said she, flourish ing her whip with suggestive vigor ; and she led her own aquatic Pegasus to a stone wall and was on his back in a twinkling of the little viper's laughing eyes, which offered curious contrast to his muddy but innocent yellow nose. Her sympathizing friend had wisely galloped before ; but the young lady followed him at a dead run, and reining Sandy almost upon his haunches, exclaimed in a voice quivering with passion, " You've made me lose my self- respect twice to-day ! Now let me alone ! I shall hate you just as long as I live there ! " " I hope so," said he cheerfully ; " I can bear anything but insignificance. Shall I lead your horse ? " l( Don't you dare so much as to look at me," cried she, actually quivering with temper, and twice as handsome as ever ; " and don't press too close, either, or you will get muddy, and that would break your heart, you know." Francis Haythorne might perhaps be a wee trifle dandi fied in his dress or would have been, if his taste was riot so exquisite and quiet. He had therefore received a shot in his vulnerable point, and sulked in concert with the angry beauty. " Here are the Cross-Roads," said Mollie, who seemed as little pleased with her ride as the pouting couple she joined. " Let's sweep past at full speed, and go home." The proposal was received with favor, and the company prepared to ride rough-shod over the last resting-place of the unhappy suicide buried there, when a horrible noise smote their ears, and produced an unlooked-for catas trophe. 40 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. Hugh, Amos, and Aleck, having put up their modest booth, roofed the same with a probable remnant of one of Mrs. Noah's window-curtains, and sat in state over the stock-in-trade (two apples, six peanuts, and a mug of lem onade) till all was consumed. Tiring of this, they uncon sciously forestalled Gilmore, and resolved to have a band. They therefore took to themselves other spirits, and, being fully equipped with whistles, bones, a conch-shell, and an old tin pan, inaugurated their minstrelsy for the benefit of our equestrians. Judging from the discomposure of the horses, they could not have been familiar with village instrumentation. In spite of Peace's endeavors (she was too proud to make a sound), Sandy betrayed his breeding by walking up to the booth, and, putting his fore feet on the third fence-rail, endeavored to fire off an imaginary pistol ; failing in which, he composedly knelt down, and dropped her over his head as he had learned to do little boys at the circus, and, entangled in her long dress, she was obliged to allow the complaisant Haythonie to lift her to her feet. " There ! " said she, " I hope you're happy now ; that whole grocery store full of idlers and loafers is grinning at us like Cheshire cats. Go away! I'll never get on him again as long as I live never ! " But Sandy now stood with his nose at her pocket, searching for sugar, as meek and innocent as if he had never kicked a fly in his life, and she couldn't help forgiving him on the spot, and fed him all the sweets she had directly. Old Mulligan's dog Skip, however, had a deeper rooted abhorrence of Amos. He came along just then, and rushed at his bare toes as he stood balancing himself on the sharp fence-rail, whither he had climbed to make the conch-shell more effective. The unfortunate boy hopped with surprising agility, brandishing his instrument in one SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 41 hand, and iu the other the pole of the shanty, pulled up in his fright. He made a fine figure, his tattered gar ments streaming in the wind ; but it could not save him. A miscalculated leap, and boy and building mingled in a confused kicking heap. At this Mollie's horse lost his composure, and began bucking, which of course brought her to the ground without ado. Mr. Hay- thorne, who, after his last Peace-ful repulse, had with drawn a little distance, and stood watching the scene with indolent amusement, heard a faint cry. Seeing Miss McCross's saddle empty, he hurried to her aid. But she was on her feet before he reached her, and shook herself gayly. " I am not hurt ; hurry, and help the poor boy." " He probably knows enough to get up," said Francis Haythorne, casting a disdainful glance at the dusty ruin from whence issued piteous howls. " Idle dog, he de serves a whipping for heading such a performance." Mollie looked disappointed a moment; this didn't realize her ideal man at all. After a short hesitation, she gathered up her skirt, and dodging through the fence helped the snivelling child to his feet. He might well give way to tears ; besides wounds and tatters personal, the shanty of his pride was demolished, and worst of all, there sat little Doppy astride the fence-rail, cold-piece basket oil arm, making faces at him. The other lads gathered near, and glanced with unim- pressible face, but active curiosity, from the elegantly dressed young lady to their forlorn companion. " Are you much hurt ?" asked Mollie kindly, Aviping las bleeding face with her soft handkerchief. " Not as I knows on," with a sullen shake of the shoulder where her light hand rested. But the sunny-hearted girl smiled down into his eyes 42 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. so openly and brightly, that every one was infected by her pleasantness, and grinned in concert. " Don't you think a big paper of peanuts would be some comfort ? " She never thought what a lovely tableau she made in her graceful, girlish, dignified compassion. It was almost a pity that the red-haired aristocrat should have had the benefit of it. Peanuts? What music dwells in the word ! She slipped the money into Amos' hand, pointed to the store opposite, and sprang quickly to her saddle. Riding away, they found Mr. Brown judiciously halting half a mile from the scene of tumult. And here Peace had her revenge, for Francis Haythorne, who had in sisted upon mounting her horse, was brushed neatly off against a tree, by the incorrigible Sandy, who then turned round and laughed, as the crestfallen horseman picked his sprawling length from the dusty road. Two beauti ful tortoise-shell kittens had been sleeping in the sun, on the wide piazza of the grocery opposite the booth, and in double fright of Skip and the racket, darted into the great branches of the overshadowing chestnut-tree. Now, entering the secret precincts, a scampering and scratching ensued that all the cats in the Salem witch craft couldn't have beaten. Then came stillness, and, with the pussies' reappearance, an odor that erected all noses in anguish. " Drat them animiles ! " said the fat grocer, taking his Irishman's meerschaum from his mouth ; " they've ben an' tipped over the whale-oil on to theirselves. They beat all I ever see for worretin' an' cantankerin'. I promised them to little Doppy, but I don't calkelate to stand this. Yesterday I finds 'em asleep in the meal tub, and to-day they gnawed up half a chicken. Here, Amos, just you go an' kill 'em, and when you come back I'll give you an orange." SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 43 The rosy merchant returned to his town politics with relieved mind, and Amos, nothing loth to do his errand, shuffled off with the doomed felines, holding them by the tips of their tails, as one would a dirty pocket-handker chief. " Amos Amos Daley," called Doppy's voice, " give me them cats." "Wouldn't you like 'em?" returned he, with the ugliest grin his bruised features could assume, and jiggled them up and down to " get the music out on 'em." " Now you'll leaim to throw water on me." " O Amos ! do give 'em here." " Shan't ; I'll cut their tails off and roast 'em for break fast. Father's short of fresh meat." He went on with his occupation as he spoke, with the greatest enjoyment. " You mean, dirty Irish boy ! " cried Doppy, white with rage, and stamping hysterically. " Give me them cats ; you hurt 'em." " Good to make 'em grow long," returned Amos, vary ing his exercise by sometimes grasping a leg or an ear, careful to keep them always in full view. Doppy made a rush at him, stopped half way, and, with a look of perfect despair, threw her apron over her head, dropped in a heap in the road, and began to sob in concert with the cattish howls. Amos gazed at her, transfixed by amazement. He shifted the kittens to one hand, and scratched his head to wako himself, while mouth and eyes flew wide open. Was it possible that his ruthless foe was reduced to this ? Was that curious complication of pink calico and brown pinafore, rocking back and forth in such bitter grief, really she ? He advanced a little nearer ; the kittens wailed; she sobbed afresh. He put his free hand in his por-ket and felt of his jack-knife to bolster up his courage, 44 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. fast ebbing before this painful sight, and strove to pre serve his stolid face. This being a dismal failure, he shook the kittens with a virulence exceeding all pre vious malignity, but his heart still sank. The little girl shuddered. " Amos," cried she, lifting a face where the tears had washed two white channels, " I hain't nothin' of my own but one bead ring, an' sob- sob a-a china mug, but I'll give 'em to you if you won't kill the cats." Poor little Doppy! she was so nice crying. His friends had no such fondness for their animals. Master Daley's resolution vanished utterly. Perhaps* he'd better, he took half aim, and threw one kitten at her, just to try the effect. She gathered it in her skirts and kissed its head pas sionately, and wiped and cuddled it, crying all the while. And then, somehow, the other kitten was laid with its fellow, and some one was saying soft words in a harsh, boyish voice: "Don't cry now, sis. I hain't hurted 'em of no account, and you've got 'em safe. Don't, there's a dear. Say, I'll give you all my peanuts if you won't squall no more." Amos adored peanuts. It took some time to convince Doppy of his kind in tentions. But at last she dried her eyes on her oily apron, and began to smile. It made a strange alteration in her pinched, weary face. In its bright glory her best self shone forth, womanly, sweet, and lovable. " I don't want your nuts," said she, gratefully. " I didn't know you were so good. I'm sorry I sprinkled you ; " and a gleam of roguish amusement tucked the corners of her mouth into what should have been dimples, and still hinted at beauty. Amos laughed too, and answered with some remorse : " I ain't good ; it was mean to jigger your pussies ; but I SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 45 won't plague you no more, never." His keen gray eyes were bent in very friendly sort upon the other party to this compact, for compact it was, and, when he asked to carry her rescued prizes, she gave them into his keeping with implicit confidence, and they were gently snuggled against his jacket all the way to the " Solomon Rodgers." " Mr. Hoskins, I killed them darn brutes as you teiled me ; will you give me the orange ? " CHAPTER IV. " Can she make a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy? Can she make a cherry pie. charming Billy ? She can make a cherry pie While a cat can wink her eye. She's a young thing she can't leave her mammy ! " Miss McCross descended the stairs next morning, she was stopped by Bridget, whose cheeks were streaky red with grief. " Me cousin be dead, mum, and we want to give him a three nights' wake, and an illegant funeral. Would ye rnind gittin' the breakfast, and lettin' me go now ? " The young Celt's face was like a house with two tene ments the up-stairs half all smiling at the prospect of three evenings' fun, but the down-stairs part solemnly mourning the corpse. Retiring visions of garden-work, sewing, letters, friendly visits, flitted forlornly through Mollie's mind. When did the prospect of a week in woman's normal sphere fail to strike the victim with disgust. Greasy dishes, crocky pots and spiders, aching bones, blistered fingers! Ugh ! 46 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. Mollie resolved to put a pleasant face on the matter, since there was no help for it. Assuring the mourner that she would do the work in her absence, she made a few consoling inquiries about the bereaved family, especi ally a certain long-legged widower supposed to be sweet on Bridget. The bright-eyed serving-maid appeared extremely gratified at the friendly interest, although she tossed her head and said, " she hoped she was intirely too principled to think of a man as old as him forty if a day!" So she gave a little frisk up-stairs, and put on her best purple Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and a blue bonnet, and took a yellow sun-shade, and green plaid shawl with a red and black stripe in it, and hurried away to the funeral, leaving Mollie to wash up a great pile of tea- things which her grief the preceding night had induced her to set away dirty. The doorstep to the back kitchen entrance is a great foot-worn rock. There we will sit comfortably, and play with the green and yellow parrot, while the new cook gets breakfast. We have known of her being high-priest at these altars before, and so are not worried at oxir pros pects. Besides, the kitchen is a kind of architectural poem, good for lay contemplation, and we own to being not only lay, but lazy, and sniffing the fragrant coffee, and watching preparation of the tear-provoking onions with luxurious content of inaction. We feel a kind of awe of these hallowed precincts. We are gazing at a monument to the housekeeping genius of whole gen erations of Prices, called and chosen to their pursuit as fanatically as Lord George Gordon, or any other assassin ating enthusiast. It is wainscoted with so many doors leading into pantry, store-room, sink-room, china cup board, tin cupboard, and the like, that there is scarcely SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 47 an inch of room for the yellow pine ceiling. It looks out on beds of herb garden, where Mollie's grand mother had collected every possible leafy medicine, from tansy and sage, to catnip and boneset, and sweet thyme, and African marigolds, these last charming garnishes for soup. Mollie was worthy of her ancestors. It is a pleasure to this day to eat at a table of her setting. We must dine ; but let refinement, not pheasants' tongues, grace the board. Our heroine was a true artist. She didn't admire tongue cut into Chinese mandarins, and chicken pressed into lizards and elephants. But on a ground of spotless damask she liked to mingle pale-green cucumbers in cut glass, and red and yellow tomatoes glittering under ice, cress fresh and crisp from the garden, toast delicately streaked with brown, in its silver rack. When her work was complete, all was simple, inviting, wholesome. It would have been so without the handsome tableware that was the pride of Mrs. McCross' heart. She always insisted on using the solid silver tea-service, and accom- pani tents, on the ground that they saved crockery ; her da 1 ,,'hter washed them daily in a bright tin basin, with a lit^ie white dish-cloth, that had a long handle. Louis thought she never looked more sweet and lovable than when fulfilling this trifling duty ; though he was firmly resolved that Mrs. Alwood should do nothing of the sort, except, perhaps, weed the garden of an evening, with him self to oversee and carry her watering pot, and after work trundle her home to the door in a spruce wheelbarrow painted blue. But Louis was boarding in the village, above the harness shop had been for three months and the cheerful song that Mollie sang over her cookery grew fainter as she neared the awful time of serving up, and finally gave place to a look of worried expectation, 48 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. as she sounded the two-toned breakfast bell in the hall, and cast a glance of anxious scrutiny over her completed handiwork. A pair of daintily etched vases still wait their flowery burden, and Mollie hurries to the garden to remedy the omission. There is plenty of time ; Mrs. McCross is always late. It is a trite observation, that flowers and children, more than anything else, appeal to the good there is in us. This is partly because we soften when we remember the holinesses of childhood, which carries in its hand two symbols a butterfly and a flower. Tn baby days a Mar guerite, an acorn, a Jacob's Ladder, which we, happier than the Patriarch, could find on any summer hillside toys of God's own making satisfied our purer instinct. True, maturity and age prefer to give a high price for labored imitation, but our souls always see the cast-off treasures in a halo, rainbowed through the prism of a tear. And poets who claim a kind of modern prophetic in sight are faithful to the outgrown blossoms. Burns could dwell on the days when " We twa hae paidlit in the burn, An' pu'd the gowans fine ; " and Hood lament, in more studied phrase, " The roses red and white, The violets and lily-cups," of innocent boyhood. What dabbler, even, does not fancy that mere mention of these divine flowerets that gem a familiar hillock is the password to the heights of God like Olympus, and maunder about roses and tulips and violets in an a-b-c andrian stylo, that we forgive for love of his subject? SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 49 The least-cultured instinct reaches out toward flowers. It is no association of cultivated thought and {esthetics that brings a pot of scarlet geranium to grace the hum blest artisan dwelling sets the felon's picciola against the barred windows that piteously contrast. It was no ele gant refinement of taste that gave a matron in an English jail the saddest sight she ever beheld a bold, bad woman gloating over a common field daisy stolen from the prison yard. There is some subtile relation between the good and true in the human soul, and the spirit of beauty whose vital force moulds the poorest blossom into harmonious shape and color, which gives these growing thoughts of God a language that needs no coarse inter vention of sound, but conveys emotion independently to the soul. Our truest friend can only imitate the fidelity of the flowers who follow us into every season of life. First, religion's Christmas holly, and the snowdrops and lilies of Easter confirmation ; then love's rose-buds, and orange- blossoms for the wedding ; later, separation brings the forget-me-not and pansy ; and ere the sexton strikes his spade iu the earth, our best-loved casts a bit of green into our grave. Most things end with the tomb, and having reached this point, I don't see how Miss McCross' meditation could have gone any further, even if she had not seen little Doppy. It was really a great mistake on this infant's part that her five-o'clock visit should have been so prolonged. She had pulled her onions, and stowed away her beets, and gathered her apples they lay near in a dilapidated basket but still she lingered. Mollie came upon her crouching on the damp ground, ready to spring away at the very rustle of -a twig, and 3 50 SHIFTLESS FOLKS. yet forgetting all in the scarlet gladiolus she held broken in her hand. The little sharp face bent over the fiery- throated prize with an intensity of soul hunger as bitter more bitter than death. The young lady had her hand on the thief s shoulder before she knew it, and, with out any conscious thought labor, felt in her own soul a sympathetic sentiment of pity. But the culprit sprang to her feet with hardening face, every trace of longing and reflected flower spirit giving place to depraved anger, fear, and unchildlike survey and mastery of her perilous situation. " Le-me-lone ; I hain't took nothin' o' yourn," she cried with an oath, wriggling like an eel under Mollie's firm grasp. " I don't want to hurt you ! " said her captor in her clear pleasant accents ; "let me see your face." Little Doppy obeyed, with such a mixture of cunning and class hate deforming her lineaments, as made the pure woman who held her, recoil and relax her grasp. The child felt it, and escaped with a cat-like spring. " He ! he ! he ! No, I guess you won't, bad cess to you," was her retort in her rude harsh voice, perching on the fence post as she spoke with both blistered dirty drum sticks of legs hung outside ready to leap. Mollie resolved to conquer. "No," said she tran quilly, " but here's your basket, and if you'll stay and talk to me a second or two, I'll give you some huckle berry pie to fill it." " You won't put a hand on me ? " " No." Mollie folded hers behind her. These waifs are excellent physiognomists, and Doppy felt in the inmost depths of her vicious little heart that she had a " soft thing." She came with circumspection however, prepared to fly at the firat alarm. " What d'ye SHIFTLESS FOLKS. 51 want ? " said she ungraciously, but with keen-eyed obser vation of everything, from the hyssop, so to speak, of the wall, to the cedar of Lebanon, or rather the Fir Covert that shielded the house on three sides the flower-decked domain, like a black fringe on a gay tunic. " I want several things," said Mollie, smiling in her friendliest guise. " Your name, for instance." Suspicion at once rose rampant ; visions of jail and police-courts, to which her nine years of life were no strangers, thronged Doppy's brain. She drew back, dogged and defiant : " Father '11 lick any one that meddles with us," cried she. " Oh, he will ? Then I shan't think of attempting it," said Mollie, smiling again with an amused vision of old Mulligan's defensive operations. " Do you know Amos ? " " I might." Doppy bit her finger-nails stolidly, but never gave over her watch on the young lady. " He's a friend of mine. I want to send a message to him." " Amos ! " cried Miss Mulligan, with a little burst of impulsive disdain " he's a great 'un." " Then you won't oblige me." Mollie looked dis appointed.